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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mayor of Casterbridge, 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 Mayor of Casterbridge
+
+Author: Thomas Hardy
+
+Release Date: June, 1994 [eBook #143]
+[Most recently updated: February 8, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Hamm and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE ***
+
+cover
+
+
+
+The Mayor of Casterbridge
+
+The Life and Death of a Man of Character
+
+
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+ I
+ II
+ III
+ IV
+ V
+ VI
+ VII
+ VIII
+ IX
+ X
+ XI
+ XII
+ XIII
+ XIV
+ XV
+ XVI
+ XVII
+ XVIII
+ XIX
+ XX
+ XXI
+ XXII
+ XXIII
+ XXIV
+ XXV
+ XXVI
+ XXVII
+ XXVIII
+ XXIX
+ XXX
+ XXXI
+ XXXII
+ XXXIII
+ XXXIV
+ XXXV
+ XXXVI
+ XXXVII
+ XXXVIII
+ XXXIX
+ XL
+ XLI
+ XLII
+ XLIII
+ XLIV
+ XLV
+
+
+I.
+
+One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached
+one-third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a
+child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper
+Wessex, on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick
+hoar of dust which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an
+obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their
+appearance just now.
+
+The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed
+in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost
+perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the
+remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat with white horn
+buttons, breeches of the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat
+overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped
+strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the crutch of a
+hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the aperture.
+His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as
+distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in
+the turn and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and
+cynical indifference personal to himself, showing its presence even in
+the regularly interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now in
+the right, as he paced along.
+
+What was really peculiar, however, in this couple’s progress, and would
+have attracted the attention of any casual observer otherwise disposed
+to overlook them, was the perfect silence they preserved. They walked
+side by side in such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,
+confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on closer view it
+could be discerned that the man was reading, or pretending to read, a
+ballad sheet which he kept before his eyes with some difficulty by the
+hand that was passed through the basket strap. Whether this apparent
+cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape
+an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself
+could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the
+woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she
+walked the highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the
+man’s bent elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to
+his side as was possible without actual contact, but she seemed to have
+no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it; and far from
+exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she appeared to receive it
+as a natural thing. If any word at all were uttered by the little
+group, it was an occasional whisper of the woman to the child—a tiny
+girl in short clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn—and the murmured
+babble of the child in reply.
+
+The chief—almost the only—attraction of the young woman’s face was its
+mobility. When she looked down sideways to the girl she became pretty,
+and even handsome, particularly that in the action her features caught
+slantwise the rays of the strongly coloured sun, which made
+transparencies of her eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips.
+When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she
+had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything
+possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play.
+The first phase was the work of Nature, the second probably of
+civilization.
+
+That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the
+girl in arms there could be little doubt. No other than such
+relationship would have accounted for the atmosphere of stale
+familiarity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus as
+they moved down the road.
+
+The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with little
+interest—the scene for that matter being one that might have been
+matched at almost any spot in any county in England at this time of the
+year; a road neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor hilly,
+bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the
+blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass through on
+their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. The grassy margin of the bank,
+and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were powdered by the dust that had
+been stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on
+the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the
+aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every extraneous sound
+to be heard.
+
+For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird singing
+a trite old evening song that might doubtless have been heard on the
+hill at the same hour, and with the self-same trills, quavers, and
+breves, at any sunset of that season for centuries untold. But as they
+approached the village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their
+ears from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened from
+view by foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-Priors could just
+be described, the family group was met by a turnip-hoer with his hoe on
+his shoulder, and his dinner-bag suspended from it. The reader promptly
+glanced up.
+
+“Any trade doing here?” he asked phlegmatically, designating the
+village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the
+labourer did not understand him, he added, “Anything in the
+hay-trussing line?”
+
+The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. “Why, save the man,
+what wisdom’s in him that ’a should come to Weydon for a job of that
+sort this time o’ year?”
+
+“Then is there any house to let—a little small new cottage just a
+builded, or such like?” asked the other.
+
+The pessimist still maintained a negative. “Pulling down is more the
+nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared away last year, and
+three this; and the volk nowhere to go—no, not so much as a thatched
+hurdle; that’s the way o’ Weydon-Priors.”
+
+The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some
+superciliousness. Looking towards the village, he continued, “There is
+something going on here, however, is there not?”
+
+“Ay. ’Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more than the
+clatter and scurry of getting away the money o’ children and fools, for
+the real business is done earlier than this. I’ve been working within
+sound o’t all day, but I didn’t go up—not I. ’Twas no business of
+mine.”
+
+The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the
+Fair-field, which showed standing-places and pens where many hundreds
+of horses and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but
+were now in great part taken away. At present, as their informant had
+observed, but little real business remained on hand, the chief being
+the sale by auction of a few inferior animals, that could not otherwise
+be disposed of, and had been absolutely refused by the better class of
+traders, who came and went early. Yet the crowd was denser now than
+during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors,
+including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two come on
+furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked
+in; persons whose activities found a congenial field among the
+peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested
+medical men who travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers,
+nick-nack vendors, and readers of Fate.
+
+Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they
+looked around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the
+down. Two, which stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiring
+sunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. One was formed of new,
+milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags on its summit; it announced “Good
+Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder.” The other was less new; a little
+iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back and in front appeared the
+placard, “Good Furmity Sold Hear.” The man mentally weighed the two
+inscriptions and inclined to the former tent.
+
+“No—no—the other one,” said the woman. “I always like furmity; and so
+does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing after a long
+hard day.”
+
+“I’ve never tasted it,” said the man. However, he gave way to her
+representations, and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.
+
+A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow
+tables that ran down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a
+stove, containing a charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-legged
+crock, sufficiently polished round the rim to show that it was made of
+bell-metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a white
+apron, which as it threw an air of respectability over her as far as it
+extended, was made so wide as to reach nearly round her waist. She
+slowly stirred the contents of the pot. The dull scrape of her large
+spoon was audible throughout the tent as she thus kept from burning the
+mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins, currants, and what
+not, that composed the antiquated slop in which she dealt. Vessels
+holding the separate ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of
+boards and trestles close by.
+
+The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture, steaming
+hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure. This was very well so far,
+for furmity, as the woman had said, was nourishing, and as proper a
+food as could be obtained within the four seas; though, to those not
+accustomed to it, the grains of wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips,
+which floated on its surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.
+
+But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the
+man, with the instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly.
+After a mincing attack on his bowl, he watched the hag’s proceedings
+from the corner of his eye, and saw the game she played. He winked to
+her, and passed up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a
+bottle from under the table, slily measured out a quantity of its
+contents, and tipped the same into the man’s furmity. The liquor poured
+in was rum. The man as slily sent back money in payment.
+
+He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to his
+satisfaction than it had been in its natural state. His wife had
+observed the proceeding with much uneasiness; but he persuaded her to
+have hers laced also, and she agreed to a milder allowance after some
+misgiving.
+
+The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum being
+signalled for in yet stronger proportion. The effect of it was soon
+apparent in his manner, and his wife but too sadly perceived that in
+strenuously steering off the rocks of the licensed liquor-tent she had
+only got into maelstrom depths here amongst the smugglers.
+
+The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more than once
+said to her husband, “Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may
+have trouble in getting it if we don’t go soon.”
+
+But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He talked loud
+to the company. The child’s black eyes, after slow, round, ruminating
+gazes at the candles when they were lighted, fell together; then they
+opened, then shut again, and she slept.
+
+At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the
+second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the
+qualities signified by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of
+his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his
+conduct; he was overbearing—even brilliantly quarrelsome.
+
+The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such occasions.
+The ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more particularly, the
+frustration of many a promising youth’s high aims and hopes and the
+extinction of his energies by an early imprudent marriage, was the
+theme.
+
+“I did for myself that way thoroughly,” said the trusser with a
+contemplative bitterness that was well-nigh resentful. “I married at
+eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence o’t.”
+He pointed at himself and family with a wave of the hand intended to
+bring out the penuriousness of the exhibition.
+
+The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such remarks, acted
+as if she did not hear them, and continued her intermittent private
+words of tender trifles to the sleeping and waking child, who was just
+big enough to be placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she
+wished to ease her arms. The man continued—
+
+“I haven’t more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet I am a
+good experienced hand in my line. I’d challenge England to beat me in
+the fodder business; and if I were a free man again I’d be worth a
+thousand pound before I’d done o’t. But a fellow never knows these
+little things till all chance of acting upon ’em is past.”
+
+The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside could be
+heard saying, “Now this is the last lot—now who’ll take the last lot
+for a song? Shall I say forty shillings? ’Tis a very promising
+broodmare, a trifle over five years old, and nothing the matter with
+the hoss at all, except that she’s a little holler in the back and had
+her left eye knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming
+along the road.”
+
+“For my part I don’t see why men who have got wives and don’t want ’em,
+shouldn’t get rid of ’em as these gipsy fellows do their old horses,”
+said the man in the tent. “Why shouldn’t they put ’em up and sell ’em
+by auction to men who are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad,
+I’d sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!”
+
+“There’s them that would do that,” some of the guests replied, looking
+at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.
+
+“True,” said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine polish about
+the collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades that long-continued
+friction with grimy surfaces will produce, and which is usually more
+desired on furniture than on clothes. From his appearance he had
+possibly been in former time groom or coachman to some neighbouring
+county family. “I’ve had my breedings in as good circles, I may say, as
+any man,” he added, “and I know true cultivation, or nobody do; and I
+can declare she’s got it—in the bone, mind ye, I say—as much as any
+female in the fair—though it may want a little bringing out.” Then,
+crossing his legs, he resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a
+point in the air.
+
+The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this unexpected
+praise of his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of his own attitude
+towards the possessor of such qualities. But he speedily lapsed into
+his former conviction, and said harshly—
+
+“Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for this gem o’
+creation.”
+
+She turned to her husband and murmured, “Michael, you have talked this
+nonsense in public places before. A joke is a joke, but you may make it
+once too often, mind!”
+
+“I know I’ve said it before; I meant it. All I want is a buyer.”
+
+At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season, which had by
+chance found its way through an opening into the upper part of the
+tent, flew to and fro quick curves above their heads, causing all eyes
+to follow it absently. In watching the bird till it made its escape the
+assembled company neglected to respond to the workman’s offer, and the
+subject dropped.
+
+But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on lacing his
+furmity more and more heavily, though he was either so strong-minded or
+such an intrepid toper that he still appeared fairly sober, recurred to
+the old strain, as in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the
+original theme. “Here—I am waiting to know about this offer of mine.
+The woman is no good to me. Who’ll have her?”
+
+The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the renewed
+inquiry was received with a laugh of appreciation. The woman whispered;
+she was imploring and anxious: “Come, come, it is getting dark, and
+this nonsense won’t do. If you don’t come along, I shall go without
+you. Come!”
+
+She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes the man
+broke in upon the desultory conversation of the furmity drinkers with,
+“I asked this question, and nobody answered to ’t. Will any Jack Rag or
+Tom Straw among ye buy my goods?”
+
+The woman’s manner changed, and her face assumed the grim shape and
+colour of which mention has been made.
+
+“Mike, Mike,” she said; “this is getting serious. O!—too serious!”
+
+“Will anybody buy her?” said the man.
+
+“I wish somebody would,” said she firmly. “Her present owner is not at
+all to her liking!”
+
+“Nor you to mine,” said he. “So we are agreed about that. Gentlemen,
+you hear? It’s an agreement to part. She shall take the girl if she
+wants to, and go her ways. I’ll take my tools, and go my ways. ’Tis
+simple as Scripture history. Now then, stand up, Susan, and show
+yourself.”
+
+“Don’t, my chiel,” whispered a buxom staylace dealer in voluminous
+petticoats, who sat near the woman; “yer good man don’t know what he’s
+saying.”
+
+The woman, however, did stand up. “Now, who’s auctioneer?” cried the
+hay-trusser.
+
+“I be,” promptly answered a short man, with a nose resembling a copper
+knob, a damp voice, and eyes like button-holes. “Who’ll make an offer
+for this lady?”
+
+The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a
+supreme effort of will.
+
+“Five shillings,” said someone, at which there was a laugh.
+
+“No insults,” said the husband. “Who’ll say a guinea?”
+
+Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces interposed.
+
+“Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven’s love! Ah, what a cruelty
+is the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear at some figures ’pon
+my ’vation ’tis!”
+
+“Set it higher, auctioneer,” said the trusser.
+
+“Two guineas!” said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
+
+“If they don’t take her for that, in ten seconds they’ll have to give
+more,” said the husband. “Very well. Now auctioneer, add another.”
+
+“Three guineas—going for three guineas!” said the rheumy man.
+
+“No bid?” said the husband. “Good Lord, why she’s cost me fifty times
+the money, if a penny. Go on.”
+
+“Four guineas!” cried the auctioneer.
+
+“I’ll tell ye what—I won’t sell her for less than five,” said the
+husband, bringing down his fist so that the basins danced. “I’ll sell
+her for five guineas to any man that will pay me the money, and treat
+her well; and he shall have her for ever, and never hear aught o’ me.
+But she shan’t go for less. Now then—five guineas—and she’s yours.
+Susan, you agree?”
+
+She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
+
+“Five guineas,” said the auctioneer, “or she’ll be withdrawn. Do
+anybody give it? The last time. Yes or no?”
+
+“Yes,” said a loud voice from the doorway.
+
+All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening which formed
+the door of the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had
+arrived there within the last two or three minutes. A dead silence
+followed his affirmation.
+
+“You say you do?” asked the husband, staring at him.
+
+“I say so,” replied the sailor.
+
+“Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where’s the money?”
+
+The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman, came in,
+unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them down upon the
+tablecloth. They were Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Upon the
+face of this he clinked down the shillings severally—one, two, three,
+four, five.
+
+The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for
+the same till then deemed slightly hypothetical had a great effect upon
+the spectators. Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief
+actors, and then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings,
+on the table.
+
+Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the
+man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest.
+The spectators had indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece
+of mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumed that, being out
+of work, he was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and
+society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and response of real
+cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A lurid colour seemed
+to fill the tent, and change the aspect of all therein. The
+mirth-wrinkles left the listeners’ faces, and they waited with parting
+lips.
+
+“Now,” said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice
+sounded quite loud, “before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If
+you touch that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a
+joke no longer.”
+
+“A joke? Of course it is not a joke!” shouted her husband, his
+resentment rising at her suggestion. “I take the money; the sailor
+takes you. That’s plain enough. It has been done elsewhere—and why not
+here?”
+
+“’Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is willing,” said
+the sailor blandly. “I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world.”
+
+“Faith, nor I,” said her husband. “But she is willing, provided she can
+have the child. She said so only the other day when I talked o’t!”
+
+“That you swear?” said the sailor to her.
+
+“I do,” said she, after glancing at her husband’s face and seeing no
+repentance there.
+
+“Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain’s complete,” said
+the trusser. He took the sailor’s notes and deliberately folded them,
+and put them with the shillings in a high remote pocket, with an air of
+finality.
+
+The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. “Come along!” he said
+kindly. “The little one too—the more the merrier!” She paused for an
+instant, with a close glance at him. Then dropping her eyes again, and
+saying nothing, she took up the child and followed him as he made
+towards the door. On reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her
+wedding-ring, flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser’s face.
+
+“Mike,” she said, “I’ve lived with thee a couple of years, and had
+nothing but temper! Now I’m no more to ’ee; I’ll try my luck elsewhere.
+’Twill be better for me and Elizabeth-Jane, both. So good-bye!”
+
+Seizing the sailor’s arm with her right hand, and mounting the little
+girl on her left, she went out of the tent sobbing bitterly.
+
+A stolid look of concern filled the husband’s face, as if, after all,
+he had not quite anticipated this ending; and some of the guests
+laughed.
+
+“Is she gone?” he said.
+
+“Faith, ay! she’s gone clane enough,” said some rustics near the door.
+
+He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of one
+conscious of his alcoholic load. Some others followed, and they stood
+looking into the twilight. The difference between the peacefulness of
+inferior nature and the wilful hostilities of mankind was very apparent
+at this place. In contrast with the harshness of the act just ended
+within the tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks
+and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience to be
+harnessed for the homeward journey. Outside the fair, in the valleys
+and woods, all was quiet. The sun had recently set, and the west heaven
+was hung with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed.
+To watch it was like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a
+darkened auditorium. In presence of this scene after the other there
+was a natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on an otherwise kindly
+universe; till it was remembered that all terrestrial conditions were
+intermittent, and that mankind might some night be innocently sleeping
+when these quiet objects were raging loud.
+
+“Where do the sailor live?” asked a spectator, when they had vainly
+gazed around.
+
+“God knows that,” replied the man who had seen high life. “He’s without
+doubt a stranger here.”
+
+“He came in about five minutes ago,” said the furmity woman, joining
+the rest with her hands on her hips. “And then ’a stepped back, and
+then ’a looked in again. I’m not a penny the better for him.”
+
+“Serves the husband well be-right,” said the staylace vendor. “A comely
+respectable body like her—what can a man want more? I glory in the
+woman’s sperrit. I’d ha’ done it myself—od send if I wouldn’t, if a
+husband had behaved so to me! I’d go, and ’a might call, and call, till
+his keacorn was raw; but I’d never come back—no, not till the great
+trumpet, would I!”
+
+“Well, the woman will be better off,” said another of a more
+deliberative turn. “For seafaring natures be very good shelter for
+shorn lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty of money, which is what
+she’s not been used to lately, by all showings.”
+
+“Mark me—I’ll not go after her!” said the trusser, returning doggedly
+to his seat. “Let her go! If she’s up to such vagaries she must suffer
+for ’em. She’d no business to take the maid—’tis my maid; and if it
+were the doing again she shouldn’t have her!”
+
+Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an indefensible
+proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the customers thinned away
+from the tent shortly after this episode. The man stretched his elbows
+forward on the table leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to
+snore. The furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after
+seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, etc., that remained on
+hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the man reclined. She shook
+him, but could not wake him. As the tent was not to be struck that
+night, the fair continuing for two or three days, she decided to let
+the sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and his
+basket with him. Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering the flap
+of the tent, she left it, and drove away.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the canvas when
+the man awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole atmosphere of the
+marquee, and a single big blue fly buzzed musically round and round it.
+Besides the buzz of the fly there was not a sound. He looked about—at
+the benches—at the table supported by trestles—at his basket of
+tools—at the stove where the furmity had been boiled—at the empty
+basins—at some shed grains of wheat—at the corks which dotted the
+grassy floor. Among the odds and ends he discerned a little shining
+object, and picked it up. It was his wife’s ring.
+
+A confused picture of the events of the previous evening seemed to come
+back to him, and he thrust his hand into his breast-pocket. A rustling
+revealed the sailor’s bank-notes thrust carelessly in.
+
+This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he knew now
+they were not dreams. He remained seated, looking on the ground for
+some time. “I must get out of this as soon as I can,” he said
+deliberately at last, with the air of one who could not catch his
+thoughts without pronouncing them. “She’s gone—to be sure she is—gone
+with that sailor who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked
+here, and I had the furmity, and rum in it—and sold her. Yes, that’s
+what’s happened and here am I. Now, what am I to do—am I sober enough
+to walk, I wonder?” He stood up, found that he was in fairly good
+condition for progress, unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool
+basket, and found he could carry it. Then lifting the tent door he
+emerged into the open air.
+
+Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The freshness of the
+September morning inspired and braced him as he stood. He and his
+family had been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had
+observed but little of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new
+thing. It exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded on one
+extreme by a plantation, and approached by a winding road. At the
+bottom stood the village which lent its name to the upland and the
+annual fair that was held thereon. The spot stretched downward into
+valleys, and onward to other uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched
+with the remains of prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the
+rays of a newly risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade of
+the heavily dewed grass, whereon the shadows of the yellow and red vans
+were projected far away, those thrown by the felloe of each wheel being
+elongated in shape to the orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen
+who had remained on the ground lay snug within their carts and tents or
+wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were silent and still as death,
+with the exception of an occasional snore that revealed their presence.
+But the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds
+that vagrants own, that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like
+foxes as cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one of
+the carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly lay down again.
+He was the only positive spectator of the hay-trusser’s exit from the
+Weydon Fair-field.
+
+This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent thought,
+unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the hedges with straws
+in their bills, the crowns of the mushrooms, and the tinkling of local
+sheep-bells, whose wearer had had the good fortune not to be included
+in the fair. When he reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of the
+previous evening, the man pitched his basket and leant upon a gate. A
+difficult problem or two occupied his mind.
+
+“Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn’t I tell my name?”
+he said to himself; and at last concluded that he did not. His general
+demeanour was enough to show how he was surprised and nettled that his
+wife had taken him so literally—as much could be seen in his face, and
+in the way he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge. He knew
+that she must have been somewhat excited to do this; moreover, she must
+have believed that there was some sort of binding force in the
+transaction. On this latter point he felt almost certain, knowing her
+freedom from levity of character, and the extreme simplicity of her
+intellect. There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment
+beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentary doubts.
+On a previous occasion when he had declared during a fuddle that he
+would dispose of her as he had done, she had replied that she would not
+hear him say that many times more before it happened, in the resigned
+tones of a fatalist.... “Yet she knows I am not in my senses when I do
+that!” he exclaimed. “Well, I must walk about till I find her.... Seize
+her, why didn’t she know better than bring me into this disgrace!” he
+roared out. “She wasn’t queer if I was. ’Tis like Susan to show such
+idiotic simplicity. Meek—that meekness has done me more harm than the
+bitterest temper!”
+
+When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that he must
+somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and put up with the
+shame as best he could. It was of his own making, and he ought to bear
+it. But first he resolved to register an oath, a greater oath than he
+had ever sworn before: and to do it properly he required a fit place
+and imagery; for there was something fetichistic in this man’s beliefs.
+
+He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes inquisitively
+round upon the landscape as he walked, and at the distance of three or
+four miles perceived the roofs of a village and the tower of a church.
+He instantly made towards the latter object. The village was quite
+still, it being that motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills
+the interval between the departure of the field-labourers to their
+work, and the rising of their wives and daughters to prepare the
+breakfast for their return. Hence he reached the church without
+observation, and the door being only latched he entered. The
+hay-trusser deposited his basket by the font, went up the nave till he
+reached the altar-rails, and opening the gate entered the sacrarium,
+where he seemed to feel a sense of the strangeness for a moment; then
+he knelt upon the footpace. Dropping his head upon the clamped book
+which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud—
+
+“I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of September, do
+take an oath before God here in this solemn place that I will avoid all
+strong liquors for the space of twenty-one years to come, being a year
+for every year that I have lived. And this I swear upon the book before
+me; and may I be strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this my
+oath!”
+
+When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser arose, and
+seemed relieved at having made a start in a new direction. While
+standing in the porch a moment he saw a thick jet of wood smoke
+suddenly start up from the red chimney of a cottage near, and knew that
+the occupant had just lit her fire. He went round to the door, and the
+housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast for a trifling payment,
+which was done. Then he started on the search for his wife and child.
+
+The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent soon enough.
+Though he examined and inquired, and walked hither and thither day
+after day, no such characters as those he described had anywhere been
+seen since the evening of the fair. To add to the difficulty he could
+gain no sound of the sailor’s name. As money was short with him he
+decided, after some hesitation, to spend the sailor’s money in the
+prosecution of this search; but it was equally in vain. The truth was
+that a certain shyness of revealing his conduct prevented Michael
+Henchard from following up the investigation with the loud hue-and-cry
+such a pursuit demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably for
+this reason that he obtained no clue, though everything was done by him
+that did not involve an explanation of the circumstances under which he
+had lost her.
+
+Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on, maintaining
+himself by small jobs of work in the intervals. By this time he had
+arrived at a seaport, and there he derived intelligence that persons
+answering somewhat to his description had emigrated a little time
+before. Then he said he would search no longer, and that he would go
+and settle in the district which he had had for some time in his mind.
+
+Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not pause,
+except for nights’ lodgings, till he reached the town of Casterbridge,
+in a far distant part of Wessex.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors was again carpeted with
+dust. The trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and
+where the Henchard family of three had once walked along, two persons
+not unconnected with the family walked now.
+
+The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character,
+even to the voices and rattle from the neighbouring village down, that
+it might for that matter have been the afternoon following the
+previously recorded episode. Change was only to be observed in details;
+but here it was obvious that a long procession of years had passed by.
+One of the two who walked the road was she who had figured as the young
+wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her face had lost much
+of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural change; and though
+her hair had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than
+heretofore. She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her
+companion, also in black, appeared as a well-formed young woman about
+eighteen, completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence
+youth, which is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.
+
+A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan
+Henchard’s grown-up daughter. While life’s middle summer had set its
+hardening mark on the mother’s face, her former spring-like
+specialities were transferred so dexterously by Time to the second
+figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her
+mother’s knowledge from the girl’s mind would have seemed for the
+moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection
+in Nature’s powers of continuity.
+
+They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was
+the act of simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand a
+withy basket of old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which
+contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown.
+
+Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same track as
+formerly, and ascended to the fair. Here, too it was evident that the
+years had told. Certain mechanical improvements might have been noticed
+in the roundabouts and high-fliers, machines for testing rustic
+strength and weight, and in the erections devoted to shooting for nuts.
+But the real business of the fair had considerably dwindled. The new
+periodical great markets of neighbouring towns were beginning to
+interfere seriously with the trade carried on here for centuries. The
+pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, were about half as long as
+they had been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers,
+and other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far
+less numerous. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some
+little distance, and then stood still.
+
+“Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to
+get onward?” said the maiden.
+
+“Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane,” explained the other. “But I had a fancy
+for looking up here.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“It was here I first met with Newson—on such a day as this.”
+
+“First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now
+he’s drowned and gone from us!” As she spoke the girl drew a card from
+her pocket and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and
+inscribed within a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, “In
+affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was unfortunately
+lost at sea, in the month of November 184—, aged forty-one years.”
+
+“And it was here,” continued her mother, with more hesitation, “that I
+last saw the relation we are going to look for—Mr. Michael Henchard.”
+
+“What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told
+me.”
+
+“He is, or was—for he may be dead—a connection by marriage,” said her
+mother deliberately.
+
+“That’s exactly what you have said a score of times before!” replied
+the young woman, looking about her inattentively. “He’s not a near
+relation, I suppose?”
+
+“Not by any means.”
+
+“He was a hay-trusser, wasn’t he, when you last heard of him?
+
+“He was.”
+
+“I suppose he never knew me?” the girl innocently continued.
+
+Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered uneasily, “Of course
+not, Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way.” She moved on to another part
+of the field.
+
+“It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think,” the
+daughter observed, as she gazed round about. “People at fairs change
+like the leaves of trees; and I daresay you are the only one here
+to-day who was here all those years ago.”
+
+“I am not so sure of that,” said Mrs. Newson, as she now called
+herself, keenly eyeing something under a green bank a little way off.
+“See there.”
+
+The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object pointed out
+was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a
+three-legged crock, kept hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over
+the pot stooped an old woman haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She
+stirred the contents of the pot with a large spoon, and occasionally
+croaked in a broken voice, “Good furmity sold here!”
+
+It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent—once thriving,
+cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with money—now tentless, dirty,
+owning no tables or benches, and having scarce any customers except two
+small whity-brown boys, who came up and asked for “A ha’p’orth,
+please—good measure,” which she served in a couple of chipped yellow
+basins of commonest clay.
+
+“She was here at that time,” resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if
+to draw nearer.
+
+“Don’t speak to her—it isn’t respectable!” urged the other.
+
+“I will just say a word—you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here.”
+
+The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints
+while her mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter’s
+custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson’s
+request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in
+selling six-pennyworths in her younger days. When the _soi-disant_
+widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich
+concoction of the former time, the hag opened a little basket behind
+the fire, and looking up slily, whispered, “Just a thought o’ rum in
+it?—smuggled, you know—say two penn’orth—’twill make it slip down like
+cordial!”
+
+Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old trick, and
+shook her head with a meaning the old woman was far from translating.
+She pretended to eat a little of the furmity with the leaden spoon
+offered, and as she did so said blandly to the hag, “You’ve seen better
+days?”
+
+“Ah, ma’am—well ye may say it!” responded the old woman, opening the
+sluices of her heart forthwith. “I’ve stood in this fair-ground, maid,
+wife, and widow, these nine-and-thirty years, and in that time have
+known what it was to do business with the richest stomachs in the land!
+Ma’am you’d hardly believe that I was once the owner of a great
+pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the fair. Nobody could come,
+nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs. Goodenough’s furmity. I
+knew the clergy’s taste, the dandy gent’s taste; I knew the town’s
+taste, the country’s taste. I even knowed the taste of the coarse
+shameless females. But Lord’s my life—the world’s no memory;
+straightforward dealings don’t bring profit—’tis the sly and the
+underhand that get on in these times!”
+
+Mrs. Newson glanced round—her daughter was still bending over the
+distant stalls. “Can you call to mind,” she said cautiously to the old
+woman, “the sale of a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years
+ago to-day?”
+
+The hag reflected, and half shook her head. “If it had been a big thing
+I should have minded it in a moment,” she said. “I can mind every
+serious fight o’ married parties, every murder, every manslaughter,
+even every pocket-picking—leastwise large ones—that ’t has been my lot
+to witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?”
+
+“Well, yes. I think so.”
+
+The furmity woman half shook her head again. “And yet,” she said, “I
+do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o’ the sort—a man in
+a cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don’t
+gi’e it head-room, we don’t, such as that. The only reason why I can
+mind the man is that he came back here to the next year’s fair, and
+told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was to
+say he had gone to—where?—Casterbridge—yes—to Casterbridge, said he.
+But, Lord’s my life, I shouldn’t ha’ thought of it again!”
+
+Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means
+afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that
+unscrupulous person’s liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly
+thanked her informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with,
+“Mother, do let’s get on—it was hardly respectable for you to buy
+refreshments there. I see none but the lowest do.”
+
+“I have learned what I wanted, however,” said her mother quietly. “The
+last time our relative visited this fair he said he was living at
+Casterbridge. It is a long, long way from here, and it was many years
+ago that he said it, but there I think we’ll go.”
+
+With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the
+village, where they obtained a night’s lodging.
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+Henchard’s wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in
+difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling
+her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical
+crisis of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was
+not much older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An
+innocent maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations
+between the genial sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones that
+they had always appeared to be. The risk of endangering a child’s
+strong affection by disturbing ideas which had grown with her growth
+was to Mrs. Henchard too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed,
+indeed folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
+
+But Susan Henchard’s fear of losing her dearly loved daughter’s heart
+by a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her
+own part. Her simplicity—the original ground of Henchard’s contempt for
+her—had allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson had
+acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his
+purchase—though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were
+vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young
+matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and were
+there not numerous other instances of the same belief the thing might
+scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last peasant
+woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural
+records show.
+
+The history of Susan Henchard’s adventures in the interim can be told
+in two or three sentences. Absolutely helpless she had been taken off
+to Canada where they had lived several years without any great worldly
+success, though she worked as hard as any woman could to keep their
+cottage cheerful and well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane was about
+twelve years old the three returned to England, and settled at
+Falmouth, where Newson made a living for a few years as boatman and
+general handy shoreman.
+
+He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during this
+period that Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom she confided her
+history ridiculed her grave acceptance of her position; and all was
+over with her peace of mind. When Newson came home at the end of one
+winter he saw that the delusion he had so carefully sustained had
+vanished for ever.
+
+There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her doubts if
+she could live with him longer. Newson left home again on the
+Newfoundland trade when the season came round. The vague news of his
+loss at sea a little later on solved a problem which had become torture
+to her meek conscience. She saw him no more.
+
+Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liege subjects of Labour, the
+England of those days was a continent, and a mile a geographical
+degree.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness. One day a month or so
+after receiving intelligence of Newson’s death off the Bank of
+Newfoundland, when the girl was about eighteen, she was sitting on a
+willow chair in the cottage they still occupied, working twine nets for
+the fishermen. Her mother was in a back corner of the same room engaged
+in the same labour, and dropping the heavy wood needle she was filling
+she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully. The sun shone in at the door
+upon the young woman’s head and hair, which was worn loose, so that the
+rays streamed into its depths as into a hazel copse. Her face, though
+somewhat wan and incomplete, possessed the raw materials of beauty in a
+promising degree. There was an under-handsomeness in it, struggling to
+reveal itself through the provisional curves of immaturity, and the
+casual disfigurements that resulted from the straitened circumstances
+of their lives. She was handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in
+the flesh. She possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the
+carking accidents of her daily existence could be evaded before the
+mobile parts of her countenance had settled to their final mould.
+
+The sight of the girl made her mother sad—not vaguely but by logical
+inference. They both were still in that strait-waistcoat of poverty
+from which she had tried so many times to be delivered for the girl’s
+sake. The woman had long perceived how zealously and constantly the
+young mind of her companion was struggling for enlargement; and yet
+now, in her eighteenth year, it still remained but little unfolded. The
+desire—sober and repressed—of Elizabeth-Jane’s heart was indeed to see,
+to hear, and to understand. How could she become a woman of wider
+knowledge, higher repute—“better,” as she termed it—this was her
+constant inquiry of her mother. She sought further into things than
+other girls in her position ever did, and her mother groaned as she
+felt she could not aid in the search.
+
+The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost to them; and Susan’s
+staunch, religious adherence to him as her husband in principle, till
+her views had been disturbed by enlightenment, was demanded no more.
+She asked herself whether the present moment, now that she was a free
+woman again, were not as opportune a one as she would find in a world
+where everything had been so inopportune, for making a desperate effort
+to advance Elizabeth. To pocket her pride and search for the first
+husband seemed, wisely or not, the best initiatory step. He had
+possibly drunk himself into his tomb. But he might, on the other hand,
+have had too much sense to do so; for in her time with him he had been
+given to bouts only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
+
+At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived, was
+unquestionable. The awkwardness of searching for him lay in
+enlightening Elizabeth, a proceeding which her mother could not endure
+to contemplate. She finally resolved to undertake the search without
+confiding to the girl her former relations with Henchard, leaving it to
+him if they found him to take what steps he might choose to that end.
+This will account for their conversation at the fair and the
+half-informed state at which Elizabeth was led onward.
+
+In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting solely to
+the dim light afforded of Henchard’s whereabouts by the furmity woman.
+The strictest economy was indispensable. Sometimes they might have been
+seen on foot, sometimes on farmers’ waggons, sometimes in carriers’
+vans; and thus they drew near to Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane
+discovered to her alarm that her mother’s health was not what it once
+had been, and there was ever and anon in her talk that renunciatory
+tone which showed that, but for the girl, she would not be very sorry
+to quit a life she was growing thoroughly weary of.
+
+It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September and just
+before dusk, that they reached the summit of a hill within a mile of
+the place they sought. There were high banked hedges to the coach-road
+here, and they mounted upon the green turf within, and sat down. The
+spot commanded a full view of the town and its environs.
+
+“What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!” said Elizabeth-Jane,
+while her silent mother mused on other things than topography. “It is
+huddled all together; and it is shut in by a square wall of trees, like
+a plot of garden ground by a box-edging.”
+
+Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most struck the
+eye in this antiquated borough, the borough of Casterbridge—at that
+time, recent as it was, untouched by the faintest sprinkle of
+modernism. It was compact as a box of dominoes. It had no suburbs—in
+the ordinary sense. Country and town met at a mathematical line.
+
+To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have appeared on
+this fine evening as a mosaic-work of subdued reds, browns, greys, and
+crystals, held together by a rectangular frame of deep green. To the
+level eye of humanity it stood as an indistinct mass behind a dense
+stockade of limes and chestnuts, set in the midst of miles of rotund
+down and concave field. The mass became gradually dissected by the
+vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and casements, the highest
+glazings shining bleared and bloodshot with the coppery fire they
+caught from the belt of sunlit cloud in the west.
+
+From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran avenues
+east, west, and south into the wide expanse of cornland and coomb to
+the distance of a mile or so. It was by one of these avenues that the
+pedestrians were about to enter. Before they had risen to proceed two
+men passed outside the hedge, engaged in argumentative conversation.
+
+“Why, surely,” said Elizabeth, as they receded, “those men mentioned
+the name of Henchard in their talk—the name of our relative?”
+
+“I thought so too,” said Mrs. Newson.
+
+“That seems a hint to us that he is still here.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Shall I run after them, and ask them about him——”
+
+“No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse, or
+in the stocks, for all we know.”
+
+“Dear me—why should you think that, mother?”
+
+“’Twas just something to say—that’s all! But we must make private
+inquiries.”
+
+Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The
+dense trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though
+the open land on each side was still under a faint daylight, in other
+words, they passed down a midnight between two gloamings. The features
+of the town had a keen interest for Elizabeth’s mother, now that the
+human side came to the fore. As soon as they had wandered about they
+could see that the stockade of gnarled trees which framed in
+Casterbridge was itself an avenue, standing on a low green bank or
+escarpment, with a ditch yet visible without. Within the avenue and
+bank was a wall more or less discontinuous, and within the wall were
+packed the abodes of the burghers.
+
+Though the two women did not know it these external features were but
+the ancient defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
+
+The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a
+sense of great smugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same
+time the unlighted country without strangely solitary and vacant in
+aspect, considering its nearness to life. The difference between burgh
+and champaign was increased, too, by sounds which now reached them
+above others—the notes of a brass band. The travellers returned into
+the High Street, where there were timber houses with overhanging
+stories, whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity curtains on
+a drawing-string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved in the
+breeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief
+support from those adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with
+tiles, and tile roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roof of
+thatch.
+
+The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the
+town depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects
+displayed in the shop windows. Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears,
+bill-hooks, spades, mattocks, and hoes at the iron-monger’s; bee-hives,
+butter-firkins, churns, milking stools and pails, hay-rakes,
+field-flagons, and seed-lips at the cooper’s; cart-ropes and
+plough-harness at the saddler’s; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at
+the wheelwright’s and machinist’s, horse-embrocations at the chemist’s;
+at the glover’s and leather-cutter’s, hedging-gloves, thatchers’
+knee-caps, ploughmen’s leggings, villagers’ pattens and clogs.
+
+They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose
+unbroken into the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by
+the nearest lamps sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from
+the joints of the stonework had been nibbled out by time and weather,
+which had planted in the crevices thus made little tufts of stone-crop
+and grass almost as far up as the very battlements. From this tower the
+clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll with a
+peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was
+utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No
+sooner did the deep notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts
+than a clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the High
+Street. In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the
+day.
+
+Other clocks struck eight from time to time—one gloomily from the gaol,
+another from the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of
+machinery, more audible than the note of the bell; a row of tall,
+varnished case-clocks from the interior of a clock-maker’s shop joined
+in one after another just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a
+row of actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of the
+curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the Sicilian Mariners’
+Hymn; so that chronologists of the advanced school were appreciably on
+their way to the next hour before the whole business of the old one was
+satisfactorily wound up.
+
+In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves
+rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her
+skirt tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a loaf under her
+arm from which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to
+some other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled
+critically. The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her daughter
+that they had an appetite; and they inquired of the woman for the
+nearest baker’s.
+
+“Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just
+now,” she said, after directing them. “They can blare their trumpets
+and thump their drums, and have their roaring dinners”—waving her hand
+towards a point further along the street, where the brass band could be
+seen standing in front of an illuminated building—“but we must needs be
+put-to for want of a wholesome crust. There’s less good bread than good
+beer in Casterbridge now.”
+
+“And less good beer than swipes,” said a man with his hands in his
+pockets.
+
+“How does it happen there’s no good bread?” asked Mrs. Henchard.
+
+“Oh, ’tis the corn-factor—he’s the man that our millers and bakers all
+deal wi’, and he has sold ’em growed wheat, which they didn’t know was
+growed, so they say, till the dough ran all over the ovens like
+quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet
+pudden inside. I’ve been a wife, and I’ve been a mother, and I never
+see such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.—But you
+must be a real stranger here not to know what’s made all the poor
+volks’ insides plim like blowed bladders this week?”
+
+“I am,” said Elizabeth’s mother shyly.
+
+Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future in
+this place, she withdrew with her daughter from the speaker’s side.
+Getting a couple of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporary
+substitute for a meal, they next bent their steps instinctively to
+where the music was playing.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now
+shaking the window-panes with the strains of “The Roast Beef of Old
+England.”
+
+The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was
+the chief hotel in Casterbridge—namely, the King’s Arms. A spacious
+bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from
+the open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and
+the drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the
+whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight
+of stone steps to the road-waggon office opposite, for which reason a
+knot of idlers had gathered there.
+
+“We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about—our relation
+Mr. Henchard,” whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry into
+Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and agitated, “And this, I
+think, would be a good place for trying it—just to ask, you know, how
+he stands in the town—if he is here, as I think he must be. You,
+Elizabeth-Jane, had better be the one to do it. I’m too worn out to do
+anything—pull down your fall first.”
+
+She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed her
+directions and stood among the idlers.
+
+“What’s going on to-night?” asked the girl, after singling out an old
+man and standing by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right of
+converse.
+
+“Well, ye must be a stranger sure,” said the old man, without taking
+his eyes from the window. “Why, ’tis a great public dinner of the
+gentle-people and such like leading volk—wi’ the Mayor in the chair. As
+we plainer fellows bain’t invited, they leave the winder-shutters open
+that we may get jist a sense o’t out here. If you mount the steps you
+can see em. That’s Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the table, a
+facing ye; and that’s the Council men right and left.... Ah, lots of
+them when they begun life were no more than I be now!”
+
+“Henchard!” said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means suspecting
+the whole force of the revelation. She ascended to the top of the
+steps.
+
+Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the
+inn-window tones that strangely riveted her attention, before the old
+man’s words, “Mr. Henchard, the Mayor,” reached her ears. She arose,
+and stepped up to her daughter’s side as soon as she could do so
+without showing exceptional eagerness.
+
+The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before her, with
+its tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in
+the chair of dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; of heavy
+frame, large features, and commanding voice; his general build being
+rather coarse than compact. He had a rich complexion, which verged on
+swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark, bushy brows and hair. When
+he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some remark among the
+guests, his large mouth parted so far back as to show to the rays of
+the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white
+teeth that he obviously still could boast of.
+
+That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it may have been
+well that it was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon
+it. It fell in well with conjectures of a temperament which would have
+no pity for weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration
+to greatness and strength. Its producer’s personal goodness, if he had
+any, would be of a very fitful cast—an occasional almost oppressive
+generosity rather than a mild and constant kindness.
+
+Susan Henchard’s husband—in law, at least—sat before them, matured in
+shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined,
+thought-marked—in a word, older. Elizabeth, encumbered with no
+recollections as her mother was, regarded him with nothing more than
+the keen curiosity and interest which the discovery of such unexpected
+social standing in the long-sought relative naturally begot. He was
+dressed in an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt
+showing on his broad breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy gold chain.
+Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to his wife’s surprise, the
+two for wine were empty, while the third, a tumbler, was half full of
+water.
+
+When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy jacket, fustian
+waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather leggings, with a basin of
+hot furmity before him. Time, the magician, had wrought much here.
+Watching him, and thus thinking of past days, she became so moved that
+she shrank back against the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which
+the steps gave access, the shadow from it conveniently hiding her
+features. She forgot her daughter till a touch from Elizabeth-Jane
+aroused her. “Have you seen him, mother?” whispered the girl.
+
+“Yes, yes,” answered her companion hastily. “I have seen him, and it is
+enough for me! Now I only want to go—pass away—die.”
+
+“Why—O what?” She drew closer, and whispered in her mother’s ear, “Does
+he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thought he looked a
+generous man. What a gentleman he is, isn’t he? and how his diamond
+studs shine! How strange that you should have said he might be in the
+stocks, or in the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by
+contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I’ll
+call upon him—he can but say he don’t own such remote kin.”
+
+“I don’t know at all—I can’t tell what to set about. I feel so down.”
+
+“Don’t be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest there where
+you be a little while—I will look on and find out more about him.”
+
+“I don’t think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he
+would be—he overpowers me! I don’t wish to see him any more.”
+
+“But wait a little time and consider.”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her
+life as in their present position, partly from the natural elation she
+felt at discovering herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the
+scene. The younger guests were talking and eating with animation; their
+elders were searching for titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their
+plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed to be sacred
+to the company—port, sherry, and rum; outside which old-established
+trinity few or no palates ranged.
+
+A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each
+primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were
+promptly filled with grog at such high temperatures as to raise serious
+considerations for the articles exposed to its vapours. But
+Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this filling went on with great
+promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor’s glass, who
+still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler behind the clump
+of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.
+
+“They don’t fill Mr. Henchard’s wine-glasses,” she ventured to say to
+her elbow acquaintance, the old man.
+
+“Ah, no; don’t ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of
+that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. O
+yes, he’ve strong qualities that way. I have heard tell that he sware a
+gospel oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever since. So they
+don’t press him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that:
+for yer gospel oath is a serious thing.”
+
+Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by
+inquiring, “How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon
+Longways?”
+
+“Another two year, they say. I don’t know the why and the wherefore of
+his fixing such a time, for ’a never has told anybody. But ’tis exactly
+two calendar years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so
+long!”
+
+“True.... But there’s great strength in hope. Knowing that in
+four-and-twenty months’ time ye’ll be out of your bondage, and able to
+make up for all you’ve suffered, by partaking without stint—why, it
+keeps a man up, no doubt.”
+
+“No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And ’a must need such
+reflections—a lonely widow man,” said Longways.
+
+“When did he lose his wife?” asked Elizabeth.
+
+“I never knowed her. ’Twas afore he came to Casterbridge,” Solomon
+Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his
+ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her history of
+all interest. “But I know that ’a’s a banded teetotaller, and that if
+any of his men be ever so little overtook by a drop he’s down upon ’em
+as stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews.”
+
+“Has he many men, then?” said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+“Many! Why, my good maid, he’s the powerfullest member of the Town
+Council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never
+a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but
+Henchard’s got a hand in it. Ay, and he’ll go into other things too;
+and that’s where he makes his mistake. He worked his way up from
+nothing when ’a came here; and now he’s a pillar of the town. Not but
+what he’s been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has
+supplied in his contracts. I’ve seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor
+these nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me
+unfairly ever since I’ve worked for’n, seeing I be but a little small
+man, I must say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has
+been made from Henchard’s wheat lately. ’Tis that growed out that ye
+could a’most call it malt, and there’s a list at bottom o’ the loaf as
+thick as the sole of one’s shoe.”
+
+The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the
+dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm,
+and the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard.
+Henchard’s voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his
+hay-dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had
+been bent upon outwitting him.
+
+“Ha-ha-ha!” responded his audience at the upshot of the story; and
+hilarity was general till a new voice arose with, “This is all very
+well; but how about the bad bread?”
+
+It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a group of
+minor tradesmen who, although part of the company, appeared to be a
+little below the social level of the others; and who seemed to nourish
+a certain independence of opinion and carry on discussions not quite in
+harmony with those at the head; just as the west end of a church is
+sometimes persistently found to sing out of time and tune with the
+leading spirits in the chancel.
+
+This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite satisfaction to
+the loungers outside, several of whom were in the mood which finds its
+pleasure in others’ discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely,
+“Hey! How about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor?” Moreover, feeling none of
+the restraints of those who shared the feast, they could afford to add,
+“You rather ought to tell the story o’ that, sir!”
+
+The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.
+
+“Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly,” he said. “But I was
+taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who bought it o’ me.”
+
+“And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no,” said the
+inharmonious man outside the window.
+
+Henchard’s face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland
+surface—the temper which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife
+nearly a score of years before.
+
+“You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business,” he
+said. “You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of
+that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have
+mended my arrangements on account o’t. Since I have found my business
+too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised
+for a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When I’ve
+got him you will find these mistakes will no longer occur—matters will
+be better looked into.”
+
+“But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?” inquired the
+man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller.
+“Will you replace the grown flour we’ve still got by sound grain?”
+
+Henchard’s face had become still more stern at these interruptions, and
+he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time.
+Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed—
+
+“If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat
+I’ll take it back with pleasure. But it can’t be done.”
+
+Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this, he sat down.
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+Now the group outside the window had within the last few minutes been
+reinforced by new arrivals, some of them respectable shopkeepers and
+their assistants, who had come out for a whiff of air after putting up
+the shutters for the night; some of them of a lower class. Distinct
+from either there appeared a stranger—a young man of remarkably
+pleasant aspect—who carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the smart
+floral pattern prevalent in such articles at that time.
+
+He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed, and slight in
+build. He might possibly have passed by without stopping at all, or at
+most for half a minute to glance in at the scene, had not his advent
+coincided with the discussion on corn and bread, in which event this
+history had never been enacted. But the subject seemed to arrest him,
+and he whispered some inquiries of the other bystanders, and remained
+listening.
+
+When he heard Henchard’s closing words, “It can’t be done,” he smiled
+impulsively, drew out his pocketbook, and wrote down a few words by the
+aid of the light in the window. He tore out the leaf, folded and
+directed it, and seemed about to throw it in through the open sash upon
+the dining-table; but, on second thoughts, edged himself through the
+loiterers, till he reached the door of the hotel, where one of the
+waiters who had been serving inside was now idly leaning against the
+doorpost.
+
+“Give this to the Mayor at once,” he said, handing in his hasty note.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words, which
+attracted her both by their subject and by their accent—a strange one
+for those parts. It was quaint and northerly.
+
+The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued—
+
+“And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that’s a little more
+moderate than this?”
+
+The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.
+
+“They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very good place,”
+he languidly answered; “but I have never stayed there myself.”
+
+The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled on in the
+direction of the Three Mariners aforesaid, apparently more concerned
+about the question of an inn than about the fate of his note, now that
+the momentary impulse of writing it was over. While he was disappearing
+slowly down the street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane saw
+with some interest the note brought into the dining-room and handed to
+the Mayor.
+
+Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand, and
+glanced it through. Thereupon it was curious to note an unexpected
+effect. The nettled, clouded aspect which had held possession of his
+face since the subject of his corn-dealings had been broached, changed
+itself into one of arrested attention. He read the note slowly, and
+fell into thought, not moody, but fitfully intense, as that of a man
+who has been captured by an idea.
+
+By this time toasts and speeches had given place to songs, the wheat
+subject being quite forgotten. Men were putting their heads together in
+twos and threes, telling good stories, with pantomimic laughter which
+reached convulsive grimace. Some were beginning to look as if they did
+not know how they had come there, what they had come for, or how they
+were going to get home again; and provisionally sat on with a dazed
+smile. Square-built men showed a tendency to become hunchbacks; men
+with a dignified presence lost it in a curious obliquity of figure, in
+which their features grew disarranged and one-sided, whilst the heads
+of a few who had dined with extreme thoroughness were somehow sinking
+into their shoulders, the corners of their mouth and eyes being bent
+upwards by the subsidence. Only Henchard did not conform to these
+flexuous changes; he remained stately and vertical, silently thinking.
+
+The clock struck nine. Elizabeth-Jane turned to her companion. “The
+evening is drawing on, mother,” she said. “What do you propose to do?”
+
+She was surprised to find how irresolute her mother had become. “We
+must get a place to lie down in,” she murmured. “I have seen—Mr.
+Henchard; and that’s all I wanted to do.”
+
+“That’s enough for to-night, at any rate,” Elizabeth-Jane replied
+soothingly. “We can think to-morrow what is best to do about him. The
+question now is—is it not?—how shall we find a lodging?”
+
+As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane’s mind reverted to the words
+of the waiter, that the Three Mariners was an inn of moderate charges.
+A recommendation good for one person was probably good for another.
+“Let’s go where the young man has gone to,” she said. “He is
+respectable. What do you say?”
+
+Her mother assented, and down the street they went.
+
+In the meantime the Mayor’s thoughtfulness, engendered by the note as
+stated, continued to hold him in abstraction; till, whispering to his
+neighbour to take his place, he found opportunity to leave the chair.
+This was just after the departure of his wife and Elizabeth.
+
+Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter, and beckoning
+to him asked who had brought the note which had been handed in a
+quarter of an hour before.
+
+“A young man, sir—a sort of traveller. He was a Scotchman seemingly.”
+
+“Did he say how he had got it?”
+
+“He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window.”
+
+“Oh—wrote it himself.... Is the young man in the hotel?”
+
+“No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners, I believe.”
+
+The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of the hotel with his hands
+under his coat tails, as if he were merely seeking a cooler atmosphere
+than that of the room he had quitted. But there could be no doubt that
+he was in reality still possessed to the full by the new idea, whatever
+that might be. At length he went back to the door of the dining-room,
+paused, and found that the songs, toasts, and conversation were
+proceeding quite satisfactorily without his presence. The Corporation,
+private residents, and major and minor tradesmen had, in fact, gone in
+for comforting beverages to such an extent that they had quite
+forgotten, not only the Mayor, but all those vast, political,
+religious, and social differences which they felt necessary to maintain
+in the daytime, and which separated them like iron grills. Seeing this
+the Mayor took his hat, and when the waiter had helped him on with a
+thin holland overcoat, went out and stood under the portico.
+
+Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes, by a sort of
+attraction, turned and dwelt upon a spot about a hundred yards further
+down. It was the house to which the writer of the note had gone—the
+Three Mariners—whose two prominent Elizabethan gables, bow-window, and
+passage-light could be seen from where he stood. Having kept his eyes
+on it for a while he strolled in that direction.
+
+This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, now,
+unfortunately, pulled down, was built of mellow sandstone, with
+mullioned windows of the same material, markedly out of perpendicular
+from the settlement of foundations. The bay window projecting into the
+street, whose interior was so popular among the frequenters of the inn,
+was closed with shutters, in each of which appeared a heart-shaped
+aperture, somewhat more attenuated in the right and left ventricles
+than is seen in Nature. Inside these illuminated holes, at a distance
+of about three inches, were ranged at this hour, as every passer knew,
+the ruddy polls of Billy Wills the glazier, Smart the shoemaker,
+Buzzford the general dealer, and others of a secondary set of worthies,
+of a grade somewhat below that of the diners at the King’s Arms, each
+with his yard of clay.
+
+A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, and over the arch the
+signboard, now visible in the rays of an opposite lamp. Hereon the
+Mariners, who had been represented by the artist as persons of two
+dimensions only—in other words, flat as a shadow—were standing in a row
+in paralyzed attitudes. Being on the sunny side of the street the three
+comrades had suffered largely from warping, splitting, fading, and
+shrinkage, so that they were but a half-invisible film upon the reality
+of the grain, and knots, and nails, which composed the signboard. As a
+matter of fact, this state of things was not so much owing to Stannidge
+the landlord’s neglect, as from the lack of a painter in Casterbridge
+who would undertake to reproduce the features of men so traditional.
+
+A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to the inn, within which
+passage the horses going to their stalls at the back, and the coming
+and departing human guests, rubbed shoulders indiscriminately, the
+latter running no slight risk of having their toes trodden upon by the
+animals. The good stabling and the good ale of the Mariners, though
+somewhat difficult to reach on account of there being but this narrow
+way to both, were nevertheless perseveringly sought out by the
+sagacious old heads who knew what was what in Casterbridge.
+
+Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants; then lowering the
+dignity of his presence as much as possible by buttoning the brown
+holland coat over his shirt-front, and in other ways toning himself
+down to his ordinary everyday appearance, he entered the inn door.
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twenty minutes earlier.
+Outside the house they had stood and considered whether even this
+homely place, though recommended as moderate, might not be too serious
+in its prices for their light pockets. Finally, however, they had found
+courage to enter, and duly met Stannidge the landlord, a silent man,
+who drew and carried frothing measures to this room and to that,
+shoulder to shoulder with his waiting-maids—a stately slowness,
+however, entering into his ministrations by contrast with theirs, as
+became one whose service was somewhat optional. It would have been
+altogether optional but for the orders of the landlady, a person who
+sat in the bar, corporeally motionless, but with a flitting eye and
+quick ear, with which she observed and heard through the open door and
+hatchway the pressing needs of customers whom her husband overlooked
+though close at hand. Elizabeth and her mother were passively accepted
+as sojourners, and shown to a small bedroom under one of the gables,
+where they sat down.
+
+The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensate for the antique
+awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurity of the passages, floors, and
+windows, by quantities of clean linen spread about everywhere, and this
+had a dazzling effect upon the travellers.
+
+“’Tis too good for us—we can’t meet it!” said the elder woman, looking
+round the apartment with misgiving as soon as they were left alone.
+
+“I fear it is, too,” said Elizabeth. “But we must be respectable.”
+
+“We must pay our way even before we must be respectable,” replied her
+mother. “Mr. Henchard is too high for us to make ourselves known to
+him, I much fear; so we’ve only our own pockets to depend on.”
+
+“I know what I’ll do,” said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval of
+waiting, during which their needs seemed quite forgotten under the
+press of business below. And leaving the room, she descended the stairs
+and penetrated to the bar.
+
+If there was one good thing more than another which characterized this
+single-hearted girl it was a willingness to sacrifice her personal
+comfort and dignity to the common weal.
+
+“As you seem busy here to-night, and mother’s not well off, might I
+take out part of our accommodation by helping?” she asked of the
+landlady.
+
+The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been
+melted into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck,
+looked the girl up and down inquiringly, with her hands on the
+chair-arms. Such arrangements as the one Elizabeth proposed were not
+uncommon in country villages; but, though Casterbridge was
+old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The mistress of
+the house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made no
+objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motions
+from the taciturn landlord as to where she could find the different
+things, trotted up and down stairs with materials for her own and her
+parent’s meal.
+
+While she was doing this the wood partition in the centre of the house
+thrilled to its centre with the tugging of a bell-pull upstairs. A bell
+below tinkled a note that was feebler in sound than the twanging of
+wires and cranks that had produced it.
+
+“’Tis the Scotch gentleman,” said the landlady omnisciently; and
+turning her eyes to Elizabeth, “Now then, can you go and see if his
+supper is on the tray? If it is you can take it up to him. The front
+room over this.”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponed serving herself
+awhile, and applied to the cook in the kitchen whence she brought forth
+the tray of supper viands, and proceeded with it upstairs to the
+apartment indicated. The accommodation of the Three Mariners was far
+from spacious, despite the fair area of ground it covered. The room
+demanded by intrusive beams and rafters, partitions, passages,
+staircases, disused ovens, settles, and four-posters, left
+comparatively small quarters for human beings. Moreover, this being at
+a time before home-brewing was abandoned by the smaller victuallers,
+and a house in which the twelve-bushel strength was still religiously
+adhered to by the landlord in his ale, the quality of the liquor was
+the chief attraction of the premises, so that everything had to make
+way for utensils and operations in connection therewith. Thus Elizabeth
+found that the Scotchman was located in a room quite close to the small
+one that had been allotted to herself and her mother.
+
+When she entered nobody was present but the young man himself—the same
+whom she had seen lingering without the windows of the King’s Arms
+Hotel. He was now idly reading a copy of the local paper, and was
+hardly conscious of her entry, so that she looked at him quite coolly,
+and saw how his forehead shone where the light caught it, and how
+nicely his hair was cut, and the sort of velvet-pile or down that was
+on the skin at the back of his neck, and how his cheek was so truly
+curved as to be part of a globe, and how clearly drawn were the lids
+and lashes which hid his bent eyes.
+
+She set down the tray, spread his supper, and went away without a word.
+On her arrival below the landlady, who was as kind as she was fat and
+lazy, saw that Elizabeth-Jane was rather tired, though in her
+earnestness to be useful she was waiving her own needs altogether. Mrs.
+Stannidge thereupon said with a considerate peremptoriness that she and
+her mother had better take their own suppers if they meant to have any.
+
+Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as she had fetched the
+Scotchman’s, and went up to the little chamber where she had left her
+mother, noiselessly pushing open the door with the edge of the tray. To
+her surprise her mother, instead of being reclined on the bed where she
+had left her was in an erect position, with lips parted. At Elizabeth’s
+entry she lifted her finger.
+
+The meaning of this was soon apparent. The room allotted to the two
+women had at one time served as a dressing-room to the Scotchman’s
+chamber, as was evidenced by signs of a door of communication between
+them—now screwed up and pasted over with the wall paper. But, as is
+frequently the case with hotels of far higher pretensions than the
+Three Mariners, every word spoken in either of these rooms was
+distinctly audible in the other. Such sounds came through now.
+
+Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her mother
+whispered as she drew near, “’Tis he.”
+
+“Who?” said the girl.
+
+“The Mayor.”
+
+The tremors in Susan Henchard’s tone might have led any person but one
+so perfectly unsuspicious of the truth as the girl was, to surmise some
+closer connection than the admitted simple kinship as a means of
+accounting for them.
+
+Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber, the young
+Scotchman and Henchard, who, having entered the inn while
+Elizabeth-Jane was in the kitchen waiting for the supper, had been
+deferentially conducted upstairs by host Stannidge himself. The girl
+noiselessly laid out their little meal, and beckoned to her mother to
+join her, which Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her attention being
+fixed on the conversation through the door.
+
+“I merely strolled in on my way home to ask you a question about
+something that has excited my curiosity,” said the Mayor, with careless
+geniality. “But I see you have not finished supper.”
+
+“Ay, but I will be done in a little! Ye needn’t go, sir. Take a seat.
+I’ve almost done, and it makes no difference at all.”
+
+Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in a moment he resumed:
+“Well, first I should ask, did you write this?” A rustling of paper
+followed.
+
+“Yes, I did,” said the Scotchman.
+
+“Then,” said Henchard, “I am under the impression that we have met by
+accident while waiting for the morning to keep an appointment with each
+other? My name is Henchard, ha’n’t you replied to an advertisement for
+a corn-factor’s manager that I put into the paper—ha’n’t you come here
+to see me about it?”
+
+“No,” said the Scotchman, with some surprise.
+
+“Surely you are the man,” went on Henchard insistingly, “who arranged
+to come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp—Jopp—what was his name?”
+
+“You’re wrong!” said the young man. “My name is Donald Farfrae. It is
+true I am in the corren trade—but I have replied to no advertisement,
+and arranged to see no one. I am on my way to Bristol—from there to the
+other side of the warrld, to try my fortune in the great wheat-growing
+districts of the West! I have some inventions useful to the trade, and
+there is no scope for developing them heere.”
+
+“To America—well, well,” said Henchard, in a tone of disappointment, so
+strong as to make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. “And yet I could
+have sworn you were the man!”
+
+The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a silence, till
+Henchard resumed: “Then I am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the
+few words you wrote on that paper.”
+
+“It was nothing, sir.”
+
+“Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row about my
+grown wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn’t know to be bad till the
+people came complaining, has put me to my wits’ end. I’ve some hundreds
+of quarters of it on hand; and if your renovating process will make it
+wholesome, why, you can see what a quag ’twould get me out of. I saw in
+a moment there might be truth in it. But I should like to have it
+proved; and of course you don’t care to tell the steps of the process
+sufficiently for me to do that, without my paying ye well for’t first.”
+
+The young man reflected a moment or two. “I don’t know that I have any
+objection,” he said. “I’m going to another country, and curing bad corn
+is not the line I’ll take up there. Yes, I’ll tell ye the whole of
+it—you’ll make more out of it heere than I will in a foreign country.
+Just look heere a minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in my
+carpet-bag.”
+
+The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and rustling;
+then a discussion about so many ounces to the bushel, and drying, and
+refrigerating, and so on.
+
+“These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with,” came in the
+young fellow’s voice; and after a pause, during which some operation
+seemed to be intently watched by them both, he exclaimed, “There, now,
+do you taste that.”
+
+“It’s complete!—quite restored, or—well—nearly.”
+
+“Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it,” said the
+Scotchman. “To fetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won’t stand
+so much as that, but heere you go a great way towards it. Well, sir,
+that’s the process, I don’t value it, for it can be but of little use
+in countries where the weather is more settled than in ours; and I’ll
+be only too glad if it’s of service to you.”
+
+“But hearken to me,” pleaded Henchard. “My business you know, is in
+corn and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply, and hay
+is what I understand best though I now do more in corn than in the
+other. If you’ll accept the place, you shall manage the corn branch
+entirely, and receive a commission in addition to salary.”
+
+“You’re liberal—very liberal, but no, no—I cannet!” the young man still
+replied, with some distress in his accents.
+
+“So be it!” said Henchard conclusively. “Now—to change the subject—one
+good turn deserves another; don’t stay to finish that miserable supper.
+Come to my house, I can find something better for ’ee than cold ham and
+ale.”
+
+Donald Farfrae was grateful—said he feared he must decline—that he
+wished to leave early next day.
+
+“Very well,” said Henchard quickly, “please yourself. But I tell you,
+young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it has done for the
+sample, you have saved my credit, stranger though you be. What shall I
+pay you for this knowledge?”
+
+“Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary to ye to
+use it often, and I don’t value it at all. I thought I might just as
+well let ye know, as you were in a difficulty, and they were harrd upon
+ye.”
+
+Henchard paused. “I shan’t soon forget this,” he said. “And from a
+stranger!... I couldn’t believe you were not the man I had engaged!
+Says I to myself, ‘He knows who I am, and recommends himself by this
+stroke.’ And yet it turns out, after all, that you are not the man who
+answered my advertisement, but a stranger!”
+
+“Ay, ay; that’s so,” said the young man.
+
+Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came
+thoughtfully: “Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my poor
+brother’s—now dead and gone; and the nose, too, isn’t unlike his. You
+must be, what—five foot nine, I reckon? I am six foot one and a half
+out of my shoes. But what of that? In my business, ’tis true that
+strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are
+what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad
+at figures—a rule o’ thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse—I can
+see that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet
+you are not for me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are
+not the young man I thought you were, what’s the difference? Can’t ye
+stay just the same? Have you really made up your mind about this
+American notion? I won’t mince matters. I feel you would be invaluable
+to me—that needn’t be said—and if you will bide and be my manager, I
+will make it worth your while.”
+
+“My plans are fixed,” said the young man, in negative tones. “I have
+formed a scheme, and so we need na say any more about it. But will you
+not drink with me, sir? I find this Casterbridge ale warreming to the
+stomach.”
+
+“No, no; I fain would, but I can’t,” said Henchard gravely, the
+scraping of his chair informing the listeners that he was rising to
+leave. “When I was a young man I went in for that sort of thing too
+strong—far too strong—and was well-nigh ruined by it! I did a deed on
+account of it which I shall be ashamed of to my dying day. It made such
+an impression on me that I swore, there and then, that I’d drink
+nothing stronger than tea for as many years as I was old that day. I
+have kept my oath; and though, Farfrae, I am sometimes that dry in the
+dog days that I could drink a quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think
+o’ my oath, and touch no strong drink at all.”
+
+“I’ll no’ press ye, sir—I’ll no’ press ye. I respect your vow.”
+
+“Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt,” said Henchard, with
+strong feeling in his tones. “But it will be long before I see one that
+would suit me so well!”
+
+The young man appeared much moved by Henchard’s warm convictions of his
+value. He was silent till they reached the door. “I wish I could
+stay—sincerely I would like to,” he replied. “But no—it cannet be! it
+cannet! I want to see the warrld.”
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained each in
+her thoughts over their meal, the mother’s face being strangely bright
+since Henchard’s avowal of shame for a past action. The quivering of
+the partition to its core presently denoted that Donald Farfrae had
+again rung his bell, no doubt to have his supper removed; for humming a
+tune, and walking up and down, he seemed to be attracted by the lively
+bursts of conversation and melody from the general company below. He
+sauntered out upon the landing, and descended the staircase.
+
+When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and also that
+used by her mother and herself, she found the bustle of serving to be
+at its height below, as it always was at this hour. The young woman
+shrank from having anything to do with the ground-floor serving, and
+crept silently about observing the scene—so new to her, fresh from the
+seclusion of a seaside cottage. In the general sitting-room, which was
+large, she remarked the two or three dozen strong-backed chairs that
+stood round against the wall, each fitted with its genial occupant; the
+sanded floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the wall
+within the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator of all that went
+on without herself being particularly seen.
+
+The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in addition to
+the respectable master-tradesmen occupying the seats of privileges in
+the bow-window and its neighbourhood, included an inferior set at the
+unlighted end, whose seats were mere benches against the wall, and who
+drank from cups instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed
+some of those personages who had stood outside the windows of the
+King’s Arms.
+
+Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel ventilator in one
+of the panes, which would suddenly start off spinning with a jingling
+sound, as suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again.
+
+While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song
+greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent
+of peculiar charm. There had been some singing before she came down;
+and now the Scotchman had made himself so soon at home that, at the
+request of some of the master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the
+room with a ditty.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen;
+and the longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never
+heard any singing like this and it was evident that the majority of the
+audience had not heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a
+much greater degree than usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor
+dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten them, nor pushed the
+mug to their neighbours. The singer himself grew emotional, till she
+could imagine a tear in his eye as the words went on:—
+
+“It’s hame, and it’s hame, hame fain would I be,
+O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
+There’s an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
+As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;
+When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
+The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!”
+
+
+There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more
+eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of
+a pipe-stem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of
+those gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and
+irreverent act. Then the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically
+started off for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald’s song was
+temporarily effaced.
+
+“’Twas not amiss—not at all amiss!” muttered Christopher Coney, who was
+also present. And removing his pipe a finger’s breadth from his lips,
+he said aloud, “Draw on with the next verse, young gentleman, please.”
+
+“Yes. Let’s have it again, stranger,” said the glazier, a stout,
+bucket-headed man, with a white apron rolled up round his waist. “Folks
+don’t lift up their hearts like that in this part of the world.” And
+turning aside, he said in undertones, “Who is the young man?—Scotch,
+d’ye say?”
+
+“Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe,” replied
+Coney.
+
+Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that nothing so
+pathetic had been heard at the Three Mariners for a considerable time.
+The difference of accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense
+local feeling, and the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a
+climax, surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut
+up their emotions with caustic words.
+
+“Danged if our country down here is worth singing about like that!”
+continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying
+fall, “My ain countree!” “When you take away from among us the fools
+and the rogues, and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the
+slatterns, and such like, there’s cust few left to ornament a song with
+in Casterbridge, or the country round.”
+
+“True,” said Buzzford, the dealer, looking at the grain of the table.
+“Casterbridge is a old, hoary place o’ wickedness, by all account. ’Tis
+recorded in history that we rebelled against the King one or two
+hundred years ago, in the time of the Romans, and that lots of us was
+hanged on Gallows Hill, and quartered, and our different jints sent
+about the country like butcher’s meat; and for my part I can well
+believe it.”
+
+“What did ye come away from yer own country for, young maister, if ye
+be so wownded about it?” inquired Christopher Coney, from the
+background, with the tone of a man who preferred the original subject.
+“Faith, it wasn’t worth your while on our account, for as Maister Billy
+Wills says, we be bruckle folk here—the best o’ us hardly honest
+sometimes, what with hard winters, and so many mouths to fill, and
+Goda’mighty sending his little taties so terrible small to fill ’em
+with. We don’t think about flowers and fair faces, not we—except in the
+shape o’ cauliflowers and pigs’ chaps.”
+
+“But, no!” said Donald Farfrae, gazing round into their faces with
+earnest concern; “the best of ye hardly honest—not that surely? None of
+ye has been stealing what didn’t belong to him?”
+
+“Lord! no, no!” said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly. “That’s only his
+random way o’ speaking. ’A was always such a man of underthoughts.”
+(And reprovingly towards Christopher): “Don’t ye be so over-familiar
+with a gentleman that ye know nothing of—and that’s travelled a’most
+from the North Pole.”
+
+Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no public sympathy,
+he mumbled his feelings to himself: “Be dazed, if I loved my country
+half as well as the young feller do, I’d live by claning my neighbour’s
+pigsties afore I’d go away! For my part I’ve no more love for my
+country than I have for Botany Bay!”
+
+“Come,” said Longways; “let the young man draw onward with his ballet,
+or we shall be here all night.”
+
+“That’s all of it,” said the singer apologetically.
+
+“Soul of my body, then we’ll have another!” said the general dealer.
+
+“Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?” inquired a fat woman with a
+figured purple apron, the waiststring of which was overhung so far by
+her sides as to be invisible.
+
+“Let him breathe—let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom. He hain’t got his
+second wind yet,” said the master glazier.
+
+“Oh yes, but I have!” exclaimed the young man; and he at once rendered
+“O Nannie” with faultless modulations, and another or two of the like
+sentiment, winding up at their earnest request with “Auld Lang Syne.”
+
+By this time he had completely taken possession of the hearts of the
+Three Mariners’ inmates, including even old Coney. Notwithstanding an
+occasional odd gravity which awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the
+moment, they began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of
+his mind seemed to raise around him. Casterbridge had
+sentiment—Casterbridge had romance; but this stranger’s sentiment was
+of differing quality. Or rather, perhaps, the difference was mainly
+superficial; he was to them like the poet of a new school who takes his
+contemporaries by storm; who is not really new, but is the first to
+articulate what all his listeners have felt, though but dumbly till
+then.
+
+The silent landlord came and leant over the settle while the young man
+sang; and even Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick herself from the
+framework of her chair in the bar and get as far as the door-post,
+which movement she accomplished by rolling herself round, as a cask is
+trundled on the chine by a drayman without losing much of its
+perpendicular.
+
+“And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?” she asked.
+
+“Ah—no!” said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in his voice,
+“I’m only passing thirrough! I am on my way to Bristol, and on frae
+there to foreign parts.”
+
+“We be truly sorry to hear it,” said Solomon Longways. “We can ill
+afford to lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when they fall among us.
+And verily, to mak’ acquaintance with a man a-come from so far, from
+the land o’ perpetual snow, as we may say, where wolves and wild boars
+and other dangerous animalcules be as common as blackbirds
+here-about—why, ’tis a thing we can’t do every day; and there’s good
+sound information for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens his
+mouth.”
+
+“Nay, but ye mistake my country,” said the young man, looking round
+upon them with tragic fixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek
+kindled with a sudden enthusiasm to right their errors. “There are not
+perpetual snow and wolves at all in it!—except snow in winter,
+and—well—a little in summer just sometimes, and a ‘gaberlunzie’ or two
+stalking about here and there, if ye may call them dangerous. Eh, but
+you should take a summer jarreny to Edinboro’, and Arthur’s Seat, and
+all round there, and then go on to the lochs, and all the Highland
+scenery—in May and June—and you would never say ’tis the land of wolves
+and perpetual snow!”
+
+“Of course not—it stands to reason,” said Buzzford. “’Tis barren
+ignorance that leads to such words. He’s a simple home-spun man, that
+never was fit for good company—think nothing of him, sir.”
+
+“And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your crock, and
+your bit of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as I may say?” inquired
+Christopher Coney.
+
+“I’ve sent on my luggage—though it isn’t much; for the voyage is long.”
+Donald’s eyes dropped into a remote gaze as he added: “But I said to
+myself, ‘Never a one of the prizes of life will I come by unless I
+undertake it!’ and I decided to go.”
+
+A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared not least,
+made itself apparent in the company. As she looked at Farfrae from the
+back of the settle she decided that his statements showed him to be no
+less thoughtful than his fascinating melodies revealed him to be
+cordial and impassioned. She admired the serious light in which he
+looked at serious things. He had seen no jest in ambiguities and
+roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and rightly not—there
+was none. She disliked those wretched humours of Christopher Coney and
+his tribe; and he did not appreciate them. He seemed to feel exactly as
+she felt about life and its surroundings—that they were a tragical
+rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion,
+moments of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama. It
+was extraordinary how similar their views were.
+
+Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his wish to
+retire, whereupon the landlady whispered to Elizabeth to run upstairs
+and turn down his bed. She took a candlestick and proceeded on her
+mission, which was the act of a few moments only. When, candle in hand,
+she reached the top of the stairs on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae
+was at the foot coming up. She could not very well retreat; they met
+and passed in the turn of the staircase.
+
+She must have appeared interesting in some way—not-withstanding her
+plain dress—or rather, possibly, in consequence of it, for she was a
+girl characterized by earnestness and soberness of mien, with which
+simple drapery accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight
+awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes bent on
+the candle-flame that she carried just below her nose. Thus it happened
+that when confronting her he smiled; and then, with the manner of a
+temporarily light-hearted man, who has started himself on a flight of
+song whose momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old
+ditty that she seemed to suggest—
+
+“As I came in by my bower door,
+    As day was waxin’ wearie,
+Oh wha came tripping down the stair
+    But bonnie Peg my dearie.”
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the Scotchman’s
+voice died away, humming more of the same within the closed door of his
+room.
+
+Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present. When soon after,
+the girl rejoined her mother, the latter was still in thought—on quite
+another matter than a young man’s song.
+
+“We’ve made a mistake,” she whispered (that the Scotchman might not
+overhear). “On no account ought ye to have helped serve here to-night.
+Not because of ourselves, but for the sake of _him_. If he should
+befriend us, and take us up, and then find out what you did when
+staying here, ’twould grieve and wound his natural pride as Mayor of
+the town.”
+
+Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this than her
+mother had she known the real relationship, was not much disturbed
+about it as things stood. Her “he” was another man than her poor
+mother’s. “For myself,” she said, “I didn’t at all mind waiting a
+little upon him. He’s so respectable, and educated—far above the rest
+of ’em in the inn. They thought him very simple not to know their grim
+broad way of talking about themselves here. But of course he didn’t
+know—he was too refined in his mind to know such things!” Thus she
+earnestly pleaded.
+
+Meanwhile, the “he” of her mother was not so far away as even they
+thought. After leaving the Three Mariners he had sauntered up and down
+the empty High Street, passing and repassing the inn in his promenade.
+When the Scotchman sang his voice had reached Henchard’s ears through
+the heart-shaped holes in the window-shutters, and had led him to pause
+outside them a long while.
+
+“To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow does draw me!” he had said to
+himself. “I suppose ’tis because I’m so lonely. I’d have given him a
+third share in the business to have stayed!”
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casement next morning the mellow
+air brought in the feel of imminent autumn almost as distinctly as if
+she had been in the remotest hamlet. Casterbridge was the complement of
+the rural life around, not its urban opposite. Bees and butterflies in
+the cornfields at the top of the town, who desired to get to the meads
+at the bottom, took no circuitous course, but flew straight down High
+Street without any apparent consciousness that they were traversing
+strange latitudes. And in autumn airy spheres of thistledown floated
+into the same street, lodged upon the shop fronts, blew into drains,
+and innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the pavement, and
+stole through people’s doorways into their passages with a hesitating
+scratch on the floor, like the skirts of timid visitors.
+
+Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew her head
+and glanced from behind the window-curtains. Mr. Henchard—now habited
+no longer as a great personage, but as a thriving man of business—was
+pausing on his way up the middle of the street, and the Scotchman was
+looking from the window adjoining her own. Henchard it appeared, had
+gone a little way past the inn before he had noticed his acquaintance
+of the previous evening. He came back a few steps, Donald Farfrae
+opening the window further.
+
+“And you are off soon, I suppose?” said Henchard upwards.
+
+“Yes—almost this moment, sir,” said the other. “Maybe I’ll walk on till
+the coach makes up on me.”
+
+“Which way?”
+
+“The way ye are going.”
+
+“Then shall we walk together to the top o’ town?”
+
+“If ye’ll wait a minute,” said the Scotchman.
+
+In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand. Henchard looked at
+the bag as at an enemy. It showed there was no mistake about the young
+man’s departure. “Ah, my lad,” he said, “you should have been a wise
+man, and have stayed with me.”
+
+“Yes, yes—it might have been wiser,” said Donald, looking
+microscopically at the houses that were furthest off. “It is only
+telling ye the truth when I say my plans are vague.”
+
+They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the inn, and
+Elizabeth-Jane heard no more. She saw that they continued in
+conversation, Henchard turning to the other occasionally, and
+emphasizing some remark with a gesture. Thus they passed the King’s
+Arms Hotel, the Market House, St. Peter’s churchyard wall, ascending to
+the upper end of the long street till they were small as two grains of
+corn; when they bent suddenly to the right into the Bristol Road, and
+were out of view.
+
+“He was a good man—and he’s gone,” she said to herself. “I was nothing
+to him, and there was no reason why he should have wished me good-bye.”
+
+The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had moulded itself
+out of the following little fact: when the Scotchman came out at the
+door he had by accident glanced up at her; and then he had looked away
+again without nodding, or smiling, or saying a word.
+
+“You are still thinking, mother,” she said, when she turned inwards.
+
+“Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard’s sudden liking for that young man.
+He was always so. Now, surely, if he takes so warmly to people who are
+not related to him at all, may he not take as warmly to his own kin?”
+
+While they debated this question a procession of five large waggons
+went past, laden with hay up to the bedroom windows. They came in from
+the country, and the steaming horses had probably been travelling a
+great part of the night. To the shaft of each hung a little board, on
+which was painted in white letters, “Henchard, corn-factor and
+hay-merchant.” The spectacle renewed his wife’s conviction that, for
+her daughter’s sake, she should strain a point to rejoin him.
+
+The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end of it was
+that Mrs. Henchard decided, for good or for ill, to send Elizabeth-Jane
+with a message to Henchard, to the effect that his relative Susan, a
+sailor’s widow, was in the town; leaving it to him to say whether or
+not he would recognize her. What had brought her to this determination
+were chiefly two things. He had been described as a lonely widower; and
+he had expressed shame for a past transaction of his life. There was
+promise in both.
+
+“If he says no,” she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Jane stood, bonnet on,
+ready to depart; “if he thinks it does not become the good position he
+has reached to in the town, to own—to let us call on him as—his distant
+kinfolk, say, ‘Then, sir, we would rather not intrude; we will leave
+Casterbridge as quietly as we have come, and go back to our own
+country.’ ...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so, as I have
+not seen him for so many years, and we are so—little allied to him!”
+
+“And if he say yes?” inquired the more sanguine one.
+
+“In that case,” answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, “ask him to write me
+a note, saying when and how he will see us—or _me_.”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing. “And tell him,”
+continued her mother, “that I fully know I have no claim upon him—that
+I am glad to find he is thriving; that I hope his life may be long and
+happy—there, go.” Thus with a half-hearted willingness, a smothered
+reluctance, did the poor forgiving woman start her unconscious daughter
+on this errand.
+
+It was about ten o’clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth paced up the
+High Street, in no great hurry; for to herself her position was only
+that of a poor relation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The front doors
+of the private houses were mostly left open at this warm autumn time,
+no thought of umbrella stealers disturbing the minds of the placid
+burgesses. Hence, through the long, straight, entrance passages thus
+unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels, the mossy gardens at the
+back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, scarlet geraniums, “bloody
+warriors,” snapdragons, and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by
+crusted grey stone-work remaining from a yet remoter Casterbridge than
+the venerable one visible in the street. The old-fashioned fronts of
+these houses, which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer from
+the pavement, into which the bow windows protruded like bastions,
+necessitating a pleasing _chassez-déchassez_ movement to the
+time-pressed pedestrian at every few yards. He was bound also to evolve
+other Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers,
+cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of walls
+which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed.
+
+In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke so cheerfully of
+individual unrestraint as to boundaries, movables occupied the path and
+roadway to a perplexing extent. First the vans of the carriers in and
+out of Casterbridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The
+Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe, and many other towns and
+villages round. Their owners were numerous enough to be regarded as a
+tribe, and had almost distinctiveness enough to be regarded as a race.
+Their vans had just arrived, and were drawn up on each side of the
+street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between the
+pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched out half its
+contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb, extending the display
+each week a little further and further into the roadway, despite the
+expostulations of the two feeble old constables, until there remained
+but a tortuous defile for carriages down the centre of the street,
+which afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins. Over the
+pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so constructed as
+to give the passenger’s hat a smart buffet off his head, as from the
+unseen hands of Cranstoun’s Goblin Page, celebrated in romantic lore.
+
+Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the pavement,
+their hind legs in the street, in which position they occasionally
+nipped little boys by the shoulder who were passing to school. And any
+inviting recess in front of a house that had been modestly kept back
+from the general line was utilized by pig-dealers as a pen for their
+stock.
+
+The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to transact
+business in these ancient streets, spoke in other ways than by
+articulation. Not to hear the words of your interlocutor in
+metropolitan centres is to know nothing of his meaning. Here the face,
+the arms, the hat, the stick, the body throughout spoke equally with
+the tongue. To express satisfaction the Casterbridge market-man added
+to his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes, a
+throwing back of the shoulders, which was intelligible from the other
+end of the street. If he wondered, though all Henchard’s carts and
+waggons were rattling past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside
+of his crimson mouth, and a target-like circling of his eyes.
+Deliberation caused sundry attacks on the moss of adjoining walls with
+the end of his stick, a change of his hat from the horizontal to the
+less so; a sense of tediousness announced itself in a lowering of the
+person by spreading the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture and
+contorting the arms. Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the
+streets of this honest borough to all appearance; and it was said that
+the lawyers in the Court House hard by occasionally threw in strong
+arguments for the other side out of pure generosity (though apparently
+by mischance) when advancing their own.
+
+Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus, or
+nerve-knot of the surrounding country life; differing from the many
+manufacturing towns which are as foreign bodies set down, like boulders
+on a plain, in a green world with which they have nothing in common.
+Casterbridge lived by agriculture at one remove further from the
+fountainhead than the adjoining villages—no more. The townsfolk
+understood every fluctuation in the rustic’s condition, for it affected
+their receipts as much as the labourer’s; they entered into the
+troubles and joys which moved the aristocratic families ten miles
+round—for the same reason. And even at the dinner-parties of the
+professional families the subjects of discussion were corn,
+cattle-disease, sowing and reaping, fencing and planting; while
+politics were viewed by them less from their own standpoint of
+burgesses with rights and privileges than from the standpoint of their
+country neighbours.
+
+All the venerable contrivances and confusions which delighted the eye
+by their quaintness, and in a measure reasonableness, in this rare old
+market-town, were metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of
+Elizabeth-Jane, fresh from netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage.
+Very little inquiry was necessary to guide her footsteps. Henchard’s
+house was one of the best, faced with dull red-and-grey old brick. The
+front door was open, and, as in other houses, she could see through the
+passage to the end of the garden—nearly a quarter of a mile off.
+
+Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard. She was
+conducted into the mossy garden, and through a door in the wall, which
+was studded with rusty nails speaking of generations of fruit-trees
+that had been trained there. The door opened upon the yard, and here
+she was left to find him as she could. It was a place flanked by
+hay-barns, into which tons of fodder, all in trusses, were being packed
+from the waggons she had seen pass the inn that morning. On other sides
+of the yard were wooden granaries on stone staddles, to which access
+was given by Flemish ladders, and a store-house several floors high.
+Wherever the doors of these places were open, a closely packed throng
+of bursting wheat-sacks could be seen standing inside, with the air of
+awaiting a famine that would not come.
+
+She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of the impending
+interview, till she was quite weary of searching; she ventured to
+inquire of a boy in what quarter Mr. Henchard could be found. He
+directed her to an office which she had not seen before, and knocking
+at the door she was answered by a cry of “Come in.”
+
+Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her, bending over
+some sample-bags on a table, not the corn-merchant, but the young
+Scotchman Mr. Farfrae—in the act of pouring some grains of wheat from
+one hand to the other. His hat hung on a peg behind him, and the roses
+of his carpet-bag glowed from the corner of the room.
+
+Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for Mr.
+Henchard, and for him alone, she was for the moment confounded.
+
+“Yes, what it is?” said the Scotchman, like a man who permanently ruled
+there.
+
+She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
+
+“Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He’s engaged just now,” said the
+young man, apparently not recognizing her as the girl at the inn. He
+handed her a chair, bade her sit down and turned to his sample-bags
+again. While Elizabeth-Jane sits waiting in great amaze at the young
+man’s presence we may briefly explain how he came there.
+
+When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that morning
+towards the Bath and Bristol road they went on silently, except for a
+few commonplaces, till they had gone down an avenue on the town walls
+called the Chalk Walk, leading to an angle where the North and West
+escarpments met. From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast
+extent of country could be seen. A footpath ran steeply down the green
+slope, conducting from the shady promenade on the walls to a road at
+the bottom of the scarp. It was by this path the Scotchman had to
+descend.
+
+“Well, here’s success to ’ee,” said Henchard, holding out his right
+hand and leaning with his left upon the wicket which protected the
+descent. In the act there was the inelegance of one whose feelings are
+nipped and wishes defeated. “I shall often think of this time, and of
+how you came at the very moment to throw a light upon my difficulty.”
+
+Still holding the young man’s hand he paused, and then added
+deliberately: “Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost for want of
+a word. And before ye are gone for ever I’ll speak. Once more, will ye
+stay? There it is, flat and plain. You can see that it isn’t all
+selfishness that makes me press ’ee; for my business is not quite so
+scientific as to require an intellect entirely out of the common.
+Others would do for the place without doubt. Some selfishness perhaps
+there is, but there is more; it isn’t for me to repeat what. Come bide
+with me—and name your own terms. I’ll agree to ’em willingly and
+’ithout a word of gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!”
+
+The young man’s hand remained steady in Henchard’s for a moment or two.
+He looked over the fertile country that stretched beneath them, then
+backward along the shaded walk reaching to the top of the town. His
+face flushed.
+
+“I never expected this—I did not!” he said. “It’s Providence! Should
+any one go against it? No; I’ll not go to America; I’ll stay and be
+your man!”
+
+His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard’s, returned the latter’s
+grasp.
+
+“Done,” said Henchard.
+
+“Done,” said Donald Farfrae.
+
+The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfaction that was almost
+fierce in its strength. “Now you are my friend!” he exclaimed. “Come
+back to my house; let’s clinch it at once by clear terms, so as to be
+comfortable in our minds.” Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the
+North-West Avenue in Henchard’s company as he had come. Henchard was
+all confidence now.
+
+“I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don’t care for a
+man,” he said. “But when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong. Now I
+am sure you can eat another breakfast? You couldn’t have eaten much so
+early, even if they had anything at that place to gi’e thee, which they
+hadn’t; so come to my house and we will have a solid, staunch tuck-in,
+and settle terms in black-and-white if you like; though my word’s my
+bond. I can always make a good meal in the morning. I’ve got a splendid
+cold pigeon-pie going just now. You can have some home-brewed if you
+want to, you know.”
+
+“It is too airly in the morning for that,” said Farfrae with a smile.
+
+“Well, of course, I didn’t know. I don’t drink it because of my oath,
+but I am obliged to brew for my work-people.”
+
+Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard’s premises by the back
+way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was settled over the
+breakfast, at which Henchard heaped the young Scotchman’s plate to a
+prodigal fulness. He would not rest satisfied till Farfrae had written
+for his luggage from Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the
+post-office. When it was done this man of strong impulses declared that
+his new friend should take up his abode in his house—at least till some
+suitable lodgings could be found.
+
+He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the stores of
+grain, and other stock; and finally entered the offices where the
+younger of them has already been discovered by Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+X.
+
+While she still sat under the Scotchman’s eyes a man came up to the
+door, reaching it as Henchard opened the door of the inner office to
+admit Elizabeth. The newcomer stepped forward like the quicker cripple
+at Bethesda, and entered in her stead. She could hear his words to
+Henchard: “Joshua Jopp, sir—by appointment—the new manager.”
+
+“The new manager!—he’s in his office,” said Henchard bluntly.
+
+“In his office!” said the man, with a stultified air.
+
+“I mentioned Thursday,” said Henchard; “and as you did not keep your
+appointment, I have engaged another manager. At first I thought he must
+be you. Do you think I can wait when business is in question?”
+
+“You said Thursday or Saturday, sir,” said the newcomer, pulling out a
+letter.
+
+“Well, you are too late,” said the corn-factor. “I can say no more.”
+
+“You as good as engaged me,” murmured the man.
+
+“Subject to an interview,” said Henchard. “I am sorry for you—very
+sorry indeed. But it can’t be helped.”
+
+There was no more to be said, and the man came out, encountering
+Elizabeth-Jane in his passage. She could see that his mouth twitched
+with anger, and that bitter disappointment was written in his face
+everywhere.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the master of the
+premises. His dark pupils—which always seemed to have a red spark of
+light in them, though this could hardly be a physical fact—turned
+indifferently round under his dark brows until they rested on her
+figure. “Now then, what is it, my young woman?” he said blandly.
+
+“Can I speak to you—not on business, sir?” said she.
+
+“Yes—I suppose.” He looked at her more thoughtfully.
+
+“I am sent to tell you, sir,” she innocently went on, “that a distant
+relative of yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a sailor’s widow, is in
+the town, and to ask whether you would wish to see her.”
+
+The rich _rouge-et-noir_ of his countenance underwent a slight change.
+“Oh—Susan is—still alive?” he asked with difficulty.
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Are you her daughter?”
+
+“Yes, sir—her only daughter.”
+
+“What—do you call yourself—your Christian name?”
+
+“Elizabeth-Jane, sir.”
+
+“Newson?”
+
+“Elizabeth-Jane Newson.”
+
+This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of his early
+married life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the family history. It
+was more than he could have expected. His wife had behaved kindly to
+him in return for his unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to
+her child or to the world.
+
+“I am—a good deal interested in your news,” he said. “And as this is
+not a matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we go indoors.”
+
+It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to Elizabeth, that
+he showed her out of the office and through the outer room, where
+Donald Farfrae was overhauling bins and samples with the inquiring
+inspection of a beginner in charge. Henchard preceded her through the
+door in the wall to the suddenly changed scene of the garden and
+flowers, and onward into the house. The dining-room to which he
+introduced her still exhibited the remnants of the lavish breakfast
+laid for Farfrae. It was furnished to profusion with heavy mahogany
+furniture of the deepest red-Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, with leaves
+hanging so low that they well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the
+walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay
+three huge folio volumes—a Family Bible, a “Josephus,” and a “Whole
+Duty of Man.” In the chimney corner was a fire-grate with a fluted
+semi-circular back, having urns and festoons cast in relief thereon,
+and the chairs were of the kind which, since that day, has cast lustre
+upon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact,
+their patterns may have been such as those illustrious carpenters never
+saw or heard of.
+
+“Sit down—Elizabeth-Jane—sit down,” he said, with a shake in his voice
+as he uttered her name, and sitting down himself he allowed his hands
+to hang between his knees while he looked upon the carpet. “Your
+mother, then, is quite well?”
+
+“She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling.”
+
+“A sailor’s widow—when did he die?”
+
+“Father was lost last spring.”
+
+Henchard winced at the word “father,” thus applied. “Do you and she
+come from abroad—America or Australia?” he asked.
+
+“No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when we came here
+from Canada.”
+
+“Ah; exactly.” By such conversation he discovered the circumstances
+which had enveloped his wife and her child in such total obscurity that
+he had long ago believed them to be in their graves. These things being
+clear, he returned to the present. “And where is your mother staying?”
+
+“At the Three Mariners.”
+
+“And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?” repeated Henchard. He arose,
+came close to her, and glanced in her face. “I think,” he said,
+suddenly turning away with a wet eye, “you shall take a note from me to
+your mother. I should like to see her.... She is not left very well off
+by her late husband?” His eye fell on Elizabeth’s clothes, which,
+though a respectable suit of black, and her very best, were decidedly
+old-fashioned even to Casterbridge eyes.
+
+“Not very well,” she said, glad that he had divined this without her
+being obliged to express it.
+
+He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking from his
+pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the envelope with the
+letter, adding to it, as by an afterthought, five shillings. Sealing
+the whole up carefully, he directed it to “Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners
+Inn,” and handed the packet to Elizabeth.
+
+“Deliver it to her personally, please,” said Henchard. “Well, I am glad
+to see you here, Elizabeth-Jane—very glad. We must have a long talk
+together—but not just now.”
+
+He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she, who had
+known so little friendship, was much affected, and tears rose to her
+aerial-grey eyes. The instant that she was gone Henchard’s state showed
+itself more distinctly; having shut the door he sat in his dining-room
+stiffly erect, gazing at the opposite wall as if he read his history
+there.
+
+“Begad!” he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. “I didn’t think of that.
+Perhaps these are impostors—and Susan and the child dead after all!”
+
+However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him that, as
+regarded her, at least, there could be little doubt. And a few hours
+would settle the question of her mother’s identity; for he had arranged
+in his note to see her that evening.
+
+“It never rains but it pours!” said Henchard. His keenly excited
+interest in his new friend the Scotchman was now eclipsed by this
+event, and Donald Farfrae saw so little of him during the rest of the
+day that he wondered at the suddenness of his employer’s moods.
+
+In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn. Her mother, instead of
+taking the note with the curiosity of a poor woman expecting
+assistance, was much moved at sight of it. She did not read it at once,
+asking Elizabeth to describe her reception, and the very words Mr.
+Henchard used. Elizabeth’s back was turned when her mother opened the
+letter. It ran thus:—
+
+“Meet me at eight o’clock this evening, if you can, at the Ring on the
+Budmouth road. The place is easy to find. I can say no more now. The
+news upsets me almost. The girl seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so
+till I have seen you. M. H.”
+
+
+He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas. The amount was
+significant; it may tacitly have said to her that he bought her back
+again. She waited restlessly for the close of the day, telling
+Elizabeth-Jane that she was invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would
+go alone. But she said nothing to show that the place of meeting was
+not at his house, nor did she hand the note to Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest
+Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.
+
+Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct.
+It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome.
+It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town
+fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of
+the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a
+space of fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side,
+in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees
+drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear against
+his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn
+at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified
+conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street
+boys and men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle
+as they passed by.
+
+Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the
+discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were
+quite unmoved by these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their
+time was so unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so widely
+removed from ours, that between them and the living there seemed to
+stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to pass.
+
+The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at
+opposite extremities of its diameter north and south. From its sloping
+internal form it might have been called the spittoon of the Jötuns. It
+was to Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was
+nearly of the same magnitude. The dusk of evening was the proper hour
+at which a true impression of this suggestive place could be received.
+Standing in the middle of the arena at that time there by degrees
+became apparent its real vastness, which a cursory view from the summit
+at noon-day was apt to obscure. Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet
+accessible from every part of the town, the historic circle was the
+frequent spot for appointments of a furtive kind. Intrigues were
+arranged there; tentative meetings were there experimented after
+divisions and feuds. But one kind of appointment—in itself the most
+common of any—seldom had place in the Amphitheatre: that of happy
+lovers.
+
+Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible, and
+sequestered spot for interviews, the cheerfullest form of those
+occurrences never took kindly to the soil of the ruin, would be a
+curious inquiry. Perhaps it was because its associations had about them
+something sinister. Its history proved that. Apart from the sanguinary
+nature of the games originally played therein, such incidents attached
+to its past as these: that for scores of years the town-gallows had
+stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who had murdered her husband
+was half-strangled and then burnt there in the presence of ten thousand
+spectators. Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burning
+her heart burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all,
+and that not one of those ten thousand people ever cared particularly
+for hot roast after that. In addition to these old tragedies,
+pugilistic encounters almost to the death had come off down to recent
+dates in that secluded arena, entirely invisible to the outside world
+save by climbing to the top of the enclosure, which few townspeople in
+the daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So that,
+though close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be perpetrated there
+unseen at mid-day.
+
+Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by using the
+central arena as a cricket-ground. But the game usually languished for
+the aforesaid reason—the dismal privacy which the earthen circle
+enforced, shutting out every appreciative passer’s vision, every
+commendatory remark from outsiders—everything, except the sky; and to
+play at games in such circumstances was like acting to an empty house.
+Possibly, too, the boys were timid, for some old people said that at
+certain moments in the summer time, in broad daylight, persons sitting
+with a book or dozing in the arena had, on lifting their eyes, beheld
+the slopes lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian’s soldiery as if
+watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of their
+excited voices, that the scene would remain but a moment, like a
+lightning flash, and then disappear.
+
+It was related that there still remained under the south entrance
+excavated cells for the reception of the wild animals and athletes who
+took part in the games. The arena was still smooth and circular, as if
+used for its original purpose not so very long ago. The sloping
+pathways by which spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways
+yet. But the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the end of
+summer, was bearded with withered bents that formed waves under the
+brush of the wind, returning to the attentive ear Æolian modulations,
+and detaining for moments the flying globes of thistledown.
+
+Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from observation
+which he could think of for meeting his long-lost wife, and at the same
+time as one easily to be found by a stranger after nightfall. As Mayor
+of the town, with a reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to
+come to his house till some definite course had been decided on.
+
+Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-work and entered by
+the south path which descended over the _débris_ of the former dens. In
+a few moments he could discern a female figure creeping in by the great
+north gap, or public gateway. They met in the middle of the arena.
+Neither spoke just at first—there was no necessity for speech—and the
+poor woman leant against Henchard, who supported her in his arms.
+
+“I don’t drink,” he said in a low, halting, apologetic voice. “You
+hear, Susan?—I don’t drink now—I haven’t since that night.” Those were
+his first words.
+
+He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she understood. After a
+minute or two he again began:
+
+“If I had known you were living, Susan! But there was every reason to
+suppose you and the child were dead and gone. I took every possible
+step to find you—travelled—advertised. My opinion at last was that you
+had started for some colony with that man, and had been drowned on your
+voyage. Why did you keep silent like this?”
+
+“O Michael! because of him—what other reason could there be? I thought
+I owed him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives—foolishly I
+believed there was something solemn and binding in the bargain; I
+thought that even in honour I dared not desert him when he had paid so
+much for me in good faith. I meet you now only as his widow—I consider
+myself that, and that I have no claim upon you. Had he not died I
+should never have come—never! Of that you may be sure.”
+
+“Tut-tut! How could you be so simple?”
+
+“I don’t know. Yet it would have been very wicked—if I had not thought
+like that!” said Susan, almost crying.
+
+“Yes—yes—so it would. It is only that which makes me feel ’ee an
+innocent woman. But—to lead me into this!”
+
+“What, Michael?” she asked, alarmed.
+
+“Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and
+Elizabeth-Jane. She cannot be told all—she would so despise us both
+that—I could not bear it!”
+
+“That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear
+it either.”
+
+“Well—we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present belief, and
+getting matters straight in spite of it. You have heard I am in a large
+way of business here—that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and
+I don’t know what all?”
+
+“Yes,” she murmured.
+
+“These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering our
+disgrace, makes it necessary to act with extreme caution. So that I
+don’t see how you two can return openly to my house as the wife and
+daughter I once treated badly, and banished from me; and there’s the
+rub o’t.”
+
+“We’ll go away at once. I only came to see—”
+
+“No, no, Susan; you are not to go—you mistake me!” he said with kindly
+severity. “I have thought of this plan: that you and Elizabeth take a
+cottage in the town as the widow Mrs. Newson and her daughter; that I
+meet you, court you, and marry you. Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house
+as my stepdaughter. The thing is so natural and easy that it is half
+done in thinking o’t. This would leave my shady, headstrong,
+disgraceful life as a young man absolutely unopened; the secret would
+be yours and mine only; and I should have the pleasure of seeing my own
+only child under my roof, as well as my wife.”
+
+“I am quite in your hands, Michael,” she said meekly. “I came here for
+the sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave again
+to-morrow morning, and never come near you more, I am content to go.”
+
+“Now, now; we don’t want to hear that,” said Henchard gently. “Of
+course you won’t leave again. Think over the plan I have proposed for a
+few hours; and if you can’t hit upon a better one we’ll adopt it. I
+have to be away for a day or two on business, unfortunately; but during
+that time you can get lodgings—the only ones in the town fit for you
+are those over the china-shop in High Street—and you can also look for
+a cottage.”
+
+“If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?”
+
+“Never mind—you _must_ start genteel if our plan is to be carried out.
+Look to me for money. Have you enough till I come back?”
+
+“Quite,” said she.
+
+“And are you comfortable at the inn?”
+
+“O yes.”
+
+“And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and
+ours?—that’s what makes me most anxious of all.”
+
+“You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the
+truth. How could she ever suppose such a thing?”
+
+“True!”
+
+“I like the idea of repeating our marriage,” said Mrs. Henchard, after
+a pause. “It seems the only right course, after all this. Now I think I
+must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr.
+Henchard, kindly wishes us to stay in the town.”
+
+“Very well—arrange that yourself. I’ll go some way with you.”
+
+“No, no. Don’t run any risk!” said his wife anxiously. “I can find my
+way back—it is not late. Please let me go alone.”
+
+“Right,” said Henchard. “But just one word. Do you forgive me, Susan?”
+
+She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her
+answer.
+
+“Never mind—all in good time,” said he. “Judge me by my future
+works—good-bye!”
+
+He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatre while his
+wife passed out through the lower way, and descended under the trees to
+the town. Then Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by
+the time he reached his door he was almost upon the heels of the
+unconscious woman from whom he had just parted. He watched her up the
+street, and turned into his house.
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+On entering his own door after watching his wife out of sight, the
+Mayor walked on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and
+thence by the back door towards the stores and granaries. A light shone
+from the office-window, and there being no blind to screen the interior
+Henchard could see Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him,
+initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by overhauling
+the books. Henchard entered, merely observing, “Don’t let me interrupt
+you, if ye will stay so late.”
+
+He stood behind Farfrae’s chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up
+the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in
+Henchard’s books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman’s perspicacity.
+The corn-factor’s mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a
+dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind
+to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically
+unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern
+sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a
+tantalizing art.
+
+“You shall do no more to-night,” he said at length, spreading his great
+hand over the paper. “There’s time enough to-morrow. Come indoors with
+me and have some supper. Now you shall! I am determined on’t.” He shut
+the account-books with friendly force.
+
+Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his
+friend and employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests
+and impulses, and he yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard’s warmth,
+even if it inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters
+adding to the liking.
+
+They locked up the office, and the young man followed his companion
+through the private little door which, admitting directly into
+Henchard’s garden, permitted a passage from the utilitarian to the
+beautiful at one step. The garden was silent, dewy, and full of
+perfume. It extended a long way back from the house, first as lawn and
+flower-beds, then as fruit-garden, where the long-tied espaliers, as
+old as the old house itself, had grown so stout, and cramped, and
+gnarled that they had pulled their stakes out of the ground and stood
+distorted and writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons. The
+flowers which smelt so sweetly were not discernible; and they passed
+through them into the house.
+
+The hospitalities of the morning were repeated, and when they were over
+Henchard said, “Pull your chair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow,
+and let’s make a blaze—there’s nothing I hate like a black grate, even
+in September.” He applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a cheerful
+radiance spread around.
+
+“It is odd,” said Henchard, “that two men should meet as we have done
+on a purely business ground, and that at the end of the first day I
+should wish to speak to ’ee on a family matter. But, damn it all, I am
+a lonely man, Farfrae: I have nobody else to speak to; and why
+shouldn’t I tell it to ’ee?”
+
+“I’ll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any service,” said Donald,
+allowing his eyes to travel over the intricate wood-carvings of the
+chimney-piece, representing garlanded lyres, shields, and quivers, on
+either side of a draped ox-skull, and flanked by heads of Apollo and
+Diana in low relief.
+
+“I’ve not been always what I am now,” continued Henchard, his firm deep
+voice being ever so little shaken. He was plainly under that strange
+influence which sometimes prompts men to confide to the new-found
+friend what they will not tell to the old. “I began life as a working
+hay-trusser, and when I was eighteen I married on the strength o’ my
+calling. Would you think me a married man?”
+
+“I heard in the town that you were a widower.”
+
+“Ah, yes—you would naturally have heard that. Well, I lost my wife
+nineteen years ago or so—by my own fault.... This is how it came about.
+One summer evening I was travelling for employment, and she was walking
+at my side, carrying the baby, our only child. We came to a booth in a
+country fair. I was a drinking man at that time.”
+
+Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so that his elbow rested
+on the table, his forehead being shaded by his hand, which, however,
+did not hide the marks of introspective inflexibility on his features
+as he narrated in fullest detail the incidents of the transaction with
+the sailor. The tinge of indifference which had at first been visible
+in the Scotchman now disappeared.
+
+Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife; the oath he
+swore; the solitary life he led during the years which followed. “I
+have kept my oath for nineteen years,” he went on; “I have risen to
+what you see me now.”
+
+“Ay!”
+
+“Well—no wife could I hear of in all that time; and being by nature
+something of a woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostly
+at a distance from the sex. No wife could I hear of, I say, till this
+very day. And now—she has come back.”
+
+“Come back, has she!”
+
+“This morning—this very morning. And what’s to be done?”
+
+“Can ye no’ take her and live with her, and make some amends?”
+
+“That’s what I’ve planned and proposed. But, Farfrae,” said Henchard
+gloomily, “by doing right with Susan I wrong another innocent woman.”
+
+“Ye don’t say that?”
+
+“In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is almost impossible that a man
+of my sort should have the good fortune to tide through twenty years o’
+life without making more blunders than one. It has been my custom for
+many years to run across to Jersey in the the way of business,
+particularly in the potato and root season. I do a large trade wi’ them
+in that line. Well, one autumn when stopping there I fell quite ill,
+and in my illness I sank into one of those gloomy fits I sometimes
+suffer from, on account o’ the loneliness of my domestic life, when the
+world seems to have the blackness of hell, and, like Job, I could curse
+the day that gave me birth.”
+
+“Ah, now, I never feel like it,” said Farfrae.
+
+“Then pray to God that you never may, young man. While in this state I
+was taken pity on by a woman—a young lady I should call her, for she
+was of good family, well bred, and well educated—the daughter of some
+harum-scarum military officer who had got into difficulties, and had
+his pay sequestrated. He was dead now, and her mother too, and she was
+as lonely as I. This young creature was staying at the boarding-house
+where I happened to have my lodging; and when I was pulled down she
+took upon herself to nurse me. From that she got to have a foolish
+liking for me. Heaven knows why, for I wasn’t worth it. But being
+together in the same house, and her feeling warm, we got naturally
+intimate. I won’t go into particulars of what our relations were. It is
+enough to say that we honestly meant to marry. There arose a scandal,
+which did me no harm, but was of course ruin to her. Though, Farfrae,
+between you and me, as man and man, I solemnly declare that
+philandering with womankind has neither been my vice nor my virtue. She
+was terribly careless of appearances, and I was perhaps more, because
+o’ my dreary state; and it was through this that the scandal arose. At
+last I was well, and came away. When I was gone she suffered much on my
+account, and didn’t forget to tell me so in letters one after another;
+till latterly, I felt I owed her something, and thought that, as I had
+not heard of Susan for so long, I would make this other one the only
+return I could make, and ask her if she would run the risk of Susan
+being alive (very slight as I believed) and marry me, such as I was.
+She jumped for joy, and we should no doubt soon have been married—but,
+behold, Susan appears!”
+
+Donald showed his deep concern at a complication so far beyond the
+degree of his simple experiences.
+
+“Now see what injury a man may cause around him! Even after that
+wrong-doing at the fair when I was young, if I had never been so
+selfish as to let this giddy girl devote herself to me over at Jersey,
+to the injury of her name, all might now be well. Yet, as it stands, I
+must bitterly disappoint one of these women; and it is the second. My
+first duty is to Susan—there’s no doubt about that.”
+
+“They are both in a very melancholy position, and that’s true!”
+murmured Donald.
+
+“They are! For myself I don’t care—’twill all end one way. But these
+two.” Henchard paused in reverie. “I feel I should like to treat the
+second, no less than the first, as kindly as a man can in such a case.”
+
+“Ah, well, it cannet be helped!” said the other, with philosophic
+woefulness. “You mun write to the young lady, and in your letter you
+must put it plain and honest that it turns out she cannet be your wife,
+the first having come back; that ye cannet see her more; and that—ye
+wish her weel.”
+
+“That won’t do. ’Od seize it, I must do a little more than that! I
+must—though she did always brag about her rich uncle or rich aunt, and
+her expectations from ’em—I must send a useful sum of money to her, I
+suppose—just as a little recompense, poor girl.... Now, will you help
+me in this, and draw up an explanation to her of all I’ve told ye,
+breaking it as gently as you can? I’m so bad at letters.”
+
+“And I will.”
+
+“Now, I haven’t told you quite all yet. My wife Susan has my daughter
+with her—the baby that was in her arms at the fair; and this girl knows
+nothing of me beyond that I am some sort of relation by marriage. She
+has grown up in the belief that the sailor to whom I made over her
+mother, and who is now dead, was her father, and her mother’s husband.
+What her mother has always felt, she and I together feel now—that we
+can’t proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her know the truth.
+Now what would you do?—I want your advice.”
+
+“I think I’d run the risk, and tell her the truth. She’ll forgive ye
+both.”
+
+“Never!” said Henchard. “I am not going to let her know the truth. Her
+mother and I be going to marry again; and it will not only help us to
+keep our child’s respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon
+herself as the sailor’s widow, and won’t think o’ living with me as
+formerly without another religious ceremony—and she’s right.”
+
+Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter to the young Jersey woman
+was carefully framed by him, and the interview ended, Henchard saying,
+as the Scotchman left, “I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some
+friend o’ this! You see now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so
+thriving in his mind as it seems he might be from the state of his
+pocket.”
+
+“I do. And I’m sorry for ye!” said Farfrae.
+
+When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing a cheque,
+took it to the post-office, from which he walked back thoughtfully.
+
+“Can it be that it will go off so easily!” he said. “Poor thing—God
+knows! Now then, to make amends to Susan!”
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan under her
+name of Newson—in pursuance of their plan—was in the upper or western
+part of the town, near the Roman wall, and the avenue which
+overshadowed it. The evening sun seemed to shine more yellowly there
+than anywhere else this autumn—stretching its rays, as the hours grew
+later, under the lowest sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor
+of the dwelling, with its green shutters, in a substratum of radiance
+which the foliage screened from the upper parts. Beneath these
+sycamores on the town walls could be seen from the sitting-room the
+tumuli and earth forts of the distant uplands; making it altogether a
+pleasant spot, with the usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked
+prospect lends.
+
+As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably installed, with a
+white-aproned servant and all complete, Henchard paid them a visit, and
+remained to tea. During the entertainment Elizabeth was carefully
+hoodwinked by the very general tone of the conversation that
+prevailed—a proceeding which seemed to afford some humour to Henchard,
+though his wife was not particularly happy in it. The visit was
+repeated again and again with business-like determination by the Mayor,
+who seemed to have schooled himself into a course of strict mechanical
+rightness towards this woman of prior claim, at any expense to the
+later one and to his own sentiments.
+
+One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard came, and he
+said drily, “This is a very good opportunity for me to ask you to name
+the happy day, Susan.”
+
+The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy pleasantries on a
+situation into which she had entered solely for the sake of her girl’s
+reputation. She liked them so little, indeed, that there was room for
+wonder why she had countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely
+let the girl know her history. But the flesh is weak; and the true
+explanation came in due course.
+
+“O Michael!” she said, “I am afraid all this is taking up your time and
+giving trouble—when I did not expect any such thing!” And she looked at
+him and at his dress as a man of affluence, and at the furniture he had
+provided for the room—ornate and lavish to her eyes.
+
+“Not at all,” said Henchard, in rough benignity. “This is only a
+cottage—it costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my time”—here
+his red and black visage kindled with satisfaction—“I’ve a splendid
+fellow to superintend my business now—a man whose like I’ve never been
+able to lay hands on before. I shall soon be able to leave everything
+to him, and have more time to call my own than I’ve had for these last
+twenty years.”
+
+Henchard’s visits here grew so frequent and so regular that it soon
+became whispered, and then openly discussed in Casterbridge that the
+masterful, coercive Mayor of the town was raptured and enervated by the
+genteel widow Mrs. Newson. His well-known haughty indifference to the
+society of womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the sex,
+contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an unromantic
+matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman should be his choice was
+inexplicable, except on the ground that the engagement was a family
+affair in which sentimental passion had no place; for it was known that
+they were related in some way. Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the boys
+called her “The Ghost.” Sometimes Henchard overheard this epithet when
+they passed together along the Walks—as the avenues on the walls were
+named—at which his face would darken with an expression of
+destructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see; but he said
+nothing.
+
+He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with
+this pale creature in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit to
+his conscientiousness. Nobody would have conceived from his outward
+demeanour that there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as
+stimulant to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing but
+three large resolves—one, to make amends to his neglected Susan,
+another, to provide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his
+paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himself with the thorns which
+these restitutory acts brought in their train; among them the lowering
+of his dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively humble a
+woman.
+
+Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her life when
+she stepped into the plain brougham which drew up at the door on the
+wedding-day to take her and Elizabeth-Jane to church. It was a windless
+morning of warm November rain, which floated down like meal, and lay in
+a powdery form on the nap of hats and coats. Few people had gathered
+round the church door though they were well packed within. The
+Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of course the only one
+present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true situation of the
+contracting parties. He, however, was too inexperienced, too
+thoughtful, too judicial, too strongly conscious of the serious side of
+the business, to enter into the scene in its dramatic aspect. That
+required the special genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways,
+Buzzford, and their fellows. But they knew nothing of the secret;
+though, as the time for coming out of church drew on, they gathered on
+the pavement adjoining, and expounded the subject according to their
+lights.
+
+“’Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this here
+town,” said Coney; “but daze me if I ever see a man wait so long before
+to take so little! There’s a chance even for thee after this, Nance
+Mockridge.” The remark was addressed to a woman who stood behind his
+shoulder—the same who had exhibited Henchard’s bad bread in public when
+Elizabeth and her mother entered Casterbridge.
+
+“Be cust if I’d marry any such as he, or thee either,” replied that
+lady. “As for thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and the less said
+the better. And as for he—well, there—(lowering her voice) ’tis said ’a
+was a poor parish ’prentice—I wouldn’t say it for all the world—but ’a
+was a poor parish ’prentice, that began life wi’ no more belonging to
+’en than a carrion crow.”
+
+“And now he’s worth ever so much a minute,” murmured Longways. “When a
+man is said to be worth so much a minute, he’s a man to be considered!”
+
+Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases, and
+recognized the smiling countenance of the fat woman who had asked for
+another song at the Three Mariners. “Well, Mother Cuxsom,” he said,
+“how’s this? Here’s Mrs. Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another
+husband to keep her, while a woman of your tonnage have not.”
+
+“I have not. Nor another to beat me.... Ah, yes, Cuxsom’s gone, and so
+shall leather breeches!”
+
+“Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go.”
+
+“’Tisn’t worth my old while to think of another husband,” continued
+Mrs. Cuxsom. “And yet I’ll lay my life I’m as respectable born as she.”
+
+“True; your mother was a very good woman—I can mind her. She were
+rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest
+number of healthy children without parish assistance, and other
+virtuous marvels.”
+
+“’Twas that that kept us so low upon ground—that great hungry family.”
+
+“Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin.”
+
+“And dostn’t mind how mother would sing, Christopher?” continued Mrs.
+Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; “and how we went with her to the
+party at Mellstock, do ye mind?—at old Dame Ledlow’s, farmer Shinar’s
+aunt, do ye mind?—she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were
+so yaller and freckled, do ye mind?”
+
+“I do, hee-hee, I do!” said Christopher Coney.
+
+“And well do I—for I was getting up husband-high at that time—one-half
+girl, and t’other half woman, as one may say. And canst mind”—she
+prodded Solomon’s shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled
+between the crevices of their lids—“canst mind the sherry-wine, and the
+zilver-snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were coming
+home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through the mud; and how
+’a let her fall in Dairyman Sweet-apple’s cow-barton, and we had to
+clane her gown wi’ grass—never such a mess as ’a were in?”
+
+“Ay—that I do—hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them ancient days,
+to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; and now I can hardly
+step over a furrow!”
+
+Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the reunited
+pair—Henchard looking round upon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze of
+his, which at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another
+fiery disdain.
+
+“Well—there’s a difference between ’em, though he do call himself a
+teetotaller,” said Nance Mockridge. “She’ll wish her cake dough afore
+she’s done of him. There’s a blue-beardy look about ’en; and ’twill out
+in time.”
+
+“Stuff—he’s well enough! Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had a
+choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn’t wish for a better man. A
+poor twanking woman like her—’tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair
+of jumps or night-rail to her name.”
+
+The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the idlers
+dispersed. “Well, we hardly know how to look at things in these times!”
+said Solomon. “There was a man dropped down dead yesterday, not so very
+many miles from here; and what wi’ that, and this moist weather, ’tis
+scarce worth one’s while to begin any work o’ consequence to-day. I’m
+in such a low key with drinking nothing but small table ninepenny this
+last week or two that I shall call and warm up at the Mar’ners as I
+pass along.”
+
+“I don’t know but that I may as well go with ’ee, Solomon,” said
+Christopher; “I’m as clammy as a cockle-snail.”
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard’s life set in with her entry into
+her husband’s large house and respectable social orbit; and it was as
+bright as such summers well can be. Lest she should pine for deeper
+affection than he could give he made a point of showing some semblance
+of it in external action. Among other things he had the iron railings,
+that had smiled sadly in dull rust for the last eighty years, painted a
+bright green, and the heavy-barred, small-paned Georgian sash windows
+enlivened with three coats of white. He was as kind to her as a man,
+mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. The house was large, the
+rooms lofty, and the landings wide; and the two unassuming women
+scarcely made a perceptible addition to its contents.
+
+To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one. The freedom she
+experienced, the indulgence with which she was treated, went beyond her
+expectations. The reposeful, easy, affluent life to which her mother’s
+marriage had introduced her was, in truth, the beginning of a great
+change in Elizabeth. She found she could have nice personal possessions
+and ornaments for the asking, and, as the mediæval saying puts it,
+“Take, have, and keep, are pleasant words.” With peace of mind came
+development, and with development beauty. Knowledge—the result of great
+natural insight—she did not lack; learning, accomplishment—those, alas,
+she had not; but as the winter and spring passed by her thin face and
+figure filled out in rounder and softer curves; the lines and
+contractions upon her young brow went away; the muddiness of skin which
+she had looked upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to
+abundance of good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. Perhaps,
+too, her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed an arch gaiety sometimes; but
+this was infrequent; the sort of wisdom which looked from their pupils
+did not readily keep company with these lighter moods. Like all people
+who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too
+irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram
+now and then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious
+reasoning to drop the habit suddenly. She felt none of those ups and
+downs of spirit which beset so many people without cause; never—to
+paraphrase a recent poet—never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane’s soul but she
+well knew how it came there; and her present cheerfulness was fairly
+proportionate to her solid guarantees for the same.
+
+It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming
+good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her
+life commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by
+dress. But no. The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth
+did was nowhere more conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To
+keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable
+a habit as to keep abreast of opportunity in matters of enterprise.
+This unsophisticated girl did it by an innate perceptiveness that was
+almost genius. Thus she refrained from bursting out like a water-flower
+that spring, and clothing herself in puffings and knick-knacks, as most
+of the Casterbridge girls would have done in her circumstances. Her
+triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse
+fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common
+among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and
+oppression.
+
+“I won’t be too gay on any account,” she would say to herself. “It
+would be tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us
+again as He used to do.”
+
+We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer,
+dark dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew
+the line at fringe, and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring
+for keeping it closed. It was odd about the necessity for that
+sunshade. She discovered that with the clarification of her complexion
+and the birth of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the
+sun’s rays. She protected those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness
+part of womanliness.
+
+Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more
+frequently than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so
+attractive that he looked at her critically.
+
+“I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up,” she faltered,
+thinking him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming she
+had donned for the first time.
+
+“Ay—of course—to be sure,” he replied in his leonine way. “Do as you
+like—or rather as your mother advises ye. ’Od send—I’ve nothing to say
+to’t!”
+
+Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched
+like a white rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was
+covered with a thick encampment of curls; all behind was dressed
+smoothly, and drawn to a knob.
+
+The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and
+Henchard was looking silently, as he often did, at this head of hair,
+which in colour was brown—rather light than dark. “I thought
+Elizabeth-Jane’s hair—didn’t you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane’s hair
+promised to be black when she was a baby?” he said to his wife.
+
+She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, “Did I?”
+
+As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. “Begad,
+I nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl’s hair
+certainly looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby.”
+
+“It did; but they alter so,” replied Susan.
+
+“Their hair gets darker, I know—but I wasn’t aware it lightened ever?”
+
+“O yes.” And the same uneasy expression came out on her face, to which
+the future held the key. It passed as Henchard went on:
+
+“Well, so much the better. Now Susan, I want to have her called Miss
+Henchard—not Miss Newson. Lots o’ people do it already in
+carelessness—it is her legal name—so it may as well be made her usual
+name—I don’t like t’other name at all for my own flesh and blood. I’ll
+advertise it in the Casterbridge paper—that’s the way they do it. She
+won’t object.”
+
+“No. O no. But—”
+
+“Well, then, I shall do it,” he said, peremptorily. “Surely, if she’s
+willing, you must wish it as much as I?”
+
+“O yes—if she agrees let us do it by all means,” she replied.
+
+Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might have been
+called falsely, but that her manner was emotional and full of the
+earnestness of one who wishes to do right at great hazard. She went to
+Elizabeth-Jane, whom she found sewing in her own sitting-room upstairs,
+and told her what had been proposed about her surname. “Can you
+agree—is it not a slight upon Newson—now he’s dead and gone?”
+
+Elizabeth reflected. “I’ll think of it, mother,” she answered.
+
+When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to the matter at
+once, in a way which showed that the line of feeling started by her
+mother had been persevered in. “Do you wish this change so very much,
+sir?” she asked.
+
+“Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women make about a
+trifle! I proposed it—that’s all. Now, ’Lizabeth-Jane, just please
+yourself. Curse me if I care what you do. Now, you understand, don’t
+’ee go agreeing to it to please me.”
+
+Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said, and nothing was
+done, and Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson, and not by her legal
+name.
+
+Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by Henchard throve
+under the management of Donald Farfrae as it had never thriven before.
+It had formerly moved in jolts; now it went on oiled casters. The old
+crude _vivâ voce_ system of Henchard, in which everything depended upon
+his memory, and bargains were made by the tongue alone, was swept away.
+Letters and ledgers took the place of “I’ll do’t,” and “you shall
+hae’t”; and, as in all such cases of advance, the rugged
+picturesqueness of the old method disappeared with its inconveniences.
+
+The position of Elizabeth-Jane’s room—rather high in the house, so that
+it commanded a view of the hay-stores and granaries across the
+garden—afforded her opportunity for accurate observation of what went
+on there. She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables. When
+walking together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on his manager’s
+shoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearing so heavily that
+his slight frame bent under the weight. Occasionally she would hear a
+perfect cannonade of laughter from Henchard, arising from something
+Donald had said, the latter looking quite innocent and not laughing at
+all. In Henchard’s somewhat lonely life he evidently found the young
+man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful for consultations.
+Donald’s brightness of intellect maintained in the corn-factor the
+admiration it had won at the first hour of their meeting. The poor
+opinion, and but ill-concealed, that he entertained of the slim
+Farfrae’s physical girth, strength, and dash was more than
+counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his brains.
+
+Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard’s tigerish affection for the
+younger man, his constant liking to have Farfrae near him, now and then
+resulted in a tendency to domineer, which, however, was checked in a
+moment when Donald exhibited marks of real offence. One day, looking
+down on their figures from on high, she heard the latter remark, as
+they stood in the doorway between the garden and yard, that their habit
+of walking and driving about together rather neutralized Farfrae’s
+value as a second pair of eyes, which should be used in places where
+the principal was not. “’Od damn it,” cried Henchard, “what’s all the
+world! I like a fellow to talk to. Now come along and hae some supper,
+and don’t take too much thought about things, or ye’ll drive me crazy.”
+
+When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she often beheld
+the Scotchman looking at them with a curious interest. The fact that he
+had met her at the Three Mariners was insufficient to account for it,
+since on the occasions on which she had entered his room he had never
+raised his eyes. Besides, it was at her mother more particularly than
+at herself that he looked, to Elizabeth-Jane’s half-conscious,
+simple-minded, perhaps pardonable, disappointment. Thus she could not
+account for this interest by her own attractiveness, and she decided
+that it might be apparent only—a way of turning his eyes that Mr.
+Farfrae had.
+
+She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner, without
+personal vanity, that was afforded by the fact of Donald being the
+depositary of Henchard’s confidence in respect of his past treatment of
+the pale, chastened mother who walked by her side. Her conjectures on
+that past never went further than faint ones based on things casually
+heard and seen—mere guesses that Henchard and her mother might have
+been lovers in their younger days, who had quarrelled and parted.
+
+Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in the block
+upon a corn-field. There was no suburb in the modern sense, or
+transitional intermixture of town and down. It stood, with regard to
+the wide fertile land adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a
+chess-board on a green tablecloth. The farmer’s boy could sit under his
+barley-mow and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk;
+reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on
+the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned a
+sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated in
+at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at
+executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the
+drop, out of which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the
+spectators room.
+
+The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was garnered by
+farmers who lived in an eastern purlieu called Durnover. Here
+wheat-ricks overhung the old Roman street, and thrust their eaves
+against the church tower; green-thatched barns, with doorways as high
+as the gates of Solomon’s temple, opened directly upon the main
+thoroughfare. Barns indeed were so numerous as to alternate with every
+half-dozen houses along the way. Here lived burgesses who daily walked
+the fallow; shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of farmers’
+homesteads—a street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing with
+the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the purr
+of the milk into the pails—a street which had nothing urban in it
+whatever—this was the Durnover end of Casterbridge.
+
+Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or bed of
+small farmers close at hand—and his waggons were often down that way.
+One day, when arrangements were in progress for getting home corn from
+one of the aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane received a note by hand,
+asking her to oblige the writer by coming at once to a granary on
+Durnover Hill. As this was the granary whose contents Henchard was
+removing, she thought the request had something to do with his
+business, and proceeded thither as soon as she had put on her bonnet.
+The granary was just within the farm-yard, and stood on stone staddles,
+high enough for persons to walk under. The gates were open, but nobody
+was within. However, she entered and waited. Presently she saw a figure
+approaching the gate—that of Donald Farfrae. He looked up at the church
+clock, and came in. By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to
+meet him there alone, she quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to
+the granary door, and entered it before he had seen her. Farfrae
+advanced, imagining himself in solitude, and a few drops of rain
+beginning to fall he moved and stood under the shelter where she had
+just been standing. Here he leant against one of the staddles, and gave
+himself up to patience. He, too, was plainly expecting some one; could
+it be herself? If so, why? In a few minutes he looked at his watch, and
+then pulled out a note, a duplicate of the one she had herself
+received.
+
+This situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she waited the
+more awkward it became. To emerge from a door just above his head and
+descend the ladder, and show she had been in hiding there, would look
+so very foolish that she still waited on. A winnowing machine stood
+close beside her, and to relieve her suspense she gently moved the
+handle; whereupon a cloud of wheat husks flew out into her face, and
+covered her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur of her
+victorine. He must have heard the slight movement for he looked up, and
+then ascended the steps.
+
+“Ah—it’s Miss Newson,” he said as soon as he could see into the
+granary. “I didn’t know you were there. I have kept the appointment,
+and am at your service.”
+
+“O Mr. Farfrae,” she faltered, “so have I. But I didn’t know it was you
+who wished to see me, otherwise I—”
+
+“I wished to see you? O no—at least, that is, I am afraid there may be
+a mistake.”
+
+“Didn’t you ask me to come here? Didn’t you write this?” Elizabeth held
+out her note.
+
+“No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it! And for you—didn’t
+you ask me? This is not your writing?” And he held up his.
+
+“By no means.”
+
+“And is that really so! Then it’s somebody wanting to see us both.
+Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer.”
+
+Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane’s face being
+arranged to an expression of preternatural composure, and the young
+Scot, at every footstep in the street without, looking from under the
+granary to see if the passer were about to enter and declare himself
+their summoner. They watched individual drops of rain creeping down the
+thatch of the opposite rick—straw after straw—till they reached the
+bottom; but nobody came, and the granary roof began to drip.
+
+“The person is not likely to be coming,” said Farfrae. “It’s a trick
+perhaps, and if so, it’s a great pity to waste our time like this, and
+so much to be done.”
+
+“’Tis a great liberty,” said Elizabeth.
+
+“It’s true, Miss Newson. We’ll hear news of this some day depend on’t,
+and who it was that did it. I wouldn’t stand for it hindering myself;
+but you, Miss Newson——”
+
+“I don’t mind—much,” she replied.
+
+“Neither do I.”
+
+They lapsed again into silence. “You are anxious to get back to
+Scotland, I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?” she inquired.
+
+“O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?”
+
+“I only supposed you might be from the song you sang at the Three
+Mariners—about Scotland and home, I mean—which you seemed to feel so
+deep down in your heart; so that we all felt for you.”
+
+“Ay—and I did sing there—I did—— But, Miss Newson”—and Donald’s voice
+musically undulated between two semi-tones as it always did when he
+became earnest—“it’s well you feel a song for a few minutes, and your
+eyes they get quite tearful; but you finish it, and for all you felt
+you don’t mind it or think of it again for a long while. O no, I don’t
+want to go back! Yet I’ll sing the song to you wi’ pleasure whenever
+you like. I could sing it now, and not mind at all?”
+
+“Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go—rain or no.”
+
+“Ay! Then, Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and
+take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be
+civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it—so you’ll take the
+clever person’s laugh away.” In speaking his eyes became fixed upon her
+dress, still sown with wheat husks. “There’s husks and dust on you.
+Perhaps you don’t know it?” he said, in tones of extreme delicacy. “And
+it’s very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there’s chaff on them.
+It washes in and spoils them. Let me help you—blowing is the best.”
+
+As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented Donald Farfrae began
+blowing her back hair, and her side hair, and her neck, and the crown
+of her bonnet, and the fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, “O,
+thank you,” at every puff. At last she was fairly clean, though
+Farfrae, having got over his first concern at the situation, seemed in
+no manner of hurry to be gone.
+
+“Ah—now I’ll go and get ye an umbrella,” he said.
+
+She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone. Farfrae walked slowly
+after, looking thoughtfully at her diminishing figure, and whistling in
+undertones, “As I came down through Cannobie.”
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+At first Miss Newson’s budding beauty was not regarded with much
+interest by anybody in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae’s gaze, it is true,
+was now attracted by the Mayor’s so-called stepdaughter, but he was
+only one. The truth is that she was but a poor illustrative instance of
+the prophet Baruch’s sly definition: “The virgin that loveth to go
+gay.”
+
+When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an inner chamber
+of ideas, and to have slight need for visible objects. She formed
+curious resolves on checking gay fancies in the matter of clothes,
+because it was inconsistent with her past life to blossom gaudily the
+moment she had become possessed of money. But nothing is more insidious
+than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere
+wishes. Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of delicately-tinted gloves
+one spring day. She wanted to wear them to show her appreciation of his
+kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize. As an artistic
+indulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet. When she had a
+bonnet that would go with the gloves she had no dress that would go
+with the bonnet. It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered
+the requisite article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with
+the dress. In for a penny in for a pound; she bought the sunshade, and
+the whole structure was at last complete.
+
+Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygone simplicity was
+the art that conceals art, the “delicate imposition” of Rochefoucauld;
+she had produced an effect, a contrast, and it had been done on
+purpose. As a matter of fact this was not true, but it had its result;
+for as soon as Casterbridge thought her artful it thought her worth
+notice. “It is the first time in my life that I have been so much
+admired,” she said to herself; “though perhaps it is by those whose
+admiration is not worth having.”
+
+But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogether the time was an
+exciting one; sex had never before asserted itself in her so strongly,
+for in former days she had perhaps been too impersonally human to be
+distinctively feminine. After an unprecedented success one day she came
+indoors, went upstairs, and leant upon her bed face downwards quite
+forgetting the possible creasing and damage. “Good Heaven,” she
+whispered, “can it be? Here am I setting up as the town beauty!”
+
+When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggerating
+appearances engendered a deep sadness. “There is something wrong in all
+this,” she mused. “If they only knew what an unfinished girl I am—that
+I can’t talk Italian, or use globes, or show any of the accomplishments
+they learn at boarding schools, how they would despise me! Better sell
+all this finery and buy myself grammar-books and dictionaries and a
+history of all the philosophies!”
+
+She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfrae in the hay-yard
+talking, with that impetuous cordiality on the Mayor’s part, and genial
+modesty on the younger man’s, that was now so generally observable in
+their intercourse. Friendship between man and man; what a rugged
+strength there was in it, as evinced by these two. And yet the seed
+that was to lift the foundation of this friendship was at that moment
+taking root in a chink of its structure.
+
+It was about six o’clock; the men were dropping off homeward one by
+one. The last to leave was a round-shouldered, blinking young man of
+nineteen or twenty, whose mouth fell ajar on the slightest provocation,
+seemingly because there was no chin to support it. Henchard called
+aloud to him as he went out of the gate, “Here—Abel Whittle!”
+
+Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. “Yes, sir,” he said, in
+breathless deprecation, as if he knew what was coming next.
+
+“Once more—be in time to-morrow morning. You see what’s to be done, and
+you hear what I say, and you know I’m not going to be trifled with any
+longer.”
+
+“Yes, sir.” Then Abel Whittle left, and Henchard and Farfrae; and
+Elizabeth saw no more of them.
+
+Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard’s part. Poor
+Abel, as he was called, had an inveterate habit of over-sleeping
+himself and coming late to his work. His anxious will was to be among
+the earliest; but if his comrades omitted to pull the string that he
+always tied round his great toe and left hanging out the window for
+that purpose, his will was as wind. He did not arrive in time.
+
+As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, or at the crane which
+lifted the sacks, or was one of those who had to accompany the waggons
+into the country to fetch away stacks that had been purchased, this
+affliction of Abel’s was productive of much inconvenience. For two
+mornings in the present week he had kept the others waiting nearly an
+hour; hence Henchard’s threat. It now remained to be seen what would
+happen to-morrow.
+
+Six o’clock struck, and there was no Whittle. At half-past six Henchard
+entered the yard; the waggon was horsed that Abel was to accompany; and
+the other man had been waiting twenty minutes. Then Henchard swore, and
+Whittle coming up breathless at that instant, the corn-factor turned on
+him, and declared with an oath that this was the last time; that if he
+were behind once more, by God, he would come and drag him out o’ bed.
+
+“There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!” said Abel,
+“especially in the inside, whereas my poor dumb brain gets as dead as a
+clot afore I’ve said my few scrags of prayers. Yes—it came on as a
+stripling, just afore I’d got man’s wages, whereas I never enjoy my bed
+at all, for no sooner do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore I be
+awake I be up. I’ve fretted my gizzard green about it, maister, but
+what can I do? Now last night, afore I went to bed, I only had a
+scantling o’ cheese and—”
+
+“I don’t want to hear it!” roared Henchard. “To-morrow the waggons must
+start at four, and if you’re not here, stand clear. I’ll mortify thy
+flesh for thee!”
+
+“But let me clear up my points, your worshipful——”
+
+Henchard turned away.
+
+“He asked me and he questioned me, and then ’a wouldn’t hear my
+points!” said Abel, to the yard in general. “Now, I shall twitch like a
+moment-hand all night to-night for fear o’ him!”
+
+The journey to be taken by the waggons next day was a long one into
+Blackmoor Vale, and at four o’clock lanterns were moving about the
+yard. But Abel was missing. Before either of the other men could run to
+Abel’s and warn him Henchard appeared in the garden doorway. “Where’s
+Abel Whittle? Not come after all I’ve said? Now I’ll carry out my word,
+by my blessed fathers—nothing else will do him any good! I’m going up
+that way.”
+
+Henchard went off, entered Abel’s house, a little cottage in Back
+Street, the door of which was never locked because the inmates had
+nothing to lose. Reaching Whittle’s bedside the corn-factor shouted a
+bass note so vigorously that Abel started up instantly, and beholding
+Henchard standing over him, was galvanized into spasmodic movements
+which had not much relation to getting on his clothes.
+
+“Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, or you leave my employ
+to-day! ’Tis to teach ye a lesson. March on; never mind your breeches!”
+
+The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat, and managed to get
+into his boots at the bottom of the stairs, while Henchard thrust his
+hat over his head. Whittle then trotted on down Back Street, Henchard
+walking sternly behind.
+
+Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard’s house to look for
+him, came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in
+the morning gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel’s shirt
+that showed below his waistcoat.
+
+“For maircy’s sake, what object’s this?” said Farfrae, following Abel
+into the yard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time.
+
+“Ye see, Mr. Farfrae,” gibbered Abel with a resigned smile of terror,
+“he said he’d mortify my flesh if so be I didn’t get up sooner, and now
+he’s a-doing on’t! Ye see it can’t be helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do
+happen queer sometimes! Yes—I’ll go to Blackmoor Vale half naked as I
+be, since he do command; but I shall kill myself afterwards; I can’t
+outlive the disgrace, for the women-folk will be looking out of their
+winders at my mortification all the way along, and laughing me to scorn
+as a man ’ithout breeches! You know how I feel such things, Maister
+Farfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold upon me. Yes—I shall do
+myself harm—I feel it coming on!”
+
+“Get back home, and slip on your breeches, and come to wark like a man!
+If ye go not, you’ll ha’e your death standing there!”
+
+“I’m afeard I mustn’t! Mr. Henchard said——”
+
+“I don’t care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else! ’Tis simple
+foolishness to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle.”
+
+“Hullo, hullo!” said Henchard, coming up behind. “Who’s sending him
+back?”
+
+All the men looked towards Farfrae.
+
+“I am,” said Donald. “I say this joke has been carried far enough.”
+
+“And I say it hasn’t! Get up in the waggon, Whittle.”
+
+“Not if I am manager,” said Farfrae. “He either goes home, or I march
+out of this yard for good.”
+
+Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red. But he paused for a
+moment, and their eyes met. Donald went up to him, for he saw in
+Henchard’s look that he began to regret this.
+
+“Come,” said Donald quietly, “a man o’ your position should ken better,
+sir! It is tyrannical and no worthy of you.”
+
+“’Tis not tyrannical!” murmured Henchard, like a sullen boy. “It is to
+make him remember!” He presently added, in a tone of one bitterly hurt:
+“Why did you speak to me before them like that, Farfrae? You might have
+stopped till we were alone. Ah—I know why! I’ve told ye the secret o’
+my life—fool that I was to do’t—and you take advantage of me!”
+
+“I had forgot it,” said Farfrae simply.
+
+Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more, and turned away.
+During the day Farfrae learnt from the men that Henchard had kept
+Abel’s old mother in coals and snuff all the previous winter, which
+made him less antagonistic to the corn-factor. But Henchard continued
+moody and silent, and when one of the men inquired of him if some oats
+should be hoisted to an upper floor or not, he said shortly, “Ask Mr.
+Farfrae. He’s master here!”
+
+Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it. Henchard, who had
+hitherto been the most admired man in his circle, was the most admired
+no longer. One day the daughters of a deceased farmer in Durnover
+wanted an opinion of the value of their haystack, and sent a messenger
+to ask Mr. Farfrae to oblige them with one. The messenger, who was a
+child, met in the yard not Farfrae, but Henchard.
+
+“Very well,” he said. “I’ll come.”
+
+“But please will Mr. Farfrae come?” said the child.
+
+“I am going that way.... Why Mr. Farfrae?” said Henchard, with the
+fixed look of thought. “Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?”
+
+“I suppose because they like him so—that’s what they say.”
+
+“Oh—I see—that’s what they say—hey? They like him because he’s cleverer
+than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and, in short, Mr.
+Henchard can’t hold a candle to him—hey?”
+
+“Yes—that’s just it, sir—some of it.”
+
+“Oh, there’s more? Of course there’s more! What besides? Come, here’s a
+sixpence for a fairing.”
+
+“‘And he’s better tempered, and Henchard’s a fool to him,’ they say.
+And when some of the women were a-walking home they said, ‘He’s a
+diment—he’s a chap o’ wax—he’s the best—he’s the horse for my money,’
+says they. And they said, ‘He’s the most understanding man o’ them two
+by long chalks. I wish he was the master instead of Henchard,’ they
+said.”
+
+“They’ll talk any nonsense,” Henchard replied with covered gloom.
+“Well, you can go now. And _I_ am coming to value the hay, d’ye
+hear?—I.” The boy departed, and Henchard murmured, “Wish he were master
+here, do they?”
+
+He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtook Farfrae. They walked
+on together, Henchard looking mostly on the ground.
+
+“You’re no yoursel’ the day?” Donald inquired.
+
+“Yes, I am very well,” said Henchard.
+
+“But ye are a bit down—surely ye are down? Why, there’s nothing to be
+angry about! ’Tis splendid stuff that we’ve got from Blackmoor Vale. By
+the by, the people in Durnover want their hay valued.”
+
+“Yes. I am going there.”
+
+“I’ll go with ye.”
+
+As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music _sotto
+voce_, till, getting near the bereaved people’s door, he stopped
+himself with—
+
+“Ah, as their father is dead I won’t go on with such as that. How could
+I forget?”
+
+“Do you care so very much about hurting folks’ feelings?” observed
+Henchard with a half sneer. “You do, I know—especially mine!”
+
+“I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir,” replied Donald, standing still,
+with a second expression of the same sentiment in the regretfulness of
+his face. “Why should you say it—think it?”
+
+The cloud lifted from Henchard’s brow, and as Donald finished the
+corn-merchant turned to him, regarding his breast rather than his face.
+
+“I have been hearing things that vexed me,” he said. “’Twas that made
+me short in my manner—made me overlook what you really are. Now, I
+don’t want to go in here about this hay—Farfrae, you can do it better
+than I. They sent for ’ee, too. I have to attend a meeting of the Town
+Council at eleven, and ’tis drawing on for’t.”
+
+They parted thus in renewed friendship, Donald forbearing to ask
+Henchard for meanings that were not very plain to him. On Henchard’s
+part there was now again repose; and yet, whenever he thought of
+Farfrae, it was with a dim dread; and he often regretted that he had
+told the young man his whole heart, and confided to him the secrets of
+his life.
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+On this account Henchard’s manner towards Farfrae insensibly became
+more reserved. He was courteous—too courteous—and Farfrae was quite
+surprised at the good breeding which now for the first time showed
+itself among the qualities of a man he had hitherto thought
+undisciplined, if warm and sincere. The corn-factor seldom or never
+again put his arm upon the young man’s shoulder so as to nearly weigh
+him down with the pressure of mechanized friendship. He left off coming
+to Donald’s lodgings and shouting into the passage. “Hoy, Farfrae, boy,
+come and have some dinner with us! Don’t sit here in solitary
+confinement!” But in the daily routine of their business there was
+little change.
+
+Thus their lives rolled on till a day of public rejoicing was suggested
+to the country at large in celebration of a national event that had
+recently taken place.
+
+For some time Casterbridge, by nature slow, made no response. Then one
+day Donald Farfrae broached the subject to Henchard by asking if he
+would have any objection to lend some rick-cloths to himself and a few
+others, who contemplated getting up an entertainment of some sort on
+the day named, and required a shelter for the same, to which they might
+charge admission at the rate of so much a head.
+
+“Have as many cloths as you like,” Henchard replied.
+
+When his manager had gone about the business Henchard was fired with
+emulation. It certainly had been very remiss of him, as Mayor, he
+thought, to call no meeting ere this, to discuss what should be done on
+this holiday. But Farfrae had been so cursed quick in his movements as
+to give old-fashioned people in authority no chance of the initiative.
+However, it was not too late; and on second thoughts he determined to
+take upon his own shoulders the responsibility of organizing some
+amusements, if the other Councilmen would leave the matter in his
+hands. To this they quite readily agreed, the majority being fine old
+crusted characters who had a decided taste for living without worry.
+
+So Henchard set about his preparations for a really brilliant
+thing—such as should be worthy of the venerable town. As for Farfrae’s
+little affair, Henchard nearly forgot it; except once now and then
+when, on it coming into his mind, he said to himself, “Charge admission
+at so much a head—just like a Scotchman!—who is going to pay anything a
+head?” The diversions which the Mayor intended to provide were to be
+entirely free.
+
+He had grown so dependent upon Donald that he could scarcely resist
+calling him in to consult. But by sheer self-coercion he refrained. No,
+he thought, Farfrae would be suggesting such improvements in his damned
+luminous way that in spite of himself he, Henchard, would sink to the
+position of second fiddle, and only scrape harmonies to his manager’s
+talents.
+
+Everybody applauded the Mayor’s proposed entertainment, especially when
+it became known that he meant to pay for it all himself.
+
+Close to the town was an elevated green spot surrounded by an ancient
+square earthwork—earthworks square and not square, were as common as
+blackberries hereabout—a spot whereon the Casterbridge people usually
+held any kind of merry-making, meeting, or sheep-fair that required
+more space than the streets would afford. On one side it sloped to the
+river Froom, and from any point a view was obtained of the country
+round for many miles. This pleasant upland was to be the scene of
+Henchard’s exploit.
+
+He advertised about the town, in long posters of a pink colour, that
+games of all sorts would take place here; and set to work a little
+battalion of men under his own eye. They erected greasy-poles for
+climbing, with smoked hams and local cheeses at the top. They placed
+hurdles in rows for jumping over; across the river they laid a slippery
+pole, with a live pig of the neighbourhood tied at the other end, to
+become the property of the man who could walk over and get it. There
+were also provided wheelbarrows for racing, donkeys for the same, a
+stage for boxing, wrestling, and drawing blood generally; sacks for
+jumping in. Moreover, not forgetting his principles, Henchard provided
+a mammoth tea, of which everybody who lived in the borough was invited
+to partake without payment. The tables were laid parallel with the
+inner slope of the rampart, and awnings were stretched overhead.
+
+Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of
+Farfrae’s erection in the West Walk, rick-cloths of different sizes and
+colours being hung up to the arching trees without any regard to
+appearance. He was easy in his mind now, for his own preparations far
+transcended these.
+
+The morning came. The sky, which had been remarkably clear down to
+within a day or two, was overcast, and the weather threatening, the
+wind having an unmistakable hint of water in it. Henchard wished he had
+not been quite so sure about the continuance of a fair season. But it
+was too late to modify or postpone, and the proceedings went on. At
+twelve o’clock the rain began to fall, small and steady, commencing and
+increasing so insensibly that it was difficult to state exactly when
+dry weather ended or wet established itself. In an hour the slight
+moisture resolved itself into a monotonous smiting of earth by heaven,
+in torrents to which no end could be prognosticated.
+
+A number of people had heroically gathered in the field but by three
+o’clock Henchard discerned that his project was doomed to end in
+failure. The hams at the top of the poles dripped watered smoke in the
+form of a brown liquor, the pig shivered in the wind, the grain of the
+deal tables showed through the sticking tablecloths, for the awning
+allowed the rain to drift under at its will, and to enclose the sides
+at this hour seemed a useless undertaking. The landscape over the river
+disappeared; the wind played on the tent-cords in Æolian
+improvisations, and at length rose to such a pitch that the whole
+erection slanted to the ground those who had taken shelter within it
+having to crawl out on their hands and knees.
+
+But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breeze shook the moisture
+from the grass bents. It seemed possible to carry out the programme
+after all. The awning was set up again; the band was called out from
+its shelter, and ordered to begin, and where the tables had stood a
+place was cleared for dancing.
+
+“But where are the folk?” said Henchard, after the lapse of
+half-an-hour, during which time only two men and a woman had stood up
+to dance. “The shops are all shut. Why don’t they come?”
+
+“They are at Farfrae’s affair in the West Walk,” answered a Councilman
+who stood in the field with the Mayor.
+
+“A few, I suppose. But where are the body o’ ’em?”
+
+“All out of doors are there.”
+
+“Then the more fools they!”
+
+Henchard walked away moodily. One or two young fellows gallantly came
+to climb the poles, to save the hams from being wasted; but as there
+were no spectators, and the whole scene presented the most melancholy
+appearance Henchard gave orders that the proceedings were to be
+suspended, and the entertainment closed, the food to be distributed
+among the poor people of the town. In a short time nothing was left in
+the field but a few hurdles, the tents, and the poles.
+
+Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wife and daughter, and
+then walked out. It was now dusk. He soon saw that the tendency of all
+promenaders was towards a particular spot in the Walks, and eventually
+proceeded thither himself. The notes of a stringed band came from the
+enclosure that Farfrae had erected—the pavilion as he called it—and
+when the Mayor reached it he perceived that a gigantic tent had been
+ingeniously constructed without poles or ropes. The densest point of
+the avenue of sycamores had been selected, where the boughs made a
+closely interlaced vault overhead; to these boughs the canvas had been
+hung, and a barrel roof was the result. The end towards the wind was
+enclosed, the other end was open. Henchard went round and saw the
+interior.
+
+In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but
+the scene within was anything but devotional. A reel or fling of some
+sort was in progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst
+of the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging
+himself about and spinning to the tune. For a moment Henchard could not
+help laughing. Then he perceived the immense admiration for the
+Scotchman that revealed itself in the women’s faces; and when this
+exhibition was over, and a new dance proposed, and Donald had
+disappeared for a time to return in his natural garments, he had an
+unlimited choice of partners, every girl being in a coming-on
+disposition towards one who so thoroughly understood the poetry of
+motion as he.
+
+All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom
+never having occurred to the inhabitants before. Among the rest of the
+onlookers were Elizabeth and her mother—the former thoughtful yet much
+interested, her eyes beaming with a longing lingering light, as if
+Nature had been advised by Correggio in their creation. The dancing
+progressed with unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and waited till
+his wife should be disposed to go home. He did not care to keep in the
+light, and when he went into the dark it was worse, for there he heard
+remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:
+
+“Mr. Henchard’s rejoicings couldn’t say good morning to this,” said
+one. “A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk would go up to
+that bleak place to-day.”
+
+The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as
+those that the Mayor was wanting. “Where would his business be if it
+were not for this young fellow? ’Twas verily Fortune sent him to
+Henchard. His accounts were like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came.
+He used to reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like
+garden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh
+his trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the price
+with a curse. But now this accomplished young man does it all by
+ciphering and mensuration. Then the wheat—that sometimes used to taste
+so strong o’ mice when made into bread that people could fairly tell
+the breed—Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream
+the smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once. O yes,
+everybody is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to
+be sure!” concluded this gentleman.
+
+“But he won’t do it for long, good-now,” said the other.
+
+“No!” said Henchard to himself behind the tree. “Or if he do, he’ll be
+honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that he’s built
+up in these eighteen year!”
+
+He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfrae was footing a quaint
+little dance with Elizabeth-Jane—an old country thing, the only one she
+knew, and though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her
+demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of
+his boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander. The tune had
+enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leaping
+sort—some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle, then a
+skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders—“Miss M’Leod of
+Ayr” was its name, so Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it was very
+popular in his own country.
+
+It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchard for approval; but he
+did not give it. He seemed not to see her. “Look here, Farfrae,” he
+said, like one whose mind was elsewhere, “I’ll go to Port-Bredy Great
+Market to-morrow myself. You can stay and put things right in your
+clothes-box, and recover strength to your knees after your vagaries.”
+He planted on Donald an antagonistic glare that had begun as a smile.
+
+Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside. “What’s this,
+Henchard,” said Alderman Tubber, applying his thumb to the corn-factor
+like a cheese-taster. “An opposition randy to yours, eh? Jack’s as good
+as his master, eh? Cut ye out quite, hasn’t he?”
+
+“You see, Mr. Henchard,” said the lawyer, another goodnatured friend,
+“where you made the mistake was in going so far afield. You should have
+taken a leaf out of his book, and have had your sports in a sheltered
+place like this. But you didn’t think of it, you see; and he did, and
+that’s where he’s beat you.”
+
+“He’ll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore him,” added
+jocular Mr. Tubber.
+
+“No,” said Henchard gloomily. “He won’t be that, because he’s shortly
+going to leave me.” He looked towards Donald, who had come near. “Mr.
+Farfrae’s time as my manager is drawing to a close—isn’t it, Farfrae?”
+
+The young man, who could now read the lines and folds of Henchard’s
+strongly-traced face as if they were clear verbal inscriptions, quietly
+assented; and when people deplored the fact, and asked why it was, he
+simply replied that Mr. Henchard no longer required his help.
+
+Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. But in the morning, when his
+jealous temper had passed away, his heart sank within him at what he
+had said and done. He was the more disturbed when he found that this
+time Farfrae was determined to take him at his word.
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard’s manner that in assenting
+to dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In her simplicity she did
+not know what it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintance
+enlightened her. As the Mayor’s stepdaughter, she learnt, she had not
+been quite in her place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng
+as filled the dancing pavilion.
+
+Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals at the
+dawning of the idea that her tastes were not good enough for her
+position, and would bring her into disgrace.
+
+This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her mother; but
+Mrs. Henchard, who had less idea of conventionality than Elizabeth
+herself, had gone away, leaving her daughter to return at her own
+pleasure. The latter moved on into the dark dense old avenues, or
+rather vaults of living woodwork, which ran along the town boundary,
+and stood reflecting.
+
+A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards the shine
+from the tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae—just come from the
+dialogue with Henchard which had signified his dismissal.
+
+“And it’s you, Miss Newson?—and I’ve been looking for ye everywhere!”
+he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the estrangement with the
+corn-merchant. “May I walk on with you as far as your street-corner?”
+
+She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did not utter
+any objection. So together they went on, first down the West Walk, and
+then into the Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, “It’s like that I’m
+going to leave you soon.”
+
+She faltered, “Why?”
+
+“Oh—as a mere matter of business—nothing more. But we’ll not concern
+ourselves about it—it is for the best. I hoped to have another dance
+with you.”
+
+She said she could not dance—in any proper way.
+
+“Nay, but you do! It’s the feeling for it rather than the learning of
+steps that makes pleasant dancers.... I fear I offended your father by
+getting up this! And now, perhaps, I’ll have to go to another part o’
+the warrld altogether!”
+
+This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane breathed a
+sigh—letting it off in fragments that he might not hear her. But
+darkness makes people truthful, and the Scotchman went on
+impulsively—perhaps he had heard her after all:
+
+“I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had not been
+offended, I would ask you something in a short time—yes, I would ask
+you to-night. But that’s not for me!”
+
+What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of encouraging
+him she remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid one of another they
+continued their promenade along the walls till they got near the bottom
+of the Bowling Walk; twenty steps further and the trees would end, and
+the street-corner and lamps appear. In consciousness of this they
+stopped.
+
+“I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover granary on a
+fool’s errand that day,” said Donald, in his undulating tones. “Did ye
+ever know yourself, Miss Newson?”
+
+“Never,” said she.
+
+“I wonder why they did it!”
+
+“For fun, perhaps.”
+
+“Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they thought they
+would like us to stay waiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well!
+I hope you Casterbridge folk will not forget me if I go.”
+
+“That I’m sure we won’t!” she said earnestly. “I—wish you wouldn’t go
+at all.”
+
+They had got into the lamplight. “Now, I’ll think over that,” said
+Donald Farfrae. “And I’ll not come up to your door; but part from you
+here; lest it make your father more angry still.”
+
+They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk, and
+Elizabeth-Jane going up the street. Without any consciousness of what
+she was doing she started running with all her might till she reached
+her father’s door. “O dear me—what am I at?” she thought, as she pulled
+up breathless.
+
+Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae’s enigmatic
+words about not daring to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, that
+silent observing woman, had long noted how he was rising in favour
+among the townspeople; and knowing Henchard’s nature now she had feared
+that Farfrae’s days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement
+gave her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge
+despite his words and her father’s dismissal? His occult breathings to
+her might be solvable by his course in that respect.
+
+The next day was windy—so windy that walking in the garden she picked
+up a portion of the draft of a letter on business in Donald Farfrae’s
+writing, which had flown over the wall from the office. The useless
+scrap she took indoors, and began to copy the calligraphy, which she
+much admired. The letter began “Dear Sir,” and presently writing on a
+loose slip “Elizabeth-Jane,” she laid the latter over “Sir,” making the
+phrase “Dear Elizabeth-Jane.” When she saw the effect a quick red ran
+up her face and warmed her through, though nobody was there to see what
+she had done. She quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After
+this she grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and
+laughed again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.
+
+It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and Henchard had
+decided to dispense with each other. Elizabeth-Jane’s anxiety to know
+if Farfrae were going away from the town reached a pitch that disturbed
+her, for she could no longer conceal from herself the cause. At length
+the news reached her that he was not going to leave the place. A man
+following the same trade as Henchard, but on a very small scale, had
+sold his business to Farfrae, who was forthwith about to start as corn
+and hay merchant on his own account.
+
+Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald’s, proving
+that he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who cared one little bit
+for her have endangered his suit by setting up a business in opposition
+to Mr. Henchard’s? Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse
+only which had led him to address her so softly.
+
+To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance
+were such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed
+herself up exactly as she had dressed then—the muslin, the spencer, the
+sandals, the parasol—and looked in the mirror. The picture glassed back
+was in her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire that
+fleeting regard, and no more—“just enough to make him silly, and not
+enough to keep him so,” she said luminously; and Elizabeth thought, in
+a much lower key, that by this time he had discovered how plain and
+homely was the informing spirit of that pretty outside.
+
+Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would say to
+herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, “No, no,
+Elizabeth-Jane—such dreams are not for you!” She tried to prevent
+herself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in
+the former attempt, in the latter not so completely.
+
+Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not mean to put
+up with his temper any longer, was incensed beyond measure when he
+learnt what the young man had done as an alternative. It was in the
+town-hall, after a council meeting, that he first became aware of
+Farfrae’s _coup_ for establishing himself independently in the town;
+and his voice might have been heard as far as the town-pump expressing
+his feelings to his fellow councilmen. These tones showed that, though
+under a long reign of self-control he had become Mayor and churchwarden
+and what not, there was still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneath
+the rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon
+Fair.
+
+“Well, he’s a friend of mine, and I’m a friend of his—or if we are not,
+what are we? ’Od send, if I’ve not been his friend, who has, I should
+like to know? Didn’t he come here without a sound shoe to his voot?
+Didn’t I keep him here—help him to a living? Didn’t I help him to
+money, or whatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms—I said ‘Name
+your own price.’ I’d have shared my last crust with that young fellow
+at one time, I liked him so well. And now he’s defied me! But damn him,
+I’ll have a tussle with him now—at fair buying and selling, mind—at
+fair buying and selling! And if I can’t overbid such a stripling as he,
+then I’m not wo’th a varden! We’ll show that we know our business as
+well as one here and there!”
+
+His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond. Henchard was
+less popular now than he had been when nearly two years before, they
+had voted him to the chief magistracy on account of his amazing energy.
+While they had collectively profited by this quality of the
+corn-factor’s they had been made to wince individually on more than one
+occasion. So he went out of the hall and down the street alone.
+
+Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour
+satisfaction. He called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he looked when she
+entered she appeared alarmed.
+
+“Nothing to find fault with,” he said, observing her concern. “Only I
+want to caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae—it is about him. I’ve
+seen him talking to you two or three times—he danced with ’ee at the
+rejoicings, and came home with ’ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just
+harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least bit
+beyond sniff and snaff at all?”
+
+“No. I have promised him nothing.”
+
+“Good. All’s well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to see
+him again.”
+
+“Very well, sir.”
+
+“You promise?”
+
+She hesitated for a moment, and then said—
+
+“Yes, if you much wish it.”
+
+“I do. He’s an enemy to our house!”
+
+When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to Farfrae
+thus:—
+
+Sir,—I make request that henceforth you and my stepdaughter be as
+strangers to each other. She on her part has promised to welcome no
+more addresses from you; and I trust, therefore, you will not attempt
+to force them upon her.
+
+
+M. HENCHARD.
+
+
+One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy to see that
+no better _modus vivendi_ could be arrived at with Farfrae than by
+encouraging him to become his son-in-law. But such a scheme for buying
+over a rival had nothing to recommend it to the Mayor’s headstrong
+faculties. With all domestic _finesse_ of that kind he was hopelessly
+at variance. Loving a man or hating him, his diplomacy was as
+wrongheaded as a buffalo’s; and his wife had not ventured to suggest
+the course which she, for many reasons, would have welcomed gladly.
+
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on his own
+account at a spot on Durnover Hill—as far as possible from Henchard’s
+stores, and with every intention of keeping clear of his former friend
+and employer’s customers. There was, it seemed to the younger man, room
+for both of them and to spare. The town was small, but the corn and
+hay-trade was proportionately large, and with his native sagacity he
+saw opportunity for a share of it.
+
+So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like
+trade-antagonism to the Mayor that he refused his first customer—a
+large farmer of good repute—because Henchard and this man had dealt
+together within the preceding three months.
+
+“He was once my friend,” said Farfrae, “and it’s not for me to take
+business from him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot hurt the
+trade of a man who’s been so kind to me.”
+
+In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman’s trade increased.
+Whether it were that his northern energy was an overmastering force
+among the easy-going Wessex worthies, or whether it was sheer luck, the
+fact remained that whatever he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob in
+Padan-Aram, he would no sooner humbly limit himself to the
+ringstraked-and-spotted exceptions of trade than the
+ringstraked-and-spotted would multiply and prevail.
+
+But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character is Fate,
+said Novalis, and Farfrae’s character was just the reverse of
+Henchard’s, who might not inaptly be described as Faust has been
+described—as a vehement gloomy being who had quitted the ways of vulgar
+men without light to guide him on a better way.
+
+Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions to
+Elizabeth-Jane. His acts of that kind had been so slight that the
+request was almost superfluous. Yet he had felt a considerable interest
+in her, and after some cogitation he decided that it would be as well
+to enact no Romeo part just then—for the young girl’s sake no less than
+his own. Thus the incipient attachment was stifled down.
+
+A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as he might,
+Farfrae was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to close with Henchard in
+mortal commercial combat. He could no longer parry the fierce attacks
+of the latter by simple avoidance. As soon as their war of prices began
+everybody was interested, and some few guessed the end. It was, in some
+degree, Northern insight matched against Southern doggedness—the dirk
+against the cudgel—and Henchard’s weapon was one which, if it did not
+deal ruin at the first or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh
+at his antagonist’s mercy.
+
+Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the crowd of
+farmers which thronged about the market-place in the weekly course of
+their business. Donald was always ready, and even anxious, to say a few
+friendly words, but the Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him,
+like one who had endured and lost on his account, and could in no sense
+forgive the wrong; nor did Farfrae’s snubbed manner of perplexity at
+all appease him. The large farmers, corn-merchants, millers,
+auctioneers, and others had each an official stall in the corn-market
+room, with their names painted thereon; and when to the familiar series
+of “Henchard,” “Everdene,” “Shiner,” “Darton,” and so on, was added one
+inscribed “Farfrae,” in staring new letters, Henchard was stung into
+bitterness; like Bellerophon, he wandered away from the crowd, cankered
+in soul.
+
+From that day Donald Farfrae’s name was seldom mentioned in Henchard’s
+house. If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth-Jane’s mother inadvertently
+alluded to her favourite’s movements, the girl would implore her by a
+look to be silent; and her husband would say, “What—are you, too, my
+enemy?”
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+There came a shock which had been foreseen for some time by Elizabeth,
+as the box passenger foresees the approaching jerk from some channel
+across the highway.
+
+Her mother was ill—too unwell to leave her room. Henchard, who treated
+her kindly, except in moments of irritation, sent at once for the
+richest, busiest doctor, whom he supposed to be the best. Bedtime came,
+and they burnt a light all night. In a day or two she rallied.
+
+Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appear at breakfast on the
+second morning, and Henchard sat down alone. He was startled to see a
+letter for him from Jersey in a writing he knew too well, and had
+expected least to behold again. He took it up in his hands and looked
+at it as at a picture, a vision, a vista of past enactments; and then
+he read it as an unimportant finale to conjecture.
+
+The writer said that she at length perceived how impossible it would be
+for any further communications to proceed between them now that his
+re-marriage had taken place. That such reunion had been the only
+straightforward course open to him she was bound to admit.
+
+“On calm reflection, therefore,” she went on, “I quite forgive you for
+landing me in such a dilemma, remembering that you concealed nothing
+before our ill-advised acquaintance; and that you really did set before
+me in your grim way the fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy
+with you, slight as it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen years of
+silence on your wife’s part. I thus look upon the whole as a misfortune
+of mine, and not a fault of yours.
+
+“So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlook those letters with which
+I pestered you day after day in the heat of my feelings. They were
+written whilst I thought your conduct to me cruel; but now I know more
+particulars of the position you were in I see how inconsiderate my
+reproaches were.
+
+“Now you will, I am sure, perceive that the one condition which will
+make any future happiness possible for me is that the past connection
+between our lives be kept secret outside this isle. Speak of it I know
+you will not; and I can trust you not to write of it. One safe-guard
+more remains to be mentioned—that no writings of mine, or trifling
+articles belonging to me, should be left in your possession through
+neglect or forgetfulness. To this end may I request you to return to me
+any such you may have, particularly the letters written in the first
+abandonment of feeling.
+
+“For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to the wound I
+heartily thank you.
+
+“I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my only relative. She is rich,
+and I hope will do something for me. I shall return through
+Casterbridge and Budmouth, where I shall take the packet-boat. Can you
+meet me with the letters and other trifles? I shall be in the coach
+which changes horses at the Antelope Hotel at half-past five Wednesday
+evening; I shall be wearing a Paisley shawl with a red centre, and thus
+may easily be found. I should prefer this plan of receiving them to
+having them sent.—I remain still, yours; ever,
+
+“LUCETTA”
+
+Henchard breathed heavily. “Poor thing—better you had not known me!
+Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a position to carry
+out that marriage with thee, I _ought_ to do it—I ought to do it,
+indeed!”
+
+The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course, the death of
+Mrs. Henchard.
+
+As requested, he sealed up Lucetta’s letters, and put the parcel aside
+till the day she had appointed; this plan of returning them by hand
+being apparently a little _ruse_ of the young lady for exchanging a
+word or two with him on past times. He would have preferred not to see
+her; but deeming that there could be no great harm in acquiescing thus
+far, he went at dusk and stood opposite the coach-office.
+
+The evening was chilly, and the coach was late. Henchard crossed over
+to it while the horses were being changed; but there was no Lucetta
+inside or out. Concluding that something had happened to modify her
+arrangements he gave the matter up and went home, not without a sense
+of relief. Meanwhile Mrs. Henchard was weakening visibly. She could not
+go out of doors any more. One day, after much thinking which seemed to
+distress her, she said she wanted to write something. A desk was put
+upon her bed with pen and paper, and at her request she was left alone.
+She remained writing for a short time, folded her paper carefully,
+called Elizabeth-Jane to bring a taper and wax, and then, still
+refusing assistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and locked it in
+her desk. She had directed it in these words:—
+
+“_Mr. Michael Henchard. Not to be opened till Elizabeth-Jane’s
+wedding-day._”
+
+The latter sat up with her mother to the utmost of her strength night
+after night. To learn to take the universe seriously there is no
+quicker way than to watch—to be a “waker,” as the country-people call
+it. Between the hours at which the last toss-pot went by and the first
+sparrow shook himself, the silence in Casterbridge—barring the rare
+sound of the watchman—was broken in Elizabeth’s ear only by the
+time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on the
+stairs; ticking harder and harder till it seemed to clang like a gong;
+and all this while the subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was
+born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things
+around her had taken the shape they wore in preference to every other
+possible shape. Why they stared at her so helplessly, as if waiting for
+the touch of some wand that should release them from terrestrial
+constraint; what that chaos called consciousness, which spun in her at
+this moment like a top, tended to, and began in. Her eyes fell
+together; she was awake, yet she was asleep.
+
+A word from her mother roused her. Without preface, and as the
+continuation of a scene already progressing in her mind, Mrs. Henchard
+said: “You remember the note sent to you and Mr. Farfrae—asking you to
+meet some one in Durnover Barton—and that you thought it was a trick to
+make fools of you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It was not to make fools of you—it was done to bring you together.
+’Twas I did it.”
+
+“Why?” said Elizabeth, with a start.
+
+“I—wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae.”
+
+“O mother!” Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that she looked
+quite into her own lap. But as her mother did not go on, she said,
+“What reason?”
+
+“Well, I had a reason. ’Twill out one day. I wish it could have been in
+my time! But there—nothing is as you wish it! Henchard hates him.”
+
+“Perhaps they’ll be friends again,” murmured the girl.
+
+“I don’t know—I don’t know.” After this her mother was silent, and
+dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.
+
+Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard’s house on a
+Sunday morning, when he observed that the blinds were all down. He rang
+the bell so softly that it only sounded a single full note and a small
+one; and then he was informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead—just
+dead—that very hour.
+
+At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old
+inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had, as at present,
+spare time to fetch it, because it was purer from that original fount
+than from their own wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had been standing there for
+an indefinite time with her pitcher, was describing the incidents of
+Mrs. Henchard’s death, as she had learnt them from the nurse.
+
+“And she was white as marble-stone,” said Mrs. Cuxsom. “And likewise
+such a thoughtful woman, too—ah, poor soul—that a’ minded every little
+thing that wanted tending. ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘when I’m gone, and my last
+breath’s blowed, look in the top drawer o’ the chest in the back room
+by the window, and you’ll find all my coffin clothes, a piece of
+flannel—that’s to put under me, and the little piece is to put under my
+head; and my new stockings for my feet—they are folded alongside, and
+all my other things. And there’s four ounce pennies, the heaviest I
+could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights—two for my right
+eye and two for my left,’ she said. ‘And when you’ve used ’em, and my
+eyes don’t open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don’t ye go
+spending ’em, for I shouldn’t like it. And open the windows as soon as
+I am carried out, and make it as cheerful as you can for
+Elizabeth-Jane.’”
+
+“Ah, poor heart!”
+
+“Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden.
+But if ye’ll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug
+’em up, and spent ’em at the Three Mariners. ‘Faith,’ he said, ‘why
+should death rob life o’ fourpence? Death’s not of such good report
+that we should respect ’en to that extent,’ says he.”
+
+“’Twas a cannibal deed!” deprecated her listeners.
+
+“Gad, then I won’t quite ha’e it,” said Solomon Longways. “I say it
+to-day, and ’tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn’t speak wrongfully for
+a zilver zixpence at such a time. I don’t see noo harm in it. To
+respect the dead is sound doxology; and I wouldn’t sell
+skellintons—leastwise respectable skellintons—to be varnished for
+’natomies, except I were out o’ work. But money is scarce, and throats
+get dry. Why _should_ death rob life o’ fourpence? I say there was no
+treason in it.”
+
+“Well, poor soul; she’s helpless to hinder that or anything now,”
+answered Mother Cuxsom. “And all her shining keys will be took from
+her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a’ didn’t wish seen,
+anybody will see; and her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!”
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire. It was three weeks
+after Mrs. Henchard’s funeral, the candles were not lighted, and a
+restless, acrobatic flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady
+walls the smiles of all shapes that could respond—the old pier-glass,
+with gilt columns and huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry
+knobs and handles, and the brass rosette at the bottom of each riband
+bell-pull on either side of the chimney-piece.
+
+“Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?” said Henchard.
+
+“Yes, sir; often,” she said.
+
+“Who do you put in your pictures of ’em?”
+
+“Mother and father—nobody else hardly.”
+
+Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when
+Elizabeth-Jane spoke of Richard Newson as “father.” “Ah! I am out of
+all that, am I not?” he said.... “Was Newson a kind father?”
+
+“Yes, sir; very.”
+
+Henchard’s face settled into an expression of stolid loneliness which
+gradually modulated into something softer. “Suppose I had been your
+real father?” he said. “Would you have cared for me as much as you
+cared for Richard Newson?”
+
+“I can’t think it,” she said quickly. “I can think of no other as my
+father, except my father.”
+
+Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper
+Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him
+that only one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the
+girl. His mind began vibrating between the wish to reveal himself to
+her and the policy of leaving well alone, till he could no longer sit
+still. He walked up and down, and then he came and stood behind her
+chair, looking down upon the top of her head. He could no longer
+restrain his impulse. “What did your mother tell you about me—my
+history?” he asked.
+
+“That you were related by marriage.”
+
+“She should have told more—before you knew me! Then my task would not
+have been such a hard one.... Elizabeth, it is I who am your father,
+and not Richard Newson. Shame alone prevented your wretched parents
+from owning this to you while both of ’em were alive.”
+
+The back of Elizabeth’s head remained still, and her shoulders did not
+denote even the movements of breathing. Henchard went on: “I’d rather
+have your scorn, your fear, anything than your ignorance; ’tis that I
+hate! Your mother and I were man and wife when we were young. What you
+saw was our second marriage. Your mother was too honest. We had thought
+each other dead—and—Newson became her husband.”
+
+This was the nearest approach Henchard could make to the full truth. As
+far as he personally was concerned he would have screened nothing; but
+he showed a respect for the young girl’s sex and years worthy of a
+better man.
+
+When he had gone on to give details which a whole series of slight and
+unregarded incidents in her past life strangely corroborated; when, in
+short, she believed his story to be true, she became greatly agitated,
+and turning round to the table flung her face upon it weeping.
+
+“Don’t cry—don’t cry!” said Henchard, with vehement pathos, “I can’t
+bear it, I won’t bear it. I am your father; why should you cry? Am I so
+dreadful, so hateful to ’ee? Don’t take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!” he
+cried, grasping her wet hand. “Don’t take against me—though I was a
+drinking man once, and used your mother roughly—I’ll be kinder to you
+than _he_ was! I’ll do anything, if you will only look upon me as your
+father!”
+
+She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully; but she could not;
+she was troubled at his presence, like the brethren at the avowal of
+Joseph.
+
+“I don’t want you to come to me all of a sudden,” said Henchard in
+jerks, and moving like a great tree in a wind. “No, Elizabeth, I don’t.
+I’ll go away and not see you till to-morrow, or when you like, and then
+I’ll show ’ee papers to prove my words. There, I am gone, and won’t
+disturb you any more.... ’Twas I that chose your name, my daughter;
+your mother wanted it Susan. There, don’t forget ’twas I gave you your
+name!” He went out at the door and shut her softly in, and she heard
+him go away into the garden. But he had not done. Before she had moved,
+or in any way recovered from the effect of his disclosure, he
+reappeared.
+
+“One word more, Elizabeth,” he said. “You’ll take my surname now—hey?
+Your mother was against it, but it will be much more pleasant to me.
+’Tis legally yours, you know. But nobody need know that. You shall take
+it as if by choice. I’ll talk to my lawyer—I don’t know the law of it
+exactly; but will you do this—let me put a few lines into the newspaper
+that such is to be your name?”
+
+“If it is my name I must have it, mustn’t I?” she asked.
+
+“Well, well; usage is everything in these matters.”
+
+“I wonder why mother didn’t wish it?”
+
+“Oh, some whim of the poor soul’s. Now get a bit of paper and draw up a
+paragraph as I shall tell you. But let’s have a light.”
+
+“I can see by the firelight,” she answered. “Yes—I’d rather.”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote at his
+dictation words which he had evidently got by heart from some
+advertisement or other—words to the effect that she, the writer,
+hitherto known as Elizabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call herself
+Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. It was done, and fastened up, and
+directed to the office of the _Casterbridge Chronicle_.
+
+“Now,” said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always
+emitted when he had carried his point—though tenderness softened it
+this time—“I’ll go upstairs and hunt for some documents that will prove
+it all to you. But I won’t trouble you with them till to-morrow.
+Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!”
+
+He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it all meant,
+or adjust her filial sense to the new center of gravity. She was
+thankful that he had left her to herself for the evening, and sat down
+over the fire. Here she remained in silence, and wept—not for her
+mother now, but for the genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she
+seemed doing a wrong.
+
+Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature
+he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before
+turning them over he leant back and indulged in reposeful thought.
+Elizabeth was his at last and she was a girl of such good sense and
+kind heart that she would be sure to like him. He was the kind of man
+to whom some human object for pouring out his heart upon—were it
+emotive or were it choleric—was almost a necessity. The craving for his
+heart for the re-establishment of this tenderest human tie had been
+great during his wife’s lifetime, and now he had submitted to its
+mastery without reluctance and without fear. He bent over the drawer
+again, and proceeded in his search.
+
+Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his wife’s
+little desk, the keys of which had been handed to him at her request.
+Here was the letter addressed to him with the restriction, “_Not to be
+opened till Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding-day_.”
+
+Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had been no
+practical hand at anything. In sealing up the sheet, which was folded
+and tucked in without an envelope, in the old-fashioned way, she had
+overlaid the junction with a large mass of wax without the requisite
+under-touch of the same. The seal had cracked, and the letter was open.
+Henchard had no reason to suppose the restriction one of serious
+weight, and his feeling for his late wife had not been of the nature of
+deep respect. “Some trifling fancy or other of poor Susan’s, I
+suppose,” he said; and without curiosity he allowed his eyes to scan
+the letter:—
+
+MY DEAR MICHAEL,—For the good of all three of us I have kept one thing
+a secret from you till now. I hope you will understand why; I think you
+will; though perhaps you may not forgive me. But, dear Michael, I have
+done it for the best. I shall be in my grave when you read this, and
+Elizabeth-Jane will have a home. Don’t curse me Mike—think of how I was
+situated. I can hardly write it, but here it is. Elizabeth-Jane is not
+your Elizabeth-Jane—the child who was in my arms when you sold me. No;
+she died three months after that, and this living one is my other
+husband’s. I christened her by the same name we had given to the first,
+and she filled up the ache I felt at the other’s loss. Michael, I am
+dying, and I might have held my tongue; but I could not. Tell her
+husband of this or not, as you may judge; and forgive, if you can, a
+woman you once deeply wronged, as she forgives you.
+
+
+SUSAN HENCHARD
+
+
+Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through
+which he saw for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress
+his frame, as if to bear better. His usual habit was not to consider
+whether destiny were hard upon him or not—the shape of his ideals in
+cases of affliction being simply a moody “I am to suffer, I perceive.”
+“This much scourging, then, it is for me.” But now through his
+passionate head there stormed this thought—that the blasting disclosure
+was what he had deserved.
+
+His wife’s extreme reluctance to have the girl’s name altered from
+Newson to Henchard was now accounted for fully. It furnished another
+illustration of that honesty in dishonesty which had characterized her
+in other things.
+
+He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of hours; till
+he suddenly said, “Ah—I wonder if it is true!”
+
+He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and went with a
+candle to the door of Elizabeth-Jane’s room, where he put his ear to
+the keyhole and listened. She was breathing profoundly. Henchard softly
+turned the handle, entered, and shading the light, approached the
+bedside. Gradually bringing the light from behind a screening curtain
+he held it in such a manner that it fell slantwise on her face without
+shining on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded her features.
+
+They were fair: his were dark. But this was an unimportant preliminary.
+In sleep there come to the surface buried genealogical facts, ancestral
+curves, dead men’s traits, which the mobility of daytime animation
+screens and overwhelms. In the present statuesque repose of the young
+girl’s countenance Richard Newson’s was unmistakably reflected. He
+could not endure the sight of her, and hastened away.
+
+Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it. His wife
+was dead, and the first impulse for revenge died with the thought that
+she was beyond him. He looked out at the night as at a fiend. Henchard,
+like all his kind, was superstitious, and he could not help thinking
+that the concatenation of events this evening had produced was the
+scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him. Yet they
+had developed naturally. If he had not revealed his past history to
+Elizabeth he would not have searched the drawer for papers, and so on.
+The mockery was, that he should have no sooner taught a girl to claim
+the shelter of his paternity than he discovered her to have no kinship
+with him.
+
+This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from
+a fellow-creature. Like Prester John’s, his table had been spread, and
+infernal harpies had snatched up the food. He went out of the house,
+and moved sullenly onward down the pavement till he came to the bridge
+at the bottom of the High Street. Here he turned in upon a bypath on
+the river bank, skirting the north-eastern limits of the town.
+
+These precincts embodied the mournful phases of Casterbridge life, as
+the south avenues embodied its cheerful moods. The whole way along here
+was sunless, even in summer time; in spring, white frosts lingered here
+when other places were steaming with warmth; while in winter it was the
+seed-field of all the aches, rheumatisms, and torturing cramps of the
+year. The Casterbridge doctors must have pined away for want of
+sufficient nourishment but for the configuration of the landscape on
+the north-eastern side.
+
+The river—slow, noiseless, and dark—the Schwarzwasser of
+Casterbridge—ran beneath a low cliff, the two together forming a
+defence which had rendered walls and artificial earthworks on this side
+unnecessary. Here were ruins of a Franciscan priory, and a mill
+attached to the same, the water of which roared down a back-hatch like
+the voice of desolation. Above the cliff, and behind the river, rose a
+pile of buildings, and in the front of the pile a square mass cut into
+the sky. It was like a pedestal lacking its statue. This missing
+feature, without which the design remained incomplete, was, in truth,
+the corpse of a man, for the square mass formed the base of the
+gallows, the extensive buildings at the back being the county gaol. In
+the meadow where Henchard now walked the mob were wont to gather
+whenever an execution took place, and there to the tune of the roaring
+weir they stood and watched the spectacle.
+
+The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the glooms of this region
+impressed Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of
+the spot with his domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient
+of effects, scenes, and adumbrations. It reduced his heartburning to
+melancholy, and he exclaimed, “Why the deuce did I come here!” He went
+on past the cottage in which the old local hangman had lived and died,
+in times before that calling was monopolized over all England by a
+single gentleman; and climbed up by a steep back lane into the town.
+
+For the sufferings of that night, engendered by his bitter
+disappointment, he might well have been pitied. He was like one who had
+half fainted, and could neither recover nor complete the swoon. In
+words he could blame his wife, but not in his heart; and had he obeyed
+the wise directions outside her letter this pain would have been spared
+him for long—possibly for ever, Elizabeth-Jane seeming to show no
+ambition to quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for the
+speculative path of matrimony.
+
+The morning came after this night of unrest, and with it the necessity
+for a plan. He was far too self-willed to recede from a position,
+especially as it would involve humiliation. His daughter he had
+asserted her to be, and his daughter she should always think herself,
+no matter what hyprocrisy it involved.
+
+But he was ill-prepared for the first step in this new situation. The
+moment he came into the breakfast-room Elizabeth advanced with open
+confidence to him and took him by the arm.
+
+“I have thought and thought all night of it,” she said frankly. “And I
+see that everything must be as you say. And I am going to look upon you
+as the father that you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more.
+It is so plain to me now. Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you
+would not have done half the things you have done for me, and let me
+have my own way so entirely, and bought me presents, if I had only been
+your stepdaughter! He—Mr. Newson—whom my poor mother married by such a
+strange mistake” (Henchard was glad that he had disguised matters
+here), “was very kind—O so kind!” (she spoke with tears in her eyes);
+“but that is not the same thing as being one’s real father after all.
+Now, father, breakfast is ready!” she said cheerfully.
+
+Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had
+prefigured for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet it was no less than
+a miserable insipidity to him now that it had come. His reinstation of
+her mother had been chiefly for the girl’s sake, and the fruition of
+the whole scheme was such dust and ashes as this.
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl there can have been
+seldom one like that which followed Henchard’s announcement of himself
+to Elizabeth as her father. He had done it in an ardour and an
+agitation which had half carried the point of affection with her; yet,
+behold, from the next morning onwards his manner was constrained as she
+had never seen it before.
+
+The coldness soon broke out into open chiding. One grievous failing of
+Elizabeth’s was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect
+words—those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.
+
+It was dinner-time—they never met except at meals—and she happened to
+say when he was rising from table, wishing to show him something, “If
+you’ll bide where you be a minute, father, I’ll get it.”
+
+“‘Bide where you be,’” he echoed sharply, “Good God, are you only fit
+to carry wash to a pig-trough, that ye use such words as those?”
+
+She reddened with shame and sadness.
+
+“I meant ‘Stay where you are,’ father,” she said, in a low, humble
+voice. “I ought to have been more careful.”
+
+He made no reply, and went out of the room.
+
+The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it came to pass
+that for “fay” she said “succeed”; that she no longer spoke of
+“dumbledores” but of “humble bees”; no longer said of young men and
+women that they “walked together,” but that they were “engaged”; that
+she grew to talk of “greggles” as “wild hyacinths”; that when she had
+not slept she did not quaintly tell the servants next morning that she
+had been “hag-rid,” but that she had “suffered from indigestion.”
+
+These improvements, however, are somewhat in advance of the story.
+Henchard, being uncultivated himself, was the bitterest critic the fair
+girl could possibly have had of her own lapses—really slight now, for
+she read omnivorously. A gratuitous ordeal was in store for her in the
+matter of her handwriting. She was passing the dining-room door one
+evening, and had occasion to go in for something. It was not till she
+had opened the door that she knew the Mayor was there in the company of
+a man with whom he transacted business.
+
+“Here, Elizabeth-Jane,” he said, looking round at her, “just write down
+what I tell you—a few words of an agreement for me and this gentleman
+to sign. I am a poor tool with a pen.”
+
+“Be jowned, and so be I,” said the gentleman.
+
+She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink, and sat down.
+
+“Now then—‘An agreement entered into this sixteenth day of
+October’—write that first.”
+
+She started the pen in an elephantine march across the sheet. It was a
+splendid round, bold hand of her own conception, a style that would
+have stamped a woman as Minerva’s own in more recent days. But other
+ideas reigned then: Henchard’s creed was that proper young girls wrote
+ladies’-hand—nay, he believed that bristling characters were as innate
+and inseparable a part of refined womanhood as sex itself. Hence when,
+instead of scribbling, like the Princess Ida,—
+
+“In such a hand as when a field of corn
+Bows all its ears before the roaring East,”
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags, he reddened
+in angry shame for her, and, peremptorily saying, “Never mind—I’ll
+finish it,” dismissed her there and then.
+
+Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to her now. She was, it
+must be admitted, sometimes provokingly and unnecessarily willing to
+saddle herself with manual labours. She would go to the kitchen instead
+of ringing, “Not to make Phoebe come up twice.” She went down on her
+knees, shovel in hand, when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle;
+moreover, she would persistently thank the parlour-maid for everything,
+till one day, as soon as the girl was gone from the room, Henchard
+broke out with, “Good God, why dostn’t leave off thanking that girl as
+if she were a goddess-born! Don’t I pay her a dozen pound a year to do
+things for ’ee?” Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation that he
+became sorry a few minutes after, and said that he did not mean to be
+rough.
+
+These domestic exhibitions were the small protruding needlerocks which
+suggested rather than revealed what was underneath. But his passion had
+less terror for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the
+latter mood told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing
+dislike. The more interesting that her appearance and manners became
+under the softening influences which she could now command, and in her
+wisdom did command, the more she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she
+caught him looking at her with a louring invidiousness that she could
+hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockery that she
+should for the first time excite his animosity when she had taken his
+surname.
+
+But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabeth had latterly been
+accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of cider or ale and
+bread-and-cheese to Nance Mockridge, who worked in the yard wimbling
+hay-bonds. Nance accepted this offering thankfully at first; afterwards
+as a matter of course. On a day when Henchard was on the premises he
+saw his stepdaughter enter the hay-barn on this errand; and, as there
+was no clear spot on which to deposit the provisions, she at once set
+to work arranging two trusses of hay as a table, Mockridge meanwhile
+standing with her hands on her hips, easefully looking at the
+preparations on her behalf.
+
+“Elizabeth, come here!” said Henchard; and she obeyed.
+
+“Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?” he said with suppressed
+passion. “Haven’t I told you o’t fifty times? Hey? Making yourself a
+drudge for a common workwoman of such a character as hers! Why, ye’ll
+disgrace me to the dust!”
+
+Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn
+door, who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character.
+Coming to the door she cried regardless of consequences, “Come to that,
+Mr. Henchard, I can let ’ee know she’ve waited on worse!”
+
+“Then she must have had more charity than sense,” said Henchard.
+
+“O no, she hadn’t. ’Twere not for charity but for hire; and at a
+public-house in this town!”
+
+“It is not true!” cried Henchard indignantly.
+
+“Just ask her,” said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner
+that she could comfortably scratch her elbows.
+
+Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and
+white from confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. “What
+does this mean?” he said to her. “Anything or nothing?”
+
+“It is true,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “But it was only—”
+
+“Did you do it, or didn’t you? Where was it?”
+
+“At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when we were
+staying there.”
+
+Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailed into the barn; for
+assuming that she was to be discharged on the instant she had resolved
+to make the most of her victory. Henchard, however, said nothing about
+discharging her. Unduly sensitive on such points by reason of his own
+past, he had the look of one completely ground down to the last
+indignity. Elizabeth followed him to the house like a culprit; but when
+she got inside she could not see him. Nor did she see him again that
+day.
+
+Convinced of the scathing damage to his local repute and position that
+must have been caused by such a fact, though it had never before
+reached his own ears, Henchard showed a positive distaste for the
+presence of this girl not his own, whenever he encountered her. He
+mostly dined with the farmers at the market-room of one of the two
+chief hotels, leaving her in utter solitude. Could he have seen how she
+made use of those silent hours he might have found reason to reserve
+his judgment on her quality. She read and took notes incessantly,
+mastering facts with painful laboriousness, but never flinching from
+her self-imposed task. She began the study of Latin, incited by the
+Roman characteristics of the town she lived in. “If I am not
+well-informed it shall be by no fault of my own,” she would say to
+herself through the tears that would occasionally glide down her peachy
+cheeks when she was fairly baffled by the portentous obscurity of many
+of these educational works.
+
+Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feeling, great-eyed creature, construed
+by not a single contiguous being; quenching with patient fortitude her
+incipient interest in Farfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided,
+unmaidenly, and unwise. True, that for reasons best known to herself,
+she had, since Farfrae’s dismissal, shifted her quarters from the back
+room affording a view of the yard (which she had occupied with such
+zest) to a front chamber overlooking the street; but as for the young
+man, whenever he passed the house he seldom or never turned his head.
+
+Winter had almost come, and unsettled weather made her still more
+dependent upon indoor resources. But there were certain early winter
+days in Casterbridge—days of firmamental exhaustion which followed
+angry south-westerly tempests—when, if the sun shone, the air was like
+velvet. She seized on these days for her periodical visits to the spot
+where her mother lay buried—the still-used burial-ground of the old
+Roman-British city, whose curious feature was this, its continuity as a
+place of sepulture. Mrs. Henchard’s dust mingled with the dust of women
+who lay ornamented with glass hair-pins and amber necklaces, and men
+who held in their mouths coins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and the
+Constantines.
+
+Half-past ten in the morning was about her hour for seeking this spot—a
+time when the town avenues were deserted as the avenues of Karnac.
+Business had long since passed down them into its daily cells, and
+Leisure had not arrived there. So Elizabeth-Jane walked and read, or
+looked over the edge of the book to think, and thus reached the
+churchyard.
+
+There, approaching her mother’s grave she saw a solitary dark figure in
+the middle of the gravel-walk. This figure, too, was reading; but not
+from a book: the words which engrossed it being the inscription on Mrs.
+Henchard’s tombstone. The personage was in mourning like herself, was
+about her age and size, and might have been her wraith or double, but
+for the fact that it was a lady much more beautifully dressed than she.
+Indeed, comparatively indifferent as Elizabeth-Jane was to dress,
+unless for some temporary whim or purpose, her eyes were arrested by
+the artistic perfection of the lady’s appearance. Her gait, too, had a
+flexuousness about it, which seemed to avoid angularity. It was a
+revelation to Elizabeth that human beings could reach this stage of
+external development—she had never suspected it. She felt all the
+freshness and grace to be stolen from herself on the instant by the
+neighbourhood of such a stranger. And this was in face of the fact that
+Elizabeth could now have been writ handsome, while the young lady was
+simply pretty.
+
+Had she been envious she might have hated the woman; but she did not do
+that—she allowed herself the pleasure of feeling fascinated. She
+wondered where the lady had come from. The stumpy and practical walk of
+honest homeliness which mostly prevailed there, the two styles of dress
+thereabout, the simple and the mistaken, equally avouched that this
+figure was no Casterbridge woman’s, even if a book in her hand
+resembling a guide-book had not also suggested it.
+
+The stranger presently moved from the tombstone of Mrs. Henchard, and
+vanished behind the corner of the wall. Elizabeth went to the tomb
+herself; beside it were two footprints distinct in the soil, signifying
+that the lady had stood there a long time. She returned homeward,
+musing on what she had seen, as she might have mused on a rainbow or
+the Northern Lights, a rare butterfly or a cameo.
+
+Interesting as things had been out of doors, at home it turned out to
+be one of her bad days. Henchard, whose two years’ mayoralty was
+ending, had been made aware that he was not to be chosen to fill a
+vacancy in the list of aldermen; and that Farfrae was likely to become
+one of the Council. This caused the unfortunate discovery that she had
+played the waiting-maid in the town of which he was Mayor to rankle in
+his mind yet more poisonously. He had learnt by personal inquiry at the
+time that it was to Donald Farfrae—that treacherous upstart—that she
+had thus humiliated herself. And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach
+no great importance to the incident—the cheerful souls at the Three
+Mariners having exhausted its aspects long ago—such was Henchard’s
+haughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed was regarded as little less
+than a social catastrophe by him.
+
+Ever since the evening of his wife’s arrival with her daughter there
+had been something in the air which had changed his luck. That dinner
+at the King’s Arms with his friends had been Henchard’s Austerlitz: he
+had had his successes since, but his course had not been upward. He was
+not to be numbered among the aldermen—that Peerage of burghers—as he
+had expected to be, and the consciousness of this soured him to-day.
+
+“Well, where have you been?” he said to her with offhand laconism.
+
+“I’ve been strolling in the Walks and churchyard, father, till I feel
+quite leery.” She clapped her hand to her mouth, but too late.
+
+This was just enough to incense Henchard after the other crosses of the
+day. “I _won’t_ have you talk like that!” he thundered. “‘Leery,’
+indeed. One would think you worked upon a farm! One day I learn that
+you lend a hand in public-houses. Then I hear you talk like a
+clodhopper. I’m burned, if it goes on, this house can’t hold us two.”
+
+The only way of getting a single pleasant thought to go to sleep upon
+after this was by recalling the lady she had seen that day, and hoping
+she might see her again.
+
+Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over his jealous folly in
+forbidding Farfrae to pay his addresses to this girl who did not belong
+to him, when if he had allowed them to go on he might not have been
+encumbered with her. At last he said to himself with satisfaction as he
+jumped up and went to the writing-table: “Ah! he’ll think it means
+peace, and a marriage portion—not that I don’t want my house to be
+troubled with her, and no portion at all!” He wrote as follows:—
+
+Sir,—On consideration, I don’t wish to interfere with your courtship of
+Elizabeth-Jane, if you care for her. I therefore withdraw my objection;
+excepting in this—that the business be not carried on in my
+house.—Yours,
+
+
+M. HENCHARD.
+Mr. Farfrae.
+
+
+The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Jane again in the
+churchyard, but while looking for the lady she was startled by the
+apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside the gate. He glanced up for a
+moment from a pocket-book in which he appeared to be making figures as
+he went; whether or not he saw her he took no notice, and disappeared.
+
+Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluity she thought he
+probably scorned her; and quite broken in spirit sat down on a bench.
+She fell into painful thought on her position, which ended with her
+saying quite loud, “O, I wish I was dead with dear mother!”
+
+Behind the bench was a little promenade under the wall where people
+sometimes walked instead of on the gravel. The bench seemed to be
+touched by something, she looked round, and a face was bending over
+her, veiled, but still distinct, the face of the young woman she had
+seen yesterday.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowing she had been
+overheard, though there was pleasure in her confusion. “Yes, I heard
+you,” said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. “What
+can have happened?”
+
+“I don’t—I can’t tell you,” said Elizabeth, putting her hand to her
+face to hide a quick flush that had come.
+
+There was no movement or word for a few seconds; then the girl felt
+that the young lady was sitting down beside her.
+
+“I guess how it is with you,” said the latter. “That was your mother.”
+She waved her hand towards the tombstone. Elizabeth looked up at her as
+if inquiring of herself whether there should be confidence. The lady’s
+manner was so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there should
+be confidence. “It was my mother,” she said, “my only friend.”
+
+“But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?”
+
+“Yes, he is living,” said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+“Is he not kind to you?”
+
+“I’ve no wish to complain of him.”
+
+“There has been a disagreement?”
+
+“A little.”
+
+“Perhaps you were to blame,” suggested the stranger.
+
+“I was—in many ways,” sighed the meek Elizabeth. “I swept up the coals
+when the servants ought to have done it; and I said I was leery;—and he
+was angry with me.”
+
+The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply. “Do you know the
+impression your words give me?” she said ingenuously. “That he is a
+hot-tempered man—a little proud—perhaps ambitious; but not a bad man.”
+Her anxiety not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was
+curious.
+
+“O no; certainly not _bad_,” agreed the honest girl. “And he has not
+even been unkind to me till lately—since mother died. But it has been
+very much to bear while it has lasted. All is owing to my defects, I
+daresay; and my defects are owing to my history.”
+
+“What is your history?”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner. She found that her
+questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed
+compelled to look back again. “My history is not gay or attractive,”
+she said. “And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know.”
+
+The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon
+Elizabeth-Jane told the tale of her life as she understood it, which
+was in general the true one, except that the sale at the fair had no
+part therein.
+
+Contrary to the girl’s expectation her new friend was not shocked. This
+cheered her; and it was not till she thought of returning to that home
+in which she had been treated so roughly of late that her spirits fell.
+
+“I don’t know how to return,” she murmured. “I think of going away. But
+what can I do? Where can I go?”
+
+“Perhaps it will be better soon,” said her friend gently. “So I would
+not go far. Now what do you think of this: I shall soon want somebody
+to live in my house, partly as housekeeper, partly as companion; would
+you mind coming to me? But perhaps—”
+
+“O yes,” cried Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes. “I would, indeed—I
+would do anything to be independent; for then perhaps my father might
+get to love me. But, ah!”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I am no accomplished person. And a companion to you must be that.”
+
+“O, not necessarily.”
+
+“Not? But I can’t help using rural words sometimes, when I don’t mean
+to.”
+
+“Never mind, I shall like to know them.”
+
+“And—O, I know I shan’t do!”—she cried with a distressful laugh. “I
+accidentally learned to write round hand instead of ladies’-hand. And,
+of course, you want some one who can write that?”
+
+“Well, no.”
+
+“What, not necessary to write ladies’-hand?” cried the joyous
+Elizabeth.
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“But where do you live?”
+
+“In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be living here after twelve o’clock
+to-day.”
+
+Elizabeth expressed her astonishment.
+
+“I have been staying at Budmouth for a few days while my house was
+getting ready. The house I am going into is that one they call
+High-Place Hall—the old stone one looking down the lane to the market.
+Two or three rooms are fit for occupation, though not all: I sleep
+there to-night for the first time. Now will you think over my proposal,
+and meet me here the first fine day next week, and say if you are still
+in the same mind?”
+
+Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change from an
+unbearable position, joyfully assented; and the two parted at the gate
+of the churchyard.
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains practically unmarked
+till some mature experience enforces it, so did this High-Place Hall
+now for the first time really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her
+ears had heard its name on a hundred occasions.
+
+Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger, and the house, and
+her own chance of living there, all the rest of the day. In the
+afternoon she had occasion to pay a few bills in the town and do a
+little shopping when she learnt that what was a new discovery to
+herself had become a common topic about the streets. High-Place Hall
+was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the
+shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance of her being
+a customer.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so
+new to her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.
+
+When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render
+chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover’s
+feeling, thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place
+Hall. She went up the street in that direction.
+
+The Hall, with its grey _façade_ and parapet, was the only residence of
+its sort so near the centre of the town. It had, in the first place,
+the characteristics of a country mansion—birds’ nests in its chimneys,
+damp nooks where fungi grew and irregularities of surface direct from
+Nature’s trowel. At night the forms of passengers were patterned by the
+lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.
+
+This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of the premises
+having been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a
+new tenant. The house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of
+dignity without great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still
+less consequential, yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively said
+“Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it” however vague his opinions of
+those accessories might be.
+
+Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for
+until this very evening, when the new lady had arrived, the house had
+been empty for a year or two while before that interval its occupancy
+had been irregular. The reason of its unpopularity was soon made
+manifest. Some of its rooms overlooked the market-place; and such a
+prospect from such a house was not considered desirable or seemly by
+its would-be occupiers.
+
+Elizabeth’s eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady
+had obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of comparatively
+practised manner had made upon the studious girl’s mind was so deep
+that she enjoyed standing under an opposite archway merely to think
+that the charming lady was inside the confronting walls, and to wonder
+what she was doing. Her admiration for the architecture of that front
+was entirely on account of the inmate it screened. Though for that
+matter the architecture deserved admiration, or at least study, on its
+own account. It was Palladian, and like most architecture erected since
+the Gothic age was a compilation rather than a design. But its
+reasonableness made it impressive. It was not rich, but rich enough. A
+timely consciousness of the ultimate vanity of human architecture, no
+less than of other human things, had prevented artistic superfluity.
+
+Men had still quite recently been going in and out with parcels and
+packing-cases, rendering the door and hall within like a public
+thoroughfare. Elizabeth trotted through the open door in the dusk, but
+becoming alarmed at her own temerity she went quickly out again by
+another which stood open in the lofty wall of the back court. To her
+surprise she found herself in one of the little-used alleys of the
+town. Looking round at the door which had given her egress, by the
+light of the solitary lamp fixed in the alley, she saw that it was
+arched and old—older even than the house itself. The door was studded,
+and the keystone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had
+exhibited a comic leer, as could still be discerned; but generations of
+Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open
+mouth; and the blows thereon had chipped off the lips and jaws as if
+they had been eaten away by disease. The appearance was so ghastly by
+the weakly lamp-glimmer that she could not bear to look at it—the first
+unpleasant feature of her visit.
+
+The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of the leering
+mask suggested one thing above all others as appertaining to the
+mansion’s past history—intrigue. By the alley it had been possible to
+come unseen from all sorts of quarters in the town—the old play-house,
+the old bull-stake, the old cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants
+had been used to disappear. High-Place Hall could boast of its
+conveniences undoubtedly.
+
+She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward, which was
+down the alley, but hearing footsteps approaching in that quarter, and
+having no great wish to be found in such a place at such a time she
+quickly retreated. There being no other way out she stood behind a
+brick pier till the intruder should have gone his ways.
+
+Had she watched she would have been surprised. She would have seen that
+the pedestrian on coming up made straight for the arched doorway: that
+as he paused with his hand upon the latch the lamplight fell upon the
+face of Henchard.
+
+But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook that she discerned
+nothing of this. Henchard passed in, as ignorant of her presence as she
+was ignorant of his identity, and disappeared in the darkness.
+Elizabeth came out a second time into the alley, and made the best of
+her way home.
+
+Henchard’s chiding, by begetting in her a nervous fear of doing
+anything definable as unladylike, had operated thus curiously in
+keeping them unknown to each other at a critical moment. Much might
+have resulted from recognition—at the least a query on either side in
+one and the selfsame form: What could he or she possibly be doing
+there?
+
+Henchard, whatever his business at the lady’s house, reached his own
+home only a few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane. Her plan was to
+broach the question of leaving his roof this evening; the events of the
+day had urged her to the course. But its execution depended upon his
+mood, and she anxiously awaited his manner towards her. She found that
+it had changed. He showed no further tendency to be angry; he showed
+something worse. Absolute indifference had taken the place of
+irritability; and his coldness was such that it encouraged her to
+departure, even more than hot temper could have done.
+
+“Father, have you any objection to my going away?” she asked.
+
+“Going away! No—none whatever. Where are you going?”
+
+She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything at present
+about her destination to one who took so little interest in her. He
+would know that soon enough. “I have heard of an opportunity of getting
+more cultivated and finished, and being less idle,” she answered, with
+hesitation. “A chance of a place in a household where I can have
+advantages of study, and seeing refined life.”
+
+“Then make the best of it, in Heaven’s name—if you can’t get cultivated
+where you are.”
+
+“You don’t object?”
+
+“Object—I? Ho—no! Not at all.” After a pause he said, “But you won’t
+have enough money for this lively scheme without help, you know? If you
+like I should be willing to make you an allowance, so that you not be
+bound to live upon the starvation wages refined folk are likely to pay
+’ee.”
+
+She thanked him for this offer.
+
+“It had better be done properly,” he added after a pause. “A small
+annuity is what I should like you to have—so as to be independent of
+me—and so that I may be independent of you. Would that please ye?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“Then I’ll see about it this very day.” He seemed relieved to get her
+off his hands by this arrangement, and as far as they were concerned
+the matter was settled. She now simply waited to see the lady again.
+
+The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth-Jane
+having now changed her orbit from one of gay independence to laborious
+self-help, thought the weather good enough for such declined glory as
+hers, if her friend would only face it—a matter of doubt. She went to
+the boot-room where her pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis;
+took them down, had their mildewed leathers blacked, and put them on as
+she had done in old times. Thus mounted, and with cloak and umbrella,
+she went off to the place of appointment—intending, if the lady were
+not there, to call at the house.
+
+One side of the churchyard—the side towards the weather—was sheltered
+by an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves overhung as much as one or
+two feet. At the back of the wall was a corn-yard with its granary and
+barns—the place wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under
+the projection of the thatch she saw a figure. The young lady had come.
+
+Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl’s utmost hopes
+that she almost feared her good fortune. Fancies find rooms in the
+strongest minds. Here, in a churchyard old as civilization, in the
+worst of weathers, was a strange woman of curious fascinations never
+seen elsewhere: there might be some devilry about her presence.
+However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on whose summit the
+rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came to the wall.
+
+The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth
+forgot her fancy. “Well,” said the lady, a little of the whiteness of
+her teeth appearing with the word through the black fleece that
+protected her face, “have you decided?”
+
+“Yes, quite,” said the other eagerly.
+
+“Your father is willing?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then come along.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Now—as soon as you like. I had a good mind to send to you to come to
+my house, thinking you might not venture up here in the wind. But as I
+like getting out of doors, I thought I would come and see first.”
+
+“It was my own thought.”
+
+“That shows we shall agree. Then can you come to-day? My house is so
+hollow and dismal that I want some living thing there.”
+
+“I think I might be able to,” said the girl, reflecting.
+
+Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind and
+raindrops from the other side of the wall. There came such words as
+“sacks,” “quarters,” “threshing,” “tailing,” “next Saturday’s market,”
+each sentence being disorganized by the gusts like a face in a cracked
+mirror. Both the women listened.
+
+“Who are those?” said the lady.
+
+“One is my father. He rents that yard and barn.”
+
+The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in listening to the
+technicalities of the corn trade. At last she said suddenly, “Did you
+tell him where you were going to?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“O—how was that?”
+
+“I thought it safer to get away first—as he is so uncertain in his
+temper.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right.... Besides, I have never told you my name. It
+is Miss Templeman.... Are they gone—on the other side?”
+
+“No. They have only gone up into the granary.”
+
+“Well, it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day—this evening,
+say, at six.”
+
+“Which way shall I come, ma’am?”
+
+“The front way—round by the gate. There is no other that I have
+noticed.”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.
+
+“Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you may as well
+keep silent upon it till you are clear off. Who knows but that he may
+alter his mind?”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. “On consideration I don’t fear it,” she
+said sadly. “He has grown quite cold to me.”
+
+“Very well. Six o’clock then.”
+
+When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they found enough
+to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind. Nevertheless the
+lady looked in at the corn-yard gates as she passed them, and paused on
+one foot for a moment. But nothing was visible there save the ricks,
+and the humpbacked barn cushioned with moss, and the granary rising
+against the church-tower behind, where the smacking of the rope against
+the flag-staff still went on.
+
+Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth-Jane’s
+movement was to be so prompt. Hence when, just before six, he reached
+home and saw a fly at the door from the King’s Arms, and his
+stepdaughter, with all her little bags and boxes, getting into it, he
+was taken by surprise.
+
+“But you said I might go, father?” she explained through the carriage
+window.
+
+“Said!—yes. But I thought you meant next month, or next year. ’Od,
+seize it—you take time by the forelock! This, then, is how you be going
+to treat me for all my trouble about ye?”
+
+“O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of you!” she said
+with spirit.
+
+“Well, well, have your own way,” he replied. He entered the house, and,
+seeing that all her things had not yet been brought down, went up to
+her room to look on. He had never been there since she had occupied it.
+Evidences of her care, of her endeavours for improvement, were visible
+all around, in the form of books, sketches, maps, and little
+arrangements for tasteful effects. Henchard had known nothing of these
+efforts. He gazed at them, turned suddenly about, and came down to the
+door.
+
+“Look here,” he said, in an altered voice—he never called her by name
+now—“don’t ’ee go away from me. It may be I’ve spoke roughly to you—but
+I’ve been grieved beyond everything by you—there’s something that
+caused it.”
+
+“By me?” she said, with deep concern. “What have I done?”
+
+“I can’t tell you now. But if you’ll stop, and go on living as my
+daughter, I’ll tell you all in time.”
+
+But the proposal had come ten minutes too late. She was in the fly—was
+already, in imagination, at the house of the lady whose manner had such
+charms for her. “Father,” she said, as considerately as she could, “I
+think it best for us that I go on now. I need not stay long; I shall
+not be far away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again.”
+
+He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and no more.
+“You are not going far, you say. What will be your address, in case I
+wish to write to you? Or am I not to know?”
+
+“Oh yes—certainly. It is only in the town—High-Place Hall!”
+
+“Where?” said Henchard, his face stilling.
+
+She repeated the words. He neither moved nor spoke, and waving her hand
+to him in utmost friendliness she signified to the flyman to drive up
+the street.
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+We go back for a moment to the preceding night, to account for
+Henchard’s attitude.
+
+At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplating her stealthy
+reconnoitring excursion to the abode of the lady of her fancy, he had
+been not a little amazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta’s
+well-known characters. The self-repression, the resignation of her
+previous communication had vanished from her mood; she wrote with some
+of the natural lightness which had marked her in their early
+acquaintance.
+
+HIGH-PLACE HALL
+MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD,—Don’t be surprised. It is for your good and mine,
+as I hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridge—for how long I
+cannot tell. That depends upon another; and he is a man, and a
+merchant, and a Mayor, and one who has the first right to my
+affections.
+    Seriously, _mon ami_, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be
+    from this. I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death
+    of your wife—whom you used to think of as dead so many years
+    before! Poor woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, though
+    uncomplaining, and though weak in intellect not an imbecile. I am
+    glad you acted fairly by her. As soon as I knew she was no more, it
+    was brought home to me very forcibly by my conscience that I ought
+    to endeavour to disperse the shade which my _étourderie_ flung over
+    my name, by asking you to carry out your promise to me. I hope you
+    are of the same mind, and that you will take steps to this end. As,
+    however, I did not know how you were situated, or what had happened
+    since our separation, I decided to come and establish myself here
+    before communicating with you.
+    You probably feel as I do about this. I shall be able to see you in
+    a day or two. Till then, farewell.—Yours,
+
+
+LUCETTA.
+
+
+_P.S._—I was unable to keep my appointment to meet you for a moment or
+two in passing through Casterbridge the other day. My plans were
+altered by a family event, which it will surprise you to hear of.
+
+
+Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall was being prepared for
+a tenant. He said with a puzzled air to the first person he
+encountered, “Who is coming to live at the Hall?”
+
+“A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir,” said his informant.
+
+Henchard thought it over. “Lucetta is related to her, I suppose,” he
+said to himself. “Yes, I must put her in her proper position,
+undoubtedly.”
+
+It was by no means with the oppression that would once have accompanied
+the thought that he regarded the moral necessity now; it was, indeed,
+with interest, if not warmth. His bitter disappointment at finding
+Elizabeth-Jane to be none of his, and himself a childless man, had left
+an emotional void in Henchard that he unconsciously craved to fill. In
+this frame of mind, though without strong feeling, he had strolled up
+the alley and into High-Place Hall by the postern at which Elizabeth
+had so nearly encountered him. He had gone on thence into the court,
+and inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking china from a crate if Miss
+Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name under which
+he had known Lucetta—or “Lucette,” as she had called herself at that
+time.
+
+The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only had come.
+Henchard went away, concluding that Lucetta had not as yet settled in.
+
+He was in this interested stage of the inquiry when he witnessed
+Elizabeth-Jane’s departure the next day. On hearing her announce the
+address there suddenly took possession of him the strange thought that
+Lucetta and Miss Templeman were one and the same person, for he could
+recall that in her season of intimacy with him the name of the rich
+relative whom he had deemed somewhat a mythical personage had been
+given as Templeman. Though he was not a fortune-hunter, the possibility
+that Lucetta had been sublimed into a lady of means by some munificent
+testament on the part of this relative lent a charm to her image which
+it might not otherwise have acquired. He was getting on towards the
+dead level of middle age, when material things increasingly possess the
+mind.
+
+But Henchard was not left long in suspense. Lucetta was rather addicted
+to scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent of letters after the
+_fiasco_ in their marriage arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone
+away when another note came to the Mayor’s house from High-Place Hall.
+
+“I am in residence,” she said, “and comfortable, though getting here
+has been a wearisome undertaking. You probably know what I am going to
+tell you, or do you not? My good Aunt Templeman, the banker’s widow,
+whose very existence you used to doubt, much more her affluence, has
+lately died, and bequeathed some of her property to me. I will not
+enter into details except to say that I have taken her name—as a means
+of escape from mine, and its wrongs.
+
+“I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to reside in Casterbridge—to
+be tenant of High-Place Hall, that at least you may be put to no
+trouble if you wish to see me. My first intention was to keep you in
+ignorance of the changes in my life till you should meet me in the
+street; but I have thought better of this.
+
+“You probably are aware of my arrangement with your daughter, and have
+doubtless laughed at the—what shall I call it?—practical joke (in all
+affection) of my getting her to live with me. But my first meeting with
+her was purely an accident. Do you see, Michael, partly why I have done
+it?—why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if to visit _her_,
+and thus to form my acquaintance naturally. She is a dear, good girl,
+and she thinks you have treated her with undue severity. You may have
+done so in your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. As the result
+has been to bring her to me I am not disposed to upbraid you.—In haste,
+yours always,
+
+“LUCETTA.”
+
+The excitement which these announcements produced in Henchard’s gloomy
+soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dining-table long and
+dreamily, and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which had
+run to waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
+Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was
+plainly in a very coming-on disposition for marriage. But what else
+could a poor woman be who had given her time and her heart to him so
+thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose her credit by it?
+Probably conscience no less than affection had brought her here. On the
+whole he did not blame her.
+
+“The artful little woman!” he said, smiling (with reference to
+Lucetta’s adroit and pleasant manœuvre with Elizabeth-Jane).
+
+To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard to start
+for her house. He put on his hat and went. It was between eight and
+nine o’clock when he reached her door. The answer brought him was that
+Miss Templeman was engaged for that evening; but that she would be
+happy to see him the next day.
+
+“That’s rather like giving herself airs!” he thought. “And considering
+what we—” But after all, she plainly had not expected him, and he took
+the refusal quietly. Nevertheless he resolved not to go next day.
+“These cursed women—there’s not an inch of straight grain in ’em!” he
+said.
+
+Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard’s thought as if it were a clue
+line, and view the interior of High-Place Hall on this particular
+evening.
+
+On Elizabeth-Jane’s arrival she had been phlegmatically asked by an
+elderly woman to go upstairs and take off her things. She replied with
+great earnestness that she would not think of giving that trouble, and
+on the instant divested herself of her bonnet and cloak in the passage.
+She was then conducted to the first floor on the landing, and left to
+find her way further alone.
+
+The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoir or small
+drawing-room, and on a sofa with two cylindrical pillows reclined a
+dark-haired, large-eyed, pretty woman, of unmistakably French
+extraction on one side or the other. She was probably some years older
+than Elizabeth, and had a sparkling light in her eye. In front of the
+sofa was a small table, with a pack of cards scattered upon it faces
+upward.
+
+The attitude had been so full of abandonment that she bounded up like a
+spring on hearing the door open.
+
+Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease, and came across
+to her with a reckless skip that innate grace only prevented from being
+boisterous.
+
+“Why, you are late,” she said, taking hold of Elizabeth-Jane’s hands.
+
+“There were so many little things to put up.”
+
+“And you seem dead-alive and tired. Let me try to enliven you by some
+wonderful tricks I have learnt, to kill time. Sit there and don’t
+move.” She gathered up the pack of cards, pulled the table in front of
+her, and began to deal them rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.
+
+“Well, have you chosen?” she asked flinging down the last card.
+
+“No,” stammered Elizabeth, arousing herself from a reverie. “I forgot,
+I was thinking of—you, and me—and how strange it is that I am here.”
+
+Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest, and laid down
+the cards. “Ah! never mind,” she said. “I’ll lie here while you sit by
+me; and we’ll talk.”
+
+Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa, but with obvious
+pleasure. It could be seen that though in years she was younger than
+her entertainer in manner and general vision she seemed more of the
+sage. Miss Templeman deposited herself on the sofa in her former
+flexuous position, and throwing her arm above her brow—somewhat in the
+pose of a well-known conception of Titian’s—talked up at Elizabeth-Jane
+invertedly across her forehead and arm.
+
+“I must tell you something,” she said. “I wonder if you have suspected
+it. I have only been mistress of a large house and fortune a little
+while.”
+
+“Oh—only a little while?” murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her countenance
+slightly falling.
+
+“As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my
+father, till I was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in
+the army. I should not have mentioned this had I not thought it best
+you should know the truth.”
+
+“Yes, yes.” She looked thoughtfully round the room—at the little square
+piano with brass inlayings, at the window-curtains, at the lamp, at the
+fair and dark kings and queens on the card-table, and finally at the
+inverted face of Lucetta Templeman, whose large lustrous eyes had such
+an odd effect upside down.
+
+Elizabeth’s mind ran on acquirements to an almost morbid degree. “You
+speak French and Italian fluently, no doubt,” she said. “I have not
+been able to get beyond a wretched bit of Latin yet.”
+
+“Well, for that matter, in my native isle speaking French does not go
+for much. It is rather the other way.”
+
+“Where is your native isle?”
+
+It was with rather more reluctance that Miss Templeman said, “Jersey.
+There they speak French on one side of the street and English on the
+other, and a mixed tongue in the middle of the road. But it is a long
+time since I was there. Bath is where my people really belong to,
+though my ancestors in Jersey were as good as anybody in England. They
+were the Le Sueurs, an old family who have done great things in their
+time. I went back and lived there after my father’s death. But I don’t
+value such past matters, and am quite an English person in my feelings
+and tastes.”
+
+Lucetta’s tongue had for a moment outrun her discretion. She had
+arrived at Casterbridge as a Bath lady, and there were obvious reasons
+why Jersey should drop out of her life. But Elizabeth had tempted her
+to make free, and a deliberately formed resolve had been broken.
+
+It could not, however, have been broken in safer company. Lucetta’s
+words went no further, and after this day she was so much upon her
+guard that there appeared no chance of her identification with the
+young Jersey woman who had been Henchard’s dear comrade at a critical
+time. Not the least amusing of her safeguards was her resolute
+avoidance of a French word if one by accident came to her tongue more
+readily than its English equivalent. She shirked it with the suddenness
+of the weak Apostle at the accusation, “Thy speech bewrayeth thee!”
+
+Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning. She dressed
+herself for Mr. Henchard, and restlessly awaited his call before
+mid-day; as he did not come she waited on through the afternoon. But
+she did not tell Elizabeth that the person expected was the girl’s
+stepfather.
+
+They sat in adjoining windows of the same room in Lucetta’s great stone
+mansion, netting, and looking out upon the market, which formed an
+animated scene. Elizabeth could see the crown of her stepfather’s hat
+among the rest beneath, and was not aware that Lucetta watched the same
+object with yet intenser interest. He moved about amid the throng, at
+this point lively as an ant-hill; elsewhere more reposeful, and broken
+up by stalls of fruit and vegetables. The farmers as a rule preferred
+the open _carrefour_ for their transactions, despite its inconvenient
+jostlings and the danger from crossing vehicles, to the gloomy
+sheltered market-room provided for them. Here they surged on this one
+day of the week, forming a little world of leggings, switches, and
+sample-bags; men of extensive stomachs, sloping like mountain sides;
+men whose heads in walking swayed as the trees in November gales; who
+in conversing varied their attitudes much, lowering themselves by
+spreading their knees, and thrusting their hands into the pockets of
+remote inner jackets. Their faces radiated tropical warmth; for though
+when at home their countenances varied with the seasons, their
+market-faces all the year round were glowing little fires.
+
+All over-clothes here were worn as if they were an inconvenience, a
+hampering necessity. Some men were well dressed; but the majority were
+careless in that respect, appearing in suits which were historical
+records of their wearer’s deeds, sun-scorchings, and daily struggles
+for many years past. Yet many carried ruffled cheque-books in their
+pockets which regulated at the bank hard by a balance of never less
+than four figures. In fact, what these gibbous human shapes specially
+represented was ready money—money insistently ready—not ready next year
+like a nobleman’s—often not merely ready at the bank like a
+professional man’s, but ready in their large plump hands.
+
+It happened that to-day there rose in the midst of them all two or
+three tall apple-trees standing as if they grew on the spot; till it
+was perceived that they were held by men from the cider-districts who
+came here to sell them, bringing the clay of their county on their
+boots. Elizabeth-Jane, who had often observed them, said, “I wonder if
+the same trees come every week?”
+
+“What trees?” said Lucetta, absorbed in watching for Henchard.
+
+Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident checked her. Behind one of
+the trees stood Farfrae, briskly discussing a sample-bag with a farmer.
+Henchard had come up, accidentally encountering the young man, whose
+face seemed to inquire, “Do we speak to each other?”
+
+She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eye which answered “No!”
+Elizabeth-Jane sighed.
+
+“Are you particularly interested in anybody out there?” said Lucetta.
+
+“O, no,” said her companion, a quick red shooting over her face.
+
+Luckily Farfrae’s figure was immediately covered by the apple-tree.
+
+Lucetta looked hard at her. “Quite sure?” she said.
+
+“O yes,” said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+Again Lucetta looked out. “They are all farmers, I suppose?” she said.
+
+“No. There’s Mr. Bulge—he’s a wine merchant; there’s Benjamin
+Brownlet—a horse dealer; and Kitson, the pig breeder; and Yopper, the
+auctioneer; besides maltsters, and millers—and so on.” Farfrae stood
+out quite distinctly now; but she did not mention him.
+
+The Saturday afternoon slipped on thus desultorily. The market changed
+from the sample-showing hour to the idle hour before starting
+homewards, when tales were told. Henchard had not called on Lucetta
+though he had stood so near. He must have been too busy, she thought.
+He would come on Sunday or Monday.
+
+The days came but not the visitor, though Lucetta repeated her dressing
+with scrupulous care. She got disheartened. It may at once be declared
+that Lucetta no longer bore towards Henchard all that warm allegiance
+which had characterized her in their first acquaintance, the then
+unfortunate issue of things had chilled pure love considerably. But
+there remained a conscientious wish to bring about her union with him,
+now that there was nothing to hinder it—to right her position—which in
+itself was a happiness to sigh for. With strong social reasons on her
+side why their marriage should take place there had ceased to be any
+worldly reason on his why it should be postponed, since she had
+succeeded to fortune.
+
+Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At breakfast she said to
+Elizabeth-Jane quite coolly: “I imagine your father may call to see you
+to-day. I suppose he stands close by in the market-place with the rest
+of the corn-dealers?”
+
+She shook her head. “He won’t come.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“He has taken against me,” she said in a husky voice.
+
+“You have quarreled more deeply than I know of.”
+
+Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her father from
+any charge of unnatural dislike, said “Yes.”
+
+“Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will avoid?”
+
+Elizabeth nodded sadly.
+
+Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and lip, and
+burst into hysterical sobs. Here was a disaster—her ingenious scheme
+completely stultified.
+
+“O, my dear Miss Templeman—what’s the matter?” cried her companion.
+
+“I like your company much!” said Lucetta, as soon as she could speak.
+
+“Yes, yes—and so do I yours!” Elizabeth chimed in soothingly.
+
+“But—but—” She could not finish the sentence, which was, naturally,
+that if Henchard had such a rooted dislike for the girl as now seemed
+to be the case, Elizabeth-Jane would have to be got rid of—a
+disagreeable necessity.
+
+A provisional resource suggested itself. “Miss Henchard—will you go on
+an errand for me as soon as breakfast is over?—Ah, that’s very good of
+you. Will you go and order—” Here she enumerated several commissions at
+sundry shops, which would occupy Elizabeth’s time for the next hour or
+two, at least.
+
+“And have you ever seen the Museum?”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had not.
+
+“Then you should do so at once. You can finish the morning by going
+there. It is an old house in a back street—I forget where—but you’ll
+find out—and there are crowds of interesting things—skeletons, teeth,
+old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds’ eggs—all charmingly
+instructive. You’ll be sure to stay till you get quite hungry.”
+
+Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed. “I wonder why she
+wants to get rid of me to-day!” she said sorrowfully as she went. That
+her absence, rather than her services or instruction, was in request,
+had been readily apparent to Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and
+difficult as it was to attribute a motive for the desire.
+
+She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta’s servants was
+sent to Henchard’s with a note. The contents were briefly:—
+
+DEAR MICHAEL,—You will be standing in view of my house to-day for two
+or three hours in the course of your business, so do please call and
+see me. I am sadly disappointed that you have not come before, for can
+I help anxiety about my own equivocal relation to you?—especially now
+my aunt’s fortune has brought me more prominently before society? Your
+daughter’s presence here may be the cause of your neglect; and I have
+therefore sent her away for the morning. Say you come on business—I
+shall be quite alone.
+
+
+LUCETTA.
+
+
+When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a
+gentleman called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await
+results.
+
+Sentimentally she did not much care to see him—his delays had wearied
+her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself
+picturesquely in the chair; first this way, then that; next so that the
+light fell over her head. Next she flung herself on the couch in the
+cyma-recta curve which so became her, and with her arm over her brow
+looked towards the door. This, she decided, was the best position after
+all, and thus she remained till a man’s step was heard on the stairs.
+Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong for
+Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behind one of the
+window-curtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of the waning of
+passion the situation was an agitating one—she had not seen Henchard
+since his (supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.
+
+She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting
+the door upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress.
+Lucetta flung back the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before
+her was not Henchard.
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person had, indeed,
+flashed through Lucetta’s mind when she was on the point of bursting
+out; but it was just too late to recede.
+
+He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair, fresh, and
+slenderly handsome. He wore genteel cloth leggings with white buttons,
+polished boots with infinite lace holes, light cord breeches under a
+black velveteen coat and waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch
+in his hand. Lucetta blushed, and said with a curious mixture of pout
+and laugh on her face—“O, I’ve made a mistake!”
+
+The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.
+
+“But I’m very sorry!” he said, in deprecating tones. “I came and I
+inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, and in no case
+would I have caught ye so unmannerly if I had known!”
+
+“I was the unmannerly one,” she said.
+
+“But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?” said Mr.
+Farfrae, blinking a little in his bewilderment and nervously tapping
+his legging with his switch.
+
+“O no, sir,—sit down. You must come and sit down now you are here,”
+replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment. “Miss Henchard
+will be here directly.”
+
+Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the young
+man—that hyperborean crispness, stringency, and charm, as of a
+well-braced musical instrument, which had awakened the interest of
+Henchard, and of Elizabeth-Jane and of the Three Mariners’ jovial crew,
+at sight, made his unexpected presence here attractive to Lucetta. He
+hesitated, looked at the chair, thought there was no danger in it
+(though there was), and sat down.
+
+Farfrae’s sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard’s permission
+to him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he had
+taken no notice of Henchard’s brusque letter; but an exceptionally
+fortunate business transaction put him on good terms with everybody,
+and revealed to him that he could undeniably marry if he chose. Then
+who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as
+Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a
+reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the natural
+course of things, flow from such a union. He therefore forgave the
+Mayor his curtness; and this morning on his way to the fair he had
+called at her house, where he learnt that she was staying at Miss
+Templeman’s. A little stimulated at not finding her ready and
+waiting—so fanciful are men!—he hastened on to High-Place Hall to
+encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself.
+
+“The fair to-day seems a large one,” she said when, by natural
+deviation, their eyes sought the busy scene without. “Your numerous
+fairs and markets keep me interested. How many things I think of while
+I watch from here!”
+
+He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without reached them
+as they sat—voices as of wavelets on a looping sea, one ever and anon
+rising above the rest. “Do you look out often?” he asked.
+
+“Yes—very often.”
+
+“Do you look for any one you know?”
+
+Why should she have answered as she did?
+
+“I look as at a picture merely. But,” she went on, turning pleasantly
+to him, “I may do so now—I may look for you. You are always there, are
+you not? Ah—I don’t mean it seriously! But it is amusing to look for
+somebody one knows in a crowd, even if one does not want him. It takes
+off the terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded by a throng, and
+having no point of junction with it through a single individual.”
+
+“Ay! Maybe you’ll be very lonely, ma’am?”
+
+“Nobody knows how lonely.”
+
+“But you are rich, they say?”
+
+“If so, I don’t know how to enjoy my riches. I came to Casterbridge
+thinking I should like to live here. But I wonder if I shall.”
+
+“Where did ye come from, ma’am?”
+
+“The neighbourhood of Bath.”
+
+“And I from near Edinboro’,” he murmured. “It’s better to stay at home,
+and that’s true; but a man must live where his money is made. It is a
+great pity, but it’s always so! Yet I’ve done very well this year. O
+yes,” he went on with ingenuous enthusiasm. “You see that man with the
+drab kerseymere coat? I bought largely of him in the autumn when wheat
+was down, and then afterwards when it rose a little I sold off all I
+had! It brought only a small profit to me; while the farmers kept
+theirs, expecting higher figures—yes, though the rats were gnawing the
+ricks hollow. Just when I sold the markets went lower, and I bought up
+the corn of those who had been holding back at less price than my first
+purchases. And then,” cried Farfrae impetuously, his face alight, “I
+sold it a few weeks after, when it happened to go up again! And so, by
+contenting mysel’ with small profits frequently repeated, I soon made
+five hundred pounds—yes!”—(bringing down his hand upon the table, and
+quite forgetting where he was)—“while the others by keeping theirs in
+hand made nothing at all!”
+
+Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest. He was quite a new type
+of person to her. At last his eye fell upon the lady’s and their
+glances met.
+
+“Ay, now, I’m wearying you!” he exclaimed.
+
+She said, “No, indeed,” colouring a shade.
+
+“What then?”
+
+“Quite otherwise. You are most interesting.”
+
+It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.
+
+“I mean all you Scotchmen,” she added in hasty correction. “So free
+from Southern extremes. We common people are all one way or the
+other—warm or cold, passionate or frigid. You have both temperatures
+going on in you at the same time.”
+
+“But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly, ma’am.”
+
+“You are animated—then you are thinking of getting on. You are sad the
+next moment—then you are thinking of Scotland and friends.”
+
+“Yes. I think of home sometimes!” he said simply.
+
+“So do I—as far as I can. But it was an old house where I was born, and
+they pulled it down for improvements, so I seem hardly to have any home
+to think of now.”
+
+Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house was in St.
+Helier, and not in Bath.
+
+“But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are there! And
+don’t they seem like home?”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“They do to me—they do to me,” he murmured. And his mind could be seen
+flying away northwards. Whether its origin were national or personal,
+it was quite true what Lucetta had said, that the curious double
+strands in Farfrae’s thread of life—the commercial and the
+romantic—were very distinct at times. Like the colours in a variegated
+cord those contrasts could be seen intertwisted, yet not mingling.
+
+“You are wishing you were back again,” she said.
+
+“Ah, no, ma’am,” said Farfrae, suddenly recalling himself.
+
+The fair without the windows was now raging thick and loud. It was the
+chief hiring fair of the year, and differed quite from the market of a
+few days earlier. In substance it was a whitey-brown crowd flecked with
+white—this being the body of labourers waiting for places. The long
+bonnets of the women, like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked
+shawls, mixed with the carters’ smockfrocks; for they, too, entered
+into the hiring. Among the rest, at the corner of the pavement, stood
+an old shepherd, who attracted the eyes of Lucetta and Farfrae by his
+stillness. He was evidently a chastened man. The battle of life had
+been a sharp one with him, for, to begin with, he was a man of small
+frame. He was now so bowed by hard work and years that, approaching
+from behind, a person could hardly see his head. He had planted the
+stem of his crook in the gutter and was resting upon the bow, which was
+polished to silver brightness by the long friction of his hands. He had
+quite forgotten where he was, and what he had come for, his eyes being
+bent on the ground. A little way off negotiations were proceeding which
+had reference to him; but he did not hear them, and there seemed to be
+passing through his mind pleasant visions of the hiring successes of
+his prime, when his skill laid open to him any farm for the asking.
+
+The negotiations were between a farmer from a distant county and the
+old man’s son. In these there was a difficulty. The farmer would not
+take the crust without the crumb of the bargain, in other words, the
+old man without the younger; and the son had a sweetheart on his
+present farm, who stood by, waiting the issue with pale lips.
+
+“I’m sorry to leave ye, Nelly,” said the young man with emotion. “But,
+you see, I can’t starve father, and he’s out o’ work at Lady-day. ’Tis
+only thirty-five mile.”
+
+The girl’s lips quivered. “Thirty-five mile!” she murmured. “Ah! ’tis
+enough! I shall never see ’ee again!” It was, indeed, a hopeless length
+of traction for Dan Cupid’s magnet; for young men were young men at
+Casterbridge as elsewhere.
+
+“O! no, no—I never shall,” she insisted, when he pressed her hand; and
+she turned her face to Lucetta’s wall to hide her weeping. The farmer
+said he would give the young man half-an-hour for his answer, and went
+away, leaving the group sorrowing.
+
+Lucetta’s eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae’s. His, too, to her
+surprise, were moist at the scene.
+
+“It is very hard,” she said with strong feelings. “Lovers ought not to
+be parted like that! O, if I had my wish, I’d let people live and love
+at their pleasure!”
+
+“Maybe I can manage that they’ll not be parted,” said Farfrae. “I want
+a young carter; and perhaps I’ll take the old man too—yes; he’ll not be
+very expensive, and doubtless he will answer my pairrpose somehow.”
+
+“O, you are so good!” she cried, delighted. “Go and tell them, and let
+me know if you have succeeded!”
+
+Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group. The eyes of all
+brightened; the bargain was soon struck. Farfrae returned to her
+immediately it was concluded.
+
+“It is kind-hearted of you, indeed,” said Lucetta. “For my part, I have
+resolved that all my servants shall have lovers if they want them! Do
+make the same resolve!”
+
+Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn. “I must be a
+little stricter than that,” he said.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“You are a—a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and-corn
+merchant.”
+
+“I am a very ambitious woman.”
+
+“Ah, well, I cannet explain. I don’t know how to talk to ladies,
+ambitious or no; and that’s true,” said Donald with grave regret. “I
+try to be civil to a’ folk—no more!”
+
+“I see you are as you say,” replied she, sensibly getting the upper
+hand in these exchanges of sentiment. Under this revelation of insight
+Farfrae again looked out of the window into the thick of the fair.
+
+Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the window their
+remarks could be heard as others’ had been.
+
+“Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?” asked one. “He promised
+to meet me here at the stroke of twelve; but I’ve gone athwart and
+about the fair half-a-dozen times, and never a sign of him: though he’s
+mostly a man to his word.”
+
+“I quite forgot the engagement,” murmured Farfrae.
+
+“Now you must go,” said she; “must you not?”
+
+“Yes,” he replied. But he still remained.
+
+“You had better go,” she urged. “You will lose a customer.
+
+“Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry,” exclaimed Farfrae.
+
+“Then suppose you don’t go; but stay a little longer?”
+
+He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seeking him and who just then
+ominously walked across to where Henchard was standing, and he looked
+into the room and at her. “I like staying; but I fear I must go!” he
+said. “Business ought not to be neglected, ought it?”
+
+“Not for a single minute.”
+
+“It’s true. I’ll come another time—if I may, ma’am?”
+
+“Certainly,” she said. “What has happened to us to-day is very
+curious.”
+
+“Something to think over when we are alone, it’s like to be?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know that. It is commonplace after all.”
+
+“No, I’ll not say that. O no!”
+
+“Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market calls you
+to be gone.”
+
+“Yes, yes. Market—business! I wish there were no business in the
+warrld.”
+
+Lucetta almost laughed—she would quite have laughed—but that there was
+a little emotion going in her at the time. “How you change!” she said.
+“You should not change like this.
+
+“I have never wished such things before,” said the Scotchman, with a
+simple, shamed, apologetic look for his weakness. “It is only since
+coming here and seeing you!”
+
+“If that’s the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear me,
+I feel I have quite demoralized you!”
+
+“But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I’ll
+go—thank you for the pleasure of this visit.”
+
+“Thank you for staying.”
+
+“Maybe I’ll get into my market-mind when I’ve been out a few minutes,”
+he murmured. “But I don’t know—I don’t know!”
+
+As he went she said eagerly, “You may hear them speak of me in
+Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I’m a coquette, which
+some may, because of the incidents of my life, don’t believe it, for I
+am not.”
+
+“I swear I will not!” he said fervidly.
+
+Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man’s enthusiasm till he was
+quite brimming with sentiment; while he from merely affording her a new
+form of idleness, had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. Why was
+this? They could not have told.
+
+Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a tradesman. But
+her ups and downs, capped by her indiscretions with Henchard had made
+her uncritical as to station. In her poverty she had met with repulse
+from the society to which she had belonged, and she had no great zest
+for renewing an attempt upon it now. Her heart longed for some ark into
+which it could fly and be at rest. Rough or smooth she did not care so
+long as it was warm.
+
+Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that he had
+called to see Elizabeth. Lucetta at the window watched him threading
+the maze of farmers and farmers’ men. She could see by his gait that he
+was conscious of her eyes, and her heart went out to him for his
+modesty—pleaded with her sense of his unfitness that he might be
+allowed to come again. He entered the market-house, and she could see
+him no more.
+
+Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks, not of
+multitude but of strength, sounded through the house, and the
+waiting-maid tripped up.
+
+“The Mayor,” she said.
+
+Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily through her
+fingers. She did not answer at once, and the maid repeated the
+information with the addition, “And he’s afraid he hasn’t much time to
+spare, he says.”
+
+“Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won’t detain him
+to-day.”
+
+The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.
+
+Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard’s feelings with
+regard to her. She had quickened them, and now she was indifferent to
+the achievement.
+
+Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element changed, and
+she no longer felt strongly the necessity of getting rid of the girl
+for her stepfather’s sake. When the young woman came in, sweetly
+unconscious of the turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said
+quite sincerely—
+
+“I’m so glad you’ve come. You’ll live with me a long time, won’t you?”
+
+Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off—what a new idea. Yet it
+was not unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all these days, after
+compromising her indescribably in the past. The least he could have
+done when he found himself free, and herself affluent, would have been
+to respond heartily and promptly to her invitation.
+
+Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at
+their suddenness; and so passed Lucetta’s experiences of that day.
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignant star had done
+to blast the budding attentions she had won from Donald Farfrae, was
+glad to hear Lucetta’s words about remaining.
+
+For in addition to Lucetta’s house being a home, that raking view of
+the market-place which it afforded had as much attraction for her as
+for Lucetta. The _carrefour_ was like the regulation Open Place in
+spectacular dramas, where the incidents that occur always happen to
+bear on the lives of the adjoining residents. Farmers, merchants,
+dairymen, quacks, hawkers, appeared there from week to week, and
+disappeared as the afternoon wasted away. It was the node of all
+orbits.
+
+From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the two young
+women now. In an emotional sense they did not live at all during the
+intervals. Wherever they might go wandering on other days, on
+market-day they were sure to be at home. Both stole sly glances out of
+the window at Farfrae’s shoulders and poll. His face they seldom saw,
+for, either through shyness, or not to disturb his mercantile mood, he
+avoided looking towards their quarters.
+
+Thus things went on, till a certain market-morning brought a new
+sensation. Elizabeth and Lucetta were sitting at breakfast when a
+parcel containing two dresses arrived for the latter from London. She
+called Elizabeth from her breakfast, and entering her friend’s bedroom
+Elizabeth saw the gowns spread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry
+colour, the other lighter—a glove lying at the end of each sleeve, a
+bonnet at the top of each neck, and parasols across the gloves, Lucetta
+standing beside the suggested human figure in an attitude of
+contemplation.
+
+“I wouldn’t think so hard about it,” said Elizabeth, marking the
+intensity with which Lucetta was alternating the question whether this
+or that would suit best.
+
+“But settling upon new clothes is so trying,” said Lucetta. “You are
+that person” (pointing to one of the arrangements), “or you are _that_
+totally different person” (pointing to the other), “for the whole of
+the coming spring and one of the two, you don’t know which, may turn
+out to be very objectionable.”
+
+It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the
+cherry-coloured person at all hazards. The dress was pronounced to be a
+fit, and Lucetta walked with it into the front room, Elizabeth
+following her.
+
+The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year. The sun fell
+so flat on the houses and pavement opposite Lucetta’s residence that
+they poured their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling
+of wheels, there were added to this steady light a fantastic series of
+circling irradiations upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to
+the window. Immediately opposite a vehicle of strange description had
+come to a standstill, as if it had been placed there for exhibition.
+
+It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a horse-drill,
+till then unknown, in its modern shape, in this part of the country,
+where the venerable seed-lip was still used for sowing as in the days
+of the Heptarchy. Its arrival created about as much sensation in the
+corn-market as a flying machine would create at Charing Cross. The
+farmers crowded round it, women drew near it, children crept under and
+into it. The machine was painted in bright hues of green, yellow, and
+red, and it resembled as a whole a compound of hornet, grasshopper, and
+shrimp, magnified enormously. Or it might have been likened to an
+upright musical instrument with the front gone. That was how it struck
+Lucetta. “Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano,” she said.
+
+“It has something to do with corn,” said Elizabeth.
+
+“I wonder who thought of introducing it here?”
+
+Donald Farfrae was in the minds of both as the innovator, for though
+not a farmer he was closely leagued with farming operations. And as if
+in response to their thought he came up at that moment, looked at the
+machine, walked round it, and handled it as if he knew something about
+its make. The two watchers had inwardly started at his coming, and
+Elizabeth left the window, went to the back of the room, and stood as
+if absorbed in the panelling of the wall. She hardly knew that she had
+done this till Lucetta, animated by the conjunction of her new attire
+with the sight of Farfrae, spoke out: “Let us go and look at the
+instrument, whatever it is.”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane’s bonnet and shawl were pitchforked on in a moment, and
+they went out. Among all the agriculturists gathered round the only
+appropriate possessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta, because
+she alone rivalled it in colour.
+
+They examined it curiously; observing the rows of trumpet-shaped tubes
+one within the other, the little scoops, like revolving salt-spoons,
+which tossed the seed into the upper ends of the tubes that conducted
+it to the ground; till somebody said, “Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane.”
+She looked up, and there was her stepfather.
+
+His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and Elizabeth-Jane,
+embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered at random, “This is the
+lady I live with, father—Miss Templeman.”
+
+Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with a great
+wave till it met his body at the knee. Miss Templeman bowed. “I am
+happy to become acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard,” she said. “This is
+a curious machine.”
+
+“Yes,” Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and still more
+forcibly to ridicule it.
+
+“Who brought it here?” said Lucetta.
+
+“Oh, don’t ask me, ma’am!” said Henchard. “The thing—why ’tis
+impossible it should act. ’Twas brought here by one of our machinists
+on the recommendation of a jumped-up jackanapes of a fellow who
+thinks——” His eye caught Elizabeth-Jane’s imploring face, and he
+stopped, probably thinking that the suit might be progressing.
+
+He turned to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his
+stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur
+apparently came from Henchard’s lips in which she detected the words,
+“You refused to see me!” reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could
+not believe that they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless,
+indeed, they might have been spoken to one of the yellow-gaitered
+farmers near them. Yet Lucetta seemed silent, and then all thought of
+the incident was dissipated by the humming of a song, which sounded as
+though from the interior of the machine. Henchard had by this time
+vanished into the market-house, and both the women glanced towards the
+corn-drill. They could see behind it the bent back of a man who was
+pushing his head into the internal works to master their simple
+secrets. The hummed song went on—
+
+“’Tw—s on a s—m—r aftern—n,
+A wee be—re the s—n w—nt d—n,
+When Kitty wi’ a braw n—w g—wn
+C—me ow’re the h—lls to Gowrie.”
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment, and looked
+guilty of she did not know what. Lucetta next recognized him, and more
+mistress of herself said archly, “The ‘Lass of Gowrie’ from inside of a
+seed-drill—what a phenomenon!”
+
+Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood upright,
+and met their eyes across the summit.
+
+“We are looking at the wonderful new drill,” Miss Templeman said. “But
+practically it is a stupid thing—is it not?” she added, on the strength
+of Henchard’s information.
+
+“Stupid? O no!” said Farfrae gravely. “It will revolutionize sowing
+heerabout! No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast, so that
+some falls by the wayside and some among thorns, and all that. Each
+grain will go straight to its intended place, and nowhere else
+whatever!”
+
+“Then the romance of the sower is gone for good,” observed
+Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrae in Bible-reading
+at least. “‘He that observeth the wind shall not sow,’ so the Preacher
+said; but his words will not be to the point any more. How things
+change!”
+
+“Ay; ay.... It must be so!” Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself on
+a blank point far away. “But the machines are already very common in
+the East and North of England,” he added apologetically.
+
+Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance
+with the Scriptures being somewhat limited. “Is the machine yours?” she
+asked of Farfrae.
+
+“O no, madam,” said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the
+sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth-Jane he was quite at his
+ease. “No, no—I merely recommended that it should be got.”
+
+In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only conscious of her;
+to have passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of
+existence than she appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that he was much
+mixed that day, partly in his mercantile mood and partly in his
+romantic one, said gaily to him—
+
+“Well, don’t forsake the machine for us,” and went indoors with her
+companion.
+
+The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was
+unaccountable to her. Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying
+when they were again in the sitting-room—
+
+“I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew
+him this morning.”
+
+Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day. Together they saw the
+market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline
+of the sun towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street
+endways and enfilading the long thoroughfare from top to bottom. The
+gigs and vans disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in
+the street. The time of the riding world was over; the pedestrian world
+held sway. Field labourers and their wives and children trooped in from
+the villages for their weekly shopping, and instead of a rattle of
+wheels and a tramp of horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was
+nothing but the shuffle of many feet. All the implements were gone; all
+the farmers; all the moneyed class. The character of the town’s trading
+had changed from bulk to multiplicity and pence were handled now as
+pounds had been handled earlier in the day.
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it was night and
+the street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed.
+In the faint blink of the fire they spoke more freely.
+
+“Your father was distant with you,” said Lucetta.
+
+“Yes.” And having forgotten the momentary mystery of Henchard’s seeming
+speech to Lucetta she continued, “It is because he does not think I am
+respectable. I have tried to be so more than you can imagine, but in
+vain! My mother’s separation from my father was unfortunate for me. You
+don’t know what it is to have shadows like that upon your life.”
+
+Lucetta seemed to wince. “I do not—of that kind precisely,” she said,
+“but you may feel a—sense of disgrace—shame—in other ways.”
+
+“Have you ever had any such feeling?” said the younger innocently.
+
+“O no,” said Lucetta quickly. “I was thinking of—what happens sometimes
+when women get themselves in strange positions in the eyes of the world
+from no fault of their own.”
+
+“It must make them very unhappy afterwards.”
+
+“It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise them?”
+
+“Not altogether despise them. Yet not quite like or respect them.”
+
+Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no means secure from
+investigation, even in Casterbridge. For one thing Henchard had never
+returned to her the cloud of letters she had written and sent him in
+her first excitement. Possibly they were destroyed; but she could have
+wished that they had never been written.
+
+The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towards Lucetta had made
+the reflective Elizabeth more observant of her brilliant and amiable
+companion. A few days afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta’s as the
+latter was going out, she somehow knew that Miss Templeman was
+nourishing a hope of seeing the attractive Scotchman. The fact was
+printed large all over Lucetta’s cheeks and eyes to any one who could
+read her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginning to do. Lucetta passed on and
+closed the street door.
+
+A seer’s spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down
+by the fire and divine events so surely from data already her own that
+they could be held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally—saw
+her encounter Donald somewhere as if by chance—saw him wear his special
+look when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one was
+Lucetta. She depicted his impassioned manner; beheld the indecision of
+both between their lothness to separate and their desire not to be
+observed; depicted their shaking of hands; how they probably parted
+with frigidity in their general contour and movements, only in the
+smaller features showing the spark of passion, thus invisible to all
+but themselves. This discerning silent witch had not done thinking of
+these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her
+start.
+
+It was all true as she had pictured—she could have sworn it. Lucetta
+had a heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced
+colour of her cheeks.
+
+“You’ve seen Mr. Farfrae,” said Elizabeth demurely.
+
+“Yes,” said Lucetta. “How did you know?”
+
+She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend’s hands excitedly in
+her own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or
+what he had said.
+
+That night she became restless; in the morning she was feverish; and at
+breakfast-time she told her companion that she had something on her
+mind—something which concerned a person in whom she was interested
+much. Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize.
+
+“This person—a lady—once admired a man much—very much,” she said
+tentatively.
+
+“Ah,” said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+“They were intimate—rather. He did not think so deeply of her as she
+did of him. But in an impulsive moment, purely out of reparation, he
+proposed to make her his wife. She agreed. But there was an unsuspected
+hitch in the proceedings; though she had been so far compromised with
+him that she felt she could never belong to another man, as a pure
+matter of conscience, even if she should wish to. After that they were
+much apart, heard nothing of each other for a long time, and she felt
+her life quite closed up for her.”
+
+“Ah—poor girl!”
+
+“She suffered much on account of him; though I should add that he could
+not altogether be blamed for what had happened. At last the obstacle
+which separated them was providentially removed; and he came to marry
+her.”
+
+“How delightful!”
+
+“But in the interval she—my poor friend—had seen a man, she liked
+better than him. Now comes the point: Could she in honour dismiss the
+first?”
+
+“A new man she liked better—that’s bad!”
+
+“Yes,” said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was swinging the town
+pump-handle. “It is bad! Though you must remember that she was forced
+into an equivocal position with the first man by an accident—that he
+was not so well educated or refined as the second, and that she had
+discovered some qualities in the first that rendered him less desirable
+as a husband than she had at first thought him to be.”
+
+“I cannot answer,” said Elizabeth-Jane thoughtfully. “It is so
+difficult. It wants a Pope to settle that!”
+
+“You prefer not to perhaps?” Lucetta showed in her appealing tone how
+much she leant on Elizabeth’s judgment.
+
+“Yes, Miss Templeman,” admitted Elizabeth. “I would rather not say.”
+
+Nevertheless, Lucetta seemed relieved by the simple fact of having
+opened out the situation a little, and was slowly convalescent of her
+headache. “Bring me a looking-glass. How do I appear to people?” she
+said languidly.
+
+“Well—a little worn,” answered Elizabeth, eyeing her as a critic eyes a
+doubtful painting; fetching the glass she enabled Lucetta to survey
+herself in it, which Lucetta anxiously did.
+
+“I wonder if I wear well, as times go!” she observed after a while.
+
+“Yes—fairly.
+
+“Where am I worst?”
+
+“Under your eyes—I notice a little brownness there.”
+
+“Yes. That is my worst place, I know. How many years more do you think
+I shall last before I get hopelessly plain?”
+
+There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth, though the
+younger, had come to play the part of experienced sage in these
+discussions. “It may be five years,” she said judicially. “Or, with a
+quiet life, as many as ten. With no love you might calculate on ten.”
+
+Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable, impartial
+verdict. She told Elizabeth-Jane no more of the past attachment she had
+roughly adumbrated as the experiences of a third person; and Elizabeth,
+who in spite of her philosophy was very tender-hearted, sighed that
+night in bed at the thought that her pretty, rich Lucetta did not treat
+her to the full confidence of names and dates in her confessions. For
+by the “she” of Lucetta’s story Elizabeth had not been beguiled.
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+The next phase of the supersession of Henchard in Lucetta’s heart was
+an experiment in calling on her performed by Farfrae with some apparent
+trepidation. Conventionally speaking he conversed with both Miss
+Templeman and her companion; but in fact it was rather that Elizabeth
+sat invisible in the room. Donald appeared not to see her at all, and
+answered her wise little remarks with curtly indifferent monosyllables,
+his looks and faculties hanging on the woman who could boast of a more
+Protean variety in her phases, moods, opinions, and also principles,
+than could Elizabeth. Lucetta had persisted in dragging her into the
+circle; but she had remained like an awkward third point which that
+circle would not touch.
+
+Susan Henchard’s daughter bore up against the frosty ache of the
+treatment, as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived as
+soon as possible to get out of the inharmonious room without being
+missed. The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced
+with her and walked with her in a delicate poise between love and
+friendship—that period in the history of a love when alone it can be
+said to be unalloyed with pain.
+
+She stoically looked from her bedroom window, and contemplated her fate
+as if it were written on the top of the church-tower hard by. “Yes,”
+she said at last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat:
+“_He_ is the second man of that story she told me!”
+
+All this time Henchard’s smouldering sentiments towards Lucetta had
+been fanned into higher and higher inflammation by the circumstances of
+the case. He was discovering that the young woman for whom he once felt
+a pitying warmth which had been almost chilled out of him by
+reflection, was, when now qualified with a slight inaccessibility and a
+more matured beauty, the very being to make him satisfied with life.
+Day after day proved to him, by her silence, that it was no use to
+think of bringing her round by holding aloof; so he gave in, and called
+upon her again, Elizabeth-Jane being absent.
+
+He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some awkwardness, his
+strong, warm gaze upon her—like the sun beside the moon in comparison
+with Farfrae’s modest look—and with something of a hail-fellow bearing,
+as, indeed, was not unnatural. But she seemed so transubstantiated by
+her change of position, and held out her hand to him in such cool
+friendship, that he became deferential, and sat down with a perceptible
+loss of power. He understood but little of fashion in dress, yet enough
+to feel himself inadequate in appearance beside her whom he had
+hitherto been dreaming of as almost his property. She said something
+very polite about his being good enough to call. This caused him to
+recover balance. He looked her oddly in the face, losing his awe.
+
+“Why, of course I have called, Lucetta,” he said. “What does that
+nonsense mean? You know I couldn’t have helped myself if I had
+wished—that is, if I had any kindness at all. I’ve called to say that I
+am ready, as soon as custom will permit, to give you my name in return
+for your devotion and what you lost by it in thinking too little of
+yourself and too much of me; to say that you can fix the day or month,
+with my full consent, whenever in your opinion it would be seemly: you
+know more of these things than I.”
+
+“It is full early yet,” she said evasively.
+
+“Yes, yes; I suppose it is. But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my
+poor ill-used Susan died, and when I could not bear the idea of
+marrying again, that after what had happened between us it was my duty
+not to let any unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights.
+Still, I wouldn’t call in a hurry, because—well, you can guess how this
+money you’ve come into made me feel.” His voice slowly fell; he was
+conscious that in this room his accents and manner wore a roughness not
+observable in the street. He looked about the room at the novel
+hangings and ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.
+
+“Upon my life I didn’t know such furniture as this could be bought in
+Casterbridge,” he said.
+
+“Nor can it be,” said she. “Nor will it till fifty years more of
+civilization have passed over the town. It took a waggon and four
+horses to get it here.”
+
+“H’m. It looks as if you were living on capital.”
+
+“O no, I am not.”
+
+“So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes
+my beaming towards you rather awkward.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one. “Well,” he
+went on, “there’s nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter
+into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will
+become it more.” He turned to her with congratulatory admiration so
+fervid that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so
+well.
+
+“I am greatly obliged to you for all that,” said she, rather with an
+air of speaking ritual. The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived,
+and Henchard showed chagrin at once—nobody was more quick to show that
+than he.
+
+“You may be obliged or not for’t. Though the things I say may not have
+the polish of what you’ve lately learnt to expect for the first time in
+your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta.”
+
+“That’s rather a rude way of speaking to me,” pouted Lucetta, with
+stormy eyes.
+
+“Not at all!” replied Henchard hotly. “But there, there, I don’t wish
+to quarrel with ’ee. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your
+Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful.”
+
+“How can you speak so!” she answered, firing quickly. “Knowing that my
+only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl’s passion for you with
+too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent
+all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I
+suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of
+your wife’s return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little
+independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!”
+
+“Yes, it is,” he said. “But it is not by what is, in this life, but by
+what appears, that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought to
+accept me—for your own good name’s sake. What is known in your native
+Jersey may get known here.”
+
+“How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!”
+
+“Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?”
+
+For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet
+she was backward. “For the present let things be,” she said with some
+embarrassment. “Treat me as an acquaintance, and I’ll treat you as one.
+Time will—” She stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap for
+awhile, there being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them into
+speech if they were not minded for it.
+
+“That’s the way the wind blows, is it?” he said at last grimly, nodding
+an affirmative to his own thoughts.
+
+A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a few
+instants. It was produced by the passing of a load of newly trussed hay
+from the country, in a waggon marked with Farfrae’s name. Beside it
+rode Farfrae himself on horseback. Lucetta’s face became—as a woman’s
+face becomes when the man she loves rises upon her gaze like an
+apparition.
+
+A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window, and the secret
+of her inaccessibility would have been revealed. But Henchard in
+estimating her tone was looking down so plumb-straight that he did not
+note the warm consciousness upon Lucetta’s face.
+
+“I shouldn’t have thought it—I shouldn’t have thought it of women!” he
+said emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking himself into activity;
+while Lucetta was so anxious to divert him from any suspicion of the
+truth that she asked him to be in no hurry. Bringing him some apples
+she insisted upon paring one for him.
+
+He would not take it. “No, no; such is not for me,” he said drily, and
+moved to the door. At going out he turned his eye upon her.
+
+“You came to live in Casterbridge entirely on my account,” he said.
+“Yet now you are here you won’t have anything to say to my offer!”
+
+He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon the sofa
+and jumped up again in a fit of desperation. “I will love him!” she
+cried passionately; “as for _him_—he’s hot-tempered and stern, and it
+would be madness to bind myself to him knowing that. I won’t be a slave
+to the past—I’ll love where I choose!”
+
+Yet having decided to break away from Henchard one might have supposed
+her capable of aiming higher than Farfrae. But Lucetta reasoned
+nothing: she feared hard words from the people with whom she had been
+earlier associated; she had no relatives left; and with native
+lightness of heart took kindly to what fate offered.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucetta between her two
+lovers from the crystalline sphere of a straightforward mind, did not
+fail to perceive that her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrae
+became more desperately enamoured of her friend every day. On Farfrae’s
+side it was the unforced passion of youth. On Henchard’s the
+artificially stimulated coveting of maturer age.
+
+The pain she experienced from the almost absolute obliviousness to her
+existence that was shown by the pair of them became at times half
+dissipated by her sense of its humourousness. When Lucetta had pricked
+her finger they were as deeply concerned as if she were dying; when she
+herself had been seriously sick or in danger they uttered a
+conventional word of sympathy at the news, and forgot all about it
+immediately. But, as regarded Henchard, this perception of hers also
+caused her some filial grief; she could not help asking what she had
+done to be neglected so, after the professions of solicitude he had
+made. As regarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection, that
+it was quite natural. What was she beside Lucetta?—as one of the
+“meaner beauties of the night,” when the moon had risen in the skies.
+
+She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and was as familiar with the
+wreck of each day’s wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun. If
+her earthly career had taught her few book philosophies it had at least
+well practised her in this. Yet her experience had consisted less in a
+series of pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions.
+Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been
+granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not desired. So
+she viewed with an approach to equanimity the now cancelled days when
+Donald had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwished-for
+thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchard and Farfrae met in
+the chestnut-walk which ran along the south wall of the town. Each had
+just come out from his early breakfast, and there was not another soul
+near. Henchard was reading a letter from Lucetta, sent in answer to a
+note from him, in which she made some excuse for not immediately
+granting him a second interview that he had desired.
+
+Donald had no wish to enter into conversation with his former friend on
+their present constrained terms; neither would he pass him in scowling
+silence. He nodded, and Henchard did the same. They receded from each
+other several paces when a voice cried “Farfrae!” It was Henchard’s,
+who stood regarding him.
+
+“Do you remember,” said Henchard, as if it were the presence of the
+thought and not of the man which made him speak, “do you remember my
+story of that second woman—who suffered for her thoughtless intimacy
+with me?”
+
+“I do,” said Farfrae.
+
+“Do you remember my telling ’ee how it all began and how it ended?
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well, I have offered to marry her now that I can; but she won’t marry
+me. Now what would you think of her—I put it to you?”
+
+“Well, ye owe her nothing more now,” said Farfrae heartily.
+
+“It is true,” said Henchard, and went on.
+
+That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questions completely
+shut out from Farfrae’s mind all vision of Lucetta as the culprit.
+Indeed, her present position was so different from that of the young
+woman of Henchard’s story as of itself to be sufficient to blind him
+absolutely to her identity. As for Henchard, he was reassured by
+Farfrae’s words and manner against a suspicion which had crossed his
+mind. They were not those of a conscious rival.
+
+Yet that there was rivalry by some one he was firmly persuaded. He
+could feel it in the air around Lucetta, see it in the turn of her pen.
+There was an antagonistic force in exercise, so that when he had tried
+to hang near her he seemed standing in a refluent current. That it was
+not innate caprice he was more and more certain. Her windows gleamed as
+if they did not want him; her curtains seem to hang slily, as if they
+screened an ousting presence. To discover whose presence that
+was—whether really Farfrae’s after all, or another’s—he exerted himself
+to the utmost to see her again; and at length succeeded.
+
+At the interview, when she offered him tea, he made it a point to
+launch a cautious inquiry if she knew Mr. Farfrae.
+
+O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not help knowing almost
+everybody in Casterbridge, living in such a gazebo over the centre and
+arena of the town.
+
+“Pleasant young fellow,” said Henchard.
+
+“Yes,” said Lucetta.
+
+“We both know him,” said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her
+companion’s divined embarrassment.
+
+There was a knock at the door; literally, three full knocks and a
+little one at the end.
+
+“That kind of knock means half-and-half—somebody between gentle and
+simple,” said the corn-merchant to himself. “I shouldn’t wonder
+therefore if it is he.” In a few seconds surely enough Donald walked
+in.
+
+Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, which increased
+Henchard’s suspicions without affording any special proof of their
+correctness. He was well-nigh ferocious at the sense of the queer
+situation in which he stood towards this woman. One who had reproached
+him for deserting her when calumniated, who had urged claims upon his
+consideration on that account, who had lived waiting for him, who at
+the first decent opportunity had come to ask him to rectify, by making
+her his, the false position into which she had placed herself for his
+sake; such she had been. And now he sat at her tea-table eager to gain
+her attention, and in his amatory rage feeling the other man present to
+be a villain, just as any young fool of a lover might feel.
+
+They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table, like some Tuscan
+painting of the two disciples supping at Emmaus. Lucetta, forming the
+third and haloed figure, was opposite them; Elizabeth-Jane, being out
+of the game, and out of the group, could observe all from afar, like
+the evangelist who had to write it down: that there were long spaces of
+taciturnity, when all exterior circumstances were subdued to the touch
+of spoons and china, the click of a heel on the pavement under the
+window, the passing of a wheelbarrow or cart, the whistling of the
+carter, the gush of water into householders’ buckets at the town-pump
+opposite, the exchange of greetings among their neighbours, and the
+rattle of the yokes by which they carried off their evening supply.
+
+“More bread-and-butter?” said Lucetta to Henchard and Farfrae equally,
+holding out between them a plateful of long slices. Henchard took a
+slice by one end and Donald by the other; each feeling certain he was
+the man meant; neither let go, and the slice came in two.
+
+“Oh—I am so sorry!” cried Lucetta, with a nervous titter. Farfrae tried
+to laugh; but he was too much in love to see the incident in any but a
+tragic light.
+
+“How ridiculous of all three of them!” said Elizabeth to herself.
+
+Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture, though without a
+grain of proof, that the counterattraction was Farfrae; and therefore
+he would not make up his mind. Yet to Elizabeth-Jane it was plain as
+the town-pump that Donald and Lucetta were incipient lovers. More than
+once, in spite of her care, Lucetta had been unable to restrain her
+glance from flitting across into Farfrae’s eyes like a bird to its
+nest. But Henchard was constructed upon too large a scale to discern
+such minutiæ as these by an evening light, which to him were as the
+notes of an insect that lie above the compass of the human ear.
+
+But he was disturbed. And the sense of occult rivalry in suitorship was
+so much superadded to the palpable rivalry of their business lives. To
+the coarse materiality of that rivalry it added an inflaming soul.
+
+The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of action by Henchard
+sending for Jopp, the manager originally displaced by Farfrae’s
+arrival. Henchard had frequently met this man about the streets,
+observed that his clothing spoke of neediness, heard that he lived in
+Mixen Lane—a back slum of the town, the _pis aller_ of Casterbridge
+domiciliation—itself almost a proof that a man had reached a stage when
+he would not stick at trifles.
+
+Jopp came after dark, by the gates of the storeyard, and felt his way
+through the hay and straw to the office where Henchard sat in solitude
+awaiting him.
+
+“I am again out of a foreman,” said the corn-factor. “Are you in a
+place?”
+
+“Not so much as a beggar’s, sir.”
+
+“How much do you ask?”
+
+Jopp named his price, which was very moderate.
+
+“When can you come?”
+
+“At this hour and moment, sir,” said Jopp, who, standing hands-pocketed
+at the street corner till the sun had faded the shoulders of his coat
+to scarecrow green, had regularly watched Henchard in the market-place,
+measured him, and learnt him, by virtue of the power which the still
+man has in his stillness of knowing the busy one better than he knows
+himself. Jopp too, had had a convenient experience; he was the only one
+in Casterbridge besides Henchard and the close-lipped Elizabeth who
+knew that Lucetta came truly from Jersey, and but proximately from
+Bath. “I know Jersey too, sir,” he said. “Was living there when you
+used to do business that way. O yes—have often seen ye there.”
+
+“Indeed! Very good. Then the thing is settled. The testimonials you
+showed me when you first tried for’t are sufficient.”
+
+That characters deteriorated in time of need possibly did not occur to
+Henchard. Jopp said, “Thank you,” and stood more firmly, in the
+consciousness that at last he officially belonged to that spot.
+
+“Now,” said Henchard, digging his strong eyes into Jopp’s face, “one
+thing is necessary to me, as the biggest corn-and-hay dealer in these
+parts. The Scotchman, who’s taking the town trade so bold into his
+hands, must be cut out. D’ye hear? We two can’t live side by
+side—that’s clear and certain.”
+
+“I’ve seen it all,” said Jopp.
+
+“By fair competition I mean, of course,” Henchard continued. “But as
+hard, keen, and unflinching as fair—rather more so. By such a desperate
+bid against him for the farmers’ custom as will grind him into the
+ground—starve him out. I’ve capital, mind ye, and I can do it.”
+
+“I’m all that way of thinking,” said the new foreman. Jopp’s dislike of
+Farfrae as the man who had once ursurped his place, while it made him a
+willing tool, made him, at the same time, commercially as unsafe a
+colleague as Henchard could have chosen.
+
+“I sometimes think,” he added, “that he must have some glass that he
+sees next year in. He has such a knack of making everything bring him
+fortune.”
+
+“He’s deep beyond all honest men’s discerning, but we must make him
+shallower. We’ll undersell him, and over-buy him, and so snuff him
+out.”
+
+They then entered into specific details of the process by which this
+would be accomplished, and parted at a late hour.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane heard by accident that Jopp had been engaged by her
+stepfather. She was so fully convinced that he was not the right man
+for the place that, at the risk of making Henchard angry, she expressed
+her apprehension to him when they met. But it was done to no purpose.
+Henchard shut up her argument with a sharp rebuff.
+
+The season’s weather seemed to favour their scheme. The time was in the
+years immediately before foreign competition had revolutionized the
+trade in grain; when still, as from the earliest ages, the wheat
+quotations from month to month depended entirely upon the home harvest.
+A bad harvest, or the prospect of one, would double the price of corn
+in a few weeks; and the promise of a good yield would lower it as
+rapidly. Prices were like the roads of the period, steep in gradient,
+reflecting in their phases the local conditions, without engineering,
+levellings, or averages.
+
+The farmer’s income was ruled by the wheat-crop within his own horizon,
+and the wheat-crop by the weather. Thus in person, he became a sort of
+flesh-barometer, with feelers always directed to the sky and wind
+around him. The local atmosphere was everything to him; the atmospheres
+of other countries a matter of indifference. The people, too, who were
+not farmers, the rural multitude, saw in the god of the weather a more
+important personage than they do now. Indeed, the feeling of the
+peasantry in this matter was so intense as to be almost unrealizable in
+these equable days. Their impulse was well-nigh to prostrate themselves
+in lamentation before untimely rains and tempests, which came as the
+Alastor of those households whose crime it was to be poor.
+
+After midsummer they watched the weather-cocks as men waiting in
+antechambers watch the lackey. Sun elated them; quiet rain sobered
+them; weeks of watery tempest stupefied them. That aspect of the sky
+which they now regard as disagreeable they then beheld as maleficent.
+
+It was June, and the weather was very unfavourable. Casterbridge, being
+as it were the bell-board on which all the adjacent hamlets and
+villages sounded their notes, was decidedly dull. Instead of new
+articles in the shop-windows those that had been rejected in the
+foregoing summer were brought out again; superseded reap-hooks,
+badly-shaped rakes, shop-worn leggings, and time-stiffened water-tights
+reappeared, furbished up as near to new as possible.
+
+Henchard, backed by Jopp, read a disastrous garnering, and resolved to
+base his strategy against Farfrae upon that reading. But before acting
+he wished—what so many have wished—that he could know for certain what
+was at present only strong probability. He was superstitious—as such
+head-strong natures often are—and he nourished in his mind an idea
+bearing on the matter; an idea he shrank from disclosing even to Jopp.
+
+In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town—so lonely that what are
+called lonely villages were teeming by comparison—there lived a man of
+curious repute as a forecaster or weather-prophet. The way to his house
+was crooked and miry—even difficult in the present unpropitious season.
+One evening when it was raining so heavily that ivy and laurel
+resounded like distant musketry, and an out-door man could be excused
+for shrouding himself to his ears and eyes, such a shrouded figure on
+foot might have been perceived travelling in the direction of the
+hazel-copse which dripped over the prophet’s cot. The turnpike-road
+became a lane, the lane a cart-track, the cart-track a bridle-path, the
+bridle-path a foot-way, the foot-way overgrown. The solitary walker
+slipped here and there, and stumbled over the natural springes formed
+by the brambles, till at length he reached the house, which, with its
+garden, was surrounded with a high, dense hedge. The cottage,
+comparatively a large one, had been built of mud by the occupier’s own
+hands, and thatched also by himself. Here he had always lived, and here
+it was assumed he would die.
+
+He existed on unseen supplies; for it was an anomalous thing that while
+there was hardly a soul in the neighbourhood but affected to laugh at
+this man’s assertions, uttering the formula, “There’s nothing in ’em,”
+with full assurance on the surface of their faces, very few of them
+were unbelievers in their secret hearts. Whenever they consulted him
+they did it “for a fancy.” When they paid him they said, “Just a trifle
+for Christmas,” or “Candlemas,” as the case might be.
+
+He would have preferred more honesty in his clients, and less sham
+ridicule; but fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. As
+stated, he was enabled to live; people supported him with their backs
+turned. He was sometimes astonished that men could profess so little
+and believe so much at his house, when at church they professed so much
+and believed so little.
+
+Behind his back he was called “Wide-oh,” on account of his reputation;
+to his face “Mr.” Fall.
+
+The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance, and a door
+was inserted as in a wall. Outside the door the tall traveller stopped,
+bandaged his face with a handkerchief as if he were suffering from
+toothache, and went up the path. The window shutters were not closed,
+and he could see the prophet within, preparing his supper.
+
+In answer to the knock Fall came to the door, candle in hand. The
+visitor stepped back a little from the light, and said, “Can I speak to
+’ee?” in significant tones. The other’s invitation to come in was
+responded to by the country formula, “This will do, thank ’ee,” after
+which the householder had no alternative but to come out. He placed the
+candle on the corner of the dresser, took his hat from a nail, and
+joined the stranger in the porch, shutting the door behind him.
+
+“I’ve long heard that you can—do things of a sort?” began the other,
+repressing his individuality as much as he could.
+
+“Maybe so, Mr. Henchard,” said the weather-caster.
+
+“Ah—why do you call me that?” asked the visitor with a start.
+
+“Because it’s your name. Feeling you’d come I’ve waited for ’ee; and
+thinking you might be leery from your walk I laid two supper
+plates—look ye here.” He threw open the door and disclosed the
+supper-table, at which appeared a second chair, knife and fork, plate
+and mug, as he had declared.
+
+Henchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel; he remained in
+silence for a few moments, then throwing off the disguise of frigidity
+which he had hitherto preserved he said, “Then I have not come in
+vain.... Now, for instance, can ye charm away warts?”
+
+“Without trouble.”
+
+“Cure the evil?”
+
+“That I’ve done—with consideration—if they will wear the toad-bag by
+night as well as by day.”
+
+“Forecast the weather?”
+
+“With labour and time.”
+
+“Then take this,” said Henchard. “’Tis a crownpiece. Now, what is the
+harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?’
+
+“I’ve worked it out already, and you can know at once.” (The fact was
+that five farmers had already been there on the same errand from
+different parts of the country.) “By the sun, moon, and stars, by the
+clouds, the winds, the trees, and grass, the candle-flame and swallows,
+the smell of the herbs; likewise by the cats’ eyes, the ravens, the
+leeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August
+will be—rain and tempest.”
+
+“You are not certain, of course?”
+
+“As one can be in a world where all’s unsure. ’Twill be more like
+living in Revelations this autumn than in England. Shall I sketch it
+out for ’ee in a scheme?”
+
+“O no, no,” said Henchard. “I don’t altogether believe in forecasts,
+come to second thoughts on such. But I—”
+
+“You don’t—you don’t—’tis quite understood,” said Wide-oh, without a
+sound of scorn. “You have given me a crown because you’ve one too many.
+But won’t you join me at supper, now ’tis waiting and all?”
+
+Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savour of the stew had
+floated from the cottage into the porch with such appetizing
+distinctness that the meat, the onions, the pepper, and the herbs could
+be severally recognized by his nose. But as sitting down to hob-and-nob
+there would have seemed to mark him too implicitly as the
+weather-caster’s apostle, he declined, and went his way.
+
+The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such an enormous extent that
+there was quite a talk about his purchases among his neighbours the
+lawyer, the wine merchant, and the doctor; also on the next, and on all
+available days. When his granaries were full to choking all the
+weather-cocks of Casterbridge creaked and set their faces in another
+direction, as if tired of the south-west. The weather changed; the
+sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks, assumed the hues of topaz.
+The temperament of the welkin passed from the phlegmatic to the
+sanguine; an excellent harvest was almost a certainty; and as a
+consequence prices rushed down.
+
+All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the wrong-headed
+corn-dealer were terrible. He was reminded of what he had well known
+before, that a man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields
+as readily as upon those of a card-room.
+
+Henchard had backed bad weather, and apparently lost. He had mistaken
+the turn of the flood for the turn of the ebb. His dealings had been so
+extensive that settlement could not long be postponed, and to settle he
+was obliged to sell off corn that he had bought only a few weeks before
+at figures higher by many shillings a quarter. Much of the corn he had
+never seen; it had not even been moved from the ricks in which it lay
+stacked miles away. Thus he lost heavily.
+
+In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfrae in the market-place.
+Farfrae knew of his dealings (though he did not guess their intended
+bearing on himself) and commiserated him; for since their exchange of
+words in the South Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms.
+Henchard for the moment appeared to resent the sympathy; but he
+suddenly took a careless turn.
+
+“Ho, no, no!—nothing serious, man!” he cried with fierce gaiety. “These
+things always happen, don’t they? I know it has been said that figures
+have touched me tight lately; but is that anything rare? The case is
+not so bad as folk make out perhaps. And dammy, a man must be a fool to
+mind the common hazards of trade!”
+
+But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for reasons which
+had never before sent him there—and to sit a long time in the partners’
+room with a constrained bearing. It was rumoured soon after that much
+real property as well as vast stores of produce, which had stood in
+Henchard’s name in the town and neighbourhood, was actually the
+possession of his bankers.
+
+Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp. The gloomy
+transactions just completed within had added fever to the original
+sting of Farfrae’s sympathy that morning, which Henchard fancied might
+be a satire disguised so that Jopp met with anything but a bland
+reception. The latter was in the act of taking off his hat to wipe his
+forehead, and saying, “A fine hot day,” to an acquaintance.
+
+“You can wipe and wipe, and say, ‘A fine hot day,’ can ye!” cried
+Henchard in a savage undertone, imprisoning Jopp between himself and
+the bank wall. “If it hadn’t been for your blasted advice it might have
+been a fine day enough! Why did ye let me go on, hey?—when a word of
+doubt from you or anybody would have made me think twice! For you can
+never be sure of weather till ’tis past.”
+
+“My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best.”
+
+“A useful fellow! And the sooner you help somebody else in that way the
+better!” Henchard continued his address to Jopp in similar terms till
+it ended in Jopp’s dismissal there and then, Henchard turning upon his
+heel and leaving him.
+
+“You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry as a man can be!” said Jopp,
+standing pale, and looking after the corn-merchant as he disappeared in
+the crowd of market-men hard by.
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfrae was buying. As was
+usual, after reckoning too surely on famine weather the local farmers
+had flown to the other extreme, and (in Farfrae’s opinion) were selling
+off too recklessly—calculating with just a trifle too much certainty
+upon an abundant yield. So he went on buying old corn at its
+comparatively ridiculous price: for the produce of the previous year,
+though not large, had been of excellent quality.
+
+When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way, and got rid
+of his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss, the harvest began.
+There were three days of excellent weather, and then—“What if that
+curst conjuror should be right after all!” said Henchard.
+
+The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play than the
+atmosphere suddenly felt as if cress would grow in it without other
+nourishment. It rubbed people’s cheeks like damp flannel when they
+walked abroad. There was a gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops
+starred the window-panes at remote distances: the sunlight would flap
+out like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern of the window upon the
+floor of the room in a milky, colourless shine, and withdraw as
+suddenly as it had appeared.
+
+From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be so
+successful an ingathering after all. If Henchard had only waited long
+enough he might at least have avoided loss though he had not made a
+profit. But the momentum of his character knew no patience. At this
+turn of the scales he remained silent. The movements of his mind seemed
+to tend to the thought that some power was working against him.
+
+“I wonder,” he asked himself with eerie misgiving; “I wonder if it can
+be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image of me, or stirring an
+unholy brew to confound me! I don’t believe in such power; and yet—what
+if they should ha’ been doing it!” Even he could not admit that the
+perpetrator, if any, might be Farfrae. These isolated hours of
+superstition came to Henchard in time of moody depression, when all his
+practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.
+
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered. He had purchased in so depressed a
+market that the present moderate stiffness of prices was sufficient to
+pile for him a large heap of gold where a little one had been.
+
+“Why, he’ll soon be Mayor!” said Henchard. It was indeed hard that the
+speaker should, of all others, have to follow the triumphal chariot of
+this man to the Capitol.
+
+The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.
+
+September night-shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the clocks had
+struck half-past eight, and the moon had risen. The streets of the town
+were curiously silent for such a comparatively early hour. A sound of
+jangling horse-bells and heavy wheels passed up the street. These were
+followed by angry voices outside Lucetta’s house, which led her and
+Elizabeth-Jane to run to the windows, and pull up the blinds.
+
+The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abutted against its next
+neighbour the Church except in the lower storey, where an arched
+thoroughfare gave admittance to a large square called Bull Stake. A
+stone post rose in the midst, to which the oxen had formerly been tied
+for baiting with dogs to make them tender before they were killed in
+the adjoining shambles. In a corner stood the stocks.
+
+The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two four-horse
+waggons and horses, one laden with hay-trusses, the leaders having
+already passed each other, and become entangled head to tail. The
+passage of the vehicles might have been practicable if empty; but built
+up with hay to the bedroom windows as one was, it was impossible.
+
+“You must have done it a’ purpose!” said Farfrae’s waggoner. “You can
+hear my horses’ bells half-a-mile such a night as this!”
+
+“If ye’d been minding your business instead of zwailing along in such a
+gawk-hammer way, you would have zeed me!” retorted the wroth
+representative of Henchard.
+
+However, according to the strict rule of the road it appeared that
+Henchard’s man was most in the wrong, he therefore attempted to back
+into the High Street. In doing this the near hind-wheel rose against
+the churchyard wall and the whole mountainous load went over, two of
+the four wheels rising in the air, and the legs of the thill horse.
+
+Instead of considering how to gather up the load the two men closed in
+a fight with their fists. Before the first round was quite over
+Henchard came upon the spot, somebody having run for him.
+
+Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions by
+collaring one with each hand, turned to the horse that was down, and
+extricated him after some trouble. He then inquired into the
+circumstances; and seeing the state of his waggon and its load began
+hotly rating Farfrae’s man.
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run down to the street
+corner, whence they watched the bright heap of new hay lying in the
+moon’s rays, and passed and repassed by the forms of Henchard and the
+waggoners. The women had witnessed what nobody else had seen—the origin
+of the mishap; and Lucetta spoke.
+
+“I saw it all, Mr. Henchard,” she cried; “and your man was most in the
+wrong!”
+
+Henchard paused in his harangue and turned. “Oh, I didn’t notice you,
+Miss Templeman,” said he. “My man in the wrong? Ah, to be sure; to be
+sure! But I beg your pardon notwithstanding. The other’s is the empty
+waggon, and he must have been most to blame for coming on.”
+
+“No; I saw it, too,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “And I can assure you he
+couldn’t help it.”
+
+“You can’t trust _their_ senses!” murmured Henchard’s man.
+
+“Why not?” asked Henchard sharply.
+
+“Why, you see, sir, all the women side with Farfrae—being a damn young
+dand—of the sort that he is—one that creeps into a maid’s heart like
+the giddying worm into a sheep’s brain—making crooked seem straight to
+their eyes!”
+
+“But do you know who that lady is you talk about in such a fashion? Do
+you know that I pay my attentions to her, and have for some time? Just
+be careful!”
+
+“Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week.”
+
+“And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He’s sharp in trade, but he
+wouldn’t do anything so underhand as what you hint at.”
+
+Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, or not her white
+figure disappeared from her doorway inward, and the door was shut
+before Henchard could reach it to converse with her further. This
+disappointed him, for he had been sufficiently disturbed by what the
+man had said to wish to speak to her more closely. While pausing the
+old constable came up.
+
+“Just see that nobody drives against that hay and waggon to-night,
+Stubberd,” said the corn-merchant. “It must bide till the morning, for
+all hands are in the field still. And if any coach or road-waggon wants
+to come along, tell ’em they must go round by the back street, and be
+hanged to ’em.... Any case tomorrow up in Hall?”
+
+“Yes, sir. One in number, sir.”
+
+“Oh, what’s that?”
+
+“An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committing a nuisance in a
+horrible profane manner against the church wall, sir, as if ’twere no
+more than a pot-house! That’s all, sir.”
+
+“Oh. The Mayor’s out o’ town, isn’t he?”
+
+“He is, sir.”
+
+“Very well, then I’ll be there. Don’t forget to keep an eye on that
+hay. Good night t’ ’ee.”
+
+During those moments Henchard had determined to follow up Lucetta
+notwithstanding her elusiveness, and he knocked for admission.
+
+The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman’s sorrow at
+being unable to see him again that evening because she had an
+engagement to go out.
+
+Henchard walked away from the door to the opposite side of the street,
+and stood by his hay in a lonely reverie, the constable having strolled
+elsewhere, and the horses being removed. Though the moon was not bright
+as yet there were no lamps lighted, and he entered the shadow of one of
+the projecting jambs which formed the thoroughfare to Bull Stake; here
+he watched Lucetta’s door.
+
+Candle-lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom, and it was
+obvious that she was dressing for the appointment, whatever the nature
+of that might be at such an hour. The lights disappeared, the clock
+struck nine, and almost at the moment Farfrae came round the opposite
+corner and knocked. That she had been waiting just inside for him was
+certain, for she instantly opened the door herself. They went together
+by the way of a back lane westward, avoiding the front street; guessing
+where they were going he determined to follow.
+
+The harvest had been so delayed by the capricious weather that whenever
+a fine day occurred all sinews were strained to save what could be
+saved of the damaged crops. On account of the rapid shortening of the
+days the harvesters worked by moonlight. Hence to-night the
+wheat-fields abutting on the two sides of the square formed by
+Casterbridge town were animated by the gathering hands. Their shouts
+and laughter had reached Henchard at the Market House, while he stood
+there waiting, and he had little doubt from the turn which Farfrae and
+Lucetta had taken that they were bound for the spot.
+
+Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields. The Casterbridge
+populace still retained the primitive habit of helping one another in
+time of need; and thus, though the corn belonged to the farming section
+of the little community—that inhabiting the Durnover quarter—the
+remainder was no less interested in the labour of getting it home.
+
+Reaching the top of the lane Henchard crossed the shaded avenue on the
+walls, slid down the green rampart, and stood amongst the stubble. The
+“stitches” or shocks rose like tents about the yellow expanse, those in
+the distance becoming lost in the moonlit hazes.
+
+He had entered at a point removed from the scene of immediate
+operations; but two others had entered at that place, and he could see
+them winding among the shocks. They were paying no regard to the
+direction of their walk, whose vague serpentining soon began to bear
+down towards Henchard. A meeting promised to be awkward, and he
+therefore stepped into the hollow of the nearest shock, and sat down.
+
+“You have my leave,” Lucetta was saying gaily. “Speak what you like.”
+
+“Well, then,” replied Farfrae, with the unmistakable inflection of the
+lover pure, which Henchard had never heard in full resonance of his
+lips before, “you are sure to be much sought after for your position,
+wealth, talents, and beauty. But will ye resist the temptation to be
+one of those ladies with lots of admirers—ay—and be content to have
+only a homely one?”
+
+“And he the speaker?” said she, laughing. “Very well, sir, what next?”
+
+“Ah! I’m afraid that what I feel will make me forget my manners!”
+
+“Then I hope you’ll never have any, if you lack them only for that
+cause.” After some broken words which Henchard lost she added, “Are you
+sure you won’t be jealous?”
+
+Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, by taking her hand.
+
+“You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else,” she presently
+said. “But I should wish to have my own way in some things.”
+
+“In everything! What special thing did you mean?”
+
+“If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for instance, upon
+finding that I should not be happy here?”
+
+Henchard did not hear the reply; he might have done so and much more,
+but he did not care to play the eavesdropper. They went on towards the
+scene of activity, where the sheaves were being handed, a dozen a
+minute, upon the carts and waggons which carried them away.
+
+Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrae when they drew near the
+workpeople. He had some business with them, and, though he entreated
+her to wait a few minutes, she was inexorable, and tripped off homeward
+alone.
+
+Henchard thereupon left the field and followed her. His state of mind
+was such that on reaching Lucetta’s door he did not knock but opened
+it, and walked straight up to her sitting-room, expecting to find her
+there. But the room was empty, and he perceived that in his haste he
+had somehow passed her on the way hither. He had not to wait many
+minutes, however, for he soon heard her dress rustling in the hall,
+followed by a soft closing of the door. In a moment she appeared.
+
+The light was so low that she did not notice Henchard at first. As soon
+as she saw him she uttered a little cry, almost of terror.
+
+“How can you frighten me so?” she exclaimed, with a flushed face. “It
+is past ten o’clock, and you have no right to surprise me here at such
+a time.”
+
+“I don’t know that I’ve not the right. At any rate I have the excuse.
+Is it so necessary that I should stop to think of manners and customs?”
+
+“It is too late for propriety, and might injure me.”
+
+“I called an hour ago, and you would not see me, and I thought you were
+in when I called now. It is you, Lucetta, who are doing wrong. It is
+not proper in ’ee to throw me over like this. I have a little matter to
+remind you of, which you seem to forget.”
+
+She sank into a chair, and turned pale.
+
+“I don’t want to hear it—I don’t want to hear it!” she said through her
+hands, as he, standing close to the edge of her gown, began to allude
+to the Jersey days.
+
+“But you ought to hear it,” said he.
+
+“It came to nothing; and through you. Then why not leave me the freedom
+that I gained with such sorrow! Had I found that you proposed to marry
+me for pure love I might have felt bound now. But I soon learnt that
+you had planned it out of mere charity—almost as an unpleasant
+duty—because I had nursed you, and compromised myself, and you thought
+you must repay me. After that I did not care for you so deeply as
+before.”
+
+“Why did you come here to find me, then?”
+
+“I thought I ought to marry you for conscience’ sake, since you were
+free, even though I—did not like you so well.”
+
+“And why then don’t you think so now?”
+
+She was silent. It was only too obvious that conscience had ruled well
+enough till new love had intervened and usurped that rule. In feeling
+this she herself forgot for the moment her partially justifying
+argument—that having discovered Henchard’s infirmities of temper, she
+had some excuse for not risking her happiness in his hands after once
+escaping them. The only thing she could say was, “I was a poor girl
+then; and now my circumstances have altered, so I am hardly the same
+person.”
+
+“That’s true. And it makes the case awkward for me. But I don’t want to
+touch your money. I am quite willing that every penny of your property
+shall remain to your personal use. Besides, that argument has nothing
+in it. The man you are thinking of is no better than I.”
+
+“If you were as good as he you would leave me!” she cried passionately.
+
+This unluckily aroused Henchard. “You cannot in honour refuse me,” he
+said. “And unless you give me your promise this very night to be my
+wife, before a witness, I’ll reveal our intimacy—in common fairness to
+other men!”
+
+A look of resignation settled upon her. Henchard saw its bitterness;
+and had Lucetta’s heart been given to any other man in the world than
+Farfrae he would probably have had pity upon her at that moment. But
+the supplanter was the upstart (as Henchard called him) who had mounted
+into prominence upon his shoulders, and he could bring himself to show
+no mercy.
+
+Without another word she rang the bell, and directed that
+Elizabeth-Jane should be fetched from her room. The latter appeared,
+surprised in the midst of her lucubrations. As soon as she saw Henchard
+she went across to him dutifully.
+
+“Elizabeth-Jane,” he said, taking her hand, “I want you to hear this.”
+And turning to Lucetta: “Will you, or will you not, marry me?
+
+“If you—wish it, I must agree!”
+
+“You say yes?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+No sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a fainting
+state.
+
+“What dreadful thing drives her to say this, father, when it is such a
+pain to her?” asked Elizabeth, kneeling down by Lucetta. “Don’t compel
+her to do anything against her will! I have lived with her, and know
+that she cannot bear much.”
+
+“Don’t be a no’thern simpleton!” said Henchard drily. “This promise
+will leave him free for you, if you want him, won’t it?”
+
+At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start.
+
+“Him? Who are you talking about?” she said wildly.
+
+“Nobody, as far as I am concerned,” said Elizabeth firmly.
+
+“Oh—well. Then it is my mistake,” said Henchard. “But the business is
+between me and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife.”
+
+“But don’t dwell on it just now,” entreated Elizabeth, holding
+Lucetta’s hand.
+
+“I don’t wish to, if she promises,” said Henchard.
+
+“I have, I have,” groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like fluid, from
+very misery and faintness. “Michael, please don’t argue it any more!”
+
+“I will not,” he said. And taking up his hat he went away.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta. “What is this?” she said.
+“You called my father ‘Michael’ as if you knew him well? And how is it
+he has got this power over you, that you promise to marry him against
+your will? Ah—you have many many secrets from me!”
+
+“Perhaps you have some from me,” Lucetta murmured with closed eyes,
+little thinking, however, so unsuspicious was she, that the secret of
+Elizabeth’s heart concerned the young man who had caused this damage to
+her own.
+
+“I would not—do anything against you at all!” stammered Elizabeth,
+keeping in all signs of emotion till she was ready to burst. “I cannot
+understand how my father can command you so; I don’t sympathize with
+him in it at all. I’ll go to him and ask him to release you.”
+
+“No, no,” said Lucetta. “Let it all be.”
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall below Lucetta’s house,
+to attend Petty Sessions, being still a magistrate for the year by
+virtue of his late position as Mayor. In passing he looked up at her
+windows, but nothing of her was to be seen.
+
+Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seem to be an even
+greater incongruity than Shallow and Silence themselves. But his rough
+and ready perceptions, his sledge-hammer directness, had often served
+him better than nice legal knowledge in despatching such simple
+business as fell to his hands in this Court. To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the
+Mayor for the year, being absent, the corn-merchant took the big chair,
+his eyes still abstractedly stretching out of the window to the ashlar
+front of High-Place Hall.
+
+There was one case only, and the offender stood before him. She was an
+old woman of mottled countenance, attired in a shawl of that nameless
+tertiary hue which comes, but cannot be made—a hue neither tawny,
+russet, hazel, nor ash; a sticky black bonnet that seemed to have been
+worn in the country of the Psalmist where the clouds drop fatness; and
+an apron that had been white in time so comparatively recent as still
+to contrast visibly with the rest of her clothes. The steeped aspect of
+the woman as a whole showed her to be no native of the country-side or
+even of a country-town.
+
+She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate, and
+Henchard looked at her, with a momentary pause, as if she had reminded
+him indistinctly of somebody or something which passed from his mind as
+quickly as it had come. “Well, and what has she been doing?” he said,
+looking down at the charge sheet.
+
+“She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female and
+nuisance,” whispered Stubberd.
+
+“Where did she do that?” said the other magistrate.
+
+“By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the world!—I caught
+her in the act, your worship.”
+
+“Stand back then,” said Henchard, “and let’s hear what you’ve got to
+say.”
+
+Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate’s clerk dipped his pen, Henchard
+being no note-taker himself, and the constable began—
+
+“Hearing a’ illegal noise I went down the street at twenty-five minutes
+past eleven P.M. on the night of the fifth instinct, Hannah Dominy.
+When I had—
+
+“Don’t go so fast, Stubberd,” said the clerk.
+
+The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk’s pen, till the latter
+stopped scratching and said, “yes.” Stubberd continued: “When I had
+proceeded to the spot I saw defendant at another spot, namely, the
+gutter.” He paused, watching the point of the clerk’s pen again.
+
+“Gutter, yes, Stubberd.”
+
+“Spot measuring twelve feet nine inches or thereabouts from where I—”
+Still careful not to outrun the clerk’s penmanship Stubberd pulled up
+again; for having got his evidence by heart it was immaterial to him
+whereabouts he broke off.
+
+“I object to that,” spoke up the old woman, “‘spot measuring twelve
+feet nine or thereabouts from where I,’ is not sound testimony!”
+
+The magistrates consulted, and the second one said that the bench was
+of opinion that twelve feet nine inches from a man on his oath was
+admissible.
+
+Stubberd, with a suppressed gaze of victorious rectitude at the old
+woman, continued: “Was standing myself. She was wambling about quite
+dangerous to the thoroughfare and when I approached to draw near she
+committed the nuisance, and insulted me.”
+
+“‘Insulted me.’ ...Yes, what did she say?”
+
+“She said, ‘Put away that dee lantern,’ she says.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Says she, ‘Dost hear, old turmit-head? Put away that dee lantern. I
+have floored fellows a dee sight finer-looking than a dee fool like
+thee, you son of a bee, dee me if I haint,’ she says.
+
+“I object to that conversation!” interposed the old woman. “I was not
+capable enough to hear what I said, and what is said out of my hearing
+is not evidence.”
+
+There was another stoppage for consultation, a book was referred to,
+and finally Stubberd was allowed to go on again. The truth was that the
+old woman had appeared in court so many more times than the magistrates
+themselves, that they were obliged to keep a sharp look-out upon their
+procedure. However, when Stubberd had rambled on a little further
+Henchard broke out impatiently, “Come—we don’t want to hear any more of
+them cust dees and bees! Say the words out like a man, and don’t be so
+modest, Stubberd; or else leave it alone!” Turning to the woman, “Now
+then, have you any questions to ask him, or anything to say?”
+
+“Yes,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye; and the clerk dipped his
+pen.
+
+“Twenty years ago or thereabout I was selling of furmity in a tent at
+Weydon Fair——”
+
+“‘Twenty years ago’—well, that’s beginning at the beginning; suppose
+you go back to the Creation!” said the clerk, not without satire.
+
+But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidence and what was
+not.
+
+“A man and a woman with a little child came into my tent,” the woman
+continued. “They sat down and had a basin apiece. Ah, Lord’s my life! I
+was of a more respectable station in the world then than I am now,
+being a land smuggler in a large way of business; and I used to season
+my furmity with rum for them who asked for’t. I did it for the man; and
+then he had more and more; till at last he quarrelled with his wife,
+and offered to sell her to the highest bidder. A sailor came in and bid
+five guineas, and paid the money, and led her away. And the man who
+sold his wife in that fashion is the man sitting there in the great big
+chair.” The speaker concluded by nodding her head at Henchard and
+folding her arms.
+
+Everybody looked at Henchard. His face seemed strange, and in tint as
+if it had been powdered over with ashes. “We don’t want to hear your
+life and adventures,” said the second magistrate sharply, filling the
+pause which followed. “You’ve been asked if you’ve anything to say
+bearing on the case.”
+
+“That bears on the case. It proves that he’s no better than I, and has
+no right to sit there in judgment upon me.”
+
+“’Tis a concocted story,” said the clerk. “So hold your tongue!”
+
+“No—’tis true.” The words came from Henchard. “’Tis as true as the
+light,” he said slowly. “And upon my soul it does prove that I’m no
+better than she! And to keep out of any temptation to treat her hard
+for her revenge, I’ll leave her to you.”
+
+The sensation in the court was indescribably great. Henchard left the
+chair, and came out, passing through a group of people on the steps and
+outside that was much larger than usual; for it seemed that the old
+furmity dealer had mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in
+which she had been lodging since her arrival, that she knew a queer
+thing or two about their great local man Mr. Henchard, if she chose to
+tell it. This had brought them hither.
+
+“Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?” said Lucetta
+to her servant when the case was over. She had risen late, and had just
+looked out of the window.
+
+“Oh, please, ma’am, ’tis this larry about Mr. Henchard. A woman has
+proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five
+guineas in a booth at a fair.”
+
+In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from
+his wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so
+on, he had never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of
+that separation. The story she now heard for the first time.
+
+A gradual misery overspread Lucetta’s face as she dwelt upon the
+promise wrung from her the night before. At bottom, then, Henchard was
+this. How terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself
+to his care.
+
+During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming
+in till nearly dusk. As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return
+indoors she told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the
+seaside for a few days—to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
+
+Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in
+the idea, thinking a change would afford her relief. She could not help
+suspecting that the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridge
+in Lucetta’s eyes might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was
+away from home.
+
+Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of
+High-Place Hall till her return. After two or three days of solitude
+and incessant rain Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointed
+to hear of Lucetta’s absence and though he nodded with outward
+indifference he went away handling his beard with a nettled mien.
+
+The next day he called again. “Is she come now?” he asked.
+
+“Yes. She returned this morning,” replied his stepdaughter. “But she is
+not indoors. She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-road to
+Port-Bredy. She will be home by dusk.”
+
+After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless impatience,
+he left the house again.
+
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port-Bredy just as
+Elizabeth had announced. That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the
+road along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier
+in a carriage was curious—if anything should be called curious in
+concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have its
+accounting cause. It was the day of the chief market—Saturday—and
+Farfrae for once had been missed from his corn-stand in the dealers’
+room. Nevertheless, it was known that he would be home that night—“for
+Sunday,” as Casterbridge expressed it.
+
+Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the
+ranked trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions
+out of the town. This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.
+
+The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road, still
+adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a
+surveyor’s line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge. There was
+neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now, the road clinging to the
+stubby expanse of corn-land like a strip to an undulating garment. Near
+her was a barn—the single building of any kind within her horizon.
+
+She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared
+thereon—not so much as a speck. She sighed one word—“Donald!” and
+turned her face to the town for retreat.
+
+Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching
+her—Elizabeth-Jane’s.
+
+Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth’s
+face, as soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into
+affectionate lines while yet beyond speaking distance. “I suddenly
+thought I would come and meet you,” she said, smiling.
+
+Lucetta’s reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A
+by-road on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway at
+the point where she stood, and down the track a bull was rambling
+uncertainly towards her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did
+not observe him.
+
+In the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the mainstay and
+the terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighbourhood, where
+breeding was carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock
+driven into and out of the town at this season to be sold by the local
+auctioneer was very large; and all these horned beasts, in travelling
+to and fro, sent women and children to shelter as nothing else could
+do. In the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough; but
+the Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable
+that hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should be
+used, large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in general
+everything done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and
+terrify the mild. Nothing was commoner than for a house-holder on going
+out of his parlour to find his hall or passage full of little children,
+nursemaids, aged women, or a ladies’ school, who apologized for their
+presence by saying, “A bull passing down street from the sale.”
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he meanwhile
+drawing vaguely towards them. It was a large specimen of the breed, in
+colour rich dun, though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about
+his seamy sides. His horns were thick and tipped with brass; his two
+nostrils like the Thames Tunnel as seen in the perspective toys of
+yore. Between them, through the gristle of his nose, was a stout copper
+ring, welded on, and irremovable as Gurth’s collar of brass. To the
+ring was attached an ash staff about a yard long, which the bull with
+the motions of his head flung about like a flail.
+
+It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women
+were really alarmed; for it revealed to them that the bull was an old
+one, too savage to be driven, which had in some way escaped, the staff
+being the means by which the drover controlled him and kept his horns
+at arms’ length.
+
+They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and thought of the
+barn hard by. As long as they had kept their eyes on the bull he had
+shown some deference in his manner of approach; but no sooner did they
+turn their backs to seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided
+to thoroughly terrify them. This caused the two helpless girls to run
+wildly, whereupon the bull advanced in a deliberate charge.
+
+The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it was closed save as to
+one of the usual pair of doors facing them, which had been propped open
+by a hurdle-stick, and for this opening they made. The interior had
+been cleared by a recent bout of threshing except at one end, where
+there was a stack of dry clover. Elizabeth-Jane took in the situation.
+“We must climb up there,” she said.
+
+But before they had even approached it they heard the bull scampering
+through the pond without, and in a second he dashed into the barn,
+knocking down the hurdle-stake in passing; the heavy door slammed
+behind him; and all three were imprisoned in the barn together. The
+mistaken creature saw them, and stalked towards the end of the barn
+into which they had fled. The girls doubled so adroitly that their
+pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives were already half way
+to the other end. By the time that his length would allow him to turn
+and follow them thither they had crossed over; thus the pursuit went
+on, the hot air from his nostrils blowing over them like a sirocco, and
+not a moment being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open
+the door. What might have happened had their situation continued cannot
+be said; but in a few moments a rattling of the door distracted their
+adversary’s attention, and a man appeared. He ran forward towards the
+leading-staff, seized it, and wrenched the animal’s head as if he would
+snap it off. The wrench was in reality so violent that the thick neck
+seemed to have lost its stiffness and to become half-paralyzed, whilst
+the nose dropped blood. The premeditated human contrivance of the
+nose-ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force, and the creature
+flinched.
+
+The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and
+unhesitating. He led the bull to the door, and the light revealed
+Henchard. He made the bull fast without, and re-entered to the succour
+of Lucetta; for he had not perceived Elizabeth, who had climbed on to
+the clover-heap. Lucetta was hysterical, and Henchard took her in his
+arms and carried her to the door.
+
+“You—have saved me!” she cried, as soon as she could speak.
+
+“I have returned your kindness,” he responded tenderly. “You once saved
+me.”
+
+“How—comes it to be you—you?” she asked, not heeding his reply.
+
+“I came out here to look for you. I have been wanting to tell you
+something these two or three days; but you have been away, and I could
+not. Perhaps you cannot talk now?”
+
+“Oh—no! Where is Elizabeth?”
+
+“Here am I!” cried the missing one cheerfully; and without waiting for
+the ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover-stack to
+the floor.
+
+Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Jane on the
+other, they went slowly along the rising road. They had reached the top
+and were descending again when Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected
+that she had dropped her muff in the barn.
+
+“I’ll run back,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “I don’t mind it at all, as I am
+not tired as you are.” She thereupon hastened down again to the barn,
+the others pursuing their way.
+
+Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no means small
+at that time. Coming out she paused to look for a moment at the bull,
+now rather to be pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhaps rather
+intended a practical joke than a murder. Henchard had secured him by
+jamming the staff into the hinge of the barn-door, and wedging it there
+with a stake. At length she turned to hasten onward after her
+contemplation, when she saw a green-and-black gig approaching from the
+contrary direction, the vehicle being driven by Farfrae.
+
+His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta’s walk that way. Donald saw
+her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted with what had occurred.
+At Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized,
+he exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity
+from any she had seen in him before. He became so absorbed in the
+circumstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledge of what he was
+doing to think of helping her up beside him.
+
+“She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?” he inquired at last.
+
+“Yes. He is taking her home. They are almost there by this time.”
+
+“And you are sure she can get home?”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure.
+
+“Your stepfather saved her?”
+
+“Entirely.”
+
+Farfrae checked his horse’s pace; she guessed why. He was thinking that
+it would be best not to intrude on the other two just now. Henchard had
+saved Lucetta, and to provoke a possible exhibition of her deeper
+affection for himself was as ungenerous as it was unwise.
+
+The immediate subject of their talk being exhausted she felt more
+embarrassed at sitting thus beside her past lover; but soon the two
+figures of the others were visible at the entrance to the town. The
+face of the woman was frequently turned back, but Farfrae did not whip
+on the horse. When these reached the town walls Henchard and his
+companion had disappeared down the street; Farfrae set down
+Elizabeth-Jane on her expressing a particular wish to alight there, and
+drove round to the stables at the back of his lodgings.
+
+On this account he entered the house through his garden, and going up
+to his apartments found them in a particularly disturbed state, his
+boxes being hauled out upon the landing, and his bookcase standing in
+three pieces. These phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not the
+least surprise. “When will everything be sent up?” he said to the
+mistress of the house, who was superintending.
+
+“I am afraid not before eight, sir,” said she. “You see we wasn’t aware
+till this morning that you were going to move, or we could have been
+forwarder.”
+
+“A—well, never mind, never mind!” said Farfrae cheerily. “Eight o’clock
+will do well enough if it be not later. Now, don’t ye be standing here
+talking, or it will be twelve, I doubt.” Thus speaking he went out by
+the front door and up the street.
+
+During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had had experiences of a
+different kind. After Elizabeth’s departure for the muff the
+corn-merchant opened himself frankly, holding her hand within his arm,
+though she would fain have withdrawn it. “Dear Lucetta, I have been
+very, very anxious to see you these two or three days,” he said, “ever
+since I saw you last! I have thought over the way I got your promise
+that night. You said to me, ‘If I were a man I should not insist.’ That
+cut me deep. I felt that there was some truth in it. I don’t want to
+make you wretched; and to marry me just now would do that as nothing
+else could—it is but too plain. Therefore I agree to an indefinite
+engagement—to put off all thought of marriage for a year or two.”
+
+“But—but—can I do nothing of a different kind?” said Lucetta. “I am
+full of gratitude to you—you have saved my life. And your care of me is
+like coals of fire on my head! I am a monied person now. Surely I can
+do something in return for your goodness—something practical?”
+
+Henchard remained in thought. He had evidently not expected this.
+“There is one thing you might do, Lucetta,” he said. “But not exactly
+of that kind.”
+
+“Then of what kind is it?” she asked with renewed misgiving.
+
+“I must tell you a secret to ask it.—You may have heard that I have
+been unlucky this year? I did what I have never done before—speculated
+rashly; and I lost. That’s just put me in a strait.
+
+“And you would wish me to advance some money?”
+
+“No, no!” said Henchard, almost in anger. “I’m not the man to sponge on
+a woman, even though she may be so nearly my own as you. No, Lucetta;
+what you can do is this and it would save me. My great creditor is
+Grower, and it is at his hands I shall suffer if at anybody’s; while a
+fortnight’s forbearance on his part would be enough to allow me to pull
+through. This may be got out of him in one way—that you would let it be
+known to him that you are my intended—that we are to be quietly married
+in the next fortnight.—Now stop, you haven’t heard all! Let him have
+this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact that the
+actual engagement between us is to be a long one. Nobody else need
+know: you could go with me to Mr. Grower and just let me speak to ’ee
+before him as if we were on such terms. We’ll ask him to keep it
+secret. He will willingly wait then. At the fortnight’s end I shall be
+able to face him; and I can coolly tell him all is postponed between us
+for a year or two. Not a soul in the town need know how you’ve helped
+me. Since you wish to be of use, there’s your way.”
+
+It being now what the people called the “pinking in” of the day, that
+is, the quarter-hour just before dusk, he did not at first observe the
+result of his own words upon her.
+
+“If it were anything else,” she began, and the dryness of her lips was
+represented in her voice.
+
+“But it is such a little thing!” he said, with a deep reproach. “Less
+than you have offered—just the beginning of what you have so lately
+promised! I could have told him as much myself, but he would not have
+believed me.”
+
+“It is not because I won’t—it is because I absolutely can’t,” she said,
+with rising distress.
+
+“You are provoking!” he burst out. “It is enough to make me force you
+to carry out at once what you have promised.”
+
+“I cannot!” she insisted desperately.
+
+“Why? When I have only within these few minutes released you from your
+promise to do the thing offhand.”
+
+“Because—he was a witness!”
+
+“Witness? Of what?
+
+“If I must tell you——. Don’t, don’t upbraid me!”
+
+“Well! Let’s hear what you mean?”
+
+“Witness of my marriage—Mr. Grower was!”
+
+“Marriage?”
+
+“Yes. With Mr. Farfrae. O Michael! I am already his wife. We were
+married this week at Port-Bredy. There were reasons against our doing
+it here. Mr. Grower was a witness because he happened to be at
+Port-Bredy at the time.”
+
+Henchard stood as if idiotized. She was so alarmed at his silence that
+she murmured something about lending him sufficient money to tide over
+the perilous fortnight.
+
+“Married him?” said Henchard at length. “My good—what, married him
+whilst—bound to marry me?”
+
+“It was like this,” she explained, with tears in her eyes and quavers
+in her voice; “don’t—don’t be cruel! I loved him so much, and I thought
+you might tell him of the past—and that grieved me! And then, when I
+had promised you, I learnt of the rumour that you had—sold your first
+wife at a fair like a horse or cow! How could I keep my promise after
+hearing that? I could not risk myself in your hands; it would have been
+letting myself down to take your name after such a scandal. But I knew
+I should lose Donald if I did not secure him at once—for you would
+carry out your threat of telling him of our former acquaintance, as
+long as there was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so. But
+you will not do so now, will you, Michael? for it is too late to
+separate us.”
+
+The notes of St. Peter’s bells in full peal had been wafted to them
+while he spoke, and now the genial thumping of the town band, renowned
+for its unstinted use of the drum-stick, throbbed down the street.
+
+“Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I suppose?” said
+he.
+
+“Yes—I think he has told them, or else Mr. Grower has.... May I leave
+you now? My—he was detained at Port-Bredy to-day, and sent me on a few
+hours before him.”
+
+“Then it is _his wife’s_ life I have saved this afternoon.”
+
+“Yes—and he will be for ever grateful to you.”
+
+“I am much obliged to him.... O you false woman!” burst from Henchard.
+“You promised me!”
+
+“Yes, yes! But it was under compulsion, and I did not know all your
+past——”
+
+“And now I’ve a mind to punish you as you deserve! One word to this
+bran-new husband of how you courted me, and your precious happiness is
+blown to atoms!”
+
+“Michael—pity me, and be generous!”
+
+“You don’t deserve pity! You did; but you don’t now.”
+
+“I’ll help you to pay off your debt.”
+
+“A pensioner of Farfrae’s wife—not I! Don’t stay with me longer—I shall
+say something worse. Go home!”
+
+She disappeared under the trees of the south walk as the band came
+round the corner, awaking the echoes of every stock and stone in
+celebration of her happiness. Lucetta took no heed, but ran up the back
+street and reached her own home unperceived.
+
+
+
+XXX.
+
+Farfrae’s words to his landlady had referred to the removal of his
+boxes and other effects from his late lodgings to Lucetta’s house. The
+work was not heavy, but it had been much hindered on account of the
+frequent pauses necessitated by exclamations of surprise at the event,
+of which the good woman had been briefly informed by letter a few hours
+earlier.
+
+At the last moment of leaving Port-Bredy, Farfrae, like John Gilpin,
+had been detained by important customers, whom, even in the exceptional
+circumstances, he was not the man to neglect. Moreover, there was a
+convenience in Lucetta arriving first at her house. Nobody there as yet
+knew what had happened; and she was best in a position to break the
+news to the inmates, and give directions for her husband’s
+accommodation. He had, therefore, sent on his two-days’ bride in a
+hired brougham, whilst he went across the country to a certain group of
+wheat and barley ricks a few miles off, telling her the hour at which
+he might be expected the same evening. This accounted for her trotting
+out to meet him after their separation of four hours.
+
+By a strenuous effort, after leaving Henchard she calmed herself in
+readiness to receive Donald at High-Place Hall when he came on from his
+lodgings. One supreme fact empowered her to this, the sense that, come
+what would, she had secured him. Half-an-hour after her arrival he
+walked in, and she met him with a relieved gladness, which a month’s
+perilous absence could not have intensified.
+
+“There is one thing I have not done; and yet it is important,” she said
+earnestly, when she had finished talking about the adventure with the
+bull. “That is, broken the news of our marriage to my dear
+Elizabeth-Jane.”
+
+“Ah, and you have not?” he said thoughtfully. “I gave her a lift from
+the barn homewards; but I did not tell her either; for I thought she
+might have heard of it in the town, and was keeping back her
+congratulations from shyness, and all that.”
+
+“She can hardly have heard of it. But I’ll find out; I’ll go to her
+now. And, Donald, you don’t mind her living on with me just the same as
+before? She is so quiet and unassuming.”
+
+“O no, indeed I don’t,” Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a faint
+awkwardness. “But I wonder if she would care to?”
+
+“O yes!” said Lucetta eagerly. “I am sure she would like to. Besides,
+poor thing, she has no other home.”
+
+Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the secret of
+her more reserved friend. He liked her all the better for the
+blindness. “Arrange as you like with her by all means,” he said. “It is
+I who have come to your house, not you to mine.”
+
+“I’ll run and speak to her,” said Lucetta.
+
+When she got upstairs to Elizabeth-Jane’s room the latter had taken off
+her out-door things, and was resting over a book. Lucetta found in a
+moment that she had not yet learnt the news.
+
+“I did not come down to you, Miss Templeman,” she said simply. “I was
+coming to ask if you had quite recovered from your fright, but I found
+you had a visitor. What are the bells ringing for, I wonder? And the
+band, too, is playing. Somebody must be married; or else they are
+practising for Christmas.”
+
+Lucetta uttered a vague “Yes,” and seating herself by the other young
+woman looked musingly at her. “What a lonely creature you are,” she
+presently said; “never knowing what’s going on, or what people are
+talking about everywhere with keen interest. You should get out, and
+gossip about as other women do, and then you wouldn’t be obliged to ask
+me a question of that kind. Well, now, I have something to tell you.”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herself receptive.
+
+“I must go rather a long way back,” said Lucetta, the difficulty of
+explaining herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her
+growing more apparent at each syllable. “You remember that trying case
+of conscience I told you of some time ago—about the first lover and the
+second lover?” She let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of
+the story she had told.
+
+“O yes—I remember the story of _your friend_,” said Elizabeth drily,
+regarding the irises of Lucetta’s eyes as though to catch their exact
+shade. “The two lovers—the old one and the new: how she wanted to marry
+the second, but felt she ought to marry the first; so that the good she
+would have done she did not, and the evil that she would not, that she
+did—exactly like the Apostle Paul.”
+
+“O no; she didn’t do evil exactly!” said Lucetta hastily.
+
+“But you said that she—or as I may say _you_”—answered Elizabeth,
+dropping the mask, “were in honour and conscience bound to marry the
+first?”
+
+Lucetta’s blush at being seen through came and went again before she
+replied anxiously, “You will never breathe this, will you,
+Elizabeth-Jane?”
+
+“Certainly not, if you say not.
+
+“Then I will tell you that the case is more complicated—worse, in
+fact—than it seemed in my story. I and the first man were thrown
+together in a strange way, and felt that we ought to be united, as the
+world had talked of us. He was a widower, as he supposed. He had not
+heard of his first wife for many years. But the wife returned, and we
+parted. She is now dead, and the husband comes paying me addresses
+again, saying, ‘Now we’ll complete our purposes.’ But, Elizabeth-Jane,
+all this amounts to a new courtship of me by him; I was absolved from
+all vows by the return of the other woman.”
+
+“Have you not lately renewed your promise?” said the younger with quiet
+surmise. She had divined Man Number One.
+
+“That was wrung from me by a threat.”
+
+“Yes, it was. But I think when any one gets coupled up with a man in
+the past so unfortunately as you have done she ought to become his wife
+if she can, even if she were not the sinning party.”
+
+Lucetta’s countenance lost its sparkle. “He turned out to be a man I
+should be afraid to marry,” she pleaded. “Really afraid! And it was not
+till after my renewed promise that I knew it.”
+
+“Then there is only one course left to honesty. You must remain a
+single woman.”
+
+“But think again! Do consider——”
+
+“I am certain,” interrupted her companion hardily. “I have guessed very
+well who the man is. My father; and I say it is him or nobody for you.”
+
+Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Jane like a red rag to a
+bull. Her craving for correctness of procedure was, indeed, almost
+vicious. Owing to her early troubles with regard to her mother a
+semblance of irregularity had terrors for her which those whose names
+are safeguarded from suspicion know nothing of. “You ought to marry Mr.
+Henchard or nobody—certainly not another man!” she went on with a
+quivering lip in whose movement two passions shared.
+
+“I don’t admit that!” said Lucetta passionately.
+
+“Admit it or not, it is true!”
+
+Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she could plead no
+more, holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+“Why, you _have_ married him!” cried the latter, jumping up with
+pleasure after a glance at Lucetta’s fingers. “When did you do it? Why
+did you not tell me, instead of teasing me like this? How very
+honourable of you! He did treat my mother badly once, it seems, in a
+moment of intoxication. And it is true that he is stern sometimes. But
+you will rule him entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and wealth and
+accomplishments. You are the woman he will adore, and we shall all
+three be happy together now!”
+
+“O, my Elizabeth-Jane!” cried Lucetta distressfully. “’Tis somebody
+else that I have married! I was so desperate—so afraid of being forced
+to anything else—so afraid of revelations that would quench his love
+for me, that I resolved to do it offhand, come what might, and purchase
+a week of happiness at any cost!”
+
+“You—have—married Mr. Farfrae!” cried Elizabeth-Jane, in Nathan tones
+
+Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself.
+
+“The bells are ringing on that account,” she said. “My husband is
+downstairs. He will live here till a more suitable house is ready for
+us; and I have told him that I want you to stay with me just as
+before.”
+
+“Let me think of it alone,” the girl quickly replied, corking up the
+turmoil of her feeling with grand control.
+
+“You shall. I am sure we shall be happy together.”
+
+Lucetta departed to join Donald below, a vague uneasiness floating over
+her joy at seeing him quite at home there. Not on account of her friend
+Elizabeth did she feel it: for of the bearings of Elizabeth-Jane’s
+emotions she had not the least suspicion; but on Henchard’s alone.
+
+Now the instant decision of Susan Henchard’s daughter was to dwell in
+that house no more. Apart from her estimate of the propriety of
+Lucetta’s conduct, Farfrae had been so nearly her avowed lover that she
+felt she could not abide there.
+
+It was still early in the evening when she hastily put on her things
+and went out. In a few minutes, knowing the ground, she had found a
+suitable lodging, and arranged to enter it that night. Returning and
+entering noiselessly she took off her pretty dress and arrayed herself
+in a plain one, packing up the other to keep as her best; for she would
+have to be very economical now. She wrote a note to leave for Lucetta,
+who was closely shut up in the drawing-room with Farfrae; and then
+Elizabeth-Jane called a man with a wheel-barrow; and seeing her boxes
+put into it she trotted off down the street to her rooms. They were in
+the street in which Henchard lived, and almost opposite his door.
+
+Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence. The little
+annual sum settled on her by her stepfather would keep body and soul
+together. A wonderful skill in netting of all sorts—acquired in
+childhood by making seines in Newson’s home—might serve her in good
+stead; and her studies, which were pursued unremittingly, might serve
+her in still better.
+
+By this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout
+Casterbridge; had been discussed noisily on kerbstones, confidentially
+behind counters, and jovially at the Three Mariners. Whether Farfrae
+would sell his business and set up for a gentleman on his wife’s money,
+or whether he would show independence enough to stick to his trade in
+spite of his brilliant alliance, was a great point of interest.
+
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrates had spread; and
+in four-and-twenty hours there was not a person in Casterbridge who
+remained unacquainted with the story of Henchard’s mad freak at
+Weydon-Priors Fair, long years before. The amends he had made in after
+life were lost sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act. Had
+the incident been well known of old and always, it might by this time
+have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall wild oat, but
+well-nigh the single one, of a young man with whom the steady and
+mature (if somewhat headstrong) burgher of to-day had scarcely a point
+in common. But the act having lain as dead and buried ever since, the
+interspace of years was unperceived; and the black spot of his youth
+wore the aspect of a recent crime.
+
+Small as the police-court incident had been in itself, it formed the
+edge or turn in the incline of Henchard’s fortunes. On that day—almost
+at that minute—he passed the ridge of prosperity and honour, and began
+to descend rapidly on the other side. It was strange how soon he sank
+in esteem. Socially he had received a startling fillip downwards; and,
+having already lost commercial buoyancy from rash transactions, the
+velocity of his descent in both aspects became accelerated every hour.
+
+He now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house-fronts when he
+walked about; more at the feet and leggings of men, and less into the
+pupils of their eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made
+them blink.
+
+New events combined to undo him. It had been a bad year for others
+besides himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted
+generously completed the overthrow of his tottering credit. And now, in
+his desperation, he failed to preserve that strict correspondence
+between bulk and sample which is the soul of commerce in grain. For
+this, one of his men was mainly to blame; that worthy, in his great
+unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an enormous quantity of
+second-rate corn which Henchard had in hand, and removed the pinched,
+blasted, and smutted grains in great numbers. The produce if honestly
+offered would have created no scandal; but the blunder of
+misrepresentation, coming at such a moment, dragged Henchard’s name
+into the ditch.
+
+The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind. One day
+Elizabeth-Jane was passing the King’s Arms, when she saw people
+bustling in and out more than usual where there was no market. A
+bystander informed her, with some surprise at her ignorance, that it
+was a meeting of the Commissioners under Mr. Henchard’s bankruptcy. She
+felt quite tearful, and when she heard that he was present in the hotel
+she wished to go in and see him, but was advised not to intrude that
+day.
+
+The room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a front one,
+and Henchard, looking out of the window, had caught sight of
+Elizabeth-Jane through the wire blind. His examination had closed, and
+the creditors were leaving. The appearance of Elizabeth threw him into
+a reverie, till, turning his face from the window, and towering above
+all the rest, he called their attention for a moment more. His
+countenance had somewhat changed from its flush of prosperity; the
+black hair and whiskers were the same as ever, but a film of ash was
+over the rest.
+
+“Gentlemen,” he said, “over and above the assets that we’ve been
+talking about, and that appear on the balance-sheet, there be these. It
+all belongs to ye, as much as everything else I’ve got, and I don’t
+wish to keep it from you, not I.” Saying this, he took his gold watch
+from his pocket and laid it on the table; then his purse—the yellow
+canvas moneybag, such as was carried by all farmers and dealers—untying
+it, and shaking the money out upon the table beside the watch. The
+latter he drew back quickly for an instant, to remove the hair-guard
+made and given him by Lucetta. “There, now you have all I’ve got in the
+world,” he said. “And I wish for your sakes ’twas more.”
+
+The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked at the watch, and at the
+money, and into the street; when Farmer James Everdene of Weatherbury
+spoke.
+
+“No, no, Henchard,” he said warmly. “We don’t want that. ’Tis
+honourable in ye; but keep it. What do you say, neighbours—do ye
+agree?”
+
+“Ay, sure: we don’t wish it at all,” said Grower, another creditor.
+
+“Let him keep it, of course,” murmured another in the background—a
+silent, reserved young man named Boldwood; and the rest responded
+unanimously.
+
+“Well,” said the senior Commissioner, addressing Henchard, “though the
+case is a desperate one, I am bound to admit that I have never met a
+debtor who behaved more fairly. I’ve proved the balance-sheet to be as
+honestly made out as it could possibly be; we have had no trouble;
+there have been no evasions and no concealments. The rashness of
+dealing which led to this unhappy situation is obvious enough; but as
+far as I can see every attempt has been made to avoid wronging
+anybody.”
+
+Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive,
+and he turned aside to the window again. A general murmur of agreement
+followed the Commissioner’s words, and the meeting dispersed. When they
+were gone Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him.
+“’Tisn’t mine by rights,” he said to himself. “Why the devil didn’t
+they take it?—I don’t want what don’t belong to me!” Moved by a
+recollection he took the watch to the maker’s just opposite, sold it
+there and then for what the tradesman offered, and went with the
+proceeds to one among the smaller of his creditors, a cottager of
+Durnover in straitened circumstances, to whom he handed the money.
+
+When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and the auctions
+were in progress, there was quite a sympathetic reaction in the town,
+which till then for some time past had done nothing but condemn him.
+Now that Henchard’s whole career was pictured distinctly to his
+neighbours, and they could see how admirably he had used his one talent
+of energy to create a position of affluence out of absolutely
+nothing—which was really all he could show when he came to the town as
+a journeyman hay-trusser, with his wimble and knife in his basket—they
+wondered and regretted his fall.
+
+Try as she might, Elizabeth could never meet with him. She believed in
+him still, though nobody else did; and she wanted to be allowed to
+forgive him for his roughness to her, and to help him in his trouble.
+
+She wrote to him; he did not reply. She then went to his house—the
+great house she had lived in so happily for a time—with its front of
+dun brick, vitrified here and there and its heavy sash-bars—but
+Henchard was to be found there no more. The ex-Mayor had left the home
+of his prosperity, and gone into Jopp’s cottage by the Priory Mill—the
+sad purlieu to which he had wandered on the night of his discovery that
+she was not his daughter. Thither she went.
+
+Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to retire to,
+but assumed that necessity had no choice. Trees which seemed old enough
+to have been planted by the friars still stood around, and the back
+hatch of the original mill yet formed a cascade which had raised its
+terrific roar for centuries. The cottage itself was built of old stones
+from the long dismantled Priory, scraps of tracery, moulded
+window-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed in with the rubble of the
+walls.
+
+In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp, whom Henchard had
+employed, abused, cajoled, and dismissed by turns, being the
+householder. But even here her stepfather could not be seen.
+
+“Not by his daughter?” pleaded Elizabeth.
+
+“By nobody—at present: that’s his order,” she was informed.
+
+Afterwards she was passing by the corn-stores and hay-barns which had
+been the headquarters of his business. She knew that he ruled there no
+longer; but it was with amazement that she regarded the familiar
+gateway. A smear of decisive lead-coloured paint had been laid on to
+obliterate Henchard’s name, though its letters dimly loomed through
+like ships in a fog. Over these, in fresh white, spread the name of
+Farfrae.
+
+Abel Whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicket, and she said,
+“Mr. Farfrae is master here?”
+
+“Yaas, Miss Henchet,” he said, “Mr. Farfrae have bought the concern and
+all of we work-folk with it; and ’tis better for us than ’twas—though I
+shouldn’t say that to you as a daughter-law. We work harder, but we
+bain’t made afeard now. It was fear made my few poor hairs so thin! No
+busting out, no slamming of doors, no meddling with yer eternal soul
+and all that; and though ’tis a shilling a week less I’m the richer
+man; for what’s all the world if yer mind is always in a larry, Miss
+Henchet?”
+
+The intelligence was in a general sense true; and Henchard’s stores,
+which had remained in a paralyzed condition during the settlement of
+his bankruptcy, were stirred into activity again when the new tenant
+had possession. Thenceforward the full sacks, looped with the shining
+chain, went scurrying up and down under the cat-head, hairy arms were
+thrust out from the different door-ways, and the grain was hauled in;
+trusses of hay were tossed anew in and out of the barns, and the
+wimbles creaked; while the scales and steel-yards began to be busy
+where guess-work had formerly been the rule.
+
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first,
+of weather-stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street,
+where a diverging branch from that thoroughfare ran round to the
+low-lying Durnover lanes; so that the precincts of the bridge formed
+the merging point of respectability and indigence. The second bridge,
+of stone, was further out on the highway—in fact, fairly in the
+meadows, though still within the town boundary.
+
+These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each was
+worn down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from
+generations of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year
+made restless movements against these parapets, as they had stood there
+meditating on the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable
+bricks and stones even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the
+same mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at
+each joint; since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to
+wrench the coping off and throw it down the river, in reckless defiance
+of the magistrates.
+
+For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of the town;
+those who had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime. Why
+the unhappy hereabout usually chose the bridges for their meditations
+in preference to a railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.
+
+There was a marked difference of quality between the personages who
+haunted the near bridge of brick and the personages who haunted the far
+one of stone. Those of lowest character preferred the former, adjoining
+the town; they did not mind the glare of the public eye. They had been
+of comparatively no account during their successes; and though they
+might feel dispirited, they had no particular sense of shame in their
+ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in their pockets; they wore a
+leather strap round their hips or knees, and boots that required a
+great deal of lacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead of sighing
+at their adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had
+entered into their souls they said they were down on their luck. Jopp
+in his time of distress had often stood here; so had Mother Cuxsom,
+Christopher Coney, and poor Abel Whittle.
+
+The _misérables_ who would pause on the remoter bridge were of a
+politer stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who
+were what is called “out of a situation” from fault or lucklessness,
+the inefficient of the professional class—shabby-genteel men, who did
+not know how to get rid of the weary time between breakfast and dinner,
+and the yet more weary time between dinner and dark. The eye of this
+species were mostly directed over the parapet upon the running water
+below. A man seen there looking thus fixedly into the river was pretty
+sure to be one whom the world did not treat kindly for some reason or
+other. While one in straits on the townward bridge did not mind who saw
+him so, and kept his back to the parapet to survey the passers-by, one
+in straits on this never faced the road, never turned his head at
+coming footsteps, but, sensitive to his own condition, watched the
+current whenever a stranger approached, as if some strange fish
+interested him, though every finned thing had been poached out of the
+river years before.
+
+There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the grief of
+oppression they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were
+poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if sin, they would wish they
+were saints or angels; if despised love, that they were some
+much-courted Adonis of county fame. Some had been known to stand and
+think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had
+allowed their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were
+discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles, either here
+or in the deep pool called Blackwater, a little higher up the river.
+
+To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come before
+him, his way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of
+the town. Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Durnover church
+clock struck five. While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears
+across the damp intervening flat a man passed behind him and greeted
+Henchard by name. Henchard turned slightly and saw that the comer was
+Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to whom, though he hated
+him, he had gone for lodgings because Jopp was the one man in
+Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchant
+despised to the point of indifference.
+
+Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped.
+
+“He and she are gone into their new house to-day,” said Jopp.
+
+“Oh,” said Henchard absently. “Which house is that?”
+
+“Your old one.”
+
+“Gone into my house?” And starting up Henchard added, “_My_ house of
+all others in the town!”
+
+“Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn’t, it can do
+’ee no harm that he’s the man.”
+
+It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfrae, who
+had already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the
+house for the obvious convenience of its contiguity. And yet this act
+of his taking up residence within those roomy chambers while he, their
+former tenant, lived in a cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.
+
+Jopp continued: “And you heard of that fellow who bought all the best
+furniture at your sale? He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all
+the while! It has never been moved out of the house, as he’d already
+got the lease.”
+
+“My furniture too! Surely he’ll buy my body and soul likewise!”
+
+“There’s no saying he won’t, if you be willing to sell.” And having
+planted these wounds in the heart of his once imperious master Jopp
+went on his way; while Henchard stared and stared into the racing river
+till the bridge seemed moving backward with him.
+
+The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When the
+landscape looked like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveller
+approached the great stone bridge. He was driving a gig, his direction
+being also townwards. On the round of the middle of the arch the gig
+stopped. “Mr. Henchard?” came from it in the voice of Farfrae. Henchard
+turned his face.
+
+Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who
+accompanied him to drive home; while he alighted and went up to his
+former friend.
+
+“I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?” he said. “Is
+it true? I have a real reason for asking.”
+
+Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then said, “Yes;
+it is true. I am going where you were going to a few years ago, when I
+prevented you and got you to bide here. ’Tis turn and turn about, isn’t
+it! Do ye mind how we stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I
+persuaded ’ee to stay? You then stood without a chattel to your name,
+and I was the master of the house in Corn Street. But now I stand
+without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is you.”
+
+“Yes, yes; that’s so! It’s the way o’ the warrld,” said Farfrae.
+
+“Ha, ha, true!” cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of
+jocularity. “Up and down! I’m used to it. What’s the odds after all!”
+
+“Now listen to me, if it’s no taking up your time,” said Farfrae, “just
+as I listened to you. Don’t go. Stay at home.”
+
+“But I can do nothing else, man!” said Henchard scornfully. “The little
+money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks, and
+no more. I have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work yet; but I
+can’t stay doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere.”
+
+“No; but what I propose is this—if ye will listen. Come and live in
+your old house. We can spare some rooms very well—I am sure my wife
+would not mind it at all—until there’s an opening for ye.”
+
+Henchard started. Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald
+of himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to be
+received with equanimity. “No, no,” he said gruffly; “we should
+quarrel.”
+
+“You should hae a part to yourself,” said Farfrae; “and nobody to
+interfere wi’ you. It will be a deal healthier than down there by the
+river where you live now.”
+
+Still Henchard refused. “You don’t know what you ask,” he said.
+“However, I can do no less than thank ’ee.”
+
+They walked into the town together side by side, as they had done when
+Henchard persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. “Will you come in and
+have some supper?” said Farfrae when they reached the middle of the
+town, where their paths diverged right and left.
+
+“No, no.”
+
+“By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your
+furniture.
+
+“So I have heard.”
+
+“Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself; but I wish
+ye to pick out all that you care to have—such things as may be endeared
+to ye by associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take
+them to your own house—it will not be depriving me, we can do with less
+very well, and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting more.”
+
+“What—give it to me for nothing?” said Henchard. “But you paid the
+creditors for it!”
+
+“Ah, yes; but maybe it’s worth more to you than it is to me.”
+
+Henchard was a little moved. “I—sometimes think I’ve wronged ’ee!” he
+said, in tones which showed the disquietude that the night shades hid
+in his face. He shook Farfrae abruptly by the hand, and hastened away
+as if unwilling to betray himself further. Farfrae saw him turn through
+the thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down towards the Priory
+Mill.
+
+Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no larger than the Prophet’s
+chamber, and with the silk attire of her palmy days packed away in a
+box, was netting with great industry between the hours which she
+devoted to studying such books as she could get hold of.
+
+Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather’s former residence,
+now Farfrae’s, she could see Donald and Lucetta speeding in and out of
+their door with all the bounding enthusiasm of their situation. She
+avoided looking that way as much as possible, but it was hardly in
+human nature to keep the eyes averted when the door slammed.
+
+While living on thus quietly she heard the news that Henchard had
+caught cold and was confined to his room—possibly a result of standing
+about the meads in damp weather. She went off to his house at once.
+This time she was determined not to be denied admittance, and made her
+way upstairs. He was sitting up in the bed with a greatcoat round him,
+and at first resented her intrusion. “Go away—go away,” he said. “I
+don’t like to see ’ee!”
+
+“But, father—”
+
+“I don’t like to see ’ee,” he repeated.
+
+However, the ice was broken, and she remained. She made the room more
+comfortable, gave directions to the people below, and by the time she
+went away had reconciled her stepfather to her visiting him.
+
+The effect, either of her ministrations or of her mere presence, was a
+rapid recovery. He soon was well enough to go out; and now things
+seemed to wear a new colour in his eyes. He no longer thought of
+emigration, and thought more of Elizabeth. The having nothing to do
+made him more dreary than any other circumstance; and one day, with
+better views of Farfrae than he had held for some time, and a sense
+that honest work was not a thing to be ashamed of, he stoically went
+down to Farfrae’s yard and asked to be taken on as a journeyman
+hay-trusser. He was engaged at once. This hiring of Henchard was done
+through a foreman, Farfrae feeling that it was undesirable to come
+personally in contact with the ex-corn-factor more than was absolutely
+necessary. While anxious to help him he was well aware by this time of
+his uncertain temper, and thought reserved relations best. For the same
+reason his orders to Henchard to proceed to this and that country farm
+trussing in the usual way were always given through a third person.
+
+For a time these arrangements worked well, it being the custom to truss
+in the respective stack-yards, before bringing it away, the hay bought
+at the different farms about the neighbourhood; so that Henchard was
+often absent at such places the whole week long. When this was all
+done, and Henchard had become in a measure broken in, he came to work
+daily on the home premises like the rest. And thus the once flourishing
+merchant and Mayor and what not stood as a day-labourer in the barns
+and granaries he formerly had owned.
+
+“I have worked as a journeyman before now, ha’n’t I?” he would say in
+his defiant way; “and why shouldn’t I do it again?” But he looked a far
+different journeyman from the one he had been in his earlier days. Then
+he had worn clean, suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue;
+leggings yellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new flax, and a
+neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now he wore the remains of an old
+blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once
+black satin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he went to and fro,
+still comparatively an active man—for he was not much over forty—and
+saw with the other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the
+green door that led to the garden, and the big house, and Lucetta.
+
+At the beginning of the winter it was rumoured about Casterbridge that
+Mr. Farfrae, already in the Town Council, was to be proposed for Mayor
+in a year or two.
+
+“Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!” said Henchard to
+himself when he heard of this one day on his way to Farfrae’s hay-barn.
+He thought it over as he wimbled his bonds, and the piece of news acted
+as a reviviscent breath to that old view of his—of Donald Farfrae as
+his triumphant rival who rode rough-shod over him.
+
+“A fellow of his age going to be Mayor, indeed!” he murmured with a
+corner-drawn smile on his mouth. “But ’tis her money that floats en
+upward. Ha-ha—how cust odd it is! Here be I, his former master, working
+for him as man, and he the man standing as master, with my house and my
+furniture and my what-you-may-call wife all his own.”
+
+He repeated these things a hundred times a day. During the whole period
+of his acquaintance with Lucetta he had never wished to claim her as
+his own so desperately as he now regretted her loss. It was no
+mercenary hankering after her fortune that moved him, though that
+fortune had been the means of making her so much the more desired by
+giving her the air of independence and sauciness which attracts men of
+his composition. It had given her servants, house, and fine clothing—a
+setting that invested Lucetta with a startling novelty in the eyes of
+him who had known her in her narrow days.
+
+He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at every allusion to the
+possibility of Farfrae’s near election to the municipal chair his
+former hatred of the Scotchman returned. Concurrently with this he
+underwent a moral change. It resulted in his significantly saying every
+now and then, in tones of recklessness, “Only a fortnight more!”—“Only
+a dozen days!” and so forth, lessening his figures day by day.
+
+“Why d’ye say only a dozen days?” asked Solomon Longways as he worked
+beside Henchard in the granary weighing oats.
+
+“Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath.”
+
+“What oath?”
+
+“The oath to drink no spirituous liquid. In twelve days it will be
+twenty-one years since I swore it, and then I mean to enjoy myself,
+please God!”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and while there she heard
+in the street below a conversation which introduced Henchard’s name.
+She was wondering what was the matter, when a third person who was
+passing by asked the question in her mind.
+
+“Michael Henchard have busted out drinking after taking nothing for
+twenty-one years!”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane jumped up, put on her things, and went out.
+
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial
+custom—scarcely recognized as such, yet none the less established. On
+the afternoon of every Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge
+journeymen—steady churchgoers and sedate characters—having attended
+service, filed from the church doors across the way to the Three
+Mariners Inn. The rear was usually brought up by the choir, with their
+bass-viols, fiddles, and flutes under their arms.
+
+The great point, the point of honour, on these sacred occasions was for
+each man to strictly limit himself to half-a-pint of liquor. This
+scrupulosity was so well understood by the landlord that the whole
+company was served in cups of that measure. They were all exactly
+alike—straight-sided, with two leafless lime-trees done in eel-brown on
+the sides—one towards the drinker’s lips, the other confronting his
+comrade. To wonder how many of these cups the landlord possessed
+altogether was a favourite exercise of children in the marvellous.
+Forty at least might have been seen at these times in the large room,
+forming a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged oak table,
+like the monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its pristine days. Outside
+and above the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke-jets from forty
+clay pipes; outside the pipes the countenances of the forty
+church-goers, supported at the back by a circle of forty chairs.
+
+The conversation was not the conversation of week-days, but a thing
+altogether finer in point and higher in tone. They invariably discussed
+the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the
+average—the general tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or
+performance which had no relation to their own lives, except as between
+critics and the thing criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk
+usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account of their
+official connection with the preacher.
+
+Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the place for
+closing his long term of dramless years. He had so timed his entry as
+to be well established in the large room by the time the forty
+church-goers entered to their customary cups. The flush upon his face
+proclaimed at once that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the
+era of recklessness begun anew. He was seated on a small table, drawn
+up to the side of the massive oak board reserved for the churchmen, a
+few of whom nodded to him as they took their places and said, “How be
+ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a stranger here.”
+
+Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a few moments, and his
+eyes rested on his stretched-out legs and boots. “Yes,” he said at
+length; “that’s true. I’ve been down in spirit for weeks; some of ye
+know the cause. I am better now, but not quite serene. I want you
+fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this
+brew of Stannidge’s, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my
+minor key.”
+
+“With all my heart,” said the first fiddle. “We’ve let back our
+strings, that’s true, but we can soon pull ’em up again. Sound A,
+neighbours, and give the man a stave.”
+
+“I don’t care a curse what the words be,” said Henchard. “Hymns,
+ballets, or rantipole rubbish; the Rogue’s March or the cherubim’s
+warble—’tis all the same to me if ’tis good harmony, and well put out.”
+
+“Well—heh, heh—it may be we can do that, and not a man among us that
+have sat in the gallery less than twenty year,” said the leader of the
+band. “As ’tis Sunday, neighbours, suppose we raise the Fourth Psa’am,
+to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by me?”
+
+“Hang Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by thee!” said Henchard. “Chuck
+across one of your psalters—old Wiltshire is the only tune worth
+singing—the psalm-tune that would make my blood ebb and flow like the
+sea when I was a steady chap. I’ll find some words to fit en.” He took
+one of the psalters and began turning over the leaves.
+
+Chancing to look out of the window at that moment he saw a flock of
+people passing by, and perceived them to be the congregation of the
+upper church, now just dismissed, their sermon having been a longer one
+than that the lower parish was favoured with. Among the rest of the
+leading inhabitants walked Mr. Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon his
+arm, the observed and imitated of all the smaller tradesmen’s
+womankind. Henchard’s mouth changed a little, and he continued to turn
+over the leaves.
+
+“Now then,” he said, “Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the tune of
+Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen. I gi’e ye the words:
+
+“His seed shall orphans be, his wife
+    A widow plunged in grief;
+His vagrant children beg their bread
+    Where none can give relief.
+
+His ill-got riches shall be made
+    To usurers a prey;
+The fruit of all his toil shall be
+    By strangers borne away.
+
+None shall be found that to his wants
+    Their mercy will extend,
+Or to his helpless orphan seed
+    The least assistance lend.
+
+A swift destruction soon shall seize
+    On his unhappy race;
+And the next age his hated name
+    Shall utterly deface.”
+
+
+“I know the Psa’am—I know the Psa’am!” said the leader hastily; “but I
+would as lief not sing it. ’Twasn’t made for singing. We chose it once
+when the gipsy stole the pa’son’s mare, thinking to please him, but
+pa’son were quite upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about
+when he made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I
+can’t fathom! Now then, the Fourth Psalm, to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as
+improved by me.”
+
+“’Od seize your sauce—I tell ye to sing the Hundred-and-Ninth to
+Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!” roared Henchard. “Not a single one
+of all the droning crew of ye goes out of this room till that Psalm is
+sung!” He slipped off the table, seized the poker, and going to the
+door placed his back against it. “Now then, go ahead, if you don’t wish
+to have your cust pates broke!”
+
+“Don’t ’ee, don’t ’ee take on so!—As ’tis the Sabbath-day, and ’tis
+Servant David’s words and not ours, perhaps we don’t mind for once,
+hey?” said one of the terrified choir, looking round upon the rest. So
+the instruments were tuned and the comminatory verses sung.
+
+“Thank ye, thank ye,” said Henchard in a softened voice, his eyes
+growing downcast, and his manner that of a man much moved by the
+strains. “Don’t you blame David,” he went on in low tones, shaking his
+head without raising his eyes. “He knew what he was about when he wrote
+that!... If I could afford it, be hanged if I wouldn’t keep a church
+choir at my own expense to play and sing to me at these low, dark times
+of my life. But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I didn’t need
+what I could have, and now I be poor I can’t have what I need!”
+
+While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again, this time
+homeward, it being their custom to take, like others, a short walk out
+on the highway and back, between church and tea-time. “There’s the man
+we’ve been singing about,” said Henchard.
+
+The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. “Heaven
+forbid!” said the bass-player.
+
+“’Tis the man,” repeated Henchard doggedly.
+
+“Then if I’d known,” said the performer on the clarionet solemnly,
+“that ’twas meant for a living man, nothing should have drawn out of my
+wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so help me!”
+
+“Nor from mine,” said the first singer. “But, thought I, as it was made
+so long ago perhaps there isn’t much in it, so I’ll oblige a neighbour;
+for there’s nothing to be said against the tune.”
+
+“Ah, my boys, you’ve sung it,” said Henchard triumphantly. “As for him,
+it was partly by his songs that he got over me, and heaved me out.... I
+could double him up like that—and yet I don’t.” He laid the poker
+across his knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down, and came
+away from the door.
+
+It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heard where her
+stepfather was, entered the room with a pale and agonized countenance.
+The choir and the rest of the company moved off, in accordance with
+their half-pint regulation. Elizabeth-Jane went up to Henchard, and
+entreated him to accompany her home.
+
+By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt down, and
+having drunk no great quantity as yet he was inclined to acquiesce. She
+took his arm, and together they went on. Henchard walked blankly, like
+a blind man, repeating to himself the last words of the singers—
+
+“And the next age his hated name
+    Shall utterly deface.”
+
+
+At length he said to her, “I am a man to my word. I have kept my oath
+for twenty-one years; and now I can drink with a good conscience.... If
+I don’t do for him—well, I am a fearful practical joker when I choose!
+He has taken away everything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him I
+won’t answer for my deeds!”
+
+These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth—all the more by reason of
+the still determination of Henchard’s mien.
+
+“What will you do?” she asked cautiously, while trembling with
+disquietude, and guessing Henchard’s allusion only too well.
+
+Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his
+cottage. “May I come in?” she said.
+
+“No, no; not to-day,” said Henchard; and she went away; feeling that to
+caution Farfrae was almost her duty, as it was certainly her strong
+desire.
+
+As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae and Lucetta might have
+been seen flitting about the town like two butterflies—or rather like a
+bee and a butterfly in league for life. She seemed to take no pleasure
+in going anywhere except in her husband’s company; and hence when
+business would not permit him to waste an afternoon she remained
+indoors waiting for the time to pass till his return, her face being
+visible to Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft. The latter, however,
+did not say to herself that Farfrae should be thankful for such
+devotion, but, full of her reading, she cited Rosalind’s exclamation:
+“Mistress, know yourself; down on your knees and thank Heaven fasting
+for a good man’s love.”
+
+She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry
+for his health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle’s
+pitying eyes upon him while they worked together in the yard. “He is
+such a fool,” said Henchard, “that he can never get out of his mind the
+time when I was master there.”
+
+“I’ll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will allow me,”
+said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity of
+observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae’s premises now
+that her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard’s threats had alarmed
+her so much that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face
+to face.
+
+For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any
+appearance. Then one afternoon the green door opened, and through came,
+first Farfrae, and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife
+forward without hesitation, it being obvious that he had no suspicion
+whatever of any antecedents in common between her and the now
+journeyman hay-trusser.
+
+Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them
+fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling
+of delicacy, which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might
+seem like triumphing over a fallen rival, led him to keep away from the
+hay-barn where Henchard and his daughter were working, and to go on to
+the corn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never having been informed that
+Henchard had entered her husband’s service, rambled straight on to the
+barn, where she came suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little
+“Oh!” which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear.
+Henchard, with withering humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his
+hat to her as Whittle and the rest had done, to which she breathed a
+dead-alive “Good afternoon.”
+
+“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” said Henchard, as if he had not heard.
+
+“I said good afternoon,” she faltered.
+
+“O yes, good afternoon, ma’am,” he replied, touching his hat again. “I
+am glad to see you, ma’am.” Lucetta looked embarrassed, and Henchard
+continued: “For we humble workmen here feel it a great honour that a
+lady should look in and take an interest in us.”
+
+She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too
+unendurable.
+
+“Can you tell me the time, ma’am?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” she said hastily; “half-past four.”
+
+“Thank ’ee. An hour and a half longer before we are released from work.
+Ah, ma’am, we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisure that
+such as you enjoy!”
+
+As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, nodded and smiled to
+Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husband at the other end of the
+enclosure, where she could be seen leading him away by the outer gates,
+so as to avoid passing Henchard again. That she had been taken by
+surprise was obvious. The result of this casual rencounter was that the
+next morning a note was put into Henchard’s hand by the postman.
+
+“Will you,” said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put into
+a small communication, “will you kindly undertake not to speak to me in
+the biting undertones you used to-day, if I walk through the yard at
+any time? I bear you no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you
+should have employment of my dear husband; but in common fairness treat
+me as his wife, and do not try to make me wretched by covert sneers. I
+have committed no crime, and done you no injury.”
+
+“Poor fool!” said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out the note.
+“To know no better than commit herself in writing like this! Why, if I
+were to show that to her dear husband—pooh!” He threw the letter into
+the fire.
+
+Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would
+rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such
+close quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider
+every day. Farfrae was always considerate to his fallen acquaintance;
+but it was impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard
+the ex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen. Henchard
+saw this, and concealed his feelings under a cover of stolidity,
+fortifying his heart by drinking more freely at the Three Mariners
+every evening.
+
+Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his taking other
+liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at five o’clock. Arriving
+one day on this errand she found her stepfather was measuring up
+clover-seed and rape-seed in the corn-stores on the top floor, and she
+ascended to him. Each floor had a door opening into the air under a
+cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks.
+
+When Elizabeth’s head rose through the trap she perceived that the
+upper door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just
+within it in conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and
+Henchard a little way behind. Not to interrupt them she remained on the
+steps without raising her head any higher. While waiting thus she
+saw—or fancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain—her
+stepfather slowly raise his hand to a level behind Farfrae’s shoulders,
+a curious expression taking possession of his face. The young man was
+quite unconscious of the action, which was so indirect that, if Farfrae
+had observed it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle
+outstretching of the arm. But it would have been possible, by a
+comparatively light touch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send
+him head over heels into the air.
+
+Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this _might_
+have meant. As soon as they turned she mechanically took the tea to
+Henchard, left it, and went away. Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure
+herself that the movement was an idle eccentricity, and no more. Yet,
+on the other hand, his subordinate position in an establishment where
+he once had been master might be acting on him like an irritant poison;
+and she finally resolved to caution Donald.
+
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o’clock and went into the
+street. It was not yet light; a dense fog prevailed, and the town was
+as silent as it was dark, except that from the rectangular avenues
+which framed in the borough there came a chorus of tiny rappings,
+caused by the fall of water-drops condensed on the boughs; now it was
+wafted from the West Walk, now from the South Walk; and then from both
+quarters simultaneously. She moved on to the bottom of Corn Street,
+and, knowing his time well, waited only a few minutes before she heard
+the familiar bang of his door, and then his quick walk towards her. She
+met him at the point where the last tree of the engirding avenue
+flanked the last house in the street.
+
+He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he said,
+“What—Miss Henchard—and are ye up so airly?”
+
+She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time.
+“But I am anxious to mention something,” she said. “And I wished not to
+alarm Mrs. Farfrae by calling.”
+
+“Yes?” said he, with the cheeriness of a superior. “And what may it be?
+It’s very kind of ye, I’m sure.”
+
+She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the exact aspect
+of possibilities in her own. But she somehow began, and introduced
+Henchard’s name. “I sometimes fear,” she said with an effort, “that he
+may be betrayed into some attempt to—insult you, sir.”
+
+“But we are the best of friends?”
+
+“Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir. Remember that he has
+been hardly used.”
+
+“But we are quite friendly?”
+
+“Or to do something—that would injure you—hurt you—wound you.” Every
+word cost her twice its length of pain. And she could see that Farfrae
+was still incredulous. Henchard, a poor man in his employ, was not to
+Farfrae’s view the Henchard who had ruled him. Yet he was not only the
+same man, but that man with his sinister qualities, formerly latent,
+quickened into life by his buffetings.
+
+Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted in making light of her
+fears. Thus they parted, and she went homeward, journeymen now being in
+the street, waggoners going to the harness-makers for articles left to
+be repaired, farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the sons of
+labour showing themselves generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her
+lodging unhappily, thinking she had done no good, and only made herself
+appear foolish by her weak note of warning.
+
+But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whom an incident is never
+absolutely lost. He revised impressions from a subsequent point of
+view, and the impulsive judgment of the moment was not always his
+permanent one. The vision of Elizabeth’s earnest face in the rimy dawn
+came back to him several times during the day. Knowing the solidity of
+her character he did not treat her hints altogether as idle sounds.
+
+But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard’s account that
+engaged him just then; and when he met Lawyer Joyce, the town-clerk,
+later in the day, he spoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it.
+
+“About that little seedsman’s shop,” he said, “the shop overlooking the
+churchyard, which is to let. It is not for myself I want it, but for
+our unlucky fellow-townsman Henchard. It would be a new beginning for
+him, if a small one; and I have told the Council that I would head a
+private subscription among them to set him up in it—that I would be
+fifty pounds, if they would make up the other fifty among them.”
+
+“Yes, yes; so I’ve heard; and there’s nothing to say against it for
+that matter,” the town-clerk replied, in his plain, frank way. “But,
+Farfrae, others see what you don’t. Henchard hates ’ee—ay, hates ’ee;
+and ’tis right that you should know it. To my knowledge he was at the
+Three Mariners last night, saying in public that about you which a man
+ought not to say about another.”
+
+“Is that so—ah, is that so?” said Farfrae, looking down. “Why should he
+do it?” added the young man bitterly; “what harm have I done him that
+he should try to wrong me?”
+
+“God only knows,” said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows. “It shows much
+long-suffering in you to put up with him, and keep him in your employ.”
+
+“But I cannet discharge a man who was once a good friend to me. How can
+I forget that when I came here ’twas he enabled me to make a footing
+for mysel’? No, no. As long as I’ve a day’s work to offer he shall do
+it if he chooses. ’Tis not I who will deny him such a little as that.
+But I’ll drop the idea of establishing him in a shop till I can think
+more about it.”
+
+It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme. But a damp having been
+thrown over it by these and other voices in the air, he went and
+countermanded his orders. The then occupier of the shop was in it when
+Farfrae spoke to him and feeling it necessary to give some explanation
+of his withdrawal from the negotiation Donald mentioned Henchard’s
+name, and stated that the intentions of the Council had been changed.
+
+The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-way informed Henchard,
+as soon as he saw him, that a scheme of the Council for setting him up
+in a shop had been knocked on the head by Farfrae. And thus out of
+error enmity grew.
+
+When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettle was singing on the
+high hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate. Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran
+forward and seized his hands, whereupon Farfrae duly kissed her.
+
+“Oh!” she cried playfully, turning to the window. “See—the blinds are
+not drawn down, and the people can look in—what a scandal!”
+
+When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the twain sat at
+tea, she noticed that he looked serious. Without directly inquiring why
+she let her eyes linger solicitously on his face.
+
+“Who has called?” he absently asked. “Any folk for me?”
+
+“No,” said Lucetta. “What’s the matter, Donald?”
+
+“Well—nothing worth talking of,” he responded sadly.
+
+“Then, never mind it. You will get through it, Scotchmen are always
+lucky.”
+
+“No—not always!” he said, shaking his head gloomily as he contemplated
+a crumb on the table. “I know many who have not been so! There was
+Sandy Macfarlane, who started to America to try his fortune, and he was
+drowned; and Archibald Leith, he was murdered! And poor Willie
+Dunbleeze and Maitland Macfreeze—they fell into bad courses, and went
+the way of all such!”
+
+“Why—you old goosey—I was only speaking in a general sense, of course!
+You are always so literal. Now when we have finished tea, sing me that
+funny song about high-heeled shoon and siller tags, and the
+one-and-forty wooers.”
+
+“No, no. I couldna sing to-night! It’s Henchard—he hates me; so that I
+may not be his friend if I would. I would understand why there should
+be a wee bit of envy; but I cannet see a reason for the whole intensity
+of what he feels. Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashioned
+rivalry in love than just a bit of rivalry in trade.”
+
+Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. “No,” she replied.
+
+“I give him employment—I cannet refuse it. But neither can I blind
+myself to the fact that with a man of passions such as his, there is no
+safeguard for conduct!”
+
+“What have you heard—O Donald, dearest?” said Lucetta in alarm. The
+words on her lips were “anything about me?”—but she did not utter them.
+She could not, however, suppress her agitation, and her eyes filled
+with tears.
+
+“No, no—it is not so serious as ye fancy,” declared Farfrae soothingly;
+though he did not know its seriousness so well as she.
+
+“I wish you would do what we have talked of,” mournfully remarked
+Lucetta. “Give up business, and go away from here. We have plenty of
+money, and why should we stay?”
+
+Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and they talked
+thereon till a visitor was announced. Their neighbour Alderman Vatt
+came in.
+
+“You’ve heard, I suppose of poor Doctor Chalkfield’s death? Yes—died
+this afternoon at five,” said Mr. Vatt. Chalkfield was the Councilman
+who had succeeded to the Mayoralty in the preceding November.
+
+Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt continued: “Well,
+we know he’s been going some days, and as his family is well provided
+for we must take it all as it is. Now I have called to ask ’ee
+this—quite privately. If I should nominate ’ee to succeed him, and
+there should be no particular opposition, will ’ee accept the chair?”
+
+“But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I’m over young, and
+may be thought pushing!” said Farfrae after a pause.
+
+“Not at all. I don’t speak for myself only, several have named it. You
+won’t refuse?”
+
+“We thought of going away,” interposed Lucetta, looking at Farfrae
+anxiously.
+
+“It was only a fancy,” Farfrae murmured. “I wouldna refuse if it is the
+wish of a respectable majority in the Council.”
+
+“Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected. We have had older men
+long enough.”
+
+When he was gone Farfrae said musingly, “See now how it’s ourselves
+that are ruled by the Powers above us! We plan this, but we do that. If
+they want to make me Mayor I will stay, and Henchard must rave as he
+will.”
+
+From this evening onward Lucetta was very uneasy. If she had not been
+imprudence incarnate she would not have acted as she did when she met
+Henchard by accident a day or two later. It was in the bustle of the
+market, when no one could readily notice their discourse.
+
+“Michael,” said she, “I must again ask you what I asked you months
+ago—to return me any letters or papers of mine that you may have—unless
+you have destroyed them? You must see how desirable it is that the time
+at Jersey should be blotted out, for the good of all parties.”
+
+“Why, bless the woman!—I packed up every scrap of your handwriting to
+give you in the coach—but you never appeared.”
+
+She explained how the death of her aunt had prevented her taking the
+journey on that day. “And what became of the parcel then?” she asked.
+
+He could not say—he would consider. When she was gone he recollected
+that he had left a heap of useless papers in his former dining-room
+safe—built up in the wall of his old house—now occupied by Farfrae. The
+letters might have been amongst them.
+
+A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard’s face. Had that safe been
+opened?
+
+On the very evening which followed this there was a great ringing of
+bells in Casterbridge, and the combined brass, wood, catgut, and
+leather bands played round the town with more prodigality of
+percussion-notes than ever. Farfrae was Mayor—the two-hundredth odd of
+a series forming an elective dynasty dating back to the days of Charles
+I—and the fair Lucetta was the courted of the town.... But, Ah! the
+worm i’ the bud—Henchard; what he could tell!
+
+He, in the meantime, festering with indignation at some erroneous
+intelligence of Farfrae’s opposition to the scheme for installing him
+in the little seed-shop, was greeted with the news of the municipal
+election (which, by reason of Farfrae’s comparative youth and his
+Scottish nativity—a thing unprecedented in the case—had an interest far
+beyond the ordinary). The bell-ringing and the band-playing, loud as
+Tamerlane’s trumpet, goaded the downfallen Henchard indescribably: the
+ousting now seemed to him to be complete.
+
+The next morning he went to the corn-yard as usual, and about eleven
+o’clock Donald entered through the green door, with no trace of the
+worshipful about him. The yet more emphatic change of places between
+him and Henchard which this election had established renewed a slight
+embarrassment in the manner of the modest young man; but Henchard
+showed the front of one who had overlooked all this; and Farfrae met
+his amenities half-way at once.
+
+“I was going to ask you,” said Henchard, “about a packet that I may
+possibly have left in my old safe in the dining-room.” He added
+particulars.
+
+“If so, it is there now,” said Farfrae. “I have never opened the safe
+at all as yet; for I keep ma papers at the bank, to sleep easy o’
+nights.”
+
+“It was not of much consequence—to me,” said Henchard. “But I’ll call
+for it this evening, if you don’t mind?”
+
+It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise. He had primed himself
+with grog, as he did very frequently now, and a curl of sardonic humour
+hung on his lip as he approached the house, as though he were
+contemplating some terrible form of amusement. Whatever it was, the
+incident of his entry did not diminish its force, this being his first
+visit to the house since he had lived there as owner. The ring of the
+bell spoke to him like the voice of a familiar drudge who had been
+bribed to forsake him; the movements of the doors were revivals of dead
+days.
+
+Farfrae invited him into the dining-room, where he at once unlocked the
+iron safe built into the wall, _his_, Henchard’s safe, made by an
+ingenious locksmith under his direction. Farfrae drew thence the
+parcel, and other papers, with apologies for not having returned them.
+
+“Never mind,” said Henchard drily. “The fact is they are letters
+mostly.... Yes,” he went on, sitting down and unfolding Lucetta’s
+passionate bundle, “here they be. That ever I should see ’em again! I
+hope Mrs. Farfrae is well after her exertions of yesterday?”
+
+“She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that account.”
+
+Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them over with interest,
+Farfrae being seated at the other end of the dining-table. “You don’t
+forget, of course,” he resumed, “that curious chapter in the history of
+my past which I told you of, and that you gave me some assistance in?
+These letters are, in fact, related to that unhappy business. Though,
+thank God, it is all over now.”
+
+“What became of the poor woman?” asked Farfrae.
+
+“Luckily she married, and married well,” said Henchard. “So that these
+reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges, as
+they might otherwise have done.... Just listen to what an angry woman
+will say!”
+
+Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite uninterested, and
+bursting with yawns, gave well-mannered attention.
+
+“‘For me,’” Henchard read, “‘there is practically no future. A creature
+too unconventionally devoted to you—who feels it impossible that she
+can be the wife of any other man; and who is yet no more to you than
+the first woman you meet in the street—such am I. I quite acquit you of
+any intention to wrong me, yet you are the door through which wrong has
+come to me. That in the event of your present wife’s death you will
+place me in her position is a consolation so far as it goes—but how far
+does it go? Thus I sit here, forsaken by my few acquaintance, and
+forsaken by you!’”
+
+“That’s how she went on to me,” said Henchard, “acres of words like
+that, when what had happened was what I could not cure.”
+
+“Yes,” said Farfrae absently, “it is the way wi’ women.” But the fact
+was that he knew very little of the sex; yet detecting a sort of
+resemblance in style between the effusions of the woman he worshipped
+and those of the supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever
+spoke thus, whosesoever the personality she assumed.
+
+Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through likewise,
+stopping at the subscription as before. “Her name I don’t give,” he
+said blandly. “As I didn’t marry her, and another man did, I can
+scarcely do that in fairness to her.”
+
+“Tr-rue, tr-rue,” said Farfrae. “But why didn’t you marry her when your
+wife Susan died?” Farfrae asked this and the other questions in the
+comfortably indifferent tone of one whom the matter very remotely
+concerned.
+
+“Ah—well you may ask that!” said Henchard, the new-moon-shaped grin
+adumbrating itself again upon his mouth. “In spite of all her
+protestations, when I came forward to do so, as in generosity bound,
+she was not the woman for me.”
+
+“She had already married another—maybe?”
+
+Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the wind to
+descend further into particulars, and he answered “Yes.”
+
+“The young lady must have had a heart that bore transplanting very
+readily!”
+
+“She had, she had,” said Henchard emphatically.
+
+He opened a third and fourth letter, and read. This time he approached
+the conclusion as if the signature were indeed coming with the rest.
+But again he stopped short. The truth was that, as may be divined, he
+had quite intended to effect a grand catastrophe at the end of this
+drama by reading out the name, he had come to the house with no other
+thought. But sitting here in cold blood he could not do it.
+
+Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him. His quality was such that
+he could have annihilated them both in the heat of action; but to
+accomplish the deed by oral poison was beyond the nerve of his enmity.
+
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to her room because of
+fatigue. She had, however, not gone to rest, but sat in the bedside
+chair reading and thinking over the events of the day. At the ringing
+of the door-bell by Henchard she wondered who it should be that would
+call at that comparatively late hour. The dining-room was almost under
+her bed-room; she could hear that somebody was admitted there, and
+presently the indistinct murmur of a person reading became audible.
+
+The usual time for Donald’s arrival upstairs came and passed, yet still
+the reading and conversation went on. This was very singular. She could
+think of nothing but that some extraordinary crime had been committed,
+and that the visitor, whoever he might be, was reading an account of it
+from a special edition of the _Casterbridge Chronicle_. At last she
+left the room, and descended the stairs. The dining-room door was ajar,
+and in the silence of the resting household the voice and the words
+were recognizable before she reached the lower flight. She stood
+transfixed. Her own words greeted her in Henchard’s voice, like spirits
+from the grave.
+
+Lucetta leant upon the banister with her cheek against the smooth
+hand-rail, as if she would make a friend of it in her misery. Rigid in
+this position, more and more words fell successively upon her ear. But
+what amazed her most was the tone of her husband. He spoke merely in
+the accents of a man who made a present of his time.
+
+“One word,” he was saying, as the crackling of paper denoted that
+Henchard was unfolding yet another sheet. “Is it quite fair to this
+young woman’s memory to read at such length to a stranger what was
+intended for your eye alone?”
+
+“Well, yes,” said Henchard. “By not giving her name I make it an
+example of all womankind, and not a scandal to one.”
+
+“If I were you I would destroy them,” said Farfrae, giving more thought
+to the letters than he had hitherto done. “As another man’s wife it
+would injure the woman if it were known.”
+
+“No, I shall not destroy them,” murmured Henchard, putting the letters
+away. Then he arose, and Lucetta heard no more.
+
+She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state. For very fear
+she could not undress, but sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would
+Henchard let out the secret in his parting words? Her suspense was
+terrible. Had she confessed all to Donald in their early acquaintance
+he might possibly have got over it, and married her just the
+same—unlikely as it had once seemed; but for her or any one else to
+tell him now would be fatal.
+
+The door slammed; she could hear her husband bolting it. After looking
+round in his customary way he came leisurely up the stairs. The spark
+in her eyes well-nigh went out when he appeared round the bedroom door.
+Her gaze hung doubtful for a moment, then to her joyous amazement she
+saw that he looked at her with the rallying smile of one who had just
+been relieved of a scene that was irksome. She could hold out no
+longer, and sobbed hysterically.
+
+When he had restored her Farfrae naturally enough spoke of Henchard.
+“Of all men he was the least desirable as a visitor,” he said; “but it
+is my belief that he’s just a bit crazed. He has been reading to me a
+long lot of letters relating to his past life; and I could do no less
+than indulge him by listening.”
+
+This was sufficient. Henchard, then, had not told. Henchard’s last
+words to Farfrae, in short, as he stood on the doorstep, had been
+these: “Well—I’m obliged to ’ee for listening. I may tell more about
+her some day.”
+
+Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard’s motives in
+opening the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a
+power of consistent action which we never find in ourselves or in our
+friends; and forget that abortive efforts from want of heart are as
+possible to revenge as to generosity.
+
+Next morning Lucetta remained in bed, meditating how to parry this
+incipient attack. The bold stroke of telling Donald the truth, dimly
+conceived, was yet too bold; for she dreaded lest in doing so he, like
+the rest of the world, should believe that the episode was rather her
+fault than her misfortune. She decided to employ persuasion—not with
+Donald but with the enemy himself. It seemed the only practicable
+weapon left her as a woman. Having laid her plan she rose, and wrote to
+him who kept her on these tenterhooks:—
+
+“I overheard your interview with my husband last night, and saw the
+drift of your revenge. The very thought of it crushes me! Have pity on
+a distressed woman! If you could see me you would relent. You do not
+know how anxiety has told upon me lately. I will be at the Ring at the
+time you leave work—just before the sun goes down. Please come that
+way. I cannot rest till I have seen you face to face, and heard from
+your mouth that you will carry this horse-play no further.”
+
+To herself she said, on closing up her appeal: “If ever tears and
+pleadings have served the weak to fight the strong, let them do so
+now!”
+
+With this view she made a toilette which differed from all she had ever
+attempted before. To heighten her natural attraction had hitherto been
+the unvarying endeavour of her adult life, and one in which she was no
+novice. But now she neglected this, and even proceeded to impair the
+natural presentation. Beyond a natural reason for her slightly drawn
+look, she had not slept all the previous night, and this had produced
+upon her pretty though slightly worn features the aspect of a
+countenance ageing prematurely from extreme sorrow. She selected—as
+much from want of spirit as design—her poorest, plainest and longest
+discarded attire.
+
+To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiled herself, and
+slipped out of the house quickly. The sun was resting on the hill like
+a drop of blood on an eyelid by the time she had got up the road
+opposite the amphitheatre, which she speedily entered. The interior was
+shadowy, and emphatic of the absence of every living thing.
+
+She was not disappointed in the fearful hope with which she awaited
+him. Henchard came over the top, descended and Lucetta waited
+breathlessly. But having reached the arena she saw a change in his
+bearing: he stood still at a little distance from her; she could not
+think why.
+
+Nor could any one else have known. The truth was that in appointing
+this spot, and this hour, for the rendezvous, Lucetta had unwittingly
+backed up her entreaty by the strongest argument she could have used
+outside words, with this man of moods, glooms, and superstitions. Her
+figure in the midst of the huge enclosure, the unusual plainness of her
+dress, her attitude of hope and appeal, so strongly revived in his soul
+the memory of another ill-used woman who had stood there and thus in
+bygone days, and had now passed away into her rest, that he was
+unmanned, and his heart smote him for having attempted reprisals on one
+of a sex so weak. When he approached her, and before she had spoken a
+word, her point was half gained.
+
+His manner as he had come down had been one of cynical carelessness;
+but he now put away his grim half-smile, and said, in a kindly subdued
+tone, “Goodnight t’ye. Of course I’m glad to come if you want me.”
+
+“O, thank you,” she said apprehensively.
+
+“I am sorry to see ’ee looking so ill,” he stammered with unconcealed
+compunction.
+
+She shook her head. “How can you be sorry,” she asked, “when you
+deliberately cause it?”
+
+“What!” said Henchard uneasily. “Is it anything I have done that has
+pulled you down like that?”
+
+“It is all your doing,” she said. “I have no other grief. My happiness
+would be secure enough but for your threats. O Michael! don’t wreck me
+like this! You might think that you have done enough! When I came here
+I was a young woman; now I am rapidly becoming an old one. Neither my
+husband nor any other man will regard me with interest long.”
+
+Henchard was disarmed. His old feeling of supercilious pity for
+womankind in general was intensified by this suppliant appearing here
+as the double of the first. Moreover that thoughtless want of foresight
+which had led to all her trouble remained with poor Lucetta still; she
+had come to meet him here in this compromising way without perceiving
+the risk. Such a woman was very small deer to hunt; he felt ashamed,
+lost all zest and desire to humiliate Lucetta there and then, and no
+longer envied Farfrae his bargain. He had married money, but nothing
+more. Henchard was anxious to wash his hands of the game.
+
+“Well, what do you want me to do?” he said gently. “I am sure I shall
+be very willing. My reading of those letters was only a sort of
+practical joke, and I revealed nothing.”
+
+“To give me back the letters and any papers you may have that breathe
+of matrimony or worse.”
+
+“So be it. Every scrap shall be yours.... But, between you and me,
+Lucetta, he is sure to find out something of the matter, sooner or
+later.”
+
+“Ah!” she said with eager tremulousness; “but not till I have proved
+myself a faithful and deserving wife to him, and then he may forgive me
+everything!”
+
+Henchard silently looked at her: he almost envied Farfrae such love as
+that, even now. “H’m—I hope so,” he said. “But you shall have the
+letters without fail. And your secret shall be kept. I swear it.”
+
+“How good you are!—how shall I get them?”
+
+He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning. “Now don’t
+doubt me,” he added. “I can keep my word.”
+
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp
+nearest to her own door. When she stopped to go in he came and spoke to
+her. It was Jopp.
+
+He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard that Mr.
+Farfrae had been applied to by a neighbouring corn-merchant to
+recommend a working partner; if so he wished to offer himself. He could
+give good security, and had stated as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter;
+but he would feel much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his
+favour to her husband.
+
+“It is a thing I know nothing about,” said Lucetta coldly.
+
+“But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody, ma’am,”
+said Jopp. “I was in Jersey several years, and knew you there by
+sight.”
+
+“Indeed,” she replied. “But I knew nothing of you.”
+
+“I think, ma’am, that a word or two from you would secure for me what I
+covet very much,” he persisted.
+
+She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and
+cutting him short, because of her anxiety to get indoors before her
+husband should miss her, left him on the pavement.
+
+He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home. When he got
+there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner looking at the iron
+dogs, and the wood laid across them for heating the morning kettle. A
+movement upstairs disturbed him, and Henchard came down from his
+bedroom, where he seemed to have been rummaging boxes.
+
+“I wish,” said Henchard, “you would do me a service, Jopp,
+now—to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae’s for her.
+I should take it myself, of course, but I don’t wish to be seen there.”
+
+He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard had been as good
+as his word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over his few
+belongings, and every scrap of Lucetta’s writing that he possessed was
+here. Jopp indifferently expressed his willingness.
+
+“Well, how have ye got on to-day?” his lodger asked. “Any prospect of
+an opening?”
+
+“I am afraid not,” said Jopp, who had not told the other of his
+application to Farfrae.
+
+“There never will be in Casterbridge,” declared Henchard decisively.
+“You must roam further afield.” He said goodnight to Jopp, and returned
+to his own part of the house.
+
+Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the
+candle-snuff on the wall, and looking at the original he found that it
+had formed itself into a head like a red-hot cauliflower. Henchard’s
+packet next met his gaze. He knew there had been something of the
+nature of wooing between Henchard and the now Mrs. Farfrae; and his
+vague ideas on the subject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchard
+had a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons for not
+returning that parcel to her in person. What could be inside it? So he
+went on and on till, animated by resentment at Lucetta’s haughtiness,
+as he thought it, and curiosity to learn if there were any weak sides
+to this transaction with Henchard, he examined the package. The pen and
+all its relations being awkward tools in Henchard’s hands he had
+affixed the seals without an impression, it never occurring to him that
+the efficacy of such a fastening depended on this. Jopp was far less of
+a tyro; he lifted one of the seals with his penknife, peeped in at the
+end thus opened, saw that the bundle consisted of letters; and, having
+satisfied himself thus far, sealed up the end again by simply softening
+the wax with the candle, and went off with the parcel as requested.
+
+His path was by the river-side at the foot of the town. Coming into the
+light at the bridge which stood at the end of High Street he beheld
+lounging thereon Mother Cuxsom and Nance Mockridge.
+
+“We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter’s Finger
+afore creeping to bed,” said Mrs. Cuxsom. “There’s a fiddle and
+tambourine going on there. Lord, what’s all the world—do ye come along
+too, Jopp—’twon’t hinder ye five minutes.”
+
+Jopp had mostly kept himself out of this company, but present
+circumstances made him somewhat more reckless than usual, and without
+many words he decided to go to his destination that way.
+
+Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a curious
+congeries of barns and farm-steads, there was a less picturesque side
+to the parish. This was Mixen Lane, now in great part pulled down.
+
+Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages. It was the
+hiding-place of those who were in distress, and in debt, and trouble of
+every kind. Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combined a little
+poaching with their farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with
+their poaching, found themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural
+mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to
+serve, drifted or were forced into Mixen Lane.
+
+The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out
+like a spit into the moist and misty lowland. Much that was sad, much
+that was low, some things that were baneful, could be seen in Mixen
+Lane. Vice ran freely in and out certain of the doors in the
+neighbourhood; recklessness dwelt under the roof with the crooked
+chimney; shame in some bow-windows; theft (in times of privation) in
+the thatched and mud-walled houses by the sallows. Even slaughter had
+not been altogether unknown here. In a block of cottages up an alley
+there might have been erected an altar to disease in years gone by.
+Such was Mixen Lane in the times when Henchard and Farfrae were Mayors.
+
+Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant
+lay close to the open country; not a hundred yards from a row of noble
+elms, and commanding a view across the moor of airy uplands and
+corn-fields, and mansions of the great. A brook divided the moor from
+the tenements, and to outward view there was no way across it—no way to
+the houses but round about by the road. But under every householder’s
+stairs there was kept a mysterious plank nine inches wide; which plank
+was a secret bridge.
+
+If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from business
+after dark—and this was the business time here—you stealthily crossed
+the moor, approached the border of the aforesaid brook, and whistled
+opposite the house to which you belonged. A shape thereupon made its
+appearance on the other side bearing the bridge on end against the sky;
+it was lowered; you crossed, and a hand helped you to land yourself,
+together with the pheasants and hares gathered from neighbouring
+manors. You sold them slily the next morning, and the day after you
+stood before the magistrates with the eyes of all your sympathizing
+neighbours concentrated on your back. You disappeared for a time; then
+you were again found quietly living in Mixen Lane.
+
+Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by two or three
+peculiar features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the
+back premises of the inn half-way up; this meant a skittle alley.
+Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various
+domiciles—a piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door.
+Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among the
+women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in
+situations where spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and
+cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the postures
+and gaits of the women who wore it—their knuckles being mostly on their
+hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and
+their shoulders against door-posts; while there was a curious alacrity
+in the turn of each honest woman’s head upon her neck and in the twirl
+of her honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along
+the lane.
+
+Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also found a home.
+Under some of the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence
+there was due to the iron hand of necessity, and to that alone.
+Families from decayed villages—families of that once bulky, but now
+nearly extinct, section of village society called “liviers,” or
+lifeholders—copyholders and others, whose roof-trees had fallen for
+some reason or other, compelling them to quit the rural spot that had
+been their home for generations—came here, unless they chose to lie
+under a hedge by the wayside.
+
+The inn called Peter’s Finger was the church of Mixen Lane.
+
+It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore about the
+same social relation to the Three Mariners as the latter bore to the
+King’s Arms. At first sight the inn was so respectable as to be
+puzzling. The front door was kept shut, and the step was so clean that
+evidently but few persons entered over its sanded surface. But at the
+corner of the public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividing it from
+the next building. Half-way up the alley was a narrow door, shiny and
+paintless from the rub of infinite hands and shoulders. This was the
+actual entrance to the inn.
+
+A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane; and
+then, in a moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like
+Ashton at the disappearance of Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian
+had edged into the slit by the adroit fillip of his person sideways;
+from the slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of skill.
+
+The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in comparison
+with the company which gathered here; though it must be admitted that
+the lowest fringe of the Mariner’s party touched the crest of Peter’s
+at points. Waifs and strays of all sorts loitered about here. The
+landlady was a virtuous woman who years ago had been unjustly sent to
+gaol as an accessory to something or other after the fact. She
+underwent her twelvemonth, and had worn a martyr’s countenance ever
+since, except at times of meeting the constable who apprehended her,
+when she winked her eye.
+
+To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived. The settles on
+which they sat down were thin and tall, their tops being guyed by
+pieces of twine to hooks in the ceiling; for when the guests grew
+boisterous the settles would rock and overturn without some such
+security. The thunder of bowls echoed from the backyard; swingels hung
+behind the blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers,
+whom squires had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each
+other—men who in past times had met in fights under the moon, till
+lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss of favour and expulsion
+from service on the other, brought them here together to a common
+level, where they sat calmly discussing old times.
+
+“Dost mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble, and not
+ruffle the stream, Charl?” a deposed keeper was saying. “’Twas at that
+I caught ’ee once, if you can mind?”
+
+“That I can. But the worst larry for me was that pheasant business at
+Yalbury Wood. Your wife swore false that time, Joe—O, by Gad, she
+did—there’s no denying it.”
+
+“How was that?” asked Jopp.
+
+“Why—Joe closed wi’ me, and we rolled down together, close to his
+garden hedge. Hearing the noise, out ran his wife with the oven pyle,
+and it being dark under the trees she couldn’t see which was uppermost.
+‘Where beest thee, Joe, under or top?’ she screeched. ‘O—under, by
+Gad!’ says he. She then began to rap down upon my skull, back, and ribs
+with the pyle till we’d roll over again. ‘Where beest now, dear Joe,
+under or top?’ she’d scream again. By George, ’twas through her I was
+took! And then when we got up in hall she sware that the cock pheasant
+was one of her rearing, when ’twas not your bird at all, Joe; ’twas
+Squire Brown’s bird—that’s whose ’twas—one that we’d picked off as we
+passed his wood, an hour afore. It did hurt my feelings to be so
+wronged!... Ah well—’tis over now.”
+
+“I might have had ’ee days afore that,” said the keeper. “I was within
+a few yards of ’ee dozens of times, with a sight more of birds than
+that poor one.”
+
+“Yes—’tis not our greatest doings that the world gets wind of,” said
+the furmity-woman, who, lately settled in this purlieu, sat among the
+rest. Having travelled a great deal in her time she spoke with
+cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently asked Jopp
+what was the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm.
+
+“Ah, therein lies a grand secret,” said Jopp. “It is the passion of
+love. To think that a woman should love one man so well, and hate
+another so unmercifully.”
+
+“Who’s the object of your meditation, sir?”
+
+“One that stands high in this town. I’d like to shame her! Upon my
+life, ’twould be as good as a play to read her love-letters, the proud
+piece of silk and wax-work! For ’tis her love-letters that I’ve got
+here.”
+
+“Love letters? then let’s hear ’em, good soul,” said Mother Cuxsom.
+“Lord, do ye mind, Richard, what fools we used to be when we were
+younger? Getting a schoolboy to write ours for us; and giving him a
+penny, do ye mind, not to tell other folks what he’d put inside, do ye
+mind?”
+
+By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and unfastened
+the letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at
+random, which he read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the
+secret which Lucetta had so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the
+epistles, being allusive only, did not make it altogether plain.
+
+“Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!” said Nance Mockridge. “’Tis a humbling thing
+for us, as respectable women, that one of the same sex could do it. And
+now she’s avowed herself to another man!”
+
+“So much the better for her,” said the aged furmity-woman. “Ah, I saved
+her from a real bad marriage, and she’s never been the one to thank
+me.”
+
+“I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride,” said Nance.
+
+“True,” said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. “’Tis as good a ground for a
+skimmity-ride as ever I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted. The last
+one seen in Casterbridge must have been ten years ago, if a day.”
+
+At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the
+man who had been called Charl, “’Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go and let
+down the bridge for me?”
+
+Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a
+lantern from her went out at the back door and down the garden-path,
+which ended abruptly at the edge of the stream already mentioned.
+Beyond the stream was the open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote
+upon their faces as they advanced. Taking up the board that had lain in
+readiness one of them lowered it across the water, and the instant its
+further end touched the ground footsteps entered upon it, and there
+appeared from the shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a
+double-barrelled gun under his arm and some birds slung up behind him.
+They asked him if he had had much luck.
+
+“Not much,” he said indifferently. “All safe inside?”
+
+Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the others
+withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear. Before,
+however, they had entered the house a cry of “Ahoy” from the moor led
+them to pause.
+
+The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and
+went back to the brink of the stream.
+
+“Ahoy—is this the way to Casterbridge?” said some one from the other
+side.
+
+“Not in particular,” said Charl. “There’s a river afore ’ee.”
+
+“I don’t care—here’s for through it!” said the man in the moor. “I’ve
+had travelling enough for to-day.”
+
+“Stop a minute, then,” said Charl, finding that the man was no enemy.
+“Joe, bring the plank and lantern; here’s somebody that’s lost his way.
+You should have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have
+strook across here.”
+
+“I should—as I see now. But I saw a light here, and says I to myself,
+that’s an outlying house, depend on’t.”
+
+The plank was now lowered; and the stranger’s form shaped itself from
+the darkness. He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers
+prematurely grey, and a broad and genial face. He had crossed on the
+plank without hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit.
+He thanked them, and walked between them up the garden. “What place is
+this?” he asked, when they reached the door.
+
+“A public-house.”
+
+“Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at. Now then, come in and wet
+your whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me.”
+
+They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him
+as one who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by
+the ear. He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness—his coat being
+furred, and his head covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the
+nights were chilly, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being
+somewhat advanced. In his hand he carried a small mahogany case,
+strapped, and clamped with brass.
+
+Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him
+through the kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up
+at the house; but taking the situation lightly, he called for glasses
+of the best, paid for them as he stood in the passage, and turned to
+proceed on his way by the front door. This was barred, and while the
+landlady was unfastening it the conversation about the skimmington was
+continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears.
+
+“What do they mean by a ‘skimmity-ride’?” he asked.
+
+“O, sir!” said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with
+deprecating modesty; “’tis a’ old foolish thing they do in these parts
+when a man’s wife is—well, not too particularly his own. But as a
+respectable householder I don’t encourage it.
+
+“Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I
+suppose?”
+
+“Well, sir!” she simpered. And then, bursting into naturalness, and
+glancing from the corner of her eye, “’Tis the funniest thing under the
+sun! And it costs money.”
+
+“Ah! I remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in
+Casterbridge for two or three weeks to come, and should not mind seeing
+the performance. Wait a moment.” He turned back, entered the
+sitting-room, and said, “Here, good folks; I should like to see the old
+custom you are talking of, and I don’t mind being something towards
+it—take that.” He threw a sovereign on the table and returned to the
+landlady at the door, of whom, having inquired the way into the town,
+he took his leave.
+
+“There were more where that one came from,” said Charl when the
+sovereign had been taken up and handed to the landlady for safe
+keeping. “By George! we ought to have got a few more while we had him
+here.”
+
+“No, no,” answered the landlady. “This is a respectable house, thank
+God! And I’ll have nothing done but what’s honourable.”
+
+“Well,” said Jopp; “now we’ll consider the business begun, and will
+soon get it in train.”
+
+“We will!” said Nance. “A good laugh warms my heart more than a
+cordial, and that’s the truth on’t.”
+
+Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late he did not
+attempt to call at Farfrae’s with them that night. He reached home,
+sealed them up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next
+morning. Within an hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta,
+who, poor soul! was inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulness
+that at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episode with Henchard
+in her past. For though hers had been rather the laxity of inadvertence
+than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to
+operate fatally between herself and her husband.
+
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge
+were interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence
+reached to the lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its
+society simultaneously with the preparations for the skimmington. It
+was one of those excitements which, when they move a country town,
+leave permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a warm summer permanently
+marks the ring in the tree-trunk corresponding to its date.
+
+A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on his course
+further west, to inaugurate an immense engineering work out that way.
+He had consented to halt half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive
+an address from the corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a
+representative centre of husbandry, wished thus to express its sense of
+the great services he had rendered to agricultural science and
+economics, by his zealous promotion of designs for placing the art of
+farming on a more scientific footing.
+
+Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of the third
+King George, and then only by candlelight for a few minutes, when that
+monarch, on a night-journey, had stopped to change horses at the King’s
+Arms. The inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough _fête
+carillonée_ of the unwonted occasion. Half-an-hour’s pause was not
+long, it is true; but much might be done in it by a judicious grouping
+of incidents, above all, if the weather were fine.
+
+The address was prepared on parchment by an artist who was handy at
+ornamental lettering, and was laid on with the best gold-leaf and
+colours that the sign-painter had in his shop. The Council had met on
+the Tuesday before the appointed day, to arrange the details of the
+procedure. While they were sitting, the door of the Council Chamber
+standing open, they heard a heavy footstep coming up the stairs. It
+advanced along the passage, and Henchard entered the room, in clothes
+of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very clothes which he had used
+to wear in the primal days when he had sat among them.
+
+“I have a feeling,” he said, advancing to the table and laying his hand
+upon the green cloth, “that I should like to join ye in this reception
+of our illustrious visitor. I suppose I could walk with the rest?”
+
+Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the Council and Grower nearly ate
+the end of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence.
+Farfrae the young Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large
+chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman
+was obliged to utter it, glad as he would have been that the duty
+should have fallen to another tongue.
+
+“I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard,” said he. “The
+Council are the Council, and as ye are no longer one of the body, there
+would be an irregularity in the proceeding. If ye were included, why
+not others?”
+
+“I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony.”
+
+Farfrae looked round. “I think I have expressed the feeling of the
+Council,” he said.
+
+“Yes, yes,” from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and several
+more.
+
+“Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it
+officially?”
+
+“I am afraid so; it is out of the question, indeed. But of course you
+can see the doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of
+the spectators.”
+
+Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and, turning on
+his heel, went away.
+
+It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition crystallized it
+into a determination. “I’ll welcome his Royal Highness, or nobody
+shall!” he went about saying. “I am not going to be sat upon by
+Farfrae, or any of the rest of the paltry crew! You shall see.”
+
+The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun confronting early
+window-gazers eastward, and all perceived (for they were practised in
+weather-lore) that there was permanence in the glow. Visitors soon
+began to flock in from county houses, villages, remote copses, and
+lonely uplands, the latter in oiled boots and tilt bonnets, to see the
+reception, or if not to see it, at any rate to be near it. There was
+hardly a workman in the town who did not put a clean shirt on. Solomon
+Longways, Christopher Coney, Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity,
+showed their sense of the occasion by advancing their customary eleven
+o’clock pint to half-past ten; from which they found a difficulty in
+getting back to the proper hour for several days.
+
+Henchard had determined to do no work that day. He primed himself in
+the morning with a glass of rum, and walking down the street met
+Elizabeth-Jane, whom he had not seen for a week. “It was lucky,” he
+said to her, “my twenty-one years had expired before this came on, or I
+should never have had the nerve to carry it out.”
+
+“Carry out what?” said she, alarmed.
+
+“This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor.”
+
+She was perplexed. “Shall we go and see it together?” she said.
+
+“See it! I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth
+seeing!”
+
+She could do nothing to elucidate this, and decked herself out with a
+heavy heart. As the appointed time drew near she got sight again of her
+stepfather. She thought he was going to the Three Mariners; but no, he
+elbowed his way through the gay throng to the shop of Woolfrey, the
+draper. She waited in the crowd without.
+
+In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant
+rosette, while more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of
+somewhat homely construction, formed by tacking one of the small Union
+Jacks, which abounded in the town to-day, to the end of a deal
+wand—probably the roller from a piece of calico. Henchard rolled up his
+flag on the doorstep, put it under his arm, and went down the street.
+
+Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads, and the
+shorter stood on tiptoe. It was said that the Royal _cortège_
+approached. The railway had stretched out an arm towards Casterbridge
+at this time, but had not reached it by several miles as yet; so that
+the intervening distance, as well as the remainder of the journey, was
+to be traversed by road in the old fashion. People thus waited—the
+county families in their carriages, the masses on foot—and watched the
+far-stretching London highway to the ringing of bells and chatter of
+tongues.
+
+From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene. Some seats had
+been arranged from which ladies could witness the spectacle, and the
+front seat was occupied by Lucetta, the Mayor’s wife, just at present.
+In the road under her eyes stood Henchard. She appeared so bright and
+pretty that, as it seemed, he was experiencing the momentary weakness
+of wishing for her notice. But he was far from attractive to a woman’s
+eye, ruled as that is so largely by the superficies of things. He was
+not only a journeyman, unable to appear as he formerly had appeared,
+but he disdained to appear as well as he might. Everybody else, from
+the Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture according to means;
+but Henchard had doggedly retained the fretted and weather-beaten
+garments of bygone years.
+
+Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta’s eyes slid over him to this side
+and to that without anchoring on his features—as gaily dressed women’s
+eyes will too often do on such occasions. Her manner signified quite
+plainly that she meant to know him in public no more.
+
+But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in animated
+converse with his friends a few yards off, wearing round his young neck
+the official gold chain with great square links, like that round the
+Royal unicorn. Every trifling emotion that her husband showed as he
+talked had its reflex on her face and lips, which moved in little
+duplicates to his. She was living his part rather than her own, and
+cared for no one’s situation but Farfrae’s that day.
+
+At length a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high road,
+namely, on the second bridge of which mention has been made, gave a
+signal, and the Corporation in their robes proceeded from the front of
+the Town Hall to the archway erected at the entrance to the town. The
+carriages containing the Royal visitor and his suite arrived at the
+spot in a cloud of dust, a procession was formed, and the whole came on
+to the Town Hall at a walking pace.
+
+This spot was the centre of interest. There were a few clear yards in
+front of the Royal carriage, sanded; and into this space a man stepped
+before any one could prevent him. It was Henchard. He had unrolled his
+private flag, and removing his hat he staggered to the side of the
+slowing vehicle, waving the Union Jack to and fro with his left hand
+while he blandly held out his right to the Illustrious Personage.
+
+All the ladies said with bated breath, “O, look there!” and Lucetta was
+ready to faint. Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in
+front, saw what it was, and was terrified; and then her interest in the
+spectacle as a strange phenomenon got the better of her fear.
+
+Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He
+seized Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly
+to be off. Henchard’s eyes met his, and Farfrae observed the fierce
+light in them despite his excitement and irritation. For a moment
+Henchard stood his ground rigidly; then by an unaccountable impulse
+gave way and retired. Farfrae glanced to the ladies’ gallery, and saw
+that his Calphurnia’s cheek was pale.
+
+“Why—it is your husband’s old patron!” said Mrs. Blowbody, a lady of
+the neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta.
+
+“Patron!” said Donald’s wife with quick indignation.
+
+“Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrae’s?” observed Mrs.
+Bath, the physician’s wife, a new-comer to the town through her recent
+marriage with the doctor.
+
+“He works for my husband,” said Lucetta.
+
+“Oh—is that all? They have been saying to me that it was through him
+your husband first got a footing in Casterbridge. What stories people
+will tell!”
+
+“They will indeed. It was not so at all. Donald’s genius would have
+enabled him to get a footing anywhere, without anybody’s help! He would
+have been just the same if there had been no Henchard in the world!”
+
+It was partly Lucetta’s ignorance of the circumstances of Donald’s
+arrival which led her to speak thus, partly the sensation that
+everybody seemed bent on snubbing her at this triumphant time. The
+incident had occupied but a few moments, but it was necessarily
+witnessed by the Royal Personage, who, however, with practised tact
+affected not to have noticed anything unusual. He alighted, the Mayor
+advanced, the address was read; the Illustrious Personage replied, then
+said a few words to Farfrae, and shook hands with Lucetta as the
+Mayor’s wife. The ceremony occupied but a few minutes, and the
+carriages rattled heavily as Pharaoh’s chariots down Corn Street and
+out upon the Budmouth Road, in continuation of the journey coastward.
+
+In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways. “Some difference
+between him now and when he zung at the Dree Mariners,” said the first.
+“’Tis wonderful how he could get a lady of her quality to go snacks wi’
+en in such quick time.”
+
+“True. Yet how folk do worship fine clothes! Now there’s a
+better-looking woman than she that nobody notices at all, because she’s
+akin to that hontish fellow Henchard.”
+
+“I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that,” remarked Nance Mockridge.
+“I do like to see the trimming pulled off such Christmas candles. I am
+quite unequal to the part of villain myself, or I’d gi’e all my small
+silver to see that lady toppered.... And perhaps I shall soon,” she
+added significantly.
+
+“That’s not a noble passiont for a ’oman to keep up,” said Longways.
+
+Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant. The ideas
+diffused by the reading of Lucetta’s letters at Peter’s Finger had
+condensed into a scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fog
+through Mixen Lane, and thence up the back streets of Casterbridge.
+
+The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently fell apart
+into two bands by a process of natural selection, the frequenters of
+Peter’s Finger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of them lived,
+while Coney, Buzzford, Longways, and that connection remained in the
+street.
+
+“You know what’s brewing down there, I suppose?” said Buzzford
+mysteriously to the others.
+
+Coney looked at him. “Not the skimmity-ride?”
+
+Buzzford nodded.
+
+“I have my doubts if it will be carried out,” said Longways. “If they
+are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.
+
+“I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events.”
+
+“If I were sure o’t I’d lay information,” said Longways emphatically.
+“’Tis too rough a joke, and apt to wake riots in towns. We know that
+the Scotchman is a right enough man, and that his lady has been a right
+enough ’oman since she came here, and if there was anything wrong about
+her afore, that’s their business, not ours.”
+
+Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in the community; but it must
+be owned that, as the Mayor and man of money, engrossed with affairs
+and ambitions, he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants
+something of that wondrous charm which he had had for them as a
+light-hearted penniless young man, who sang ditties as readily as the
+birds in the trees. Hence the anxiety to keep him from annoyance showed
+not quite the ardour that would have animated it in former days.
+
+“Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher,” continued Longways;
+“and if we find there’s really anything in it, drop a letter to them
+most concerned, and advise ’em to keep out of the way?”
+
+This course was decided on, and the group separated, Buzzford saying to
+Coney, “Come, my ancient friend; let’s move on. There’s nothing more to
+see here.”
+
+These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known
+how ripe the great jocular plot really was. “Yes, to-night,” Jopp had
+said to the Peter’s party at the corner of Mixen Lane. “As a wind-up to
+the Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their
+great elevation to-day.”
+
+To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.
+
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+The proceedings had been brief—too brief—to Lucetta whom an
+intoxicating _Weltlust_ had fairly mastered; but they had brought her a
+great triumph nevertheless. The shake of the Royal hand still lingered
+in her fingers; and the chit-chat she had overheard, that her husband
+might possibly receive the honour of knighthood, though idle to a
+degree, seemed not the wildest vision; stranger things had occurred to
+men so good and captivating as her Scotchman was.
+
+After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawn behind the
+ladies’ stand; and there he stood, regarding with a stare of
+abstraction the spot on the lapel of his coat where Farfrae’s hand had
+seized it. He put his own hand there, as if he could hardly realize
+such an outrage from one whom it had once been his wont to treat with
+ardent generosity. While pausing in this half-stupefied state the
+conversation of Lucetta with the other ladies reached his ears; and he
+distinctly heard her deny him—deny that he had assisted Donald, that he
+was anything more than a common journeyman.
+
+He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake.
+“So you’ve had a snub,” said Jopp.
+
+“And what if I have?” answered Henchard sternly.
+
+“Why, I’ve had one too, so we are both under the same cold shade.” He
+briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta’s intercession.
+
+Henchard merely heard his story, without taking it deeply in. His own
+relation to Farfrae and Lucetta overshadowed all kindred ones. He went
+on saying brokenly to himself, “She has supplicated to me in her time;
+and now her tongue won’t own me nor her eyes see me!... And he—how
+angry he looked. He drove me back as if I were a bull breaking
+fence.... I took it like a lamb, for I saw it could not be settled
+there. He can rub brine on a green wound!... But he shall pay for it,
+and she shall be sorry. It must come to a tussle—face to face; and then
+we’ll see how a coxcomb can front a man!”
+
+Without further reflection the fallen merchant, bent on some wild
+purpose, ate a hasty dinner and went forth to find Farfrae. After being
+injured by him as a rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman, the
+crowning degradation had been reserved for this day—that he should be
+shaken at the collar by him as a vagabond in the face of the whole
+town.
+
+The crowds had dispersed. But for the green arches which still stood as
+they were erected Casterbridge life had resumed its ordinary shape.
+Henchard went down Corn Street till he came to Farfrae’s house, where
+he knocked, and left a message that he would be glad to see his
+employer at the granaries as soon as he conveniently could come there.
+Having done this he proceeded round to the back and entered the yard.
+
+Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the labourers and
+carters were enjoying a half-holiday on account of the events of the
+morning—though the carters would have to return for a short time later
+on, to feed and litter down the horses. He had reached the granary
+steps and was about to ascend, when he said to himself aloud, “I’m
+stronger than he.”
+
+Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a short piece of rope
+from several pieces that were lying about; hitching one end of this to
+a nail, he took the other in his right hand and turned himself bodily
+round, while keeping his arm against his side; by this contrivance he
+pinioned the arm effectively. He now went up the ladders to the top
+floor of the corn-stores.
+
+It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door
+often mentioned, opening under the cathead and chain that hoisted the
+sacks. He fixed the door open and looked over the sill. There was a
+depth of thirty or forty feet to the ground; here was the spot on which
+he had been standing with Farfrae when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift
+his arm, with many misgivings as to what the movement portended.
+
+He retired a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated
+perch his eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of
+the luxurious chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week’s age,
+and the drooping boughs of the lines; Farfrae’s garden and the green
+door leading therefrom. In course of time—he could not say how
+long—that green door opened and Farfrae came through. He was dressed as
+if for a journey. The low light of the nearing evening caught his head
+and face when he emerged from the shadow of the wall, warming them to a
+complexion of flame-colour. Henchard watched him with his mouth firmly
+set, the squareness of his jaw and the verticality of his profile being
+unduly marked.
+
+Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a tune in a
+way which told that the words were most in his mind. They were those of
+the song he had sung when he arrived years before at the Three
+Mariners, a poor young man, adventuring for life and fortune, and
+scarcely knowing witherward:—
+
+“And here’s a hand, my trusty fiere,
+    And gie’s a hand o’ thine.”
+
+
+Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody. He sank back. “No; I can’t
+do it!” he gasped. “Why does the infernal fool begin that now!”
+
+At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the loft door.
+“Will ye come up here?” he said.
+
+“Ay, man,” said Farfrae. “I couldn’t see ye. What’s wrang?”
+
+A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowest ladder. He heard
+him land on the first floor, ascend and land on the second, begin the
+ascent to the third. And then his head rose through the trap behind.
+
+“What are you doing up here at this time?” he asked, coming forward.
+“Why didn’t ye take your holiday like the rest of the men?” He spoke in
+a tone which had just severity enough in it to show that he remembered
+the untoward event of the forenoon, and his conviction that Henchard
+had been drinking.
+
+Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed the stair hatchway, and
+stamped upon it so that it went tight into its frame; he next turned to
+the wondering young man, who by this time observed that one of
+Henchard’s arms was bound to his side.
+
+“Now,” said Henchard quietly, “we stand face to face—man and man. Your
+money and your fine wife no longer lift ’ee above me as they did but
+now, and my poverty does not press me down.”
+
+“What does it all mean?” asked Farfrae simply.
+
+“Wait a bit, my lad. You should ha’ thought twice before you affronted
+to extremes a man who had nothing to lose. I’ve stood your rivalry,
+which ruined me, and your snubbing, which humbled me; but your
+hustling, that disgraced me, I won’t stand!”
+
+Farfrae warmed a little at this. “Ye’d no business there,” he said.
+
+“As much as any one among ye! What, you forward stripling, tell a man
+of my age he’d no business there!” The anger-vein swelled in his
+forehead as he spoke.
+
+“You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and ’twas my duty, as the chief
+magistrate, to stop you.”
+
+“Royalty be damned,” said Henchard. “I am as loyal as you, come to
+that!”
+
+“I am not here to argue. Wait till you cool doon, wait till you cool;
+and you will see things the same way as I do.”
+
+“You may be the one to cool first,” said Henchard grimly. “Now this is
+the case. Here be we, in this four-square loft, to finish out that
+little wrestle you began this morning. There’s the door, forty foot
+above ground. One of us two puts the other out by that door—the master
+stays inside. If he likes he may go down afterwards and give the alarm
+that the other has fallen out by accident—or he may tell the
+truth—that’s his business. As the strongest man I’ve tied one arm to
+take no advantage of ’ee. D’ye understand? Then here’s at ’ee!”
+
+There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but one thing, to close with
+Henchard, for the latter had come on at once. It was a wrestling match,
+the object of each being to give his antagonist a back fall; and on
+Henchard’s part, unquestionably, that it should be through the door.
+
+At the outset Henchard’s hold by his only free hand, the right, was on
+the left side of Farfrae’s collar, which he firmly grappled, the latter
+holding Henchard by his collar with the contrary hand. With his right
+he endeavoured to get hold of his antagonist’s left arm, which,
+however, he could not do, so adroitly did Henchard keep it in the rear
+as he gazed upon the lowered eyes of his fair and slim antagonist.
+
+Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossing him with his;
+and thus far the struggle had very much the appearance of the ordinary
+wrestling of those parts. Several minutes were passed by them in this
+attitude, the pair rocking and writhing like trees in a gale, both
+preserving an absolute silence. By this time their breathing could be
+heard. Then Farfrae tried to get hold of the other side of Henchard’s
+collar, which was resisted by the larger man exerting all his force in
+a wrenching movement, and this part of the struggle ended by his
+forcing Farfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his
+muscular arms. Hampered as he was, however, he could not keep him
+there, and Farfrae finding his feet again the struggle proceeded as
+before.
+
+By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously near the precipice;
+seeing his position the Scotchman for the first time locked himself to
+his adversary, and all the efforts of that infuriated Prince of
+Darkness—as he might have been called from his appearance just now—were
+inadequate to lift or loosen Farfrae for a time. By an extraordinary
+effort he succeeded at last, though not until they had got far back
+again from the fatal door. In doing so Henchard contrived to turn
+Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard’s other arm been free it
+would have been all over with Farfrae then. But again he regained his
+feet, wrenching Henchard’s arm considerably, and causing him sharp
+pain, as could be seen from the twitching of his face. He instantly
+delivered the younger man an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as
+it used to be expressed, and following up his advantage thrust him
+towards the door, never loosening his hold till Farfrae’s fair head was
+hanging over the window-sill, and his arm dangling down outside the
+wall.
+
+“Now,” said Henchard between his gasps, “this is the end of what you
+began this morning. Your life is in my hands.”
+
+“Then take it, take it!” said Farfrae. “Ye’ve wished to long enough!”
+
+Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and their eyes met. “O
+Farfrae!—that’s not true!” he said bitterly. “God is my witness that no
+man ever loved another as I did thee at one time.... And now—though I
+came here to kill ’ee, I cannot hurt thee! Go and give me in charge—do
+what you will—I care nothing for what comes of me!”
+
+He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm, and flung
+himself in a corner upon some sacks, in the abandonment of remorse.
+Farfrae regarded him in silence; then went to the hatch and descended
+through it. Henchard would fain have recalled him, but his tongue
+failed in its task, and the young man’s steps died on his ear.
+
+Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach. The scenes
+of his first acquaintance with Farfrae rushed back upon him—that time
+when the curious mixture of romance and thrift in the young man’s
+composition so commanded his heart that Farfrae could play upon him as
+on an instrument. So thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the
+sacks in a crouching attitude, unusual for a man, and for such a man.
+Its womanliness sat tragically on the figure of so stern a piece of
+virility. He heard a conversation below, the opening of the coach-house
+door, and the putting in of a horse, but took no notice.
+
+Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque obscurity, and
+the loft-door became an oblong of gray light—the only visible shape
+around. At length he arose, shook the dust from his clothes wearily,
+felt his way to the hatch, and gropingly descended the steps till he
+stood in the yard.
+
+“He thought highly of me once,” he murmured. “Now he’ll hate me and
+despise me for ever!”
+
+He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfrae again that
+night, and by some desperate pleading to attempt the well-nigh
+impossible task of winning pardon for his late mad attack. But as he
+walked towards Farfrae’s door he recalled the unheeded doings in the
+yard while he had lain above in a sort of stupor. Farfrae he remembered
+had gone to the stable and put the horse into the gig; while doing so
+Whittle had brought him a letter; Farfrae had then said that he would
+not go towards Budmouth as he had intended—that he was unexpectedly
+summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to call at Mellstock on his way
+thither, that place lying but one or two miles out of his course.
+
+He must have come prepared for a journey when he first arrived in the
+yard, unsuspecting enmity; and he must have driven off (though in a
+changed direction) without saying a word to any one on what had
+occurred between themselves.
+
+It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae’s house till very
+late.
+
+There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though waiting
+was almost torture to his restless and self-accusing soul. He walked
+about the streets and outskirts of the town, lingering here and there
+till he reached the stone bridge of which mention has been made, an
+accustomed halting-place with him now. Here he spent a long time, the
+purl of waters through the weirs meeting his ear, and the Casterbridge
+lights glimmering at no great distance off.
+
+While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attention was awakened
+by sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a
+confusion of rhythmical noises, to which the streets added yet more
+confusion by encumbering them with echoes. His first incurious thought
+that the clangour arose from the town band, engaged in an attempt to
+round off a memorable day in a burst of evening harmony, was
+contradicted by certain peculiarities of reverberation. But
+inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory heed; his
+sense of degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas;
+and he leant against the parapet as before.
+
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter
+with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived
+at the yard with the intention of putting the horse into the gig
+himself (all the men having a holiday), and driving to a village on the
+Budmouth Road. Despite the fearful struggle he decided still to
+persevere in his journey, so as to recover himself before going indoors
+and meeting the eyes of Lucetta. He wished to consider his course in a
+case so serious.
+
+When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived with a
+note badly addressed, and bearing the word “immediate” upon the
+outside. On opening it he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It
+contained a brief request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening
+about some business which he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing
+that could make it pressing; but as he was bent upon going out he
+yielded to the anonymous request, particularly as he had a call to make
+at Mellstock which could be included in the same tour. Thereupon he
+told Whittle of his change of direction, in words which Henchard had
+overheard, and set out on his way. Farfrae had not directed his man to
+take the message indoors, and Whittle had not been supposed to do so on
+his own responsibility.
+
+Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance
+of Longways and other of Farfrae’s men to get him out of the way for
+the evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if
+it were attempted. By giving open information they would have brought
+down upon their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who
+enjoyed these boisterous old games; and therefore the plan of sending a
+letter recommended itself by its indirectness.
+
+For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the
+majority there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to
+bear as she best might.
+
+It was about eight o’clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room
+alone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had
+the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting
+for him by the firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of
+the window-sashes a little way open that the sound of his wheels might
+reach her ears early. She was leaning back in the chair, in a more
+hopeful mood than she had enjoyed since her marriage. The day had been
+such a success, and the temporary uneasiness which Henchard’s show of
+effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance
+of Henchard himself under her husband’s reproof. The floating evidences
+of her absurd passion for him, and its consequences, had been
+destroyed, and she really seemed to have no cause for fear.
+
+The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by
+a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not
+greatly surprise her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation
+by a majority of the populace since the passage of the Royal equipages.
+But her attention was at once riveted to the matter by the voice of a
+maid-servant next door, who spoke from an upper window across the
+street to some other maid even more elevated than she.
+
+“Which way be they going now?” inquired the first with interest.
+
+“I can’t be sure for a moment,” said the second, “because of the
+malter’s chimbley. O yes—I can see ’em. Well, I declare, I declare!”
+
+“What, what?” from the first, more enthusiastically.
+
+“They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!”
+
+“What—two of ’em—are there two figures?”
+
+“Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one
+another’s! She’s facing the head, and he’s facing the tail.”
+
+“Is it meant for anybody in particular?”
+
+“Well—it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere
+leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish face. ’Tis a stuffed
+figure, with a falseface.”
+
+The din was increasing now—then it lessened a little.
+
+“There—I shan’t see, after all!” cried the disappointed first maid.
+
+“They have gone into a back street—that’s all,” said the one who
+occupied the enviable position in the attic. “There—now I have got ’em
+all endways nicely!”
+
+“What’s the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if ’tis
+meant for one I’ve in mind.”
+
+“My—why—’tis dressed just as _she_ was dressed when she sat in the
+front seat at the time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!”
+
+Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the
+room was quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the
+firelight.
+
+“I have come to see you,” she said breathlessly. “I did not stop to
+knock—forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window
+is open.”
+
+Without waiting for Lucetta’s reply she crossed quickly to the window
+and pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. “Let it
+be—hush!” she said peremptorily, in a dry voice, while she seized
+Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse
+had been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the
+conversation without, which had thus proceeded:—
+
+“Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in
+place; she’s got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured
+shoes.”
+
+Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held
+her by main force.
+
+“’Tis me!” she said, with a face pale as death. “A procession—a
+scandal—an effigy of me, and him!”
+
+The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.
+
+“Let us shut it out,” coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid
+wildness of Lucetta’s features was growing yet more rigid and wild with
+the meaning of the noise and laughter. “Let us shut it out!”
+
+“It is of no use!” she shrieked. “He will see it, won’t he? Donald will
+see it! He is just coming home—and it will break his heart—he will
+never love me any more—and O, it will kill me—kill me!”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. “O, can’t something be done to stop
+it?” she cried. “Is there nobody to do it—not one?”
+
+She relinquished Lucetta’s hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself,
+saying recklessly “I will see it!” turned to the window, threw up the
+sash, and went out upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed,
+and put her arm round her to pull her in. Lucetta’s eyes were straight
+upon the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly. The
+numerous lights round the two effigies threw them up into lurid
+distinctness; it was impossible to mistake the pair for other than the
+intended victims.
+
+“Come in, come in,” implored Elizabeth; “and let me shut the window!”
+
+“She’s me—she’s me—even to the parasol—my green parasol!” cried Lucetta
+with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for one
+second—then fell heavily to the floor.
+
+Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington
+ceased. The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the
+trampling died out like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only
+indirectly conscious of this; she had rung the bell, and was bending
+over Lucetta, who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of
+an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again, in vain; the
+probability being that the servants had all run out of the house to see
+more of the Demoniac Sabbath than they could see within.
+
+At last Farfrae’s man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up;
+then the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite
+closed, a light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man
+sent off for a doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered
+consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what had passed the fit
+returned.
+
+The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing
+at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as
+he saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth’s mute
+appeal, “This is serious.”
+
+“It is a fit,” Elizabeth said.
+
+“Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You
+must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?”
+
+“He has driven into the country, sir,” said the parlour-maid; “to some
+place on the Budmouth Road. He’s likely to be back soon.”
+
+“Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry.” The
+doctor returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they
+soon heard him clattering out of the yard at the back.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention
+has been already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines,
+kits, crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams’-horns, and other historical
+kinds of music as he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat
+and gone out to learn the cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae’s,
+and soon guessed the nature of the proceedings; for being a native of
+the town he had witnessed such rough jests before. His first move was
+to search hither and thither for the constables, there were two in the
+town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an alley yet
+more shrivelled than usual, having some not ungrounded fears that they
+might be roughly handled if seen.
+
+“What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!”
+expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower’s chiding. “’Tis
+tempting ’em to commit _felo de se_ upon us, and that would be the
+death of the perpetrator; and we wouldn’t be the cause of a
+fellow-creature’s death on no account, not we!”
+
+“Get some help, then! Here, I’ll come with you. We’ll see what a few
+words of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your staves?”
+
+“We didn’t want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so
+short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover’ment staves up this
+water-pipe.”
+
+“Out with ’em, and come along, for Heaven’s sake! Ah, here’s Mr.
+Blowbody; that’s lucky.” (Blowbody was the third of the three borough
+magistrates.)
+
+“Well, what’s the row?” said Blowbody. “Got their names—hey?”
+
+“No. Now,” said Grower to one of the constables, “you go with Mr.
+Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I’ll go with
+Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have ’em between us.
+Get their names only: no attack or interruption.”
+
+Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn
+Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no
+procession could be seen. They passed Farfrae’s, and looked to the end
+of the street. The lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few
+loungers stood about with their hands in their pockets. Everything was
+as usual.
+
+“Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?” Grower said
+magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short
+pipe and wore straps round his knees.
+
+“Beg yer pardon, sir?” blandly said the person addressed, who was no
+other than Charl, of Peter’s Finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.
+
+Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. “No; we
+haven’t seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I.”
+
+Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
+
+“H’m—that’s odd,” said Mr. Grower. “Ah—here’s a respectable man coming
+that I know by sight. Have you,” he inquired, addressing the nearing
+shape of Jopp, “have you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a
+noise—skimmington riding, or something of the sort?”
+
+“O no—nothing, sir,” Jopp replied, as if receiving the most singular
+news. “But I’ve not been far tonight, so perhaps—”
+
+“Oh, ’twas here—just here,” said the magistrate.
+
+“Now I’ve noticed, come to think o’t that the wind in the Walk trees
+makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than common;
+so perhaps ’twas that?” Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in
+his greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen
+tongs and a cow’s horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
+
+“No, no, no—d’ye think I’m a fool? Constable, come this way. They must
+have gone into the back street.”
+
+Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the
+disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who
+came up at this time, brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey,
+lanterns, band, all had disappeared like the crew of _Comus_.
+
+“Now,” said Mr. Grower, “there’s only one thing more we can do. Get ye
+half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter’s
+Finger. I’m much mistaken if you don’t find a clue to the perpetrators
+there.”
+
+The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as
+they could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety.
+It was no rapid matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of
+any sort offering itself to light the way, except an occasional pale
+radiance through some window-curtain, or through the chink of some door
+which could not be closed because of the smoky chimney within. At last
+they entered the inn boldly, by the till then bolted front-door, after
+a prolonged knocking of loudness commensurate with the importance of
+their standing.
+
+In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as
+usual for stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with
+statuesque quiet of demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the
+invaders, saying in honest accents, “Good evening, gentlemen; there’s
+plenty of room. I hope there’s nothing amiss?”
+
+They looked round the room. “Surely,” said Stubberd to one of the men,
+“I saw you by now in Corn Street—Mr. Grower spoke to ’ee?”
+
+The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. “I’ve been here this
+last hour, hain’t I, Nance?” he said to the woman who meditatively
+sipped her ale near him.
+
+“Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and
+you were here then, as well as all the rest.”
+
+The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw reflected
+in the glass a quick motion by the landlady. Turning sharply, he caught
+her closing the oven-door.
+
+“Something curious about that oven, ma’am!” he observed advancing,
+opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.
+
+“Ah,” she said apologetically, “that’s what we keep here to use when
+there’s a little quiet dancing. You see damp weather spoils it, so I
+put it there to keep it dry.”
+
+The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew was nothing. Nohow
+could anything be elicited from this mute and inoffensive assembly. In
+a few minutes the investigators went out, and joining those of their
+auxiliaries who had been left at the door they pursued their way
+elsewhither.
+
+
+
+XL.
+
+Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminations on the bridge,
+had repaired towards the town. When he stood at the bottom of the
+street a procession burst upon his view, in the act of turning out of
+an alley just above him. The lanterns, horns, and multitude startled
+him; he saw the mounted images, and knew what it all meant.
+
+They crossed the way, entered another street, and disappeared. He
+turned back a few steps and was lost in grave reflection, finally
+wending his way homeward by the obscure river-side path. Unable to rest
+there he went to his stepdaughter’s lodging, and was told that
+Elizabeth-Jane had gone to Mr. Farfrae’s. Like one acting in obedience
+to a charm, and with a nameless apprehension, he followed in the same
+direction in the hope of meeting her, the roysterers having vanished.
+Disappointed in this he gave the gentlest of pulls to the door-bell,
+and then learnt particulars of what had occurred, together with the
+doctor’s imperative orders that Farfrae should be brought home, and how
+they had set out to meet him on the Budmouth Road.
+
+“But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!” exclaimed Henchard, now
+unspeakably grieved. “Not Budmouth way at all.”
+
+But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name. They would not
+believe him, taking his words but as the frothy utterances of
+recklessness. Though Lucetta’s life seemed at that moment to depend
+upon her husband’s return (she being in great mental agony lest he
+should never know the unexaggerated truth of her past relations with
+Henchard), no messenger was despatched towards Weatherbury. Henchard,
+in a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determined to seek Farfrae
+himself.
+
+To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern road over
+Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward in the moderate
+darkness of this spring night till he had reached a second and almost a
+third hill about three miles distant. In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain, at
+the foot of the hill, he listened. At first nothing, beyond his own
+heart-throbs, was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan among
+the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood which clothed the
+heights on either hand; but presently there came the sound of light
+wheels whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches of road,
+accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.
+
+He knew it was Farfrae’s gig descending the hill from an indescribable
+personality in its noise, the vehicle having been his own till bought
+by the Scotchman at the sale of his effects. Henchard thereupon
+retraced his steps along Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as
+its driver slackened speed between two plantations.
+
+It was a point in the highway near which the road to Mellstock branched
+off from the homeward direction. By diverging to that village, as he
+had intended to do, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a couple
+of hours. It soon appeared that his intention was to do so still, the
+light swerving towards Cuckoo Lane, the by-road aforesaid. Farfrae’s
+off gig-lamp flashed in Henchard’s face. At the same time Farfrae
+discerned his late antagonist.
+
+“Farfrae—Mr. Farfrae!” cried the breathless Henchard, holding up his
+hand.
+
+Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the branch lane
+before he pulled up. He then drew rein, and said “Yes?” over his
+shoulder, as one would towards a pronounced enemy.
+
+“Come back to Casterbridge at once!” Henchard said. “There’s something
+wrong at your house—requiring your return. I’ve run all the way here on
+purpose to tell ye.”
+
+Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard’s soul sank within him.
+Why had he not, before this, thought of what was only too obvious? He
+who, four hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle
+stood now in the darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting
+him to come a particular way, where an assailant might have
+confederates, instead of going his purposed way, where there might be a
+better opportunity of guarding himself from attack. Henchard could
+almost feel this view of things in course of passage through Farfrae’s
+mind.
+
+“I have to go to Mellstock,” said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened his
+reins to move on.
+
+“But,” implored Henchard, “the matter is more serious than your
+business at Mellstock. It is—your wife! She is ill. I can tell you
+particulars as we go along.”
+
+The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae’s
+suspicion that this was a _ruse_ to decoy him on to the next wood,
+where might be effectually compassed what, from policy or want of
+nerve, Henchard had failed to do earlier in the day. He started the
+horse.
+
+“I know what you think,” deprecated Henchard running after, almost
+bowed down with despair as he perceived the image of unscrupulous
+villainy that he assumed in his former friend’s eyes. “But I am not
+what you think!” he cried hoarsely. “Believe me, Farfrae; I have come
+entirely on your own and your wife’s account. She is in danger. I know
+no more; and they want you to come. Your man has gone the other way in
+a mistake. O Farfrae! don’t mistrust me—I am a wretched man; but my
+heart is true to you still!”
+
+Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. He knew his wife was with
+child, but he had left her not long ago in perfect health; and
+Henchard’s treachery was more credible than his story. He had in his
+time heard bitter ironies from Henchard’s lips, and there might be
+ironies now. He quickened the horse’s pace, and had soon risen into the
+high country lying between there and Mellstock, Henchard’s spasmodic
+run after him lending yet more substance to his thought of evil
+purposes.
+
+The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in Henchard’s eyes; his
+exertions for Farfrae’s good had been in vain. Over this repentant
+sinner, at least, there was to be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself
+like a less scrupulous Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses
+self-respect, the last mental prop under poverty. To this he had come
+after a time of emotional darkness of which the adjoining woodland
+shade afforded inadequate illustration. Presently he began to walk back
+again along the way by which he had arrived. Farfrae should at all
+events have no reason for delay upon the road by seeing him there when
+he took his journey homeward later on.
+
+Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae’s house to make
+inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious faces confronted his from
+the staircase, hall, and landing; and they all said in grievous
+disappointment, “O—it is not he!” The manservant, finding his mistake,
+had long since returned, and all hopes had centred upon Henchard.
+
+“But haven’t you found him?” said the doctor.
+
+“Yes.... I cannot tell ’ee!” Henchard replied as he sank down on a
+chair within the entrance. “He can’t be home for two hours.”
+
+“H’m,” said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
+
+“How is she?” asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of the group.
+
+“In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her
+fearfully restless. Poor woman—I fear they have killed her!”
+
+Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants as if she
+struck him in a new light, then, without further remark, went out of
+the door and onward to his lonely cottage. So much for man’s rivalry,
+he thought. Death was to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the
+shells. But about Elizabeth-Jane; in the midst of his gloom she seemed
+to him as a pin-point of light. He had liked the look on her face as
+she answered him from the stairs. There had been affection in it, and
+above all things what he desired now was affection from anything that
+was good and pure. She was not his own, yet, for the first time, he had
+a faint dream that he might get to like her as his own,—if she would
+only continue to love him.
+
+Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home. As the latter
+entered the door Jopp said, “This is rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae’s
+illness.”
+
+“Yes,” said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp’s
+complicity in the night’s harlequinade, and raising his eyes just
+sufficiently to observe that Jopp’s face was lined with anxiety.
+
+“Somebody has called for you,” continued Jopp, when Henchard was
+shutting himself into his own apartment. “A kind of traveller, or
+sea-captain of some sort.”
+
+“Oh?—who could he be?”
+
+“He seemed a well-be-doing man—had grey hair and a broadish face; but
+he gave no name, and no message.”
+
+“Nor do I gi’e him any attention.” And, saying this, Henchard closed
+his door.
+
+The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae’s return very nearly the
+two hours of Henchard’s estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for
+his presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for
+a second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in
+a state bordering on distraction at his misconception of Henchard’s
+motives.
+
+A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown; the night
+wore on, and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been
+much soothed by Donald’s arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and
+when, immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the
+secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lest
+talking should be dangerous, assuring her there was plenty of time to
+tell him everything.
+
+Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. The dangerous
+illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumoured through the
+town, and an apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by
+the leaders in the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence
+over all particulars of their orgie; while those immediately around
+Lucetta would not venture to add to her husband’s distress by alluding
+to the subject.
+
+What, and how much, Farfrae’s wife ultimately explained to him of her
+past entanglement with Henchard, when they were alone in the solitude
+of that sad night, cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare
+facts of her peculiar intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from
+Farfrae’s own statements. But in respect of her subsequent conduct—her
+motive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself with Henchard—her
+assumed justification in abandoning him when she discovered reasons for
+fearing him (though in truth her inconsequent passion for another man
+at first sight had most to do with that abandonment)—her method of
+reconciling to her conscience a marriage with the second when she was
+in a measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of these
+things remained Farfrae’s secret alone.
+
+Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge
+that night there walked a figure up and down Corn Street hardly less
+frequently. It was Henchard’s, whose retiring to rest had proved itself
+a futility as soon as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and
+thither, and make inquiries about the patient every now and then. He
+called as much on Farfrae’s account as on Lucetta’s, and on
+Elizabeth-Jane’s even more than on either’s. Shorn one by one of all
+other interests, his life seemed centring on the personality of the
+stepdaughter whose presence but recently he could not endure. To see
+her on each occasion of his inquiry at Lucetta’s was a comfort to him.
+
+The last of his calls was made about four o’clock in the morning, in
+the steely light of dawn. Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover
+Moor, the sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens
+had begun to cackle from the outhouses. When within a few yards of
+Farfrae’s he saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand
+to the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled it. He
+went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the
+road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression at so early
+a time.
+
+“Why do you take off that?” said Henchard.
+
+She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not answer for an
+instant or two. Recognizing him, she said, “Because they may knock as
+loud as they will; she will never hear it any more.”
+
+
+
+XLI.
+
+Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he lit his fire,
+and sat abstractedly beside it. He had not sat there long when a gentle
+footstep approached the house and entered the passage, a finger tapping
+lightly at the door. Henchard’s face brightened, for he knew the
+motions to be Elizabeth’s. She came into his room, looking wan and sad.
+
+“Have you heard?” she asked. “Mrs. Farfrae! She is—dead! Yes,
+indeed—about an hour ago!”
+
+“I know it,” said Henchard. “I have but lately come in from there. It
+is so very good of ’ee, Elizabeth, to come and tell me. You must be so
+tired out, too, with sitting up. Now do you bide here with me this
+morning. You can go and rest in the other room; and I will call ’ee
+when breakfast is ready.”
+
+To please him, and herself—for his recent kindliness was winning a
+surprised gratitude from the lonely girl—she did as he bade her, and
+lay down on a sort of couch which Henchard had rigged up out of a
+settle in the adjoining room. She could hear him moving about in his
+preparations; but her mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death in
+such fulness of life and amid such cheerful hopes of maternity was
+appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell asleep.
+
+Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the breakfast in
+readiness; but finding that she dozed he would not call her; he waited
+on, looking into the fire and keeping the kettle boiling with
+house-wifely care, as if it were an honour to have her in his house. In
+truth, a great change had come over him with regard to her, and he was
+developing the dream of a future lit by her filial presence, as though
+that way alone could happiness lie.
+
+He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it,
+rather deprecating a call from anybody just then. A stoutly built man
+stood on the doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure
+and bearing—an air which might have been called colonial by people of
+cosmopolitan experience. It was the man who had asked the way at
+Peter’s Finger. Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.
+
+“Good morning, good morning,” said the stranger with profuse
+heartiness. “Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?”
+
+“My name is Henchard.”
+
+“Then I’ve caught ’ee at home—that’s right. Morning’s the time for
+business, says I. Can I have a few words with you?”
+
+“By all means,” Henchard answered, showing the way in.
+
+“You may remember me?” said his visitor, seating himself.
+
+Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
+
+“Well—perhaps you may not. My name is Newson.”
+
+Henchard’s face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not notice it. “I
+know the name well,” Henchard said at last, looking on the floor.
+
+“I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I’ve been looking for ’ee
+this fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool and went through
+Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they told me
+you had some years before been living at Casterbridge. Back came I
+again, and by long and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago.
+‘He lives down by the mill,’ says they. So here I am. Now—that
+transaction between us some twenty years agone—’tis that I’ve called
+about. ’Twas a curious business. I was younger then than I am now, and
+perhaps the less said about it, in one sense, the better.”
+
+“Curious business! ’Twas worse than curious. I cannot even allow that
+I’m the man you met then. I was not in my senses, and a man’s senses
+are himself.”
+
+“We were young and thoughtless,” said Newson. “However, I’ve come to
+mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor Susan—hers was a strange
+experience.”
+
+“She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not what they call
+shrewd or sharp at all—better she had been.”
+
+“She was not.”
+
+“As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think
+that the sale was in a way binding. She was as guiltless o’ wrong-doing
+in that particular as a saint in the clouds.”
+
+“I know it, I know it. I found it out directly,” said Henchard, still
+with averted eyes. “There lay the sting o’t to me. If she had seen it
+as what it was she would never have left me. Never! But how should she
+be expected to know? What advantages had she? None. She could write her
+own name, and no more.”
+
+“Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed was done,”
+said the sailor of former days. “I thought, and there was not much
+vanity in thinking it, that she would be happier with me. She was
+fairly happy, and I never would have undeceived her till the day of her
+death. Your child died; she had another, and all went well. But a time
+came—mind me, a time always does come. A time came—it was some while
+after she and I and the child returned from America—when somebody she
+had confided her history to, told her my claim to her was a mockery,
+and made a jest of her belief in my right. After that she was never
+happy with me. She pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she
+must leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a man
+advised me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it was best. I left
+her at Falmouth, and went off to sea. When I got to the other side of
+the Atlantic there was a storm, and it was supposed that a lot of us,
+including myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at
+Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
+
+“‘Since I’m here, here I’ll bide,’ I thought to myself; ‘’twill be most
+kindness to her, now she’s taken against me, to let her believe me
+lost, for,’ I thought, ‘while she supposes us both alive she’ll be
+miserable; but if she thinks me dead she’ll go back to him, and the
+child will have a home.’ I’ve never returned to this country till a
+month ago, and I found that, as I supposed, she went to you, and my
+daughter with her. They told me in Falmouth that Susan was dead. But my
+Elizabeth-Jane—where is she?”
+
+“Dead likewise,” said Henchard doggedly. “Surely you learnt that too?”
+
+The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two down the room.
+“Dead!” he said, in a low voice. “Then what’s the use of my money to
+me?”
+
+Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were rather a
+question for Newson himself than for him.
+
+“Where is she buried?” the traveller inquired.
+
+“Beside her mother,” said Henchard, in the same stolid tones.
+
+“When did she die?”
+
+“A year ago and more,” replied the other without hesitation.
+
+The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor.
+At last Newson said: “My journey hither has been for nothing! I may as
+well go as I came! It has served me right. I’ll trouble you no longer.”
+
+Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the sanded
+floor, the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow opening and
+closing of the door that was natural to a baulked or dejected man; but
+he did not turn his head. Newson’s shadow passed the window. He was
+gone.
+
+Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, rose from
+his seat amazed at what he had done. It had been the impulse of a
+moment. The regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung
+hope of his loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he
+could feel as proud as of the actual daughter she still believed
+herself to be, had been stimulated by the unexpected coming of Newson
+to a greedy exclusiveness in relation to her; so that the sudden
+prospect of her loss had caused him to speak mad lies like a child, in
+pure mockery of consequences. He had expected questions to close in
+round him, and unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet such
+questioning had not come. But surely they would come; Newson’s
+departure could be but momentary; he would learn all by inquiries in
+the town; and return to curse him, and carry his last treasure away!
+
+He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the direction that Newson
+had taken. Newson’s back was soon visible up the road, crossing
+Bull-stake. Henchard followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King’s
+Arms, where the morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour
+for another coach which crossed there. The coach Newson had come by was
+now about to move again. Newson mounted, his luggage was put in, and in
+a few minutes the vehicle disappeared with him.
+
+He had not so much as turned his head. It was an act of simple faith in
+Henchard’s words—faith so simple as to be almost sublime. The young
+sailor who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur of the moment and on
+the faith of a glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was
+still living and acting under the form of the grizzled traveller who
+had taken Henchard’s words on trust so absolute as to shame him as he
+stood.
+
+Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy invention of a
+moment? “Perhaps not for long,” said he. Newson might converse with his
+fellow-travellers, some of whom might be Casterbridge people; and the
+trick would be discovered.
+
+This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude, and instead
+of considering how best to right the wrong, and acquaint Elizabeth’s
+father with the truth at once, he bethought himself of ways to keep the
+position he had accidentally won. Towards the young woman herself his
+affection grew more jealously strong with each new hazard to which his
+claim to her was exposed.
+
+He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newson return on foot,
+enlightened and indignant, to claim his child. But no figure appeared.
+Possibly he had spoken to nobody on the coach, but buried his grief in
+his own heart.
+
+His grief!—what was it, after all, to that which he, Henchard, would
+feel at the loss of her? Newson’s affection cooled by years, could not
+equal his who had been constantly in her presence. And thus his jealous
+soul speciously argued to excuse the separation of father and child.
+
+He returned to the house half expecting that she would have vanished.
+No; there she was—just coming out from the inner room, the marks of
+sleep upon her eyelids, and exhibiting a generally refreshed air.
+
+“O father!” she said smiling. “I had no sooner lain down than I napped,
+though I did not mean to. I wonder I did not dream about poor Mrs.
+Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but I did not. How strange it is
+that we do not often dream of latest events, absorbing as they may be.”
+
+“I am glad you have been able to sleep,” he said, taking her hand with
+anxious proprietorship—an act which gave her a pleasant surprise.
+
+They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane’s thoughts reverted to
+Lucetta. Their sadness added charm to a countenance whose beauty had
+ever lain in its meditative soberness.
+
+“Father,” she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the outspread
+meal, “it is so kind of you to get this nice breakfast with your own
+hands, and I idly asleep the while.”
+
+“I do it every day,” he replied. “You have left me; everybody has left
+me; how should I live but by my own hands.”
+
+“You are very lonely, are you not?”
+
+“Ay, child—to a degree that you know nothing of! It is my own fault.
+You are the only one who has been near me for weeks. And you will come
+no more.”
+
+“Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to see me.”
+
+Henchard signified dubiousness. Though he had so lately hoped that
+Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as daughter, he would not
+ask her to do so now. Newson might return at any moment, and what
+Elizabeth would think of him for his deception it were best to bear
+apart from her.
+
+When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered, till the
+moment arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to go to his daily
+work. Then she arose, and with assurance of coming again soon went up
+the hill in the morning sunlight.
+
+“At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is towards her,
+she would live with me here in this humble cottage for the asking! Yet
+before the evening probably he will have come, and then she will scorn
+me!”
+
+This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to himself,
+accompanied him everywhere through the day. His mood was no longer that
+of the rebellious, ironical, reckless misadventurer; but the leaden
+gloom of one who has lost all that can make life interesting, or even
+tolerable. There would remain nobody for him to be proud of, nobody to
+fortify him; for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be but as a stranger, and
+worse. Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth—all had gone from him, one
+after one, either by his fault or by his misfortune.
+
+In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire. If he could have
+summoned music to his aid his existence might even now have been borne;
+for with Henchard music was of regal power. The merest trumpet or organ
+tone was enough to move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him.
+But hard fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up this
+Divine spirit in his need.
+
+The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself; there was nothing
+to come, nothing to wait for. Yet in the natural course of life he
+might possibly have to linger on earth another thirty or forty
+years—scoffed at; at best pitied.
+
+The thought of it was unendurable.
+
+To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows through which much
+water flowed. The wanderer in this direction who should stand still for
+a few moments on a quiet night, might hear singular symphonies from
+these waters, as from a lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry
+tones from near and far parts of the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir
+they executed a recitative; where a tributary brook fell over a stone
+breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an arch they performed a
+metallic cymballing, and at Durnover Hole they hissed. The spot at
+which their instrumentation rose loudest was a place called Ten
+Hatches, whence during high springs there proceeded a very fugue of
+sounds.
+
+The river here was deep and strong at all times, and the hatches on
+this account were raised and lowered by cogs and a winch. A path led
+from the second bridge over the highway (so often mentioned) to these
+Hatches, crossing the stream at their head by a narrow plank-bridge.
+But after night-fall human beings were seldom found going that way, the
+path leading only to a deep reach of the stream called Blackwater, and
+the passage being dangerous.
+
+Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road, proceeded to the
+second, or stone bridge, and thence struck into this path of solitude,
+following its course beside the stream till the dark shapes of the Ten
+Hatches cut the sheen thrown upon the river by the weak lustre that
+still lingered in the west. In a second or two he stood beside the
+weir-hole where the water was at its deepest. He looked backwards and
+forwards, and no creature appeared in view. He then took off his coat
+and hat, and stood on the brink of the stream with his hands clasped in
+front of him.
+
+While his eyes were bent on the water beneath there slowly became
+visible a something floating in the circular pool formed by the wash of
+centuries; the pool he was intending to make his death-bed. At first it
+was indistinct by reason of the shadow from the bank; but it emerged
+thence and took shape, which was that of a human body, lying stiff and
+stark upon the surface of the stream.
+
+In the circular current imparted by the central flow the form was
+brought forward, till it passed under his eyes; and then he perceived
+with a sense of horror that it was _himself_. Not a man somewhat
+resembling him, but one in all respects his counterpart, his actual
+double, was floating as if dead in Ten Hatches Hole.
+
+The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy man, and he
+turned away as one might have done in the actual presence of an
+appalling miracle. He covered his eyes and bowed his head. Without
+looking again into the stream he took his coat and hat, and went slowly
+away.
+
+Presently he found himself by the door of his own dwelling. To his
+surprise Elizabeth-Jane was standing there. She came forward, spoke,
+called him “father” just as before. Newson, then, had not even yet
+returned.
+
+“I thought you seemed very sad this morning,” she said, “so I have come
+again to see you. Not that I am anything but sad myself. But everybody
+and everything seem against you so, and I know you must be suffering.”
+
+How this woman divined things! Yet she had not divined their whole
+extremity.
+
+He said to her, “Are miracles still worked, do ye think, Elizabeth? I
+am not a read man. I don’t know so much as I could wish. I have tried
+to peruse and learn all my life; but the more I try to know the more
+ignorant I seem.”
+
+“I don’t quite think there are any miracles nowadays,” she said.
+
+“No interference in the case of desperate intentions, for instance?
+Well, perhaps not, in a direct way. Perhaps not. But will you come and
+walk with me, and I will show ’ee what I mean.”
+
+She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway, and by the
+lonely path to Ten Hatches. He walked restlessly, as if some haunting
+shade, unseen of her, hovered round him and troubled his glance. She
+would gladly have talked of Lucetta, but feared to disturb him. When
+they got near the weir he stood still, and asked her to go forward and
+look into the pool, and tell him what she saw.
+
+She went, and soon returned to him. “Nothing,” she said.
+
+“Go again,” said Henchard, “and look narrowly.”
+
+She proceeded to the river brink a second time. On her return, after
+some delay, she told him that she saw something floating round and
+round there; but what it was she could not discern. It seemed to be a
+bundle of old clothes.
+
+“Are they like mine?” asked Henchard.
+
+“Well—they are. Dear me—I wonder if—Father, let us go away!”
+
+“Go and look once more; and then we will get home.”
+
+She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was close to
+the margin of the pool. She started up, and hastened back to his side.
+
+“Well,” said Henchard; “what do you say now?”
+
+“Let us go home.”
+
+“But tell me—do—what is it floating there?”
+
+“The effigy,” she answered hastily. “They must have thrown it into the
+river higher up amongst the willows at Blackwater, to get rid of it in
+their alarm at discovery by the magistrates, and it must have floated
+down here.”
+
+“Ah—to be sure—the image o’ me! But where is the other? Why that one
+only?... That performance of theirs killed her, but kept me alive!”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words “kept me alive,” as
+they slowly retraced their way to the town, and at length guessed their
+meaning. “Father!—I will not leave you alone like this!” she cried.
+“May I live with you, and tend upon you as I used to do? I do not mind
+your being poor. I would have agreed to come this morning, but you did
+not ask me.”
+
+“May you come to me?” he cried bitterly. “Elizabeth, don’t mock me! If
+you only would come!”
+
+“I will,” said she.
+
+“How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You cannot!”
+
+“I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more.”
+
+Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans for reunion; and at
+length each went home. Then Henchard shaved for the first time during
+many days, and put on clean linen, and combed his hair; and was as a
+man resuscitated thenceforward.
+
+The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Jane had
+stated; the effigy was discovered by a cowherd, and that of Lucetta a
+little higher up in the same stream. But as little as possible was said
+of the matter, and the figures were privately destroyed.
+
+Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchard no less regarded
+it as an intervention that the figure should have been floating there.
+Elizabeth-Jane heard him say, “Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it
+seems that even I be in Somebody’s hand!”
+
+
+
+XLII.
+
+But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody’s hand began to
+die out of Henchard’s breast as time slowly removed into distance the
+event which had given that feeling birth. The apparition of Newson
+haunted him. He would surely return.
+
+Yet Newson did not arrive. Lucetta had been borne along the churchyard
+path; Casterbridge had for the last time turned its regard upon her,
+before proceeding to its work as if she had never lived. But Elizabeth
+remained undisturbed in the belief of her relationship to Henchard, and
+now shared his home. Perhaps, after all, Newson was gone for ever.
+
+In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, at least, proximate
+cause of Lucetta’s illness and death, and his first impulse was
+naturally enough to wreak vengeance in the name of the law upon the
+perpetrators of the mischief. He resolved to wait till the funeral was
+over ere he moved in the matter. The time having come he reflected.
+Disastrous as the result had been, it was obviously in no way foreseen
+or intended by the thoughtless crew who arranged the motley procession.
+The tempting prospect of putting to the blush people who stand at the
+head of affairs—that supreme and piquant enjoyment of those who writhe
+under the heel of the same—had alone animated them, so far as he could
+see; for he knew nothing of Jopp’s incitements. Other considerations
+were also involved. Lucetta had confessed everything to him before her
+death, and it was not altogether desirable to make much ado about her
+history, alike for her sake, for Henchard’s, and for his own. To regard
+the event as an untoward accident seemed, to Farfrae, truest
+consideration for the dead one’s memory, as well as best philosophy.
+
+Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet. For Elizabeth’s sake the
+former had fettered his pride sufficiently to accept the small seed and
+root business which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had
+purchased to afford him a new opening. Had he been only personally
+concerned Henchard, without doubt, would have declined assistance even
+remotely brought about by the man whom he had so fiercely assailed. But
+the sympathy of the girl seemed necessary to his very existence; and on
+her account pride itself wore the garments of humility.
+
+Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives Henchard
+anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in which paternal regard
+was heightened by a burning jealous dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson
+would ever now return to Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there
+was little reason to suppose. He was a wanderer and a stranger, almost
+an alien; he had not seen his daughter for several years; his affection
+for her could not in the nature of things be keen; other interests
+would probably soon obscure his recollections of her, and prevent any
+such renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a discovery that
+she was still a creature of the present. To satisfy his conscience
+somewhat Henchard repeated to himself that the lie which had retained
+for him the coveted treasure had not been deliberately told to that
+end, but had come from him as the last defiant word of a despair which
+took no thought of consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within himself
+that no Newson could love her as he loved her, or would tend her to his
+life’s extremity as he was prepared to do cheerfully.
+
+Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard, and nothing
+occurred to mark their days during the remainder of the year. Going out
+but seldom, and never on a marketday, they saw Donald Farfrae only at
+rarest intervals, and then mostly as a transitory object in the
+distance of the street. Yet he was pursuing his ordinary avocations,
+smiling mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with
+bargainers—as bereaved men do after a while.
+
+Time, “in his own grey style,” taught Farfrae how to estimate his
+experience of Lucetta—all that it was, and all that it was not. There
+are men whose hearts insist upon a dogged fidelity to some image or
+cause thrown by chance into their keeping, long after their judgment
+has pronounced it no rarity—even the reverse, indeed, and without them
+the band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of those. It
+was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and rapidity of his nature
+should take him out of the dead blank which his loss threw about him.
+He could not but perceive that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged
+a looming misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her
+history, which must have come sooner or later in any circumstances, it
+was hard to believe that life with her would have been productive of
+further happiness.
+
+But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta’s image
+still lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only the gentlest
+criticism, and her sufferings attenuating wrath at her concealments to
+a momentary spark now and then.
+
+By the end of a year Henchard’s little retail seed and grain shop, not
+much larger than a cupboard, had developed its trade considerably, and
+the stepfather and daughter enjoyed much serenity in the pleasant,
+sunny corner in which it stood. The quiet bearing of one who brimmed
+with an inner activity characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period. She
+took long walks into the country two or three times a week, mostly in
+the direction of Budmouth. Sometimes it occurred to him that when she
+sat with him in the evening after those invigorating walks she was
+civil rather than affectionate; and he was troubled; one more bitter
+regret being added to those he had already experienced at having, by
+his severe censorship, frozen up her precious affection when originally
+offered.
+
+She had her own way in everything now. In going and coming, in buying
+and selling, her word was law.
+
+“You have got a new muff, Elizabeth,” he said to her one day quite
+humbly.
+
+“Yes; I bought it,” she said.
+
+He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table. The fur was of a
+glossy brown, and, though he was no judge of such articles, he thought
+it seemed an unusually good one for her to possess.
+
+“Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?” he hazarded.
+
+“It was rather above my figure,” she said quietly. “But it is not
+showy.”
+
+“O no,” said the netted lion, anxious not to pique her in the least.
+
+Some little time after, when the year had advanced into another spring,
+he paused opposite her empty bedroom in passing it. He thought of the
+time when she had cleared out of his then large and handsome house in
+Corn Street, in consequence of his dislike and harshness, and he had
+looked into her chamber in just the same way. The present room was much
+humbler, but what struck him about it was the abundance of books lying
+everywhere. Their number and quality made the meagre furniture that
+supported them seem absurdly disproportionate. Some, indeed many, must
+have been recently purchased; and though he encouraged her to buy in
+reason, he had no notion that she indulged her innate passion so
+extensively in proportion to the narrowness of their income. For the
+first time he felt a little hurt by what he thought her extravagance,
+and resolved to say a word to her about it. But, before he had found
+the courage to speak an event happened which set his thoughts flying in
+quite another direction.
+
+The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet weeks that
+preceded the hay-season had come—setting their special stamp upon
+Casterbridge by thronging the market with wood rakes, new waggons in
+yellow, green, and red, formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong
+sufficient to skewer up a small family. Henchard, contrary to his wont,
+went out one Saturday afternoon towards the market-place from a curious
+feeling that he would like to pass a few minutes on the spot of his
+former triumphs. Farfrae, to whom he was still a comparative stranger,
+stood a few steps below the Corn Exchange door—a usual position with
+him at this hour—and he appeared lost in thought about something he was
+looking at a little way off.
+
+Henchard’s eyes followed Farfrae’s, and he saw that the object of his
+gaze was no sample-showing farmer, but his own stepdaughter, who had
+just come out of a shop over the way. She, on her part, was quite
+unconscious of his attention, and in this was less fortunate than those
+young women whose very plumes, like those of Juno’s bird, are set with
+Argus eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken.
+
+Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there was nothing significant
+after all in Farfrae’s look at Elizabeth-Jane at that juncture. Yet he
+could not forget that the Scotchman had once shown a tender interest in
+her, of a fleeting kind. Thereupon promptly came to the surface that
+idiosyncrasy of Henchard’s which had ruled his courses from the
+beginning and had mainly made him what he was. Instead of thinking that
+a union between his cherished stepdaughter and the energetic thriving
+Donald was a thing to be desired for her good and his own, he hated the
+very possibility.
+
+Time had been when such instinctive opposition would have taken shape
+in action. But he was not now the Henchard of former days. He schooled
+himself to accept her will, in this as in other matters, as absolute
+and unquestionable. He dreaded lest an antagonistic word should lose
+for him such regard as he had regained from her by his devotion,
+feeling that to retain this under separation was better than to incur
+her dislike by keeping her near.
+
+But the mere thought of such separation fevered his spirit much, and in
+the evening he said, with the stillness of suspense: “Have you seen Mr.
+Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some confusion
+that she replied “No.”
+
+“Oh—that’s right—that’s right.... It was only that I saw him in the
+street when we both were there.” He was wondering if her embarrassment
+justified him in a new suspicion—that the long walks which she had
+latterly been taking, that the new books which had so surprised him,
+had anything to do with the young man. She did not enlighten him, and
+lest silence should allow her to shape thoughts unfavourable to their
+present friendly relations, he diverted the discourse into another
+channel.
+
+Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act stealthily, for
+good or for evil. But the _solicitus timor_ of his love—the dependence
+upon Elizabeth’s regard into which he had declined (or, in another
+sense, to which he had advanced)—denaturalized him. He would often
+weigh and consider for hours together the meaning of such and such a
+deed or phrase of hers, when a blunt settling question would formerly
+have been his first instinct. And now, uneasy at the thought of a
+passion for Farfrae which should entirely displace her mild filial
+sympathy with himself, he observed her going and coming more narrowly.
+
+There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane’s movements beyond what
+habitual reserve induced, and it may at once be owned on her account
+that she was guilty of occasional conversations with Donald when they
+chanced to meet. Whatever the origin of her walks on the Budmouth Road,
+her return from those walks was often coincident with Farfrae’s
+emergence from Corn Street for a twenty minutes’ blow on that rather
+windy highway—just to winnow the seeds and chaff out of him before
+sitting down to tea, as he said. Henchard became aware of this by going
+to the Ring, and, screened by its enclosure, keeping his eye upon the
+road till he saw them meet. His face assumed an expression of extreme
+anguish.
+
+“Of her, too, he means to rob me!” he whispered. “But he has the right.
+I do not wish to interfere.”
+
+The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and matters were by
+no means so far advanced between the young people as Henchard’s jealous
+grief inferred. Could he have heard such conversation as passed he
+would have been enlightened thus much:—
+
+_He_.—“You like walking this way, Miss Henchard—and is it not so?”
+(uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an appraising, pondering
+gaze at her).
+
+_She_.—“O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have no great reason
+for it.”
+
+_He_.—“But that may make a reason for others.”
+
+_She_ (reddening).—“I don’t know that. My reason, however, such as it
+is, is that I wish to get a glimpse of the sea every day.”
+
+_He_.—“Is it a secret why?”
+
+_She_ ( reluctantly ).—“Yes.”
+
+_He_ (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).—“Ah, I doubt there
+will be any good in secrets! A secret cast a deep shadow over my life.
+And well you know what it was.”
+
+Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from confessing why
+the sea attracted her. She could not herself account for it fully, not
+knowing the secret possibly to be that, in addition to early marine
+associations, her blood was a sailor’s.
+
+“Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae,” she added shyly. “I
+wonder if I ought to accept so many!”
+
+“Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you, than you
+to have them!”
+
+“It cannot.”
+
+They proceeded along the road together till they reached the town, and
+their paths diverged.
+
+Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own devices, put
+nothing in the way of their courses, whatever they might mean. If he
+were doomed to be bereft of her, so it must be. In the situation which
+their marriage would create he could see no _locus standi_ for himself
+at all. Farfrae would never recognize him more than superciliously; his
+poverty ensured that, no less than his past conduct. And so Elizabeth
+would grow to be a stranger to him, and the end of his life would be
+friendless solitude.
+
+With such a possibility impending he could not help watchfulness.
+Indeed, within certain lines, he had the right to keep an eye upon her
+as his charge. The meetings seemed to become matters of course with
+them on special days of the week.
+
+At last full proof was given him. He was standing behind a wall close
+to the place at which Farfrae encountered her. He heard the young man
+address her as “Dearest Elizabeth-Jane,” and then kiss her, the girl
+looking quickly round to assure herself that nobody was near.
+
+When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the wall, and
+mournfully followed them to Casterbridge. The chief looming trouble in
+this engagement had not decreased. Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane,
+unlike the rest of the people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual
+daughter, from his own assertion while he himself had the same belief;
+and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven him as to have no
+objection to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they could never be.
+Thus would the girl, who was his only friend, be withdrawn from him by
+degrees through her husband’s influence, and learn to despise him.
+
+Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than the one he
+had rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in days before his spirit
+was broken, Henchard would have said, “I am content.” But content with
+the prospect as now depicted was hard to acquire.
+
+There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts unowned,
+unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes allowed to wander for a
+moment prior to being sent off whence they came. One of these thoughts
+sailed into Henchard’s ken now.
+
+Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed
+was not the child of Michael Henchard at all—legally, nobody’s child;
+how would that correct and leading townsman receive the information? He
+might possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her
+step-sire’s own again.
+
+Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, “God forbid such a thing! Why should
+I still be subject to these visitations of the devil, when I try so
+hard to keep him away?”
+
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little
+later date by other people. That Mr. Farfrae “walked with that bankrupt
+Henchard’s stepdaughter, of all women,” became a common topic in the
+town, the simple perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a
+wooing; and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who had
+each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of making the
+merchant Councilman happy, indignantly left off going to the church
+Farfrae attended, left off conscious mannerisms, left off putting him
+in their prayers at night amongst their blood relations; in short,
+reverted to their normal courses.
+
+Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this looming choice of
+the Scotchman’s gave unmixed satisfaction were the members of the
+philosophic party, which included Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy
+Wills, Mr. Buzzford, and the like. The Three Mariners having been,
+years before, the house in which they had witnessed the young man and
+woman’s first and humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they
+took a kindly interest in their career, not unconnected, perhaps, with
+visions of festive treatment at their hands hereafter. Mrs. Stannidge,
+having rolled into the large parlour one evening and said that it was a
+wonder such a man as Mr. Farfrae, “a pillow of the town,” who might
+have chosen one of the daughters of the professional men or private
+residents, should stoop so low, Coney ventured to disagree with her.
+
+“No, ma’am, no wonder at all. ’Tis she that’s a stooping to he—that’s
+my opinion. A widow man—whose first wife was no credit to him—what is
+it for a young perusing woman that’s her own mistress and well liked?
+But as a neat patching up of things I see much good in it. When a man
+have put up a tomb of best marble-stone to the other one, as he’ve
+done, and weeped his fill, and thought it all over, and said to
+hisself, ‘T’other took me in, I knowed this one first; she’s a sensible
+piece for a partner, and there’s no faithful woman in high life
+now’;—well, he may do worse than not to take her, if she’s
+tender-inclined.”
+
+Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we must guard against a too
+liberal use of the conventional declaration that a great sensation was
+caused by the prospective event, that all the gossips’ tongues were set
+wagging thereby, and so-on, even though such a declaration might lend
+some eclat to the career of our poor only heroine. When all has been
+said about busy rumourers, a superficial and temporary thing is the
+interest of anybody in affairs which do not directly touch them. It
+would be a truer representation to say that Casterbridge (ever
+excepting the nineteen young ladies) looked up for a moment at the
+news, and withdrawing its attention, went on labouring and victualling,
+bringing up its children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle
+for Farfrae’s domestic plans.
+
+Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by Elizabeth
+herself or by Farfrae either. Reasoning on the cause of their reticence
+he concluded that, estimating him by his past, the throbbing pair were
+afraid to broach the subject, and looked upon him as an irksome
+obstacle whom they would be heartily glad to get out of the way.
+Embittered as he was against society, this moody view of himself took
+deeper and deeper hold of Henchard, till the daily necessity of facing
+mankind, and of them particularly Elizabeth-Jane, became well-nigh more
+than he could endure. His health declined; he became morbidly
+sensitive. He wished he could escape those who did not want him, and
+hide his head for ever.
+
+But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no necessity
+that his own absolute separation from her should be involved in the
+incident of her marriage?
+
+He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative—himself living like a
+fangless lion about the back rooms of a house in which his stepdaughter
+was mistress, an inoffensive old man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth,
+and good-naturedly tolerated by her husband. It was terrible to his
+pride to think of descending so low; and yet, for the girl’s sake he
+might put up with anything; even from Farfrae; even snubbings and
+masterful tongue-scourgings. The privilege of being in the house she
+occupied would almost outweigh the personal humiliation.
+
+Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the courtship—which
+it evidently now was—had an absorbing interest for him.
+
+Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the Budmouth Road,
+and Farfrae as often made it convenient to create an accidental meeting
+with her there. Two miles out, a quarter of a mile from the highway,
+was the prehistoric fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many
+ramparts, within or upon whose enclosures a human being as seen from
+the road, was but an insignificant speck. Hitherward Henchard often
+resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the hedgeless _Via_—for it was the
+original track laid out by the legions of the Empire—to a distance of
+two or three miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs
+between Farfrae and his charmer.
+
+One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure came along
+the road from Budmouth, and lingered. Applying his telescope to his eye
+Henchard expected that Farfrae’s features would be disclosed as usual.
+But the lenses revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane’s
+lover.
+
+It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned in the
+scrutiny of the road he revealed his face. Henchard lived a lifetime
+the moment he saw it. The face was Newson’s.
+
+Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no other
+movement. Newson waited, and Henchard waited—if that could be called a
+waiting which was a transfixture. But Elizabeth-Jane did not come.
+Something or other had caused her to neglect her customary walk that
+day. Perhaps Farfrae and she had chosen another road for variety’s
+sake. But what did that amount to? She might be here to-morrow, and in
+any case Newson, if bent on a private meeting and a revelation of the
+truth to her, would soon make his opportunity.
+
+Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the ruse by
+which he had been once sent away. Elizabeth’s strict nature would cause
+her for the first time to despise her stepfather, would root out his
+image as that of an arch-deceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart
+in his stead.
+
+But Newson did not see anything of her that morning. Having stood still
+awhile he at last retraced his steps, and Henchard felt like a
+condemned man who has a few hours’ respite. When he reached his own
+house he found her there.
+
+“O father!” she said innocently. “I have had a letter—a strange one—not
+signed. Somebody has asked me to meet him, either on the Budmouth Road
+at noon today, or in the evening at Mr. Farfrae’s. He says he came to
+see me some time ago, but a trick was played him, so that he did not
+see me. I don’t understand it; but between you and me I think Donald is
+at the bottom of the mystery, and that it is a relation of his who
+wants to pass an opinion on his choice. But I did not like to go till I
+had seen you. Shall I go?”
+
+Henchard replied heavily, “Yes; go.”
+
+The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever disposed of
+by this closing in of Newson on the scene. Henchard was not the man to
+stand the certainty of condemnation on a matter so near his heart. And
+being an old hand at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal, he
+resolved to make as light as he could of his intentions, while
+immediately taking his measures.
+
+He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his all in this
+world by saying to her, as if he did not care about her more: “I am
+going to leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane.”
+
+“Leave Casterbridge!” she cried, “and leave—me?”
+
+“Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well as by us
+both; I don’t care about shops and streets and folk—I would rather get
+into the country by myself, out of sight, and follow my own ways, and
+leave you to yours.”
+
+She looked down and her tears fell silently. It seemed to her that this
+resolve of his had come on account of her attachment and its probable
+result. She showed her devotion to Farfrae, however, by mastering her
+emotion and speaking out.
+
+“I am sorry you have decided on this,” she said with difficult
+firmness. “For I thought it probable—possible—that I might marry Mr.
+Farfrae some little time hence, and I did not know that you disapproved
+of the step!”
+
+“I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy,” said Henchard huskily.
+“If I did not approve it would be no matter! I wish to go away. My
+presence might make things awkward in the future, and, in short, it is
+best that I go.”
+
+Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to reconsider
+his determination; for she could not urge what she did not know—that
+when she should learn he was not related to her other than as a
+step-parent she would refrain from despising him, and that when she
+knew what he had done to keep her in ignorance she would refrain from
+hating him. It was his conviction that she would not so refrain; and
+there existed as yet neither word nor event which could argue it away.
+
+“Then,” she said at last, “you will not be able to come to my wedding;
+and that is not as it ought to be.”
+
+“I don’t want to see it—I don’t want to see it!” he exclaimed; adding
+more softly, “but think of me sometimes in your future life—you’ll do
+that, Izzy?—think of me when you are living as the wife of the richest,
+the foremost man in the town, and don’t let my sins, _when you know
+them all_, cause ’ee to quite forget that though I loved ’ee late I
+loved ’ee well.”
+
+“It is because of Donald!” she sobbed.
+
+“I don’t forbid you to marry him,” said Henchard. “Promise not to quite
+forget me when——” He meant when Newson should come.
+
+She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same evening at
+dusk Henchard left the town, to whose development he had been one of
+the chief stimulants for many years. During the day he had bought a new
+tool-basket, cleaned up his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in
+fresh leggings, kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways gone back to
+the working clothes of his young manhood, discarding for ever the
+shabby-genteel suit of cloth and rusty silk hat that since his decline
+had characterized him in the Casterbridge street as a man who had seen
+better days.
+
+He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had known him
+being aware of his departure. Elizabeth-Jane accompanied him as far as
+the second bridge on the highway—for the hour of her appointment with
+the unguessed visitor at Farfrae’s had not yet arrived—and parted from
+him with unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or two
+before finally letting him go. She watched his form diminish across the
+moor, the yellow rush-basket at his back moving up and down with each
+tread, and the creases behind his knees coming and going alternately
+till she could no longer see them. Though she did not know it Henchard
+formed at this moment much the same picture as he had presented when
+entering Casterbridge for the first time nearly a quarter of a century
+before; except, to be sure, that the serious addition to his years had
+considerably lessened the spring to his stride, that his state of
+hopelessness had weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as
+weighted by the basket, a perceptible bend.
+
+He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood in the
+bank, half way up a steep hill. He rested his basket on the top of the
+stone, placed his elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch,
+which was worse than a sob, because it was so hard and so dry.
+
+“If I had only got her with me—if I only had!” he said. “Hard work
+would be nothing to me then! But that was not to be. I—Cain—go alone as
+I deserve—an outcast and a vagabond. But my punishment is _not_ greater
+than I can bear!”
+
+He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and went on.
+
+Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh, recovered her
+equanimity, and turned her face to Casterbridge. Before she had reached
+the first house she was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was
+evidently not their first meeting that day; they joined hands without
+ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked, “And is he gone—and did you tell
+him?—I mean of the other matter—not of ours.”
+
+“He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend. Donald, who is
+he?”
+
+“Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr. Henchard
+will hear of it if he does not go far.”
+
+“He will go far—he’s bent upon getting out of sight and sound!”
+
+She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the Crossways, or
+Bow, turned with him into Corn Street instead of going straight on to
+her own door. At Farfrae’s house they stopped and went in.
+
+Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-room, saying,
+“There he is waiting for you,” and Elizabeth entered. In the arm-chair
+sat the broad-faced genial man who had called on Henchard on a
+memorable morning between one and two years before this time, and whom
+the latter had seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of
+his arrival. It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the light-hearted
+father from whom she had been separated half-a-dozen years, as if by
+death, need hardly be detailed. It was an affecting one, apart from the
+question of paternity. Henchard’s departure was in a moment explained.
+When the true facts came to be handled the difficulty of restoring her
+to her old belief in Newson was not so great as might have seemed
+likely, for Henchard’s conduct itself was a proof that those facts were
+true. Moreover, she had grown up under Newson’s paternal care; and even
+had Henchard been her father in nature, this father in early
+domiciliation might almost have carried the point against him, when the
+incidents of her parting with Henchard had a little worn off.
+
+Newson’s pride in what she had grown up to be was more than he could
+express. He kissed her again and again.
+
+“I’ve saved you the trouble to come and meet me—ha-ha!” said Newson.
+“The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said, ‘Come up and stop with me
+for a day or two, Captain Newson, and I’ll bring her round.’ ‘Faith,’
+says I, ‘so I will’; and here I am.”
+
+“Well, Henchard is gone,” said Farfrae, shutting the door. “He has done
+it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth, he has been very
+nice with her. I was got rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and
+we will have no more deefficulties at all.”
+
+“Now, that’s very much as I thought,” said Newson, looking into the
+face of each by turns. “I said to myself, ay, a hundred times, when I
+tried to get a peep at her unknown to herself—‘Depend upon it, ’tis
+best that I should live on quiet for a few days like this till
+something turns up for the better.’ I now know you are all right, and
+what can I wish for more?”
+
+“Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every day now,
+since it can do no harm,” said Farfrae. “And what I’ve been thinking is
+that the wedding may as well be kept under my own roof, the house being
+large, and you being in lodgings by yourself—so that a great deal of
+trouble and expense would be saved ye?—and ’tis a convenience when a
+couple’s married not to hae far to go to get home!”
+
+“With all my heart,” said Captain Newson; “since, as ye say, it can do
+no harm, now poor Henchard’s gone; though I wouldn’t have done it
+otherwise, or put myself in his way at all; for I’ve already in my
+lifetime been an intruder into his family quite as far as politeness
+can be expected to put up with. But what do the young woman say herself
+about it? Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we be talking
+about, and not bide staring out o’ the window as if ye didn’t hear.”
+
+“Donald and you must settle it,” murmured Elizabeth, still keeping up a
+scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the street.
+
+“Well, then,” continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with a face
+expressing thorough entry into the subject, “that’s how we’ll have it.
+And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide so much, and houseroom, and all that,
+I’ll do my part in the drinkables, and see to the rum and
+schiedam—maybe a dozen jars will be sufficient?—as many of the folk
+will be ladies, and perhaps they won’t drink hard enough to make a high
+average in the reckoning? But you know best. I’ve provided for men and
+shipmates times enough, but I’m as ignorant as a child how many glasses
+of grog a woman, that’s not a drinking woman, is expected to consume at
+these ceremonies?”
+
+“Oh, none—we’ll no want much of that—O no!” said Farfrae, shaking his
+head with appalled gravity. “Do you leave all to me.”
+
+When they had gone a little further in these particulars Newson,
+leaning back in his chair and smiling reflectively at the ceiling,
+said, “I’ve never told ye, or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me
+off the scent that time?”
+
+He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.
+
+“Ah, I thought I hadn’t. I resolved that I would not, I remember, not
+to hurt the man’s name. But now he’s gone I can tell ye. Why, I came to
+Casterbridge nine or ten months before that day last week that I found
+ye out. I had been here twice before then. The first time I passed
+through the town on my way westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here.
+Then hearing at some place—I forget where—that a man of the name of
+Henchard had been mayor here, I came back, and called at his house one
+morning. The old rascal!—he said Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago.”
+
+Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.
+
+“Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a packet,”
+continued Newson. “And, if you’ll believe me, I was that upset, that I
+went back to the coach that had brought me, and took passage onward
+without lying in the town half-an-hour. Ha-ha!—’twas a good joke, and
+well carried out, and I give the man credit for’t!”
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence. “A joke?—O no!” she
+cried. “Then he kept you from me, father, all those months, when you
+might have been here?”
+
+The father admitted that such was the case.
+
+“He ought not to have done it!” said Farfrae.
+
+Elizabeth sighed. “I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I
+ought to forget him now!”
+
+Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange men and
+strange moralities, failed to perceive the enormity of Henchard’s
+crime, notwithstanding that he himself had been the chief sufferer
+therefrom. Indeed, the attack upon the absent culprit waxing serious,
+he began to take Henchard’s part.
+
+“Well, ’twas not ten words that he said, after all,” Newson pleaded.
+“And how could he know that I should be such a simpleton as to believe
+him? ’Twas as much my fault as his, poor fellow!”
+
+“No,” said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of feeling. “He knew
+your disposition—you always were so trusting, father; I’ve heard my
+mother say so hundreds of times—and he did it to wrong you. After
+weaning me from you these five years by saying he was my father, he
+should not have done this.”
+
+Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before Elizabeth any
+extenuation of the absent one’s deceit. Even had he been present
+Henchard might scarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himself
+or his good name.
+
+“Well, well—never mind—it is all over and past,” said Newson
+good-naturedly. “Now, about this wedding again.”
+
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitary way eastward
+till weariness overtook him, and he looked about for a place of rest.
+His heart was so exacerbated at parting from the girl that he could not
+face an inn, or even a household of the most humble kind; and entering
+a field he lay down under a wheatrick, feeling no want of food. The
+very heaviness of his soul caused him to sleep profoundly.
+
+The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the stubble awoke
+him the next morning early. He opened his basket and ate for his
+breakfast what he had packed for his supper; and in doing so overhauled
+the remainder of his kit. Although everything he brought necessitated
+carriage at his own back, he had secreted among his tools a few of
+Elizabeth-Jane’s cast-off belongings, in the shape of gloves, shoes, a
+scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and in his pocket he carried a
+curl of her hair. Having looked at these things he closed them up
+again, and went onward.
+
+During five consecutive days Henchard’s rush basket rode along upon his
+shoulder between the highway hedges, the new yellow of the rushes
+catching the eye of an occasional field-labourer as he glanced through
+the quickset, together with the wayfarer’s hat and head, and
+down-turned face, over which the twig shadows moved in endless
+procession. It now became apparent that the direction of his journey
+was Weydon Priors, which he reached on the afternoon of the sixth day.
+
+The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had been held for so many
+generations was now bare of human beings, and almost of aught besides.
+A few sheep grazed thereabout, but these ran off when Henchard halted
+upon the summit. He deposited his basket upon the turf, and looked
+about with sad curiosity; till he discovered the road by which his wife
+and himself had entered on the upland so memorable to both,
+five-and-twenty years before.
+
+“Yes, we came up that way,” he said, after ascertaining his bearings.
+“She was carrying the baby, and I was reading a ballet-sheet. Then we
+crossed about here—she so sad and weary, and I speaking to her hardly
+at all, because of my cursed pride and mortification at being poor.
+Then we saw the tent—that must have stood more this way.” He walked to
+another spot, it was not really where the tent had stood but it seemed
+so to him. “Here we went in, and here we sat down. I faced this way.
+Then I drank, and committed my crime. It must have been just on that
+very pixy-ring that she was standing when she said her last words to me
+before going off with him; I can hear their sound now, and the sound of
+her sobs: ‘O Mike! I’ve lived with thee all this while, and had nothing
+but temper. Now I’m no more to ’ee—I’ll try my luck elsewhere.’”
+
+He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds, in looking
+back upon an ambitious course, that what he has sacrificed in sentiment
+was worth as much as what he has gained in substance; but the
+superadded bitterness of seeing his very recantation nullified. He had
+been sorry for all this long ago; but his attempts to replace ambition
+by love had been as fully foiled as his ambition itself. His wronged
+wife had foiled them by a fraud so grandly simple as to be almost a
+virtue. It was an odd sequence that out of all this tampering with
+social law came that flower of Nature, Elizabeth. Part of his wish to
+wash his hands of life arose from his perception of its contrarious
+inconsistencies—of Nature’s jaunty readiness to support unorthodox
+social principles.
+
+He intended to go on from this place—visited as an act of penance—into
+another part of the country altogether. But he could not help thinking
+of Elizabeth, and the quarter of the horizon in which she lived. Out of
+this it happened that the centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness of
+the world was counteracted by the centripetal influence of his love for
+his stepdaughter. As a consequence, instead of following a straight
+course yet further away from Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almost
+unconsciously, deflected from that right line of his first intention;
+till, by degrees, his wandering, like that of the Canadian woodsman,
+became part of a circle of which Casterbridge formed the centre. In
+ascending any particular hill he ascertained the bearings as nearly as
+he could by means of the sun, moon, or stars, and settled in his mind
+the exact direction in which Casterbridge and Elizabeth-Jane lay.
+Sneering at himself for his weakness he yet every hour—nay, every few
+minutes—conjectured her actions for the time being—her sitting down and
+rising up, her goings and comings, till thought of Newson’s and
+Farfrae’s counter-influence would pass like a cold blast over a pool,
+and efface her image. And then he would say to himself, “O you fool!
+All this about a daughter who is no daughter of thine!”
+
+At length he obtained employment at his own occupation of hay-trusser,
+work of that sort being in demand at this autumn time. The scene of his
+hiring was a pastoral farm near the old western highway, whose course
+was the channel of all such communications as passed between the busy
+centres of novelty and the remote Wessex boroughs. He had chosen the
+neighbourhood of this artery from a sense that, situated here, though
+at a distance of fifty miles, he was virtually nearer to her whose
+welfare was so dear than he would be at a roadless spot only half as
+remote.
+
+And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise standing which he
+had occupied a quarter of a century before. Externally there was
+nothing to hinder his making another start on the upward slope, and by
+his new lights achieving higher things than his soul in its half-formed
+state had been able to accomplish. But the ingenious machinery
+contrived by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration
+to a minimum—which arranges that wisdom to do shall come _pari passu_
+with the departure of zest for doing—stood in the way of all that. He
+had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world that had become a
+mere painted scene to him.
+
+Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among the sweet-smelling
+grassy stems, he would survey mankind and say to himself: “Here and
+everywhere be folk dying before their time like frosted leaves, though
+wanted by their families, the country, and the world; while I, an
+outcast, an encumberer of the ground, wanted by nobody, and despised by
+all, live on against my will!”
+
+He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation of those who passed
+along the road—not from a general curiosity by any means—but in the
+hope that among these travellers between Casterbridge and London some
+would, sooner or later, speak of the former place. The distance,
+however, was too great to lend much probability to his desire; and the
+highest result of his attention to wayside words was that he did indeed
+hear the name “Casterbridge” uttered one day by the driver of a
+road-waggon. Henchard ran to the gate of the field he worked in, and
+hailed the speaker, who was a stranger.
+
+“Yes—I’ve come from there, maister,” he said, in answer to Henchard’s
+inquiry. “I trade up and down, ye know; though, what with this
+travelling without horses that’s getting so common, my work will soon
+be done.”
+
+“Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?”
+
+“All the same as usual.”
+
+“I’ve heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of getting
+married. Now is that true or not?”
+
+“I couldn’t say for the life o’ me. O no, I should think not.”
+
+“But yes, John—you forget,” said a woman inside the waggon-tilt. “What
+were them packages we carr’d there at the beginning o’ the week? Surely
+they said a wedding was coming off soon—on Martin’s Day?”
+
+The man declared he remembered nothing about it; and the waggon went on
+jangling over the hill.
+
+Henchard was convinced that the woman’s memory served her well. The
+date was an extremely probable one, there being no reason for delay on
+either side. He might, for that matter, write and inquire of Elizabeth;
+but his instinct for sequestration had made the course difficult. Yet
+before he left her she had said that for him to be absent from her
+wedding was not as she wished it to be.
+
+The remembrance would continually revive in him now that it was not
+Elizabeth and Farfrae who had driven him away from them, but his own
+haughty sense that his presence was no longer desired. He had assumed
+the return of Newson without absolute proof that the Captain meant to
+return; still less that Elizabeth-Jane would welcome him; and with no
+proof whatever that if he did return he would stay. What if he had been
+mistaken in his views; if there had been no necessity that his own
+absolute separation from her he loved should be involved in these
+untoward incidents? To make one more attempt to be near her: to go
+back, to see her, to plead his cause before her, to ask forgiveness for
+his fraud, to endeavour strenuously to hold his own in her love; it was
+worth the risk of repulse, ay, of life itself.
+
+But how to initiate this reversal of all his former resolves without
+causing husband and wife to despise him for his inconsistency was a
+question which made him tremble and brood.
+
+He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and then he concluded his
+hesitancies by a sudden reckless determination to go to the wedding
+festivity. Neither writing nor message would be expected of him. She
+had regretted his decision to be absent—his unanticipated presence
+would fill the little unsatisfied corner that would probably have place
+in her just heart without him.
+
+To intrude as little of his personality as possible upon a gay event
+with which that personality could show nothing in keeping, he decided
+not to make his appearance till evening—when stiffness would have worn
+off, and a gentle wish to let bygones be bygones would exercise its
+sway in all hearts.
+
+He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin’s-tide, allowing
+himself about sixteen miles to perform for each of the three days’
+journey, reckoning the wedding-day as one. There were only two towns,
+Melchester and Shottsford, of any importance along his course, and at
+the latter he stopped on the second night, not only to rest, but to
+prepare himself for the next evening.
+
+Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stood in—now stained and
+distorted by their two months of hard usage, he entered a shop to make
+some purchases which should put him, externally at any rate, a little
+in harmony with the prevailing tone of the morrow. A rough yet
+respectable coat and hat, a new shirt and neck-cloth, were the chief of
+these; and having satisfied himself that in appearance at least he
+would not now offend her, he proceeded to the more interesting
+particular of buying her some present.
+
+What should that present be? He walked up and down the street,
+regarding dubiously the display in the shop windows, from a gloomy
+sense that what he might most like to give her would be beyond his
+miserable pocket. At length a caged goldfinch met his eye. The cage was
+a plain and small one, the shop humble, and on inquiry he concluded he
+could afford the modest sum asked. A sheet of newspaper was tied round
+the little creature’s wire prison, and with the wrapped up cage in his
+hand Henchard sought a lodging for the night.
+
+Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soon within the
+district which had been his dealing ground in bygone years. Part of the
+distance he travelled by carrier, seating himself in the darkest corner
+at the back of that trader’s van; and as the other passengers, mainly
+women going short journeys, mounted and alighted in front of Henchard,
+they talked over much local news, not the least portion of this being
+the wedding then in course of celebration at the town they were
+nearing. It appeared from their accounts that the town band had been
+hired for the evening party, and, lest the convivial instincts of that
+body should get the better of their skill, the further step had been
+taken of engaging the string band from Budmouth, so that there would be
+a reserve of harmony to fall back upon in case of need.
+
+He heard, however, but few particulars beyond those known to him
+already, the incident of the deepest interest on the journey being the
+soft pealing of the Casterbridge bells, which reached the travellers’
+ears while the van paused on the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag
+lowered. The time was just after twelve o’clock.
+
+Those notes were a signal that all had gone well; that there had been
+no slip ’twixt cup and lip in this case; that Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
+Farfrae were man and wife.
+
+Henchard did not care to ride any further with his chattering
+companions after hearing this sound. Indeed, it quite unmanned him; and
+in pursuance of his plan of not showing himself in Casterbridge street
+till evening, lest he should mortify Farfrae and his bride, he alighted
+here, with his bundle and bird-cage, and was soon left as a lonely
+figure on the broad white highway.
+
+It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae, almost two
+years earlier, to tell him of the serious illness of his wife Lucetta.
+The place was unchanged; the same larches sighed the same notes; but
+Farfrae had another wife—and, as Henchard knew, a better one. He only
+hoped that Elizabeth-Jane had obtained a better home than had been hers
+at the former time.
+
+He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curious highstrung
+condition, unable to do much but think of the approaching meeting with
+her, and sadly satirize himself for his emotions thereon, as a Samson
+shorn. Such an innovation on Casterbridge customs as a flitting of
+bridegroom and bride from the town immediately after the ceremony, was
+not likely, but if it should have taken place he would wait till their
+return. To assure himself on this point he asked a market-man when near
+the borough if the newly-married couple had gone away, and was promptly
+informed that they had not; they were at that hour, according to all
+accounts, entertaining a houseful of guests at their home in Corn
+Street.
+
+Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at the riverside, and
+proceeded up the town under the feeble lamps. He need have made no
+inquiries beforehand, for on drawing near Farfrae’s residence it was
+plain to the least observant that festivity prevailed within, and that
+Donald himself shared it, his voice being distinctly audible in the
+street, giving strong expression to a song of his dear native country
+that he loved so well as never to have revisited it. Idlers were
+standing on the pavement in front; and wishing to escape the notice of
+these Henchard passed quickly on to the door.
+
+It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and people were
+going up and down the stairs. His courage failed him; to enter
+footsore, laden, and poorly dressed into the midst of such resplendency
+was to bring needless humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court
+repulse from her husband. Accordingly he went round into the street at
+the back that he knew so well, entered the garden, and came quietly
+into the house through the kitchen, temporarily depositing the bird and
+cage under a bush outside, to lessen the awkwardness of his arrival.
+
+Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard that he now feared
+circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he began to wish that
+he had not taken upon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However,
+his progress was made unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in the
+kitchen an elderly woman who seemed to be acting as provisional
+housekeeper during the convulsions from which Farfrae’s establishment
+was just then suffering. She was one of those people whom nothing
+surprises, and though to her, a total stranger, his request must have
+seemed odd, she willingly volunteered to go up and inform the master
+and mistress of the house that “a humble old friend” had come.
+
+On second thought she said that he had better not wait in the kitchen,
+but come up into the little back-parlour, which was empty. He thereupon
+followed her thither, and she left him. Just as she got across the
+landing to the door of the best parlour a dance was struck up, and she
+returned to say that she would wait till that was over before
+announcing him—Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure.
+
+The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to give more
+space, and that of the room Henchard sat in being ajar, he could see
+fractional parts of the dancers whenever their gyrations brought them
+near the doorway, chiefly in the shape of the skirts of dresses and
+streaming curls of hair; together with about three-fifths of the band
+in profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler’s elbow, and the
+tip of the bass-viol bow.
+
+The gaiety jarred upon Henchard’s spirits; and he could not quite
+understand why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a widower, who had had
+his trials, should have cared for it all, notwithstanding the fact that
+he was quite a young man still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by
+dance and song. That the quiet Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised
+life at a moderate value, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood that
+marriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should have had zest for this
+revelry surprised him still more. However, young people could not be
+quite old people, he concluded, and custom was omnipotent.
+
+With the progress of the dance the performers spread out somewhat, and
+then for the first time he caught a glimpse of the once despised
+daughter who had mastered him, and made his heart ache. She was in a
+dress of white silk or satin, he was not near enough to say which—snowy
+white, without a tinge of milk or cream; and the expression of her face
+was one of nervous pleasure rather than of gaiety. Presently Farfrae
+came round, his exuberant Scotch movement making him conspicuous in a
+moment. The pair were not dancing together, but Henchard could discern
+that whenever the chances of the figure made them the partners of a
+moment their emotions breathed a much subtler essence than at other
+times.
+
+By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod by some one
+who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange,
+and it was stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was
+Elizabeth-Jane’s partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was
+sweeping grandly round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in
+the form of an X and his back towards the door. The next time he came
+round in the other direction, his white waist-coat preceding his face,
+and his toes preceding his white waistcoat. That happy face—Henchard’s
+complete discomfiture lay in it. It was Newson’s, who had indeed come
+and supplanted him.
+
+Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made no other
+movement. He rose to his feet, and stood like a dark ruin, obscured by
+“the shade from his own soul up-thrown.”
+
+But he was no longer the man to stand these reverses unmoved. His
+agitation was great, and he would fain have been gone, but before he
+could leave the dance had ended, the housekeeper had informed
+Elizabeth-Jane of the stranger who awaited her, and she entered the
+room immediately.
+
+“Oh—it is—Mr. Henchard!” she said, starting back.
+
+“What, Elizabeth?” he cried, as he seized her hand. “What do you
+say?—_Mr._ Henchard? Don’t, don’t scourge me like that! Call me
+worthless old Henchard—anything—but don’t ’ee be so cold as this! O my
+maid—I see you have another—a real father in my place. Then you know
+all; but don’t give all your thought to him! Do ye save a little room
+for me!”
+
+She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away. “I could have loved you
+always—I would have, gladly,” she said. “But how can I when I know you
+have deceived me so—so bitterly deceived me! You persuaded me that my
+father was not my father—allowed me to live on in ignorance of the
+truth for years; and then when he, my warm-hearted real father, came to
+find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked invention of my death,
+which nearly broke his heart. O how can I love as I once did a man who
+has served us like this!”
+
+Henchard’s lips half parted to begin an explanation. But he shut them
+up like a vice, and uttered not a sound. How should he, there and then,
+set before her with any effect the palliatives of his great faults—that
+he had himself been deceived in her identity at first, till informed by
+her mother’s letter that his own child had died; that, in the second
+accusation, his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamester who
+loved her affection better than his own honour? Among the many
+hindrances to such a pleading not the least was this, that he did not
+sufficiently value himself to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal
+or elaborate argument.
+
+Waiving, therefore, his privilege of self-defence, he regarded only his
+discomposure. “Don’t ye distress yourself on my account,” he said, with
+proud superiority. “I would not wish it—at such a time, too, as this. I
+have done wrong in coming to ’ee—I see my error. But it is only for
+once, so forgive it. I’ll never trouble ’ee again, Elizabeth-Jane—no,
+not to my dying day! Good-night. Good-bye!”
+
+Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchard went out from her
+rooms, and departed from the house by the back way as he had come; and
+she saw him no more.
+
+
+
+XLV.
+
+It was about a month after the day which closed as in the last chapter.
+Elizabeth-Jane had grown accustomed to the novelty of her situation,
+and the only difference between Donald’s movements now and formerly was
+that he hastened indoors rather more quickly after business hours than
+he had been in the habit of doing for some time.
+
+Newson had stayed in Casterbridge three days after the wedding party
+(whose gaiety, as might have been surmised, was of his making rather
+than of the married couple’s), and was stared at and honoured as became
+the returned Crusoe of the hour. But whether or not because
+Casterbridge was difficult to excite by dramatic returns and
+disappearances through having been for centuries an assize town, in
+which sensational exits from the world, antipodean absences, and such
+like, were half-yearly occurrences, the inhabitants did not altogether
+lose their equanimity on his account. On the fourth morning he was
+discovered disconsolately climbing a hill, in his craving to get a
+glimpse of the sea from somewhere or other. The contiguity of salt
+water proved to be such a necessity of his existence that he preferred
+Budmouth as a place of residence, notwithstanding the society of his
+daughter in the other town. Thither he went, and settled in lodgings in
+a green-shuttered cottage which had a bow-window, jutting out
+sufficiently to afford glimpses of a vertical strip of blue sea to any
+one opening the sash, and leaning forward far enough to look through a
+narrow lane of tall intervening houses.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her upstairs parlour,
+critically surveying some re-arrangement of articles with her head to
+one side, when the housemaid came in with the announcement, “Oh, please
+ma’am, we know now how that bird-cage came there.”
+
+In exploring her new domain during the first week of residence, gazing
+with critical satisfaction on this cheerful room and that, penetrating
+cautiously into dark cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to the
+garden, now leaf-strewn by autumn winds, and thus, like a wise
+field-marshal, estimating the capabilities of the site whereon she was
+about to open her housekeeping campaign—Mrs. Donald Farfrae had
+discovered in a screened corner a new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper,
+and at the bottom of the cage a little ball of feathers—the dead body
+of a goldfinch. Nobody could tell her how the bird and cage had come
+there, though that the poor little songster had been starved to death
+was evident. The sadness of the incident had made an impression on her.
+She had not been able to forget it for days, despite Farfrae’s tender
+banter; and now when the matter had been nearly forgotten it was again
+revived.
+
+“Oh, please ma’am, we know how the bird-cage came there. That farmer’s
+man who called on the evening of the wedding—he was seen wi’ it in his
+hand as he came up the street; and ’tis thoughted that he put it down
+while he came in with his message, and then went away forgetting where
+he had left it.”
+
+This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and in thinking she seized
+hold of the idea, at one feminine bound, that the caged bird had been
+brought by Henchard for her as a wedding gift and token of repentance.
+He had not expressed to her any regrets or excuses for what he had done
+in the past; but it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and
+live on as one of his own worst accusers. She went out, looked at the
+cage, buried the starved little singer, and from that hour her heart
+softened towards the self-alienated man.
+
+When her husband came in she told him her solution of the bird-cage
+mystery; and begged Donald to help her in finding out, as soon as
+possible, whither Henchard had banished himself, that she might make
+her peace with him; try to do something to render his life less that of
+an outcast, and more tolerable to him. Although Farfrae had never so
+passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had liked him, he had, on the
+other hand, never so passionately hated in the same direction as his
+former friend had done, and he was therefore not the least indisposed
+to assist Elizabeth-Jane in her laudable plan.
+
+But it was by no means easy to set about discovering Henchard. He had
+apparently sunk into the earth on leaving Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae’s door.
+Elizabeth-Jane remembered what he had once attempted; and trembled.
+
+But though she did not know it Henchard had become a changed man since
+then—as far, that is, as change of emotional basis can justify such a
+radical phrase; and she needed not to fear. In a few days Farfrae’s
+inquiries elicited that Henchard had been seen by one who knew him
+walking steadily along the Melchester highway eastward, at twelve
+o’clock at night—in other words, retracing his steps on the road by
+which he had come.
+
+This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae might have been
+discovered driving his gig out of Casterbridge in that direction,
+Elizabeth-Jane sitting beside him, wrapped in a thick flat fur—the
+victorine of the period—her complexion somewhat richer than formerly,
+and an incipient matronly dignity, which the serene Minerva-eyes of one
+“whose gestures beamed with mind” made becoming, settling on her face.
+Having herself arrived at a promising haven from at least the grosser
+troubles of her life, her object was to place Henchard in some similar
+quietude before he should sink into that lower stage of existence which
+was only too possible to him now.
+
+After driving along the highway for a few miles they made further
+inquiries, and learnt of a road-mender, who had been working
+thereabouts for weeks, that he had observed such a man at the time
+mentioned; he had left the Melchester coachroad at Weatherbury by a
+forking highway which skirted the north of Egdon Heath. Into this road
+they directed the horse’s head, and soon were bowling across that
+ancient country whose surface never had been stirred to a finger’s
+depth, save by the scratchings of rabbits, since brushed by the feet of
+the earliest tribes. The tumuli these had left behind, dun and shagged
+with heather, jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as though
+they were the full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinely extended
+there.
+
+They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard. Farfrae drove onward, and
+by the afternoon reached the neighbourhood of some extension of the
+heath to the north of Anglebury, a prominent feature of which, in the
+form of a blasted clump of firs on a summit of a hill, they soon passed
+under. That the road they were following had, up to this point, been
+Henchard’s track on foot they were pretty certain; but the
+ramifications which now began to reveal themselves in the route made
+further progress in the right direction a matter of pure guess-work,
+and Donald strongly advised his wife to give up the search in person,
+and trust to other means for obtaining news of her stepfather. They
+were now a score of miles at least from home, but, by resting the horse
+for a couple of hours at a village they had just traversed, it would be
+possible to get back to Casterbridge that same day, while to go much
+further afield would reduce them to the necessity of camping out for
+the night, “and that will make a hole in a sovereign,” said Farfrae.
+She pondered the position, and agreed with him.
+
+He accordingly drew rein, but before reversing their direction paused a
+moment and looked vaguely round upon the wide country which the
+elevated position disclosed. While they looked a solitary human form
+came from under the clump of trees, and crossed ahead of them. The
+person was some labourer; his gait was shambling, his regard fixed in
+front of him as absolutely as if he wore blinkers; and in his hand he
+carried a few sticks. Having crossed the road he descended into a
+ravine, where a cottage revealed itself, which he entered.
+
+“If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say that must be
+poor Whittle. ’Tis just like him,” observed Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+“And it may be Whittle, for he’s never been to the yard these three
+weeks, going away without saying any word at all; and I owing him for
+two days’ work, without knowing who to pay it to.”
+
+The possibility led them to alight, and at least make an inquiry at the
+cottage. Farfrae hitched the reins to the gate-post, and they
+approached what was of humble dwellings surely the humblest. The walls,
+built of kneaded clay originally faced with a trowel, had been worn by
+years of rain-washings to a lumpy crumbling surface, channelled and
+sunken from its plane, its gray rents held together here and there by a
+leafy strap of ivy which could scarcely find substance enough for the
+purpose. The rafters were sunken, and the thatch of the roof in ragged
+holes. Leaves from the fence had been blown into the corners of the
+doorway, and lay there undisturbed. The door was ajar; Farfrae knocked;
+and he who stood before them was Whittle, as they had conjectured.
+
+His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lighting on them with
+an unfocused gaze; and he still held in his hand the few sticks he had
+been out to gather. As soon as he recognized them he started.
+
+“What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?” said Farfrae.
+
+“Ay, yes sir! You see he was kind-like to mother when she wer here
+below, though ’a was rough to me.”
+
+“Who are you talking of?”
+
+“O sir—Mr. Henchet! Didn’t ye know it? He’s just gone—about
+half-an-hour ago, by the sun; for I’ve got no watch to my name.”
+
+“Not—dead?” faltered Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+“Yes, ma’am, he’s gone! He was kind-like to mother when she wer here
+below, sending her the best ship-coal, and hardly any ashes from it at
+all; and taties, and such-like that were very needful to her. I seed en
+go down street on the night of your worshipful’s wedding to the lady at
+yer side, and I thought he looked low and faltering. And I followed en
+over Grey’s Bridge, and he turned and zeed me, and said, ‘You go back!’
+But I followed, and he turned again, and said, ‘Do you hear, sir? Go
+back!’ But I zeed that he was low, and I followed on still. Then ’a
+said, ‘Whittle, what do ye follow me for when I’ve told ye to go back
+all these times?’ And I said, ‘Because, sir, I see things be bad with
+’ee, and ye wer kind-like to mother if ye wer rough to me, and I would
+fain be kind-like to you.’ Then he walked on, and I followed; and he
+never complained at me no more. We walked on like that all night; and
+in the blue o’ the morning, when ’twas hardly day, I looked ahead o’
+me, and I zeed that he wambled, and could hardly drag along. By the
+time we had got past here, but I had seen that this house was empty as
+I went by, and I got him to come back; and I took down the boards from
+the windows, and helped him inside. ‘What, Whittle,’ he said, ‘and can
+ye really be such a poor fond fool as to care for such a wretch as I!’
+Then I went on further, and some neighbourly woodmen lent me a bed, and
+a chair, and a few other traps, and we brought ’em here, and made him
+as comfortable as we could. But he didn’t gain strength, for you see,
+ma’am, he couldn’t eat—no appetite at all—and he got weaker; and to-day
+he died. One of the neighbours have gone to get a man to measure him.”
+
+“Dear me—is that so!” said Farfrae.
+
+As for Elizabeth, she said nothing.
+
+“Upon the head of his bed he pinned a piece of paper, with some writing
+upon it,” continued Abel Whittle. “But not being a man o’ letters, I
+can’t read writing; so I don’t know what it is. I can get it and show
+ye.”
+
+They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage; returning in a
+moment with a crumpled scrap of paper. On it there was pencilled as
+follows:—
+
+MICHAEL HENCHARD’S WILL.
+“That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve
+on account of me.
+“& that I be not bury’d in consecrated ground.
+“& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.
+“& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.
+“& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.
+“& that no flours be planted on my grave.
+“& that no man remember me.
+“To this I put my name.
+
+
+“MICHAEL HENCHARD.”
+
+
+“What are we to do?” said Donald, when he had handed the paper to her.
+
+She could not answer distinctly. “O Donald!” she cried at last through
+her tears, “what bitterness lies there! O I would not have minded so
+much if it had not been for my unkindness at that last parting!... But
+there’s no altering—so it must be.”
+
+What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dying was respected as
+far as practicable by Elizabeth-Jane, though less from a sense of the
+sacredness of last words, as such, than from her independent knowledge
+that the man who wrote them meant what he said. She knew the directions
+to be a piece of the same stuff that his whole life was made of, and
+hence were not to be tampered with to give herself a mournful pleasure,
+or her husband credit for large-heartedness.
+
+All was over at last, even her regrets for having misunderstood him on
+his last visit, for not having searched him out sooner, though these
+were deep and sharp for a good while. From this time forward
+Elizabeth-Jane found herself in a latitude of calm weather, kindly and
+grateful in itself, and doubly so after the Capharnaum in which some of
+her preceding years had been spent. As the lively and sparkling
+emotions of her early married life cohered into an equable serenity,
+the finer movements of her nature found scope in discovering to the
+narrow-lived ones around her the secret (as she had once learnt it) of
+making limited opportunities endurable; which she deemed to consist in
+the cunning enlargement, by a species of microscopic treatment, of
+those minute forms of satisfaction that offer themselves to everybody
+not in positive pain; which, thus handled, have much of the same
+inspiring effect upon life as wider interests cursorily embraced.
+
+Her teaching had a reflex action upon herself, insomuch that she
+thought she could perceive no great personal difference between being
+respected in the nether parts of Casterbridge and glorified at the
+uppermost end of the social world. Her position was, indeed, to a
+marked degree one that, in the common phrase, afforded much to be
+thankful for. That she was not demonstratively thankful was no fault of
+hers. Her experience had been of a kind to teach her, rightly or
+wrongly, that the doubtful honour of a brief transit through a sorry
+world hardly called for effusiveness, even when the path was suddenly
+irradiated at some half-way point by daybeams rich as hers. But her
+strong sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than
+was given, did not blind her to the fact that there were others
+receiving less who had deserved much more. And in being forced to class
+herself among the fortunate she did not cease to wonder at the
+persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken
+tranquility had been accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth
+had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode in a
+general drama of pain.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE ***
+
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+<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 Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy</title>
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<style type="text/css">
+
+body { margin-left: 20%;
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+
+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mayor of Casterbridge, 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 Mayor of Casterbridge</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: June, 1994 [eBook #143]<br />
+[Most recently updated: February 8, 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 MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE ***</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="cover " />
+</div>
+
+<h1>The Mayor of Casterbridge</h1>
+
+<h4>The Life and Death of a Man of Character</h4>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas Hardy</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3>Contents</h3>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">I</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">II</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">III</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">IV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">V</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">VI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">VII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">IX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">X</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">XI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">XII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">XV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">XX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">XXVI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">XXVII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">XXVIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">XXIX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">XXX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap31">XXXI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap32">XXXII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap33">XXXIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap34">XXXIV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap35">XXXV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap36">XXXVI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap37">XXXVII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap38">XXXVIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap39">XXXIX</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap40">XL</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap41">XLI</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap42">XLII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap43">XLIII</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap44">XLIV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap45">XLV</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I.</h2>
+
+<p>
+One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached one-third
+of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were
+approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They
+were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust which had
+accumulated on their shoes and garments from an obviously long journey lent a
+disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance just now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in
+profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. He
+wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit,
+which was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of the same,
+tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back
+he carried by a looped strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the
+crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the
+aperture. His measured, springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman
+as distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the
+turn and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical
+indifference personal to himself, showing its presence even in the regularly
+interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced
+along.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What was really peculiar, however, in this couple&rsquo;s progress, and would
+have attracted the attention of any casual observer otherwise disposed to
+overlook them, was the perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side
+in such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy, confidential chat of people
+full of reciprocity; but on closer view it could be discerned that the man was
+reading, or pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before his eyes
+with some difficulty by the hand that was passed through the basket strap.
+Whether this apparent cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed
+one to escape an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but
+himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the
+woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the
+highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man&rsquo;s bent
+elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his side as was
+possible without actual contact, but she seemed to have no idea of taking his
+arm, nor he of offering it; and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring
+silence she appeared to receive it as a natural thing. If any word at all were
+uttered by the little group, it was an occasional whisper of the woman to the
+child&mdash;a tiny girl in short clothes and blue boots of knitted
+yarn&mdash;and the murmured babble of the child in reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The chief&mdash;almost the only&mdash;attraction of the young woman&rsquo;s
+face was its mobility. When she looked down sideways to the girl she became
+pretty, and even handsome, particularly that in the action her features caught
+slantwise the rays of the strongly coloured sun, which made transparencies of
+her eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips. When she plodded on in the
+shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she had the hard, half-apathetic
+expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance
+except, perhaps, fair play. The first phase was the work of Nature, the second
+probably of civilization.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl in
+arms there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have
+accounted for the atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along
+with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with little
+interest&mdash;the scene for that matter being one that might have been matched
+at almost any spot in any county in England at this time of the year; a road
+neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges,
+trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the blackened-green stage of
+colour that the doomed leaves pass through on their way to dingy, and yellow,
+and red. The grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were
+powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the
+same dust as it lay on the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and
+this, with the aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every
+extraneous sound to be heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird singing a trite
+old evening song that might doubtless have been heard on the hill at the same
+hour, and with the self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of that
+season for centuries untold. But as they approached the village sundry distant
+shouts and rattles reached their ears from some elevated spot in that
+direction, as yet screened from view by foliage. When the outlying houses of
+Weydon-Priors could just be described, the family group was met by a
+turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner-bag suspended from it.
+The reader promptly glanced up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Any trade doing here?&rdquo; he asked phlegmatically, designating the
+village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the labourer did
+not understand him, he added, &ldquo;Anything in the hay-trussing line?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. &ldquo;Why, save the man,
+what wisdom&rsquo;s in him that &rsquo;a should come to Weydon for a job of
+that sort this time o&rsquo; year?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then is there any house to let&mdash;a little small new cottage just a
+builded, or such like?&rdquo; asked the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pessimist still maintained a negative. &ldquo;Pulling down is more the
+nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared away last year, and three this;
+and the volk nowhere to go&mdash;no, not so much as a thatched hurdle;
+that&rsquo;s the way o&rsquo; Weydon-Priors.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some superciliousness.
+Looking towards the village, he continued, &ldquo;There is something going on
+here, however, is there not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay. &rsquo;Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more than
+the clatter and scurry of getting away the money o&rsquo; children and fools,
+for the real business is done earlier than this. I&rsquo;ve been working within
+sound o&rsquo;t all day, but I didn&rsquo;t go up&mdash;not I. &rsquo;Twas no
+business of mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the
+Fair-field, which showed standing-places and pens where many hundreds of horses
+and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were now in great
+part taken away. At present, as their informant had observed, but little real
+business remained on hand, the chief being the sale by auction of a few
+inferior animals, that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had been
+absolutely refused by the better class of traders, who came and went early. Yet
+the crowd was denser now than during the morning hours, the frivolous
+contingent of visitors, including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier
+or two come on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly
+flocked in; persons whose activities found a congenial field among the
+peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medical men
+who travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and
+readers of Fate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they looked
+around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the down. Two, which
+stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost
+equally inviting. One was formed of new, milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags
+on its summit; it announced &ldquo;Good Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and
+Cyder.&rdquo; The other was less new; a little iron stove-pipe came out of it
+at the back and in front appeared the placard, &ldquo;Good Furmity Sold
+Hear.&rdquo; The man mentally weighed the two inscriptions and inclined to the
+former tent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;the other one,&rdquo; said the woman. &ldquo;I always
+like furmity; and so does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing
+after a long hard day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never tasted it,&rdquo; said the man. However, he gave way to
+her representations, and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow tables
+that ran down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a stove, containing
+a charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-legged crock, sufficiently
+polished round the rim to show that it was made of bell-metal. A haggish
+creature of about fifty presided, in a white apron, which as it threw an air of
+respectability over her as far as it extended, was made so wide as to reach
+nearly round her waist. She slowly stirred the contents of the pot. The dull
+scrape of her large spoon was audible throughout the tent as she thus kept from
+burning the mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins, currants, and
+what not, that composed the antiquated slop in which she dealt. Vessels holding
+the separate ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles
+close by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture, steaming hot, and
+sat down to consume it at leisure. This was very well so far, for furmity, as
+the woman had said, was nourishing, and as proper a food as could be obtained
+within the four seas; though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains of
+wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floated on its surface, might have
+a deterrent effect at first.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the man, with
+the instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly. After a mincing
+attack on his bowl, he watched the hag&rsquo;s proceedings from the corner of
+his eye, and saw the game she played. He winked to her, and passed up his basin
+in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle from under the table, slily
+measured out a quantity of its contents, and tipped the same into the
+man&rsquo;s furmity. The liquor poured in was rum. The man as slily sent back
+money in payment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to his satisfaction
+than it had been in its natural state. His wife had observed the proceeding
+with much uneasiness; but he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she
+agreed to a milder allowance after some misgiving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum being signalled for
+in yet stronger proportion. The effect of it was soon apparent in his manner,
+and his wife but too sadly perceived that in strenuously steering off the rocks
+of the licensed liquor-tent she had only got into maelstrom depths here amongst
+the smugglers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more than once said to her
+husband, &ldquo;Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may have trouble in
+getting it if we don&rsquo;t go soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He talked loud to the
+company. The child&rsquo;s black eyes, after slow, round, ruminating gazes at
+the candles when they were lighted, fell together; then they opened, then shut
+again, and she slept.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the second he
+was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the qualities signified
+by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery
+spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he was
+overbearing&mdash;even brilliantly quarrelsome.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such occasions. The ruin
+of good men by bad wives, and, more particularly, the frustration of many a
+promising youth&rsquo;s high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies
+by an early imprudent marriage, was the theme.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did for myself that way thoroughly,&rdquo; said the trusser with a
+contemplative bitterness that was well-nigh resentful. &ldquo;I married at
+eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence
+o&rsquo;t.&rdquo; He pointed at himself and family with a wave of the hand
+intended to bring out the penuriousness of the exhibition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such remarks, acted as if
+she did not hear them, and continued her intermittent private words of tender
+trifles to the sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be placed
+for a moment on the bench beside her when she wished to ease her arms. The man
+continued&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet I am a
+good experienced hand in my line. I&rsquo;d challenge England to beat me in the
+fodder business; and if I were a free man again I&rsquo;d be worth a thousand
+pound before I&rsquo;d done o&rsquo;t. But a fellow never knows these little
+things till all chance of acting upon &rsquo;em is past.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside could be heard
+saying, &ldquo;Now this is the last lot&mdash;now who&rsquo;ll take the last
+lot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings? &rsquo;Tis a very promising
+broodmare, a trifle over five years old, and nothing the matter with the hoss
+at all, except that she&rsquo;s a little holler in the back and had her left
+eye knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming along the
+road.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For my part I don&rsquo;t see why men who have got wives and don&rsquo;t
+want &rsquo;em, shouldn&rsquo;t get rid of &rsquo;em as these gipsy fellows do
+their old horses,&rdquo; said the man in the tent. &ldquo;Why shouldn&rsquo;t
+they put &rsquo;em up and sell &rsquo;em by auction to men who are in need of
+such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I&rsquo;d sell mine this minute if anybody
+would buy her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s them that would do that,&rdquo; some of the guests
+replied, looking at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True,&rdquo; said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine polish
+about the collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades that long-continued
+friction with grimy surfaces will produce, and which is usually more desired on
+furniture than on clothes. From his appearance he had possibly been in former
+time groom or coachman to some neighbouring county family. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+had my breedings in as good circles, I may say, as any man,&rdquo; he added,
+&ldquo;and I know true cultivation, or nobody do; and I can declare she&rsquo;s
+got it&mdash;in the bone, mind ye, I say&mdash;as much as any female in the
+fair&mdash;though it may want a little bringing out.&rdquo; Then, crossing his
+legs, he resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a point in the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this unexpected praise of
+his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of his own attitude towards the possessor
+of such qualities. But he speedily lapsed into his former conviction, and said
+harshly&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for this gem
+o&rsquo; creation.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned to her husband and murmured, &ldquo;Michael, you have talked this
+nonsense in public places before. A joke is a joke, but you may make it once
+too often, mind!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know I&rsquo;ve said it before; I meant it. All I want is a
+buyer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season, which had by chance
+found its way through an opening into the upper part of the tent, flew to and
+fro quick curves above their heads, causing all eyes to follow it absently. In
+watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled company neglected to
+respond to the workman&rsquo;s offer, and the subject dropped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on lacing his furmity more
+and more heavily, though he was either so strong-minded or such an intrepid
+toper that he still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as in a
+musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the original theme.
+&ldquo;Here&mdash;I am waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is
+no good to me. Who&rsquo;ll have her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the renewed inquiry was
+received with a laugh of appreciation. The woman whispered; she was imploring
+and anxious: &ldquo;Come, come, it is getting dark, and this nonsense
+won&rsquo;t do. If you don&rsquo;t come along, I shall go without you.
+Come!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes the man broke in
+upon the desultory conversation of the furmity drinkers with, &ldquo;I asked
+this question, and nobody answered to &rsquo;t. Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw
+among ye buy my goods?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman&rsquo;s manner changed, and her face assumed the grim shape and
+colour of which mention has been made.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mike, Mike,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;this is getting serious.
+O!&mdash;too serious!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will anybody buy her?&rdquo; said the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish somebody would,&rdquo; said she firmly. &ldquo;Her present owner
+is not at all to her liking!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor you to mine,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;So we are agreed about that.
+Gentlemen, you hear? It&rsquo;s an agreement to part. She shall take the girl
+if she wants to, and go her ways. I&rsquo;ll take my tools, and go my ways.
+&rsquo;Tis simple as Scripture history. Now then, stand up, Susan, and show
+yourself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t, my chiel,&rdquo; whispered a buxom staylace dealer in
+voluminous petticoats, who sat near the woman; &ldquo;yer good man don&rsquo;t
+know what he&rsquo;s saying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman, however, did stand up. &ldquo;Now, who&rsquo;s auctioneer?&rdquo;
+cried the hay-trusser.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I be,&rdquo; promptly answered a short man, with a nose resembling a
+copper knob, a damp voice, and eyes like button-holes. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;ll make
+an offer for this lady?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a supreme
+effort of will.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five shillings,&rdquo; said someone, at which there was a laugh.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No insults,&rdquo; said the husband. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;ll say a
+guinea?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces interposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven&rsquo;s love! Ah, what a
+cruelty is the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear at some figures
+&rsquo;pon my &rsquo;vation &rsquo;tis!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Set it higher, auctioneer,&rdquo; said the trusser.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Two guineas!&rdquo; said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If they don&rsquo;t take her for that, in ten seconds they&rsquo;ll have
+to give more,&rdquo; said the husband. &ldquo;Very well. Now auctioneer, add
+another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Three guineas&mdash;going for three guineas!&rdquo; said the rheumy man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No bid?&rdquo; said the husband. &ldquo;Good Lord, why she&rsquo;s cost
+me fifty times the money, if a penny. Go on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Four guineas!&rdquo; cried the auctioneer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll tell ye what&mdash;I won&rsquo;t sell her for less than
+five,&rdquo; said the husband, bringing down his fist so that the basins
+danced. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll sell her for five guineas to any man that will pay me
+the money, and treat her well; and he shall have her for ever, and never hear
+aught o&rsquo; me. But she shan&rsquo;t go for less. Now then&mdash;five
+guineas&mdash;and she&rsquo;s yours. Susan, you agree?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Five guineas,&rdquo; said the auctioneer, &ldquo;or she&rsquo;ll be
+withdrawn. Do anybody give it? The last time. Yes or no?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said a loud voice from the doorway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening which formed the door
+of the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within
+the last two or three minutes. A dead silence followed his affirmation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say you do?&rdquo; asked the husband, staring at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say so,&rdquo; replied the sailor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where&rsquo;s the
+money?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman, came in, unfolded five
+crisp pieces of paper, and threw them down upon the tablecloth. They were
+Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Upon the face of this he clinked down
+the shillings severally&mdash;one, two, three, four, five.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the same
+till then deemed slightly hypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators.
+Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and then upon the
+notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings, on the table.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the man, in
+spite of his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest. The spectators had
+indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried to
+extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he was, as a consequence,
+out of temper with the world, and society, and his nearest kin. But with the
+demand and response of real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A
+lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and change the aspect of all therein. The
+mirth-wrinkles left the listeners&rsquo; faces, and they waited with parting
+lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry
+voice sounded quite loud, &ldquo;before you go further, Michael, listen to me.
+If you touch that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no
+longer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A joke? Of course it is not a joke!&rdquo; shouted her husband, his
+resentment rising at her suggestion. &ldquo;I take the money; the sailor takes
+you. That&rsquo;s plain enough. It has been done elsewhere&mdash;and why not
+here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is
+willing,&rdquo; said the sailor blandly. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t hurt her
+feelings for the world.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, nor I,&rdquo; said her husband. &ldquo;But she is willing,
+provided she can have the child. She said so only the other day when I talked
+o&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you swear?&rdquo; said the sailor to her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; said she, after glancing at her husband&rsquo;s face and
+seeing no repentance there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain&rsquo;s
+complete,&rdquo; said the trusser. He took the sailor&rsquo;s notes and
+deliberately folded them, and put them with the shillings in a high remote
+pocket, with an air of finality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. &ldquo;Come along!&rdquo; he said
+kindly. &ldquo;The little one too&mdash;the more the merrier!&rdquo; She paused
+for an instant, with a close glance at him. Then dropping her eyes again, and
+saying nothing, she took up the child and followed him as he made towards the
+door. On reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring, flung it
+across the booth in the hay-trusser&rsquo;s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mike,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve lived with thee a couple of
+years, and had nothing but temper! Now I&rsquo;m no more to &rsquo;ee;
+I&rsquo;ll try my luck elsewhere. &rsquo;Twill be better for me and
+Elizabeth-Jane, both. So good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Seizing the sailor&rsquo;s arm with her right hand, and mounting the little
+girl on her left, she went out of the tent sobbing bitterly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A stolid look of concern filled the husband&rsquo;s face, as if, after all, he
+had not quite anticipated this ending; and some of the guests laughed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is she gone?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, ay! she&rsquo;s gone clane enough,&rdquo; said some rustics near
+the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of one conscious of
+his alcoholic load. Some others followed, and they stood looking into the
+twilight. The difference between the peacefulness of inferior nature and the
+wilful hostilities of mankind was very apparent at this place. In contrast with
+the harshness of the act just ended within the tent was the sight of several
+horses crossing their necks and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in
+patience to be harnessed for the homeward journey. Outside the fair, in the
+valleys and woods, all was quiet. The sun had recently set, and the west heaven
+was hung with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed. To watch
+it was like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened auditorium.
+In presence of this scene after the other there was a natural instinct to
+abjure man as the blot on an otherwise kindly universe; till it was remembered
+that all terrestrial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind might some
+night be innocently sleeping when these quiet objects were raging loud.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where do the sailor live?&rdquo; asked a spectator, when they had vainly
+gazed around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God knows that,&rdquo; replied the man who had seen high life.
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s without doubt a stranger here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He came in about five minutes ago,&rdquo; said the furmity woman,
+joining the rest with her hands on her hips. &ldquo;And then &rsquo;a stepped
+back, and then &rsquo;a looked in again. I&rsquo;m not a penny the better for
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Serves the husband well be-right,&rdquo; said the staylace vendor.
+&ldquo;A comely respectable body like her&mdash;what can a man want more? I
+glory in the woman&rsquo;s sperrit. I&rsquo;d ha&rsquo; done it myself&mdash;od
+send if I wouldn&rsquo;t, if a husband had behaved so to me! I&rsquo;d go, and
+&rsquo;a might call, and call, till his keacorn was raw; but I&rsquo;d never
+come back&mdash;no, not till the great trumpet, would I!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, the woman will be better off,&rdquo; said another of a more
+deliberative turn. &ldquo;For seafaring natures be very good shelter for shorn
+lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty of money, which is what she&rsquo;s
+not been used to lately, by all showings.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mark me&mdash;I&rsquo;ll not go after her!&rdquo; said the trusser,
+returning doggedly to his seat. &ldquo;Let her go! If she&rsquo;s up to such
+vagaries she must suffer for &rsquo;em. She&rsquo;d no business to take the
+maid&mdash;&rsquo;tis my maid; and if it were the doing again she
+shouldn&rsquo;t have her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an indefensible
+proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the customers thinned away from the
+tent shortly after this episode. The man stretched his elbows forward on the
+table leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore. The furmity seller
+decided to close for the night, and after seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn,
+raisins, etc., that remained on hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the
+man reclined. She shook him, but could not wake him. As the tent was not to be
+struck that night, the fair continuing for two or three days, she decided to
+let the sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and his basket
+with him. Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering the flap of the tent, she
+left it, and drove away.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the canvas when the man
+awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole atmosphere of the marquee, and a single
+big blue fly buzzed musically round and round it. Besides the buzz of the fly
+there was not a sound. He looked about&mdash;at the benches&mdash;at the table
+supported by trestles&mdash;at his basket of tools&mdash;at the stove where the
+furmity had been boiled&mdash;at the empty basins&mdash;at some shed grains of
+wheat&mdash;at the corks which dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and ends
+he discerned a little shining object, and picked it up. It was his wife&rsquo;s
+ring.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A confused picture of the events of the previous evening seemed to come back to
+him, and he thrust his hand into his breast-pocket. A rustling revealed the
+sailor&rsquo;s bank-notes thrust carelessly in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he knew now they were
+not dreams. He remained seated, looking on the ground for some time. &ldquo;I
+must get out of this as soon as I can,&rdquo; he said deliberately at last,
+with the air of one who could not catch his thoughts without pronouncing them.
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s gone&mdash;to be sure she is&mdash;gone with that sailor who
+bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here, and I had the furmity,
+and rum in it&mdash;and sold her. Yes, that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s happened and
+here am I. Now, what am I to do&mdash;am I sober enough to walk, I
+wonder?&rdquo; He stood up, found that he was in fairly good condition for
+progress, unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found he could
+carry it. Then lifting the tent door he emerged into the open air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The freshness of the
+September morning inspired and braced him as he stood. He and his family had
+been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had observed but little
+of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing. It exhibited itself as
+the top of an open down, bounded on one extreme by a plantation, and approached
+by a winding road. At the bottom stood the village which lent its name to the
+upland and the annual fair that was held thereon. The spot stretched downward
+into valleys, and onward to other uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched
+with the remains of prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the rays of a
+newly risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade of the heavily dewed
+grass, whereon the shadows of the yellow and red vans were projected far away,
+those thrown by the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape to the orbit
+of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had remained on the ground lay snug
+within their carts and tents or wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were
+silent and still as death, with the exception of an occasional snore that
+revealed their presence. But the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of the
+mysterious breeds that vagrants own, that are as much like cats as dogs and as
+much like foxes as cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one
+of the carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly lay down again. He
+was the only positive spectator of the hay-trusser&rsquo;s exit from the Weydon
+Fair-field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent thought, unheeding
+the yellowhammers which flitted about the hedges with straws in their bills,
+the crowns of the mushrooms, and the tinkling of local sheep-bells, whose
+wearer had had the good fortune not to be included in the fair. When he reached
+a lane, a good mile from the scene of the previous evening, the man pitched his
+basket and leant upon a gate. A difficult problem or two occupied his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn&rsquo;t I tell my
+name?&rdquo; he said to himself; and at last concluded that he did not. His
+general demeanour was enough to show how he was surprised and nettled that his
+wife had taken him so literally&mdash;as much could be seen in his face, and in
+the way he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge. He knew that she
+must have been somewhat excited to do this; moreover, she must have believed
+that there was some sort of binding force in the transaction. On this latter
+point he felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of character, and
+the extreme simplicity of her intellect. There may, too, have been enough
+recklessness and resentment beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle
+any momentary doubts. On a previous occasion when he had declared during a
+fuddle that he would dispose of her as he had done, she had replied that she
+would not hear him say that many times more before it happened, in the resigned
+tones of a fatalist.... &ldquo;Yet she knows I am not in my senses when I do
+that!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, I must walk about till I find her....
+Seize her, why didn&rsquo;t she know better than bring me into this
+disgrace!&rdquo; he roared out. &ldquo;She wasn&rsquo;t queer if I was.
+&rsquo;Tis like Susan to show such idiotic simplicity. Meek&mdash;that meekness
+has done me more harm than the bitterest temper!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that he must somehow
+find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and put up with the shame as best he
+could. It was of his own making, and he ought to bear it. But first he resolved
+to register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn before: and to do it
+properly he required a fit place and imagery; for there was something
+fetichistic in this man&rsquo;s beliefs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes inquisitively round
+upon the landscape as he walked, and at the distance of three or four miles
+perceived the roofs of a village and the tower of a church. He instantly made
+towards the latter object. The village was quite still, it being that
+motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills the interval between the
+departure of the field-labourers to their work, and the rising of their wives
+and daughters to prepare the breakfast for their return. Hence he reached the
+church without observation, and the door being only latched he entered. The
+hay-trusser deposited his basket by the font, went up the nave till he reached
+the altar-rails, and opening the gate entered the sacrarium, where he seemed to
+feel a sense of the strangeness for a moment; then he knelt upon the footpace.
+Dropping his head upon the clamped book which lay on the Communion-table, he
+said aloud&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of September, do
+take an oath before God here in this solemn place that I will avoid all strong
+liquors for the space of twenty-one years to come, being a year for every year
+that I have lived. And this I swear upon the book before me; and may I be
+strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this my oath!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser arose, and seemed
+relieved at having made a start in a new direction. While standing in the porch
+a moment he saw a thick jet of wood smoke suddenly start up from the red
+chimney of a cottage near, and knew that the occupant had just lit her fire. He
+went round to the door, and the housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast
+for a trifling payment, which was done. Then he started on the search for his
+wife and child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent soon enough. Though he
+examined and inquired, and walked hither and thither day after day, no such
+characters as those he described had anywhere been seen since the evening of
+the fair. To add to the difficulty he could gain no sound of the sailor&rsquo;s
+name. As money was short with him he decided, after some hesitation, to spend
+the sailor&rsquo;s money in the prosecution of this search; but it was equally
+in vain. The truth was that a certain shyness of revealing his conduct
+prevented Michael Henchard from following up the investigation with the loud
+hue-and-cry such a pursuit demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably
+for this reason that he obtained no clue, though everything was done by him
+that did not involve an explanation of the circumstances under which he had
+lost her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on, maintaining himself by
+small jobs of work in the intervals. By this time he had arrived at a seaport,
+and there he derived intelligence that persons answering somewhat to his
+description had emigrated a little time before. Then he said he would search no
+longer, and that he would go and settle in the district which he had had for
+some time in his mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not pause, except for
+nights&rsquo; lodgings, till he reached the town of Casterbridge, in a far
+distant part of Wessex.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors was again carpeted with dust.
+The trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and where the
+Henchard family of three had once walked along, two persons not unconnected
+with the family walked now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character, even to
+the voices and rattle from the neighbouring village down, that it might for
+that matter have been the afternoon following the previously recorded episode.
+Change was only to be observed in details; but here it was obvious that a long
+procession of years had passed by. One of the two who walked the road was she
+who had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her
+face had lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural change;
+and though her hair had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than
+heretofore. She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion,
+also in black, appeared as a well-formed young woman about eighteen, completely
+possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself beauty,
+irrespective of complexion or contour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard&rsquo;s
+grown-up daughter. While life&rsquo;s middle summer had set its hardening mark
+on the mother&rsquo;s face, her former spring-like specialities were
+transferred so dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that the
+absence of certain facts within her mother&rsquo;s knowledge from the
+girl&rsquo;s mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those
+facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature&rsquo;s powers of continuity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was the act
+of simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand a withy basket of
+old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with her
+black stuff gown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same track as formerly,
+and ascended to the fair. Here, too it was evident that the years had told.
+Certain mechanical improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts and
+high-fliers, machines for testing rustic strength and weight, and in the
+erections devoted to shooting for nuts. But the real business of the fair had
+considerably dwindled. The new periodical great markets of neighbouring towns
+were beginning to interfere seriously with the trade carried on here for
+centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, were about half as
+long as they had been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers,
+and other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far less
+numerous. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance,
+and then stood still.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to
+get onward?&rdquo; said the maiden.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane,&rdquo; explained the other. &ldquo;But I
+had a fancy for looking up here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was here I first met with Newson&mdash;on such a day as this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now
+he&rsquo;s drowned and gone from us!&rdquo; As she spoke the girl drew a card
+from her pocket and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and
+inscribed within a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, &ldquo;In
+affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was unfortunately lost at
+sea, in the month of November 184&mdash;, aged forty-one years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it was here,&rdquo; continued her mother, with more hesitation,
+&ldquo;that I last saw the relation we are going to look for&mdash;Mr. Michael
+Henchard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is, or was&mdash;for he may be dead&mdash;a connection by
+marriage,&rdquo; said her mother deliberately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly what you have said a score of times before!&rdquo;
+replied the young woman, looking about her inattentively. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not
+a near relation, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not by any means.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a hay-trusser, wasn&rsquo;t he, when you last heard of him?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose he never knew me?&rdquo; the girl innocently continued.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered uneasily, &ldquo;Of course not,
+Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way.&rdquo; She moved on to another part of the
+field.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think,&rdquo;
+the daughter observed, as she gazed round about. &ldquo;People at fairs change
+like the leaves of trees; and I daresay you are the only one here to-day who
+was here all those years ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not so sure of that,&rdquo; said Mrs. Newson, as she now called
+herself, keenly eyeing something under a green bank a little way off.
+&ldquo;See there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object pointed out was a
+tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a three-legged crock,
+kept hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over the pot stooped an old woman
+haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She stirred the contents of the pot with
+a large spoon, and occasionally croaked in a broken voice, &ldquo;Good furmity
+sold here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent&mdash;once thriving,
+cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with money&mdash;now tentless, dirty,
+owning no tables or benches, and having scarce any customers except two small
+whity-brown boys, who came up and asked for &ldquo;A ha&rsquo;p&rsquo;orth,
+please&mdash;good measure,&rdquo; which she served in a couple of chipped
+yellow basins of commonest clay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was here at that time,&rdquo; resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as
+if to draw nearer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t speak to her&mdash;it isn&rsquo;t respectable!&rdquo; urged
+the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will just say a word&mdash;you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her
+mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter&rsquo;s custom as soon
+as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson&rsquo;s request for a
+pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-pennyworths in
+her younger days. When the <i>soi-disant</i> widow had taken the basin of thin
+poor slop that stood for the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened
+a little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily, whispered, &ldquo;Just a
+thought o&rsquo; rum in it?&mdash;smuggled, you know&mdash;say two
+penn&rsquo;orth&mdash;&rsquo;twill make it slip down like cordial!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old trick, and shook her
+head with a meaning the old woman was far from translating. She pretended to
+eat a little of the furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so
+said blandly to the hag, &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve seen better days?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, ma&rsquo;am&mdash;well ye may say it!&rdquo; responded the old
+woman, opening the sluices of her heart forthwith. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve stood in
+this fair-ground, maid, wife, and widow, these nine-and-thirty years, and in
+that time have known what it was to do business with the richest stomachs in
+the land! Ma&rsquo;am you&rsquo;d hardly believe that I was once the owner of a
+great pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the fair. Nobody could come,
+nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs. Goodenough&rsquo;s furmity. I
+knew the clergy&rsquo;s taste, the dandy gent&rsquo;s taste; I knew the
+town&rsquo;s taste, the country&rsquo;s taste. I even knowed the taste of the
+coarse shameless females. But Lord&rsquo;s my life&mdash;the world&rsquo;s no
+memory; straightforward dealings don&rsquo;t bring profit&mdash;&rsquo;tis the
+sly and the underhand that get on in these times!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Newson glanced round&mdash;her daughter was still bending over the distant
+stalls. &ldquo;Can you call to mind,&rdquo; she said cautiously to the old
+woman, &ldquo;the sale of a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years ago
+to-day?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hag reflected, and half shook her head. &ldquo;If it had been a big thing I
+should have minded it in a moment,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I can mind every
+serious fight o&rsquo; married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even
+every pocket-picking&mdash;leastwise large ones&mdash;that &rsquo;t has been my
+lot to witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes. I think so.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The furmity woman half shook her head again. &ldquo;And yet,&rdquo; she said,
+&ldquo;I do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o&rsquo; the
+sort&mdash;a man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye,
+we don&rsquo;t gi&rsquo;e it head-room, we don&rsquo;t, such as that. The only
+reason why I can mind the man is that he came back here to the next
+year&rsquo;s fair, and told me quite private-like that if a woman ever asked
+for him I was to say he had gone
+to&mdash;where?&mdash;Casterbridge&mdash;yes&mdash;to Casterbridge, said he.
+But, Lord&rsquo;s my life, I shouldn&rsquo;t ha&rsquo; thought of it
+again!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means
+afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous
+person&rsquo;s liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly thanked her
+informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, &ldquo;Mother, do
+let&rsquo;s get on&mdash;it was hardly respectable for you to buy refreshments
+there. I see none but the lowest do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have learned what I wanted, however,&rdquo; said her mother quietly.
+&ldquo;The last time our relative visited this fair he said he was living at
+Casterbridge. It is a long, long way from here, and it was many years ago that
+he said it, but there I think we&rsquo;ll go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the village, where
+they obtained a night&rsquo;s lodging.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in
+difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her
+daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis of
+which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than
+the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent maiden had thus
+grown up in the belief that the relations between the genial sailor and her
+mother were the ordinary ones that they had always appeared to be. The risk of
+endangering a child&rsquo;s strong affection by disturbing ideas which had
+grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard too fearful a thing to contemplate.
+It had seemed, indeed folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Susan Henchard&rsquo;s fear of losing her dearly loved daughter&rsquo;s
+heart by a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own
+part. Her simplicity&mdash;the original ground of Henchard&rsquo;s contempt for
+her&mdash;had allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson had acquired
+a morally real and justifiable right to her by his purchase&mdash;though the
+exact bearings and legal limits of that right were vague. It may seem strange
+to sophisticated minds that a sane young matron could believe in the
+seriousness of such a transfer; and were there not numerous other instances of
+the same belief the thing might scarcely be credited. But she was by no means
+the first or last peasant woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser,
+as too many rural records show.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The history of Susan Henchard&rsquo;s adventures in the interim can be told in
+two or three sentences. Absolutely helpless she had been taken off to Canada
+where they had lived several years without any great worldly success, though
+she worked as hard as any woman could to keep their cottage cheerful and
+well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane was about twelve years old the three
+returned to England, and settled at Falmouth, where Newson made a living for a
+few years as boatman and general handy shoreman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during this period that
+Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom she confided her history ridiculed her
+grave acceptance of her position; and all was over with her peace of mind. When
+Newson came home at the end of one winter he saw that the delusion he had so
+carefully sustained had vanished for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her doubts if she could
+live with him longer. Newson left home again on the Newfoundland trade when the
+season came round. The vague news of his loss at sea a little later on solved a
+problem which had become torture to her meek conscience. She saw him no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liege subjects of Labour, the England of
+those days was a continent, and a mile a geographical degree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness. One day a month or so after
+receiving intelligence of Newson&rsquo;s death off the Bank of Newfoundland,
+when the girl was about eighteen, she was sitting on a willow chair in the
+cottage they still occupied, working twine nets for the fishermen. Her mother
+was in a back corner of the same room engaged in the same labour, and dropping
+the heavy wood needle she was filling she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully.
+The sun shone in at the door upon the young woman&rsquo;s head and hair, which
+was worn loose, so that the rays streamed into its depths as into a hazel
+copse. Her face, though somewhat wan and incomplete, possessed the raw
+materials of beauty in a promising degree. There was an under-handsomeness in
+it, struggling to reveal itself through the provisional curves of immaturity,
+and the casual disfigurements that resulted from the straitened circumstances
+of their lives. She was handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in the
+flesh. She possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the carking accidents
+of her daily existence could be evaded before the mobile parts of her
+countenance had settled to their final mould.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sight of the girl made her mother sad&mdash;not vaguely but by logical
+inference. They both were still in that strait-waistcoat of poverty from which
+she had tried so many times to be delivered for the girl&rsquo;s sake. The
+woman had long perceived how zealously and constantly the young mind of her
+companion was struggling for enlargement; and yet now, in her eighteenth year,
+it still remained but little unfolded. The desire&mdash;sober and
+repressed&mdash;of Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s heart was indeed to see, to hear, and
+to understand. How could she become a woman of wider knowledge, higher
+repute&mdash;&ldquo;better,&rdquo; as she termed it&mdash;this was her constant
+inquiry of her mother. She sought further into things than other girls in her
+position ever did, and her mother groaned as she felt she could not aid in the
+search.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost to them; and Susan&rsquo;s
+staunch, religious adherence to him as her husband in principle, till her views
+had been disturbed by enlightenment, was demanded no more. She asked herself
+whether the present moment, now that she was a free woman again, were not as
+opportune a one as she would find in a world where everything had been so
+inopportune, for making a desperate effort to advance Elizabeth. To pocket her
+pride and search for the first husband seemed, wisely or not, the best
+initiatory step. He had possibly drunk himself into his tomb. But he might, on
+the other hand, have had too much sense to do so; for in her time with him he
+had been given to bouts only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived, was
+unquestionable. The awkwardness of searching for him lay in enlightening
+Elizabeth, a proceeding which her mother could not endure to contemplate. She
+finally resolved to undertake the search without confiding to the girl her
+former relations with Henchard, leaving it to him if they found him to take
+what steps he might choose to that end. This will account for their
+conversation at the fair and the half-informed state at which Elizabeth was led
+onward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting solely to the dim
+light afforded of Henchard&rsquo;s whereabouts by the furmity woman. The
+strictest economy was indispensable. Sometimes they might have been seen on
+foot, sometimes on farmers&rsquo; waggons, sometimes in carriers&rsquo; vans;
+and thus they drew near to Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane discovered to her alarm
+that her mother&rsquo;s health was not what it once had been, and there was
+ever and anon in her talk that renunciatory tone which showed that, but for the
+girl, she would not be very sorry to quit a life she was growing thoroughly
+weary of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September and just before dusk,
+that they reached the summit of a hill within a mile of the place they sought.
+There were high banked hedges to the coach-road here, and they mounted upon the
+green turf within, and sat down. The spot commanded a full view of the town and
+its environs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane,
+while her silent mother mused on other things than topography. &ldquo;It is
+huddled all together; and it is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot
+of garden ground by a box-edging.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most struck the eye in
+this antiquated borough, the borough of Casterbridge&mdash;at that time, recent
+as it was, untouched by the faintest sprinkle of modernism. It was compact as a
+box of dominoes. It had no suburbs&mdash;in the ordinary sense. Country and
+town met at a mathematical line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have appeared on this fine
+evening as a mosaic-work of subdued reds, browns, greys, and crystals, held
+together by a rectangular frame of deep green. To the level eye of humanity it
+stood as an indistinct mass behind a dense stockade of limes and chestnuts, set
+in the midst of miles of rotund down and concave field. The mass became
+gradually dissected by the vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and casements,
+the highest glazings shining bleared and bloodshot with the coppery fire they
+caught from the belt of sunlit cloud in the west.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran avenues east, west,
+and south into the wide expanse of cornland and coomb to the distance of a mile
+or so. It was by one of these avenues that the pedestrians were about to enter.
+Before they had risen to proceed two men passed outside the hedge, engaged in
+argumentative conversation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, surely,&rdquo; said Elizabeth, as they receded, &ldquo;those men
+mentioned the name of Henchard in their talk&mdash;the name of our
+relative?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought so too,&rdquo; said Mrs. Newson.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That seems a hint to us that he is still here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Shall I run after them, and ask them about him&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse, or
+in the stocks, for all we know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear me&mdash;why should you think that, mother?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas just something to say&mdash;that&rsquo;s all! But we must
+make private inquiries.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The dense
+trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the open land on
+each side was still under a faint daylight, in other words, they passed down a
+midnight between two gloamings. The features of the town had a keen interest
+for Elizabeth&rsquo;s mother, now that the human side came to the fore. As soon
+as they had wandered about they could see that the stockade of gnarled trees
+which framed in Casterbridge was itself an avenue, standing on a low green bank
+or escarpment, with a ditch yet visible without. Within the avenue and bank was
+a wall more or less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed the abodes
+of the burghers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though the two women did not know it these external features were but the
+ancient defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a sense of
+great smugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same time the unlighted
+country without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its
+nearness to life. The difference between burgh and champaign was increased,
+too, by sounds which now reached them above others&mdash;the notes of a brass
+band. The travellers returned into the High Street, where there were timber
+houses with overhanging stories, whose small-paned lattices were screened by
+dimity curtains on a drawing-string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs
+waved in the breeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived their
+chief support from those adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with tiles,
+and tile roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roof of thatch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town
+depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed in the
+shop windows. Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks, spades, mattocks,
+and hoes at the iron-monger&rsquo;s; bee-hives, butter-firkins, churns, milking
+stools and pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons, and seed-lips at the
+cooper&rsquo;s; cart-ropes and plough-harness at the saddler&rsquo;s; carts,
+wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at the wheelwright&rsquo;s and machinist&rsquo;s,
+horse-embrocations at the chemist&rsquo;s; at the glover&rsquo;s and
+leather-cutter&rsquo;s, hedging-gloves, thatchers&rsquo; knee-caps,
+ploughmen&rsquo;s leggings, villagers&rsquo; pattens and clogs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken into
+the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest lamps
+sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework
+had been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in the crevices
+thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass almost as far up as the very
+battlements. From this tower the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began
+to toll with a peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and
+it was utilized by the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No
+sooner did the deep notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts than a
+clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the High Street. In a few
+minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other clocks struck eight from time to time&mdash;one gloomily from the gaol,
+another from the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of machinery,
+more audible than the note of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case-clocks
+from the interior of a clock-maker&rsquo;s shop joined in one after another
+just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a row of actors delivering their
+final speeches before the fall of the curtain; then chimes were heard
+stammering out the Sicilian Mariners&rsquo; Hymn; so that chronologists of the
+advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next hour before the whole
+business of the old one was satisfactorily wound up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves rolled
+up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up
+through her pocket hole. She carried a loaf under her arm from which she was
+pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some other women who walked with
+her, which pieces they nibbled critically. The sight reminded Mrs.
+Henchard-Newson and her daughter that they had an appetite; and they inquired
+of the woman for the nearest baker&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just
+now,&rdquo; she said, after directing them. &ldquo;They can blare their
+trumpets and thump their drums, and have their roaring
+dinners&rdquo;&mdash;waving her hand towards a point further along the street,
+where the brass band could be seen standing in front of an illuminated
+building&mdash;&ldquo;but we must needs be put-to for want of a wholesome
+crust. There&rsquo;s less good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And less good beer than swipes,&rdquo; said a man with his hands in his
+pockets.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How does it happen there&rsquo;s no good bread?&rdquo; asked Mrs.
+Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &rsquo;tis the corn-factor&mdash;he&rsquo;s the man that our millers
+and bakers all deal wi&rsquo;, and he has sold &rsquo;em growed wheat, which
+they didn&rsquo;t know was growed, so they say, till the dough ran all over the
+ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet
+pudden inside. I&rsquo;ve been a wife, and I&rsquo;ve been a mother, and I
+never see such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.&mdash;But you
+must be a real stranger here not to know what&rsquo;s made all the poor
+volks&rsquo; insides plim like blowed bladders this week?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said Elizabeth&rsquo;s mother shyly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future in this
+place, she withdrew with her daughter from the speaker&rsquo;s side. Getting a
+couple of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal,
+they next bent their steps instinctively to where the music was playing.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V.</h2>
+
+<p>
+A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now shaking
+the window-panes with the strains of &ldquo;The Roast Beef of Old
+England.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was the
+chief hotel in Casterbridge&mdash;namely, the King&rsquo;s Arms. A spacious
+bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from the open
+sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing of
+corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole interior of this
+room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the
+road-waggon office opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered
+there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about&mdash;our
+relation Mr. Henchard,&rdquo; whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry into
+Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and agitated, &ldquo;And this, I think,
+would be a good place for trying it&mdash;just to ask, you know, how he stands
+in the town&mdash;if he is here, as I think he must be. You, Elizabeth-Jane,
+had better be the one to do it. I&rsquo;m too worn out to do
+anything&mdash;pull down your fall first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed her directions and
+stood among the idlers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s going on to-night?&rdquo; asked the girl, after singling
+out an old man and standing by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right
+of converse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, ye must be a stranger sure,&rdquo; said the old man, without
+taking his eyes from the window. &ldquo;Why, &rsquo;tis a great public dinner
+of the gentle-people and such like leading volk&mdash;wi&rsquo; the Mayor in
+the chair. As we plainer fellows bain&rsquo;t invited, they leave the
+winder-shutters open that we may get jist a sense o&rsquo;t out here. If you
+mount the steps you can see em. That&rsquo;s Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the
+end of the table, a facing ye; and that&rsquo;s the Council men right and
+left.... Ah, lots of them when they begun life were no more than I be
+now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Henchard!&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means
+suspecting the whole force of the revelation. She ascended to the top of the
+steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the inn-window
+tones that strangely riveted her attention, before the old man&rsquo;s words,
+&ldquo;Mr. Henchard, the Mayor,&rdquo; reached her ears. She arose, and stepped
+up to her daughter&rsquo;s side as soon as she could do so without showing
+exceptional eagerness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before her, with its
+tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in the chair of
+dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features,
+and commanding voice; his general build being rather coarse than compact. He
+had a rich complexion, which verged on swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and
+dark, bushy brows and hair. When he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at
+some remark among the guests, his large mouth parted so far back as to show to
+the rays of the chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound
+white teeth that he obviously still could boast of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it may have been well
+that it was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon it. It fell
+in well with conjectures of a temperament which would have no pity for
+weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration to greatness and
+strength. Its producer&rsquo;s personal goodness, if he had any, would be of a
+very fitful cast&mdash;an occasional almost oppressive generosity rather than a
+mild and constant kindness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Susan Henchard&rsquo;s husband&mdash;in law, at least&mdash;sat before them,
+matured in shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined,
+thought-marked&mdash;in a word, older. Elizabeth, encumbered with no
+recollections as her mother was, regarded him with nothing more than the keen
+curiosity and interest which the discovery of such unexpected social standing
+in the long-sought relative naturally begot. He was dressed in an old-fashioned
+evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt showing on his broad breast; jewelled
+studs, and a heavy gold chain. Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to
+his wife&rsquo;s surprise, the two for wine were empty, while the third, a
+tumbler, was half full of water.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy jacket, fustian
+waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather leggings, with a basin of hot
+furmity before him. Time, the magician, had wrought much here. Watching him,
+and thus thinking of past days, she became so moved that she shrank back
+against the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which the steps gave access,
+the shadow from it conveniently hiding her features. She forgot her daughter
+till a touch from Elizabeth-Jane aroused her. &ldquo;Have you seen him,
+mother?&rdquo; whispered the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; answered her companion hastily. &ldquo;I have seen him,
+and it is enough for me! Now I only want to go&mdash;pass
+away&mdash;die.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;O what?&rdquo; She drew closer, and whispered in her
+mother&rsquo;s ear, &ldquo;Does he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I
+thought he looked a generous man. What a gentleman he is, isn&rsquo;t he? and
+how his diamond studs shine! How strange that you should have said he might be
+in the stocks, or in the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by
+contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I&rsquo;ll call
+upon him&mdash;he can but say he don&rsquo;t own such remote kin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know at all&mdash;I can&rsquo;t tell what to set about. I
+feel so down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest there
+where you be a little while&mdash;I will look on and find out more about
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I
+thought he would be&mdash;he overpowers me! I don&rsquo;t wish to see him any
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But wait a little time and consider.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her life as in
+their present position, partly from the natural elation she felt at discovering
+herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the scene. The younger guests
+were talking and eating with animation; their elders were searching for
+titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their plates like sows nuzzling for
+acorns. Three drinks seemed to be sacred to the company&mdash;port, sherry, and
+rum; outside which old-established trinity few or no palates ranged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each primed
+with a spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were promptly filled
+with grog at such high temperatures as to raise serious considerations for the
+articles exposed to its vapours. But Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this
+filling went on with great promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the
+Mayor&rsquo;s glass, who still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler
+behind the clump of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They don&rsquo;t fill Mr. Henchard&rsquo;s wine-glasses,&rdquo; she
+ventured to say to her elbow acquaintance, the old man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, no; don&rsquo;t ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy
+of that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. O yes,
+he&rsquo;ve strong qualities that way. I have heard tell that he sware a gospel
+oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever since. So they don&rsquo;t press
+him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that: for yer gospel oath is
+a serious thing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by inquiring,
+&ldquo;How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon Longways?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Another two year, they say. I don&rsquo;t know the why and the wherefore
+of his fixing such a time, for &rsquo;a never has told anybody. But &rsquo;tis
+exactly two calendar years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so
+long!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True.... But there&rsquo;s great strength in hope. Knowing that in
+four-and-twenty months&rsquo; time ye&rsquo;ll be out of your bondage, and able
+to make up for all you&rsquo;ve suffered, by partaking without stint&mdash;why,
+it keeps a man up, no doubt.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And &rsquo;a must need such
+reflections&mdash;a lonely widow man,&rdquo; said Longways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When did he lose his wife?&rdquo; asked Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never knowed her. &rsquo;Twas afore he came to Casterbridge,&rdquo;
+Solomon Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his
+ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her history of all
+interest. &ldquo;But I know that &rsquo;a&rsquo;s a banded teetotaller, and
+that if any of his men be ever so little overtook by a drop he&rsquo;s down
+upon &rsquo;em as stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Has he many men, then?&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Many! Why, my good maid, he&rsquo;s the powerfullest member of the Town
+Council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never a big
+dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but Henchard&rsquo;s
+got a hand in it. Ay, and he&rsquo;ll go into other things too; and
+that&rsquo;s where he makes his mistake. He worked his way up from nothing when
+&rsquo;a came here; and now he&rsquo;s a pillar of the town. Not but what
+he&rsquo;s been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has supplied in
+his contracts. I&rsquo;ve seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor these
+nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me unfairly ever
+since I&rsquo;ve worked for&rsquo;n, seeing I be but a little small man, I must
+say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has been made from
+Henchard&rsquo;s wheat lately. &rsquo;Tis that growed out that ye could
+a&rsquo;most call it malt, and there&rsquo;s a list at bottom o&rsquo; the loaf
+as thick as the sole of one&rsquo;s shoe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the dinner
+was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm, and the
+windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard. Henchard&rsquo;s
+voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his hay-dealing
+experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had been bent upon
+outwitting him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha-ha-ha!&rdquo; responded his audience at the upshot of the story; and
+hilarity was general till a new voice arose with, &ldquo;This is all very well;
+but how about the bad bread?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a group of minor
+tradesmen who, although part of the company, appeared to be a little below the
+social level of the others; and who seemed to nourish a certain independence of
+opinion and carry on discussions not quite in harmony with those at the head;
+just as the west end of a church is sometimes persistently found to sing out of
+time and tune with the leading spirits in the chancel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite satisfaction to the
+loungers outside, several of whom were in the mood which finds its pleasure in
+others&rsquo; discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely, &ldquo;Hey!
+How about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor?&rdquo; Moreover, feeling none of the
+restraints of those who shared the feast, they could afford to add, &ldquo;You
+rather ought to tell the story o&rsquo; that, sir!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;But I was taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who bought it
+o&rsquo; me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no,&rdquo; said the
+inharmonious man outside the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland
+surface&mdash;the temper which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife
+nearly a score of years before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of
+that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have mended my
+arrangements on account o&rsquo;t. Since I have found my business too large to
+be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for a thorough good man
+as manager of the corn department. When I&rsquo;ve got him you will find these
+mistakes will no longer occur&mdash;matters will be better looked into.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?&rdquo; inquired
+the man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller.
+&ldquo;Will you replace the grown flour we&rsquo;ve still got by sound
+grain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s face had become still more stern at these interruptions, and
+he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time. Instead
+of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat
+I&rsquo;ll take it back with pleasure. But it can&rsquo;t be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this, he sat down.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Now the group outside the window had within the last few minutes been
+reinforced by new arrivals, some of them respectable shopkeepers and their
+assistants, who had come out for a whiff of air after putting up the shutters
+for the night; some of them of a lower class. Distinct from either there
+appeared a stranger&mdash;a young man of remarkably pleasant aspect&mdash;who
+carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the smart floral pattern prevalent in such
+articles at that time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed, and slight in build. He
+might possibly have passed by without stopping at all, or at most for half a
+minute to glance in at the scene, had not his advent coincided with the
+discussion on corn and bread, in which event this history had never been
+enacted. But the subject seemed to arrest him, and he whispered some inquiries
+of the other bystanders, and remained listening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he heard Henchard&rsquo;s closing words, &ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be
+done,&rdquo; he smiled impulsively, drew out his pocketbook, and wrote down a
+few words by the aid of the light in the window. He tore out the leaf, folded
+and directed it, and seemed about to throw it in through the open sash upon the
+dining-table; but, on second thoughts, edged himself through the loiterers,
+till he reached the door of the hotel, where one of the waiters who had been
+serving inside was now idly leaning against the doorpost.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Give this to the Mayor at once,&rdquo; he said, handing in his hasty
+note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words, which attracted her
+both by their subject and by their accent&mdash;a strange one for those parts.
+It was quaint and northerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that&rsquo;s a little more
+moderate than this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very good
+place,&rdquo; he languidly answered; &ldquo;but I have never stayed there
+myself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled on in the
+direction of the Three Mariners aforesaid, apparently more concerned about the
+question of an inn than about the fate of his note, now that the momentary
+impulse of writing it was over. While he was disappearing slowly down the
+street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane saw with some interest the
+note brought into the dining-room and handed to the Mayor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand, and glanced it
+through. Thereupon it was curious to note an unexpected effect. The nettled,
+clouded aspect which had held possession of his face since the subject of his
+corn-dealings had been broached, changed itself into one of arrested attention.
+He read the note slowly, and fell into thought, not moody, but fitfully
+intense, as that of a man who has been captured by an idea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time toasts and speeches had given place to songs, the wheat subject
+being quite forgotten. Men were putting their heads together in twos and
+threes, telling good stories, with pantomimic laughter which reached convulsive
+grimace. Some were beginning to look as if they did not know how they had come
+there, what they had come for, or how they were going to get home again; and
+provisionally sat on with a dazed smile. Square-built men showed a tendency to
+become hunchbacks; men with a dignified presence lost it in a curious obliquity
+of figure, in which their features grew disarranged and one-sided, whilst the
+heads of a few who had dined with extreme thoroughness were somehow sinking
+into their shoulders, the corners of their mouth and eyes being bent upwards by
+the subsidence. Only Henchard did not conform to these flexuous changes; he
+remained stately and vertical, silently thinking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The clock struck nine. Elizabeth-Jane turned to her companion. &ldquo;The
+evening is drawing on, mother,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What do you propose to
+do?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was surprised to find how irresolute her mother had become. &ldquo;We must
+get a place to lie down in,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;I have seen&mdash;Mr.
+Henchard; and that&rsquo;s all I wanted to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s enough for to-night, at any rate,&rdquo; Elizabeth-Jane
+replied soothingly. &ldquo;We can think to-morrow what is best to do about him.
+The question now is&mdash;is it not?&mdash;how shall we find a lodging?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s mind reverted to the words
+of the waiter, that the Three Mariners was an inn of moderate charges. A
+recommendation good for one person was probably good for another.
+&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s go where the young man has gone to,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;He is respectable. What do you say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mother assented, and down the street they went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meantime the Mayor&rsquo;s thoughtfulness, engendered by the note as
+stated, continued to hold him in abstraction; till, whispering to his neighbour
+to take his place, he found opportunity to leave the chair. This was just after
+the departure of his wife and Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter, and beckoning to him
+asked who had brought the note which had been handed in a quarter of an hour
+before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A young man, sir&mdash;a sort of traveller. He was a Scotchman
+seemingly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did he say how he had got it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;wrote it himself.... Is the young man in the hotel?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners, I believe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of the hotel with his hands under
+his coat tails, as if he were merely seeking a cooler atmosphere than that of
+the room he had quitted. But there could be no doubt that he was in reality
+still possessed to the full by the new idea, whatever that might be. At length
+he went back to the door of the dining-room, paused, and found that the songs,
+toasts, and conversation were proceeding quite satisfactorily without his
+presence. The Corporation, private residents, and major and minor tradesmen
+had, in fact, gone in for comforting beverages to such an extent that they had
+quite forgotten, not only the Mayor, but all those vast, political, religious,
+and social differences which they felt necessary to maintain in the daytime,
+and which separated them like iron grills. Seeing this the Mayor took his hat,
+and when the waiter had helped him on with a thin holland overcoat, went out
+and stood under the portico.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes, by a sort of attraction,
+turned and dwelt upon a spot about a hundred yards further down. It was the
+house to which the writer of the note had gone&mdash;the Three
+Mariners&mdash;whose two prominent Elizabethan gables, bow-window, and
+passage-light could be seen from where he stood. Having kept his eyes on it for
+a while he strolled in that direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, now, unfortunately,
+pulled down, was built of mellow sandstone, with mullioned windows of the same
+material, markedly out of perpendicular from the settlement of foundations. The
+bay window projecting into the street, whose interior was so popular among the
+frequenters of the inn, was closed with shutters, in each of which appeared a
+heart-shaped aperture, somewhat more attenuated in the right and left
+ventricles than is seen in Nature. Inside these illuminated holes, at a
+distance of about three inches, were ranged at this hour, as every passer knew,
+the ruddy polls of Billy Wills the glazier, Smart the shoemaker, Buzzford the
+general dealer, and others of a secondary set of worthies, of a grade somewhat
+below that of the diners at the King&rsquo;s Arms, each with his yard of clay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, and over the arch the
+signboard, now visible in the rays of an opposite lamp. Hereon the Mariners,
+who had been represented by the artist as persons of two dimensions
+only&mdash;in other words, flat as a shadow&mdash;were standing in a row in
+paralyzed attitudes. Being on the sunny side of the street the three comrades
+had suffered largely from warping, splitting, fading, and shrinkage, so that
+they were but a half-invisible film upon the reality of the grain, and knots,
+and nails, which composed the signboard. As a matter of fact, this state of
+things was not so much owing to Stannidge the landlord&rsquo;s neglect, as from
+the lack of a painter in Casterbridge who would undertake to reproduce the
+features of men so traditional.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to the inn, within which passage
+the horses going to their stalls at the back, and the coming and departing
+human guests, rubbed shoulders indiscriminately, the latter running no slight
+risk of having their toes trodden upon by the animals. The good stabling and
+the good ale of the Mariners, though somewhat difficult to reach on account of
+there being but this narrow way to both, were nevertheless perseveringly sought
+out by the sagacious old heads who knew what was what in Casterbridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants; then lowering the dignity of
+his presence as much as possible by buttoning the brown holland coat over his
+shirt-front, and in other ways toning himself down to his ordinary everyday
+appearance, he entered the inn door.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twenty minutes earlier. Outside
+the house they had stood and considered whether even this homely place, though
+recommended as moderate, might not be too serious in its prices for their light
+pockets. Finally, however, they had found courage to enter, and duly met
+Stannidge the landlord, a silent man, who drew and carried frothing measures to
+this room and to that, shoulder to shoulder with his waiting-maids&mdash;a
+stately slowness, however, entering into his ministrations by contrast with
+theirs, as became one whose service was somewhat optional. It would have been
+altogether optional but for the orders of the landlady, a person who sat in the
+bar, corporeally motionless, but with a flitting eye and quick ear, with which
+she observed and heard through the open door and hatchway the pressing needs of
+customers whom her husband overlooked though close at hand. Elizabeth and her
+mother were passively accepted as sojourners, and shown to a small bedroom
+under one of the gables, where they sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensate for the antique
+awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurity of the passages, floors, and windows,
+by quantities of clean linen spread about everywhere, and this had a dazzling
+effect upon the travellers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis too good for us&mdash;we can&rsquo;t meet it!&rdquo; said the
+elder woman, looking round the apartment with misgiving as soon as they were
+left alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I fear it is, too,&rdquo; said Elizabeth. &ldquo;But we must be
+respectable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We must pay our way even before we must be respectable,&rdquo; replied
+her mother. &ldquo;Mr. Henchard is too high for us to make ourselves known to
+him, I much fear; so we&rsquo;ve only our own pockets to depend on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what I&rsquo;ll do,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval
+of waiting, during which their needs seemed quite forgotten under the press of
+business below. And leaving the room, she descended the stairs and penetrated
+to the bar.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If there was one good thing more than another which characterized this
+single-hearted girl it was a willingness to sacrifice her personal comfort and
+dignity to the common weal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As you seem busy here to-night, and mother&rsquo;s not well off, might I
+take out part of our accommodation by helping?&rdquo; she asked of the
+landlady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been melted
+into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck, looked the girl
+up and down inquiringly, with her hands on the chair-arms. Such arrangements as
+the one Elizabeth proposed were not uncommon in country villages; but, though
+Casterbridge was old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The
+mistress of the house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made no
+objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motions from the
+taciturn landlord as to where she could find the different things, trotted up
+and down stairs with materials for her own and her parent&rsquo;s meal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While she was doing this the wood partition in the centre of the house thrilled
+to its centre with the tugging of a bell-pull upstairs. A bell below tinkled a
+note that was feebler in sound than the twanging of wires and cranks that had
+produced it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis the Scotch gentleman,&rdquo; said the landlady omnisciently;
+and turning her eyes to Elizabeth, &ldquo;Now then, can you go and see if his
+supper is on the tray? If it is you can take it up to him. The front room over
+this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponed serving herself awhile, and
+applied to the cook in the kitchen whence she brought forth the tray of supper
+viands, and proceeded with it upstairs to the apartment indicated. The
+accommodation of the Three Mariners was far from spacious, despite the fair
+area of ground it covered. The room demanded by intrusive beams and rafters,
+partitions, passages, staircases, disused ovens, settles, and four-posters,
+left comparatively small quarters for human beings. Moreover, this being at a
+time before home-brewing was abandoned by the smaller victuallers, and a house
+in which the twelve-bushel strength was still religiously adhered to by the
+landlord in his ale, the quality of the liquor was the chief attraction of the
+premises, so that everything had to make way for utensils and operations in
+connection therewith. Thus Elizabeth found that the Scotchman was located in a
+room quite close to the small one that had been allotted to herself and her
+mother.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she entered nobody was present but the young man himself&mdash;the same
+whom she had seen lingering without the windows of the King&rsquo;s Arms Hotel.
+He was now idly reading a copy of the local paper, and was hardly conscious of
+her entry, so that she looked at him quite coolly, and saw how his forehead
+shone where the light caught it, and how nicely his hair was cut, and the sort
+of velvet-pile or down that was on the skin at the back of his neck, and how
+his cheek was so truly curved as to be part of a globe, and how clearly drawn
+were the lids and lashes which hid his bent eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She set down the tray, spread his supper, and went away without a word. On her
+arrival below the landlady, who was as kind as she was fat and lazy, saw that
+Elizabeth-Jane was rather tired, though in her earnestness to be useful she was
+waiving her own needs altogether. Mrs. Stannidge thereupon said with a
+considerate peremptoriness that she and her mother had better take their own
+suppers if they meant to have any.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as she had fetched the
+Scotchman&rsquo;s, and went up to the little chamber where she had left her
+mother, noiselessly pushing open the door with the edge of the tray. To her
+surprise her mother, instead of being reclined on the bed where she had left
+her was in an erect position, with lips parted. At Elizabeth&rsquo;s entry she
+lifted her finger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meaning of this was soon apparent. The room allotted to the two women had
+at one time served as a dressing-room to the Scotchman&rsquo;s chamber, as was
+evidenced by signs of a door of communication between them&mdash;now screwed up
+and pasted over with the wall paper. But, as is frequently the case with hotels
+of far higher pretensions than the Three Mariners, every word spoken in either
+of these rooms was distinctly audible in the other. Such sounds came through
+now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her mother whispered
+as she drew near, &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis he.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who?&rdquo; said the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Mayor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The tremors in Susan Henchard&rsquo;s tone might have led any person but one so
+perfectly unsuspicious of the truth as the girl was, to surmise some closer
+connection than the admitted simple kinship as a means of accounting for them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber, the young Scotchman and
+Henchard, who, having entered the inn while Elizabeth-Jane was in the kitchen
+waiting for the supper, had been deferentially conducted upstairs by host
+Stannidge himself. The girl noiselessly laid out their little meal, and
+beckoned to her mother to join her, which Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her
+attention being fixed on the conversation through the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I merely strolled in on my way home to ask you a question about
+something that has excited my curiosity,&rdquo; said the Mayor, with careless
+geniality. &ldquo;But I see you have not finished supper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, but I will be done in a little! Ye needn&rsquo;t go, sir. Take a
+seat. I&rsquo;ve almost done, and it makes no difference at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in a moment he resumed:
+&ldquo;Well, first I should ask, did you write this?&rdquo; A rustling of paper
+followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I did,&rdquo; said the Scotchman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;I am under the impression that we
+have met by accident while waiting for the morning to keep an appointment with
+each other? My name is Henchard, ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t you replied to an
+advertisement for a corn-factor&rsquo;s manager that I put into the
+paper&mdash;ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t you come here to see me about it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the Scotchman, with some surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Surely you are the man,&rdquo; went on Henchard insistingly, &ldquo;who
+arranged to come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp&mdash;Jopp&mdash;what was his
+name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re wrong!&rdquo; said the young man. &ldquo;My name is Donald
+Farfrae. It is true I am in the corren trade&mdash;but I have replied to no
+advertisement, and arranged to see no one. I am on my way to Bristol&mdash;from
+there to the other side of the warrld, to try my fortune in the great
+wheat-growing districts of the West! I have some inventions useful to the
+trade, and there is no scope for developing them heere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To America&mdash;well, well,&rdquo; said Henchard, in a tone of
+disappointment, so strong as to make itself felt like a damp atmosphere.
+&ldquo;And yet I could have sworn you were the man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a silence, till Henchard
+resumed: &ldquo;Then I am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the few words
+you wrote on that paper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was nothing, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row about my grown
+wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn&rsquo;t know to be bad till the people
+came complaining, has put me to my wits&rsquo; end. I&rsquo;ve some hundreds of
+quarters of it on hand; and if your renovating process will make it wholesome,
+why, you can see what a quag &rsquo;twould get me out of. I saw in a moment
+there might be truth in it. But I should like to have it proved; and of course
+you don&rsquo;t care to tell the steps of the process sufficiently for me to do
+that, without my paying ye well for&rsquo;t first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man reflected a moment or two. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that I have
+any objection,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to another country, and
+curing bad corn is not the line I&rsquo;ll take up there. Yes, I&rsquo;ll tell
+ye the whole of it&mdash;you&rsquo;ll make more out of it heere than I will in
+a foreign country. Just look heere a minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in
+my carpet-bag.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and rustling; then a
+discussion about so many ounces to the bushel, and drying, and refrigerating,
+and so on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with,&rdquo; came in the
+young fellow&rsquo;s voice; and after a pause, during which some operation
+seemed to be intently watched by them both, he exclaimed, &ldquo;There, now, do
+you taste that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s complete!&mdash;quite restored,
+or&mdash;well&mdash;nearly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it,&rdquo; said the
+Scotchman. &ldquo;To fetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won&rsquo;t
+stand so much as that, but heere you go a great way towards it. Well, sir,
+that&rsquo;s the process, I don&rsquo;t value it, for it can be but of little
+use in countries where the weather is more settled than in ours; and I&rsquo;ll
+be only too glad if it&rsquo;s of service to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But hearken to me,&rdquo; pleaded Henchard. &ldquo;My business you know,
+is in corn and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply, and hay is
+what I understand best though I now do more in corn than in the other. If
+you&rsquo;ll accept the place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely, and
+receive a commission in addition to salary.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re liberal&mdash;very liberal, but no, no&mdash;I
+cannet!&rdquo; the young man still replied, with some distress in his accents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So be it!&rdquo; said Henchard conclusively. &ldquo;Now&mdash;to change
+the subject&mdash;one good turn deserves another; don&rsquo;t stay to finish
+that miserable supper. Come to my house, I can find something better for
+&rsquo;ee than cold ham and ale.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donald Farfrae was grateful&mdash;said he feared he must decline&mdash;that he
+wished to leave early next day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said Henchard quickly, &ldquo;please yourself. But I
+tell you, young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it has done for the
+sample, you have saved my credit, stranger though you be. What shall I pay you
+for this knowledge?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary to ye to use
+it often, and I don&rsquo;t value it at all. I thought I might just as well let
+ye know, as you were in a difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard paused. &ldquo;I shan&rsquo;t soon forget this,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;And from a stranger!... I couldn&rsquo;t believe you were not the man I
+had engaged! Says I to myself, &lsquo;He knows who I am, and recommends himself
+by this stroke.&rsquo; And yet it turns out, after all, that you are not the
+man who answered my advertisement, but a stranger!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, ay; that&rsquo;s so,&rdquo; said the young man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came thoughtfully:
+&ldquo;Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my poor
+brother&rsquo;s&mdash;now dead and gone; and the nose, too, isn&rsquo;t unlike
+his. You must be, what&mdash;five foot nine, I reckon? I am six foot one and a
+half out of my shoes. But what of that? In my business, &rsquo;tis true that
+strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep
+it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad at figures&mdash;a
+rule o&rsquo; thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse&mdash;I can see that.
+I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet you are not for me.
+Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young man I thought
+you were, what&rsquo;s the difference? Can&rsquo;t ye stay just the same? Have
+you really made up your mind about this American notion? I won&rsquo;t mince
+matters. I feel you would be invaluable to me&mdash;that needn&rsquo;t be
+said&mdash;and if you will bide and be my manager, I will make it worth your
+while.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My plans are fixed,&rdquo; said the young man, in negative tones.
+&ldquo;I have formed a scheme, and so we need na say any more about it. But
+will you not drink with me, sir? I find this Casterbridge ale warreming to the
+stomach.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no; I fain would, but I can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Henchard gravely,
+the scraping of his chair informing the listeners that he was rising to leave.
+&ldquo;When I was a young man I went in for that sort of thing too
+strong&mdash;far too strong&mdash;and was well-nigh ruined by it! I did a deed
+on account of it which I shall be ashamed of to my dying day. It made such an
+impression on me that I swore, there and then, that I&rsquo;d drink nothing
+stronger than tea for as many years as I was old that day. I have kept my oath;
+and though, Farfrae, I am sometimes that dry in the dog days that I could drink
+a quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think o&rsquo; my oath, and touch no strong
+drink at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll no&rsquo; press ye, sir&mdash;I&rsquo;ll no&rsquo; press ye.
+I respect your vow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt,&rdquo; said Henchard,
+with strong feeling in his tones. &ldquo;But it will be long before I see one
+that would suit me so well!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man appeared much moved by Henchard&rsquo;s warm convictions of his
+value. He was silent till they reached the door. &ldquo;I wish I could
+stay&mdash;sincerely I would like to,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;But no&mdash;it
+cannet be! it cannet! I want to see the warrld.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained each in her
+thoughts over their meal, the mother&rsquo;s face being strangely bright since
+Henchard&rsquo;s avowal of shame for a past action. The quivering of the
+partition to its core presently denoted that Donald Farfrae had again rung his
+bell, no doubt to have his supper removed; for humming a tune, and walking up
+and down, he seemed to be attracted by the lively bursts of conversation and
+melody from the general company below. He sauntered out upon the landing, and
+descended the staircase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and also that used by her
+mother and herself, she found the bustle of serving to be at its height below,
+as it always was at this hour. The young woman shrank from having anything to
+do with the ground-floor serving, and crept silently about observing the
+scene&mdash;so new to her, fresh from the seclusion of a seaside cottage. In
+the general sitting-room, which was large, she remarked the two or three dozen
+strong-backed chairs that stood round against the wall, each fitted with its
+genial occupant; the sanded floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise
+from the wall within the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator of all
+that went on without herself being particularly seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in addition to the
+respectable master-tradesmen occupying the seats of privileges in the
+bow-window and its neighbourhood, included an inferior set at the unlighted
+end, whose seats were mere benches against the wall, and who drank from cups
+instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed some of those personages
+who had stood outside the windows of the King&rsquo;s Arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel ventilator in one of the
+panes, which would suddenly start off spinning with a jingling sound, as
+suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song greeted her
+ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent of peculiar charm.
+There had been some singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman had
+made himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the
+master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a ditty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen; and the
+longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never heard any
+singing like this and it was evident that the majority of the audience had not
+heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a much greater degree than
+usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor dipped their pipe-stems in their
+ale to moisten them, nor pushed the mug to their neighbours. The singer himself
+grew emotional, till she could imagine a tear in his eye as the words went
+on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hame, and it&rsquo;s hame, hame fain would I be,<br />
+O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!<br />
+There&rsquo;s an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,<br />
+As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;<br />
+When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,<br />
+The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more eloquent
+than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of a pipe-stem too
+long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered at the
+shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act. Then the ventilator
+in the window-pane spasmodically started off for a new spin, and the pathos of
+Donald&rsquo;s song was temporarily effaced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas not amiss&mdash;not at all amiss!&rdquo; muttered
+Christopher Coney, who was also present. And removing his pipe a finger&rsquo;s
+breadth from his lips, he said aloud, &ldquo;Draw on with the next verse, young
+gentleman, please.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Let&rsquo;s have it again, stranger,&rdquo; said the glazier, a
+stout, bucket-headed man, with a white apron rolled up round his waist.
+&ldquo;Folks don&rsquo;t lift up their hearts like that in this part of the
+world.&rdquo; And turning aside, he said in undertones, &ldquo;Who is the young
+man?&mdash;Scotch, d&rsquo;ye say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe,&rdquo; replied
+Coney.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that nothing so pathetic
+had been heard at the Three Mariners for a considerable time. The difference of
+accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense local feeling, and the
+seriousness with which he worked himself up to a climax, surprised this set of
+worthies, who were only too prone to shut up their emotions with caustic words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Danged if our country down here is worth singing about like that!&rdquo;
+continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying fall,
+&ldquo;My ain countree!&rdquo; &ldquo;When you take away from among us the
+fools and the rogues, and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the
+slatterns, and such like, there&rsquo;s cust few left to ornament a song with
+in Casterbridge, or the country round.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Buzzford, the dealer, looking at the grain of the
+table. &ldquo;Casterbridge is a old, hoary place o&rsquo; wickedness, by all
+account. &rsquo;Tis recorded in history that we rebelled against the King one
+or two hundred years ago, in the time of the Romans, and that lots of us was
+hanged on Gallows Hill, and quartered, and our different jints sent about the
+country like butcher&rsquo;s meat; and for my part I can well believe
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What did ye come away from yer own country for, young maister, if ye be
+so wownded about it?&rdquo; inquired Christopher Coney, from the background,
+with the tone of a man who preferred the original subject. &ldquo;Faith, it
+wasn&rsquo;t worth your while on our account, for as Maister Billy Wills says,
+we be bruckle folk here&mdash;the best o&rsquo; us hardly honest sometimes,
+what with hard winters, and so many mouths to fill, and Goda&rsquo;mighty
+sending his little taties so terrible small to fill &rsquo;em with. We
+don&rsquo;t think about flowers and fair faces, not we&mdash;except in the
+shape o&rsquo; cauliflowers and pigs&rsquo; chaps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, no!&rdquo; said Donald Farfrae, gazing round into their faces with
+earnest concern; &ldquo;the best of ye hardly honest&mdash;not that surely?
+None of ye has been stealing what didn&rsquo;t belong to him?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Lord! no, no!&rdquo; said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly.
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s only his random way o&rsquo; speaking. &rsquo;A was always
+such a man of underthoughts.&rdquo; (And reprovingly towards Christopher):
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ye be so over-familiar with a gentleman that ye know nothing
+of&mdash;and that&rsquo;s travelled a&rsquo;most from the North Pole.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no public sympathy, he
+mumbled his feelings to himself: &ldquo;Be dazed, if I loved my country half as
+well as the young feller do, I&rsquo;d live by claning my neighbour&rsquo;s
+pigsties afore I&rsquo;d go away! For my part I&rsquo;ve no more love for my
+country than I have for Botany Bay!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said Longways; &ldquo;let the young man draw onward with
+his ballet, or we shall be here all night.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s all of it,&rdquo; said the singer apologetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Soul of my body, then we&rsquo;ll have another!&rdquo; said the general
+dealer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?&rdquo; inquired a fat woman
+with a figured purple apron, the waiststring of which was overhung so far by
+her sides as to be invisible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him breathe&mdash;let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom. He hain&rsquo;t
+got his second wind yet,&rdquo; said the master glazier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes, but I have!&rdquo; exclaimed the young man; and he at once
+rendered &ldquo;O Nannie&rdquo; with faultless modulations, and another or two
+of the like sentiment, winding up at their earnest request with &ldquo;Auld
+Lang Syne.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time he had completely taken possession of the hearts of the Three
+Mariners&rsquo; inmates, including even old Coney. Notwithstanding an
+occasional odd gravity which awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the moment,
+they began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of his mind seemed
+to raise around him. Casterbridge had sentiment&mdash;Casterbridge had romance;
+but this stranger&rsquo;s sentiment was of differing quality. Or rather,
+perhaps, the difference was mainly superficial; he was to them like the poet of
+a new school who takes his contemporaries by storm; who is not really new, but
+is the first to articulate what all his listeners have felt, though but dumbly
+till then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The silent landlord came and leant over the settle while the young man sang;
+and even Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick herself from the framework of her
+chair in the bar and get as far as the door-post, which movement she
+accomplished by rolling herself round, as a cask is trundled on the chine by a
+drayman without losing much of its perpendicular.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;no!&rdquo; said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in his
+voice, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m only passing thirrough! I am on my way to Bristol, and
+on frae there to foreign parts.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We be truly sorry to hear it,&rdquo; said Solomon Longways. &ldquo;We
+can ill afford to lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when they fall among us.
+And verily, to mak&rsquo; acquaintance with a man a-come from so far, from the
+land o&rsquo; perpetual snow, as we may say, where wolves and wild boars and
+other dangerous animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about&mdash;why,
+&rsquo;tis a thing we can&rsquo;t do every day; and there&rsquo;s good sound
+information for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens his mouth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, but ye mistake my country,&rdquo; said the young man, looking round
+upon them with tragic fixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek kindled
+with a sudden enthusiasm to right their errors. &ldquo;There are not perpetual
+snow and wolves at all in it!&mdash;except snow in winter,
+and&mdash;well&mdash;a little in summer just sometimes, and a
+&lsquo;gaberlunzie&rsquo; or two stalking about here and there, if ye may call
+them dangerous. Eh, but you should take a summer jarreny to Edinboro&rsquo;,
+and Arthur&rsquo;s Seat, and all round there, and then go on to the lochs, and
+all the Highland scenery&mdash;in May and June&mdash;and you would never say
+&rsquo;tis the land of wolves and perpetual snow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of course not&mdash;it stands to reason,&rdquo; said Buzzford.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis barren ignorance that leads to such words. He&rsquo;s a
+simple home-spun man, that never was fit for good company&mdash;think nothing
+of him, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your crock, and your
+bit of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as I may say?&rdquo; inquired
+Christopher Coney.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve sent on my luggage&mdash;though it isn&rsquo;t much; for the
+voyage is long.&rdquo; Donald&rsquo;s eyes dropped into a remote gaze as he
+added: &ldquo;But I said to myself, &lsquo;Never a one of the prizes of life
+will I come by unless I undertake it!&rsquo; and I decided to go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared not least, made
+itself apparent in the company. As she looked at Farfrae from the back of the
+settle she decided that his statements showed him to be no less thoughtful than
+his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial and impassioned. She
+admired the serious light in which he looked at serious things. He had seen no
+jest in ambiguities and roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and
+rightly not&mdash;there was none. She disliked those wretched humours of
+Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he did not appreciate them. He seemed to
+feel exactly as she felt about life and its surroundings&mdash;that they were a
+tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion,
+moments of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama. It was
+extraordinary how similar their views were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his wish to retire,
+whereupon the landlady whispered to Elizabeth to run upstairs and turn down his
+bed. She took a candlestick and proceeded on her mission, which was the act of
+a few moments only. When, candle in hand, she reached the top of the stairs on
+her way down again, Mr. Farfrae was at the foot coming up. She could not very
+well retreat; they met and passed in the turn of the staircase.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She must have appeared interesting in some way&mdash;not-withstanding her plain
+dress&mdash;or rather, possibly, in consequence of it, for she was a girl
+characterized by earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simple drapery
+accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight awkwardness of the meeting,
+and she passed him with her eyes bent on the candle-flame that she carried just
+below her nose. Thus it happened that when confronting her he smiled; and then,
+with the manner of a temporarily light-hearted man, who has started himself on
+a flight of song whose momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old
+ditty that she seemed to suggest&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;As I came in by my bower door,<br />
+    As day was waxin&rsquo; wearie,<br />
+Oh wha came tripping down the stair<br />
+    But bonnie Peg my dearie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the Scotchman&rsquo;s
+voice died away, humming more of the same within the closed door of his room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present. When soon after, the girl
+rejoined her mother, the latter was still in thought&mdash;on quite another
+matter than a young man&rsquo;s song.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made a mistake,&rdquo; she whispered (that the Scotchman
+might not overhear). &ldquo;On no account ought ye to have helped serve here
+to-night. Not because of ourselves, but for the sake of <i>him</i>. If he
+should befriend us, and take us up, and then find out what you did when staying
+here, &rsquo;twould grieve and wound his natural pride as Mayor of the
+town.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this than her mother had
+she known the real relationship, was not much disturbed about it as things
+stood. Her &ldquo;he&rdquo; was another man than her poor mother&rsquo;s.
+&ldquo;For myself,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t at all mind waiting a
+little upon him. He&rsquo;s so respectable, and educated&mdash;far above the
+rest of &rsquo;em in the inn. They thought him very simple not to know their
+grim broad way of talking about themselves here. But of course he didn&rsquo;t
+know&mdash;he was too refined in his mind to know such things!&rdquo; Thus she
+earnestly pleaded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, the &ldquo;he&rdquo; of her mother was not so far away as even they
+thought. After leaving the Three Mariners he had sauntered up and down the
+empty High Street, passing and repassing the inn in his promenade. When the
+Scotchman sang his voice had reached Henchard&rsquo;s ears through the
+heart-shaped holes in the window-shutters, and had led him to pause outside
+them a long while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow does draw me!&rdquo; he had said
+to himself. &ldquo;I suppose &rsquo;tis because I&rsquo;m so lonely. I&rsquo;d
+have given him a third share in the business to have stayed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casement next morning the mellow air
+brought in the feel of imminent autumn almost as distinctly as if she had been
+in the remotest hamlet. Casterbridge was the complement of the rural life
+around, not its urban opposite. Bees and butterflies in the cornfields at the
+top of the town, who desired to get to the meads at the bottom, took no
+circuitous course, but flew straight down High Street without any apparent
+consciousness that they were traversing strange latitudes. And in autumn airy
+spheres of thistledown floated into the same street, lodged upon the shop
+fronts, blew into drains, and innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along
+the pavement, and stole through people&rsquo;s doorways into their passages
+with a hesitating scratch on the floor, like the skirts of timid visitors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew her head and
+glanced from behind the window-curtains. Mr. Henchard&mdash;now habited no
+longer as a great personage, but as a thriving man of business&mdash;was
+pausing on his way up the middle of the street, and the Scotchman was looking
+from the window adjoining her own. Henchard it appeared, had gone a little way
+past the inn before he had noticed his acquaintance of the previous evening. He
+came back a few steps, Donald Farfrae opening the window further.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are off soon, I suppose?&rdquo; said Henchard upwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;almost this moment, sir,&rdquo; said the other. &ldquo;Maybe
+I&rsquo;ll walk on till the coach makes up on me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The way ye are going.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then shall we walk together to the top o&rsquo; town?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye&rsquo;ll wait a minute,&rdquo; said the Scotchman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand. Henchard looked at the bag as
+at an enemy. It showed there was no mistake about the young man&rsquo;s
+departure. &ldquo;Ah, my lad,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you should have been a
+wise man, and have stayed with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes&mdash;it might have been wiser,&rdquo; said Donald, looking
+microscopically at the houses that were furthest off. &ldquo;It is only telling
+ye the truth when I say my plans are vague.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the inn, and
+Elizabeth-Jane heard no more. She saw that they continued in conversation,
+Henchard turning to the other occasionally, and emphasizing some remark with a
+gesture. Thus they passed the King&rsquo;s Arms Hotel, the Market House, St.
+Peter&rsquo;s churchyard wall, ascending to the upper end of the long street
+till they were small as two grains of corn; when they bent suddenly to the
+right into the Bristol Road, and were out of view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was a good man&mdash;and he&rsquo;s gone,&rdquo; she said to herself.
+&ldquo;I was nothing to him, and there was no reason why he should have wished
+me good-bye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had moulded itself out of
+the following little fact: when the Scotchman came out at the door he had by
+accident glanced up at her; and then he had looked away again without nodding,
+or smiling, or saying a word.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are still thinking, mother,&rdquo; she said, when she turned
+inwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard&rsquo;s sudden liking for that young
+man. He was always so. Now, surely, if he takes so warmly to people who are not
+related to him at all, may he not take as warmly to his own kin?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they debated this question a procession of five large waggons went past,
+laden with hay up to the bedroom windows. They came in from the country, and
+the steaming horses had probably been travelling a great part of the night. To
+the shaft of each hung a little board, on which was painted in white letters,
+&ldquo;Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant.&rdquo; The spectacle renewed his
+wife&rsquo;s conviction that, for her daughter&rsquo;s sake, she should strain
+a point to rejoin him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end of it was that Mrs.
+Henchard decided, for good or for ill, to send Elizabeth-Jane with a message to
+Henchard, to the effect that his relative Susan, a sailor&rsquo;s widow, was in
+the town; leaving it to him to say whether or not he would recognize her. What
+had brought her to this determination were chiefly two things. He had been
+described as a lonely widower; and he had expressed shame for a past
+transaction of his life. There was promise in both.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If he says no,&rdquo; she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Jane stood, bonnet on,
+ready to depart; &ldquo;if he thinks it does not become the good position he
+has reached to in the town, to own&mdash;to let us call on him as&mdash;his
+distant kinfolk, say, &lsquo;Then, sir, we would rather not intrude; we will
+leave Casterbridge as quietly as we have come, and go back to our own
+country.&rsquo; ...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so, as I have
+not seen him for so many years, and we are so&mdash;little allied to
+him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And if he say yes?&rdquo; inquired the more sanguine one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In that case,&rdquo; answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, &ldquo;ask him
+to write me a note, saying when and how he will see us&mdash;or
+<i>me</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing. &ldquo;And tell
+him,&rdquo; continued her mother, &ldquo;that I fully know I have no claim upon
+him&mdash;that I am glad to find he is thriving; that I hope his life may be
+long and happy&mdash;there, go.&rdquo; Thus with a half-hearted willingness, a
+smothered reluctance, did the poor forgiving woman start her unconscious
+daughter on this errand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about ten o&rsquo;clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth paced up the
+High Street, in no great hurry; for to herself her position was only that of a
+poor relation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The front doors of the private
+houses were mostly left open at this warm autumn time, no thought of umbrella
+stealers disturbing the minds of the placid burgesses. Hence, through the long,
+straight, entrance passages thus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels,
+the mossy gardens at the back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, scarlet
+geraniums, &ldquo;bloody warriors,&rdquo; snapdragons, and dahlias, this floral
+blaze being backed by crusted grey stone-work remaining from a yet remoter
+Casterbridge than the venerable one visible in the street. The old-fashioned
+fronts of these houses, which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer
+from the pavement, into which the bow windows protruded like bastions,
+necessitating a pleasing <i>chassez-déchassez</i> movement to the time-pressed
+pedestrian at every few yards. He was bound also to evolve other Terpsichorean
+figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses,
+and the overhanging angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become
+bow-legged and knock-kneed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke so cheerfully of individual
+unrestraint as to boundaries, movables occupied the path and roadway to a
+perplexing extent. First the vans of the carriers in and out of Casterbridge,
+who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere,
+Overcombe, and many other towns and villages round. Their owners were numerous
+enough to be regarded as a tribe, and had almost distinctiveness enough to be
+regarded as a race. Their vans had just arrived, and were drawn up on each side
+of the street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between the
+pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched out half its contents
+upon trestles and boxes on the kerb, extending the display each week a little
+further and further into the roadway, despite the expostulations of the two
+feeble old constables, until there remained but a tortuous defile for carriages
+down the centre of the street, which afforded fine opportunities for skill with
+the reins. Over the pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so
+constructed as to give the passenger&rsquo;s hat a smart buffet off his head,
+as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun&rsquo;s Goblin Page, celebrated in
+romantic lore.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the pavement, their hind
+legs in the street, in which position they occasionally nipped little boys by
+the shoulder who were passing to school. And any inviting recess in front of a
+house that had been modestly kept back from the general line was utilized by
+pig-dealers as a pen for their stock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to transact business in
+these ancient streets, spoke in other ways than by articulation. Not to hear
+the words of your interlocutor in metropolitan centres is to know nothing of
+his meaning. Here the face, the arms, the hat, the stick, the body throughout
+spoke equally with the tongue. To express satisfaction the Casterbridge
+market-man added to his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of
+the eyes, a throwing back of the shoulders, which was intelligible from the
+other end of the street. If he wondered, though all Henchard&rsquo;s carts and
+waggons were rattling past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside of his
+crimson mouth, and a target-like circling of his eyes. Deliberation caused
+sundry attacks on the moss of adjoining walls with the end of his stick, a
+change of his hat from the horizontal to the less so; a sense of tediousness
+announced itself in a lowering of the person by spreading the knees to a
+lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the arms. Chicanery, subterfuge, had
+hardly a place in the streets of this honest borough to all appearance; and it
+was said that the lawyers in the Court House hard by occasionally threw in
+strong arguments for the other side out of pure generosity (though apparently
+by mischance) when advancing their own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus, or nerve-knot of
+the surrounding country life; differing from the many manufacturing towns which
+are as foreign bodies set down, like boulders on a plain, in a green world with
+which they have nothing in common. Casterbridge lived by agriculture at one
+remove further from the fountainhead than the adjoining villages&mdash;no more.
+The townsfolk understood every fluctuation in the rustic&rsquo;s condition, for
+it affected their receipts as much as the labourer&rsquo;s; they entered into
+the troubles and joys which moved the aristocratic families ten miles
+round&mdash;for the same reason. And even at the dinner-parties of the
+professional families the subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease,
+sowing and reaping, fencing and planting; while politics were viewed by them
+less from their own standpoint of burgesses with rights and privileges than
+from the standpoint of their country neighbours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the venerable contrivances and confusions which delighted the eye by their
+quaintness, and in a measure reasonableness, in this rare old market-town, were
+metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of Elizabeth-Jane, fresh from
+netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage. Very little inquiry was necessary to
+guide her footsteps. Henchard&rsquo;s house was one of the best, faced with
+dull red-and-grey old brick. The front door was open, and, as in other houses,
+she could see through the passage to the end of the garden&mdash;nearly a
+quarter of a mile off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard. She was conducted
+into the mossy garden, and through a door in the wall, which was studded with
+rusty nails speaking of generations of fruit-trees that had been trained there.
+The door opened upon the yard, and here she was left to find him as she could.
+It was a place flanked by hay-barns, into which tons of fodder, all in trusses,
+were being packed from the waggons she had seen pass the inn that morning. On
+other sides of the yard were wooden granaries on stone staddles, to which
+access was given by Flemish ladders, and a store-house several floors high.
+Wherever the doors of these places were open, a closely packed throng of
+bursting wheat-sacks could be seen standing inside, with the air of awaiting a
+famine that would not come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of the impending
+interview, till she was quite weary of searching; she ventured to inquire of a
+boy in what quarter Mr. Henchard could be found. He directed her to an office
+which she had not seen before, and knocking at the door she was answered by a
+cry of &ldquo;Come in.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her, bending over some
+sample-bags on a table, not the corn-merchant, but the young Scotchman Mr.
+Farfrae&mdash;in the act of pouring some grains of wheat from one hand to the
+other. His hat hung on a peg behind him, and the roses of his carpet-bag glowed
+from the corner of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for Mr. Henchard, and
+for him alone, she was for the moment confounded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, what it is?&rdquo; said the Scotchman, like a man who permanently
+ruled there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He&rsquo;s engaged just now,&rdquo;
+said the young man, apparently not recognizing her as the girl at the inn. He
+handed her a chair, bade her sit down and turned to his sample-bags again.
+While Elizabeth-Jane sits waiting in great amaze at the young man&rsquo;s
+presence we may briefly explain how he came there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that morning towards the
+Bath and Bristol road they went on silently, except for a few commonplaces,
+till they had gone down an avenue on the town walls called the Chalk Walk,
+leading to an angle where the North and West escarpments met. From this high
+corner of the square earthworks a vast extent of country could be seen. A
+footpath ran steeply down the green slope, conducting from the shady promenade
+on the walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp. It was by this path the
+Scotchman had to descend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, here&rsquo;s success to &rsquo;ee,&rdquo; said Henchard, holding
+out his right hand and leaning with his left upon the wicket which protected
+the descent. In the act there was the inelegance of one whose feelings are
+nipped and wishes defeated. &ldquo;I shall often think of this time, and of how
+you came at the very moment to throw a light upon my difficulty.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still holding the young man&rsquo;s hand he paused, and then added
+deliberately: &ldquo;Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost for want of a
+word. And before ye are gone for ever I&rsquo;ll speak. Once more, will ye
+stay? There it is, flat and plain. You can see that it isn&rsquo;t all
+selfishness that makes me press &rsquo;ee; for my business is not quite so
+scientific as to require an intellect entirely out of the common. Others would
+do for the place without doubt. Some selfishness perhaps there is, but there is
+more; it isn&rsquo;t for me to repeat what. Come bide with me&mdash;and name
+your own terms. I&rsquo;ll agree to &rsquo;em willingly and &rsquo;ithout a
+word of gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man&rsquo;s hand remained steady in Henchard&rsquo;s for a moment or
+two. He looked over the fertile country that stretched beneath them, then
+backward along the shaded walk reaching to the top of the town. His face
+flushed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never expected this&mdash;I did not!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+Providence! Should any one go against it? No; I&rsquo;ll not go to America;
+I&rsquo;ll stay and be your man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard&rsquo;s, returned the
+latter&rsquo;s grasp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Done,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Done,&rdquo; said Donald Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfaction that was almost fierce in
+its strength. &ldquo;Now you are my friend!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Come
+back to my house; let&rsquo;s clinch it at once by clear terms, so as to be
+comfortable in our minds.&rdquo; Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the
+North-West Avenue in Henchard&rsquo;s company as he had come. Henchard was all
+confidence now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don&rsquo;t care for a
+man,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong.
+Now I am sure you can eat another breakfast? You couldn&rsquo;t have eaten much
+so early, even if they had anything at that place to gi&rsquo;e thee, which
+they hadn&rsquo;t; so come to my house and we will have a solid, staunch
+tuck-in, and settle terms in black-and-white if you like; though my
+word&rsquo;s my bond. I can always make a good meal in the morning. I&rsquo;ve
+got a splendid cold pigeon-pie going just now. You can have some home-brewed if
+you want to, you know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too airly in the morning for that,&rdquo; said Farfrae with a
+smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, of course, I didn&rsquo;t know. I don&rsquo;t drink it because of
+my oath, but I am obliged to brew for my work-people.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard&rsquo;s premises by the back
+way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was settled over the breakfast, at
+which Henchard heaped the young Scotchman&rsquo;s plate to a prodigal fulness.
+He would not rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his luggage from
+Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the post-office. When it was done this
+man of strong impulses declared that his new friend should take up his abode in
+his house&mdash;at least till some suitable lodgings could be found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the stores of grain,
+and other stock; and finally entered the offices where the younger of them has
+already been discovered by Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X.</h2>
+
+<p>
+While she still sat under the Scotchman&rsquo;s eyes a man came up to the door,
+reaching it as Henchard opened the door of the inner office to admit Elizabeth.
+The newcomer stepped forward like the quicker cripple at Bethesda, and entered
+in her stead. She could hear his words to Henchard: &ldquo;Joshua Jopp,
+sir&mdash;by appointment&mdash;the new manager.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The new manager!&mdash;he&rsquo;s in his office,&rdquo; said Henchard
+bluntly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In his office!&rdquo; said the man, with a stultified air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mentioned Thursday,&rdquo; said Henchard; &ldquo;and as you did not
+keep your appointment, I have engaged another manager. At first I thought he
+must be you. Do you think I can wait when business is in question?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You said Thursday or Saturday, sir,&rdquo; said the newcomer, pulling
+out a letter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, you are too late,&rdquo; said the corn-factor. &ldquo;I can say no
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You as good as engaged me,&rdquo; murmured the man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Subject to an interview,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;I am sorry for
+you&mdash;very sorry indeed. But it can&rsquo;t be helped.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no more to be said, and the man came out, encountering Elizabeth-Jane
+in his passage. She could see that his mouth twitched with anger, and that
+bitter disappointment was written in his face everywhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the master of the premises. His
+dark pupils&mdash;which always seemed to have a red spark of light in them,
+though this could hardly be a physical fact&mdash;turned indifferently round
+under his dark brows until they rested on her figure. &ldquo;Now then, what is
+it, my young woman?&rdquo; he said blandly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can I speak to you&mdash;not on business, sir?&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;I suppose.&rdquo; He looked at her more thoughtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sent to tell you, sir,&rdquo; she innocently went on, &ldquo;that a
+distant relative of yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a sailor&rsquo;s widow, is
+in the town, and to ask whether you would wish to see her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rich <i>rouge-et-noir</i> of his countenance underwent a slight change.
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;Susan is&mdash;still alive?&rdquo; he asked with difficulty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you her daughter?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir&mdash;her only daughter.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;do you call yourself&mdash;your Christian name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elizabeth-Jane, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Newson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elizabeth-Jane Newson.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of his early married
+life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the family history. It was more than he
+could have expected. His wife had behaved kindly to him in return for his
+unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to her child or to the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am&mdash;a good deal interested in your news,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;And as this is not a matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we go
+indoors.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to Elizabeth, that he
+showed her out of the office and through the outer room, where Donald Farfrae
+was overhauling bins and samples with the inquiring inspection of a beginner in
+charge. Henchard preceded her through the door in the wall to the suddenly
+changed scene of the garden and flowers, and onward into the house. The
+dining-room to which he introduced her still exhibited the remnants of the
+lavish breakfast laid for Farfrae. It was furnished to profusion with heavy
+mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, with
+leaves hanging so low that they well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the
+walls on legs and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay three
+huge folio volumes&mdash;a Family Bible, a &ldquo;Josephus,&rdquo; and a
+&ldquo;Whole Duty of Man.&rdquo; In the chimney corner was a fire-grate with a
+fluted semi-circular back, having urns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and
+the chairs were of the kind which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the
+names of Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their patterns may
+have been such as those illustrious carpenters never saw or heard of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Sit down&mdash;Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;sit down,&rdquo; he said, with a
+shake in his voice as he uttered her name, and sitting down himself he allowed
+his hands to hang between his knees while he looked upon the carpet.
+&ldquo;Your mother, then, is quite well?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A sailor&rsquo;s widow&mdash;when did he die?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father was lost last spring.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard winced at the word &ldquo;father,&rdquo; thus applied. &ldquo;Do you
+and she come from abroad&mdash;America or Australia?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when we came here
+from Canada.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah; exactly.&rdquo; By such conversation he discovered the circumstances
+which had enveloped his wife and her child in such total obscurity that he had
+long ago believed them to be in their graves. These things being clear, he
+returned to the present. &ldquo;And where is your mother staying?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the Three Mariners.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?&rdquo; repeated Henchard. He
+arose, came close to her, and glanced in her face. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he
+said, suddenly turning away with a wet eye, &ldquo;you shall take a note from
+me to your mother. I should like to see her.... She is not left very well off
+by her late husband?&rdquo; His eye fell on Elizabeth&rsquo;s clothes, which,
+though a respectable suit of black, and her very best, were decidedly
+old-fashioned even to Casterbridge eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not very well,&rdquo; she said, glad that he had divined this without
+her being obliged to express it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking from his
+pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the envelope with the letter,
+adding to it, as by an afterthought, five shillings. Sealing the whole up
+carefully, he directed it to &ldquo;Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners Inn,&rdquo; and
+handed the packet to Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Deliver it to her personally, please,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;Well,
+I am glad to see you here, Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;very glad. We must have a long
+talk together&mdash;but not just now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she, who had known so
+little friendship, was much affected, and tears rose to her aerial-grey eyes.
+The instant that she was gone Henchard&rsquo;s state showed itself more
+distinctly; having shut the door he sat in his dining-room stiffly erect,
+gazing at the opposite wall as if he read his history there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Begad!&rdquo; he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t
+think of that. Perhaps these are impostors&mdash;and Susan and the child dead
+after all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him that, as regarded her,
+at least, there could be little doubt. And a few hours would settle the
+question of her mother&rsquo;s identity; for he had arranged in his note to see
+her that evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It never rains but it pours!&rdquo; said Henchard. His keenly excited
+interest in his new friend the Scotchman was now eclipsed by this event, and
+Donald Farfrae saw so little of him during the rest of the day that he wondered
+at the suddenness of his employer&rsquo;s moods.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn. Her mother, instead of taking
+the note with the curiosity of a poor woman expecting assistance, was much
+moved at sight of it. She did not read it at once, asking Elizabeth to describe
+her reception, and the very words Mr. Henchard used. Elizabeth&rsquo;s back was
+turned when her mother opened the letter. It ran thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+&ldquo;Meet me at eight o&rsquo;clock this evening, if you can, at the Ring on
+the Budmouth road. The place is easy to find. I can say no more now. The news
+upsets me almost. The girl seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so till I have
+seen you. M. H.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas. The amount was
+significant; it may tacitly have said to her that he bought her back again. She
+waited restlessly for the close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Jane that she was
+invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would go alone. But she said nothing to
+show that the place of meeting was not at his house, nor did she hand the note
+to Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest Roman
+Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct. It looked
+Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It was impossible
+to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without
+coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his
+silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years. He was mostly
+found lying on his side, in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its
+shell; his knees drawn up to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear
+against his arm, a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn
+at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified
+conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street boys and
+men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle as they passed
+by.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the discovery
+of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were quite unmoved by
+these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their time was so unlike the
+present, their hopes and motives were so widely removed from ours, that between
+them and the living there seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit
+to pass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at opposite
+extremities of its diameter north and south. From its sloping internal form it
+might have been called the spittoon of the Jötuns. It was to Casterbridge what
+the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was nearly of the same magnitude.
+The dusk of evening was the proper hour at which a true impression of this
+suggestive place could be received. Standing in the middle of the arena at that
+time there by degrees became apparent its real vastness, which a cursory view
+from the summit at noon-day was apt to obscure. Melancholy, impressive, lonely,
+yet accessible from every part of the town, the historic circle was the
+frequent spot for appointments of a furtive kind. Intrigues were arranged
+there; tentative meetings were there experimented after divisions and feuds.
+But one kind of appointment&mdash;in itself the most common of any&mdash;seldom
+had place in the Amphitheatre: that of happy lovers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible, and sequestered spot
+for interviews, the cheerfullest form of those occurrences never took kindly to
+the soil of the ruin, would be a curious inquiry. Perhaps it was because its
+associations had about them something sinister. Its history proved that. Apart
+from the sanguinary nature of the games originally played therein, such
+incidents attached to its past as these: that for scores of years the
+town-gallows had stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who had murdered her
+husband was half-strangled and then burnt there in the presence of ten thousand
+spectators. Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burning her heart
+burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all, and that not one of
+those ten thousand people ever cared particularly for hot roast after that. In
+addition to these old tragedies, pugilistic encounters almost to the death had
+come off down to recent dates in that secluded arena, entirely invisible to the
+outside world save by climbing to the top of the enclosure, which few
+townspeople in the daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So
+that, though close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be perpetrated there
+unseen at mid-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by using the central
+arena as a cricket-ground. But the game usually languished for the aforesaid
+reason&mdash;the dismal privacy which the earthen circle enforced, shutting out
+every appreciative passer&rsquo;s vision, every commendatory remark from
+outsiders&mdash;everything, except the sky; and to play at games in such
+circumstances was like acting to an empty house. Possibly, too, the boys were
+timid, for some old people said that at certain moments in the summer time, in
+broad daylight, persons sitting with a book or dozing in the arena had, on
+lifting their eyes, beheld the slopes lined with a gazing legion of
+Hadrian&rsquo;s soldiery as if watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard
+the roar of their excited voices, that the scene would remain but a moment,
+like a lightning flash, and then disappear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was related that there still remained under the south entrance excavated
+cells for the reception of the wild animals and athletes who took part in the
+games. The arena was still smooth and circular, as if used for its original
+purpose not so very long ago. The sloping pathways by which spectators had
+ascended to their seats were pathways yet. But the whole was grown over with
+grass, which now, at the end of summer, was bearded with withered bents that
+formed waves under the brush of the wind, returning to the attentive ear
+Æolian modulations, and detaining for moments the flying globes of
+thistledown.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from observation which he
+could think of for meeting his long-lost wife, and at the same time as one
+easily to be found by a stranger after nightfall. As Mayor of the town, with a
+reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to come to his house till some
+definite course had been decided on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-work and entered by the
+south path which descended over the <i>débris</i> of the former dens. In a few
+moments he could discern a female figure creeping in by the great north gap, or
+public gateway. They met in the middle of the arena. Neither spoke just at
+first&mdash;there was no necessity for speech&mdash;and the poor woman leant
+against Henchard, who supported her in his arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t drink,&rdquo; he said in a low, halting, apologetic voice.
+&ldquo;You hear, Susan?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t drink now&mdash;I haven&rsquo;t
+since that night.&rdquo; Those were his first words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she understood. After a minute
+or two he again began:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had known you were living, Susan! But there was every reason to
+suppose you and the child were dead and gone. I took every possible step to
+find you&mdash;travelled&mdash;advertised. My opinion at last was that you had
+started for some colony with that man, and had been drowned on your voyage. Why
+did you keep silent like this?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Michael! because of him&mdash;what other reason could there be? I
+thought I owed him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives&mdash;foolishly
+I believed there was something solemn and binding in the bargain; I thought
+that even in honour I dared not desert him when he had paid so much for me in
+good faith. I meet you now only as his widow&mdash;I consider myself that, and
+that I have no claim upon you. Had he not died I should never have
+come&mdash;never! Of that you may be sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tut-tut! How could you be so simple?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. Yet it would have been very wicked&mdash;if I had
+not thought like that!&rdquo; said Susan, almost crying.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;so it would. It is only that which makes me feel
+&rsquo;ee an innocent woman. But&mdash;to lead me into this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, Michael?&rdquo; she asked, alarmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and
+Elizabeth-Jane. She cannot be told all&mdash;she would so despise us both
+that&mdash;I could not bear it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear it
+either.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present belief,
+and getting matters straight in spite of it. You have heard I am in a large way
+of business here&mdash;that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I
+don&rsquo;t know what all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she murmured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering our disgrace,
+makes it necessary to act with extreme caution. So that I don&rsquo;t see how
+you two can return openly to my house as the wife and daughter I once treated
+badly, and banished from me; and there&rsquo;s the rub o&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We&rsquo;ll go away at once. I only came to see&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Susan; you are not to go&mdash;you mistake me!&rdquo; he said
+with kindly severity. &ldquo;I have thought of this plan: that you and
+Elizabeth take a cottage in the town as the widow Mrs. Newson and her daughter;
+that I meet you, court you, and marry you. Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house as
+my stepdaughter. The thing is so natural and easy that it is half done in
+thinking o&rsquo;t. This would leave my shady, headstrong, disgraceful life as
+a young man absolutely unopened; the secret would be yours and mine only; and I
+should have the pleasure of seeing my own only child under my roof, as well as
+my wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am quite in your hands, Michael,&rdquo; she said meekly. &ldquo;I came
+here for the sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave again
+to-morrow morning, and never come near you more, I am content to go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, now; we don&rsquo;t want to hear that,&rdquo; said Henchard gently.
+&ldquo;Of course you won&rsquo;t leave again. Think over the plan I have
+proposed for a few hours; and if you can&rsquo;t hit upon a better one
+we&rsquo;ll adopt it. I have to be away for a day or two on business,
+unfortunately; but during that time you can get lodgings&mdash;the only ones in
+the town fit for you are those over the china-shop in High Street&mdash;and you
+can also look for a cottage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind&mdash;you <i>must</i> start genteel if our plan is to be
+carried out. Look to me for money. Have you enough till I come back?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And are you comfortable at the inn?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and
+ours?&mdash;that&rsquo;s what makes me most anxious of all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the
+truth. How could she ever suppose such a thing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like the idea of repeating our marriage,&rdquo; said Mrs. Henchard,
+after a pause. &ldquo;It seems the only right course, after all this. Now I
+think I must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr.
+Henchard, kindly wishes us to stay in the town.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well&mdash;arrange that yourself. I&rsquo;ll go some way with
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no. Don&rsquo;t run any risk!&rdquo; said his wife anxiously.
+&ldquo;I can find my way back&mdash;it is not late. Please let me go
+alone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Right,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;But just one word. Do you forgive
+me, Susan?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind&mdash;all in good time,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;Judge me by my
+future works&mdash;good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatre while his wife
+passed out through the lower way, and descended under the trees to the town.
+Then Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by the time he reached
+his door he was almost upon the heels of the unconscious woman from whom he had
+just parted. He watched her up the street, and turned into his house.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+On entering his own door after watching his wife out of sight, the Mayor walked
+on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and thence by the back
+door towards the stores and granaries. A light shone from the office-window,
+and there being no blind to screen the interior Henchard could see Donald
+Farfrae still seated where he had left him, initiating himself into the
+managerial work of the house by overhauling the books. Henchard entered, merely
+observing, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so
+late.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He stood behind Farfrae&rsquo;s chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up
+the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard&rsquo;s
+books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman&rsquo;s perspicacity. The
+corn-factor&rsquo;s mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash
+of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such
+finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for
+grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern sense received the
+education of Achilles, and found penmanship a tantalizing art.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall do no more to-night,&rdquo; he said at length, spreading his
+great hand over the paper. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s time enough to-morrow. Come
+indoors with me and have some supper. Now you shall! I am determined
+on&rsquo;t.&rdquo; He shut the account-books with friendly force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his friend
+and employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests and impulses, and
+he yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard&rsquo;s warmth, even if it
+inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters adding to the
+liking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They locked up the office, and the young man followed his companion through the
+private little door which, admitting directly into Henchard&rsquo;s garden,
+permitted a passage from the utilitarian to the beautiful at one step. The
+garden was silent, dewy, and full of perfume. It extended a long way back from
+the house, first as lawn and flower-beds, then as fruit-garden, where the
+long-tied espaliers, as old as the old house itself, had grown so stout, and
+cramped, and gnarled that they had pulled their stakes out of the ground and
+stood distorted and writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons. The
+flowers which smelt so sweetly were not discernible; and they passed through
+them into the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hospitalities of the morning were repeated, and when they were over
+Henchard said, &ldquo;Pull your chair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow,
+and let&rsquo;s make a blaze&mdash;there&rsquo;s nothing I hate like a black
+grate, even in September.&rdquo; He applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a
+cheerful radiance spread around.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is odd,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;that two men should meet as we
+have done on a purely business ground, and that at the end of the first day I
+should wish to speak to &rsquo;ee on a family matter. But, damn it all, I am a
+lonely man, Farfrae: I have nobody else to speak to; and why shouldn&rsquo;t I
+tell it to &rsquo;ee?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any service,&rdquo; said
+Donald, allowing his eyes to travel over the intricate wood-carvings of the
+chimney-piece, representing garlanded lyres, shields, and quivers, on either
+side of a draped ox-skull, and flanked by heads of Apollo and Diana in low
+relief.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not been always what I am now,&rdquo; continued Henchard, his
+firm deep voice being ever so little shaken. He was plainly under that strange
+influence which sometimes prompts men to confide to the new-found friend what
+they will not tell to the old. &ldquo;I began life as a working hay-trusser,
+and when I was eighteen I married on the strength o&rsquo; my calling. Would
+you think me a married man?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard in the town that you were a widower.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes&mdash;you would naturally have heard that. Well, I lost my wife
+nineteen years ago or so&mdash;by my own fault.... This is how it came about.
+One summer evening I was travelling for employment, and she was walking at my
+side, carrying the baby, our only child. We came to a booth in a country fair.
+I was a drinking man at that time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so that his elbow rested on the
+table, his forehead being shaded by his hand, which, however, did not hide the
+marks of introspective inflexibility on his features as he narrated in fullest
+detail the incidents of the transaction with the sailor. The tinge of
+indifference which had at first been visible in the Scotchman now disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife; the oath he swore;
+the solitary life he led during the years which followed. &ldquo;I have kept my
+oath for nineteen years,&rdquo; he went on; &ldquo;I have risen to what you see
+me now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;no wife could I hear of in all that time; and being by nature
+something of a woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostly at a
+distance from the sex. No wife could I hear of, I say, till this very day. And
+now&mdash;she has come back.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come back, has she!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This morning&mdash;this very morning. And what&rsquo;s to be
+done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can ye no&rsquo; take her and live with her, and make some
+amends?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve planned and proposed. But, Farfrae,&rdquo;
+said Henchard gloomily, &ldquo;by doing right with Susan I wrong another
+innocent woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye don&rsquo;t say that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is almost impossible that a man of
+my sort should have the good fortune to tide through twenty years o&rsquo; life
+without making more blunders than one. It has been my custom for many years to
+run across to Jersey in the the way of business, particularly in the potato and
+root season. I do a large trade wi&rsquo; them in that line. Well, one autumn
+when stopping there I fell quite ill, and in my illness I sank into one of
+those gloomy fits I sometimes suffer from, on account o&rsquo; the loneliness
+of my domestic life, when the world seems to have the blackness of hell, and,
+like Job, I could curse the day that gave me birth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, now, I never feel like it,&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then pray to God that you never may, young man. While in this state I
+was taken pity on by a woman&mdash;a young lady I should call her, for she was
+of good family, well bred, and well educated&mdash;the daughter of some
+harum-scarum military officer who had got into difficulties, and had his pay
+sequestrated. He was dead now, and her mother too, and she was as lonely as I.
+This young creature was staying at the boarding-house where I happened to have
+my lodging; and when I was pulled down she took upon herself to nurse me. From
+that she got to have a foolish liking for me. Heaven knows why, for I
+wasn&rsquo;t worth it. But being together in the same house, and her feeling
+warm, we got naturally intimate. I won&rsquo;t go into particulars of what our
+relations were. It is enough to say that we honestly meant to marry. There
+arose a scandal, which did me no harm, but was of course ruin to her. Though,
+Farfrae, between you and me, as man and man, I solemnly declare that
+philandering with womankind has neither been my vice nor my virtue. She was
+terribly careless of appearances, and I was perhaps more, because o&rsquo; my
+dreary state; and it was through this that the scandal arose. At last I was
+well, and came away. When I was gone she suffered much on my account, and
+didn&rsquo;t forget to tell me so in letters one after another; till latterly,
+I felt I owed her something, and thought that, as I had not heard of Susan for
+so long, I would make this other one the only return I could make, and ask her
+if she would run the risk of Susan being alive (very slight as I believed) and
+marry me, such as I was. She jumped for joy, and we should no doubt soon have
+been married&mdash;but, behold, Susan appears!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donald showed his deep concern at a complication so far beyond the degree of
+his simple experiences.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now see what injury a man may cause around him! Even after that
+wrong-doing at the fair when I was young, if I had never been so selfish as to
+let this giddy girl devote herself to me over at Jersey, to the injury of her
+name, all might now be well. Yet, as it stands, I must bitterly disappoint one
+of these women; and it is the second. My first duty is to
+Susan&mdash;there&rsquo;s no doubt about that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are both in a very melancholy position, and that&rsquo;s
+true!&rdquo; murmured Donald.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are! For myself I don&rsquo;t care&mdash;&rsquo;twill all end one
+way. But these two.&rdquo; Henchard paused in reverie. &ldquo;I feel I should
+like to treat the second, no less than the first, as kindly as a man can in
+such a case.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well, it cannet be helped!&rdquo; said the other, with philosophic
+woefulness. &ldquo;You mun write to the young lady, and in your letter you must
+put it plain and honest that it turns out she cannet be your wife, the first
+having come back; that ye cannet see her more; and that&mdash;ye wish her
+weel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That won&rsquo;t do. &rsquo;Od seize it, I must do a little more than
+that! I must&mdash;though she did always brag about her rich uncle or rich
+aunt, and her expectations from &rsquo;em&mdash;I must send a useful sum of
+money to her, I suppose&mdash;just as a little recompense, poor girl.... Now,
+will you help me in this, and draw up an explanation to her of all I&rsquo;ve
+told ye, breaking it as gently as you can? I&rsquo;m so bad at letters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, I haven&rsquo;t told you quite all yet. My wife Susan has my
+daughter with her&mdash;the baby that was in her arms at the fair; and this
+girl knows nothing of me beyond that I am some sort of relation by marriage.
+She has grown up in the belief that the sailor to whom I made over her mother,
+and who is now dead, was her father, and her mother&rsquo;s husband. What her
+mother has always felt, she and I together feel now&mdash;that we can&rsquo;t
+proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her know the truth. Now what would
+you do?&mdash;I want your advice.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I&rsquo;d run the risk, and tell her the truth. She&rsquo;ll
+forgive ye both.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never!&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;I am not going to let her know the
+truth. Her mother and I be going to marry again; and it will not only help us
+to keep our child&rsquo;s respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon
+herself as the sailor&rsquo;s widow, and won&rsquo;t think o&rsquo; living with
+me as formerly without another religious ceremony&mdash;and she&rsquo;s
+right.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter to the young Jersey woman was
+carefully framed by him, and the interview ended, Henchard saying, as the
+Scotchman left, &ldquo;I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some friend
+o&rsquo; this! You see now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so thriving in
+his mind as it seems he might be from the state of his pocket.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do. And I&rsquo;m sorry for ye!&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing a cheque, took it
+to the post-office, from which he walked back thoughtfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can it be that it will go off so easily!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Poor
+thing&mdash;God knows! Now then, to make amends to Susan!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan under her name of
+Newson&mdash;in pursuance of their plan&mdash;was in the upper or western part
+of the town, near the Roman wall, and the avenue which overshadowed it. The
+evening sun seemed to shine more yellowly there than anywhere else this
+autumn&mdash;stretching its rays, as the hours grew later, under the lowest
+sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the dwelling, with its green
+shutters, in a substratum of radiance which the foliage screened from the upper
+parts. Beneath these sycamores on the town walls could be seen from the
+sitting-room the tumuli and earth forts of the distant uplands; making it
+altogether a pleasant spot, with the usual touch of melancholy that a
+past-marked prospect lends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably installed, with a
+white-aproned servant and all complete, Henchard paid them a visit, and
+remained to tea. During the entertainment Elizabeth was carefully hoodwinked by
+the very general tone of the conversation that prevailed&mdash;a proceeding
+which seemed to afford some humour to Henchard, though his wife was not
+particularly happy in it. The visit was repeated again and again with
+business-like determination by the Mayor, who seemed to have schooled himself
+into a course of strict mechanical rightness towards this woman of prior claim,
+at any expense to the later one and to his own sentiments.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard came, and he said
+drily, &ldquo;This is a very good opportunity for me to ask you to name the
+happy day, Susan.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy pleasantries on a situation
+into which she had entered solely for the sake of her girl&rsquo;s reputation.
+She liked them so little, indeed, that there was room for wonder why she had
+countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely let the girl know her
+history. But the flesh is weak; and the true explanation came in due course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Michael!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am afraid all this is taking up
+your time and giving trouble&mdash;when I did not expect any such thing!&rdquo;
+And she looked at him and at his dress as a man of affluence, and at the
+furniture he had provided for the room&mdash;ornate and lavish to her eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all,&rdquo; said Henchard, in rough benignity. &ldquo;This is
+only a cottage&mdash;it costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my
+time&rdquo;&mdash;here his red and black visage kindled with
+satisfaction&mdash;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve a splendid fellow to superintend my
+business now&mdash;a man whose like I&rsquo;ve never been able to lay hands on
+before. I shall soon be able to leave everything to him, and have more time to
+call my own than I&rsquo;ve had for these last twenty years.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s visits here grew so frequent and so regular that it soon
+became whispered, and then openly discussed in Casterbridge that the masterful,
+coercive Mayor of the town was raptured and enervated by the genteel widow Mrs.
+Newson. His well-known haughty indifference to the society of womankind, his
+silent avoidance of converse with the sex, contributed a piquancy to what would
+otherwise have been an unromantic matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman
+should be his choice was inexplicable, except on the ground that the engagement
+was a family affair in which sentimental passion had no place; for it was known
+that they were related in some way. Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the boys
+called her &ldquo;The Ghost.&rdquo; Sometimes Henchard overheard this epithet
+when they passed together along the Walks&mdash;as the avenues on the walls
+were named&mdash;at which his face would darken with an expression of
+destructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see; but he said nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with this pale
+creature in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit to his
+conscientiousness. Nobody would have conceived from his outward demeanour that
+there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as stimulant to the bustle
+going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing but three large resolves&mdash;one,
+to make amends to his neglected Susan, another, to provide a comfortable home
+for Elizabeth-Jane under his paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himself
+with the thorns which these restitutory acts brought in their train; among them
+the lowering of his dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively
+humble a woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her life when she
+stepped into the plain brougham which drew up at the door on the wedding-day to
+take her and Elizabeth-Jane to church. It was a windless morning of warm
+November rain, which floated down like meal, and lay in a powdery form on the
+nap of hats and coats. Few people had gathered round the church door though
+they were well packed within. The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of
+course the only one present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true
+situation of the contracting parties. He, however, was too inexperienced, too
+thoughtful, too judicial, too strongly conscious of the serious side of the
+business, to enter into the scene in its dramatic aspect. That required the
+special genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and their
+fellows. But they knew nothing of the secret; though, as the time for coming
+out of church drew on, they gathered on the pavement adjoining, and expounded
+the subject according to their lights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this here
+town,&rdquo; said Coney; &ldquo;but daze me if I ever see a man wait so long
+before to take so little! There&rsquo;s a chance even for thee after this,
+Nance Mockridge.&rdquo; The remark was addressed to a woman who stood behind
+his shoulder&mdash;the same who had exhibited Henchard&rsquo;s bad bread in
+public when Elizabeth and her mother entered Casterbridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be cust if I&rsquo;d marry any such as he, or thee either,&rdquo;
+replied that lady. &ldquo;As for thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and the
+less said the better. And as for he&mdash;well, there&mdash;(lowering her
+voice) &rsquo;tis said &rsquo;a was a poor parish &rsquo;prentice&mdash;I
+wouldn&rsquo;t say it for all the world&mdash;but &rsquo;a was a poor parish
+&rsquo;prentice, that began life wi&rsquo; no more belonging to &rsquo;en than
+a carrion crow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now he&rsquo;s worth ever so much a minute,&rdquo; murmured
+Longways. &ldquo;When a man is said to be worth so much a minute, he&rsquo;s a
+man to be considered!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases, and recognized the
+smiling countenance of the fat woman who had asked for another song at the
+Three Mariners. &ldquo;Well, Mother Cuxsom,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;how&rsquo;s
+this? Here&rsquo;s Mrs. Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another husband to
+keep her, while a woman of your tonnage have not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have not. Nor another to beat me.... Ah, yes, Cuxsom&rsquo;s gone, and
+so shall leather breeches!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t worth my old while to think of another
+husband,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Cuxsom. &ldquo;And yet I&rsquo;ll lay my life
+I&rsquo;m as respectable born as she.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True; your mother was a very good woman&mdash;I can mind her. She were
+rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest number of
+healthy children without parish assistance, and other virtuous marvels.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas that that kept us so low upon ground&mdash;that great hungry
+family.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And dostn&rsquo;t mind how mother would sing, Christopher?&rdquo;
+continued Mrs. Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; &ldquo;and how we went
+with her to the party at Mellstock, do ye mind?&mdash;at old Dame
+Ledlow&rsquo;s, farmer Shinar&rsquo;s aunt, do ye mind?&mdash;she we used to
+call Toad-skin, because her face were so yaller and freckled, do ye
+mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do, hee-hee, I do!&rdquo; said Christopher Coney.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And well do I&mdash;for I was getting up husband-high at that
+time&mdash;one-half girl, and t&rsquo;other half woman, as one may say. And
+canst mind&rdquo;&mdash;she prodded Solomon&rsquo;s shoulder with her
+finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled between the crevices of their
+lids&mdash;&ldquo;canst mind the sherry-wine, and the zilver-snuffers, and how
+Joan Dummett was took bad when we were coming home, and Jack Griggs was forced
+to carry her through the mud; and how &rsquo;a let her fall in Dairyman
+Sweet-apple&rsquo;s cow-barton, and we had to clane her gown wi&rsquo;
+grass&mdash;never such a mess as &rsquo;a were in?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay&mdash;that I do&mdash;hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them
+ancient days, to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; and now I can
+hardly step over a furrow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the reunited
+pair&mdash;Henchard looking round upon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze of
+his, which at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another fiery
+disdain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;there&rsquo;s a difference between &rsquo;em, though he do
+call himself a teetotaller,&rdquo; said Nance Mockridge. &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll
+wish her cake dough afore she&rsquo;s done of him. There&rsquo;s a blue-beardy
+look about &rsquo;en; and &rsquo;twill out in time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stuff&mdash;he&rsquo;s well enough! Some folk want their luck buttered.
+If I had a choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn&rsquo;t wish for a better
+man. A poor twanking woman like her&mdash;&rsquo;tis a godsend for her, and
+hardly a pair of jumps or night-rail to her name.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the idlers dispersed.
+&ldquo;Well, we hardly know how to look at things in these times!&rdquo; said
+Solomon. &ldquo;There was a man dropped down dead yesterday, not so very many
+miles from here; and what wi&rsquo; that, and this moist weather, &rsquo;tis
+scarce worth one&rsquo;s while to begin any work o&rsquo; consequence to-day.
+I&rsquo;m in such a low key with drinking nothing but small table ninepenny
+this last week or two that I shall call and warm up at the Mar&rsquo;ners as I
+pass along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know but that I may as well go with &rsquo;ee,
+Solomon,&rdquo; said Christopher; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m as clammy as a
+cockle-snail.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard&rsquo;s life set in with her entry into her
+husband&rsquo;s large house and respectable social orbit; and it was as bright
+as such summers well can be. Lest she should pine for deeper affection than he
+could give he made a point of showing some semblance of it in external action.
+Among other things he had the iron railings, that had smiled sadly in dull rust
+for the last eighty years, painted a bright green, and the heavy-barred,
+small-paned Georgian sash windows enlivened with three coats of white. He was
+as kind to her as a man, mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. The house
+was large, the rooms lofty, and the landings wide; and the two unassuming women
+scarcely made a perceptible addition to its contents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one. The freedom she
+experienced, the indulgence with which she was treated, went beyond her
+expectations. The reposeful, easy, affluent life to which her mother&rsquo;s
+marriage had introduced her was, in truth, the beginning of a great change in
+Elizabeth. She found she could have nice personal possessions and ornaments for
+the asking, and, as the mediæval saying puts it, &ldquo;Take, have, and keep,
+are pleasant words.&rdquo; With peace of mind came development, and with
+development beauty. Knowledge&mdash;the result of great natural
+insight&mdash;she did not lack; learning, accomplishment&mdash;those, alas, she
+had not; but as the winter and spring passed by her thin face and figure filled
+out in rounder and softer curves; the lines and contractions upon her young
+brow went away; the muddiness of skin which she had looked upon as her lot by
+nature departed with a change to abundance of good things, and a bloom came
+upon her cheek. Perhaps, too, her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed an arch gaiety
+sometimes; but this was infrequent; the sort of wisdom which looked from their
+pupils did not readily keep company with these lighter moods. Like all people
+who have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational and
+inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram now and then; for she
+had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly.
+She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit which beset so many people
+without cause; never&mdash;to paraphrase a recent poet&mdash;never a gloom in
+Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s soul but she well knew how it came there; and her
+present cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her solid guarantees for the
+same.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming good-looking,
+comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her life commanding ready
+money, she would go and make a fool of herself by dress. But no. The
+reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth did was nowhere more
+conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To keep in the rear of
+opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast
+of opportunity in matters of enterprise. This unsophisticated girl did it by an
+innate perceptiveness that was almost genius. Thus she refrained from bursting
+out like a water-flower that spring, and clothing herself in puffings and
+knick-knacks, as most of the Casterbridge girls would have done in her
+circumstances. Her triumph was tempered by circumspection, she had still that
+field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is
+common among the thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and
+oppression.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be too gay on any account,&rdquo; she would say to
+herself. &ldquo;It would be tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and
+afflict us again as He used to do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer, dark
+dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew the line at
+fringe, and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring for keeping it closed.
+It was odd about the necessity for that sunshade. She discovered that with the
+clarification of her complexion and the birth of pink cheeks her skin had grown
+more sensitive to the sun&rsquo;s rays. She protected those cheeks forthwith,
+deeming spotlessness part of womanliness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more frequently
+than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so attractive that he
+looked at her critically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up,&rdquo; she
+faltered, thinking him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming
+she had donned for the first time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay&mdash;of course&mdash;to be sure,&rdquo; he replied in his leonine
+way. &ldquo;Do as you like&mdash;or rather as your mother advises ye. &rsquo;Od
+send&mdash;I&rsquo;ve nothing to say to&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched like a
+white rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was covered with a
+thick encampment of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly, and drawn to a
+knob.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and Henchard
+was looking silently, as he often did, at this head of hair, which in colour
+was brown&mdash;rather light than dark. &ldquo;I thought Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s
+hair&mdash;didn&rsquo;t you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s hair promised
+to be black when she was a baby?&rdquo; he said to his wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, &ldquo;Did
+I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. &ldquo;Begad, I
+nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl&rsquo;s hair
+certainly looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It did; but they alter so,&rdquo; replied Susan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Their hair gets darker, I know&mdash;but I wasn&rsquo;t aware it
+lightened ever?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes.&rdquo; And the same uneasy expression came out on her face, to
+which the future held the key. It passed as Henchard went on:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, so much the better. Now Susan, I want to have her called Miss
+Henchard&mdash;not Miss Newson. Lots o&rsquo; people do it already in
+carelessness&mdash;it is her legal name&mdash;so it may as well be made her
+usual name&mdash;I don&rsquo;t like t&rsquo;other name at all for my own flesh
+and blood. I&rsquo;ll advertise it in the Casterbridge paper&mdash;that&rsquo;s
+the way they do it. She won&rsquo;t object.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. O no. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then, I shall do it,&rdquo; he said, peremptorily. &ldquo;Surely,
+if she&rsquo;s willing, you must wish it as much as I?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes&mdash;if she agrees let us do it by all means,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might have been called
+falsely, but that her manner was emotional and full of the earnestness of one
+who wishes to do right at great hazard. She went to Elizabeth-Jane, whom she
+found sewing in her own sitting-room upstairs, and told her what had been
+proposed about her surname. &ldquo;Can you agree&mdash;is it not a slight upon
+Newson&mdash;now he&rsquo;s dead and gone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth reflected. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll think of it, mother,&rdquo; she
+answered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to the matter at once,
+in a way which showed that the line of feeling started by her mother had been
+persevered in. &ldquo;Do you wish this change so very much, sir?&rdquo; she
+asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women make about a
+trifle! I proposed it&mdash;that&rsquo;s all. Now, &rsquo;Lizabeth-Jane, just
+please yourself. Curse me if I care what you do. Now, you understand,
+don&rsquo;t &rsquo;ee go agreeing to it to please me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said, and nothing was done, and
+Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson, and not by her legal name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by Henchard throve under the
+management of Donald Farfrae as it had never thriven before. It had formerly
+moved in jolts; now it went on oiled casters. The old crude <i>vivâ voce</i>
+system of Henchard, in which everything depended upon his memory, and bargains
+were made by the tongue alone, was swept away. Letters and ledgers took the
+place of &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll do&rsquo;t,&rdquo; and &ldquo;you shall
+hae&rsquo;t&rdquo;; and, as in all such cases of advance, the rugged
+picturesqueness of the old method disappeared with its inconveniences.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The position of Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s room&mdash;rather high in the house, so
+that it commanded a view of the hay-stores and granaries across the
+garden&mdash;afforded her opportunity for accurate observation of what went on
+there. She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables. When walking
+together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on his manager&rsquo;s shoulder,
+as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearing so heavily that his slight frame
+bent under the weight. Occasionally she would hear a perfect cannonade of
+laughter from Henchard, arising from something Donald had said, the latter
+looking quite innocent and not laughing at all. In Henchard&rsquo;s somewhat
+lonely life he evidently found the young man as desirable for comradeship as he
+was useful for consultations. Donald&rsquo;s brightness of intellect maintained
+in the corn-factor the admiration it had won at the first hour of their
+meeting. The poor opinion, and but ill-concealed, that he entertained of the
+slim Farfrae&rsquo;s physical girth, strength, and dash was more than
+counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his brains.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard&rsquo;s tigerish affection for the
+younger man, his constant liking to have Farfrae near him, now and then
+resulted in a tendency to domineer, which, however, was checked in a moment
+when Donald exhibited marks of real offence. One day, looking down on their
+figures from on high, she heard the latter remark, as they stood in the doorway
+between the garden and yard, that their habit of walking and driving about
+together rather neutralized Farfrae&rsquo;s value as a second pair of eyes,
+which should be used in places where the principal was not. &ldquo;&rsquo;Od
+damn it,&rdquo; cried Henchard, &ldquo;what&rsquo;s all the world! I like a
+fellow to talk to. Now come along and hae some supper, and don&rsquo;t take too
+much thought about things, or ye&rsquo;ll drive me crazy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she often beheld the
+Scotchman looking at them with a curious interest. The fact that he had met her
+at the Three Mariners was insufficient to account for it, since on the
+occasions on which she had entered his room he had never raised his eyes.
+Besides, it was at her mother more particularly than at herself that he looked,
+to Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s half-conscious, simple-minded, perhaps pardonable,
+disappointment. Thus she could not account for this interest by her own
+attractiveness, and she decided that it might be apparent only&mdash;a way of
+turning his eyes that Mr. Farfrae had.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner, without personal
+vanity, that was afforded by the fact of Donald being the depositary of
+Henchard&rsquo;s confidence in respect of his past treatment of the pale,
+chastened mother who walked by her side. Her conjectures on that past never
+went further than faint ones based on things casually heard and seen&mdash;mere
+guesses that Henchard and her mother might have been lovers in their younger
+days, who had quarrelled and parted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in the block upon a
+corn-field. There was no suburb in the modern sense, or transitional
+intermixture of town and down. It stood, with regard to the wide fertile land
+adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a chess-board on a green tablecloth.
+The farmer&rsquo;s boy could sit under his barley-mow and pitch a stone into
+the office-window of the town-clerk; reapers at work among the sheaves nodded
+to acquaintances standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he
+condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated
+in at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at
+executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop, out
+of which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the spectators room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was garnered by farmers who
+lived in an eastern purlieu called Durnover. Here wheat-ricks overhung the old
+Roman street, and thrust their eaves against the church tower; green-thatched
+barns, with doorways as high as the gates of Solomon&rsquo;s temple, opened
+directly upon the main thoroughfare. Barns indeed were so numerous as to
+alternate with every half-dozen houses along the way. Here lived burgesses who
+daily walked the fallow; shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of
+farmers&rsquo; homesteads&mdash;a street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet
+echoing with the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the
+purr of the milk into the pails&mdash;a street which had nothing urban in it
+whatever&mdash;this was the Durnover end of Casterbridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or bed of small
+farmers close at hand&mdash;and his waggons were often down that way. One day,
+when arrangements were in progress for getting home corn from one of the
+aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane received a note by hand, asking her to oblige
+the writer by coming at once to a granary on Durnover Hill. As this was the
+granary whose contents Henchard was removing, she thought the request had
+something to do with his business, and proceeded thither as soon as she had put
+on her bonnet. The granary was just within the farm-yard, and stood on stone
+staddles, high enough for persons to walk under. The gates were open, but
+nobody was within. However, she entered and waited. Presently she saw a figure
+approaching the gate&mdash;that of Donald Farfrae. He looked up at the church
+clock, and came in. By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to meet him
+there alone, she quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to the granary door,
+and entered it before he had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagining himself in
+solitude, and a few drops of rain beginning to fall he moved and stood under
+the shelter where she had just been standing. Here he leant against one of the
+staddles, and gave himself up to patience. He, too, was plainly expecting some
+one; could it be herself? If so, why? In a few minutes he looked at his watch,
+and then pulled out a note, a duplicate of the one she had herself received.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she waited the more
+awkward it became. To emerge from a door just above his head and descend the
+ladder, and show she had been in hiding there, would look so very foolish that
+she still waited on. A winnowing machine stood close beside her, and to relieve
+her suspense she gently moved the handle; whereupon a cloud of wheat husks flew
+out into her face, and covered her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur
+of her victorine. He must have heard the slight movement for he looked up, and
+then ascended the steps.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;it&rsquo;s Miss Newson,&rdquo; he said as soon as he could see
+into the granary. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t know you were there. I have kept the
+appointment, and am at your service.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O Mr. Farfrae,&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;so have I. But I didn&rsquo;t
+know it was you who wished to see me, otherwise I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wished to see you? O no&mdash;at least, that is, I am afraid there may
+be a mistake.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t you ask me to come here? Didn&rsquo;t you write
+this?&rdquo; Elizabeth held out her note.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it! And for
+you&mdash;didn&rsquo;t you ask me? This is not your writing?&rdquo; And he held
+up his.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By no means.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And is that really so! Then it&rsquo;s somebody wanting to see us both.
+Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s face being
+arranged to an expression of preternatural composure, and the young Scot, at
+every footstep in the street without, looking from under the granary to see if
+the passer were about to enter and declare himself their summoner. They watched
+individual drops of rain creeping down the thatch of the opposite
+rick&mdash;straw after straw&mdash;till they reached the bottom; but nobody
+came, and the granary roof began to drip.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The person is not likely to be coming,&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a trick perhaps, and if so, it&rsquo;s a great pity to waste
+our time like this, and so much to be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a great liberty,&rdquo; said Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s true, Miss Newson. We&rsquo;ll hear news of this some day
+depend on&rsquo;t, and who it was that did it. I wouldn&rsquo;t stand for it
+hindering myself; but you, Miss Newson&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t mind&mdash;much,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Neither do I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They lapsed again into silence. &ldquo;You are anxious to get back to Scotland,
+I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?&rdquo; she inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I only supposed you might be from the song you sang at the Three
+Mariners&mdash;about Scotland and home, I mean&mdash;which you seemed to feel
+so deep down in your heart; so that we all felt for you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay&mdash;and I did sing there&mdash;I did&mdash;&mdash; But, Miss
+Newson&rdquo;&mdash;and Donald&rsquo;s voice musically undulated between two
+semi-tones as it always did when he became earnest&mdash;&ldquo;it&rsquo;s well
+you feel a song for a few minutes, and your eyes they get quite tearful; but
+you finish it, and for all you felt you don&rsquo;t mind it or think of it
+again for a long while. O no, I don&rsquo;t want to go back! Yet I&rsquo;ll
+sing the song to you wi&rsquo; pleasure whenever you like. I could sing it now,
+and not mind at all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go&mdash;rain or no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay! Then, Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and
+take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be civil to
+him or her, as if you did not mind it&mdash;so you&rsquo;ll take the clever
+person&rsquo;s laugh away.&rdquo; In speaking his eyes became fixed upon her
+dress, still sown with wheat husks. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s husks and dust on you.
+Perhaps you don&rsquo;t know it?&rdquo; he said, in tones of extreme delicacy.
+&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there&rsquo;s
+chaff on them. It washes in and spoils them. Let me help you&mdash;blowing is
+the best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented Donald Farfrae began blowing her
+back hair, and her side hair, and her neck, and the crown of her bonnet, and
+the fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, &ldquo;O, thank you,&rdquo; at
+every puff. At last she was fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got over his
+first concern at the situation, seemed in no manner of hurry to be gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;now I&rsquo;ll go and get ye an umbrella,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone. Farfrae walked slowly after,
+looking thoughtfully at her diminishing figure, and whistling in undertones,
+&ldquo;As I came down through Cannobie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+At first Miss Newson&rsquo;s budding beauty was not regarded with much interest
+by anybody in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae&rsquo;s gaze, it is true, was now
+attracted by the Mayor&rsquo;s so-called stepdaughter, but he was only one.
+The truth is that she was but a poor illustrative instance of the prophet
+Baruch&rsquo;s sly definition: &ldquo;The virgin that loveth to go gay.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an inner chamber of
+ideas, and to have slight need for visible objects. She formed curious resolves
+on checking gay fancies in the matter of clothes, because it was inconsistent
+with her past life to blossom gaudily the moment she had become possessed of
+money. But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere
+fancies, and of wants from mere wishes. Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of
+delicately-tinted gloves one spring day. She wanted to wear them to show her
+appreciation of his kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize. As an
+artistic indulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet. When she had a
+bonnet that would go with the gloves she had no dress that would go with the
+bonnet. It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered the requisite
+article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with the dress. In for a
+penny in for a pound; she bought the sunshade, and the whole structure was at
+last complete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygone simplicity was the art
+that conceals art, the &ldquo;delicate imposition&rdquo; of Rochefoucauld; she
+had produced an effect, a contrast, and it had been done on purpose. As a
+matter of fact this was not true, but it had its result; for as soon as
+Casterbridge thought her artful it thought her worth notice. &ldquo;It is the
+first time in my life that I have been so much admired,&rdquo; she said to
+herself; &ldquo;though perhaps it is by those whose admiration is not worth
+having.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogether the time was an exciting
+one; sex had never before asserted itself in her so strongly, for in former
+days she had perhaps been too impersonally human to be distinctively feminine.
+After an unprecedented success one day she came indoors, went upstairs, and
+leant upon her bed face downwards quite forgetting the possible creasing and
+damage. &ldquo;Good Heaven,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;can it be? Here am I
+setting up as the town beauty!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggerating appearances
+engendered a deep sadness. &ldquo;There is something wrong in all this,&rdquo;
+she mused. &ldquo;If they only knew what an unfinished girl I am&mdash;that I
+can&rsquo;t talk Italian, or use globes, or show any of the accomplishments
+they learn at boarding schools, how they would despise me! Better sell all this
+finery and buy myself grammar-books and dictionaries and a history of all the
+philosophies!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfrae in the hay-yard
+talking, with that impetuous cordiality on the Mayor&rsquo;s part, and genial
+modesty on the younger man&rsquo;s, that was now so generally observable in
+their intercourse. Friendship between man and man; what a rugged strength there
+was in it, as evinced by these two. And yet the seed that was to lift the
+foundation of this friendship was at that moment taking root in a chink of its
+structure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about six o&rsquo;clock; the men were dropping off homeward one by one.
+The last to leave was a round-shouldered, blinking young man of nineteen or
+twenty, whose mouth fell ajar on the slightest provocation, seemingly because
+there was no chin to support it. Henchard called aloud to him as he went out of
+the gate, &ldquo;Here&mdash;Abel Whittle!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he said, in
+breathless deprecation, as if he knew what was coming next.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Once more&mdash;be in time to-morrow morning. You see what&rsquo;s to be
+done, and you hear what I say, and you know I&rsquo;m not going to be trifled
+with any longer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo; Then Abel Whittle left, and Henchard and Farfrae; and
+Elizabeth saw no more of them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard&rsquo;s part. Poor Abel,
+as he was called, had an inveterate habit of over-sleeping himself and coming
+late to his work. His anxious will was to be among the earliest; but if his
+comrades omitted to pull the string that he always tied round his great toe and
+left hanging out the window for that purpose, his will was as wind. He did not
+arrive in time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, or at the crane which lifted
+the sacks, or was one of those who had to accompany the waggons into the
+country to fetch away stacks that had been purchased, this affliction of
+Abel&rsquo;s was productive of much inconvenience. For two mornings in the
+present week he had kept the others waiting nearly an hour; hence
+Henchard&rsquo;s threat. It now remained to be seen what would happen
+to-morrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Six o&rsquo;clock struck, and there was no Whittle. At half-past six Henchard
+entered the yard; the waggon was horsed that Abel was to accompany; and the
+other man had been waiting twenty minutes. Then Henchard swore, and Whittle
+coming up breathless at that instant, the corn-factor turned on him, and
+declared with an oath that this was the last time; that if he were behind once
+more, by God, he would come and drag him out o&rsquo; bed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!&rdquo; said Abel,
+&ldquo;especially in the inside, whereas my poor dumb brain gets as dead as a
+clot afore I&rsquo;ve said my few scrags of prayers. Yes&mdash;it came on as a
+stripling, just afore I&rsquo;d got man&rsquo;s wages, whereas I never enjoy my
+bed at all, for no sooner do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore I be awake
+I be up. I&rsquo;ve fretted my gizzard green about it, maister, but what can I
+do? Now last night, afore I went to bed, I only had a scantling o&rsquo; cheese
+and&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to hear it!&rdquo; roared Henchard. &ldquo;To-morrow
+the waggons must start at four, and if you&rsquo;re not here, stand clear.
+I&rsquo;ll mortify thy flesh for thee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But let me clear up my points, your worshipful&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard turned away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He asked me and he questioned me, and then &rsquo;a wouldn&rsquo;t hear
+my points!&rdquo; said Abel, to the yard in general. &ldquo;Now, I shall twitch
+like a moment-hand all night to-night for fear o&rsquo; him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The journey to be taken by the waggons next day was a long one into Blackmoor
+Vale, and at four o&rsquo;clock lanterns were moving about the yard. But Abel
+was missing. Before either of the other men could run to Abel&rsquo;s and warn
+him Henchard appeared in the garden doorway. &ldquo;Where&rsquo;s Abel Whittle?
+Not come after all I&rsquo;ve said? Now I&rsquo;ll carry out my word, by my
+blessed fathers&mdash;nothing else will do him any good! I&rsquo;m going up
+that way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard went off, entered Abel&rsquo;s house, a little cottage in Back Street,
+the door of which was never locked because the inmates had nothing to lose.
+Reaching Whittle&rsquo;s bedside the corn-factor shouted a bass note so
+vigorously that Abel started up instantly, and beholding Henchard standing over
+him, was galvanized into spasmodic movements which had not much relation to
+getting on his clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, or you leave my employ to-day!
+&rsquo;Tis to teach ye a lesson. March on; never mind your breeches!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat, and managed to get into his
+boots at the bottom of the stairs, while Henchard thrust his hat over his head.
+Whittle then trotted on down Back Street, Henchard walking sternly behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard&rsquo;s house to look for
+him, came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in the
+morning gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel&rsquo;s shirt that
+showed below his waistcoat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For maircy&rsquo;s sake, what object&rsquo;s this?&rdquo; said Farfrae,
+following Abel into the yard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ye see, Mr. Farfrae,&rdquo; gibbered Abel with a resigned smile of
+terror, &ldquo;he said he&rsquo;d mortify my flesh if so be I didn&rsquo;t get
+up sooner, and now he&rsquo;s a-doing on&rsquo;t! Ye see it can&rsquo;t be
+helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do happen queer sometimes! Yes&mdash;I&rsquo;ll go
+to Blackmoor Vale half naked as I be, since he do command; but I shall kill
+myself afterwards; I can&rsquo;t outlive the disgrace, for the women-folk will
+be looking out of their winders at my mortification all the way along, and
+laughing me to scorn as a man &rsquo;ithout breeches! You know how I feel such
+things, Maister Farfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold upon me. Yes&mdash;I
+shall do myself harm&mdash;I feel it coming on!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get back home, and slip on your breeches, and come to wark like a man!
+If ye go not, you&rsquo;ll ha&rsquo;e your death standing there!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m afeard I mustn&rsquo;t! Mr. Henchard said&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else! &rsquo;Tis
+simple foolishness to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hullo, hullo!&rdquo; said Henchard, coming up behind. &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s
+sending him back?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the men looked towards Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am,&rdquo; said Donald. &ldquo;I say this joke has been carried far
+enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I say it hasn&rsquo;t! Get up in the waggon, Whittle.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not if I am manager,&rdquo; said Farfrae. &ldquo;He either goes home, or
+I march out of this yard for good.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red. But he paused for a moment,
+and their eyes met. Donald went up to him, for he saw in Henchard&rsquo;s look
+that he began to regret this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said Donald quietly, &ldquo;a man o&rsquo; your position
+should ken better, sir! It is tyrannical and no worthy of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis not tyrannical!&rdquo; murmured Henchard, like a sullen boy.
+&ldquo;It is to make him remember!&rdquo; He presently added, in a tone of one
+bitterly hurt: &ldquo;Why did you speak to me before them like that, Farfrae?
+You might have stopped till we were alone. Ah&mdash;I know why! I&rsquo;ve told
+ye the secret o&rsquo; my life&mdash;fool that I was to do&rsquo;t&mdash;and
+you take advantage of me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had forgot it,&rdquo; said Farfrae simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more, and turned away. During the
+day Farfrae learnt from the men that Henchard had kept Abel&rsquo;s old mother
+in coals and snuff all the previous winter, which made him less antagonistic to
+the corn-factor. But Henchard continued moody and silent, and when one of the
+men inquired of him if some oats should be hoisted to an upper floor or not, he
+said shortly, &ldquo;Ask Mr. Farfrae. He&rsquo;s master here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it. Henchard, who had hitherto been
+the most admired man in his circle, was the most admired no longer. One day the
+daughters of a deceased farmer in Durnover wanted an opinion of the value of
+their haystack, and sent a messenger to ask Mr. Farfrae to oblige them with
+one. The messenger, who was a child, met in the yard not Farfrae, but Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But please will Mr. Farfrae come?&rdquo; said the child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am going that way.... Why Mr. Farfrae?&rdquo; said Henchard, with the
+fixed look of thought. &ldquo;Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I suppose because they like him so&mdash;that&rsquo;s what they
+say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;I see&mdash;that&rsquo;s what they say&mdash;hey? They like him
+because he&rsquo;s cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and,
+in short, Mr. Henchard can&rsquo;t hold a candle to him&mdash;hey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;that&rsquo;s just it, sir&mdash;some of it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, there&rsquo;s more? Of course there&rsquo;s more! What besides?
+Come, here&rsquo;s a sixpence for a fairing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;And he&rsquo;s better tempered, and Henchard&rsquo;s a fool to
+him,&rsquo; they say. And when some of the women were a-walking home they said,
+&lsquo;He&rsquo;s a diment&mdash;he&rsquo;s a chap o&rsquo;
+wax&mdash;he&rsquo;s the best&mdash;he&rsquo;s the horse for my money,&rsquo;
+says they. And they said, &lsquo;He&rsquo;s the most understanding man o&rsquo;
+them two by long chalks. I wish he was the master instead of Henchard,&rsquo;
+they said.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They&rsquo;ll talk any nonsense,&rdquo; Henchard replied with covered
+gloom. &ldquo;Well, you can go now. And <i>I</i> am coming to value the hay,
+d&rsquo;ye hear?&mdash;I.&rdquo; The boy departed, and Henchard murmured,
+&ldquo;Wish he were master here, do they?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtook Farfrae. They walked on
+together, Henchard looking mostly on the ground.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;re no yoursel&rsquo; the day?&rdquo; Donald inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, I am very well,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But ye are a bit down&mdash;surely ye are down? Why, there&rsquo;s
+nothing to be angry about! &rsquo;Tis splendid stuff that we&rsquo;ve got from
+Blackmoor Vale. By the by, the people in Durnover want their hay valued.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I am going there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go with ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music <i>sotto voce</i>,
+till, getting near the bereaved people&rsquo;s door, he stopped himself
+with&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, as their father is dead I won&rsquo;t go on with such as that. How
+could I forget?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you care so very much about hurting folks&rsquo; feelings?&rdquo;
+observed Henchard with a half sneer. &ldquo;You do, I know&mdash;especially
+mine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir,&rdquo; replied Donald, standing
+still, with a second expression of the same sentiment in the regretfulness of
+his face. &ldquo;Why should you say it&mdash;think it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cloud lifted from Henchard&rsquo;s brow, and as Donald finished the
+corn-merchant turned to him, regarding his breast rather than his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been hearing things that vexed me,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas that made me short in my manner&mdash;made me overlook what
+you really are. Now, I don&rsquo;t want to go in here about this
+hay&mdash;Farfrae, you can do it better than I. They sent for &rsquo;ee, too. I
+have to attend a meeting of the Town Council at eleven, and &rsquo;tis drawing
+on for&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They parted thus in renewed friendship, Donald forbearing to ask Henchard for
+meanings that were not very plain to him. On Henchard&rsquo;s part there was
+now again repose; and yet, whenever he thought of Farfrae, it was with a dim
+dread; and he often regretted that he had told the young man his whole heart,
+and confided to him the secrets of his life.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+On this account Henchard&rsquo;s manner towards Farfrae insensibly became more
+reserved. He was courteous&mdash;too courteous&mdash;and Farfrae was quite
+surprised at the good breeding which now for the first time showed itself among
+the qualities of a man he had hitherto thought undisciplined, if warm and
+sincere. The corn-factor seldom or never again put his arm upon the young
+man&rsquo;s shoulder so as to nearly weigh him down with the pressure of
+mechanized friendship. He left off coming to Donald&rsquo;s lodgings and
+shouting into the passage. &ldquo;Hoy, Farfrae, boy, come and have some dinner
+with us! Don&rsquo;t sit here in solitary confinement!&rdquo; But in the daily
+routine of their business there was little change.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus their lives rolled on till a day of public rejoicing was suggested to the
+country at large in celebration of a national event that had recently taken
+place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For some time Casterbridge, by nature slow, made no response. Then one day
+Donald Farfrae broached the subject to Henchard by asking if he would have any
+objection to lend some rick-cloths to himself and a few others, who
+contemplated getting up an entertainment of some sort on the day named, and
+required a shelter for the same, to which they might charge admission at the
+rate of so much a head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have as many cloths as you like,&rdquo; Henchard replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When his manager had gone about the business Henchard was fired with emulation.
+It certainly had been very remiss of him, as Mayor, he thought, to call no
+meeting ere this, to discuss what should be done on this holiday. But Farfrae
+had been so cursed quick in his movements as to give old-fashioned people in
+authority no chance of the initiative. However, it was not too late; and on
+second thoughts he determined to take upon his own shoulders the responsibility
+of organizing some amusements, if the other Councilmen would leave the matter
+in his hands. To this they quite readily agreed, the majority being fine old
+crusted characters who had a decided taste for living without worry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So Henchard set about his preparations for a really brilliant thing&mdash;such
+as should be worthy of the venerable town. As for Farfrae&rsquo;s little
+affair, Henchard nearly forgot it; except once now and then when, on it coming
+into his mind, he said to himself, &ldquo;Charge admission at so much a
+head&mdash;just like a Scotchman!&mdash;who is going to pay anything a
+head?&rdquo; The diversions which the Mayor intended to provide were to be
+entirely free.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had grown so dependent upon Donald that he could scarcely resist calling him
+in to consult. But by sheer self-coercion he refrained. No, he thought, Farfrae
+would be suggesting such improvements in his damned luminous way that in spite
+of himself he, Henchard, would sink to the position of second fiddle, and only
+scrape harmonies to his manager&rsquo;s talents.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everybody applauded the Mayor&rsquo;s proposed entertainment, especially when
+it became known that he meant to pay for it all himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Close to the town was an elevated green spot surrounded by an ancient square
+earthwork&mdash;earthworks square and not square, were as common as
+blackberries hereabout&mdash;a spot whereon the Casterbridge people usually
+held any kind of merry-making, meeting, or sheep-fair that required more space
+than the streets would afford. On one side it sloped to the river Froom, and
+from any point a view was obtained of the country round for many miles. This
+pleasant upland was to be the scene of Henchard&rsquo;s exploit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He advertised about the town, in long posters of a pink colour, that games of
+all sorts would take place here; and set to work a little battalion of men
+under his own eye. They erected greasy-poles for climbing, with smoked hams and
+local cheeses at the top. They placed hurdles in rows for jumping over; across
+the river they laid a slippery pole, with a live pig of the neighbourhood tied
+at the other end, to become the property of the man who could walk over and get
+it. There were also provided wheelbarrows for racing, donkeys for the same, a
+stage for boxing, wrestling, and drawing blood generally; sacks for jumping in.
+Moreover, not forgetting his principles, Henchard provided a mammoth tea, of
+which everybody who lived in the borough was invited to partake without
+payment. The tables were laid parallel with the inner slope of the rampart, and
+awnings were stretched overhead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of
+Farfrae&rsquo;s erection in the West Walk, rick-cloths of different sizes and
+colours being hung up to the arching trees without any regard to appearance. He
+was easy in his mind now, for his own preparations far transcended these.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morning came. The sky, which had been remarkably clear down to within a day
+or two, was overcast, and the weather threatening, the wind having an
+unmistakable hint of water in it. Henchard wished he had not been quite so sure
+about the continuance of a fair season. But it was too late to modify or
+postpone, and the proceedings went on. At twelve o&rsquo;clock the rain began
+to fall, small and steady, commencing and increasing so insensibly that it was
+difficult to state exactly when dry weather ended or wet established itself. In
+an hour the slight moisture resolved itself into a monotonous smiting of earth
+by heaven, in torrents to which no end could be prognosticated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A number of people had heroically gathered in the field but by three
+o&rsquo;clock Henchard discerned that his project was doomed to end in failure.
+The hams at the top of the poles dripped watered smoke in the form of a brown
+liquor, the pig shivered in the wind, the grain of the deal tables showed
+through the sticking tablecloths, for the awning allowed the rain to drift
+under at its will, and to enclose the sides at this hour seemed a useless
+undertaking. The landscape over the river disappeared; the wind played on the
+tent-cords in Æolian improvisations, and at length rose to such a pitch that
+the whole erection slanted to the ground those who had taken shelter within it
+having to crawl out on their hands and knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breeze shook the moisture from
+the grass bents. It seemed possible to carry out the programme after all. The
+awning was set up again; the band was called out from its shelter, and ordered
+to begin, and where the tables had stood a place was cleared for dancing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where are the folk?&rdquo; said Henchard, after the lapse of
+half-an-hour, during which time only two men and a woman had stood up to dance.
+&ldquo;The shops are all shut. Why don&rsquo;t they come?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are at Farfrae&rsquo;s affair in the West Walk,&rdquo; answered a
+Councilman who stood in the field with the Mayor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A few, I suppose. But where are the body o&rsquo; &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All out of doors are there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the more fools they!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard walked away moodily. One or two young fellows gallantly came to climb
+the poles, to save the hams from being wasted; but as there were no spectators,
+and the whole scene presented the most melancholy appearance Henchard gave
+orders that the proceedings were to be suspended, and the entertainment closed,
+the food to be distributed among the poor people of the town. In a short time
+nothing was left in the field but a few hurdles, the tents, and the poles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wife and daughter, and then
+walked out. It was now dusk. He soon saw that the tendency of all promenaders
+was towards a particular spot in the Walks, and eventually proceeded thither
+himself. The notes of a stringed band came from the enclosure that Farfrae had
+erected&mdash;the pavilion as he called it&mdash;and when the Mayor reached it
+he perceived that a gigantic tent had been ingeniously constructed without
+poles or ropes. The densest point of the avenue of sycamores had been selected,
+where the boughs made a closely interlaced vault overhead; to these boughs the
+canvas had been hung, and a barrel roof was the result. The end towards the
+wind was enclosed, the other end was open. Henchard went round and saw the
+interior.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but the
+scene within was anything but devotional. A reel or fling of some sort was in
+progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers
+in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinning to the
+tune. For a moment Henchard could not help laughing. Then he perceived the
+immense admiration for the Scotchman that revealed itself in the women&rsquo;s
+faces; and when this exhibition was over, and a new dance proposed, and Donald
+had disappeared for a time to return in his natural garments, he had an
+unlimited choice of partners, every girl being in a coming-on disposition
+towards one who so thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom never
+having occurred to the inhabitants before. Among the rest of the onlookers were
+Elizabeth and her mother&mdash;the former thoughtful yet much interested, her
+eyes beaming with a longing lingering light, as if Nature had been advised by
+Correggio in their creation. The dancing progressed with unabated spirit, and
+Henchard walked and waited till his wife should be disposed to go home. He did
+not care to keep in the light, and when he went into the dark it was worse, for
+there he heard remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mr. Henchard&rsquo;s rejoicings couldn&rsquo;t say good morning to
+this,&rdquo; said one. &ldquo;A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk
+would go up to that bleak place to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as those
+that the Mayor was wanting. &ldquo;Where would his business be if it were not
+for this young fellow? &rsquo;Twas verily Fortune sent him to Henchard. His
+accounts were like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came. He used to reckon his
+sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like garden-palings, measure his ricks by
+stretching with his arms, weigh his trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw,
+and settle the price with a curse. But now this accomplished young man does it
+all by ciphering and mensuration. Then the wheat&mdash;that sometimes used to
+taste so strong o&rsquo; mice when made into bread that people could fairly
+tell the breed&mdash;Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would
+dream the smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once. O yes, everybody
+is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be sure!&rdquo;
+concluded this gentleman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he won&rsquo;t do it for long, good-now,&rdquo; said the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Henchard to himself behind the tree. &ldquo;Or if he do,
+he&rsquo;ll be honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that
+he&rsquo;s built up in these eighteen year!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfrae was footing a quaint little dance
+with Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;an old country thing, the only one she knew, and
+though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her demurer gait, the
+pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of his boots became familiar
+to the eyes of every bystander. The tune had enticed her into it; being a tune
+of a busy, vaulting, leaping sort&mdash;some low notes on the silver string of
+each fiddle, then a skipping on the small, like running up and down
+ladders&mdash;&ldquo;Miss M&rsquo;Leod of Ayr&rdquo; was its name, so Mr.
+Farfrae had said, and that it was very popular in his own country.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchard for approval; but he did not
+give it. He seemed not to see her. &ldquo;Look here, Farfrae,&rdquo; he said,
+like one whose mind was elsewhere, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go to Port-Bredy Great
+Market to-morrow myself. You can stay and put things right in your clothes-box,
+and recover strength to your knees after your vagaries.&rdquo; He planted on
+Donald an antagonistic glare that had begun as a smile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s this,
+Henchard,&rdquo; said Alderman Tubber, applying his thumb to the corn-factor
+like a cheese-taster. &ldquo;An opposition randy to yours, eh? Jack&rsquo;s as
+good as his master, eh? Cut ye out quite, hasn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You see, Mr. Henchard,&rdquo; said the lawyer, another goodnatured
+friend, &ldquo;where you made the mistake was in going so far afield. You
+should have taken a leaf out of his book, and have had your sports in a
+sheltered place like this. But you didn&rsquo;t think of it, you see; and he
+did, and that&rsquo;s where he&rsquo;s beat you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;ll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore
+him,&rdquo; added jocular Mr. Tubber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Henchard gloomily. &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t be that,
+because he&rsquo;s shortly going to leave me.&rdquo; He looked towards Donald,
+who had come near. &ldquo;Mr. Farfrae&rsquo;s time as my manager is drawing to
+a close&mdash;isn&rsquo;t it, Farfrae?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The young man, who could now read the lines and folds of Henchard&rsquo;s
+strongly-traced face as if they were clear verbal inscriptions, quietly
+assented; and when people deplored the fact, and asked why it was, he simply
+replied that Mr. Henchard no longer required his help.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. But in the morning, when his jealous
+temper had passed away, his heart sank within him at what he had said and done.
+He was the more disturbed when he found that this time Farfrae was determined
+to take him at his word.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard&rsquo;s manner that in assenting to
+dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In her simplicity she did not know
+what it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintance enlightened her. As the
+Mayor&rsquo;s stepdaughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in her place in
+treading a measure amid such a mixed throng as filled the dancing pavilion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals at the dawning of
+the idea that her tastes were not good enough for her position, and would bring
+her into disgrace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her mother; but Mrs.
+Henchard, who had less idea of conventionality than Elizabeth herself, had gone
+away, leaving her daughter to return at her own pleasure. The latter moved on
+into the dark dense old avenues, or rather vaults of living woodwork, which ran
+along the town boundary, and stood reflecting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards the shine from the
+tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae&mdash;just come from the dialogue with
+Henchard which had signified his dismissal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it&rsquo;s you, Miss Newson?&mdash;and I&rsquo;ve been looking for
+ye everywhere!&rdquo; he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the
+estrangement with the corn-merchant. &ldquo;May I walk on with you as far as
+your street-corner?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did not utter any
+objection. So together they went on, first down the West Walk, and then into
+the Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like that I&rsquo;m
+going to leave you soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She faltered, &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;as a mere matter of business&mdash;nothing more. But
+we&rsquo;ll not concern ourselves about it&mdash;it is for the best. I hoped to
+have another dance with you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She said she could not dance&mdash;in any proper way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nay, but you do! It&rsquo;s the feeling for it rather than the learning
+of steps that makes pleasant dancers.... I fear I offended your father by
+getting up this! And now, perhaps, I&rsquo;ll have to go to another part
+o&rsquo; the warrld altogether!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane breathed a
+sigh&mdash;letting it off in fragments that he might not hear her. But darkness
+makes people truthful, and the Scotchman went on impulsively&mdash;perhaps he
+had heard her after all:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had not been
+offended, I would ask you something in a short time&mdash;yes, I would ask you
+to-night. But that&rsquo;s not for me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of encouraging him she
+remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid one of another they continued their
+promenade along the walls till they got near the bottom of the Bowling Walk;
+twenty steps further and the trees would end, and the street-corner and lamps
+appear. In consciousness of this they stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover granary on a
+fool&rsquo;s errand that day,&rdquo; said Donald, in his undulating tones.
+&ldquo;Did ye ever know yourself, Miss Newson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder why they did it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For fun, perhaps.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they thought they
+would like us to stay waiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well! I hope
+you Casterbridge folk will not forget me if I go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I&rsquo;m sure we won&rsquo;t!&rdquo; she said earnestly.
+&ldquo;I&mdash;wish you wouldn&rsquo;t go at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They had got into the lamplight. &ldquo;Now, I&rsquo;ll think over that,&rdquo;
+said Donald Farfrae. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ll not come up to your door; but part
+from you here; lest it make your father more angry still.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk, and Elizabeth-Jane
+going up the street. Without any consciousness of what she was doing she
+started running with all her might till she reached her father&rsquo;s door.
+&ldquo;O dear me&mdash;what am I at?&rdquo; she thought, as she pulled up
+breathless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae&rsquo;s enigmatic words
+about not daring to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, that silent
+observing woman, had long noted how he was rising in favour among the
+townspeople; and knowing Henchard&rsquo;s nature now she had feared that
+Farfrae&rsquo;s days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave
+her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge despite his words
+and her father&rsquo;s dismissal? His occult breathings to her might be
+solvable by his course in that respect.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day was windy&mdash;so windy that walking in the garden she picked up
+a portion of the draft of a letter on business in Donald Farfrae&rsquo;s
+writing, which had flown over the wall from the office. The useless scrap she
+took indoors, and began to copy the calligraphy, which she much admired. The
+letter began &ldquo;Dear Sir,&rdquo; and presently writing on a loose slip
+&ldquo;Elizabeth-Jane,&rdquo; she laid the latter over &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo;
+making the phrase &ldquo;Dear Elizabeth-Jane.&rdquo; When she saw the effect a
+quick red ran up her face and warmed her through, though nobody was there to
+see what she had done. She quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After
+this she grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and laughed
+again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and Henchard had decided to
+dispense with each other. Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s anxiety to know if Farfrae
+were going away from the town reached a pitch that disturbed her, for she could
+no longer conceal from herself the cause. At length the news reached her that
+he was not going to leave the place. A man following the same trade as
+Henchard, but on a very small scale, had sold his business to Farfrae, who was
+forthwith about to start as corn and hay merchant on his own account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald&rsquo;s, proving that
+he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who cared one little bit for her have
+endangered his suit by setting up a business in opposition to Mr.
+Henchard&rsquo;s? Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse only
+which had led him to address her so softly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance were
+such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed herself up
+exactly as she had dressed then&mdash;the muslin, the spencer, the sandals, the
+parasol&mdash;and looked in the mirror. The picture glassed back was in her
+opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire that fleeting regard, and no
+more&mdash;&ldquo;just enough to make him silly, and not enough to keep him
+so,&rdquo; she said luminously; and Elizabeth thought, in a much lower key,
+that by this time he had discovered how plain and homely was the informing
+spirit of that pretty outside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would say to herself with
+a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, &ldquo;No, no,
+Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;such dreams are not for you!&rdquo; She tried to prevent
+herself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in the
+former attempt, in the latter not so completely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not mean to put up with
+his temper any longer, was incensed beyond measure when he learnt what the
+young man had done as an alternative. It was in the town-hall, after a council
+meeting, that he first became aware of Farfrae&rsquo;s <i>coup</i> for
+establishing himself independently in the town; and his voice might have been
+heard as far as the town-pump expressing his feelings to his fellow councilmen.
+These tones showed that, though under a long reign of self-control he had
+become Mayor and churchwarden and what not, there was still the same unruly
+volcanic stuff beneath the rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold his
+wife at Weydon Fair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, he&rsquo;s a friend of mine, and I&rsquo;m a friend of
+his&mdash;or if we are not, what are we? &rsquo;Od send, if I&rsquo;ve not been
+his friend, who has, I should like to know? Didn&rsquo;t he come here without a
+sound shoe to his voot? Didn&rsquo;t I keep him here&mdash;help him to a
+living? Didn&rsquo;t I help him to money, or whatever he wanted? I stuck out
+for no terms&mdash;I said &lsquo;Name your own price.&rsquo; I&rsquo;d have
+shared my last crust with that young fellow at one time, I liked him so well.
+And now he&rsquo;s defied me! But damn him, I&rsquo;ll have a tussle with him
+now&mdash;at fair buying and selling, mind&mdash;at fair buying and selling!
+And if I can&rsquo;t overbid such a stripling as he, then I&rsquo;m not
+wo&rsquo;th a varden! We&rsquo;ll show that we know our business as well as one
+here and there!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond. Henchard was less
+popular now than he had been when nearly two years before, they had voted him
+to the chief magistracy on account of his amazing energy. While they had
+collectively profited by this quality of the corn-factor&rsquo;s they had been
+made to wince individually on more than one occasion. So he went out of the
+hall and down the street alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour satisfaction. He
+called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he looked when she entered she appeared
+alarmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nothing to find fault with,&rdquo; he said, observing her concern.
+&ldquo;Only I want to caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae&mdash;it is about
+him. I&rsquo;ve seen him talking to you two or three times&mdash;he danced with
+&rsquo;ee at the rejoicings, and came home with &rsquo;ee. Now, now, no blame
+to you. But just harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least
+bit beyond sniff and snaff at all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. I have promised him nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good. All&rsquo;s well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to
+see him again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You promise?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She hesitated for a moment, and then said&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, if you much wish it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do. He&rsquo;s an enemy to our house!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to Farfrae
+thus:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Sir,&mdash;I make request that henceforth you and my stepdaughter be as
+strangers to each other. She on her part has promised to welcome no more
+addresses from you; and I trust, therefore, you will not attempt to force them
+upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. HENCHARD.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy to see that no
+better <i>modus vivendi</i> could be arrived at with Farfrae than by
+encouraging him to become his son-in-law. But such a scheme for buying over a
+rival had nothing to recommend it to the Mayor&rsquo;s headstrong faculties.
+With all domestic <i>finesse</i> of that kind he was hopelessly at variance.
+Loving a man or hating him, his diplomacy was as wrongheaded as a
+buffalo&rsquo;s; and his wife had not ventured to suggest the course which she,
+for many reasons, would have welcomed gladly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on his own account at
+a spot on Durnover Hill&mdash;as far as possible from Henchard&rsquo;s stores,
+and with every intention of keeping clear of his former friend and
+employer&rsquo;s customers. There was, it seemed to the younger man, room for
+both of them and to spare. The town was small, but the corn and hay-trade was
+proportionately large, and with his native sagacity he saw opportunity for a
+share of it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like trade-antagonism to
+the Mayor that he refused his first customer&mdash;a large farmer of good
+repute&mdash;because Henchard and this man had dealt together within the
+preceding three months.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He was once my friend,&rdquo; said Farfrae, &ldquo;and it&rsquo;s not
+for me to take business from him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot
+hurt the trade of a man who&rsquo;s been so kind to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman&rsquo;s trade increased.
+Whether it were that his northern energy was an overmastering force among the
+easy-going Wessex worthies, or whether it was sheer luck, the fact remained
+that whatever he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob in Padan-Aram, he would no
+sooner humbly limit himself to the ringstraked-and-spotted exceptions of trade
+than the ringstraked-and-spotted would multiply and prevail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character is Fate, said
+Novalis, and Farfrae&rsquo;s character was just the reverse of
+Henchard&rsquo;s, who might not inaptly be described as Faust has been
+described&mdash;as a vehement gloomy being who had quitted the ways of vulgar
+men without light to guide him on a better way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions to Elizabeth-Jane.
+His acts of that kind had been so slight that the request was almost
+superfluous. Yet he had felt a considerable interest in her, and after some
+cogitation he decided that it would be as well to enact no Romeo part just
+then&mdash;for the young girl&rsquo;s sake no less than his own. Thus the
+incipient attachment was stifled down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as he might, Farfrae
+was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to close with Henchard in mortal
+commercial combat. He could no longer parry the fierce attacks of the latter by
+simple avoidance. As soon as their war of prices began everybody was
+interested, and some few guessed the end. It was, in some degree, Northern
+insight matched against Southern doggedness&mdash;the dirk against the
+cudgel&mdash;and Henchard&rsquo;s weapon was one which, if it did not deal ruin
+at the first or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh at his
+antagonist&rsquo;s mercy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the crowd of farmers
+which thronged about the market-place in the weekly course of their business.
+Donald was always ready, and even anxious, to say a few friendly words, but the
+Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him, like one who had endured and lost
+on his account, and could in no sense forgive the wrong; nor did
+Farfrae&rsquo;s snubbed manner of perplexity at all appease him. The large
+farmers, corn-merchants, millers, auctioneers, and others had each an official
+stall in the corn-market room, with their names painted thereon; and when to
+the familiar series of &ldquo;Henchard,&rdquo; &ldquo;Everdene,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Shiner,&rdquo; &ldquo;Darton,&rdquo; and so on, was added one inscribed
+&ldquo;Farfrae,&rdquo; in staring new letters, Henchard was stung into
+bitterness; like Bellerophon, he wandered away from the crowd, cankered in
+soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that day Donald Farfrae&rsquo;s name was seldom mentioned in
+Henchard&rsquo;s house. If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s mother
+inadvertently alluded to her favourite&rsquo;s movements, the girl would
+implore her by a look to be silent; and her husband would say,
+&ldquo;What&mdash;are you, too, my enemy?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+There came a shock which had been foreseen for some time by Elizabeth, as the
+box passenger foresees the approaching jerk from some channel across the
+highway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mother was ill&mdash;too unwell to leave her room. Henchard, who treated
+her kindly, except in moments of irritation, sent at once for the richest,
+busiest doctor, whom he supposed to be the best. Bedtime came, and they burnt a
+light all night. In a day or two she rallied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appear at breakfast on the second
+morning, and Henchard sat down alone. He was startled to see a letter for him
+from Jersey in a writing he knew too well, and had expected least to behold
+again. He took it up in his hands and looked at it as at a picture, a vision, a
+vista of past enactments; and then he read it as an unimportant finale to
+conjecture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The writer said that she at length perceived how impossible it would be for any
+further communications to proceed between them now that his re-marriage had
+taken place. That such reunion had been the only straightforward course open to
+him she was bound to admit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;On calm reflection, therefore,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I quite
+forgive you for landing me in such a dilemma, remembering that you concealed
+nothing before our ill-advised acquaintance; and that you really did set before
+me in your grim way the fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy with
+you, slight as it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen years of silence on
+your wife&rsquo;s part. I thus look upon the whole as a misfortune of mine, and
+not a fault of yours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlook those letters with which I
+pestered you day after day in the heat of my feelings. They were written whilst
+I thought your conduct to me cruel; but now I know more particulars of the
+position you were in I see how inconsiderate my reproaches were.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you will, I am sure, perceive that the one condition which will make
+any future happiness possible for me is that the past connection between our
+lives be kept secret outside this isle. Speak of it I know you will not; and I
+can trust you not to write of it. One safe-guard more remains to be
+mentioned&mdash;that no writings of mine, or trifling articles belonging to me,
+should be left in your possession through neglect or forgetfulness. To this end
+may I request you to return to me any such you may have, particularly the
+letters written in the first abandonment of feeling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to the wound I
+heartily thank you.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my only relative. She is rich, and
+I hope will do something for me. I shall return through Casterbridge and
+Budmouth, where I shall take the packet-boat. Can you meet me with the letters
+and other trifles? I shall be in the coach which changes horses at the Antelope
+Hotel at half-past five Wednesday evening; I shall be wearing a Paisley shawl
+with a red centre, and thus may easily be found. I should prefer this plan of
+receiving them to having them sent.&mdash;I remain still, yours; ever,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;LUCETTA&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard breathed heavily. &ldquo;Poor thing&mdash;better you had not known me!
+Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a position to carry out
+that marriage with thee, I <i>ought</i> to do it&mdash;I ought to do it,
+indeed!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course, the death of Mrs.
+Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As requested, he sealed up Lucetta&rsquo;s letters, and put the parcel aside
+till the day she had appointed; this plan of returning them by hand being
+apparently a little <i>ruse</i> of the young lady for exchanging a word or two
+with him on past times. He would have preferred not to see her; but deeming
+that there could be no great harm in acquiescing thus far, he went at dusk and
+stood opposite the coach-office.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The evening was chilly, and the coach was late. Henchard crossed over to it
+while the horses were being changed; but there was no Lucetta inside or out.
+Concluding that something had happened to modify her arrangements he gave the
+matter up and went home, not without a sense of relief. Meanwhile Mrs. Henchard
+was weakening visibly. She could not go out of doors any more. One day, after
+much thinking which seemed to distress her, she said she wanted to write
+something. A desk was put upon her bed with pen and paper, and at her request
+she was left alone. She remained writing for a short time, folded her paper
+carefully, called Elizabeth-Jane to bring a taper and wax, and then, still
+refusing assistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and locked it in her
+desk. She had directed it in these words:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;<i>Mr. Michael Henchard. Not to be opened till Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s
+wedding-day.</i>&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The latter sat up with her mother to the utmost of her strength night after
+night. To learn to take the universe seriously there is no quicker way than to
+watch&mdash;to be a &ldquo;waker,&rdquo; as the country-people call it. Between
+the hours at which the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrow shook
+himself, the silence in Casterbridge&mdash;barring the rare sound of the
+watchman&mdash;was broken in Elizabeth&rsquo;s ear only by the time-piece in
+the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on the stairs; ticking harder
+and harder till it seemed to clang like a gong; and all this while the
+subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in a room, and
+blinking at the candle; why things around her had taken the shape they wore in
+preference to every other possible shape. Why they stared at her so helplessly,
+as if waiting for the touch of some wand that should release them from
+terrestrial constraint; what that chaos called consciousness, which spun in her
+at this moment like a top, tended to, and began in. Her eyes fell together; she
+was awake, yet she was asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A word from her mother roused her. Without preface, and as the continuation of
+a scene already progressing in her mind, Mrs. Henchard said: &ldquo;You
+remember the note sent to you and Mr. Farfrae&mdash;asking you to meet some one
+in Durnover Barton&mdash;and that you thought it was a trick to make fools of
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not to make fools of you&mdash;it was done to bring you together.
+&rsquo;Twas I did it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said Elizabeth, with a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&mdash;wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O mother!&rdquo; Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that she
+looked quite into her own lap. But as her mother did not go on, she said,
+&ldquo;What reason?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I had a reason. &rsquo;Twill out one day. I wish it could have
+been in my time! But there&mdash;nothing is as you wish it! Henchard hates
+him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps they&rsquo;ll be friends again,&rdquo; murmured the girl.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know.&rdquo; After this her
+mother was silent, and dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard&rsquo;s house on a
+Sunday morning, when he observed that the blinds were all down. He rang the
+bell so softly that it only sounded a single full note and a small one; and
+then he was informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead&mdash;just dead&mdash;that
+very hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old inhabitants, who
+came there for water whenever they had, as at present, spare time to fetch it,
+because it was purer from that original fount than from their own wells. Mrs.
+Cuxsom, who had been standing there for an indefinite time with her pitcher,
+was describing the incidents of Mrs. Henchard&rsquo;s death, as she had learnt
+them from the nurse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And she was white as marble-stone,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cuxsom. &ldquo;And
+likewise such a thoughtful woman, too&mdash;ah, poor soul&mdash;that a&rsquo;
+minded every little thing that wanted tending. &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; says she,
+&lsquo;when I&rsquo;m gone, and my last breath&rsquo;s blowed, look in the top
+drawer o&rsquo; the chest in the back room by the window, and you&rsquo;ll find
+all my coffin clothes, a piece of flannel&mdash;that&rsquo;s to put under me,
+and the little piece is to put under my head; and my new stockings for my
+feet&mdash;they are folded alongside, and all my other things. And
+there&rsquo;s four ounce pennies, the heaviest I could find, a-tied up in bits
+of linen, for weights&mdash;two for my right eye and two for my left,&rsquo;
+she said. &lsquo;And when you&rsquo;ve used &rsquo;em, and my eyes don&rsquo;t
+open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don&rsquo;t ye go spending
+&rsquo;em, for I shouldn&rsquo;t like it. And open the windows as soon as I am
+carried out, and make it as cheerful as you can for
+Elizabeth-Jane.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, poor heart!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden. But
+if ye&rsquo;ll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug
+&rsquo;em up, and spent &rsquo;em at the Three Mariners. &lsquo;Faith,&rsquo;
+he said, &lsquo;why should death rob life o&rsquo; fourpence? Death&rsquo;s not
+of such good report that we should respect &rsquo;en to that extent,&rsquo;
+says he.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas a cannibal deed!&rdquo; deprecated her listeners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gad, then I won&rsquo;t quite ha&rsquo;e it,&rdquo; said Solomon
+Longways. &ldquo;I say it to-day, and &rsquo;tis a Sunday morning, and I
+wouldn&rsquo;t speak wrongfully for a zilver zixpence at such a time. I
+don&rsquo;t see noo harm in it. To respect the dead is sound doxology; and I
+wouldn&rsquo;t sell skellintons&mdash;leastwise respectable
+skellintons&mdash;to be varnished for &rsquo;natomies, except I were out
+o&rsquo; work. But money is scarce, and throats get dry. Why <i>should</i>
+death rob life o&rsquo; fourpence? I say there was no treason in it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, poor soul; she&rsquo;s helpless to hinder that or anything
+now,&rdquo; answered Mother Cuxsom. &ldquo;And all her shining keys will be
+took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little things a&rsquo;
+didn&rsquo;t wish seen, anybody will see; and her wishes and ways will all be
+as nothing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire. It was three weeks after
+Mrs. Henchard&rsquo;s funeral, the candles were not lighted, and a restless,
+acrobatic flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady walls the smiles of
+all shapes that could respond&mdash;the old pier-glass, with gilt columns and
+huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs and handles, and the brass
+rosette at the bottom of each riband bell-pull on either side of the
+chimney-piece.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; often,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who do you put in your pictures of &rsquo;em?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mother and father&mdash;nobody else hardly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when Elizabeth-Jane
+spoke of Richard Newson as &ldquo;father.&rdquo; &ldquo;Ah! I am out of all
+that, am I not?&rdquo; he said.... &ldquo;Was Newson a kind father?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir; very.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s face settled into an expression of stolid loneliness which
+gradually modulated into something softer. &ldquo;Suppose I had been your real
+father?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Would you have cared for me as much as you cared
+for Richard Newson?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t think it,&rdquo; she said quickly. &ldquo;I can think of
+no other as my father, except my father.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper
+Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him that
+only one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the girl. His mind
+began vibrating between the wish to reveal himself to her and the policy of
+leaving well alone, till he could no longer sit still. He walked up and down,
+and then he came and stood behind her chair, looking down upon the top of her
+head. He could no longer restrain his impulse. &ldquo;What did your mother tell
+you about me&mdash;my history?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That you were related by marriage.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She should have told more&mdash;before you knew me! Then my task would
+not have been such a hard one.... Elizabeth, it is I who am your father, and
+not Richard Newson. Shame alone prevented your wretched parents from owning
+this to you while both of &rsquo;em were alive.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The back of Elizabeth&rsquo;s head remained still, and her shoulders did not
+denote even the movements of breathing. Henchard went on: &ldquo;I&rsquo;d
+rather have your scorn, your fear, anything than your ignorance; &rsquo;tis
+that I hate! Your mother and I were man and wife when we were young. What you
+saw was our second marriage. Your mother was too honest. We had thought each
+other dead&mdash;and&mdash;Newson became her husband.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was the nearest approach Henchard could make to the full truth. As far as
+he personally was concerned he would have screened nothing; but he showed a
+respect for the young girl&rsquo;s sex and years worthy of a better man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had gone on to give details which a whole series of slight and
+unregarded incidents in her past life strangely corroborated; when, in short,
+she believed his story to be true, she became greatly agitated, and turning
+round to the table flung her face upon it weeping.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t cry&mdash;don&rsquo;t cry!&rdquo; said Henchard, with
+vehement pathos, &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t bear it, I won&rsquo;t bear it. I am your
+father; why should you cry? Am I so dreadful, so hateful to &rsquo;ee?
+Don&rsquo;t take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!&rdquo; he cried, grasping her wet
+hand. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t take against me&mdash;though I was a drinking man
+once, and used your mother roughly&mdash;I&rsquo;ll be kinder to you than
+<i>he</i> was! I&rsquo;ll do anything, if you will only look upon me as your
+father!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully; but she could not; she was
+troubled at his presence, like the brethren at the avowal of Joseph.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want you to come to me all of a sudden,&rdquo; said
+Henchard in jerks, and moving like a great tree in a wind. &ldquo;No,
+Elizabeth, I don&rsquo;t. I&rsquo;ll go away and not see you till to-morrow, or
+when you like, and then I&rsquo;ll show &rsquo;ee papers to prove my words.
+There, I am gone, and won&rsquo;t disturb you any more.... &rsquo;Twas I that
+chose your name, my daughter; your mother wanted it Susan. There, don&rsquo;t
+forget &rsquo;twas I gave you your name!&rdquo; He went out at the door and
+shut her softly in, and she heard him go away into the garden. But he had not
+done. Before she had moved, or in any way recovered from the effect of his
+disclosure, he reappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One word more, Elizabeth,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll take my
+surname now&mdash;hey? Your mother was against it, but it will be much more
+pleasant to me. &rsquo;Tis legally yours, you know. But nobody need know that.
+You shall take it as if by choice. I&rsquo;ll talk to my lawyer&mdash;I
+don&rsquo;t know the law of it exactly; but will you do this&mdash;let me put a
+few lines into the newspaper that such is to be your name?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it is my name I must have it, mustn&rsquo;t I?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well; usage is everything in these matters.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder why mother didn&rsquo;t wish it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, some whim of the poor soul&rsquo;s. Now get a bit of paper and draw
+up a paragraph as I shall tell you. But let&rsquo;s have a light.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can see by the firelight,&rdquo; she answered.
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;I&rsquo;d rather.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote at his dictation
+words which he had evidently got by heart from some advertisement or
+other&mdash;words to the effect that she, the writer, hitherto known as
+Elizabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call herself Elizabeth-Jane Henchard
+forthwith. It was done, and fastened up, and directed to the office of the
+<i>Casterbridge Chronicle</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always
+emitted when he had carried his point&mdash;though tenderness softened it this
+time&mdash;&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll go upstairs and hunt for some documents that will
+prove it all to you. But I won&rsquo;t trouble you with them till to-morrow.
+Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it all meant, or
+adjust her filial sense to the new center of gravity. She was thankful that he
+had left her to herself for the evening, and sat down over the fire. Here she
+remained in silence, and wept&mdash;not for her mother now, but for the genial
+sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemed doing a wrong.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature he kept
+in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before turning them over he
+leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. Elizabeth was his at last and she
+was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that she would be sure to like
+him. He was the kind of man to whom some human object for pouring out his heart
+upon&mdash;were it emotive or were it choleric&mdash;was almost a necessity.
+The craving for his heart for the re-establishment of this tenderest human tie
+had been great during his wife&rsquo;s lifetime, and now he had submitted to
+its mastery without reluctance and without fear. He bent over the drawer again,
+and proceeded in his search.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his wife&rsquo;s little
+desk, the keys of which had been handed to him at her request. Here was the
+letter addressed to him with the restriction, &ldquo;<i>Not to be opened till
+Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s wedding-day</i>.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had been no practical hand
+at anything. In sealing up the sheet, which was folded and tucked in without an
+envelope, in the old-fashioned way, she had overlaid the junction with a large
+mass of wax without the requisite under-touch of the same. The seal had
+cracked, and the letter was open. Henchard had no reason to suppose the
+restriction one of serious weight, and his feeling for his late wife had not
+been of the nature of deep respect. &ldquo;Some trifling fancy or other of poor
+Susan&rsquo;s, I suppose,&rdquo; he said; and without curiosity he allowed his
+eyes to scan the letter:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+MY DEAR MICHAEL,&mdash;For the good of all three of us I have kept one thing a
+secret from you till now. I hope you will understand why; I think you will;
+though perhaps you may not forgive me. But, dear Michael, I have done it for
+the best. I shall be in my grave when you read this, and Elizabeth-Jane will
+have a home. Don&rsquo;t curse me Mike&mdash;think of how I was situated. I can
+hardly write it, but here it is. Elizabeth-Jane is not your
+Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;the child who was in my arms when you sold me. No; she
+died three months after that, and this living one is my other husband&rsquo;s.
+I christened her by the same name we had given to the first, and she filled up
+the ache I felt at the other&rsquo;s loss. Michael, I am dying, and I might
+have held my tongue; but I could not. Tell her husband of this or not, as you
+may judge; and forgive, if you can, a woman you once deeply wronged, as she
+forgives you.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+SUSAN HENCHARD
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through which he saw
+for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress his frame, as if to
+bear better. His usual habit was not to consider whether destiny were hard upon
+him or not&mdash;the shape of his ideals in cases of affliction being simply a
+moody &ldquo;I am to suffer, I perceive.&rdquo; &ldquo;This much scourging,
+then, it is for me.&rdquo; But now through his passionate head there stormed
+this thought&mdash;that the blasting disclosure was what he had deserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His wife&rsquo;s extreme reluctance to have the girl&rsquo;s name altered from
+Newson to Henchard was now accounted for fully. It furnished another
+illustration of that honesty in dishonesty which had characterized her in other
+things.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of hours; till he
+suddenly said, &ldquo;Ah&mdash;I wonder if it is true!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and went with a candle to
+the door of Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s room, where he put his ear to the keyhole
+and listened. She was breathing profoundly. Henchard softly turned the handle,
+entered, and shading the light, approached the bedside. Gradually bringing the
+light from behind a screening curtain he held it in such a manner that it fell
+slantwise on her face without shining on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded her
+features.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were fair: his were dark. But this was an unimportant preliminary. In
+sleep there come to the surface buried genealogical facts, ancestral curves,
+dead men&rsquo;s traits, which the mobility of daytime animation screens and
+overwhelms. In the present statuesque repose of the young girl&rsquo;s
+countenance Richard Newson&rsquo;s was unmistakably reflected. He could not
+endure the sight of her, and hastened away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it. His wife was dead,
+and the first impulse for revenge died with the thought that she was beyond
+him. He looked out at the night as at a fiend. Henchard, like all his kind, was
+superstitious, and he could not help thinking that the concatenation of events
+this evening had produced was the scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on
+punishing him. Yet they had developed naturally. If he had not revealed his
+past history to Elizabeth he would not have searched the drawer for papers, and
+so on. The mockery was, that he should have no sooner taught a girl to claim
+the shelter of his paternity than he discovered her to have no kinship with
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from a
+fellow-creature. Like Prester John&rsquo;s, his table had been spread, and
+infernal harpies had snatched up the food. He went out of the house, and moved
+sullenly onward down the pavement till he came to the bridge at the bottom of
+the High Street. Here he turned in upon a bypath on the river bank, skirting
+the north-eastern limits of the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These precincts embodied the mournful phases of Casterbridge life, as the south
+avenues embodied its cheerful moods. The whole way along here was sunless, even
+in summer time; in spring, white frosts lingered here when other places were
+steaming with warmth; while in winter it was the seed-field of all the aches,
+rheumatisms, and torturing cramps of the year. The Casterbridge doctors must
+have pined away for want of sufficient nourishment but for the configuration of
+the landscape on the north-eastern side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The river&mdash;slow, noiseless, and dark&mdash;the Schwarzwasser of
+Casterbridge&mdash;ran beneath a low cliff, the two together forming a defence
+which had rendered walls and artificial earthworks on this side unnecessary.
+Here were ruins of a Franciscan priory, and a mill attached to the same, the
+water of which roared down a back-hatch like the voice of desolation. Above the
+cliff, and behind the river, rose a pile of buildings, and in the front of the
+pile a square mass cut into the sky. It was like a pedestal lacking its statue.
+This missing feature, without which the design remained incomplete, was, in
+truth, the corpse of a man, for the square mass formed the base of the gallows,
+the extensive buildings at the back being the county gaol. In the meadow where
+Henchard now walked the mob were wont to gather whenever an execution took
+place, and there to the tune of the roaring weir they stood and watched the
+spectacle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the glooms of this region impressed
+Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of the spot with his
+domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient of effects, scenes, and
+adumbrations. It reduced his heartburning to melancholy, and he exclaimed,
+&ldquo;Why the deuce did I come here!&rdquo; He went on past the cottage in
+which the old local hangman had lived and died, in times before that calling
+was monopolized over all England by a single gentleman; and climbed up by a
+steep back lane into the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the sufferings of that night, engendered by his bitter disappointment, he
+might well have been pitied. He was like one who had half fainted, and could
+neither recover nor complete the swoon. In words he could blame his wife, but
+not in his heart; and had he obeyed the wise directions outside her letter this
+pain would have been spared him for long&mdash;possibly for ever,
+Elizabeth-Jane seeming to show no ambition to quit her safe and secluded maiden
+courses for the speculative path of matrimony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morning came after this night of unrest, and with it the necessity for a
+plan. He was far too self-willed to recede from a position, especially as it
+would involve humiliation. His daughter he had asserted her to be, and his
+daughter she should always think herself, no matter what hyprocrisy it
+involved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was ill-prepared for the first step in this new situation. The moment he
+came into the breakfast-room Elizabeth advanced with open confidence to him and
+took him by the arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have thought and thought all night of it,&rdquo; she said frankly.
+&ldquo;And I see that everything must be as you say. And I am going to look
+upon you as the father that you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more.
+It is so plain to me now. Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you would not
+have done half the things you have done for me, and let me have my own way so
+entirely, and bought me presents, if I had only been your stepdaughter!
+He&mdash;Mr. Newson&mdash;whom my poor mother married by such a strange
+mistake&rdquo; (Henchard was glad that he had disguised matters here),
+&ldquo;was very kind&mdash;O so kind!&rdquo; (she spoke with tears in her
+eyes); &ldquo;but that is not the same thing as being one&rsquo;s real father
+after all. Now, father, breakfast is ready!&rdquo; she said cheerfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had prefigured
+for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet it was no less than a miserable
+insipidity to him now that it had come. His reinstation of her mother had been
+chiefly for the girl&rsquo;s sake, and the fruition of the whole scheme was
+such dust and ashes as this.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl there can have been seldom one
+like that which followed Henchard&rsquo;s announcement of himself to Elizabeth
+as her father. He had done it in an ardour and an agitation which had half
+carried the point of affection with her; yet, behold, from the next morning
+onwards his manner was constrained as she had never seen it before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coldness soon broke out into open chiding. One grievous failing of
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect
+words&mdash;those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was dinner-time&mdash;they never met except at meals&mdash;and she happened
+to say when he was rising from table, wishing to show him something, &ldquo;If
+you&rsquo;ll bide where you be a minute, father, I&rsquo;ll get it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Bide where you be,&rsquo;&rdquo; he echoed sharply, &ldquo;Good
+God, are you only fit to carry wash to a pig-trough, that ye use such words as
+those?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She reddened with shame and sadness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I meant &lsquo;Stay where you are,&rsquo; father,&rdquo; she said, in a
+low, humble voice. &ldquo;I ought to have been more careful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He made no reply, and went out of the room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it came to pass that for
+&ldquo;fay&rdquo; she said &ldquo;succeed&rdquo;; that she no longer spoke of
+&ldquo;dumbledores&rdquo; but of &ldquo;humble bees&rdquo;; no longer said of
+young men and women that they &ldquo;walked together,&rdquo; but that they were
+&ldquo;engaged&rdquo;; that she grew to talk of &ldquo;greggles&rdquo; as
+&ldquo;wild hyacinths&rdquo;; that when she had not slept she did not quaintly
+tell the servants next morning that she had been &ldquo;hag-rid,&rdquo; but
+that she had &ldquo;suffered from indigestion.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These improvements, however, are somewhat in advance of the story. Henchard,
+being uncultivated himself, was the bitterest critic the fair girl could
+possibly have had of her own lapses&mdash;really slight now, for she read
+omnivorously. A gratuitous ordeal was in store for her in the matter of her
+handwriting. She was passing the dining-room door one evening, and had occasion
+to go in for something. It was not till she had opened the door that she knew
+the Mayor was there in the company of a man with whom he transacted business.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here, Elizabeth-Jane,&rdquo; he said, looking round at her, &ldquo;just
+write down what I tell you&mdash;a few words of an agreement for me and this
+gentleman to sign. I am a poor tool with a pen.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Be jowned, and so be I,&rdquo; said the gentleman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink, and sat down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now then&mdash;&lsquo;An agreement entered into this sixteenth day of
+October&rsquo;&mdash;write that first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She started the pen in an elephantine march across the sheet. It was a splendid
+round, bold hand of her own conception, a style that would have stamped a woman
+as Minerva&rsquo;s own in more recent days. But other ideas reigned then:
+Henchard&rsquo;s creed was that proper young girls wrote
+ladies&rsquo;-hand&mdash;nay, he believed that bristling characters were as
+innate and inseparable a part of refined womanhood as sex itself. Hence when,
+instead of scribbling, like the Princess Ida,&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;In such a hand as when a field of corn<br />
+Bows all its ears before the roaring East,&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags, he reddened in
+angry shame for her, and, peremptorily saying, &ldquo;Never
+mind&mdash;I&rsquo;ll finish it,&rdquo; dismissed her there and then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to her now. She was, it must be
+admitted, sometimes provokingly and unnecessarily willing to saddle herself
+with manual labours. She would go to the kitchen instead of ringing, &ldquo;Not
+to make Phoebe come up twice.&rdquo; She went down on her knees, shovel in
+hand, when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle; moreover, she would
+persistently thank the parlour-maid for everything, till one day, as soon as
+the girl was gone from the room, Henchard broke out with, &ldquo;Good God, why
+dostn&rsquo;t leave off thanking that girl as if she were a goddess-born!
+Don&rsquo;t I pay her a dozen pound a year to do things for &rsquo;ee?&rdquo;
+Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation that he became sorry a few
+minutes after, and said that he did not mean to be rough.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These domestic exhibitions were the small protruding needlerocks which
+suggested rather than revealed what was underneath. But his passion had less
+terror for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the latter mood
+told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing dislike. The more
+interesting that her appearance and manners became under the softening
+influences which she could now command, and in her wisdom did command, the more
+she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she caught him looking at her with a
+louring invidiousness that she could hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was
+cruel mockery that she should for the first time excite his animosity when she
+had taken his surname.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabeth had latterly been
+accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of cider or ale and
+bread-and-cheese to Nance Mockridge, who worked in the yard wimbling hay-bonds.
+Nance accepted this offering thankfully at first; afterwards as a matter of
+course. On a day when Henchard was on the premises he saw his stepdaughter
+enter the hay-barn on this errand; and, as there was no clear spot on which to
+deposit the provisions, she at once set to work arranging two trusses of hay as
+a table, Mockridge meanwhile standing with her hands on her hips, easefully
+looking at the preparations on her behalf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elizabeth, come here!&rdquo; said Henchard; and she obeyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?&rdquo; he said with
+suppressed passion. &ldquo;Haven&rsquo;t I told you o&rsquo;t fifty times? Hey?
+Making yourself a drudge for a common workwoman of such a character as hers!
+Why, ye&rsquo;ll disgrace me to the dust!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn door,
+who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character. Coming to the
+door she cried regardless of consequences, &ldquo;Come to that, Mr. Henchard, I
+can let &rsquo;ee know she&rsquo;ve waited on worse!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then she must have had more charity than sense,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, she hadn&rsquo;t. &rsquo;Twere not for charity but for hire; and
+at a public-house in this town!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not true!&rdquo; cried Henchard indignantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just ask her,&rdquo; said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner
+that she could comfortably scratch her elbows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and white from
+confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. &ldquo;What does this
+mean?&rdquo; he said to her. &ldquo;Anything or nothing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane. &ldquo;But it was
+only&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Did you do it, or didn&rsquo;t you? Where was it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when we were
+staying there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailed into the barn; for assuming
+that she was to be discharged on the instant she had resolved to make the most
+of her victory. Henchard, however, said nothing about discharging her. Unduly
+sensitive on such points by reason of his own past, he had the look of one
+completely ground down to the last indignity. Elizabeth followed him to the
+house like a culprit; but when she got inside she could not see him. Nor did
+she see him again that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Convinced of the scathing damage to his local repute and position that must
+have been caused by such a fact, though it had never before reached his own
+ears, Henchard showed a positive distaste for the presence of this girl not his
+own, whenever he encountered her. He mostly dined with the farmers at the
+market-room of one of the two chief hotels, leaving her in utter solitude.
+Could he have seen how she made use of those silent hours he might have found
+reason to reserve his judgment on her quality. She read and took notes
+incessantly, mastering facts with painful laboriousness, but never flinching
+from her self-imposed task. She began the study of Latin, incited by the Roman
+characteristics of the town she lived in. &ldquo;If I am not well-informed it
+shall be by no fault of my own,&rdquo; she would say to herself through the
+tears that would occasionally glide down her peachy cheeks when she was fairly
+baffled by the portentous obscurity of many of these educational works.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feeling, great-eyed creature, construed by not
+a single contiguous being; quenching with patient fortitude her incipient
+interest in Farfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided, unmaidenly, and unwise.
+True, that for reasons best known to herself, she had, since Farfrae&rsquo;s
+dismissal, shifted her quarters from the back room affording a view of the yard
+(which she had occupied with such zest) to a front chamber overlooking the
+street; but as for the young man, whenever he passed the house he seldom or
+never turned his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winter had almost come, and unsettled weather made her still more dependent
+upon indoor resources. But there were certain early winter days in
+Casterbridge&mdash;days of firmamental exhaustion which followed angry
+south-westerly tempests&mdash;when, if the sun shone, the air was like velvet.
+She seized on these days for her periodical visits to the spot where her mother
+lay buried&mdash;the still-used burial-ground of the old Roman-British city,
+whose curious feature was this, its continuity as a place of sepulture. Mrs.
+Henchard&rsquo;s dust mingled with the dust of women who lay ornamented with
+glass hair-pins and amber necklaces, and men who held in their mouths coins of
+Hadrian, Posthumus, and the Constantines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Half-past ten in the morning was about her hour for seeking this spot&mdash;a
+time when the town avenues were deserted as the avenues of Karnac. Business had
+long since passed down them into its daily cells, and Leisure had not arrived
+there. So Elizabeth-Jane walked and read, or looked over the edge of the book
+to think, and thus reached the churchyard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There, approaching her mother&rsquo;s grave she saw a solitary dark figure in
+the middle of the gravel-walk. This figure, too, was reading; but not from a
+book: the words which engrossed it being the inscription on Mrs.
+Henchard&rsquo;s tombstone. The personage was in mourning like herself, was
+about her age and size, and might have been her wraith or double, but for the
+fact that it was a lady much more beautifully dressed than she. Indeed,
+comparatively indifferent as Elizabeth-Jane was to dress, unless for some
+temporary whim or purpose, her eyes were arrested by the artistic perfection of
+the lady&rsquo;s appearance. Her gait, too, had a flexuousness about it, which
+seemed to avoid angularity. It was a revelation to Elizabeth that human beings
+could reach this stage of external development&mdash;she had never suspected
+it. She felt all the freshness and grace to be stolen from herself on the
+instant by the neighbourhood of such a stranger. And this was in face of the
+fact that Elizabeth could now have been writ handsome, while the young lady was
+simply pretty.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had she been envious she might have hated the woman; but she did not do
+that&mdash;she allowed herself the pleasure of feeling fascinated. She wondered
+where the lady had come from. The stumpy and practical walk of honest
+homeliness which mostly prevailed there, the two styles of dress thereabout,
+the simple and the mistaken, equally avouched that this figure was no
+Casterbridge woman&rsquo;s, even if a book in her hand resembling a guide-book
+had not also suggested it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stranger presently moved from the tombstone of Mrs. Henchard, and vanished
+behind the corner of the wall. Elizabeth went to the tomb herself; beside it
+were two footprints distinct in the soil, signifying that the lady had stood
+there a long time. She returned homeward, musing on what she had seen, as she
+might have mused on a rainbow or the Northern Lights, a rare butterfly or a
+cameo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Interesting as things had been out of doors, at home it turned out to be one of
+her bad days. Henchard, whose two years&rsquo; mayoralty was ending, had been
+made aware that he was not to be chosen to fill a vacancy in the list of
+aldermen; and that Farfrae was likely to become one of the Council. This caused
+the unfortunate discovery that she had played the waiting-maid in the town of
+which he was Mayor to rankle in his mind yet more poisonously. He had learnt by
+personal inquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae&mdash;that
+treacherous upstart&mdash;that she had thus humiliated herself. And though Mrs.
+Stannidge seemed to attach no great importance to the incident&mdash;the
+cheerful souls at the Three Mariners having exhausted its aspects long
+ago&mdash;such was Henchard&rsquo;s haughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed
+was regarded as little less than a social catastrophe by him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ever since the evening of his wife&rsquo;s arrival with her daughter there had
+been something in the air which had changed his luck. That dinner at the
+King&rsquo;s Arms with his friends had been Henchard&rsquo;s Austerlitz: he had
+had his successes since, but his course had not been upward. He was not to be
+numbered among the aldermen&mdash;that Peerage of burghers&mdash;as he had
+expected to be, and the consciousness of this soured him to-day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, where have you been?&rdquo; he said to her with offhand laconism.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been strolling in the Walks and churchyard, father, till I
+feel quite leery.&rdquo; She clapped her hand to her mouth, but too late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was just enough to incense Henchard after the other crosses of the day.
+&ldquo;I <i>won&rsquo;t</i> have you talk like that!&rdquo; he thundered.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Leery,&rsquo; indeed. One would think you worked upon a farm! One
+day I learn that you lend a hand in public-houses. Then I hear you talk like a
+clodhopper. I&rsquo;m burned, if it goes on, this house can&rsquo;t hold us
+two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The only way of getting a single pleasant thought to go to sleep upon after
+this was by recalling the lady she had seen that day, and hoping she might see
+her again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over his jealous folly in
+forbidding Farfrae to pay his addresses to this girl who did not belong to him,
+when if he had allowed them to go on he might not have been encumbered with
+her. At last he said to himself with satisfaction as he jumped up and went to
+the writing-table: &ldquo;Ah! he&rsquo;ll think it means peace, and a marriage
+portion&mdash;not that I don&rsquo;t want my house to be troubled with her, and
+no portion at all!&rdquo; He wrote as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Sir,&mdash;On consideration, I don&rsquo;t wish to interfere with your
+courtship of Elizabeth-Jane, if you care for her. I therefore withdraw my
+objection; excepting in this&mdash;that the business be not carried on in my
+house.&mdash;Yours,
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+M. HENCHARD.<br />
+Mr. Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Jane again in the churchyard,
+but while looking for the lady she was startled by the apparition of Farfrae,
+who passed outside the gate. He glanced up for a moment from a pocket-book in
+which he appeared to be making figures as he went; whether or not he saw her he
+took no notice, and disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluity she thought he probably
+scorned her; and quite broken in spirit sat down on a bench. She fell into
+painful thought on her position, which ended with her saying quite loud,
+&ldquo;O, I wish I was dead with dear mother!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind the bench was a little promenade under the wall where people sometimes
+walked instead of on the gravel. The bench seemed to be touched by something,
+she looked round, and a face was bending over her, veiled, but still distinct,
+the face of the young woman she had seen yesterday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowing she had been overheard,
+though there was pleasure in her confusion. &ldquo;Yes, I heard you,&rdquo;
+said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. &ldquo;What can have
+happened?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t&mdash;I can&rsquo;t tell you,&rdquo; said Elizabeth,
+putting her hand to her face to hide a quick flush that had come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no movement or word for a few seconds; then the girl felt that the
+young lady was sitting down beside her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I guess how it is with you,&rdquo; said the latter. &ldquo;That was your
+mother.&rdquo; She waved her hand towards the tombstone. Elizabeth looked up at
+her as if inquiring of herself whether there should be confidence. The
+lady&rsquo;s manner was so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there
+should be confidence. &ldquo;It was my mother,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;my only
+friend.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, he is living,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is he not kind to you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no wish to complain of him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There has been a disagreement?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A little.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you were to blame,&rdquo; suggested the stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was&mdash;in many ways,&rdquo; sighed the meek Elizabeth. &ldquo;I
+swept up the coals when the servants ought to have done it; and I said I was
+leery;&mdash;and he was angry with me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply. &ldquo;Do you know the
+impression your words give me?&rdquo; she said ingenuously. &ldquo;That he is a
+hot-tempered man&mdash;a little proud&mdash;perhaps ambitious; but not a bad
+man.&rdquo; Her anxiety not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was
+curious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no; certainly not <i>bad</i>,&rdquo; agreed the honest girl.
+&ldquo;And he has not even been unkind to me till lately&mdash;since mother
+died. But it has been very much to bear while it has lasted. All is owing to my
+defects, I daresay; and my defects are owing to my history.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What is your history?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner. She found that her
+questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed compelled
+to look back again. &ldquo;My history is not gay or attractive,&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon Elizabeth-Jane told
+the tale of her life as she understood it, which was in general the true one,
+except that the sale at the fair had no part therein.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Contrary to the girl&rsquo;s expectation her new friend was not shocked. This
+cheered her; and it was not till she thought of returning to that home in which
+she had been treated so roughly of late that her spirits fell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know how to return,&rdquo; she murmured. &ldquo;I think of
+going away. But what can I do? Where can I go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps it will be better soon,&rdquo; said her friend gently. &ldquo;So
+I would not go far. Now what do you think of this: I shall soon want somebody
+to live in my house, partly as housekeeper, partly as companion; would you mind
+coming to me? But perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes,&rdquo; cried Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes. &ldquo;I would,
+indeed&mdash;I would do anything to be independent; for then perhaps my father
+might get to love me. But, ah!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am no accomplished person. And a companion to you must be that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, not necessarily.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not? But I can&rsquo;t help using rural words sometimes, when I
+don&rsquo;t mean to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, I shall like to know them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And&mdash;O, I know I shan&rsquo;t do!&rdquo;&mdash;she cried with a
+distressful laugh. &ldquo;I accidentally learned to write round hand instead of
+ladies&rsquo;-hand. And, of course, you want some one who can write
+that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, not necessary to write ladies&rsquo;-hand?&rdquo; cried the joyous
+Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But where do you live?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be living here after twelve
+o&rsquo;clock to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth expressed her astonishment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have been staying at Budmouth for a few days while my house was
+getting ready. The house I am going into is that one they call High-Place
+Hall&mdash;the old stone one looking down the lane to the market. Two or three
+rooms are fit for occupation, though not all: I sleep there to-night for the
+first time. Now will you think over my proposal, and meet me here the first
+fine day next week, and say if you are still in the same mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change from an unbearable
+position, joyfully assented; and the two parted at the gate of the churchyard.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>XXI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains practically unmarked till
+some mature experience enforces it, so did this High-Place Hall now for the
+first time really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her ears had heard its
+name on a hundred occasions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger, and the house, and her own
+chance of living there, all the rest of the day. In the afternoon she had
+occasion to pay a few bills in the town and do a little shopping when she
+learnt that what was a new discovery to herself had become a common topic about
+the streets. High-Place Hall was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to
+live shortly; all the shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the
+chance of her being a customer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new to her
+in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render chimneys,
+attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover&rsquo;s feeling,
+thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place Hall. She went up
+the street in that direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Hall, with its grey <i>façade</i> and parapet, was the only residence of
+its sort so near the centre of the town. It had, in the first place, the
+characteristics of a country mansion&mdash;birds&rsquo; nests in its chimneys,
+damp nooks where fungi grew and irregularities of surface direct from
+Nature&rsquo;s trowel. At night the forms of passengers were patterned by the
+lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of the premises having
+been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a new tenant. The
+house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of dignity without great
+size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still less consequential, yet the
+old-fashioned stranger instinctively said &ldquo;Blood built it, and Wealth
+enjoys it&rdquo; however vague his opinions of those accessories might be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for until
+this very evening, when the new lady had arrived, the house had been empty for
+a year or two while before that interval its occupancy had been irregular. The
+reason of its unpopularity was soon made manifest. Some of its rooms overlooked
+the market-place; and such a prospect from such a house was not considered
+desirable or seemly by its would-be occupiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady
+had obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of comparatively
+practised manner had made upon the studious girl&rsquo;s mind was so deep that
+she enjoyed standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the
+charming lady was inside the confronting walls, and to wonder what she was
+doing. Her admiration for the architecture of that front was entirely on
+account of the inmate it screened. Though for that matter the architecture
+deserved admiration, or at least study, on its own account. It was Palladian,
+and like most architecture erected since the Gothic age was a compilation
+rather than a design. But its reasonableness made it impressive. It was not
+rich, but rich enough. A timely consciousness of the ultimate vanity of human
+architecture, no less than of other human things, had prevented artistic
+superfluity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Men had still quite recently been going in and out with parcels and
+packing-cases, rendering the door and hall within like a public thoroughfare.
+Elizabeth trotted through the open door in the dusk, but becoming alarmed at
+her own temerity she went quickly out again by another which stood open in the
+lofty wall of the back court. To her surprise she found herself in one of the
+little-used alleys of the town. Looking round at the door which had given her
+egress, by the light of the solitary lamp fixed in the alley, she saw that it
+was arched and old&mdash;older even than the house itself. The door was
+studded, and the keystone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had
+exhibited a comic leer, as could still be discerned; but generations of
+Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth; and
+the blows thereon had chipped off the lips and jaws as if they had been eaten
+away by disease. The appearance was so ghastly by the weakly lamp-glimmer that
+she could not bear to look at it&mdash;the first unpleasant feature of her
+visit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of the leering mask
+suggested one thing above all others as appertaining to the mansion&rsquo;s
+past history&mdash;intrigue. By the alley it had been possible to come unseen
+from all sorts of quarters in the town&mdash;the old play-house, the old
+bull-stake, the old cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants had been used
+to disappear. High-Place Hall could boast of its conveniences undoubtedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward, which was down the
+alley, but hearing footsteps approaching in that quarter, and having no great
+wish to be found in such a place at such a time she quickly retreated. There
+being no other way out she stood behind a brick pier till the intruder should
+have gone his ways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had she watched she would have been surprised. She would have seen that the
+pedestrian on coming up made straight for the arched doorway: that as he paused
+with his hand upon the latch the lamplight fell upon the face of Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook that she discerned nothing of
+this. Henchard passed in, as ignorant of her presence as she was ignorant of
+his identity, and disappeared in the darkness. Elizabeth came out a second time
+into the alley, and made the best of her way home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s chiding, by begetting in her a nervous fear of doing anything
+definable as unladylike, had operated thus curiously in keeping them unknown to
+each other at a critical moment. Much might have resulted from
+recognition&mdash;at the least a query on either side in one and the selfsame
+form: What could he or she possibly be doing there?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard, whatever his business at the lady&rsquo;s house, reached his own home
+only a few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane. Her plan was to broach the
+question of leaving his roof this evening; the events of the day had urged her
+to the course. But its execution depended upon his mood, and she anxiously
+awaited his manner towards her. She found that it had changed. He showed no
+further tendency to be angry; he showed something worse. Absolute indifference
+had taken the place of irritability; and his coldness was such that it
+encouraged her to departure, even more than hot temper could have done.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father, have you any objection to my going away?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Going away! No&mdash;none whatever. Where are you going?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything at present about her
+destination to one who took so little interest in her. He would know that soon
+enough. &ldquo;I have heard of an opportunity of getting more cultivated and
+finished, and being less idle,&rdquo; she answered, with hesitation. &ldquo;A
+chance of a place in a household where I can have advantages of study, and
+seeing refined life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then make the best of it, in Heaven&rsquo;s name&mdash;if you
+can&rsquo;t get cultivated where you are.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t object?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Object&mdash;I? Ho&mdash;no! Not at all.&rdquo; After a pause he said,
+&ldquo;But you won&rsquo;t have enough money for this lively scheme without
+help, you know? If you like I should be willing to make you an allowance, so
+that you not be bound to live upon the starvation wages refined folk are likely
+to pay &rsquo;ee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She thanked him for this offer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It had better be done properly,&rdquo; he added after a pause. &ldquo;A
+small annuity is what I should like you to have&mdash;so as to be independent
+of me&mdash;and so that I may be independent of you. Would that please
+ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ll see about it this very day.&rdquo; He seemed relieved to
+get her off his hands by this arrangement, and as far as they were concerned
+the matter was settled. She now simply waited to see the lady again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth-Jane having now
+changed her orbit from one of gay independence to laborious self-help, thought
+the weather good enough for such declined glory as hers, if her friend would
+only face it&mdash;a matter of doubt. She went to the boot-room where her
+pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis; took them down, had their mildewed
+leathers blacked, and put them on as she had done in old times. Thus mounted,
+and with cloak and umbrella, she went off to the place of
+appointment&mdash;intending, if the lady were not there, to call at the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One side of the churchyard&mdash;the side towards the weather&mdash;was
+sheltered by an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves overhung as much as one
+or two feet. At the back of the wall was a corn-yard with its granary and
+barns&mdash;the place wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under
+the projection of the thatch she saw a figure. The young lady had come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl&rsquo;s utmost hopes that
+she almost feared her good fortune. Fancies find rooms in the strongest minds.
+Here, in a churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers, was a
+strange woman of curious fascinations never seen elsewhere: there might be some
+devilry about her presence. However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on
+whose summit the rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came to
+the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth forgot her
+fancy. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her
+teeth appearing with the word through the black fleece that protected her face,
+&ldquo;have you decided?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, quite,&rdquo; said the other eagerly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father is willing?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then come along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now&mdash;as soon as you like. I had a good mind to send to you to come
+to my house, thinking you might not venture up here in the wind. But as I like
+getting out of doors, I thought I would come and see first.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was my own thought.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That shows we shall agree. Then can you come to-day? My house is so
+hollow and dismal that I want some living thing there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think I might be able to,&rdquo; said the girl, reflecting.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind and raindrops from
+the other side of the wall. There came such words as &ldquo;sacks,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;quarters,&rdquo; &ldquo;threshing,&rdquo; &ldquo;tailing,&rdquo;
+&ldquo;next Saturday&rsquo;s market,&rdquo; each sentence being disorganized by
+the gusts like a face in a cracked mirror. Both the women listened.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are those?&rdquo; said the lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One is my father. He rents that yard and barn.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in listening to the
+technicalities of the corn trade. At last she said suddenly, &ldquo;Did you
+tell him where you were going to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O&mdash;how was that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought it safer to get away first&mdash;as he is so uncertain in his
+temper.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you are right.... Besides, I have never told you my name. It is
+Miss Templeman.... Are they gone&mdash;on the other side?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. They have only gone up into the granary.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day&mdash;this
+evening, say, at six.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which way shall I come, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The front way&mdash;round by the gate. There is no other that I have
+noticed.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you may as well
+keep silent upon it till you are clear off. Who knows but that he may alter his
+mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. &ldquo;On consideration I don&rsquo;t fear
+it,&rdquo; she said sadly. &ldquo;He has grown quite cold to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well. Six o&rsquo;clock then.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they found enough to do in
+holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind. Nevertheless the lady looked in at
+the corn-yard gates as she passed them, and paused on one foot for a moment.
+But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and the humpbacked barn cushioned
+with moss, and the granary rising against the church-tower behind, where the
+smacking of the rope against the flag-staff still went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s
+movement was to be so prompt. Hence when, just before six, he reached home and
+saw a fly at the door from the King&rsquo;s Arms, and his stepdaughter, with
+all her little bags and boxes, getting into it, he was taken by surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you said I might go, father?&rdquo; she explained through the
+carriage window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Said!&mdash;yes. But I thought you meant next month, or next year.
+&rsquo;Od, seize it&mdash;you take time by the forelock! This, then, is how you
+be going to treat me for all my trouble about ye?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of you!&rdquo; she
+said with spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, have your own way,&rdquo; he replied. He entered the house,
+and, seeing that all her things had not yet been brought down, went up to her
+room to look on. He had never been there since she had occupied it. Evidences
+of her care, of her endeavours for improvement, were visible all around, in the
+form of books, sketches, maps, and little arrangements for tasteful effects.
+Henchard had known nothing of these efforts. He gazed at them, turned suddenly
+about, and came down to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Look here,&rdquo; he said, in an altered voice&mdash;he never called her
+by name now&mdash;&ldquo;don&rsquo;t &rsquo;ee go away from me. It may be
+I&rsquo;ve spoke roughly to you&mdash;but I&rsquo;ve been grieved beyond
+everything by you&mdash;there&rsquo;s something that caused it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By me?&rdquo; she said, with deep concern. &ldquo;What have I
+done?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you now. But if you&rsquo;ll stop, and go on living
+as my daughter, I&rsquo;ll tell you all in time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the proposal had come ten minutes too late. She was in the fly&mdash;was
+already, in imagination, at the house of the lady whose manner had such charms
+for her. &ldquo;Father,&rdquo; she said, as considerately as she could,
+&ldquo;I think it best for us that I go on now. I need not stay long; I shall
+not be far away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and no more.
+&ldquo;You are not going far, you say. What will be your address, in case I
+wish to write to you? Or am I not to know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh yes&mdash;certainly. It is only in the town&mdash;High-Place
+Hall!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where?&rdquo; said Henchard, his face stilling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She repeated the words. He neither moved nor spoke, and waving her hand to him
+in utmost friendliness she signified to the flyman to drive up the street.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>XXII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+We go back for a moment to the preceding night, to account for Henchard&rsquo;s
+attitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplating her stealthy reconnoitring
+excursion to the abode of the lady of her fancy, he had been not a little
+amazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta&rsquo;s well-known characters.
+The self-repression, the resignation of her previous communication had vanished
+from her mood; she wrote with some of the natural lightness which had marked
+her in their early acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+HIGH-PLACE HALL<br />
+MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD,&mdash;Don&rsquo;t be surprised. It is for your good and
+mine, as I hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridge&mdash;for how long I
+cannot tell. That depends upon another; and he is a man, and a merchant, and a
+Mayor, and one who has the first right to my affections.<br />
+    Seriously, <i>mon ami</i>, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be
+from this. I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death of your
+wife&mdash;whom you used to think of as dead so many years before! Poor woman,
+she seems to have been a sufferer, though uncomplaining, and though weak in
+intellect not an imbecile. I am glad you acted fairly by her. As soon as I knew
+she was no more, it was brought home to me very forcibly by my conscience that
+I ought to endeavour to disperse the shade which my <i>étourderie</i> flung
+over my name, by asking you to carry out your promise to me. I hope you are of
+the same mind, and that you will take steps to this end. As, however, I did not
+know how you were situated, or what had happened since our separation, I
+decided to come and establish myself here before communicating with you.<br />
+    You probably feel as I do about this. I shall be able to see you in a day
+or two. Till then, farewell.&mdash;Yours,
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+LUCETTA.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+<i>P.S.</i>&mdash;I was unable to keep my appointment to meet you for a moment
+or two in passing through Casterbridge the other day. My plans were altered by
+a family event, which it will surprise you to hear of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall was being prepared for a
+tenant. He said with a puzzled air to the first person he encountered,
+&ldquo;Who is coming to live at the Hall?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir,&rdquo; said his
+informant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard thought it over. &ldquo;Lucetta is related to her, I suppose,&rdquo;
+he said to himself. &ldquo;Yes, I must put her in her proper position,
+undoubtedly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was by no means with the oppression that would once have accompanied the
+thought that he regarded the moral necessity now; it was, indeed, with
+interest, if not warmth. His bitter disappointment at finding Elizabeth-Jane to
+be none of his, and himself a childless man, had left an emotional void in
+Henchard that he unconsciously craved to fill. In this frame of mind, though
+without strong feeling, he had strolled up the alley and into High-Place Hall
+by the postern at which Elizabeth had so nearly encountered him. He had gone on
+thence into the court, and inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking china from a
+crate if Miss Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name under
+which he had known Lucetta&mdash;or &ldquo;Lucette,&rdquo; as she had called
+herself at that time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only had come. Henchard
+went away, concluding that Lucetta had not as yet settled in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was in this interested stage of the inquiry when he witnessed
+Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s departure the next day. On hearing her announce the
+address there suddenly took possession of him the strange thought that Lucetta
+and Miss Templeman were one and the same person, for he could recall that in
+her season of intimacy with him the name of the rich relative whom he had
+deemed somewhat a mythical personage had been given as Templeman. Though he was
+not a fortune-hunter, the possibility that Lucetta had been sublimed into a
+lady of means by some munificent testament on the part of this relative lent a
+charm to her image which it might not otherwise have acquired. He was getting
+on towards the dead level of middle age, when material things increasingly
+possess the mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Henchard was not left long in suspense. Lucetta was rather addicted to
+scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent of letters after the <i>fiasco</i>
+in their marriage arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone away when another
+note came to the Mayor&rsquo;s house from High-Place Hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am in residence,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and comfortable, though
+getting here has been a wearisome undertaking. You probably know what I am
+going to tell you, or do you not? My good Aunt Templeman, the banker&rsquo;s
+widow, whose very existence you used to doubt, much more her affluence, has
+lately died, and bequeathed some of her property to me. I will not enter into
+details except to say that I have taken her name&mdash;as a means of escape
+from mine, and its wrongs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to reside in
+Casterbridge&mdash;to be tenant of High-Place Hall, that at least you may be
+put to no trouble if you wish to see me. My first intention was to keep you in
+ignorance of the changes in my life till you should meet me in the street; but
+I have thought better of this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You probably are aware of my arrangement with your daughter, and have
+doubtless laughed at the&mdash;what shall I call it?&mdash;practical joke (in
+all affection) of my getting her to live with me. But my first meeting with her
+was purely an accident. Do you see, Michael, partly why I have done
+it?&mdash;why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if to visit <i>her</i>,
+and thus to form my acquaintance naturally. She is a dear, good girl, and she
+thinks you have treated her with undue severity. You may have done so in your
+haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. As the result has been to bring her to
+me I am not disposed to upbraid you.&mdash;In haste, yours always,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;LUCETTA.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The excitement which these announcements produced in Henchard&rsquo;s gloomy
+soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dining-table long and
+dreamily, and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which had run to
+waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae gathered
+around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was plainly in a very coming-on
+disposition for marriage. But what else could a poor woman be who had given her
+time and her heart to him so thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose her
+credit by it? Probably conscience no less than affection had brought her here.
+On the whole he did not blame her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The artful little woman!&rdquo; he said, smiling (with reference to
+Lucetta&rsquo;s adroit and pleasant manœuvre with Elizabeth-Jane).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard to start for her
+house. He put on his hat and went. It was between eight and nine o&rsquo;clock
+when he reached her door. The answer brought him was that Miss Templeman was
+engaged for that evening; but that she would be happy to see him the next day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s rather like giving herself airs!&rdquo; he thought.
+&ldquo;And considering what we&mdash;&rdquo; But after all, she plainly had not
+expected him, and he took the refusal quietly. Nevertheless he resolved not to
+go next day. &ldquo;These cursed women&mdash;there&rsquo;s not an inch of
+straight grain in &rsquo;em!&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard&rsquo;s thought as if it were a clue
+line, and view the interior of High-Place Hall on this particular evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s arrival she had been phlegmatically asked by an
+elderly woman to go upstairs and take off her things. She replied with great
+earnestness that she would not think of giving that trouble, and on the instant
+divested herself of her bonnet and cloak in the passage. She was then conducted
+to the first floor on the landing, and left to find her way further alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoir or small drawing-room,
+and on a sofa with two cylindrical pillows reclined a dark-haired, large-eyed,
+pretty woman, of unmistakably French extraction on one side or the other. She
+was probably some years older than Elizabeth, and had a sparkling light in her
+eye. In front of the sofa was a small table, with a pack of cards scattered
+upon it faces upward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The attitude had been so full of abandonment that she bounded up like a spring
+on hearing the door open.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease, and came across to her
+with a reckless skip that innate grace only prevented from being boisterous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you are late,&rdquo; she said, taking hold of
+Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were so many little things to put up.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you seem dead-alive and tired. Let me try to enliven you by some
+wonderful tricks I have learnt, to kill time. Sit there and don&rsquo;t
+move.&rdquo; She gathered up the pack of cards, pulled the table in front of
+her, and began to deal them rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, have you chosen?&rdquo; she asked flinging down the last card.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; stammered Elizabeth, arousing herself from a reverie.
+&ldquo;I forgot, I was thinking of&mdash;you, and me&mdash;and how strange it
+is that I am here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest, and laid down the cards.
+&ldquo;Ah! never mind,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll lie here while you
+sit by me; and we&rsquo;ll talk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa, but with obvious pleasure.
+It could be seen that though in years she was younger than her entertainer in
+manner and general vision she seemed more of the sage. Miss Templeman deposited
+herself on the sofa in her former flexuous position, and throwing her arm above
+her brow&mdash;somewhat in the pose of a well-known conception of
+Titian&rsquo;s&mdash;talked up at Elizabeth-Jane invertedly across her forehead
+and arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must tell you something,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wonder if you have
+suspected it. I have only been mistress of a large house and fortune a little
+while.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;only a little while?&rdquo; murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her
+countenance slightly falling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my father,
+till I was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in the army. I should
+not have mentioned this had I not thought it best you should know the
+truth.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes.&rdquo; She looked thoughtfully round the room&mdash;at the
+little square piano with brass inlayings, at the window-curtains, at the lamp,
+at the fair and dark kings and queens on the card-table, and finally at the
+inverted face of Lucetta Templeman, whose large lustrous eyes had such an odd
+effect upside down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s mind ran on acquirements to an almost morbid degree.
+&ldquo;You speak French and Italian fluently, no doubt,&rdquo; she said.
+&ldquo;I have not been able to get beyond a wretched bit of Latin yet.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, for that matter, in my native isle speaking French does not go for
+much. It is rather the other way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is your native isle?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was with rather more reluctance that Miss Templeman said, &ldquo;Jersey.
+There they speak French on one side of the street and English on the other, and
+a mixed tongue in the middle of the road. But it is a long time since I was
+there. Bath is where my people really belong to, though my ancestors in Jersey
+were as good as anybody in England. They were the Le Sueurs, an old family who
+have done great things in their time. I went back and lived there after my
+father&rsquo;s death. But I don&rsquo;t value such past matters, and am quite
+an English person in my feelings and tastes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta&rsquo;s tongue had for a moment outrun her discretion. She had arrived
+at Casterbridge as a Bath lady, and there were obvious reasons why Jersey
+should drop out of her life. But Elizabeth had tempted her to make free, and a
+deliberately formed resolve had been broken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It could not, however, have been broken in safer company. Lucetta&rsquo;s words
+went no further, and after this day she was so much upon her guard that there
+appeared no chance of her identification with the young Jersey woman who had
+been Henchard&rsquo;s dear comrade at a critical time. Not the least amusing of
+her safeguards was her resolute avoidance of a French word if one by accident
+came to her tongue more readily than its English equivalent. She shirked it
+with the suddenness of the weak Apostle at the accusation, &ldquo;Thy speech
+bewrayeth thee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning. She dressed herself for
+Mr. Henchard, and restlessly awaited his call before mid-day; as he did not
+come she waited on through the afternoon. But she did not tell Elizabeth that
+the person expected was the girl&rsquo;s stepfather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat in adjoining windows of the same room in Lucetta&rsquo;s great stone
+mansion, netting, and looking out upon the market, which formed an animated
+scene. Elizabeth could see the crown of her stepfather&rsquo;s hat among the
+rest beneath, and was not aware that Lucetta watched the same object with yet
+intenser interest. He moved about amid the throng, at this point lively as an
+ant-hill; elsewhere more reposeful, and broken up by stalls of fruit and
+vegetables. The farmers as a rule preferred the open <i>carrefour</i> for their
+transactions, despite its inconvenient jostlings and the danger from crossing
+vehicles, to the gloomy sheltered market-room provided for them. Here they
+surged on this one day of the week, forming a little world of leggings,
+switches, and sample-bags; men of extensive stomachs, sloping like mountain
+sides; men whose heads in walking swayed as the trees in November gales; who in
+conversing varied their attitudes much, lowering themselves by spreading their
+knees, and thrusting their hands into the pockets of remote inner jackets.
+Their faces radiated tropical warmth; for though when at home their
+countenances varied with the seasons, their market-faces all the year round
+were glowing little fires.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All over-clothes here were worn as if they were an inconvenience, a hampering
+necessity. Some men were well dressed; but the majority were careless in that
+respect, appearing in suits which were historical records of their
+wearer&rsquo;s deeds, sun-scorchings, and daily struggles for many years past.
+Yet many carried ruffled cheque-books in their pockets which regulated at the
+bank hard by a balance of never less than four figures. In fact, what these
+gibbous human shapes specially represented was ready money&mdash;money
+insistently ready&mdash;not ready next year like a nobleman&rsquo;s&mdash;often
+not merely ready at the bank like a professional man&rsquo;s, but ready in
+their large plump hands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It happened that to-day there rose in the midst of them all two or three tall
+apple-trees standing as if they grew on the spot; till it was perceived that
+they were held by men from the cider-districts who came here to sell them,
+bringing the clay of their county on their boots. Elizabeth-Jane, who had often
+observed them, said, &ldquo;I wonder if the same trees come every week?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What trees?&rdquo; said Lucetta, absorbed in watching for Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident checked her. Behind one of the trees
+stood Farfrae, briskly discussing a sample-bag with a farmer. Henchard had come
+up, accidentally encountering the young man, whose face seemed to inquire,
+&ldquo;Do we speak to each other?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eye which answered
+&ldquo;No!&rdquo; Elizabeth-Jane sighed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are you particularly interested in anybody out there?&rdquo; said
+Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, no,&rdquo; said her companion, a quick red shooting over her face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Luckily Farfrae&rsquo;s figure was immediately covered by the apple-tree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta looked hard at her. &ldquo;Quite sure?&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Lucetta looked out. &ldquo;They are all farmers, I suppose?&rdquo; she
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. There&rsquo;s Mr. Bulge&mdash;he&rsquo;s a wine merchant;
+there&rsquo;s Benjamin Brownlet&mdash;a horse dealer; and Kitson, the pig
+breeder; and Yopper, the auctioneer; besides maltsters, and millers&mdash;and
+so on.&rdquo; Farfrae stood out quite distinctly now; but she did not mention
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Saturday afternoon slipped on thus desultorily. The market changed from the
+sample-showing hour to the idle hour before starting homewards, when tales were
+told. Henchard had not called on Lucetta though he had stood so near. He must
+have been too busy, she thought. He would come on Sunday or Monday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The days came but not the visitor, though Lucetta repeated her dressing with
+scrupulous care. She got disheartened. It may at once be declared that Lucetta
+no longer bore towards Henchard all that warm allegiance which had
+characterized her in their first acquaintance, the then unfortunate issue of
+things had chilled pure love considerably. But there remained a conscientious
+wish to bring about her union with him, now that there was nothing to hinder
+it&mdash;to right her position&mdash;which in itself was a happiness to sigh
+for. With strong social reasons on her side why their marriage should take
+place there had ceased to be any worldly reason on his why it should be
+postponed, since she had succeeded to fortune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At breakfast she said to Elizabeth-Jane
+quite coolly: &ldquo;I imagine your father may call to see you to-day. I
+suppose he stands close by in the market-place with the rest of the
+corn-dealers?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t come.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has taken against me,&rdquo; she said in a husky voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have quarreled more deeply than I know of.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her father from any
+charge of unnatural dislike, said &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will avoid?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth nodded sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and lip, and burst into
+hysterical sobs. Here was a disaster&mdash;her ingenious scheme completely
+stultified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, my dear Miss Templeman&mdash;what&rsquo;s the matter?&rdquo; cried
+her companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I like your company much!&rdquo; said Lucetta, as soon as she could
+speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes&mdash;and so do I yours!&rdquo; Elizabeth chimed in soothingly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; She could not finish the sentence, which
+was, naturally, that if Henchard had such a rooted dislike for the girl as now
+seemed to be the case, Elizabeth-Jane would have to be got rid of&mdash;a
+disagreeable necessity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A provisional resource suggested itself. &ldquo;Miss Henchard&mdash;will you go
+on an errand for me as soon as breakfast is over?&mdash;Ah, that&rsquo;s very
+good of you. Will you go and order&mdash;&rdquo; Here she enumerated several
+commissions at sundry shops, which would occupy Elizabeth&rsquo;s time for the
+next hour or two, at least.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And have you ever seen the Museum?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane had not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then you should do so at once. You can finish the morning by going
+there. It is an old house in a back street&mdash;I forget where&mdash;but
+you&rsquo;ll find out&mdash;and there are crowds of interesting
+things&mdash;skeletons, teeth, old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes,
+birds&rsquo; eggs&mdash;all charmingly instructive. You&rsquo;ll be sure to
+stay till you get quite hungry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed. &ldquo;I wonder why she wants
+to get rid of me to-day!&rdquo; she said sorrowfully as she went. That her
+absence, rather than her services or instruction, was in request, had been
+readily apparent to Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and difficult as it
+was to attribute a motive for the desire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta&rsquo;s servants was sent
+to Henchard&rsquo;s with a note. The contents were briefly:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+DEAR MICHAEL,&mdash;You will be standing in view of my house to-day for two or
+three hours in the course of your business, so do please call and see me. I am
+sadly disappointed that you have not come before, for can I help anxiety about
+my own equivocal relation to you?&mdash;especially now my aunt&rsquo;s fortune
+has brought me more prominently before society? Your daughter&rsquo;s presence
+here may be the cause of your neglect; and I have therefore sent her away for
+the morning. Say you come on business&mdash;I shall be quite alone.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+LUCETTA.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a gentleman
+called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await results.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sentimentally she did not much care to see him&mdash;his delays had wearied
+her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself picturesquely
+in the chair; first this way, then that; next so that the light fell over her
+head. Next she flung herself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve which so
+became her, and with her arm over her brow looked towards the door. This, she
+decided, was the best position after all, and thus she remained till a
+man&rsquo;s step was heard on the stairs. Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her
+curve (for Nature was too strong for Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid
+herself behind one of the window-curtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of
+the waning of passion the situation was an agitating one&mdash;she had not seen
+Henchard since his (supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting the door
+upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress. Lucetta flung back
+the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before her was not Henchard.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>XXIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person had, indeed, flashed
+through Lucetta&rsquo;s mind when she was on the point of bursting out; but it
+was just too late to recede.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair, fresh, and slenderly
+handsome. He wore genteel cloth leggings with white buttons, polished boots
+with infinite lace holes, light cord breeches under a black velveteen coat and
+waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch in his hand. Lucetta blushed, and
+said with a curious mixture of pout and laugh on her face&mdash;&ldquo;O,
+I&rsquo;ve made a mistake!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m very sorry!&rdquo; he said, in deprecating tones. &ldquo;I
+came and I inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, and in no
+case would I have caught ye so unmannerly if I had known!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was the unmannerly one,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?&rdquo; said Mr.
+Farfrae, blinking a little in his bewilderment and nervously tapping his
+legging with his switch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, sir,&mdash;sit down. You must come and sit down now you are
+here,&rdquo; replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment. &ldquo;Miss
+Henchard will be here directly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the young
+man&mdash;that hyperborean crispness, stringency, and charm, as of a
+well-braced musical instrument, which had awakened the interest of Henchard,
+and of Elizabeth-Jane and of the Three Mariners&rsquo; jovial crew, at sight,
+made his unexpected presence here attractive to Lucetta. He hesitated, looked
+at the chair, thought there was no danger in it (though there was), and sat
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae&rsquo;s sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard&rsquo;s
+permission to him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he
+had taken no notice of Henchard&rsquo;s brusque letter; but an exceptionally
+fortunate business transaction put him on good terms with everybody, and
+revealed to him that he could undeniably marry if he chose. Then who so
+pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from
+her personal recommendations a reconciliation with his former friend Henchard
+would, in the natural course of things, flow from such a union. He therefore
+forgave the Mayor his curtness; and this morning on his way to the fair he had
+called at her house, where he learnt that she was staying at Miss
+Templeman&rsquo;s. A little stimulated at not finding her ready and
+waiting&mdash;so fanciful are men!&mdash;he hastened on to High-Place Hall to
+encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The fair to-day seems a large one,&rdquo; she said when, by natural
+deviation, their eyes sought the busy scene without. &ldquo;Your numerous fairs
+and markets keep me interested. How many things I think of while I watch from
+here!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without reached them as they
+sat&mdash;voices as of wavelets on a looping sea, one ever and anon rising
+above the rest. &ldquo;Do you look out often?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;very often.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you look for any one you know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Why should she have answered as she did?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I look as at a picture merely. But,&rdquo; she went on, turning
+pleasantly to him, &ldquo;I may do so now&mdash;I may look for you. You are
+always there, are you not? Ah&mdash;I don&rsquo;t mean it seriously! But it is
+amusing to look for somebody one knows in a crowd, even if one does not want
+him. It takes off the terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded by a throng,
+and having no point of junction with it through a single individual.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay! Maybe you&rsquo;ll be very lonely, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody knows how lonely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you are rich, they say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If so, I don&rsquo;t know how to enjoy my riches. I came to Casterbridge
+thinking I should like to live here. But I wonder if I shall.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did ye come from, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The neighbourhood of Bath.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And I from near Edinboro&rsquo;,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s
+better to stay at home, and that&rsquo;s true; but a man must live where his
+money is made. It is a great pity, but it&rsquo;s always so! Yet I&rsquo;ve
+done very well this year. O yes,&rdquo; he went on with ingenuous enthusiasm.
+&ldquo;You see that man with the drab kerseymere coat? I bought largely of him
+in the autumn when wheat was down, and then afterwards when it rose a little I
+sold off all I had! It brought only a small profit to me; while the farmers
+kept theirs, expecting higher figures&mdash;yes, though the rats were gnawing
+the ricks hollow. Just when I sold the markets went lower, and I bought up the
+corn of those who had been holding back at less price than my first purchases.
+And then,&rdquo; cried Farfrae impetuously, his face alight, &ldquo;I sold it a
+few weeks after, when it happened to go up again! And so, by contenting
+mysel&rsquo; with small profits frequently repeated, I soon made five hundred
+pounds&mdash;yes!&rdquo;&mdash;(bringing down his hand upon the table, and
+quite forgetting where he was)&mdash;&ldquo;while the others by keeping theirs
+in hand made nothing at all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest. He was quite a new type of
+person to her. At last his eye fell upon the lady&rsquo;s and their glances
+met.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, now, I&rsquo;m wearying you!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She said, &ldquo;No, indeed,&rdquo; colouring a shade.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Quite otherwise. You are most interesting.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I mean all you Scotchmen,&rdquo; she added in hasty correction.
+&ldquo;So free from Southern extremes. We common people are all one way or the
+other&mdash;warm or cold, passionate or frigid. You have both temperatures
+going on in you at the same time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly,
+ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are animated&mdash;then you are thinking of getting on. You are sad
+the next moment&mdash;then you are thinking of Scotland and friends.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. I think of home sometimes!&rdquo; he said simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So do I&mdash;as far as I can. But it was an old house where I was born,
+and they pulled it down for improvements, so I seem hardly to have any home to
+think of now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house was in St. Helier,
+and not in Bath.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are there! And
+don&rsquo;t they seem like home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They do to me&mdash;they do to me,&rdquo; he murmured. And his mind
+could be seen flying away northwards. Whether its origin were national or
+personal, it was quite true what Lucetta had said, that the curious double
+strands in Farfrae&rsquo;s thread of life&mdash;the commercial and the
+romantic&mdash;were very distinct at times. Like the colours in a variegated
+cord those contrasts could be seen intertwisted, yet not mingling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are wishing you were back again,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, no, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Farfrae, suddenly recalling himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fair without the windows was now raging thick and loud. It was the chief
+hiring fair of the year, and differed quite from the market of a few days
+earlier. In substance it was a whitey-brown crowd flecked with white&mdash;this
+being the body of labourers waiting for places. The long bonnets of the women,
+like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked shawls, mixed with the
+carters&rsquo; smockfrocks; for they, too, entered into the hiring. Among the
+rest, at the corner of the pavement, stood an old shepherd, who attracted the
+eyes of Lucetta and Farfrae by his stillness. He was evidently a chastened man.
+The battle of life had been a sharp one with him, for, to begin with, he was a
+man of small frame. He was now so bowed by hard work and years that,
+approaching from behind, a person could hardly see his head. He had planted the
+stem of his crook in the gutter and was resting upon the bow, which was
+polished to silver brightness by the long friction of his hands. He had quite
+forgotten where he was, and what he had come for, his eyes being bent on the
+ground. A little way off negotiations were proceeding which had reference to
+him; but he did not hear them, and there seemed to be passing through his mind
+pleasant visions of the hiring successes of his prime, when his skill laid open
+to him any farm for the asking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The negotiations were between a farmer from a distant county and the old
+man&rsquo;s son. In these there was a difficulty. The farmer would not take the
+crust without the crumb of the bargain, in other words, the old man without the
+younger; and the son had a sweetheart on his present farm, who stood by,
+waiting the issue with pale lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry to leave ye, Nelly,&rdquo; said the young man with
+emotion. &ldquo;But, you see, I can&rsquo;t starve father, and he&rsquo;s out
+o&rsquo; work at Lady-day. &rsquo;Tis only thirty-five mile.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The girl&rsquo;s lips quivered. &ldquo;Thirty-five mile!&rdquo; she murmured.
+&ldquo;Ah! &rsquo;tis enough! I shall never see &rsquo;ee again!&rdquo; It was,
+indeed, a hopeless length of traction for Dan Cupid&rsquo;s magnet; for young
+men were young men at Casterbridge as elsewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O! no, no&mdash;I never shall,&rdquo; she insisted, when he pressed her
+hand; and she turned her face to Lucetta&rsquo;s wall to hide her weeping. The
+farmer said he would give the young man half-an-hour for his answer, and went
+away, leaving the group sorrowing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta&rsquo;s eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae&rsquo;s. His, too, to her
+surprise, were moist at the scene.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is very hard,&rdquo; she said with strong feelings. &ldquo;Lovers
+ought not to be parted like that! O, if I had my wish, I&rsquo;d let people
+live and love at their pleasure!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe I can manage that they&rsquo;ll not be parted,&rdquo; said
+Farfrae. &ldquo;I want a young carter; and perhaps I&rsquo;ll take the old man
+too&mdash;yes; he&rsquo;ll not be very expensive, and doubtless he will answer
+my pairrpose somehow.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, you are so good!&rdquo; she cried, delighted. &ldquo;Go and tell
+them, and let me know if you have succeeded!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group. The eyes of all
+brightened; the bargain was soon struck. Farfrae returned to her immediately it
+was concluded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is kind-hearted of you, indeed,&rdquo; said Lucetta. &ldquo;For my
+part, I have resolved that all my servants shall have lovers if they want them!
+Do make the same resolve!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn. &ldquo;I must be a
+little stricter than that,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are a&mdash;a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and-corn
+merchant.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am a very ambitious woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, well, I cannet explain. I don&rsquo;t know how to talk to ladies,
+ambitious or no; and that&rsquo;s true,&rdquo; said Donald with grave regret.
+&ldquo;I try to be civil to a&rsquo; folk&mdash;no more!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I see you are as you say,&rdquo; replied she, sensibly getting the upper
+hand in these exchanges of sentiment. Under this revelation of insight Farfrae
+again looked out of the window into the thick of the fair.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the window their remarks
+could be heard as others&rsquo; had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?&rdquo; asked one.
+&ldquo;He promised to meet me here at the stroke of twelve; but I&rsquo;ve gone
+athwart and about the fair half-a-dozen times, and never a sign of him: though
+he&rsquo;s mostly a man to his word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I quite forgot the engagement,&rdquo; murmured Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now you must go,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;must you not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he replied. But he still remained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You had better go,&rdquo; she urged. &ldquo;You will lose a customer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry,&rdquo; exclaimed Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then suppose you don&rsquo;t go; but stay a little longer?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seeking him and who just then
+ominously walked across to where Henchard was standing, and he looked into the
+room and at her. &ldquo;I like staying; but I fear I must go!&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Business ought not to be neglected, ought it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not for a single minute.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It&rsquo;s true. I&rsquo;ll come another time&mdash;if I may,
+ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What has happened to us to-day is
+very curious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something to think over when we are alone, it&rsquo;s like to be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, I don&rsquo;t know that. It is commonplace after all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I&rsquo;ll not say that. O no!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market calls you to
+be gone.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. Market&mdash;business! I wish there were no business in the
+warrld.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta almost laughed&mdash;she would quite have laughed&mdash;but that there
+was a little emotion going in her at the time. &ldquo;How you change!&rdquo;
+she said. &ldquo;You should not change like this.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have never wished such things before,&rdquo; said the Scotchman, with
+a simple, shamed, apologetic look for his weakness. &ldquo;It is only since
+coming here and seeing you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If that&rsquo;s the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear
+me, I feel I have quite demoralized you!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I&rsquo;ll
+go&mdash;thank you for the pleasure of this visit.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you for staying.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;ll get into my market-mind when I&rsquo;ve been out a few
+minutes,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t know&mdash;I don&rsquo;t
+know!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As he went she said eagerly, &ldquo;You may hear them speak of me in
+Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I&rsquo;m a coquette, which some
+may, because of the incidents of my life, don&rsquo;t believe it, for I am
+not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I swear I will not!&rdquo; he said fervidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man&rsquo;s enthusiasm till he was
+quite brimming with sentiment; while he from merely affording her a new form of
+idleness, had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. Why was this? They could
+not have told.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a tradesman. But her ups
+and downs, capped by her indiscretions with Henchard had made her uncritical as
+to station. In her poverty she had met with repulse from the society to which
+she had belonged, and she had no great zest for renewing an attempt upon it
+now. Her heart longed for some ark into which it could fly and be at rest.
+Rough or smooth she did not care so long as it was warm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that he had called to see
+Elizabeth. Lucetta at the window watched him threading the maze of farmers and
+farmers&rsquo; men. She could see by his gait that he was conscious of her
+eyes, and her heart went out to him for his modesty&mdash;pleaded with her
+sense of his unfitness that he might be allowed to come again. He entered the
+market-house, and she could see him no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks, not of multitude but
+of strength, sounded through the house, and the waiting-maid tripped up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The Mayor,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily through her fingers.
+She did not answer at once, and the maid repeated the information with the
+addition, &ldquo;And he&rsquo;s afraid he hasn&rsquo;t much time to spare, he
+says.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won&rsquo;t detain him
+to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard&rsquo;s feelings with
+regard to her. She had quickened them, and now she was indifferent to the
+achievement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element changed, and she no
+longer felt strongly the necessity of getting rid of the girl for her
+stepfather&rsquo;s sake. When the young woman came in, sweetly unconscious of
+the turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said quite sincerely&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m so glad you&rsquo;ve come. You&rsquo;ll live with me a long
+time, won&rsquo;t you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off&mdash;what a new idea. Yet it
+was not unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all these days, after
+compromising her indescribably in the past. The least he could have done when
+he found himself free, and herself affluent, would have been to respond
+heartily and promptly to her invitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at their
+suddenness; and so passed Lucetta&rsquo;s experiences of that day.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>XXIV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignant star had done to blast
+the budding attentions she had won from Donald Farfrae, was glad to hear
+Lucetta&rsquo;s words about remaining.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For in addition to Lucetta&rsquo;s house being a home, that raking view of the
+market-place which it afforded had as much attraction for her as for Lucetta.
+The <i>carrefour</i> was like the regulation Open Place in spectacular dramas,
+where the incidents that occur always happen to bear on the lives of the
+adjoining residents. Farmers, merchants, dairymen, quacks, hawkers, appeared
+there from week to week, and disappeared as the afternoon wasted away. It was
+the node of all orbits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the two young women now.
+In an emotional sense they did not live at all during the intervals. Wherever
+they might go wandering on other days, on market-day they were sure to be at
+home. Both stole sly glances out of the window at Farfrae&rsquo;s shoulders and
+poll. His face they seldom saw, for, either through shyness, or not to disturb
+his mercantile mood, he avoided looking towards their quarters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus things went on, till a certain market-morning brought a new sensation.
+Elizabeth and Lucetta were sitting at breakfast when a parcel containing two
+dresses arrived for the latter from London. She called Elizabeth from her
+breakfast, and entering her friend&rsquo;s bedroom Elizabeth saw the gowns
+spread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry colour, the other lighter&mdash;a
+glove lying at the end of each sleeve, a bonnet at the top of each neck, and
+parasols across the gloves, Lucetta standing beside the suggested human figure
+in an attitude of contemplation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t think so hard about it,&rdquo; said Elizabeth, marking
+the intensity with which Lucetta was alternating the question whether this or
+that would suit best.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But settling upon new clothes is so trying,&rdquo; said Lucetta.
+&ldquo;You are that person&rdquo; (pointing to one of the arrangements),
+&ldquo;or you are <i>that</i> totally different person&rdquo; (pointing to the
+other), &ldquo;for the whole of the coming spring and one of the two, you
+don&rsquo;t know which, may turn out to be very objectionable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the cherry-coloured
+person at all hazards. The dress was pronounced to be a fit, and Lucetta walked
+with it into the front room, Elizabeth following her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year. The sun fell so flat
+on the houses and pavement opposite Lucetta&rsquo;s residence that they poured
+their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling of wheels, there
+were added to this steady light a fantastic series of circling irradiations
+upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to the window. Immediately opposite
+a vehicle of strange description had come to a standstill, as if it had been
+placed there for exhibition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a horse-drill, till then
+unknown, in its modern shape, in this part of the country, where the venerable
+seed-lip was still used for sowing as in the days of the Heptarchy. Its arrival
+created about as much sensation in the corn-market as a flying machine would
+create at Charing Cross. The farmers crowded round it, women drew near it,
+children crept under and into it. The machine was painted in bright hues of
+green, yellow, and red, and it resembled as a whole a compound of hornet,
+grasshopper, and shrimp, magnified enormously. Or it might have been likened to
+an upright musical instrument with the front gone. That was how it struck
+Lucetta. &ldquo;Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It has something to do with corn,&rdquo; said Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder who thought of introducing it here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donald Farfrae was in the minds of both as the innovator, for though not a
+farmer he was closely leagued with farming operations. And as if in response to
+their thought he came up at that moment, looked at the machine, walked round
+it, and handled it as if he knew something about its make. The two watchers had
+inwardly started at his coming, and Elizabeth left the window, went to the back
+of the room, and stood as if absorbed in the panelling of the wall. She hardly
+knew that she had done this till Lucetta, animated by the conjunction of her
+new attire with the sight of Farfrae, spoke out: &ldquo;Let us go and look at
+the instrument, whatever it is.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s bonnet and shawl were pitchforked on in a moment, and
+they went out. Among all the agriculturists gathered round the only appropriate
+possessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta, because she alone rivalled
+it in colour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They examined it curiously; observing the rows of trumpet-shaped tubes one
+within the other, the little scoops, like revolving salt-spoons, which tossed
+the seed into the upper ends of the tubes that conducted it to the ground; till
+somebody said, &ldquo;Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane.&rdquo; She looked up, and
+there was her stepfather.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and Elizabeth-Jane,
+embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered at random, &ldquo;This is the lady
+I live with, father&mdash;Miss Templeman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with a great wave till
+it met his body at the knee. Miss Templeman bowed. &ldquo;I am happy to become
+acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This is a curious
+machine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and still
+more forcibly to ridicule it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who brought it here?&rdquo; said Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, don&rsquo;t ask me, ma&rsquo;am!&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;The
+thing&mdash;why &rsquo;tis impossible it should act. &rsquo;Twas brought here
+by one of our machinists on the recommendation of a jumped-up jackanapes of a
+fellow who thinks&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; His eye caught Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s
+imploring face, and he stopped, probably thinking that the suit might be
+progressing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He turned to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his stepdaughter
+fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur apparently came from
+Henchard&rsquo;s lips in which she detected the words, &ldquo;You refused to
+see me!&rdquo; reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could not believe that
+they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless, indeed, they might have been
+spoken to one of the yellow-gaitered farmers near them. Yet Lucetta seemed
+silent, and then all thought of the incident was dissipated by the humming of a
+song, which sounded as though from the interior of the machine. Henchard had by
+this time vanished into the market-house, and both the women glanced towards
+the corn-drill. They could see behind it the bent back of a man who was pushing
+his head into the internal works to master their simple secrets. The hummed
+song went on&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tw&mdash;s on a s&mdash;m&mdash;r aftern&mdash;n,<br />
+A wee be&mdash;re the s&mdash;n w&mdash;nt d&mdash;n,<br />
+When Kitty wi&rsquo; a braw n&mdash;w g&mdash;wn<br />
+C&mdash;me ow&rsquo;re the h&mdash;lls to Gowrie.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment, and looked guilty of she
+did not know what. Lucetta next recognized him, and more mistress of herself
+said archly, &ldquo;The &lsquo;Lass of Gowrie&rsquo; from inside of a
+seed-drill&mdash;what a phenomenon!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood upright, and met
+their eyes across the summit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We are looking at the wonderful new drill,&rdquo; Miss Templeman said.
+&ldquo;But practically it is a stupid thing&mdash;is it not?&rdquo; she added,
+on the strength of Henchard&rsquo;s information.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stupid? O no!&rdquo; said Farfrae gravely. &ldquo;It will revolutionize
+sowing heerabout! No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast, so that
+some falls by the wayside and some among thorns, and all that. Each grain will
+go straight to its intended place, and nowhere else whatever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then the romance of the sower is gone for good,&rdquo; observed
+Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrae in Bible-reading at least.
+&ldquo;&lsquo;He that observeth the wind shall not sow,&rsquo; so the Preacher
+said; but his words will not be to the point any more. How things
+change!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay; ay.... It must be so!&rdquo; Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself
+on a blank point far away. &ldquo;But the machines are already very common in
+the East and North of England,&rdquo; he added apologetically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance with the
+Scriptures being somewhat limited. &ldquo;Is the machine yours?&rdquo; she
+asked of Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, madam,&rdquo; said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the
+sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth-Jane he was quite at his ease.
+&ldquo;No, no&mdash;I merely recommended that it should be got.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only conscious of her; to have
+passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence than
+she appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that he was much mixed that day, partly
+in his mercantile mood and partly in his romantic one, said gaily to him&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, don&rsquo;t forsake the machine for us,&rdquo; and went indoors
+with her companion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was unaccountable to
+her. Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying when they were again in
+the sitting-room&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew him
+this morning.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day. Together they saw the market
+thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline of the sun
+towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street endways and
+enfilading the long thoroughfare from top to bottom. The gigs and vans
+disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in the street. The time of
+the riding world was over; the pedestrian world held sway. Field labourers and
+their wives and children trooped in from the villages for their weekly
+shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheels and a tramp of horses ruling the
+sound as earlier, there was nothing but the shuffle of many feet. All the
+implements were gone; all the farmers; all the moneyed class. The character of
+the town&rsquo;s trading had changed from bulk to multiplicity and pence were
+handled now as pounds had been handled earlier in the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it was night and the
+street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed. In the faint
+blink of the fire they spoke more freely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your father was distant with you,&rdquo; said Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo; And having forgotten the momentary mystery of
+Henchard&rsquo;s seeming speech to Lucetta she continued, &ldquo;It is because
+he does not think I am respectable. I have tried to be so more than you can
+imagine, but in vain! My mother&rsquo;s separation from my father was
+unfortunate for me. You don&rsquo;t know what it is to have shadows like that
+upon your life.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta seemed to wince. &ldquo;I do not&mdash;of that kind precisely,&rdquo;
+she said, &ldquo;but you may feel a&mdash;sense of
+disgrace&mdash;shame&mdash;in other ways.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you ever had any such feeling?&rdquo; said the younger innocently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no,&rdquo; said Lucetta quickly. &ldquo;I was thinking of&mdash;what
+happens sometimes when women get themselves in strange positions in the eyes of
+the world from no fault of their own.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It must make them very unhappy afterwards.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not altogether despise them. Yet not quite like or respect them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no means secure from investigation, even
+in Casterbridge. For one thing Henchard had never returned to her the cloud of
+letters she had written and sent him in her first excitement. Possibly they
+were destroyed; but she could have wished that they had never been written.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towards Lucetta had made the
+reflective Elizabeth more observant of her brilliant and amiable companion. A
+few days afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta&rsquo;s as the latter was going
+out, she somehow knew that Miss Templeman was nourishing a hope of seeing the
+attractive Scotchman. The fact was printed large all over Lucetta&rsquo;s
+cheeks and eyes to any one who could read her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginning
+to do. Lucetta passed on and closed the street door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A seer&rsquo;s spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down
+by the fire and divine events so surely from data already her own that they
+could be held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally&mdash;saw her
+encounter Donald somewhere as if by chance&mdash;saw him wear his special look
+when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one was Lucetta. She
+depicted his impassioned manner; beheld the indecision of both between their
+lothness to separate and their desire not to be observed; depicted their
+shaking of hands; how they probably parted with frigidity in their general
+contour and movements, only in the smaller features showing the spark of
+passion, thus invisible to all but themselves. This discerning silent witch had
+not done thinking of these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and
+made her start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was all true as she had pictured&mdash;she could have sworn it. Lucetta had
+a heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced colour of her
+cheeks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve seen Mr. Farfrae,&rdquo; said Elizabeth demurely.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Lucetta. &ldquo;How did you know?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend&rsquo;s hands excitedly in her
+own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or what he had
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That night she became restless; in the morning she was feverish; and at
+breakfast-time she told her companion that she had something on her
+mind&mdash;something which concerned a person in whom she was interested much.
+Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This person&mdash;a lady&mdash;once admired a man much&mdash;very
+much,&rdquo; she said tentatively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They were intimate&mdash;rather. He did not think so deeply of her as
+she did of him. But in an impulsive moment, purely out of reparation, he
+proposed to make her his wife. She agreed. But there was an unsuspected hitch
+in the proceedings; though she had been so far compromised with him that she
+felt she could never belong to another man, as a pure matter of conscience,
+even if she should wish to. After that they were much apart, heard nothing of
+each other for a long time, and she felt her life quite closed up for
+her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;poor girl!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She suffered much on account of him; though I should add that he could
+not altogether be blamed for what had happened. At last the obstacle which
+separated them was providentially removed; and he came to marry her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How delightful!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But in the interval she&mdash;my poor friend&mdash;had seen a man, she
+liked better than him. Now comes the point: Could she in honour dismiss the
+first?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A new man she liked better&mdash;that&rsquo;s bad!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was swinging the
+town pump-handle. &ldquo;It is bad! Though you must remember that she was
+forced into an equivocal position with the first man by an accident&mdash;that
+he was not so well educated or refined as the second, and that she had
+discovered some qualities in the first that rendered him less desirable as a
+husband than she had at first thought him to be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot answer,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane thoughtfully. &ldquo;It is
+so difficult. It wants a Pope to settle that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You prefer not to perhaps?&rdquo; Lucetta showed in her appealing tone
+how much she leant on Elizabeth&rsquo;s judgment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, Miss Templeman,&rdquo; admitted Elizabeth. &ldquo;I would rather
+not say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nevertheless, Lucetta seemed relieved by the simple fact of having opened out
+the situation a little, and was slowly convalescent of her headache.
+&ldquo;Bring me a looking-glass. How do I appear to people?&rdquo; she said
+languidly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;a little worn,&rdquo; answered Elizabeth, eyeing her as a
+critic eyes a doubtful painting; fetching the glass she enabled Lucetta to
+survey herself in it, which Lucetta anxiously did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder if I wear well, as times go!&rdquo; she observed after a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;fairly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where am I worst?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Under your eyes&mdash;I notice a little brownness there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. That is my worst place, I know. How many years more do you think I
+shall last before I get hopelessly plain?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth, though the younger,
+had come to play the part of experienced sage in these discussions. &ldquo;It
+may be five years,&rdquo; she said judicially. &ldquo;Or, with a quiet life, as
+many as ten. With no love you might calculate on ten.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable, impartial verdict. She
+told Elizabeth-Jane no more of the past attachment she had roughly adumbrated
+as the experiences of a third person; and Elizabeth, who in spite of her
+philosophy was very tender-hearted, sighed that night in bed at the thought
+that her pretty, rich Lucetta did not treat her to the full confidence of names
+and dates in her confessions. For by the &ldquo;she&rdquo; of Lucetta&rsquo;s
+story Elizabeth had not been beguiled.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>XXV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next phase of the supersession of Henchard in Lucetta&rsquo;s heart was an
+experiment in calling on her performed by Farfrae with some apparent
+trepidation. Conventionally speaking he conversed with both Miss Templeman and
+her companion; but in fact it was rather that Elizabeth sat invisible in the
+room. Donald appeared not to see her at all, and answered her wise little
+remarks with curtly indifferent monosyllables, his looks and faculties hanging
+on the woman who could boast of a more Protean variety in her phases, moods,
+opinions, and also principles, than could Elizabeth. Lucetta had persisted in
+dragging her into the circle; but she had remained like an awkward third point
+which that circle would not touch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Susan Henchard&rsquo;s daughter bore up against the frosty ache of the
+treatment, as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived as soon as
+possible to get out of the inharmonious room without being missed. The
+Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her and walked
+with her in a delicate poise between love and friendship&mdash;that period in
+the history of a love when alone it can be said to be unalloyed with pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She stoically looked from her bedroom window, and contemplated her fate as if
+it were written on the top of the church-tower hard by. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she
+said at last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat: &ldquo;<i>He</i>
+is the second man of that story she told me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All this time Henchard&rsquo;s smouldering sentiments towards Lucetta had been
+fanned into higher and higher inflammation by the circumstances of the case. He
+was discovering that the young woman for whom he once felt a pitying warmth
+which had been almost chilled out of him by reflection, was, when now qualified
+with a slight inaccessibility and a more matured beauty, the very being to make
+him satisfied with life. Day after day proved to him, by her silence, that it
+was no use to think of bringing her round by holding aloof; so he gave in, and
+called upon her again, Elizabeth-Jane being absent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some awkwardness, his strong,
+warm gaze upon her&mdash;like the sun beside the moon in comparison with
+Farfrae&rsquo;s modest look&mdash;and with something of a hail-fellow bearing,
+as, indeed, was not unnatural. But she seemed so transubstantiated by her
+change of position, and held out her hand to him in such cool friendship, that
+he became deferential, and sat down with a perceptible loss of power. He
+understood but little of fashion in dress, yet enough to feel himself
+inadequate in appearance beside her whom he had hitherto been dreaming of as
+almost his property. She said something very polite about his being good enough
+to call. This caused him to recover balance. He looked her oddly in the face,
+losing his awe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, of course I have called, Lucetta,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What does
+that nonsense mean? You know I couldn&rsquo;t have helped myself if I had
+wished&mdash;that is, if I had any kindness at all. I&rsquo;ve called to say
+that I am ready, as soon as custom will permit, to give you my name in return
+for your devotion and what you lost by it in thinking too little of yourself
+and too much of me; to say that you can fix the day or month, with my full
+consent, whenever in your opinion it would be seemly: you know more of these
+things than I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is full early yet,&rdquo; she said evasively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes; I suppose it is. But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my
+poor ill-used Susan died, and when I could not bear the idea of marrying again,
+that after what had happened between us it was my duty not to let any
+unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights. Still, I
+wouldn&rsquo;t call in a hurry, because&mdash;well, you can guess how this
+money you&rsquo;ve come into made me feel.&rdquo; His voice slowly fell; he was
+conscious that in this room his accents and manner wore a roughness not
+observable in the street. He looked about the room at the novel hangings and
+ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon my life I didn&rsquo;t know such furniture as this could be bought
+in Casterbridge,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor can it be,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;Nor will it till fifty years more
+of civilization have passed over the town. It took a waggon and four horses to
+get it here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m. It looks as if you were living on capital.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, I am not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my
+beaming towards you rather awkward.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one.
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s nobody in the world I
+would have wished to see enter into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and
+nobody, I am sure, who will become it more.&rdquo; He turned to her with
+congratulatory admiration so fervid that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding
+that she knew him so well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am greatly obliged to you for all that,&rdquo; said she, rather with
+an air of speaking ritual. The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived, and
+Henchard showed chagrin at once&mdash;nobody was more quick to show that than
+he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may be obliged or not for&rsquo;t. Though the things I say may not
+have the polish of what you&rsquo;ve lately learnt to expect for the first time
+in your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s rather a rude way of speaking to me,&rdquo; pouted Lucetta,
+with stormy eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all!&rdquo; replied Henchard hotly. &ldquo;But there, there, I
+don&rsquo;t wish to quarrel with &rsquo;ee. I come with an honest proposal for
+silencing your Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can you speak so!&rdquo; she answered, firing quickly.
+&ldquo;Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl&rsquo;s
+passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I
+call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so
+cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of
+your wife&rsquo;s return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little
+independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it is,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But it is not by what is, in this
+life, but by what appears, that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought
+to accept me&mdash;for your own good name&rsquo;s sake. What is known in your
+native Jersey may get known here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet she was
+backward. &ldquo;For the present let things be,&rdquo; she said with some
+embarrassment. &ldquo;Treat me as an acquaintance, and I&rsquo;ll treat you as
+one. Time will&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap
+for awhile, there being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them into
+speech if they were not minded for it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way the wind blows, is it?&rdquo; he said at last
+grimly, nodding an affirmative to his own thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a few instants. It was
+produced by the passing of a load of newly trussed hay from the country, in a
+waggon marked with Farfrae&rsquo;s name. Beside it rode Farfrae himself on
+horseback. Lucetta&rsquo;s face became&mdash;as a woman&rsquo;s face becomes
+when the man she loves rises upon her gaze like an apparition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window, and the secret of her
+inaccessibility would have been revealed. But Henchard in estimating her tone
+was looking down so plumb-straight that he did not note the warm consciousness
+upon Lucetta&rsquo;s face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t have thought it&mdash;I shouldn&rsquo;t have thought
+it of women!&rdquo; he said emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking himself
+into activity; while Lucetta was so anxious to divert him from any suspicion of
+the truth that she asked him to be in no hurry. Bringing him some apples she
+insisted upon paring one for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He would not take it. &ldquo;No, no; such is not for me,&rdquo; he said drily,
+and moved to the door. At going out he turned his eye upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You came to live in Casterbridge entirely on my account,&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Yet now you are here you won&rsquo;t have anything to say to my
+offer!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon the sofa and jumped
+up again in a fit of desperation. &ldquo;I will love him!&rdquo; she cried
+passionately; &ldquo;as for <i>him</i>&mdash;he&rsquo;s hot-tempered and stern,
+and it would be madness to bind myself to him knowing that. I won&rsquo;t be a
+slave to the past&mdash;I&rsquo;ll love where I choose!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet having decided to break away from Henchard one might have supposed her
+capable of aiming higher than Farfrae. But Lucetta reasoned nothing: she feared
+hard words from the people with whom she had been earlier associated; she had
+no relatives left; and with native lightness of heart took kindly to what fate
+offered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucetta between her two lovers from
+the crystalline sphere of a straightforward mind, did not fail to perceive that
+her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrae became more desperately
+enamoured of her friend every day. On Farfrae&rsquo;s side it was the unforced
+passion of youth. On Henchard&rsquo;s the artificially stimulated coveting of
+maturer age.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The pain she experienced from the almost absolute obliviousness to her
+existence that was shown by the pair of them became at times half dissipated by
+her sense of its humourousness. When Lucetta had pricked her finger they were
+as deeply concerned as if she were dying; when she herself had been seriously
+sick or in danger they uttered a conventional word of sympathy at the news, and
+forgot all about it immediately. But, as regarded Henchard, this perception of
+hers also caused her some filial grief; she could not help asking what she had
+done to be neglected so, after the professions of solicitude he had made. As
+regarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection, that it was quite
+natural. What was she beside Lucetta?&mdash;as one of the &ldquo;meaner
+beauties of the night,&rdquo; when the moon had risen in the skies.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and was as familiar with the wreck
+of each day&rsquo;s wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun. If her
+earthly career had taught her few book philosophies it had at least well
+practised her in this. Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of
+pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions. Continually it had
+happened that what she had desired had not been granted her, and that what had
+been granted her she had not desired. So she viewed with an approach to
+equanimity the now cancelled days when Donald had been her undeclared lover,
+and wondered what unwished-for thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>XXVI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchard and Farfrae met in the
+chestnut-walk which ran along the south wall of the town. Each had just come
+out from his early breakfast, and there was not another soul near. Henchard was
+reading a letter from Lucetta, sent in answer to a note from him, in which she
+made some excuse for not immediately granting him a second interview that he
+had desired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Donald had no wish to enter into conversation with his former friend on their
+present constrained terms; neither would he pass him in scowling silence. He
+nodded, and Henchard did the same. They receded from each other several paces
+when a voice cried &ldquo;Farfrae!&rdquo; It was Henchard&rsquo;s, who stood
+regarding him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you remember,&rdquo; said Henchard, as if it were the presence of the
+thought and not of the man which made him speak, &ldquo;do you remember my
+story of that second woman&mdash;who suffered for her thoughtless intimacy with
+me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do,&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you remember my telling &rsquo;ee how it all began and how it ended?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, I have offered to marry her now that I can; but she won&rsquo;t
+marry me. Now what would you think of her&mdash;I put it to you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, ye owe her nothing more now,&rdquo; said Farfrae heartily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is true,&rdquo; said Henchard, and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questions completely shut out
+from Farfrae&rsquo;s mind all vision of Lucetta as the culprit. Indeed, her
+present position was so different from that of the young woman of
+Henchard&rsquo;s story as of itself to be sufficient to blind him absolutely to
+her identity. As for Henchard, he was reassured by Farfrae&rsquo;s words and
+manner against a suspicion which had crossed his mind. They were not those of a
+conscious rival.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet that there was rivalry by some one he was firmly persuaded. He could feel
+it in the air around Lucetta, see it in the turn of her pen. There was an
+antagonistic force in exercise, so that when he had tried to hang near her he
+seemed standing in a refluent current. That it was not innate caprice he was
+more and more certain. Her windows gleamed as if they did not want him; her
+curtains seem to hang slily, as if they screened an ousting presence. To
+discover whose presence that was&mdash;whether really Farfrae&rsquo;s after
+all, or another&rsquo;s&mdash;he exerted himself to the utmost to see her
+again; and at length succeeded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the interview, when she offered him tea, he made it a point to launch a
+cautious inquiry if she knew Mr. Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not help knowing almost everybody
+in Casterbridge, living in such a gazebo over the centre and arena of the town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Pleasant young fellow,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We both know him,&rdquo; said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her
+companion&rsquo;s divined embarrassment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a knock at the door; literally, three full knocks and a little one at
+the end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That kind of knock means half-and-half&mdash;somebody between gentle and
+simple,&rdquo; said the corn-merchant to himself. &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t
+wonder therefore if it is he.&rdquo; In a few seconds surely enough Donald
+walked in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, which increased
+Henchard&rsquo;s suspicions without affording any special proof of their
+correctness. He was well-nigh ferocious at the sense of the queer situation in
+which he stood towards this woman. One who had reproached him for deserting her
+when calumniated, who had urged claims upon his consideration on that account,
+who had lived waiting for him, who at the first decent opportunity had come to
+ask him to rectify, by making her his, the false position into which she had
+placed herself for his sake; such she had been. And now he sat at her tea-table
+eager to gain her attention, and in his amatory rage feeling the other man
+present to be a villain, just as any young fool of a lover might feel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table, like some Tuscan painting
+of the two disciples supping at Emmaus. Lucetta, forming the third and haloed
+figure, was opposite them; Elizabeth-Jane, being out of the game, and out of
+the group, could observe all from afar, like the evangelist who had to write it
+down: that there were long spaces of taciturnity, when all exterior
+circumstances were subdued to the touch of spoons and china, the click of a
+heel on the pavement under the window, the passing of a wheelbarrow or cart,
+the whistling of the carter, the gush of water into householders&rsquo; buckets
+at the town-pump opposite, the exchange of greetings among their neighbours,
+and the rattle of the yokes by which they carried off their evening supply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;More bread-and-butter?&rdquo; said Lucetta to Henchard and Farfrae
+equally, holding out between them a plateful of long slices. Henchard took a
+slice by one end and Donald by the other; each feeling certain he was the man
+meant; neither let go, and the slice came in two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;I am so sorry!&rdquo; cried Lucetta, with a nervous titter.
+Farfrae tried to laugh; but he was too much in love to see the incident in any
+but a tragic light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How ridiculous of all three of them!&rdquo; said Elizabeth to herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture, though without a grain of
+proof, that the counterattraction was Farfrae; and therefore he would not make
+up his mind. Yet to Elizabeth-Jane it was plain as the town-pump that Donald
+and Lucetta were incipient lovers. More than once, in spite of her care,
+Lucetta had been unable to restrain her glance from flitting across into
+Farfrae&rsquo;s eyes like a bird to its nest. But Henchard was constructed upon
+too large a scale to discern such minutiæ as these by an evening light, which
+to him were as the notes of an insect that lie above the compass of the human
+ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was disturbed. And the sense of occult rivalry in suitorship was so much
+superadded to the palpable rivalry of their business lives. To the coarse
+materiality of that rivalry it added an inflaming soul.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of action by Henchard sending for
+Jopp, the manager originally displaced by Farfrae&rsquo;s arrival. Henchard had
+frequently met this man about the streets, observed that his clothing spoke of
+neediness, heard that he lived in Mixen Lane&mdash;a back slum of the town, the
+<i>pis aller</i> of Casterbridge domiciliation&mdash;itself almost a proof that
+a man had reached a stage when he would not stick at trifles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp came after dark, by the gates of the storeyard, and felt his way through
+the hay and straw to the office where Henchard sat in solitude awaiting him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am again out of a foreman,&rdquo; said the corn-factor. &ldquo;Are you
+in a place?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not so much as a beggar&rsquo;s, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How much do you ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp named his price, which was very moderate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When can you come?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At this hour and moment, sir,&rdquo; said Jopp, who, standing
+hands-pocketed at the street corner till the sun had faded the shoulders of his
+coat to scarecrow green, had regularly watched Henchard in the market-place,
+measured him, and learnt him, by virtue of the power which the still man has in
+his stillness of knowing the busy one better than he knows himself. Jopp too,
+had had a convenient experience; he was the only one in Casterbridge besides
+Henchard and the close-lipped Elizabeth who knew that Lucetta came truly from
+Jersey, and but proximately from Bath. &ldquo;I know Jersey too, sir,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;Was living there when you used to do business that way. O
+yes&mdash;have often seen ye there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed! Very good. Then the thing is settled. The testimonials you
+showed me when you first tried for&rsquo;t are sufficient.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That characters deteriorated in time of need possibly did not occur to
+Henchard. Jopp said, &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; and stood more firmly, in the
+consciousness that at last he officially belonged to that spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Henchard, digging his strong eyes into Jopp&rsquo;s
+face, &ldquo;one thing is necessary to me, as the biggest corn-and-hay dealer
+in these parts. The Scotchman, who&rsquo;s taking the town trade so bold into
+his hands, must be cut out. D&rsquo;ye hear? We two can&rsquo;t live side by
+side&mdash;that&rsquo;s clear and certain.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen it all,&rdquo; said Jopp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By fair competition I mean, of course,&rdquo; Henchard continued.
+&ldquo;But as hard, keen, and unflinching as fair&mdash;rather more so. By such
+a desperate bid against him for the farmers&rsquo; custom as will grind him
+into the ground&mdash;starve him out. I&rsquo;ve capital, mind ye, and I can do
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;m all that way of thinking,&rdquo; said the new foreman.
+Jopp&rsquo;s dislike of Farfrae as the man who had once ursurped his place,
+while it made him a willing tool, made him, at the same time, commercially as
+unsafe a colleague as Henchard could have chosen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I sometimes think,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;that he must have some glass
+that he sees next year in. He has such a knack of making everything bring him
+fortune.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He&rsquo;s deep beyond all honest men&rsquo;s discerning, but we must
+make him shallower. We&rsquo;ll undersell him, and over-buy him, and so snuff
+him out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They then entered into specific details of the process by which this would be
+accomplished, and parted at a late hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane heard by accident that Jopp had been engaged by her stepfather.
+She was so fully convinced that he was not the right man for the place that, at
+the risk of making Henchard angry, she expressed her apprehension to him when
+they met. But it was done to no purpose. Henchard shut up her argument with a
+sharp rebuff.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The season&rsquo;s weather seemed to favour their scheme. The time was in the
+years immediately before foreign competition had revolutionized the trade in
+grain; when still, as from the earliest ages, the wheat quotations from month
+to month depended entirely upon the home harvest. A bad harvest, or the
+prospect of one, would double the price of corn in a few weeks; and the promise
+of a good yield would lower it as rapidly. Prices were like the roads of the
+period, steep in gradient, reflecting in their phases the local conditions,
+without engineering, levellings, or averages.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The farmer&rsquo;s income was ruled by the wheat-crop within his own horizon,
+and the wheat-crop by the weather. Thus in person, he became a sort of
+flesh-barometer, with feelers always directed to the sky and wind around him.
+The local atmosphere was everything to him; the atmospheres of other countries
+a matter of indifference. The people, too, who were not farmers, the rural
+multitude, saw in the god of the weather a more important personage than they
+do now. Indeed, the feeling of the peasantry in this matter was so intense as
+to be almost unrealizable in these equable days. Their impulse was well-nigh to
+prostrate themselves in lamentation before untimely rains and tempests, which
+came as the Alastor of those households whose crime it was to be poor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After midsummer they watched the weather-cocks as men waiting in antechambers
+watch the lackey. Sun elated them; quiet rain sobered them; weeks of watery
+tempest stupefied them. That aspect of the sky which they now regard as
+disagreeable they then beheld as maleficent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was June, and the weather was very unfavourable. Casterbridge, being as it
+were the bell-board on which all the adjacent hamlets and villages sounded
+their notes, was decidedly dull. Instead of new articles in the shop-windows
+those that had been rejected in the foregoing summer were brought out again;
+superseded reap-hooks, badly-shaped rakes, shop-worn leggings, and
+time-stiffened water-tights reappeared, furbished up as near to new as
+possible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard, backed by Jopp, read a disastrous garnering, and resolved to base his
+strategy against Farfrae upon that reading. But before acting he
+wished&mdash;what so many have wished&mdash;that he could know for certain what
+was at present only strong probability. He was superstitious&mdash;as such
+head-strong natures often are&mdash;and he nourished in his mind an idea
+bearing on the matter; an idea he shrank from disclosing even to Jopp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town&mdash;so lonely that what are
+called lonely villages were teeming by comparison&mdash;there lived a man of
+curious repute as a forecaster or weather-prophet. The way to his house was
+crooked and miry&mdash;even difficult in the present unpropitious season. One
+evening when it was raining so heavily that ivy and laurel resounded like
+distant musketry, and an out-door man could be excused for shrouding himself to
+his ears and eyes, such a shrouded figure on foot might have been perceived
+travelling in the direction of the hazel-copse which dripped over the
+prophet&rsquo;s cot. The turnpike-road became a lane, the lane a cart-track,
+the cart-track a bridle-path, the bridle-path a foot-way, the foot-way
+overgrown. The solitary walker slipped here and there, and stumbled over the
+natural springes formed by the brambles, till at length he reached the house,
+which, with its garden, was surrounded with a high, dense hedge. The cottage,
+comparatively a large one, had been built of mud by the occupier&rsquo;s own
+hands, and thatched also by himself. Here he had always lived, and here it was
+assumed he would die.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He existed on unseen supplies; for it was an anomalous thing that while there
+was hardly a soul in the neighbourhood but affected to laugh at this
+man&rsquo;s assertions, uttering the formula, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing in
+&rsquo;em,&rdquo; with full assurance on the surface of their faces, very few
+of them were unbelievers in their secret hearts. Whenever they consulted him
+they did it &ldquo;for a fancy.&rdquo; When they paid him they said,
+&ldquo;Just a trifle for Christmas,&rdquo; or &ldquo;Candlemas,&rdquo; as the
+case might be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He would have preferred more honesty in his clients, and less sham ridicule;
+but fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. As stated, he was
+enabled to live; people supported him with their backs turned. He was sometimes
+astonished that men could profess so little and believe so much at his house,
+when at church they professed so much and believed so little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Behind his back he was called &ldquo;Wide-oh,&rdquo; on account of his
+reputation; to his face &ldquo;Mr.&rdquo; Fall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance, and a door was
+inserted as in a wall. Outside the door the tall traveller stopped, bandaged
+his face with a handkerchief as if he were suffering from toothache, and went
+up the path. The window shutters were not closed, and he could see the prophet
+within, preparing his supper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In answer to the knock Fall came to the door, candle in hand. The visitor
+stepped back a little from the light, and said, &ldquo;Can I speak to
+&rsquo;ee?&rdquo; in significant tones. The other&rsquo;s invitation to come in
+was responded to by the country formula, &ldquo;This will do, thank
+&rsquo;ee,&rdquo; after which the householder had no alternative but to come
+out. He placed the candle on the corner of the dresser, took his hat from a
+nail, and joined the stranger in the porch, shutting the door behind him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve long heard that you can&mdash;do things of a sort?&rdquo;
+began the other, repressing his individuality as much as he could.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Maybe so, Mr. Henchard,&rdquo; said the weather-caster.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;why do you call me that?&rdquo; asked the visitor with a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because it&rsquo;s your name. Feeling you&rsquo;d come I&rsquo;ve waited
+for &rsquo;ee; and thinking you might be leery from your walk I laid two supper
+plates&mdash;look ye here.&rdquo; He threw open the door and disclosed the
+supper-table, at which appeared a second chair, knife and fork, plate and mug,
+as he had declared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel; he remained in silence for
+a few moments, then throwing off the disguise of frigidity which he had
+hitherto preserved he said, &ldquo;Then I have not come in vain.... Now, for
+instance, can ye charm away warts?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Without trouble.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Cure the evil?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I&rsquo;ve done&mdash;with consideration&mdash;if they will wear
+the toad-bag by night as well as by day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Forecast the weather?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With labour and time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then take this,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a crownpiece.
+Now, what is the harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?&rsquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve worked it out already, and you can know at once.&rdquo; (The
+fact was that five farmers had already been there on the same errand from
+different parts of the country.) &ldquo;By the sun, moon, and stars, by the
+clouds, the winds, the trees, and grass, the candle-flame and swallows, the
+smell of the herbs; likewise by the cats&rsquo; eyes, the ravens, the leeches,
+the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August will be&mdash;rain
+and tempest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are not certain, of course?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As one can be in a world where all&rsquo;s unsure. &rsquo;Twill be more
+like living in Revelations this autumn than in England. Shall I sketch it out
+for &rsquo;ee in a scheme?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, no,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t altogether believe
+in forecasts, come to second thoughts on such. But I&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t&mdash;you don&rsquo;t&mdash;&rsquo;tis quite
+understood,&rdquo; said Wide-oh, without a sound of scorn. &ldquo;You have
+given me a crown because you&rsquo;ve one too many. But won&rsquo;t you join me
+at supper, now &rsquo;tis waiting and all?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savour of the stew had floated from
+the cottage into the porch with such appetizing distinctness that the meat, the
+onions, the pepper, and the herbs could be severally recognized by his nose.
+But as sitting down to hob-and-nob there would have seemed to mark him too
+implicitly as the weather-caster&rsquo;s apostle, he declined, and went his
+way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such an enormous extent that there
+was quite a talk about his purchases among his neighbours the lawyer, the wine
+merchant, and the doctor; also on the next, and on all available days. When his
+granaries were full to choking all the weather-cocks of Casterbridge creaked
+and set their faces in another direction, as if tired of the south-west. The
+weather changed; the sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks, assumed the
+hues of topaz. The temperament of the welkin passed from the phlegmatic to the
+sanguine; an excellent harvest was almost a certainty; and as a consequence
+prices rushed down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the wrong-headed
+corn-dealer were terrible. He was reminded of what he had well known before,
+that a man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields as readily as
+upon those of a card-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard had backed bad weather, and apparently lost. He had mistaken the turn
+of the flood for the turn of the ebb. His dealings had been so extensive that
+settlement could not long be postponed, and to settle he was obliged to sell
+off corn that he had bought only a few weeks before at figures higher by many
+shillings a quarter. Much of the corn he had never seen; it had not even been
+moved from the ricks in which it lay stacked miles away. Thus he lost heavily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfrae in the market-place. Farfrae
+knew of his dealings (though he did not guess their intended bearing on
+himself) and commiserated him; for since their exchange of words in the South
+Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms. Henchard for the moment appeared
+to resent the sympathy; but he suddenly took a careless turn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ho, no, no!&mdash;nothing serious, man!&rdquo; he cried with fierce
+gaiety. &ldquo;These things always happen, don&rsquo;t they? I know it has been
+said that figures have touched me tight lately; but is that anything rare? The
+case is not so bad as folk make out perhaps. And dammy, a man must be a fool to
+mind the common hazards of trade!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for reasons which had never
+before sent him there&mdash;and to sit a long time in the partners&rsquo; room
+with a constrained bearing. It was rumoured soon after that much real property
+as well as vast stores of produce, which had stood in Henchard&rsquo;s name in
+the town and neighbourhood, was actually the possession of his bankers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp. The gloomy transactions
+just completed within had added fever to the original sting of Farfrae&rsquo;s
+sympathy that morning, which Henchard fancied might be a satire disguised so
+that Jopp met with anything but a bland reception. The latter was in the act of
+taking off his hat to wipe his forehead, and saying, &ldquo;A fine hot
+day,&rdquo; to an acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can wipe and wipe, and say, &lsquo;A fine hot day,&rsquo; can
+ye!&rdquo; cried Henchard in a savage undertone, imprisoning Jopp between
+himself and the bank wall. &ldquo;If it hadn&rsquo;t been for your blasted
+advice it might have been a fine day enough! Why did ye let me go on,
+hey?&mdash;when a word of doubt from you or anybody would have made me think
+twice! For you can never be sure of weather till &rsquo;tis past.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A useful fellow! And the sooner you help somebody else in that way the
+better!&rdquo; Henchard continued his address to Jopp in similar terms till it
+ended in Jopp&rsquo;s dismissal there and then, Henchard turning upon his heel
+and leaving him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry as a man can be!&rdquo; said
+Jopp, standing pale, and looking after the corn-merchant as he disappeared in
+the crowd of market-men hard by.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>XXVII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfrae was buying. As was usual,
+after reckoning too surely on famine weather the local farmers had flown to the
+other extreme, and (in Farfrae&rsquo;s opinion) were selling off too
+recklessly&mdash;calculating with just a trifle too much certainty upon an
+abundant yield. So he went on buying old corn at its comparatively ridiculous
+price: for the produce of the previous year, though not large, had been of
+excellent quality.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way, and got rid of his
+burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss, the harvest began. There were three
+days of excellent weather, and then&mdash;&ldquo;What if that curst conjuror
+should be right after all!&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play than the atmosphere
+suddenly felt as if cress would grow in it without other nourishment. It rubbed
+people&rsquo;s cheeks like damp flannel when they walked abroad. There was a
+gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops starred the window-panes at remote
+distances: the sunlight would flap out like a quickly opened fan, throw the
+pattern of the window upon the floor of the room in a milky, colourless shine,
+and withdraw as suddenly as it had appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be so successful an
+ingathering after all. If Henchard had only waited long enough he might at
+least have avoided loss though he had not made a profit. But the momentum of
+his character knew no patience. At this turn of the scales he remained silent.
+The movements of his mind seemed to tend to the thought that some power was
+working against him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wonder,&rdquo; he asked himself with eerie misgiving; &ldquo;I wonder
+if it can be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image of me, or stirring
+an unholy brew to confound me! I don&rsquo;t believe in such power; and
+yet&mdash;what if they should ha&rsquo; been doing it!&rdquo; Even he could not
+admit that the perpetrator, if any, might be Farfrae. These isolated hours of
+superstition came to Henchard in time of moody depression, when all his
+practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered. He had purchased in so depressed a market
+that the present moderate stiffness of prices was sufficient to pile for him a
+large heap of gold where a little one had been.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, he&rsquo;ll soon be Mayor!&rdquo; said Henchard. It was indeed hard
+that the speaker should, of all others, have to follow the triumphal chariot of
+this man to the Capitol.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+September night-shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the clocks had struck
+half-past eight, and the moon had risen. The streets of the town were curiously
+silent for such a comparatively early hour. A sound of jangling horse-bells and
+heavy wheels passed up the street. These were followed by angry voices outside
+Lucetta&rsquo;s house, which led her and Elizabeth-Jane to run to the windows,
+and pull up the blinds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abutted against its next neighbour
+the Church except in the lower storey, where an arched thoroughfare gave
+admittance to a large square called Bull Stake. A stone post rose in the midst,
+to which the oxen had formerly been tied for baiting with dogs to make them
+tender before they were killed in the adjoining shambles. In a corner stood the
+stocks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two four-horse waggons
+and horses, one laden with hay-trusses, the leaders having already passed each
+other, and become entangled head to tail. The passage of the vehicles might
+have been practicable if empty; but built up with hay to the bedroom windows as
+one was, it was impossible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You must have done it a&rsquo; purpose!&rdquo; said Farfrae&rsquo;s
+waggoner. &ldquo;You can hear my horses&rsquo; bells half-a-mile such a night
+as this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If ye&rsquo;d been minding your business instead of zwailing along in
+such a gawk-hammer way, you would have zeed me!&rdquo; retorted the wroth
+representative of Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, according to the strict rule of the road it appeared that
+Henchard&rsquo;s man was most in the wrong, he therefore attempted to back into
+the High Street. In doing this the near hind-wheel rose against the churchyard
+wall and the whole mountainous load went over, two of the four wheels rising in
+the air, and the legs of the thill horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Instead of considering how to gather up the load the two men closed in a fight
+with their fists. Before the first round was quite over Henchard came upon the
+spot, somebody having run for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions by collaring one
+with each hand, turned to the horse that was down, and extricated him after
+some trouble. He then inquired into the circumstances; and seeing the state of
+his waggon and its load began hotly rating Farfrae&rsquo;s man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run down to the street corner,
+whence they watched the bright heap of new hay lying in the moon&rsquo;s rays,
+and passed and repassed by the forms of Henchard and the waggoners. The women
+had witnessed what nobody else had seen&mdash;the origin of the mishap; and
+Lucetta spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I saw it all, Mr. Henchard,&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;and your man was
+most in the wrong!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard paused in his harangue and turned. &ldquo;Oh, I didn&rsquo;t notice
+you, Miss Templeman,&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;My man in the wrong? Ah, to be
+sure; to be sure! But I beg your pardon notwithstanding. The other&rsquo;s is
+the empty waggon, and he must have been most to blame for coming on.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; I saw it, too,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane. &ldquo;And I can assure
+you he couldn&rsquo;t help it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You can&rsquo;t trust <i>their</i> senses!&rdquo; murmured
+Henchard&rsquo;s man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Henchard sharply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you see, sir, all the women side with Farfrae&mdash;being a damn
+young dand&mdash;of the sort that he is&mdash;one that creeps into a
+maid&rsquo;s heart like the giddying worm into a sheep&rsquo;s
+brain&mdash;making crooked seem straight to their eyes!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But do you know who that lady is you talk about in such a fashion? Do
+you know that I pay my attentions to her, and have for some time? Just be
+careful!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He&rsquo;s sharp in trade, but
+he wouldn&rsquo;t do anything so underhand as what you hint at.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, or not her white figure
+disappeared from her doorway inward, and the door was shut before Henchard
+could reach it to converse with her further. This disappointed him, for he had
+been sufficiently disturbed by what the man had said to wish to speak to her
+more closely. While pausing the old constable came up.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Just see that nobody drives against that hay and waggon to-night,
+Stubberd,&rdquo; said the corn-merchant. &ldquo;It must bide till the morning,
+for all hands are in the field still. And if any coach or road-waggon wants to
+come along, tell &rsquo;em they must go round by the back street, and be hanged
+to &rsquo;em.... Any case tomorrow up in Hall?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, sir. One in number, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, what&rsquo;s that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committing a nuisance in a
+horrible profane manner against the church wall, sir, as if &rsquo;twere no
+more than a pot-house! That&rsquo;s all, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh. The Mayor&rsquo;s out o&rsquo; town, isn&rsquo;t he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then I&rsquo;ll be there. Don&rsquo;t forget to keep an eye
+on that hay. Good night t&rsquo; &rsquo;ee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During those moments Henchard had determined to follow up Lucetta
+notwithstanding her elusiveness, and he knocked for admission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman&rsquo;s sorrow at
+being unable to see him again that evening because she had an engagement to go
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard walked away from the door to the opposite side of the street, and
+stood by his hay in a lonely reverie, the constable having strolled elsewhere,
+and the horses being removed. Though the moon was not bright as yet there were
+no lamps lighted, and he entered the shadow of one of the projecting jambs
+which formed the thoroughfare to Bull Stake; here he watched Lucetta&rsquo;s
+door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Candle-lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom, and it was obvious that
+she was dressing for the appointment, whatever the nature of that might be at
+such an hour. The lights disappeared, the clock struck nine, and almost at the
+moment Farfrae came round the opposite corner and knocked. That she had been
+waiting just inside for him was certain, for she instantly opened the door
+herself. They went together by the way of a back lane westward, avoiding the
+front street; guessing where they were going he determined to follow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The harvest had been so delayed by the capricious weather that whenever a fine
+day occurred all sinews were strained to save what could be saved of the
+damaged crops. On account of the rapid shortening of the days the harvesters
+worked by moonlight. Hence to-night the wheat-fields abutting on the two sides
+of the square formed by Casterbridge town were animated by the gathering hands.
+Their shouts and laughter had reached Henchard at the Market House, while he
+stood there waiting, and he had little doubt from the turn which Farfrae and
+Lucetta had taken that they were bound for the spot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields. The Casterbridge populace still
+retained the primitive habit of helping one another in time of need; and thus,
+though the corn belonged to the farming section of the little
+community&mdash;that inhabiting the Durnover quarter&mdash;the remainder was no
+less interested in the labour of getting it home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reaching the top of the lane Henchard crossed the shaded avenue on the walls,
+slid down the green rampart, and stood amongst the stubble. The
+&ldquo;stitches&rdquo; or shocks rose like tents about the yellow expanse,
+those in the distance becoming lost in the moonlit hazes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had entered at a point removed from the scene of immediate operations; but
+two others had entered at that place, and he could see them winding among the
+shocks. They were paying no regard to the direction of their walk, whose vague
+serpentining soon began to bear down towards Henchard. A meeting promised to be
+awkward, and he therefore stepped into the hollow of the nearest shock, and sat
+down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have my leave,&rdquo; Lucetta was saying gaily. &ldquo;Speak what
+you like.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; replied Farfrae, with the unmistakable inflection of
+the lover pure, which Henchard had never heard in full resonance of his lips
+before, &ldquo;you are sure to be much sought after for your position, wealth,
+talents, and beauty. But will ye resist the temptation to be one of those
+ladies with lots of admirers&mdash;ay&mdash;and be content to have only a
+homely one?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And he the speaker?&rdquo; said she, laughing. &ldquo;Very well, sir,
+what next?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I&rsquo;m afraid that what I feel will make me forget my
+manners!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I hope you&rsquo;ll never have any, if you lack them only for that
+cause.&rdquo; After some broken words which Henchard lost she added, &ldquo;Are
+you sure you won&rsquo;t be jealous?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, by taking her hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else,&rdquo; she presently
+said. &ldquo;But I should wish to have my own way in some things.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In everything! What special thing did you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for instance, upon
+finding that I should not be happy here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard did not hear the reply; he might have done so and much more, but he
+did not care to play the eavesdropper. They went on towards the scene of
+activity, where the sheaves were being handed, a dozen a minute, upon the carts
+and waggons which carried them away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrae when they drew near the workpeople. He
+had some business with them, and, though he entreated her to wait a few
+minutes, she was inexorable, and tripped off homeward alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard thereupon left the field and followed her. His state of mind was such
+that on reaching Lucetta&rsquo;s door he did not knock but opened it, and
+walked straight up to her sitting-room, expecting to find her there. But the
+room was empty, and he perceived that in his haste he had somehow passed her on
+the way hither. He had not to wait many minutes, however, for he soon heard her
+dress rustling in the hall, followed by a soft closing of the door. In a moment
+she appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The light was so low that she did not notice Henchard at first. As soon as she
+saw him she uttered a little cry, almost of terror.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How can you frighten me so?&rdquo; she exclaimed, with a flushed face.
+&ldquo;It is past ten o&rsquo;clock, and you have no right to surprise me here
+at such a time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that I&rsquo;ve not the right. At any rate I have the
+excuse. Is it so necessary that I should stop to think of manners and
+customs?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is too late for propriety, and might injure me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I called an hour ago, and you would not see me, and I thought you were
+in when I called now. It is you, Lucetta, who are doing wrong. It is not proper
+in &rsquo;ee to throw me over like this. I have a little matter to remind you
+of, which you seem to forget.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She sank into a chair, and turned pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to hear it&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want to hear
+it!&rdquo; she said through her hands, as he, standing close to the edge of her
+gown, began to allude to the Jersey days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you ought to hear it,&rdquo; said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It came to nothing; and through you. Then why not leave me the freedom
+that I gained with such sorrow! Had I found that you proposed to marry me for
+pure love I might have felt bound now. But I soon learnt that you had planned
+it out of mere charity&mdash;almost as an unpleasant duty&mdash;because I had
+nursed you, and compromised myself, and you thought you must repay me. After
+that I did not care for you so deeply as before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why did you come here to find me, then?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought I ought to marry you for conscience&rsquo; sake, since you
+were free, even though I&mdash;did not like you so well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And why then don&rsquo;t you think so now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was silent. It was only too obvious that conscience had ruled well enough
+till new love had intervened and usurped that rule. In feeling this she herself
+forgot for the moment her partially justifying argument&mdash;that having
+discovered Henchard&rsquo;s infirmities of temper, she had some excuse for not
+risking her happiness in his hands after once escaping them. The only thing she
+could say was, &ldquo;I was a poor girl then; and now my circumstances have
+altered, so I am hardly the same person.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s true. And it makes the case awkward for me. But I
+don&rsquo;t want to touch your money. I am quite willing that every penny of
+your property shall remain to your personal use. Besides, that argument has
+nothing in it. The man you are thinking of is no better than I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you were as good as he you would leave me!&rdquo; she cried
+passionately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This unluckily aroused Henchard. &ldquo;You cannot in honour refuse me,&rdquo;
+he said. &ldquo;And unless you give me your promise this very night to be my
+wife, before a witness, I&rsquo;ll reveal our intimacy&mdash;in common fairness
+to other men!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A look of resignation settled upon her. Henchard saw its bitterness; and had
+Lucetta&rsquo;s heart been given to any other man in the world than Farfrae he
+would probably have had pity upon her at that moment. But the supplanter was
+the upstart (as Henchard called him) who had mounted into prominence upon his
+shoulders, and he could bring himself to show no mercy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without another word she rang the bell, and directed that Elizabeth-Jane should
+be fetched from her room. The latter appeared, surprised in the midst of her
+lucubrations. As soon as she saw Henchard she went across to him dutifully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Elizabeth-Jane,&rdquo; he said, taking her hand, &ldquo;I want you to
+hear this.&rdquo; And turning to Lucetta: &ldquo;Will you, or will you not,
+marry me?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If you&mdash;wish it, I must agree!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You say yes?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a fainting state.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What dreadful thing drives her to say this, father, when it is such a
+pain to her?&rdquo; asked Elizabeth, kneeling down by Lucetta.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t compel her to do anything against her will! I have lived
+with her, and know that she cannot bear much.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be a no&rsquo;thern simpleton!&rdquo; said Henchard drily.
+&ldquo;This promise will leave him free for you, if you want him, won&rsquo;t
+it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Him? Who are you talking about?&rdquo; she said wildly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nobody, as far as I am concerned,&rdquo; said Elizabeth firmly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;well. Then it is my mistake,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;But
+the business is between me and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But don&rsquo;t dwell on it just now,&rdquo; entreated Elizabeth,
+holding Lucetta&rsquo;s hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wish to, if she promises,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have, I have,&rdquo; groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like fluid,
+from very misery and faintness. &ldquo;Michael, please don&rsquo;t argue it any
+more!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will not,&rdquo; he said. And taking up his hat he went away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta. &ldquo;What is this?&rdquo; she
+said. &ldquo;You called my father &lsquo;Michael&rsquo; as if you knew him
+well? And how is it he has got this power over you, that you promise to marry
+him against your will? Ah&mdash;you have many many secrets from me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Perhaps you have some from me,&rdquo; Lucetta murmured with closed eyes,
+little thinking, however, so unsuspicious was she, that the secret of
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s heart concerned the young man who had caused this damage to
+her own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I would not&mdash;do anything against you at all!&rdquo; stammered
+Elizabeth, keeping in all signs of emotion till she was ready to burst.
+&ldquo;I cannot understand how my father can command you so; I don&rsquo;t
+sympathize with him in it at all. I&rsquo;ll go to him and ask him to release
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; said Lucetta. &ldquo;Let it all be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>XXVIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall below Lucetta&rsquo;s house, to
+attend Petty Sessions, being still a magistrate for the year by virtue of his
+late position as Mayor. In passing he looked up at her windows, but nothing of
+her was to be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seem to be an even greater
+incongruity than Shallow and Silence themselves. But his rough and ready
+perceptions, his sledge-hammer directness, had often served him better than
+nice legal knowledge in despatching such simple business as fell to his hands
+in this Court. To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the Mayor for the year, being absent, the
+corn-merchant took the big chair, his eyes still abstractedly stretching out of
+the window to the ashlar front of High-Place Hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was one case only, and the offender stood before him. She was an old
+woman of mottled countenance, attired in a shawl of that nameless tertiary hue
+which comes, but cannot be made&mdash;a hue neither tawny, russet, hazel, nor
+ash; a sticky black bonnet that seemed to have been worn in the country of the
+Psalmist where the clouds drop fatness; and an apron that had been white in
+time so comparatively recent as still to contrast visibly with the rest of her
+clothes. The steeped aspect of the woman as a whole showed her to be no native
+of the country-side or even of a country-town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate, and Henchard looked
+at her, with a momentary pause, as if she had reminded him indistinctly of
+somebody or something which passed from his mind as quickly as it had come.
+&ldquo;Well, and what has she been doing?&rdquo; he said, looking down at the
+charge sheet.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female and
+nuisance,&rdquo; whispered Stubberd.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where did she do that?&rdquo; said the other magistrate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the world!&mdash;I
+caught her in the act, your worship.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stand back then,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;and let&rsquo;s hear what
+you&rsquo;ve got to say.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate&rsquo;s clerk dipped his pen, Henchard
+being no note-taker himself, and the constable began&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hearing a&rsquo; illegal noise I went down the street at twenty-five
+minutes past eleven P.M. on the night of the fifth instinct, Hannah Dominy.
+When I had&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t go so fast, Stubberd,&rdquo; said the clerk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk&rsquo;s pen, till the latter
+stopped scratching and said, &ldquo;yes.&rdquo; Stubberd continued: &ldquo;When
+I had proceeded to the spot I saw defendant at another spot, namely, the
+gutter.&rdquo; He paused, watching the point of the clerk&rsquo;s pen again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gutter, yes, Stubberd.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Spot measuring twelve feet nine inches or thereabouts from where
+I&mdash;&rdquo; Still careful not to outrun the clerk&rsquo;s penmanship
+Stubberd pulled up again; for having got his evidence by heart it was
+immaterial to him whereabouts he broke off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I object to that,&rdquo; spoke up the old woman, &ldquo;&lsquo;spot
+measuring twelve feet nine or thereabouts from where I,&rsquo; is not sound
+testimony!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The magistrates consulted, and the second one said that the bench was of
+opinion that twelve feet nine inches from a man on his oath was admissible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stubberd, with a suppressed gaze of victorious rectitude at the old woman,
+continued: &ldquo;Was standing myself. She was wambling about quite dangerous
+to the thoroughfare and when I approached to draw near she committed the
+nuisance, and insulted me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Insulted me.&rsquo; ...Yes, what did she say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She said, &lsquo;Put away that dee lantern,&rsquo; she says.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Says she, &lsquo;Dost hear, old turmit-head? Put away that dee lantern.
+I have floored fellows a dee sight finer-looking than a dee fool like thee, you
+son of a bee, dee me if I haint,&rsquo; she says.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I object to that conversation!&rdquo; interposed the old woman. &ldquo;I
+was not capable enough to hear what I said, and what is said out of my hearing
+is not evidence.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was another stoppage for consultation, a book was referred to, and
+finally Stubberd was allowed to go on again. The truth was that the old woman
+had appeared in court so many more times than the magistrates themselves, that
+they were obliged to keep a sharp look-out upon their procedure. However, when
+Stubberd had rambled on a little further Henchard broke out impatiently,
+&ldquo;Come&mdash;we don&rsquo;t want to hear any more of them cust dees and
+bees! Say the words out like a man, and don&rsquo;t be so modest, Stubberd; or
+else leave it alone!&rdquo; Turning to the woman, &ldquo;Now then, have you any
+questions to ask him, or anything to say?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she replied with a twinkle in her eye; and the clerk dipped
+his pen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Twenty years ago or thereabout I was selling of furmity in a tent at
+Weydon Fair&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Twenty years ago&rsquo;&mdash;well, that&rsquo;s beginning at the
+beginning; suppose you go back to the Creation!&rdquo; said the clerk, not
+without satire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidence and what was not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A man and a woman with a little child came into my tent,&rdquo; the
+woman continued. &ldquo;They sat down and had a basin apiece. Ah, Lord&rsquo;s
+my life! I was of a more respectable station in the world then than I am now,
+being a land smuggler in a large way of business; and I used to season my
+furmity with rum for them who asked for&rsquo;t. I did it for the man; and then
+he had more and more; till at last he quarrelled with his wife, and offered to
+sell her to the highest bidder. A sailor came in and bid five guineas, and paid
+the money, and led her away. And the man who sold his wife in that fashion is
+the man sitting there in the great big chair.&rdquo; The speaker concluded by
+nodding her head at Henchard and folding her arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Everybody looked at Henchard. His face seemed strange, and in tint as if it had
+been powdered over with ashes. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to hear your life and
+adventures,&rdquo; said the second magistrate sharply, filling the pause which
+followed. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been asked if you&rsquo;ve anything to say
+bearing on the case.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That bears on the case. It proves that he&rsquo;s no better than I, and
+has no right to sit there in judgment upon me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis a concocted story,&rdquo; said the clerk. &ldquo;So hold your
+tongue!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;&rsquo;tis true.&rdquo; The words came from Henchard.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis as true as the light,&rdquo; he said slowly. &ldquo;And upon
+my soul it does prove that I&rsquo;m no better than she! And to keep out of any
+temptation to treat her hard for her revenge, I&rsquo;ll leave her to
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sensation in the court was indescribably great. Henchard left the chair,
+and came out, passing through a group of people on the steps and outside that
+was much larger than usual; for it seemed that the old furmity dealer had
+mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in which she had been lodging
+since her arrival, that she knew a queer thing or two about their great local
+man Mr. Henchard, if she chose to tell it. This had brought them hither.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?&rdquo; said
+Lucetta to her servant when the case was over. She had risen late, and had just
+looked out of the window.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, please, ma&rsquo;am, &rsquo;tis this larry about Mr. Henchard. A
+woman has proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five
+guineas in a booth at a fair.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from his
+wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so on, he had
+never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that separation. The
+story she now heard for the first time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A gradual misery overspread Lucetta&rsquo;s face as she dwelt upon the promise
+wrung from her the night before. At bottom, then, Henchard was this. How
+terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his care.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming in till
+nearly dusk. As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return indoors she
+told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the seaside for a few
+days&mdash;to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in the
+idea, thinking a change would afford her relief. She could not help suspecting
+that the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridge in Lucetta&rsquo;s
+eyes might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was away from home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of High-Place
+Hall till her return. After two or three days of solitude and incessant rain
+Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointed to hear of Lucetta&rsquo;s
+absence and though he nodded with outward indifference he went away handling
+his beard with a nettled mien.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next day he called again. &ldquo;Is she come now?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. She returned this morning,&rdquo; replied his stepdaughter.
+&ldquo;But she is not indoors. She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-road
+to Port-Bredy. She will be home by dusk.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless impatience, he left
+the house again.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>XXIX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port-Bredy just as
+Elizabeth had announced. That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the road
+along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier in a carriage
+was curious&mdash;if anything should be called curious in concatenations of
+phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting cause. It was the day of
+the chief market&mdash;Saturday&mdash;and Farfrae for once had been missed from
+his corn-stand in the dealers&rsquo; room. Nevertheless, it was known that he
+would be home that night&mdash;&ldquo;for Sunday,&rdquo; as Casterbridge
+expressed it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the ranked
+trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out of the town.
+This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road, still
+adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a
+surveyor&rsquo;s line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge. There was
+neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now, the road clinging to the stubby
+expanse of corn-land like a strip to an undulating garment. Near her was a
+barn&mdash;the single building of any kind within her horizon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared
+thereon&mdash;not so much as a speck. She sighed one
+word&mdash;&ldquo;Donald!&rdquo; and turned her face to the town for retreat.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching
+her&mdash;Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth&rsquo;s
+face, as soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into affectionate
+lines while yet beyond speaking distance. &ldquo;I suddenly thought I would
+come and meet you,&rdquo; she said, smiling.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta&rsquo;s reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A
+by-road on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway at the
+point where she stood, and down the track a bull was rambling uncertainly
+towards her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did not observe him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the mainstay and the
+terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighbourhood, where breeding was
+carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock driven into and out of the
+town at this season to be sold by the local auctioneer was very large; and all
+these horned beasts, in travelling to and fro, sent women and children to
+shelter as nothing else could do. In the main the animals would have walked
+along quietly enough; but the Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it
+was indispensable that hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures,
+should be used, large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in general
+everything done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and terrify
+the mild. Nothing was commoner than for a house-holder on going out of his
+parlour to find his hall or passage full of little children, nursemaids, aged
+women, or a ladies&rsquo; school, who apologized for their presence by saying,
+&ldquo;A bull passing down street from the sale.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he meanwhile drawing
+vaguely towards them. It was a large specimen of the breed, in colour rich dun,
+though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about his seamy sides. His
+horns were thick and tipped with brass; his two nostrils like the Thames Tunnel
+as seen in the perspective toys of yore. Between them, through the gristle of
+his nose, was a stout copper ring, welded on, and irremovable as Gurth&rsquo;s
+collar of brass. To the ring was attached an ash staff about a yard long, which
+the bull with the motions of his head flung about like a flail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women were
+really alarmed; for it revealed to them that the bull was an old one, too
+savage to be driven, which had in some way escaped, the staff being the means
+by which the drover controlled him and kept his horns at arms&rsquo; length.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and thought of the barn
+hard by. As long as they had kept their eyes on the bull he had shown some
+deference in his manner of approach; but no sooner did they turn their backs to
+seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided to thoroughly terrify them.
+This caused the two helpless girls to run wildly, whereupon the bull advanced
+in a deliberate charge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it was closed save as to one of
+the usual pair of doors facing them, which had been propped open by a
+hurdle-stick, and for this opening they made. The interior had been cleared by
+a recent bout of threshing except at one end, where there was a stack of dry
+clover. Elizabeth-Jane took in the situation. &ldquo;We must climb up
+there,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But before they had even approached it they heard the bull scampering through
+the pond without, and in a second he dashed into the barn, knocking down the
+hurdle-stake in passing; the heavy door slammed behind him; and all three were
+imprisoned in the barn together. The mistaken creature saw them, and stalked
+towards the end of the barn into which they had fled. The girls doubled so
+adroitly that their pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives were
+already half way to the other end. By the time that his length would allow him
+to turn and follow them thither they had crossed over; thus the pursuit went
+on, the hot air from his nostrils blowing over them like a sirocco, and not a
+moment being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door. What
+might have happened had their situation continued cannot be said; but in a few
+moments a rattling of the door distracted their adversary&rsquo;s attention,
+and a man appeared. He ran forward towards the leading-staff, seized it, and
+wrenched the animal&rsquo;s head as if he would snap it off. The wrench was in
+reality so violent that the thick neck seemed to have lost its stiffness and to
+become half-paralyzed, whilst the nose dropped blood. The premeditated human
+contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunning for impulsive brute force, and the
+creature flinched.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and unhesitating. He
+led the bull to the door, and the light revealed Henchard. He made the bull
+fast without, and re-entered to the succour of Lucetta; for he had not
+perceived Elizabeth, who had climbed on to the clover-heap. Lucetta was
+hysterical, and Henchard took her in his arms and carried her to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&mdash;have saved me!&rdquo; she cried, as soon as she could speak.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have returned your kindness,&rdquo; he responded tenderly. &ldquo;You
+once saved me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How&mdash;comes it to be you&mdash;you?&rdquo; she asked, not heeding
+his reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I came out here to look for you. I have been wanting to tell you
+something these two or three days; but you have been away, and I could not.
+Perhaps you cannot talk now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;no! Where is Elizabeth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Here am I!&rdquo; cried the missing one cheerfully; and without waiting
+for the ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover-stack to the
+floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Jane on the other, they
+went slowly along the rising road. They had reached the top and were descending
+again when Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected that she had dropped her
+muff in the barn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll run back,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+mind it at all, as I am not tired as you are.&rdquo; She thereupon hastened
+down again to the barn, the others pursuing their way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no means small at that
+time. Coming out she paused to look for a moment at the bull, now rather to be
+pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhaps rather intended a practical joke
+than a murder. Henchard had secured him by jamming the staff into the hinge of
+the barn-door, and wedging it there with a stake. At length she turned to
+hasten onward after her contemplation, when she saw a green-and-black gig
+approaching from the contrary direction, the vehicle being driven by Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta&rsquo;s walk that way. Donald saw
+her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted with what had occurred. At
+Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he
+exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity from any she
+had seen in him before. He became so absorbed in the circumstance that he
+scarcely had sufficient knowledge of what he was doing to think of helping her
+up beside him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?&rdquo; he inquired at last.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. He is taking her home. They are almost there by this time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you are sure she can get home?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your stepfather saved her?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Entirely.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae checked his horse&rsquo;s pace; she guessed why. He was thinking that
+it would be best not to intrude on the other two just now. Henchard had saved
+Lucetta, and to provoke a possible exhibition of her deeper affection for
+himself was as ungenerous as it was unwise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The immediate subject of their talk being exhausted she felt more embarrassed
+at sitting thus beside her past lover; but soon the two figures of the others
+were visible at the entrance to the town. The face of the woman was frequently
+turned back, but Farfrae did not whip on the horse. When these reached the town
+walls Henchard and his companion had disappeared down the street; Farfrae set
+down Elizabeth-Jane on her expressing a particular wish to alight there, and
+drove round to the stables at the back of his lodgings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On this account he entered the house through his garden, and going up to his
+apartments found them in a particularly disturbed state, his boxes being hauled
+out upon the landing, and his bookcase standing in three pieces. These
+phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not the least surprise. &ldquo;When
+will everything be sent up?&rdquo; he said to the mistress of the house, who
+was superintending.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid not before eight, sir,&rdquo; said she. &ldquo;You see we
+wasn&rsquo;t aware till this morning that you were going to move, or we could
+have been forwarder.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A&mdash;well, never mind, never mind!&rdquo; said Farfrae cheerily.
+&ldquo;Eight o&rsquo;clock will do well enough if it be not later. Now,
+don&rsquo;t ye be standing here talking, or it will be twelve, I doubt.&rdquo;
+Thus speaking he went out by the front door and up the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had had experiences of a different
+kind. After Elizabeth&rsquo;s departure for the muff the corn-merchant opened
+himself frankly, holding her hand within his arm, though she would fain have
+withdrawn it. &ldquo;Dear Lucetta, I have been very, very anxious to see you
+these two or three days,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;ever since I saw you last! I
+have thought over the way I got your promise that night. You said to me,
+&lsquo;If I were a man I should not insist.&rsquo; That cut me deep. I felt
+that there was some truth in it. I don&rsquo;t want to make you wretched; and
+to marry me just now would do that as nothing else could&mdash;it is but too
+plain. Therefore I agree to an indefinite engagement&mdash;to put off all
+thought of marriage for a year or two.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But&mdash;but&mdash;can I do nothing of a different kind?&rdquo; said
+Lucetta. &ldquo;I am full of gratitude to you&mdash;you have saved my life. And
+your care of me is like coals of fire on my head! I am a monied person now.
+Surely I can do something in return for your goodness&mdash;something
+practical?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard remained in thought. He had evidently not expected this. &ldquo;There
+is one thing you might do, Lucetta,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But not exactly of
+that kind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then of what kind is it?&rdquo; she asked with renewed misgiving.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must tell you a secret to ask it.&mdash;You may have heard that I have
+been unlucky this year? I did what I have never done before&mdash;speculated
+rashly; and I lost. That&rsquo;s just put me in a strait.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And you would wish me to advance some money?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no!&rdquo; said Henchard, almost in anger. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not the
+man to sponge on a woman, even though she may be so nearly my own as you. No,
+Lucetta; what you can do is this and it would save me. My great creditor is
+Grower, and it is at his hands I shall suffer if at anybody&rsquo;s; while a
+fortnight&rsquo;s forbearance on his part would be enough to allow me to pull
+through. This may be got out of him in one way&mdash;that you would let it be
+known to him that you are my intended&mdash;that we are to be quietly married
+in the next fortnight.&mdash;Now stop, you haven&rsquo;t heard all! Let him
+have this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact that the actual
+engagement between us is to be a long one. Nobody else need know: you could go
+with me to Mr. Grower and just let me speak to &rsquo;ee before him as if we
+were on such terms. We&rsquo;ll ask him to keep it secret. He will willingly
+wait then. At the fortnight&rsquo;s end I shall be able to face him; and I can
+coolly tell him all is postponed between us for a year or two. Not a soul in
+the town need know how you&rsquo;ve helped me. Since you wish to be of use,
+there&rsquo;s your way.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It being now what the people called the &ldquo;pinking in&rdquo; of the day,
+that is, the quarter-hour just before dusk, he did not at first observe the
+result of his own words upon her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were anything else,&rdquo; she began, and the dryness of her lips
+was represented in her voice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But it is such a little thing!&rdquo; he said, with a deep reproach.
+&ldquo;Less than you have offered&mdash;just the beginning of what you have so
+lately promised! I could have told him as much myself, but he would not have
+believed me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is not because I won&rsquo;t&mdash;it is because I absolutely
+can&rsquo;t,&rdquo; she said, with rising distress.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are provoking!&rdquo; he burst out. &ldquo;It is enough to make me
+force you to carry out at once what you have promised.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I cannot!&rdquo; she insisted desperately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why? When I have only within these few minutes released you from your
+promise to do the thing offhand.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because&mdash;he was a witness!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Witness? Of what?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I must tell you&mdash;&mdash;. Don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t upbraid
+me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well! Let&rsquo;s hear what you mean?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Witness of my marriage&mdash;Mr. Grower was!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Marriage?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. With Mr. Farfrae. O Michael! I am already his wife. We were married
+this week at Port-Bredy. There were reasons against our doing it here. Mr.
+Grower was a witness because he happened to be at Port-Bredy at the
+time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard stood as if idiotized. She was so alarmed at his silence that she
+murmured something about lending him sufficient money to tide over the perilous
+fortnight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Married him?&rdquo; said Henchard at length. &ldquo;My good&mdash;what,
+married him whilst&mdash;bound to marry me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was like this,&rdquo; she explained, with tears in her eyes and
+quavers in her voice; &ldquo;don&rsquo;t&mdash;don&rsquo;t be cruel! I loved
+him so much, and I thought you might tell him of the past&mdash;and that
+grieved me! And then, when I had promised you, I learnt of the rumour that you
+had&mdash;sold your first wife at a fair like a horse or cow! How could I keep
+my promise after hearing that? I could not risk myself in your hands; it would
+have been letting myself down to take your name after such a scandal. But I
+knew I should lose Donald if I did not secure him at once&mdash;for you would
+carry out your threat of telling him of our former acquaintance, as long as
+there was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so. But you will not do
+so now, will you, Michael? for it is too late to separate us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The notes of St. Peter&rsquo;s bells in full peal had been wafted to them while
+he spoke, and now the genial thumping of the town band, renowned for its
+unstinted use of the drum-stick, throbbed down the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I suppose?&rdquo;
+said he.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;I think he has told them, or else Mr. Grower has.... May I
+leave you now? My&mdash;he was detained at Port-Bredy to-day, and sent me on a
+few hours before him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then it is <i>his wife&rsquo;s</i> life I have saved this
+afternoon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;and he will be for ever grateful to you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am much obliged to him.... O you false woman!&rdquo; burst from
+Henchard. &ldquo;You promised me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes! But it was under compulsion, and I did not know all your
+past&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And now I&rsquo;ve a mind to punish you as you deserve! One word to this
+bran-new husband of how you courted me, and your precious happiness is blown to
+atoms!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Michael&mdash;pity me, and be generous!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t deserve pity! You did; but you don&rsquo;t now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll help you to pay off your debt.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A pensioner of Farfrae&rsquo;s wife&mdash;not I! Don&rsquo;t stay with
+me longer&mdash;I shall say something worse. Go home!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She disappeared under the trees of the south walk as the band came round the
+corner, awaking the echoes of every stock and stone in celebration of her
+happiness. Lucetta took no heed, but ran up the back street and reached her own
+home unperceived.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>XXX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae&rsquo;s words to his landlady had referred to the removal of his boxes
+and other effects from his late lodgings to Lucetta&rsquo;s house. The work was
+not heavy, but it had been much hindered on account of the frequent pauses
+necessitated by exclamations of surprise at the event, of which the good woman
+had been briefly informed by letter a few hours earlier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the last moment of leaving Port-Bredy, Farfrae, like John Gilpin, had been
+detained by important customers, whom, even in the exceptional circumstances,
+he was not the man to neglect. Moreover, there was a convenience in Lucetta
+arriving first at her house. Nobody there as yet knew what had happened; and
+she was best in a position to break the news to the inmates, and give
+directions for her husband&rsquo;s accommodation. He had, therefore, sent on
+his two-days&rsquo; bride in a hired brougham, whilst he went across the
+country to a certain group of wheat and barley ricks a few miles off, telling
+her the hour at which he might be expected the same evening. This accounted for
+her trotting out to meet him after their separation of four hours.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By a strenuous effort, after leaving Henchard she calmed herself in readiness
+to receive Donald at High-Place Hall when he came on from his lodgings. One
+supreme fact empowered her to this, the sense that, come what would, she had
+secured him. Half-an-hour after her arrival he walked in, and she met him with
+a relieved gladness, which a month&rsquo;s perilous absence could not have
+intensified.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There is one thing I have not done; and yet it is important,&rdquo; she
+said earnestly, when she had finished talking about the adventure with the
+bull. &ldquo;That is, broken the news of our marriage to my dear
+Elizabeth-Jane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, and you have not?&rdquo; he said thoughtfully. &ldquo;I gave her a
+lift from the barn homewards; but I did not tell her either; for I thought she
+might have heard of it in the town, and was keeping back her congratulations
+from shyness, and all that.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She can hardly have heard of it. But I&rsquo;ll find out; I&rsquo;ll go
+to her now. And, Donald, you don&rsquo;t mind her living on with me just the
+same as before? She is so quiet and unassuming.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no, indeed I don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a
+faint awkwardness. &ldquo;But I wonder if she would care to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes!&rdquo; said Lucetta eagerly. &ldquo;I am sure she would like to.
+Besides, poor thing, she has no other home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the secret of her more
+reserved friend. He liked her all the better for the blindness. &ldquo;Arrange
+as you like with her by all means,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is I who have come
+to your house, not you to mine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll run and speak to her,&rdquo; said Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When she got upstairs to Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s room the latter had taken off
+her out-door things, and was resting over a book. Lucetta found in a moment
+that she had not yet learnt the news.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I did not come down to you, Miss Templeman,&rdquo; she said simply.
+&ldquo;I was coming to ask if you had quite recovered from your fright, but I
+found you had a visitor. What are the bells ringing for, I wonder? And the
+band, too, is playing. Somebody must be married; or else they are practising
+for Christmas.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta uttered a vague &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; and seating herself by the other
+young woman looked musingly at her. &ldquo;What a lonely creature you
+are,&rdquo; she presently said; &ldquo;never knowing what&rsquo;s going on, or
+what people are talking about everywhere with keen interest. You should get
+out, and gossip about as other women do, and then you wouldn&rsquo;t be obliged
+to ask me a question of that kind. Well, now, I have something to tell
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herself receptive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I must go rather a long way back,&rdquo; said Lucetta, the difficulty of
+explaining herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her growing more
+apparent at each syllable. &ldquo;You remember that trying case of conscience I
+told you of some time ago&mdash;about the first lover and the second
+lover?&rdquo; She let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of the story
+she had told.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes&mdash;I remember the story of <i>your friend</i>,&rdquo; said
+Elizabeth drily, regarding the irises of Lucetta&rsquo;s eyes as though to
+catch their exact shade. &ldquo;The two lovers&mdash;the old one and the new:
+how she wanted to marry the second, but felt she ought to marry the first; so
+that the good she would have done she did not, and the evil that she would not,
+that she did&mdash;exactly like the Apostle Paul.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no; she didn&rsquo;t do evil exactly!&rdquo; said Lucetta hastily.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you said that she&mdash;or as I may say <i>you</i>&rdquo;&mdash;answered
+Elizabeth, dropping the mask, &ldquo;were in honour and conscience bound to
+marry the first?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta&rsquo;s blush at being seen through came and went again before she
+replied anxiously, &ldquo;You will never breathe this, will you,
+Elizabeth-Jane?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Certainly not, if you say not.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I will tell you that the case is more complicated&mdash;worse, in
+fact&mdash;than it seemed in my story. I and the first man were thrown together
+in a strange way, and felt that we ought to be united, as the world had talked
+of us. He was a widower, as he supposed. He had not heard of his first wife for
+many years. But the wife returned, and we parted. She is now dead, and the
+husband comes paying me addresses again, saying, &lsquo;Now we&rsquo;ll
+complete our purposes.&rsquo; But, Elizabeth-Jane, all this amounts to a new
+courtship of me by him; I was absolved from all vows by the return of the other
+woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you not lately renewed your promise?&rdquo; said the younger with
+quiet surmise. She had divined Man Number One.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That was wrung from me by a threat.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, it was. But I think when any one gets coupled up with a man in the
+past so unfortunately as you have done she ought to become his wife if she can,
+even if she were not the sinning party.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta&rsquo;s countenance lost its sparkle. &ldquo;He turned out to be a man
+I should be afraid to marry,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;Really afraid! And it
+was not till after my renewed promise that I knew it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then there is only one course left to honesty. You must remain a single
+woman.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But think again! Do consider&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am certain,&rdquo; interrupted her companion hardily. &ldquo;I have
+guessed very well who the man is. My father; and I say it is him or nobody for
+you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Jane like a red rag to a bull.
+Her craving for correctness of procedure was, indeed, almost vicious. Owing to
+her early troubles with regard to her mother a semblance of irregularity had
+terrors for her which those whose names are safeguarded from suspicion know
+nothing of. &ldquo;You ought to marry Mr. Henchard or nobody&mdash;certainly
+not another man!&rdquo; she went on with a quivering lip in whose movement two
+passions shared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t admit that!&rdquo; said Lucetta passionately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Admit it or not, it is true!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she could plead no more,
+holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, you <i>have</i> married him!&rdquo; cried the latter, jumping up
+with pleasure after a glance at Lucetta&rsquo;s fingers. &ldquo;When did you do
+it? Why did you not tell me, instead of teasing me like this? How very
+honourable of you! He did treat my mother badly once, it seems, in a moment of
+intoxication. And it is true that he is stern sometimes. But you will rule him
+entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and wealth and accomplishments. You are
+the woman he will adore, and we shall all three be happy together now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, my Elizabeth-Jane!&rdquo; cried Lucetta distressfully.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis somebody else that I have married! I was so
+desperate&mdash;so afraid of being forced to anything else&mdash;so afraid of
+revelations that would quench his love for me, that I resolved to do it
+offhand, come what might, and purchase a week of happiness at any cost!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&mdash;have&mdash;married Mr. Farfrae!&rdquo; cried Elizabeth-Jane,
+in Nathan tones
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The bells are ringing on that account,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My
+husband is downstairs. He will live here till a more suitable house is ready
+for us; and I have told him that I want you to stay with me just as
+before.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let me think of it alone,&rdquo; the girl quickly replied, corking up
+the turmoil of her feeling with grand control.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You shall. I am sure we shall be happy together.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta departed to join Donald below, a vague uneasiness floating over her joy
+at seeing him quite at home there. Not on account of her friend Elizabeth did
+she feel it: for of the bearings of Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s emotions she had not
+the least suspicion; but on Henchard&rsquo;s alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the instant decision of Susan Henchard&rsquo;s daughter was to dwell in
+that house no more. Apart from her estimate of the propriety of Lucetta&rsquo;s
+conduct, Farfrae had been so nearly her avowed lover that she felt she could
+not abide there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was still early in the evening when she hastily put on her things and went
+out. In a few minutes, knowing the ground, she had found a suitable lodging,
+and arranged to enter it that night. Returning and entering noiselessly she
+took off her pretty dress and arrayed herself in a plain one, packing up the
+other to keep as her best; for she would have to be very economical now. She
+wrote a note to leave for Lucetta, who was closely shut up in the drawing-room
+with Farfrae; and then Elizabeth-Jane called a man with a wheel-barrow; and
+seeing her boxes put into it she trotted off down the street to her rooms. They
+were in the street in which Henchard lived, and almost opposite his door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence. The little annual
+sum settled on her by her stepfather would keep body and soul together. A
+wonderful skill in netting of all sorts&mdash;acquired in childhood by making
+seines in Newson&rsquo;s home&mdash;might serve her in good stead; and her
+studies, which were pursued unremittingly, might serve her in still better.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout
+Casterbridge; had been discussed noisily on kerbstones, confidentially behind
+counters, and jovially at the Three Mariners. Whether Farfrae would sell his
+business and set up for a gentleman on his wife&rsquo;s money, or whether he
+would show independence enough to stick to his trade in spite of his brilliant
+alliance, was a great point of interest.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap31"></a>XXXI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrates had spread; and in
+four-and-twenty hours there was not a person in Casterbridge who remained
+unacquainted with the story of Henchard&rsquo;s mad freak at Weydon-Priors
+Fair, long years before. The amends he had made in after life were lost sight
+of in the dramatic glare of the original act. Had the incident been well known
+of old and always, it might by this time have grown to be lightly regarded as
+the rather tall wild oat, but well-nigh the single one, of a young man with
+whom the steady and mature (if somewhat headstrong) burgher of to-day had
+scarcely a point in common. But the act having lain as dead and buried ever
+since, the interspace of years was unperceived; and the black spot of his youth
+wore the aspect of a recent crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Small as the police-court incident had been in itself, it formed the edge or
+turn in the incline of Henchard&rsquo;s fortunes. On that day&mdash;almost at
+that minute&mdash;he passed the ridge of prosperity and honour, and began to
+descend rapidly on the other side. It was strange how soon he sank in esteem.
+Socially he had received a startling fillip downwards; and, having already lost
+commercial buoyancy from rash transactions, the velocity of his descent in both
+aspects became accelerated every hour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house-fronts when he walked
+about; more at the feet and leggings of men, and less into the pupils of their
+eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made them blink.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+New events combined to undo him. It had been a bad year for others besides
+himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted generously
+completed the overthrow of his tottering credit. And now, in his desperation,
+he failed to preserve that strict correspondence between bulk and sample which
+is the soul of commerce in grain. For this, one of his men was mainly to blame;
+that worthy, in his great unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an
+enormous quantity of second-rate corn which Henchard had in hand, and removed
+the pinched, blasted, and smutted grains in great numbers. The produce if
+honestly offered would have created no scandal; but the blunder of
+misrepresentation, coming at such a moment, dragged Henchard&rsquo;s name into
+the ditch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind. One day Elizabeth-Jane
+was passing the King&rsquo;s Arms, when she saw people bustling in and out more
+than usual where there was no market. A bystander informed her, with some
+surprise at her ignorance, that it was a meeting of the Commissioners under Mr.
+Henchard&rsquo;s bankruptcy. She felt quite tearful, and when she heard that he
+was present in the hotel she wished to go in and see him, but was advised not
+to intrude that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a front one, and
+Henchard, looking out of the window, had caught sight of Elizabeth-Jane through
+the wire blind. His examination had closed, and the creditors were leaving. The
+appearance of Elizabeth threw him into a reverie, till, turning his face from
+the window, and towering above all the rest, he called their attention for a
+moment more. His countenance had somewhat changed from its flush of prosperity;
+the black hair and whiskers were the same as ever, but a film of ash was over
+the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gentlemen,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;over and above the assets that
+we&rsquo;ve been talking about, and that appear on the balance-sheet, there be
+these. It all belongs to ye, as much as everything else I&rsquo;ve got, and I
+don&rsquo;t wish to keep it from you, not I.&rdquo; Saying this, he took his
+gold watch from his pocket and laid it on the table; then his purse&mdash;the
+yellow canvas moneybag, such as was carried by all farmers and
+dealers&mdash;untying it, and shaking the money out upon the table beside the
+watch. The latter he drew back quickly for an instant, to remove the hair-guard
+made and given him by Lucetta. &ldquo;There, now you have all I&rsquo;ve got in
+the world,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And I wish for your sakes &rsquo;twas
+more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked at the watch, and at the money,
+and into the street; when Farmer James Everdene of Weatherbury spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, Henchard,&rdquo; he said warmly. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want
+that. &rsquo;Tis honourable in ye; but keep it. What do you say,
+neighbours&mdash;do ye agree?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, sure: we don&rsquo;t wish it at all,&rdquo; said Grower, another
+creditor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let him keep it, of course,&rdquo; murmured another in the
+background&mdash;a silent, reserved young man named Boldwood; and the rest
+responded unanimously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the senior Commissioner, addressing Henchard,
+&ldquo;though the case is a desperate one, I am bound to admit that I have
+never met a debtor who behaved more fairly. I&rsquo;ve proved the balance-sheet
+to be as honestly made out as it could possibly be; we have had no trouble;
+there have been no evasions and no concealments. The rashness of dealing which
+led to this unhappy situation is obvious enough; but as far as I can see every
+attempt has been made to avoid wronging anybody.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive, and he
+turned aside to the window again. A general murmur of agreement followed the
+Commissioner&rsquo;s words, and the meeting dispersed. When they were gone
+Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tisn&rsquo;t mine by rights,&rdquo; he said to himself.
+&ldquo;Why the devil didn&rsquo;t they take it?&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want what
+don&rsquo;t belong to me!&rdquo; Moved by a recollection he took the watch to
+the maker&rsquo;s just opposite, sold it there and then for what the tradesman
+offered, and went with the proceeds to one among the smaller of his creditors,
+a cottager of Durnover in straitened circumstances, to whom he handed the
+money.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and the auctions were in
+progress, there was quite a sympathetic reaction in the town, which till then
+for some time past had done nothing but condemn him. Now that Henchard&rsquo;s
+whole career was pictured distinctly to his neighbours, and they could see how
+admirably he had used his one talent of energy to create a position of
+affluence out of absolutely nothing&mdash;which was really all he could show
+when he came to the town as a journeyman hay-trusser, with his wimble and knife
+in his basket&mdash;they wondered and regretted his fall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Try as she might, Elizabeth could never meet with him. She believed in him
+still, though nobody else did; and she wanted to be allowed to forgive him for
+his roughness to her, and to help him in his trouble.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She wrote to him; he did not reply. She then went to his house&mdash;the great
+house she had lived in so happily for a time&mdash;with its front of dun brick,
+vitrified here and there and its heavy sash-bars&mdash;but Henchard was to be
+found there no more. The ex-Mayor had left the home of his prosperity, and gone
+into Jopp&rsquo;s cottage by the Priory Mill&mdash;the sad purlieu to which he
+had wandered on the night of his discovery that she was not his daughter.
+Thither she went.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to retire to, but
+assumed that necessity had no choice. Trees which seemed old enough to have
+been planted by the friars still stood around, and the back hatch of the
+original mill yet formed a cascade which had raised its terrific roar for
+centuries. The cottage itself was built of old stones from the long dismantled
+Priory, scraps of tracery, moulded window-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed
+in with the rubble of the walls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp, whom Henchard had
+employed, abused, cajoled, and dismissed by turns, being the householder. But
+even here her stepfather could not be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not by his daughter?&rdquo; pleaded Elizabeth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By nobody&mdash;at present: that&rsquo;s his order,&rdquo; she was
+informed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Afterwards she was passing by the corn-stores and hay-barns which had been the
+headquarters of his business. She knew that he ruled there no longer; but it
+was with amazement that she regarded the familiar gateway. A smear of decisive
+lead-coloured paint had been laid on to obliterate Henchard&rsquo;s name,
+though its letters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog. Over these, in
+fresh white, spread the name of Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Abel Whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicket, and she said, &ldquo;Mr.
+Farfrae is master here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yaas, Miss Henchet,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Mr. Farfrae have bought the
+concern and all of we work-folk with it; and &rsquo;tis better for us than
+&rsquo;twas&mdash;though I shouldn&rsquo;t say that to you as a daughter-law.
+We work harder, but we bain&rsquo;t made afeard now. It was fear made my few
+poor hairs so thin! No busting out, no slamming of doors, no meddling with yer
+eternal soul and all that; and though &rsquo;tis a shilling a week less
+I&rsquo;m the richer man; for what&rsquo;s all the world if yer mind is always
+in a larry, Miss Henchet?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The intelligence was in a general sense true; and Henchard&rsquo;s stores,
+which had remained in a paralyzed condition during the settlement of his
+bankruptcy, were stirred into activity again when the new tenant had
+possession. Thenceforward the full sacks, looped with the shining chain, went
+scurrying up and down under the cat-head, hairy arms were thrust out from the
+different door-ways, and the grain was hauled in; trusses of hay were tossed
+anew in and out of the barns, and the wimbles creaked; while the scales and
+steel-yards began to be busy where guess-work had formerly been the rule.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap32"></a>XXXII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first, of
+weather-stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street, where a
+diverging branch from that thoroughfare ran round to the low-lying Durnover
+lanes; so that the precincts of the bridge formed the merging point of
+respectability and indigence. The second bridge, of stone, was further out on
+the highway&mdash;in fact, fairly in the meadows, though still within the town
+boundary.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each was worn down
+to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from generations of
+loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year made restless movements
+against these parapets, as they had stood there meditating on the aspect of
+affairs. In the case of the more friable bricks and stones even the flat faces
+were worn into hollows by the same mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was
+clamped with iron at each joint; since it had been no uncommon thing for
+desperate men to wrench the coping off and throw it down the river, in reckless
+defiance of the magistrates.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of the town; those who
+had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime. Why the unhappy
+hereabout usually chose the bridges for their meditations in preference to a
+railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was a marked difference of quality between the personages who haunted the
+near bridge of brick and the personages who haunted the far one of stone. Those
+of lowest character preferred the former, adjoining the town; they did not mind
+the glare of the public eye. They had been of comparatively no account during
+their successes; and though they might feel dispirited, they had no particular
+sense of shame in their ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in their pockets;
+they wore a leather strap round their hips or knees, and boots that required a
+great deal of lacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead of sighing at their
+adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had entered into their
+souls they said they were down on their luck. Jopp in his time of distress had
+often stood here; so had Mother Cuxsom, Christopher Coney, and poor Abel
+Whittle.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>misérables</i> who would pause on the remoter bridge were of a politer
+stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called
+&ldquo;out of a situation&rdquo; from fault or lucklessness, the inefficient of
+the professional class&mdash;shabby-genteel men, who did not know how to get
+rid of the weary time between breakfast and dinner, and the yet more weary time
+between dinner and dark. The eye of this species were mostly directed over the
+parapet upon the running water below. A man seen there looking thus fixedly
+into the river was pretty sure to be one whom the world did not treat kindly
+for some reason or other. While one in straits on the townward bridge did not
+mind who saw him so, and kept his back to the parapet to survey the passers-by,
+one in straits on this never faced the road, never turned his head at coming
+footsteps, but, sensitive to his own condition, watched the current whenever a
+stranger approached, as if some strange fish interested him, though every
+finned thing had been poached out of the river years before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the grief of oppression
+they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselves
+millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised
+love, that they were some much-courted Adonis of county fame. Some had been
+known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually
+they had allowed their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were
+discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles, either here or in
+the deep pool called Blackwater, a little higher up the river.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come before him, his
+way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the town. Here he
+was standing one windy afternoon when Durnover church clock struck five. While
+the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp intervening flat
+a man passed behind him and greeted Henchard by name. Henchard turned slightly
+and saw that the comer was Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to
+whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings because Jopp was the one
+man in Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchant
+despised to the point of indifference.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He and she are gone into their new house to-day,&rdquo; said Jopp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; said Henchard absently. &ldquo;Which house is that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Your old one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Gone into my house?&rdquo; And starting up Henchard added,
+&ldquo;<i>My</i> house of all others in the town!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn&rsquo;t, it can
+do &rsquo;ee no harm that he&rsquo;s the man.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfrae, who had
+already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the house for
+the obvious convenience of its contiguity. And yet this act of his taking up
+residence within those roomy chambers while he, their former tenant, lived in a
+cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp continued: &ldquo;And you heard of that fellow who bought all the best
+furniture at your sale? He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all the while!
+It has never been moved out of the house, as he&rsquo;d already got the
+lease.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My furniture too! Surely he&rsquo;ll buy my body and soul
+likewise!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no saying he won&rsquo;t, if you be willing to
+sell.&rdquo; And having planted these wounds in the heart of his once imperious
+master Jopp went on his way; while Henchard stared and stared into the racing
+river till the bridge seemed moving backward with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When the landscape looked
+like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveller approached the great
+stone bridge. He was driving a gig, his direction being also townwards. On the
+round of the middle of the arch the gig stopped. &ldquo;Mr. Henchard?&rdquo;
+came from it in the voice of Farfrae. Henchard turned his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who accompanied him to
+drive home; while he alighted and went up to his former friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Is it true? I have a real reason for asking.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then said, &ldquo;Yes;
+it is true. I am going where you were going to a few years ago, when I
+prevented you and got you to bide here. &rsquo;Tis turn and turn about,
+isn&rsquo;t it! Do ye mind how we stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I
+persuaded &rsquo;ee to stay? You then stood without a chattel to your name, and
+I was the master of the house in Corn Street. But now I stand without a stick
+or a rag, and the master of that house is you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes; that&rsquo;s so! It&rsquo;s the way o&rsquo; the
+warrld,&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ha, ha, true!&rdquo; cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of
+jocularity. &ldquo;Up and down! I&rsquo;m used to it. What&rsquo;s the odds
+after all!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now listen to me, if it&rsquo;s no taking up your time,&rdquo; said
+Farfrae, &ldquo;just as I listened to you. Don&rsquo;t go. Stay at home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I can do nothing else, man!&rdquo; said Henchard scornfully.
+&ldquo;The little money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few
+weeks, and no more. I have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work yet;
+but I can&rsquo;t stay doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No; but what I propose is this&mdash;if ye will listen. Come and live in
+your old house. We can spare some rooms very well&mdash;I am sure my wife would
+not mind it at all&mdash;until there&rsquo;s an opening for ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard started. Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald of
+himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to be received with
+equanimity. &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he said gruffly; &ldquo;we should
+quarrel.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You should hae a part to yourself,&rdquo; said Farfrae; &ldquo;and
+nobody to interfere wi&rsquo; you. It will be a deal healthier than down there
+by the river where you live now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Still Henchard refused. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what you ask,&rdquo; he
+said. &ldquo;However, I can do no less than thank &rsquo;ee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They walked into the town together side by side, as they had done when Henchard
+persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. &ldquo;Will you come in and have some
+supper?&rdquo; said Farfrae when they reached the middle of the town, where
+their paths diverged right and left.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your furniture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So I have heard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself; but I wish ye
+to pick out all that you care to have&mdash;such things as may be endeared to
+ye by associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take them to your
+own house&mdash;it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very well, and
+I will have plenty of opportunities of getting more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;give it to me for nothing?&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;But
+you paid the creditors for it!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, yes; but maybe it&rsquo;s worth more to you than it is to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard was a little moved. &ldquo;I&mdash;sometimes think I&rsquo;ve wronged
+&rsquo;ee!&rdquo; he said, in tones which showed the disquietude that the night
+shades hid in his face. He shook Farfrae abruptly by the hand, and hastened
+away as if unwilling to betray himself further. Farfrae saw him turn through
+the thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down towards the Priory Mill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no larger than the Prophet&rsquo;s
+chamber, and with the silk attire of her palmy days packed away in a box, was
+netting with great industry between the hours which she devoted to studying
+such books as she could get hold of.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather&rsquo;s former residence, now
+Farfrae&rsquo;s, she could see Donald and Lucetta speeding in and out of their
+door with all the bounding enthusiasm of their situation. She avoided looking
+that way as much as possible, but it was hardly in human nature to keep the
+eyes averted when the door slammed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While living on thus quietly she heard the news that Henchard had caught cold
+and was confined to his room&mdash;possibly a result of standing about the
+meads in damp weather. She went off to his house at once. This time she was
+determined not to be denied admittance, and made her way upstairs. He was
+sitting up in the bed with a greatcoat round him, and at first resented her
+intrusion. &ldquo;Go away&mdash;go away,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t
+like to see &rsquo;ee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But, father&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to see &rsquo;ee,&rdquo; he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, the ice was broken, and she remained. She made the room more
+comfortable, gave directions to the people below, and by the time she went away
+had reconciled her stepfather to her visiting him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The effect, either of her ministrations or of her mere presence, was a rapid
+recovery. He soon was well enough to go out; and now things seemed to wear a
+new colour in his eyes. He no longer thought of emigration, and thought more of
+Elizabeth. The having nothing to do made him more dreary than any other
+circumstance; and one day, with better views of Farfrae than he had held for
+some time, and a sense that honest work was not a thing to be ashamed of, he
+stoically went down to Farfrae&rsquo;s yard and asked to be taken on as a
+journeyman hay-trusser. He was engaged at once. This hiring of Henchard was
+done through a foreman, Farfrae feeling that it was undesirable to come
+personally in contact with the ex-corn-factor more than was absolutely
+necessary. While anxious to help him he was well aware by this time of his
+uncertain temper, and thought reserved relations best. For the same reason his
+orders to Henchard to proceed to this and that country farm trussing in the
+usual way were always given through a third person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a time these arrangements worked well, it being the custom to truss in the
+respective stack-yards, before bringing it away, the hay bought at the
+different farms about the neighbourhood; so that Henchard was often absent at
+such places the whole week long. When this was all done, and Henchard had
+become in a measure broken in, he came to work daily on the home premises like
+the rest. And thus the once flourishing merchant and Mayor and what not stood
+as a day-labourer in the barns and granaries he formerly had owned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have worked as a journeyman before now, ha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t I?&rdquo;
+he would say in his defiant way; &ldquo;and why shouldn&rsquo;t I do it
+again?&rdquo; But he looked a far different journeyman from the one he had been
+in his earlier days. Then he had worn clean, suitable clothes, light and
+cheerful in hue; leggings yellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new
+flax, and a neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now he wore the remains of an old
+blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once black
+satin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he went to and fro, still
+comparatively an active man&mdash;for he was not much over forty&mdash;and saw
+with the other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the green door
+that led to the garden, and the big house, and Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the beginning of the winter it was rumoured about Casterbridge that Mr.
+Farfrae, already in the Town Council, was to be proposed for Mayor in a year or
+two.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!&rdquo; said Henchard
+to himself when he heard of this one day on his way to Farfrae&rsquo;s
+hay-barn. He thought it over as he wimbled his bonds, and the piece of news
+acted as a reviviscent breath to that old view of his&mdash;of Donald Farfrae
+as his triumphant rival who rode rough-shod over him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A fellow of his age going to be Mayor, indeed!&rdquo; he murmured with a
+corner-drawn smile on his mouth. &ldquo;But &rsquo;tis her money that floats en
+upward. Ha-ha&mdash;how cust odd it is! Here be I, his former master, working
+for him as man, and he the man standing as master, with my house and my
+furniture and my what-you-may-call wife all his own.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He repeated these things a hundred times a day. During the whole period of his
+acquaintance with Lucetta he had never wished to claim her as his own so
+desperately as he now regretted her loss. It was no mercenary hankering after
+her fortune that moved him, though that fortune had been the means of making
+her so much the more desired by giving her the air of independence and
+sauciness which attracts men of his composition. It had given her servants,
+house, and fine clothing&mdash;a setting that invested Lucetta with a startling
+novelty in the eyes of him who had known her in her narrow days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at every allusion to the possibility
+of Farfrae&rsquo;s near election to the municipal chair his former hatred of
+the Scotchman returned. Concurrently with this he underwent a moral change. It
+resulted in his significantly saying every now and then, in tones of
+recklessness, &ldquo;Only a fortnight more!&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Only a dozen
+days!&rdquo; and so forth, lessening his figures day by day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why d&rsquo;ye say only a dozen days?&rdquo; asked Solomon Longways as
+he worked beside Henchard in the granary weighing oats.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What oath?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The oath to drink no spirituous liquid. In twelve days it will be
+twenty-one years since I swore it, and then I mean to enjoy myself, please
+God!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and while there she heard in the
+street below a conversation which introduced Henchard&rsquo;s name. She was
+wondering what was the matter, when a third person who was passing by asked the
+question in her mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Michael Henchard have busted out drinking after taking nothing for
+twenty-one years!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane jumped up, put on her things, and went out.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap33"></a>XXXIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial custom&mdash;scarcely
+recognized as such, yet none the less established. On the afternoon of every
+Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge journeymen&mdash;steady
+churchgoers and sedate characters&mdash;having attended service, filed from the
+church doors across the way to the Three Mariners Inn. The rear was usually
+brought up by the choir, with their bass-viols, fiddles, and flutes under their
+arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The great point, the point of honour, on these sacred occasions was for each
+man to strictly limit himself to half-a-pint of liquor. This scrupulosity was
+so well understood by the landlord that the whole company was served in cups of
+that measure. They were all exactly alike&mdash;straight-sided, with two
+leafless lime-trees done in eel-brown on the sides&mdash;one towards the
+drinker&rsquo;s lips, the other confronting his comrade. To wonder how many of
+these cups the landlord possessed altogether was a favourite exercise of
+children in the marvellous. Forty at least might have been seen at these times
+in the large room, forming a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged
+oak table, like the monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its pristine days.
+Outside and above the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke-jets from forty
+clay pipes; outside the pipes the countenances of the forty church-goers,
+supported at the back by a circle of forty chairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The conversation was not the conversation of week-days, but a thing altogether
+finer in point and higher in tone. They invariably discussed the sermon,
+dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the average&mdash;the general
+tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or performance which had no
+relation to their own lives, except as between critics and the thing
+criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk usually spoke with more
+authority than the rest on account of their official connection with the
+preacher.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the place for closing
+his long term of dramless years. He had so timed his entry as to be well
+established in the large room by the time the forty church-goers entered to
+their customary cups. The flush upon his face proclaimed at once that the vow
+of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the era of recklessness begun anew. He was
+seated on a small table, drawn up to the side of the massive oak board reserved
+for the churchmen, a few of whom nodded to him as they took their places and
+said, &ldquo;How be ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a stranger here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a few moments, and his eyes
+rested on his stretched-out legs and boots. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said at
+length; &ldquo;that&rsquo;s true. I&rsquo;ve been down in spirit for weeks;
+some of ye know the cause. I am better now, but not quite serene. I want you
+fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this brew of
+Stannidge&rsquo;s, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my minor
+key.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With all my heart,&rdquo; said the first fiddle. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve let
+back our strings, that&rsquo;s true, but we can soon pull &rsquo;em up again.
+Sound A, neighbours, and give the man a stave.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care a curse what the words be,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+&ldquo;Hymns, ballets, or rantipole rubbish; the Rogue&rsquo;s March or the
+cherubim&rsquo;s warble&mdash;&rsquo;tis all the same to me if &rsquo;tis good
+harmony, and well put out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;heh, heh&mdash;it may be we can do that, and not a man among
+us that have sat in the gallery less than twenty year,&rdquo; said the leader
+of the band. &ldquo;As &rsquo;tis Sunday, neighbours, suppose we raise the
+Fourth Psa&rsquo;am, to Samuel Wakely&rsquo;s tune, as improved by me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Hang Samuel Wakely&rsquo;s tune, as improved by thee!&rdquo; said
+Henchard. &ldquo;Chuck across one of your psalters&mdash;old Wiltshire is the
+only tune worth singing&mdash;the psalm-tune that would make my blood ebb and
+flow like the sea when I was a steady chap. I&rsquo;ll find some words to fit
+en.&rdquo; He took one of the psalters and began turning over the leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Chancing to look out of the window at that moment he saw a flock of people
+passing by, and perceived them to be the congregation of the upper church, now
+just dismissed, their sermon having been a longer one than that the lower
+parish was favoured with. Among the rest of the leading inhabitants walked Mr.
+Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon his arm, the observed and imitated of all
+the smaller tradesmen&rsquo;s womankind. Henchard&rsquo;s mouth changed a
+little, and he continued to turn over the leaves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now then,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the
+tune of Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen. I gi&rsquo;e ye the words:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;His seed shall orphans be, his wife<br />
+    A widow plunged in grief;<br />
+His vagrant children beg their bread<br />
+    Where none can give relief.<br />
+<br />
+His ill-got riches shall be made<br />
+    To usurers a prey;<br />
+The fruit of all his toil shall be<br />
+    By strangers borne away.<br />
+<br />
+None shall be found that to his wants<br />
+    Their mercy will extend,<br />
+Or to his helpless orphan seed<br />
+    The least assistance lend.<br />
+<br />
+A swift destruction soon shall seize<br />
+    On his unhappy race;<br />
+And the next age his hated name<br />
+    Shall utterly deface.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know the Psa&rsquo;am&mdash;I know the Psa&rsquo;am!&rdquo; said the
+leader hastily; &ldquo;but I would as lief not sing it. &rsquo;Twasn&rsquo;t
+made for singing. We chose it once when the gipsy stole the
+pa&rsquo;son&rsquo;s mare, thinking to please him, but pa&rsquo;son were quite
+upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about when he made a Psalm that
+nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I can&rsquo;t fathom! Now then, the
+Fourth Psalm, to Samuel Wakely&rsquo;s tune, as improved by me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Od seize your sauce&mdash;I tell ye to sing the Hundred-and-Ninth
+to Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!&rdquo; roared Henchard. &ldquo;Not a
+single one of all the droning crew of ye goes out of this room till that Psalm
+is sung!&rdquo; He slipped off the table, seized the poker, and going to the
+door placed his back against it. &ldquo;Now then, go ahead, if you don&rsquo;t
+wish to have your cust pates broke!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t &rsquo;ee, don&rsquo;t&rsquo;ee take on so!&mdash;As
+&rsquo;tis the Sabbath-day, and &rsquo;tis Servant David&rsquo;s words and not
+ours, perhaps we don&rsquo;t mind for once, hey?&rdquo; said one of the
+terrified choir, looking round upon the rest. So the instruments were tuned and
+the comminatory verses sung.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank ye, thank ye,&rdquo; said Henchard in a softened voice, his eyes
+growing downcast, and his manner that of a man much moved by the strains.
+&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you blame David,&rdquo; he went on in low tones, shaking his
+head without raising his eyes. &ldquo;He knew what he was about when he wrote
+that!... If I could afford it, be hanged if I wouldn&rsquo;t keep a church
+choir at my own expense to play and sing to me at these low, dark times of my
+life. But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I didn&rsquo;t need what I
+could have, and now I be poor I can&rsquo;t have what I need!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again, this time homeward, it
+being their custom to take, like others, a short walk out on the highway and
+back, between church and tea-time. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s the man we&rsquo;ve
+been singing about,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. &ldquo;Heaven
+forbid!&rdquo; said the bass-player.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis the man,&rdquo; repeated Henchard doggedly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then if I&rsquo;d known,&rdquo; said the performer on the clarionet
+solemnly, &ldquo;that &rsquo;twas meant for a living man, nothing should have
+drawn out of my wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so help me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor from mine,&rdquo; said the first singer. &ldquo;But, thought I, as
+it was made so long ago perhaps there isn&rsquo;t much in it, so I&rsquo;ll
+oblige a neighbour; for there&rsquo;s nothing to be said against the
+tune.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, my boys, you&rsquo;ve sung it,&rdquo; said Henchard triumphantly.
+&ldquo;As for him, it was partly by his songs that he got over me, and heaved
+me out.... I could double him up like that&mdash;and yet I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+He laid the poker across his knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down,
+and came away from the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heard where her stepfather was,
+entered the room with a pale and agonized countenance. The choir and the rest
+of the company moved off, in accordance with their half-pint regulation.
+Elizabeth-Jane went up to Henchard, and entreated him to accompany her home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt down, and having drunk
+no great quantity as yet he was inclined to acquiesce. She took his arm, and
+together they went on. Henchard walked blankly, like a blind man, repeating to
+himself the last words of the singers&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;And the next age his hated name<br />
+    Shall utterly deface.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length he said to her, &ldquo;I am a man to my word. I have kept my oath for
+twenty-one years; and now I can drink with a good conscience.... If I
+don&rsquo;t do for him&mdash;well, I am a fearful practical joker when I
+choose! He has taken away everything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him I
+won&rsquo;t answer for my deeds!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth&mdash;all the more by reason of the
+still determination of Henchard&rsquo;s mien.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What will you do?&rdquo; she asked cautiously, while trembling with
+disquietude, and guessing Henchard&rsquo;s allusion only too well.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his cottage.
+&ldquo;May I come in?&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no; not to-day,&rdquo; said Henchard; and she went away; feeling
+that to caution Farfrae was almost her duty, as it was certainly her strong
+desire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae and Lucetta might have been seen
+flitting about the town like two butterflies&mdash;or rather like a bee and a
+butterfly in league for life. She seemed to take no pleasure in going anywhere
+except in her husband&rsquo;s company; and hence when business would not permit
+him to waste an afternoon she remained indoors waiting for the time to pass
+till his return, her face being visible to Elizabeth-Jane from her window
+aloft. The latter, however, did not say to herself that Farfrae should be
+thankful for such devotion, but, full of her reading, she cited
+Rosalind&rsquo;s exclamation: &ldquo;Mistress, know yourself; down on your
+knees and thank Heaven fasting for a good man&rsquo;s love.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry for his
+health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle&rsquo;s pitying eyes
+upon him while they worked together in the yard. &ldquo;He is such a
+fool,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;that he can never get out of his mind the
+time when I was master there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will allow
+me,&rdquo; said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity
+of observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae&rsquo;s premises now
+that her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard&rsquo;s threats had alarmed
+her so much that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face to
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any appearance.
+Then one afternoon the green door opened, and through came, first Farfrae, and
+at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife forward without hesitation, it
+being obvious that he had no suspicion whatever of any antecedents in common
+between her and the now journeyman hay-trusser.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them fixed on
+the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling of delicacy,
+which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might seem like triumphing
+over a fallen rival, led him to keep away from the hay-barn where Henchard and
+his daughter were working, and to go on to the corn department. Meanwhile
+Lucetta, never having been informed that Henchard had entered her
+husband&rsquo;s service, rambled straight on to the barn, where she came
+suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; which the
+happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear. Henchard, with withering
+humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his hat to her as Whittle and the
+rest had done, to which she breathed a dead-alive &ldquo;Good afternoon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I beg your pardon, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; said Henchard, as if he had not
+heard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I said good afternoon,&rdquo; she faltered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O yes, good afternoon, ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; he replied, touching his hat
+again. &ldquo;I am glad to see you, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo; Lucetta looked
+embarrassed, and Henchard continued: &ldquo;For we humble workmen here feel it
+a great honour that a lady should look in and take an interest in us.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too unendurable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Can you tell me the time, ma&rsquo;am?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said hastily; &ldquo;half-past four.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank &rsquo;ee. An hour and a half longer before we are released from
+work. Ah, ma&rsquo;am, we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisure
+that such as you enjoy!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, nodded and smiled to
+Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husband at the other end of the enclosure, where
+she could be seen leading him away by the outer gates, so as to avoid passing
+Henchard again. That she had been taken by surprise was obvious. The result of
+this casual rencounter was that the next morning a note was put into
+Henchard&rsquo;s hand by the postman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Will you,&rdquo; said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put
+into a small communication, &ldquo;will you kindly undertake not to speak to me
+in the biting undertones you used to-day, if I walk through the yard at any
+time? I bear you no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you should have
+employment of my dear husband; but in common fairness treat me as his wife, and
+do not try to make me wretched by covert sneers. I have committed no crime, and
+done you no injury.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Poor fool!&rdquo; said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out the
+note. &ldquo;To know no better than commit herself in writing like this! Why,
+if I were to show that to her dear husband&mdash;pooh!&rdquo; He threw the
+letter into the fire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would rather
+have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such close quarters a
+second time. The gulf between them was growing wider every day. Farfrae was
+always considerate to his fallen acquaintance; but it was impossible that he
+should not, by degrees, cease to regard the ex-corn-merchant as more than one
+of his other workmen. Henchard saw this, and concealed his feelings under a
+cover of stolidity, fortifying his heart by drinking more freely at the Three
+Mariners every evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his taking other liquor,
+carry tea to him in a little basket at five o&rsquo;clock. Arriving one day on
+this errand she found her stepfather was measuring up clover-seed and rape-seed
+in the corn-stores on the top floor, and she ascended to him. Each floor had a
+door opening into the air under a cat-head, from which a chain dangled for
+hoisting the sacks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Elizabeth&rsquo;s head rose through the trap she perceived that the upper
+door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just within it in
+conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and Henchard a little way
+behind. Not to interrupt them she remained on the steps without raising her
+head any higher. While waiting thus she saw&mdash;or fancied she saw, for she
+had a terror of feeling certain&mdash;her stepfather slowly raise his hand to a
+level behind Farfrae&rsquo;s shoulders, a curious expression taking possession
+of his face. The young man was quite unconscious of the action, which was so
+indirect that, if Farfrae had observed it, he might almost have regarded it as
+an idle outstretching of the arm. But it would have been possible, by a
+comparatively light touch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send him head
+over heels into the air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this <i>might</i> have
+meant. As soon as they turned she mechanically took the tea to Henchard, left
+it, and went away. Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure herself that the
+movement was an idle eccentricity, and no more. Yet, on the other hand, his
+subordinate position in an establishment where he once had been master might be
+acting on him like an irritant poison; and she finally resolved to caution
+Donald.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap34"></a>XXXIV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o&rsquo;clock and went into the
+street. It was not yet light; a dense fog prevailed, and the town was as silent
+as it was dark, except that from the rectangular avenues which framed in the
+borough there came a chorus of tiny rappings, caused by the fall of water-drops
+condensed on the boughs; now it was wafted from the West Walk, now from the
+South Walk; and then from both quarters simultaneously. She moved on to the
+bottom of Corn Street, and, knowing his time well, waited only a few minutes
+before she heard the familiar bang of his door, and then his quick walk towards
+her. She met him at the point where the last tree of the engirding avenue
+flanked the last house in the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he said,
+&ldquo;What&mdash;Miss Henchard&mdash;and are ye up so airly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time.
+&ldquo;But I am anxious to mention something,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And I
+wished not to alarm Mrs. Farfrae by calling.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; said he, with the cheeriness of a superior. &ldquo;And what
+may it be? It&rsquo;s very kind of ye, I&rsquo;m sure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the exact aspect of
+possibilities in her own. But she somehow began, and introduced
+Henchard&rsquo;s name. &ldquo;I sometimes fear,&rdquo; she said with an effort,
+&ldquo;that he may be betrayed into some attempt to&mdash;insult you, sir.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we are the best of friends?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir. Remember that he has been
+hardly used.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But we are quite friendly?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Or to do something&mdash;that would injure you&mdash;hurt
+you&mdash;wound you.&rdquo; Every word cost her twice its length of pain. And
+she could see that Farfrae was still incredulous. Henchard, a poor man in his
+employ, was not to Farfrae&rsquo;s view the Henchard who had ruled him. Yet he
+was not only the same man, but that man with his sinister qualities, formerly
+latent, quickened into life by his buffetings.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted in making light of her fears.
+Thus they parted, and she went homeward, journeymen now being in the street,
+waggoners going to the harness-makers for articles left to be repaired,
+farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the sons of labour showing
+themselves generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her lodging unhappily,
+thinking she had done no good, and only made herself appear foolish by her weak
+note of warning.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whom an incident is never
+absolutely lost. He revised impressions from a subsequent point of view, and
+the impulsive judgment of the moment was not always his permanent one. The
+vision of Elizabeth&rsquo;s earnest face in the rimy dawn came back to him
+several times during the day. Knowing the solidity of her character he did not
+treat her hints altogether as idle sounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard&rsquo;s account that
+engaged him just then; and when he met Lawyer Joyce, the town-clerk, later in
+the day, he spoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;About that little seedsman&rsquo;s shop,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;the shop
+overlooking the churchyard, which is to let. It is not for myself I want it,
+but for our unlucky fellow-townsman Henchard. It would be a new beginning for
+him, if a small one; and I have told the Council that I would head a private
+subscription among them to set him up in it&mdash;that I would be fifty pounds,
+if they would make up the other fifty among them.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes; so I&rsquo;ve heard; and there&rsquo;s nothing to say against
+it for that matter,&rdquo; the town-clerk replied, in his plain, frank way.
+&ldquo;But, Farfrae, others see what you don&rsquo;t. Henchard hates
+&rsquo;ee&mdash;ay, hates &rsquo;ee; and &rsquo;tis right that you should know
+it. To my knowledge he was at the Three Mariners last night, saying in public
+that about you which a man ought not to say about another.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is that so&mdash;ah, is that so?&rdquo; said Farfrae, looking down.
+&ldquo;Why should he do it?&rdquo; added the young man bitterly; &ldquo;what
+harm have I done him that he should try to wrong me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;God only knows,&rdquo; said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows. &ldquo;It shows
+much long-suffering in you to put up with him, and keep him in your
+employ.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But I cannet discharge a man who was once a good friend to me. How can I
+forget that when I came here &rsquo;twas he enabled me to make a footing for
+mysel&rsquo;? No, no. As long as I&rsquo;ve a day&rsquo;s work to offer he
+shall do it if he chooses. &rsquo;Tis not I who will deny him such a little as
+that. But I&rsquo;ll drop the idea of establishing him in a shop till I can
+think more about it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme. But a damp having been thrown
+over it by these and other voices in the air, he went and countermanded his
+orders. The then occupier of the shop was in it when Farfrae spoke to him and
+feeling it necessary to give some explanation of his withdrawal from the
+negotiation Donald mentioned Henchard&rsquo;s name, and stated that the
+intentions of the Council had been changed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-way informed Henchard, as soon
+as he saw him, that a scheme of the Council for setting him up in a shop had
+been knocked on the head by Farfrae. And thus out of error enmity grew.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettle was singing on the high
+hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate. Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran forward and
+seized his hands, whereupon Farfrae duly kissed her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she cried playfully, turning to the window.
+&ldquo;See&mdash;the blinds are not drawn down, and the people can look
+in&mdash;what a scandal!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the twain sat at tea,
+she noticed that he looked serious. Without directly inquiring why she let her
+eyes linger solicitously on his face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who has called?&rdquo; he absently asked. &ldquo;Any folk for me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Lucetta. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the matter, Donald?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;nothing worth talking of,&rdquo; he responded sadly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then, never mind it. You will get through it, Scotchmen are always
+lucky.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No&mdash;not always!&rdquo; he said, shaking his head gloomily as he
+contemplated a crumb on the table. &ldquo;I know many who have not been so!
+There was Sandy Macfarlane, who started to America to try his fortune, and he
+was drowned; and Archibald Leith, he was murdered! And poor Willie Dunbleeze
+and Maitland Macfreeze&mdash;they fell into bad courses, and went the way of
+all such!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;you old goosey&mdash;I was only speaking in a general sense,
+of course! You are always so literal. Now when we have finished tea, sing me
+that funny song about high-heeled shoon and siller tags, and the one-and-forty
+wooers.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no. I couldna sing to-night! It&rsquo;s Henchard&mdash;he hates me;
+so that I may not be his friend if I would. I would understand why there should
+be a wee bit of envy; but I cannet see a reason for the whole intensity of what
+he feels. Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashioned rivalry in love
+than just a bit of rivalry in trade.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she replied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I give him employment&mdash;I cannet refuse it. But neither can I blind
+myself to the fact that with a man of passions such as his, there is no
+safeguard for conduct!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What have you heard&mdash;O Donald, dearest?&rdquo; said Lucetta in
+alarm. The words on her lips were &ldquo;anything about me?&rdquo;&mdash;but
+she did not utter them. She could not, however, suppress her agitation, and her
+eyes filled with tears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no&mdash;it is not so serious as ye fancy,&rdquo; declared Farfrae
+soothingly; though he did not know its seriousness so well as she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish you would do what we have talked of,&rdquo; mournfully remarked
+Lucetta. &ldquo;Give up business, and go away from here. We have plenty of
+money, and why should we stay?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and they talked thereon
+till a visitor was announced. Their neighbour Alderman Vatt came in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You&rsquo;ve heard, I suppose of poor Doctor Chalkfield&rsquo;s death?
+Yes&mdash;died this afternoon at five,&rdquo; said Mr. Vatt. Chalkfield was the
+Councilman who had succeeded to the Mayoralty in the preceding November.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt continued: &ldquo;Well, we
+know he&rsquo;s been going some days, and as his family is well provided for we
+must take it all as it is. Now I have called to ask &rsquo;ee this&mdash;quite
+privately. If I should nominate &rsquo;ee to succeed him, and there should be
+no particular opposition, will &rsquo;ee accept the chair?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I&rsquo;m over young,
+and may be thought pushing!&rdquo; said Farfrae after a pause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not at all. I don&rsquo;t speak for myself only, several have named it.
+You won&rsquo;t refuse?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We thought of going away,&rdquo; interposed Lucetta, looking at Farfrae
+anxiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was only a fancy,&rdquo; Farfrae murmured. &ldquo;I wouldna refuse if
+it is the wish of a respectable majority in the Council.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected. We have had older men
+long enough.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was gone Farfrae said musingly, &ldquo;See now how it&rsquo;s ourselves
+that are ruled by the Powers above us! We plan this, but we do that. If they
+want to make me Mayor I will stay, and Henchard must rave as he will.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From this evening onward Lucetta was very uneasy. If she had not been
+imprudence incarnate she would not have acted as she did when she met Henchard
+by accident a day or two later. It was in the bustle of the market, when no one
+could readily notice their discourse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Michael,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;I must again ask you what I asked you
+months ago&mdash;to return me any letters or papers of mine that you may
+have&mdash;unless you have destroyed them? You must see how desirable it is
+that the time at Jersey should be blotted out, for the good of all
+parties.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, bless the woman!&mdash;I packed up every scrap of your handwriting
+to give you in the coach&mdash;but you never appeared.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She explained how the death of her aunt had prevented her taking the journey on
+that day. &ldquo;And what became of the parcel then?&rdquo; she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He could not say&mdash;he would consider. When she was gone he recollected that
+he had left a heap of useless papers in his former dining-room safe&mdash;built
+up in the wall of his old house&mdash;now occupied by Farfrae. The letters
+might have been amongst them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard&rsquo;s face. Had that safe been
+opened?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the very evening which followed this there was a great ringing of bells in
+Casterbridge, and the combined brass, wood, catgut, and leather bands played
+round the town with more prodigality of percussion-notes than ever. Farfrae was
+Mayor&mdash;the two-hundredth odd of a series forming an elective dynasty
+dating back to the days of Charles I&mdash;and the fair Lucetta was the courted
+of the town.... But, Ah! the worm i&rsquo; the bud&mdash;Henchard; what he
+could tell!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He, in the meantime, festering with indignation at some erroneous intelligence
+of Farfrae&rsquo;s opposition to the scheme for installing him in the little
+seed-shop, was greeted with the news of the municipal election (which, by
+reason of Farfrae&rsquo;s comparative youth and his Scottish nativity&mdash;a
+thing unprecedented in the case&mdash;had an interest far beyond the ordinary).
+The bell-ringing and the band-playing, loud as Tamerlane&rsquo;s trumpet,
+goaded the downfallen Henchard indescribably: the ousting now seemed to him to
+be complete.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning he went to the corn-yard as usual, and about eleven
+o&rsquo;clock Donald entered through the green door, with no trace of the
+worshipful about him. The yet more emphatic change of places between him and
+Henchard which this election had established renewed a slight embarrassment in
+the manner of the modest young man; but Henchard showed the front of one who
+had overlooked all this; and Farfrae met his amenities half-way at once.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I was going to ask you,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;about a packet that
+I may possibly have left in my old safe in the dining-room.&rdquo; He added
+particulars.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If so, it is there now,&rdquo; said Farfrae. &ldquo;I have never opened
+the safe at all as yet; for I keep ma papers at the bank, to sleep easy
+o&rsquo; nights.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was not of much consequence&mdash;to me,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+&ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll call for it this evening, if you don&rsquo;t mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise. He had primed himself with
+grog, as he did very frequently now, and a curl of sardonic humour hung on his
+lip as he approached the house, as though he were contemplating some terrible
+form of amusement. Whatever it was, the incident of his entry did not diminish
+its force, this being his first visit to the house since he had lived there as
+owner. The ring of the bell spoke to him like the voice of a familiar drudge
+who had been bribed to forsake him; the movements of the doors were revivals of
+dead days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae invited him into the dining-room, where he at once unlocked the iron
+safe built into the wall, <i>his</i>, Henchard&rsquo;s safe, made by an
+ingenious locksmith under his direction. Farfrae drew thence the parcel, and
+other papers, with apologies for not having returned them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; said Henchard drily. &ldquo;The fact is they are
+letters mostly.... Yes,&rdquo; he went on, sitting down and unfolding
+Lucetta&rsquo;s passionate bundle, &ldquo;here they be. That ever I should see
+&rsquo;em again! I hope Mrs. Farfrae is well after her exertions of
+yesterday?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that
+account.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them over with interest, Farfrae
+being seated at the other end of the dining-table. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t
+forget, of course,&rdquo; he resumed, &ldquo;that curious chapter in the
+history of my past which I told you of, and that you gave me some assistance
+in? These letters are, in fact, related to that unhappy business. Though, thank
+God, it is all over now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What became of the poor woman?&rdquo; asked Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Luckily she married, and married well,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;So
+that these reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges, as
+they might otherwise have done.... Just listen to what an angry woman will
+say!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite uninterested, and bursting
+with yawns, gave well-mannered attention.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;For me,&rsquo;&rdquo; Henchard read, &ldquo;&lsquo;there is
+practically no future. A creature too unconventionally devoted to you&mdash;who
+feels it impossible that she can be the wife of any other man; and who is yet
+no more to you than the first woman you meet in the street&mdash;such am I. I
+quite acquit you of any intention to wrong me, yet you are the door through
+which wrong has come to me. That in the event of your present wife&rsquo;s
+death you will place me in her position is a consolation so far as it
+goes&mdash;but how far does it go? Thus I sit here, forsaken by my few
+acquaintance, and forsaken by you!&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s how she went on to me,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;acres
+of words like that, when what had happened was what I could not cure.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Farfrae absently, &ldquo;it is the way wi&rsquo;
+women.&rdquo; But the fact was that he knew very little of the sex; yet
+detecting a sort of resemblance in style between the effusions of the woman he
+worshipped and those of the supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever
+spoke thus, whosesoever the personality she assumed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through likewise, stopping at the
+subscription as before. &ldquo;Her name I don&rsquo;t give,&rdquo; he said
+blandly. &ldquo;As I didn&rsquo;t marry her, and another man did, I can
+scarcely do that in fairness to her.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Tr-rue, tr-rue,&rdquo; said Farfrae. &ldquo;But why didn&rsquo;t you
+marry her when your wife Susan died?&rdquo; Farfrae asked this and the other
+questions in the comfortably indifferent tone of one whom the matter very
+remotely concerned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;well you may ask that!&rdquo; said Henchard, the
+new-moon-shaped grin adumbrating itself again upon his mouth. &ldquo;In spite
+of all her protestations, when I came forward to do so, as in generosity bound,
+she was not the woman for me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She had already married another&mdash;maybe?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the wind to descend
+further into particulars, and he answered &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The young lady must have had a heart that bore transplanting very
+readily!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She had, she had,&rdquo; said Henchard emphatically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He opened a third and fourth letter, and read. This time he approached the
+conclusion as if the signature were indeed coming with the rest. But again he
+stopped short. The truth was that, as may be divined, he had quite intended to
+effect a grand catastrophe at the end of this drama by reading out the name, he
+had come to the house with no other thought. But sitting here in cold blood he
+could not do it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him. His quality was such that he could
+have annihilated them both in the heat of action; but to accomplish the deed by
+oral poison was beyond the nerve of his enmity.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap35"></a>XXXV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to her room because of fatigue. She
+had, however, not gone to rest, but sat in the bedside chair reading and
+thinking over the events of the day. At the ringing of the door-bell by
+Henchard she wondered who it should be that would call at that comparatively
+late hour. The dining-room was almost under her bed-room; she could hear that
+somebody was admitted there, and presently the indistinct murmur of a person
+reading became audible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The usual time for Donald&rsquo;s arrival upstairs came and passed, yet still
+the reading and conversation went on. This was very singular. She could think
+of nothing but that some extraordinary crime had been committed, and that the
+visitor, whoever he might be, was reading an account of it from a special
+edition of the <i>Casterbridge Chronicle</i>. At last she left the room, and
+descended the stairs. The dining-room door was ajar, and in the silence of the
+resting household the voice and the words were recognizable before she reached
+the lower flight. She stood transfixed. Her own words greeted her in
+Henchard&rsquo;s voice, like spirits from the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta leant upon the banister with her cheek against the smooth hand-rail, as
+if she would make a friend of it in her misery. Rigid in this position, more
+and more words fell successively upon her ear. But what amazed her most was the
+tone of her husband. He spoke merely in the accents of a man who made a present
+of his time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One word,&rdquo; he was saying, as the crackling of paper denoted that
+Henchard was unfolding yet another sheet. &ldquo;Is it quite fair to this young
+woman&rsquo;s memory to read at such length to a stranger what was intended for
+your eye alone?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, yes,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;By not giving her name I make it
+an example of all womankind, and not a scandal to one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I were you I would destroy them,&rdquo; said Farfrae, giving more
+thought to the letters than he had hitherto done. &ldquo;As another man&rsquo;s
+wife it would injure the woman if it were known.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, I shall not destroy them,&rdquo; murmured Henchard, putting the
+letters away. Then he arose, and Lucetta heard no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state. For very fear she could
+not undress, but sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would Henchard let out
+the secret in his parting words? Her suspense was terrible. Had she confessed
+all to Donald in their early acquaintance he might possibly have got over it,
+and married her just the same&mdash;unlikely as it had once seemed; but for her
+or any one else to tell him now would be fatal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door slammed; she could hear her husband bolting it. After looking round in
+his customary way he came leisurely up the stairs. The spark in her eyes
+well-nigh went out when he appeared round the bedroom door. Her gaze hung
+doubtful for a moment, then to her joyous amazement she saw that he looked at
+her with the rallying smile of one who had just been relieved of a scene that
+was irksome. She could hold out no longer, and sobbed hysterically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he had restored her Farfrae naturally enough spoke of Henchard. &ldquo;Of
+all men he was the least desirable as a visitor,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;but it
+is my belief that he&rsquo;s just a bit crazed. He has been reading to me a
+long lot of letters relating to his past life; and I could do no less than
+indulge him by listening.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was sufficient. Henchard, then, had not told. Henchard&rsquo;s last words
+to Farfrae, in short, as he stood on the doorstep, had been these:
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;I&rsquo;m obliged to &rsquo;ee for listening. I may tell more
+about her some day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard&rsquo;s motives in opening
+the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power of
+consistent action which we never find in ourselves or in our friends; and
+forget that abortive efforts from want of heart are as possible to revenge as
+to generosity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next morning Lucetta remained in bed, meditating how to parry this incipient
+attack. The bold stroke of telling Donald the truth, dimly conceived, was yet
+too bold; for she dreaded lest in doing so he, like the rest of the world,
+should believe that the episode was rather her fault than her misfortune. She
+decided to employ persuasion&mdash;not with Donald but with the enemy himself.
+It seemed the only practicable weapon left her as a woman. Having laid her plan
+she rose, and wrote to him who kept her on these tenterhooks:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I overheard your interview with my husband last night, and saw the drift
+of your revenge. The very thought of it crushes me! Have pity on a distressed
+woman! If you could see me you would relent. You do not know how anxiety has
+told upon me lately. I will be at the Ring at the time you leave
+work&mdash;just before the sun goes down. Please come that way. I cannot rest
+till I have seen you face to face, and heard from your mouth that you will
+carry this horse-play no further.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To herself she said, on closing up her appeal: &ldquo;If ever tears and
+pleadings have served the weak to fight the strong, let them do so now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With this view she made a toilette which differed from all she had ever
+attempted before. To heighten her natural attraction had hitherto been the
+unvarying endeavour of her adult life, and one in which she was no novice. But
+now she neglected this, and even proceeded to impair the natural presentation.
+Beyond a natural reason for her slightly drawn look, she had not slept all the
+previous night, and this had produced upon her pretty though slightly worn
+features the aspect of a countenance ageing prematurely from extreme sorrow.
+She selected&mdash;as much from want of spirit as design&mdash;her poorest,
+plainest and longest discarded attire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiled herself, and slipped
+out of the house quickly. The sun was resting on the hill like a drop of blood
+on an eyelid by the time she had got up the road opposite the amphitheatre,
+which she speedily entered. The interior was shadowy, and emphatic of the
+absence of every living thing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was not disappointed in the fearful hope with which she awaited him.
+Henchard came over the top, descended and Lucetta waited breathlessly. But
+having reached the arena she saw a change in his bearing: he stood still at a
+little distance from her; she could not think why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nor could any one else have known. The truth was that in appointing this spot,
+and this hour, for the rendezvous, Lucetta had unwittingly backed up her
+entreaty by the strongest argument she could have used outside words, with this
+man of moods, glooms, and superstitions. Her figure in the midst of the huge
+enclosure, the unusual plainness of her dress, her attitude of hope and appeal,
+so strongly revived in his soul the memory of another ill-used woman who had
+stood there and thus in bygone days, and had now passed away into her rest,
+that he was unmanned, and his heart smote him for having attempted reprisals on
+one of a sex so weak. When he approached her, and before she had spoken a word,
+her point was half gained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His manner as he had come down had been one of cynical carelessness; but he now
+put away his grim half-smile, and said, in a kindly subdued tone,
+&ldquo;Goodnight t&rsquo;ye. Of course I&rsquo;m glad to come if you want
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, thank you,&rdquo; she said apprehensively.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry to see &rsquo;ee looking so ill,&rdquo; he stammered with
+unconcealed compunction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She shook her head. &ldquo;How can you be sorry,&rdquo; she asked, &ldquo;when
+you deliberately cause it?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What!&rdquo; said Henchard uneasily. &ldquo;Is it anything I have done
+that has pulled you down like that?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is all your doing,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have no other grief. My
+happiness would be secure enough but for your threats. O Michael! don&rsquo;t
+wreck me like this! You might think that you have done enough! When I came here
+I was a young woman; now I am rapidly becoming an old one. Neither my husband
+nor any other man will regard me with interest long.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard was disarmed. His old feeling of supercilious pity for womankind in
+general was intensified by this suppliant appearing here as the double of the
+first. Moreover that thoughtless want of foresight which had led to all her
+trouble remained with poor Lucetta still; she had come to meet him here in this
+compromising way without perceiving the risk. Such a woman was very small deer
+to hunt; he felt ashamed, lost all zest and desire to humiliate Lucetta there
+and then, and no longer envied Farfrae his bargain. He had married money, but
+nothing more. Henchard was anxious to wash his hands of the game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what do you want me to do?&rdquo; he said gently. &ldquo;I am sure
+I shall be very willing. My reading of those letters was only a sort of
+practical joke, and I revealed nothing.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;To give me back the letters and any papers you may have that breathe of
+matrimony or worse.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So be it. Every scrap shall be yours.... But, between you and me,
+Lucetta, he is sure to find out something of the matter, sooner or
+later.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; she said with eager tremulousness; &ldquo;but not till I have
+proved myself a faithful and deserving wife to him, and then he may forgive me
+everything!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard silently looked at her: he almost envied Farfrae such love as that,
+even now. &ldquo;H&rsquo;m&mdash;I hope so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But you
+shall have the letters without fail. And your secret shall be kept. I swear
+it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How good you are!&mdash;how shall I get them?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning. &ldquo;Now
+don&rsquo;t doubt me,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;I can keep my word.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap36"></a>XXXVI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp nearest to
+her own door. When she stopped to go in he came and spoke to her. It was Jopp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard that Mr. Farfrae had
+been applied to by a neighbouring corn-merchant to recommend a working partner;
+if so he wished to offer himself. He could give good security, and had stated
+as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter; but he would feel much obliged if Lucetta
+would say a word in his favour to her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a thing I know nothing about,&rdquo; said Lucetta coldly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody,
+ma&rsquo;am,&rdquo; said Jopp. &ldquo;I was in Jersey several years, and knew
+you there by sight.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;But I knew nothing of you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I think, ma&rsquo;am, that a word or two from you would secure for me
+what I covet very much,&rdquo; he persisted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and cutting him
+short, because of her anxiety to get indoors before her husband should miss
+her, left him on the pavement.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home. When he got there he
+sat down in the fireless chimney corner looking at the iron dogs, and the wood
+laid across them for heating the morning kettle. A movement upstairs disturbed
+him, and Henchard came down from his bedroom, where he seemed to have been
+rummaging boxes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I wish,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;you would do me a service, Jopp,
+now&mdash;to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae&rsquo;s for
+her. I should take it myself, of course, but I don&rsquo;t wish to be seen
+there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard had been as good as his
+word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over his few belongings,
+and every scrap of Lucetta&rsquo;s writing that he possessed was here. Jopp
+indifferently expressed his willingness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, how have ye got on to-day?&rdquo; his lodger asked. &ldquo;Any
+prospect of an opening?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid not,&rdquo; said Jopp, who had not told the other of his
+application to Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There never will be in Casterbridge,&rdquo; declared Henchard
+decisively. &ldquo;You must roam further afield.&rdquo; He said goodnight to
+Jopp, and returned to his own part of the house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the candle-snuff on
+the wall, and looking at the original he found that it had formed itself into a
+head like a red-hot cauliflower. Henchard&rsquo;s packet next met his gaze. He
+knew there had been something of the nature of wooing between Henchard and the
+now Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague ideas on the subject narrowed themselves down
+to these: Henchard had a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons
+for not returning that parcel to her in person. What could be inside it? So he
+went on and on till, animated by resentment at Lucetta&rsquo;s haughtiness, as
+he thought it, and curiosity to learn if there were any weak sides to this
+transaction with Henchard, he examined the package. The pen and all its
+relations being awkward tools in Henchard&rsquo;s hands he had affixed the
+seals without an impression, it never occurring to him that the efficacy of
+such a fastening depended on this. Jopp was far less of a tyro; he lifted one
+of the seals with his penknife, peeped in at the end thus opened, saw that the
+bundle consisted of letters; and, having satisfied himself thus far, sealed up
+the end again by simply softening the wax with the candle, and went off with
+the parcel as requested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His path was by the river-side at the foot of the town. Coming into the light
+at the bridge which stood at the end of High Street he beheld lounging thereon
+Mother Cuxsom and Nance Mockridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter&rsquo;s Finger
+afore creeping to bed,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cuxsom. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a fiddle
+and tambourine going on there. Lord, what&rsquo;s all the world&mdash;do ye
+come along too, Jopp&mdash;&rsquo;twon&rsquo;t hinder ye five minutes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp had mostly kept himself out of this company, but present circumstances
+made him somewhat more reckless than usual, and without many words he decided
+to go to his destination that way.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a curious congeries of
+barns and farm-steads, there was a less picturesque side to the parish. This
+was Mixen Lane, now in great part pulled down.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages. It was the
+hiding-place of those who were in distress, and in debt, and trouble of every
+kind. Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combined a little poaching with
+their farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with their poaching, found
+themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural mechanics too idle to
+mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to serve, drifted or were forced into
+Mixen Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out like a
+spit into the moist and misty lowland. Much that was sad, much that was low,
+some things that were baneful, could be seen in Mixen Lane. Vice ran freely in
+and out certain of the doors in the neighbourhood; recklessness dwelt under the
+roof with the crooked chimney; shame in some bow-windows; theft (in times of
+privation) in the thatched and mud-walled houses by the sallows. Even slaughter
+had not been altogether unknown here. In a block of cottages up an alley there
+might have been erected an altar to disease in years gone by. Such was Mixen
+Lane in the times when Henchard and Farfrae were Mayors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant lay
+close to the open country; not a hundred yards from a row of noble elms, and
+commanding a view across the moor of airy uplands and corn-fields, and mansions
+of the great. A brook divided the moor from the tenements, and to outward view
+there was no way across it&mdash;no way to the houses but round about by the
+road. But under every householder&rsquo;s stairs there was kept a mysterious
+plank nine inches wide; which plank was a secret bridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from business after
+dark&mdash;and this was the business time here&mdash;you stealthily crossed the
+moor, approached the border of the aforesaid brook, and whistled opposite the
+house to which you belonged. A shape thereupon made its appearance on the other
+side bearing the bridge on end against the sky; it was lowered; you crossed,
+and a hand helped you to land yourself, together with the pheasants and hares
+gathered from neighbouring manors. You sold them slily the next morning, and
+the day after you stood before the magistrates with the eyes of all your
+sympathizing neighbours concentrated on your back. You disappeared for a time;
+then you were again found quietly living in Mixen Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by two or three peculiar
+features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the back premises of
+the inn half-way up; this meant a skittle alley. Another was the extensive
+prevalence of whistling in the various domiciles&mdash;a piped note of some
+kind coming from nearly every open door. Another was the frequency of white
+aprons over dingy gowns among the women around the doorways. A white apron is a
+suspicious vesture in situations where spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the
+industry and cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the
+postures and gaits of the women who wore it&mdash;their knuckles being mostly
+on their hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and
+their shoulders against door-posts; while there was a curious alacrity in the
+turn of each honest woman&rsquo;s head upon her neck and in the twirl of her
+honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along the lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also found a home. Under
+some of the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence there was due to
+the iron hand of necessity, and to that alone. Families from decayed
+villages&mdash;families of that once bulky, but now nearly extinct, section of
+village society called &ldquo;liviers,&rdquo; or lifeholders&mdash;copyholders
+and others, whose roof-trees had fallen for some reason or other, compelling
+them to quit the rural spot that had been their home for generations&mdash;came
+here, unless they chose to lie under a hedge by the wayside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The inn called Peter&rsquo;s Finger was the church of Mixen Lane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore about the same
+social relation to the Three Mariners as the latter bore to the King&rsquo;s
+Arms. At first sight the inn was so respectable as to be puzzling. The front
+door was kept shut, and the step was so clean that evidently but few persons
+entered over its sanded surface. But at the corner of the public-house was an
+alley, a mere slit, dividing it from the next building. Half-way up the alley
+was a narrow door, shiny and paintless from the rub of infinite hands and
+shoulders. This was the actual entrance to the inn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane; and then, in
+a moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like Ashton at the
+disappearance of Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian had edged into the slit
+by the adroit fillip of his person sideways; from the slit he edged into the
+tavern by a similar exercise of skill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in comparison with
+the company which gathered here; though it must be admitted that the lowest
+fringe of the Mariner&rsquo;s party touched the crest of Peter&rsquo;s at
+points. Waifs and strays of all sorts loitered about here. The landlady was a
+virtuous woman who years ago had been unjustly sent to gaol as an accessory to
+something or other after the fact. She underwent her twelvemonth, and had worn
+a martyr&rsquo;s countenance ever since, except at times of meeting the
+constable who apprehended her, when she winked her eye.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived. The settles on which they
+sat down were thin and tall, their tops being guyed by pieces of twine to hooks
+in the ceiling; for when the guests grew boisterous the settles would rock and
+overturn without some such security. The thunder of bowls echoed from the
+backyard; swingels hung behind the blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and
+ex-gamekeepers, whom squires had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each
+other&mdash;men who in past times had met in fights under the moon, till lapse
+of sentences on the one part, and loss of favour and expulsion from service on
+the other, brought them here together to a common level, where they sat calmly
+discussing old times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dost mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble, and not
+ruffle the stream, Charl?&rdquo; a deposed keeper was saying.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Twas at that I caught &rsquo;ee once, if you can mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That I can. But the worst larry for me was that pheasant business at
+Yalbury Wood. Your wife swore false that time, Joe&mdash;O, by Gad, she
+did&mdash;there&rsquo;s no denying it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How was that?&rdquo; asked Jopp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;Joe closed wi&rsquo; me, and we rolled down together, close to
+his garden hedge. Hearing the noise, out ran his wife with the oven pyle, and
+it being dark under the trees she couldn&rsquo;t see which was uppermost.
+&lsquo;Where beest thee, Joe, under or top?&rsquo; she screeched.
+&lsquo;O&mdash;under, by Gad!&rsquo; says he. She then began to rap down upon
+my skull, back, and ribs with the pyle till we&rsquo;d roll over again.
+&lsquo;Where beest now, dear Joe, under or top?&rsquo; she&rsquo;d scream
+again. By George, &rsquo;twas through her I was took! And then when we got up
+in hall she sware that the cock pheasant was one of her rearing, when
+&rsquo;twas not your bird at all, Joe; &rsquo;twas Squire Brown&rsquo;s
+bird&mdash;that&rsquo;s whose &rsquo;twas&mdash;one that we&rsquo;d picked off
+as we passed his wood, an hour afore. It did hurt my feelings to be so
+wronged!... Ah well&mdash;&rsquo;tis over now.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I might have had &rsquo;ee days afore that,&rdquo; said the keeper.
+&ldquo;I was within a few yards of &rsquo;ee dozens of times, with a sight more
+of birds than that poor one.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;&rsquo;tis not our greatest doings that the world gets wind
+of,&rdquo; said the furmity-woman, who, lately settled in this purlieu, sat
+among the rest. Having travelled a great deal in her time she spoke with
+cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently asked Jopp what was
+the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, therein lies a grand secret,&rdquo; said Jopp. &ldquo;It is the
+passion of love. To think that a woman should love one man so well, and hate
+another so unmercifully.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s the object of your meditation, sir?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;One that stands high in this town. I&rsquo;d like to shame her! Upon my
+life, &rsquo;twould be as good as a play to read her love-letters, the proud
+piece of silk and wax-work! For &rsquo;tis her love-letters that I&rsquo;ve got
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Love letters? then let&rsquo;s hear &rsquo;em, good soul,&rdquo; said
+Mother Cuxsom. &ldquo;Lord, do ye mind, Richard, what fools we used to be when
+we were younger? Getting a schoolboy to write ours for us; and giving him a
+penny, do ye mind, not to tell other folks what he&rsquo;d put inside, do ye
+mind?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and unfastened the
+letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at random, which
+he read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the secret which Lucetta
+had so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the epistles, being allusive
+only, did not make it altogether plain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!&rdquo; said Nance Mockridge. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis
+a humbling thing for us, as respectable women, that one of the same sex could
+do it. And now she&rsquo;s avowed herself to another man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;So much the better for her,&rdquo; said the aged furmity-woman.
+&ldquo;Ah, I saved her from a real bad marriage, and she&rsquo;s never been the
+one to thank me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride,&rdquo; said Nance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True,&rdquo; said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis as good a
+ground for a skimmity-ride as ever I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted. The
+last one seen in Casterbridge must have been ten years ago, if a day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man who
+had been called Charl, &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go and let
+down the bridge for me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern from
+her went out at the back door and down the garden-path, which ended abruptly at
+the edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream was the open moor,
+from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces as they advanced. Taking up
+the board that had lain in readiness one of them lowered it across the water,
+and the instant its further end touched the ground footsteps entered upon it,
+and there appeared from the shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a
+double-barrelled gun under his arm and some birds slung up behind him. They
+asked him if he had had much luck.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not much,&rdquo; he said indifferently. &ldquo;All safe inside?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the others withdrawing
+the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear. Before, however, they had
+entered the house a cry of &ldquo;Ahoy&rdquo; from the moor led them to pause.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went back
+to the brink of the stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ahoy&mdash;is this the way to Casterbridge?&rdquo; said some one from
+the other side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not in particular,&rdquo; said Charl. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a river afore
+&rsquo;ee.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care&mdash;here&rsquo;s for through it!&rdquo; said the
+man in the moor. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had travelling enough for to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Stop a minute, then,&rdquo; said Charl, finding that the man was no
+enemy. &ldquo;Joe, bring the plank and lantern; here&rsquo;s somebody
+that&rsquo;s lost his way. You should have kept along the turnpike road,
+friend, and not have strook across here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I should&mdash;as I see now. But I saw a light here, and says I to
+myself, that&rsquo;s an outlying house, depend on&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The plank was now lowered; and the stranger&rsquo;s form shaped itself from the
+darkness. He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurely grey,
+and a broad and genial face. He had crossed on the plank without hesitation,
+and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit. He thanked them, and walked
+between them up the garden. &ldquo;What place is this?&rdquo; he asked, when
+they reached the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A public-house.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at. Now then, come in and wet your
+whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him as one
+who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear. He was
+dressed with a certain clumsy richness&mdash;his coat being furred, and his
+head covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the nights were chilly, must
+have been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhat advanced. In his hand he
+carried a small mahogany case, strapped, and clamped with brass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him through the
+kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up at the house; but
+taking the situation lightly, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them
+as he stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on his way by the front door.
+This was barred, and while the landlady was unfastening it the conversation
+about the skimmington was continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What do they mean by a &lsquo;skimmity-ride&rsquo;?&rdquo; he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O, sir!&rdquo; said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with
+deprecating modesty; &ldquo;&rsquo;tis a&rsquo; old foolish thing they do in
+these parts when a man&rsquo;s wife is&mdash;well, not too particularly his
+own. But as a respectable householder I don&rsquo;t encourage it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I
+suppose?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, sir!&rdquo; she simpered. And then, bursting into naturalness, and
+glancing from the corner of her eye, &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis the funniest thing under
+the sun! And it costs money.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah! I remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in
+Casterbridge for two or three weeks to come, and should not mind seeing the
+performance. Wait a moment.&rdquo; He turned back, entered the sitting-room,
+and said, &ldquo;Here, good folks; I should like to see the old custom you are
+talking of, and I don&rsquo;t mind being something towards it&mdash;take
+that.&rdquo; He threw a sovereign on the table and returned to the landlady at
+the door, of whom, having inquired the way into the town, he took his leave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There were more where that one came from,&rdquo; said Charl when the
+sovereign had been taken up and handed to the landlady for safe keeping.
+&ldquo;By George! we ought to have got a few more while we had him here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; answered the landlady. &ldquo;This is a respectable
+house, thank God! And I&rsquo;ll have nothing done but what&rsquo;s
+honourable.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Jopp; &ldquo;now we&rsquo;ll consider the business
+begun, and will soon get it in train.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We will!&rdquo; said Nance. &ldquo;A good laugh warms my heart more than
+a cordial, and that&rsquo;s the truth on&rsquo;t.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late he did not attempt
+to call at Farfrae&rsquo;s with them that night. He reached home, sealed them
+up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next morning. Within an
+hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul! was
+inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulness that at last no evidence
+remained of the unlucky episode with Henchard in her past. For though hers had
+been rather the laxity of inadvertence than of intention, that episode, if
+known, was not the less likely to operate fatally between herself and her
+husband.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap37"></a>XXXVII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge were
+interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence reached to the
+lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously
+with the preparations for the skimmington. It was one of those excitements
+which, when they move a country town, leave permanent mark upon its chronicles,
+as a warm summer permanently marks the ring in the tree-trunk corresponding to
+its date.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on his course further
+west, to inaugurate an immense engineering work out that way. He had consented
+to halt half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive an address from the
+corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a representative centre of husbandry,
+wished thus to express its sense of the great services he had rendered to
+agricultural science and economics, by his zealous promotion of designs for
+placing the art of farming on a more scientific footing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of the third King
+George, and then only by candlelight for a few minutes, when that monarch, on a
+night-journey, had stopped to change horses at the King&rsquo;s Arms. The
+inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough <i>fête carillonée</i> of the
+unwonted occasion. Half-an-hour&rsquo;s pause was not long, it is true; but
+much might be done in it by a judicious grouping of incidents, above all, if
+the weather were fine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The address was prepared on parchment by an artist who was handy at ornamental
+lettering, and was laid on with the best gold-leaf and colours that the
+sign-painter had in his shop. The Council had met on the Tuesday before the
+appointed day, to arrange the details of the procedure. While they were
+sitting, the door of the Council Chamber standing open, they heard a heavy
+footstep coming up the stairs. It advanced along the passage, and Henchard
+entered the room, in clothes of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very
+clothes which he had used to wear in the primal days when he had sat among
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have a feeling,&rdquo; he said, advancing to the table and laying his
+hand upon the green cloth, &ldquo;that I should like to join ye in this
+reception of our illustrious visitor. I suppose I could walk with the
+rest?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the Council and Grower nearly ate the end
+of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfrae the young
+Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large chair, intuitively caught
+the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad as he
+would have been that the duty should have fallen to another tongue.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard,&rdquo; said he.
+&ldquo;The Council are the Council, and as ye are no longer one of the body,
+there would be an irregularity in the proceeding. If ye were included, why not
+others?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae looked round. &ldquo;I think I have expressed the feeling of the
+Council,&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and
+several more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it
+officially?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am afraid so; it is out of the question, indeed. But of course you can
+see the doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of the
+spectators.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and, turning on his
+heel, went away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition crystallized it into a
+determination. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll welcome his Royal Highness, or nobody
+shall!&rdquo; he went about saying. &ldquo;I am not going to be sat upon by
+Farfrae, or any of the rest of the paltry crew! You shall see.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun confronting early
+window-gazers eastward, and all perceived (for they were practised in
+weather-lore) that there was permanence in the glow. Visitors soon began to
+flock in from county houses, villages, remote copses, and lonely uplands, the
+latter in oiled boots and tilt bonnets, to see the reception, or if not to see
+it, at any rate to be near it. There was hardly a workman in the town who did
+not put a clean shirt on. Solomon Longways, Christopher Coney, Buzzford, and
+the rest of that fraternity, showed their sense of the occasion by advancing
+their customary eleven o&rsquo;clock pint to half-past ten; from which they
+found a difficulty in getting back to the proper hour for several days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard had determined to do no work that day. He primed himself in the
+morning with a glass of rum, and walking down the street met Elizabeth-Jane,
+whom he had not seen for a week. &ldquo;It was lucky,&rdquo; he said to her,
+&ldquo;my twenty-one years had expired before this came on, or I should never
+have had the nerve to carry it out.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Carry out what?&rdquo; said she, alarmed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She was perplexed. &ldquo;Shall we go and see it together?&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;See it! I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth
+seeing!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could do nothing to elucidate this, and decked herself out with a heavy
+heart. As the appointed time drew near she got sight again of her stepfather.
+She thought he was going to the Three Mariners; but no, he elbowed his way
+through the gay throng to the shop of Woolfrey, the draper. She waited in the
+crowd without.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant rosette,
+while more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of somewhat homely
+construction, formed by tacking one of the small Union Jacks, which abounded in
+the town to-day, to the end of a deal wand&mdash;probably the roller from a
+piece of calico. Henchard rolled up his flag on the doorstep, put it under his
+arm, and went down the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads, and the shorter
+stood on tiptoe. It was said that the Royal <i>cortège</i> approached. The
+railway had stretched out an arm towards Casterbridge at this time, but had not
+reached it by several miles as yet; so that the intervening distance, as well
+as the remainder of the journey, was to be traversed by road in the old
+fashion. People thus waited&mdash;the county families in their carriages, the
+masses on foot&mdash;and watched the far-stretching London highway to the
+ringing of bells and chatter of tongues.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene. Some seats had been
+arranged from which ladies could witness the spectacle, and the front seat was
+occupied by Lucetta, the Mayor&rsquo;s wife, just at present. In the road under
+her eyes stood Henchard. She appeared so bright and pretty that, as it seemed,
+he was experiencing the momentary weakness of wishing for her notice. But he
+was far from attractive to a woman&rsquo;s eye, ruled as that is so largely by
+the superficies of things. He was not only a journeyman, unable to appear as he
+formerly had appeared, but he disdained to appear as well as he might.
+Everybody else, from the Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture
+according to means; but Henchard had doggedly retained the fretted and
+weather-beaten garments of bygone years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta&rsquo;s eyes slid over him to this side and
+to that without anchoring on his features&mdash;as gaily dressed women&rsquo;s
+eyes will too often do on such occasions. Her manner signified quite plainly
+that she meant to know him in public no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in animated converse
+with his friends a few yards off, wearing round his young neck the official
+gold chain with great square links, like that round the Royal unicorn. Every
+trifling emotion that her husband showed as he talked had its reflex on her
+face and lips, which moved in little duplicates to his. She was living his part
+rather than her own, and cared for no one&rsquo;s situation but Farfrae&rsquo;s
+that day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high road, namely, on the
+second bridge of which mention has been made, gave a signal, and the
+Corporation in their robes proceeded from the front of the Town Hall to the
+archway erected at the entrance to the town. The carriages containing the Royal
+visitor and his suite arrived at the spot in a cloud of dust, a procession was
+formed, and the whole came on to the Town Hall at a walking pace.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This spot was the centre of interest. There were a few clear yards in front of
+the Royal carriage, sanded; and into this space a man stepped before any one
+could prevent him. It was Henchard. He had unrolled his private flag, and
+removing his hat he staggered to the side of the slowing vehicle, waving the
+Union Jack to and fro with his left hand while he blandly held out his right to
+the Illustrious Personage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the ladies said with bated breath, &ldquo;O, look there!&rdquo; and Lucetta
+was ready to faint. Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in
+front, saw what it was, and was terrified; and then her interest in the
+spectacle as a strange phenomenon got the better of her fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He seized
+Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly to be off.
+Henchard&rsquo;s eyes met his, and Farfrae observed the fierce light in them
+despite his excitement and irritation. For a moment Henchard stood his ground
+rigidly; then by an unaccountable impulse gave way and retired. Farfrae glanced
+to the ladies&rsquo; gallery, and saw that his Calphurnia&rsquo;s cheek was
+pale.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why&mdash;it is your husband&rsquo;s old patron!&rdquo; said Mrs.
+Blowbody, a lady of the neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Patron!&rdquo; said Donald&rsquo;s wife with quick indignation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrae&rsquo;s?&rdquo;
+observed Mrs. Bath, the physician&rsquo;s wife, a new-comer to the town through
+her recent marriage with the doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He works for my husband,&rdquo; said Lucetta.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;is that all? They have been saying to me that it was through
+him your husband first got a footing in Casterbridge. What stories people will
+tell!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They will indeed. It was not so at all. Donald&rsquo;s genius would have
+enabled him to get a footing anywhere, without anybody&rsquo;s help! He would
+have been just the same if there had been no Henchard in the world!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was partly Lucetta&rsquo;s ignorance of the circumstances of Donald&rsquo;s
+arrival which led her to speak thus, partly the sensation that everybody seemed
+bent on snubbing her at this triumphant time. The incident had occupied but a
+few moments, but it was necessarily witnessed by the Royal Personage, who,
+however, with practised tact affected not to have noticed anything unusual. He
+alighted, the Mayor advanced, the address was read; the Illustrious Personage
+replied, then said a few words to Farfrae, and shook hands with Lucetta as the
+Mayor&rsquo;s wife. The ceremony occupied but a few minutes, and the carriages
+rattled heavily as Pharaoh&rsquo;s chariots down Corn Street and out upon the
+Budmouth Road, in continuation of the journey coastward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways. &ldquo;Some difference
+between him now and when he zung at the Dree Mariners,&rdquo; said the first.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis wonderful how he could get a lady of her quality to go snacks
+wi&rsquo; en in such quick time.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;True. Yet how folk do worship fine clothes! Now there&rsquo;s a
+better-looking woman than she that nobody notices at all, because she&rsquo;s
+akin to that hontish fellow Henchard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that,&rdquo; remarked Nance
+Mockridge. &ldquo;I do like to see the trimming pulled off such Christmas
+candles. I am quite unequal to the part of villain myself, or I&rsquo;d
+gi&rsquo;e all my small silver to see that lady toppered.... And perhaps I
+shall soon,&rdquo; she added significantly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not a noble passiont for a &rsquo;oman to keep up,&rdquo;
+said Longways.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant. The ideas diffused by
+the reading of Lucetta&rsquo;s letters at Peter&rsquo;s Finger had condensed
+into a scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fog through Mixen Lane,
+and thence up the back streets of Casterbridge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently fell apart into
+two bands by a process of natural selection, the frequenters of Peter&rsquo;s
+Finger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of them lived, while Coney,
+Buzzford, Longways, and that connection remained in the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You know what&rsquo;s brewing down there, I suppose?&rdquo; said
+Buzzford mysteriously to the others.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coney looked at him. &ldquo;Not the skimmity-ride?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Buzzford nodded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have my doubts if it will be carried out,&rdquo; said Longways.
+&ldquo;If they are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I were sure o&rsquo;t I&rsquo;d lay information,&rdquo; said Longways
+emphatically. &ldquo;&rsquo;Tis too rough a joke, and apt to wake riots in
+towns. We know that the Scotchman is a right enough man, and that his lady has
+been a right enough &rsquo;oman since she came here, and if there was anything
+wrong about her afore, that&rsquo;s their business, not ours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in the community; but it must be owned
+that, as the Mayor and man of money, engrossed with affairs and ambitions, he
+had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants something of that wondrous charm
+which he had had for them as a light-hearted penniless young man, who sang
+ditties as readily as the birds in the trees. Hence the anxiety to keep him
+from annoyance showed not quite the ardour that would have animated it in
+former days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher,&rdquo; continued
+Longways; &ldquo;and if we find there&rsquo;s really anything in it, drop a
+letter to them most concerned, and advise &rsquo;em to keep out of the
+way?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This course was decided on, and the group separated, Buzzford saying to Coney,
+&ldquo;Come, my ancient friend; let&rsquo;s move on. There&rsquo;s nothing more
+to see here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known how ripe
+the great jocular plot really was. &ldquo;Yes, to-night,&rdquo; Jopp had said
+to the Peter&rsquo;s party at the corner of Mixen Lane. &ldquo;As a wind-up to
+the Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great
+elevation to-day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap38"></a>XXXVIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+The proceedings had been brief&mdash;too brief&mdash;to Lucetta whom an
+intoxicating <i>Weltlust</i> had fairly mastered; but they had brought her a
+great triumph nevertheless. The shake of the Royal hand still lingered in her
+fingers; and the chit-chat she had overheard, that her husband might possibly
+receive the honour of knighthood, though idle to a degree, seemed not the
+wildest vision; stranger things had occurred to men so good and captivating as
+her Scotchman was.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawn behind the
+ladies&rsquo; stand; and there he stood, regarding with a stare of abstraction
+the spot on the lapel of his coat where Farfrae&rsquo;s hand had seized it. He
+put his own hand there, as if he could hardly realize such an outrage from one
+whom it had once been his wont to treat with ardent generosity. While pausing
+in this half-stupefied state the conversation of Lucetta with the other ladies
+reached his ears; and he distinctly heard her deny him&mdash;deny that he had
+assisted Donald, that he was anything more than a common journeyman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake. &ldquo;So
+you&rsquo;ve had a snub,&rdquo; said Jopp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And what if I have?&rdquo; answered Henchard sternly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why, I&rsquo;ve had one too, so we are both under the same cold
+shade.&rdquo; He briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta&rsquo;s
+intercession.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard merely heard his story, without taking it deeply in. His own relation
+to Farfrae and Lucetta overshadowed all kindred ones. He went on saying
+brokenly to himself, &ldquo;She has supplicated to me in her time; and now her
+tongue won&rsquo;t own me nor her eyes see me!... And he&mdash;how angry he
+looked. He drove me back as if I were a bull breaking fence.... I took it like
+a lamb, for I saw it could not be settled there. He can rub brine on a green
+wound!... But he shall pay for it, and she shall be sorry. It must come to a
+tussle&mdash;face to face; and then we&rsquo;ll see how a coxcomb can front a
+man!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without further reflection the fallen merchant, bent on some wild purpose, ate
+a hasty dinner and went forth to find Farfrae. After being injured by him as a
+rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman, the crowning degradation had been
+reserved for this day&mdash;that he should be shaken at the collar by him as a
+vagabond in the face of the whole town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The crowds had dispersed. But for the green arches which still stood as they
+were erected Casterbridge life had resumed its ordinary shape. Henchard went
+down Corn Street till he came to Farfrae&rsquo;s house, where he knocked, and
+left a message that he would be glad to see his employer at the granaries as
+soon as he conveniently could come there. Having done this he proceeded round
+to the back and entered the yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the labourers and carters were
+enjoying a half-holiday on account of the events of the morning&mdash;though
+the carters would have to return for a short time later on, to feed and litter
+down the horses. He had reached the granary steps and was about to ascend, when
+he said to himself aloud, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m stronger than he.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a short piece of rope from
+several pieces that were lying about; hitching one end of this to a nail, he
+took the other in his right hand and turned himself bodily round, while keeping
+his arm against his side; by this contrivance he pinioned the arm effectively.
+He now went up the ladders to the top floor of the corn-stores.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door often
+mentioned, opening under the cathead and chain that hoisted the sacks. He fixed
+the door open and looked over the sill. There was a depth of thirty or forty
+feet to the ground; here was the spot on which he had been standing with
+Farfrae when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift his arm, with many misgivings as
+to what the movement portended.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He retired a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated perch his
+eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of the luxurious
+chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week&rsquo;s age, and the drooping
+boughs of the lines; Farfrae&rsquo;s garden and the green door leading
+therefrom. In course of time&mdash;he could not say how long&mdash;that green
+door opened and Farfrae came through. He was dressed as if for a journey. The
+low light of the nearing evening caught his head and face when he emerged from
+the shadow of the wall, warming them to a complexion of flame-colour. Henchard
+watched him with his mouth firmly set, the squareness of his jaw and the
+verticality of his profile being unduly marked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a tune in a way which
+told that the words were most in his mind. They were those of the song he had
+sung when he arrived years before at the Three Mariners, a poor young man,
+adventuring for life and fortune, and scarcely knowing witherward:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+&ldquo;And here&rsquo;s a hand, my trusty fiere,<br />
+    And gie&rsquo;s a hand o&rsquo; thine.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody. He sank back. &ldquo;No; I
+can&rsquo;t do it!&rdquo; he gasped. &ldquo;Why does the infernal fool begin
+that now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the loft door.
+&ldquo;Will ye come up here?&rdquo; he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, man,&rdquo; said Farfrae. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t see ye.
+What&rsquo;s wrang?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowest ladder. He heard him land
+on the first floor, ascend and land on the second, begin the ascent to the
+third. And then his head rose through the trap behind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are you doing up here at this time?&rdquo; he asked, coming
+forward. &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t ye take your holiday like the rest of the
+men?&rdquo; He spoke in a tone which had just severity enough in it to show
+that he remembered the untoward event of the forenoon, and his conviction that
+Henchard had been drinking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed the stair hatchway, and stamped
+upon it so that it went tight into its frame; he next turned to the wondering
+young man, who by this time observed that one of Henchard&rsquo;s arms was
+bound to his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Henchard quietly, &ldquo;we stand face to
+face&mdash;man and man. Your money and your fine wife no longer lift &rsquo;ee
+above me as they did but now, and my poverty does not press me down.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What does it all mean?&rdquo; asked Farfrae simply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Wait a bit, my lad. You should ha&rsquo; thought twice before you
+affronted to extremes a man who had nothing to lose. I&rsquo;ve stood your
+rivalry, which ruined me, and your snubbing, which humbled me; but your
+hustling, that disgraced me, I won&rsquo;t stand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae warmed a little at this. &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;d no business there,&rdquo; he
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As much as any one among ye! What, you forward stripling, tell a man of
+my age he&rsquo;d no business there!&rdquo; The anger-vein swelled in his
+forehead as he spoke.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and &rsquo;twas my duty, as the chief
+magistrate, to stop you.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Royalty be damned,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;I am as loyal as you,
+come to that!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am not here to argue. Wait till you cool doon, wait till you cool; and
+you will see things the same way as I do.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may be the one to cool first,&rdquo; said Henchard grimly.
+&ldquo;Now this is the case. Here be we, in this four-square loft, to finish
+out that little wrestle you began this morning. There&rsquo;s the door, forty
+foot above ground. One of us two puts the other out by that door&mdash;the
+master stays inside. If he likes he may go down afterwards and give the alarm
+that the other has fallen out by accident&mdash;or he may tell the
+truth&mdash;that&rsquo;s his business. As the strongest man I&rsquo;ve tied one
+arm to take no advantage of &rsquo;ee. D&rsquo;ye understand? Then here&rsquo;s
+at &rsquo;ee!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but one thing, to close with
+Henchard, for the latter had come on at once. It was a wrestling match, the
+object of each being to give his antagonist a back fall; and on
+Henchard&rsquo;s part, unquestionably, that it should be through the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the outset Henchard&rsquo;s hold by his only free hand, the right, was on
+the left side of Farfrae&rsquo;s collar, which he firmly grappled, the latter
+holding Henchard by his collar with the contrary hand. With his right he
+endeavoured to get hold of his antagonist&rsquo;s left arm, which, however, he
+could not do, so adroitly did Henchard keep it in the rear as he gazed upon the
+lowered eyes of his fair and slim antagonist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossing him with his; and thus
+far the struggle had very much the appearance of the ordinary wrestling of
+those parts. Several minutes were passed by them in this attitude, the pair
+rocking and writhing like trees in a gale, both preserving an absolute silence.
+By this time their breathing could be heard. Then Farfrae tried to get hold of
+the other side of Henchard&rsquo;s collar, which was resisted by the larger man
+exerting all his force in a wrenching movement, and this part of the struggle
+ended by his forcing Farfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his
+muscular arms. Hampered as he was, however, he could not keep him there, and
+Farfrae finding his feet again the struggle proceeded as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously near the precipice; seeing his
+position the Scotchman for the first time locked himself to his adversary, and
+all the efforts of that infuriated Prince of Darkness&mdash;as he might have
+been called from his appearance just now&mdash;were inadequate to lift or
+loosen Farfrae for a time. By an extraordinary effort he succeeded at last,
+though not until they had got far back again from the fatal door. In doing so
+Henchard contrived to turn Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard&rsquo;s
+other arm been free it would have been all over with Farfrae then. But again he
+regained his feet, wrenching Henchard&rsquo;s arm considerably, and causing him
+sharp pain, as could be seen from the twitching of his face. He instantly
+delivered the younger man an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as it used
+to be expressed, and following up his advantage thrust him towards the door,
+never loosening his hold till Farfrae&rsquo;s fair head was hanging over the
+window-sill, and his arm dangling down outside the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Henchard between his gasps, &ldquo;this is the end of
+what you began this morning. Your life is in my hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then take it, take it!&rdquo; said Farfrae. &ldquo;Ye&rsquo;ve wished to
+long enough!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and their eyes met. &ldquo;O
+Farfrae!&mdash;that&rsquo;s not true!&rdquo; he said bitterly. &ldquo;God is my
+witness that no man ever loved another as I did thee at one time.... And
+now&mdash;though I came here to kill &rsquo;ee, I cannot hurt thee! Go and give
+me in charge&mdash;do what you will&mdash;I care nothing for what comes of
+me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm, and flung himself
+in a corner upon some sacks, in the abandonment of remorse. Farfrae regarded
+him in silence; then went to the hatch and descended through it. Henchard would
+fain have recalled him, but his tongue failed in its task, and the young
+man&rsquo;s steps died on his ear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach. The scenes of his
+first acquaintance with Farfrae rushed back upon him&mdash;that time when the
+curious mixture of romance and thrift in the young man&rsquo;s composition so
+commanded his heart that Farfrae could play upon him as on an instrument. So
+thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the sacks in a crouching
+attitude, unusual for a man, and for such a man. Its womanliness sat tragically
+on the figure of so stern a piece of virility. He heard a conversation below,
+the opening of the coach-house door, and the putting in of a horse, but took no
+notice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque obscurity, and the
+loft-door became an oblong of gray light&mdash;the only visible shape around.
+At length he arose, shook the dust from his clothes wearily, felt his way to
+the hatch, and gropingly descended the steps till he stood in the yard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He thought highly of me once,&rdquo; he murmured. &ldquo;Now he&rsquo;ll
+hate me and despise me for ever!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfrae again that night,
+and by some desperate pleading to attempt the well-nigh impossible task of
+winning pardon for his late mad attack. But as he walked towards
+Farfrae&rsquo;s door he recalled the unheeded doings in the yard while he had
+lain above in a sort of stupor. Farfrae he remembered had gone to the stable
+and put the horse into the gig; while doing so Whittle had brought him a
+letter; Farfrae had then said that he would not go towards Budmouth as he had
+intended&mdash;that he was unexpectedly summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to
+call at Mellstock on his way thither, that place lying but one or two miles out
+of his course.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He must have come prepared for a journey when he first arrived in the yard,
+unsuspecting enmity; and he must have driven off (though in a changed
+direction) without saying a word to any one on what had occurred between
+themselves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae&rsquo;s house till very late.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though waiting was almost
+torture to his restless and self-accusing soul. He walked about the streets and
+outskirts of the town, lingering here and there till he reached the stone
+bridge of which mention has been made, an accustomed halting-place with him
+now. Here he spent a long time, the purl of waters through the weirs meeting
+his ear, and the Casterbridge lights glimmering at no great distance off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attention was awakened by
+sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a confusion of
+rhythmical noises, to which the streets added yet more confusion by encumbering
+them with echoes. His first incurious thought that the clangour arose from the
+town band, engaged in an attempt to round off a memorable day in a burst of
+evening harmony, was contradicted by certain peculiarities of reverberation.
+But inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory heed; his sense of
+degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas; and he leant
+against the parapet as before.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap39"></a>XXXIX.</h2>
+
+<p>
+When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter with
+Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived at the yard
+with the intention of putting the horse into the gig himself (all the men
+having a holiday), and driving to a village on the Budmouth Road. Despite the
+fearful struggle he decided still to persevere in his journey, so as to recover
+himself before going indoors and meeting the eyes of Lucetta. He wished to
+consider his course in a case so serious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived with a note badly
+addressed, and bearing the word &ldquo;immediate&rdquo; upon the outside. On
+opening it he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It contained a brief
+request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening about some business which
+he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing that could make it pressing; but
+as he was bent upon going out he yielded to the anonymous request, particularly
+as he had a call to make at Mellstock which could be included in the same tour.
+Thereupon he told Whittle of his change of direction, in words which Henchard
+had overheard, and set out on his way. Farfrae had not directed his man to take
+the message indoors, and Whittle had not been supposed to do so on his own
+responsibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance of
+Longways and other of Farfrae&rsquo;s men to get him out of the way for the
+evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if it were
+attempted. By giving open information they would have brought down upon their
+heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyed these boisterous
+old games; and therefore the plan of sending a letter recommended itself by its
+indirectness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the majority
+there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to bear as she best
+might.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was about eight o&rsquo;clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room
+alone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had the
+candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for him by the
+firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of the window-sashes a
+little way open that the sound of his wheels might reach her ears early. She
+was leaning back in the chair, in a more hopeful mood than she had enjoyed
+since her marriage. The day had been such a success, and the temporary
+uneasiness which Henchard&rsquo;s show of effrontery had wrought in her
+disappeared with the quiet disappearance of Henchard himself under her
+husband&rsquo;s reproof. The floating evidences of her absurd passion for him,
+and its consequences, had been destroyed, and she really seemed to have no
+cause for fear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by a hubbub
+in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not greatly surprise
+her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation by a majority of the
+populace since the passage of the Royal equipages. But her attention was at
+once riveted to the matter by the voice of a maid-servant next door, who spoke
+from an upper window across the street to some other maid even more elevated
+than she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Which way be they going now?&rdquo; inquired the first with interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t be sure for a moment,&rdquo; said the second,
+&ldquo;because of the malter&rsquo;s chimbley. O yes&mdash;I can see &rsquo;em.
+Well, I declare, I declare!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, what?&rdquo; from the first, more enthusiastically.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&mdash;two of &rsquo;em&mdash;are there two figures?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one
+another&rsquo;s! She&rsquo;s facing the head, and he&rsquo;s facing the
+tail.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Is it meant for anybody in particular?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere
+leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish face. &rsquo;Tis a stuffed
+figure, with a falseface.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The din was increasing now&mdash;then it lessened a little.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;There&mdash;I shan&rsquo;t see, after all!&rdquo; cried the disappointed
+first maid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;They have gone into a back street&mdash;that&rsquo;s all,&rdquo; said
+the one who occupied the enviable position in the attic. &ldquo;There&mdash;now
+I have got &rsquo;em all endways nicely!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What&rsquo;s the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if
+&rsquo;tis meant for one I&rsquo;ve in mind.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My&mdash;why&mdash;&rsquo;tis dressed just as <i>she</i> was dressed
+when she sat in the front seat at the time the play-actors came to the Town
+Hall!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the room was
+quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the firelight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have come to see you,&rdquo; she said breathlessly. &ldquo;I did not
+stop to knock&mdash;forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the
+window is open.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Without waiting for Lucetta&rsquo;s reply she crossed quickly to the window and
+pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. &ldquo;Let it
+be&mdash;hush!&rdquo; she said peremptorily, in a dry voice, while she seized
+Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse had been
+so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the conversation without,
+which had thus proceeded:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in
+place; she&rsquo;s got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured
+shoes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held her by
+main force.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis me!&rdquo; she said, with a face pale as death. &ldquo;A
+procession&mdash;a scandal&mdash;an effigy of me, and him!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us shut it out,&rdquo; coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid
+wildness of Lucetta&rsquo;s features was growing yet more rigid and wild with
+the meaning of the noise and laughter. &ldquo;Let us shut it out!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is of no use!&rdquo; she shrieked. &ldquo;He will see it, won&rsquo;t
+he? Donald will see it! He is just coming home&mdash;and it will break his
+heart&mdash;he will never love me any more&mdash;and O, it will kill
+me&mdash;kill me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. &ldquo;O, can&rsquo;t something be done to stop
+it?&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Is there nobody to do it&mdash;not one?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She relinquished Lucetta&rsquo;s hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself,
+saying recklessly &ldquo;I will see it!&rdquo; turned to the window, threw up
+the sash, and went out upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed, and
+put her arm round her to pull her in. Lucetta&rsquo;s eyes were straight upon
+the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly. The numerous lights
+round the two effigies threw them up into lurid distinctness; it was impossible
+to mistake the pair for other than the intended victims.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come in, come in,&rdquo; implored Elizabeth; &ldquo;and let me shut the
+window!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She&rsquo;s me&mdash;she&rsquo;s me&mdash;even to the parasol&mdash;my
+green parasol!&rdquo; cried Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She
+stood motionless for one second&mdash;then fell heavily to the floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington ceased. The
+roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the trampling died out
+like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only indirectly conscious of
+this; she had rung the bell, and was bending over Lucetta, who remained
+convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of an epileptic seizure. She rang
+again and again, in vain; the probability being that the servants had all run
+out of the house to see more of the Demoniac Sabbath than they could see
+within.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last Farfrae&rsquo;s man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up; then
+the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite closed, a
+light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man sent off for a
+doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered consciousness; but as
+soon as she remembered what had passed the fit returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing at his
+door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as he saw the
+unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth&rsquo;s mute appeal,
+&ldquo;This is serious.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is a fit,&rdquo; Elizabeth said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You
+must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He has driven into the country, sir,&rdquo; said the parlour-maid;
+&ldquo;to some place on the Budmouth Road. He&rsquo;s likely to be back
+soon.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry.&rdquo; The
+doctor returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they soon
+heard him clattering out of the yard at the back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention has been
+already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines, kits, crouds,
+humstrums, serpents, rams&rsquo;-horns, and other historical kinds of music as
+he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat and gone out to learn the
+cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae&rsquo;s, and soon guessed the nature
+of the proceedings; for being a native of the town he had witnessed such rough
+jests before. His first move was to search hither and thither for the
+constables, there were two in the town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found
+in hiding up an alley yet more shrivelled than usual, having some not
+ungrounded fears that they might be roughly handled if seen.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!&rdquo;
+expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower&rsquo;s chiding.
+&ldquo;&rsquo;Tis tempting &rsquo;em to commit <i>felo de se</i> upon us, and
+that would be the death of the perpetrator; and we wouldn&rsquo;t be the cause
+of a fellow-creature&rsquo;s death on no account, not we!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Get some help, then! Here, I&rsquo;ll come with you. We&rsquo;ll see
+what a few words of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your
+staves?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so
+short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover&rsquo;ment staves up this
+water-pipe.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Out with &rsquo;em, and come along, for Heaven&rsquo;s sake! Ah,
+here&rsquo;s Mr. Blowbody; that&rsquo;s lucky.&rdquo; (Blowbody was the third
+of the three borough magistrates.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, what&rsquo;s the row?&rdquo; said Blowbody. &ldquo;Got their
+names&mdash;hey?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No. Now,&rdquo; said Grower to one of the constables, &ldquo;you go with
+Mr. Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I&rsquo;ll go
+with Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have &rsquo;em between
+us. Get their names only: no attack or interruption.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn Street,
+whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no procession could
+be seen. They passed Farfrae&rsquo;s, and looked to the end of the street. The
+lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few loungers stood about with
+their hands in their pockets. Everything was as usual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?&rdquo; Grower said
+magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short pipe and
+wore straps round his knees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beg yer pardon, sir?&rdquo; blandly said the person addressed, who was
+no other than Charl, of Peter&rsquo;s Finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. &ldquo;No; we
+haven&rsquo;t seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m&mdash;that&rsquo;s odd,&rdquo; said Mr. Grower.
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;here&rsquo;s a respectable man coming that I know by sight.
+Have you,&rdquo; he inquired, addressing the nearing shape of Jopp, &ldquo;have
+you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a noise&mdash;skimmington
+riding, or something of the sort?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no&mdash;nothing, sir,&rdquo; Jopp replied, as if receiving the most
+singular news. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve not been far tonight, so
+perhaps&mdash;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, &rsquo;twas here&mdash;just here,&rdquo; said the magistrate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now I&rsquo;ve noticed, come to think o&rsquo;t that the wind in the
+Walk trees makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than
+common; so perhaps &rsquo;twas that?&rdquo; Jopp suggested, as he rearranged
+his hand in his greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of
+kitchen tongs and a cow&rsquo;s horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, no, no&mdash;d&rsquo;ye think I&rsquo;m a fool? Constable, come this
+way. They must have gone into the back street.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the disturbers be
+perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who came up at this time,
+brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey, lanterns, band, all had
+disappeared like the crew of <i>Comus</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Mr. Grower, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s only one thing more we
+can do. Get ye half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into
+Peter&rsquo;s Finger. I&rsquo;m much mistaken if you don&rsquo;t find a clue to
+the perpetrators there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as they
+could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety. It was no
+rapid matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of any sort offering
+itself to light the way, except an occasional pale radiance through some
+window-curtain, or through the chink of some door which could not be closed
+because of the smoky chimney within. At last they entered the inn boldly, by
+the till then bolted front-door, after a prolonged knocking of loudness
+commensurate with the importance of their standing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as usual for
+stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with statuesque quiet of
+demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the invaders, saying in honest
+accents, &ldquo;Good evening, gentlemen; there&rsquo;s plenty of room. I hope
+there&rsquo;s nothing amiss?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They looked round the room. &ldquo;Surely,&rdquo; said Stubberd to one of the
+men, &ldquo;I saw you by now in Corn Street&mdash;Mr. Grower spoke to
+&rsquo;ee?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been here
+this last hour, hain&rsquo;t I, Nance?&rdquo; he said to the woman who
+meditatively sipped her ale near him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and
+you were here then, as well as all the rest.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw reflected in the
+glass a quick motion by the landlady. Turning sharply, he caught her closing
+the oven-door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Something curious about that oven, ma&rsquo;am!&rdquo; he observed
+advancing, opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah,&rdquo; she said apologetically, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s what we keep
+here to use when there&rsquo;s a little quiet dancing. You see damp weather
+spoils it, so I put it there to keep it dry.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew was nothing. Nohow could
+anything be elicited from this mute and inoffensive assembly. In a few minutes
+the investigators went out, and joining those of their auxiliaries who had been
+left at the door they pursued their way elsewhither.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap40"></a>XL.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminations on the bridge, had
+repaired towards the town. When he stood at the bottom of the street a
+procession burst upon his view, in the act of turning out of an alley just
+above him. The lanterns, horns, and multitude startled him; he saw the mounted
+images, and knew what it all meant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They crossed the way, entered another street, and disappeared. He turned back a
+few steps and was lost in grave reflection, finally wending his way homeward by
+the obscure river-side path. Unable to rest there he went to his
+stepdaughter&rsquo;s lodging, and was told that Elizabeth-Jane had gone to Mr.
+Farfrae&rsquo;s. Like one acting in obedience to a charm, and with a nameless
+apprehension, he followed in the same direction in the hope of meeting her, the
+roysterers having vanished. Disappointed in this he gave the gentlest of pulls
+to the door-bell, and then learnt particulars of what had occurred, together
+with the doctor&rsquo;s imperative orders that Farfrae should be brought home,
+and how they had set out to meet him on the Budmouth Road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!&rdquo; exclaimed Henchard,
+now unspeakably grieved. &ldquo;Not Budmouth way at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name. They would not believe him,
+taking his words but as the frothy utterances of recklessness. Though
+Lucetta&rsquo;s life seemed at that moment to depend upon her husband&rsquo;s
+return (she being in great mental agony lest he should never know the
+unexaggerated truth of her past relations with Henchard), no messenger was
+despatched towards Weatherbury. Henchard, in a state of bitter anxiety and
+contrition, determined to seek Farfrae himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern road over Durnover
+Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward in the moderate darkness of this
+spring night till he had reached a second and almost a third hill about three
+miles distant. In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain, at the foot of the hill, he
+listened. At first nothing, beyond his own heart-throbs, was to be heard but
+the slow wind making its moan among the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury
+Wood which clothed the heights on either hand; but presently there came the
+sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches
+of road, accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He knew it was Farfrae&rsquo;s gig descending the hill from an indescribable
+personality in its noise, the vehicle having been his own till bought by the
+Scotchman at the sale of his effects. Henchard thereupon retraced his steps
+along Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as its driver slackened speed
+between two plantations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a point in the highway near which the road to Mellstock branched off
+from the homeward direction. By diverging to that village, as he had intended
+to do, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a couple of hours. It soon
+appeared that his intention was to do so still, the light swerving towards
+Cuckoo Lane, the by-road aforesaid. Farfrae&rsquo;s off gig-lamp flashed in
+Henchard&rsquo;s face. At the same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Farfrae&mdash;Mr. Farfrae!&rdquo; cried the breathless Henchard, holding
+up his hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the branch lane before he
+pulled up. He then drew rein, and said &ldquo;Yes?&rdquo; over his shoulder, as
+one would towards a pronounced enemy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Come back to Casterbridge at once!&rdquo; Henchard said.
+&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something wrong at your house&mdash;requiring your return.
+I&rsquo;ve run all the way here on purpose to tell ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard&rsquo;s soul sank within him.
+Why had he not, before this, thought of what was only too obvious? He who, four
+hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle stood now in the
+darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting him to come a particular
+way, where an assailant might have confederates, instead of going his purposed
+way, where there might be a better opportunity of guarding himself from attack.
+Henchard could almost feel this view of things in course of passage through
+Farfrae&rsquo;s mind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have to go to Mellstock,&rdquo; said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened
+his reins to move on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But,&rdquo; implored Henchard, &ldquo;the matter is more serious than
+your business at Mellstock. It is&mdash;your wife! She is ill. I can tell you
+particulars as we go along.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae&rsquo;s
+suspicion that this was a <i>ruse</i> to decoy him on to the next wood, where
+might be effectually compassed what, from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had
+failed to do earlier in the day. He started the horse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know what you think,&rdquo; deprecated Henchard running after, almost
+bowed down with despair as he perceived the image of unscrupulous villainy that
+he assumed in his former friend&rsquo;s eyes. &ldquo;But I am not what you
+think!&rdquo; he cried hoarsely. &ldquo;Believe me, Farfrae; I have come
+entirely on your own and your wife&rsquo;s account. She is in danger. I know no
+more; and they want you to come. Your man has gone the other way in a mistake.
+O Farfrae! don&rsquo;t mistrust me&mdash;I am a wretched man; but my heart is
+true to you still!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. He knew his wife was with child,
+but he had left her not long ago in perfect health; and Henchard&rsquo;s
+treachery was more credible than his story. He had in his time heard bitter
+ironies from Henchard&rsquo;s lips, and there might be ironies now. He
+quickened the horse&rsquo;s pace, and had soon risen into the high country
+lying between there and Mellstock, Henchard&rsquo;s spasmodic run after him
+lending yet more substance to his thought of evil purposes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in Henchard&rsquo;s eyes; his
+exertions for Farfrae&rsquo;s good had been in vain. Over this repentant
+sinner, at least, there was to be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself like a
+less scrupulous Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses self-respect, the
+last mental prop under poverty. To this he had come after a time of emotional
+darkness of which the adjoining woodland shade afforded inadequate
+illustration. Presently he began to walk back again along the way by which he
+had arrived. Farfrae should at all events have no reason for delay upon the
+road by seeing him there when he took his journey homeward later on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae&rsquo;s house to make
+inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious faces confronted his from the
+staircase, hall, and landing; and they all said in grievous disappointment,
+&ldquo;O&mdash;it is not he!&rdquo; The manservant, finding his mistake, had
+long since returned, and all hopes had centred upon Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But haven&rsquo;t you found him?&rdquo; said the doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes.... I cannot tell &rsquo;ee!&rdquo; Henchard replied as he sank down
+on a chair within the entrance. &ldquo;He can&rsquo;t be home for two
+hours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;H&rsquo;m,&rdquo; said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How is she?&rdquo; asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of the
+group.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her
+fearfully restless. Poor woman&mdash;I fear they have killed her!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants as if she struck
+him in a new light, then, without further remark, went out of the door and
+onward to his lonely cottage. So much for man&rsquo;s rivalry, he thought.
+Death was to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the shells. But about
+Elizabeth-Jane; in the midst of his gloom she seemed to him as a pin-point of
+light. He had liked the look on her face as she answered him from the stairs.
+There had been affection in it, and above all things what he desired now was
+affection from anything that was good and pure. She was not his own, yet, for
+the first time, he had a faint dream that he might get to like her as his
+own,&mdash;if she would only continue to love him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home. As the latter entered the
+door Jopp said, &ldquo;This is rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae&rsquo;s
+illness.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of
+Jopp&rsquo;s complicity in the night&rsquo;s harlequinade, and raising his eyes
+just sufficiently to observe that Jopp&rsquo;s face was lined with anxiety.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Somebody has called for you,&rdquo; continued Jopp, when Henchard was
+shutting himself into his own apartment. &ldquo;A kind of traveller, or
+sea-captain of some sort.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh?&mdash;who could he be?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He seemed a well-be-doing man&mdash;had grey hair and a broadish face;
+but he gave no name, and no message.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Nor do I gi&rsquo;e him any attention.&rdquo; And, saying this, Henchard
+closed his door.
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae&rsquo;s return very nearly the two
+hours of Henchard&rsquo;s estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his
+presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a second
+physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state bordering
+on distraction at his misconception of Henchard&rsquo;s motives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown; the night wore
+on, and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been much soothed
+by Donald&rsquo;s arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and when,
+immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the secret which
+so oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lest talking should be
+dangerous, assuring her there was plenty of time to tell him everything.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. The dangerous illness
+and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumoured through the town, and an
+apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by the leaders in the
+exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over all particulars of
+their orgie; while those immediately around Lucetta would not venture to add to
+her husband&rsquo;s distress by alluding to the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What, and how much, Farfrae&rsquo;s wife ultimately explained to him of her
+past entanglement with Henchard, when they were alone in the solitude of that
+sad night, cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare facts of her
+peculiar intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from Farfrae&rsquo;s own
+statements. But in respect of her subsequent conduct&mdash;her motive in coming
+to Casterbridge to unite herself with Henchard&mdash;her assumed justification
+in abandoning him when she discovered reasons for fearing him (though in truth
+her inconsequent passion for another man at first sight had most to do with
+that abandonment)&mdash;her method of reconciling to her conscience a marriage
+with the second when she was in a measure committed to the first: to what
+extent she spoke of these things remained Farfrae&rsquo;s secret alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge that
+night there walked a figure up and down Corn Street hardly less frequently. It
+was Henchard&rsquo;s, whose retiring to rest had proved itself a futility as
+soon as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and thither, and make
+inquiries about the patient every now and then. He called as much on
+Farfrae&rsquo;s account as on Lucetta&rsquo;s, and on Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s
+even more than on either&rsquo;s. Shorn one by one of all other interests, his
+life seemed centring on the personality of the stepdaughter whose presence but
+recently he could not endure. To see her on each occasion of his inquiry at
+Lucetta&rsquo;s was a comfort to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last of his calls was made about four o&rsquo;clock in the morning, in the
+steely light of dawn. Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover Moor, the
+sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle
+from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae&rsquo;s he saw the door
+gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to the knocker, to untie the piece
+of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely
+flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe in human aggression
+at so early a time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you take off that?&rdquo; said Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not answer for an instant
+or two. Recognizing him, she said, &ldquo;Because they may knock as loud as
+they will; she will never hear it any more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap41"></a>XLI.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he lit his fire, and sat
+abstractedly beside it. He had not sat there long when a gentle footstep
+approached the house and entered the passage, a finger tapping lightly at the
+door. Henchard&rsquo;s face brightened, for he knew the motions to be
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s. She came into his room, looking wan and sad.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Have you heard?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Mrs. Farfrae! She
+is&mdash;dead! Yes, indeed&mdash;about an hour ago!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; said Henchard. &ldquo;I have but lately come in from
+there. It is so very good of &rsquo;ee, Elizabeth, to come and tell me. You
+must be so tired out, too, with sitting up. Now do you bide here with me this
+morning. You can go and rest in the other room; and I will call &rsquo;ee when
+breakfast is ready.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To please him, and herself&mdash;for his recent kindliness was winning a
+surprised gratitude from the lonely girl&mdash;she did as he bade her, and lay
+down on a sort of couch which Henchard had rigged up out of a settle in the
+adjoining room. She could hear him moving about in his preparations; but her
+mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death in such fulness of life and amid
+such cheerful hopes of maternity was appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell
+asleep.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the breakfast in readiness;
+but finding that she dozed he would not call her; he waited on, looking into
+the fire and keeping the kettle boiling with house-wifely care, as if it were
+an honour to have her in his house. In truth, a great change had come over him
+with regard to her, and he was developing the dream of a future lit by her
+filial presence, as though that way alone could happiness lie.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it, rather
+deprecating a call from anybody just then. A stoutly built man stood on the
+doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing&mdash;an
+air which might have been called colonial by people of cosmopolitan experience.
+It was the man who had asked the way at Peter&rsquo;s Finger. Henchard nodded,
+and looked inquiry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Good morning, good morning,&rdquo; said the stranger with profuse
+heartiness. &ldquo;Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;My name is Henchard.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then I&rsquo;ve caught &rsquo;ee at home&mdash;that&rsquo;s right.
+Morning&rsquo;s the time for business, says I. Can I have a few words with
+you?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; Henchard answered, showing the way in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You may remember me?&rdquo; said his visitor, seating himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;perhaps you may not. My name is Newson.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not notice it.
+&ldquo;I know the name well,&rdquo; Henchard said at last, looking on the
+floor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I&rsquo;ve been looking for
+&rsquo;ee this fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool and went through
+Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they told me you had
+some years before been living at Casterbridge. Back came I again, and by long
+and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago. &lsquo;He lives down by the
+mill,&rsquo; says they. So here I am. Now&mdash;that transaction between us
+some twenty years agone&mdash;&rsquo;tis that I&rsquo;ve called about.
+&rsquo;Twas a curious business. I was younger then than I am now, and perhaps
+the less said about it, in one sense, the better.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Curious business! &rsquo;Twas worse than curious. I cannot even allow
+that I&rsquo;m the man you met then. I was not in my senses, and a man&rsquo;s
+senses are himself.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;We were young and thoughtless,&rdquo; said Newson. &ldquo;However,
+I&rsquo;ve come to mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor
+Susan&mdash;hers was a strange experience.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not what they call
+shrewd or sharp at all&mdash;better she had been.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;She was not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think
+that the sale was in a way binding. She was as guiltless o&rsquo; wrong-doing
+in that particular as a saint in the clouds.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I know it, I know it. I found it out directly,&rdquo; said Henchard,
+still with averted eyes. &ldquo;There lay the sting o&rsquo;t to me. If she had
+seen it as what it was she would never have left me. Never! But how should she
+be expected to know? What advantages had she? None. She could write her own
+name, and no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed was
+done,&rdquo; said the sailor of former days. &ldquo;I thought, and there was
+not much vanity in thinking it, that she would be happier with me. She was
+fairly happy, and I never would have undeceived her till the day of her death.
+Your child died; she had another, and all went well. But a time came&mdash;mind
+me, a time always does come. A time came&mdash;it was some while after she and
+I and the child returned from America&mdash;when somebody she had confided her
+history to, told her my claim to her was a mockery, and made a jest of her
+belief in my right. After that she was never happy with me. She pined and
+pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must leave me, and then came the
+question of our child. Then a man advised me how to act, and I did it, for I
+thought it was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went off to sea. When I got to
+the other side of the Atlantic there was a storm, and it was supposed that a
+lot of us, including myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at
+Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;&lsquo;Since I&rsquo;m here, here I&rsquo;ll bide,&rsquo; I thought to
+myself; &lsquo;&rsquo;twill be most kindness to her, now she&rsquo;s taken
+against me, to let her believe me lost, for,&rsquo; I thought, &lsquo;while she
+supposes us both alive she&rsquo;ll be miserable; but if she thinks me dead
+she&rsquo;ll go back to him, and the child will have a home.&rsquo; I&rsquo;ve
+never returned to this country till a month ago, and I found that, as I
+supposed, she went to you, and my daughter with her. They told me in Falmouth
+that Susan was dead. But my Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;where is she?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dead likewise,&rdquo; said Henchard doggedly. &ldquo;Surely you learnt
+that too?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two down the room.
+&ldquo;Dead!&rdquo; he said, in a low voice. &ldquo;Then what&rsquo;s the use
+of my money to me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were rather a question
+for Newson himself than for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Where is she buried?&rdquo; the traveller inquired.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Beside her mother,&rdquo; said Henchard, in the same stolid tones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;When did she die?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;A year ago and more,&rdquo; replied the other without hesitation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor. At last
+Newson said: &ldquo;My journey hither has been for nothing! I may as well go as
+I came! It has served me right. I&rsquo;ll trouble you no longer.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the sanded floor, the
+mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow opening and closing of the door that
+was natural to a baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn his head.
+Newson&rsquo;s shadow passed the window. He was gone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, rose from his
+seat amazed at what he had done. It had been the impulse of a moment. The
+regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung hope of his
+loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he could feel as proud
+as of the actual daughter she still believed herself to be, had been stimulated
+by the unexpected coming of Newson to a greedy exclusiveness in relation to
+her; so that the sudden prospect of her loss had caused him to speak mad lies
+like a child, in pure mockery of consequences. He had expected questions to
+close in round him, and unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet such
+questioning had not come. But surely they would come; Newson&rsquo;s departure
+could be but momentary; he would learn all by inquiries in the town; and return
+to curse him, and carry his last treasure away!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the direction that Newson had taken.
+Newson&rsquo;s back was soon visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake. Henchard
+followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King&rsquo;s Arms, where the morning
+coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour for another coach which crossed
+there. The coach Newson had come by was now about to move again. Newson
+mounted, his luggage was put in, and in a few minutes the vehicle disappeared
+with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He had not so much as turned his head. It was an act of simple faith in
+Henchard&rsquo;s words&mdash;faith so simple as to be almost sublime. The young
+sailor who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the faith
+of a glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still living and
+acting under the form of the grizzled traveller who had taken Henchard&rsquo;s
+words on trust so absolute as to shame him as he stood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy invention of a moment?
+&ldquo;Perhaps not for long,&rdquo; said he. Newson might converse with his
+fellow-travellers, some of whom might be Casterbridge people; and the trick
+would be discovered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude, and instead of
+considering how best to right the wrong, and acquaint Elizabeth&rsquo;s father
+with the truth at once, he bethought himself of ways to keep the position he
+had accidentally won. Towards the young woman herself his affection grew more
+jealously strong with each new hazard to which his claim to her was exposed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newson return on foot,
+enlightened and indignant, to claim his child. But no figure appeared. Possibly
+he had spoken to nobody on the coach, but buried his grief in his own heart.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His grief!&mdash;what was it, after all, to that which he, Henchard, would feel
+at the loss of her? Newson&rsquo;s affection cooled by years, could not equal
+his who had been constantly in her presence. And thus his jealous soul
+speciously argued to excuse the separation of father and child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He returned to the house half expecting that she would have vanished. No; there
+she was&mdash;just coming out from the inner room, the marks of sleep upon her
+eyelids, and exhibiting a generally refreshed air.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O father!&rdquo; she said smiling. &ldquo;I had no sooner lain down than
+I napped, though I did not mean to. I wonder I did not dream about poor Mrs.
+Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but I did not. How strange it is that we do
+not often dream of latest events, absorbing as they may be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am glad you have been able to sleep,&rdquo; he said, taking her hand
+with anxious proprietorship&mdash;an act which gave her a pleasant surprise.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s thoughts reverted to
+Lucetta. Their sadness added charm to a countenance whose beauty had ever lain
+in its meditative soberness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Father,&rdquo; she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the
+outspread meal, &ldquo;it is so kind of you to get this nice breakfast with
+your own hands, and I idly asleep the while.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I do it every day,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;You have left me; everybody
+has left me; how should I live but by my own hands.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You are very lonely, are you not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, child&mdash;to a degree that you know nothing of! It is my own
+fault. You are the only one who has been near me for weeks. And you will come
+no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to see me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard signified dubiousness. Though he had so lately hoped that
+Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as daughter, he would not ask her
+to do so now. Newson might return at any moment, and what Elizabeth would think
+of him for his deception it were best to bear apart from her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered, till the moment
+arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to go to his daily work. Then she
+arose, and with assurance of coming again soon went up the hill in the morning
+sunlight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is towards her,
+she would live with me here in this humble cottage for the asking! Yet before
+the evening probably he will have come, and then she will scorn me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to himself, accompanied him
+everywhere through the day. His mood was no longer that of the rebellious,
+ironical, reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of one who has lost all
+that can make life interesting, or even tolerable. There would remain nobody
+for him to be proud of, nobody to fortify him; for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be
+but as a stranger, and worse. Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth&mdash;all had
+gone from him, one after one, either by his fault or by his misfortune.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire. If he could have
+summoned music to his aid his existence might even now have been borne; for
+with Henchard music was of regal power. The merest trumpet or organ tone was
+enough to move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him. But hard fate had
+ordained that he should be unable to call up this Divine spirit in his need.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself; there was nothing to come,
+nothing to wait for. Yet in the natural course of life he might possibly have
+to linger on earth another thirty or forty years&mdash;scoffed at; at best
+pitied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The thought of it was unendurable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows through which much water
+flowed. The wanderer in this direction who should stand still for a few moments
+on a quiet night, might hear singular symphonies from these waters, as from a
+lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry tones from near and far parts
+of the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir they executed a recitative; where a
+tributary brook fell over a stone breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an
+arch they performed a metallic cymballing, and at Durnover Hole they hissed.
+The spot at which their instrumentation rose loudest was a place called Ten
+Hatches, whence during high springs there proceeded a very fugue of sounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The river here was deep and strong at all times, and the hatches on this
+account were raised and lowered by cogs and a winch. A path led from the
+second bridge over the highway (so often mentioned) to these Hatches, crossing
+the stream at their head by a narrow plank-bridge. But after night-fall human
+beings were seldom found going that way, the path leading only to a deep reach
+of the stream called Blackwater, and the passage being dangerous.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road, proceeded to the second,
+or stone bridge, and thence struck into this path of solitude, following its
+course beside the stream till the dark shapes of the Ten Hatches cut the sheen
+thrown upon the river by the weak lustre that still lingered in the west. In a
+second or two he stood beside the weir-hole where the water was at its deepest.
+He looked backwards and forwards, and no creature appeared in view. He then
+took off his coat and hat, and stood on the brink of the stream with his hands
+clasped in front of him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While his eyes were bent on the water beneath there slowly became visible a
+something floating in the circular pool formed by the wash of centuries; the
+pool he was intending to make his death-bed. At first it was indistinct by
+reason of the shadow from the bank; but it emerged thence and took shape, which
+was that of a human body, lying stiff and stark upon the surface of the stream.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the circular current imparted by the central flow the form was brought
+forward, till it passed under his eyes; and then he perceived with a sense of
+horror that it was <i>himself</i>. Not a man somewhat resembling him, but one
+in all respects his counterpart, his actual double, was floating as if dead in
+Ten Hatches Hole.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy man, and he turned
+away as one might have done in the actual presence of an appalling miracle. He
+covered his eyes and bowed his head. Without looking again into the stream he
+took his coat and hat, and went slowly away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently he found himself by the door of his own dwelling. To his surprise
+Elizabeth-Jane was standing there. She came forward, spoke, called him
+&ldquo;father&rdquo; just as before. Newson, then, had not even yet returned.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I thought you seemed very sad this morning,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so I
+have come again to see you. Not that I am anything but sad myself. But
+everybody and everything seem against you so, and I know you must be
+suffering.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How this woman divined things! Yet she had not divined their whole extremity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He said to her, &ldquo;Are miracles still worked, do ye think, Elizabeth? I am
+not a read man. I don&rsquo;t know so much as I could wish. I have tried to
+peruse and learn all my life; but the more I try to know the more ignorant I
+seem.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t quite think there are any miracles nowadays,&rdquo; she
+said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No interference in the case of desperate intentions, for instance? Well,
+perhaps not, in a direct way. Perhaps not. But will you come and walk with me,
+and I will show &rsquo;ee what I mean.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway, and by the lonely path
+to Ten Hatches. He walked restlessly, as if some haunting shade, unseen of her,
+hovered round him and troubled his glance. She would gladly have talked of
+Lucetta, but feared to disturb him. When they got near the weir he stood still,
+and asked her to go forward and look into the pool, and tell him what she saw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went, and soon returned to him. &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go again,&rdquo; said Henchard, &ldquo;and look narrowly.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She proceeded to the river brink a second time. On her return, after some
+delay, she told him that she saw something floating round and round there; but
+what it was she could not discern. It seemed to be a bundle of old clothes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Are they like mine?&rdquo; asked Henchard.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well&mdash;they are. Dear me&mdash;I wonder if&mdash;Father, let us go
+away!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Go and look once more; and then we will get home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was close to the margin
+of the pool. She started up, and hastened back to his side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Henchard; &ldquo;what do you say now?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Let us go home.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But tell me&mdash;do&mdash;what is it floating there?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;The effigy,&rdquo; she answered hastily. &ldquo;They must have thrown it
+into the river higher up amongst the willows at Blackwater, to get rid of it in
+their alarm at discovery by the magistrates, and it must have floated down
+here.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah&mdash;to be sure&mdash;the image o&rsquo; me! But where is the other?
+Why that one only?... That performance of theirs killed her, but kept me
+alive!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words &ldquo;kept me alive,&rdquo;
+as they slowly retraced their way to the town, and at length guessed their
+meaning. &ldquo;Father!&mdash;I will not leave you alone like this!&rdquo; she
+cried. &ldquo;May I live with you, and tend upon you as I used to do? I do not
+mind your being poor. I would have agreed to come this morning, but you did not
+ask me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;May you come to me?&rdquo; he cried bitterly. &ldquo;Elizabeth,
+don&rsquo;t mock me! If you only would come!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said she.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You cannot!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans for reunion; and at length each
+went home. Then Henchard shaved for the first time during many days, and put on
+clean linen, and combed his hair; and was as a man resuscitated thenceforward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Jane had stated; the
+effigy was discovered by a cowherd, and that of Lucetta a little higher up in
+the same stream. But as little as possible was said of the matter, and the
+figures were privately destroyed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchard no less regarded it as an
+intervention that the figure should have been floating there. Elizabeth-Jane
+heard him say, &ldquo;Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it seems that even
+I be in Somebody&rsquo;s hand!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap42"></a>XLII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody&rsquo;s hand began to die
+out of Henchard&rsquo;s breast as time slowly removed into distance the event
+which had given that feeling birth. The apparition of Newson haunted him. He
+would surely return.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet Newson did not arrive. Lucetta had been borne along the churchyard path;
+Casterbridge had for the last time turned its regard upon her, before
+proceeding to its work as if she had never lived. But Elizabeth remained
+undisturbed in the belief of her relationship to Henchard, and now shared his
+home. Perhaps, after all, Newson was gone for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, at least, proximate cause of
+Lucetta&rsquo;s illness and death, and his first impulse was naturally enough
+to wreak vengeance in the name of the law upon the perpetrators of the
+mischief. He resolved to wait till the funeral was over ere he moved in the
+matter. The time having come he reflected. Disastrous as the result had been,
+it was obviously in no way foreseen or intended by the thoughtless crew who
+arranged the motley procession. The tempting prospect of putting to the blush
+people who stand at the head of affairs&mdash;that supreme and piquant
+enjoyment of those who writhe under the heel of the same&mdash;had alone
+animated them, so far as he could see; for he knew nothing of Jopp&rsquo;s
+incitements. Other considerations were also involved. Lucetta had confessed
+everything to him before her death, and it was not altogether desirable to make
+much ado about her history, alike for her sake, for Henchard&rsquo;s, and for
+his own. To regard the event as an untoward accident seemed, to Farfrae, truest
+consideration for the dead one&rsquo;s memory, as well as best philosophy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet. For Elizabeth&rsquo;s sake the
+former had fettered his pride sufficiently to accept the small seed and root
+business which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had purchased to
+afford him a new opening. Had he been only personally concerned Henchard,
+without doubt, would have declined assistance even remotely brought about by
+the man whom he had so fiercely assailed. But the sympathy of the girl seemed
+necessary to his very existence; and on her account pride itself wore the
+garments of humility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives Henchard
+anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in which paternal regard was
+heightened by a burning jealous dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson would ever
+now return to Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there was little reason
+to suppose. He was a wanderer and a stranger, almost an alien; he had not seen
+his daughter for several years; his affection for her could not in the nature
+of things be keen; other interests would probably soon obscure his
+recollections of her, and prevent any such renewal of inquiry into the past as
+would lead to a discovery that she was still a creature of the present. To
+satisfy his conscience somewhat Henchard repeated to himself that the lie which
+had retained for him the coveted treasure had not been deliberately told to
+that end, but had come from him as the last defiant word of a despair which
+took no thought of consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within himself that no
+Newson could love her as he loved her, or would tend her to his life&rsquo;s
+extremity as he was prepared to do cheerfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard, and nothing occurred
+to mark their days during the remainder of the year. Going out but seldom, and
+never on a marketday, they saw Donald Farfrae only at rarest intervals, and
+then mostly as a transitory object in the distance of the street. Yet he was
+pursuing his ordinary avocations, smiling mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and
+arguing with bargainers&mdash;as bereaved men do after a while.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time, &ldquo;in his own grey style,&rdquo; taught Farfrae how to estimate his
+experience of Lucetta&mdash;all that it was, and all that it was not. There are
+men whose hearts insist upon a dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by
+chance into their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it no
+rarity&mdash;even the reverse, indeed, and without them the band of the worthy
+is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of those. It was inevitable that the
+insight, briskness, and rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead
+blank which his loss threw about him. He could not but perceive that by the
+death of Lucetta he had exchanged a looming misery for a simple sorrow. After
+that revelation of her history, which must have come sooner or later in any
+circumstances, it was hard to believe that life with her would have been
+productive of further happiness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta&rsquo;s image still
+lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only the gentlest criticism, and
+her sufferings attenuating wrath at her concealments to a momentary spark now
+and then.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By the end of a year Henchard&rsquo;s little retail seed and grain shop, not
+much larger than a cupboard, had developed its trade considerably, and the
+stepfather and daughter enjoyed much serenity in the pleasant, sunny corner in
+which it stood. The quiet bearing of one who brimmed with an inner activity
+characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period. She took long walks into the
+country two or three times a week, mostly in the direction of Budmouth.
+Sometimes it occurred to him that when she sat with him in the evening after
+those invigorating walks she was civil rather than affectionate; and he was
+troubled; one more bitter regret being added to those he had already
+experienced at having, by his severe censorship, frozen up her precious
+affection when originally offered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She had her own way in everything now. In going and coming, in buying and
+selling, her word was law.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;You have got a new muff, Elizabeth,&rdquo; he said to her one day quite
+humbly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes; I bought it,&rdquo; she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table. The fur was of a glossy
+brown, and, though he was no judge of such articles, he thought it seemed an
+unusually good one for her to possess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?&rdquo; he hazarded.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It was rather above my figure,&rdquo; she said quietly. &ldquo;But it is
+not showy.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O no,&rdquo; said the netted lion, anxious not to pique her in the
+least.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some little time after, when the year had advanced into another spring, he
+paused opposite her empty bedroom in passing it. He thought of the time when
+she had cleared out of his then large and handsome house in Corn Street, in
+consequence of his dislike and harshness, and he had looked into her chamber in
+just the same way. The present room was much humbler, but what struck him about
+it was the abundance of books lying everywhere. Their number and quality made
+the meagre furniture that supported them seem absurdly disproportionate. Some,
+indeed many, must have been recently purchased; and though he encouraged her to
+buy in reason, he had no notion that she indulged her innate passion so
+extensively in proportion to the narrowness of their income. For the first time
+he felt a little hurt by what he thought her extravagance, and resolved to say
+a word to her about it. But, before he had found the courage to speak an event
+happened which set his thoughts flying in quite another direction.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet weeks that preceded the
+hay-season had come&mdash;setting their special stamp upon Casterbridge by
+thronging the market with wood rakes, new waggons in yellow, green, and red,
+formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong sufficient to skewer up a small
+family. Henchard, contrary to his wont, went out one Saturday afternoon towards
+the market-place from a curious feeling that he would like to pass a few
+minutes on the spot of his former triumphs. Farfrae, to whom he was still a
+comparative stranger, stood a few steps below the Corn Exchange door&mdash;a
+usual position with him at this hour&mdash;and he appeared lost in thought
+about something he was looking at a little way off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s eyes followed Farfrae&rsquo;s, and he saw that the object of
+his gaze was no sample-showing farmer, but his own stepdaughter, who had just
+come out of a shop over the way. She, on her part, was quite unconscious of his
+attention, and in this was less fortunate than those young women whose very
+plumes, like those of Juno&rsquo;s bird, are set with Argus eyes whenever
+possible admirers are within ken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there was nothing significant after
+all in Farfrae&rsquo;s look at Elizabeth-Jane at that juncture. Yet he could
+not forget that the Scotchman had once shown a tender interest in her, of a
+fleeting kind. Thereupon promptly came to the surface that idiosyncrasy of
+Henchard&rsquo;s which had ruled his courses from the beginning and had mainly
+made him what he was. Instead of thinking that a union between his cherished
+stepdaughter and the energetic thriving Donald was a thing to be desired for
+her good and his own, he hated the very possibility.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time had been when such instinctive opposition would have taken shape in
+action. But he was not now the Henchard of former days. He schooled himself to
+accept her will, in this as in other matters, as absolute and unquestionable.
+He dreaded lest an antagonistic word should lose for him such regard as he had
+regained from her by his devotion, feeling that to retain this under separation
+was better than to incur her dislike by keeping her near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the mere thought of such separation fevered his spirit much, and in the
+evening he said, with the stillness of suspense: &ldquo;Have you seen Mr.
+Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some confusion that she
+replied &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;that&rsquo;s right&mdash;that&rsquo;s right.... It was only
+that I saw him in the street when we both were there.&rdquo; He was wondering
+if her embarrassment justified him in a new suspicion&mdash;that the long walks
+which she had latterly been taking, that the new books which had so surprised
+him, had anything to do with the young man. She did not enlighten him, and lest
+silence should allow her to shape thoughts unfavourable to their present
+friendly relations, he diverted the discourse into another channel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act stealthily, for good or for
+evil. But the <i>solicitus timor</i> of his love&mdash;the dependence upon
+Elizabeth&rsquo;s regard into which he had declined (or, in another sense, to
+which he had advanced)&mdash;denaturalized him. He would often weigh and
+consider for hours together the meaning of such and such a deed or phrase of
+hers, when a blunt settling question would formerly have been his first
+instinct. And now, uneasy at the thought of a passion for Farfrae which should
+entirely displace her mild filial sympathy with himself, he observed her going
+and coming more narrowly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s movements beyond what
+habitual reserve induced, and it may at once be owned on her account that she
+was guilty of occasional conversations with Donald when they chanced to meet.
+Whatever the origin of her walks on the Budmouth Road, her return from those
+walks was often coincident with Farfrae&rsquo;s emergence from Corn Street for
+a twenty minutes&rsquo; blow on that rather windy highway&mdash;just to winnow
+the seeds and chaff out of him before sitting down to tea, as he said. Henchard
+became aware of this by going to the Ring, and, screened by its enclosure,
+keeping his eye upon the road till he saw them meet. His face assumed an
+expression of extreme anguish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Of her, too, he means to rob me!&rdquo; he whispered. &ldquo;But he has
+the right. I do not wish to interfere.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and matters were by no
+means so far advanced between the young people as Henchard&rsquo;s jealous
+grief inferred. Could he have heard such conversation as passed he would have
+been enlightened thus much:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>He</i>.&mdash;&ldquo;You like walking this way, Miss Henchard&mdash;and is
+it not so?&rdquo; (uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an appraising,
+pondering gaze at her).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>She</i>.&mdash;&ldquo;O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have no
+great reason for it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>He</i>.&mdash;&ldquo;But that may make a reason for others.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>She</i> (reddening).&mdash;&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know that. My reason,
+however, such as it is, is that I wish to get a glimpse of the sea every
+day.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>He</i>.&mdash;&ldquo;Is it a secret why?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>She</i> ( reluctantly ).&mdash;&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>He</i> (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).&mdash;&ldquo;Ah, I
+doubt there will be any good in secrets! A secret cast a deep shadow over my
+life. And well you know what it was.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from confessing why the sea
+attracted her. She could not herself account for it fully, not knowing the
+secret possibly to be that, in addition to early marine associations, her blood
+was a sailor&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae,&rdquo; she added shyly.
+&ldquo;I wonder if I ought to accept so many!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you, than you to
+have them!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It cannot.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They proceeded along the road together till they reached the town, and their
+paths diverged.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own devices, put nothing in
+the way of their courses, whatever they might mean. If he were doomed to be
+bereft of her, so it must be. In the situation which their marriage would
+create he could see no <i>locus standi</i> for himself at all. Farfrae would
+never recognize him more than superciliously; his poverty ensured that, no less
+than his past conduct. And so Elizabeth would grow to be a stranger to him, and
+the end of his life would be friendless solitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With such a possibility impending he could not help watchfulness. Indeed,
+within certain lines, he had the right to keep an eye upon her as his charge.
+The meetings seemed to become matters of course with them on special days of
+the week.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At last full proof was given him. He was standing behind a wall close to the
+place at which Farfrae encountered her. He heard the young man address her as
+&ldquo;Dearest Elizabeth-Jane,&rdquo; and then kiss her, the girl looking
+quickly round to assure herself that nobody was near.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the wall, and mournfully
+followed them to Casterbridge. The chief looming trouble in this engagement had
+not decreased. Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unlike the rest of the people,
+must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual daughter, from his own assertion while
+he himself had the same belief; and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven
+him as to have no objection to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they could
+never be. Thus would the girl, who was his only friend, be withdrawn from him
+by degrees through her husband&rsquo;s influence, and learn to despise him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than the one he had
+rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in days before his spirit was broken,
+Henchard would have said, &ldquo;I am content.&rdquo; But content with the
+prospect as now depicted was hard to acquire.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts unowned, unsolicited,
+and of noxious kind, are sometimes allowed to wander for a moment prior to
+being sent off whence they came. One of these thoughts sailed into
+Henchard&rsquo;s ken now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed was not
+the child of Michael Henchard at all&mdash;legally, nobody&rsquo;s child; how
+would that correct and leading townsman receive the information? He might
+possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her step-sire&rsquo;s
+own again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, &ldquo;God forbid such a thing! Why should I
+still be subject to these visitations of the devil, when I try so hard to keep
+him away?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap43"></a>XLIII.</h2>
+
+<p>
+What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little later date
+by other people. That Mr. Farfrae &ldquo;walked with that bankrupt
+Henchard&rsquo;s stepdaughter, of all women,&rdquo; became a common topic in
+the town, the simple perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a
+wooing; and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who had each
+looked upon herself as the only woman capable of making the merchant Councilman
+happy, indignantly left off going to the church Farfrae attended, left off
+conscious mannerisms, left off putting him in their prayers at night amongst
+their blood relations; in short, reverted to their normal courses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this looming choice of the
+Scotchman&rsquo;s gave unmixed satisfaction were the members of the philosophic
+party, which included Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy Wills, Mr. Buzzford,
+and the like. The Three Mariners having been, years before, the house in which
+they had witnessed the young man and woman&rsquo;s first and humble appearance
+on the Casterbridge stage, they took a kindly interest in their career, not
+unconnected, perhaps, with visions of festive treatment at their hands
+hereafter. Mrs. Stannidge, having rolled into the large parlour one evening and
+said that it was a wonder such a man as Mr. Farfrae, &ldquo;a pillow of the
+town,&rdquo; who might have chosen one of the daughters of the professional men
+or private residents, should stoop so low, Coney ventured to disagree with her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No, ma&rsquo;am, no wonder at all. &rsquo;Tis she that&rsquo;s a
+stooping to he&mdash;that&rsquo;s my opinion. A widow man&mdash;whose first
+wife was no credit to him&mdash;what is it for a young perusing woman
+that&rsquo;s her own mistress and well liked? But as a neat patching up of
+things I see much good in it. When a man have put up a tomb of best
+marble-stone to the other one, as he&rsquo;ve done, and weeped his fill, and
+thought it all over, and said to hisself, &lsquo;T&rsquo;other took me in, I
+knowed this one first; she&rsquo;s a sensible piece for a partner, and
+there&rsquo;s no faithful woman in high life now&rsquo;;&mdash;well, he may do
+worse than not to take her, if she&rsquo;s tender-inclined.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we must guard against a too liberal use
+of the conventional declaration that a great sensation was caused by the
+prospective event, that all the gossips&rsquo; tongues were set wagging
+thereby, and so-on, even though such a declaration might lend some eclat to the
+career of our poor only heroine. When all has been said about busy rumourers, a
+superficial and temporary thing is the interest of anybody in affairs which do
+not directly touch them. It would be a truer representation to say that
+Casterbridge (ever excepting the nineteen young ladies) looked up for a moment
+at the news, and withdrawing its attention, went on labouring and victualling,
+bringing up its children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle for
+Farfrae&rsquo;s domestic plans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by Elizabeth herself
+or by Farfrae either. Reasoning on the cause of their reticence he concluded
+that, estimating him by his past, the throbbing pair were afraid to broach the
+subject, and looked upon him as an irksome obstacle whom they would be heartily
+glad to get out of the way. Embittered as he was against society, this moody
+view of himself took deeper and deeper hold of Henchard, till the daily
+necessity of facing mankind, and of them particularly Elizabeth-Jane, became
+well-nigh more than he could endure. His health declined; he became morbidly
+sensitive. He wished he could escape those who did not want him, and hide his
+head for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no necessity that his
+own absolute separation from her should be involved in the incident of her
+marriage?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative&mdash;himself living like a
+fangless lion about the back rooms of a house in which his stepdaughter was
+mistress, an inoffensive old man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth, and
+good-naturedly tolerated by her husband. It was terrible to his pride to think
+of descending so low; and yet, for the girl&rsquo;s sake he might put up with
+anything; even from Farfrae; even snubbings and masterful tongue-scourgings.
+The privilege of being in the house she occupied would almost outweigh the
+personal humiliation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the courtship&mdash;which
+it evidently now was&mdash;had an absorbing interest for him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the Budmouth Road, and
+Farfrae as often made it convenient to create an accidental meeting with her
+there. Two miles out, a quarter of a mile from the highway, was the prehistoric
+fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many ramparts, within or upon whose
+enclosures a human being as seen from the road, was but an insignificant speck.
+Hitherward Henchard often resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the hedgeless
+<i>Via</i>&mdash;for it was the original track laid out by the legions of the
+Empire&mdash;to a distance of two or three miles, his object being to read the
+progress of affairs between Farfrae and his charmer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure came along the road
+from Budmouth, and lingered. Applying his telescope to his eye Henchard
+expected that Farfrae&rsquo;s features would be disclosed as usual. But the
+lenses revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s lover.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned in the scrutiny of
+the road he revealed his face. Henchard lived a lifetime the moment he saw it.
+The face was Newson&rsquo;s.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no other movement. Newson
+waited, and Henchard waited&mdash;if that could be called a waiting which was a
+transfixture. But Elizabeth-Jane did not come. Something or other had caused
+her to neglect her customary walk that day. Perhaps Farfrae and she had chosen
+another road for variety&rsquo;s sake. But what did that amount to? She might
+be here to-morrow, and in any case Newson, if bent on a private meeting and a
+revelation of the truth to her, would soon make his opportunity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the ruse by which he
+had been once sent away. Elizabeth&rsquo;s strict nature would cause her for
+the first time to despise her stepfather, would root out his image as that of
+an arch-deceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart in his stead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But Newson did not see anything of her that morning. Having stood still awhile
+he at last retraced his steps, and Henchard felt like a condemned man who has a
+few hours&rsquo; respite. When he reached his own house he found her there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O father!&rdquo; she said innocently. &ldquo;I have had a letter&mdash;a
+strange one&mdash;not signed. Somebody has asked me to meet him, either on the
+Budmouth Road at noon today, or in the evening at Mr. Farfrae&rsquo;s. He says
+he came to see me some time ago, but a trick was played him, so that he did not
+see me. I don&rsquo;t understand it; but between you and me I think Donald is
+at the bottom of the mystery, and that it is a relation of his who wants to
+pass an opinion on his choice. But I did not like to go till I had seen you.
+Shall I go?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard replied heavily, &ldquo;Yes; go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever disposed of by this
+closing in of Newson on the scene. Henchard was not the man to stand the
+certainty of condemnation on a matter so near his heart. And being an old hand
+at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal, he resolved to make as light
+as he could of his intentions, while immediately taking his measures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his all in this world
+by saying to her, as if he did not care about her more: &ldquo;I am going to
+leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Leave Casterbridge!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;and leave&mdash;me?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well as by us both;
+I don&rsquo;t care about shops and streets and folk&mdash;I would rather get
+into the country by myself, out of sight, and follow my own ways, and leave you
+to yours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She looked down and her tears fell silently. It seemed to her that this resolve
+of his had come on account of her attachment and its probable result. She
+showed her devotion to Farfrae, however, by mastering her emotion and speaking
+out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I am sorry you have decided on this,&rdquo; she said with difficult
+firmness. &ldquo;For I thought it probable&mdash;possible&mdash;that I might
+marry Mr. Farfrae some little time hence, and I did not know that you
+disapproved of the step!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy,&rdquo; said Henchard
+huskily. &ldquo;If I did not approve it would be no matter! I wish to go away.
+My presence might make things awkward in the future, and, in short, it is best
+that I go.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to reconsider his
+determination; for she could not urge what she did not know&mdash;that when she
+should learn he was not related to her other than as a step-parent she would
+refrain from despising him, and that when she knew what he had done to keep her
+in ignorance she would refrain from hating him. It was his conviction that she
+would not so refrain; and there existed as yet neither word nor event which
+could argue it away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Then,&rdquo; she said at last, &ldquo;you will not be able to come to my
+wedding; and that is not as it ought to be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to see it&mdash;I don&rsquo;t want to see it!&rdquo;
+he exclaimed; adding more softly, &ldquo;but think of me sometimes in your
+future life&mdash;you&rsquo;ll do that, Izzy?&mdash;think of me when you are
+living as the wife of the richest, the foremost man in the town, and
+don&rsquo;t let my sins, <i>when you know them all</i>, cause &rsquo;ee to
+quite forget that though I loved &rsquo;ee late I loved &rsquo;ee well.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;It is because of Donald!&rdquo; she sobbed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t forbid you to marry him,&rdquo; said Henchard.
+&ldquo;Promise not to quite forget me when&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo; He meant when
+Newson should come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same evening at dusk
+Henchard left the town, to whose development he had been one of the chief
+stimulants for many years. During the day he had bought a new tool-basket,
+cleaned up his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in fresh leggings,
+kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways gone back to the working clothes of
+his young manhood, discarding for ever the shabby-genteel suit of cloth and
+rusty silk hat that since his decline had characterized him in the Casterbridge
+street as a man who had seen better days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had known him being
+aware of his departure. Elizabeth-Jane accompanied him as far as the second
+bridge on the highway&mdash;for the hour of her appointment with the unguessed
+visitor at Farfrae&rsquo;s had not yet arrived&mdash;and parted from him with
+unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or two before finally
+letting him go. She watched his form diminish across the moor, the yellow
+rush-basket at his back moving up and down with each tread, and the creases
+behind his knees coming and going alternately till she could no longer see
+them. Though she did not know it Henchard formed at this moment much the same
+picture as he had presented when entering Casterbridge for the first time
+nearly a quarter of a century before; except, to be sure, that the serious
+addition to his years had considerably lessened the spring to his stride, that
+his state of hopelessness had weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as
+weighted by the basket, a perceptible bend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood in the bank, half
+way up a steep hill. He rested his basket on the top of the stone, placed his
+elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch, which was worse than a sob,
+because it was so hard and so dry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If I had only got her with me&mdash;if I only had!&rdquo; he said.
+&ldquo;Hard work would be nothing to me then! But that was not to be.
+I&mdash;Cain&mdash;go alone as I deserve&mdash;an outcast and a vagabond. But
+my punishment is <i>not</i> greater than I can bear!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and went on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh, recovered her equanimity,
+and turned her face to Casterbridge. Before she had reached the first house she
+was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was evidently not their first
+meeting that day; they joined hands without ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously
+asked, &ldquo;And is he gone&mdash;and did you tell him?&mdash;I mean of the
+other matter&mdash;not of ours.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend. Donald, who is
+he?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr. Henchard will
+hear of it if he does not go far.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He will go far&mdash;he&rsquo;s bent upon getting out of sight and
+sound!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the Crossways, or Bow,
+turned with him into Corn Street instead of going straight on to her own door.
+At Farfrae&rsquo;s house they stopped and went in.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-room, saying,
+&ldquo;There he is waiting for you,&rdquo; and Elizabeth entered. In the
+arm-chair sat the broad-faced genial man who had called on Henchard on a
+memorable morning between one and two years before this time, and whom the
+latter had seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of his arrival.
+It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the light-hearted father from whom she
+had been separated half-a-dozen years, as if by death, need hardly be detailed.
+It was an affecting one, apart from the question of paternity. Henchard&rsquo;s
+departure was in a moment explained. When the true facts came to be handled the
+difficulty of restoring her to her old belief in Newson was not so great as
+might have seemed likely, for Henchard&rsquo;s conduct itself was a proof that
+those facts were true. Moreover, she had grown up under Newson&rsquo;s paternal
+care; and even had Henchard been her father in nature, this father in early
+domiciliation might almost have carried the point against him, when the
+incidents of her parting with Henchard had a little worn off.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Newson&rsquo;s pride in what she had grown up to be was more than he could
+express. He kissed her again and again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve saved you the trouble to come and meet me&mdash;ha-ha!&rdquo;
+said Newson. &ldquo;The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said, &lsquo;Come up
+and stop with me for a day or two, Captain Newson, and I&rsquo;ll bring her
+round.&rsquo; &lsquo;Faith,&rsquo; says I, &lsquo;so I will&rsquo;; and here I
+am.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Henchard is gone,&rdquo; said Farfrae, shutting the door.
+&ldquo;He has done it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth, he has
+been very nice with her. I was got rather uneasy; but all is as it should be,
+and we will have no more deefficulties at all.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, that&rsquo;s very much as I thought,&rdquo; said Newson, looking
+into the face of each by turns. &ldquo;I said to myself, ay, a hundred times,
+when I tried to get a peep at her unknown to herself&mdash;&lsquo;Depend upon
+it, &rsquo;tis best that I should live on quiet for a few days like this till
+something turns up for the better.&rsquo; I now know you are all right, and
+what can I wish for more?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every day now, since
+it can do no harm,&rdquo; said Farfrae. &ldquo;And what I&rsquo;ve been
+thinking is that the wedding may as well be kept under my own roof, the house
+being large, and you being in lodgings by yourself&mdash;so that a great deal
+of trouble and expense would be saved ye?&mdash;and &rsquo;tis a convenience
+when a couple&rsquo;s married not to hae far to go to get home!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;With all my heart,&rdquo; said Captain Newson; &ldquo;since, as ye say,
+it can do no harm, now poor Henchard&rsquo;s gone; though I wouldn&rsquo;t have
+done it otherwise, or put myself in his way at all; for I&rsquo;ve already in
+my lifetime been an intruder into his family quite as far as politeness can be
+expected to put up with. But what do the young woman say herself about it?
+Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we be talking about, and not bide
+staring out o&rsquo; the window as if ye didn&rsquo;t hear.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Donald and you must settle it,&rdquo; murmured Elizabeth, still keeping
+up a scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, then,&rdquo; continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with a face
+expressing thorough entry into the subject, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s how we&rsquo;ll
+have it. And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide so much, and houseroom, and all that,
+I&rsquo;ll do my part in the drinkables, and see to the rum and
+schiedam&mdash;maybe a dozen jars will be sufficient?&mdash;as many of the folk
+will be ladies, and perhaps they won&rsquo;t drink hard enough to make a high
+average in the reckoning? But you know best. I&rsquo;ve provided for men and
+shipmates times enough, but I&rsquo;m as ignorant as a child how many glasses
+of grog a woman, that&rsquo;s not a drinking woman, is expected to consume at
+these ceremonies?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, none&mdash;we&rsquo;ll no want much of that&mdash;O no!&rdquo; said
+Farfrae, shaking his head with appalled gravity. &ldquo;Do you leave all to
+me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When they had gone a little further in these particulars Newson, leaning back
+in his chair and smiling reflectively at the ceiling, said, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve
+never told ye, or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me off the scent that
+time?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ah, I thought I hadn&rsquo;t. I resolved that I would not, I remember,
+not to hurt the man&rsquo;s name. But now he&rsquo;s gone I can tell ye. Why, I
+came to Casterbridge nine or ten months before that day last week that I found
+ye out. I had been here twice before then. The first time I passed through the
+town on my way westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here. Then hearing at some
+place&mdash;I forget where&mdash;that a man of the name of Henchard had been
+mayor here, I came back, and called at his house one morning. The old
+rascal!&mdash;he said Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a
+packet,&rdquo; continued Newson. &ldquo;And, if you&rsquo;ll believe me, I was
+that upset, that I went back to the coach that had brought me, and took passage
+onward without lying in the town half-an-hour. Ha-ha!&mdash;&rsquo;twas a good
+joke, and well carried out, and I give the man credit for&rsquo;t!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence. &ldquo;A joke?&mdash;O
+no!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Then he kept you from me, father, all those
+months, when you might have been here?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The father admitted that such was the case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;He ought not to have done it!&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth sighed. &ldquo;I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I
+ought to forget him now!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange men and strange
+moralities, failed to perceive the enormity of Henchard&rsquo;s crime,
+notwithstanding that he himself had been the chief sufferer therefrom. Indeed,
+the attack upon the absent culprit waxing serious, he began to take
+Henchard&rsquo;s part.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, &rsquo;twas not ten words that he said, after all,&rdquo; Newson
+pleaded. &ldquo;And how could he know that I should be such a simpleton as to
+believe him? &rsquo;Twas as much my fault as his, poor fellow!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of feeling.
+&ldquo;He knew your disposition&mdash;you always were so trusting, father;
+I&rsquo;ve heard my mother say so hundreds of times&mdash;and he did it to
+wrong you. After weaning me from you these five years by saying he was my
+father, he should not have done this.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before Elizabeth any
+extenuation of the absent one&rsquo;s deceit. Even had he been present Henchard
+might scarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himself or his good name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Well, well&mdash;never mind&mdash;it is all over and past,&rdquo; said
+Newson good-naturedly. &ldquo;Now, about this wedding again.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap44"></a>XLIV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitary way eastward till
+weariness overtook him, and he looked about for a place of rest. His heart was
+so exacerbated at parting from the girl that he could not face an inn, or even
+a household of the most humble kind; and entering a field he lay down under a
+wheatrick, feeling no want of food. The very heaviness of his soul caused him
+to sleep profoundly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the stubble awoke him the
+next morning early. He opened his basket and ate for his breakfast what he had
+packed for his supper; and in doing so overhauled the remainder of his kit.
+Although everything he brought necessitated carriage at his own back, he had
+secreted among his tools a few of Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s cast-off belongings,
+in the shape of gloves, shoes, a scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and in
+his pocket he carried a curl of her hair. Having looked at these things he
+closed them up again, and went onward.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During five consecutive days Henchard&rsquo;s rush basket rode along upon his
+shoulder between the highway hedges, the new yellow of the rushes catching the
+eye of an occasional field-labourer as he glanced through the quickset,
+together with the wayfarer&rsquo;s hat and head, and down-turned face, over
+which the twig shadows moved in endless procession. It now became apparent that
+the direction of his journey was Weydon Priors, which he reached on the
+afternoon of the sixth day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had been held for so many generations
+was now bare of human beings, and almost of aught besides. A few sheep grazed
+thereabout, but these ran off when Henchard halted upon the summit. He
+deposited his basket upon the turf, and looked about with sad curiosity; till
+he discovered the road by which his wife and himself had entered on the upland
+so memorable to both, five-and-twenty years before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, we came up that way,&rdquo; he said, after ascertaining his
+bearings. &ldquo;She was carrying the baby, and I was reading a ballet-sheet.
+Then we crossed about here&mdash;she so sad and weary, and I speaking to her
+hardly at all, because of my cursed pride and mortification at being poor. Then
+we saw the tent&mdash;that must have stood more this way.&rdquo; He walked to
+another spot, it was not really where the tent had stood but it seemed so to
+him. &ldquo;Here we went in, and here we sat down. I faced this way. Then I
+drank, and committed my crime. It must have been just on that very pixy-ring
+that she was standing when she said her last words to me before going off with
+him; I can hear their sound now, and the sound of her sobs: &lsquo;O Mike!
+I&rsquo;ve lived with thee all this while, and had nothing but temper. Now
+I&rsquo;m no more to &rsquo;ee&mdash;I&rsquo;ll try my luck
+elsewhere.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds, in looking back upon
+an ambitious course, that what he has sacrificed in sentiment was worth as much
+as what he has gained in substance; but the superadded bitterness of seeing his
+very recantation nullified. He had been sorry for all this long ago; but his
+attempts to replace ambition by love had been as fully foiled as his ambition
+itself. His wronged wife had foiled them by a fraud so grandly simple as to be
+almost a virtue. It was an odd sequence that out of all this tampering with
+social law came that flower of Nature, Elizabeth. Part of his wish to wash his
+hands of life arose from his perception of its contrarious
+inconsistencies&mdash;of Nature&rsquo;s jaunty readiness to support unorthodox
+social principles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He intended to go on from this place&mdash;visited as an act of
+penance&mdash;into another part of the country altogether. But he could not
+help thinking of Elizabeth, and the quarter of the horizon in which she lived.
+Out of this it happened that the centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness of
+the world was counteracted by the centripetal influence of his love for his
+stepdaughter. As a consequence, instead of following a straight course yet
+further away from Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almost unconsciously,
+deflected from that right line of his first intention; till, by degrees, his
+wandering, like that of the Canadian woodsman, became part of a circle of which
+Casterbridge formed the centre. In ascending any particular hill he ascertained
+the bearings as nearly as he could by means of the sun, moon, or stars, and
+settled in his mind the exact direction in which Casterbridge and
+Elizabeth-Jane lay. Sneering at himself for his weakness he yet every
+hour&mdash;nay, every few minutes&mdash;conjectured her actions for the time
+being&mdash;her sitting down and rising up, her goings and comings, till
+thought of Newson&rsquo;s and Farfrae&rsquo;s counter-influence would pass like
+a cold blast over a pool, and efface her image. And then he would say to
+himself, &ldquo;O you fool! All this about a daughter who is no daughter of
+thine!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At length he obtained employment at his own occupation of hay-trusser, work of
+that sort being in demand at this autumn time. The scene of his hiring was a
+pastoral farm near the old western highway, whose course was the channel of all
+such communications as passed between the busy centres of novelty and the
+remote Wessex boroughs. He had chosen the neighbourhood of this artery from a
+sense that, situated here, though at a distance of fifty miles, he was
+virtually nearer to her whose welfare was so dear than he would be at a
+roadless spot only half as remote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise standing which he had
+occupied a quarter of a century before. Externally there was nothing to hinder
+his making another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights achieving
+higher things than his soul in its half-formed state had been able to
+accomplish. But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing
+human possibilities of amelioration to a minimum&mdash;which arranges that
+wisdom to do shall come <i>pari passu</i> with the departure of zest for
+doing&mdash;stood in the way of all that. He had no wish to make an arena a
+second time of a world that had become a mere painted scene to him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among the sweet-smelling grassy
+stems, he would survey mankind and say to himself: &ldquo;Here and everywhere
+be folk dying before their time like frosted leaves, though wanted by their
+families, the country, and the world; while I, an outcast, an encumberer of the
+ground, wanted by nobody, and despised by all, live on against my will!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation of those who passed along the
+road&mdash;not from a general curiosity by any means&mdash;but in the hope that
+among these travellers between Casterbridge and London some would, sooner or
+later, speak of the former place. The distance, however, was too great to lend
+much probability to his desire; and the highest result of his attention to
+wayside words was that he did indeed hear the name &ldquo;Casterbridge&rdquo;
+uttered one day by the driver of a road-waggon. Henchard ran to the gate of the
+field he worked in, and hailed the speaker, who was a stranger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes&mdash;I&rsquo;ve come from there, maister,&rdquo; he said, in answer
+to Henchard&rsquo;s inquiry. &ldquo;I trade up and down, ye know; though, what
+with this travelling without horses that&rsquo;s getting so common, my work
+will soon be done.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;All the same as usual.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of
+getting married. Now is that true or not?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t say for the life o&rsquo; me. O no, I should think
+not.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;But yes, John&mdash;you forget,&rdquo; said a woman inside the
+waggon-tilt. &ldquo;What were them packages we carr&rsquo;d there at the
+beginning o&rsquo; the week? Surely they said a wedding was coming off
+soon&mdash;on Martin&rsquo;s Day?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The man declared he remembered nothing about it; and the waggon went on
+jangling over the hill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard was convinced that the woman&rsquo;s memory served her well. The date
+was an extremely probable one, there being no reason for delay on either side.
+He might, for that matter, write and inquire of Elizabeth; but his instinct for
+sequestration had made the course difficult. Yet before he left her she had
+said that for him to be absent from her wedding was not as she wished it to be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The remembrance would continually revive in him now that it was not Elizabeth
+and Farfrae who had driven him away from them, but his own haughty sense that
+his presence was no longer desired. He had assumed the return of Newson without
+absolute proof that the Captain meant to return; still less that Elizabeth-Jane
+would welcome him; and with no proof whatever that if he did return he would
+stay. What if he had been mistaken in his views; if there had been no necessity
+that his own absolute separation from her he loved should be involved in these
+untoward incidents? To make one more attempt to be near her: to go back, to see
+her, to plead his cause before her, to ask forgiveness for his fraud, to
+endeavour strenuously to hold his own in her love; it was worth the risk of
+repulse, ay, of life itself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But how to initiate this reversal of all his former resolves without causing
+husband and wife to despise him for his inconsistency was a question which made
+him tremble and brood.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and then he concluded his hesitancies
+by a sudden reckless determination to go to the wedding festivity. Neither
+writing nor message would be expected of him. She had regretted his decision to
+be absent&mdash;his unanticipated presence would fill the little unsatisfied
+corner that would probably have place in her just heart without him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To intrude as little of his personality as possible upon a gay event with which
+that personality could show nothing in keeping, he decided not to make his
+appearance till evening&mdash;when stiffness would have worn off, and a gentle
+wish to let bygones be bygones would exercise its sway in all hearts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin&rsquo;s-tide, allowing
+himself about sixteen miles to perform for each of the three days&rsquo;
+journey, reckoning the wedding-day as one. There were only two towns,
+Melchester and Shottsford, of any importance along his course, and at the
+latter he stopped on the second night, not only to rest, but to prepare himself
+for the next evening.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stood in&mdash;now stained and
+distorted by their two months of hard usage, he entered a shop to make some
+purchases which should put him, externally at any rate, a little in harmony
+with the prevailing tone of the morrow. A rough yet respectable coat and hat, a
+new shirt and neck-cloth, were the chief of these; and having satisfied himself
+that in appearance at least he would not now offend her, he proceeded to the
+more interesting particular of buying her some present.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What should that present be? He walked up and down the street, regarding
+dubiously the display in the shop windows, from a gloomy sense that what he
+might most like to give her would be beyond his miserable pocket. At length a
+caged goldfinch met his eye. The cage was a plain and small one, the shop
+humble, and on inquiry he concluded he could afford the modest sum asked. A
+sheet of newspaper was tied round the little creature&rsquo;s wire prison, and
+with the wrapped up cage in his hand Henchard sought a lodging for the night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soon within the district which
+had been his dealing ground in bygone years. Part of the distance he travelled
+by carrier, seating himself in the darkest corner at the back of that
+trader&rsquo;s van; and as the other passengers, mainly women going short
+journeys, mounted and alighted in front of Henchard, they talked over much
+local news, not the least portion of this being the wedding then in course of
+celebration at the town they were nearing. It appeared from their accounts that
+the town band had been hired for the evening party, and, lest the convivial
+instincts of that body should get the better of their skill, the further step
+had been taken of engaging the string band from Budmouth, so that there would
+be a reserve of harmony to fall back upon in case of need.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He heard, however, but few particulars beyond those known to him already, the
+incident of the deepest interest on the journey being the soft pealing of the
+Casterbridge bells, which reached the travellers&rsquo; ears while the van
+paused on the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag lowered. The time was just
+after twelve o&rsquo;clock.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those notes were a signal that all had gone well; that there had been no slip
+&rsquo;twixt cup and lip in this case; that Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae
+were man and wife.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard did not care to ride any further with his chattering companions after
+hearing this sound. Indeed, it quite unmanned him; and in pursuance of his plan
+of not showing himself in Casterbridge street till evening, lest he should
+mortify Farfrae and his bride, he alighted here, with his bundle and bird-cage,
+and was soon left as a lonely figure on the broad white highway.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae, almost two years
+earlier, to tell him of the serious illness of his wife Lucetta. The place was
+unchanged; the same larches sighed the same notes; but Farfrae had another
+wife&mdash;and, as Henchard knew, a better one. He only hoped that
+Elizabeth-Jane had obtained a better home than had been hers at the former
+time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curious highstrung condition,
+unable to do much but think of the approaching meeting with her, and sadly
+satirize himself for his emotions thereon, as a Samson shorn. Such an
+innovation on Casterbridge customs as a flitting of bridegroom and bride from
+the town immediately after the ceremony, was not likely, but if it should have
+taken place he would wait till their return. To assure himself on this point he
+asked a market-man when near the borough if the newly-married couple had gone
+away, and was promptly informed that they had not; they were at that hour,
+according to all accounts, entertaining a houseful of guests at their home in
+Corn Street.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at the riverside, and proceeded up
+the town under the feeble lamps. He need have made no inquiries beforehand, for
+on drawing near Farfrae&rsquo;s residence it was plain to the least observant
+that festivity prevailed within, and that Donald himself shared it, his voice
+being distinctly audible in the street, giving strong expression to a song of
+his dear native country that he loved so well as never to have revisited it.
+Idlers were standing on the pavement in front; and wishing to escape the notice
+of these Henchard passed quickly on to the door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and people were going up
+and down the stairs. His courage failed him; to enter footsore, laden, and
+poorly dressed into the midst of such resplendency was to bring needless
+humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse from her husband.
+Accordingly he went round into the street at the back that he knew so well,
+entered the garden, and came quietly into the house through the kitchen,
+temporarily depositing the bird and cage under a bush outside, to lessen the
+awkwardness of his arrival.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard that he now feared
+circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he began to wish that he had
+not taken upon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However, his progress was
+made unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in the kitchen an elderly woman
+who seemed to be acting as provisional housekeeper during the convulsions from
+which Farfrae&rsquo;s establishment was just then suffering. She was one of
+those people whom nothing surprises, and though to her, a total stranger, his
+request must have seemed odd, she willingly volunteered to go up and inform the
+master and mistress of the house that &ldquo;a humble old friend&rdquo; had
+come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On second thought she said that he had better not wait in the kitchen, but come
+up into the little back-parlour, which was empty. He thereupon followed her
+thither, and she left him. Just as she got across the landing to the door of
+the best parlour a dance was struck up, and she returned to say that she would
+wait till that was over before announcing him&mdash;Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having
+both joined in the figure.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to give more space,
+and that of the room Henchard sat in being ajar, he could see fractional parts
+of the dancers whenever their gyrations brought them near the doorway, chiefly
+in the shape of the skirts of dresses and streaming curls of hair; together
+with about three-fifths of the band in profile, including the restless shadow
+of a fiddler&rsquo;s elbow, and the tip of the bass-viol bow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The gaiety jarred upon Henchard&rsquo;s spirits; and he could not quite
+understand why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a widower, who had had his
+trials, should have cared for it all, notwithstanding the fact that he was
+quite a young man still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by dance and song.
+That the quiet Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised life at a moderate value,
+and who knew in spite of her maidenhood that marriage was as a rule no dancing
+matter, should have had zest for this revelry surprised him still more.
+However, young people could not be quite old people, he concluded, and custom
+was omnipotent.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the progress of the dance the performers spread out somewhat, and then for
+the first time he caught a glimpse of the once despised daughter who had
+mastered him, and made his heart ache. She was in a dress of white silk or
+satin, he was not near enough to say which&mdash;snowy white, without a tinge
+of milk or cream; and the expression of her face was one of nervous pleasure
+rather than of gaiety. Presently Farfrae came round, his exuberant Scotch
+movement making him conspicuous in a moment. The pair were not dancing
+together, but Henchard could discern that whenever the chances of the figure
+made them the partners of a moment their emotions breathed a much subtler
+essence than at other times.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod by some one who
+out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange, and it was
+stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth-Jane&rsquo;s
+partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was sweeping grandly round,
+his head quivering and low down, his legs in the form of an X and his back
+towards the door. The next time he came round in the other direction, his white
+waist-coat preceding his face, and his toes preceding his white waistcoat. That
+happy face&mdash;Henchard&rsquo;s complete discomfiture lay in it. It was
+Newson&rsquo;s, who had indeed come and supplanted him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made no other movement. He
+rose to his feet, and stood like a dark ruin, obscured by &ldquo;the shade from
+his own soul up-thrown.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But he was no longer the man to stand these reverses unmoved. His agitation was
+great, and he would fain have been gone, but before he could leave the dance
+had ended, the housekeeper had informed Elizabeth-Jane of the stranger who
+awaited her, and she entered the room immediately.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh&mdash;it is&mdash;Mr. Henchard!&rdquo; she said, starting back.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, Elizabeth?&rdquo; he cried, as he seized her hand. &ldquo;What do
+you say?&mdash;<i>Mr.</i> Henchard? Don&rsquo;t, don&rsquo;t scourge me like
+that! Call me worthless old Henchard&mdash;anything&mdash;but don&rsquo;t
+&rsquo;ee be so cold as this! O my maid&mdash;I see you have another&mdash;a
+real father in my place. Then you know all; but don&rsquo;t give all your
+thought to him! Do ye save a little room for me!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away. &ldquo;I could have loved you
+always&mdash;I would have, gladly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But how can I when I
+know you have deceived me so&mdash;so bitterly deceived me! You persuaded me
+that my father was not my father&mdash;allowed me to live on in ignorance of
+the truth for years; and then when he, my warm-hearted real father, came to
+find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked invention of my death, which
+nearly broke his heart. O how can I love as I once did a man who has served us
+like this!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Henchard&rsquo;s lips half parted to begin an explanation. But he shut them up
+like a vice, and uttered not a sound. How should he, there and then, set before
+her with any effect the palliatives of his great faults&mdash;that he had
+himself been deceived in her identity at first, till informed by her
+mother&rsquo;s letter that his own child had died; that, in the second
+accusation, his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamester who loved
+her affection better than his own honour? Among the many hindrances to such a
+pleading not the least was this, that he did not sufficiently value himself to
+lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal or elaborate argument.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Waiving, therefore, his privilege of self-defence, he regarded only his
+discomposure. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t ye distress yourself on my account,&rdquo; he
+said, with proud superiority. &ldquo;I would not wish it&mdash;at such a time,
+too, as this. I have done wrong in coming to &rsquo;ee&mdash;I see my error.
+But it is only for once, so forgive it. I&rsquo;ll never trouble &rsquo;ee
+again, Elizabeth-Jane&mdash;no, not to my dying day! Good-night.
+Good-bye!&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchard went out from her rooms,
+and departed from the house by the back way as he had come; and she saw him no
+more.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap45"></a>XLV.</h2>
+
+<p>
+It was about a month after the day which closed as in the last chapter.
+Elizabeth-Jane had grown accustomed to the novelty of her situation, and the
+only difference between Donald&rsquo;s movements now and formerly was that he
+hastened indoors rather more quickly after business hours than he had been in
+the habit of doing for some time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Newson had stayed in Casterbridge three days after the wedding party (whose
+gaiety, as might have been surmised, was of his making rather than of the
+married couple&rsquo;s), and was stared at and honoured as became the returned
+Crusoe of the hour. But whether or not because Casterbridge was difficult to
+excite by dramatic returns and disappearances through having been for centuries
+an assize town, in which sensational exits from the world, antipodean absences,
+and such like, were half-yearly occurrences, the inhabitants did not altogether
+lose their equanimity on his account. On the fourth morning he was discovered
+disconsolately climbing a hill, in his craving to get a glimpse of the sea from
+somewhere or other. The contiguity of salt water proved to be such a necessity
+of his existence that he preferred Budmouth as a place of residence,
+notwithstanding the society of his daughter in the other town. Thither he went,
+and settled in lodgings in a green-shuttered cottage which had a bow-window,
+jutting out sufficiently to afford glimpses of a vertical strip of blue sea to
+any one opening the sash, and leaning forward far enough to look through a
+narrow lane of tall intervening houses.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her upstairs parlour, critically
+surveying some re-arrangement of articles with her head to one side, when the
+housemaid came in with the announcement, &ldquo;Oh, please ma&rsquo;am, we know
+now how that bird-cage came there.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In exploring her new domain during the first week of residence, gazing with
+critical satisfaction on this cheerful room and that, penetrating cautiously
+into dark cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to the garden, now
+leaf-strewn by autumn winds, and thus, like a wise field-marshal, estimating
+the capabilities of the site whereon she was about to open her housekeeping
+campaign&mdash;Mrs. Donald Farfrae had discovered in a screened corner a new
+bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper, and at the bottom of the cage a little ball
+of feathers&mdash;the dead body of a goldfinch. Nobody could tell her how the
+bird and cage had come there, though that the poor little songster had been
+starved to death was evident. The sadness of the incident had made an
+impression on her. She had not been able to forget it for days, despite
+Farfrae&rsquo;s tender banter; and now when the matter had been nearly
+forgotten it was again revived.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Oh, please ma&rsquo;am, we know how the bird-cage came there. That
+farmer&rsquo;s man who called on the evening of the wedding&mdash;he was seen
+wi&rsquo; it in his hand as he came up the street; and &rsquo;tis thoughted
+that he put it down while he came in with his message, and then went away
+forgetting where he had left it.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and in thinking she seized hold of
+the idea, at one feminine bound, that the caged bird had been brought by
+Henchard for her as a wedding gift and token of repentance. He had not
+expressed to her any regrets or excuses for what he had done in the past; but
+it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and live on as one of his own
+worst accusers. She went out, looked at the cage, buried the starved little
+singer, and from that hour her heart softened towards the self-alienated man.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When her husband came in she told him her solution of the bird-cage mystery;
+and begged Donald to help her in finding out, as soon as possible, whither
+Henchard had banished himself, that she might make her peace with him; try to
+do something to render his life less that of an outcast, and more tolerable to
+him. Although Farfrae had never so passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had
+liked him, he had, on the other hand, never so passionately hated in the same
+direction as his former friend had done, and he was therefore not the least
+indisposed to assist Elizabeth-Jane in her laudable plan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But it was by no means easy to set about discovering Henchard. He had
+apparently sunk into the earth on leaving Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae&rsquo;s door.
+Elizabeth-Jane remembered what he had once attempted; and trembled.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But though she did not know it Henchard had become a changed man since
+then&mdash;as far, that is, as change of emotional basis can justify such a
+radical phrase; and she needed not to fear. In a few days Farfrae&rsquo;s
+inquiries elicited that Henchard had been seen by one who knew him walking
+steadily along the Melchester highway eastward, at twelve o&rsquo;clock at
+night&mdash;in other words, retracing his steps on the road by which he had
+come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae might have been discovered
+driving his gig out of Casterbridge in that direction, Elizabeth-Jane sitting
+beside him, wrapped in a thick flat fur&mdash;the victorine of the
+period&mdash;her complexion somewhat richer than formerly, and an incipient
+matronly dignity, which the serene Minerva-eyes of one &ldquo;whose gestures
+beamed with mind&rdquo; made becoming, settling on her face. Having herself
+arrived at a promising haven from at least the grosser troubles of her life,
+her object was to place Henchard in some similar quietude before he should sink
+into that lower stage of existence which was only too possible to him now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After driving along the highway for a few miles they made further inquiries,
+and learnt of a road-mender, who had been working thereabouts for weeks, that
+he had observed such a man at the time mentioned; he had left the Melchester
+coachroad at Weatherbury by a forking highway which skirted the north of Egdon
+Heath. Into this road they directed the horse&rsquo;s head, and soon were
+bowling across that ancient country whose surface never had been stirred to a
+finger&rsquo;s depth, save by the scratchings of rabbits, since brushed by the
+feet of the earliest tribes. The tumuli these had left behind, dun and shagged
+with heather, jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as though they were
+the full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinely extended there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard. Farfrae drove onward, and by the
+afternoon reached the neighbourhood of some extension of the heath to the north
+of Anglebury, a prominent feature of which, in the form of a blasted clump of
+firs on a summit of a hill, they soon passed under. That the road they were
+following had, up to this point, been Henchard&rsquo;s track on foot they were
+pretty certain; but the ramifications which now began to reveal themselves in
+the route made further progress in the right direction a matter of pure
+guess-work, and Donald strongly advised his wife to give up the search in
+person, and trust to other means for obtaining news of her stepfather. They
+were now a score of miles at least from home, but, by resting the horse for a
+couple of hours at a village they had just traversed, it would be possible to
+get back to Casterbridge that same day, while to go much further afield would
+reduce them to the necessity of camping out for the night, &ldquo;and that will
+make a hole in a sovereign,&rdquo; said Farfrae. She pondered the position, and
+agreed with him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He accordingly drew rein, but before reversing their direction paused a moment
+and looked vaguely round upon the wide country which the elevated position
+disclosed. While they looked a solitary human form came from under the clump of
+trees, and crossed ahead of them. The person was some labourer; his gait was
+shambling, his regard fixed in front of him as absolutely as if he wore
+blinkers; and in his hand he carried a few sticks. Having crossed the road he
+descended into a ravine, where a cottage revealed itself, which he entered.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say that must be
+poor Whittle. &rsquo;Tis just like him,&rdquo; observed Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;And it may be Whittle, for he&rsquo;s never been to the yard these three
+weeks, going away without saying any word at all; and I owing him for two
+days&rsquo; work, without knowing who to pay it to.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The possibility led them to alight, and at least make an inquiry at the
+cottage. Farfrae hitched the reins to the gate-post, and they approached what
+was of humble dwellings surely the humblest. The walls, built of kneaded clay
+originally faced with a trowel, had been worn by years of rain-washings to a
+lumpy crumbling surface, channelled and sunken from its plane, its gray rents
+held together here and there by a leafy strap of ivy which could scarcely find
+substance enough for the purpose. The rafters were sunken, and the thatch of
+the roof in ragged holes. Leaves from the fence had been blown into the corners
+of the doorway, and lay there undisturbed. The door was ajar; Farfrae knocked;
+and he who stood before them was Whittle, as they had conjectured.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lighting on them with an
+unfocused gaze; and he still held in his hand the few sticks he had been out to
+gather. As soon as he recognized them he started.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Ay, yes sir! You see he was kind-like to mother when she wer here below,
+though &rsquo;a was rough to me.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Who are you talking of?&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;O sir&mdash;Mr. Henchet! Didn&rsquo;t ye know it? He&rsquo;s just
+gone&mdash;about half-an-hour ago, by the sun; for I&rsquo;ve got no watch to
+my name.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Not&mdash;dead?&rdquo; faltered Elizabeth-Jane.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Yes, ma&rsquo;am, he&rsquo;s gone! He was kind-like to mother when she
+wer here below, sending her the best ship-coal, and hardly any ashes from it at
+all; and taties, and such-like that were very needful to her. I seed en go down
+street on the night of your worshipful&rsquo;s wedding to the lady at yer side,
+and I thought he looked low and faltering. And I followed en over Grey&rsquo;s
+Bridge, and he turned and zeed me, and said, &lsquo;You go back!&rsquo; But I
+followed, and he turned again, and said, &lsquo;Do you hear, sir? Go
+back!&rsquo; But I zeed that he was low, and I followed on still. Then &rsquo;a
+said, &lsquo;Whittle, what do ye follow me for when I&rsquo;ve told ye to go
+back all these times?&rsquo; And I said, &lsquo;Because, sir, I see things be
+bad with &rsquo;ee, and ye wer kind-like to mother if ye wer rough to me, and I
+would fain be kind-like to you.&rsquo; Then he walked on, and I followed; and
+he never complained at me no more. We walked on like that all night; and in the
+blue o&rsquo; the morning, when &rsquo;twas hardly day, I looked ahead o&rsquo;
+me, and I zeed that he wambled, and could hardly drag along. By the time we had
+got past here, but I had seen that this house was empty as I went by, and I got
+him to come back; and I took down the boards from the windows, and helped him
+inside. &lsquo;What, Whittle,&rsquo; he said, &lsquo;and can ye really be such
+a poor fond fool as to care for such a wretch as I!&rsquo; Then I went on
+further, and some neighbourly woodmen lent me a bed, and a chair, and a few
+other traps, and we brought &rsquo;em here, and made him as comfortable as we
+could. But he didn&rsquo;t gain strength, for you see, ma&rsquo;am, he
+couldn&rsquo;t eat&mdash;no appetite at all&mdash;and he got weaker; and to-day
+he died. One of the neighbours have gone to get a man to measure him.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Dear me&mdash;is that so!&rdquo; said Farfrae.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As for Elizabeth, she said nothing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;Upon the head of his bed he pinned a piece of paper, with some writing
+upon it,&rdquo; continued Abel Whittle. &ldquo;But not being a man o&rsquo;
+letters, I can&rsquo;t read writing; so I don&rsquo;t know what it is. I can
+get it and show ye.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage; returning in a moment with
+a crumpled scrap of paper. On it there was pencilled as follows:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+MICHAEL HENCHARD&rsquo;S WILL.<br />
+&ldquo;That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve
+on account of me.<br />
+&ldquo;&amp; that I be not bury&rsquo;d in consecrated ground.<br />
+&ldquo;&amp; that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.<br />
+&ldquo;&amp; that nobody is wished to see my dead body.<br />
+&ldquo;&amp; that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.<br />
+&ldquo;&amp; that no flours be planted on my grave.<br />
+&ldquo;&amp; that no man remember me.<br />
+&ldquo;To this I put my name.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+&ldquo;MICHAEL HENCHARD.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+&ldquo;What are we to do?&rdquo; said Donald, when he had handed the paper to
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She could not answer distinctly. &ldquo;O Donald!&rdquo; she cried at last
+through her tears, &ldquo;what bitterness lies there! O I would not have minded
+so much if it had not been for my unkindness at that last parting!... But
+there&rsquo;s no altering&mdash;so it must be.&rdquo;
+</p>
+
+<p class="p2">
+What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dying was respected as far as
+practicable by Elizabeth-Jane, though less from a sense of the sacredness of
+last words, as such, than from her independent knowledge that the man who wrote
+them meant what he said. She knew the directions to be a piece of the same
+stuff that his whole life was made of, and hence were not to be tampered with
+to give herself a mournful pleasure, or her husband credit for
+large-heartedness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All was over at last, even her regrets for having misunderstood him on his last
+visit, for not having searched him out sooner, though these were deep and sharp
+for a good while. From this time forward Elizabeth-Jane found herself in a
+latitude of calm weather, kindly and grateful in itself, and doubly so after
+the Capharnaum in which some of her preceding years had been spent. As the
+lively and sparkling emotions of her early married life cohered into an equable
+serenity, the finer movements of her nature found scope in discovering to the
+narrow-lived ones around her the secret (as she had once learnt it) of making
+limited opportunities endurable; which she deemed to consist in the cunning
+enlargement, by a species of microscopic treatment, of those minute forms of
+satisfaction that offer themselves to everybody not in positive pain; which,
+thus handled, have much of the same inspiring effect upon life as wider
+interests cursorily embraced.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her teaching had a reflex action upon herself, insomuch that she thought she
+could perceive no great personal difference between being respected in the
+nether parts of Casterbridge and glorified at the uppermost end of the social
+world. Her position was, indeed, to a marked degree one that, in the common
+phrase, afforded much to be thankful for. That she was not demonstratively
+thankful was no fault of hers. Her experience had been of a kind to teach her,
+rightly or wrongly, that the doubtful honour of a brief transit through a
+sorry world hardly called for effusiveness, even when the path was suddenly
+irradiated at some half-way point by daybeams rich as hers. But her strong
+sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did
+not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had
+deserved much more. And in being forced to class herself among the fortunate
+she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one
+to whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the adult stage was she
+whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness was but the occasional episode
+in a general drama of pain.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE ***</div>
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+
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mayor of Casterbridge, 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: The Mayor of Casterbridge
+
+Author: Thomas Hardy
+
+Release Date: May 28, 2007 [EBook #143]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2006]
+[Last updated: August 6, 2012]
+
+Language: English
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Hamm and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE
+
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+
+1.
+
+
+One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached
+one-third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a
+child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper
+Wessex, on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick
+hoar of dust which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from
+an obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their
+appearance just now.
+
+The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he
+showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost
+perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer than the
+remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat with white horn
+buttons, breeches of the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid
+with black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped strap a
+rush basket, from which protruded at one end the crutch of a hay-knife,
+a wimble for hay-bonds being also visible in the aperture. His measured,
+springless walk was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from
+the desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn and
+plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical indifference
+personal to himself, showing its presence even in the regularly
+interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now in the right, as
+he paced along.
+
+What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's progress, and would
+have attracted the attention of any casual observer otherwise disposed
+to overlook them, was the perfect silence they preserved. They walked
+side by side in such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,
+confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on closer view it
+could be discerned that the man was reading, or pretending to read, a
+ballad sheet which he kept before his eyes with some difficulty by the
+hand that was passed through the basket strap. Whether this apparent
+cause were the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape
+an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody but himself
+could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and the
+woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she
+walked the highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the
+man's bent elbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to
+his side as was possible without actual contact, but she seemed to
+have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it; and far from
+exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she appeared to receive it
+as a natural thing. If any word at all were uttered by the little group,
+it was an occasional whisper of the woman to the child--a tiny girl in
+short clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn--and the murmured babble of
+the child in reply.
+
+The chief--almost the only--attraction of the young woman's face was its
+mobility. When she looked down sideways to the girl she became pretty,
+and even handsome, particularly that in the action her features
+caught slantwise the rays of the strongly coloured sun, which made
+transparencies of her eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips.
+When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking,
+she had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything
+possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play. The
+first phase was the work of Nature, the second probably of civilization.
+
+That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of
+the girl in arms there could be little doubt. No other than such
+relationship would have accounted for the atmosphere of stale
+familiarity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus as they
+moved down the road.
+
+The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with little
+interest--the scene for that matter being one that might have been
+matched at almost any spot in any county in England at this time of
+the year; a road neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor hilly,
+bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the
+blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass through on
+their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. The grassy margin of the bank,
+and the nearest hedgerow boughs, were powdered by the dust that had been
+stirred over them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road
+deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the aforesaid
+total absence of conversation, allowed every extraneous sound to be
+heard.
+
+For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird singing
+a trite old evening song that might doubtless have been heard on the
+hill at the same hour, and with the self-same trills, quavers, and
+breves, at any sunset of that season for centuries untold. But as they
+approached the village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their
+ears from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened from
+view by foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-Priors could just be
+described, the family group was met by a turnip-hoer with his hoe on
+his shoulder, and his dinner-bag suspended from it. The reader promptly
+glanced up.
+
+"Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating the village
+in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the labourer did
+not understand him, he added, "Anything in the hay-trussing line?"
+
+The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. "Why, save the man,
+what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to Weydon for a job of that
+sort this time o' year?"
+
+"Then is there any house to let--a little small new cottage just a
+builded, or such like?" asked the other.
+
+The pessimist still maintained a negative. "Pulling down is more the
+nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared away last year, and
+three this; and the volk nowhere to go--no, not so much as a thatched
+hurdle; that's the way o' Weydon-Priors."
+
+The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some
+superciliousness. Looking towards the village, he continued, "There is
+something going on here, however, is there not?"
+
+"Ay. 'Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more than the
+clatter and scurry of getting away the money o' children and fools, for
+the real business is done earlier than this. I've been working within
+sound o't all day, but I didn't go up--not I. 'Twas no business of
+mine."
+
+The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the
+Fair-field, which showed standing-places and pens where many hundreds of
+horses and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but
+were now in great part taken away. At present, as their informant had
+observed, but little real business remained on hand, the chief being the
+sale by auction of a few inferior animals, that could not otherwise
+be disposed of, and had been absolutely refused by the better class
+of traders, who came and went early. Yet the crowd was denser now
+than during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors,
+including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two come on
+furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked in;
+persons whose activities found a congenial field among the peep-shows,
+toy-stands, waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who
+travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and
+readers of Fate.
+
+Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they
+looked around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the
+down. Two, which stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiring
+sunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. One was formed of new,
+milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags on its summit; it announced "Good
+Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." The other was less new; a little iron
+stove-pipe came out of it at the back and in front appeared the placard,
+"Good Furmity Sold Hear." The man mentally weighed the two inscriptions
+and inclined to the former tent.
+
+"No--no--the other one," said the woman. "I always like furmity; and so
+does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing after a long hard
+day."
+
+"I've never tasted it," said the man. However, he gave way to her
+representations, and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.
+
+A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow
+tables that ran down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a
+stove, containing a charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-legged
+crock, sufficiently polished round the rim to show that it was made
+of bell-metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a white
+apron, which as it threw an air of respectability over her as far as
+it extended, was made so wide as to reach nearly round her waist. She
+slowly stirred the contents of the pot. The dull scrape of her large
+spoon was audible throughout the tent as she thus kept from burning the
+mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins, currants, and what
+not, that composed the antiquated slop in which she dealt. Vessels
+holding the separate ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of
+boards and trestles close by.
+
+The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture, steaming
+hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure. This was very well so far,
+for furmity, as the woman had said, was nourishing, and as proper a
+food as could be obtained within the four seas; though, to those not
+accustomed to it, the grains of wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips,
+which floated on its surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.
+
+But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the
+man, with the instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly.
+After a mincing attack on his bowl, he watched the hag's proceedings
+from the corner of his eye, and saw the game she played. He winked to
+her, and passed up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle
+from under the table, slily measured out a quantity of its contents, and
+tipped the same into the man's furmity. The liquor poured in was rum.
+The man as slily sent back money in payment.
+
+He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to his
+satisfaction than it had been in its natural state. His wife had
+observed the proceeding with much uneasiness; but he persuaded her to
+have hers laced also, and she agreed to a milder allowance after some
+misgiving.
+
+The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum being
+signalled for in yet stronger proportion. The effect of it was soon
+apparent in his manner, and his wife but too sadly perceived that in
+strenuously steering off the rocks of the licensed liquor-tent she had
+only got into maelstrom depths here amongst the smugglers.
+
+The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more than once said
+to her husband, "Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may have
+trouble in getting it if we don't go soon."
+
+But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He talked loud to
+the company. The child's black eyes, after slow, round, ruminating gazes
+at the candles when they were lighted, fell together; then they opened,
+then shut again, and she slept.
+
+At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the
+second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the
+qualities signified by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of
+his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his
+conduct; he was overbearing--even brilliantly quarrelsome.
+
+The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such occasions.
+The ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more particularly, the
+frustration of many a promising youth's high aims and hopes and the
+extinction of his energies by an early imprudent marriage, was the
+theme.
+
+"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser with a
+contemplative bitterness that was well-night resentful. "I married at
+eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence o't." He
+pointed at himself and family with a wave of the hand intended to bring
+out the penuriousness of the exhibition.
+
+The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such remarks, acted
+as if she did not hear them, and continued her intermittent private
+words of tender trifles to the sleeping and waking child, who was just
+big enough to be placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she
+wished to ease her arms. The man continued--
+
+"I haven't more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet I am a good
+experienced hand in my line. I'd challenge England to beat me in the
+fodder business; and if I were a free man again I'd be worth a thousand
+pound before I'd done o't. But a fellow never knows these little things
+till all chance of acting upon 'em is past."
+
+The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside could be
+heard saying, "Now this is the last lot--now who'll take the last
+lot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings? 'Tis a very promising
+broodmare, a trifle over five years old, and nothing the matter with the
+hoss at all, except that she's a little holler in the back and had her
+left eye knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming
+along the road."
+
+"For my part I don't see why men who have got wives and don't want 'em,
+shouldn't get rid of 'em as these gipsy fellows do their old horses,"
+said the man in the tent. "Why shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em
+by auction to men who are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I'd
+sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!"
+
+"There's them that would do that," some of the guests replied, looking
+at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.
+
+"True," said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine polish about
+the collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades that long-continued
+friction with grimy surfaces will produce, and which is usually more
+desired on furniture than on clothes. From his appearance he had
+possibly been in former time groom or coachman to some neighbouring
+county family. "I've had my breedings in as good circles, I may say, as
+any man," he added, "and I know true cultivation, or nobody do; and I
+can declare she's got it--in the bone, mind ye, I say--as much as any
+female in the fair--though it may want a little bringing out." Then,
+crossing his legs, he resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a
+point in the air.
+
+The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this unexpected
+praise of his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of his own attitude
+towards the possessor of such qualities. But he speedily lapsed into his
+former conviction, and said harshly--
+
+"Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for this gem o'
+creation."
+
+She turned to her husband and murmured, "Michael, you have talked this
+nonsense in public places before. A joke is a joke, but you may make it
+once too often, mind!"
+
+"I know I've said it before; I meant it. All I want is a buyer."
+
+At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season, which had by
+chance found its way through an opening into the upper part of the tent,
+flew to and from quick curves above their heads, causing all eyes to
+follow it absently. In watching the bird till it made its escape the
+assembled company neglected to respond to the workman's offer, and the
+subject dropped.
+
+But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on lacing his
+furmity more and more heavily, though he was either so strong-minded or
+such an intrepid toper that he still appeared fairly sober, recurred to
+the old strain, as in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the
+original theme. "Here--I am waiting to know about this offer of mine.
+The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?"
+
+The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the renewed
+inquiry was received with a laugh of appreciation. The woman whispered;
+she was imploring and anxious: "Come, come, it is getting dark, and
+this nonsense won't do. If you don't come along, I shall go without you.
+Come!"
+
+She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes the man broke
+in upon the desultory conversation of the furmity drinkers with. "I
+asked this question, and nobody answered to 't. Will any Jack Rag or Tom
+Straw among ye buy my goods?"
+
+The woman's manner changed, and her face assumed the grim shape and
+colour of which mention has been made.
+
+"Mike, Mike," she said; "this is getting serious. O!--too serious!"
+
+"Will anybody buy her?" said the man.
+
+"I wish somebody would," said she firmly. "Her present owner is not at
+all to her liking!"
+
+"Nor you to mine," said he. "So we are agreed about that. Gentlemen, you
+hear? It's an agreement to part. She shall take the girl if she wants
+to, and go her ways. I'll take my tools, and go my ways. 'Tis simple as
+Scripture history. Now then, stand up, Susan, and show yourself."
+
+"Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom staylace dealer in voluminous
+petticoats, who sat near the woman; "yer good man don't know what he's
+saying."
+
+The woman, however, did stand up. "Now, who's auctioneer?" cried the
+hay-trusser.
+
+"I be," promptly answered a short man, with a nose resembling a copper
+knob, a damp voice, and eyes like button-holes. "Who'll make an offer
+for this lady?"
+
+The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a
+supreme effort of will.
+
+"Five shillings," said someone, at which there was a laugh.
+
+"No insults," said the husband. "Who'll say a guinea?"
+
+Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces interposed.
+
+"Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love! Ah, what a cruelty
+is the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear at some figures 'pon
+my 'vation 'tis!"
+
+"Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.
+
+"Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
+
+"If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll have to give
+more," said the husband. "Very well. Now auctioneer, add another."
+
+"Three guineas--going for three guineas!" said the rheumy man.
+
+"No bid?" said the husband. "Good Lord, why she's cost me fifty times
+the money, if a penny. Go on."
+
+"Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.
+
+"I'll tell ye what--I won't sell her for less than five," said the
+husband, bringing down his fist so that the basins danced. "I'll sell
+her for five guineas to any man that will pay me the money, and treat
+her well; and he shall have her for ever, and never hear aught o' me.
+But she shan't go for less. Now then--five guineas--and she's yours.
+Susan, you agree?"
+
+She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
+
+"Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be withdrawn. Do anybody
+give it? The last time. Yes or no?"
+
+"Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.
+
+All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening which formed
+the door of the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had
+arrived there within the last two or three minutes. A dead silence
+followed his affirmation.
+
+"You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.
+
+"I say so," replied the sailor.
+
+"Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the money?"
+
+The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman, came in,
+unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them down upon the
+tablecloth. They were Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Upon the
+face of this he clinked down the shillings severally--one, two, three,
+four, five.
+
+The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the
+same till then deemed slightly hypothetical had a great effect upon
+the spectators. Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief
+actors, and then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings,
+on the table.
+
+Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the
+man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest.
+The spectators had indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of
+mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumed that, being out
+of work, he was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and
+society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and response of real
+cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A lurid colour
+seemed to fill the tent, and change the aspect of all therein. The
+mirth-wrinkles left the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting
+lips.
+
+"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice
+sounded quite loud, "before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If
+you touch that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a
+joke no longer."
+
+"A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband, his
+resentment rising at her suggestion. "I take the money; the sailor takes
+you. That's plain enough. It has been done elsewhere--and why not here?"
+
+"'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is willing," said
+the sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world."
+
+"Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing, provided she can
+have the child. She said so only the other day when I talked o't!"
+
+"That you swear?" said the sailor to her.
+
+"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and seeing no
+repentance there.
+
+"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's complete," said
+the trusser. He took the sailor's notes and deliberately folded them,
+and put them with the shillings in a high remote pocket, with an air of
+finality.
+
+The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he said kindly.
+"The little one too--the more the merrier!" She paused for an instant,
+with a close glance at him. Then dropping her eyes again, and saying
+nothing, she took up the child and followed him as he made towards the
+door. On reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring,
+flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser's face.
+
+"Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee a couple of years, and had
+nothing but temper! Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try my luck elsewhere.
+'Twill be better for me and Elizabeth-Jane, both. So good-bye!"
+
+Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting the little
+girl on her left, she went out of the tent sobbing bitterly.
+
+A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if, after all, he
+had not quite anticipated this ending; and some of the guests laughed.
+
+"Is she gone?" he said.
+
+"Faith, ay! she's gone clane enough," said some rustics near the door.
+
+He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of one
+conscious of his alcoholic load. Some others followed, and they stood
+looking into the twilight. The difference between the peacefulness of
+inferior nature and the wilful hostilities of mankind was very apparent
+at this place. In contrast with the harshness of the act just ended
+within the tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks and
+rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience to be harnessed
+for the homeward journey. Outside the fair, in the valleys and woods,
+all was quiet. The sun had recently set, and the west heaven was hung
+with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed. To watch
+it was like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened
+auditorium. In presence of this scene after the other there was a
+natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on an otherwise kindly
+universe; till it was remembered that all terrestrial conditions were
+intermittent, and that mankind might some night be innocently sleeping
+when these quiet objects were raging loud.
+
+"Where do the sailor live?" asked a spectator, when they had vainly
+gazed around.
+
+"God knows that," replied the man who had seen high life. "He's without
+doubt a stranger here."
+
+"He came in about five minutes ago," said the furmity woman, joining the
+rest with her hands on her hips. "And then 'a stepped back, and then 'a
+looked in again. I'm not a penny the better for him."
+
+"Serves the husband well be-right," said the staylace vendor. "A comely
+respectable body like her--what can a man want more? I glory in the
+woman's sperrit. I'd ha' done it myself--od send if I wouldn't, if a
+husband had behaved so to me! I'd go, and 'a might call, and call, till
+his keacorn was raw; but I'd never come back--no, not till the great
+trumpet, would I!"
+
+"Well, the woman will be better off," said another of a more
+deliberative turn. "For seafaring natures be very good shelter for shorn
+lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty of money, which is what she's
+not been used to lately, by all showings."
+
+"Mark me--I'll not go after her!" said the trusser, returning doggedly
+to his seat. "Let her go! If she's up to such vagaries she must suffer
+for 'em. She'd no business to take the maid--'tis my maid; and if it
+were the doing again she shouldn't have her!"
+
+Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an indefensible
+proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the customers thinned away
+from the tent shortly after this episode. The man stretched his elbows
+forward on the table leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to
+snore. The furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after
+seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, etc., that remained on
+hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the man reclined. She shook
+him, but could not wake him. As the tent was not to be struck that
+night, the fair continuing for two or three days, she decided to let the
+sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and his basket
+with him. Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering the flap of the
+tent, she left it, and drove away.
+
+
+
+
+2.
+
+
+The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the canvas when
+the man awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole atmosphere of the marquee,
+and a single big blue fly buzzed musically round and round it. Besides
+the buzz of the fly there was not a sound. He looked about--at the
+benches--at the table supported by trestles--at his basket of tools--at
+the stove where the furmity had been boiled--at the empty basins--at
+some shed grains of wheat--at the corks which dotted the grassy floor.
+Among the odds and ends he discerned a little shining object, and picked
+it up. It was his wife's ring.
+
+A confused picture of the events of the previous evening seemed to come
+back to him, and he thrust his hand into his breast-pocket. A rustling
+revealed the sailor's bank-notes thrust carelessly in.
+
+This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he knew now
+they were not dreams. He remained seated, looking on the ground for some
+time. "I must get out of this as soon as I can," he said deliberately
+at last, with the air of one who could not catch his thoughts without
+pronouncing them. "She's gone--to be sure she is--gone with that sailor
+who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here, and I had the
+furmity, and rum in it--and sold her. Yes, that's what's happened and
+here am I. Now, what am I to do--am I sober enough to walk, I wonder?"
+He stood up, found that he was in fairly good condition for progress,
+unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found he could
+carry it. Then lifting the tent door he emerged into the open air.
+
+Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The freshness of the
+September morning inspired and braced him as he stood. He and his family
+had been weary when they arrived the night before, and they had observed
+but little of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing. It
+exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded on one extreme by
+a plantation, and approached by a winding road. At the bottom stood the
+village which lent its name to the upland and the annual fair that was
+held thereon. The spot stretched downward into valleys, and onward to
+other uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched with the remains of
+prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the rays of a newly risen
+sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade of the heavily dewed
+grass, whereon the shadows of the yellow and red vans were projected far
+away, those thrown by the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape
+to the orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had remained
+on the ground lay snug within their carts and tents or wrapped in
+horse-cloths under them, and were silent and still as death, with the
+exception of an occasional snore that revealed their presence. But
+the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds that
+vagrants own, that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like foxes
+as cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one of the
+carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly lay down again.
+He was the only positive spectator of the hay-trusser's exit from the
+Weydon Fair-field.
+
+This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent thought,
+unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the hedges with straws
+in their bills, the crowns of the mushrooms, and the tinkling of local
+sheep-bells, whose wearer had had the good fortune not to be included
+in the fair. When he reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of the
+previous evening, the man pitched his basket and leant upon a gate. A
+difficult problem or two occupied his mind.
+
+"Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn't I tell my name?"
+he said to himself; and at last concluded that he did not. His general
+demeanour was enough to show how he was surprised and nettled that his
+wife had taken him so literally--as much could be seen in his face, and
+in the way he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge. He knew
+that she must have been somewhat excited to do this; moreover, she
+must have believed that there was some sort of binding force in the
+transaction. On this latter point he felt almost certain, knowing her
+freedom from levity of character, and the extreme simplicity of her
+intellect. There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment
+beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentary doubts.
+On a previous occasion when he had declared during a fuddle that he
+would dispose of her as he had done, she had replied that she would not
+hear him say that many times more before it happened, in the resigned
+tones of a fatalist.... "Yet she knows I am not in my senses when I do
+that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about till I find her....Seize
+her, why didn't she know better than bring me into this disgrace!" he
+roared out. "She wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such
+idiotic simplicity. Meek--that meekness has done me more harm than the
+bitterest temper!"
+
+When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that he must
+somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and put up with the
+shame as best he could. It was of his own making, and he ought to bear
+it. But first he resolved to register an oath, a greater oath than he
+had ever sworn before: and to do it properly he required a fit place and
+imagery; for there was something fetichistic in this man's beliefs.
+
+He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes inquisitively
+round upon the landscape as he walked, and at the distance of three or
+four miles perceived the roofs of a village and the tower of a church.
+He instantly made towards the latter object. The village was quite
+still, it being that motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills
+the interval between the departure of the field-labourers to their work,
+and the rising of their wives and daughters to prepare the breakfast for
+their return. Hence he reached the church without observation, and the
+door being only latched he entered. The hay-trusser deposited his basket
+by the font, went up the nave till he reached the altar-rails, and
+opening the gate entered the sacrarium, where he seemed to feel a
+sense of the strangeness for a moment; then he knelt upon the
+footpace. Dropping his head upon the clamped book which lay on the
+Communion-table, he said aloud--
+
+"I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of September, do
+take an oath before God here in this solemn place that I will avoid all
+strong liquors for the space of twenty-one years to come, being a year
+for every year that I have lived. And this I swear upon the book before
+me; and may I be strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this my
+oath!"
+
+When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser arose,
+and seemed relieved at having made a start in a new direction. While
+standing in the porch a moment he saw a thick jet of wood smoke suddenly
+start up from the red chimney of a cottage near, and knew that the
+occupant had just lit her fire. He went round to the door, and the
+housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast for a trifling payment,
+which was done. Then he started on the search for his wife and child.
+
+The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent soon enough.
+Though he examined and inquired, and walked hither and thither day after
+day, no such characters as those he described had anywhere been seen
+since the evening of the fair. To add to the difficulty he could gain
+no sound of the sailor's name. As money was short with him he decided,
+after some hesitation, to spend the sailor's money in the prosecution
+of this search; but it was equally in vain. The truth was that a
+certain shyness of revealing his conduct prevented Michael Henchard from
+following up the investigation with the loud hue-and-cry such a pursuit
+demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably for this reason
+that he obtained no clue, though everything was done by him that did not
+involve an explanation of the circumstances under which he had lost her.
+
+Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on, maintaining
+himself by small jobs of work in the intervals. By this time he had
+arrived at a seaport, and there he derived intelligence that persons
+answering somewhat to his description had emigrated a little time
+before. Then he said he would search no longer, and that he would go and
+settle in the district which he had had for some time in his mind.
+
+Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not pause,
+except for nights' lodgings, till he reached the town of Casterbridge,
+in a far distant part of Wessex.
+
+
+
+
+3.
+
+
+The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors was again carpeted with
+dust. The trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and
+where the Henchard family of three had once walked along, two persons
+not unconnected with the family walked now.
+
+The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character,
+even to the voices and rattle from the neighbouring village down,
+that it might for that matter have been the afternoon following the
+previously recorded episode. Change was only to be observed in details;
+but here it was obvious that a long procession of years had passed by.
+One of the two who walked the road was she who had figured as the young
+wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her face had lost much of
+its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural change; and though her
+hair had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than heretofore.
+She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion,
+also in black, appeared as a well-formed young woman about eighteen,
+completely possessed of that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is
+itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.
+
+A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard's
+grown-up daughter. While life's middle summer had set its hardening
+mark on the mother's face, her former spring-like specialities were
+transferred so dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child,
+that the absence of certain facts within her mother's knowledge from the
+girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those
+facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature's powers of continuity.
+
+They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was
+the act of simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand
+a withy basket of old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, which
+contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown.
+
+Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same track as
+formerly, and ascended to the fair. Here, too it was evident that the
+years had told. Certain mechanical improvements might have been noticed
+in the roundabouts and high-fliers, machines for testing rustic strength
+and weight, and in the erections devoted to shooting for nuts. But the
+real business of the fair had considerably dwindled. The new periodical
+great markets of neighbouring towns were beginning to interfere
+seriously with the trade carried on here for centuries. The pens for
+sheep, the tie-ropes for horses, were about half as long as they had
+been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers, and other
+such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far less
+numerous. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little
+distance, and then stood still.
+
+"Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to
+get onward?" said the maiden.
+
+"Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane," explained the other. "But I had a fancy
+for looking up here."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It was here I first met with Newson--on such a day as this."
+
+"First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now
+he's drowned and gone from us!" As she spoke the girl drew a card from
+her pocket and looked at it with a sigh. It was edged with black, and
+inscribed within a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, "In
+affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was unfortunately
+lost at sea, in the month of November 184--, aged forty-one years."
+
+"And it was here," continued her mother, with more hesitation, "that I
+last saw the relation we are going to look for--Mr. Michael Henchard."
+
+"What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told
+me."
+
+"He is, or was--for he may be dead--a connection by marriage," said her
+mother deliberately.
+
+"That's exactly what you have said a score of times before!" replied the
+young woman, looking about her inattentively. "He's not a near relation,
+I suppose?"
+
+"Not by any means."
+
+"He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of him?
+
+"He was."
+
+"I suppose he never knew me?" the girl innocently continued.
+
+Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered un-easily, "Of course
+not, Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way." She moved on to another part of
+the field.
+
+"It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think," the
+daughter observed, as she gazed round about. "People at fairs change
+like the leaves of trees; and I daresay you are the only one here to-day
+who was here all those years ago."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. Newson, as she now called herself,
+keenly eyeing something under a green bank a little way off. "See
+there."
+
+The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object pointed
+out was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a
+three-legged crock, kept hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over
+the pot stooped an old woman haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She
+stirred the contents of the pot with a large spoon, and occasionally
+croaked in a broken voice, "Good furmity sold here!"
+
+It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent--once thriving,
+cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with money--now tentless, dirty,
+owning no tables or benches, and having scarce any customers except
+two small whity-brown boys, who came up and asked for "A ha'p'orth,
+please--good measure," which she served in a couple of chipped yellow
+basins of commonest clay.
+
+"She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to
+draw nearer.
+
+"Don't speak to her--it isn't respectable!" urged the other.
+
+"I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here."
+
+The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured prints
+while her mother went forward. The old woman begged for the latter's
+custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's
+request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown in
+selling six-pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant widow
+had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoction
+of the former time, the hag opened a little basket behind the fire, and
+looking up slily, whispered, "Just a thought o' rum in it?--smuggled,
+you know--say two penn'orth--'twill make it slip down like cordial!"
+
+Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old trick, and
+shook her head with a meaning the old woman was far from translating.
+She pretended to eat a little of the furmity with the leaden spoon
+offered, and as she did so said blandly to the hag, "You've seen better
+days?"
+
+"Ah, ma'am--well ye may say it!" responded the old woman, opening the
+sluices of her heart forthwith. "I've stood in this fair-ground, maid,
+wife, and widow, these nine-and-thirty years, and in that time have
+known what it was to do business with the richest stomachs in the
+land! Ma'am you'd hardly believe that I was once the owner of a great
+pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the fair. Nobody could come,
+nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs. Goodenough's furmity.
+I knew the clergy's taste, the dandy gent's taste; I knew the town's
+taste, the country's taste. I even knowed the taste of the coarse
+shameless females. But Lord's my life--the world's no memory;
+straightforward dealings don't bring profit--'tis the sly and the
+underhand that get on in these times!"
+
+Mrs. Newson glanced round--her daughter was still bending over the
+distant stalls. "Can you call to mind," she said cautiously to the old
+woman, "the sale of a wife by her husband in your tent eighteen years
+ago to-day?"
+
+The hag reflected, and half shook her head. "If it had been a big
+thing I should have minded it in a moment," she said. "I can mind every
+serious fight o' married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even
+every pocket-picking--leastwise large ones--that 't has been my lot to
+witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?"
+
+"Well, yes. I think so."
+
+The furmity woman half shook her head again. "And yet," she said, "I do.
+At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o' the sort--a man in a
+cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e
+it head-room, we don't, such as that. The only reason why I can mind the
+man is that he came back here to the next year's fair, and told me quite
+private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was to say he had gone
+to--where?--Casterbridge--yes--to Casterbridge, said he. But, Lord's my
+life, I shouldn't ha' thought of it again!"
+
+Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small
+means afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that
+unscrupulous person's liquor her husband had been degraded. She briefly
+thanked her informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with,
+"Mother, do let's get on--it was hardly respectable for you to buy
+refreshments there. I see none but the lowest do."
+
+"I have learned what I wanted, however," said her mother quietly.
+"The last time our relative visited this fair he said he was living at
+Casterbridge. It is a long, long way from here, and it was many years
+ago that he said it, but there I think we'll go."
+
+With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the
+village, where they obtained a night's lodging.
+
+
+
+
+4.
+
+
+Henchard's wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in
+difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her
+daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis
+of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much
+older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An innocent
+maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations between the
+genial sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones that they had always
+appeared to be. The risk of endangering a child's strong affection by
+disturbing ideas which had grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard
+too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, indeed folly to think
+of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
+
+But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved daughter's heart by
+a revelation had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own
+part. Her simplicity--the original ground of Henchard's contempt for
+her--had allowed her to live on in the conviction that Newson
+had acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his
+purchase--though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were
+vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young
+matron could believe in the seriousness of such a transfer; and were
+there not numerous other instances of the same belief the thing might
+scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last peasant
+woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural
+records show.
+
+The history of Susan Henchard's adventures in the interim can be told
+in two or three sentences. Absolutely helpless she had been taken off
+to Canada where they had lived several years without any great worldly
+success, though she worked as hard as any woman could to keep their
+cottage cheerful and well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane was about twelve
+years old the three returned to England, and settled at Falmouth,
+where Newson made a living for a few years as boatman and general handy
+shoreman.
+
+He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during this period
+that Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom she confided her history
+ridiculed her grave acceptance of her position; and all was over with
+her peace of mind. When Newson came home at the end of one winter he saw
+that the delusion he had so carefully sustained had vanished for ever.
+
+There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her doubts
+if she could live with him longer. Newson left home again on the
+Newfoundland trade when the season came round. The vague news of his
+loss at sea a little later on solved a problem which had become torture
+to her meek conscience. She saw him no more.
+
+Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liege subjects of Labour, the
+England of those days was a continent, and a mile a geographical degree.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness. One day a month or
+so after receiving intelligence of Newson's death off the Bank of
+Newfoundland, when the girl was about eighteen, she was sitting on a
+willow chair in the cottage they still occupied, working twine nets for
+the fishermen. Her mother was in a back corner of the same room engaged
+in the same labour, and dropping the heavy wood needle she was filling
+she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully. The sun shone in at the door
+upon the young woman's head and hair, which was worn loose, so that the
+rays streamed into its depths as into a hazel copse. Her face, though
+somewhat wan and incomplete, possessed the raw materials of beauty in a
+promising degree. There was an under-handsomeness in it, struggling
+to reveal itself through the provisional curves of immaturity, and the
+casual disfigurements that resulted from the straitened circumstances of
+their lives. She was handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in the
+flesh. She possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the carking
+accidents of her daily existence could be evaded before the mobile parts
+of her countenance had settled to their final mould.
+
+The sight of the girl made her mother sad--not vaguely but by logical
+inference. They both were still in that strait-waistcoat of poverty from
+which she had tried so many times to be delivered for the girl's sake.
+The woman had long perceived how zealously and constantly the young mind
+of her companion was struggling for enlargement; and yet now, in
+her eighteenth year, it still remained but little unfolded. The
+desire--sober and repressed--of Elizabeth-Jane's heart was indeed to
+see, to hear, and to understand. How could she become a woman of wider
+knowledge, higher repute--"better," as she termed it--this was her
+constant inquiry of her mother. She sought further into things than
+other girls in her position ever did, and her mother groaned as she felt
+she could not aid in the search.
+
+The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost to them; and Susan's
+staunch, religious adherence to him as her husband in principle, till
+her views had been disturbed by enlightenment, was demanded no more. She
+asked herself whether the present moment, now that she was a free woman
+again, were not as opportune a one as she would find in a world where
+everything had been so inopportune, for making a desperate effort to
+advance Elizabeth. To pocket her pride and search for the first husband
+seemed, wisely or not, the best initiatory step. He had possibly drunk
+himself into his tomb. But he might, on the other hand, have had too
+much sense to do so; for in her time with him he had been given to bouts
+only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
+
+At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived, was
+unquestionable. The awkwardness of searching for him lay in enlightening
+Elizabeth, a proceeding which her mother could not endure to
+contemplate. She finally resolved to undertake the search without
+confiding to the girl her former relations with Henchard, leaving it to
+him if they found him to take what steps he might choose to that
+end. This will account for their conversation at the fair and the
+half-informed state at which Elizabeth was led onward.
+
+In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting solely to the
+dim light afforded of Henchard's whereabouts by the furmity woman. The
+strictest economy was indispensable. Sometimes they might have been seen
+on foot, sometimes on farmers' waggons, sometimes in carriers' vans; and
+thus they drew near to Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane discovered to her
+alarm that her mother's health was not what it once had been, and there
+was ever and anon in her talk that renunciatory tone which showed that,
+but for the girl, she would not be very sorry to quit a life she was
+growing thoroughly weary of.
+
+It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September and just before
+dusk, that they reached the summit of a hill within a mile of the place
+they sought. There were high banked hedges to the coach-road here,
+and they mounted upon the green turf within, and sat down. The spot
+commanded a full view of the town and its environs.
+
+"What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!" said Elizabeth-Jane, while
+her silent mother mused on other things than topography. "It is huddled
+all together; and it is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot
+of garden ground by a box-edging."
+
+Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most struck the eye
+in this antiquated borough, the borough of Casterbridge--at that time,
+recent as it was, untouched by the faintest sprinkle of modernism. It
+was compact as a box of dominoes. It had no suburbs--in the ordinary
+sense. Country and town met at a mathematical line.
+
+To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have appeared on
+this fine evening as a mosaic-work of subdued reds, browns, greys, and
+crystals, held together by a rectangular frame of deep green. To the
+level eye of humanity it stood as an indistinct mass behind a dense
+stockade of limes and chestnuts, set in the midst of miles of rotund
+down and concave field. The mass became gradually dissected by the
+vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and casements, the highest
+glazings shining bleared and bloodshot with the coppery fire they caught
+from the belt of sunlit cloud in the west.
+
+From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran avenues
+east, west, and south into the wide expanse of cornland and coomb to
+the distance of a mile or so. It was by one of these avenues that the
+pedestrians were about to enter. Before they had risen to proceed two
+men passed outside the hedge, engaged in argumentative conversation.
+
+"Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they receded, "those men mentioned the
+name of Henchard in their talk--the name of our relative?"
+
+"I thought so too," said Mrs. Newson.
+
+"That seems a hint to us that he is still here."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Shall I run after them, and ask them about him----"
+
+"No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse, or
+in the stocks, for all we know."
+
+"Dear me--why should you think that, mother?"
+
+"'Twas just something to say--that's all! But we must make private
+inquiries."
+
+Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The
+dense trees of the avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the
+open land on each side was still under a faint daylight, in other words,
+they passed down a midnight between two gloamings. The features of the
+town had a keen interest for Elizabeth's mother, now that the human side
+came to the fore. As soon as they had wandered about they could see that
+the stockade of gnarled trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself
+an avenue, standing on a low green bank or escarpment, with a ditch
+yet visible without. Within the avenue and bank was a wall more or
+less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed the abodes of the
+burghers.
+
+Though the two women did not know it these external features were but
+the ancient defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
+
+The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a
+sense of great smugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same
+time the unlighted country without strangely solitary and vacant in
+aspect, considering its nearness to life. The difference between burgh
+and champaign was increased, too, by sounds which now reached them above
+others--the notes of a brass band. The travellers returned into the High
+Street, where there were timber houses with overhanging stories,
+whose small-paned lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a
+drawing-string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved in the
+breeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief
+support from those adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with tiles,
+and tile roofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roof of thatch.
+
+The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town
+depended for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed
+in the shop windows. Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks,
+spades, mattocks, and hoes at the iron-monger's; bee-hives,
+butter-firkins, churns, milking stools and pails, hay-rakes,
+field-flagons, and seed-lips at the cooper's; cart-ropes and
+plough-harness at the saddler's; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at
+the wheelwright's and machinist's, horse-embrocations at the chemist's;
+at the glover's and leather-cutter's, hedging-gloves, thatchers'
+knee-caps, ploughmen's leggings, villagers' pattens and clogs.
+
+They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken
+into the darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest
+lamps sufficiently to show how completely the mortar from the joints
+of the stonework had been nibbled out by time and weather, which had
+planted in the crevices thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass
+almost as far up as the very battlements. From this tower the clock
+struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll with a peremptory
+clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was utilized by
+the inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No sooner did the
+deep notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts than a clatter
+of shutters arose through the whole length of the High Street. In a few
+minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the day.
+
+Other clocks struck eight from time to time--one gloomily from the gaol,
+another from the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of
+machinery, more audible than the note of the bell; a row of tall,
+varnished case-clocks from the interior of a clock-maker's shop joined
+in one after another just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a
+row of actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of the
+curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the Sicilian Mariners'
+Hymn; so that chronologists of the advanced school were appreciably on
+their way to the next hour before the whole business of the old one was
+satisfactorily wound up.
+
+In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves
+rolled up so high that the edge of her underlinen was visible, and her
+skirt tucked up through her pocket hole. She carried a load under her
+arm from which she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some
+other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled critically.
+The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her daughter that they had
+an appetite; and they inquired of the woman for the nearest baker's.
+
+"Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just
+now," she said, after directing them. "They can blare their trumpets
+and thump their drums, and have their roaring dinners"--waving her hand
+towards a point further along the street, where the brass band could be
+seen standing in front of an illuminated building--"but we must needs be
+put-to for want of a wholesome crust. There's less good bread than good
+beer in Casterbridge now."
+
+"And less good beer than swipes," said a man with his hands in his
+pockets.
+
+"How does it happen there's no good bread?" asked Mrs. Henchard.
+
+"Oh, 'tis the corn-factor--he's the man that our millers and bakers all
+deal wi', and he has sold 'em growed wheat, which they didn't know
+was growed, so they SAY, till the dough ran all over the ovens like
+quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet
+pudden inside. I've been a wife, and I've been a mother, and I never see
+such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.--But you must be
+a real stranger here not to know what's made all the poor volks' insides
+plim like blowed bladders this week?"
+
+"I am," said Elizabeth's mother shyly.
+
+Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future
+in this place, she withdrew with her daughter from the speaker's side.
+Getting a couple of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporary
+substitute for a meal, they next bent their steps instinctively to where
+the music was playing.
+
+
+
+
+5.
+
+
+A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now
+shaking the window-panes with the strains of "The Roast Beef of Old
+England."
+
+The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was
+the chief hotel in Casterbridge--namely, the King's Arms. A spacious
+bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from the
+open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the
+drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole
+interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of
+stone steps to the road-waggon office opposite, for which reason a knot
+of idlers had gathered there.
+
+"We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about--our
+relation Mr. Henchard," whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry
+into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and agitated, "And this, I
+think, would be a good place for trying it--just to ask, you know,
+how he stands in the town--if he is here, as I think he must be. You,
+Elizabeth-Jane, had better be the one to do it. I'm too worn out to do
+anything--pull down your fall first."
+
+She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed her
+directions and stood among the idlers.
+
+"What's going on to-night?" asked the girl, after singling out an old
+man and standing by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right of
+converse.
+
+"Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said the old man, without taking
+his eyes from the window. "Why, 'tis a great public dinner of the
+gentle-people and such like leading volk--wi' the Mayor in the chair. As
+we plainer fellows bain't invited, they leave the winder-shutters open
+that we may get jist a sense o't out here. If you mount the steps you
+can see em. That's Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the table, a
+facing ye; and that's the Council men right and left....Ah, lots of them
+when they begun life were no more than I be now!"
+
+"Henchard!" said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means suspecting
+the whole force of the revelation. She ascended to the top of the steps.
+
+Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the
+inn-window tones that strangely riveted her attention, before the old
+man's words, "Mr. Henchard, the Mayor," reached her ears. She arose,
+and stepped up to her daughter's side as soon as she could do so without
+showing exceptional eagerness.
+
+The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before her, with
+its tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in the
+chair of dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; of heavy frame,
+large features, and commanding voice; his general build being rather
+coarse than compact. He had a rich complexion, which verged on
+swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark, bushy brows and hair. When
+he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some remark among the
+guests, his large mouth parted so far back as to show to the rays of the
+chandelier a full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound white teeth
+that he obviously still could boast of.
+
+That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it may have been
+well that it was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon
+it. It fell in well with conjectures of a temperament which would have
+no pity for weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration
+to greatness and strength. Its producer's personal goodness, if he had
+any, would be of a very fitful cast--an occasional almost oppressive
+generosity rather than a mild and constant kindness.
+
+Susan Henchard's husband--in law, at least--sat before them, matured
+in shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined,
+thought-marked--in a word, older. Elizabeth, encumbered with no
+recollections as her mother was, regarded him with nothing more than
+the keen curiosity and interest which the discovery of such unexpected
+social standing in the long-sought relative naturally begot. He was
+dressed in an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt
+showing on his broad breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy gold chain.
+Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to his wife's surprise, the
+two for wine were empty, while the third, a tumbler, was half full of
+water.
+
+When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy jacket, fustian
+waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather leggings, with a basin of hot
+furmity before him. Time, the magician, had wrought much here. Watching
+him, and thus thinking of past days, she became so moved that she shrank
+back against the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which the steps
+gave access, the shadow from it conveniently hiding her features. She
+forgot her daughter till a touch from Elizabeth-Jane aroused her. "Have
+you seen him, mother?" whispered the girl.
+
+"Yes, yes," answered her companion hastily. "I have seen him, and it is
+enough for me! Now I only want to go--pass away--die."
+
+"Why--O what?" She drew closer, and whispered in her mother's ear, "Does
+he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thought he looked a generous
+man. What a gentleman he is, isn't he? and how his diamond studs shine!
+How strange that you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in
+the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by contraries! Why do
+you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I'll call upon him--he can
+but say he don't own such remote kin."
+
+"I don't know at all--I can't tell what to set about. I feel so down."
+
+"Don't be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest there where
+you be a little while--I will look on and find out more about him."
+
+"I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he
+would be--he overpowers me! I don't wish to see him any more."
+
+"But wait a little time and consider."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her life
+as in their present position, partly from the natural elation she felt
+at discovering herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the
+scene. The younger guests were talking and eating with animation; their
+elders were searching for titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their
+plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed to be sacred
+to the company--port, sherry, and rum; outside which old-established
+trinity few or no palates ranged.
+
+A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each
+primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were
+promptly filled with grog at such high temperatures as to raise
+serious considerations for the articles exposed to its vapours. But
+Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this filling went on with great
+promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor's glass, who
+still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler behind the clump
+of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.
+
+"They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine-glasses," she ventured to say to
+her elbow acquaintance, the old man.
+
+"Ah, no; don't ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of
+that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. O
+yes, he've strong qualities that way. I have heard tell that he sware
+a gospel oath in bygone times, and has bode by it ever since. So they
+don't press him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that: for
+yer gospel oath is a serious thing."
+
+Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by inquiring,
+"How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon Longways?"
+
+"Another two year, they say. I don't know the why and the wherefore of
+his fixing such a time, for 'a never has told anybody. But 'tis exactly
+two calendar years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so
+long!"
+
+"True....But there's great strength in hope. Knowing that in
+four-and-twenty months' time ye'll be out of your bondage, and able to
+make up for all you've suffered, by partaking without stint--why, it
+keeps a man up, no doubt."
+
+"No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And 'a must need such
+reflections--a lonely widow man," said Longways.
+
+"When did he lose his wife?" asked Elizabeth.
+
+"I never knowed her. 'Twas afore he came to Casterbridge," Solomon
+Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his
+ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her history of all
+interest. "But I know that 'a's a banded teetotaller, and that if any of
+his men be ever so little overtook by a drop he's down upon 'em as stern
+as the Lord upon the jovial Jews."
+
+"Has he many men, then?" said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Many! Why, my good maid, he's the powerfullest member of the Town
+Council, and quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never
+a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but
+Henchard's got a hand in it. Ay, and he'll go into other things too;
+and that's where he makes his mistake. He worked his way up from nothing
+when 'a came here; and now he's a pillar of the town. Not but what he's
+been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has supplied in
+his contracts. I've seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor these
+nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me
+unfairly ever since I've worked for'n, seeing I be but a little small
+man, I must say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has
+been made from Henchard's wheat lately. 'Tis that growed out that ye
+could a'most call it malt, and there's a list at bottom o' the loaf as
+thick as the sole of one's shoe."
+
+The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it was ended the
+dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The evening being calm,
+and the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly heard.
+Henchard's voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his
+hay-dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had
+been bent upon outwitting him.
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!" responded his audience at the upshot of the story; and
+hilarity was general till a new voice arose with, "This is all very
+well; but how about the bad bread?"
+
+It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a group of
+minor tradesmen who, although part of the company, appeared to be a
+little below the social level of the others; and who seemed to nourish
+a certain independence of opinion and carry on discussions not quite
+in harmony with those at the head; just as the west end of a church
+is sometimes persistently found to sing out of time and tune with the
+leading spirits in the chancel.
+
+This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite satisfaction to
+the loungers outside, several of whom were in the mood which finds its
+pleasure in others' discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely,
+"Hey! How about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor?" Moreover, feeling none of the
+restraints of those who shared the feast, they could afford to add, "You
+rather ought to tell the story o' that, sir!"
+
+The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.
+
+"Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly," he said. "But I was
+taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who bought it o' me."
+
+"And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no," said the
+inharmonious man outside the window.
+
+Henchard's face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland
+surface--the temper which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife
+nearly a score of years before.
+
+"You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business," he
+said. "You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of
+that corn was worse than we have known it for years. However, I have
+mended my arrangements on account o't. Since I have found my business
+too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for
+a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When I've got
+him you will find these mistakes will no longer occur--matters will be
+better looked into."
+
+"But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?" inquired the
+man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller. "Will
+you replace the grown flour we've still got by sound grain?"
+
+Henchard's face had become still more stern at these interruptions, and
+he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm himself or gain time.
+Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed--
+
+"If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat
+I'll take it back with pleasure. But it can't be done."
+
+Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this, he sat down.
+
+
+
+
+6.
+
+
+Now the group outside the window had within the last few minutes been
+reinforced by new arrivals, some of them respectable shopkeepers and
+their assistants, who had come out for a whiff of air after putting up
+the shutters for the night; some of them of a lower class. Distinct from
+either there appeared a stranger--a young man of remarkably pleasant
+aspect--who carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the smart floral pattern
+prevalent in such articles at that time.
+
+He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed, and slight in
+build. He might possibly have passed by without stopping at all, or at
+most for half a minute to glance in at the scene, had not his advent
+coincided with the discussion on corn and bread, in which event this
+history had never been enacted. But the subject seemed to arrest him,
+and he whispered some inquiries of the other bystanders, and remained
+listening.
+
+When he heard Henchard's closing words, "It can't be done," he smiled
+impulsively, drew out his pocketbook, and wrote down a few words by
+the aid of the light in the window. He tore out the leaf, folded and
+directed it, and seemed about to throw it in through the open sash upon
+the dining-table; but, on second thoughts, edged himself through the
+loiterers, till he reached the door of the hotel, where one of the
+waiters who had been serving inside was now idly leaning against the
+doorpost.
+
+"Give this to the Mayor at once," he said, handing in his hasty note.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words, which
+attracted her both by their subject and by their accent--a strange one
+for those parts. It was quaint and northerly.
+
+The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued--
+
+"And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that's a little more moderate
+than this?"
+
+The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.
+
+"They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very good place," he
+languidly answered; "but I have never stayed there myself."
+
+The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled on in the
+direction of the Three Mariners aforesaid, apparently more concerned
+about the question of an inn than about the fate of his note, now that
+the momentary impulse of writing it was over. While he was disappearing
+slowly down the street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane saw
+with some interest the note brought into the dining-room and handed to
+the Mayor.
+
+Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand, and glanced
+it through. Thereupon it was curious to note an unexpected effect. The
+nettled, clouded aspect which had held possession of his face since the
+subject of his corn-dealings had been broached, changed itself into one
+of arrested attention. He read the note slowly, and fell into thought,
+not moody, but fitfully intense, as that of a man who has been captured
+by an idea.
+
+By this time toasts and speeches had given place to songs, the wheat
+subject being quite forgotten. Men were putting their heads together in
+twos and threes, telling good stories, with pantomimic laughter which
+reached convulsive grimace. Some were beginning to look as if they did
+not know how they had come there, what they had come for, or how they
+were going to get home again; and provisionally sat on with a dazed
+smile. Square-built men showed a tendency to become hunchbacks; men with
+a dignified presence lost it in a curious obliquity of figure, in which
+their features grew disarranged and one-sided, whilst the heads of a few
+who had dined with extreme thoroughness were somehow sinking into their
+shoulders, the corners of their mouth and eyes being bent upwards by the
+subsidence. Only Henchard did not conform to these flexuous changes; he
+remained stately and vertical, silently thinking.
+
+The clock struck nine. Elizabeth-Jane turned to her companion. "The
+evening is drawing on, mother," she said. "What do you propose to do?"
+
+She was surprised to find how irresolute her mother had become. "We must
+get a place to lie down in," she murmured. "I have seen--Mr. Henchard;
+and that's all I wanted to do."
+
+"That's enough for to-night, at any rate," Elizabeth-Jane replied
+soothingly. "We can think to-morrow what is best to do about him. The
+question now is--is it not?--how shall we find a lodging?"
+
+As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane's mind reverted to the words
+of the waiter, that the Three Mariners was an inn of moderate charges. A
+recommendation good for one person was probably good for another. "Let's
+go where the young man has gone to," she said. "He is respectable. What
+do you say?"
+
+Her mother assented, and down the street they went.
+
+In the meantime the Mayor's thoughtfulness, engendered by the note as
+stated, continued to hold him in abstraction; till, whispering to his
+neighbour to take his place, he found opportunity to leave the chair.
+This was just after the departure of his wife and Elizabeth.
+
+Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter, and beckoning
+to him asked who had brought the note which had been handed in a quarter
+of an hour before.
+
+"A young man, sir--a sort of traveller. He was a Scotchman seemingly."
+
+"Did he say how he had got it?"
+
+"He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window."
+
+"Oh--wrote it himself....Is the young man in the hotel?"
+
+"No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners, I believe."
+
+The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of the hotel with his hands
+under his coat tails, as if he were merely seeking a cooler atmosphere
+than that of the room he had quitted. But there could be no doubt that
+he was in reality still possessed to the full by the new idea, whatever
+that might be. At length he went back to the door of the dining-room,
+paused, and found that the songs, toasts, and conversation were
+proceeding quite satisfactorily without his presence. The Corporation,
+private residents, and major and minor tradesmen had, in fact, gone
+in for comforting beverages to such an extent that they had quite
+forgotten, not only the Mayor, but all those vast, political, religious,
+and social differences which they felt necessary to maintain in the
+daytime, and which separated them like iron grills. Seeing this the
+Mayor took his hat, and when the waiter had helped him on with a thin
+holland overcoat, went out and stood under the portico.
+
+Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes, by a sort of
+attraction, turned and dwelt upon a spot about a hundred yards further
+down. It was the house to which the writer of the note had gone--the
+Three Mariners--whose two prominent Elizabethan gables, bow-window, and
+passage-light could be seen from where he stood. Having kept his eyes on
+it for a while he strolled in that direction.
+
+This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, now,
+unfortunately, pulled down, was built of mellow sandstone, with
+mullioned windows of the same material, markedly out of perpendicular
+from the settlement of foundations. The bay window projecting into the
+street, whose interior was so popular among the frequenters of the
+inn, was closed with shutters, in each of which appeared a heart-shaped
+aperture, somewhat more attenuated in the right and left ventricles
+than is seen in Nature. Inside these illuminated holes, at a distance of
+about three inches, were ranged at this hour, as every passer knew, the
+ruddy polls of Billy Wills the glazier, Smart the shoemaker, Buzzford
+the general dealer, and others of a secondary set of worthies, of a
+grade somewhat below that of the diners at the King's Arms, each with
+his yard of clay.
+
+A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, and over the arch
+the signboard, now visible in the rays of an opposite lamp. Hereon
+the Mariners, who had been represented by the artist as persons of two
+dimensions only--in other words, flat as a shadow--were standing in a
+row in paralyzed attitudes. Being on the sunny side of the street the
+three comrades had suffered largely from warping, splitting, fading, and
+shrinkage, so that they were but a half-invisible film upon the reality
+of the grain, and knots, and nails, which composed the signboard. As a
+matter of fact, this state of things was not so much owing to Stannidge
+the landlord's neglect, as from the lack of a painter in Casterbridge
+who would undertake to reproduce the features of men so traditional.
+
+A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to the inn, within which
+passage the horses going to their stalls at the back, and the coming and
+departing human guests, rubbed shoulders indiscriminately, the latter
+running no slight risk of having their toes trodden upon by the animals.
+The good stabling and the good ale of the Mariners, though somewhat
+difficult to reach on account of there being but this narrow way to
+both, were nevertheless perseveringly sought out by the sagacious old
+heads who knew what was what in Casterbridge.
+
+Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants; then lowering the
+dignity of his presence as much as possible by buttoning the brown
+holland coat over his shirt-front, and in other ways toning himself down
+to his ordinary everyday appearance, he entered the inn door.
+
+
+
+
+7.
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twenty minutes earlier.
+Outside the house they had stood and considered whether even this homely
+place, though recommended as moderate, might not be too serious in its
+prices for their light pockets. Finally, however, they had found courage
+to enter, and duly met Stannidge the landlord, a silent man, who drew
+and carried frothing measures to this room and to that, shoulder to
+shoulder with his waiting-maids--a stately slowness, however, entering
+into his ministrations by contrast with theirs, as became one whose
+service was somewhat optional. It would have been altogether optional
+but for the orders of the landlady, a person who sat in the bar,
+corporeally motionless, but with a flitting eye and quick ear, with
+which she observed and heard through the open door and hatchway the
+pressing needs of customers whom her husband overlooked though close at
+hand. Elizabeth and her mother were passively accepted as sojourners,
+and shown to a small bedroom under one of the gables, where they sat
+down.
+
+The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensate for the antique
+awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurity of the passages, floors, and
+windows, by quantities of clean linen spread about everywhere, and this
+had a dazzling effect upon the travellers.
+
+"'Tis too good for us--we can't meet it!" said the elder woman, looking
+round the apartment with misgiving as soon as they were left alone.
+
+"I fear it is, too," said Elizabeth. "But we must be respectable."
+
+"We must pay our way even before we must be respectable," replied her
+mother. "Mr. Henchard is too high for us to make ourselves known to him,
+I much fear; so we've only our own pockets to depend on."
+
+"I know what I'll do," said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval of waiting,
+during which their needs seemed quite forgotten under the press of
+business below. And leaving the room, she descended the stairs and
+penetrated to the bar.
+
+If there was one good thing more than another which characterized this
+single-hearted girl it was a willingness to sacrifice her personal
+comfort and dignity to the common weal.
+
+"As you seem busy here to-night, and mother's not well off, might I take
+out part of our accommodation by helping?" she asked of the landlady.
+
+The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she had been
+melted into it when in a liquid state, and could not now be unstuck,
+looked the girl up and down inquiringly, with her hands on the
+chair-arms. Such arrangements as the one Elizabeth proposed were
+not uncommon in country villages; but, though Casterbridge was
+old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The mistress
+of the house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made no
+objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motions
+from the taciturn landlord as to where she could find the different
+things, trotted up and down stairs with materials for her own and her
+parent's meal.
+
+While she was doing this the wood partition in the centre of the house
+thrilled to its centre with the tugging of a bell-pull upstairs. A bell
+below tinkled a note that was feebler in sound than the twanging of
+wires and cranks that had produced it.
+
+"'Tis the Scotch gentleman," said the landlady omnisciently; and turning
+her eyes to Elizabeth, "Now then, can you go and see if his supper is on
+the tray? If it is you can take it up to him. The front room over this."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponed serving herself
+awhile, and applied to the cook in the kitchen whence she brought
+forth the tray of supper viands, and proceeded with it upstairs to the
+apartment indicated. The accommodation of the Three Mariners was far
+from spacious, despite the fair area of ground it covered. The
+room demanded by intrusive beams and rafters, partitions, passages,
+staircases, disused ovens, settles, and four-posters, left comparatively
+small quarters for human beings. Moreover, this being at a time before
+home-brewing was abandoned by the smaller victuallers, and a house in
+which the twelve-bushel strength was still religiously adhered to by the
+landlord in his ale, the quality of the liquor was the chief attraction
+of the premises, so that everything had to make way for utensils and
+operations in connection therewith. Thus Elizabeth found that the
+Scotchman was located in a room quite close to the small one that had
+been allotted to herself and her mother.
+
+When she entered nobody was present but the young man himself--the
+same whom she had seen lingering without the windows of the King's Arms
+Hotel. He was now idly reading a copy of the local paper, and was hardly
+conscious of her entry, so that she looked at him quite coolly, and saw
+how his forehead shone where the light caught it, and how nicely his
+hair was cut, and the sort of velvet-pile or down that was on the skin
+at the back of his neck, and how his cheek was so truly curved as to be
+part of a globe, and how clearly drawn were the lids and lashes which
+hid his bent eyes.
+
+She set down the tray, spread his supper, and went away without a word.
+On her arrival below the landlady, who was as kind as she was fat
+and lazy, saw that Elizabeth-Jane was rather tired, though in her
+earnestness to be useful she was waiving her own needs altogether. Mrs.
+Stannidge thereupon said with a considerate peremptoriness that she and
+her mother had better take their own suppers if they meant to have any.
+
+Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as she had fetched the
+Scotchman's, and went up to the little chamber where she had left her
+mother, noiselessly pushing open the door with the edge of the tray. To
+her surprise her mother, instead of being reclined on the bed where she
+had left her was in an erect position, with lips parted. At Elizabeth's
+entry she lifted her finger.
+
+The meaning of this was soon apparent. The room allotted to the two
+women had at one time served as a dressing-room to the Scotchman's
+chamber, as was evidenced by signs of a door of communication between
+them--now screwed up and pasted over with the wall paper. But, as is
+frequently the case with hotels of far higher pretensions than the Three
+Mariners, every word spoken in either of these rooms was distinctly
+audible in the other. Such sounds came through now.
+
+Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her mother
+whispered as she drew near, "'Tis he."
+
+"Who?" said the girl.
+
+"The Mayor."
+
+The tremors in Susan Henchard's tone might have led any person but one
+so perfectly unsuspicious of the truth as the girl was, to surmise
+some closer connection than the admitted simple kinship as a means of
+accounting for them.
+
+Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber, the young
+Scotchman and Henchard, who, having entered the inn while Elizabeth-Jane
+was in the kitchen waiting for the supper, had been deferentially
+conducted upstairs by host Stannidge himself. The girl noiselessly laid
+out their little meal, and beckoned to her mother to join her, which
+Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her attention being fixed on the
+conversation through the door.
+
+"I merely strolled in on my way home to ask you a question about
+something that has excited my curiosity," said the Mayor, with careless
+geniality. "But I see you have not finished supper."
+
+"Ay, but I will be done in a little! Ye needn't go, sir. Take a seat.
+I've almost done, and it makes no difference at all."
+
+Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in a moment he resumed:
+"Well, first I should ask, did you write this?" A rustling of paper
+followed.
+
+"Yes, I did," said the Scotchman.
+
+"Then," said Henchard, "I am under the impression that we have met by
+accident while waiting for the morning to keep an appointment with each
+other? My name is Henchard, ha'n't you replied to an advertisement for a
+corn-factor's manager that I put into the paper--ha'n't you come here to
+see me about it?"
+
+"No," said the Scotchman, with some surprise.
+
+"Surely you are the man," went on Henchard insistingly, "who arranged to
+come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp--Jopp--what was his name?"
+
+"You're wrong!" said the young man. "My name is Donald Farfrae. It is
+true I am in the corren trade--but I have replied to no advertisement,
+and arranged to see no one. I am on my way to Bristol--from there to the
+other side of the warrld, to try my fortune in the great wheat-growing
+districts of the West! I have some inventions useful to the trade, and
+there is no scope for developing them heere."
+
+"To America--well, well," said Henchard, in a tone of disappointment, so
+strong as to make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. "And yet I could
+have sworn you were the man!"
+
+The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a silence, till
+Henchard resumed: "Then I am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the
+few words you wrote on that paper."
+
+"It was nothing, sir."
+
+"Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row about my
+grown wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn't know to be bad till the
+people came complaining, has put me to my wits' end. I've some hundreds
+of quarters of it on hand; and if your renovating process will make it
+wholesome, why, you can see what a quag 'twould get me out of. I saw
+in a moment there might be truth in it. But I should like to have it
+proved; and of course you don't care to tell the steps of the process
+sufficiently for me to do that, without my paying ye well for't first."
+
+The young man reflected a moment or two. "I don't know that I have any
+objection," he said. "I'm going to another country, and curing bad
+corn is not the line I'll take up there. Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of
+it--you'll make more out of it heere than I will in a foreign country.
+Just look heere a minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in my
+carpet-bag."
+
+The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and rustling;
+then a discussion about so many ounces to the bushel, and drying, and
+refrigerating, and so on.
+
+"These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with," came in the young
+fellow's voice; and after a pause, during which some operation seemed
+to be intently watched by them both, he exclaimed, "There, now, do you
+taste that."
+
+"It's complete!--quite restored, or--well--nearly."
+
+"Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it," said the
+Scotchman. "To fetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won't stand
+so much as that, but heere you go a great way towards it. Well, sir,
+that's the process, I don't value it, for it can be but of little use
+in countries where the weather is more settled than in ours; and I'll be
+only too glad if it's of service to you."
+
+"But hearken to me," pleaded Henchard. "My business you know, is in corn
+and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply, and hay is
+what I understand best though I now do more in corn than in the other.
+If you'll accept the place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely,
+and receive a commission in addition to salary."
+
+"You're liberal--very liberal, but no, no--I cannet!" the young man
+still replied, with some distress in his accents.
+
+"So be it!" said Henchard conclusively. "Now--to change the subject--one
+good turn deserves another; don't stay to finish that miserable supper.
+Come to my house, I can find something better for 'ee than cold ham and
+ale."
+
+Donald Farfrae was grateful--said he feared he must decline--that he
+wished to leave early next day.
+
+"Very well," said Henchard quickly, "please yourself. But I tell you,
+young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it has done for the
+sample, you have saved my credit, stranger though you be. What shall I
+pay you for this knowledge?"
+
+"Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary to ye to use
+it often, and I don't value it at all. I thought I might just as well
+let ye know, as you were in a difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye."
+
+Henchard paused. "I shan't soon forget this," he said. "And from a
+stranger!... I couldn't believe you were not the man I had engaged! Says
+I to myself, 'He knows who I am, and recommends himself by this stroke.'
+And yet it turns out, after all, that you are not the man who answered
+my advertisement, but a stranger!"
+
+"Ay, ay; that's so," said the young man.
+
+Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came
+thoughtfully: "Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my poor
+brother's--now dead and gone; and the nose, too, isn't unlike his. You
+must be, what--five foot nine, I reckon? I am six foot one and a half
+out of my shoes. But what of that? In my business, 'tis true that
+strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what
+keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae; bad at
+figures--a rule o' thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse--I can
+see that. I have been looking for such as you these two year, and yet
+you are not for me. Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though you are
+not the young man I thought you were, what's the difference? Can't
+ye stay just the same? Have you really made up your mind about this
+American notion? I won't mince matters. I feel you would be invaluable
+to me--that needn't be said--and if you will bide and be my manager, I
+will make it worth your while."
+
+"My plans are fixed," said the young man, in negative tones. "I have
+formed a scheme, and so we need na say any more about it. But will you
+not drink with me, sir? I find this Casterbridge ale warreming to the
+stomach."
+
+"No, no; I fain would, but I can't," said Henchard gravely, the scraping
+of his chair informing the listeners that he was rising to leave. "When
+I was a young man I went in for that sort of thing too strong--far too
+strong--and was well-nigh ruined by it! I did a deed on account of it
+which I shall be ashamed of to my dying day. It made such an impression
+on me that I swore, there and then, that I'd drink nothing stronger than
+tea for as many years as I was old that day. I have kept my oath; and
+though, Farfrae, I am sometimes that dry in the dog days that I could
+drink a quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think o' my oath, and touch no
+strong drink at all."
+
+"I'll no' press ye, sir--I'll no' press ye. I respect your vow."
+
+"Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt," said Henchard, with
+strong feeling in his tones. "But it will be long before I see one that
+would suit me so well!"
+
+The young man appeared much moved by Henchard's warm convictions of
+his value. He was silent till they reached the door. "I wish I could
+stay--sincerely I would like to," he replied. "But no--it cannet be! it
+cannet! I want to see the warrld."
+
+
+
+
+8.
+
+
+Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained each in her
+thoughts over their meal, the mother's face being strangely bright
+since Henchard's avowal of shame for a past action. The quivering of the
+partition to its core presently denoted that Donald Farfrae had again
+rung his bell, no doubt to have his supper removed; for humming a tune,
+and walking up and down, he seemed to be attracted by the lively bursts
+of conversation and melody from the general company below. He sauntered
+out upon the landing, and descended the staircase.
+
+When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and also that used
+by her mother and herself, she found the bustle of serving to be at its
+height below, as it always was at this hour. The young woman shrank from
+having anything to do with the ground-floor serving, and crept silently
+about observing the scene--so new to her, fresh from the seclusion of
+a seaside cottage. In the general sitting-room, which was large, she
+remarked the two or three dozen strong-backed chairs that stood round
+against the wall, each fitted with its genial occupant; the sanded
+floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the wall within
+the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator of all that went on
+without herself being particularly seen.
+
+The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in addition to
+the respectable master-tradesmen occupying the seats of privileges in
+the bow-window and its neighbourhood, included an inferior set at the
+unlighted end, whose seats were mere benches against the wall, and who
+drank from cups instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed
+some of those personages who had stood outside the windows of the King's
+Arms.
+
+Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel ventilator in one
+of the panes, which would suddenly start off spinning with a jingling
+sound, as suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again.
+
+While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song
+greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent
+of peculiar charm. There had been some singing before she came down; and
+now the Scotchman had made himself so soon at home that, at the request
+of some of the master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a
+ditty.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen;
+and the longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never
+heard any singing like this and it was evident that the majority of the
+audience had not heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a
+much greater degree than usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor
+dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten them, nor pushed the mug
+to their neighbours. The singer himself grew emotional, till she could
+imagine a tear in his eye as the words went on:--
+
+     "It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain would I be,
+     O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
+     There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
+     As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;
+     When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
+     The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!"
+
+There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was even more
+eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of a
+pipe-stem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those
+gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent
+act. Then the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off
+for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald's song was temporarily effaced.
+
+"'Twas not amiss--not at all amiss!" muttered Christopher Coney, who was
+also present. And removing his pipe a finger's breadth from his lips, he
+said aloud, "Draw on with the next verse, young gentleman, please."
+
+"Yes. Let's have it again, stranger," said the glazier, a stout,
+bucket-headed man, with a white apron rolled up round his waist. "Folks
+don't lift up their hearts like that in this part of the world." And
+turning aside, he said in undertones, "Who is the young man?--Scotch,
+d'ye say?"
+
+"Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe," replied
+Coney.
+
+Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that nothing so
+pathetic had been heard at the Three Mariners for a considerable time.
+The difference of accent, the excitability of the singer, the intense
+local feeling, and the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a
+climax, surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to shut
+up their emotions with caustic words.
+
+"Danged if our country down here is worth singing about like that!"
+continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying
+fall, "My ain countree!" "When you take away from among us the fools
+and the rogues, and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the
+slatterns, and such like, there's cust few left to ornament a song with
+in Casterbridge, or the country round."
+
+"True," said Buzzford, the dealer, looking at the grain of the table.
+"Casterbridge is a old, hoary place o' wickedness, by all account. 'Tis
+recorded in history that we rebelled against the King one or two hundred
+years ago, in the time of the Romans, and that lots of us was hanged
+on Gallows Hill, and quartered, and our different jints sent about the
+country like butcher's meat; and for my part I can well believe it."
+
+"What did ye come away from yer own country for, young maister, if ye be
+so wownded about it?" inquired Christopher Coney, from the background,
+with the tone of a man who preferred the original subject. "Faith, it
+wasn't worth your while on our account, for as Maister Billy Wills says,
+we be bruckle folk here--the best o' us hardly honest sometimes, what
+with hard winters, and so many mouths to fill, and Goda'mighty sending
+his little taties so terrible small to fill 'em with. We don't
+think about flowers and fair faces, not we--except in the shape o'
+cauliflowers and pigs' chaps."
+
+"But, no!" said Donald Farfrae, gazing round into their faces with
+earnest concern; "the best of ye hardly honest--not that surely? None of
+ye has been stealing what didn't belong to him?"
+
+"Lord! no, no!" said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly. "That's only his
+random way o' speaking. 'A was always such a man of underthoughts." (And
+reprovingly towards Christopher): "Don't ye be so over-familiar with a
+gentleman that ye know nothing of--and that's travelled a'most from the
+North Pole."
+
+Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no public sympathy,
+he mumbled his feelings to himself: "Be dazed, if I loved my country
+half as well as the young feller do, I'd live by claning my neighbour's
+pigsties afore I'd go away! For my part I've no more love for my country
+than I have for Botany Bay!"
+
+"Come," said Longways; "let the young man draw onward with his ballet,
+or we shall be here all night."
+
+"That's all of it," said the singer apologetically.
+
+"Soul of my body, then we'll have another!" said the general dealer.
+
+"Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?" inquired a fat woman with
+a figured purple apron, the waiststring of which was overhung so far by
+her sides as to be invisible.
+
+"Let him breathe--let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom. He hain't got his
+second wind yet," said the master glazier.
+
+"Oh yes, but I have!" exclaimed the young man; and he at once rendered
+"O Nannie" with faultless modulations, and another or two of the like
+sentiment, winding up at their earnest request with "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+By this time he had completely taken possession of the hearts of the
+Three Mariners' inmates, including even old Coney. Notwithstanding an
+occasional odd gravity which awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the
+moment, they began to view him through a golden haze which the tone
+of his mind seemed to raise around him. Casterbridge had
+sentiment--Casterbridge had romance; but this stranger's sentiment was
+of differing quality. Or rather, perhaps, the difference was mainly
+superficial; he was to them like the poet of a new school who takes
+his contemporaries by storm; who is not really new, but is the first
+to articulate what all his listeners have felt, though but dumbly till
+then.
+
+The silent landlord came and leant over the settle while the young
+man sang; and even Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick herself from the
+framework of her chair in the bar and get as far as the door-post,
+which movement she accomplished by rolling herself round, as a cask
+is trundled on the chine by a drayman without losing much of its
+perpendicular.
+
+"And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?" she asked.
+
+"Ah--no!" said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in his voice,
+"I'm only passing thirrough! I am on my way to Bristol, and on frae
+there to foreign parts."
+
+"We be truly sorry to hear it," said Solomon Longways. "We can ill
+afford to lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when they fall among us.
+And verily, to mak' acquaintance with a man a-come from so far, from the
+land o' perpetual snow, as we may say, where wolves and wild boars and
+other dangerous animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about--why,
+'tis a thing we can't do every day; and there's good sound information
+for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens his mouth."
+
+"Nay, but ye mistake my country," said the young man, looking round upon
+them with tragic fixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek kindled
+with a sudden enthusiasm to right their errors. "There are not perpetual
+snow and wolves at all in it!--except snow in winter, and--well--a
+little in summer just sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two stalking
+about here and there, if ye may call them dangerous. Eh, but you should
+take a summer jarreny to Edinboro', and Arthur's Seat, and all round
+there, and then go on to the lochs, and all the Highland scenery--in May
+and June--and you would never say 'tis the land of wolves and perpetual
+snow!"
+
+"Of course not--it stands to reason," said Buzzford. "'Tis barren
+ignorance that leads to such words. He's a simple home-spun man, that
+never was fit for good company--think nothing of him, sir."
+
+"And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your crock, and
+your bit of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as I may say?" inquired
+Christopher Coney.
+
+"I've sent on my luggage--though it isn't much; for the voyage is long."
+Donald's eyes dropped into a remote gaze as he added: "But I said to
+myself, 'Never a one of the prizes of life will I come by unless I
+undertake it!' and I decided to go."
+
+A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared not least,
+made itself apparent in the company. As she looked at Farfrae from the
+back of the settle she decided that his statements showed him to be no
+less thoughtful than his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial
+and impassioned. She admired the serious light in which he looked at
+serious things. He had seen no jest in ambiguities and roguery, as the
+Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and rightly not--there was none. She
+disliked those wretched humours of Christopher Coney and his tribe; and
+he did not appreciate them. He seemed to feel exactly as she felt about
+life and its surroundings--that they were a tragical rather than a
+comical thing; that though one could be gay on occasion, moments
+of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actual drama. It was
+extraordinary how similar their views were.
+
+Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his wish to
+retire, whereupon the landlady whispered to Elizabeth to run upstairs
+and turn down his bed. She took a candlestick and proceeded on her
+mission, which was the act of a few moments only. When, candle in hand,
+she reached the top of the stairs on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae
+was at the foot coming up. She could not very well retreat; they met and
+passed in the turn of the staircase.
+
+She must have appeared interesting in some way--not-withstanding her
+plain dress--or rather, possibly, in consequence of it, for she was
+a girl characterized by earnestness and soberness of mien, with which
+simple drapery accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight
+awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes bent on the
+candle-flame that she carried just below her nose. Thus it happened
+that when confronting her he smiled; and then, with the manner of a
+temporarily light-hearted man, who has started himself on a flight of
+song whose momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old
+ditty that she seemed to suggest--
+
+         "As I came in by my bower door,
+            As day was waxin' wearie,
+         Oh wha came tripping down the stair
+            But bonnie Peg my dearie."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the Scotchman's
+voice died away, humming more of the same within the closed door of his
+room.
+
+Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present. When soon after,
+the girl rejoined her mother, the latter was still in thought--on quite
+another matter than a young man's song.
+
+"We've made a mistake," she whispered (that the Scotch-man might not
+overhear). "On no account ought ye to have helped serve here to-night.
+Not because of ourselves, but for the sake of him. If he should befriend
+us, and take us up, and then find out what you did when staying here,
+'twould grieve and wound his natural pride as Mayor of the town."
+
+Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this than her
+mother had she known the real relationship, was not much disturbed about
+it as things stood. Her "he" was another man than her poor mother's.
+"For myself," she said, "I didn't at all mind waiting a little upon him.
+He's so respectable, and educated--far above the rest of 'em in the inn.
+They thought him very simple not to know their grim broad way of talking
+about themselves here. But of course he didn't know--he was too refined
+in his mind to know such things!" Thus she earnestly pleaded.
+
+Meanwhile, the "he" of her mother was not so far away as even they
+thought. After leaving the Three Mariners he had sauntered up and down
+the empty High Street, passing and repassing the inn in his promenade.
+When the Scotchman sang his voice had reached Henchard's ears through
+the heart-shaped holes in the window-shutters, and had led him to pause
+outside them a long while.
+
+"To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow does draw me!" he had said to
+himself. "I suppose 'tis because I'm so lonely. I'd have given him a
+third share in the business to have stayed!"
+
+
+
+
+9.
+
+
+When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casement next morning the mellow
+air brought in the feel of imminent autumn almost as distinctly as if
+she had been in the remotest hamlet. Casterbridge was the complement of
+the rural life around, not its urban opposite. Bees and butterflies in
+the cornfields at the top of the town, who desired to get to the meads
+at the bottom, took no circuitous course, but flew straight down High
+Street without any apparent consciousness that they were traversing
+strange latitudes. And in autumn airy spheres of thistledown floated
+into the same street, lodged upon the shop fronts, blew into drains,
+and innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the pavement, and
+stole through people's doorways into their passages with a hesitating
+scratch on the floor, like the skirts of timid visitors.
+
+Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew her head
+and glanced from behind the window-curtains. Mr. Henchard--now habited
+no longer as a great personage, but as a thriving man of business--was
+pausing on his way up the middle of the street, and the Scotchman was
+looking from the window adjoining her own. Henchard it appeared, had
+gone a little way past the inn before he had noticed his acquaintance of
+the previous evening. He came back a few steps, Donald Farfrae opening
+the window further.
+
+"And you are off soon, I suppose?" said Henchard upwards.
+
+"Yes--almost this moment, sir," said the other. "Maybe I'll walk on till
+the coach makes up on me."
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"The way ye are going."
+
+"Then shall we walk together to the top o' town?"
+
+"If ye'll wait a minute," said the Scotchman.
+
+In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand. Henchard looked at the
+bag as at an enemy. It showed there was no mistake about the young man's
+departure. "Ah, my lad," he said, "you should have been a wise man, and
+have stayed with me."
+
+"Yes, yes--it might have been wiser," said Donald, looking
+microscopically at the houses that were furthest off. "It is only
+telling ye the truth when I say my plans are vague."
+
+They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the inn,
+and Elizabeth-Jane heard no more. She saw that they continued
+in conversation, Henchard turning to the other occasionally, and
+emphasizing some remark with a gesture. Thus they passed the King's Arms
+Hotel, the Market House, St. Peter's churchyard wall, ascending to the
+upper end of the long street till they were small as two grains of corn;
+when they bent suddenly to the right into the Bristol Road, and were out
+of view.
+
+"He was a good man--and he's gone," she said to herself. "I was nothing
+to him, and there was no reason why he should have wished me good-bye."
+
+The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had moulded itself
+out of the following little fact: when the Scotchman came out at the
+door he had by accident glanced up at her; and then he had looked away
+again without nodding, or smiling, or saying a word.
+
+"You are still thinking, mother," she said, when she turned inwards.
+
+"Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard's sudden liking for that young man.
+He was always so. Now, surely, if he takes so warmly to people who are
+not related to him at all, may he not take as warmly to his own kin?"
+
+While they debated this question a procession of five large waggons went
+past, laden with hay up to the bedroom windows. They came in from the
+country, and the steaming horses had probably been travelling a great
+part of the night. To the shaft of each hung a little board, on which
+was painted in white letters, "Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant."
+The spectacle renewed his wife's conviction that, for her daughter's
+sake, she should strain a point to rejoin him.
+
+The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end of it was
+that Mrs. Henchard decided, for good or for ill, to send Elizabeth-Jane
+with a message to Henchard, to the effect that his relative Susan, a
+sailor's widow, was in the town; leaving it to him to say whether or not
+he would recognize her. What had brought her to this determination were
+chiefly two things. He had been described as a lonely widower; and
+he had expressed shame for a past transaction of his life. There was
+promise in both.
+
+"If he says no," she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Jane stood, bonnet on, ready
+to depart; "if he thinks it does not become the good position he has
+reached to in the town, to own--to let us call on him as--his distant
+kinfolk, say, 'Then, sir, we would rather not intrude; we will leave
+Casterbridge as quietly as we have come, and go back to our own
+country.'...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so, as I have
+not seen him for so many years, and we are so--little allied to him!"
+
+"And if he say yes?" inquired the more sanguine one.
+
+"In that case," answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, "ask him to write me
+a note, saying when and how he will see us--or ME."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing. "And tell him,"
+continued her mother, "that I fully know I have no claim upon him--that
+I am glad to find he is thriving; that I hope his life may be long and
+happy--there, go." Thus with a half-hearted willingness, a smothered
+reluctance, did the poor forgiving woman start her unconscious daughter
+on this errand.
+
+It was about ten o'clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth paced up the
+High Street, in no great hurry; for to herself her position was only
+that of a poor relation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The front doors
+of the private houses were mostly left open at this warm autumn time,
+no thought of umbrella stealers disturbing the minds of the placid
+burgesses. Hence, through the long, straight, entrance passages thus
+unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels, the mossy gardens at the
+back, glowing with nasturtiums, fuchsias, scarlet geraniums, "bloody
+warriors," snapdragons, and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by
+crusted grey stone-work remaining from a yet remoter Casterbridge than
+the venerable one visible in the street. The old-fashioned fronts of
+these houses, which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheer
+from the pavement, into which the bow windows protruded like bastions,
+necessitating a pleasing chassez-dechassez movement to the time-pressed
+pedestrian at every few yards. He was bound also to evolve
+other Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers,
+cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of walls
+which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed.
+
+In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke so cheerfully of
+individual unrestraint as to boundaries, movables occupied the path and
+roadway to a perplexing extent. First the vans of the carriers in
+and out of Casterbridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The
+Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe, and many other towns and
+villages round. Their owners were numerous enough to be regarded as a
+tribe, and had almost distinctiveness enough to be regarded as a race.
+Their vans had just arrived, and were drawn up on each side of the
+street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between the
+pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched out half its
+contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb, extending the display
+each week a little further and further into the roadway, despite the
+expostulations of the two feeble old constables, until there remained
+but a tortuous defile for carriages down the centre of the street, which
+afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins. Over the pavement
+on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so constructed as to give
+the passenger's hat a smart buffet off his head, as from the unseen
+hands of Cranstoun's Goblin Page, celebrated in romantic lore.
+
+Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the pavement, their
+hind legs in the street, in which position they occasionally nipped
+little boys by the shoulder who were passing to school. And any inviting
+recess in front of a house that had been modestly kept back from the
+general line was utilized by pig-dealers as a pen for their stock.
+
+The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to transact
+business in these ancient streets, spoke in other ways than by
+articulation. Not to hear the words of your interlocutor in metropolitan
+centres is to know nothing of his meaning. Here the face, the arms, the
+hat, the stick, the body throughout spoke equally with the tongue. To
+express satisfaction the Casterbridge market-man added to his utterance
+a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes, a throwing back of
+the shoulders, which was intelligible from the other end of the street.
+If he wondered, though all Henchard's carts and waggons were rattling
+past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside of his crimson mouth,
+and a target-like circling of his eyes. Deliberation caused sundry
+attacks on the moss of adjoining walls with the end of his stick,
+a change of his hat from the horizontal to the less so; a sense of
+tediousness announced itself in a lowering of the person by spreading
+the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the arms.
+Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the streets of this honest
+borough to all appearance; and it was said that the lawyers in the Court
+House hard by occasionally threw in strong arguments for the other side
+out of pure generosity (though apparently by mischance) when advancing
+their own.
+
+Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus, or
+nerve-knot of the surrounding country life; differing from the many
+manufacturing towns which are as foreign bodies set down, like boulders
+on a plain, in a green world with which they have nothing in common.
+Casterbridge lived by agriculture at one remove further from the
+fountainhead than the adjoining villages--no more. The townsfolk
+understood every fluctuation in the rustic's condition, for it affected
+their receipts as much as the labourer's; they entered into the troubles
+and joys which moved the aristocratic families ten miles round--for the
+same reason. And even at the dinner-parties of the professional families
+the subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease, sowing and
+reaping, fencing and planting; while politics were viewed by them less
+from their own standpoint of burgesses with rights and privileges than
+from the standpoint of their country neighbours.
+
+All the venerable contrivances and confusions which delighted the eye
+by their quaintness, and in a measure reasonableness, in this rare old
+market-town, were metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of
+Elizabeth-Jane, fresh from netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage.
+Very little inquiry was necessary to guide her footsteps. Henchard's
+house was one of the best, faced with dull red-and-grey old brick. The
+front door was open, and, as in other houses, she could see through the
+passage to the end of the garden--nearly a quarter of a mile off.
+
+Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard. She was
+conducted into the mossy garden, and through a door in the wall, which
+was studded with rusty nails speaking of generations of fruit-trees that
+had been trained there. The door opened upon the yard, and here she was
+left to find him as she could. It was a place flanked by hay-barns, into
+which tons of fodder, all in trusses, were being packed from the waggons
+she had seen pass the inn that morning. On other sides of the yard were
+wooden granaries on stone staddles, to which access was given by Flemish
+ladders, and a store-house several floors high. Wherever the doors of
+these places were open, a closely packed throng of bursting wheat-sacks
+could be seen standing inside, with the air of awaiting a famine that
+would not come.
+
+She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of the impending
+interview, till she was quite weary of searching; she ventured to
+inquire of a boy in what quarter Mr. Henchard could be found. He
+directed her to an office which she had not seen before, and knocking at
+the door she was answered by a cry of "Come in."
+
+Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her, bending over
+some sample-bags on a table, not the corn-merchant, but the young
+Scotchman Mr. Farfrae--in the act of pouring some grains of wheat from
+one hand to the other. His hat hung on a peg behind him, and the roses
+of his carpet-bag glowed from the corner of the room.
+
+Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for Mr.
+Henchard, and for him alone, she was for the moment confounded.
+
+"Yes, what it is?" said the Scotchman, like a man who permanently ruled
+there.
+
+She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
+
+"Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He's engaged just now," said the young
+man, apparently not recognizing her as the girl at the inn. He handed
+her a chair, bade her sit down and turned to his sample-bags again.
+While Elizabeth-Jane sits waiting in great amaze at the young man's
+presence we may briefly explain how he came there.
+
+When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that morning
+towards the Bath and Bristol road they went on silently, except for a
+few commonplaces, till they had gone down an avenue on the town walls
+called the Chalk Walk, leading to an angle where the North and West
+escarpments met. From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast
+extent of country could be seen. A footpath ran steeply down the green
+slope, conducting from the shady promenade on the walls to a road at the
+bottom of the scarp. It was by this path the Scotchman had to descend.
+
+"Well, here's success to 'ee," said Henchard, holding out his right hand
+and leaning with his left upon the wicket which protected the descent.
+In the act there was the inelegance of one whose feelings are nipped and
+wishes defeated. "I shall often think of this time, and of how you came
+at the very moment to throw a light upon my difficulty."
+
+Still holding the young man's hand he paused, and then added
+deliberately: "Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost for want of
+a word. And before ye are gone for ever I'll speak. Once more, will
+ye stay? There it is, flat and plain. You can see that it isn't all
+selfishness that makes me press 'ee; for my business is not quite so
+scientific as to require an intellect entirely out of the common. Others
+would do for the place without doubt. Some selfishness perhaps there
+is, but there is more; it isn't for me to repeat what. Come bide with
+me--and name your own terms. I'll agree to 'em willingly and 'ithout a
+word of gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!"
+
+The young man's hand remained steady in Henchard's for a moment or two.
+He looked over the fertile country that stretched beneath them, then
+backward along the shaded walk reaching to the top of the town. His face
+flushed.
+
+"I never expected this--I did not!" he said. "It's Providence! Should
+any one go against it? No; I'll not go to America; I'll stay and be your
+man!"
+
+His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard's, returned the latter's
+grasp.
+
+"Done," said Henchard.
+
+"Done," said Donald Farfrae.
+
+The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfaction that was almost
+fierce in its strength. "Now you are my friend!" he exclaimed. "Come
+back to my house; let's clinch it at once by clear terms, so as to be
+comfortable in our minds." Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the
+North-West Avenue in Henchard's company as he had come. Henchard was all
+confidence now.
+
+"I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don't care for a man,"
+he said. "But when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong. Now I am
+sure you can eat another breakfast? You couldn't have eaten much so
+early, even if they had anything at that place to gi'e thee, which they
+hadn't; so come to my house and we will have a solid, staunch tuck-in,
+and settle terms in black-and-white if you like; though my word's my
+bond. I can always make a good meal in the morning. I've got a splendid
+cold pigeon-pie going just now. You can have some home-brewed if you
+want to, you know."
+
+"It is too airly in the morning for that," said Farfrae with a smile.
+
+"Well, of course, I didn't know. I don't drink it because of my oath,
+but I am obliged to brew for my work-people."
+
+Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard's premises by the back
+way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was settled over the breakfast,
+at which Henchard heaped the young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal
+fulness. He would not rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his
+luggage from Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the post-office. When
+it was done this man of strong impulses declared that his new friend
+should take up his abode in his house--at least till some suitable
+lodgings could be found.
+
+He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the stores
+of grain, and other stock; and finally entered the offices where the
+younger of them has already been discovered by Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+
+10.
+
+
+While she still sat under the Scotchman's eyes a man came up to the
+door, reaching it as Henchard opened the door of the inner office to
+admit Elizabeth. The newcomer stepped forward like the quicker cripple
+at Bethesda, and entered in her stead. She could hear his words to
+Henchard: "Joshua Jopp, sir--by appointment--the new manager."
+
+"The new manager!--he's in his office," said Henchard bluntly.
+
+"In his office!" said the man, with a stultified air.
+
+"I mentioned Thursday," said Henchard; "and as you did not keep your
+appointment, I have engaged another manager. At first I thought he must
+be you. Do you think I can wait when business is in question?"
+
+"You said Thursday or Saturday, sir," said the newcomer, pulling out a
+letter.
+
+"Well, you are too late," said the corn-factor. "I can say no more."
+
+"You as good as engaged me," murmured the man.
+
+"Subject to an interview," said Henchard. "I am sorry for you--very
+sorry indeed. But it can't be helped."
+
+There was no more to be said, and the man came out, encountering
+Elizabeth-Jane in his passage. She could see that his mouth twitched
+with anger, and that bitter disappointment was written in his face
+everywhere.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the master of the premises.
+His dark pupils--which always seemed to have a red spark of light in
+them, though this could hardly be a physical fact--turned indifferently
+round under his dark brows until they rested on her figure. "Now then,
+what is it, my young woman?" he said blandly.
+
+"Can I speak to you--not on business, sir?" said she.
+
+"Yes--I suppose." He looked at her more thoughtfully.
+
+"I am sent to tell you, sir," she innocently went on, "that a distant
+relative of yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a sailor's widow, is in the
+town, and to ask whether you would wish to see her."
+
+The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance underwent a slight change.
+"Oh--Susan is--still alive?" he asked with difficulty.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Are you her daughter?"
+
+"Yes, sir--her only daughter."
+
+"What--do you call yourself--your Christian name?"
+
+"Elizabeth-Jane, sir."
+
+"Newson?"
+
+"Elizabeth-Jane Newson."
+
+This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of his early
+married life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the family history. It was
+more than he could have expected. His wife had behaved kindly to him
+in return for his unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to her
+child or to the world.
+
+"I am--a good deal interested in your news," he said. "And as this is
+not a matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we go indoors."
+
+It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to Elizabeth, that
+he showed her out of the office and through the outer room, where Donald
+Farfrae was overhauling bins and samples with the inquiring inspection
+of a beginner in charge. Henchard preceded her through the door in the
+wall to the suddenly changed scene of the garden and flowers, and
+onward into the house. The dining-room to which he introduced her still
+exhibited the remnants of the lavish breakfast laid for Farfrae. It
+was furnished to profusion with heavy mahogany furniture of the deepest
+red-Spanish hues. Pembroke tables, with leaves hanging so low that they
+well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the walls on legs and feet
+shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay three huge folio
+volumes--a Family Bible, a "Josephus," and a "Whole Duty of Man." In the
+chimney corner was a fire-grate with a fluted semicircular back, having
+urns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of
+the kind which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of
+Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their patterns may
+have been such as those illustrious carpenters never saw or heard of.
+
+"Sit down--Elizabeth-Jane--sit down," he said, with a shake in his voice
+as he uttered her name, and sitting down himself he allowed his hands
+to hang between his knees while he looked upon the carpet. "Your mother,
+then, is quite well?"
+
+"She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling."
+
+"A sailor's widow--when did he die?"
+
+"Father was lost last spring."
+
+Henchard winced at the word "father," thus applied. "Do you and she come
+from abroad--America or Australia?" he asked.
+
+"No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when we came here
+from Canada."
+
+"Ah; exactly." By such conversation he discovered the circumstances
+which had enveloped his wife and her child in such total obscurity that
+he had long ago believed them to be in their graves. These things being
+clear, he returned to the present. "And where is your mother staying?"
+
+"At the Three Mariners."
+
+"And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?" repeated Henchard. He arose,
+came close to her, and glanced in her face. "I think," he said, suddenly
+turning away with a wet eye, "you shall take a note from me to your
+mother. I should like to see her....She is not left very well off by
+her late husband?" His eye fell on Elizabeth's clothes, which, though
+a respectable suit of black, and her very best, were decidedly
+old-fashioned even to Casterbridge eyes.
+
+"Not very well," she said, glad that he had divined this without her
+being obliged to express it.
+
+He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking from his
+pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the envelope with the
+letter, adding to it, as by an afterthought, five shillings. Sealing the
+whole up carefully, he directed it to "Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners Inn,"
+and handed the packet to Elizabeth.
+
+"Deliver it to her personally, please," said Henchard. "Well, I am glad
+to see you here, Elizabeth-Jane--very glad. We must have a long talk
+together--but not just now."
+
+He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she, who had
+known so little friendship, was much affected, and tears rose to her
+aerial-grey eyes. The instant that she was gone Henchard's state showed
+itself more distinctly; having shut the door he sat in his dining-room
+stiffly erect, gazing at the opposite wall as if he read his history
+there.
+
+"Begad!" he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. "I didn't think of that.
+Perhaps these are impostors--and Susan and the child dead after all!"
+
+However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him that, as
+regarded her, at least, there could be little doubt. And a few hours
+would settle the question of her mother's identity; for he had arranged
+in his note to see her that evening.
+
+"It never rains but it pours!" said Henchard. His keenly excited
+interest in his new friend the Scotchman was now eclipsed by this event,
+and Donald Farfrae saw so little of him during the rest of the day that
+he wondered at the suddenness of his employer's moods.
+
+In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn. Her mother, instead of
+taking the note with the curiosity of a poor woman expecting assistance,
+was much moved at sight of it. She did not read it at once, asking
+Elizabeth to describe her reception, and the very words Mr. Henchard
+used. Elizabeth's back was turned when her mother opened the letter. It
+ran thus:--
+
+
+"Meet me at eight o'clock this evening, if you can, at the Ring on the
+Budmouth road. The place is easy to find. I can say no more now. The
+news upsets me almost. The girl seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so
+till I have seen you. M. H."
+
+
+He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas. The amount was
+significant; it may tacitly have said to her that he bought her
+back again. She waited restlessly for the close of the day, telling
+Elizabeth-Jane that she was invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would
+go alone. But she said nothing to show that the place of meeting was not
+at his house, nor did she hand the note to Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+
+11.
+
+
+The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of the finest
+Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remaining in Britain.
+
+Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and precinct.
+It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It
+was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town
+fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the
+Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of
+fifteen hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval
+scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to
+his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear against his arm,
+a fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn at
+his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified
+conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street
+boys and men, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar spectacle
+as they passed by.
+
+Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantness at the
+discovery of a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens, were
+quite unmoved by these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their
+time was so unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so widely
+removed from ours, that between them and the living there seemed to
+stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to pass.
+
+The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch at opposite
+extremities of its diameter north and south. From its sloping internal
+form it might have been called the spittoon of the Jotuns. It was to
+Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was nearly
+of the same magnitude. The dusk of evening was the proper hour at which
+a true impression of this suggestive place could be received. Standing
+in the middle of the arena at that time there by degrees became apparent
+its real vastness, which a cursory view from the summit at noon-day
+was apt to obscure. Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet accessible from
+every part of the town, the historic circle was the frequent spot for
+appointments of a furtive kind. Intrigues were arranged there; tentative
+meetings were there experimented after divisions and feuds. But one kind
+of appointment--in itself the most common of any--seldom had place in
+the Amphitheatre: that of happy lovers.
+
+Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible, and
+sequestered spot for interviews, the cheerfullest form of those
+occurrences never took kindly to the soil of the ruin, would be a
+curious inquiry. Perhaps it was because its associations had about them
+something sinister. Its history proved that. Apart from the sanguinary
+nature of the games originally played therein, such incidents attached
+to its past as these: that for scores of years the town-gallows had
+stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who had murdered her husband
+was half-strangled and then burnt there in the presence of ten thousand
+spectators. Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burning her
+heart burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all, and
+that not one of those ten thousand people ever cared particularly for
+hot roast after that. In addition to these old tragedies, pugilistic
+encounters almost to the death had come off down to recent dates in that
+secluded arena, entirely invisible to the outside world save by climbing
+to the top of the enclosure, which few towns-people in the daily round
+of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So that, though close to the
+turnpike-road, crimes might be perpetrated there unseen at mid-day.
+
+Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by using the
+central arena as a cricket-ground. But the game usually languished
+for the aforesaid reason--the dismal privacy which the earthen circle
+enforced, shutting out every appreciative passer's vision, every
+commendatory remark from outsiders--everything, except the sky; and to
+play at games in such circumstances was like acting to an empty house.
+Possibly, too, the boys were timid, for some old people said that at
+certain moments in the summer time, in broad daylight, persons sitting
+with a book or dozing in the arena had, on lifting their eyes, beheld
+the slopes lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian's soldiery as if
+watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of their
+excited voices, that the scene would remain but a moment, like a
+lightning flash, and then disappear.
+
+It was related that there still remained under the south entrance
+excavated cells for the reception of the wild animals and athletes who
+took part in the games. The arena was still smooth and circular, as if
+used for its original purpose not so very long ago. The sloping pathways
+by which spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways yet. But
+the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the end of summer,
+was bearded with withered bents that formed waves under the brush of the
+wind, returning to the attentive ear aeolian modulations, and detaining
+for moments the flying globes of thistledown.
+
+Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from observation which
+he could think of for meeting his long-lost wife, and at the same time
+as one easily to be found by a stranger after nightfall. As Mayor of the
+town, with a reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to come to
+his house till some definite course had been decided on.
+
+Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-work and entered by
+the south path which descended over the debris of the former dens. In
+a few moments he could discern a female figure creeping in by the great
+north gap, or public gateway. They met in the middle of the arena.
+Neither spoke just at first--there was no necessity for speech--and the
+poor woman leant against Henchard, who supported her in his arms.
+
+"I don't drink," he said in a low, halting, apologetic voice. "You hear,
+Susan?--I don't drink now--I haven't since that night." Those were his
+first words.
+
+He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she understood. After a
+minute or two he again began:
+
+"If I had known you were living, Susan! But there was every reason to
+suppose you and the child were dead and gone. I took every possible step
+to find you--travelled--advertised. My opinion at last was that you
+had started for some colony with that man, and had been drowned on your
+voyage. Why did you keep silent like this?"
+
+"O Michael! because of him--what other reason could there be? I thought
+I owed him faithfulness to the end of one of our lives--foolishly
+I believed there was something solemn and binding in the bargain; I
+thought that even in honour I dared not desert him when he had paid so
+much for me in good faith. I meet you now only as his widow--I consider
+myself that, and that I have no claim upon you. Had he not died I should
+never have come--never! Of that you may be sure."
+
+"Ts-s-s! How could you be so simple?"
+
+"I don't know. Yet it would have been very wicked--if I had not thought
+like that!" said Susan, almost crying.
+
+"Yes--yes--so it would. It is only that which makes me feel 'ee an
+innocent woman. But--to lead me into this!"
+
+"What, Michael?" she asked, alarmed.
+
+"Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and
+Elizabeth-Jane. She cannot be told all--she would so despise us both
+that--I could not bear it!"
+
+"That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear
+it either."
+
+"Well--we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present belief, and
+getting matters straight in spite of it. You have heard I am in a large
+way of business here--that I am Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and
+I don't know what all?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured.
+
+"These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering our
+disgrace, makes it necessary to act with extreme caution. So that I
+don't see how you two can return openly to my house as the wife and
+daughter I once treated badly, and banished from me; and there's the rub
+o't."
+
+"We'll go away at once. I only came to see--"
+
+"No, no, Susan; you are not to go--you mistake me!" he said with kindly
+severity. "I have thought of this plan: that you and Elizabeth take a
+cottage in the town as the widow Mrs. Newson and her daughter; that I
+meet you, court you, and marry you. Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house as
+my step-daughter. The thing is so natural and easy that it is half done
+in thinking o't. This would leave my shady, headstrong, disgraceful life
+as a young man absolutely unopened; the secret would be yours and mine
+only; and I should have the pleasure of seeing my own only child under
+my roof, as well as my wife."
+
+"I am quite in your hands, Michael," she said meekly. "I came here
+for the sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave again
+to-morrow morning, and never come near you more, I am content to go."
+
+"Now, now; we don't want to hear that," said Henchard gently. "Of course
+you won't leave again. Think over the plan I have proposed for a few
+hours; and if you can't hit upon a better one we'll adopt it. I have
+to be away for a day or two on business, unfortunately; but during that
+time you can get lodgings--the only ones in the town fit for you are
+those over the china-shop in High Street--and you can also look for a
+cottage."
+
+"If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?"
+
+"Never mind--you MUST start genteel if our plan is to be carried out.
+Look to me for money. Have you enough till I come back?"
+
+"Quite," said she.
+
+"And are you comfortable at the inn?"
+
+"O yes."
+
+"And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and
+ours?--that's what makes me most anxious of all."
+
+"You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the
+truth. How could she ever suppose such a thing?"
+
+"True!"
+
+"I like the idea of repeating our marriage," said Mrs. Henchard, after
+a pause. "It seems the only right course, after all this. Now I think
+I must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr.
+Henchard, kindly wishes us to stay in the town."
+
+"Very well--arrange that yourself. I'll go some way with you."
+
+"No, no. Don't run any risk!" said his wife anxiously. "I can find my
+way back--it is not late. Please let me go alone."
+
+"Right," said Henchard. "But just one word. Do you forgive me, Susan?"
+
+She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her
+answer.
+
+"Never mind--all in good time," said he. "Judge me by my future
+works--good-bye!"
+
+He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatre while his
+wife passed out through the lower way, and descended under the trees to
+the town. Then Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by the
+time he reached his door he was almost upon the heels of the unconscious
+woman from whom he had just parted. He watched her up the street, and
+turned into his house.
+
+
+
+
+12.
+
+
+On entering his own door after watching his wife out of sight, the Mayor
+walked on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and thence
+by the back door towards the stores and granaries. A light shone from
+the office-window, and there being no blind to screen the interior
+Henchard could see Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him,
+initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by overhauling
+the books. Henchard entered, merely observing, "Don't let me interrupt
+you, if ye will stay so late."
+
+He stood behind Farfrae's chair, watching his dexterity in clearing up
+the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's
+books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The
+corn-factor's mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash
+of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to
+such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically
+unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern
+sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a
+tantalizing art.
+
+"You shall do no more to-night," he said at length, spreading his great
+hand over the paper. "There's time enough to-morrow. Come indoors with
+me and have some supper. Now you shall! I am determined on't." He shut
+the account-books with friendly force.
+
+Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his
+friend and employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests and
+impulses, and he yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard's warmth, even if
+it inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters adding
+to the liking.
+
+They locked up the office, and the young man followed his companion
+through the private little door which, admitting directly into
+Henchard's garden, permitted a passage from the utilitarian to the
+beautiful at one step. The garden was silent, dewy, and full of
+perfume. It extended a long way back from the house, first as lawn and
+flower-beds, then as fruit-garden, where the long-tied espaliers, as old
+as the old house itself, had grown so stout, and cramped, and gnarled
+that they had pulled their stakes out of the ground and stood distorted
+and writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons. The flowers which
+smelt so sweetly were not discernible; and they passed through them into
+the house.
+
+The hospitalities of the morning were repeated, and when they were over
+Henchard said, "Pull your chair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow,
+and let's make a blaze--there's nothing I hate like a black grate, even
+in September." He applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a cheerful
+radiance spread around.
+
+"It is odd," said Henchard, "that two men should meet as we have done on
+a purely business ground, and that at the end of the first day I should
+wish to speak to 'ee on a family matter. But, damn it all, I am a lonely
+man, Farfrae: I have nobody else to speak to; and why shouldn't I tell
+it to 'ee?"
+
+"I'll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any service," said Donald,
+allowing his eyes to travel over the intricate wood-carvings of the
+chimney-piece, representing garlanded lyres, shields, and quivers, on
+either side of a draped ox-skull, and flanked by heads of Apollo and
+Diana in low relief.
+
+"I've not been always what I am now," continued Henchard, his firm deep
+voice being ever so little shaken. He was plainly under that strange
+influence which sometimes prompts men to confide to the new-found
+friend what they will not tell to the old. "I began life as a working
+hay-trusser, and when I was eighteen I married on the strength o' my
+calling. Would you think me a married man?"
+
+"I heard in the town that you were a widower."
+
+"Ah, yes--you would naturally have heard that. Well, I lost my wife
+nineteen years ago or so--by my own fault....This is how it came about.
+One summer evening I was travelling for employment, and she was walking
+at my side, carrying the baby, our only child. We came to a booth in a
+country fair. I was a drinking man at that time."
+
+Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so that his elbow rested
+on the table, his forehead being shaded by his hand, which, however, did
+not hide the marks of introspective inflexibility on his features as
+he narrated in fullest detail the incidents of the transaction with the
+sailor. The tinge of indifference which had at first been visible in the
+Scotchman now disappeared.
+
+Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife; the oath he
+swore; the solitary life he led during the years which followed. "I have
+kept my oath for nineteen years," he went on; "I have risen to what you
+see me now."
+
+"Ay!"
+
+"Well--no wife could I hear of in all that time; and being by nature
+something of a woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostly
+at a distance from the sex. No wife could I hear of, I say, till this
+very day. And now--she has come back."
+
+"Come back, has she!"
+
+"This morning--this very morning. And what's to be done?"
+
+"Can ye no' take her and live with her, and make some amends?"
+
+"That's what I've planned and proposed. But, Farfrae," said Henchard
+gloomily, "by doing right with Susan I wrong another innocent woman."
+
+"Ye don't say that?"
+
+"In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is almost impossible that a man
+of my sort should have the good fortune to tide through twenty years o'
+life without making more blunders than one. It has been my custom
+for many years to run across to Jersey in the the way of business,
+particularly in the potato and root season. I do a large trade wi' them
+in that line. Well, one autumn when stopping there I fell quite ill, and
+in my illness I sank into one of those gloomy fits I sometimes suffer
+from, on account o' the loneliness of my domestic life, when the world
+seems to have the blackness of hell, and, like Job, I could curse the
+day that gave me birth."
+
+"Ah, now, I never feel like it," said Farfrae.
+
+"Then pray to God that you never may, young man. While in this state I
+was taken pity on by a woman--a young lady I should call her, for she
+was of good family, well bred, and well educated--the daughter of some
+harum-scarum military officer who had got into difficulties, and had his
+pay sequestrated. He was dead now, and her mother too, and she was as
+lonely as I. This young creature was staying at the boarding-house where
+I happened to have my lodging; and when I was pulled down she took upon
+herself to nurse me. From that she got to have a foolish liking for me.
+Heaven knows why, for I wasn't worth it. But being together in the same
+house, and her feeling warm, we got naturally intimate. I won't go into
+particulars of what our relations were. It is enough to say that we
+honestly meant to marry. There arose a scandal, which did me no harm,
+but was of course ruin to her. Though, Farfrae, between you and me, as
+man and man, I solemnly declare that philandering with womankind
+has neither been my vice nor my virtue. She was terribly careless of
+appearances, and I was perhaps more, because o' my dreary state; and it
+was through this that the scandal arose. At last I was well, and came
+away. When I was gone she suffered much on my account, and didn't forget
+to tell me so in letters one after another; till latterly, I felt I
+owed her something, and thought that, as I had not heard of Susan for so
+long, I would make this other one the only return I could make, and ask
+her if she would run the risk of Susan being alive (very slight as I
+believed) and marry me, such as I was. She jumped for joy, and we should
+no doubt soon have been married--but, behold, Susan appears!"
+
+Donald showed his deep concern at a complication so far beyond the
+degree of his simple experiences.
+
+"Now see what injury a man may cause around him! Even after that
+wrong-doing at the fair when I was young, if I had never been so selfish
+as to let this giddy girl devote herself to me over at Jersey, to the
+injury of her name, all might now be well. Yet, as it stands, I must
+bitterly disappoint one of these women; and it is the second. My first
+duty is to Susan--there's no doubt about that."
+
+"They are both in a very melancholy position, and that's true!" murmured
+Donald.
+
+"They are! For myself I don't care--'twill all end one way. But these
+two." Henchard paused in reverie. "I feel I should like to treat the
+second, no less than the first, as kindly as a man can in such a case."
+
+"Ah, well, it cannet be helped!" said the other, with philosophic
+woefulness. "You mun write to the young lady, and in your letter you
+must put it plain and honest that it turns out she cannet be your wife,
+the first having come back; that ye cannet see her more; and that--ye
+wish her weel."
+
+"That won't do. 'Od seize it, I must do a little more than that! I
+must--though she did always brag about her rich uncle or rich aunt, and
+her expectations from 'em--I must send a useful sum of money to her, I
+suppose--just as a little recompense, poor girl....Now, will you help me
+in this, and draw up an explanation to her of all I've told ye, breaking
+it as gently as you can? I'm so bad at letters."
+
+"And I will."
+
+"Now, I haven't told you quite all yet. My wife Susan has my daughter
+with her--the baby that was in her arms at the fair; and this girl knows
+nothing of me beyond that I am some sort of relation by marriage. She
+has grown up in the belief that the sailor to whom I made over her
+mother, and who is now dead, was her father, and her mother's husband.
+What her mother has always felt, she and I together feel now--that we
+can't proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her know the truth.
+Now what would you do?--I want your advice."
+
+"I think I'd run the risk, and tell her the truth. She'll forgive ye
+both."
+
+"Never!" said Henchard. "I am not going to let her know the truth. Her
+mother and I be going to marry again; and it will not only help us to
+keep our child's respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon
+herself as the sailor's widow, and won't think o' living with me as
+formerly without another religious ceremony--and she's right."
+
+Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter to the young Jersey woman was
+carefully framed by him, and the interview ended, Henchard saying, as
+the Scotchman left, "I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some
+friend o' this! You see now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so
+thriving in his mind as it seems he might be from the state of his
+pocket."
+
+"I do. And I'm sorry for ye!" said Farfrae.
+
+When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing a cheque,
+took it to the post-office, from which he walked back thoughtfully.
+
+"Can it be that it will go off so easily!" he said. "Poor thing--God
+knows! Now then, to make amends to Susan!"
+
+
+
+
+13.
+
+
+The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan under her
+name of Newson--in pursuance of their plan--was in the upper or western
+part of the town, near the Roman wall, and the avenue which overshadowed
+it. The evening sun seemed to shine more yellowly there than anywhere
+else this autumn--stretching its rays, as the hours grew later, under
+the lowest sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the
+dwelling, with its green shutters, in a substratum of radiance which the
+foliage screened from the upper parts. Beneath these sycamores on the
+town walls could be seen from the sitting-room the tumuli and earth
+forts of the distant uplands; making it altogether a pleasant spot, with
+the usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked prospect lends.
+
+As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably installed, with a
+white-aproned servant and all complete, Henchard paid them a visit,
+and remained to tea. During the entertainment Elizabeth was carefully
+hoodwinked by the very general tone of the conversation that
+prevailed--a proceeding which seemed to afford some humour to Henchard,
+though his wife was not particularly happy in it. The visit was repeated
+again and again with business-like determination by the Mayor, who
+seemed to have schooled himself into a course of strict mechanical
+rightness towards this woman of prior claim, at any expense to the later
+one and to his own sentiments.
+
+One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard came, and he
+said drily, "This is a very good opportunity for me to ask you to name
+the happy day, Susan."
+
+The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy pleasantries on a
+situation into which she had entered solely for the sake of her girl's
+reputation. She liked them so little, indeed, that there was room for
+wonder why she had countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely
+let the girl know her history. But the flesh is weak; and the true
+explanation came in due course.
+
+"O Michael!" she said, "I am afraid all this is taking up your time and
+giving trouble--when I did not expect any such thing!" And she looked at
+him and at his dress as a man of affluence, and at the furniture he had
+provided for the room--ornate and lavish to her eyes.
+
+"Not at all," said Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is only a
+cottage--it costs me next to nothing. And as to taking up my time"--here
+his red and black visage kindled with satisfaction--"I've a splendid
+fellow to superintend my business now--a man whose like I've never been
+able to lay hands on before. I shall soon be able to leave everything
+to him, and have more time to call my own than I've had for these last
+twenty years."
+
+Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and so regular that it soon
+became whispered, and then openly discussed in Casterbridge that the
+masterful, coercive Mayor of the town was raptured and enervated by the
+genteel widow Mrs. Newson. His well-known haughty indifference to the
+society of womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the sex,
+contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an unromantic
+matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman should be his choice was
+inexplicable, except on the ground that the engagement was a family
+affair in which sentimental passion had no place; for it was known that
+they were related in some way. Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the boys
+called her "The Ghost." Sometimes Henchard overheard this epithet when
+they passed together along the Walks--as the avenues on the walls
+were named--at which his face would darken with an expression of
+destructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see; but he said
+nothing.
+
+He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with
+this pale creature in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit
+to his conscientiousness. Nobody would have conceived from his outward
+demeanour that there was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as
+stimulant to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing
+but three large resolves--one, to make amends to his neglected Susan,
+another, to provide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his
+paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himself with the thorns which
+these restitutory acts brought in their train; among them the lowering
+of his dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively humble a
+woman.
+
+Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her life when
+she stepped into the plain brougham which drew up at the door on the
+wedding-day to take her and Elizabeth-Jane to church. It was a windless
+morning of warm November rain, which floated down like meal, and lay
+in a powdery form on the nap of hats and coats. Few people had
+gathered round the church door though they were well packed within.
+The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of course the only one
+present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true situation of the
+contracting parties. He, however, was too inexperienced, too thoughtful,
+too judicial, too strongly conscious of the serious side of the
+business, to enter into the scene in its dramatic aspect. That required
+the special genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and
+their fellows. But they knew nothing of the secret; though, as the
+time for coming out of church drew on, they gathered on the pavement
+adjoining, and expounded the subject according to their lights.
+
+"'Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this here town,"
+said Coney; "but daze me if I ever see a man wait so long before to take
+so little! There's a chance even for thee after this, Nance Mockridge."
+The remark was addressed to a woman who stood behind his shoulder--the
+same who had exhibited Henchard's bad bread in public when Elizabeth and
+her mother entered Casterbridge.
+
+"Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or thee either," replied that
+lady. "As for thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and the less said
+the better. And as for he--well, there--(lowering her voice) 'tis said
+'a was a poor parish 'prentice--I wouldn't say it for all the world--but
+'a was a poor parish 'prentice, that began life wi' no more belonging to
+'en than a carrion crow."
+
+"And now he's worth ever so much a minute," murmured Longways. "When a
+man is said to be worth so much a minute, he's a man to be considered!"
+
+Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases, and recognized
+the smiling countenance of the fat woman who had asked for another song
+at the Three Mariners. "Well, Mother Cuxsom," he said, "how's this?
+Here's Mrs. Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another husband to keep
+her, while a woman of your tonnage have not."
+
+"I have not. Nor another to beat me....Ah, yes, Cuxsom's gone, and so
+shall leather breeches!"
+
+"Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go."
+
+"'Tisn't worth my old while to think of another husband," continued Mrs.
+Cuxsom. "And yet I'll lay my life I'm as respectable born as she."
+
+"True; your mother was a very good woman--I can mind her. She were
+rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest
+number of healthy children without parish assistance, and other virtuous
+marvels."
+
+"'Twas that that kept us so low upon ground--that great hungry family."
+
+"Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin."
+
+"And dostn't mind how mother would sing, Christopher?" continued Mrs.
+Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; "and how we went with her to the
+party at Mellstock, do ye mind?--at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Shinar's
+aunt, do ye mind?--she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were
+so yaller and freckled, do ye mind?"
+
+"I do, hee-hee, I do!" said Christopher Coney.
+
+"And well do I--for I was getting up husband-high at that time--one-half
+girl, and t'other half woman, as one may say. And canst mind"--she
+prodded Solomon's shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled
+between the crevices of their lids--"canst mind the sherry-wine, and the
+zilver-snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were coming
+home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through the mud; and how
+'a let her fall in Dairyman Sweet-apple's cow-barton, and we had to
+clane her gown wi' grass--never such a mess as a' were in?"
+
+"Ay--that I do--hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them ancient days,
+to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; and now I can hardly step
+over a furrow!"
+
+Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the reunited
+pair--Henchard looking round upon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze
+of his, which at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at another
+fiery disdain.
+
+"Well--there's a difference between 'em, though he do call himself a
+teetotaller," said Nance Mockridge. "She'll wish her cake dough afore
+she's done of him. There's a blue-beardy look about 'en; and 'twill out
+in time."
+
+"Stuff--he's well enough! Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had a
+choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn't wish for a better man. A poor
+twanking woman like her--'tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair of
+jumps or night-rail to her name."
+
+The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the idlers
+dispersed. "Well, we hardly know how to look at things in these times!"
+said Solomon. "There was a man dropped down dead yesterday, not so very
+many miles from here; and what wi' that, and this moist weather, 'tis
+scarce worth one's while to begin any work o' consequence to-day. I'm in
+such a low key with drinking nothing but small table ninepenny this
+last week or two that I shall call and warm up at the Mar'ners as I pass
+along."
+
+"I don't know but that I may as well go with 'ee, Solomon," said
+Christopher; "I'm as clammy as a cockle-snail."
+
+
+
+
+14.
+
+
+A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard's life set in with her entry into
+her husband's large house and respectable social orbit; and it was as
+bright as such summers well can be. Lest she should pine for deeper
+affection than he could give he made a point of showing some semblance
+of it in external action. Among other things he had the iron railings,
+that had smiled sadly in dull rust for the last eighty years, painted
+a bright green, and the heavy-barred, small-paned Georgian sash windows
+enlivened with three coats of white. He was as kind to her as a man,
+mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. The house was large, the
+rooms lofty, and the landings wide; and the two unassuming women
+scarcely made a perceptible addition to its contents.
+
+To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one. The freedom she
+experienced, the indulgence with which she was treated, went beyond her
+expectations. The reposeful, easy, affluent life to which her mother's
+marriage had introduced her was, in truth, the beginning of a great
+change in Elizabeth. She found she could have nice personal possessions
+and ornaments for the asking, and, as the mediaeval saying puts it,
+"Take, have, and keep, are pleasant words." With peace of mind came
+development, and with development beauty. Knowledge--the result of great
+natural insight--she did not lack; learning, accomplishment--those,
+alas, she had not; but as the winter and spring passed by her thin
+face and figure filled out in rounder and softer curves; the lines and
+contractions upon her young brow went away; the muddiness of skin which
+she had looked upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to
+abundance of good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek. Perhaps, too,
+her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed an arch gaiety sometimes; but this
+was infrequent; the sort of wisdom which looked from their pupils did
+not readily keep company with these lighter moods. Like all people who
+have known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too irrational
+and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a reckless dram now and
+then; for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoning to drop
+the habit suddenly. She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit
+which beset so many people without cause; never--to paraphrase a recent
+poet--never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well knew how it
+came there; and her present cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to her
+solid guarantees for the same.
+
+It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly becoming
+good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for the first time in her
+life commanding ready money, she would go and make a fool of herself by
+dress. But no. The reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth
+did was nowhere more conspicuous than in this question of clothes. To
+keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence is as valuable
+a habit as to keep abreast of opportunity in matters of enterprise. This
+unsophisticated girl did it by an innate perceptiveness that was almost
+genius. Thus she refrained from bursting out like a water-flower that
+spring, and clothing herself in puffings and knick-knacks, as most of
+the Casterbridge girls would have done in her circumstances. Her triumph
+was tempered by circumspection, she had still that field-mouse fear of
+the coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the
+thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and oppression.
+
+"I won't be too gay on any account," she would say to herself. "It would
+be tempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us again
+as He used to do."
+
+We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer,
+dark dress, and carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew
+the line at fringe, and had it plain edged, with a little ivory ring for
+keeping it closed. It was odd about the necessity for that sunshade. She
+discovered that with the clarification of her complexion and the birth
+of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the sun's rays.
+She protected those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness part of
+womanliness.
+
+Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more
+frequently than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so
+attractive that he looked at her critically.
+
+"I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up," she faltered,
+thinking him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming she
+had donned for the first time.
+
+"Ay--of course--to be sure," he replied in his leonine way. "Do as you
+like--or rather as your mother advises ye. 'Od send--I've nothing to say
+to't!"
+
+Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched like
+a white rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was covered
+with a thick encampment of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly, and
+drawn to a knob.
+
+The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and
+Henchard was looking silently, as he often did, at this head of
+hair, which in colour was brown--rather light than dark. "I thought
+Elizabeth-Jane's hair--didn't you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane's hair
+promised to be black when she was a baby?" he said to his wife.
+
+She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, "Did I?"
+
+As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. "Begad,
+I nearly forgot myself just now! What I meant was that the girl's hair
+certainly looked as if it would be darker, when she was a baby."
+
+"It did; but they alter so," replied Susan.
+
+"Their hair gets darker, I know--but I wasn't aware it lightened ever?"
+
+"O yes." And the same uneasy expression came out on her face, to which
+the future held the key. It passed as Henchard went on:
+
+"Well, so much the better. Now Susan, I want to have her called
+Miss Henchard--not Miss Newson. Lots o' people do it already in
+carelessness--it is her legal name--so it may as well be made her usual
+name--I don't like t'other name at all for my own flesh and blood. I'll
+advertise it in the Casterbridge paper--that's the way they do it. She
+won't object."
+
+"No. O no. But--"
+
+"Well, then, I shall do it," he said, peremptorily. "Surely, if she's
+willing, you must wish it as much as I?"
+
+"O yes--if she agrees let us do it by all means," she replied.
+
+Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might have been
+called falsely, but that her manner was emotional and full of the
+earnestness of one who wishes to do right at great hazard. She went to
+Elizabeth-Jane, whom she found sewing in her own sitting-room upstairs,
+and told her what had been proposed about her surname. "Can you
+agree--is it not a slight upon Newson--now he's dead and gone?"
+
+Elizabeth reflected. "I'll think of it, mother," she answered.
+
+When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to the matter
+at once, in a way which showed that the line of feeling started by her
+mother had been persevered in. "Do you wish this change so very much,
+sir?" she asked.
+
+"Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women make about
+a trifle! I proposed it--that's all. Now, 'Lizabeth-Jane, just please
+yourself. Curse me if I care what you do. Now, you understand, don't 'ee
+go agreeing to it to please me."
+
+Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said, and nothing was
+done, and Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson, and not by her legal
+name.
+
+Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by Henchard throve
+under the management of Donald Farfrae as it had never thriven before.
+It had formerly moved in jolts; now it went on oiled casters. The old
+crude viva voce system of Henchard, in which everything depended upon
+his memory, and bargains were made by the tongue alone, was swept
+away. Letters and ledgers took the place of "I'll do't," and "you shall
+hae't"; and, as in all such cases of advance, the rugged picturesqueness
+of the old method disappeared with its inconveniences.
+
+The position of Elizabeth-Jane's room--rather high in the house, so
+that it commanded a view of the hay-stores and granaries across the
+garden--afforded her opportunity for accurate observation of what went
+on there. She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables. When
+walking together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on his manager's
+shoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearing so heavily that
+his slight frame bent under the weight. Occasionally she would hear
+a perfect cannonade of laughter from Henchard, arising from something
+Donald had said, the latter looking quite innocent and not laughing at
+all. In Henchard's somewhat lonely life he evidently found the young
+man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful for consultations.
+Donald's brightness of intellect maintained in the corn-factor the
+admiration it had won at the first hour of their meeting. The poor
+opinion, and but ill-concealed, that he entertained of the
+slim Farfrae's physical girth, strength, and dash was more than
+counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his brains.
+
+Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard's tigerish affection for the
+younger man, his constant liking to have Farfrae near him, now and then
+resulted in a tendency to domineer, which, however, was checked in a
+moment when Donald exhibited marks of real offence. One day, looking
+down on their figures from on high, she heard the latter remark, as they
+stood in the doorway between the garden and yard, that their habit of
+walking and driving about together rather neutralized Farfrae's value
+as a second pair of eyes, which should be used in places where the
+principal was not. "'Od damn it," cried Henchard, "what's all the world!
+I like a fellow to talk to. Now come along and hae some supper, and
+don't take too much thought about things, or ye'll drive me crazy."
+
+When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she often beheld the
+Scotchman looking at them with a curious interest. The fact that he had
+met her at the Three Mariners was insufficient to account for it, since
+on the occasions on which she had entered his room he had never raised
+his eyes. Besides, it was at her mother more particularly than
+at herself that he looked, to Elizabeth-Jane's half-conscious,
+simple-minded, perhaps pardonable, disappointment. Thus she could not
+account for this interest by her own attractiveness, and she decided
+that it might be apparent only--a way of turning his eyes that Mr.
+Farfrae had.
+
+She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner, without personal
+vanity, that was afforded by the fact of Donald being the depositary
+of Henchard's confidence in respect of his past treatment of the pale,
+chastened mother who walked by her side. Her conjectures on that past
+never went further than faint ones based on things casually heard and
+seen--mere guesses that Henchard and her mother might have been lovers
+in their younger days, who had quarrelled and parted.
+
+Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in the
+block upon a corn-field. There was no suburb in the modern sense, or
+transitional intermixture of town and down. It stood, with regard to the
+wide fertile land adjoining, clean-cut and distinct, like a chess-board
+on a green tablecloth. The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow
+and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk; reapers
+at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on the
+pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when he condemned a sheep-stealer,
+pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa, that floated in at the window
+from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at executions
+the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop, out of
+which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the spectators room.
+
+The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was garnered by farmers
+who lived in an eastern purlieu called Durnover. Here wheat-ricks
+overhung the old Roman street, and thrust their eaves against the church
+tower; green-thatched barns, with doorways as high as the gates of
+Solomon's temple, opened directly upon the main thoroughfare. Barns
+indeed were so numerous as to alternate with every half-dozen houses
+along the way. Here lived burgesses who daily walked the fallow;
+shepherds in an intra-mural squeeze. A street of farmers' homesteads--a
+street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing with the thump of
+the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan, and the purr of the milk
+into the pails--a street which had nothing urban in it whatever--this
+was the Durnover end of Casterbridge.
+
+Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or bed of
+small farmers close at hand--and his waggons were often down that way.
+One day, when arrangements were in progress for getting home corn from
+one of the aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane received a note by hand,
+asking her to oblige the writer by coming at once to a granary on
+Durnover Hill. As this was the granary whose contents Henchard was
+removing, she thought the request had something to do with his business,
+and proceeded thither as soon as she had put on her bonnet. The granary
+was just within the farm-yard, and stood on stone staddles, high enough
+for persons to walk under. The gates were open, but nobody was within.
+However, she entered and waited. Presently she saw a figure approaching
+the gate--that of Donald Farfrae. He looked up at the church clock, and
+came in. By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to meet him there
+alone, she quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to the granary
+door, and entered it before he had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagining
+himself in solitude, and a few drops of rain beginning to fall he moved
+and stood under the shelter where she had just been standing. Here he
+leant against one of the staddles, and gave himself up to patience. He,
+too, was plainly expecting some one; could it be herself? If so, why?
+In a few minutes he looked at his watch, and then pulled out a note, a
+duplicate of the one she had herself received.
+
+This situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she waited the
+more awkward it became. To emerge from a door just above his head and
+descend the ladder, and show she had been in hiding there, would look so
+very foolish that she still waited on. A winnowing machine stood close
+beside her, and to relieve her suspense she gently moved the handle;
+whereupon a cloud of wheat husks flew out into her face, and covered
+her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur of her victorine. He must
+have heard the slight movement for he looked up, and then ascended the
+steps.
+
+"Ah--it's Miss Newson," he said as soon as he could see into the
+granary. "I didn't know you were there. I have kept the appointment, and
+am at your service."
+
+"O Mr. Farfrae," she faltered, "so have I. But I didn't know it was you
+who wished to see me, otherwise I--"
+
+"I wished to see you? O no--at least, that is, I am afraid there may be
+a mistake."
+
+"Didn't you ask me to come here? Didn't you write this?" Elizabeth held
+out her note.
+
+"No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it! And for you--didn't
+you ask me? This is not your writing?" And he held up his.
+
+"By no means."
+
+"And is that really so! Then it's somebody wanting to see us both.
+Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer."
+
+Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane's face being
+arranged to an expression of preternatural composure, and the young
+Scot, at every footstep in the street without, looking from under the
+granary to see if the passer were about to enter and declare himself
+their summoner. They watched individual drops of rain creeping down the
+thatch of the opposite rick--straw after straw--till they reached the
+bottom; but nobody came, and the granary roof began to drip.
+
+"The person is not likely to be coming," said Farfrae. "It's a trick
+perhaps, and if so, it's a great pity to waste our time like this, and
+so much to be done."
+
+"'Tis a great liberty," said Elizabeth.
+
+"It's true, Miss Newson. We'll hear news of this some day depend on't,
+and who it was that did it. I wouldn't stand for it hindering myself;
+but you, Miss Newson----"
+
+"I don't mind--much."
+
+"Neither do I."
+
+They lapsed again into silence. "You are anxious to get back to
+Scotland, I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?" she inquired.
+
+"O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?"
+
+"I only supposed you might be from the song you sang at the Three
+Mariners--about Scotland and home, I mean--which you seemed to feel so
+deep down in your heart; so that we all felt for you."
+
+"Ay--and I did sing there--I did----But, Miss Newson"--and Donald's
+voice musically undulated between two semi-tones as it always did when
+he became earnest--"it's well you feel a song for a few minutes, and
+your eyes they get quite tearful; but you finish it, and for all you
+felt you don't mind it or think of it again for a long while. O no,
+I don't want to go back! Yet I'll sing the song to you wi' pleasure
+whenever you like. I could sing it now, and not mind at all?"
+
+"Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go--rain or no."
+
+"Ay! Then, Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and
+take no heed of it. And if the person should say anything to you, be
+civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it--so you'll take the
+clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon
+her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's husks and dust on you.
+Perhaps you don't know it?" he said, in tones of extreme delicacy. "And
+it's very bad to let rain come upon clothes when there's chaff on them.
+It washes in and spoils them. Let me help you--blowing is the best."
+
+As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented Donald Farfrae began blowing
+her back hair, and her side hair, and her neck, and the crown of her
+bonnet, and the fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, "O, thank you,"
+at every puff. At last she was fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got
+over his first concern at the situation, seemed in no manner of hurry to
+be gone.
+
+"Ah--now I'll go and get ye an umbrella," he said.
+
+She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone. Farfrae walked slowly
+after, looking thoughtfully at her diminishing figure, and whistling in
+undertones, "As I came down through Cannobie."
+
+
+
+
+15.
+
+
+At first Miss Newson's budding beauty was not regarded with much
+interest by anybody in Casterbridge. Donald Farfrae's gaze, it is true,
+was now attracted by the Mayor's so-called step-daughter, but he was
+only one. The truth is that she was but a poor illustrative instance of
+the prophet Baruch's sly definition: "The virgin that loveth to go gay."
+
+When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an inner chamber
+of ideas, and to have slight need for visible objects. She formed
+curious resolves on checking gay fancies in the matter of clothes,
+because it was inconsistent with her past life to blossom gaudily the
+moment she had become possessed of money. But nothing is more insidious
+than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere
+wishes. Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of delicately-tinted gloves
+one spring day. She wanted to wear them to show her appreciation of his
+kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize. As an artistic
+indulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet. When she had a
+bonnet that would go with the gloves she had no dress that would go with
+the bonnet. It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered the
+requisite article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with the
+dress. In for a penny in for a pound; she bought the sunshade, and the
+whole structure was at last complete.
+
+Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygone simplicity was
+the art that conceals art, the "delicate imposition" of Rochefoucauld;
+she had produced an effect, a contrast, and it had been done on purpose.
+As a matter of fact this was not true, but it had its result; for as
+soon as Casterbridge thought her artful it thought her worth notice. "It
+is the first time in my life that I have been so much admired," she said
+to herself; "though perhaps it is by those whose admiration is not worth
+having."
+
+But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogether the time was an
+exciting one; sex had never before asserted itself in her so strongly,
+for in former days she had perhaps been too impersonally human to be
+distinctively feminine. After an unprecedented success one day she came
+indoors, went upstairs, and leant upon her bed face downwards quite
+forgetting the possible creasing and damage. "Good Heaven," she
+whispered, "can it be? Here am I setting up as the town beauty!"
+
+When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggerating appearances
+engendered a deep sadness. "There is something wrong in all this," she
+mused. "If they only knew what an unfinished girl I am--that I can't
+talk Italian, or use globes, or show any of the accomplishments they
+learn at boarding schools, how they would despise me! Better sell all
+this finery and buy myself grammar-books and dictionaries and a history
+of all the philosophies!"
+
+She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfrae in the hay-yard
+talking, with that impetuous cordiality on the Mayor's part, and genial
+modesty on the younger man's, that was now so generally observable
+in their intercourse. Friendship between man and man; what a rugged
+strength there was in it, as evinced by these two. And yet the seed that
+was to lift the foundation of this friendship was at that moment taking
+root in a chink of its structure.
+
+It was about six o'clock; the men were dropping off homeward one by one.
+The last to leave was a round-shouldered, blinking young man of nineteen
+or twenty, whose mouth fell ajar on the slightest provocation, seemingly
+because there was no chin to support it. Henchard called aloud to him as
+he went out of the gate, "Here--Abel Whittle!"
+
+Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. "Yes, sir," he said, in
+breathless deprecation, as if he knew what was coming next.
+
+"Once more--be in time to-morrow morning. You see what's to be done, and
+you hear what I say, and you know I'm not going to be trifled with any
+longer."
+
+"Yes, sir." Then Abel Whittle left, and Henchard and Farfrae; and
+Elizabeth saw no more of them.
+
+Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard's part. Poor
+Abel, as he was called, had an inveterate habit of over-sleeping himself
+and coming late to his work. His anxious will was to be among the
+earliest; but if his comrades omitted to pull the string that he always
+tied round his great toe and left hanging out the window for that
+purpose, his will was as wind. He did not arrive in time.
+
+As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, or at the crane which
+lifted the sacks, or was one of those who had to accompany the waggons
+into the country to fetch away stacks that had been purchased, this
+affliction of Abel's was productive of much inconvenience. For two
+mornings in the present week he had kept the others waiting nearly an
+hour; hence Henchard's threat. It now remained to be seen what would
+happen to-morrow.
+
+Six o'clock struck, and there was no Whittle. At half-past six Henchard
+entered the yard; the waggon was horsed that Abel was to accompany; and
+the other man had been waiting twenty minutes. Then Henchard swore, and
+Whittle coming up breathless at that instant, the corn-factor turned on
+him, and declared with an oath that this was the last time; that if he
+were behind once more, by God, he would come and drag him out o' bed.
+
+"There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!" said Abel,
+"especially in the inside, whereas my poor dumb brain gets as dead as
+a clot afore I've said my few scrags of prayers. Yes--it came on as a
+stripling, just afore I'd got man's wages, whereas I never enjoy my bed
+at all, for no sooner do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore I be
+awake I be up. I've fretted my gizzard green about it, maister, but what
+can I do? Now last night, afore I went to bed, I only had a scantling o'
+cheese and--"
+
+"I don't want to hear it!" roared Henchard. "To-morrow the waggons must
+start at four, and if you're not here, stand clear. I'll mortify thy
+flesh for thee!"
+
+"But let me clear up my points, your worshipful----"
+
+Henchard turned away.
+
+"He asked me and he questioned me, and then 'a wouldn't hear my
+points!" said Abel, to the yard in general. "Now, I shall twitch like a
+moment-hand all night to-night for fear o' him!"
+
+The journey to be taken by the waggons next day was a long one into
+Blackmoor Vale, and at four o'clock lanterns were moving about the yard.
+But Abel was missing. Before either of the other men could run to Abel's
+and warn him Henchard appeared in the garden doorway. "Where's Abel
+Whittle? Not come after all I've said? Now I'll carry out my word, by
+my blessed fathers--nothing else will do him any good! I'm going up that
+way."
+
+Henchard went off, entered Abel's house, a little cottage in Back
+Street, the door of which was never locked because the inmates had
+nothing to lose. Reaching Whittle's bedside the corn-factor shouted a
+bass note so vigorously that Abel started up instantly, and beholding
+Henchard standing over him, was galvanized into spasmodic movements
+which had not much relation to getting on his clothes.
+
+"Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, or you leave my employ to-day!
+'Tis to teach ye a lesson. March on; never mind your breeches!"
+
+The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat, and managed to get
+into his boots at the bottom of the stairs, while Henchard thrust his
+hat over his head. Whittle then trotted on down Back Street, Henchard
+walking sternly behind.
+
+Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard's house to look for
+him, came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in
+the morning gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel's shirt
+that showed below his waistcoat.
+
+"For maircy's sake, what object's this?" said Farfrae, following Abel
+into the yard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time.
+
+"Ye see, Mr. Farfrae," gibbered Abel with a resigned smile of terror,
+"he said he'd mortify my flesh if so be I didn't get up sooner, and now
+he's a-doing on't! Ye see it can't be helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do
+happen queer sometimes! Yes--I'll go to Blackmoor Vale half naked as
+I be, since he do command; but I shall kill myself afterwards; I can't
+outlive the disgrace, for the women-folk will be looking out of their
+winders at my mortification all the way along, and laughing me to scorn
+as a man 'ithout breeches! You know how I feel such things, Maister
+Farfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold upon me. Yes--I shall do
+myself harm--I feel it coming on!"
+
+"Get back home, and slip on your breeches, and come to wark like a man!
+If ye go not, you'll ha'e your death standing there!"
+
+"I'm afeard I mustn't! Mr. Henchard said----"
+
+"I don't care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else! 'Tis simple
+foolishness to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle."
+
+"Hullo, hullo!" said Henchard, coming up behind. "Who's sending him
+back?"
+
+All the men looked towards Farfrae.
+
+"I am," said Donald. "I say this joke has been carried far enough."
+
+"And I say it hasn't! Get up in the waggon, Whittle."
+
+"Not if I am manager," said Farfrae. "He either goes home, or I march
+out of this yard for good."
+
+Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red. But he paused for
+a moment, and their eyes met. Donald went up to him, for he saw in
+Henchard's look that he began to regret this.
+
+"Come," said Donald quietly, "a man o' your position should ken better,
+sir! It is tyrannical and no worthy of you."
+
+"'Tis not tyrannical!" murmured Henchard, like a sullen boy. "It is to
+make him remember!" He presently added, in a tone of one bitterly hurt:
+"Why did you speak to me before them like that, Farfrae? You might have
+stopped till we were alone. Ah--I know why! I've told ye the secret o'
+my life--fool that I was to do't--and you take advantage of me!"
+
+"I had forgot it," said Farfrae simply.
+
+Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more, and turned away.
+During the day Farfrae learnt from the men that Henchard had kept Abel's
+old mother in coals and snuff all the previous winter, which made him
+less antagonistic to the corn-factor. But Henchard continued moody and
+silent, and when one of the men inquired of him if some oats should be
+hoisted to an upper floor or not, he said shortly, "Ask Mr. Farfrae.
+He's master here!"
+
+Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it. Henchard, who had
+hitherto been the most admired man in his circle, was the most admired
+no longer. One day the daughters of a deceased farmer in Durnover wanted
+an opinion of the value of their haystack, and sent a messenger to ask
+Mr. Farfrae to oblige them with one. The messenger, who was a child, met
+in the yard not Farfrae, but Henchard.
+
+"Very well," he said. "I'll come."
+
+"But please will Mr. Farfrae come?" said the child.
+
+"I am going that way....Why Mr. Farfrae?" said Henchard, with the fixed
+look of thought. "Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?"
+
+"I suppose because they like him so--that's what they say."
+
+"Oh--I see--that's what they say--hey? They like him because he's
+cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and, in short,
+Mr. Henchard can't hold a candle to him--hey?"
+
+"Yes--that's just it, sir--some of it."
+
+"Oh, there's more? Of course there's more! What besides? Come, here's a
+sixpence for a fairing."
+
+"'And he's better tempered, and Henchard's a fool to him,' they say.
+And when some of the women were a-walking home they said, 'He's a
+diment--he's a chap o' wax--he's the best--he's the horse for my money,'
+says they. And they said, 'He's the most understanding man o' them two
+by long chalks. I wish he was the master instead of Henchard,' they
+said."
+
+"They'll talk any nonsense," Henchard replied with covered gloom. "Well,
+you can go now. And I am coming to value the hay, d'ye hear?--I." The
+boy departed, and Henchard murmured, "Wish he were master here, do
+they?"
+
+He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtook Farfrae. They walked on
+together, Henchard looking mostly on the ground.
+
+"You're no yoursel' the day?" Donald inquired.
+
+"Yes, I am very well," said Henchard.
+
+"But ye are a bit down--surely ye are down? Why, there's nothing to be
+angry about! 'Tis splendid stuff that we've got from Blackmoor Vale. By
+the by, the people in Durnover want their hay valued."
+
+"Yes. I am going there."
+
+"I'll go with ye."
+
+As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music sotto voce,
+till, getting near the bereaved people's door, he stopped himself with--
+
+"Ah, as their father is dead I won't go on with such as that. How could
+I forget?"
+
+"Do you care so very much about hurting folks' feelings?" observed
+Henchard with a half sneer. "You do, I know--especially mine!"
+
+"I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir," replied Donald, standing still,
+with a second expression of the same sentiment in the regretfulness of
+his face. "Why should you say it--think it?"
+
+The cloud lifted from Henchard's brow, and as Donald finished the
+corn-merchant turned to him, regarding his breast rather than his face.
+
+"I have been hearing things that vexed me," he said. "'Twas that made me
+short in my manner--made me overlook what you really are. Now, I don't
+want to go in here about this hay--Farfrae, you can do it better than I.
+They sent for 'ee, too. I have to attend a meeting of the Town Council
+at eleven, and 'tis drawing on for't."
+
+They parted thus in renewed friendship, Donald forbearing to ask
+Henchard for meanings that were not very plain to him. On Henchard's
+part there was now again repose; and yet, whenever he thought of
+Farfrae, it was with a dim dread; and he often regretted that he had
+told the young man his whole heart, and confided to him the secrets of
+his life.
+
+
+
+
+16.
+
+
+On this account Henchard's manner towards Farfrae insensibly became
+more reserved. He was courteous--too courteous--and Farfrae was quite
+surprised at the good breeding which now for the first time
+showed itself among the qualities of a man he had hitherto thought
+undisciplined, if warm and sincere. The corn-factor seldom or never
+again put his arm upon the young man's shoulder so as to nearly weigh
+him down with the pressure of mechanized friendship. He left off coming
+to Donald's lodgings and shouting into the passage. "Hoy, Farfrae,
+boy, come and have some dinner with us! Don't sit here in solitary
+confinement!" But in the daily routine of their business there was
+little change.
+
+Thus their lives rolled on till a day of public rejoicing was suggested
+to the country at large in celebration of a national event that had
+recently taken place.
+
+For some time Casterbridge, by nature slow, made no response. Then one
+day Donald Farfrae broached the subject to Henchard by asking if he
+would have any objection to lend some rick-cloths to himself and a few
+others, who contemplated getting up an entertainment of some sort on
+the day named, and required a shelter for the same, to which they might
+charge admission at the rate of so much a head.
+
+"Have as many cloths as you like," Henchard replied.
+
+When his manager had gone about the business Henchard was fired with
+emulation. It certainly had been very remiss of him, as Mayor, he
+thought, to call no meeting ere this, to discuss what should be done on
+this holiday. But Farfrae had been so cursed quick in his movements as
+to give old-fashioned people in authority no chance of the initiative.
+However, it was not too late; and on second thoughts he determined
+to take upon his own shoulders the responsibility of organizing some
+amusements, if the other Councilmen would leave the matter in his hands.
+To this they quite readily agreed, the majority being fine old crusted
+characters who had a decided taste for living without worry.
+
+So Henchard set about his preparations for a really brilliant
+thing--such as should be worthy of the venerable town. As for Farfrae's
+little affair, Henchard nearly forgot it; except once now and then when,
+on it coming into his mind, he said to himself, "Charge admission at
+so much a head--just like a Scotchman!--who is going to pay anything
+a head?" The diversions which the Mayor intended to provide were to be
+entirely free.
+
+He had grown so dependent upon Donald that he could scarcely resist
+calling him in to consult. But by sheer self-coercion he refrained. No,
+he thought, Farfrae would be suggesting such improvements in his damned
+luminous way that in spite of himself he, Henchard, would sink to the
+position of second fiddle, and only scrape harmonies to his manager's
+talents.
+
+Everybody applauded the Mayor's proposed entertainment, especially when
+it became known that he meant to pay for it all himself.
+
+Close to the town was an elevated green spot surrounded by an ancient
+square earthwork--earthworks square and not square, were as common as
+blackberries hereabout--a spot whereon the Casterbridge people usually
+held any kind of merry-making, meeting, or sheep-fair that required more
+space than the streets would afford. On one side it sloped to the river
+Froom, and from any point a view was obtained of the country round
+for many miles. This pleasant upland was to be the scene of Henchard's
+exploit.
+
+He advertised about the town, in long posters of a pink colour, that
+games of all sorts would take place here; and set to work a little
+battalion of men under his own eye. They erected greasy-poles for
+climbing, with smoked hams and local cheeses at the top. They placed
+hurdles in rows for jumping over; across the river they laid a slippery
+pole, with a live pig of the neighbourhood tied at the other end, to
+become the property of the man who could walk over and get it. There
+were also provided wheelbarrows for racing, donkeys for the same, a
+stage for boxing, wrestling, and drawing blood generally; sacks for
+jumping in. Moreover, not forgetting his principles, Henchard provided a
+mammoth tea, of which everybody who lived in the borough was invited to
+partake without payment. The tables were laid parallel with the inner
+slope of the rampart, and awnings were stretched overhead.
+
+Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive exterior of
+Farfrae's erection in the West Walk, rick-cloths of different sizes
+and colours being hung up to the arching trees without any regard to
+appearance. He was easy in his mind now, for his own preparations far
+transcended these.
+
+The morning came. The sky, which had been remarkably clear down to
+within a day or two, was overcast, and the weather threatening, the wind
+having an unmistakable hint of water in it. Henchard wished he had not
+been quite so sure about the continuance of a fair season. But it was
+too late to modify or postpone, and the proceedings went on. At twelve
+o'clock the rain began to fall, small and steady, commencing and
+increasing so insensibly that it was difficult to state exactly when dry
+weather ended or wet established itself. In an hour the slight moisture
+resolved itself into a monotonous smiting of earth by heaven, in
+torrents to which no end could be prognosticated.
+
+A number of people had heroically gathered in the field but by three
+o'clock Henchard discerned that his project was doomed to end in
+failure. The hams at the top of the poles dripped watered smoke in the
+form of a brown liquor, the pig shivered in the wind, the grain of the
+deal tables showed through the sticking tablecloths, for the awning
+allowed the rain to drift under at its will, and to enclose the sides
+at this hour seemed a useless undertaking. The landscape over the
+river disappeared; the wind played on the tent-cords in aeolian
+improvisations, and at length rose to such a pitch that the whole
+erection slanted to the ground those who had taken shelter within it
+having to crawl out on their hands and knees.
+
+But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breeze shook the moisture
+from the grass bents. It seemed possible to carry out the programme
+after all. The awning was set up again; the band was called out from its
+shelter, and ordered to begin, and where the tables had stood a place
+was cleared for dancing.
+
+"But where are the folk?" said Henchard, after the lapse of
+half-an-hour, during which time only two men and a woman had stood up to
+dance. "The shops are all shut. Why don't they come?"
+
+"They are at Farfrae's affair in the West Walk," answered a Councilman
+who stood in the field with the Mayor.
+
+"A few, I suppose. But where are the body o 'em?"
+
+"All out of doors are there."
+
+"Then the more fools they!"
+
+Henchard walked away moodily. One or two young fellows gallantly came to
+climb the poles, to save the hams from being wasted; but as there
+were no spectators, and the whole scene presented the most melancholy
+appearance Henchard gave orders that the proceedings were to be
+suspended, and the entertainment closed, the food to be distributed
+among the poor people of the town. In a short time nothing was left in
+the field but a few hurdles, the tents, and the poles.
+
+Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wife and daughter, and
+then walked out. It was now dusk. He soon saw that the tendency of all
+promenaders was towards a particular spot in the Walks, and eventually
+proceeded thither himself. The notes of a stringed band came from the
+enclosure that Farfrae had erected--the pavilion as he called it--and
+when the Mayor reached it he perceived that a gigantic tent had been
+ingeniously constructed without poles or ropes. The densest point of the
+avenue of sycamores had been selected, where the boughs made a closely
+interlaced vault overhead; to these boughs the canvas had been hung, and
+a barrel roof was the result. The end towards the wind was enclosed, the
+other end was open. Henchard went round and saw the interior.
+
+In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable removed, but
+the scene within was anything but devotional. A reel or fling of some
+sort was in progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of
+the other dancers in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself
+about and spinning to the tune. For a moment Henchard could not help
+laughing. Then he perceived the immense admiration for the Scotchman
+that revealed itself in the women's faces; and when this exhibition was
+over, and a new dance proposed, and Donald had disappeared for a time to
+return in his natural garments, he had an unlimited choice of partners,
+every girl being in a coming-on disposition towards one who so
+thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.
+
+All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of a ballroom
+never having occurred to the inhabitants before. Among the rest of the
+onlookers were Elizabeth and her mother--the former thoughtful yet
+much interested, her eyes beaming with a longing lingering light, as
+if Nature had been advised by Correggio in their creation. The dancing
+progressed with unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and waited till
+his wife should be disposed to go home. He did not care to keep in the
+light, and when he went into the dark it was worse, for there he heard
+remarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:
+
+"Mr. Henchard's rejoicings couldn't say good morning to this," said one.
+"A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk would go up to that
+bleak place to-day."
+
+The other answered that people said it was not only in such things as
+those that the Mayor was wanting. "Where would his business be if
+it were not for this young fellow? 'Twas verily Fortune sent him to
+Henchard. His accounts were like a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came.
+He used to reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like
+garden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh his
+trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the price with a
+curse. But now this accomplished young man does it all by ciphering and
+mensuration. Then the wheat--that sometimes used to taste so strong
+o' mice when made into bread that people could fairly tell the
+breed--Farfrae has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream the
+smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once. O yes, everybody
+is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keep him, to be sure!"
+concluded this gentleman.
+
+"But he won't do it for long, good-now," said the other.
+
+"No!" said Henchard to himself behind the tree. "Or if he do, he'll be
+honeycombed clean out of all the character and standing that he's built
+up in these eighteen year!"
+
+He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfrae was footing a quaint
+little dance with Elizabeth-Jane--an old country thing, the only one she
+knew, and though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her
+demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of
+his boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander. The tune
+had enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leaping
+sort--some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle, then a
+skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders--"Miss M'Leod of
+Ayr" was its name, so Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it was very popular
+in his own country.
+
+It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchard for approval; but
+he did not give it. He seemed not to see her. "Look here, Farfrae," he
+said, like one whose mind was elsewhere, "I'll go to Port-Bredy Great
+Market to-morrow myself. You can stay and put things right in your
+clothes-box, and recover strength to your knees after your vagaries." He
+planted on Donald an antagonistic glare that had begun as a smile.
+
+Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside. "What's this,
+Henchard," said Alderman Tubber, applying his thumb to the corn-factor
+like a cheese-taster. "An opposition randy to yours, eh? Jack's as good
+as his master, eh? Cut ye out quite, hasn't he?"
+
+"You see, Mr. Henchard," said the lawyer, another goodnatured friend,
+"where you made the mistake was in going so far afield. You should have
+taken a leaf out of his book, and have had your sports in a sheltered
+place like this. But you didn't think of it, you see; and he did, and
+that's where he's beat you."
+
+"He'll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore him," added
+jocular Mr. Tubber.
+
+"No," said Henchard gloomily. "He won't be that, because he's shortly
+going to leave me." He looked towards Donald, who had come near. "Mr.
+Farfrae's time as my manager is drawing to a close--isn't it, Farfrae?"
+
+The young man, who could now read the lines and folds of Henchard's
+strongly-traced face as if they were clear verbal inscriptions, quietly
+assented; and when people deplored the fact, and asked why it was, he
+simply replied that Mr. Henchard no longer required his help.
+
+Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. But in the morning, when his
+jealous temper had passed away, his heart sank within him at what he had
+said and done. He was the more disturbed when he found that this time
+Farfrae was determined to take him at his word.
+
+
+
+
+17.
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard's manner that in assenting to
+dance she had made a mistake of some kind. In her simplicity she did
+not know what it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintance enlightened
+her. As the Mayor's step-daughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in
+her place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng as filled the
+dancing pavilion.
+
+Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals at the
+dawning of the idea that her tastes were not good enough for her
+position, and would bring her into disgrace.
+
+This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her mother;
+but Mrs. Henchard, who had less idea of conventionality than Elizabeth
+herself, had gone away, leaving her daughter to return at her own
+pleasure. The latter moved on into the dark dense old avenues, or rather
+vaults of living woodwork, which ran along the town boundary, and stood
+reflecting.
+
+A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards the shine
+from the tent he recognized her. It was Farfrae--just come from the
+dialogue with Henchard which had signified his dismissal.
+
+"And it's you, Miss Newson?--and I've been looking for ye everywhere!"
+he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the estrangement with the
+corn-merchant. "May I walk on with you as far as your street-corner?"
+
+She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did not utter
+any objection. So together they went on, first down the West Walk, and
+then into the Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, "It's like that I'm going
+to leave you soon."
+
+She faltered, "Why?"
+
+"Oh--as a mere matter of business--nothing more. But we'll not concern
+ourselves about it--it is for the best. I hoped to have another dance
+with you."
+
+She said she could not dance--in any proper way.
+
+"Nay, but you do! It's the feeling for it rather than the learning of
+steps that makes pleasant dancers....I fear I offended your father by
+getting up this! And now, perhaps, I'll have to go to another part o'
+the warrld altogether!"
+
+This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane breathed
+a sigh--letting it off in fragments that he might not hear her.
+But darkness makes people truthful, and the Scotchman went on
+impulsively--perhaps he had heard her after all:
+
+"I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had not been
+offended, I would ask you something in a short time--yes, I would ask
+you to-night. But that's not for me!"
+
+What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of encouraging
+him she remained incompetently silent. Thus afraid one of another they
+continued their promenade along the walls till they got near the bottom
+of the Bowling Walk; twenty steps further and the trees would end,
+and the street-corner and lamps appear. In consciousness of this they
+stopped.
+
+"I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover granary on a
+fool's errand that day," said Donald, in his undulating tones. "Did ye
+ever know yourself, Miss Newson?"
+
+"Never," said she.
+
+"I wonder why they did it!"
+
+"For fun, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps it was not for fun. It might have been that they thought they
+would like us to stay waiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well! I
+hope you Casterbridge folk will not forget me if I go."
+
+"That I'm sure we won't!" she said earnestly. "I--wish you wouldn't go
+at all."
+
+They had got into the lamplight. "Now, I'll think over that," said
+Donald Farfrae. "And I'll not come up to your door; but part from you
+here; lest it make your father more angry still."
+
+They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk, and
+Elizabeth-Jane going up the street. Without any consciousness of what
+she was doing she started running with all her might till she reached
+her father's door. "O dear me--what am I at?" she thought, as she pulled
+up breathless.
+
+Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae's enigmatic
+words about not daring to ask her what he fain would. Elizabeth, that
+silent observing woman, had long noted how he was rising in favour among
+the townspeople; and knowing Henchard's nature now she had feared that
+Farfrae's days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave
+her little surprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge despite his
+words and her father's dismissal? His occult breathings to her might be
+solvable by his course in that respect.
+
+The next day was windy--so windy that walking in the garden she picked
+up a portion of the draft of a letter on business in Donald Farfrae's
+writing, which had flown over the wall from the office. The useless
+scrap she took indoors, and began to copy the calligraphy, which she
+much admired. The letter began "Dear Sir," and presently writing on a
+loose slip "Elizabeth-Jane," she laid the latter over "Sir," making the
+phrase "Dear Elizabeth-Jane." When she saw the effect a quick red ran up
+her face and warmed her through, though nobody was there to see what she
+had done. She quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away. After this
+she grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and laughed
+again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.
+
+It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and Henchard had
+decided to dispense with each other. Elizabeth-Jane's anxiety to know
+if Farfrae were going away from the town reached a pitch that disturbed
+her, for she could no longer conceal from herself the cause. At length
+the news reached her that he was not going to leave the place. A man
+following the same trade as Henchard, but on a very small scale, had
+sold his business to Farfrae, who was forthwith about to start as corn
+and hay merchant on his own account.
+
+Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald's, proving
+that he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who cared one little bit
+for her have endangered his suit by setting up a business in opposition
+to Mr. Henchard's? Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse
+only which had led him to address her so softly.
+
+To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening of the dance
+were such as to inspire a fleeting love at first sight, she dressed
+herself up exactly as she had dressed then--the muslin, the spencer, the
+sandals, the para-sol--and looked in the mirror The picture glassed back
+was in her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire that fleeting
+regard, and no more--"just enough to make him silly, and not enough
+to keep him so," she said luminously; and Elizabeth thought, in a much
+lower key, that by this time he had discovered how plain and homely was
+the informing spirit of that pretty outside.
+
+Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would say to
+herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache with it, "No, no,
+Elizabeth-Jane--such dreams are not for you!" She tried to prevent
+herself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in
+the former attempt, in the latter not so completely.
+
+Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not mean to
+put up with his temper any longer, was incensed beyond measure when
+he learnt what the young man had done as an alternative. It was in
+the town-hall, after a council meeting, that he first became aware of
+Farfrae's coup for establishing himself independently in the town; and
+his voice might have been heard as far as the town-pump expressing his
+feelings to his fellow councilmen. These tones showed that, though under
+a long reign of self-control he had become Mayor and churchwarden and
+what not, there was still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneath the
+rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon Fair.
+
+"Well, he's a friend of mine, and I'm a friend of his--or if we are not,
+what are we? 'Od send, if I've not been his friend, who has, I should
+like to know? Didn't he come here without a sound shoe to his voot?
+Didn't I keep him here--help him to a living? Didn't I help him to
+money, or whatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms--I said 'Name
+your own price.' I'd have shared my last crust with that young fellow
+at one time, I liked him so well. And now he's defied me! But damn him,
+I'll have a tussle with him now--at fair buying and selling, mind--at
+fair buying and selling! And if I can't overbid such a stripling as he,
+then I'm not wo'th a varden! We'll show that we know our business as
+well as one here and there!"
+
+His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond. Henchard was
+less popular now than he had been when nearly two years before, they
+had voted him to the chief magistracy on account of his amazing
+energy. While they had collectively profited by this quality of the
+corn-factor's they had been made to wince individually on more than one
+occasion. So he went out of the hall and down the street alone.
+
+Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour satisfaction.
+He called Elizabeth-Jane. Seeing how he looked when she entered she
+appeared alarmed.
+
+"Nothing to find fault with," he said, observing her concern. "Only I
+want to caution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae--it is about him. I've
+seen him talking to you two or three times--he danced with 'ee at the
+rejoicings, and came home with 'ee. Now, now, no blame to you. But just
+harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the least bit beyond
+sniff and snaff at all?"
+
+"No. I have promised him nothing."
+
+"Good. All's well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to see him
+again."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+She hesitated for a moment, and then said--
+
+"Yes, if you much wish it."
+
+"I do. He's an enemy to our house!"
+
+When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to Farfrae
+thus:--
+
+
+SIR,--I make request that henceforth you and my stepdaughter be as
+strangers to each other. She on her part has promised to welcome no
+more addresses from you; and I trust, therefore, you will not attempt to
+force them upon her.
+
+M. HENCHARD.
+
+
+One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy to see
+that no better modus vivendi could be arrived at with Farfrae than by
+encouraging him to become his son-in-law. But such a scheme for buying
+over a rival had nothing to recommend it to the Mayor's headstrong
+faculties. With all domestic finesse of that kind he was hopelessly at
+variance. Loving a man or hating him, his diplomacy was as wrongheaded
+as a buffalo's; and his wife had not ventured to suggest the course
+which she, for many reasons, would have welcomed gladly.
+
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on his own
+account at a spot on Durnover Hill--as far as possible from Henchard's
+stores, and with every intention of keeping clear of his former friend
+and employer's customers. There was, it seemed to the younger man, room
+for both of them and to spare. The town was small, but the corn and
+hay-trade was proportionately large, and with his native sagacity he saw
+opportunity for a share of it.
+
+So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like
+trade-antagonism to the Mayor that he refused his first customer--a
+large farmer of good repute--because Henchard and this man had dealt
+together within the preceding three months.
+
+"He was once my friend," said Farfrae, "and it's not for me to take
+business from him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot hurt the
+trade of a man who's been so kind to me."
+
+In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman's trade increased.
+Whether it were that his northern energy was an overmastering force
+among the easy-going Wessex worthies, or whether it was sheer luck, the
+fact remained that whatever he touched he prospered in. Like Jacob
+in Padan-Aram, he would no sooner humbly limit himself to
+the ringstraked-and-spotted exceptions of trade than the
+ringstraked-and-spotted would multiply and prevail.
+
+But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character is Fate, said
+Novalis, and Farfrae's character was just the reverse of Henchard's,
+who might not inaptly be described as Faust has been described--as a
+vehement gloomy being who had quitted the ways of vulgar men without
+light to guide him on a better way.
+
+Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions to
+Elizabeth-Jane. His acts of that kind had been so slight that the
+request was almost superfluous. Yet he had felt a considerable interest
+in her, and after some cogitation he decided that it would be as well
+to enact no Romeo part just then--for the young girl's sake no less than
+his own. Thus the incipient attachment was stifled down.
+
+A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as he might,
+Farfrae was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to close with Henchard in
+mortal commercial combat. He could no longer parry the fierce attacks
+of the latter by simple avoidance. As soon as their war of prices began
+everybody was interested, and some few guessed the end. It was, in some
+degree, Northern insight matched against Southern doggedness--the dirk
+against the cudgel--and Henchard's weapon was one which, if it did not
+deal ruin at the first or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh
+at his antagonist's mercy.
+
+Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the crowd of
+farmers which thronged about the market-place in the weekly course of
+their business. Donald was always ready, and even anxious, to say a few
+friendly words, but the Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him,
+like one who had endured and lost on his account, and could in no sense
+forgive the wrong; nor did Farfrae's snubbed manner of perplexity at all
+appease him. The large farmers, corn-merchants, millers, auctioneers,
+and others had each an official stall in the corn-market room, with
+their names painted thereon; and when to the familiar series of
+"Henchard," "Everdene," "Shiner," "Darton," and so on, was added one
+inscribed "Farfrae," in staring new letters, Henchard was stung into
+bitterness; like Bellerophon, he wandered away from the crowd, cankered
+in soul.
+
+From that day Donald Farfrae's name was seldom mentioned in Henchard's
+house. If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth-Jane's mother inadvertently
+alluded to her favourite's movements, the girl would implore her by a
+look to be silent; and her husband would say, "What--are you, too, my
+enemy?"
+
+
+
+
+18.
+
+
+There came a shock which had been foreseen for some time by Elizabeth,
+as the box passenger foresees the approaching jerk from some channel
+across the highway.
+
+Her mother was ill--too unwell to leave her room. Henchard, who treated
+her kindly, except in moments of irritation, sent at once for the
+richest, busiest doctor, whom he supposed to be the best. Bedtime came,
+and they burnt a light all night. In a day or two she rallied.
+
+Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appear at breakfast on the
+second morning, and Henchard sat down alone. He was startled to see
+a letter for him from Jersey in a writing he knew too well, and had
+expected least to behold again. He took it up in his hands and looked
+at it as at a picture, a vision, a vista of past enactments; and then he
+read it as an unimportant finale to conjecture.
+
+The writer said that she at length perceived how impossible it would
+be for any further communications to proceed between them now that
+his re-marriage had taken place. That such reunion had been the only
+straightforward course open to him she was bound to admit.
+
+
+"On calm reflection, therefore," she went on, "I quite forgive you for
+landing me in such a dilemma, remembering that you concealed nothing
+before our ill-advised acquaintance; and that you really did set before
+me in your grim way the fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy
+with you, slight as it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen years of
+silence on your wife's part. I thus look upon the whole as a misfortune
+of mine, and not a fault of yours.
+
+"So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlook those letters with which I
+pestered you day after day in the heat of my feelings. They were
+written whilst I thought your conduct to me cruel; but now I know more
+particulars of the position you were in I see how inconsiderate my
+reproaches were.
+
+"Now you will, I am sure, perceive that the one condition which will
+make any future happiness possible for me is that the past connection
+between our lives be kept secret outside this isle. Speak of it I know
+you will not; and I can trust you not to write of it. One safe-guard
+more remains to be mentioned--that no writings of mine, or trifling
+articles belonging to me, should be left in your possession through
+neglect or forgetfulness. To this end may I request you to return to
+me any such you may have, particularly the letters written in the first
+abandonment of feeling.
+
+"For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to the wound I
+heartily thank you.
+
+"I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my only relative. She is rich,
+and I hope will do something for me. I shall return through Casterbridge
+and Budmouth, where I shall take the packet-boat. Can you meet me with
+the letters and other trifles? I shall be in the coach which changes
+horses at the Antelope Hotel at half-past five Wednesday evening; I
+shall be wearing a Paisley shawl with a red centre, and thus may easily
+be found. I should prefer this plan of receiving them to having them
+sent.--I remain still, yours; ever,
+
+"LUCETTA"
+
+
+Henchard breathed heavily. "Poor thing--better you had not known me!
+Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left in a position to
+carry out that marriage with thee, I OUGHT to do it--I ought to do it,
+indeed!"
+
+The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course, the death of
+Mrs. Henchard.
+
+As requested, he sealed up Lucetta's letters, and put the parcel aside
+till the day she had appointed; this plan of returning them by hand
+being apparently a little ruse of the young lady for exchanging a word
+or two with him on past times. He would have preferred not to see her;
+but deeming that there could be no great harm in acquiescing thus far,
+he went at dusk and stood opposite the coach-office.
+
+The evening was chilly, and the coach was late. Henchard crossed over to
+it while the horses were being changed; but there was no Lucetta
+inside or out. Concluding that something had happened to modify her
+arrangements he gave the matter up and went home, not without a sense of
+relief. Meanwhile Mrs. Henchard was weakening visibly. She could not
+go out of doors any more. One day, after much thinking which seemed to
+distress her, she said she wanted to write something. A desk was put
+upon her bed with pen and paper, and at her request she was left alone.
+She remained writing for a short time, folded her paper carefully,
+called Elizabeth-Jane to bring a taper and wax, and then, still refusing
+assistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and locked it in her desk.
+She had directed it in these words:--
+
+"MR. MICHAEL HENCHARD. NOT TO BE OPENED TILL ELIZABETH-JANE'S
+WEDDING-DAY."
+
+The latter sat up with her mother to the utmost of her strength night
+after night. To learn to take the universe seriously there is no quicker
+way than to watch--to be a "waker," as the country-people call it.
+Between the hours at which the last toss-pot went by and the first
+sparrow shook himself, the silence in Casterbridge--barring the rare
+sound of the watchman--was broken in Elizabeth's ear only by the
+time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against the clock on the
+stairs; ticking harder and harder till it seemed to clang like a gong;
+and all this while the subtle-souled girl asking herself why she was
+born, why sitting in a room, and blinking at the candle; why things
+around her had taken the shape they wore in preference to every other
+possible shape. Why they stared at her so helplessly, as if waiting
+for the touch of some wand that should release them from terrestrial
+constraint; what that chaos called consciousness, which spun in her at
+this moment like a top, tended to, and began in. Her eyes fell together;
+she was awake, yet she was asleep.
+
+A word from her mother roused her. Without preface, and as the
+continuation of a scene already progressing in her mind, Mrs. Henchard
+said: "You remember the note sent to you and Mr. Farfrae--asking you to
+meet some one in Durnover Barton--and that you thought it was a trick to
+make fools of you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was not to make fools of you--it was done to bring you together.
+'Twas I did it."
+
+"Why?" said Elizabeth, with a start.
+
+"I--wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae."
+
+"O mother!" Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that she looked
+quite into her own lap. But as her mother did not go on, she said, "What
+reason?"
+
+"Well, I had a reason. 'Twill out one day. I wish it could have been in
+my time! But there--nothing is as you wish it! Henchard hates him."
+
+"Perhaps they'll be friends again," murmured the girl.
+
+"I don't know--I don't know." After this her mother was silent, and
+dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.
+
+Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard's house on a
+Sunday morning, when he observed that the blinds were all down. He rang
+the bell so softly that it only sounded a single full note and a
+small one; and then he was informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead--just
+dead--that very hour.
+
+At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few old
+inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had, as at present,
+spare time to fetch it, because it was purer from that original fount
+than from their own wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had been standing there for
+an indefinite time with her pitcher, was describing the incidents of
+Mrs. Henchard's death, as she had learnt them from the nurse.
+
+"And she was white as marble-stone," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "And likewise
+such a thoughtful woman, too--ah, poor soul--that a' minded every little
+thing that wanted tending. 'Yes,' says she, 'when I'm gone, and my last
+breath's blowed, look in the top drawer o' the chest in the back room
+by the window, and you'll find all my coffin clothes, a piece of
+flannel--that's to put under me, and the little piece is to put under my
+head; and my new stockings for my feet--they are folded alongside, and
+all my other things. And there's four ounce pennies, the heaviest I
+could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights--two for my right
+eye and two for my left,' she said. 'And when you've used 'em, and my
+eyes don't open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don't ye go
+spending 'em, for I shouldn't like it. And open the windows as soon as I
+am carried out, and make it as cheerful as you can for Elizabeth-Jane.'"
+
+"Ah, poor heart!"
+
+"Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in the garden.
+But if ye'll believe words, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug
+'em up, and spent 'em at the Three Mariners. 'Faith,' he said, 'why
+should death rob life o' fourpence? Death's not of such good report that
+we should respect 'en to that extent,' says he."
+
+"'Twas a cannibal deed!" deprecated her listeners.
+
+"Gad, then I won't quite ha'e it," said Solomon Longways. "I say it
+to-day, and 'tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn't speak wrongfully for
+a zilver zixpence at such a time. I don't see noo harm in it. To respect
+the dead is sound doxology; and I wouldn't sell skellintons--leastwise
+respectable skellintons--to be varnished for 'natomies, except I were
+out o' work. But money is scarce, and throats get dry. Why SHOULD death
+rob life o' fourpence? I say there was no treason in it."
+
+"Well, poor soul; she's helpless to hinder that or anything now,"
+answered Mother Cuxsom. "And all her shining keys will be took from her,
+and her cupboards opened; and little things a' didn't wish seen, anybody
+will see; and her wishes and ways will all be as nothing!"
+
+
+
+
+19.
+
+
+Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire. It was three weeks
+after Mrs. Henchard's funeral, the candles were not lighted, and a
+restless, acrobatic flame, poised on a coal, called from the shady walls
+the smiles of all shapes that could respond--the old pier-glass, with
+gilt columns and huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs and
+handles, and the brass rosette at the bottom of each riband bell-pull on
+either side of the chimney-piece.
+
+"Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?" said Henchard.
+
+"Yes, sir; often," she said.
+
+"Who do you put in your pictures of 'em?"
+
+"Mother and father--nobody else hardly."
+
+Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when
+Elizabeth-Jane spoke of Richard Newson as "father." "Ah! I am out of all
+that, am I not?" he said.... "Was Newson a kind father?"
+
+"Yes, sir; very."
+
+Henchard's face settled into an expression of stolid loneliness which
+gradually modulated into something softer. "Suppose I had been your real
+father?" he said. "Would you have cared for me as much as you cared for
+Richard Newson?"
+
+"I can't think it," she said quickly. "I can think of no other as my
+father, except my father."
+
+Henchard's wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper
+Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him
+that only one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the girl.
+His mind began vibrating between the wish to reveal himself to her and
+the policy of leaving well alone, till he could no longer sit still. He
+walked up and down, and then he came and stood behind her chair, looking
+down upon the top of her head. He could no longer restrain his impulse.
+"What did your mother tell you about me--my history?" he asked.
+
+"That you were related by marriage."
+
+"She should have told more--before you knew me! Then my task would not
+have been such a hard one....Elizabeth, it is I who am your father, and
+not Richard Newson. Shame alone prevented your wretched parents from
+owning this to you while both of 'em were alive."
+
+The back of Elizabeth's head remained still, and her shoulders did not
+denote even the movements of breathing. Henchard went on: "I'd rather
+have your scorn, your fear, anything than your ignorance; 'tis that I
+hate! Your mother and I were man and wife when we were young. What you
+saw was our second marriage. Your mother was too honest. We had thought
+each other dead--and--Newson became her husband."
+
+This was the nearest approach Henchard could make to the full truth. As
+far as he personally was concerned he would have screened nothing;
+but he showed a respect for the young girl's sex and years worthy of a
+better man.
+
+When he had gone on to give details which a whole series of slight and
+unregarded incidents in her past life strangely corroborated; when, in
+short, she believed his story to be true, she became greatly agitated,
+and turning round to the table flung her face upon it weeping.
+
+"Don't cry--don't cry!" said Henchard, with vehement pathos, "I can't
+bear it, I won't bear it. I am your father; why should you cry? Am I so
+dreadful, so hateful to 'ee? Don't take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!"
+he cried, grasping her wet hand. "Don't take against me--though I was a
+drinking man once, and used your mother roughly--I'll be kinder to you
+than HE was! I'll do anything, if you will only look upon me as your
+father!"
+
+She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully; but she could not; she
+was troubled at his presence, like the brethren at the avowal of Joseph.
+
+"I don't want you to come to me all of a sudden," said Henchard in
+jerks, and moving like a great tree in a wind. "No, Elizabeth, I don't.
+I'll go away and not see you till to-morrow, or when you like, and then
+I'll show 'ee papers to prove my words. There, I am gone, and won't
+disturb you any more....'Twas I that chose your name, my daughter; your
+mother wanted it Susan. There, don't forget 'twas I gave you your name!"
+He went out at the door and shut her softly in, and she heard him go
+away into the garden. But he had not done. Before she had moved, or in
+any way recovered from the effect of his disclosure, he reappeared.
+
+"One word more, Elizabeth," he said. "You'll take my surname now--hey?
+Your mother was against it, but it will be much more pleasant to me.
+'Tis legally yours, you know. But nobody need know that. You shall take
+it as if by choice. I'll talk to my lawyer--I don't know the law of it
+exactly; but will you do this--let me put a few lines into the newspaper
+that such is to be your name?"
+
+"If it is my name I must have it, mustn't I?" she asked.
+
+"Well, well; usage is everything in these matters."
+
+"I wonder why mother didn't wish it?"
+
+"Oh, some whim of the poor soul's. Now get a bit of paper and draw up a
+paragraph as I shall tell you. But let's have a light."
+
+"I can see by the firelight," she answered. "Yes--I'd rather."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote at
+his dictation words which he had evidently got by heart from some
+advertisement or other--words to the effect that she, the writer,
+hitherto known as Elizabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call herself
+Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. It was done, and fastened up, and
+directed to the office of the Casterbridge Chronicle.
+
+"Now," said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he always
+emitted when he had carried his point--though tenderness softened it
+this time--"I'll go upstairs and hunt for some documents that will
+prove it all to you. But I won't trouble you with them till to-morrow.
+Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!"
+
+He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it all
+meant, or adjust her filial sense to the new center of gravity. She was
+thankful that he had left her to herself for the evening, and sat down
+over the fire. Here she remained in silence, and wept--not for her
+mother now, but for the genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemed
+doing a wrong.
+
+Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papers of a domestic nature
+he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this he unlocked. Before turning
+them over he leant back and indulged in reposeful thought. Elizabeth was
+his at last and she was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that
+she would be sure to like him. He was the kind of man to whom some
+human object for pouring out his heart upon--were it emotive or were
+it choleric--was almost a necessity. The craving for his heart for the
+re-establishment of this tenderest human tie had been great during
+his wife's lifetime, and now he had submitted to its mastery without
+reluctance and without fear. He bent over the drawer again, and
+proceeded in his search.
+
+Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his wife's little
+desk, the keys of which had been handed to him at her request. Here was
+the letter addressed to him with the restriction, "NOT TO BE OPENED TILL
+ELIZABETH-JANE'S WEDDING-DAY."
+
+Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had been no
+practical hand at anything. In sealing up the sheet, which was folded
+and tucked in without an envelope, in the old-fashioned way, she had
+overlaid the junction with a large mass of wax without the requisite
+under-touch of the same. The seal had cracked, and the letter was open.
+Henchard had no reason to suppose the restriction one of serious weight,
+and his feeling for his late wife had not been of the nature of deep
+respect. "Some trifling fancy or other of poor Susan's, I suppose," he
+said; and without curiosity he allowed his eyes to scan the letter:--
+
+
+MY DEAR MICHAEL,--For the good of all three of us I have kept one thing
+a secret from you till now. I hope you will understand why; I think you
+will; though perhaps you may not forgive me. But, dear Michael, I have
+done it for the best. I shall be in my grave when you read this, and
+Elizabeth-Jane will have a home. Don't curse me Mike--think of how I was
+situated. I can hardly write it, but here it is. Elizabeth-Jane is not
+your Elizabeth-Jane--the child who was in my arms when you sold me.
+No; she died three months after that, and this living one is my other
+husband's. I christened her by the same name we had given to the first,
+and she filled up the ache I felt at the other's loss. Michael, I
+am dying, and I might have held my tongue; but I could not. Tell her
+husband of this or not, as you may judge; and forgive, if you can, a
+woman you once deeply wronged, as she forgives you.
+
+SUSAN HENCHARD
+
+
+Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane through
+which he saw for miles. His lips twitched, and he seemed to compress his
+frame, as if to bear better. His usual habit was not to consider whether
+destiny were hard upon him or not--the shape of his ideals in cases of
+affliction being simply a moody "I am to suffer, I perceive." "This
+much scourging, then, it is for me." But now through his passionate head
+there stormed this thought--that the blasting disclosure was what he had
+deserved.
+
+His wife's extreme reluctance to have the girl's name altered from
+Newson to Henchard was now accounted for fully. It furnished another
+illustration of that honesty in dishonesty which had characterized her
+in other things.
+
+He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of hours; till he
+suddenly said, "Ah--I wonder if it is true!"
+
+He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and went with a
+candle to the door of Elizabeth-Jane's room, where he put his ear to
+the keyhole and listened. She was breathing profoundly. Henchard softly
+turned the handle, entered, and shading the light, approached the
+bedside. Gradually bringing the light from behind a screening curtain
+he held it in such a manner that it fell slantwise on her face without
+shining on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded her features.
+
+They were fair: his were dark. But this was an unimportant preliminary.
+In sleep there come to the surface buried genealogical facts, ancestral
+curves, dead men's traits, which the mobility of daytime animation
+screens and overwhelms. In the present statuesque repose of the young
+girl's countenance Richard Newson's was unmistakably reflected. He could
+not endure the sight of her, and hastened away.
+
+Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it. His wife
+was dead, and the first impulse for revenge died with the thought that
+she was beyond him. He looked out at the night as at a fiend. Henchard,
+like all his kind, was superstitious, and he could not help thinking
+that the concatenation of events this evening had produced was the
+scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him. Yet they
+had developed naturally. If he had not revealed his past history to
+Elizabeth he would not have searched the drawer for papers, and so on.
+The mockery was, that he should have no sooner taught a girl to claim
+the shelter of his paternity than he discovered her to have no kinship
+with him.
+
+This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish trick from
+a fellow-creature. Like Prester John's, his table had been spread, and
+infernal harpies had snatched up the food. He went out of the house, and
+moved sullenly onward down the pavement till he came to the bridge at
+the bottom of the High Street. Here he turned in upon a bypath on the
+river bank, skirting the north-eastern limits of the town.
+
+These precincts embodied the mournful phases of Casterbridge life, as
+the south avenues embodied its cheerful moods. The whole way along here
+was sunless, even in summer time; in spring, white frosts lingered here
+when other places were steaming with warmth; while in winter it was the
+seed-field of all the aches, rheumatisms, and torturing cramps of
+the year. The Casterbridge doctors must have pined away for want of
+sufficient nourishment but for the configuration of the landscape on the
+north-eastern side.
+
+The river--slow, noiseless, and dark--the Schwarzwasser of
+Casterbridge--ran beneath a low cliff, the two together forming a
+defence which had rendered walls and artificial earthworks on this side
+unnecessary. Here were ruins of a Franciscan priory, and a mill attached
+to the same, the water of which roared down a back-hatch like the voice
+of desolation. Above the cliff, and behind the river, rose a pile of
+buildings, and in the front of the pile a square mass cut into the sky.
+It was like a pedestal lacking its statue. This missing feature, without
+which the design remained incomplete, was, in truth, the corpse of a
+man, for the square mass formed the base of the gallows, the extensive
+buildings at the back being the county gaol. In the meadow where
+Henchard now walked the mob were wont to gather whenever an execution
+took place, and there to the tune of the roaring weir they stood and
+watched the spectacle.
+
+The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the glooms of this region
+impressed Henchard more than he had expected. The lugubrious harmony of
+the spot with his domestic situation was too perfect for him, impatient
+of effects, scenes, and adumbrations. It reduced his heartburning to
+melancholy, and he exclaimed, "Why the deuce did I come here!" He went
+on past the cottage in which the old local hangman had lived and died,
+in times before that calling was monopolized over all England by a
+single gentleman; and climbed up by a steep back lane into the town.
+
+For the sufferings of that night, engendered by his bitter
+disappointment, he might well have been pitied. He was like one who had
+half fainted, and could neither recover nor complete the swoon. In words
+he could blame his wife, but not in his heart; and had he obeyed the
+wise directions outside her letter this pain would have been spared him
+for long--possibly for ever, Elizabeth-Jane seeming to show no ambition
+to quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for the speculative path of
+matrimony.
+
+The morning came after this night of unrest, and with it the necessity
+for a plan. He was far too self-willed to recede from a position,
+especially as it would involve humiliation. His daughter he had asserted
+her to be, and his daughter she should always think herself, no matter
+what hyprocrisy it involved.
+
+But he was ill-prepared for the first step in this new situation. The
+moment he came into the breakfast-room Elizabeth advanced with open
+confidence to him and took him by the arm.
+
+"I have thought and thought all night of it," she said frankly. "And I
+see that everything must be as you say. And I am going to look upon you
+as the father that you are, and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more.
+It is so plain to me now. Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you
+would not have done half the things you have done for me, and let me
+have my own way so entirely, and bought me presents, if I had only been
+your step-daughter! He--Mr. Newson--whom my poor mother married by such
+a strange mistake" (Henchard was glad that he had disguised matters
+here), "was very kind--O so kind!" (she spoke with tears in her eyes);
+"but that is not the same thing as being one's real father after all.
+Now, father, breakfast is ready!" she said cheerfully.
+
+Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The moment and the act he had
+prefigured for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet it was no less than
+a miserable insipidity to him now that it had come. His reinstation of
+her mother had been chiefly for the girl's sake, and the fruition of the
+whole scheme was such dust and ashes as this.
+
+
+
+
+20.
+
+
+Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl there can have been
+seldom one like that which followed Henchard's announcement of himself
+to Elizabeth as her father. He had done it in an ardour and an agitation
+which had half carried the point of affection with her; yet, behold,
+from the next morning onwards his manner was constrained as she had
+never seen it before.
+
+The coldness soon broke out into open chiding. One grievous failing of
+Elizabeth's was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect
+words--those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.
+
+It was dinner-time--they never met except at meals--and she happened to
+say when he was rising from table, wishing to show him something, "If
+you'll bide where you be a minute, father, I'll get it."
+
+"'Bide where you be,'" he echoed sharply, "Good God, are you only fit to
+carry wash to a pig-trough, that ye use such words as those?"
+
+She reddened with shame and sadness.
+
+"I meant 'Stay where you are,' father," she said, in a low, humble
+voice. "I ought to have been more careful."
+
+He made no reply, and went out of the room.
+
+The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it came to
+pass that for "fay" she said "succeed"; that she no longer spoke of
+"dumbledores" but of "humble bees"; no longer said of young men and
+women that they "walked together," but that they were "engaged"; that
+she grew to talk of "greggles" as "wild hyacinths"; that when she had
+not slept she did not quaintly tell the servants next morning that she
+had been "hag-rid," but that she had "suffered from indigestion."
+
+These improvements, however, are somewhat in advance of the story.
+Henchard, being uncultivated himself, was the bitterest critic the fair
+girl could possibly have had of her own lapses--really slight now, for
+she read omnivorously. A gratuitous ordeal was in store for her in the
+matter of her handwriting. She was passing the dining-room door one
+evening, and had occasion to go in for something. It was not till she
+had opened the door that she knew the Mayor was there in the company of
+a man with whom he transacted business.
+
+"Here, Elizabeth-Jane," he said, looking round at her, "just write down
+what I tell you--a few words of an agreement for me and this gentleman
+to sign. I am a poor tool with a pen."
+
+"Be jowned, and so be I," said the gentleman.
+
+She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink, and sat down.
+
+"Now then--'An agreement entered into this sixteenth day of
+October'--write that first."
+
+She started the pen in an elephantine march across the sheet. It was a
+splendid round, bold hand of her own conception, a style that would have
+stamped a woman as Minerva's own in more recent days. But other ideas
+reigned then: Henchard's creed was that proper young girls wrote
+ladies'-hand--nay, he believed that bristling characters were as innate
+and inseparable a part of refined womanhood as sex itself. Hence when,
+instead of scribbling, like the Princess Ida,--
+
+     "In such a hand as when a field of corn
+     Bows all its ears before the roaring East,"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags, he reddened
+in angry shame for her, and, peremptorily saying, "Never mind--I'll
+finish it," dismissed her there and then.
+
+Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to her now. She was, it
+must be admitted, sometimes provokingly and unnecessarily willing to
+saddle herself with manual labours. She would go to the kitchen instead
+of ringing, "Not to make Phoebe come up twice." She went down on
+her knees, shovel in hand, when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle;
+moreover, she would persistently thank the parlour-maid for everything,
+till one day, as soon as the girl was gone from the room, Henchard broke
+out with, "Good God, why dostn't leave off thanking that girl as if she
+were a goddess-born! Don't I pay her a dozen pound a year to do things
+for 'ee?" Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation that he became
+sorry a few minutes after, and said that he did not mean to be rough.
+
+These domestic exhibitions were the small protruding needlerocks which
+suggested rather than revealed what was underneath. But his passion had
+less terror for her than his coldness. The increasing frequency of the
+latter mood told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing
+dislike. The more interesting that her appearance and manners became
+under the softening influences which she could now command, and in her
+wisdom did command, the more she seemed to estrange him. Sometimes she
+caught him looking at her with a louring invidiousness that she could
+hardly bear. Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockery that she should
+for the first time excite his animosity when she had taken his surname.
+
+But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabeth had latterly
+been accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of cider or ale and
+bread-and-cheese to Nance Mockridge, who worked in the yard wimbling
+hay-bonds. Nance accepted this offering thankfully at first; afterwards
+as a matter of course. On a day when Henchard was on the premises he saw
+his step-daughter enter the hay-barn on this errand; and, as there was
+no clear spot on which to deposit the provisions, she at once set
+to work arranging two trusses of hay as a table, Mockridge meanwhile
+standing with her hands on her hips, easefully looking at the
+preparations on her behalf.
+
+"Elizabeth, come here!" said Henchard; and she obeyed.
+
+"Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?" he said with suppressed
+passion. "Haven't I told you o't fifty times? Hey? Making yourself a
+drudge for a common workwoman of such a character as hers! Why, ye'll
+disgrace me to the dust!"
+
+Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn
+door, who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character.
+Coming to the door she cried regardless of consequences, "Come to that,
+Mr. Henchard, I can let 'ee know she've waited on worse!"
+
+"Then she must have had more charity than sense," said Henchard.
+
+"O no, she hadn't. 'Twere not for charity but for hire; and at a
+public-house in this town!"
+
+"It is not true!" cried Henchard indignantly.
+
+"Just ask her," said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner that
+she could comfortably scratch her elbows.
+
+Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and white
+from confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. "What does this
+mean?" he said to her. "Anything or nothing?"
+
+"It is true," said Elizabeth-Jane. "But it was only--"
+
+"Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?"
+
+"At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when we were
+staying there."
+
+Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailed into the barn; for
+assuming that she was to be discharged on the instant she had resolved
+to make the most of her victory. Henchard, however, said nothing about
+discharging her. Unduly sensitive on such points by reason of his
+own past, he had the look of one completely ground down to the last
+indignity. Elizabeth followed him to the house like a culprit; but when
+she got inside she could not see him. Nor did she see him again that
+day.
+
+Convinced of the scathing damage to his local repute and position that
+must have been caused by such a fact, though it had never before reached
+his own ears, Henchard showed a positive distaste for the presence of
+this girl not his own, whenever he encountered her. He mostly dined with
+the farmers at the market-room of one of the two chief hotels, leaving
+her in utter solitude. Could he have seen how she made use of those
+silent hours he might have found reason to reserve his judgment on
+her quality. She read and took notes incessantly, mastering facts with
+painful laboriousness, but never flinching from her self-imposed task.
+She began the study of Latin, incited by the Roman characteristics of
+the town she lived in. "If I am not well-informed it shall be by no
+fault of my own," she would say to herself through the tears that would
+occasionally glide down her peachy cheeks when she was fairly baffled by
+the portentous obscurity of many of these educational works.
+
+Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feeling, great-eyed creature, construed
+by not a single contiguous being; quenching with patient fortitude
+her incipient interest in Farfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided,
+unmaidenly, and unwise. True, that for reasons best known to herself,
+she had, since Farfrae's dismissal, shifted her quarters from the back
+room affording a view of the yard (which she had occupied with such
+zest) to a front chamber overlooking the street; but as for the young
+man, whenever he passed the house he seldom or never turned his head.
+
+Winter had almost come, and unsettled weather made her still more
+dependent upon indoor resources. But there were certain early winter
+days in Casterbridge--days of firmamental exhaustion which followed
+angry south-westerly tempests--when, if the sun shone, the air was like
+velvet. She seized on these days for her periodical visits to the spot
+where her mother lay buried--the still-used burial-ground of the old
+Roman-British city, whose curious feature was this, its continuity as a
+place of sepulture. Mrs. Henchard's dust mingled with the dust of women
+who lay ornamented with glass hair-pins and amber necklaces, and men who
+held in their mouths coins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and the Constantines.
+
+Half-past ten in the morning was about her hour for seeking this spot--a
+time when the town avenues were deserted as the avenues of Karnac.
+Business had long since passed down them into its daily cells, and
+Leisure had not arrived there. So Elizabeth-Jane walked and read,
+or looked over the edge of the book to think, and thus reached the
+churchyard.
+
+There, approaching her mother's grave she saw a solitary dark figure in
+the middle of the gravel-walk. This figure, too, was reading; but not
+from a book: the words which engrossed it being the inscription on Mrs.
+Henchard's tombstone. The personage was in mourning like herself, was
+about her age and size, and might have been her wraith or double, but
+for the fact that it was a lady much more beautifully dressed than she.
+Indeed, comparatively indifferent as Elizabeth-Jane was to dress,
+unless for some temporary whim or purpose, her eyes were arrested by
+the artistic perfection of the lady's appearance. Her gait, too, had
+a flexuousness about it, which seemed to avoid angularity. It was a
+revelation to Elizabeth that human beings could reach this stage of
+external development--she had never suspected it. She felt all the
+freshness and grace to be stolen from herself on the instant by the
+neighbourhood of such a stranger. And this was in face of the fact that
+Elizabeth could now have been writ handsome, while the young lady was
+simply pretty.
+
+Had she been envious she might have hated the woman; but she did not
+do that--she allowed herself the pleasure of feeling fascinated. She
+wondered where the lady had come from. The stumpy and practical walk of
+honest homeliness which mostly prevailed there, the two styles of dress
+thereabout, the simple and the mistaken, equally avouched that
+this figure was no Casterbridge woman's, even if a book in her hand
+resembling a guide-book had not also suggested it.
+
+The stranger presently moved from the tombstone of Mrs. Henchard, and
+vanished behind the corner of the wall. Elizabeth went to the tomb
+herself; beside it were two footprints distinct in the soil, signifying
+that the lady had stood there a long time. She returned homeward,
+musing on what she had seen, as she might have mused on a rainbow or the
+Northern Lights, a rare butterfly or a cameo.
+
+Interesting as things had been out of doors, at home it turned out to
+be one of her bad days. Henchard, whose two years' mayoralty was ending,
+had been made aware that he was not to be chosen to fill a vacancy in
+the list of aldermen; and that Farfrae was likely to become one of the
+Council. This caused the unfortunate discovery that she had played the
+waiting-maid in the town of which he was Mayor to rankle in his mind yet
+more poisonously. He had learnt by personal inquiry at the time that
+it was to Donald Farfrae--that treacherous upstart--that she had thus
+humiliated herself. And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach no great
+importance to the incident--the cheerful souls at the Three Mariners
+having exhausted its aspects long ago--such was Henchard's haughty
+spirit that the simple thrifty deed was regarded as little less than a
+social catastrophe by him.
+
+Ever since the evening of his wife's arrival with her daughter there had
+been something in the air which had changed his luck. That dinner at the
+King's Arms with his friends had been Henchard's Austerlitz: he had had
+his successes since, but his course had not been upward. He was not
+to be numbered among the aldermen--that Peerage of burghers--as he had
+expected to be, and the consciousness of this soured him to-day.
+
+"Well, where have you been?" he said to her with offhand laconism.
+
+"I've been strolling in the Walks and churchyard, father, till I feel
+quite leery." She clapped her hand to her mouth, but too late.
+
+This was just enough to incense Henchard after the other crosses of the
+day. "I WON'T have you talk like that!" he thundered. "'Leery,' indeed.
+One would think you worked upon a farm! One day I learn that you lend
+a hand in public-houses. Then I hear you talk like a clodhopper. I'm
+burned, if it goes on, this house can't hold us two."
+
+The only way of getting a single pleasant thought to go to sleep upon
+after this was by recalling the lady she had seen that day, and hoping
+she might see her again.
+
+Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over his jealous folly in
+forbidding Farfrae to pay his addresses to this girl who did not belong
+to him, when if he had allowed them to go on he might not have been
+encumbered with her. At last he said to himself with satisfaction as
+he jumped up and went to the writing-table: "Ah! he'll think it means
+peace, and a marriage portion--not that I don't want my house to be
+troubled with her, and no portion at all!" He wrote as follows:--
+
+
+Sir,--On consideration, I don't wish to interfere with your courtship of
+Elizabeth-Jane, if you care for her. I therefore withdraw my objection;
+excepting in this--that the business be not carried on in my house.--
+
+Yours,
+
+M. HENCHARD.
+
+Mr. Farfrae.
+
+
+The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Jane again in the
+churchyard, but while looking for the lady she was startled by the
+apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside the gate. He glanced up for a
+moment from a pocket-book in which he appeared to be making figures as
+he went; whether or not he saw her he took no notice, and disappeared.
+
+Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluity she thought he
+probably scorned her; and quite broken in spirit sat down on a bench.
+She fell into painful thought on her position, which ended with her
+saying quite loud, "O, I wish I was dead with dear mother!"
+
+Behind the bench was a little promenade under the wall where people
+sometimes walked instead of on the gravel. The bench seemed to be
+touched by something, she looked round, and a face was bending over her,
+veiled, but still distinct, the face of the young woman she had seen
+yesterday.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowing she had been
+overheard, though there was pleasure in her confusion. "Yes, I heard
+you," said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. "What can
+have happened?"
+
+"I don't--I can't tell you," said Elizabeth, putting her hand to her
+face to hide a quick flush that had come.
+
+There was no movement or word for a few seconds; then the girl felt that
+the young lady was sitting down beside her.
+
+"I guess how it is with you," said the latter. "That was your mother."
+She waved her hand towards the tombstone. Elizabeth looked up at her as
+if inquiring of herself whether there should be confidence. The lady's
+manner was so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there should
+be confidence. "It was my mother," she said, "my only friend."
+
+"But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?"
+
+"Yes, he is living," said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Is he not kind to you?"
+
+"I've no wish to complain of him."
+
+"There has been a disagreement?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"Perhaps you were to blame," suggested the stranger.
+
+"I was--in many ways," sighed the meek Elizabeth. "I swept up the coals
+when the servants ought to have done it; and I said I was leery;--and he
+was angry with me."
+
+The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply. "Do you know the
+impression your words give me?" she said ingenuously. "That he is a
+hot-tempered man--a little proud--perhaps ambitious; but not a bad man."
+Her anxiety not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was
+curious.
+
+"O no; certainly not BAD," agreed the honest girl. "And he has not even
+been unkind to me till lately--since mother died. But it has been very
+much to bear while it has lasted. All is owing to my defects, I daresay;
+and my defects are owing to my history."
+
+"What is your history?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner. She found that her
+questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed
+compelled to look back again. "My history is not gay or attractive," she
+said. "And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know."
+
+The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon Elizabeth-Jane
+told the tale of her life as she understood it, which was in general the
+true one, except that the sale at the fair had no part therein.
+
+Contrary to the girl's expectation her new friend was not shocked. This
+cheered her; and it was not till she thought of returning to that home
+in which she had been treated so roughly of late that her spirits fell.
+
+"I don't know how to return," she murmured. "I think of going away. But
+what can I do? Where can I go?"
+
+"Perhaps it will be better soon," said her friend gently. "So I would
+not go far. Now what do you think of this: I shall soon want somebody to
+live in my house, partly as housekeeper, partly as companion; would you
+mind coming to me? But perhaps--"
+
+"O yes," cried Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes. "I would, indeed--I
+would do anything to be independent; for then perhaps my father might
+get to love me. But, ah!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am no accomplished person. And a companion to you must be that."
+
+"O, not necessarily."
+
+"Not? But I can't help using rural words sometimes, when I don't mean
+to."
+
+"Never mind, I shall like to know them."
+
+"And--O, I know I shan't do!"--she cried with a distressful laugh. "I
+accidentally learned to write round hand instead of ladies'-hand. And,
+of course, you want some one who can write that?"
+
+"Well, no."
+
+"What, not necessary to write ladies'-hand?" cried the joyous Elizabeth.
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But where do you live?"
+
+"In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be living here after twelve o'clock
+to-day."
+
+Elizabeth expressed her astonishment.
+
+"I have been staying at Budmouth for a few days while my house
+was getting ready. The house I am going into is that one they call
+High-Place Hall--the old stone one looking down the lane to the market.
+Two or three rooms are fit for occupation, though not all: I sleep there
+to-night for the first time. Now will you think over my proposal, and
+meet me here the first fine day next week, and say if you are still in
+the same mind?"
+
+Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change from an
+unbearable position, joyfully assented; and the two parted at the gate
+of the churchyard.
+
+
+
+
+21.
+
+
+As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains practically unmarked
+till some mature experience enforces it, so did this High-Place Hall now
+for the first time really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her ears
+had heard its name on a hundred occasions.
+
+Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger, and the house,
+and her own chance of living there, all the rest of the day. In the
+afternoon she had occasion to pay a few bills in the town and do a
+little shopping when she learnt that what was a new discovery to
+herself had become a common topic about the streets. High-Place Hall
+was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the
+shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance of her being
+a customer.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new
+to her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.
+
+When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render
+chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover's
+feeling, thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place
+Hall. She went up the street in that direction.
+
+The Hall, with its grey facade and parapet, was the only residence of
+its sort so near the centre of the town. It had, in the first place, the
+characteristics of a country mansion--birds' nests in its chimneys,
+damp nooks where fungi grew and irregularities of surface direct from
+Nature's trowel. At night the forms of passengers were patterned by the
+lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.
+
+This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of the premises
+having been in that lawless condition which accompanies the entry of a
+new tenant. The house was entirely of stone, and formed an example of
+dignity without great size. It was not altogether aristocratic, still
+less consequential, yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively said
+"Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it" however vague his opinions of
+those accessories might be.
+
+Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been wrong, for
+until this very evening, when the new lady had arrived, the house had
+been empty for a year or two while before that interval its occupancy
+had been irregular. The reason of its unpopularity was soon made
+manifest. Some of its rooms overlooked the market-place; and such a
+prospect from such a house was not considered desirable or seemly by its
+would-be occupiers.
+
+Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights there. The lady
+had obviously arrived. The impression that this woman of comparatively
+practised manner had made upon the studious girl's mind was so deep that
+she enjoyed standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the
+charming lady was inside the confronting walls, and to wonder what
+she was doing. Her admiration for the architecture of that front was
+entirely on account of the inmate it screened. Though for that matter
+the architecture deserved admiration, or at least study, on its own
+account. It was Palladian, and like most architecture erected since
+the Gothic age was a compilation rather than a design. But its
+reasonableness made it impressive. It was not rich, but rich enough. A
+timely consciousness of the ultimate vanity of human architecture, no
+less than of other human things, had prevented artistic superfluity.
+
+Men had still quite recently been going in and out with parcels
+and packing-cases, rendering the door and hall within like a public
+thoroughfare. Elizabeth trotted through the open door in the dusk,
+but becoming alarmed at her own temerity she went quickly out again by
+another which stood open in the lofty wall of the back court. To her
+surprise she found herself in one of the little-used alleys of the town.
+Looking round at the door which had given her egress, by the light of
+the solitary lamp fixed in the alley, she saw that it was arched and
+old--older even than the house itself. The door was studded, and the
+keystone of the arch was a mask. Originally the mask had exhibited a
+comic leer, as could still be discerned; but generations of Casterbridge
+boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth; and the
+blows thereon had chipped off the lips and jaws as if they had been
+eaten away by disease. The appearance was so ghastly by the weakly
+lamp-glimmer that she could not bear to look at it--the first unpleasant
+feature of her visit.
+
+The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of the leering
+mask suggested one thing above all others as appertaining to the
+mansion's past history--intrigue. By the alley it had been possible to
+come unseen from all sorts of quarters in the town--the old play-house,
+the old bull-stake, the old cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless
+infants had been used to disappear. High-Place Hall could boast of its
+conveniences undoubtedly.
+
+She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward, which was
+down the alley, but hearing footsteps approaching in that quarter, and
+having no great wish to be found in such a place at such a time she
+quickly retreated. There being no other way out she stood behind a brick
+pier till the intruder should have gone his ways.
+
+Had she watched she would have been surprised. She would have seen that
+the pedestrian on coming up made straight for the arched doorway: that
+as he paused with his hand upon the latch the lamplight fell upon the
+face of Henchard.
+
+But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook that she discerned
+nothing of this. Henchard passed in, as ignorant of her presence as she
+was ignorant of his identity, and disappeared in the darkness. Elizabeth
+came out a second time into the alley, and made the best of her way
+home.
+
+Henchard's chiding, by begetting in her a nervous fear of doing anything
+definable as unladylike, had operated thus curiously in keeping them
+unknown to each other at a critical moment. Much might have resulted
+from recognition--at the least a query on either side in one and the
+selfsame form: What could he or she possibly be doing there?
+
+Henchard, whatever his business at the lady's house, reached his own
+home only a few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane. Her plan was to
+broach the question of leaving his roof this evening; the events of the
+day had urged her to the course. But its execution depended upon his
+mood, and she anxiously awaited his manner towards her. She found that
+it had changed. He showed no further tendency to be angry; he
+showed something worse. Absolute indifference had taken the place
+of irritability; and his coldness was such that it encouraged her to
+departure, even more than hot temper could have done.
+
+"Father, have you any objection to my going away?" she asked.
+
+"Going away! No--none whatever. Where are you going?"
+
+She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything at present
+about her destination to one who took so little interest in her. He
+would know that soon enough. "I have heard of an opportunity of getting
+more cultivated and finished, and being less idle," she answered,
+with hesitation. "A chance of a place in a household where I can have
+advantages of study, and seeing refined life."
+
+"Then make the best of it, in Heaven's name--if you can't get cultivated
+where you are."
+
+"You don't object?"
+
+"Object--I? Ho--no! Not at all." After a pause he said, "But you won't
+have enough money for this lively scheme without help, you know? If you
+like I should be willing to make you an allowance, so that you not be
+bound to live upon the starvation wages refined folk are likely to pay
+'ee."
+
+She thanked him for this offer.
+
+"It had better be done properly," he added after a pause. "A small
+annuity is what I should like you to have--so as to be independent of
+me--and so that I may be independent of you. Would that please ye?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then I'll see about it this very day." He seemed relieved to get her
+off his hands by this arrangement, and as far as they were concerned the
+matter was settled. She now simply waited to see the lady again.
+
+The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell. Elizabeth-Jane
+having now changed her orbit from one of gay independence to laborious
+self-help, thought the weather good enough for such declined glory as
+hers, if her friend would only face it--a matter of doubt. She went to
+the boot-room where her pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis; took
+them down, had their mildewed leathers blacked, and put them on as she
+had done in old times. Thus mounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she
+went off to the place of appointment--intending, if the lady were not
+there, to call at the house.
+
+One side of the churchyard--the side towards the weather--was sheltered
+by an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves overhung as much as one or
+two feet. At the back of the wall was a corn-yard with its granary and
+barns--the place wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier. Under
+the projection of the thatch she saw a figure. The young lady had come.
+
+Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl's utmost hopes that
+she almost feared her good fortune. Fancies find rooms in the strongest
+minds. Here, in a churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of
+weathers, was a strange woman of curious fascinations never seen
+elsewhere: there might be some devilry about her presence. However,
+Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on whose summit the rope of a
+flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came to the wall.
+
+The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that Elizabeth forgot
+her fancy. "Well," said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her teeth
+appearing with the word through the black fleece that protected her
+face, "have you decided?"
+
+"Yes, quite," said the other eagerly.
+
+"Your father is willing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then come along."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now--as soon as you like. I had a good mind to send to you to come to
+my house, thinking you might not venture up here in the wind. But as I
+like getting out of doors, I thought I would come and see first."
+
+"It was my own thought."
+
+"That shows we shall agree. Then can you come to-day? My house is so
+hollow and dismal that I want some living thing there."
+
+"I think I might be able to," said the girl, reflecting.
+
+Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind and raindrops
+from the other side of the wall. There came such words as "sacks,"
+"quarters," "threshing," "tailing," "next Saturday's market," each
+sentence being disorganized by the gusts like a face in a cracked
+mirror. Both the women listened.
+
+"Who are those?" said the lady.
+
+"One is my father. He rents that yard and barn."
+
+The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in listening to the
+technicalities of the corn trade. At last she said suddenly, "Did you
+tell him where you were going to?"
+
+"No."
+
+"O--how was that?"
+
+"I thought it safer to get away first--as he is so uncertain in his
+temper."
+
+"Perhaps you are right....Besides, I have never told you my name. It is
+Miss Templeman....Are they gone--on the other side?"
+
+"No. They have only gone up into the granary."
+
+"Well, it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day--this evening,
+say, at six."
+
+"Which way shall I come, ma'am?"
+
+"The front way--round by the gate. There is no other that I have
+noticed."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.
+
+"Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you may as well
+keep silent upon it till you are clear off. Who knows but that he may
+alter his mind?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. "On consideration I don't fear it," she
+said sadly. "He has grown quite cold to me."
+
+"Very well. Six o'clock then."
+
+When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they found enough
+to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the wind. Nevertheless the
+lady looked in at the corn-yard gates as she passed them, and paused on
+one foot for a moment. But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and
+the humpbacked barn cushioned with moss, and the granary rising against
+the church-tower behind, where the smacking of the rope against the
+flag-staff still went on.
+
+Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth-Jane's
+movement was to be so prompt. Hence when, just before six, he
+reached home and saw a fly at the door from the King's Arms, and his
+step-daughter, with all her little bags and boxes, getting into it, he
+was taken by surprise.
+
+"But you said I might go, father?" she explained through the carriage
+window.
+
+"Said!--yes. But I thought you meant next month, or next year. 'Od,
+seize it--you take time by the forelock! This, then, is how you be going
+to treat me for all my trouble about ye?"
+
+"O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of you!" she said
+with spirit.
+
+"Well, well, have your own way," he replied. He entered the house, and,
+seeing that all her things had not yet been brought down, went up to
+her room to look on. He had never been there since she had occupied it.
+Evidences of her care, of her endeavours for improvement, were
+visible all around, in the form of books, sketches, maps, and little
+arrangements for tasteful effects. Henchard had known nothing of these
+efforts. He gazed at them, turned suddenly about, and came down to the
+door.
+
+"Look here," he said, in an altered voice--he never called her by
+name now--"don't 'ee go away from me. It may be I've spoke roughly to
+you--but I've been grieved beyond everything by you--there's something
+that caused it."
+
+"By me?" she said, with deep concern. "What have I done?"
+
+"I can't tell you now. But if you'll stop, and go on living as my
+daughter, I'll tell you all in time."
+
+But the proposal had come ten minutes too late. She was in the fly--was
+already, in imagination, at the house of the lady whose manner had such
+charms for her. "Father," she said, as considerately as she could, "I
+think it best for us that I go on now. I need not stay long; I shall not
+be far away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again."
+
+He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and no more.
+"You are not going far, you say. What will be your address, in case I
+wish to write to you? Or am I not to know?"
+
+"Oh yes--certainly. It is only in the town--High-Place Hall!"
+
+"Where?" said Henchard, his face stilling.
+
+She repeated the words. He neither moved nor spoke, and waving her hand
+to him in utmost friendliness she signified to the flyman to drive up
+the street.
+
+
+
+
+22.
+
+
+We go back for a moment to the preceding night, to account for
+Henchard's attitude.
+
+At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplating her stealthy
+reconnoitring excursion to the abode of the lady of her fancy, he had
+been not a little amazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta's
+well-known characters. The self-repression, the resignation of her
+previous communication had vanished from her mood; she wrote with
+some of the natural lightness which had marked her in their early
+acquaintance.
+
+
+HIGH-PLACE HALL
+
+MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD,--Don't be surprised. It is for your good and mine,
+as I hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridge--for how long I
+cannot tell. That depends upon another; and he is a man, and a merchant,
+and a Mayor, and one who has the first right to my affections.
+
+Seriously, mon ami, I am not so light-hearted as I may seem to be from
+this. I have come here in consequence of hearing of the death of your
+wife--whom you used to think of as dead so many years before! Poor
+woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, though uncomplaining, and
+though weak in intellect not an imbecile. I am glad you acted fairly by
+her. As soon as I knew she was no more, it was brought home to me very
+forcibly by my conscience that I ought to endeavour to disperse the
+shade which my etourderie flung over my name, by asking you to carry out
+your promise to me. I hope you are of the same mind, and that you
+will take steps to this end. As, however, I did not know how you were
+situated, or what had happened since our separation, I decided to come
+and establish myself here before communicating with you.
+
+You probably feel as I do about this. I shall be able to see you in a
+day or two. Till then, farewell.--Yours,
+
+LUCETTA.
+
+P.S.--I was unable to keep my appointment to meet you for a moment or
+two in passing through Casterbridge the other day. My plans were altered
+by a family event, which it will surprise you to hear of.
+
+
+Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall was being prepared for
+a tenant. He said with a puzzled air to the first person he encountered,
+"Who is coming to live at the Hall?"
+
+"A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir," said his informant.
+
+Henchard thought it over. "Lucetta is related to her, I suppose,"
+he said to himself. "Yes, I must put her in her proper position,
+undoubtedly."
+
+It was by no means with the oppression that would once have accompanied
+the thought that he regarded the moral necessity now; it was, indeed,
+with interest, if not warmth. His bitter disappointment at finding
+Elizabeth-Jane to be none of his, and himself a childless man, had left
+an emotional void in Henchard that he unconsciously craved to fill. In
+this frame of mind, though without strong feeling, he had strolled up
+the alley and into High-Place Hall by the postern at which Elizabeth
+had so nearly encountered him. He had gone on thence into the court, and
+inquired of a man whom he saw unpacking china from a crate if Miss Le
+Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueur had been the name under which he
+had known Lucetta--or "Lucette," as she had called herself at that time.
+
+The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only had come.
+Henchard went away, concluding that Lucetta had not as yet settled in.
+
+He was in this interested stage of the inquiry when he witnessed
+Elizabeth-Jane's departure the next day. On hearing her announce the
+address there suddenly took possession of him the strange thought that
+Lucetta and Miss Templeman were one and the same person, for he could
+recall that in her season of intimacy with him the name of the rich
+relative whom he had deemed somewhat a mythical personage had been given
+as Templeman. Though he was not a fortune-hunter, the possibility
+that Lucetta had been sublimed into a lady of means by some munificent
+testament on the part of this relative lent a charm to her image which
+it might not otherwise have acquired. He was getting on towards the dead
+level of middle age, when material things increasingly possess the mind.
+
+But Henchard was not left long in suspense. Lucetta was rather addicted
+to scribbling, as had been shown by the torrent of letters after the
+fiasco in their marriage arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone
+away when another note came to the Mayor's house from High-Place Hall.
+
+
+"I am in residence," she said, "and comfortable, though getting here has
+been a wearisome undertaking. You probably know what I am going to tell
+you, or do you not? My good Aunt Templeman, the banker's widow, whose
+very existence you used to doubt, much more her affluence, has lately
+died, and bequeathed some of her property to me. I will not enter into
+details except to say that I have taken her name--as a means of escape
+from mine, and its wrongs.
+
+"I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to reside in Casterbridge--to
+be tenant of High-Place Hall, that at least you may be put to no trouble
+if you wish to see me. My first intention was to keep you in ignorance
+of the changes in my life till you should meet me in the street; but I
+have thought better of this.
+
+"You probably are aware of my arrangement with your daughter, and have
+doubtless laughed at the--what shall I call it?--practical joke (in all
+affection) of my getting her to live with me. But my first meeting with
+her was purely an accident. Do you see, Michael, partly why I have done
+it?--why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if to visit HER, and
+thus to form my acquaintance naturally. She is a dear, good girl, and
+she thinks you have treated her with undue severity. You may have done
+so in your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure. As the result has
+been to bring her to me I am not disposed to upbraid you.--In haste,
+yours always,
+
+"LUCETTA."
+
+
+The excitement which these announcements produced in Henchard's gloomy
+soul was to him most pleasurable. He sat over his dining-table long and
+dreamily, and by an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments which
+had run to waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
+Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they had grown dry. She was
+plainly in a very coming-on disposition for marriage. But what else
+could a poor woman be who had given her time and her heart to him
+so thoughtlessly, at that former time, as to lose her credit by it?
+Probably conscience no less than affection had brought her here. On the
+whole he did not blame her.
+
+"The artful little woman!" he said, smiling (with reference to Lucetta's
+adroit and pleasant manoeuvre with Elizabeth-Jane).
+
+To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard to start
+for her house. He put on his hat and went. It was between eight and nine
+o'clock when he reached her door. The answer brought him was that Miss
+Templeman was engaged for that evening; but that she would be happy to
+see him the next day.
+
+"That's rather like giving herself airs!" he thought. "And considering
+what we--" But after all, she plainly had not expected him, and he took
+the refusal quietly. Nevertheless he resolved not to go next day. "These
+cursed women--there's not an inch of straight grain in 'em!" he said.
+
+Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard's thought as if it were a
+clue line, and view the interior of High-Place Hall on this particular
+evening.
+
+On Elizabeth-Jane's arrival she had been phlegmatically asked by an
+elderly woman to go upstairs and take off her things. She replied with
+great earnestness that she would not think of giving that trouble, and
+on the instant divested herself of her bonnet and cloak in the passage.
+She was then conducted to the first floor on the landing, and left to
+find her way further alone.
+
+The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoir or small
+drawing-room, and on a sofa with two cylindrical pillows reclined a
+dark-haired, large-eyed, pretty woman, of unmistakably French extraction
+on one side or the other. She was probably some years older than
+Elizabeth, and had a sparkling light in her eye. In front of the sofa
+was a small table, with a pack of cards scattered upon it faces upward.
+
+The attitude had been so full of abandonment that she bounded up like a
+spring on hearing the door open.
+
+Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease, and came across
+to her with a reckless skip that innate grace only prevented from being
+boisterous.
+
+"Why, you are late," she said, taking hold of Elizabeth-Jane's hands.
+
+"There were so many little things to put up."
+
+"And you seem dead-alive and tired. Let me try to enliven you by some
+wonderful tricks I have learnt, to kill time. Sit there and don't move."
+She gathered up the pack of cards, pulled the table in front of her, and
+began to deal them rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.
+
+"Well, have you chosen?" she asked flinging down the last card.
+
+"No," stammered Elizabeth, arousing herself from a reverie. "I forgot, I
+was thinking of--you, and me--and how strange it is that I am here."
+
+Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest, and laid down the
+cards. "Ah! never mind," she said. "I'll lie here while you sit by me;
+and we'll talk."
+
+Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa, but with obvious
+pleasure. It could be seen that though in years she was younger than her
+entertainer in manner and general vision she seemed more of the sage.
+Miss Templeman deposited herself on the sofa in her former flexuous
+position, and throwing her arm above her brow--somewhat in the pose of
+a well-known conception of Titian's--talked up at Elizabeth-Jane
+invertedly across her forehead and arm.
+
+"I must tell you something," she said. "I wonder if you have suspected
+it. I have only been mistress of a large house and fortune a little
+while."
+
+"Oh--only a little while?" murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her countenance
+slightly falling.
+
+"As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere with my father,
+till I was quite flighty and unsettled. He was an officer in the army. I
+should not have mentioned this had I not thought it best you should know
+the truth."
+
+"Yes, yes." She looked thoughtfully round the room--at the little square
+piano with brass inlayings, at the window-curtains, at the lamp, at the
+fair and dark kings and queens on the card-table, and finally at the
+inverted face of Lucetta Templeman, whose large lustrous eyes had such
+an odd effect upside down.
+
+Elizabeth's mind ran on acquirements to an almost morbid degree. "You
+speak French and Italian fluently, no doubt," she said. "I have not been
+able to get beyond a wretched bit of Latin yet."
+
+"Well, for that matter, in my native isle speaking French does not go
+for much. It is rather the other way."
+
+"Where is your native isle?"
+
+It was with rather more reluctance that Miss Templeman said, "Jersey.
+There they speak French on one side of the street and English on the
+other, and a mixed tongue in the middle of the road. But it is a long
+time since I was there. Bath is where my people really belong to, though
+my ancestors in Jersey were as good as anybody in England. They were
+the Le Sueurs, an old family who have done great things in their time.
+I went back and lived there after my father's death. But I don't value
+such past matters, and am quite an English person in my feelings and
+tastes."
+
+Lucetta's tongue had for a moment outrun her discretion. She had arrived
+at Casterbridge as a Bath lady, and there were obvious reasons why
+Jersey should drop out of her life. But Elizabeth had tempted her to
+make free, and a deliberately formed resolve had been broken.
+
+It could not, however, have been broken in safer company. Lucetta's
+words went no further, and after this day she was so much upon her
+guard that there appeared no chance of her identification with the young
+Jersey woman who had been Henchard's dear comrade at a critical time.
+Not the least amusing of her safeguards was her resolute avoidance of a
+French word if one by accident came to her tongue more readily than
+its English equivalent. She shirked it with the suddenness of the weak
+Apostle at the accusation, "Thy speech bewrayeth thee!"
+
+Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning. She dressed
+herself for Mr. Henchard, and restlessly awaited his call before
+mid-day; as he did not come she waited on through the afternoon. But
+she did not tell Elizabeth that the person expected was the girl's
+stepfather.
+
+They sat in adjoining windows of the same room in Lucetta's great stone
+mansion, netting, and looking out upon the market, which formed an
+animated scene. Elizabeth could see the crown of her stepfather's hat
+among the rest beneath, and was not aware that Lucetta watched the same
+object with yet intenser interest. He moved about amid the throng, at
+this point lively as an ant-hill; elsewhere more reposeful, and broken
+up by stalls of fruit and vegetables.
+
+The farmers as a rule preferred the open carrefour for their
+transactions, despite its inconvenient jostlings and the danger from
+crossing vehicles, to the gloomy sheltered market-room provided for
+them. Here they surged on this one day of the week, forming a little
+world of leggings, switches, and sample-bags; men of extensive stomachs,
+sloping like mountain sides; men whose heads in walking swayed as the
+trees in November gales; who in conversing varied their attitudes much,
+lowering themselves by spreading their knees, and thrusting their hands
+into the pockets of remote inner jackets. Their faces radiated tropical
+warmth; for though when at home their countenances varied with the
+seasons, their market-faces all the year round were glowing little
+fires.
+
+All over-clothes here were worn as if they were an inconvenience, a
+hampering necessity. Some men were well dressed; but the majority were
+careless in that respect, appearing in suits which were historical
+records of their wearer's deeds, sun-scorchings, and daily struggles for
+many years past. Yet many carried ruffled cheque-books in their pockets
+which regulated at the bank hard by a balance of never less than four
+figures. In fact, what these gibbous human shapes specially represented
+was ready money--money insistently ready--not ready next year like
+a nobleman's--often not merely ready at the bank like a professional
+man's, but ready in their large plump hands.
+
+It happened that to-day there rose in the midst of them all two or
+three tall apple-trees standing as if they grew on the spot; till it was
+perceived that they were held by men from the cider-districts who came
+here to sell them, bringing the clay of their county on their boots.
+Elizabeth-Jane, who had often observed them, said, "I wonder if the same
+trees come every week?"
+
+"What trees?" said Lucetta, absorbed in watching for Henchard.
+
+Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident checked her. Behind one of
+the trees stood Farfrae, briskly discussing a sample-bag with a farmer.
+Henchard had come up, accidentally encountering the young man, whose
+face seemed to inquire, "Do we speak to each other?"
+
+She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eye which answered "No!"
+Elizabeth-Jane sighed.
+
+"Are you particularly interested in anybody out there?" said Lucetta.
+
+"O, no," said her companion, a quick red shooting over her face.
+
+Luckily Farfrae's figure was immediately covered by the apple-tree.
+
+Lucetta looked hard at her. "Quite sure?" she said.
+
+"O yes," said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+Again Lucetta looked out. "They are all farmers, I suppose?" she said.
+
+"No. There's Mr. Bulge--he's a wine merchant; there's Benjamin
+Brownlet--a horse dealer; and Kitson, the pig breeder; and Yopper, the
+auctioneer; besides maltsters, and millers--and so on." Farfrae stood
+out quite distinctly now; but she did not mention him.
+
+The Saturday afternoon slipped on thus desultorily. The market changed
+from the sample-showing hour to the idle hour before starting homewards,
+when tales were told. Henchard had not called on Lucetta though he had
+stood so near. He must have been too busy, she thought. He would come on
+Sunday or Monday.
+
+The days came but not the visitor, though Lucetta repeated her dressing
+with scrupulous care. She got disheartened. It may at once be declared
+that Lucetta no longer bore towards Henchard all that warm allegiance
+which had characterized her in their first acquaintance, the then
+unfortunate issue of things had chilled pure love considerably. But
+there remained a conscientious wish to bring about her union with him,
+now that there was nothing to hinder it--to right her position--which
+in itself was a happiness to sigh for. With strong social reasons on
+her side why their marriage should take place there had ceased to be
+any worldly reason on his why it should be postponed, since she had
+succeeded to fortune.
+
+Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At breakfast she said to
+Elizabeth-Jane quite coolly: "I imagine your father may call to see you
+to-day. I suppose he stands close by in the market-place with the rest
+of the corn-dealers?"
+
+She shook her head. "He won't come."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He has taken against me," she said in a husky voice.
+
+"You have quarreled more deeply than I know of."
+
+Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her father from
+any charge of unnatural dislike, said "Yes."
+
+"Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will avoid?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded sadly.
+
+Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and lip, and
+burst into hysterical sobs. Here was a disaster--her ingenious scheme
+completely stultified.
+
+"O, my dear Miss Templeman--what's the matter?" cried her companion.
+
+"I like your company much!" said Lucetta, as soon as she could speak.
+
+"Yes, yes--and so do I yours!" Elizabeth chimed in soothingly.
+
+"But--but--" She could not finish the sentence, which was, naturally,
+that if Henchard had such a rooted dislike for the girl as now seemed to
+be the case, Elizabeth-Jane would have to be got rid of--a disagreeable
+necessity.
+
+A provisional resource suggested itself. "Miss Henchard--will you go on
+an errand for me as soon as breakfast is over?--Ah, that's very good of
+you. Will you go and order--" Here she enumerated several commissions at
+sundry shops, which would occupy Elizabeth's time for the next hour or
+two, at least.
+
+"And have you ever seen the Museum?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had not.
+
+"Then you should do so at once. You can finish the morning by going
+there. It is an old house in a back street--I forget where--but you'll
+find out--and there are crowds of interesting things--skeletons, teeth,
+old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds' eggs--all charmingly
+instructive. You'll be sure to stay till you get quite hungry."
+
+Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed. "I wonder why she
+wants to get rid of me to-day!" she said sorrowfully as she went. That
+her absence, rather than her services or instruction, was in request,
+had been readily apparent to Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and
+difficult as it was to attribute a motive for the desire.
+
+She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta's servants was
+sent to Henchard's with a note. The contents were briefly:--
+
+
+DEAR MICHAEL,--You will be standing in view of my house to-day for two
+or three hours in the course of your business, so do please call and
+see me. I am sadly disappointed that you have not come before, for can I
+help anxiety about my own equivocal relation to you?--especially now
+my aunt's fortune has brought me more prominently before society? Your
+daughter's presence here may be the cause of your neglect; and I have
+therefore sent her away for the morning. Say you come on business--I
+shall be quite alone.
+
+LUCETTA.
+
+
+When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions that if a
+gentleman called he was to be admitted at once, and sat down to await
+results.
+
+Sentimentally she did not much care to see him--his delays had wearied
+her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she arranged herself
+picturesquely in the chair; first this way, then that; next so that the
+light fell over her head. Next she flung herself on the couch in the
+cyma-recta curve which so became her, and with her arm over her brow
+looked towards the door. This, she decided, was the best position after
+all, and thus she remained till a man's step was heard on the stairs.
+Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong
+for Art as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behind one of the
+window-curtains in a freak of timidity. In spite of the waning of
+passion the situation was an agitating one--she had not seen Henchard
+since his (supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.
+
+She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the room, shutting
+the door upon him, and leaving as if to go and look for her mistress.
+Lucetta flung back the curtain with a nervous greeting. The man before
+her was not Henchard.
+
+
+
+
+23.
+
+
+A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person had, indeed,
+flashed through Lucetta's mind when she was on the point of bursting
+out; but it was just too late to recede.
+
+He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair, fresh, and
+slenderly handsome. He wore genteel cloth leggings with white buttons,
+polished boots with infinite lace holes, light cord breeches under a
+black velveteen coat and waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch in
+his hand. Lucetta blushed, and said with a curious mixture of pout and
+laugh on her face--"O, I've made a mistake!"
+
+The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.
+
+"But I'm very sorry!" he said, in deprecating tones. "I came and I
+inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, and in no case
+would I have caught ye so unmannerly if I had known!"
+
+"I was the unmannerly one," she said.
+
+"But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?" said Mr.
+Farfrae, blinking a little in his bewilderment and nervously tapping his
+legging with his switch.
+
+"O no, sir,--sit down. You must come and sit down now you are here,"
+replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment. "Miss Henchard
+will be here directly."
+
+Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the young
+man--that hyperborean crispness, stringency, and charm, as of a
+well-braced musical instrument, which had awakened the interest of
+Henchard, and of Elizabeth-Jane and of the Three Mariners' jovial crew,
+at sight, made his unexpected presence here attractive to Lucetta.
+He hesitated, looked at the chair, thought there was no danger in it
+(though there was), and sat down.
+
+Farfrae's sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard's permission to
+him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo her. At first he had taken
+no notice of Henchard's brusque letter; but an exceptionally fortunate
+business transaction put him on good terms with everybody, and revealed
+to him that he could undeniably marry if he chose. Then who so pleasing,
+thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from
+her personal recommendations a reconciliation with his former friend
+Henchard would, in the natural course of things, flow from such a union.
+He therefore forgave the Mayor his curtness; and this morning on his
+way to the fair he had called at her house, where he learnt that she
+was staying at Miss Templeman's. A little stimulated at not finding her
+ready and waiting--so fanciful are men!--he hastened on to High-Place
+Hall to encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself.
+
+"The fair to-day seems a large one," she said when, by natural
+deviation, their eyes sought the busy scene without. "Your numerous
+fairs and markets keep me interested. How many things I think of while I
+watch from here!"
+
+He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without reached them
+as they sat--voices as of wavelets on a looping sea, one ever and anon
+rising above the rest. "Do you look out often?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--very often."
+
+"Do you look for any one you know?"
+
+Why should she have answered as she did?
+
+"I look as at a picture merely. But," she went on, turning pleasantly to
+him, "I may do so now--I may look for you. You are always there, are
+you not? Ah--I don't mean it seriously! But it is amusing to look for
+somebody one knows in a crowd, even if one does not want him. It takes
+off the terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded by a throng, and
+having no point of junction with it through a single individual."
+
+"Ay! Maybe you'll be very lonely, ma'am?"
+
+"Nobody knows how lonely."
+
+"But you are rich, they say?"
+
+"If so, I don't know how to enjoy my riches. I came to Casterbridge
+thinking I should like to live here. But I wonder if I shall."
+
+"Where did ye come from, ma'am?"
+
+"The neighbourhood of Bath."
+
+"And I from near Edinboro'," he murmured. "It's better to stay at home,
+and that's true; but a man must live where his money is made. It is a
+great pity, but it's always so! Yet I've done very well this year. O
+yes," he went on with ingenuous enthusiasm. "You see that man with the
+drab kerseymere coat? I bought largely of him in the autumn when wheat
+was down, and then afterwards when it rose a little I sold off all
+I had! It brought only a small profit to me; while the farmers kept
+theirs, expecting higher figures--yes, though the rats were gnawing the
+ricks hollow. Just when I sold the markets went lower, and I bought up
+the corn of those who had been holding back at less price than my first
+purchases. And then," cried Farfrae impetuously, his face alight, "I
+sold it a few weeks after, when it happened to go up again! And so, by
+contenting mysel' with small profits frequently repeated, I soon made
+five hundred pounds--yes!"--(bringing down his hand upon the table, and
+quite forgetting where he was)--"while the others by keeping theirs in
+hand made nothing at all!"
+
+Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest. He was quite a new type
+of person to her. At last his eye fell upon the lady's and their glances
+met.
+
+"Ay, now, I'm wearying you!" he exclaimed.
+
+She said, "No, indeed," colouring a shade.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Quite otherwise. You are most interesting."
+
+It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.
+
+"I mean all you Scotchmen," she added in hasty correction. "So free from
+Southern extremes. We common people are all one way or the other--warm
+or cold, passionate or frigid. You have both temperatures going on in
+you at the same time."
+
+"But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly, ma'am."
+
+"You are animated--then you are thinking of getting on. You are sad the
+next moment--then you are thinking of Scotland and friends."
+
+"Yes. I think of home sometimes!" he said simply.
+
+"So do I--as far as I can. But it was an old house where I was born, and
+they pulled it down for improvements, so I seem hardly to have any home
+to think of now."
+
+Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house was in St.
+Helier, and not in Bath.
+
+"But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are there! And
+don't they seem like home?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"They do to me--they do to me," he murmured. And his mind could be seen
+flying away northwards. Whether its origin were national or personal, it
+was quite true what Lucetta had said, that the curious double strands
+in Farfrae's thread of life--the commercial and the romantic--were very
+distinct at times. Like the colours in a variegated cord those contrasts
+could be seen intertwisted, yet not mingling.
+
+"You are wishing you were back again," she said.
+
+"Ah, no, ma'am," said Farfrae, suddenly recalling himself.
+
+The fair without the windows was now raging thick and loud. It was the
+chief hiring fair of the year, and differed quite from the market of a
+few days earlier. In substance it was a whitey-brown crowd flecked with
+white--this being the body of labourers waiting for places. The long
+bonnets of the women, like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked
+shawls, mixed with the carters' smockfrocks; for they, too, entered into
+the hiring. Among the rest, at the corner of the pavement, stood an
+old shepherd, who attracted the eyes of Lucetta and Farfrae by his
+stillness. He was evidently a chastened man. The battle of life had been
+a sharp one with him, for, to begin with, he was a man of small frame.
+He was now so bowed by hard work and years that, approaching from
+behind, a person could hardly see his head. He had planted the stem of
+his crook in the gutter and was resting upon the bow, which was polished
+to silver brightness by the long friction of his hands. He had quite
+forgotten where he was, and what he had come for, his eyes being bent
+on the ground. A little way off negotiations were proceeding which
+had reference to him; but he did not hear them, and there seemed to be
+passing through his mind pleasant visions of the hiring successes of his
+prime, when his skill laid open to him any farm for the asking.
+
+The negotiations were between a farmer from a distant county and the old
+man's son. In these there was a difficulty. The farmer would not take
+the crust without the crumb of the bargain, in other words, the old man
+without the younger; and the son had a sweetheart on his present farm,
+who stood by, waiting the issue with pale lips.
+
+"I'm sorry to leave ye, Nelly," said the young man with emotion. "But,
+you see, I can't starve father, and he's out o' work at Lady-day. 'Tis
+only thirty-five mile."
+
+The girl's lips quivered. "Thirty-five mile!" she murmured. "Ah! 'tis
+enough! I shall never see 'ee again!" It was, indeed, a hopeless length
+of traction for Dan Cupid's magnet; for young men were young men at
+Casterbridge as elsewhere.
+
+"O! no, no--I never shall," she insisted, when he pressed her hand; and
+she turned her face to Lucetta's wall to hide her weeping. The farmer
+said he would give the young man half-an-hour for his answer, and went
+away, leaving the group sorrowing.
+
+Lucetta's eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae's. His, too, to her surprise,
+were moist at the scene.
+
+"It is very hard," she said with strong feelings. "Lovers ought not to
+be parted like that! O, if I had my wish, I'd let people live and love
+at their pleasure!"
+
+"Maybe I can manage that they'll not be parted," said Farfrae. "I want
+a young carter; and perhaps I'll take the old man too--yes; he'll not be
+very expensive, and doubtless he will answer my pairrpose somehow."
+
+"O, you are so good!" she cried, delighted. "Go and tell them, and let
+me know if you have succeeded!"
+
+Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group. The eyes of
+all brightened; the bargain was soon struck. Farfrae returned to her
+immediately it was concluded.
+
+"It is kind-hearted of you, indeed," said Lucetta. "For my part, I have
+resolved that all my servants shall have lovers if they want them! Do
+make the same resolve!"
+
+Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn. "I must be a
+little stricter than that," he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You are a--a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and-corn
+merchant."
+
+"I am a very ambitious woman."
+
+"Ah, well, I cannet explain. I don't know how to talk to ladies,
+ambitious or no; and that's true," said Donald with grave regret. "I try
+to be civil to a' folk--no more!"
+
+"I see you are as you say," replied she, sensibly getting the upper
+hand in these exchanges of sentiment. Under this revelation of insight
+Farfrae again looked out of the window into the thick of the fair.
+
+Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the window their
+remarks could be heard as others' had been.
+
+"Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?" asked one. "He promised
+to meet me here at the stroke of twelve; but I've gone athwart and about
+the fair half-a-dozen times, and never a sign of him: though he's mostly
+a man to his word."
+
+"I quite forgot the engagement," murmured Farfrae.
+
+"Now you must go," said she; "must you not?"
+
+"Yes," he replied. But he still remained.
+
+"You had better go," she urged. "You will lose a customer.
+
+"Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry," exclaimed Farfrae.
+
+"Then suppose you don't go; but stay a little longer?"
+
+He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seeking him and who just then
+ominously walked across to where Henchard was standing, and he looked
+into the room and at her. "I like staying; but I fear I must go!" he
+said. "Business ought not to be neglected, ought it?"
+
+"Not for a single minute."
+
+"It's true. I'll come another time--if I may, ma'am?"
+
+"Certainly," she said. "What has happened to us to-day is very curious."
+
+"Something to think over when we are alone, it's like to be?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know that. It is commonplace after all."
+
+"No, I'll not say that. O no!"
+
+"Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market calls you to
+be gone."
+
+"Yes, yes. Market--business! I wish there were no business in the
+warrld."
+
+Lucetta almost laughed--she would quite have laughed--but that there was
+a little emotion going in her at the time. "How you change!" she said.
+"You should not change like this.
+
+"I have never wished such things before," said the Scotchman, with a
+simple, shamed, apologetic look for his weakness. "It is only since
+coming here and seeing you!"
+
+"If that's the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear me,
+I feel I have quite demoralized you!"
+
+"But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I'll
+go--thank you for the pleasure of this visit."
+
+"Thank you for staying."
+
+"Maybe I'll get into my market-mind when I've been out a few minutes,"
+he murmured. "But I don't know--I don't know!"
+
+As he went she said eagerly, "You may hear them speak of me in
+Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I'm a coquette, which
+some may, because of the incidents of my life, don't believe it, for I
+am not."
+
+"I swear I will not!" he said fervidly.
+
+Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man's enthusiasm till he was
+quite brimming with sentiment; while he from merely affording her a new
+form of idleness, had gone on to wake her serious solicitude. Why was
+this? They could not have told.
+
+Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a tradesman. But her
+ups and downs, capped by her indiscretions with Henchard had made her
+uncritical as to station. In her poverty she had met with repulse from
+the society to which she had belonged, and she had no great zest for
+renewing an attempt upon it now. Her heart longed for some ark into
+which it could fly and be at rest. Rough or smooth she did not care so
+long as it was warm.
+
+Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that he had called
+to see Elizabeth. Lucetta at the window watched him threading the maze
+of farmers and farmers' men. She could see by his gait that he
+was conscious of her eyes, and her heart went out to him for his
+modesty--pleaded with her sense of his unfitness that he might be
+allowed to come again. He entered the market-house, and she could see
+him no more.
+
+Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks, not
+of multitude but of strength, sounded through the house, and the
+waiting-maid tripped up.
+
+"The Mayor," she said.
+
+Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily through
+her fingers. She did not answer at once, and the maid repeated the
+information with the addition, "And he's afraid he hasn't much time to
+spare, he says."
+
+"Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won't detain him to-day."
+
+The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.
+
+Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard's feelings with
+regard to her. She had quickened them, and now she was indifferent to
+the achievement.
+
+Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element changed, and
+she no longer felt strongly the necessity of getting rid of the girl for
+her stepfather's sake. When the young woman came in, sweetly unconscious
+of the turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said quite
+sincerely--
+
+"I'm so glad you've come. You'll live with me a long time, won't you?"
+
+Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off--what a new idea. Yet
+it was not unpleasing. Henchard had neglected her all these days, after
+compromising her indescribably in the past. The least he could have done
+when he found himself free, and herself affluent, would have been to
+respond heartily and promptly to her invitation.
+
+Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at
+their suddenness; and so passed Lucetta's experiences of that day.
+
+
+
+
+24.
+
+
+Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignant star had done to
+blast the budding attentions she had won from Donald Farfrae, was glad
+to hear Lucetta's words about remaining.
+
+For in addition to Lucetta's house being a home, that raking view of
+the market-place which it afforded had as much attraction for her as for
+Lucetta. The carrefour was like the regulation Open Place in spectacular
+dramas, where the incidents that occur always happen to bear on the
+lives of the adjoining residents. Farmers, merchants, dairymen, quacks,
+hawkers, appeared there from week to week, and disappeared as the
+afternoon wasted away. It was the node of all orbits.
+
+From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the two young
+women now. In an emotional sense they did not live at all during the
+intervals. Wherever they might go wandering on other days, on market-day
+they were sure to be at home. Both stole sly glances out of the window
+at Farfrae's shoulders and poll. His face they seldom saw, for, either
+through shyness, or not to disturb his mercantile mood, he avoided
+looking towards their quarters.
+
+Thus things went on, till a certain market-morning brought a new
+sensation. Elizabeth and Lucetta were sitting at breakfast when a parcel
+containing two dresses arrived for the latter from London. She called
+Elizabeth from her breakfast, and entering her friend's bedroom
+Elizabeth saw the gowns spread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry
+colour, the other lighter--a glove lying at the end of each sleeve, a
+bonnet at the top of each neck, and parasols across the gloves,
+Lucetta standing beside the suggested human figure in an attitude of
+contemplation.
+
+"I wouldn't think so hard about it," said Elizabeth, marking the
+intensity with which Lucetta was alternating the question whether this
+or that would suit best.
+
+"But settling upon new clothes is so trying," said Lucetta. "You are
+that person" (pointing to one of the arrangements), "or you are THAT
+totally different person" (pointing to the other), "for the whole of the
+coming spring and one of the two, you don't know which, may turn out to
+be very objectionable."
+
+It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the
+cherry-coloured person at all hazards. The dress was pronounced to be a
+fit, and Lucetta walked with it into the front room, Elizabeth following
+her.
+
+The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year. The sun fell
+so flat on the houses and pavement opposite Lucetta's residence that
+they poured their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly, after a rumbling
+of wheels, there were added to this steady light a fantastic series of
+circling irradiations upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to the
+window. Immediately opposite a vehicle of strange description had come
+to a standstill, as if it had been placed there for exhibition.
+
+It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a horse-drill,
+till then unknown, in its modern shape, in this part of the country,
+where the venerable seed-lip was still used for sowing as in the days
+of the Heptarchy. Its arrival created about as much sensation in the
+corn-market as a flying machine would create at Charing Cross. The
+farmers crowded round it, women drew near it, children crept under and
+into it. The machine was painted in bright hues of green, yellow, and
+red, and it resembled as a whole a compound of hornet, grasshopper,
+and shrimp, magnified enormously. Or it might have been likened to an
+upright musical instrument with the front gone. That was how it struck
+Lucetta. "Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano," she said.
+
+"It has something to do with corn," said Elizabeth.
+
+"I wonder who thought of introducing it here?"
+
+Donald Farfrae was in the minds of both as the innovator, for though not
+a farmer he was closely leagued with farming operations. And as if
+in response to their thought he came up at that moment, looked at the
+machine, walked round it, and handled it as if he knew something about
+its make. The two watchers had inwardly started at his coming, and
+Elizabeth left the window, went to the back of the room, and stood as if
+absorbed in the panelling of the wall. She hardly knew that she had done
+this till Lucetta, animated by the conjunction of her new attire with
+the sight of Farfrae, spoke out: "Let us go and look at the instrument,
+whatever it is."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane's bonnet and shawl were pitchforked on in a moment, and
+they went out. Among all the agriculturists gathered round the only
+appropriate possessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta, because
+she alone rivalled it in colour.
+
+They examined it curiously; observing the rows of trumpet-shaped tubes
+one within the other, the little scoops, like revolving salt-spoons,
+which tossed the seed into the upper ends of the tubes that conducted it
+to the ground; till somebody said, "Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane." She
+looked up, and there was her stepfather.
+
+His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and Elizabeth-Jane,
+embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered at random, "This is the
+lady I live with, father--Miss Templeman."
+
+Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with a great
+wave till it met his body at the knee. Miss Templeman bowed. "I am
+happy to become acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard," she said. "This is a
+curious machine."
+
+"Yes," Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and still more
+forcibly to ridicule it.
+
+"Who brought it here?" said Lucetta.
+
+"Oh, don't ask me, ma'am!" said Henchard. "The thing--why 'tis
+impossible it should act. 'Twas brought here by one of our machinists on
+the recommendation of a jumped-up jackanapes of a fellow who thinks----"
+His eye caught Elizabeth-Jane's imploring face, and he stopped, probably
+thinking that the suit might be progressing.
+
+He turned to go away. Then something seemed to occur which his
+stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of hers. A murmur
+apparently came from Henchard's lips in which she detected the words,
+"You refused to see me!" reproachfully addressed to Lucetta. She could
+not believe that they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless,
+indeed, they might have been spoken to one of the yellow-gaitered
+farmers near them. Yet Lucetta seemed silent, and then all thought of
+the incident was dissipated by the humming of a song, which sounded
+as though from the interior of the machine. Henchard had by this time
+vanished into the market-house, and both the women glanced towards the
+corn-drill. They could see behind it the bent back of a man who was
+pushing his head into the internal works to master their simple secrets.
+The hummed song went on--
+
+     "'Tw--s on a s--m--r aftern--n,
+     A wee be--re the s--n w--nt d--n,
+     When Kitty wi' a braw n--w g--wn
+     C--me ow're the h--lls to Gowrie."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment, and looked guilty
+of she did not know what. Lucetta next recognized him, and more
+mistress of herself said archly, "The 'Lass of Gowrie' from inside of a
+seed-drill--what a phenomenon!"
+
+Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood upright,
+and met their eyes across the summit.
+
+"We are looking at the wonderful new drill," Miss Templeman said. "But
+practically it is a stupid thing--is it not?" she added, on the strength
+of Henchard's information.
+
+"Stupid? O no!" said Farfrae gravely. "It will revolutionize sowing
+heerabout! No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast, so that
+some falls by the wayside and some among thorns, and all that.
+Each grain will go straight to its intended place, and nowhere else
+whatever!"
+
+"Then the romance of the sower is gone for good," observed
+Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrae in Bible-reading
+at least. "'He that observeth the wind shall not sow,' so the Preacher
+said; but his words will not be to the point any more. How things
+change!"
+
+"Ay; ay....It must be so!" Donald admitted, his gaze fixing itself on a
+blank point far away. "But the machines are already very common in the
+East and North of England," he added apologetically.
+
+Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her acquaintance
+with the Scriptures being somewhat limited. "Is the machine yours?" she
+asked of Farfrae.
+
+"O no, madam," said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential at the
+sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth-Jane he was quite at his ease.
+"No, no--I merely recommended that it should be got."
+
+In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only conscious of her;
+to have passed from perception of Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of
+existence than she appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that he was much
+mixed that day, partly in his mercantile mood and partly in his romantic
+one, said gaily to him--
+
+"Well, don't forsake the machine for us," and went indoors with her
+companion.
+
+The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was
+unaccountable to her. Lucetta explained the matter somewhat by saying
+when they were again in the sitting-room--
+
+"I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew him
+this morning."
+
+Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day. Together they saw the
+market thicken, and in course of time thin away with the slow decline
+of the sun towards the upper end of town, its rays taking the street
+endways and enfilading the long thoroughfare from top to bottom. The
+gigs and vans disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in the
+street. The time of the riding world was over; the pedestrian world held
+sway. Field labourers and their wives and children trooped in from the
+villages for their weekly shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheels
+and a tramp of horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was nothing but
+the shuffle of many feet. All the implements were gone; all the farmers;
+all the moneyed class. The character of the town's trading had changed
+from bulk to multiplicity and pence were handled now as pounds had been
+handled earlier in the day.
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it was night and
+the street lamps were lighted, they had kept their shutters unclosed. In
+the faint blink of the fire they spoke more freely.
+
+"Your father was distant with you," said Lucetta.
+
+"Yes." And having forgotten the momentary mystery of Henchard's seeming
+speech to Lucetta she continued, "It is because he does not think I am
+respectable. I have tried to be so more than you can imagine, but in
+vain! My mother's separation from my father was unfortunate for me. You
+don't know what it is to have shadows like that upon your life."
+
+Lucetta seemed to wince. "I do not--of that kind precisely," she said,
+"but you may feel a--sense of disgrace--shame--in other ways."
+
+"Have you ever had any such feeling?" said the younger innocently.
+
+"O no," said Lucetta quickly. "I was thinking of--what happens sometimes
+when women get themselves in strange positions in the eyes of the world
+from no fault of their own."
+
+"It must make them very unhappy afterwards."
+
+"It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise them?"
+
+"Not altogether despise them. Yet not quite like or respect them."
+
+Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no means secure from
+investigation, even in Casterbridge. For one thing Henchard had never
+returned to her the cloud of letters she had written and sent him in
+her first excitement. Possibly they were destroyed; but she could have
+wished that they had never been written.
+
+The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towards Lucetta had made
+the reflective Elizabeth more observant of her brilliant and amiable
+companion. A few days afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta's as
+the latter was going out, she somehow knew that Miss Templeman was
+nourishing a hope of seeing the attractive Scotchman. The fact was
+printed large all over Lucetta's cheeks and eyes to any one who could
+read her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginning to do. Lucetta passed on and
+closed the street door.
+
+A seer's spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her to sit down
+by the fire and divine events so surely from data already her own that
+they could be held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thus mentally--saw
+her encounter Donald somewhere as if by chance--saw him wear his special
+look when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one was
+Lucetta. She depicted his impassioned manner; beheld the indecision
+of both between their lothness to separate and their desire not to be
+observed; depicted their shaking of hands; how they probably parted with
+frigidity in their general contour and movements, only in the smaller
+features showing the spark of passion, thus invisible to all but
+themselves. This discerning silent witch had not done thinking of these
+things when Lucetta came noiselessly behind her and made her start.
+
+It was all true as she had pictured--she could have sworn it. Lucetta
+had a heightened luminousness in her eye over and above the advanced
+colour of her cheeks.
+
+"You've seen Mr. Farfrae," said Elizabeth demurely.
+
+"Yes," said Lucetta. "How did you know?"
+
+She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend's hands excitedly in
+her own. But after all she did not say when or how she had seen him or
+what he had said.
+
+That night she became restless; in the morning she was feverish; and
+at breakfast-time she told her companion that she had something on her
+mind--something which concerned a person in whom she was interested
+much. Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize.
+
+"This person--a lady--once admired a man much--very much," she said
+tentatively.
+
+"Ah," said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"They were intimate--rather. He did not think so deeply of her as she
+did of him. But in an impulsive moment, purely out of reparation, he
+proposed to make her his wife. She agreed. But there was an unsuspected
+hitch in the proceedings; though she had been so far compromised with
+him that she felt she could never belong to another man, as a pure
+matter of conscience, even if she should wish to. After that they were
+much apart, heard nothing of each other for a long time, and she felt
+her life quite closed up for her."
+
+"Ah--poor girl!"
+
+"She suffered much on account of him; though I should add that he could
+not altogether be blamed for what had happened. At last the obstacle
+which separated them was providentially removed; and he came to marry
+her."
+
+"How delightful!"
+
+"But in the interval she--my poor friend--had seen a man, she liked
+better than him. Now comes the point: Could she in honour dismiss the
+first?"
+
+"A new man she liked better--that's bad!"
+
+"Yes," said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was swinging the town
+pump-handle. "It is bad! Though you must remember that she was forced
+into an equivocal position with the first man by an accident--that he
+was not so well educated or refined as the second, and that she had
+discovered some qualities in the first that rendered him less desirable
+as a husband than she had at first thought him to be."
+
+"I cannot answer," said Elizabeth-Jane thoughtfully. "It is so
+difficult. It wants a Pope to settle that!"
+
+"You prefer not to perhaps?" Lucetta showed in her appealing tone how
+much she leant on Elizabeth's judgment.
+
+"Yes, Miss Templeman," admitted Elizabeth. "I would rather not say."
+
+Nevertheless, Lucetta seemed relieved by the simple fact of having
+opened out the situation a little, and was slowly convalescent of her
+headache. "Bring me a looking-glass. How do I appear to people?" she
+said languidly.
+
+"Well--a little worn," answered Elizabeth, eyeing her as a critic eyes
+a doubtful painting; fetching the glass she enabled Lucetta to survey
+herself in it, which Lucetta anxiously did.
+
+"I wonder if I wear well, as times go!" she observed after a while.
+
+"Yes--fairly.
+
+"Where am I worst?"
+
+"Under your eyes--I notice a little brownness there."
+
+"Yes. That is my worst place, I know. How many years more do you think I
+shall last before I get hopelessly plain?"
+
+There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth, though
+the younger, had come to play the part of experienced sage in these
+discussions. "It may be five years," she said judicially. "Or, with a
+quiet life, as many as ten. With no love you might calculate on ten."
+
+Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable, impartial
+verdict. She told Elizabeth-Jane no more of the past attachment she had
+roughly adumbrated as the experiences of a third person; and Elizabeth,
+who in spite of her philosophy was very tender-hearted, sighed that
+night in bed at the thought that her pretty, rich Lucetta did not treat
+her to the full confidence of names and dates in her confessions. For by
+the "she" of Lucetta's story Elizabeth had not been beguiled.
+
+
+
+
+25.
+
+
+The next phase of the supersession of Henchard in Lucetta's heart was
+an experiment in calling on her performed by Farfrae with some apparent
+trepidation. Conventionally speaking he conversed with both Miss
+Templeman and her companion; but in fact it was rather that Elizabeth
+sat invisible in the room. Donald appeared not to see her at all, and
+answered her wise little remarks with curtly indifferent monosyllables,
+his looks and faculties hanging on the woman who could boast of a more
+Protean variety in her phases, moods, opinions, and also principles,
+than could Elizabeth. Lucetta had persisted in dragging her into the
+circle; but she had remained like an awkward third point which that
+circle would not touch.
+
+Susan Henchard's daughter bore up against the frosty ache of the
+treatment, as she had borne up under worse things, and contrived as soon
+as possible to get out of the inharmonious room without being missed.
+The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her and
+walked with her in a delicate poise between love and friendship--that
+period in the history of a love when alone it can be said to be
+unalloyed with pain.
+
+She stoically looked from her bedroom window, and contemplated her fate
+as if it were written on the top of the church-tower hard by. "Yes," she
+said at last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat: "HE is
+the second man of that story she told me!"
+
+All this time Henchard's smouldering sentiments towards Lucetta had been
+fanned into higher and higher inflammation by the circumstances of the
+case. He was discovering that the young woman for whom he once felt a
+pitying warmth which had been almost chilled out of him by reflection,
+was, when now qualified with a slight inaccessibility and a more matured
+beauty, the very being to make him satisfied with life. Day after day
+proved to him, by her silence, that it was no use to think of bringing
+her round by holding aloof; so he gave in, and called upon her again,
+Elizabeth-Jane being absent.
+
+He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some awkwardness, his
+strong, warm gaze upon her--like the sun beside the moon in comparison
+with Farfrae's modest look--and with something of a hail-fellow bearing,
+as, indeed, was not unnatural. But she seemed so transubstantiated
+by her change of position, and held out her hand to him in such cool
+friendship, that he became deferential, and sat down with a perceptible
+loss of power. He understood but little of fashion in dress, yet enough
+to feel himself inadequate in appearance beside her whom he had hitherto
+been dreaming of as almost his property. She said something very polite
+about his being good enough to call. This caused him to recover balance.
+He looked her oddly in the face, losing his awe.
+
+"Why, of course I have called, Lucetta," he said. "What does that
+nonsense mean? You know I couldn't have helped myself if I had
+wished--that is, if I had any kindness at all. I've called to say that
+I am ready, as soon as custom will permit, to give you my name in return
+for your devotion and what you lost by it in thinking too little of
+yourself and too much of me; to say that you can fix the day or month,
+with my full consent, whenever in your opinion it would be seemly: you
+know more of these things than I."
+
+"It is full early yet," she said evasively.
+
+"Yes, yes; I suppose it is. But you know, Lucetta, I felt directly my
+poor ill-used Susan died, and when I could not bear the idea of marrying
+again, that after what had happened between us it was my duty not to let
+any unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights. Still, I
+wouldn't call in a hurry, because--well, you can guess how this money
+you've come into made me feel." His voice slowly fell; he was conscious
+that in this room his accents and manner wore a roughness not observable
+in the street. He looked about the room at the novel hangings and
+ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.
+
+"Upon my life I didn't know such furniture as this could be bought in
+Casterbridge," he said.
+
+"Nor can it be," said she. "Nor will it till fifty years more of
+civilization have passed over the town. It took a waggon and four horses
+to get it here."
+
+"H'm. It looks as if you were living on capital."
+
+"O no, I am not."
+
+"So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my
+beaming towards you rather awkward."
+
+"Why?"
+
+An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one. "Well," he
+went on, "there's nobody in the world I would have wished to see enter
+into this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will
+become it more." He turned to her with congratulatory admiration so
+fervid that she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so
+well.
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for all that," said she, rather with an air
+of speaking ritual. The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived, and
+Henchard showed chagrin at once--nobody was more quick to show that than
+he.
+
+"You may be obliged or not for't. Though the things I say may not have
+the polish of what you've lately learnt to expect for the first time in
+your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta."
+
+"That's rather a rude way of speaking to me," pouted Lucetta, with
+stormy eyes.
+
+"Not at all!" replied Henchard hotly. "But there, there, I don't wish
+to quarrel with 'ee. I come with an honest proposal for silencing your
+Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful."
+
+"How can you speak so!" she answered, firing quickly. "Knowing that my
+only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl's passion for you with
+too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent
+all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I
+suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of
+your wife's return and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little
+independent now, surely the privilege is due to me!"
+
+"Yes, it is," he said. "But it is not by what is, in this life, but by
+what appears, that you are judged; and I therefore think you ought to
+accept me--for your own good name's sake. What is known in your native
+Jersey may get known here."
+
+"How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!"
+
+"Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?"
+
+For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the move; and yet
+she was backward. "For the present let things be," she said with some
+embarrassment. "Treat me as an acquaintance, and I'll treat you as
+one. Time will--" She stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap for
+awhile, there being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them into
+speech if they were not minded for it.
+
+"That's the way the wind blows, is it?" he said at last grimly, nodding
+an affirmative to his own thoughts.
+
+A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a few instants.
+It was produced by the passing of a load of newly trussed hay from the
+country, in a waggon marked with Farfrae's name. Beside it rode Farfrae
+himself on horseback. Lucetta's face became--as a woman's face becomes
+when the man she loves rises upon her gaze like an apparition.
+
+A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window, and the
+secret of her inaccessibility would have been revealed. But Henchard in
+estimating her tone was looking down so plumb-straight that he did not
+note the warm consciousness upon Lucetta's face.
+
+"I shouldn't have thought it--I shouldn't have thought it of women!" he
+said emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking himself into activity;
+while Lucetta was so anxious to divert him from any suspicion of the
+truth that she asked him to be in no hurry. Bringing him some apples she
+insisted upon paring one for him.
+
+He would not take it. "No, no; such is not for me," he said drily, and
+moved to the door. At going out he turned his eye upon her.
+
+"You came to live in Casterbridge entirely on my account," he said. "Yet
+now you are here you won't have anything to say to my offer!"
+
+He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon the sofa and
+jumped up again in a fit of desperation. "I WILL love him!" she cried
+passionately; "as for HIM--he's hot-tempered and stern, and it would be
+madness to bind myself to him knowing that. I won't be a slave to the
+past--I'll love where I choose!"
+
+Yet having decided to break away from Henchard one might have supposed
+her capable of aiming higher than Farfrae. But Lucetta reasoned nothing:
+she feared hard words from the people with whom she had been earlier
+associated; she had no relatives left; and with native lightness of
+heart took kindly to what fate offered.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucetta between her two lovers
+from the crystalline sphere of a straightforward mind, did not fail to
+perceive that her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrae became
+more desperately enamoured of her friend every day. On Farfrae's side
+it was the unforced passion of youth. On Henchard's the artificially
+stimulated coveting of maturer age.
+
+The pain she experienced from the almost absolute obliviousness to
+her existence that was shown by the pair of them became at times half
+dissipated by her sense of its humourousness. When Lucetta had pricked
+her finger they were as deeply concerned as if she were dying; when she
+herself had been seriously sick or in danger they uttered a conventional
+word of sympathy at the news, and forgot all about it immediately.
+But, as regarded Henchard, this perception of hers also caused her
+some filial grief; she could not help asking what she had done to
+be neglected so, after the professions of solicitude he had made. As
+regarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection, that it was
+quite natural. What was she beside Lucetta?--as one of the "meaner
+beauties of the night," when the moon had risen in the skies.
+
+She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and was as familiar with the
+wreck of each day's wishes as with the diurnal setting of the sun. If
+her earthly career had taught her few book philosophies it had at least
+well practised her in this. Yet her experience had consisted less in
+a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substitutions.
+Continually it had happened that what she had desired had not been
+granted her, and that what had been granted her she had not desired. So
+she viewed with an approach to equanimity the now cancelled days when
+Donald had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwished-for
+thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
+
+
+
+
+26.
+
+
+It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchard and Farfrae met in the
+chestnut-walk which ran along the south wall of the town. Each had just
+come out from his early breakfast, and there was not another soul near.
+Henchard was reading a letter from Lucetta, sent in answer to a note
+from him, in which she made some excuse for not immediately granting him
+a second interview that he had desired.
+
+Donald had no wish to enter into conversation with his former friend on
+their present constrained terms; neither would he pass him in scowling
+silence. He nodded, and Henchard did the same. They receded from each
+other several paces when a voice cried "Farfrae!" It was Henchard's, who
+stood regarding him.
+
+"Do you remember," said Henchard, as if it were the presence of the
+thought and not of the man which made him speak, "do you remember my
+story of that second woman--who suffered for her thoughtless intimacy
+with me?"
+
+"I do," said Farfrae.
+
+"Do you remember my telling 'ee how it all began and how it ended?
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I have offered to marry her now that I can; but she won't marry
+me. Now what would you think of her--I put it to you?"
+
+"Well, ye owe her nothing more now," said Farfrae heartily.
+
+"It is true," said Henchard, and went on.
+
+That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questions completely shut
+out from Farfrae's mind all vision of Lucetta as the culprit. Indeed,
+her present position was so different from that of the young woman of
+Henchard's story as of itself to be sufficient to blind him absolutely
+to her identity. As for Henchard, he was reassured by Farfrae's words
+and manner against a suspicion which had crossed his mind. They were not
+those of a conscious rival.
+
+Yet that there was rivalry by some one he was firmly persuaded. He could
+feel it in the air around Lucetta, see it in the turn of her pen. There
+was an antagonistic force in exercise, so that when he had tried to
+hang near her he seemed standing in a refluent current. That it was not
+innate caprice he was more and more certain. Her windows gleamed as
+if they did not want him; her curtains seem to hang slily, as if
+they screened an ousting presence. To discover whose presence that
+was--whether really Farfrae's after all, or another's--he exerted
+himself to the utmost to see her again; and at length succeeded.
+
+At the interview, when she offered him tea, he made it a point to launch
+a cautious inquiry if she knew Mr. Farfrae.
+
+O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not help knowing almost
+everybody in Casterbridge, living in such a gazebo over the centre and
+arena of the town.
+
+"Pleasant young fellow," said Henchard.
+
+"Yes," said Lucetta.
+
+"We both know him," said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her companion's
+divined embarrassment.
+
+There was a knock at the door; literally, three full knocks and a little
+one at the end.
+
+"That kind of knock means half-and-half--somebody between gentle
+and simple," said the corn-merchant to himself. "I shouldn't wonder
+therefore if it is he." In a few seconds surely enough Donald walked in.
+
+Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, which increased
+Henchard's suspicions without affording any special proof of their
+correctness. He was well-nigh ferocious at the sense of the queer
+situation in which he stood towards this woman. One who had reproached
+him for deserting her when calumniated, who had urged claims upon his
+consideration on that account, who had lived waiting for him, who at the
+first decent opportunity had come to ask him to rectify, by making her
+his, the false position into which she had placed herself for his sake;
+such she had been. And now he sat at her tea-table eager to gain her
+attention, and in his amatory rage feeling the other man present to be a
+villain, just as any young fool of a lover might feel.
+
+They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table, like some Tuscan
+painting of the two disciples supping at Emmaus. Lucetta, forming the
+third and haloed figure, was opposite them; Elizabeth-Jane, being out
+of the game, and out of the group, could observe all from afar, like
+the evangelist who had to write it down: that there were long spaces of
+taciturnity, when all exterior circumstances were subdued to the touch
+of spoons and china, the click of a heel on the pavement under the
+window, the passing of a wheelbarrow or cart, the whistling of the
+carter, the gush of water into householders' buckets at the town-pump
+opposite, the exchange of greetings among their neighbours, and the
+rattle of the yokes by which they carried off their evening supply.
+
+"More bread-and-butter?" said Lucetta to Henchard and Farfrae equally,
+holding out between them a plateful of long slices. Henchard took a
+slice by one end and Donald by the other; each feeling certain he was
+the man meant; neither let go, and the slice came in two.
+
+"Oh--I am so sorry!" cried Lucetta, with a nervous titter. Farfrae tried
+to laugh; but he was too much in love to see the incident in any but a
+tragic light.
+
+"How ridiculous of all three of them!" said Elizabeth to herself.
+
+Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture, though without a grain
+of proof, that the counterattraction was Farfrae; and therefore he
+would not make up his mind. Yet to Elizabeth-Jane it was plain as the
+town-pump that Donald and Lucetta were incipient lovers. More than once,
+in spite of her care, Lucetta had been unable to restrain her glance
+from flitting across into Farfrae's eyes like a bird to its nest. But
+Henchard was constructed upon too large a scale to discern such minutiae
+as these by an evening light, which to him were as the notes of an
+insect that lie above the compass of the human ear.
+
+But he was disturbed. And the sense of occult rivalry in suitorship was
+so much superadded to the palpable rivalry of their business lives. To
+the coarse materiality of that rivalry it added an inflaming soul.
+
+The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of action by Henchard
+sending for Jopp, the manager originally displaced by Farfrae's arrival.
+Henchard had frequently met this man about the streets, observed that
+his clothing spoke of neediness, heard that he lived in Mixen
+Lane--a back slum of the town, the pis aller of Casterbridge
+domiciliation--itself almost a proof that a man had reached a stage when
+he would not stick at trifles.
+
+Jopp came after dark, by the gates of the storeyard, and felt his way
+through the hay and straw to the office where Henchard sat in solitude
+awaiting him.
+
+"I am again out of a foreman," said the corn-factor. "Are you in a
+place?"
+
+"Not so much as a beggar's, sir."
+
+"How much do you ask?"
+
+Jopp named his price, which was very moderate.
+
+"When can you come?"
+
+"At this hour and moment, sir," said Jopp, who, standing hands-pocketed
+at the street corner till the sun had faded the shoulders of his coat
+to scarecrow green, had regularly watched Henchard in the market-place,
+measured him, and learnt him, by virtue of the power which the still
+man has in his stillness of knowing the busy one better than he knows
+himself. Jopp too, had had a convenient experience; he was the only one
+in Casterbridge besides Henchard and the close-lipped Elizabeth who knew
+that Lucetta came truly from Jersey, and but proximately from Bath. "I
+know Jersey too, sir," he said. "Was living there when you used to do
+business that way. O yes--have often seen ye there."
+
+"Indeed! Very good. Then the thing is settled. The testimonials you
+showed me when you first tried for't are sufficient."
+
+That characters deteriorated in time of need possibly did not occur
+to Henchard. Jopp said, "Thank you," and stood more firmly, in the
+consciousness that at last he officially belonged to that spot.
+
+"Now," said Henchard, digging his strong eyes into Jopp's face, "one
+thing is necessary to me, as the biggest corn-and-hay dealer in these
+parts. The Scotchman, who's taking the town trade so bold into
+his hands, must be cut out. D'ye hear? We two can't live side by
+side--that's clear and certain."
+
+"I've seen it all," said Jopp.
+
+"By fair competition I mean, of course," Henchard continued. "But as
+hard, keen, and unflinching as fair--rather more so. By such a desperate
+bid against him for the farmers' custom as will grind him into the
+ground--starve him out. I've capital, mind ye, and I can do it."
+
+"I'm all that way of thinking," said the new foreman. Jopp's dislike of
+Farfrae as the man who had once ursurped his place, while it made him
+a willing tool, made him, at the same time, commercially as unsafe a
+colleague as Henchard could have chosen.
+
+"I sometimes think," he added, "that he must have some glass that he
+sees next year in. He has such a knack of making everything bring him
+fortune."
+
+"He's deep beyond all honest men's discerning, but we must make him
+shallower. We'll undersell him, and over-buy him, and so snuff him out."
+
+They then entered into specific details of the process by which this
+would be accomplished, and parted at a late hour.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane heard by accident that Jopp had been engaged by her
+stepfather. She was so fully convinced that he was not the right man for
+the place that, at the risk of making Henchard angry, she expressed
+her apprehension to him when they met. But it was done to no purpose.
+Henchard shut up her argument with a sharp rebuff.
+
+The season's weather seemed to favour their scheme. The time was in
+the years immediately before foreign competition had revolutionized
+the trade in grain; when still, as from the earliest ages, the wheat
+quotations from month to month depended entirely upon the home harvest.
+A bad harvest, or the prospect of one, would double the price of corn in
+a few weeks; and the promise of a good yield would lower it as rapidly.
+Prices were like the roads of the period, steep in gradient, reflecting
+in their phases the local conditions, without engineering, levellings,
+or averages.
+
+The farmer's income was ruled by the wheat-crop within his own horizon,
+and the wheat-crop by the weather. Thus in person, he became a sort of
+flesh-barometer, with feelers always directed to the sky and wind around
+him. The local atmosphere was everything to him; the atmospheres of
+other countries a matter of indifference. The people, too, who were
+not farmers, the rural multitude, saw in the god of the weather a
+more important personage than they do now. Indeed, the feeling of the
+peasantry in this matter was so intense as to be almost unrealizable in
+these equable days. Their impulse was well-nigh to prostrate themselves
+in lamentation before untimely rains and tempests, which came as the
+Alastor of those households whose crime it was to be poor.
+
+After midsummer they watched the weather-cocks as men waiting in
+antechambers watch the lackey. Sun elated them; quiet rain sobered them;
+weeks of watery tempest stupefied them. That aspect of the sky which
+they now regard as disagreeable they then beheld as maleficent.
+
+It was June, and the weather was very unfavourable. Casterbridge, being
+as it were the bell-board on which all the adjacent hamlets and villages
+sounded their notes, was decidedly dull. Instead of new articles in the
+shop-windows those that had been rejected in the foregoing summer were
+brought out again; superseded reap-hooks, badly-shaped rakes, shop-worn
+leggings, and time-stiffened water-tights reappeared, furbished up as
+near to new as possible.
+
+Henchard, backed by Jopp, read a disastrous garnering, and resolved to
+base his strategy against Farfrae upon that reading. But before acting
+he wished--what so many have wished--that he could know for certain what
+was at present only strong probability. He was superstitious--as such
+head-strong natures often are--and he nourished in his mind an idea
+bearing on the matter; an idea he shrank from disclosing even to Jopp.
+
+In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town--so lonely that what are
+called lonely villages were teeming by comparison--there lived a man of
+curious repute as a forecaster or weather-prophet. The way to his house
+was crooked and miry--even difficult in the present unpropitious season.
+One evening when it was raining so heavily that ivy and laurel resounded
+like distant musketry, and an out-door man could be excused for
+shrouding himself to his ears and eyes, such a shrouded figure on foot
+might have been perceived travelling in the direction of the hazel-copse
+which dripped over the prophet's cot. The turnpike-road became a lane,
+the lane a cart-track, the cart-track a bridle-path, the bridle-path a
+foot-way, the foot-way overgrown. The solitary walker slipped here and
+there, and stumbled over the natural springes formed by the brambles,
+till at length he reached the house, which, with its garden, was
+surrounded with a high, dense hedge. The cottage, comparatively a large
+one, had been built of mud by the occupier's own hands, and thatched
+also by himself. Here he had always lived, and here it was assumed he
+would die.
+
+He existed on unseen supplies; for it was an anomalous thing that while
+there was hardly a soul in the neighbourhood but affected to laugh at
+this man's assertions, uttering the formula, "There's nothing in 'em,"
+with full assurance on the surface of their faces, very few of them were
+unbelievers in their secret hearts. Whenever they consulted him they
+did it "for a fancy." When they paid him they said, "Just a trifle for
+Christmas," or "Candlemas," as the case might be.
+
+He would have preferred more honesty in his clients, and less sham
+ridicule; but fundamental belief consoled him for superficial irony. As
+stated, he was enabled to live; people supported him with their backs
+turned. He was sometimes astonished that men could profess so little and
+believe so much at his house, when at church they professed so much and
+believed so little.
+
+Behind his back he was called "Wide-oh," on account of his reputation;
+to his face "Mr." Fall.
+
+The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance, and a door
+was inserted as in a wall. Outside the door the tall traveller stopped,
+bandaged his face with a handkerchief as if he were suffering from
+toothache, and went up the path. The window shutters were not closed,
+and he could see the prophet within, preparing his supper.
+
+In answer to the knock Fall came to the door, candle in hand. The
+visitor stepped back a little from the light, and said, "Can I speak
+to 'ee?" in significant tones. The other's invitation to come in was
+responded to by the country formula, "This will do, thank 'ee," after
+which the householder had no alternative but to come out. He placed
+the candle on the corner of the dresser, took his hat from a nail, and
+joined the stranger in the porch, shutting the door behind him.
+
+"I've long heard that you can--do things of a sort?" began the other,
+repressing his individuality as much as he could.
+
+"Maybe so, Mr. Henchard," said the weather-caster.
+
+"Ah--why do you call me that?" asked the visitor with a start.
+
+"Because it's your name. Feeling you'd come I've waited for 'ee;
+and thinking you might be leery from your walk I laid two supper
+plates--look ye here." He threw open the door and disclosed the
+supper-table, at which appeared a second chair, knife and fork, plate
+and mug, as he had declared.
+
+Henchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel; he remained in
+silence for a few moments, then throwing off the disguise of frigidity
+which he had hitherto preserved he said, "Then I have not come in
+vain....Now, for instance, can ye charm away warts?"
+
+"Without trouble."
+
+"Cure the evil?"
+
+"That I've done--with consideration--if they will wear the toad-bag by
+night as well as by day."
+
+"Forecast the weather?"
+
+"With labour and time."
+
+"Then take this," said Henchard. "'Tis a crownpiece. Now, what is the
+harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?'
+
+"I've worked it out already, and you can know at once." (The fact
+was that five farmers had already been there on the same errand from
+different parts of the country.) "By the sun, moon, and stars, by the
+clouds, the winds, the trees, and grass, the candle-flame and swallows,
+the smell of the herbs; likewise by the cats' eyes, the ravens, the
+leeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August
+will be--rain and tempest."
+
+"You are not certain, of course?"
+
+"As one can be in a world where all's unsure. 'Twill be more like living
+in Revelations this autumn than in England. Shall I sketch it out for
+'ee in a scheme?"
+
+"O no, no," said Henchard. "I don't altogether believe in forecasts,
+come to second thoughts on such. But I--"
+
+"You don't--you don't--'tis quite understood," said Wide-oh, without a
+sound of scorn. "You have given me a crown because you've one too many.
+But won't you join me at supper, now 'tis waiting and all?"
+
+Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savour of the stew
+had floated from the cottage into the porch with such appetizing
+distinctness that the meat, the onions, the pepper, and the herbs could
+be severally recognized by his nose. But as sitting down to
+hob-and-nob there would have seemed to mark him too implicitly as the
+weather-caster's apostle, he declined, and went his way.
+
+The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such an enormous extent that
+there was quite a talk about his purchases among his neighbours the
+lawyer, the wine merchant, and the doctor; also on the next, and on
+all available days. When his granaries were full to choking all the
+weather-cocks of Casterbridge creaked and set their faces in another
+direction, as if tired of the south-west. The weather changed; the
+sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks, assumed the hues of
+topaz. The temperament of the welkin passed from the phlegmatic to
+the sanguine; an excellent harvest was almost a certainty; and as a
+consequence prices rushed down.
+
+All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the wrong-headed
+corn-dealer were terrible. He was reminded of what he had well known
+before, that a man might gamble upon the square green areas of fields as
+readily as upon those of a card-room.
+
+Henchard had backed bad weather, and apparently lost. He had mistaken
+the turn of the flood for the turn of the ebb. His dealings had been so
+extensive that settlement could not long be postponed, and to settle he
+was obliged to sell off corn that he had bought only a few weeks before
+at figures higher by many shillings a quarter. Much of the corn he had
+never seen; it had not even been moved from the ricks in which it lay
+stacked miles away. Thus he lost heavily.
+
+In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfrae in the market-place.
+Farfrae knew of his dealings (though he did not guess their intended
+bearing on himself) and commiserated him; for since their exchange
+of words in the South Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms.
+Henchard for the moment appeared to resent the sympathy; but he suddenly
+took a careless turn.
+
+"Ho, no, no!--nothing serious, man!" he cried with fierce gaiety. "These
+things always happen, don't they? I know it has been said that figures
+have touched me tight lately; but is that anything rare? The case is not
+so bad as folk make out perhaps. And dammy, a man must be a fool to mind
+the common hazards of trade!"
+
+But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for reasons which
+had never before sent him there--and to sit a long time in the partners'
+room with a constrained bearing. It was rumoured soon after that much
+real property as well as vast stores of produce, which had stood
+in Henchard's name in the town and neighbourhood, was actually the
+possession of his bankers.
+
+Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp. The gloomy
+transactions just completed within had added fever to the original sting
+of Farfrae's sympathy that morning, which Henchard fancied might be a
+satire disguised so that Jopp met with anything but a bland reception.
+The latter was in the act of taking off his hat to wipe his forehead,
+and saying, "A fine hot day," to an acquaintance.
+
+"You can wipe and wipe, and say, 'A fine hot day,' can ye!" cried
+Henchard in a savage undertone, imprisoning Jopp between himself and the
+bank wall. "If it hadn't been for your blasted advice it might have been
+a fine day enough! Why did ye let me go on, hey?--when a word of doubt
+from you or anybody would have made me think twice! For you can never be
+sure of weather till 'tis past."
+
+"My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best."
+
+"A useful fellow! And the sooner you help somebody else in that way the
+better!" Henchard continued his address to Jopp in similar terms till it
+ended in Jopp's dismissal there and then, Henchard turning upon his heel
+and leaving him.
+
+"You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry as a man can be!" said Jopp,
+standing pale, and looking after the corn-merchant as he disappeared in
+the crowd of market-men hard by.
+
+
+
+
+27.
+
+
+It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfrae was buying. As was
+usual, after reckoning too surely on famine weather the local farmers
+had flown to the other extreme, and (in Farfrae's opinion) were selling
+off too recklessly--calculating with just a trifle too much certainty
+upon an abundant yield. So he went on buying old corn at its
+comparatively ridiculous price: for the produce of the previous year,
+though not large, had been of excellent quality.
+
+When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way, and got rid
+of his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss, the harvest began.
+There were three days of excellent weather, and then--"What if that
+curst conjuror should be right after all!" said Henchard.
+
+The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play than the
+atmosphere suddenly felt as if cress would grow in it without other
+nourishment. It rubbed people's cheeks like damp flannel when they
+walked abroad. There was a gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops
+starred the window-panes at remote distances: the sunlight would flap
+out like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern of the window upon the
+floor of the room in a milky, colourless shine, and withdraw as suddenly
+as it had appeared.
+
+From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be so
+successful an ingathering after all. If Henchard had only waited long
+enough he might at least have avoided loss though he had not made a
+profit. But the momentum of his character knew no patience. At this turn
+of the scales he remained silent. The movements of his mind seemed to
+tend to the thought that some power was working against him.
+
+"I wonder," he asked himself with eerie misgiving; "I wonder if it can
+be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image of me, or stirring an
+unholy brew to confound me! I don't believe in such power; and yet--what
+if they should ha' been doing it!" Even he could not admit that
+the perpetrator, if any, might be Farfrae. These isolated hours of
+superstition came to Henchard in time of moody depression, when all his
+practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.
+
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered. He had purchased in so depressed a
+market that the present moderate stiffness of prices was sufficient to
+pile for him a large heap of gold where a little one had been.
+
+"Why, he'll soon be Mayor!" said Henchard. It was indeed hard that the
+speaker should, of all others, have to follow the triumphal chariot of
+this man to the Capitol.
+
+The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.
+
+September night-shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the clocks had
+struck half-past eight, and the moon had risen. The streets of the town
+were curiously silent for such a comparatively early hour. A sound of
+jangling horse-bells and heavy wheels passed up the street. These were
+followed by angry voices outside Lucetta's house, which led her and
+Elizabeth-Jane to run to the windows, and pull up the blinds.
+
+The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abutted against its next
+neighbour the Church except in the lower storey, where an arched
+thoroughfare gave admittance to a large square called Bull Stake. A
+stone post rose in the midst, to which the oxen had formerly been tied
+for baiting with dogs to make them tender before they were killed in the
+adjoining shambles. In a corner stood the stocks.
+
+The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two four-horse
+waggons and horses, one laden with hay-trusses, the leaders having
+already passed each other, and become entangled head to tail. The
+passage of the vehicles might have been practicable if empty; but built
+up with hay to the bedroom windows as one was, it was impossible.
+
+"You must have done it a' purpose!" said Farfrae's waggoner. "You can
+hear my horses' bells half-a-mile such a night as this!"
+
+"If ye'd been minding your business instead of zwailing along in such
+a gawk-hammer way, you would have zeed me!" retorted the wroth
+representative of Henchard.
+
+However, according to the strict rule of the road it appeared that
+Henchard's man was most in the wrong, he therefore attempted to back
+into the High Street. In doing this the near hind-wheel rose against
+the churchyard wall and the whole mountainous load went over, two of the
+four wheels rising in the air, and the legs of the thill horse.
+
+Instead of considering how to gather up the load the two men closed in
+a fight with their fists. Before the first round was quite over Henchard
+came upon the spot, somebody having run for him.
+
+Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions by collaring
+one with each hand, turned to the horse that was down, and extricated
+him after some trouble. He then inquired into the circumstances; and
+seeing the state of his waggon and its load began hotly rating Farfrae's
+man.
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run down to the street
+corner, whence they watched the bright heap of new hay lying in the
+moon's rays, and passed and repassed by the forms of Henchard and the
+waggoners. The women had witnessed what nobody else had seen--the origin
+of the mishap; and Lucetta spoke.
+
+"I saw it all, Mr. Henchard," she cried; "and your man was most in the
+wrong!"
+
+Henchard paused in his harangue and turned. "Oh, I didn't notice you,
+Miss Templeman," said he. "My man in the wrong? Ah, to be sure; to be
+sure! But I beg your pardon notwithstanding. The other's is the empty
+waggon, and he must have been most to blame for coming on."
+
+"No; I saw it, too," said Elizabeth-Jane. "And I can assure you he
+couldn't help it."
+
+"You can't trust THEIR senses!" murmured Henchard's man.
+
+"Why not?" asked Henchard sharply.
+
+"Why, you see, sir, all the women side with Farfrae--being a damn young
+dand--of the sort that he is--one that creeps into a maid's heart like
+the giddying worm into a sheep's brain--making crooked seem straight to
+their eyes!"
+
+"But do you know who that lady is you talk about in such a fashion? Do
+you know that I pay my attentions to her, and have for some time? Just
+be careful!"
+
+"Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week."
+
+"And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He's sharp in trade, but he
+wouldn't do anything so underhand as what you hint at."
+
+Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, or not her white
+figure disappeared from her doorway inward, and the door was shut before
+Henchard could reach it to converse with her further. This disappointed
+him, for he had been sufficiently disturbed by what the man had said to
+wish to speak to her more closely. While pausing the old constable came
+up.
+
+"Just see that nobody drives against that hay and waggon to-night,
+Stubberd," said the corn-merchant. "It must bide till the morning, for
+all hands are in the field still. And if any coach or road-waggon wants
+to come along, tell 'em they must go round by the back street, and be
+hanged to 'em....Any case tomorrow up in Hall?"
+
+"Yes, sir. One in number, sir."
+
+"Oh, what's that?"
+
+"An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committing a nuisance in a
+horrible profane manner against the church wall, sir, as if 'twere no
+more than a pot-house! That's all, sir."
+
+"Oh. The Mayor's out o' town, isn't he?"
+
+"He is, sir."
+
+"Very well, then I'll be there. Don't forget to keep an eye on that hay.
+Good night t' 'ee."
+
+During those moments Henchard had determined to follow up Lucetta
+notwithstanding her elusiveness, and he knocked for admission.
+
+The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman's sorrow at
+being unable to see him again that evening because she had an engagement
+to go out.
+
+Henchard walked away from the door to the opposite side of the street,
+and stood by his hay in a lonely reverie, the constable having strolled
+elsewhere, and the horses being removed. Though the moon was not bright
+as yet there were no lamps lighted, and he entered the shadow of one of
+the projecting jambs which formed the thoroughfare to Bull Stake; here
+he watched Lucetta's door.
+
+Candle-lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom, and it was
+obvious that she was dressing for the appointment, whatever the nature
+of that might be at such an hour. The lights disappeared, the clock
+struck nine, and almost at the moment Farfrae came round the opposite
+corner and knocked. That she had been waiting just inside for him was
+certain, for she instantly opened the door herself. They went together
+by the way of a back lane westward, avoiding the front street; guessing
+where they were going he determined to follow.
+
+The harvest had been so delayed by the capricious weather that whenever
+a fine day occurred all sinews were strained to save what could be saved
+of the damaged crops. On account of the rapid shortening of the days the
+harvesters worked by moonlight. Hence to-night the wheat-fields abutting
+on the two sides of the square formed by Casterbridge town were animated
+by the gathering hands. Their shouts and laughter had reached Henchard
+at the Market House, while he stood there waiting, and he had little
+doubt from the turn which Farfrae and Lucetta had taken that they were
+bound for the spot.
+
+Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields. The Casterbridge
+populace still retained the primitive habit of helping one another in
+time of need; and thus, though the corn belonged to the farming section
+of the little community--that inhabiting the Durnover quarter--the
+remainder was no less interested in the labour of getting it home.
+
+Reaching the top of the lane Henchard crossed the shaded avenue on the
+walls, slid down the green rampart, and stood amongst the stubble. The
+"stitches" or shocks rose like tents about the yellow expanse, those in
+the distance becoming lost in the moonlit hazes.
+
+He had entered at a point removed from the scene of immediate
+operations; but two others had entered at that place, and he could
+see them winding among the shocks. They were paying no regard to the
+direction of their walk, whose vague serpentining soon began to
+bear down towards Henchard. A meeting promised to be awkward, and he
+therefore stepped into the hollow of the nearest shock, and sat down.
+
+"You have my leave," Lucetta was saying gaily. "Speak what you like."
+
+"Well, then," replied Farfrae, with the unmistakable inflection of the
+lover pure, which Henchard had never heard in full resonance of his lips
+before, "you are sure to be much sought after for your position, wealth,
+talents, and beauty. But will ye resist the temptation to be one of
+those ladies with lots of admirers--ay--and be content to have only a
+homely one?"
+
+"And he the speaker?" said she, laughing. "Very well, sir, what next?"
+
+"Ah! I'm afraid that what I feel will make me forget my manners!"
+
+"Then I hope you'll never have any, if you lack them only for that
+cause." After some broken words which Henchard lost she added, "Are you
+sure you won't be jealous?"
+
+Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, by taking her hand.
+
+"You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else," she presently
+said. "But I should wish to have my own way in some things."
+
+"In everything! What special thing did you mean?"
+
+"If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for instance, upon
+finding that I should not be happy here?"
+
+Henchard did not hear the reply; he might have done so and much more,
+but he did not care to play the eavesdropper. They went on towards
+the scene of activity, where the sheaves were being handed, a dozen a
+minute, upon the carts and waggons which carried them away.
+
+Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrae when they drew near the
+workpeople. He had some business with them, and, though he entreated
+her to wait a few minutes, she was inexorable, and tripped off homeward
+alone.
+
+Henchard thereupon left the field and followed her. His state of mind
+was such that on reaching Lucetta's door he did not knock but opened it,
+and walked straight up to her sitting-room, expecting to find her
+there. But the room was empty, and he perceived that in his haste he had
+somehow passed her on the way hither. He had not to wait many minutes,
+however, for he soon heard her dress rustling in the hall, followed by a
+soft closing of the door. In a moment she appeared.
+
+The light was so low that she did not notice Henchard at first. As soon
+as she saw him she uttered a little cry, almost of terror.
+
+"How can you frighten me so?" she exclaimed, with a flushed face. "It
+is past ten o'clock, and you have no right to surprise me here at such a
+time."
+
+"I don't know that I've not the right. At any rate I have the excuse. Is
+it so necessary that I should stop to think of manners and customs?"
+
+"It is too late for propriety, and might injure me."
+
+"I called an hour ago, and you would not see me, and I thought you were
+in when I called now. It is you, Lucetta, who are doing wrong. It is
+not proper in 'ee to throw me over like this. I have a little matter to
+remind you of, which you seem to forget."
+
+She sank into a chair, and turned pale.
+
+"I don't want to hear it--I don't want to hear it!" she said through her
+hands, as he, standing close to the edge of her gown, began to allude to
+the Jersey days.
+
+"But you ought to hear it," said he.
+
+"It came to nothing; and through you. Then why not leave me the freedom
+that I gained with such sorrow! Had I found that you proposed to marry
+me for pure love I might have felt bound now. But I soon learnt that
+you had planned it out of mere charity--almost as an unpleasant
+duty--because I had nursed you, and compromised myself, and you thought
+you must repay me. After that I did not care for you so deeply as
+before."
+
+"Why did you come here to find me, then?"
+
+"I thought I ought to marry you for conscience' sake, since you were
+free, even though I--did not like you so well."
+
+"And why then don't you think so now?"
+
+She was silent. It was only too obvious that conscience had ruled well
+enough till new love had intervened and usurped that rule. In feeling
+this she herself forgot for the moment her partially justifying
+argument--that having discovered Henchard's infirmities of temper, she
+had some excuse for not risking her happiness in his hands after once
+escaping them. The only thing she could say was, "I was a poor girl
+then; and now my circumstances have altered, so I am hardly the same
+person."
+
+"That's true. And it makes the case awkward for me. But I don't want to
+touch your money. I am quite willing that every penny of your property
+shall remain to your personal use. Besides, that argument has nothing in
+it. The man you are thinking of is no better than I."
+
+"If you were as good as he you would leave me!" she cried passionately.
+
+This unluckily aroused Henchard. "You cannot in honour refuse me," he
+said. "And unless you give me your promise this very night to be my
+wife, before a witness, I'll reveal our intimacy--in common fairness to
+other men!"
+
+A look of resignation settled upon her. Henchard saw its bitterness;
+and had Lucetta's heart been given to any other man in the world than
+Farfrae he would probably have had pity upon her at that moment. But the
+supplanter was the upstart (as Henchard called him) who had mounted into
+prominence upon his shoulders, and he could bring himself to show no
+mercy.
+
+Without another word she rang the bell, and directed that Elizabeth-Jane
+should be fetched from her room. The latter appeared, surprised in the
+midst of her lucubrations. As soon as she saw Henchard she went across
+to him dutifully.
+
+"Elizabeth-Jane," he said, taking her hand, "I want you to hear this."
+And turning to Lucetta: "Will you, or will you not, marry me?
+
+"If you--wish it, I must agree!"
+
+"You say yes?"
+
+"I do."
+
+No sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a fainting
+state.
+
+"What dreadful thing drives her to say this, father, when it is such a
+pain to her?" asked Elizabeth, kneeling down by Lucetta. "Don't compel
+her to do anything against her will! I have lived with her, and know
+that she cannot bear much."
+
+"Don't be a no'thern simpleton!" said Henchard drily. "This promise will
+leave him free for you, if you want him, won't it?"
+
+At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start.
+
+"Him? Who are you talking about?" she said wildly.
+
+"Nobody, as far as I am concerned," said Elizabeth firmly.
+
+"Oh--well. Then it is my mistake," said Henchard. "But the business is
+between me and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife."
+
+"But don't dwell on it just now," entreated Elizabeth, holding Lucetta's
+hand.
+
+"I don't wish to, if she promises," said Henchard.
+
+"I have, I have," groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like fluid, from
+very misery and faintness. "Michael, please don't argue it any more!"
+
+"I will not," he said. And taking up his hat he went away.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta. "What is this?" she said.
+"You called my father 'Michael' as if you knew him well? And how is it
+he has got this power over you, that you promise to marry him against
+your will? Ah--you have many many secrets from me!"
+
+"Perhaps you have some from me," Lucetta murmured with closed eyes,
+little thinking, however, so unsuspicious was she, that the secret of
+Elizabeth's heart concerned the young man who had caused this damage to
+her own.
+
+"I would not--do anything against you at all!" stammered Elizabeth,
+keeping in all signs of emotion till she was ready to burst. "I cannot
+understand how my father can command you so; I don't sympathize with him
+in it at all. I'll go to him and ask him to release you."
+
+"No, no," said Lucetta. "Let it all be."
+
+
+
+
+28.
+
+
+The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall below Lucetta's house,
+to attend Petty Sessions, being still a magistrate for the year by
+virtue of his late position as Mayor. In passing he looked up at her
+windows, but nothing of her was to be seen.
+
+Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seem to be an even
+greater incongruity than Shallow and Silence themselves. But his rough
+and ready perceptions, his sledge-hammer directness, had often served
+him better than nice legal knowledge in despatching such simple business
+as fell to his hands in this Court. To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the Mayor for
+the year, being absent, the corn-merchant took the big chair, his eyes
+still abstractedly stretching out of the window to the ashlar front of
+High-Place Hall.
+
+There was one case only, and the offender stood before him. She was an
+old woman of mottled countenance, attired in a shawl of that nameless
+tertiary hue which comes, but cannot be made--a hue neither tawny,
+russet, hazel, nor ash; a sticky black bonnet that seemed to have been
+worn in the country of the Psalmist where the clouds drop fatness; and
+an apron that had been white in time so comparatively recent as still to
+contrast visibly with the rest of her clothes. The steeped aspect of the
+woman as a whole showed her to be no native of the country-side or even
+of a country-town.
+
+She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate, and Henchard
+looked at her, with a momentary pause, as if she had reminded him
+indistinctly of somebody or something which passed from his mind as
+quickly as it had come. "Well, and what has she been doing?" he said,
+looking down at the charge sheet.
+
+"She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female and
+nuisance," whispered Stubberd.
+
+"Where did she do that?" said the other magistrate.
+
+"By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the world!--I caught
+her in the act, your worship."
+
+"Stand back then," said Henchard, "and let's hear what you've got to
+say."
+
+Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate's clerk dipped his pen, Henchard
+being no note-taker himself, and the constable began--
+
+"Hearing a' illegal noise I went down the street at twenty-five minutes
+past eleven P.M. on the night of the fifth instinct, Hannah Dominy. When
+I had--
+
+"Don't go so fast, Stubberd," said the clerk.
+
+The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk's pen, till the latter
+stopped scratching and said, "yes." Stubberd continued: "When I had
+proceeded to the spot I saw defendant at another spot, namely, the
+gutter." He paused, watching the point of the clerk's pen again.
+
+"Gutter, yes, Stubberd."
+
+"Spot measuring twelve feet nine inches or thereabouts from where I--"
+Still careful not to outrun the clerk's penmanship Stubberd pulled up
+again; for having got his evidence by heart it was immaterial to him
+whereabouts he broke off.
+
+"I object to that," spoke up the old woman, "'spot measuring twelve feet
+nine or thereabouts from where I,' is not sound testimony!"
+
+The magistrates consulted, and the second one said that the bench was
+of opinion that twelve feet nine inches from a man on his oath was
+admissible.
+
+Stubberd, with a suppressed gaze of victorious rectitude at the old
+woman, continued: "Was standing myself. She was wambling about quite
+dangerous to the thoroughfare and when I approached to draw near she
+committed the nuisance, and insulted me."
+
+"'Insulted me.'...Yes, what did she say?"
+
+"She said, 'Put away that dee lantern,' she says."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Says she, 'Dost hear, old turmit-head? Put away that dee lantern. I
+have floored fellows a dee sight finer-looking than a dee fool like
+thee, you son of a bee, dee me if I haint,' she says.
+
+"I object to that conversation!" interposed the old woman. "I was not
+capable enough to hear what I said, and what is said out of my hearing
+is not evidence."
+
+There was another stoppage for consultation, a book was referred to, and
+finally Stubberd was allowed to go on again. The truth was that the
+old woman had appeared in court so many more times than the magistrates
+themselves, that they were obliged to keep a sharp look-out upon their
+procedure. However, when Stubberd had rambled on a little further
+Henchard broke out impatiently, "Come--we don't want to hear any more of
+them cust dees and bees! Say the words out like a man, and don't be so
+modest, Stubberd; or else leave it alone!" Turning to the woman, "Now
+then, have you any questions to ask him, or anything to say?"
+
+"Yes," she replied with a twinkle in her eye; and the clerk dipped his
+pen.
+
+"Twenty years ago or thereabout I was selling of furmity in a tent at
+Weydon Fair----"
+
+"'Twenty years ago'--well, that's beginning at the beginning; suppose
+you go back to the Creation!" said the clerk, not without satire.
+
+But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidence and what was
+not.
+
+"A man and a woman with a little child came into my tent," the woman
+continued. "They sat down and had a basin apiece. Ah, Lord's my life! I
+was of a more respectable station in the world then than I am now, being
+a land smuggler in a large way of business; and I used to season my
+furmity with rum for them who asked for't. I did it for the man; and
+then he had more and more; till at last he quarrelled with his wife, and
+offered to sell her to the highest bidder. A sailor came in and bid five
+guineas, and paid the money, and led her away. And the man who sold his
+wife in that fashion is the man sitting there in the great big chair."
+The speaker concluded by nodding her head at Henchard and folding her
+arms.
+
+Everybody looked at Henchard. His face seemed strange, and in tint as if
+it had been powdered over with ashes. "We don't want to hear your life
+and adventures," said the second magistrate sharply, filling the pause
+which followed. "You've been asked if you've anything to say bearing on
+the case."
+
+"That bears on the case. It proves that he's no better than I, and has
+no right to sit there in judgment upon me."
+
+"'Tis a concocted story," said the clerk. "So hold your tongue!"
+
+"No--'tis true." The words came from Henchard. "'Tis as true as the
+light," he said slowly. "And upon my soul it does prove that I'm no
+better than she! And to keep out of any temptation to treat her hard for
+her revenge, I'll leave her to you."
+
+The sensation in the court was indescribably great. Henchard left the
+chair, and came out, passing through a group of people on the steps
+and outside that was much larger than usual; for it seemed that the old
+furmity dealer had mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in
+which she had been lodging since her arrival, that she knew a queer
+thing or two about their great local man Mr. Henchard, if she chose to
+tell it. This had brought them hither.
+
+"Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?" said Lucetta
+to her servant when the case was over. She had risen late, and had just
+looked out of the window.
+
+"Oh, please, ma'am, 'tis this larry about Mr. Henchard. A woman has
+proved that before he became a gentleman he sold his wife for five
+guineas in a booth at a fair."
+
+In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the separation from
+his wife Susan for so many years, of his belief in her death, and so on,
+he had never clearly explained the actual and immediate cause of that
+separation. The story she now heard for the first time.
+
+A gradual misery overspread Lucetta's face as she dwelt upon the promise
+wrung from her the night before. At bottom, then, Henchard was this.
+How terrible a contingency for a woman who should commit herself to his
+care.
+
+During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places, not coming
+in till nearly dusk. As soon as she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return
+indoors she told her that she had resolved to go away from home to the
+seaside for a few days--to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
+
+Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed, encouraged her in
+the idea, thinking a change would afford her relief. She could not help
+suspecting that the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridge
+in Lucetta's eyes might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was
+away from home.
+
+Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took charge of
+High-Place Hall till her return. After two or three days of solitude and
+incessant rain Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointed to
+hear of Lucetta's absence and though he nodded with outward indifference
+he went away handling his beard with a nettled mien.
+
+The next day he called again. "Is she come now?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. She returned this morning," replied his stepdaughter. "But she
+is not indoors. She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-road to
+Port-Bredy. She will be home by dusk."
+
+After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless impatience,
+he left the house again.
+
+
+
+
+29.
+
+
+At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port-Bredy just as
+Elizabeth had announced. That she had chosen for her afternoon walk the
+road along which she had returned to Casterbridge three hours earlier
+in a carriage was curious--if anything should be called curious in
+concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have its accounting
+cause. It was the day of the chief market--Saturday--and Farfrae
+for once had been missed from his corn-stand in the dealers' room.
+Nevertheless, it was known that he would be home that night--"for
+Sunday," as Casterbridge expressed it.
+
+Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the end of the
+ranked trees which bordered the highway in this and other directions out
+of the town. This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.
+
+The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the road,
+still adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched onward straight as a
+surveyor's line till lost to sight on the most distant ridge. There was
+neither hedge nor tree in the prospect now, the road clinging to the
+stubby expanse of corn-land like a strip to an undulating garment. Near
+her was a barn--the single building of any kind within her horizon.
+
+She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing appeared
+thereon--not so much as a speck. She sighed one word--"Donald!" and
+turned her face to the town for retreat.
+
+Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching
+her--Elizabeth-Jane's.
+
+Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed. Elizabeth's
+face, as soon as she recognized her friend, shaped itself into
+affectionate lines while yet beyond speaking distance. "I suddenly
+thought I would come and meet you," she said, smiling.
+
+Lucetta's reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected diversion. A
+by-road on her right hand descended from the fields into the highway
+at the point where she stood, and down the track a bull was rambling
+uncertainly towards her and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did
+not observe him.
+
+In the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the mainstay and
+the terror of families about Casterbridge and its neighbourhood, where
+breeding was carried on with Abrahamic success. The head of stock
+driven into and out of the town at this season to be sold by the local
+auctioneer was very large; and all these horned beasts, in travelling to
+and fro, sent women and children to shelter as nothing else could do.
+In the main the animals would have walked along quietly enough; but the
+Casterbridge tradition was that to drive stock it was indispensable that
+hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should be used,
+large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in general everything
+done that was likely to infuriate the viciously disposed and terrify the
+mild. Nothing was commoner than for a house-holder on going out of his
+parlour to find his hall or passage full of little children, nursemaids,
+aged women, or a ladies' school, who apologized for their presence by
+saying, "A bull passing down street from the sale."
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he meanwhile drawing
+vaguely towards them. It was a large specimen of the breed, in colour
+rich dun, though disfigured at present by splotches of mud about
+his seamy sides. His horns were thick and tipped with brass; his two
+nostrils like the Thames Tunnel as seen in the perspective toys of yore.
+Between them, through the gristle of his nose, was a stout copper ring,
+welded on, and irremovable as Gurth's collar of brass. To the ring was
+attached an ash staff about a yard long, which the bull with the motions
+of his head flung about like a flail.
+
+It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the young women
+were really alarmed; for it revealed to them that the bull was an old
+one, too savage to be driven, which had in some way escaped, the staff
+being the means by which the drover controlled him and kept his horns at
+arms' length.
+
+They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and thought of the
+barn hard by. As long as they had kept their eyes on the bull he had
+shown some deference in his manner of approach; but no sooner did they
+turn their backs to seek the barn than he tossed his head and decided
+to thoroughly terrify them. This caused the two helpless girls to run
+wildly, whereupon the bull advanced in a deliberate charge.
+
+The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it was closed save as to
+one of the usual pair of doors facing them, which had been propped open
+by a hurdle-stick, and for this opening they made. The interior had been
+cleared by a recent bout of threshing except at one end, where there was
+a stack of dry clover. Elizabeth-Jane took in the situation. "We must
+climb up there," she said.
+
+But before they had even approached it they heard the bull scampering
+through the pond without, and in a second he dashed into the barn,
+knocking down the hurdle-stake in passing; the heavy door slammed behind
+him; and all three were imprisoned in the barn together. The mistaken
+creature saw them, and stalked towards the end of the barn into which
+they had fled. The girls doubled so adroitly that their pursuer was
+against the wall when the fugitives were already half way to the other
+end. By the time that his length would allow him to turn and follow them
+thither they had crossed over; thus the pursuit went on, the hot air
+from his nostrils blowing over them like a sirocco, and not a moment
+being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door. What
+might have happened had their situation continued cannot be said; but
+in a few moments a rattling of the door distracted their adversary's
+attention, and a man appeared. He ran forward towards the leading-staff,
+seized it, and wrenched the animal's head as if he would snap it off.
+The wrench was in reality so violent that the thick neck seemed to have
+lost its stiffness and to become half-paralyzed, whilst the nose dropped
+blood. The premeditated human contrivance of the nose-ring was too
+cunning for impulsive brute force, and the creature flinched.
+
+The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and
+unhesitating. He led the bull to the door, and the light revealed
+Henchard. He made the bull fast without, and re-entered to the succour
+of Lucetta; for he had not perceived Elizabeth, who had climbed on to
+the clover-heap. Lucetta was hysterical, and Henchard took her in his
+arms and carried her to the door.
+
+"You--have saved me!" she cried, as soon as she could speak.
+
+"I have returned your kindness," he responded tenderly. "You once saved
+me."
+
+"How--comes it to be you--you?" she asked, not heeding his reply.
+
+"I came out here to look for you. I have been wanting to tell you
+something these two or three days; but you have been away, and I could
+not. Perhaps you cannot talk now?"
+
+"Oh--no! Where is Elizabeth?"
+
+"Here am I!" cried the missing one cheerfully; and without waiting for
+the ladder to be placed she slid down the face of the clover-stack to
+the floor.
+
+Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Jane on the
+other, they went slowly along the rising road. They had reached the top
+and were descending again when Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected
+that she had dropped her muff in the barn.
+
+"I'll run back," said Elizabeth-Jane. "I don't mind it at all, as I am
+not tired as you are." She thereupon hastened down again to the barn,
+the others pursuing their way.
+
+Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no means small
+at that time. Coming out she paused to look for a moment at the bull,
+now rather to be pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhaps rather
+intended a practical joke than a murder. Henchard had secured him by
+jamming the staff into the hinge of the barn-door, and wedging it
+there with a stake. At length she turned to hasten onward after her
+contemplation, when she saw a green-and-black gig approaching from the
+contrary direction, the vehicle being driven by Farfrae.
+
+His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta's walk that way. Donald saw
+her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted with what had occurred. At
+Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he
+exhibited an agitation different in kind no less than in intensity
+from any she had seen in him before. He became so absorbed in the
+circumstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledge of what he was
+doing to think of helping her up beside him.
+
+"She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?" he inquired at last.
+
+"Yes. He is taking her home. They are almost there by this time."
+
+"And you are sure she can get home?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure.
+
+"Your stepfather saved her?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+Farfrae checked his horse's pace; she guessed why. He was thinking that
+it would be best not to intrude on the other two just now. Henchard
+had saved Lucetta, and to provoke a possible exhibition of her deeper
+affection for himself was as ungenerous as it was unwise.
+
+The immediate subject of their talk being exhausted she felt more
+embarrassed at sitting thus beside her past lover; but soon the two
+figures of the others were visible at the entrance to the town. The face
+of the woman was frequently turned back, but Farfrae did not whip on the
+horse. When these reached the town walls Henchard and his companion
+had disappeared down the street; Farfrae set down Elizabeth-Jane on her
+expressing a particular wish to alight there, and drove round to the
+stables at the back of his lodgings.
+
+On this account he entered the house through his garden, and going up to
+his apartments found them in a particularly disturbed state, his boxes
+being hauled out upon the landing, and his bookcase standing in three
+pieces. These phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not the least
+surprise. "When will everything be sent up?" he said to the mistress of
+the house, who was superintending.
+
+"I am afraid not before eight, sir," said she. "You see we wasn't aware
+till this morning that you were going to move, or we could have been
+forwarder."
+
+"A--well, never mind, never mind!" said Farfrae cheerily. "Eight o'clock
+will do well enough if it be not later. Now, don't ye be standing here
+talking, or it will be twelve, I doubt." Thus speaking he went out by
+the front door and up the street.
+
+During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had had experiences of
+a different kind. After Elizabeth's departure for the muff the
+corn-merchant opened himself frankly, holding her hand within his arm,
+though she would fain have withdrawn it. "Dear Lucetta, I have been
+very, very anxious to see you these two or three days," he said, "ever
+since I saw you last! I have thought over the way I got your promise
+that night. You said to me, 'If I were a man I should not insist.' That
+cut me deep. I felt that there was some truth in it. I don't want to
+make you wretched; and to marry me just now would do that as nothing
+else could--it is but too plain. Therefore I agree to an indefinite
+engagement--to put off all thought of marriage for a year or two."
+
+"But--but--can I do nothing of a different kind?" said Lucetta. "I am
+full of gratitude to you--you have saved my life. And your care of me is
+like coals of fire on my head! I am a monied person now. Surely I can do
+something in return for your goodness--something practical?"
+
+Henchard remained in thought. He had evidently not expected this. "There
+is one thing you might do, Lucetta," he said. "But not exactly of that
+kind."
+
+"Then of what kind is it?" she asked with renewed misgiving.
+
+"I must tell you a secret to ask it.--You may have heard that I have
+been unlucky this year? I did what I have never done before--speculated
+rashly; and I lost. That's just put me in a strait.
+
+"And you would wish me to advance some money?"
+
+"No, no!" said Henchard, almost in anger. "I'm not the man to sponge on
+a woman, even though she may be so nearly my own as you. No, Lucetta;
+what you can do is this and it would save me. My great creditor is
+Grower, and it is at his hands I shall suffer if at anybody's; while a
+fortnight's forbearance on his part would be enough to allow me to pull
+through. This may be got out of him in one way--that you would let it be
+known to him that you are my intended--that we are to be quietly married
+in the next fortnight.--Now stop, you haven't heard all! Let him have
+this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact that the
+actual engagement between us is to be a long one. Nobody else need know:
+you could go with me to Mr. Grower and just let me speak to 'ee before
+him as if we were on such terms. We'll ask him to keep it secret. He
+will willingly wait then. At the fortnight's end I shall be able to face
+him; and I can coolly tell him all is postponed between us for a year
+or two. Not a soul in the town need know how you've helped me. Since you
+wish to be of use, there's your way."
+
+It being now what the people called the "pinking in" of the day, that
+is, the quarter-hour just before dusk, he did not at first observe the
+result of his own words upon her.
+
+"If it were anything else," she began, and the dryness of her lips was
+represented in her voice.
+
+"But it is such a little thing!" he said, with a deep reproach. "Less
+than you have offered--just the beginning of what you have so lately
+promised! I could have told him as much myself, but he would not have
+believed me."
+
+"It is not because I won't--it is because I absolutely can't," she said,
+with rising distress.
+
+"You are provoking!" he burst out. "It is enough to make me force you to
+carry out at once what you have promised."
+
+"I cannot!" she insisted desperately.
+
+"Why? When I have only within these few minutes released you from your
+promise to do the thing offhand."
+
+"Because--he was a witness!"
+
+"Witness? Of what?
+
+"If I must tell you----. Don't, don't upbraid me!"
+
+"Well! Let's hear what you mean?"
+
+"Witness of my marriage--Mr. Grower was!"
+
+"Marriage?"
+
+"Yes. With Mr. Farfrae. O Michael! I am already his wife. We were
+married this week at Port-Bredy. There were reasons against our doing it
+here. Mr. Grower was a witness because he happened to be at Port-Bredy
+at the time."
+
+Henchard stood as if idiotized. She was so alarmed at his silence that
+she murmured something about lending him sufficient money to tide over
+the perilous fortnight.
+
+"Married him?" said Henchard at length. "My good--what, married him
+whilst--bound to marry me?"
+
+"It was like this," she explained, with tears in her eyes and quavers
+in her voice; "don't--don't be cruel! I loved him so much, and I thought
+you might tell him of the past--and that grieved me! And then, when I
+had promised you, I learnt of the rumour that you had--sold your first
+wife at a fair like a horse or cow! How could I keep my promise after
+hearing that? I could not risk myself in your hands; it would have been
+letting myself down to take your name after such a scandal. But I knew I
+should lose Donald if I did not secure him at once--for you would carry
+out your threat of telling him of our former acquaintance, as long as
+there was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so. But you will
+not do so now, will you, Michael? for it is too late to separate us."
+
+The notes of St. Peter's bells in full peal had been wafted to them
+while he spoke, and now the genial thumping of the town band, renowned
+for its unstinted use of the drum-stick, throbbed down the street.
+
+"Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I suppose?" said
+he.
+
+"Yes--I think he has told them, or else Mr. Grower has....May I leave
+you now? My--he was detained at Port-Bredy to-day, and sent me on a few
+hours before him."
+
+"Then it is HIS WIFE'S life I have saved this afternoon."
+
+"Yes--and he will be for ever grateful to you."
+
+"I am much obliged to him....O you false woman!" burst from Henchard.
+"You promised me!"
+
+"Yes, yes! But it was under compulsion, and I did not know all your
+past----"
+
+"And now I've a mind to punish you as you deserve! One word to this
+bran-new husband of how you courted me, and your precious happiness is
+blown to atoms!"
+
+"Michael--pity me, and be generous!"
+
+"You don't deserve pity! You did; but you don't now."
+
+"I'll help you to pay off your debt."
+
+"A pensioner of Farfrae's wife--not I! Don't stay with me longer--I
+shall say something worse. Go home!"
+
+She disappeared under the trees of the south walk as the band came round
+the corner, awaking the echoes of every stock and stone in celebration
+of her happiness. Lucetta took no heed, but ran up the back street and
+reached her own home unperceived.
+
+
+
+
+30.
+
+
+Farfrae's words to his landlady had referred to the removal of his boxes
+and other effects from his late lodgings to Lucetta's house. The work
+was not heavy, but it had been much hindered on account of the frequent
+pauses necessitated by exclamations of surprise at the event, of which
+the good woman had been briefly informed by letter a few hours earlier.
+
+At the last moment of leaving Port-Bredy, Farfrae, like John Gilpin,
+had been detained by important customers, whom, even in the exceptional
+circumstances, he was not the man to neglect. Moreover, there was a
+convenience in Lucetta arriving first at her house. Nobody there as yet
+knew what had happened; and she was best in a position to break the news
+to the inmates, and give directions for her husband's accommodation. He
+had, therefore, sent on his two-days' bride in a hired brougham, whilst
+he went across the country to a certain group of wheat and barley ricks
+a few miles off, telling her the hour at which he might be expected
+the same evening. This accounted for her trotting out to meet him after
+their separation of four hours.
+
+By a strenuous effort, after leaving Henchard she calmed herself in
+readiness to receive Donald at High-Place Hall when he came on from his
+lodgings. One supreme fact empowered her to this, the sense that, come
+what would, she had secured him. Half-an-hour after her arrival he
+walked in, and she met him with a relieved gladness, which a month's
+perilous absence could not have intensified.
+
+"There is one thing I have not done; and yet it is important," she said
+earnestly, when she had finished talking about the adventure with
+the bull. "That is, broken the news of our marriage to my dear
+Elizabeth-Jane."
+
+"Ah, and you have not?" he said thoughtfully. "I gave her a lift from
+the barn homewards; but I did not tell her either; for I thought
+she might have heard of it in the town, and was keeping back her
+congratulations from shyness, and all that."
+
+"She can hardly have heard of it. But I'll find out; I'll go to her
+now. And, Donald, you don't mind her living on with me just the same as
+before? She is so quiet and unassuming."
+
+"O no, indeed I don't," Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a faint
+awkwardness. "But I wonder if she would care to?"
+
+"O yes!" said Lucetta eagerly. "I am sure she would like to. Besides,
+poor thing, she has no other home."
+
+Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the secret of
+her more reserved friend. He liked her all the better for the blindness.
+"Arrange as you like with her by all means," he said. "It is I who have
+come to your house, not you to mine."
+
+"I'll run and speak to her," said Lucetta.
+
+When she got upstairs to Elizabeth-Jane's room the latter had taken off
+her out-door things, and was resting over a book. Lucetta found in a
+moment that she had not yet learnt the news.
+
+"I did not come down to you, Miss Templeman," she said simply. "I was
+coming to ask if you had quite recovered from your fright, but I found
+you had a visitor. What are the bells ringing for, I wonder? And the
+band, too, is playing. Somebody must be married; or else they are
+practising for Christmas."
+
+Lucetta uttered a vague "Yes," and seating herself by the other young
+woman looked musingly at her. "What a lonely creature you are," she
+presently said; "never knowing what's going on, or what people are
+talking about everywhere with keen interest. You should get out, and
+gossip about as other women do, and then you wouldn't be obliged to ask
+me a question of that kind. Well, now, I have something to tell you."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herself receptive.
+
+"I must go rather a long way back," said Lucetta, the difficulty of
+explaining herself satisfactorily to the pondering one beside her
+growing more apparent at each syllable. "You remember that trying case
+of conscience I told you of some time ago--about the first lover and the
+second lover?" She let out in jerky phrases a leading word or two of the
+story she had told.
+
+"O yes--I remember the story of YOUR FRIEND," said Elizabeth drily,
+regarding the irises of Lucetta's eyes as though to catch their exact
+shade. "The two lovers--the old one and the new: how she wanted to marry
+the second, but felt she ought to marry the first; so that she neglected
+the better course to follow the evil, like the poet Ovid I've just been
+construing: 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.'"
+
+"O no; she didn't follow evil exactly!" said Lucetta hastily.
+
+"But you said that she--or as I may say you"--answered Elizabeth,
+dropping the mask, "were in honour and conscience bound to marry the
+first?"
+
+Lucetta's blush at being seen through came and went again before
+she replied anxiously, "You will never breathe this, will you,
+Elizabeth-Jane?"
+
+"Certainly not, if you say not.
+
+"Then I will tell you that the case is more complicated--worse, in
+fact--than it seemed in my story. I and the first man were thrown
+together in a strange way, and felt that we ought to be united, as the
+world had talked of us. He was a widower, as he supposed. He had not
+heard of his first wife for many years. But the wife returned, and
+we parted. She is now dead, and the husband comes paying me addresses
+again, saying, 'Now we'll complete our purposes.' But, Elizabeth-Jane,
+all this amounts to a new courtship of me by him; I was absolved from
+all vows by the return of the other woman."
+
+"Have you not lately renewed your promise?" said the younger with quiet
+surmise. She had divined Man Number One.
+
+"That was wrung from me by a threat."
+
+"Yes, it was. But I think when any one gets coupled up with a man in the
+past so unfortunately as you have done she ought to become his wife if
+she can, even if she were not the sinning party."
+
+Lucetta's countenance lost its sparkle. "He turned out to be a man I
+should be afraid to marry," she pleaded. "Really afraid! And it was not
+till after my renewed promise that I knew it."
+
+"Then there is only one course left to honesty. You must remain a single
+woman."
+
+"But think again! Do consider----"
+
+"I am certain," interrupted her companion hardily. "I have guessed very
+well who the man is. My father; and I say it is him or nobody for you."
+
+Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Jane like a red rag to
+a bull. Her craving for correctness of procedure was, indeed, almost
+vicious. Owing to her early troubles with regard to her mother a
+semblance of irregularity had terrors for her which those whose names
+are safeguarded from suspicion know nothing of. "You ought to marry
+Mr. Henchard or nobody--certainly not another man!" she went on with a
+quivering lip in whose movement two passions shared.
+
+"I don't admit that!" said Lucetta passionately.
+
+"Admit it or not, it is true!"
+
+Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she could plead no
+more, holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Why, you HAVE married him!" cried the latter, jumping up with pleasure
+after a glance at Lucetta's fingers. "When did you do it? Why did you
+not tell me, instead of teasing me like this? How very honourable
+of you! He did treat my mother badly once, it seems, in a moment of
+intoxication. And it is true that he is stern sometimes. But you
+will rule him entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and wealth and
+accomplishments. You are the woman he will adore, and we shall all three
+be happy together now!"
+
+"O, my Elizabeth-Jane!" cried Lucetta distressfully. "'Tis somebody else
+that I have married! I was so desperate--so afraid of being forced to
+anything else--so afraid of revelations that would quench his love for
+me, that I resolved to do it offhand, come what might, and purchase a
+week of happiness at any cost!"
+
+"You--have--married Mr. Farfrae!" cried Elizabeth-Jane, in Nathan tones
+
+Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself.
+
+"The bells are ringing on that account," she said. "My husband is
+downstairs. He will live here till a more suitable house is ready for
+us; and I have told him that I want you to stay with me just as before."
+
+"Let me think of it alone," the girl quickly replied, corking up the
+turmoil of her feeling with grand control.
+
+"You shall. I am sure we shall be happy together."
+
+Lucetta departed to join Donald below, a vague uneasiness floating over
+her joy at seeing him quite at home there. Not on account of her friend
+Elizabeth did she feel it: for of the bearings of Elizabeth-Jane's
+emotions she had not the least suspicion; but on Henchard's alone.
+
+Now the instant decision of Susan Henchard's daughter was to dwell
+in that house no more. Apart from her estimate of the propriety of
+Lucetta's conduct, Farfrae had been so nearly her avowed lover that she
+felt she could not abide there.
+
+It was still early in the evening when she hastily put on her things and
+went out. In a few minutes, knowing the ground, she had found a suitable
+lodging, and arranged to enter it that night. Returning and entering
+noiselessly she took off her pretty dress and arrayed herself in a plain
+one, packing up the other to keep as her best; for she would have to
+be very economical now. She wrote a note to leave for Lucetta, who
+was closely shut up in the drawing-room with Farfrae; and then
+Elizabeth-Jane called a man with a wheel-barrow; and seeing her boxes
+put into it she trotted off down the street to her rooms. They were in
+the street in which Henchard lived, and almost opposite his door.
+
+Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence. The little
+annual sum settled on her by her stepfather would keep body and soul
+together. A wonderful skill in netting of all sorts--acquired in
+childhood by making seines in Newson's home--might serve her in good
+stead; and her studies, which were pursued unremittingly, might serve
+her in still better.
+
+By this time the marriage that had taken place was known throughout
+Casterbridge; had been discussed noisily on kerbstones, confidentially
+behind counters, and jovially at the Three Mariners. Whether Farfrae
+would sell his business and set up for a gentleman on his wife's money,
+or whether he would show independence enough to stick to his trade in
+spite of his brilliant alliance, was a great point of interest.
+
+
+
+
+31.
+
+
+The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrates had spread; and
+in four-and-twenty hours there was not a person in Casterbridge
+who remained unacquainted with the story of Henchard's mad freak at
+Weydon-Priors Fair, long years before. The amends he had made in after
+life were lost sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act. Had
+the incident been well known of old and always, it might by this time
+have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall wild oat, but
+well-nigh the single one, of a young man with whom the steady and mature
+(if somewhat headstrong) burgher of to-day had scarcely a point in
+common. But the act having lain as dead and buried ever since, the
+interspace of years was unperceived; and the black spot of his youth
+wore the aspect of a recent crime.
+
+Small as the police-court incident had been in itself, it formed the
+edge or turn in the incline of Henchard's fortunes. On that day--almost
+at that minute--he passed the ridge of prosperity and honour, and began
+to descend rapidly on the other side. It was strange how soon he sank
+in esteem. Socially he had received a startling fillip downwards; and,
+having already lost commercial buoyancy from rash transactions, the
+velocity of his descent in both aspects became accelerated every hour.
+
+He now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house-fronts when he
+walked about; more at the feet and leggings of men, and less into the
+pupils of their eyes with the blazing regard which formerly had made
+them blink.
+
+New events combined to undo him. It had been a bad year for others
+besides himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor whom he had trusted
+generously completed the overthrow of his tottering credit. And now,
+in his desperation, he failed to preserve that strict correspondence
+between bulk and sample which is the soul of commerce in grain. For
+this, one of his men was mainly to blame; that worthy, in his great
+unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an enormous quantity of
+second-rate corn which Henchard had in hand, and removed the pinched,
+blasted, and smutted grains in great numbers. The produce if
+honestly offered would have created no scandal; but the blunder of
+misrepresentation, coming at such a moment, dragged Henchard's name into
+the ditch.
+
+The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind. One day
+Elizabeth-Jane was passing the King's Arms, when she saw people bustling
+in and out more than usual where there was no market. A bystander
+informed her, with some surprise at her ignorance, that it was a meeting
+of the Commissioners under Mr. Henchard's bankruptcy. She felt quite
+tearful, and when she heard that he was present in the hotel she wished
+to go in and see him, but was advised not to intrude that day.
+
+The room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a front
+one, and Henchard, looking out of the window, had caught sight of
+Elizabeth-Jane through the wire blind. His examination had closed, and
+the creditors were leaving. The appearance of Elizabeth threw him into a
+reverie, till, turning his face from the window, and towering above all
+the rest, he called their attention for a moment more. His countenance
+had somewhat changed from its flush of prosperity; the black hair and
+whiskers were the same as ever, but a film of ash was over the rest.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "over and above the assets that we've been talking
+about, and that appear on the balance-sheet, there be these. It all
+belongs to ye, as much as everything else I've got, and I don't wish to
+keep it from you, not I." Saying this, he took his gold watch from
+his pocket and laid it on the table; then his purse--the yellow canvas
+moneybag, such as was carried by all farmers and dealers--untying it,
+and shaking the money out upon the table beside the watch. The latter
+he drew back quickly for an instant, to remove the hair-guard made and
+given him by Lucetta. "There, now you have all I've got in the world,"
+he said. "And I wish for your sakes 'twas more."
+
+The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked at the watch, and at the
+money, and into the street; when Farmer James Everdene of Weatherbury
+spoke.
+
+"No, no, Henchard," he said warmly. "We don't want that. 'Tis honourable
+in ye; but keep it. What do you say, neighbours--do ye agree?"
+
+"Ay, sure: we don't wish it at all," said Grower, another creditor.
+
+"Let him keep it, of course," murmured another in the background--a
+silent, reserved young man named Boldwood; and the rest responded
+unanimously.
+
+"Well," said the senior Commissioner, addressing Henchard, "though the
+case is a desperate one, I am bound to admit that I have never met a
+debtor who behaved more fairly. I've proved the balance-sheet to be as
+honestly made out as it could possibly be; we have had no trouble; there
+have been no evasions and no concealments. The rashness of dealing which
+led to this unhappy situation is obvious enough; but as far as I can see
+every attempt has been made to avoid wronging anybody."
+
+Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them perceive,
+and he turned aside to the window again. A general murmur of agreement
+followed the Commissioner's words, and the meeting dispersed. When they
+were gone Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him. "'Tisn't
+mine by rights," he said to himself. "Why the devil didn't they take
+it?--I don't want what don't belong to me!" Moved by a recollection he
+took the watch to the maker's just opposite, sold it there and then for
+what the tradesman offered, and went with the proceeds to one among
+the smaller of his creditors, a cottager of Durnover in straitened
+circumstances, to whom he handed the money.
+
+When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and the auctions
+were in progress, there was quite a sympathetic reaction in the town,
+which till then for some time past had done nothing but condemn him. Now
+that Henchard's whole career was pictured distinctly to his neighbours,
+and they could see how admirably he had used his one talent of energy
+to create a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing--which
+was really all he could show when he came to the town as a journeyman
+hay-trusser, with his wimble and knife in his basket--they wondered and
+regretted his fall.
+
+Try as she might, Elizabeth could never meet with him. She believed
+in him still, though nobody else did; and she wanted to be allowed to
+forgive him for his roughness to her, and to help him in his trouble.
+
+She wrote to him; he did not reply. She then went to his house--the
+great house she had lived in so happily for a time--with its front
+of dun brick, vitrified here and there and its heavy sash-bars--but
+Henchard was to be found there no more. The ex-Mayor had left the home
+of his prosperity, and gone into Jopp's cottage by the Priory Mill--the
+sad purlieu to which he had wandered on the night of his discovery that
+she was not his daughter. Thither she went.
+
+Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to retire to,
+but assumed that necessity had no choice. Trees which seemed old enough
+to have been planted by the friars still stood around, and the back
+hatch of the original mill yet formed a cascade which had raised its
+terrific roar for centuries. The cottage itself was built of old
+stones from the long dismantled Priory, scraps of tracery, moulded
+window-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed in with the rubble of the
+walls.
+
+In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp, whom Henchard
+had employed, abused, cajoled, and dismissed by turns, being the
+householder. But even here her stepfather could not be seen.
+
+"Not by his daughter?" pleaded Elizabeth.
+
+"By nobody--at present: that's his order," she was informed.
+
+Afterwards she was passing by the corn-stores and hay-barns which had
+been the headquarters of his business. She knew that he ruled there
+no longer; but it was with amazement that she regarded the familiar
+gateway. A smear of decisive lead-coloured paint had been laid on to
+obliterate Henchard's name, though its letters dimly loomed through like
+ships in a fog. Over these, in fresh white, spread the name of Farfrae.
+
+Abel Whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicket, and she said,
+"Mr. Farfrae is master here?"
+
+"Yaas, Miss Henchet," he said, "Mr. Farfrae have bought the concern and
+all of we work-folk with it; and 'tis better for us than 'twas--though
+I shouldn't say that to you as a daughter-law. We work harder, but we
+bain't made afeard now. It was fear made my few poor hairs so thin! No
+busting out, no slamming of doors, no meddling with yer eternal soul and
+all that; and though 'tis a shilling a week less I'm the richer man; for
+what's all the world if yer mind is always in a larry, Miss Henchet?"
+
+The intelligence was in a general sense true; and Henchard's stores,
+which had remained in a paralyzed condition during the settlement of
+his bankruptcy, were stirred into activity again when the new tenant had
+possession. Thenceforward the full sacks, looped with the shining chain,
+went scurrying up and down under the cat-head, hairy arms were thrust
+out from the different door-ways, and the grain was hauled in; trusses
+of hay were tossed anew in and out of the barns, and the wimbles
+creaked; while the scales and steel-yards began to be busy where
+guess-work had formerly been the rule.
+
+
+
+
+32.
+
+
+Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town. The first,
+of weather-stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street,
+where a diverging branch from that thoroughfare ran round to the
+low-lying Durnover lanes; so that the precincts of the bridge formed
+the merging point of respectability and indigence. The second bridge, of
+stone, was further out on the highway--in fact, fairly in the meadows,
+though still within the town boundary.
+
+These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each
+was worn down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from
+generations of loungers, whose toes and heels had from year to year
+made restless movements against these parapets, as they had stood there
+meditating on the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable
+bricks and stones even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the same
+mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each
+joint; since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to wrench
+the coping off and throw it down the river, in reckless defiance of the
+magistrates.
+
+For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of the town;
+those who had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime. Why
+the unhappy hereabout usually chose the bridges for their meditations in
+preference to a railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.
+
+There was a marked difference of quality between the personages who
+haunted the near bridge of brick and the personages who haunted the far
+one of stone. Those of lowest character preferred the former, adjoining
+the town; they did not mind the glare of the public eye. They had been
+of comparatively no account during their successes; and though they
+might feel dispirited, they had no particular sense of shame in their
+ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in their pockets; they wore a leather
+strap round their hips or knees, and boots that required a great deal
+of lacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead of sighing at their
+adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had entered into
+their souls they said they were down on their luck. Jopp in his time of
+distress had often stood here; so had Mother Cuxsom, Christopher Coney,
+and poor Abel Whittle.
+
+The miserables who would pause on the remoter bridge were of a politer
+stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is
+called "out of a situation" from fault or lucklessness, the inefficient
+of the professional class--shabby-genteel men, who did not know how to
+get rid of the weary time between breakfast and dinner, and the yet more
+weary time between dinner and dark. The eye of this species were mostly
+directed over the parapet upon the running water below. A man seen there
+looking thus fixedly into the river was pretty sure to be one whom
+the world did not treat kindly for some reason or other. While one in
+straits on the townward bridge did not mind who saw him so, and kept
+his back to the parapet to survey the passers-by, one in straits on this
+never faced the road, never turned his head at coming footsteps, but,
+sensitive to his own condition, watched the current whenever a stranger
+approached, as if some strange fish interested him, though every finned
+thing had been poached out of the river years before.
+
+There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the grief of
+oppression they would wish themselves kings; if their grief were
+poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if sin, they would wish they were
+saints or angels; if despised love, that they were some much-courted
+Adonis of county fame. Some had been known to stand and think so long
+with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed their
+poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were discovered the next
+morning out of reach of their troubles, either here or in the deep pool
+called Blackwater, a little higher up the river.
+
+To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come before him,
+his way thither being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the
+town. Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Durnover church
+clock struck five. While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears
+across the damp intervening flat a man passed behind him and greeted
+Henchard by name. Henchard turned slightly and saw that the comer was
+Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to whom, though he
+hated him, he had gone for lodgings because Jopp was the one man in
+Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchant
+despised to the point of indifference.
+
+Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp stopped.
+
+"He and she are gone into their new house to-day," said Jopp.
+
+"Oh," said Henchard absently. "Which house is that?"
+
+"Your old one."
+
+"Gone into my house?" And starting up Henchard added, "MY house of all
+others in the town!"
+
+"Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn't, it can do
+'ee no harm that he's the man."
+
+It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfrae, who
+had already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the
+house for the obvious convenience of its contiguity. And yet this act
+of his taking up residence within those roomy chambers while he, their
+former tenant, lived in a cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.
+
+Jopp continued: "And you heard of that fellow who bought all the best
+furniture at your sale? He was bidding for no other than Farfrae all the
+while! It has never been moved out of the house, as he'd already got the
+lease."
+
+"My furniture too! Surely he'll buy my body and soul likewise!"
+
+"There's no saying he won't, if you be willing to sell." And having
+planted these wounds in the heart of his once imperious master Jopp went
+on his way; while Henchard stared and stared into the racing river till
+the bridge seemed moving backward with him.
+
+The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When the landscape
+looked like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveller approached
+the great stone bridge. He was driving a gig, his direction being also
+townwards. On the round of the middle of the arch the gig stopped. "Mr.
+Henchard?" came from it in the voice of Farfrae. Henchard turned his
+face.
+
+Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who accompanied
+him to drive home; while he alighted and went up to his former friend.
+
+"I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?" he said. "Is
+it true? I have a real reason for asking."
+
+Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then said, "Yes;
+it is true. I am going where you were going to a few years ago, when I
+prevented you and got you to bide here. 'Tis turn and turn about, isn't
+it! Do ye mind how we stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I persuaded
+'ee to stay? You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I was
+the master of the house in Corn Street. But now I stand without a stick
+or a rag, and the master of that house is you."
+
+"Yes, yes; that's so! It's the way o' the warrld," said Farfrae.
+
+"Ha, ha, true!" cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood of
+jocularity. "Up and down! I'm used to it. What's the odds after all!"
+
+"Now listen to me, if it's no taking up your time," said Farfrae, "just
+as I listened to you. Don't go. Stay at home."
+
+"But I can do nothing else, man!" said Henchard scornfully. "The little
+money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks, and
+no more. I have not felt inclined to go back to journey-work yet; but I
+can't stay doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere."
+
+"No; but what I propose is this--if ye will listen. Come and live in
+your old house. We can spare some rooms very well--I am sure my wife
+would not mind it at all--until there's an opening for ye."
+
+Henchard started. Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald
+of himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to
+be received with equanimity. "No, no," he said gruffly; "we should
+quarrel."
+
+"You should hae a part to yourself," said Farfrae; "and nobody to
+interfere wi' you. It will be a deal healthier than down there by the
+river where you live now."
+
+Still Henchard refused. "You don't know what you ask," he said.
+"However, I can do no less than thank 'ee."
+
+They walked into the town together side by side, as they had done when
+Henchard persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. "Will you come in
+and have some supper?" said Farfrae when they reached the middle of the
+town, where their paths diverged right and left.
+
+"No, no."
+
+"By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your
+furniture.
+
+"So I have heard."
+
+"Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself; but I wish ye
+to pick out all that you care to have--such things as may be endeared to
+ye by associations, or particularly suited to your use. And take them
+to your own house--it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very
+well, and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting more."
+
+"What--give it to me for nothing?" said Henchard. "But you paid the
+creditors for it!"
+
+"Ah, yes; but maybe it's worth more to you than it is to me."
+
+Henchard was a little moved. "I--sometimes think I've wronged 'ee!" he
+said, in tones which showed the disquietude that the night shades hid in
+his face. He shook Farfrae abruptly by the hand, and hastened away as
+if unwilling to betray himself further. Farfrae saw him turn through the
+thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down towards the Priory Mill.
+
+Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no larger than the Prophet's
+chamber, and with the silk attire of her palmy days packed away in a
+box, was netting with great industry between the hours which she devoted
+to studying such books as she could get hold of.
+
+Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather's former residence,
+now Farfrae's, she could see Donald and Lucetta speeding in and out
+of their door with all the bounding enthusiasm of their situation. She
+avoided looking that way as much as possible, but it was hardly in human
+nature to keep the eyes averted when the door slammed.
+
+While living on thus quietly she heard the news that Henchard had caught
+cold and was confined to his room--possibly a result of standing about
+the meads in damp weather. She went off to his house at once. This
+time she was determined not to be denied admittance, and made her way
+upstairs. He was sitting up in the bed with a greatcoat round him, and
+at first resented her intrusion. "Go away--go away," he said. "I don't
+like to see 'ee!"
+
+"But, father--"
+
+"I don't like to see 'ee," he repeated.
+
+However, the ice was broken, and she remained. She made the room more
+comfortable, gave directions to the people below, and by the time she
+went away had reconciled her stepfather to her visiting him.
+
+The effect, either of her ministrations or of her mere presence, was a
+rapid recovery. He soon was well enough to go out; and now things seemed
+to wear a new colour in his eyes. He no longer thought of emigration,
+and thought more of Elizabeth. The having nothing to do made him more
+dreary than any other circumstance; and one day, with better views of
+Farfrae than he had held for some time, and a sense that honest work was
+not a thing to be ashamed of, he stoically went down to Farfrae's yard
+and asked to be taken on as a journeyman hay-trusser. He was engaged
+at once. This hiring of Henchard was done through a foreman, Farfrae
+feeling that it was undesirable to come personally in contact with the
+ex-corn-factor more than was absolutely necessary. While anxious to help
+him he was well aware by this time of his uncertain temper, and thought
+reserved relations best. For the same reason his orders to Henchard to
+proceed to this and that country farm trussing in the usual way were
+always given through a third person.
+
+For a time these arrangements worked well, it being the custom to truss
+in the respective stack-yards, before bringing it away, the hay bought
+at the different farms about the neighbourhood; so that Henchard was
+often absent at such places the whole week long. When this was all done,
+and Henchard had become in a measure broken in, he came to work daily on
+the home premises like the rest. And thus the once flourishing merchant
+and Mayor and what not stood as a day-labourer in the barns and
+granaries he formerly had owned.
+
+"I have worked as a journeyman before now, ha'n't I?" he would say in
+his defiant way; "and why shouldn't I do it again?" But he looked a far
+different journeyman from the one he had been in his earlier days. Then
+he had worn clean, suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue; leggings
+yellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new flax, and a neckerchief
+like a flower-garden. Now he wore the remains of an old blue cloth
+suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once black
+satin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he went to and fro, still
+comparatively an active man--for he was not much over forty--and saw
+with the other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the green
+door that led to the garden, and the big house, and Lucetta.
+
+At the beginning of the winter it was rumoured about Casterbridge that
+Mr. Farfrae, already in the Town Council, was to be proposed for Mayor
+in a year or two.
+
+"Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!" said Henchard to
+himself when he heard of this one day on his way to Farfrae's hay-barn.
+He thought it over as he wimbled his bonds, and the piece of news acted
+as a reviviscent breath to that old view of his--of Donald Farfrae as
+his triumphant rival who rode rough-shod over him.
+
+"A fellow of his age going to be Mayor, indeed!" he murmured with a
+corner-drawn smile on his mouth. "But 'tis her money that floats en
+upward. Ha-ha--how cust odd it is! Here be I, his former master, working
+for him as man, and he the man standing as master, with my house and my
+furniture and my what-you-may-call wife all his own."
+
+He repeated these things a hundred times a day. During the whole period
+of his acquaintance with Lucetta he had never wished to claim her as
+his own so desperately as he now regretted her loss. It was no mercenary
+hankering after her fortune that moved him, though that fortune had been
+the means of making her so much the more desired by giving her the air
+of independence and sauciness which attracts men of his composition.
+It had given her servants, house, and fine clothing--a setting that
+invested Lucetta with a startling novelty in the eyes of him who had
+known her in her narrow days.
+
+He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at every allusion to the
+possibility of Farfrae's near election to the municipal chair his former
+hatred of the Scotchman returned. Concurrently with this he underwent
+a moral change. It resulted in his significantly saying every now and
+then, in tones of recklessness, "Only a fortnight more!"--"Only a dozen
+days!" and so forth, lessening his figures day by day.
+
+"Why d'ye say only a dozen days?" asked Solomon Longways as he worked
+beside Henchard in the granary weighing oats.
+
+"Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath."
+
+"What oath?"
+
+"The oath to drink no spirituous liquid. In twelve days it will be
+twenty-one years since I swore it, and then I mean to enjoy myself,
+please God!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and while there she heard
+in the street below a conversation which introduced Henchard's name. She
+was wondering what was the matter, when a third person who was passing
+by asked the question in her mind.
+
+"Michael Henchard have busted out drinking after taking nothing for
+twenty-one years!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane jumped up, put on her things, and went out.
+
+
+
+
+33.
+
+
+At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial
+custom--scarcely recognized as such, yet none the less established. On
+the afternoon of every Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge
+journeymen--steady churchgoers and sedate characters--having attended
+service, filed from the church doors across the way to the Three
+Mariners Inn. The rear was usually brought up by the choir, with their
+bass-viols, fiddles, and flutes under their arms.
+
+The great point, the point of honour, on these sacred occasions was
+for each man to strictly limit himself to half-a-pint of liquor. This
+scrupulosity was so well understood by the landlord that the whole
+company was served in cups of that measure. They were all exactly
+alike--straight-sided, with two leafless lime-trees done in eel-brown
+on the sides--one towards the drinker's lips, the other confronting
+his comrade. To wonder how many of these cups the landlord possessed
+altogether was a favourite exercise of children in the marvellous. Forty
+at least might have been seen at these times in the large room, forming
+a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged oak table, like the
+monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its pristine days. Outside and above
+the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke-jets from forty clay pipes;
+outside the pipes the countenances of the forty church-goers, supported
+at the back by a circle of forty chairs.
+
+The conversation was not the conversation of week-days, but a thing
+altogether finer in point and higher in tone. They invariably
+discussed the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the
+average--the general tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or
+performance which had no relation to their own lives, except as between
+critics and the thing criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk
+usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account of their
+official connection with the preacher.
+
+Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the place for
+closing his long term of dramless years. He had so timed his entry as to
+be well established in the large room by the time the forty church-goers
+entered to their customary cups. The flush upon his face proclaimed
+at once that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the era of
+recklessness begun anew. He was seated on a small table, drawn up to the
+side of the massive oak board reserved for the churchmen, a few of
+whom nodded to him as they took their places and said, "How be ye, Mr.
+Henchard? Quite a stranger here."
+
+Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a few moments, and his
+eyes rested on his stretched-out legs and boots. "Yes," he said at
+length; "that's true. I've been down in spirit for weeks; some of
+ye know the cause. I am better now, but not quite serene. I want you
+fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this
+brew of Stannidge's, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my minor
+key."
+
+"With all my heart," said the first fiddle. "We've let back our strings,
+that's true, but we can soon pull 'em up again. Sound A, neighbours, and
+give the man a stave."
+
+"I don't care a curse what the words be," said Henchard. "Hymns,
+ballets, or rantipole rubbish; the Rogue's March or the cherubim's
+warble--'tis all the same to me if 'tis good harmony, and well put out."
+
+"Well--heh, heh--it may be we can do that, and not a man among us that
+have sat in the gallery less than twenty year," said the leader of the
+band. "As 'tis Sunday, neighbours, suppose we raise the Fourth Psa'am,
+to Samuel Wakely's tune, as improved by me?"
+
+"Hang Samuel Wakely's tune, as improved by thee!" said Henchard. "Chuck
+across one of your psalters--old Wiltshire is the only tune worth
+singing--the psalm-tune that would make my blood ebb and flow like the
+sea when I was a steady chap. I'll find some words to fit en." He took
+one of the psalters and began turning over the leaves.
+
+Chancing to look out of the window at that moment he saw a flock of
+people passing by, and perceived them to be the congregation of the
+upper church, now just dismissed, their sermon having been a longer
+one than that the lower parish was favoured with. Among the rest of the
+leading inhabitants walked Mr. Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon his
+arm, the observed and imitated of all the smaller tradesmen's womankind.
+Henchard's mouth changed a little, and he continued to turn over the
+leaves.
+
+"Now then," he said, "Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the tune of
+Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen. I gi'e ye the words:
+
+       "His seed shall orphans be, his wife
+          A widow plunged in grief;
+        His vagrant children beg their bread
+          Where none can give relief.
+
+        His ill-got riches shall be made
+         To usurers a prey;
+        The fruit of all his toil shall be
+          By strangers borne away.
+
+        None shall be found that to his wants
+          Their mercy will extend,
+        Or to his helpless orphan seed
+          The least assistance lend.
+
+        A swift destruction soon shall seize
+          On his unhappy race;
+        And the next age his hated name
+          Shall utterly deface."
+
+"I know the Psa'am--I know the Psa'am!" said the leader hastily; "but I
+would as lief not sing it. 'Twasn't made for singing. We chose it once
+when the gipsy stole the pa'son's mare, thinking to please him, but
+pa'son were quite upset. Whatever Servant David were thinking about when
+he made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I can't
+fathom! Now then, the Fourth Psalm, to Samuel Wakely's tune, as improved
+by me."
+
+"'Od seize your sauce--I tell ye to sing the Hundred-and-Ninth to
+Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!" roared Henchard. "Not a single one
+of all the droning crew of ye goes out of this room till that Psalm is
+sung!" He slipped off the table, seized the poker, and going to the door
+placed his back against it. "Now then, go ahead, if you don't wish to
+have your cust pates broke!"
+
+"Don't 'ee, don't'ee take on so!--As 'tis the Sabbath-day, and 'tis
+Servant David's words and not ours, perhaps we don't mind for once,
+hey?" said one of the terrified choir, looking round upon the rest. So
+the instruments were tuned and the comminatory verses sung.
+
+"Thank ye, thank ye," said Henchard in a softened voice, his eyes
+growing downcast, and his manner that of a man much moved by the
+strains. "Don't you blame David," he went on in low tones, shaking his
+head without raising his eyes. "He knew what he was about when he wrote
+that!... If I could afford it, be hanged if I wouldn't keep a church
+choir at my own expense to play and sing to me at these low, dark times
+of my life. But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I didn't need
+what I could have, and now I be poor I can't have what I need!"
+
+While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again, this time homeward,
+it being their custom to take, like others, a short walk out on the
+highway and back, between church and tea-time. "There's the man we've
+been singing about," said Henchard.
+
+The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. "Heaven
+forbid!" said the bass-player.
+
+"'Tis the man," repeated Henchard doggedly.
+
+"Then if I'd known," said the performer on the clarionet solemnly,
+"that 'twas meant for a living man, nothing should have drawn out of my
+wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so help me!"
+
+"Nor from mine," said the first singer. "But, thought I, as it was made
+so long ago perhaps there isn't much in it, so I'll oblige a neighbour;
+for there's nothing to be said against the tune."
+
+"Ah, my boys, you've sung it," said Henchard triumphantly. "As for him,
+it was partly by his songs that he got over me, and heaved me out....I
+could double him up like that--and yet I don't." He laid the poker
+across his knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down, and came
+away from the door.
+
+It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heard where her
+stepfather was, entered the room with a pale and agonized countenance.
+The choir and the rest of the company moved off, in accordance with
+their half-pint regulation. Elizabeth-Jane went up to Henchard, and
+entreated him to accompany her home.
+
+By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt down, and having
+drunk no great quantity as yet he was inclined to acquiesce. She took
+his arm, and together they went on. Henchard walked blankly, like a
+blind man, repeating to himself the last words of the singers--
+
+       "And the next age his hated name
+          Shall utterly deface."
+
+At length he said to her, "I am a man to my word. I have kept my oath
+for twenty-one years; and now I can drink with a good conscience....If I
+don't do for him--well, I am a fearful practical joker when I choose! He
+has taken away everything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him I won't
+answer for my deeds!"
+
+These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth--all the more by reason of
+the still determination of Henchard's mien.
+
+"What will you do?" she asked cautiously, while trembling with
+disquietude, and guessing Henchard's allusion only too well.
+
+Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his
+cottage. "May I come in?" she said.
+
+"No, no; not to-day," said Henchard; and she went away; feeling that
+to caution Farfrae was almost her duty, as it was certainly her strong
+desire.
+
+As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae and Lucetta might have
+been seen flitting about the town like two butterflies--or rather like
+a bee and a butterfly in league for life. She seemed to take no pleasure
+in going anywhere except in her husband's company; and hence when
+business would not permit him to waste an afternoon she remained indoors
+waiting for the time to pass till his return, her face being visible to
+Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft. The latter, however, did not say
+to herself that Farfrae should be thankful for such devotion, but,
+full of her reading, she cited Rosalind's exclamation: "Mistress, know
+yourself; down on your knees and thank Heaven fasting for a good man's
+love."
+
+She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry
+for his health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle's pitying
+eyes upon him while they worked together in the yard. "He is such a
+fool," said Henchard, "that he can never get out of his mind the time
+when I was master there."
+
+"I'll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will allow me,"
+said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity of
+observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae's premises now that
+her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard's threats had alarmed her
+so much that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face to
+face.
+
+For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any
+appearance. Then one afternoon the green door opened, and through came,
+first Farfrae, and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife forward
+without hesitation, it being obvious that he had no suspicion whatever
+of any antecedents in common between her and the now journeyman
+hay-trusser.
+
+Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them
+fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling
+of delicacy, which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything that might
+seem like triumphing over a fallen rivel, led him to keep away from the
+hay-barn where Henchard and his daughter were working, and to go on to
+the corn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never having been informed that
+Henchard had entered her husband's service, rambled straight on to the
+barn, where she came suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little
+"Oh!" which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear. Henchard,
+with withering humility of demeanour, touched the brim of his hat to
+her as Whittle and the rest had done, to which she breathed a dead-alive
+"Good afternoon."
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am?" said Henchard, as if he had not heard.
+
+"I said good afternoon," she faltered.
+
+"O yes, good afternoon, ma'am," he replied, touching his hat again. "I
+am glad to see you, ma'am." Lucetta looked embarrassed, and Henchard
+continued: "For we humble workmen here feel it a great honour that a
+lady should look in and take an interest in us."
+
+She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too
+unendurable.
+
+"Can you tell me the time, ma'am?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she said hastily; "half-past four."
+
+"Thank 'ee. An hour and a half longer before we are released from work.
+Ah, ma'am, we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisure that
+such as you enjoy!"
+
+As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, nodded and smiled
+to Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husband at the other end of the
+enclosure, where she could be seen leading him away by the outer gates,
+so as to avoid passing Henchard again. That she had been taken by
+surprise was obvious. The result of this casual rencounter was that the
+next morning a note was put into Henchard's hand by the postman.
+
+"Will you," said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put into
+a small communication, "will you kindly undertake not to speak to me in
+the biting undertones you used to-day, if I walk through the yard at
+any time? I bear you no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you should
+have employment of my dear husband; but in common fairness treat me as
+his wife, and do not try to make me wretched by covert sneers. I have
+committed no crime, and done you no injury.
+
+"Poor fool!" said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out the note. "To
+know no better than commit herself in writing like this! Why, if I were
+to show that to her dear husband--pooh!" He threw the letter into the
+fire.
+
+Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would
+rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such
+close quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider
+every day. Farfrae was always considerate to his fallen acquaintance;
+but it was impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard
+the ex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen. Henchard saw
+this, and concealed his feelings under a cover of stolidity, fortifying
+his heart by drinking more freely at the Three Mariners every evening.
+
+Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his taking other
+liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at five o'clock. Arriving
+one day on this errand she found her stepfather was measuring up
+clover-seed and rape-seed in the corn-stores on the top floor, and she
+ascended to him. Each floor had a door opening into the air under a
+cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks.
+
+When Elizabeth's head rose through the trap she perceived that the upper
+door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just within it
+in conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and Henchard
+a little way behind. Not to interrupt them she remained on the steps
+without raising her head any higher. While waiting thus she saw--or
+fancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain--her stepfather
+slowly raise his hand to a level behind Farfrae's shoulders, a curious
+expression taking possession of his face. The young man was quite
+unconscious of the action, which was so indirect that, if Farfrae had
+observed it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle outstretching
+of the arm. But it would have been possible, by a comparatively light
+touch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send him head over heels
+into the air.
+
+Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this MIGHT have
+meant. As soon as they turned she mechanically took the tea to Henchard,
+left it, and went away. Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure herself
+that the movement was an idle eccentricity, and no more. Yet, on the
+other hand, his subordinate position in an establishment where he once
+had been master might be acting on him like an irritant poison; and she
+finally resolved to caution Donald.
+
+
+
+
+34.
+
+
+Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o'clock and went into the
+street. It was not yet light; a dense fog prevailed, and the town was
+as silent as it was dark, except that from the rectangular avenues which
+framed in the borough there came a chorus of tiny rappings, caused by
+the fall of water-drops condensed on the boughs; now it was wafted from
+the West Walk, now from the South Walk; and then from both quarters
+simultaneously. She moved on to the bottom of Corn Street, and, knowing
+his time well, waited only a few minutes before she heard the familiar
+bang of his door, and then his quick walk towards her. She met him at
+the point where the last tree of the engirding avenue flanked the last
+house in the street.
+
+He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he said,
+"What--Miss Henchard--and are ye up so airly?"
+
+She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time.
+"But I am anxious to mention something," she said. "And I wished not to
+alarm Mrs. Farfrae by calling."
+
+"Yes?" said he, with the cheeriness of a superior. "And what may it be?
+It's very kind of ye, I'm sure."
+
+She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the exact aspect
+of possibilities in her own. But she somehow began, and introduced
+Henchard's name. "I sometimes fear," she said with an effort, "that he
+may be betrayed into some attempt to--insult you, sir."
+
+"But we are the best of friends?"
+
+"Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir. Remember that he has been
+hardly used."
+
+"But we are quite friendly?"
+
+"Or to do something--that would injure you--hurt you--wound you." Every
+word cost her twice its length of pain. And she could see that Farfrae
+was still incredulous. Henchard, a poor man in his employ, was not to
+Farfrae's view the Henchard who had ruled him. Yet he was not only the
+same man, but that man with his sinister qualities, formerly latent,
+quickened into life by his buffetings.
+
+Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted in making light of her
+fears. Thus they parted, and she went homeward, journeymen now being in
+the street, waggoners going to the harness-makers for articles left to
+be repaired, farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the sons of
+labour showing themselves generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her
+lodging unhappily, thinking she had done no good, and only made herself
+appear foolish by her weak note of warning.
+
+But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whom an incident is never
+absolutely lost. He revised impressions from a subsequent point of view,
+and the impulsive judgment of the moment was not always his permanent
+one. The vision of Elizabeth's earnest face in the rimy dawn came
+back to him several times during the day. Knowing the solidity of her
+character he did not treat her hints altogether as idle sounds.
+
+But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard's account that
+engaged him just then; and when he met Lawyer Joyce, the town-clerk,
+later in the day, he spoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it.
+
+"About that little seedsman's shop," he said, "the shop overlooking the
+churchyard, which is to let. It is not for myself I want it, but for our
+unlucky fellow-townsman Henchard. It would be a new beginning for him,
+if a small one; and I have told the Council that I would head a private
+subscription among them to set him up in it--that I would be fifty
+pounds, if they would make up the other fifty among them."
+
+"Yes, yes; so I've heard; and there's nothing to say against it for that
+matter," the town-clerk replied, in his plain, frank way. "But, Farfrae,
+others see what you don't. Henchard hates 'ee--ay, hates 'ee; and 'tis
+right that you should know it. To my knowledge he was at the Three
+Mariners last night, saying in public that about you which a man ought
+not to say about another."
+
+"Is that so--ah, is that so?" said Farfrae, looking down. "Why should he
+do it?" added the young man bitterly; "what harm have I done him that he
+should try to wrong me?"
+
+"God only knows," said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows. "It shows much
+long-suffering in you to put up with him, and keep him in your employ."
+
+"But I cannet discharge a man who was once a good friend to me. How can
+I forget that when I came here 'twas he enabled me to make a footing for
+mysel'? No, no. As long as I've a day's work to offer he shall do it if
+he chooses. 'Tis not I who will deny him such a little as that. But I'll
+drop the idea of establishing him in a shop till I can think more about
+it."
+
+It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme. But a damp having
+been thrown over it by these and other voices in the air, he went and
+countermanded his orders. The then occupier of the shop was in it when
+Farfrae spoke to him and feeling it necessary to give some explanation
+of his withdrawal from the negotiation Donald mentioned Henchard's name,
+and stated that the intentions of the Council had been changed.
+
+The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-way informed Henchard,
+as soon as he saw him, that a scheme of the Council for setting him up
+in a shop had been knocked on the head by Farfrae. And thus out of error
+enmity grew.
+
+When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettle was singing on the
+high hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate. Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran
+forward and seized his hands, whereupon Farfrae duly kissed her.
+
+"Oh!" she cried playfully, turning to the window. "See--the blinds are
+not drawn down, and the people can look in--what a scandal!"
+
+When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the twain sat at
+tea, she noticed that he looked serious. Without directly inquiring why
+she let her eyes linger solicitously on his face.
+
+"Who has called?" he absently asked. "Any folk for me?"
+
+"No," said Lucetta. "What's the matter, Donald?"
+
+"Well--nothing worth talking of," he responded sadly.
+
+"Then, never mind it. You will get through it, Scotchmen are always
+lucky."
+
+"No--not always!" he said, shaking his head gloomily as he contemplated
+a crumb on the table. "I know many who have not been so! There was
+Sandy Macfarlane, who started to America to try his fortune, and he was
+drowned; and Archibald Leith, he was murdered! And poor Willie Dunbleeze
+and Maitland Macfreeze--they fell into bad courses, and went the way of
+all such!"
+
+"Why--you old goosey--I was only speaking in a general sense, of course!
+You are always so literal. Now when we have finished tea, sing me
+that funny song about high-heeled shoon and siller tags, and the
+one-and-forty wooers."
+
+"No, no. I couldna sing to-night! It's Henchard--he hates me; so that I
+may not be his friend if I would. I would understand why there should be
+a wee bit of envy; but I cannet see a reason for the whole intensity
+of what he feels. Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashioned
+rivalry in love than just a bit of rivalry in trade."
+
+Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. "No," she replied.
+
+"I give him employment--I cannet refuse it. But neither can I blind
+myself to the fact that with a man of passions such as his, there is no
+safeguard for conduct!"
+
+"What have you heard--O Donald, dearest?" said Lucetta in alarm. The
+words on her lips were "anything about me?"--but she did not utter them.
+She could not, however, suppress her agitation, and her eyes filled with
+tears.
+
+"No, no--it is not so serious as ye fancy," declared Farfrae soothingly;
+though he did not know its seriousness so well as she.
+
+"I wish you would do what we have talked of," mournfully remarked
+Lucetta. "Give up business, and go away from here. We have plenty of
+money, and why should we stay?"
+
+Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and they talked
+thereon till a visitor was announced. Their neighbour Alderman Vatt came
+in.
+
+"You've heard, I suppose of poor Doctor Chalkfield's death? Yes--died
+this afternoon at five," said Mr. Vatt. Chalkfield was the Councilman who
+had succeeded to the Mayoralty in the preceding November.
+
+Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt continued: "Well, we
+know he's been going some days, and as his family is well provided for
+we must take it all as it is. Now I have called to ask 'ee this--quite
+privately. If I should nominate 'ee to succeed him, and there should be
+no particular opposition, will 'ee accept the chair?"
+
+"But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I'm over young, and
+may be thought pushing!" said Farfrae after a pause.
+
+"Not at all. I don't speak for myself only, several have named it. You
+won't refuse?"
+
+"We thought of going away," interposed Lucetta, looking at Farfrae
+anxiously.
+
+"It was only a fancy," Farfrae murmured. "I wouldna refuse if it is the
+wish of a respectable majority in the Council."
+
+"Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected. We have had older men
+long enough."
+
+When he was gone Farfrae said musingly, "See now how it's ourselves that
+are ruled by the Powers above us! We plan this, but we do that. If they
+want to make me Mayor I will stay, and Henchard must rave as he will."
+
+From this evening onward Lucetta was very uneasy. If she had not been
+imprudence incarnate she would not have acted as she did when she met
+Henchard by accident a day or two later. It was in the bustle of the
+market, when no one could readily notice their discourse.
+
+"Michael," said she, "I must again ask you what I asked you months
+ago--to return me any letters or papers of mine that you may
+have--unless you have destroyed them? You must see how desirable it
+is that the time at Jersey should be blotted out, for the good of all
+parties."
+
+"Why, bless the woman!--I packed up every scrap of your handwriting to
+give you in the coach--but you never appeared."
+
+She explained how the death of her aunt had prevented her taking the
+journey on that day. "And what became of the parcel then?" she asked.
+
+He could not say--he would consider. When she was gone he recollected
+that he had left a heap of useless papers in his former dining-room
+safe--built up in the wall of his old house--now occupied by Farfrae.
+The letters might have been amongst them.
+
+A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard's face. Had that safe been
+opened?
+
+On the very evening which followed this there was a great ringing of
+bells in Casterbridge, and the combined brass, wood, catgut, and leather
+bands played round the town with more prodigality of percussion-notes
+than ever. Farfrae was Mayor--the two-hundredth odd of a series forming
+an elective dynasty dating back to the days of Charles I--and the
+fair Lucetta was the courted of the town....But, Ah! the worm i' the
+bud--Henchard; what he could tell!
+
+He, in the meantime, festering with indignation at some erroneous
+intelligence of Farfrae's opposition to the scheme for installing him
+in the little seed-shop, was greeted with the news of the municipal
+election (which, by reason of Farfrae's comparative youth and his
+Scottish nativity--a thing unprecedented in the case--had an interest
+far beyond the ordinary). The bell-ringing and the band-playing, loud as
+Tamerlane's trumpet, goaded the downfallen Henchard indescribably: the
+ousting now seemed to him to be complete.
+
+The next morning he went to the corn-yard as usual, and about eleven
+o'clock Donald entered through the green door, with no trace of the
+worshipful about him. The yet more emphatic change of places between
+him and Henchard which this election had established renewed a slight
+embarrassment in the manner of the modest young man; but Henchard
+showed the front of one who had overlooked all this; and Farfrae met his
+amenities half-way at once.
+
+"I was going to ask you," said Henchard, "about a packet that I
+may possibly have left in my old safe in the dining-room." He added
+particulars.
+
+"If so, it is there now," said Farfrae. "I have never opened the safe at
+all as yet; for I keep ma papers at the bank, to sleep easy o' nights."
+
+"It was not of much consequence--to me," said Henchard. "But I'll call
+for it this evening, if you don't mind?"
+
+It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise. He had primed himself
+with grog, as he did very frequently now, and a curl of sardonic
+humour hung on his lip as he approached the house, as though he were
+contemplating some terrible form of amusement. Whatever it was, the
+incident of his entry did not diminish its force, this being his first
+visit to the house since he had lived there as owner. The ring of the
+bell spoke to him like the voice of a familiar drudge who had been
+bribed to forsake him; the movements of the doors were revivals of dead
+days.
+
+Farfrae invited him into the dining-room, where he at once unlocked
+the iron safe built into the wall, HIS, Henchard's safe, made by an
+ingenious locksmith under his direction. Farfrae drew thence the parcel,
+and other papers, with apologies for not having returned them.
+
+"Never mind," said Henchard drily. "The fact is they are letters
+mostly....Yes," he went on, sitting down and unfolding Lucetta's
+passionate bundle, "here they be. That ever I should see 'em again! I
+hope Mrs. Farfrae is well after her exertions of yesterday?"
+
+"She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that account."
+
+Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them over with interest,
+Farfrae being seated at the other end of the dining-table. "You don't
+forget, of course," he resumed, "that curious chapter in the history of
+my past which I told you of, and that you gave me some assistance in?
+These letters are, in fact, related to that unhappy business. Though,
+thank God, it is all over now."
+
+"What became of the poor woman?" asked Farfrae.
+
+"Luckily she married, and married well," said Henchard. "So that these
+reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges, as they
+might otherwise have done....Just listen to what an angry woman will
+say!"
+
+Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite uninterested, and
+bursting with yawns, gave well-mannered attention.
+
+"'For me,'" Henchard read, "'there is practically no future. A creature
+too unconventionally devoted to you--who feels it impossible that she
+can be the wife of any other man; and who is yet no more to you than the
+first woman you meet in the street--such am I. I quite acquit you of any
+intention to wrong me, yet you are the door through which wrong has come
+to me. That in the event of your present wife's death you will place me
+in her position is a consolation so far as it goes--but how far does it
+go? Thus I sit here, forsaken by my few acquaintance, and forsaken by
+you!'"
+
+"That's how she went on to me," said Henchard, "acres of words like
+that, when what had happened was what I could not cure."
+
+"Yes," said Farfrae absently, "it is the way wi' women." But the
+fact was that he knew very little of the sex; yet detecting a sort of
+resemblance in style between the effusions of the woman he worshipped
+and those of the supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever
+spoke thus, whosesoever the personality she assumed.
+
+Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through likewise, stopping
+at the subscription as before. "Her name I don't give," he said blandly.
+"As I didn't marry her, and another man did, I can scarcely do that in
+fairness to her."
+
+"Tr-rue, tr-rue," said Farfrae. "But why didn't you marry her when your
+wife Susan died?" Farfrae asked this and the other questions in the
+comfortably indifferent tone of one whom the matter very remotely
+concerned.
+
+"Ah--well you may ask that!" said Henchard, the new-moon-shaped
+grin adumbrating itself again upon his mouth. "In spite of all her
+protestations, when I came forward to do so, as in generosity bound, she
+was not the woman for me."
+
+"She had already married another--maybe?"
+
+Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the wind to
+descend further into particulars, and he answered "Yes."
+
+"The young lady must have had a heart that bore transplanting very
+readily!"
+
+"She had, she had," said Henchard emphatically.
+
+He opened a third and fourth letter, and read. This time he approached
+the conclusion as if the signature were indeed coming with the rest. But
+again he stopped short. The truth was that, as may be divined, he had
+quite intended to effect a grand catastrophe at the end of this drama
+by reading out the name, he had come to the house with no other thought.
+But sitting here in cold blood he could not do it.
+
+Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him. His quality was such
+that he could have annihilated them both in the heat of action; but to
+accomplish the deed by oral poison was beyond the nerve of his enmity.
+
+
+
+
+35.
+
+
+As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to her room because of
+fatigue. She had, however, not gone to rest, but sat in the bedside
+chair reading and thinking over the events of the day. At the ringing of
+the door-bell by Henchard she wondered who it should be that would call
+at that comparatively late hour. The dining-room was almost under her
+bed-room; she could hear that somebody was admitted there, and presently
+the indistinct murmur of a person reading became audible.
+
+The usual time for Donald's arrival upstairs came and passed, yet still
+the reading and conversation went on. This was very singular. She could
+think of nothing but that some extraordinary crime had been committed,
+and that the visitor, whoever he might be, was reading an account of it
+from a special edition of the Casterbridge Chronicle. At last she left
+the room, and descended the stairs. The dining-room door was ajar, and
+in the silence of the resting household the voice and the words were
+recognizable before she reached the lower flight. She stood transfixed.
+Her own words greeted her in Henchard's voice, like spirits from the
+grave.
+
+Lucetta leant upon the banister with her cheek against the smooth
+hand-rail, as if she would make a friend of it in her misery. Rigid in
+this position, more and more words fell successively upon her ear. But
+what amazed her most was the tone of her husband. He spoke merely in the
+accents of a man who made a present of his time.
+
+"One word," he was saying, as the crackling of paper denoted that
+Henchard was unfolding yet another sheet. "Is it quite fair to this
+young woman's memory to read at such length to a stranger what was
+intended for your eye alone?"
+
+"Well, yes," said Henchard. "By not giving her name I make it an example
+of all womankind, and not a scandal to one."
+
+"If I were you I would destroy them," said Farfrae, giving more thought
+to the letters than he had hitherto done. "As another man's wife it
+would injure the woman if it were known."
+
+"No, I shall not destroy them," murmured Henchard, putting the letters
+away. Then he arose, and Lucetta heard no more.
+
+She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state. For very fear
+she could not undress, but sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would
+Henchard let out the secret in his parting words? Her suspense was
+terrible. Had she confessed all to Donald in their early acquaintance he
+might possibly have got over it, and married her just the same--unlikely
+as it had once seemed; but for her or any one else to tell him now would
+be fatal.
+
+The door slammed; she could hear her husband bolting it. After looking
+round in his customary way he came leisurely up the stairs. The spark in
+her eyes well-nigh went out when he appeared round the bedroom door. Her
+gaze hung doubtful for a moment, then to her joyous amazement she saw
+that he looked at her with the rallying smile of one who had just been
+relieved of a scene that was irksome. She could hold out no longer, and
+sobbed hysterically.
+
+When he had restored her Farfrae naturally enough spoke of Henchard. "Of
+all men he was the least desirable as a visitor," he said; "but it is my
+belief that he's just a bit crazed. He has been reading to me a long
+lot of letters relating to his past life; and I could do no less than
+indulge him by listening."
+
+This was sufficient. Henchard, then, had not told. Henchard's last
+words to Farfrae, in short, as he stood on the doorstep, had been these:
+"Well--I'm obliged to 'ee for listening. I may tell more about her some
+day."
+
+Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard's motives in opening
+the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power
+of consistent action which we never find in ourselves or in our friends;
+and forget that abortive efforts from want of heart are as possible to
+revenge as to generosity.
+
+Next morning Lucetta remained in bed, meditating how to parry this
+incipient attack. The bold stroke of telling Donald the truth, dimly
+conceived, was yet too bold; for she dreaded lest in doing so he, like
+the rest of the world, should believe that the episode was rather her
+fault than her misfortune. She decided to employ persuasion--not with
+Donald but with the enemy himself. It seemed the only practicable weapon
+left her as a woman. Having laid her plan she rose, and wrote to him who
+kept her on these tenterhooks:--
+
+"I overheard your interview with my husband last night, and saw the
+drift of your revenge. The very thought of it crushes me! Have pity on a
+distressed woman! If you could see me you would relent. You do not know
+how anxiety has told upon me lately. I will be at the Ring at the time
+you leave work--just before the sun goes down. Please come that way. I
+cannot rest till I have seen you face to face, and heard from your mouth
+that you will carry this horse-play no further."
+
+To herself she said, on closing up her appeal: "If ever tears and
+pleadings have served the weak to fight the strong, let them do so now!"
+
+With this view she made a toilette which differed from all she had ever
+attempted before. To heighten her natural attraction had hitherto been
+the unvarying endeavour of her adult life, and one in which she was no
+novice. But now she neglected this, and even proceeded to impair the
+natural presentation. Beyond a natural reason for her slightly drawn
+look, she had not slept all the previous night, and this had produced
+upon her pretty though slightly worn features the aspect of a
+countenance ageing prematurely from extreme sorrow. She selected--as
+much from want of spirit as design--her poorest, plainest and longest
+discarded attire.
+
+To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiled herself, and
+slipped out of the house quickly. The sun was resting on the hill like a
+drop of blood on an eyelid by the time she had got up the road opposite
+the amphitheatre, which she speedily entered. The interior was shadowy,
+and emphatic of the absence of every living thing.
+
+She was not disappointed in the fearful hope with which she awaited him.
+Henchard came over the top, descended and Lucetta waited breathlessly.
+But having reached the arena she saw a change in his bearing: he stood
+still at a little distance from her; she could not think why.
+
+Nor could any one else have known. The truth was that in appointing this
+spot, and this hour, for the rendezvous, Lucetta had unwittingly backed
+up her entreaty by the strongest argument she could have used outside
+words, with this man of moods, glooms, and superstitions. Her figure in
+the midst of the huge enclosure, the unusual plainness of her dress, her
+attitude of hope and appeal, so strongly revived in his soul the memory
+of another ill-used woman who had stood there and thus in bygone days,
+and had now passed away into her rest, that he was unmanned, and his
+heart smote him for having attempted reprisals on one of a sex so weak.
+When he approached her, and before she had spoken a word, her point was
+half gained.
+
+His manner as he had come down had been one of cynical carelessness; but
+he now put away his grim half-smile, and said, in a kindly subdued tone,
+"Goodnight t'ye. Of course I'm glad to come if you want me."
+
+"O, thank you," she said apprehensively.
+
+"I am sorry to see 'ee looking so ill," he stammered with unconcealed
+compunction.
+
+She shook her head. "How can you be sorry," she asked, "when you
+deliberately cause it?"
+
+"What!" said Henchard uneasily. "Is it anything I have done that has
+pulled you down like that?"
+
+"It is all your doing," she said. "I have no other grief. My happiness
+would be secure enough but for your threats. O Michael! don't wreck me
+like this! You might think that you have done enough! When I came here
+I was a young woman; now I am rapidly becoming an old one. Neither my
+husband nor any other man will regard me with interest long."
+
+Henchard was disarmed. His old feeling of supercilious pity for
+womankind in general was intensified by this suppliant appearing here
+as the double of the first. Moreover that thoughtless want of foresight
+which had led to all her trouble remained with poor Lucetta still; she
+had come to meet him here in this compromising way without perceiving
+the risk. Such a woman was very small deer to hunt; he felt ashamed,
+lost all zest and desire to humiliate Lucetta there and then, and no
+longer envied Farfrae his bargain. He had married money, but nothing
+more. Henchard was anxious to wash his hands of the game.
+
+"Well, what do you want me to do?" he said gently. "I am sure I shall be
+very willing. My reading of those letters was only a sort of practical
+joke, and I revealed nothing."
+
+"To give me back the letters and any papers you may have that breathe of
+matrimony or worse."
+
+"So be it. Every scrap shall be yours....But, between you and me,
+Lucetta, he is sure to find out something of the matter, sooner or
+later."
+
+"Ah!" she said with eager tremulousness; "but not till I have proved
+myself a faithful and deserving wife to him, and then he may forgive me
+everything!"
+
+Henchard silently looked at her: he almost envied Farfrae such love
+as that, even now. "H'm--I hope so," he said. "But you shall have the
+letters without fail. And your secret shall be kept. I swear it."
+
+"How good you are!--how shall I get them?"
+
+He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning. "Now don't
+doubt me," he added. "I can keep my word."
+
+
+
+
+36.
+
+
+Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp
+nearest to her own door. When she stopped to go in he came and spoke to
+her. It was Jopp.
+
+He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard that Mr.
+Farfrae had been applied to by a neighbouring corn-merchant to recommend
+a working partner; if so he wished to offer himself. He could give good
+security, and had stated as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter; but he
+would feel much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his favour to her
+husband.
+
+"It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta coldly.
+
+"But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody, ma'am,"
+said Jopp. "I was in Jersey several years, and knew you there by sight."
+
+"Indeed," she replied. "But I knew nothing of you."
+
+"I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure for me what I
+covet very much," he persisted.
+
+She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and cutting
+him short, because of her anxiety to get indoors before her husband
+should miss her, left him on the pavement.
+
+He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home. When he got
+there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner looking at the iron
+dogs, and the wood laid across them for heating the morning kettle.
+A movement upstairs disturbed him, and Henchard came down from his
+bedroom, where he seemed to have been rummaging boxes.
+
+"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp,
+now--to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae's for her.
+I should take it myself, of course, but I don't wish to be seen there."
+
+He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard had been as good
+as his word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over his few
+belongings, and every scrap of Lucetta's writing that he possessed was
+here. Jopp indifferently expressed his willingness.
+
+"Well, how have ye got on to-day?" his lodger asked. "Any prospect of an
+opening?"
+
+"I am afraid not," said Jopp, who had not told the other of his
+application to Farfrae.
+
+"There never will be in Casterbridge," declared Henchard decisively.
+"You must roam further afield." He said goodnight to Jopp, and returned
+to his own part of the house.
+
+Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the
+candle-snuff on the wall, and looking at the original he found that it
+had formed itself into a head like a red-hot cauliflower. Henchard's
+packet next met his gaze. He knew there had been something of the nature
+of wooing between Henchard and the now Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague ideas
+on the subject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchard had a parcel
+belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons for not returning that
+parcel to her in person. What could be inside it? So he went on and on
+till, animated by resentment at Lucetta's haughtiness, as he thought it,
+and curiosity to learn if there were any weak sides to this transaction
+with Henchard, he examined the package. The pen and all its relations
+being awkward tools in Henchard's hands he had affixed the seals without
+an impression, it never occurring to him that the efficacy of such a
+fastening depended on this. Jopp was far less of a tyro; he lifted one
+of the seals with his penknife, peeped in at the end thus opened, saw
+that the bundle consisted of letters; and, having satisfied himself
+thus far, sealed up the end again by simply softening the wax with the
+candle, and went off with the parcel as requested.
+
+His path was by the river-side at the foot of the town. Coming into
+the light at the bridge which stood at the end of High Street he beheld
+lounging thereon Mother Cuxsom and Nance Mockridge.
+
+"We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter's Finger afore
+creeping to bed," said Mrs. Cuxsom. "There's a fiddle and tambourine
+going on there. Lord, what's all the world--do ye come along too,
+Jopp--'twon't hinder ye five minutes."
+
+Jopp had mostly kept himself out of this company, but present
+circumstances made him somewhat more reckless than usual, and without
+many words he decided to go to his destination that way.
+
+
+Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a curious
+congeries of barns and farm-steads, there was a less picturesque side to
+the parish. This was Mixen Lane, now in great part pulled down.
+
+Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages. It was the
+hiding-place of those who were in distress, and in debt, and trouble
+of every kind. Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combined a little
+poaching with their farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with
+their poaching, found themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural
+mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to serve,
+drifted or were forced into Mixen Lane.
+
+The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out
+like a spit into the moist and misty lowland. Much that was sad, much
+that was low, some things that were baneful, could be seen in
+Mixen Lane. Vice ran freely in and out certain of the doors in the
+neighbourhood; recklessness dwelt under the roof with the crooked
+chimney; shame in some bow-windows; theft (in times of privation) in the
+thatched and mud-walled houses by the sallows. Even slaughter had not
+been altogether unknown here. In a block of cottages up an alley there
+might have been erected an altar to disease in years gone by. Such was
+Mixen Lane in the times when Henchard and Farfrae were Mayors.
+
+Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing Casterbridge plant
+lay close to the open country; not a hundred yards from a row of
+noble elms, and commanding a view across the moor of airy uplands and
+corn-fields, and mansions of the great. A brook divided the moor from
+the tenements, and to outward view there was no way across it--no way
+to the houses but round about by the road. But under every householder's
+stairs there was kept a mysterious plank nine inches wide; which plank
+was a secret bridge.
+
+If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from business
+after dark--and this was the business time here--you stealthily crossed
+the moor, approached the border of the aforesaid brook, and whistled
+opposite the house to which you belonged. A shape thereupon made its
+appearance on the other side bearing the bridge on end against the sky;
+it was lowered; you crossed, and a hand helped you to land yourself,
+together with the pheasants and hares gathered from neighbouring manors.
+You sold them slily the next morning, and the day after you stood
+before the magistrates with the eyes of all your sympathizing neighbours
+concentrated on your back. You disappeared for a time; then you were
+again found quietly living in Mixen Lane.
+
+Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by two or three
+peculiar features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the
+back premises of the inn half-way up; this meant a skittle alley.
+Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various
+domiciles--a piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door.
+Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among the
+women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in
+situations where spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and
+cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the postures
+and gaits of the women who wore it--their knuckles being mostly on their
+hips (an attitude which lent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and
+their shoulders against door-posts; while there was a curious alacrity
+in the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck and in the twirl
+of her honest eyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along
+the lane.
+
+Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also found a home.
+Under some of the roofs abode pure and virtuous souls whose presence
+there was due to the iron hand of necessity, and to that alone. Families
+from decayed villages--families of that once bulky, but now
+nearly extinct, section of village society called "liviers," or
+lifeholders--copyholders and others, whose roof-trees had fallen for
+some reason or other, compelling them to quit the rural spot that had
+been their home for generations--came here, unless they chose to lie
+under a hedge by the wayside.
+
+The inn called Peter's Finger was the church of Mixen Lane.
+
+It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore about the
+same social relation to the Three Mariners as the latter bore to
+the King's Arms. At first sight the inn was so respectable as to be
+puzzling. The front door was kept shut, and the step was so clean that
+evidently but few persons entered over its sanded surface. But at the
+corner of the public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividing it from
+the next building. Half-way up the alley was a narrow door, shiny and
+paintless from the rub of infinite hands and shoulders. This was the
+actual entrance to the inn.
+
+A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen Lane; and
+then, in a moment, he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like
+Ashton at the disappearance of Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian
+had edged into the slit by the adroit fillip of his person sideways;
+from the slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of skill.
+
+The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in comparison
+with the company which gathered here; though it must be admitted that
+the lowest fringe of the Mariner's party touched the crest of Peter's at
+points. Waifs and strays of all sorts loitered about here. The landlady
+was a virtuous woman who years ago had been unjustly sent to gaol as
+an accessory to something or other after the fact. She underwent her
+twelvemonth, and had worn a martyr's countenance ever since, except at
+times of meeting the constable who apprehended her, when she winked her
+eye.
+
+To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived. The settles on
+which they sat down were thin and tall, their tops being guyed by pieces
+of twine to hooks in the ceiling; for when the guests grew boisterous
+the settles would rock and overturn without some such security. The
+thunder of bowls echoed from the backyard; swingels hung behind the
+blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers, whom squires
+had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each other--men who in past
+times had met in fights under the moon, till lapse of sentences on the
+one part, and loss of favour and expulsion from service on the other,
+brought them here together to a common level, where they sat calmly
+discussing old times.
+
+"Dost mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble, and not
+ruffle the stream, Charl?" a deposed keeper was saying. "'Twas at that I
+caught 'ee once, if you can mind?"
+
+"That I can. But the worst larry for me was that pheasant business
+at Yalbury Wood. Your wife swore false that time, Joe--O, by Gad, she
+did--there's no denying it."
+
+"How was that?" asked Jopp.
+
+"Why--Joe closed wi' me, and we rolled down together, close to his
+garden hedge. Hearing the noise, out ran his wife with the oven pyle,
+and it being dark under the trees she couldn't see which was uppermost.
+'Where beest thee, Joe, under or top?' she screeched. 'O--under, by
+Gad!' says he. She then began to rap down upon my skull, back, and ribs
+with the pyle till we'd roll over again. 'Where beest now, dear Joe,
+under or top?' she'd scream again. By George, 'twas through her I was
+took! And then when we got up in hall she sware that the cock pheasant
+was one of her rearing, when 'twas not your bird at all, Joe; 'twas
+Squire Brown's bird--that's whose 'twas--one that we'd picked off as
+we passed his wood, an hour afore. It did hurt my feelings to be so
+wronged!... Ah well--'tis over now."
+
+"I might have had 'ee days afore that," said the keeper. "I was within
+a few yards of 'ee dozens of times, with a sight more of birds than that
+poor one."
+
+"Yes--'tis not our greatest doings that the world gets wind of," said
+the furmity-woman, who, lately settled in this purlieu, sat among
+the rest. Having travelled a great deal in her time she spoke with
+cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently asked Jopp what
+was the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm.
+
+"Ah, therein lies a grand secret," said Jopp. "It is the passion of
+love. To think that a woman should love one man so well, and hate
+another so unmercifully."
+
+"Who's the object of your meditation, sir?"
+
+"One that stands high in this town. I'd like to shame her! Upon my life,
+'twould be as good as a play to read her love-letters, the proud piece
+of silk and wax-work! For 'tis her love-letters that I've got here."
+
+"Love letters? then let's hear 'em, good soul," said Mother Cuxsom.
+"Lord, do ye mind, Richard, what fools we used to be when we were
+younger? Getting a schoolboy to write ours for us; and giving him a
+penny, do ye mind, not to tell other folks what he'd put inside, do ye
+mind?"
+
+By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and unfastened
+the letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at
+random, which he read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the
+secret which Lucetta had so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the
+epistles, being allusive only, did not make it altogether plain.
+
+"Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!" said Nance Mockridge. "'Tis a humbling thing
+for us, as respectable women, that one of the same sex could do it. And
+now she's avowed herself to another man!"
+
+"So much the better for her," said the aged furmity-woman. "Ah, I saved
+her from a real bad marriage, and she's never been the one to thank me."
+
+"I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride," said Nance.
+
+"True," said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting. "'Tis as good a ground for a
+skimmity-ride as ever I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted. The last
+one seen in Casterbridge must have been ten years ago, if a day."
+
+At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the
+man who had been called Charl, "'Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go and let
+down the bridge for me?"
+
+Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern
+from her went out at the back door and down the garden-path, which ended
+abruptly at the edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream
+was the open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces
+as they advanced. Taking up the board that had lain in readiness one
+of them lowered it across the water, and the instant its further end
+touched the ground footsteps entered upon it, and there appeared from
+the shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a double-barrelled
+gun under his arm and some birds slung up behind him. They asked him if
+he had had much luck.
+
+"Not much," he said indifferently. "All safe inside?"
+
+Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the others
+withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear. Before,
+however, they had entered the house a cry of "Ahoy" from the moor led
+them to pause.
+
+The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went
+back to the brink of the stream.
+
+"Ahoy--is this the way to Casterbridge?" said some one from the other
+side.
+
+"Not in particular," said Charl. "There's a river afore 'ee."
+
+"I don't care--here's for through it!" said the man in the moor. "I've
+had travelling enough for to-day."
+
+"Stop a minute, then," said Charl, finding that the man was no enemy.
+"Joe, bring the plank and lantern; here's somebody that's lost his
+way. You should have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have
+strook across here."
+
+"I should--as I see now. But I saw a light here, and says I to myself,
+that's an outlying house, depend on't."
+
+The plank was now lowered; and the stranger's form shaped itself
+from the darkness. He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers
+prematurely grey, and a broad and genial face. He had crossed on the
+plank without hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit.
+He thanked them, and walked between them up the garden. "What place is
+this?" he asked, when they reached the door.
+
+"A public-house."
+
+"Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at. Now then, come in and wet
+your whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me."
+
+They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him
+as one who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by
+the ear. He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness--his coat being
+furred, and his head covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the
+nights were chilly, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being
+somewhat advanced. In his hand he carried a small mahogany case,
+strapped, and clamped with brass.
+
+Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him through
+the kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up at the
+house; but taking the situation lightly, he called for glasses of the
+best, paid for them as he stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on
+his way by the front door. This was barred, and while the landlady was
+unfastening it the conversation about the skimmington was continued in
+the sitting-room, and reached his ears.
+
+"What do they mean by a 'skimmity-ride'?" he asked.
+
+"O, sir!" said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with deprecating
+modesty; "'tis a' old foolish thing they do in these parts when a
+man's wife is--well, not too particularly his own. But as a respectable
+householder I don't encourage it.
+
+"Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Well, sir!" she simpered. And then, bursting into naturalness, and
+glancing from the corner of her eye, "'Tis the funniest thing under the
+sun! And it costs money."
+
+"Ah! I remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in
+Casterbridge for two or three weeks to come, and should not mind
+seeing the performance. Wait a moment." He turned back, entered the
+sitting-room, and said, "Here, good folks; I should like to see the
+old custom you are talking of, and I don't mind being something towards
+it--take that." He threw a sovereign on the table and returned to the
+landlady at the door, of whom, having inquired the way into the town, he
+took his leave.
+
+"There were more where that one came from," said Charl when the
+sovereign had been taken up and handed to the landlady for safe keeping.
+"By George! we ought to have got a few more while we had him here."
+
+"No, no," answered the landlady. "This is a respectable house, thank
+God! And I'll have nothing done but what's honourable."
+
+"Well," said Jopp; "now we'll consider the business begun, and will soon
+get it in train."
+
+"We will!" said Nance. "A good laugh warms my heart more than a cordial,
+and that's the truth on't."
+
+Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late he did
+not attempt to call at Farfrae's with them that night. He reached home,
+sealed them up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next
+morning. Within an hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta,
+who, poor soul! was inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulness
+that at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episode with Henchard
+in her past. For though hers had been rather the laxity of inadvertence
+than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to
+operate fatally between herself and her husband.
+
+
+
+
+37.
+
+
+Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge
+were interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence
+reached to the lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its
+society simultaneously with the preparations for the skimmington. It
+was one of those excitements which, when they move a country town, leave
+permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a warm summer permanently marks
+the ring in the tree-trunk corresponding to its date.
+
+A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on his course
+further west, to inaugurate an immense engineering work out that way. He
+had consented to halt half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive an
+address from the corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a representative
+centre of husbandry, wished thus to express its sense of the great
+services he had rendered to agricultural science and economics, by his
+zealous promotion of designs for placing the art of farming on a more
+scientific footing.
+
+Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of the third
+King George, and then only by candlelight for a few minutes, when that
+monarch, on a night-journey, had stopped to change horses at the
+King's Arms. The inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough fete
+carillonee of the unwonted occasion. Half-an-hour's pause was not long,
+it is true; but much might be done in it by a judicious grouping of
+incidents, above all, if the weather were fine.
+
+The address was prepared on parchment by an artist who was handy at
+ornamental lettering, and was laid on with the best gold-leaf and
+colours that the sign-painter had in his shop. The Council had met on
+the Tuesday before the appointed day, to arrange the details of the
+procedure. While they were sitting, the door of the Council Chamber
+standing open, they heard a heavy footstep coming up the stairs. It
+advanced along the passage, and Henchard entered the room, in clothes of
+frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very clothes which he had used to
+wear in the primal days when he had sat among them.
+
+"I have a feeling," he said, advancing to the table and laying his hand
+upon the green cloth, "that I should like to join ye in this reception
+of our illustrious visitor. I suppose I could walk with the rest?"
+
+Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the Council and Grower nearly
+ate the end of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence.
+Farfrae the young Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large
+chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman
+was obliged to utter it, glad as he would have been that the duty should
+have fallen to another tongue.
+
+"I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard," said he. "The
+Council are the Council, and as ye are no longer one of the body, there
+would be an irregularity in the proceeding. If ye were included, why not
+others?"
+
+"I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony."
+
+Farfrae looked round. "I think I have expressed the feeling of the
+Council," he said.
+
+"Yes, yes," from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and several
+more.
+
+"Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it officially?"
+
+"I am afraid so; it is out of the question, indeed. But of course you
+can see the doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of
+the spectators."
+
+Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and, turning on
+his heel, went away.
+
+It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition crystallized
+it into a determination. "I'll welcome his Royal Highness, or nobody
+shall!" he went about saying. "I am not going to be sat upon by Farfrae,
+or any of the rest of the paltry crew! You shall see."
+
+The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun confronting early
+window-gazers eastward, and all perceived (for they were practised in
+weather-lore) that there was permanence in the glow. Visitors soon began
+to flock in from county houses, villages, remote copses, and lonely
+uplands, the latter in oiled boots and tilt bonnets, to see the
+reception, or if not to see it, at any rate to be near it. There was
+hardly a workman in the town who did not put a clean shirt on. Solomon
+Longways, Christopher Coney, Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity,
+showed their sense of the occasion by advancing their customary eleven
+o'clock pint to half-past ten; from which they found a difficulty in
+getting back to the proper hour for several days.
+
+Henchard had determined to do no work that day. He primed himself in
+the morning with a glass of rum, and walking down the street met
+Elizabeth-Jane, whom he had not seen for a week. "It was lucky," he
+said to her, "my twenty-one years had expired before this came on, or I
+should never have had the nerve to carry it out."
+
+"Carry out what?" said she, alarmed.
+
+"This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor."
+
+She was perplexed. "Shall we go and see it together?" she said.
+
+"See it! I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth seeing!"
+
+She could do nothing to elucidate this, and decked herself out with a
+heavy heart. As the appointed time drew near she got sight again of her
+stepfather. She thought he was going to the Three Mariners; but no,
+he elbowed his way through the gay throng to the shop of Woolfrey, the
+draper. She waited in the crowd without.
+
+In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant
+rosette, while more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of
+somewhat homely construction, formed by tacking one of the small
+Union Jacks, which abounded in the town to-day, to the end of a deal
+wand--probably the roller from a piece of calico. Henchard rolled up his
+flag on the doorstep, put it under his arm, and went down the street.
+
+Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads, and the
+shorter stood on tiptoe. It was said that the Royal cortege approached.
+The railway had stretched out an arm towards Casterbridge at this time,
+but had not reached it by several miles as yet; so that the intervening
+distance, as well as the remainder of the journey, was to be traversed
+by road in the old fashion. People thus waited--the county families
+in their carriages, the masses on foot--and watched the far-stretching
+London highway to the ringing of bells and chatter of tongues.
+
+From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene. Some seats had
+been arranged from which ladies could witness the spectacle, and the
+front seat was occupied by Lucetta, the Mayor's wife, just at present.
+In the road under her eyes stood Henchard. She appeared so bright and
+pretty that, as it seemed, he was experiencing the momentary weakness of
+wishing for her notice. But he was far from attractive to a woman's eye,
+ruled as that is so largely by the superficies of things. He was not
+only a journeyman, unable to appear as he formerly had appeared, but he
+disdained to appear as well as he might. Everybody else, from the
+Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture according to means; but
+Henchard had doggedly retained the fretted and weather-beaten garments
+of bygone years.
+
+Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta's eyes slid over him to this side
+and to that without anchoring on his features--as gaily dressed women's
+eyes will too often do on such occasions. Her manner signified quite
+plainly that she meant to know him in public no more.
+
+But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in animated
+converse with his friends a few yards off, wearing round his young neck
+the official gold chain with great square links, like that round the
+Royal unicorn. Every trifling emotion that her husband showed as he
+talked had its reflex on her face and lips, which moved in little
+duplicates to his. She was living his part rather than her own, and
+cared for no one's situation but Farfrae's that day.
+
+At length a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high road, namely,
+on the second bridge of which mention has been made, gave a signal, and
+the Corporation in their robes proceeded from the front of the Town
+Hall to the archway erected at the entrance to the town. The carriages
+containing the Royal visitor and his suite arrived at the spot in a
+cloud of dust, a procession was formed, and the whole came on to the
+Town Hall at a walking pace.
+
+This spot was the centre of interest. There were a few clear yards in
+front of the Royal carriage, sanded; and into this space a man stepped
+before any one could prevent him. It was Henchard. He had unrolled
+his private flag, and removing his hat he staggered to the side of the
+slowing vehicle, waving the Union Jack to and fro with his left hand
+while he blandly held out his right to the Illustrious Personage.
+
+All the ladies said with bated breath, "O, look there!" and Lucetta was
+ready to faint. Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in
+front, saw what it was, and was terrified; and then her interest in the
+spectacle as a strange phenomenon got the better of her fear.
+
+Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He
+seized Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly
+to be off. Henchard's eyes met his, and Farfrae observed the fierce
+light in them despite his excitement and irritation. For a moment
+Henchard stood his ground rigidly; then by an unaccountable impulse gave
+way and retired. Farfrae glanced to the ladies' gallery, and saw that
+his Calphurnia's cheek was pale.
+
+"Why--it is your husband's old patron!" said Mrs. Blowbody, a lady of
+the neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta.
+
+"Patron!" said Donald's wife with quick indignation.
+
+"Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrae's?" observed Mrs.
+Bath, the physician's wife, a new-comer to the town through her recent
+marriage with the doctor.
+
+"He works for my husband," said Lucetta.
+
+"Oh--is that all? They have been saying to me that it was through him
+your husband first got a footing in Casterbridge. What stories people
+will tell!"
+
+"They will indeed. It was not so at all. Donald's genius would have
+enabled him to get a footing anywhere, without anybody's help! He would
+have been just the same if there had been no Henchard in the world!"
+
+It was partly Lucetta's ignorance of the circumstances of Donald's
+arrival which led her to speak thus, partly the sensation that everybody
+seemed bent on snubbing her at this triumphant time. The incident had
+occupied but a few moments, but it was necessarily witnessed by the
+Royal Personage, who, however, with practised tact affected not to have
+noticed anything unusual. He alighted, the Mayor advanced, the address
+was read; the Illustrious Personage replied, then said a few words to
+Farfrae, and shook hands with Lucetta as the Mayor's wife. The ceremony
+occupied but a few minutes, and the carriages rattled heavily as
+Pharaoh's chariots down Corn Street and out upon the Budmouth Road, in
+continuation of the journey coastward.
+
+In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways "Some difference
+between him now and when he zung at the Dree Mariners," said the first.
+"'Tis wonderful how he could get a lady of her quality to go snacks wi'
+en in such quick time."
+
+"True. Yet how folk do worship fine clothes! Now there's a
+better-looking woman than she that nobody notices at all, because she's
+akin to that hontish fellow Henchard."
+
+"I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that," remarked Nance Mockridge.
+"I do like to see the trimming pulled off such Christmas candles. I am
+quite unequal to the part of villain myself, or I'd gi'e all my small
+silver to see that lady toppered....And perhaps I shall soon," she added
+significantly.
+
+"That's not a noble passiont for a 'oman to keep up," said Longways.
+
+Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant. The ideas
+diffused by the reading of Lucetta's letters at Peter's Finger had
+condensed into a scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fog
+through Mixen Lane, and thence up the back streets of Casterbridge.
+
+The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently fell apart
+into two bands by a process of natural selection, the frequenters of
+Peter's Finger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of them lived,
+while Coney, Buzzford, Longways, and that connection remained in the
+street.
+
+"You know what's brewing down there, I suppose?" said Buzzford
+mysteriously to the others.
+
+Coney looked at him. "Not the skimmity-ride?"
+
+Buzzford nodded.
+
+"I have my doubts if it will be carried out," said Longways. "If they
+are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.
+
+"I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events."
+
+"If I were sure o't I'd lay information," said Longways emphatically.
+"'Tis too rough a joke, and apt to wake riots in towns. We know that
+the Scotchman is a right enough man, and that his lady has been a right
+enough 'oman since she came here, and if there was anything wrong about
+her afore, that's their business, not ours."
+
+Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in the community; but it must
+be owned that, as the Mayor and man of money, engrossed with affairs and
+ambitions, he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants something
+of that wondrous charm which he had had for them as a light-hearted
+penniless young man, who sang ditties as readily as the birds in the
+trees. Hence the anxiety to keep him from annoyance showed not quite the
+ardour that would have animated it in former days.
+
+"Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher," continued Longways;
+"and if we find there's really anything in it, drop a letter to them
+most concerned, and advise 'em to keep out of the way?"
+
+This course was decided on, and the group separated, Buzzford saying to
+Coney, "Come, my ancient friend; let's move on. There's nothing more to
+see here."
+
+These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known how
+ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said
+to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the
+Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great
+elevation to-day."
+
+To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.
+
+
+
+
+38.
+
+
+The proceedings had been brief--too brief--to Lucetta whom an
+intoxicating Weltlust had fairly mastered; but they had brought her a
+great triumph nevertheless. The shake of the Royal hand still lingered
+in her fingers; and the chit-chat she had overheard, that her husband
+might possibly receive the honour of knighthood, though idle to a
+degree, seemed not the wildest vision; stranger things had occurred to
+men so good and captivating as her Scotchman was.
+
+After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawn behind the
+ladies' stand; and there he stood, regarding with a stare of abstraction
+the spot on the lapel of his coat where Farfrae's hand had seized it.
+He put his own hand there, as if he could hardly realize such an outrage
+from one whom it had once been his wont to treat with ardent generosity.
+While pausing in this half-stupefied state the conversation of Lucetta
+with the other ladies reached his ears; and he distinctly heard her deny
+him--deny that he had assisted Donald, that he was anything more than a
+common journeyman.
+
+He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake. "So
+you've had a snub," said Jopp.
+
+"And what if I have?" answered Henchard sternly.
+
+"Why, I've had one too, so we are both under the same cold shade." He
+briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta's intercession.
+
+Henchard merely heard his story, without taking it deeply in. His own
+relation to Farfrae and Lucetta overshadowed all kindred ones. He went
+on saying brokenly to himself, "She has supplicated to me in her time;
+and now her tongue won't own me nor her eyes see me!... And he--how angry
+he looked. He drove me back as if I were a bull breaking fence.... I
+took it like a lamb, for I saw it could not be settled there. He can
+rub brine on a green wound!... But he shall pay for it, and she shall be
+sorry. It must come to a tussle--face to face; and then we'll see how a
+coxcomb can front a man!"
+
+Without further reflection the fallen merchant, bent on some wild
+purpose, ate a hasty dinner and went forth to find Farfrae. After being
+injured by him as a rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman, the
+crowning degradation had been reserved for this day--that he should be
+shaken at the collar by him as a vagabond in the face of the whole town.
+
+The crowds had dispersed. But for the green arches which still stood
+as they were erected Casterbridge life had resumed its ordinary shape.
+Henchard went down Corn Street till he came to Farfrae's house, where he
+knocked, and left a message that he would be glad to see his employer at
+the granaries as soon as he conveniently could come there. Having done
+this he proceeded round to the back and entered the yard.
+
+Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the labourers and
+carters were enjoying a half-holiday on account of the events of the
+morning--though the carters would have to return for a short time later
+on, to feed and litter down the horses. He had reached the granary steps
+and was about to ascend, when he said to himself aloud, "I'm stronger
+than he."
+
+Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a short piece of rope
+from several pieces that were lying about; hitching one end of this to
+a nail, he took the other in his right hand and turned himself bodily
+round, while keeping his arm against his side; by this contrivance he
+pinioned the arm effectively. He now went up the ladders to the top
+floor of the corn-stores.
+
+It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door
+often mentioned, opening under the cathead and chain that hoisted the
+sacks. He fixed the door open and looked over the sill. There was a
+depth of thirty or forty feet to the ground; here was the spot on which
+he had been standing with Farfrae when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift
+his arm, with many misgivings as to what the movement portended.
+
+He retired a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated
+perch his eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of the
+luxurious chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week's age, and
+the drooping boughs of the lines; Farfrae's garden and the green door
+leading therefrom. In course of time--he could not say how long--that
+green door opened and Farfrae came through. He was dressed as if for a
+journey. The low light of the nearing evening caught his head and
+face when he emerged from the shadow of the wall, warming them to a
+complexion of flame-colour. Henchard watched him with his mouth firmly
+set, the squareness of his jaw and the verticality of his profile being
+unduly marked.
+
+Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a tune in a way
+which told that the words were most in his mind. They were those of the
+song he had sung when he arrived years before at the Three Mariners, a
+poor young man, adventuring for life and fortune, and scarcely knowing
+witherward:--
+
+          "And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,
+             And gie's a hand o' thine."
+
+Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody. He sank back. "No; I can't do
+it!" he gasped. "Why does the infernal fool begin that now!"
+
+At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the loft door.
+"Will ye come up here?" he said.
+
+"Ay, man," said Farfrae. "I couldn't see ye. What's wrang?"
+
+A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowest ladder. He heard
+him land on the first floor, ascend and land on the second, begin the
+ascent to the third. And then his head rose through the trap behind.
+
+"What are you doing up here at this time?" he asked, coming forward.
+"Why didn't ye take your holiday like the rest of the men?" He spoke in
+a tone which had just severity enough in it to show that he remembered
+the untoward event of the forenoon, and his conviction that Henchard had
+been drinking.
+
+Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed the stair hatchway, and
+stamped upon it so that it went tight into its frame; he next turned
+to the wondering young man, who by this time observed that one of
+Henchard's arms was bound to his side.
+
+"Now," said Henchard quietly, "we stand face to face--man and man. Your
+money and your fine wife no longer lift 'ee above me as they did but
+now, and my poverty does not press me down."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked Farfrae simply.
+
+"Wait a bit, my lad. You should ha' thought twice before you affronted
+to extremes a man who had nothing to lose. I've stood your rivalry,
+which ruined me, and your snubbing, which humbled me; but your hustling,
+that disgraced me, I won't stand!"
+
+Farfrae warmed a little at this. "Ye'd no business there," he said.
+
+"As much as any one among ye! What, you forward stripling, tell a man of
+my age he'd no business there!" The anger-vein swelled in his forehead
+as he spoke.
+
+"You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and 'twas my duty, as the chief
+magistrate, to stop you."
+
+"Royalty be damned," said Henchard. "I am as loyal as you, come to
+that!"
+
+"I am not here to argue. Wait till you cool doon, wait till you cool;
+and you will see things the same way as I do."
+
+"You may be the one to cool first," said Henchard grimly. "Now this
+is the case. Here be we, in this four-square loft, to finish out that
+little wrestle you began this morning. There's the door, forty foot
+above ground. One of us two puts the other out by that door--the master
+stays inside. If he likes he may go down afterwards and give the
+alarm that the other has fallen out by accident--or he may tell the
+truth--that's his business. As the strongest man I've tied one arm to
+take no advantage of 'ee. D'ye understand? Then here's at 'ee!"
+
+There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but one thing, to close with
+Henchard, for the latter had come on at once. It was a wrestling match,
+the object of each being to give his antagonist a back fall; and on
+Henchard's part, unquestionably, that it should be through the door.
+
+At the outset Henchard's hold by his only free hand, the right, was on
+the left side of Farfrae's collar, which he firmly grappled, the latter
+holding Henchard by his collar with the contrary hand. With his right he
+endeavoured to get hold of his antagonist's left arm, which, however, he
+could not do, so adroitly did Henchard keep it in the rear as he gazed
+upon the lowered eyes of his fair and slim antagonist.
+
+Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossing him with his;
+and thus far the struggle had very much the appearance of the ordinary
+wrestling of those parts. Several minutes were passed by them in this
+attitude, the pair rocking and writhing like trees in a gale, both
+preserving an absolute silence. By this time their breathing could be
+heard. Then Farfrae tried to get hold of the other side of Henchard's
+collar, which was resisted by the larger man exerting all his force in
+a wrenching movement, and this part of the struggle ended by his forcing
+Farfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his muscular arms.
+Hampered as he was, however, he could not keep him there, and Farfrae
+finding his feet again the struggle proceeded as before.
+
+By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously near the precipice;
+seeing his position the Scotchman for the first time locked himself
+to his adversary, and all the efforts of that infuriated Prince
+of Darkness--as he might have been called from his appearance just
+now--were inadequate to lift or loosen Farfrae for a time. By an
+extraordinary effort he succeeded at last, though not until they had got
+far back again from the fatal door. In doing so Henchard contrived to
+turn Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard's other arm been free
+it would have been all over with Farfrae then. But again he regained his
+feet, wrenching Henchard's arm considerably, and causing him sharp pain,
+as could be seen from the twitching of his face. He instantly delivered
+the younger man an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as it used
+to be expressed, and following up his advantage thrust him towards the
+door, never loosening his hold till Farfrae's fair head was hanging over
+the window-sill, and his arm dangling down outside the wall.
+
+"Now," said Henchard between his gasps, "this is the end of what you
+began this morning. Your life is in my hands."
+
+"Then take it, take it!" said Farfrae. "Ye've wished to long enough!"
+
+Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and their eyes met. "O
+Farfrae!--that's not true!" he said bitterly. "God is my witness that
+no man ever loved another as I did thee at one time....And now--though I
+came here to kill 'ee, I cannot hurt thee! Go and give me in charge--do
+what you will--I care nothing for what comes of me!"
+
+He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm, and flung
+himself in a corner upon some sacks, in the abandonment of remorse.
+Farfrae regarded him in silence; then went to the hatch and descended
+through it. Henchard would fain have recalled him, but his tongue failed
+in its task, and the young man's steps died on his ear.
+
+Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach. The scenes of
+his first acquaintance with Farfrae rushed back upon him--that time when
+the curious mixture of romance and thrift in the young man's composition
+so commanded his heart that Farfrae could play upon him as on an
+instrument. So thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the sacks
+in a crouching attitude, unusual for a man, and for such a man.
+Its womanliness sat tragically on the figure of so stern a piece of
+virility. He heard a conversation below, the opening of the coach-house
+door, and the putting in of a horse, but took no notice.
+
+Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque obscurity, and
+the loft-door became an oblong of gray light--the only visible shape
+around. At length he arose, shook the dust from his clothes wearily,
+felt his way to the hatch, and gropingly descended the steps till he
+stood in the yard.
+
+"He thought highly of me once," he murmured. "Now he'll hate me and
+despise me for ever!"
+
+He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfrae again
+that night, and by some desperate pleading to attempt the well-nigh
+impossible task of winning pardon for his late mad attack. But as he
+walked towards Farfrae's door he recalled the unheeded doings in the
+yard while he had lain above in a sort of stupor. Farfrae he remembered
+had gone to the stable and put the horse into the gig; while doing so
+Whittle had brought him a letter; Farfrae had then said that he would
+not go towards Budmouth as he had intended--that he was unexpectedly
+summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to call at Mellstock on his way
+thither, that place lying but one or two miles out of his course.
+
+He must have come prepared for a journey when he first arrived in the
+yard, unsuspecting enmity; and he must have driven off (though in a
+changed direction) without saying a word to any one on what had occurred
+between themselves.
+
+It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae's house till very late.
+
+There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though waiting was
+almost torture to his restless and self-accusing soul. He walked about
+the streets and outskirts of the town, lingering here and there till he
+reached the stone bridge of which mention has been made, an accustomed
+halting-place with him now. Here he spent a long time, the purl of
+waters through the weirs meeting his ear, and the Casterbridge lights
+glimmering at no great distance off.
+
+While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attention was awakened
+by sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a
+confusion of rhythmical noises, to which the streets added yet more
+confusion by encumbering them with echoes. His first incurious thought
+that the clangour arose from the town band, engaged in an attempt
+to round off a memorable day in a burst of evening harmony,
+was contradicted by certain peculiarities of reverberation. But
+inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory heed; his sense
+of degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas; and he
+leant against the parapet as before.
+
+
+
+
+39.
+
+
+When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter
+with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived
+at the yard with the intention of putting the horse into the gig himself
+(all the men having a holiday), and driving to a village on the Budmouth
+Road. Despite the fearful struggle he decided still to persevere in his
+journey, so as to recover himself before going indoors and meeting the
+eyes of Lucetta. He wished to consider his course in a case so serious.
+
+When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived with a note
+badly addressed, and bearing the word "immediate" upon the outside. On
+opening it he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It contained
+a brief request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening about some
+business which he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing that could
+make it pressing; but as he was bent upon going out he yielded to the
+anonymous request, particularly as he had a call to make at Mellstock
+which could be included in the same tour. Thereupon he told Whittle of
+his change of direction, in words which Henchard had overheard, and set
+out on his way. Farfrae had not directed his man to take the message
+indoors, and Whittle had not been supposed to do so on his own
+responsibility.
+
+Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance
+of Longways and other of Farfrae's men to get him out of the way for
+the evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if it
+were attempted. By giving open information they would have brought down
+upon their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyed
+these boisterous old games; and therefore the plan of sending a letter
+recommended itself by its indirectness.
+
+For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the
+majority there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to
+bear as she best might.
+
+It was about eight o'clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room
+alone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had
+the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for
+him by the firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of the
+window-sashes a little way open that the sound of his wheels might reach
+her ears early. She was leaning back in the chair, in a more hopeful
+mood than she had enjoyed since her marriage. The day had been such
+a success, and the temporary uneasiness which Henchard's show of
+effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance
+of Henchard himself under her husband's reproof. The floating evidences
+of her absurd passion for him, and its consequences, had been destroyed,
+and she really seemed to have no cause for fear.
+
+The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by
+a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not
+greatly surprise her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation
+by a majority of the populace since the passage of the Royal equipages.
+But her attention was at once riveted to the matter by the voice of a
+maid-servant next door, who spoke from an upper window across the street
+to some other maid even more elevated than she.
+
+"Which way be they going now?" inquired the first with interest.
+
+"I can't be sure for a moment," said the second, "because of the
+malter's chimbley. O yes--I can see 'em. Well, I declare, I declare!"
+
+"What, what?" from the first, more enthusiastically.
+
+"They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!"
+
+"What--two of 'em--are there two figures?"
+
+"Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one
+another's! She's facing the head, and he's facing the tail."
+
+"Is it meant for anybody in particular?"
+
+"Well--it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere
+leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish face. 'Tis a stuffed
+figure, with a falseface."
+
+The din was increasing now--then it lessened a little.
+
+"There--I shan't see, after all!" cried the disappointed first maid.
+
+"They have gone into a back street--that's all," said the one who
+occupied the enviable position in the attic. "There--now I have got 'em
+all endways nicely!"
+
+"What's the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if 'tis
+meant for one I've in mind."
+
+"My--why--'tis dressed just as SHE dressed when she sat in the front
+seat at the time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!"
+
+Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the
+room was quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the
+firelight.
+
+"I have come to see you," she said breathlessly. "I did not stop to
+knock--forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window
+is open."
+
+Without waiting for Lucetta's reply she crossed quickly to the window
+and pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. "Let
+it be--hush!" she said peremptorily, in a dry voice, while she seized
+Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse
+had been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the
+conversation without, which had thus proceeded:--
+
+"Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in
+place; she's got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured
+shoes."
+
+Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held her
+by main force.
+
+"'Tis me!" she said, with a face pale as death. "A procession--a
+scandal--an effigy of me, and him!"
+
+The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.
+
+"Let us shut it out," coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid
+wildness of Lucetta's features was growing yet more rigid and wild with
+the meaning of the noise and laughter. "Let us shut it out!"
+
+"It is of no use!" she shrieked. "He will see it, won't he? Donald will
+see it! He is just coming home--and it will break his heart--he will
+never love me any more--and O, it will kill me--kill me!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. "O, can't something be done to stop it?"
+she cried. "Is there nobody to do it--not one?"
+
+She relinquished Lucetta's hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself,
+saying recklessly "I will see it!" turned to the window, threw up the
+sash, and went out upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed, and
+put her arm round her to pull her in. Lucetta's eyes were straight upon
+the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly. The numerous
+lights round the two effigies threw them up into lurid distinctness; it
+was impossible to mistake the pair for other than the intended victims.
+
+"Come in, come in," implored Elizabeth; "and let me shut the window!"
+
+"She's me--she's me--even to the parasol--my green parasol!" cried
+Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for
+one second--then fell heavily to the floor.
+
+Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington
+ceased. The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the
+trampling died out like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only
+indirectly conscious of this; she had rung the bell, and was bending
+over Lucetta, who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of
+an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again, in vain; the probability
+being that the servants had all run out of the house to see more of the
+Daemonic Sabbath than they could see within.
+
+At last Farfrae's man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up;
+then the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite
+closed, a light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man
+sent off for a doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered
+consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what had passed the fit
+returned.
+
+The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing
+at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as he
+saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth's mute appeal,
+"This is serious."
+
+"It is a fit," Elizabeth said.
+
+"Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You
+must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?"
+
+"He has driven into the country, sir," said the parlour-maid; "to some
+place on the Budmouth Road. He's likely to be back soon."
+
+"Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry." The
+doctor returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they
+soon heard him clattering out of the yard at the back.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention
+has been already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines,
+kits, crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams'-horns, and other historical
+kinds of music as he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat
+and gone out to learn the cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae's,
+and soon guessed the nature of the proceedings; for being a native of
+the town he had witnessed such rough jests before. His first move was
+to search hither and thither for the constables, there were two in the
+town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an alley yet
+more shrivelled than usual, having some not ungrounded fears that they
+might be roughly handled if seen.
+
+"What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!"
+expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower's chiding. "'Tis tempting
+'em to commit felo-de-se upon us, and that would be the death of the
+perpetrator; and we wouldn't be the cause of a fellow-creature's death
+on no account, not we!"
+
+"Get some help, then! Here, I'll come with you. We'll see what a few
+words of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your staves?"
+
+"We didn't want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so
+short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover'ment staves up this
+water-pipe."
+
+"Out with 'em, and come along, for Heaven's sake! Ah, here's Mr.
+Blowbody; that's lucky." (Blowbody was the third of the three borough
+magistrates.)
+
+"Well, what's the row?" said Blowbody. "Got their names--hey?"
+
+"No. Now," said Grower to one of the constables, "you go with Mr.
+Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I'll go with
+Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have 'em between us.
+Get their names only: no attack or interruption."
+
+Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn
+Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no
+procession could be seen. They passed Farfrae's, and looked to the end
+of the street. The lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few
+loungers stood about with their hands in their pockets. Everything was
+as usual.
+
+"Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?" Grower said
+magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short
+pipe and wore straps round his knees.
+
+"Beg yer pardon, sir?" blandly said the person addressed, who was no
+other than Charl, of Peter's Finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.
+
+Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. "No; we haven't
+seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I."
+
+Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
+
+"H'm--that's odd," said Mr. Grower. "Ah--here's a respectable man coming
+that I know by sight. Have you," he inquired, addressing the nearing
+shape of Jopp, "have you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a
+noise--skimmington riding, or something of the sort?"
+
+"O no--nothing, sir," Jopp replied, as if receiving the most singular
+news. "But I've not been far tonight, so perhaps--"
+
+"Oh, 'twas here--just here," said the magistrate.
+
+"Now I've noticed, come to think o't that the wind in the Walk trees
+makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than common;
+so perhaps 'twas that?" Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in his
+greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen tongs
+and a cow's horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
+
+"No, no, no--d'ye think I'm a fool? Constable, come this way. They must
+have gone into the back street."
+
+Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the
+disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who
+came up at this time, brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey,
+lanterns, band, all had disappeared like the crew of Comus.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Grower, "there's only one thing more we can do. Get ye
+half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter's
+Finger. I'm much mistaken if you don't find a clue to the perpetrators
+there."
+
+The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as
+they could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety. It
+was no rapid matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of
+any sort offering itself to light the way, except an occasional pale
+radiance through some window-curtain, or through the chink of some door
+which could not be closed because of the smoky chimney within. At last
+they entered the inn boldly, by the till then bolted front-door, after a
+prolonged knocking of loudness commensurate with the importance of their
+standing.
+
+In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as
+usual for stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with
+statuesque quiet of demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the
+invaders, saying in honest accents, "Good evening, gentlemen; there's
+plenty of room. I hope there's nothing amiss?"
+
+They looked round the room. "Surely," said Stubberd to one of the men,
+"I saw you by now in Corn Street--Mr. Grower spoke to 'ee?"
+
+The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. "I've been here this
+last hour, hain't I, Nance?" he said to the woman who meditatively
+sipped her ale near him.
+
+"Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and
+you were here then, as well as all the rest."
+
+The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw reflected in
+the glass a quick motion by the landlady. Turning sharply, he caught her
+closing the oven-door.
+
+"Something curious about that oven, ma'am!" he observed advancing,
+opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.
+
+"Ah," she said apologetically, "that's what we keep here to use when
+there's a little quiet dancing. You see damp weather spoils it, so I put
+it there to keep it dry."
+
+The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew was nothing. Nohow
+could anything be elicited from this mute and inoffensive assembly. In
+a few minutes the investigators went out, and joining those of their
+auxiliaries who had been left at the door they pursued their way
+elsewhither.
+
+
+
+
+40.
+
+
+Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminations on the bridge,
+had repaired towards the town. When he stood at the bottom of the street
+a procession burst upon his view, in the act of turning out of an alley
+just above him. The lanterns, horns, and multitude startled him; he saw
+the mounted images, and knew what it all meant.
+
+They crossed the way, entered another street, and disappeared. He turned
+back a few steps and was lost in grave reflection, finally wending his
+way homeward by the obscure river-side path. Unable to rest there he
+went to his step-daughter's lodging, and was told that Elizabeth-Jane
+had gone to Mr. Farfrae's. Like one acting in obedience to a charm, and
+with a nameless apprehension, he followed in the same direction in the
+hope of meeting her, the roysterers having vanished. Disappointed in
+this he gave the gentlest of pulls to the door-bell, and then learnt
+particulars of what had occurred, together with the doctor's imperative
+orders that Farfrae should be brought home, and how they had set out to
+meet him on the Budmouth Road.
+
+"But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!" exclaimed Henchard, now
+unspeakably grieved. "Not Budmouth way at all."
+
+But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name. They would
+not believe him, taking his words but as the frothy utterances of
+recklessness. Though Lucetta's life seemed at that moment to depend upon
+her husband's return (she being in great mental agony lest he should
+never know the unexaggerated truth of her past relations with Henchard),
+no messenger was despatched towards Weatherbury. Henchard, in a state of
+bitter anxiety and contrition, determined to seek Farfrae himself.
+
+To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern road over
+Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward in the moderate
+darkness of this spring night till he had reached a second and almost
+a third hill about three miles distant. In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain,
+at the foot of the hill, he listened. At first nothing, beyond his own
+heart-throbs, was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan among
+the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood which clothed the heights
+on either hand; but presently there came the sound of light wheels
+whetting their felloes against the newly stoned patches of road,
+accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.
+
+He knew it was Farfrae's gig descending the hill from an indescribable
+personality in its noise, the vehicle having been his own till bought
+by the Scotchman at the sale of his effects. Henchard thereupon retraced
+his steps along Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as its driver
+slackened speed between two plantations.
+
+It was a point in the highway near which the road to Mellstock branched
+off from the homeward direction. By diverging to that village, as he had
+intended to do, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a couple of
+hours. It soon appeared that his intention was to do so still, the
+light swerving towards Cuckoo Lane, the by-road aforesaid. Farfrae's off
+gig-lamp flashed in Henchard's face. At the same time Farfrae discerned
+his late antagonist.
+
+"Farfrae--Mr. Farfrae!" cried the breathless Henchard, holding up his
+hand.
+
+Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the branch lane
+before he pulled up. He then drew rein, and said "Yes?" over his
+shoulder, as one would towards a pronounced enemy.
+
+"Come back to Casterbridge at once!" Henchard said. "There's something
+wrong at your house--requiring your return. I've run all the way here on
+purpose to tell ye."
+
+Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard's soul sank within him.
+Why had he not, before this, thought of what was only too obvious? He
+who, four hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle stood
+now in the darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting him
+to come a particular way, where an assailant might have confederates,
+instead of going his purposed way, where there might be a better
+opportunity of guarding himself from attack. Henchard could almost feel
+this view of things in course of passage through Farfrae's mind.
+
+"I have to go to Mellstock," said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened his
+reins to move on.
+
+"But," implored Henchard, "the matter is more serious than your business
+at Mellstock. It is--your wife! She is ill. I can tell you particulars
+as we go along."
+
+The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae's
+suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him on to the next wood, where
+might be effectually compassed what, from policy or want of nerve,
+Henchard had failed to do earlier in the day. He started the horse.
+
+"I know what you think," deprecated Henchard running after, almost bowed
+down with despair as he perceived the image of unscrupulous villainy
+that he assumed in his former friend's eyes. "But I am not what you
+think!" he cried hoarsely. "Believe me, Farfrae; I have come entirely on
+your own and your wife's account. She is in danger. I know no more; and
+they want you to come. Your man has gone the other way in a mistake. O
+Farfrae! don't mistrust me--I am a wretched man; but my heart is true to
+you still!"
+
+Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. He knew his wife was
+with child, but he had left her not long ago in perfect health; and
+Henchard's treachery was more credible than his story. He had in his
+time heard bitter ironies from Henchard's lips, and there might be
+ironies now. He quickened the horse's pace, and had soon risen into the
+high country lying between there and Mellstock, Henchard's spasmodic run
+after him lending yet more substance to his thought of evil purposes.
+
+The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in Henchard's eyes;
+his exertions for Farfrae's good had been in vain. Over this repentant
+sinner, at least, there was to be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself
+like a less scrupulous Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses
+self-respect, the last mental prop under poverty. To this he had come
+after a time of emotional darkness of which the adjoining woodland shade
+afforded inadequate illustration. Presently he began to walk back again
+along the way by which he had arrived. Farfrae should at all events have
+no reason for delay upon the road by seeing him there when he took his
+journey homeward later on.
+
+Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae's house to make
+inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious faces confronted his
+from the staircase, hall, and landing; and they all said in grievous
+disappointment, "O--it is not he!" The manservant, finding his mistake,
+had long since returned, and all hopes had centred upon Henchard.
+
+"But haven't you found him?" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes....I cannot tell 'ee!" Henchard replied as he sank down on a chair
+within the entrance. "He can't be home for two hours."
+
+"H'm," said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
+
+"How is she?" asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of the group.
+
+"In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her
+fearfully restless. Poor woman--I fear they have killed her!"
+
+Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants as if she
+struck him in a new light, then, without further remark, went out of
+the door and onward to his lonely cottage. So much for man's rivalry,
+he thought. Death was to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the
+shells. But about Elizabeth-Jane; in the midst of his gloom she seemed
+to him as a pin-point of light. He had liked the look on her face as she
+answered him from the stairs. There had been affection in it, and above
+all things what he desired now was affection from anything that was good
+and pure. She was not his own, yet, for the first time, he had a faint
+dream that he might get to like her as his own,--if she would only
+continue to love him.
+
+Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home. As the latter entered
+the door Jopp said, "This is rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae's illness."
+
+"Yes," said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp's
+complicity in the night's harlequinade, and raising his eyes just
+sufficiently to observe that Jopp's face was lined with anxiety.
+
+"Somebody has called for you," continued Jopp, when Henchard was
+shutting himself into his own apartment. "A kind of traveller, or
+sea-captain of some sort."
+
+"Oh?--who could he be?"
+
+"He seemed a well-be-doing man--had grey hair and a broadish face; but
+he gave no name, and no message."
+
+"Nor do I gi'e him any attention." And, saying this, Henchard closed his
+door.
+
+
+The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae's return very nearly the
+two hours of Henchard's estimate. Among the other urgent reasons for his
+presence had been the need of his authority to send to Budmouth for a
+second physician; and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in
+a state bordering on distraction at his misconception of Henchard's
+motives.
+
+A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had grown; the night
+wore on, and the other doctor came in the small hours. Lucetta had been
+much soothed by Donald's arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and
+when, immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to him the
+secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lest talking
+should be dangerous, assuring her there was plenty of time to tell him
+everything.
+
+Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride. The dangerous
+illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was soon rumoured through the
+town, and an apprehensive guess having been given as to its cause by the
+leaders in the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over
+all particulars of their orgie; while those immediately around Lucetta
+would not venture to add to her husband's distress by alluding to the
+subject.
+
+What, and how much, Farfrae's wife ultimately explained to him of her
+past entanglement with Henchard, when they were alone in the solitude of
+that sad night, cannot be told. That she informed him of the bare
+facts of her peculiar intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from
+Farfrae's own statements. But in respect of her subsequent conduct--her
+motive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself with Henchard--her
+assumed justification in abandoning him when she discovered reasons for
+fearing him (though in truth her inconsequent passion for another man
+at first sight had most to do with that abandonment)--her method of
+reconciling to her conscience a marriage with the second when she was
+in a measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of these
+things remained Farfrae's secret alone.
+
+Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in Casterbridge
+that night there walked a figure up and down Corn Street hardly less
+frequently. It was Henchard's, whose retiring to rest had proved itself
+a futility as soon as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and
+thither, and make inquiries about the patient every now and then.
+He called as much on Farfrae's account as on Lucetta's, and on
+Elizabeth-Jane's even more than on either's. Shorn one by one of all
+other interests, his life seemed centring on the personality of the
+stepdaughter whose presence but recently he could not endure. To see her
+on each occasion of his inquiry at Lucetta's was a comfort to him.
+
+The last of his calls was made about four o'clock in the morning, in the
+steely light of dawn. Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover Moor,
+the sparrows were just alighting into the street, and the hens had begun
+to cackle from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he
+saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to the knocker,
+to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled it. He went across, the
+sparrows in his way scarcely flying up from the road-litter, so little
+did they believe in human aggression at so early a time.
+
+"Why do you take off that?" said Henchard.
+
+She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not answer for an
+instant or two. Recognizing him, she said, "Because they may knock as
+loud as they will; she will never hear it any more."
+
+
+
+
+41.
+
+
+Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he lit his fire,
+and sat abstractedly beside it. He had not sat there long when a gentle
+footstep approached the house and entered the passage, a finger tapping
+lightly at the door. Henchard's face brightened, for he knew the motions
+to be Elizabeth's. She came into his room, looking wan and sad.
+
+"Have you heard?" she asked. "Mrs. Farfrae! She is--dead! Yes,
+indeed--about an hour ago!"
+
+"I know it," said Henchard. "I have but lately come in from there. It
+is so very good of 'ee, Elizabeth, to come and tell me. You must be
+so tired out, too, with sitting up. Now do you bide here with me this
+morning. You can go and rest in the other room; and I will call 'ee when
+breakfast is ready."
+
+To please him, and herself--for his recent kindliness was winning a
+surprised gratitude from the lonely girl--she did as he bade her, and
+lay down on a sort of couch which Henchard had rigged up out of a
+settle in the adjoining room. She could hear him moving about in his
+preparations; but her mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death
+in such fulness of life and amid such cheerful hopes of maternity was
+appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell asleep.
+
+Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the breakfast in
+readiness; but finding that she dozed he would not call her; he
+waited on, looking into the fire and keeping the kettle boiling with
+house-wifely care, as if it were an honour to have her in his house. In
+truth, a great change had come over him with regard to her, and he was
+developing the dream of a future lit by her filial presence, as though
+that way alone could happiness lie.
+
+He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it,
+rather deprecating a call from anybody just then. A stoutly built man
+stood on the doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure
+and bearing--an air which might have been called colonial by people of
+cosmopolitan experience. It was the man who had asked the way at Peter's
+Finger. Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.
+
+"Good morning, good morning," said the stranger with profuse heartiness.
+"Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?"
+
+"My name is Henchard."
+
+"Then I've caught 'ee at home--that's right. Morning's the time for
+business, says I. Can I have a few words with you?"
+
+"By all means," Henchard answered, showing the way in.
+
+"You may remember me?" said his visitor, seating himself.
+
+Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
+
+"Well--perhaps you may not. My name is Newson."
+
+Henchard's face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not notice it. "I
+know the name well," Henchard said at last, looking on the floor.
+
+"I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I've been looking for 'ee
+this fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool and went through Casterbridge
+on my way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they told me you had some
+years before been living at Casterbridge. Back came I again, and by long
+and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago. 'He lives down by the
+mill,' says they. So here I am. Now--that transaction between us
+some twenty years agone--'tis that I've called about. 'Twas a curious
+business. I was younger then than I am now, and perhaps the less said
+about it, in one sense, the better."
+
+"Curious business! 'Twas worse than curious. I cannot even allow that
+I'm the man you met then. I was not in my senses, and a man's senses are
+himself."
+
+"We were young and thoughtless," said Newson. "However, I've come to
+mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor Susan--hers was a strange
+experience."
+
+"She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not what they call
+shrewd or sharp at all--better she had been."
+
+"She was not."
+
+"As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think
+that the sale was in a way binding. She was as guiltless o' wrong-doing
+in that particular as a saint in the clouds."
+
+"I know it, I know it. I found it out directly," said Henchard, still
+with averted eyes. "There lay the sting o't to me. If she had seen it as
+what it was she would never have left me. Never! But how should she be
+expected to know? What advantages had she? None. She could write her own
+name, and no more."
+
+"Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed was done,"
+said the sailor of former days. "I thought, and there was not much
+vanity in thinking it, that she would be happier with me. She was fairly
+happy, and I never would have undeceived her till the day of her
+death. Your child died; she had another, and all went well. But a time
+came--mind me, a time always does come. A time came--it was some while
+after she and I and the child returned from America--when somebody she
+had confided her history to, told her my claim to her was a mockery, and
+made a jest of her belief in my right. After that she was never happy
+with me. She pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must
+leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a man advised
+me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it was best. I left her
+at Falmouth, and went off to sea. When I got to the other side of
+the Atlantic there was a storm, and it was supposed that a lot of
+us, including myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at
+Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
+
+"'Since I'm here, here I'll bide,' I thought to myself; ''twill be most
+kindness to her, now she's taken against me, to let her believe me lost,
+for,' I thought, 'while she supposes us both alive she'll be miserable;
+but if she thinks me dead she'll go back to him, and the child will have
+a home.' I've never returned to this country till a month ago, and I
+found that, as I supposed, she went to you, and my daughter with
+her. They told me in Falmouth that Susan was dead. But my
+Elizabeth-Jane--where is she?"
+
+"Dead likewise," said Henchard doggedly. "Surely you learnt that too?"
+
+The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two down the room.
+"Dead!" he said, in a low voice. "Then what's the use of my money to
+me?"
+
+Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were rather a
+question for Newson himself than for him.
+
+"Where is she buried?" the traveller inquired.
+
+"Beside her mother," said Henchard, in the same stolid tones.
+
+"When did she die?"
+
+"A year ago and more," replied the other without hesitation.
+
+The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up from the floor.
+At last Newson said: "My journey hither has been for nothing! I may as
+well go as I came! It has served me right. I'll trouble you no longer."
+
+Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the sanded floor,
+the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow opening and closing of the
+door that was natural to a baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn
+his head. Newson's shadow passed the window. He was gone.
+
+Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his senses, rose
+from his seat amazed at what he had done. It had been the impulse of a
+moment. The regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung
+hope of his loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he
+could feel as proud as of the actual daughter she still believed herself
+to be, had been stimulated by the unexpected coming of Newson to a
+greedy exclusiveness in relation to her; so that the sudden prospect of
+her loss had caused him to speak mad lies like a child, in pure mockery
+of consequences. He had expected questions to close in round him, and
+unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet such questioning had not
+come. But surely they would come; Newson's departure could be but
+momentary; he would learn all by inquiries in the town; and return to
+curse him, and carry his last treasure away!
+
+He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the direction that Newson had
+taken. Newson's back was soon visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake.
+Henchard followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King's Arms, where
+the morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour for another
+coach which crossed there. The coach Newson had come by was now about to
+move again. Newson mounted, his luggage was put in, and in a few minutes
+the vehicle disappeared with him.
+
+He had not so much as turned his head. It was an act of simple faith
+in Henchard's words--faith so simple as to be almost sublime. The young
+sailor who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the
+faith of a glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still
+living and acting under the form of the grizzled traveller who had taken
+Henchard's words on trust so absolute as to shame him as he stood.
+
+Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy invention of a
+moment? "Perhaps not for long," said he. Newson might converse with his
+fellow-travellers, some of whom might be Casterbridge people; and the
+trick would be discovered.
+
+This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude, and instead
+of considering how best to right the wrong, and acquaint Elizabeth's
+father with the truth at once, he bethought himself of ways to keep the
+position he had accidentally won. Towards the young woman herself his
+affection grew more jealously strong with each new hazard to which his
+claim to her was exposed.
+
+He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newson return on foot,
+enlightened and indignant, to claim his child. But no figure appeared.
+Possibly he had spoken to nobody on the coach, but buried his grief in
+his own heart.
+
+His grief!--what was it, after all, to that which he, Henchard, would
+feel at the loss of her? Newson's affection cooled by years, could not
+equal his who had been constantly in her presence. And thus his jealous
+soul speciously argued to excuse the separation of father and child.
+
+He returned to the house half expecting that she would have vanished.
+No; there she was--just coming out from the inner room, the marks of
+sleep upon her eyelids, and exhibiting a generally refreshed air.
+
+"O father!" she said smiling. "I had no sooner lain down than I napped,
+though I did not mean to. I wonder I did not dream about poor Mrs.
+Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but I did not. How strange it is that
+we do not often dream of latest events, absorbing as they may be."
+
+"I am glad you have been able to sleep," he said, taking her hand with
+anxious proprietorship--an act which gave her a pleasant surprise.
+
+They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane's thoughts reverted to
+Lucetta. Their sadness added charm to a countenance whose beauty had
+ever lain in its meditative soberness.
+
+"Father," she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the outspread
+meal, "it is so kind of you to get this nice breakfast with your own
+hands, and I idly asleep the while."
+
+"I do it every day," he replied. "You have left me; everybody has left
+me; how should I live but by my own hands."
+
+"You are very lonely, are you not?"
+
+"Ay, child--to a degree that you know nothing of! It is my own fault.
+You are the only one who has been near me for weeks. And you will come
+no more."
+
+"Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to see me."
+
+Henchard signified dubiousness. Though he had so lately hoped that
+Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as daughter, he would
+not ask her to do so now. Newson might return at any moment, and what
+Elizabeth would think of him for his deception it were best to bear
+apart from her.
+
+When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered, till the
+moment arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to go to his daily work.
+Then she arose, and with assurance of coming again soon went up the hill
+in the morning sunlight.
+
+"At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is towards her,
+she would live with me here in this humble cottage for the asking! Yet
+before the evening probably he will have come, and then she will scorn
+me!"
+
+This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to himself, accompanied
+him everywhere through the day. His mood was no longer that of the
+rebellious, ironical, reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of
+one who has lost all that can make life interesting, or even tolerable.
+There would remain nobody for him to be proud of, nobody to fortify him;
+for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be but as a stranger, and worse. Susan,
+Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth--all had gone from him, one after one,
+either by his fault or by his misfortune.
+
+In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire. If he could have
+summoned music to his aid his existence might even now have been borne;
+for with Henchard music was of regal power. The merest trumpet or organ
+tone was enough to move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him.
+But hard fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up this
+Divine spirit in his need.
+
+The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself; there was nothing
+to come, nothing to wait for. Yet in the natural course of life he might
+possibly have to linger on earth another thirty or forty years--scoffed
+at; at best pitied.
+
+The thought of it was unendurable.
+
+To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows through which much
+water flowed. The wanderer in this direction who should stand still
+for a few moments on a quiet night, might hear singular symphonies from
+these waters, as from a lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry
+tones from near and far parts of the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir
+they executed a recitative; where a tributary brook fell over a stone
+breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an arch they performed a
+metallic cymballing, and at Durnover Hole they hissed. The spot at
+which their instrumentation rose loudest was a place called Ten Hatches,
+whence during high springs there proceeded a very fugue of sounds.
+
+The river here was deep and strong at all times, and the hatches on this
+account were raised and lowered by cogs and a winch. A patch led
+from the second bridge over the highway (so often mentioned) to these
+Hatches, crossing the stream at their head by a narrow plank-bridge. But
+after night-fall human beings were seldom found going that way, the path
+leading only to a deep reach of the stream called Blackwater, and the
+passage being dangerous.
+
+Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road, proceeded to the
+second, or stone bridge, and thence struck into this path of solitude,
+following its course beside the stream till the dark shapes of the Ten
+Hatches cut the sheen thrown upon the river by the weak lustre that
+still lingered in the west. In a second or two he stood beside the
+weir-hole where the water was at its deepest. He looked backwards and
+forwards, and no creature appeared in view. He then took off his coat
+and hat, and stood on the brink of the stream with his hands clasped in
+front of him.
+
+While his eyes were bent on the water beneath there slowly became
+visible a something floating in the circular pool formed by the wash of
+centuries; the pool he was intending to make his death-bed. At first
+it was indistinct by reason of the shadow from the bank; but it emerged
+thence and took shape, which was that of a human body, lying stiff and
+stark upon the surface of the stream.
+
+In the circular current imparted by the central flow the form was
+brought forward, till it passed under his eyes; and then he perceived
+with a sense of horror that it was HIMSELF. Not a man somewhat
+resembling him, but one in all respects his counterpart, his actual
+double, was floating as if dead in Ten Hatches Hole.
+
+The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy man, and
+he turned away as one might have done in the actual presence of an
+appalling miracle. He covered his eyes and bowed his head. Without
+looking again into the stream he took his coat and hat, and went slowly
+away.
+
+Presently he found himself by the door of his own dwelling. To his
+surprise Elizabeth-Jane was standing there. She came forward, spoke,
+called him "father" just as before. Newson, then, had not even yet
+returned.
+
+"I thought you seemed very sad this morning," she said, "so I have come
+again to see you. Not that I am anything but sad myself. But everybody
+and everything seem against you so, and I know you must be suffering."
+
+How this woman divined things! Yet she had not divined their whole
+extremity.
+
+He said to her, "Are miracles still worked, do ye think, Elizabeth? I
+am not a read man. I don't know so much as I could wish. I have tried
+to peruse and learn all my life; but the more I try to know the more
+ignorant I seem."
+
+"I don't quite think there are any miracles nowadays," she said.
+
+"No interference in the case of desperate intentions, for instance?
+Well, perhaps not, in a direct way. Perhaps not. But will you come and
+walk with me, and I will show 'ee what I mean."
+
+She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway, and by the
+lonely path to Ten Hatches. He walked restlessly, as if some haunting
+shade, unseen of her, hovered round him and troubled his glance. She
+would gladly have talked of Lucetta, but feared to disturb him. When
+they got near the weir he stood still, and asked her to go forward and
+look into the pool, and tell him what she saw.
+
+She went, and soon returned to him. "Nothing," she said.
+
+"Go again," said Henchard, "and look narrowly."
+
+She proceeded to the river brink a second time. On her return, after
+some delay, she told him that she saw something floating round and round
+there; but what it was she could not discern. It seemed to be a bundle
+of old clothes.
+
+"Are they like mine?" asked Henchard.
+
+"Well--they are. Dear me--I wonder if--Father, let us go away!"
+
+"Go and look once more; and then we will get home."
+
+She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was close to the
+margin of the pool. She started up, and hastened back to his side.
+
+"Well," said Henchard; "what do you say now?"
+
+"Let us go home."
+
+"But tell me--do--what is it floating there?"
+
+"The effigy," she answered hastily. "They must have thrown it into the
+river higher up amongst the willows at Blackwater, to get rid of it in
+their alarm at discovery by the magistrates, and it must have floated
+down here."
+
+"Ah--to be sure--the image o' me! But where is the other? Why that one
+only?... That performance of theirs killed her, but kept me alive!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words "kept me alive," as
+they slowly retraced their way to the town, and at length guessed their
+meaning. "Father!--I will not leave you alone like this!" she cried.
+"May I live with you, and tend upon you as I used to do? I do not mind
+your being poor. I would have agreed to come this morning, but you did
+not ask me."
+
+"May you come to me?" he cried bitterly. "Elizabeth, don't mock me! If
+you only would come!"
+
+"I will," said she.
+
+"How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You cannot!"
+
+"I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more."
+
+Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans for reunion; and at
+length each went home. Then Henchard shaved for the first time during
+many days, and put on clean linen, and combed his hair; and was as a man
+resuscitated thenceforward.
+
+The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Jane had stated;
+the effigy was discovered by a cowherd, and that of Lucetta a little
+higher up in the same stream. But as little as possible was said of the
+matter, and the figures were privately destroyed.
+
+Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchard no less regarded
+it as an intervention that the figure should have been floating there.
+Elizabeth-Jane heard him say, "Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it
+seems that even I be in Somebody's hand!"
+
+
+
+
+42.
+
+
+But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody's hand began to die
+out of Henchard's breast as time slowly removed into distance the event
+which had given that feeling birth. The apparition of Newson haunted
+him. He would surely return.
+
+Yet Newson did not arrive. Lucetta had been borne along the churchyard
+path; Casterbridge had for the last time turned its regard upon her,
+before proceeding to its work as if she had never lived. But Elizabeth
+remained undisturbed in the belief of her relationship to Henchard, and
+now shared his home. Perhaps, after all, Newson was gone for ever.
+
+In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, at least, proximate
+cause of Lucetta's illness and death, and his first impulse was
+naturally enough to wreak vengeance in the name of the law upon the
+perpetrators of the mischief. He resolved to wait till the funeral was
+over ere he moved in the matter. The time having come he reflected.
+Disastrous as the result had been, it was obviously in no way foreseen
+or intended by the thoughtless crew who arranged the motley procession.
+The tempting prospect of putting to the blush people who stand at the
+head of affairs--that supreme and piquant enjoyment of those who writhe
+under the heel of the same--had alone animated them, so far as he could
+see; for he knew nothing of Jopp's incitements. Other considerations
+were also involved. Lucetta had confessed everything to him before her
+death, and it was not altogether desirable to make much ado about her
+history, alike for her sake, for Henchard's, and for his own. To
+regard the event as an untoward accident seemed, to Farfrae, truest
+consideration for the dead one's memory, as well as best philosophy.
+
+Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet. For Elizabeth's sake the
+former had fettered his pride sufficiently to accept the small seed and
+root business which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had
+purchased to afford him a new opening. Had he been only personally
+concerned Henchard, without doubt, would have declined assistance even
+remotely brought about by the man whom he had so fiercely assailed. But
+the sympathy of the girl seemed necessary to his very existence; and on
+her account pride itself wore the garments of humility.
+
+Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives Henchard
+anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in which paternal regard
+was heightened by a burning jealous dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson
+would ever now return to Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there
+was little reason to suppose. He was a wanderer and a stranger, almost
+an alien; he had not seen his daughter for several years; his affection
+for her could not in the nature of things be keen; other interests would
+probably soon obscure his recollections of her, and prevent any such
+renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a discovery that she
+was still a creature of the present. To satisfy his conscience somewhat
+Henchard repeated to himself that the lie which had retained for him
+the coveted treasure had not been deliberately told to that end, but
+had come from him as the last defiant word of a despair which took no
+thought of consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within himself that no
+Newson could love her as he loved her, or would tend her to his life's
+extremity as he was prepared to do cheerfully.
+
+Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard, and nothing
+occurred to mark their days during the remainder of the year. Going out
+but seldom, and never on a marketday, they saw Donald Farfrae only at
+rarest intervals, and then mostly as a transitory object in the distance
+of the street. Yet he was pursuing his ordinary avocations, smiling
+mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with bargainers--as
+bereaved men do after a while.
+
+Time, "in his own grey style," taught Farfrae how to estimate his
+experience of Lucetta--all that it was, and all that it was not. There
+are men whose hearts insist upon a dogged fidelity to some image or
+cause thrown by chance into their keeping, long after their judgment has
+pronounced it no rarity--even the reverse, indeed, and without them the
+band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of those. It
+was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and rapidity of his nature
+should take him out of the dead blank which his loss threw about him. He
+could not but perceive that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged
+a looming misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her
+history, which must have come sooner or later in any circumstances, it
+was hard to believe that life with her would have been productive of
+further happiness.
+
+But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta's image still
+lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only the gentlest criticism,
+and her sufferings attenuating wrath at her concealments to a momentary
+spark now and then.
+
+By the end of a year Henchard's little retail seed and grain shop, not
+much larger than a cupboard, had developed its trade considerably, and
+the stepfather and daughter enjoyed much serenity in the pleasant, sunny
+corner in which it stood. The quiet bearing of one who brimmed with an
+inner activity characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period. She took
+long walks into the country two or three times a week, mostly in the
+direction of Budmouth. Sometimes it occurred to him that when she sat
+with him in the evening after those invigorating walks she was civil
+rather than affectionate; and he was troubled; one more bitter regret
+being added to those he had already experienced at having, by his severe
+censorship, frozen up her precious affection when originally offered.
+
+She had her own way in everything now. In going and coming, in buying
+and selling, her word was law.
+
+"You have got a new muff, Elizabeth," he said to her one day quite
+humbly.
+
+"Yes; I bought it," she said.
+
+He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table. The fur was of a
+glossy brown, and, though he was no judge of such articles, he thought
+it seemed an unusually good one for her to possess.
+
+"Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?" he hazarded.
+
+"It was rather above my figure," she said quietly. "But it is not
+showy."
+
+"O no," said the netted lion, anxious not to pique her in the least.
+
+Some little time after, when the year had advanced into another spring,
+he paused opposite her empty bedroom in passing it. He thought of the
+time when she had cleared out of his then large and handsome house in
+Corn Street, in consequence of his dislike and harshness, and he had
+looked into her chamber in just the same way. The present room was much
+humbler, but what struck him about it was the abundance of books lying
+everywhere. Their number and quality made the meagre furniture that
+supported them seem absurdly disproportionate. Some, indeed many, must
+have been recently purchased; and though he encouraged her to buy
+in reason, he had no notion that she indulged her innate passion so
+extensively in proportion to the narrowness of their income. For the
+first time he felt a little hurt by what he thought her extravagance,
+and resolved to say a word to her about it. But, before he had found
+the courage to speak an event happened which set his thoughts flying in
+quite another direction.
+
+The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet weeks that
+preceded the hay-season had come--setting their special stamp upon
+Casterbridge by thronging the market with wood rakes, new waggons in
+yellow, green, and red, formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong
+sufficient to skewer up a small family. Henchard, contrary to his wont,
+went out one Saturday afternoon towards the market-place from a curious
+feeling that he would like to pass a few minutes on the spot of his
+former triumphs. Farfrae, to whom he was still a comparative stranger,
+stood a few steps below the Corn Exchange door--a usual position with
+him at this hour--and he appeared lost in thought about something he was
+looking at a little way off.
+
+Henchard's eyes followed Farfrae's, and he saw that the object of his
+gaze was no sample-showing farmer, but his own stepdaughter, who had
+just come out of a shop over the way. She, on her part, was quite
+unconscious of his attention, and in this was less fortunate than those
+young women whose very plumes, like those of Juno's bird, are set with
+Argus eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken.
+
+Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there was nothing significant
+after all in Farfrae's look at Elizabeth-Jane at that juncture. Yet he
+could not forget that the Scotchman had once shown a tender interest
+in her, of a fleeting kind. Thereupon promptly came to the surface
+that idiosyncrasy of Henchard's which had ruled his courses from the
+beginning and had mainly made him what he was. Instead of thinking that
+a union between his cherished step-daughter and the energetic thriving
+Donald was a thing to be desired for her good and his own, he hated the
+very possibility.
+
+Time had been when such instinctive opposition would have taken shape
+in action. But he was not now the Henchard of former days. He schooled
+himself to accept her will, in this as in other matters, as absolute and
+unquestionable. He dreaded lest an antagonistic word should lose for him
+such regard as he had regained from her by his devotion, feeling that
+to retain this under separation was better than to incur her dislike by
+keeping her near.
+
+But the mere thought of such separation fevered his spirit much, and in
+the evening he said, with the stillness of suspense: "Have you seen Mr.
+Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some confusion
+that she replied "No."
+
+"Oh--that's right--that's right....It was only that I saw him in the
+street when we both were there." He was wondering if her embarrassment
+justified him in a new suspicion--that the long walks which she had
+latterly been taking, that the new books which had so surprised him, had
+anything to do with the young man. She did not enlighten him, and lest
+silence should allow her to shape thoughts unfavourable to their present
+friendly relations, he diverted the discourse into another channel.
+
+Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act stealthily, for good
+or for evil. But the solicitus timor of his love--the dependence upon
+Elizabeth's regard into which he had declined (or, in another sense,
+to which he had advanced)--denaturalized him. He would often weigh
+and consider for hours together the meaning of such and such a deed or
+phrase of hers, when a blunt settling question would formerly have been
+his first instinct. And now, uneasy at the thought of a passion for
+Farfrae which should entirely displace her mild filial sympathy with
+himself, he observed her going and coming more narrowly.
+
+There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane's movements beyond what
+habitual reserve induced, and it may at once be owned on her account
+that she was guilty of occasional conversations with Donald when they
+chanced to meet. Whatever the origin of her walks on the Budmouth
+Road, her return from those walks was often coincident with Farfrae's
+emergence from Corn Street for a twenty minutes' blow on that rather
+windy highway--just to winnow the seeds and chaff out of him before
+sitting down to tea, as he said. Henchard became aware of this by going
+to the Ring, and, screened by its enclosure, keeping his eye upon the
+road till he saw them meet. His face assumed an expression of extreme
+anguish.
+
+"Of her, too, he means to rob me!" he whispered. "But he has the right.
+I do not wish to interfere."
+
+The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and matters were by
+no means so far advanced between the young people as Henchard's jealous
+grief inferred. Could he have heard such conversation as passed he would
+have been enlightened thus much:--
+
+HE.--"You like walking this way, Miss Henchard--and is it not so?"
+(uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an appraising, pondering
+gaze at her).
+
+SHE.--"O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have no great reason
+for it."
+
+HE.--"But that may make a reason for others."
+
+SHE (reddening).--"I don't know that. My reason, however, such as it is,
+is that I wish to get a glimpse of the sea every day."
+
+HE.--"Is it a secret why?"
+
+SHE ( reluctantly ).--"Yes."
+
+HE (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).--"Ah, I doubt there
+will be any good in secrets! A secret cast a deep shadow over my life.
+And well you know what it was."
+
+Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from confessing why
+the sea attracted her. She could not herself account for it fully, not
+knowing the secret possibly to be that, in addition to early marine
+associations, her blood was a sailor's.
+
+"Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae," she added shyly. "I wonder
+if I ought to accept so many!"
+
+"Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you, than you to
+have them!"
+
+"It cannot."
+
+They proceeded along the road together till they reached the town, and
+their paths diverged.
+
+Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own devices, put
+nothing in the way of their courses, whatever they might mean. If he
+were doomed to be bereft of her, so it must be. In the situation which
+their marriage would create he could see no locus standi for himself
+at all. Farfrae would never recognize him more than superciliously; his
+poverty ensured that, no less than his past conduct. And so Elizabeth
+would grow to be a stranger to him, and the end of his life would be
+friendless solitude.
+
+With such a possibility impending he could not help watchfulness.
+Indeed, within certain lines, he had the right to keep an eye upon her
+as his charge. The meetings seemed to become matters of course with them
+on special days of the week.
+
+At last full proof was given him. He was standing behind a wall close
+to the place at which Farfrae encountered her. He heard the young man
+address her as "Dearest Elizabeth-Jane," and then kiss her, the girl
+looking quickly round to assure herself that nobody was near.
+
+When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the wall, and
+mournfully followed them to Casterbridge. The chief looming trouble
+in this engagement had not decreased. Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane,
+unlike the rest of the people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual
+daughter, from his own assertion while he himself had the same belief;
+and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven him as to have no objection
+to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they could never be. Thus would
+the girl, who was his only friend, be withdrawn from him by degrees
+through her husband's influence, and learn to despise him.
+
+Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than the one he had
+rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in days before his spirit was
+broken, Henchard would have said, "I am content." But content with the
+prospect as now depicted was hard to acquire.
+
+There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts unowned,
+unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes allowed to wander for a
+moment prior to being sent off whence they came. One of these thoughts
+sailed into Henchard's ken now.
+
+Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his betrothed
+was not the child of Michael Henchard at all--legally, nobody's child;
+how would that correct and leading townsman receive the information?
+He might possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her
+step-sire's own again.
+
+Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, "God forbid such a thing! Why should
+I still be subject to these visitations of the devil, when I try so hard
+to keep him away?"
+
+
+
+
+43.
+
+
+What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at a little
+later date by other people. That Mr. Farfrae "walked with that bankrupt
+Henchard's step-daughter, of all women," became a common topic in the
+town, the simple perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a
+wooing; and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who
+had each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of making the
+merchant Councilman happy, indignantly left off going to the church
+Farfrae attended, left off conscious mannerisms, left off putting him in
+their prayers at night amongst their blood relations; in short, reverted
+to their normal courses.
+
+Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this looming choice
+of the Scotchman's gave unmixed satisfaction were the members of the
+philosophic party, which included Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy
+Wills, Mr. Buzzford, and the like. The Three Mariners having been, years
+before, the house in which they had witnessed the young man and woman's
+first and humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they took a
+kindly interest in their career, not unconnected, perhaps, with visions
+of festive treatment at their hands hereafter. Mrs. Stannidge, having
+rolled into the large parlour one evening and said that it was a wonder
+such a man as Mr. Farfrae, "a pillow of the town," who might have chosen
+one of the daughters of the professional men or private residents,
+should stoop so low, Coney ventured to disagree with her.
+
+"No, ma'am, no wonder at all. 'Tis she that's a stooping to he--that's
+my opinion. A widow man--whose first wife was no credit to him--what is
+it for a young perusing woman that's her own mistress and well liked?
+But as a neat patching up of things I see much good in it. When a man
+have put up a tomb of best marble-stone to the other one, as he've
+done, and weeped his fill, and thought it all over, and said to hisself,
+'T'other took me in, I knowed this one first; she's a sensible piece for
+a partner, and there's no faithful woman in high life now';--well, he
+may do worse than not to take her, if she's tender-inclined."
+
+Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we must guard against a too
+liberal use of the conventional declaration that a great sensation was
+caused by the prospective event, that all the gossips' tongues were set
+wagging thereby, and so-on, even though such a declaration might lend
+some eclat to the career of our poor only heroine. When all has been
+said about busy rumourers, a superficial and temporary thing is the
+interest of anybody in affairs which do not directly touch them. It
+would be a truer representation to say that Casterbridge (ever excepting
+the nineteen young ladies) looked up for a moment at the news, and
+withdrawing its attention, went on labouring and victualling, bringing
+up its children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle for
+Farfrae's domestic plans.
+
+Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by Elizabeth
+herself or by Farfrae either. Reasoning on the cause of their reticence
+he concluded that, estimating him by his past, the throbbing pair were
+afraid to broach the subject, and looked upon him as an irksome obstacle
+whom they would be heartily glad to get out of the way. Embittered as he
+was against society, this moody view of himself took deeper and deeper
+hold of Henchard, till the daily necessity of facing mankind, and of
+them particularly Elizabeth-Jane, became well-nigh more than he could
+endure. His health declined; he became morbidly sensitive. He wished he
+could escape those who did not want him, and hide his head for ever.
+
+But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no necessity
+that his own absolute separation from her should be involved in the
+incident of her marriage?
+
+He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative--himself living like a
+fangless lion about the back rooms of a house in which his stepdaughter
+was mistress, an inoffensive old man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth,
+and good-naturedly tolerated by her husband. It was terrible to his
+pride to think of descending so low; and yet, for the girl's sake
+he might put up with anything; even from Farfrae; even snubbings and
+masterful tongue-scourgings. The privilege of being in the house she
+occupied would almost outweigh the personal humiliation.
+
+Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the courtship--which
+it evidently now was--had an absorbing interest for him.
+
+Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the Budmouth Road,
+and Farfrae as often made it convenient to create an accidental meeting
+with her there. Two miles out, a quarter of a mile from the highway,
+was the prehistoric fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many
+ramparts, within or upon whose enclosures a human being as seen from
+the road, was but an insignificant speck. Hitherward Henchard often
+resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the hedgeless Via--for it was the
+original track laid out by the legions of the Empire--to a distance of
+two or three miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs
+between Farfrae and his charmer.
+
+One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure came along
+the road from Budmouth, and lingered. Applying his telescope to his eye
+Henchard expected that Farfrae's features would be disclosed as usual.
+But the lenses revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane's
+lover.
+
+It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned in the
+scrutiny of the road he revealed his face. Henchard lived a lifetime the
+moment he saw it. The face was Newson's.
+
+Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no other movement.
+Newson waited, and Henchard waited--if that could be called a waiting
+which was a transfixture. But Elizabeth-Jane did not come. Something
+or other had caused her to neglect her customary walk that day. Perhaps
+Farfrae and she had chosen another road for variety's sake. But what did
+that amount to? She might be here to-morrow, and in any case Newson, if
+bent on a private meeting and a revelation of the truth to her, would
+soon make his opportunity.
+
+Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the ruse by
+which he had been once sent away. Elizabeth's strict nature would cause
+her for the first time to despise her stepfather, would root out his
+image as that of an arch-deceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart
+in his stead.
+
+But Newson did not see anything of her that morning. Having stood still
+awhile he at last retraced his steps, and Henchard felt like a condemned
+man who has a few hours' respite. When he reached his own house he found
+her there.
+
+"O father!" she said innocently. "I have had a letter--a strange
+one--not signed. Somebody has asked me to meet him, either on the
+Budmouth Road at noon today, or in the evening at Mr. Farfrae's. He says
+he came to see me some time ago, but a trick was played him, so that he
+did not see me. I don't understand it; but between you and me I think
+Donald is at the bottom of the mystery, and that it is a relation of
+his who wants to pass an opinion on his choice. But I did not like to go
+till I had seen you. Shall I go?"
+
+Henchard replied heavily, "Yes; go."
+
+The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever disposed of
+by this closing in of Newson on the scene. Henchard was not the man to
+stand the certainty of condemnation on a matter so near his heart. And
+being an old hand at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal,
+he resolved to make as light as he could of his intentions, while
+immediately taking his measures.
+
+He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his all in this
+world by saying to her, as if he did not care about her more: "I am
+going to leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane."
+
+"Leave Casterbridge!" she cried, "and leave--me?"
+
+"Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well as by us
+both; I don't care about shops and streets and folk--I would rather get
+into the country by myself, out of sight, and follow my own ways, and
+leave you to yours."
+
+She looked down and her tears fell silently. It seemed to her that this
+resolve of his had come on account of her attachment and its probable
+result. She showed her devotion to Farfrae, however, by mastering her
+emotion and speaking out.
+
+"I am sorry you have decided on this," she said with difficult firmness.
+"For I thought it probable--possible--that I might marry Mr. Farfrae
+some little time hence, and I did not know that you disapproved of the
+step!"
+
+"I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy," said Henchard huskily.
+"If I did not approve it would be no matter! I wish to go away. My
+presence might make things awkward in the future, and, in short, it is
+best that I go."
+
+Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to reconsider his
+determination; for she could not urge what she did not know--that when
+she should learn he was not related to her other than as a step-parent
+she would refrain from despising him, and that when she knew what he had
+done to keep her in ignorance she would refrain from hating him. It was
+his conviction that she would not so refrain; and there existed as yet
+neither word nor event which could argue it away.
+
+"Then," she said at last, "you will not be able to come to my wedding;
+and that is not as it ought to be."
+
+"I don't want to see it--I don't want to see it!" he exclaimed; adding
+more softly, "but think of me sometimes in your future life--you'll do
+that, Izzy?--think of me when you are living as the wife of the richest,
+the foremost man in the town, and don't let my sins, WHEN YOU KNOW THEM
+ALL, cause 'ee to quite forget that though I loved 'ee late I loved 'ee
+well."
+
+"It is because of Donald!" she sobbed.
+
+"I don't forbid you to marry him," said Henchard. "Promise not to quite
+forget me when----" He meant when Newson should come.
+
+She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same evening at
+dusk Henchard left the town, to whose development he had been one of
+the chief stimulants for many years. During the day he had bought a new
+tool-basket, cleaned up his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in
+fresh leggings, kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways gone back
+to the working clothes of his young manhood, discarding for ever the
+shabby-genteel suit of cloth and rusty silk hat that since his decline
+had characterized him in the Casterbridge street as a man who had seen
+better days.
+
+He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had known him
+being aware of his departure. Elizabeth-Jane accompanied him as far as
+the second bridge on the highway--for the hour of her appointment with
+the unguessed visitor at Farfrae's had not yet arrived--and parted from
+him with unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or two
+before finally letting him go. She watched his form diminish across the
+moor, the yellow rush-basket at his back moving up and down with each
+tread, and the creases behind his knees coming and going alternately
+till she could no longer see them. Though she did not know it Henchard
+formed at this moment much the same picture as he had presented when
+entering Casterbridge for the first time nearly a quarter of a century
+before; except, to be sure, that the serious addition to his years
+had considerably lessened the spring to his stride, that his state
+of hopelessness had weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as
+weighted by the basket, a perceptible bend.
+
+He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood in the bank,
+half way up a steep hill. He rested his basket on the top of the stone,
+placed his elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch, which was
+worse than a sob, because it was so hard and so dry.
+
+"If I had only got her with me--if I only had!" he said. "Hard work
+would be nothing to me then! But that was not to be. I--Cain--go alone
+as I deserve--an outcast and a vagabond. But my punishment is not
+greater than I can bear!"
+
+He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and went on.
+
+Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh, recovered her
+equanimity, and turned her face to Casterbridge. Before she had reached
+the first house she was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was
+evidently not their first meeting that day; they joined hands without
+ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked, "And is he gone--and did you tell
+him?--I mean of the other matter--not of ours."
+
+"He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend. Donald, who is
+he?"
+
+"Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr. Henchard
+will hear of it if he does not go far."
+
+"He will go far--he's bent upon getting out of sight and sound!"
+
+She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the Crossways, or
+Bow, turned with him into Corn Street instead of going straight on to
+her own door. At Farfrae's house they stopped and went in.
+
+Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-room, saying,
+"There he is waiting for you," and Elizabeth entered. In the arm-chair
+sat the broad-faced genial man who had called on Henchard on a memorable
+morning between one and two years before this time, and whom the latter
+had seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of his arrival.
+It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the light-hearted father from
+whom she had been separated half-a-dozen years, as if by death, need
+hardly be detailed. It was an affecting one, apart from the question of
+paternity. Henchard's departure was in a moment explained. When the
+true facts came to be handled the difficulty of restoring her to her
+old belief in Newson was not so great as might have seemed likely,
+for Henchard's conduct itself was a proof that those facts were true.
+Moreover, she had grown up under Newson's paternal care; and even had
+Henchard been her father in nature, this father in early domiciliation
+might almost have carried the point against him, when the incidents of
+her parting with Henchard had a little worn off.
+
+Newson's pride in what she had grown up to be was more than he could
+express. He kissed her again and again.
+
+"I've saved you the trouble to come and meet me--ha-ha!" said Newson.
+"The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said, 'Come up and stop with me
+for a day or two, Captain Newson, and I'll bring her round.' 'Faith,'
+says I, 'so I will'; and here I am."
+
+"Well, Henchard is gone," said Farfrae, shutting the door. "He has done
+it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth, he has been very
+nice with her. I was got rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and
+we will have no more deefficulties at all."
+
+"Now, that's very much as I thought," said Newson, looking into the face
+of each by turns. "I said to myself, ay, a hundred times, when I tried
+to get a peep at her unknown to herself--'Depend upon it, 'tis best that
+I should live on quiet for a few days like this till something turns up
+for the better.' I now know you are all right, and what can I wish for
+more?"
+
+"Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every day now,
+since it can do no harm," said Farfrae. "And what I've been thinking is
+that the wedding may as well be kept under my own roof, the house being
+large, and you being in lodgings by yourself--so that a great deal of
+trouble and expense would be saved ye?--and 'tis a convenience when a
+couple's married not to hae far to go to get home!"
+
+"With all my heart," said Captain Newson; "since, as ye say, it can
+do no harm, now poor Henchard's gone; though I wouldn't have done it
+otherwise, or put myself in his way at all; for I've already in my
+lifetime been an intruder into his family quite as far as politeness
+can be expected to put up with. But what do the young woman say herself
+about it? Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we be talking
+about, and not bide staring out o' the window as if ye didn't hear.'
+
+"Donald and you must settle it," murmured Elizabeth, still keeping up a
+scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the street.
+
+"Well, then," continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with a face
+expressing thorough entry into the subject, "that's how we'll have it.
+And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide so much, and houseroom, and all
+that, I'll do my part in the drinkables, and see to the rum and
+schiedam--maybe a dozen jars will be sufficient?--as many of the folk
+will be ladies, and perhaps they won't drink hard enough to make a high
+average in the reckoning? But you know best. I've provided for men and
+shipmates times enough, but I'm as ignorant as a child how many glasses
+of grog a woman, that's not a drinking woman, is expected to consume at
+these ceremonies?"
+
+"Oh, none--we'll no want much of that--O no!" said Farfrae, shaking his
+head with appalled gravity. "Do you leave all to me."
+
+When they had gone a little further in these particulars Newson, leaning
+back in his chair and smiling reflectively at the ceiling, said, "I've
+never told ye, or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me off the scent
+that time?"
+
+He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.
+
+"Ah, I thought I hadn't. I resolved that I would not, I remember, not
+to hurt the man's name. But now he's gone I can tell ye. Why, I came to
+Casterbridge nine or ten months before that day last week that I found
+ye out. I had been here twice before then. The first time I passed
+through the town on my way westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here.
+Then hearing at some place--I forget where--that a man of the name of
+Henchard had been mayor here, I came back, and called at his house one
+morning. The old rascal!--he said Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago."
+
+Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.
+
+"Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a packet,"
+continued Newson. "And, if you'll believe me, I was that upset, that
+I went back to the coach that had brought me, and took passage onward
+without lying in the town half-an-hour. Ha-ha!--'twas a good joke, and
+well carried out, and I give the man credit for't!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence. "A joke?--O no!" she
+cried. "Then he kept you from me, father, all those months, when you
+might have been here?"
+
+The father admitted that such was the case.
+
+"He ought not to have done it!" said Farfrae.
+
+Elizabeth sighed. "I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I
+ought to forget him now!"
+
+Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange men and
+strange moralities, failed to perceive the enormity of Henchard's crime,
+notwithstanding that he himself had been the chief sufferer therefrom.
+Indeed, the attack upon the absent culprit waxing serious, he began to
+take Henchard's part.
+
+"Well, 'twas not ten words that he said, after all," Newson pleaded.
+"And how could he know that I should be such a simpleton as to believe
+him? 'Twas as much my fault as his, poor fellow!"
+
+"No," said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of feeling. "He knew
+your disposition--you always were so trusting, father; I've heard my
+mother say so hundreds of times--and he did it to wrong you. After
+weaning me from you these five years by saying he was my father, he
+should not have done this."
+
+Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before Elizabeth
+any extenuation of the absent one's deceit. Even had he been present
+Henchard might scarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himself or
+his good name.
+
+"Well, well--never mind--it is all over and past," said Newson
+good-naturedly. "Now, about this wedding again."
+
+
+
+
+44.
+
+
+Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitary way eastward
+till weariness overtook him, and he looked about for a place of rest.
+His heart was so exacerbated at parting from the girl that he could not
+face an inn, or even a household of the most humble kind; and entering
+a field he lay down under a wheatrick, feeling no want of food. The very
+heaviness of his soul caused him to sleep profoundly.
+
+The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the stubble awoke him
+the next morning early. He opened his basket and ate for his breakfast
+what he had packed for his supper; and in doing so overhauled the
+remainder of his kit. Although everything he brought necessitated
+carriage at his own back, he had secreted among his tools a few of
+Elizabeth-Jane's cast-off belongings, in the shape of gloves, shoes, a
+scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and in his pocket he carried a
+curl of her hair. Having looked at these things he closed them up again,
+and went onward.
+
+During five consecutive days Henchard's rush basket rode along upon
+his shoulder between the highway hedges, the new yellow of the rushes
+catching the eye of an occasional field-labourer as he glanced through
+the quickset, together with the wayfarer's hat and head, and down-turned
+face, over which the twig shadows moved in endless procession. It now
+became apparent that the direction of his journey was Weydon Priors,
+which he reached on the afternoon of the sixth day.
+
+The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had been held for so many
+generations was now bare of human beings, and almost of aught besides. A
+few sheep grazed thereabout, but these ran off when Henchard halted upon
+the summit. He deposited his basket upon the turf, and looked about with
+sad curiosity; till he discovered the road by which his wife and himself
+had entered on the upland so memorable to both, five-and-twenty years
+before.
+
+"Yes, we came up that way," he said, after ascertaining his bearings.
+"She was carrying the baby, and I was reading a ballet-sheet. Then we
+crossed about here--she so sad and weary, and I speaking to her hardly
+at all, because of my cursed pride and mortification at being poor.
+Then we saw the tent--that must have stood more this way." He walked to
+another spot, it was not really where the tent had stood but it seemed
+so to him. "Here we went in, and here we sat down. I faced this way.
+Then I drank, and committed my crime. It must have been just on that
+very pixy-ring that she was standing when she said her last words to me
+before going off with him; I can hear their sound now, and the sound of
+her sobs: 'O Mike! I've lived with thee all this while, and had nothing
+but temper. Now I'm no more to 'ee--I'll try my luck elsewhere.'"
+
+He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds, in looking
+back upon an ambitious course, that what he has sacrificed in sentiment
+was worth as much as what he has gained in substance; but the superadded
+bitterness of seeing his very recantation nullified. He had been sorry
+for all this long ago; but his attempts to replace ambition by love had
+been as fully foiled as his ambition itself. His wronged wife had foiled
+them by a fraud so grandly simple as to be almost a virtue. It was an
+odd sequence that out of all this tampering with social law came that
+flower of Nature, Elizabeth. Part of his wish to wash his hands of
+life arose from his perception of its contrarious inconsistencies--of
+Nature's jaunty readiness to support unorthodox social principles.
+
+He intended to go on from this place--visited as an act of penance--into
+another part of the country altogether. But he could not help thinking
+of Elizabeth, and the quarter of the horizon in which she lived. Out of
+this it happened that the centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness of
+the world was counteracted by the centripetal influence of his love
+for his stepdaughter. As a consequence, instead of following a straight
+course yet further away from Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almost
+unconsciously, deflected from that right line of his first intention;
+till, by degrees, his wandering, like that of the Canadian woodsman,
+became part of a circle of which Casterbridge formed the centre. In
+ascending any particular hill he ascertained the bearings as nearly as
+he could by means of the sun, moon, or stars, and settled in his mind
+the exact direction in which Casterbridge and Elizabeth-Jane lay.
+Sneering at himself for his weakness he yet every hour--nay, every few
+minutes--conjectured her actions for the time being--her sitting down
+and rising up, her goings and comings, till thought of Newson's and
+Farfrae's counter-influence would pass like a cold blast over a pool,
+and efface her image. And then he would say to himself, "O you fool! All
+this about a daughter who is no daughter of thine!"
+
+At length he obtained employment at his own occupation of hay-trusser,
+work of that sort being in demand at this autumn time. The scene of his
+hiring was a pastoral farm near the old western highway, whose course
+was the channel of all such communications as passed between the busy
+centres of novelty and the remote Wessex boroughs. He had chosen the
+neighbourhood of this artery from a sense that, situated here, though at
+a distance of fifty miles, he was virtually nearer to her whose welfare
+was so dear than he would be at a roadless spot only half as remote.
+
+And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise standing which he
+had occupied a quarter of a century before. Externally there was nothing
+to hinder his making another start on the upward slope, and by his new
+lights achieving higher things than his soul in its half-formed state
+had been able to accomplish. But the ingenious machinery contrived
+by the Gods for reducing human possibilities of amelioration to a
+minimum--which arranges that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with
+the departure of zest for doing--stood in the way of all that. He had
+no wish to make an arena a second time of a world that had become a mere
+painted scene to him.
+
+Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among the sweet-smelling
+grassy stems, he would survey mankind and say to himself: "Here and
+everywhere be folk dying before their time like frosted leaves, though
+wanted by their families, the country, and the world; while I, an
+outcast, an encumberer of the ground, wanted by nobody, and despised by
+all, live on against my will!"
+
+He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation of those who passed
+along the road--not from a general curiosity by any means--but in the
+hope that among these travellers between Casterbridge and London
+some would, sooner or later, speak of the former place. The distance,
+however, was too great to lend much probability to his desire; and the
+highest result of his attention to wayside words was that he did
+indeed hear the name "Casterbridge" uttered one day by the driver of
+a road-waggon. Henchard ran to the gate of the field he worked in, and
+hailed the speaker, who was a stranger.
+
+"Yes--I've come from there, maister," he said, in answer to Henchard's
+inquiry. "I trade up and down, ye know; though, what with this
+travelling without horses that's getting so common, my work will soon be
+done."
+
+"Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?"
+
+"All the same as usual."
+
+"I've heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of getting
+married. Now is that true or not?"
+
+"I couldn't say for the life o' me. O no, I should think not."
+
+"But yes, John--you forget," said a woman inside the waggon-tilt. "What
+were them packages we carr'd there at the beginning o' the week? Surely
+they said a wedding was coming off soon--on Martin's Day?"
+
+The man declared he remembered nothing about it; and the waggon went on
+jangling over the hill.
+
+Henchard was convinced that the woman's memory served her well. The date
+was an extremely probable one, there being no reason for delay on either
+side. He might, for that matter, write and inquire of Elizabeth; but his
+instinct for sequestration had made the course difficult. Yet before he
+left her she had said that for him to be absent from her wedding was not
+as she wished it to be.
+
+The remembrance would continually revive in him now that it was not
+Elizabeth and Farfrae who had driven him away from them, but his own
+haughty sense that his presence was no longer desired. He had assumed
+the return of Newson without absolute proof that the Captain meant to
+return; still less that Elizabeth-Jane would welcome him; and with no
+proof whatever that if he did return he would stay. What if he had
+been mistaken in his views; if there had been no necessity that his
+own absolute separation from her he loved should be involved in these
+untoward incidents? To make one more attempt to be near her: to go back,
+to see her, to plead his cause before her, to ask forgiveness for his
+fraud, to endeavour strenuously to hold his own in her love; it was
+worth the risk of repulse, ay, of life itself.
+
+But how to initiate this reversal of all his former resolves without
+causing husband and wife to despise him for his inconsistency was a
+question which made him tremble and brood.
+
+He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and then he concluded his
+hesitancies by a sudden reckless determination to go to the wedding
+festivity. Neither writing nor message would be expected of him. She had
+regretted his decision to be absent--his unanticipated presence would
+fill the little unsatisfied corner that would probably have place in her
+just heart without him.
+
+To intrude as little of his personality as possible upon a gay event
+with which that personality could show nothing in keeping, he decided
+not to make his appearance till evening--when stiffness would have worn
+off, and a gentle wish to let bygones be bygones would exercise its sway
+in all hearts.
+
+He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin's-tide, allowing
+himself about sixteen miles to perform for each of the three days'
+journey, reckoning the wedding-day as one. There were only two towns,
+Melchester and Shottsford, of any importance along his course, and at
+the latter he stopped on the second night, not only to rest, but to
+prepare himself for the next evening.
+
+Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stood in--now stained and
+distorted by their two months of hard usage, he entered a shop to make
+some purchases which should put him, externally at any rate, a little in
+harmony with the prevailing tone of the morrow. A rough yet respectable
+coat and hat, a new shirt and neck-cloth, were the chief of these; and
+having satisfied himself that in appearance at least he would not now
+offend her, he proceeded to the more interesting particular of buying
+her some present.
+
+What should that present be? He walked up and down the street, regarding
+dubiously the display in the shop windows, from a gloomy sense that what
+he might most like to give her would be beyond his miserable pocket.
+At length a caged goldfinch met his eye. The cage was a plain and small
+one, the shop humble, and on inquiry he concluded he could afford
+the modest sum asked. A sheet of newspaper was tied round the little
+creature's wire prison, and with the wrapped up cage in his hand
+Henchard sought a lodging for the night.
+
+Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soon within the
+district which had been his dealing ground in bygone years. Part of the
+distance he travelled by carrier, seating himself in the darkest corner
+at the back of that trader's van; and as the other passengers, mainly
+women going short journeys, mounted and alighted in front of Henchard,
+they talked over much local news, not the least portion of this being
+the wedding then in course of celebration at the town they were nearing.
+It appeared from their accounts that the town band had been hired for
+the evening party, and, lest the convivial instincts of that body
+should get the better of their skill, the further step had been taken of
+engaging the string band from Budmouth, so that there would be a reserve
+of harmony to fall back upon in case of need.
+
+He heard, however, but few particulars beyond those known to him
+already, the incident of the deepest interest on the journey being the
+soft pealing of the Casterbridge bells, which reached the travellers'
+ears while the van paused on the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag
+lowered. The time was just after twelve o'clock.
+
+Those notes were a signal that all had gone well; that there had been
+no slip 'twixt cup and lip in this case; that Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
+Farfrae were man and wife.
+
+Henchard did not care to ride any further with his chattering companions
+after hearing this sound. Indeed, it quite unmanned him; and in
+pursuance of his plan of not showing himself in Casterbridge street till
+evening, lest he should mortify Farfrae and his bride, he alighted here,
+with his bundle and bird-cage, and was soon left as a lonely figure on
+the broad white highway.
+
+It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae, almost two
+years earlier, to tell him of the serious illness of his wife Lucetta.
+The place was unchanged; the same larches sighed the same notes; but
+Farfrae had another wife--and, as Henchard knew, a better one. He only
+hoped that Elizabeth-Jane had obtained a better home than had been hers
+at the former time.
+
+He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curious highstrung
+condition, unable to do much but think of the approaching meeting with
+her, and sadly satirize himself for his emotions thereon, as a Samson
+shorn. Such an innovation on Casterbridge customs as a flitting of
+bridegroom and bride from the town immediately after the ceremony, was
+not likely, but if it should have taken place he would wait till their
+return. To assure himself on this point he asked a market-man when near
+the borough if the newly-married couple had gone away, and was promptly
+informed that they had not; they were at that hour, according to all
+accounts, entertaining a houseful of guests at their home in Corn
+Street.
+
+Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at the riverside, and
+proceeded up the town under the feeble lamps. He need have made no
+inquiries beforehand, for on drawing near Farfrae's residence it was
+plain to the least observant that festivity prevailed within, and that
+Donald himself shared it, his voice being distinctly audible in the
+street, giving strong expression to a song of his dear native country
+that he loved so well as never to have revisited it. Idlers were
+standing on the pavement in front; and wishing to escape the notice of
+these Henchard passed quickly on to the door.
+
+It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and people were
+going up and down the stairs. His courage failed him; to enter footsore,
+laden, and poorly dressed into the midst of such resplendency was to
+bring needless humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse
+from her husband. Accordingly he went round into the street at the back
+that he knew so well, entered the garden, and came quietly into the
+house through the kitchen, temporarily depositing the bird and cage
+under a bush outside, to lessen the awkwardness of his arrival.
+
+Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard that he now feared
+circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he began to wish that
+he had not taken upon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However,
+his progress was made unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in
+the kitchen an elderly woman who seemed to be acting as provisional
+housekeeper during the convulsions from which Farfrae's establishment
+was just then suffering. She was one of those people whom nothing
+surprises, and though to her, a total stranger, his request must have
+seemed odd, she willingly volunteered to go up and inform the master and
+mistress of the house that "a humble old friend" had come.
+
+On second thought she said that he had better not wait in the kitchen,
+but come up into the little back-parlour, which was empty. He thereupon
+followed her thither, and she left him. Just as she got across the
+landing to the door of the best parlour a dance was struck up, and she
+returned to say that she would wait till that was over before announcing
+him--Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure.
+
+The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to give more
+space, and that of the room Henchard sat in being ajar, he could see
+fractional parts of the dancers whenever their gyrations brought them
+near the doorway, chiefly in the shape of the skirts of dresses and
+streaming curls of hair; together with about three-fifths of the band in
+profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler's elbow, and the tip
+of the bass-viol bow.
+
+The gaiety jarred upon Henchard's spirits; and he could not quite
+understand why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a widower, who had had
+his trials, should have cared for it all, notwithstanding the fact that
+he was quite a young man still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by
+dance and song. That the quiet Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised
+life at a moderate value, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood that
+marriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should have had zest for this
+revelry surprised him still more. However, young people could not be
+quite old people, he concluded, and custom was omnipotent.
+
+With the progress of the dance the performers spread out somewhat,
+and then for the first time he caught a glimpse of the once despised
+daughter who had mastered him, and made his heart ache. She was in a
+dress of white silk or satin, he was not near enough to say which--snowy
+white, without a tinge of milk or cream; and the expression of her face
+was one of nervous pleasure rather than of gaiety. Presently Farfrae
+came round, his exuberant Scotch movement making him conspicuous in a
+moment. The pair were not dancing together, but Henchard could discern
+that whenever the chances of the figure made them the partners of a
+moment their emotions breathed a much subtler essence than at other
+times.
+
+By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod by some one
+who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory intenseness. This was strange,
+and it was stranger to find that the eclipsing personage was
+Elizabeth-Jane's partner. The first time that Henchard saw him he was
+sweeping grandly round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in the
+form of an X and his back towards the door. The next time he came round
+in the other direction, his white waist-coat preceding his face, and his
+toes preceding his white waistcoat. That happy face--Henchard's complete
+discomfiture lay in it. It was Newson's, who had indeed come and
+supplanted him.
+
+Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made no other
+movement. He rose to his feet, and stood like a dark ruin, obscured by
+"the shade from his own soul up-thrown."
+
+But he was no longer the man to stand these reverses unmoved. His
+agitation was great, and he would fain have been gone, but before
+he could leave the dance had ended, the housekeeper had informed
+Elizabeth-Jane of the stranger who awaited her, and she entered the room
+immediately.
+
+"Oh--it is--Mr. Henchard!" she said, starting back.
+
+"What, Elizabeth?" he cried, as he seized her hand. "What do you
+say?--Mr. Henchard? Don't, don't scourge me like that! Call me worthless
+old Henchard--anything--but don't 'ee be so cold as this! O my maid--I
+see you have another--a real father in my place. Then you know all; but
+don't give all your thought to him! Do ye save a little room for me!"
+
+She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away. "I could have loved you
+always--I would have, gladly," she said. "But how can I when I know you
+have deceived me so--so bitterly deceived me! You persuaded me that
+my father was not my father--allowed me to live on in ignorance of the
+truth for years; and then when he, my warm-hearted real father, came
+to find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked invention of my death,
+which nearly broke his heart. O how can I love as I once did a man who
+has served us like this!"
+
+Henchard's lips half parted to begin an explanation. But he shut them up
+like a vice, and uttered not a sound. How should he, there and then, set
+before her with any effect the palliatives of his great faults--that he
+had himself been deceived in her identity at first, till informed by
+her mother's letter that his own child had died; that, in the second
+accusation, his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamester
+who loved her affection better than his own honour? Among the many
+hindrances to such a pleading not the least was this, that he did not
+sufficiently value himself to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal
+or elaborate argument.
+
+Waiving, therefore, his privilege of self-defence, he regarded only his
+discomposure. "Don't ye distress yourself on my account," he said, with
+proud superiority. "I would not wish it--at such a time, too, as this.
+I have done wrong in coming to 'ee--I see my error. But it is only for
+once, so forgive it. I'll never trouble 'ee again, Elizabeth-Jane--no,
+not to my dying day! Good-night. Good-bye!"
+
+Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchard went out from her
+rooms, and departed from the house by the back way as he had come; and
+she saw him no more.
+
+
+
+
+45.
+
+
+It was about a month after the day which closed as in the last chapter.
+Elizabeth-Jane had grown accustomed to the novelty of her situation, and
+the only difference between Donald's movements now and formerly was that
+he hastened indoors rather more quickly after business hours than he had
+been in the habit of doing for some time.
+
+Newson had stayed in Casterbridge three days after the wedding party
+(whose gaiety, as might have been surmised, was of his making rather
+than of the married couple's), and was stared at and honoured as became
+the returned Crusoe of the hour. But whether or not because Casterbridge
+was difficult to excite by dramatic returns and disappearances through
+having been for centuries an assize town, in which sensational exits
+from the world, antipodean absences, and such like, were half-yearly
+occurrences, the inhabitants did not altogether lose their equanimity
+on his account. On the fourth morning he was discovered disconsolately
+climbing a hill, in his craving to get a glimpse of the sea from
+somewhere or other. The contiguity of salt water proved to be such a
+necessity of his existence that he preferred Budmouth as a place of
+residence, notwithstanding the society of his daughter in the other
+town. Thither he went, and settled in lodgings in a green-shuttered
+cottage which had a bow-window, jutting out sufficiently to afford
+glimpses of a vertical strip of blue sea to any one opening the sash,
+and leaning forward far enough to look through a narrow lane of tall
+intervening houses.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her upstairs parlour,
+critically surveying some re-arrangement of articles with her head to
+one side, when the housemaid came in with the announcement, "Oh, please
+ma'am, we know now how that bird-cage came there."
+
+In exploring her new domain during the first week of residence, gazing
+with critical satisfaction on this cheerful room and that, penetrating
+cautiously into dark cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to
+the garden, now leaf-strewn by autumn winds, and thus, like a wise
+field-marshal, estimating the capabilities of the site whereon she
+was about to open her housekeeping campaign--Mrs. Donald Farfrae had
+discovered in a screened corner a new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper,
+and at the bottom of the cage a little ball of feathers--the dead body
+of a goldfinch. Nobody could tell her how the bird and cage had come
+there, though that the poor little songster had been starved to death
+was evident. The sadness of the incident had made an impression on her.
+She had not been able to forget it for days, despite Farfrae's tender
+banter; and now when the matter had been nearly forgotten it was again
+revived.
+
+"Oh, please ma'am, we know how the bird-cage came there. That farmer's
+man who called on the evening of the wedding--he was seen wi' it in his
+hand as he came up the street; and 'tis thoughted that he put it down
+while he came in with his message, and then went away forgetting where
+he had left it."
+
+This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and in thinking she seized
+hold of the idea, at one feminine bound, that the caged bird had been
+brought by Henchard for her as a wedding gift and token of repentance.
+He had not expressed to her any regrets or excuses for what he had done
+in the past; but it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and
+live on as one of his own worst accusers. She went out, looked at the
+cage, buried the starved little singer, and from that hour her heart
+softened towards the self-alienated man.
+
+When her husband came in she told him her solution of the bird-cage
+mystery; and begged Donald to help her in finding out, as soon as
+possible, whither Henchard had banished himself, that she might make her
+peace with him; try to do something to render his life less that of
+an outcast, and more tolerable to him. Although Farfrae had never so
+passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had liked him, he had, on the
+other hand, never so passionately hated in the same direction as his
+former friend had done, and he was therefore not the least indisposed to
+assist Elizabeth-Jane in her laudable plan.
+
+But it was by no means easy to set about discovering Henchard. He had
+apparently sunk into the earth on leaving Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae's door.
+Elizabeth-Jane remembered what he had once attempted; and trembled.
+
+But though she did not know it Henchard had become a changed man since
+then--as far, that is, as change of emotional basis can justify such
+a radical phrase; and she needed not to fear. In a few days Farfrae's
+inquiries elicited that Henchard had been seen by one who knew him
+walking steadily along the Melchester highway eastward, at twelve
+o'clock at night--in other words, retracing his steps on the road by
+which he had come.
+
+This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae might have been discovered
+driving his gig out of Casterbridge in that direction, Elizabeth-Jane
+sitting beside him, wrapped in a thick flat fur--the victorine of the
+period--her complexion somewhat richer than formerly, and an incipient
+matronly dignity, which the serene Minerva-eyes of one "whose gestures
+beamed with mind" made becoming, settling on her face. Having herself
+arrived at a promising haven from at least the grosser troubles of her
+life, her object was to place Henchard in some similar quietude before
+he should sink into that lower stage of existence which was only too
+possible to him now.
+
+After driving along the highway for a few miles they made further
+inquiries, and learnt of a road-mender, who had been working thereabouts
+for weeks, that he had observed such a man at the time mentioned; he had
+left the Melchester coachroad at Weatherbury by a forking highway which
+skirted the north of Egdon Heath. Into this road they directed the
+horse's head, and soon were bowling across that ancient country
+whose surface never had been stirred to a finger's depth, save by
+the scratchings of rabbits, since brushed by the feet of the earliest
+tribes. The tumuli these had left behind, dun and shagged with heather,
+jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as though they were the
+full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinely extended there.
+
+They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard. Farfrae drove onward, and by
+the afternoon reached the neighbourhood of some extension of the heath
+to the north of Anglebury, a prominent feature of which, in the form of
+a blasted clump of firs on a summit of a hill, they soon passed under.
+That the road they were following had, up to this point, been Henchard's
+track on foot they were pretty certain; but the ramifications which now
+began to reveal themselves in the route made further progress in the
+right direction a matter of pure guess-work, and Donald strongly advised
+his wife to give up the search in person, and trust to other means for
+obtaining news of her stepfather. They were now a score of miles at
+least from home, but, by resting the horse for a couple of hours at a
+village they had just traversed, it would be possible to get back to
+Casterbridge that same day, while to go much further afield would reduce
+them to the necessity of camping out for the night, "and that will make
+a hole in a sovereign," said Farfrae. She pondered the position, and
+agreed with him.
+
+He accordingly drew rein, but before reversing their direction paused a
+moment and looked vaguely round upon the wide country which the elevated
+position disclosed. While they looked a solitary human form came from
+under the clump of trees, and crossed ahead of them. The person was some
+labourer; his gait was shambling, his regard fixed in front of him as
+absolutely as if he wore blinkers; and in his hand he carried a few
+sticks. Having crossed the road he descended into a ravine, where a
+cottage revealed itself, which he entered.
+
+"If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say that must be
+poor Whittle. 'Tis just like him," observed Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"And it may be Whittle, for he's never been to the yard these three
+weeks, going away without saying any word at all; and I owing him for
+two days' work, without knowing who to pay it to."
+
+The possibility led them to alight, and at least make an inquiry at the
+cottage. Farfrae hitched the reins to the gate-post, and they approached
+what was of humble dwellings surely the humblest. The walls, built of
+kneaded clay originally faced with a trowel, had been worn by years of
+rain-washings to a lumpy crumbling surface, channelled and sunken from
+its plane, its gray rents held together here and there by a leafy strap
+of ivy which could scarcely find substance enough for the purpose. The
+rafters were sunken, and the thatch of the roof in ragged holes. Leaves
+from the fence had been blown into the corners of the doorway, and lay
+there undisturbed. The door was ajar; Farfrae knocked; and he who stood
+before them was Whittle, as they had conjectured.
+
+His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lighting on them with an
+unfocused gaze; and he still held in his hand the few sticks he had been
+out to gather. As soon as he recognized them he started.
+
+"What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?" said Farfrae.
+
+"Ay, yes sir! You see he was kind-like to mother when she wer here
+below, though 'a was rough to me."
+
+"Who are you talking of?"
+
+"O sir--Mr. Henchet! Didn't ye know it? He's just gone--about
+half-an-hour ago, by the sun; for I've got no watch to my name."
+
+"Not--dead?" faltered Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, he's gone! He was kind-like to mother when she wer here
+below, sending her the best ship-coal, and hardly any ashes from it at
+all; and taties, and such-like that were very needful to her. I seed en
+go down street on the night of your worshipful's wedding to the lady at
+yer side, and I thought he looked low and faltering. And I followed en
+over Grey's Bridge, and he turned and zeed me, and said, 'You go back!'
+But I followed, and he turned again, and said, 'Do you hear, sir? Go
+back!' But I zeed that he was low, and I followed on still. Then 'a
+said, 'Whittle, what do ye follow me for when I've told ye to go back
+all these times?' And I said, 'Because, sir, I see things be bad with
+'ee, and ye wer kind-like to mother if ye wer rough to me, and I would
+fain be kind-like to you.' Then he walked on, and I followed; and he
+never complained at me no more. We walked on like that all night; and
+in the blue o' the morning, when 'twas hardly day, I looked ahead o' me,
+and I zeed that he wambled, and could hardly drag along. By the time we
+had got past here, but I had seen that this house was empty as I went
+by, and I got him to come back; and I took down the boards from the
+windows, and helped him inside. 'What, Whittle,' he said, 'and can ye
+really be such a poor fond fool as to care for such a wretch as I!' Then
+I went on further, and some neighbourly woodmen lent me a bed, and a
+chair, and a few other traps, and we brought 'em here, and made him
+as comfortable as we could. But he didn't gain strength, for you see,
+ma'am, he couldn't eat--no appetite at all--and he got weaker; and
+to-day he died. One of the neighbours have gone to get a man to measure
+him."
+
+"Dear me--is that so!" said Farfrae.
+
+As for Elizabeth, she said nothing.
+
+"Upon the head of his bed he pinned a piece of paper, with some writing
+upon it," continued Abel Whittle. "But not being a man o' letters, I
+can't read writing; so I don't know what it is. I can get it and show
+ye."
+
+They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage; returning in a
+moment with a crumpled scrap of paper. On it there was pencilled as
+follows:--
+
+
+MICHAEL HENCHARD'S WILL
+
+"That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve
+on account of me.
+"& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground.
+"& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.
+"& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.
+"& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.
+"& that no flours be planted on my grave,
+"& that no man remember me.
+"To this I put my name.
+
+"MICHAEL HENCHARD"
+
+
+"What are we to do?" said Donald, when he had handed the paper to her.
+
+She could not answer distinctly. "O Donald!" she cried at last through
+her tears, "what bitterness lies there! O I would not have minded so
+much if it had not been for my unkindness at that last parting!... But
+there's no altering--so it must be."
+
+What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dying was respected as
+far as practicable by Elizabeth-Jane, though less from a sense of the
+sacredness of last words, as such, than from her independent knowledge
+that the man who wrote them meant what he said. She knew the directions
+to be a piece of the same stuff that his whole life was made of, and
+hence were not to be tampered with to give herself a mournful pleasure,
+or her husband credit for large-heartedness.
+
+All was over at last, even her regrets for having misunderstood him on
+his last visit, for not having searched him out sooner, though
+these were deep and sharp for a good while. From this time forward
+Elizabeth-Jane found herself in a latitude of calm weather, kindly and
+grateful in itself, and doubly so after the Capharnaum in which some of
+her preceding years had been spent. As the lively and sparkling emotions
+of her early married life cohered into an equable serenity, the finer
+movements of her nature found scope in discovering to the narrow-lived
+ones around her the secret (as she had once learnt it) of making limited
+opportunities endurable; which she deemed to consist in the cunning
+enlargement, by a species of microscopic treatment, of those minute
+forms of satisfaction that offer themselves to everybody not in positive
+pain; which, thus handled, have much of the same inspiring effect upon
+life as wider interests cursorily embraced.
+
+Her teaching had a reflex action upon herself, insomuch that she thought
+she could perceive no great personal difference between being respected
+in the nether parts of Casterbridge and glorified at the uppermost end
+of the social world. Her position was, indeed, to a marked degree one
+that, in the common phrase, afforded much to be thankful for. That she
+was not demonstratively thankful was no fault of hers. Her experience
+had been of a kind to teach her, rightly or wrongly, that the doubtful
+honour of a brief transmit through a sorry world hardly called for
+effusiveness, even when the path was suddenly irradiated at some
+half-way point by daybeams rich as hers. But her strong sense that
+neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did not
+blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had
+deserved much more. And in being forced to class herself among the
+fortunate she did not cease to wonder at the persistence of the
+unforeseen, when the one to whom such unbroken tranquility had been
+accorded in the adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that
+happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy
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diff --git a/old/old/143.zip b/old/old/143.zip
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+
+
+
+The Mayor of Casterbridge
+
+by Thomas Hardy
+
+
+
+1.
+
+
+One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century
+had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman,
+the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large
+village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot.  They
+were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust
+which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an
+obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to
+their appearance just now.
+
+The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect;
+and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined
+as to be almost perpendicular.  He wore a short jacket of
+brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which
+was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of
+the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with
+black glazed canvas.  At his back he carried by a looped
+strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the
+crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also
+visible in the aperture.  His measured, springless walk was
+the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the
+desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn
+and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and
+cynical indifference personal to himself, showing its
+presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds,
+now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.
+
+What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's
+progress, and would have attracted the attention of any
+casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the
+perfect silence they preserved.  They walked side by side in
+such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,
+confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on
+closer view it could be discerned that the man was reading,
+or pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before
+his eyes with some difficulty by the hand that was passed
+through the basket strap.  Whether this apparent cause were
+the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape
+an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody
+but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity
+was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from
+his presence.  Virtually she walked the highway alone, save
+for the child she bore.  Sometimes the man's bent elbow
+almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his
+side as was possible without actual contact, but she seemed
+to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it;
+and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she
+appeared to receive it as a natural thing.  If any word at
+all were uttered by the little group, it was an occasional
+whisper of the woman to the child--a tiny girl in short
+clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn--and the murmured
+babble of the child in reply.
+
+The chief--almost the only--attraction of the young woman's
+face was its mobility.  When she looked down sideways to the
+girl she became pretty, and even handsome, particularly that
+in the action her features caught slantwise the rays of the
+strongly coloured sun, which made transparencies of her
+eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips.  When she
+plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she
+had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems
+anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except,
+perhaps, fair play.  The first phase was the work of Nature,
+the second probably of civilization.
+
+That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the
+parents of the girl in arms there could be little doubt.  No
+other than such relationship would have accounted for the
+atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along
+with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.
+
+The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with
+little interest--the scene for that matter being one that
+might have been matched at almost any spot in any county in
+England at this time of the year; a road neither straight
+nor crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges,
+trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the
+blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass
+through on their way to dingy, and yellow, and red.  The
+grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs,
+were powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by
+hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road
+deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the
+aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every
+extraneous sound to be heard.
+
+For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak
+bird singing a trite old evening song that might doubtless
+have been heard on the hill at the same hour, and with the
+self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of that
+season for centuries untold.  But as they approached the
+village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their ears
+from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened
+from view by foliage.  When the outlying houses of Weydon-
+Priors could just be described, the family group was met by
+a turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner-
+bag suspended from it.  The reader promptly glanced up.
+
+"Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating
+the village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet.  And
+thinking the labourer did not understand him, he added,
+"Anything in the hay-trussing line?"
+
+The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head.  "Why,
+save the man, what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to
+Weydon for a job of that sort this time o' year?"
+
+"Then is there any house to let--a little small new cottage
+just a builded, or such like?" asked the other.
+
+The pessimist still maintained a negative.  "Pulling down is
+more the nater of Weydon.  There were five houses cleared
+away last year, and three this; and the volk nowhere to go--
+no, not so much as a thatched hurdle; that's the way o'
+Weydon-Priors."
+
+The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some
+superciliousness.  Looking towards the village, he
+continued, "There is something going on here, however, is
+there not?"
+
+"Ay.  'Tis Fair Day.  Though what you hear now is little
+more than the clatter and scurry of getting away the money
+o' children and fools, for the real business is done earlier
+than this.  I've been working within sound o't all day, but
+I didn't go up--not I.  'Twas no business of mine."
+
+The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon
+entered the Fair-field, which showed standing-places and
+pens where many hundreds of horses and sheep had been
+exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were now in great
+part taken away.  At present, as their informant had
+observed, but little real business remained on hand, the
+chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals,
+that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had been
+absolutely refused by the better class of traders, who came
+and went early.  Yet the crowd was denser now than during
+the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors,
+including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or
+two come on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like,
+having latterly flocked in; persons whose activities found a
+congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks,
+inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled
+for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and
+readers of Fate.
+
+Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things,
+and they looked around for a refreshment tent among the many
+which dotted the down.  Two, which stood nearest to them in
+the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost
+equally inviting.  One was formed of new, milk-hued canvas,
+and bore red flags on its summit; it announced "Good Home-
+brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder."  The other was less new; a
+little iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back and in
+front appeared the placard, "Good Furmity Sold Hear."  The
+man mentally weighed the two inscriptions and inclined to
+the former tent.
+
+"No--no--the other one," said the woman.  "I always like
+furmity; and so does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you.  It is
+nourishing after a long hard day."
+
+"I've never tasted it," said the man.  However, he gave way
+to her representations, and they entered the furmity booth
+forthwith.
+
+A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the
+long narrow tables that ran down the tent on each side.  At
+the upper end stood a stove, containing a charcoal fire,
+over which hung a large three-legged crock, sufficiently
+polished round the rim to show that it was made of bell-
+metal.  A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a
+white apron, which as it threw an air of respectability over
+her as far as it extended, was made so wide as to reach
+nearly round her waist.  She slowly stirred the contents of
+the pot.  The dull scrape of her large spoon was audible
+throughout the tent as she thus kept from burning the
+mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins,
+currants, and what not, that composed the antiquated slop in
+which she dealt.  Vessels holding the separate ingredients
+stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles close by.
+
+The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture,
+steaming hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure.  This
+was very well so far, for furmity, as the woman had said, was
+nourishing, and as proper a food as could be obtained within
+the four seas; though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains
+of wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floated on its
+surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.
+
+But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance;
+and the man, with the instinct of a perverse character,
+scented it quickly.  After a mincing attack on his bowl, he
+watched the hag's proceedings from the corner of his eye,
+and saw the game she played.  He winked to her, and passed
+up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle
+from under the table, slily measured out a quantity of its
+contents, and tipped the same into the man's furmity.  The
+liquor poured in was rum.  The man as slily sent back money
+in payment.
+
+He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to
+his satisfaction than it had been in its natural state.  His
+wife had observed the proceeding with much uneasiness; but
+he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she agreed to
+a milder allowance after some misgiving.
+
+The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum
+being signalled for in yet stronger proportion.  The effect
+of it was soon apparent in his manner, and his wife but too
+sadly perceived that in strenuously steering off the rocks
+of the licensed liquor-tent she had only got into maelstrom
+depths here amongst the smugglers.
+
+The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more
+than once said to her husband, "Michael, how about our
+lodging? You know we may have trouble in getting it if we
+don't go soon."
+
+But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings.  He
+talked loud to the company.  The child's black eyes, after
+slow, round, ruminating gazes at the candles when they were
+lighted, fell together; then they opened, then shut again,
+and she slept.
+
+At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity;
+at the second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at
+the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his
+face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery
+spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he was
+overbearing--even brilliantly quarrelsome.
+
+The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such
+occasions.  The ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more
+particularly, the frustration of many a promising youth's
+high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies by an
+early imprudent marriage, was the theme.
+
+"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser
+with a contemplative bitterness that was well-night
+resentful.  "I married at eighteen, like the fool that I
+was; and this is the consequence o't."  He pointed at himself
+and family with a wave of the hand intended to bring out the
+penuriousness of the exhibition.
+
+The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such
+remarks, acted as if she did not hear them, and continued
+her intermittent private words of tender trifles to the
+sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be
+placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she wished
+to ease her arms.  The man continued--
+
+"I haven't more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet
+I am a good experienced hand in my line.  I'd challenge
+England to beat me in the fodder business; and if I were a
+free man again I'd be worth a thousand pound before I'd done
+o't.  But a fellow never knows these little things till all
+chance of acting upon 'em is past."
+
+The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside
+could be heard saying, "Now this is the last lot--now who'll
+take the last lot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings?
+'Tis a very promising broodmare, a trifle over five years
+old, and nothing the matter with the hoss at all, except
+that she's a little holler in the back and had her left eye
+knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming
+along the road."
+
+"For my part I don't see why men who have got wives and
+don't want 'em, shouldn't get rid of 'em as these gipsy
+fellows do their old horses," said the man in the tent.
+"Why shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em by auction to
+men who are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I'd
+sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!"
+
+"There's them that would do that," some of the guests
+replied, looking at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.
+
+"True," said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine
+polish about the collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades
+that long-continued friction with grimy surfaces will
+produce, and which is usually more desired on furniture than
+on clothes.  From his appearance he had possibly been in
+former time groom or coachman to some neighbouring county
+family.  "I've had my breedings in as good circles, I may
+say, as any man," he added, "and I know true cultivation, or
+nobody do; and I can declare she's got it--in the bone, mind
+ye, I say--as much as any female in the fair--though it may
+want a little bringing out."  Then, crossing his legs, he
+resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a point in
+the air.
+
+The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this
+unexpected praise of his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of
+his own attitude towards the possessor of such qualities.  But
+he speedily lapsed into his former conviction, and said harshly--
+
+"Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for
+this gem o' creation."
+
+She turned to her husband and murmured, "Michael, you have
+talked this nonsense in public places before.  A joke is a
+joke, but you may make it once too often, mind!"
+
+"I know I've said it before; I meant it.  All I want is a
+buyer."
+
+At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season,
+which had by chance found its way through an opening into
+the upper part of the tent, flew to and from quick curves
+above their heads, causing all eyes to follow it absently.
+In watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled
+company neglected to respond to the workman's offer, and the
+subject dropped.
+
+But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on
+lacing his furmity more and more heavily, though he was
+either so strong-minded or such an intrepid toper that he
+still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as
+in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the original
+theme.  "Here--I am waiting to know about this offer of
+mine.  The woman is no good to me.  Who'll have her?"
+
+The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the
+renewed inquiry was received with a laugh of appreciation.
+The woman whispered; she was imploring and anxious: "Come,
+come, it is getting dark, and this nonsense won't do.  If
+you don't come along, I shall go without you.  Come!"
+
+She waited and waited; yet he did not move.  In ten minutes
+the man broke in upon the desultory conversation of the
+furmity drinkers with.  "I asked this question, and nobody
+answered to 't.  Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw among ye buy
+my goods?"
+
+The woman's manner changed, and her face assumed the grim
+shape and colour of which mention has been made.
+
+"Mike, Mike," she said; "this is getting serious.  O!--too
+serious!"
+
+"Will anybody buy her?" said the man.
+
+"I wish somebody would," said she firmly.  "Her present
+owner is not at all to her liking!"
+
+"Nor you to mine," said he.  "So we are agreed about that.
+Gentlemen, you hear? It's an agreement to part.  She shall
+take the girl if she wants to, and go her ways.  I'll take
+my tools, and go my ways.  'Tis simple as Scripture history.
+Now then, stand up, Susan, and show yourself."
+
+"Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom staylace dealer in
+voluminous petticoats, who sat near the woman; "yer good man
+don't know what he's saying."
+
+The woman, however, did stand up.  "Now, who's auctioneer?"
+cried the hay-trusser.
+
+"I be," promptly answered a short man, with a nose
+resembling a copper knob, a damp voice, and eyes like
+button-holes.  "Who'll make an offer for this lady?"
+
+The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her
+position by a supreme effort of will.
+
+"Five shillings," said someone, at which there was a laugh.
+
+"No insults," said the husband.  "Who'll say a guinea?"
+
+Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces
+interposed.
+
+"Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love!  Ah, what
+a cruelty is the poor soul married to!  Bed and board is dear
+at some figures 'pon my 'vation 'tis!"
+
+"Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.
+
+"Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
+
+"If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll
+have to give more," said the husband.  "Very well.  Now
+auctioneer, add another."
+
+"Three guineas--going for three guineas!" said the rheumy
+man.
+
+"No bid?" said the husband.  "Good Lord, why she's cost me
+fifty times the money, if a penny.  Go on."
+
+"Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.
+
+"I'll tell ye what--I won't sell her for less than five,"
+said the husband, bringing down his fist so that the basins
+danced.  "I'll sell her for five guineas to any man that
+will pay me the money, and treat her well; and he shall have
+her for ever, and never hear aught o' me.  But she shan't go
+for less.  Now then--five guineas--and she's yours.  Susan,
+you agree?"
+
+She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
+
+"Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be
+withdrawn.  Do anybody give it? The last time.  Yes or no?"
+
+"Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.
+
+All eyes were turned.  Standing in the triangular opening
+which formed the door of the tent was a sailor, who,
+unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within the last
+two or three minutes.  A dead silence followed his
+affirmation.
+
+"You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.
+
+"I say so," replied the sailor.
+
+"Saying is one thing, and paying is another.  Where's the
+money?"
+
+The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman,
+came in, unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them
+down upon the tablecloth.  They were Bank-of-England notes
+for five pounds.  Upon the face of this he clinked down the
+shillings severally--one, two, three, four, five.
+
+The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a
+challenge for the same till then deemed slightly
+hypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators.  Their
+eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and
+then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings,
+on the table.
+
+Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted
+that the man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was
+really in earnest.  The spectators had indeed taken the
+proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried
+to extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he
+was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and
+society, and his nearest kin.  But with the demand and
+response of real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene
+departed.  A lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and
+change the aspect of all therein.  The mirth-wrinkles left
+the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting lips.
+
+"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low
+dry voice sounded quite loud, "before you go further,
+Michael, listen to me.  If you touch that money, I and this
+girl go with the man.  Mind, it is a joke no longer."
+
+"A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband,
+his resentment rising at her suggestion.  "I take the money;
+the sailor takes you.  That's plain enough.  It has been
+done elsewhere--and why not here?"
+
+"'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is
+willing," said the sailor blandly.  "I wouldn't hurt her
+feelings for the world."
+
+"Faith, nor I," said her husband.  "But she is willing,
+provided she can have the child.  She said so only the other
+day when I talked o't!"
+
+"That you swear?" said the sailor to her.
+
+"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and
+seeing no repentance there.
+
+"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's
+complete," said the trusser.  He took the sailor's notes and
+deliberately folded them, and put them with the shillings in
+a high remote pocket, with an air of finality.
+
+The sailor looked at the woman and smiled.  "Come along!" he
+said kindly.  "The little one too--the more the merrier!"
+She paused for an instant, with a close glance at him.  Then
+dropping her eyes again, and saying nothing, she took up the
+child and followed him as he made towards the door.  On
+reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring,
+flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser's face.
+
+"Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee a couple of years,
+and had nothing but temper!  Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try
+my luck elsewhere.  'Twill be better for me and Elizabeth-
+Jane, both.  So good-bye!"
+
+Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting
+the little girl on her left, she went out of the tent
+sobbing bitterly.
+
+A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if,
+after all, he had not quite anticipated this ending; and
+some of the guests laughed.
+
+"Is she gone?" he said.
+
+"Faith, ay! she's gone clane enough," said some rustics near
+the door.
+
+He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of
+one conscious of his alcoholic load.  Some others followed,
+and they stood looking into the twilight.  The difference
+between the peacefulness of inferior nature and the wilful
+hostilities of mankind was very apparent at this place.  In
+contrast with the harshness of the act just ended within the
+tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks
+and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience
+to be harnessed for the homeward journey.  Outside the fair,
+in the valleys and woods, all was quiet.  The sun had
+recently set, and the west heaven was hung with rosy cloud,
+which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed.  To watch it was
+like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened
+auditorium.  In presence of this scene after the other there
+was a natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on an
+otherwise kindly universe; till it was remembered that all
+terrestrial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind
+might some night be innocently sleeping when these quiet
+objects were raging loud.
+
+"Where do the sailor live?" asked a spectator, when they had
+vainly gazed around.
+
+"God knows that," replied the man who had seen high life.
+"He's without doubt a stranger here."
+
+"He came in about five minutes ago," said the furmity woman,
+joining the rest with her hands on her hips.  "And then 'a
+stepped back, and then 'a looked in again.  I'm not a penny
+the better for him."
+
+"Serves the husband well be-right," said the staylace
+vendor.  "A comely respectable body like her--what can a man
+want more? I glory in the woman's sperrit.  I'd ha' done it
+myself--od send if I wouldn't, if a husband had behaved so
+to me!  I'd go, and 'a might call, and call, till his keacorn
+was raw; but I'd never come back--no, not till the great
+trumpet, would I!"
+
+"Well, the woman will be better off," said another of a more
+deliberative turn.  "For seafaring natures be very good
+shelter for shorn lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty
+of money, which is what she's not been used to lately, by
+all showings."
+
+"Mark me--I'll not go after her!" said the trusser,
+returning doggedly to his seat.  "Let her go!  If she's up to
+such vagaries she must suffer for 'em.  She'd no business to
+take the maid--'tis my maid; and if it were the doing again
+she shouldn't have her!"
+
+Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an
+indefensible proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the
+customers thinned away from the tent shortly after this
+episode.  The man stretched his elbows forward on the table
+leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore.  The
+furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after
+seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, etc., that
+remained on hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the
+man reclined.  She shook him, but could not wake him.  As
+the tent was not to be struck that night, the fair
+continuing for two or three days, she decided to let the
+sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and
+his basket with him.  Extinguishing the last candle, and
+lowering the flap of the tent, she left it, and drove away.
+
+
+
+2.
+
+
+The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the
+canvas when the man awoke.  A warm glow pervaded the whole
+atmosphere of the marquee, and a single big blue fly buzzed
+musically round and round it.  Besides the buzz of the fly
+there was not a sound.  He looked about--at the benches--at
+the table supported by trestles--at his basket of tools--at
+the stove where the furmity had been boiled--at the empty
+basins--at some shed grains of wheat--at the corks which
+dotted the grassy floor.  Among the odds and ends he
+discerned a little shining object, and picked it up.  It was
+his wife's ring.
+
+A confused picture of the events of the previous evening
+seemed to come back to him, and he thrust his hand into his
+breast-pocket.  A rustling revealed the sailor's bank-notes
+thrust carelessly in.
+
+This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he
+knew now they were not dreams.  He remained seated, looking
+on the ground for some time.  "I must get out of this as
+soon as I can," he said deliberately at last, with the air
+of one who could not catch his thoughts without pronouncing
+them.  "She's gone--to be sure she is--gone with that sailor
+who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane.  We walked here,
+and I had the furmity, and rum in it--and sold her.  Yes,
+that's what's happened and here am I.  Now, what am I to do--
+am I sober enough to walk, I wonder?" He stood up, found
+that he was in fairly good condition for progress,
+unencumbered.  Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found
+he could carry it.  Then lifting the tent door he emerged
+into the open air.
+
+Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity.  The
+freshness of the September morning inspired and braced him
+as he stood.  He and his family had been weary when they
+arrived the night before, and they had observed but little
+of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing.  It
+exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded on one
+extreme by a plantation, and approached by a winding road.
+At the bottom stood the village which lent its name to the
+upland and the annual fair that was held thereon.  The spot
+stretched downward into valleys, and onward to other
+uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched with the remains
+of prehistoric forts.  The whole scene lay under the rays of
+a newly risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade
+of the heavily dewed grass, whereon the shadows of the
+yellow and red vans were projected far away, those thrown by
+the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape to the
+orbit of a comet.  All the gipsies and showmen who had
+remained on the ground lay snug within their carts and tents
+or wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were silent and
+still as death, with the exception of an occasional snore
+that revealed their presence.  But the Seven Sleepers had a
+dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds that vagrants own,
+that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like foxes as
+cats also lay about here.  A little one started up under one
+of the carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly
+lay down again.  He was the only positive spectator of the
+hay-trusser's exit from the Weydon Fair-field.
+
+This seemed to accord with his desire.  He went on in silent
+thought, unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the
+hedges with straws in their bills, the crowns of the
+mushrooms, and the tinkling of local sheep-bells, whose
+wearer had had the good fortune not to be included in the
+fair.  When he reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of
+the previous evening, the man pitched his basket and leant
+upon a gate.  A difficult problem or two occupied his mind.
+
+"Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn't I tell
+my name?" he said to himself; and at last concluded that he
+did not.  His general demeanour was enough to show how he
+was surprised and nettled that his wife had taken him so
+literally--as much could be seen in his face, and in the way
+he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge.  He knew
+that she must have been somewhat excited to do this;
+moreover, she must have believed that there was some sort of
+binding force in the transaction.  On this latter point he
+felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of
+character, and the extreme simplicity of her intellect.
+There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment
+beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any
+momentary doubts.  On a previous occasion when he had
+declared during a fuddle that he would dispose of her as he
+had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say
+that many times more before it happened, in the resigned
+tones of a fatalist...."Yet she knows I am not in my senses
+when I do that!" he exclaimed.  "Well, I must walk about
+till I find her....Seize her, why didn't she know better
+than bring me into this disgrace!" he roared out.  "She
+wasn't queer if I was.  'Tis like Susan to show such idiotic
+simplicity.  Meek--that meekness has done me more harm than
+the bitterest temper!"
+
+When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that
+he must somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and
+put up with the shame as best he could.  It was of his own
+making, and he ought to bear it.  But first he resolved to
+register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn
+before: and to do it properly he required a fit place and
+imagery; for there was something fetichistic in this man's
+beliefs.
+
+He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes
+inquisitively round upon the landscape as he walked, and at
+the distance of three or four miles perceived the roofs of a
+village and the tower of a church.  He instantly made
+towards the latter object.  The village was quite still, it
+being that motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills
+the interval between the departure of the field-labourers to
+their work, and the rising of their wives and daughters to
+prepare the breakfast for their return.  Hence he reached
+the church without observation, and the door being only
+latched he entered.  The hay-trusser deposited his basket by
+the font, went up the nave till he reached the altar-rails,
+and opening the gate entered the sacrarium, where he seemed
+to feel a sense of the strangeness for a moment; then he
+knelt upon the footpace.  Dropping his head upon the clamped
+book which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud--
+
+"I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of
+September, do take an oath before God here in this solemn
+place that I will avoid all strong liquors for the space of
+twenty-one years to come, being a year for every year that I
+have lived.  And this I swear upon the book before me; and
+may I be strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this
+my oath!"
+
+When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser
+arose, and seemed relieved at having made a start in a new
+direction.  While standing in the porch a moment he saw a
+thick jet of wood smoke suddenly start up from the red
+chimney of a cottage near, and knew that the occupant had
+just lit her fire.  He went round to the door, and the
+housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast for a
+trifling payment, which was done.  Then he started on the
+search for his wife and child.
+
+The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent
+soon enough.  Though he examined and inquired, and walked
+hither and thither day after day, no such characters as
+those he described had anywhere been seen since the evening
+of the fair.  To add to the difficulty he could gain no
+sound of the sailor's name.  As money was short with him he
+decided, after some hesitation, to spend the sailor's money
+in the prosecution of this search; but it was equally in
+vain.  The truth was that a certain shyness of revealing his
+conduct prevented Michael Henchard from following up the
+investigation with the loud hue-and-cry such a pursuit
+demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably for
+this reason that he obtained no clue, though everything was
+done by him that did not involve an explanation of the
+circumstances under which he had lost her.
+
+Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on,
+maintaining himself by small jobs of work in the intervals.
+By this time he had arrived at a seaport, and there he
+derived intelligence that persons answering somewhat to his
+description had emigrated a little time before.  Then he
+said he would search no longer, and that he would go and
+settle in the district which he had had for some time in his
+mind.
+
+Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not
+pause, except for nights' lodgings, till he reached the town
+of Casterbridge, in a far distant part of Wessex.
+
+
+
+3.
+
+
+The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors was again
+carpeted with dust.  The trees had put on as of yore their
+aspect of dingy green, and where the Henchard family of
+three had once walked along, two persons not unconnected
+with the family walked now.
+
+The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous
+character, even to the voices and rattle from the
+neighbouring village down, that it might for that matter
+have been the afternoon following the previously recorded
+episode.  Change was only to be observed in details; but
+here it was obvious that a long procession of years had
+passed by.  One of the two who walked the road was she who
+had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous
+occasion; now her face had lost much of its rotundity; her
+skin had undergone a textural change; and though her hair
+had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than
+heretofore.  She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a
+widow.  Her companion, also in black, appeared as a well-
+formed young woman about eighteen, completely possessed of
+that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself
+beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.
+
+A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was
+Susan Henchard's grown-up daughter.  While life's middle
+summer had set its hardening mark on the mother's face, her
+former spring-like specialities were transferred so
+dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that
+the absence of certain facts within her mother's knowledge
+from the girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to
+one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection
+in Nature's powers of continuity.
+
+They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived
+that this was the act of simple affection.  The daughter
+carried in her outer hand a withy basket of old-fashioned
+make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with
+her black stuff gown.
+
+Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same
+track as formerly, and ascended to the fair.  Here, too it
+was evident that the years had told.  Certain mechanical
+improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts and
+high-fliers, machines for testing rustic strength and
+weight, and in the erections devoted to shooting for nuts.
+But the real business of the fair had considerably dwindled.
+The new periodical great markets of neighbouring towns were
+beginning to interfere seriously with the trade carried on
+here for centuries.  The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for
+horses, were about half as long as they had been.  The
+stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers, and
+other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles
+were far less numerous.  The mother and daughter threaded
+the crowd for some little distance, and then stood still.
+
+"Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you
+wished to get onward?" said the maiden.
+
+"Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane," explained the other.  "But I
+had a fancy for looking up here."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It was here I first met with Newson--on such a day as
+this."
+
+"First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so
+before.  And now he's drowned and gone from us!" As she
+spoke the girl drew a card from her pocket and looked at it
+with a sigh.  It was edged with black, and inscribed within
+a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, "In
+affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was
+unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of November 184--,
+aged forty-one years."
+
+"And it was here," continued her mother, with more
+hesitation, "that I last saw the relation we are going to
+look for--Mr. Michael Henchard."
+
+"What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly
+had it told me."
+
+"He is, or was--for he may be dead--a connection by
+marriage," said her mother deliberately.
+
+"That's exactly what you have said a score of times before!"
+replied the young woman, looking about her inattentively.
+"He's not a near relation, I suppose?"
+
+"Not by any means."
+
+"He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of
+him?
+
+"He was."
+
+"I suppose he never knew me?" the girl innocently continued.
+
+Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered un-easily,
+"Of course not, Elizabeth-Jane.  But come this way."  She
+moved on to another part of the field.
+
+"It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should
+think," the daughter observed, as she gazed round about.
+"People at fairs change like the leaves of trees; and I
+daresay you are the only one here to-day who was here all
+those years ago."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. Newson, as she now
+called herself, keenly eyeing something under a green bank a
+little way off.  "See there."
+
+The daughter looked in the direction signified.  The object
+pointed out was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth,
+from which hung a three-legged crock, kept hot by a
+smouldering wood fire beneath.  Over the pot stooped an old
+woman haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags.  She stirred
+the contents of the pot with a large spoon, and occasionally
+croaked in a broken voice, "Good furmity sold here!"
+
+It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent--once
+thriving, cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with money--
+now tentless, dirty, owning no tables or benches, and having
+scarce any customers except two small whity-brown boys, who
+came up and asked for "A ha'p'orth, please--good measure,"
+which she served in a couple of chipped yellow basins of
+commonest clay.
+
+"She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a
+step as if to draw nearer.
+
+"Don't speak to her--it isn't respectable!" urged the other.
+
+"I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay
+here."
+
+The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured
+prints while her mother went forward.  The old woman begged
+for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and
+responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a penny-
+worth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-
+pennyworths in her younger days.  When the soi-disant
+widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for
+the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a
+little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily,
+whispered, "Just a thought o' rum in it?--smuggled, you
+know--say two penn'orth--'twill make it slip down like
+cordial!"
+
+Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old
+trick, and shook her head with a meaning the old woman was
+far from translating.  She pretended to eat a little of the
+furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so
+said blandly to the hag, "You've seen better days?"
+
+"Ah, ma'am--well ye may say it!" responded the old woman,
+opening the sluices of her heart forthwith.  "I've stood in
+this fair-ground, maid, wife, and widow, these nine-and-
+thirty years, and in that time have known what it was to do
+business with the richest stomachs in the land!  Ma'am you'd
+hardly believe that I was once the owner of a great
+pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the fair.  Nobody
+could come, nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs.
+Goodenough's furmity.  I knew the clergy's taste, the dandy
+gent's taste; I knew the town's taste, the country's taste.
+I even knowed the taste of the coarse shameless females.
+But Lord's my life--the world's no memory; straightforward
+dealings don't bring profit--'tis the sly and the underhand
+that get on in these times!"
+
+Mrs. Newson glanced round--her daughter was still bending
+over the distant stalls.  "Can you call to mind," she said
+cautiously to the old woman, "the sale of a wife by her
+husband in your tent eighteen years ago to-day?"
+
+The hag reflected, and half shook her head.  "If it had been
+a big thing I should have minded it in a moment," she said.
+"I can mind every serious fight o' married parties, every
+murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking--
+leastwise large ones--that 't has been my lot to witness.
+But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?"
+
+"Well, yes.  I think so."
+
+The furmity woman half shook her head again.  "And yet," she
+said, "I do.  At any rate, I can mind a man doing something
+o' the sort--a man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools;
+but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e it head-room, we don't,
+such as that.  The only reason why I can mind the man is
+that he came back here to the next year's fair, and told me
+quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was
+to say he had gone to--where?--Casterbridge--yes--to
+Casterbridge, said he.  But, Lord's my life, I shouldn't ha'
+thought of it again!"
+
+Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her
+small means afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind
+that it was by that unscrupulous person's liquor her husband
+had been degraded.  She briefly thanked her informant, and
+rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, "Mother, do let's
+get on--it was hardly respectable for you to buy
+refreshments there.  I see none but the lowest do."
+
+"I have learned what I wanted, however," said her mother
+quietly.  "The last time our relative visited this fair he
+said he was living at Casterbridge.  It is a long, long way
+from here, and it was many years ago that he said it, but
+there I think we'll go."
+
+With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to
+the village, where they obtained a night's lodging.
+
+
+
+4.
+
+
+Henchard's wife acted for the best, but she had involved
+herself in difficulties.  A hundred times she had been upon
+the point of telling her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true
+story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the
+transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than
+the girl now beside her.  But she had refrained.  An
+innocent maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the
+relations between the genial sailor and her mother were the
+ordinary ones that they had always appeared to be.  The risk
+of endangering a child's strong affection by disturbing
+ideas which had grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard
+too fearful a thing to contemplate.  It had seemed, indeed
+folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
+
+But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved
+daughter's heart by a revelation had little to do with any
+sense of wrong-doing on her own part.  Her simplicity--the
+original ground of Henchard's contempt for her--had allowed
+her to live on in the conviction that Newson had acquired a
+morally real and justifiable right to her by his purchase--
+though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right
+were vague.  It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that
+a sane young matron could believe in the seriousness of such
+a transfer; and were there not numerous other instances of
+the same belief the thing might scarcely be credited.  But
+she was by no means the first or last peasant woman who had
+religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural
+records show.
+
+The history of Susan Henchard's adventures in the interim
+can be told in two or three sentences.  Absolutely helpless
+she had been taken off to Canada where they had lived
+several years without any great worldly success, though she
+worked as hard as any woman could to keep their cottage
+cheerful and well-provided.  When Elizabeth-Jane was about
+twelve years old the three returned to England, and settled
+at Falmouth, where Newson made a living for a few years as
+boatman and general handy shoreman.
+
+He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during
+this period that Susan had an awakening.  A friend to whom
+she confided her history ridiculed her grave acceptance of
+her position; and all was over with her peace of mind.  When
+Newson came home at the end of one winter he saw that the
+delusion he had so carefully sustained had vanished for
+ever.
+
+There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her
+doubts if she could live with him longer.  Newson left home
+again on the Newfoundland trade when the season came round.
+The vague news of his loss at sea a little later on solved a
+problem which had become torture to her meek conscience.
+She saw him no more.
+
+Of Henchard they heard nothing.  To the liege subjects of
+Labour, the England of those days was a continent, and a
+mile a geographical degree.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness.  One day a
+month or so after receiving intelligence of Newson's death
+off the Bank of Newfoundland, when the girl was about
+eighteen, she was sitting on a willow chair in the cottage
+they still occupied, working twine nets for the fishermen.
+Her mother was in a back corner of the same room engaged in
+the same labour, and dropping the heavy wood needle she was
+filling she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully.  The sun
+shone in at the door upon the young woman's head and hair,
+which was worn loose, so that the rays streamed into its
+depths as into a hazel copse.  Her face, though somewhat wan
+and incomplete, possessed the raw materials of beauty in a
+promising degree.  There was an under-handsomeness in it,
+struggling to reveal itself through the provisional curves
+of immaturity, and the casual disfigurements that resulted
+from the straitened circumstances of their lives.  She was
+handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in the flesh.
+She possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the
+carking accidents of her daily existence could be evaded
+before the mobile parts of her countenance had settled to
+their final mould.
+
+The sight of the girl made her mother sad--not vaguely but
+by logical inference.  They both were still in that strait-
+waistcoat of poverty from which she had tried so many times
+to be delivered for the girl's sake.  The woman had long
+perceived how zealously and constantly the young mind of her
+companion was struggling for enlargement; and yet now, in
+her eighteenth year, it still remained but little unfolded.
+The desire--sober and repressed--of Elizabeth-Jane's heart
+was indeed to see, to hear, and to understand.  How could
+she become a woman of wider knowledge, higher repute--
+"better," as she termed it--this was her constant inquiry of
+her mother.  She sought further into things than other girls
+in her position ever did, and her mother groaned as she felt
+she could not aid in the search.
+
+The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost to them;
+and Susan's staunch, religious adherence to him as her
+husband in principle, till her views had been disturbed by
+enlightenment, was demanded no more.  She asked herself
+whether the present moment, now that she was a free woman
+again, were not as opportune a one as she would find in a
+world where everything had been so inopportune, for making a
+desperate effort to advance Elizabeth.  To pocket her pride
+and search for the first husband seemed, wisely or not, the
+best initiatory step.  He had possibly drunk himself into
+his tomb.  But he might, on the other hand, have had too
+much sense to do so; for in her time with him he had been
+given to bouts only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
+
+At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived,
+was unquestionable.  The awkwardness of searching for him
+lay in enlightening Elizabeth, a proceeding which her mother
+could not endure to contemplate.  She finally resolved to
+undertake the search without confiding to the girl her
+former relations with Henchard, leaving it to him if they
+found him to take what steps he might choose to that end.
+This will account for their conversation at the fair and the
+half-informed state at which Elizabeth was led onward.
+
+In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting
+solely to the dim light afforded of Henchard's whereabouts
+by the furmity woman.  The strictest economy was
+indispensable.  Sometimes they might have been seen on foot,
+sometimes on farmers' waggons, sometimes in carriers' vans;
+and thus they drew near to Casterbridge.  Elizabeth-Jane
+discovered to her alarm that her mother's health was not
+what it once had been, and there was ever and anon in her
+talk that renunciatory tone which showed that, but for the
+girl, she would not be very sorry to quit a life she was
+growing thoroughly weary of.
+
+It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September and
+just before dusk, that they reached the summit of a hill
+within a mile of the place they sought.  There were high
+banked hedges to the coach-road here, and they mounted upon
+the green turf within, and sat down.  The spot commanded a
+full view of the town and its environs.
+
+"What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!" said
+Elizabeth-Jane, while her silent mother mused on other
+things than topography.  "It is huddled all together; and it
+is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden
+ground by a box-edging."
+
+Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most
+struck the eye in this antiquated borough, the borough of
+Casterbridge--at that time, recent as it was, untouched by
+the faintest sprinkle of modernism.  It was compact as a box
+of dominoes.  It had no suburbs--in the ordinary sense.
+Country and town met at a mathematical line.
+
+To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have
+appeared on this fine evening as a mosaic-work of subdued
+reds, browns, greys, and crystals, held together by a
+rectangular frame of deep green.  To the level eye of
+humanity it stood as an indistinct mass behind a dense
+stockade of limes and chestnuts, set in the midst of miles
+of rotund down and concave field.  The mass became gradually
+dissected by the vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and
+casements, the highest glazings shining bleared and
+bloodshot with the coppery fire they caught from the belt of
+sunlit cloud in the west.
+
+From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran
+avenues east, west, and south into the wide expanse of corn-
+land and coomb to the distance of a mile or so.  It was by
+one of these avenues that the pedestrians were about to
+enter.  Before they had risen to proceed two men passed
+outside the hedge, engaged in argumentative conversation.
+
+"Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they receded, "those men
+mentioned the name of Henchard in their talk--the name of
+our relative?"
+
+"I thought so too," said Mrs. Newson.
+
+"That seems a hint to us that he is still here."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Shall I run after them, and ask them about him----"
+
+"No, no, no!  Not for the world just yet.  He may be in the
+workhouse, or in the stocks, for all we know."
+
+"Dear me--why should you think that, mother?"
+
+"'Twas just something to say--that's all!  But we must make
+private inquiries."
+
+Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at
+evenfall.  The dense trees of the avenue rendered the road
+dark as a tunnel, though the open land on each side was
+still under a faint daylight, in other words, they passed
+down a midnight between two gloamings.  The features of the
+town had a keen interest for Elizabeth's mother, now that
+the human side came to the fore.  As soon as they had
+wandered about they could see that the stockade of gnarled
+trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself an avenue,
+standing on a low green bank or escarpment, with a ditch yet
+visible without.  Within the avenue and bank was a wall more
+or less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed the
+abodes of the burghers.
+
+Though the two women did not know it these external features
+were but the ancient defences of the town, planted as a
+promenade.
+
+The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees,
+conveying a sense of great smugness and comfort inside, and
+rendering at the same time the unlighted country without
+strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its
+nearness to life.  The difference between burgh and
+champaign was increased, too, by sounds which now reached
+them above others--the notes of a brass band.  The
+travellers returned into the High Street, where there were
+timber houses with overhanging stories, whose small-paned
+lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a drawing-
+string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved in the
+breeze.  There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived
+their chief support from those adjoining.  There were slate
+roofs patched with tiles, and tile roofs patched with slate,
+with occasionally a roof of thatch.
+
+The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon
+whom the town depended for its existence was shown by the
+class of objects displayed in the shop windows.  Scythes,
+reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks, spades, mattocks, and
+hoes at the iron-monger's; bee-hives, butter-firkins,
+churns, milking stools and pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons,
+and seed-lips at the cooper's; cart-ropes and plough-harness
+at the saddler's; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at the
+wheelwright's and machinist's, horse-embrocations at the
+chemist's; at the glover's and leather-cutter's, hedging-
+gloves, thatchers' knee-caps, ploughmen's leggings,
+villagers' pattens and clogs.
+
+They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower
+rose unbroken into the darkening sky, the lower parts being
+illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to show how
+completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework had
+been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in
+the crevices thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass
+almost as far up as the very battlements.  From this tower
+the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll
+with a peremptory clang.  The curfew was still rung in
+Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the inhabitants as a
+signal for shutting their shops.  No sooner did the deep
+notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts than a
+clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the
+High Street.  In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was
+ended for the day.
+
+Other clocks struck eight from time to time--one gloomily
+from the gaol, another from the gable of an almshouse, with
+a preparative creak of machinery, more audible than the note
+of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case-clocks from the
+interior of a clock-maker's shop joined in one after another
+just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a row of
+actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of
+the curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the
+Sicilian Mariners' Hymn; so that chronologists of the
+advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next
+hour before the whole business of the old one was
+satisfactorily wound up.
+
+In an open space before the church walked a woman with her
+gown-sleeves rolled up so high that the edge of her
+underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through her
+pocket hole.  She carried a load under her arm from which
+she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some
+other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled
+critically.  The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her
+daughter that they had an appetite; and they inquired of the
+woman for the nearest baker's.
+
+"Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in
+Casterbridge just now," she said, after directing them.
+"They can blare their trumpets and thump their drums, and
+have their roaring dinners"--waving her hand towards a point
+further along the street, where the brass band could be seen
+standing in front of an illuminated building--"but we must
+needs be put-to for want of a wholesome crust.  There's less
+good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now."
+
+"And less good beer than swipes," said a man with his hands
+in his pockets.
+
+"How does it happen there's no good bread?" asked Mrs.
+Henchard.
+
+"Oh, 'tis the corn-factor--he's the man that our millers and
+bakers all deal wi', and he has sold 'em growed wheat, which
+they didn't know was growed, so they SAY, till the dough
+ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves
+be as fiat as toads, and like suet pudden inside.  I've been
+a wife, and I've been a mother, and I never see such
+unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.--But you
+must be a real stranger here not to know what's made all the
+poor volks' insides plim like blowed bladders this week?"
+
+"I am," said Elizabeth's mother shyly.
+
+Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her
+future in this place, she withdrew with her daughter from
+the speaker's side.  Getting a couple of biscuits at the
+shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal, they
+next bent their steps instinctively to where the music was
+playing.
+
+
+
+5.
+
+
+A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town
+band was now shaking the window-panes with the strains of
+"The Roast Beef of Old England."
+
+The building before whose doors they had pitched their
+music-stands was the chief hotel in Casterbridge--namely,
+the King's Arms.  A spacious bow-window projected into the
+street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came
+the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing
+of corks.  The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the
+whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top
+of a flight of stone steps to the road-waggon office
+opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered
+there.
+
+"We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about--
+our relation Mr. Henchard," whispered Mrs. Newson who, since
+her entry into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and
+agitated, "And this, I think, would be a good place for
+trying it--just to ask, you know, how he stands in the town--
+if he is here, as I think he must be.  You, Elizabeth-Jane,
+had better be the one to do it.  I'm too worn out to do
+anything--pull down your fall first."
+
+She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed
+her directions and stood among the idlers.
+
+"What's going on to-night?" asked the girl, after singling
+out an old man and standing by him long enough to acquire a
+neighbourly right of converse.
+
+"Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said the old man,
+without taking his eyes from the window.  "Why, 'tis a great
+public dinner of the gentle-people and such like leading
+volk--wi' the Mayor in the chair.  As we plainer fellows
+bain't invited, they leave the winder-shutters open that we
+may get jist a sense o't out here.  If you mount the steps
+you can see em.  That's Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end
+of the table, a facing ye; and that's the Council men right
+and left....Ah, lots of them when they begun life were no
+more than I be now!"
+
+"Henchard!" said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means
+suspecting the whole force of the revelation.  She ascended
+to the top of the steps.
+
+Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught
+from the inn-window tones that strangely riveted her
+attention, before the old man's words, "Mr. Henchard, the
+Mayor," reached her ears.  She arose, and stepped up to her
+daughter's side as soon as she could do so without showing
+exceptional eagerness.
+
+The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before
+her, with its tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates.
+Facing the window, in the chair of dignity, sat a man about
+forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features, and
+commanding voice; his general build being rather coarse than
+compact.  He had a rich complexion, which verged on
+swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark, bushy brows and
+hair.  When he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some
+remark among the guests, his large mouth parted so far back
+as to show to the rays of the chandelier a full score or
+more of the two-and-thirty sound white teeth that he
+obviously still could boast of.
+
+That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it
+may have been well that it was rarely heard.  Many theories
+might have been built upon it.  It fell in well with
+conjectures of a temperament which would have no pity for
+weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration
+to greatness and strength.  Its producer's personal
+goodness, if he had any, would be of a very fitful cast--an
+occasional almost oppressive generosity rather than a mild
+and constant kindness.
+
+Susan Henchard's husband--in law, at least--sat before them,
+matured in shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits;
+disciplined, thought-marked--in a word, older.  Elizabeth,
+encumbered with no recollections as her mother was, regarded
+him with nothing more than the keen curiosity and interest
+which the discovery of such unexpected social standing in
+the long-sought relative naturally begot.  He was dressed in
+an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt
+showing on his broad breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy
+gold chain.  Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to
+his wife's surprise, the two for wine were empty, while the
+third, a tumbler, was half full of water.
+
+When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy
+jacket, fustian waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather
+leggings, with a basin of hot furmity before him.  Time, the
+magician, had wrought much here.  Watching him, and thus
+thinking of past days, she became so moved that she shrank
+back against the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which
+the steps gave access, the shadow from it conveniently
+hiding her features.  She forgot her daughter till a touch
+from Elizabeth-Jane aroused her.  "Have you seen him,
+mother?" whispered the girl.
+
+"Yes, yes," answered her companion hastily.  "I have seen
+him, and it is enough for me!  Now I only want to go--pass
+away--die."
+
+"Why--O what?" She drew closer, and whispered in her
+mother's ear, "Does he seem to you not likely to befriend
+us? I thought he looked a generous man.  What a gentleman he
+is, isn't he? and how his diamond studs shine!  How strange
+that you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in
+the workhouse, or dead!  Did ever anything go more by
+contraries!  Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at
+all;I'll call upon him--he can but say he don't own such
+remote kin."
+
+"I don't know at all--I can't tell what to set about.  I
+feel so down."
+
+"Don't be that, mother, now we have got here and all!  Rest
+there where you be a little while--I will look on and find
+out more about him."
+
+"I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard.  He is not how
+I thought he would be--he overpowers me!  I don't wish to see
+him any more."
+
+"But wait a little time and consider."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything
+in her life as in their present position, partly from the
+natural elation she felt at discovering herself akin to a
+coach; and she gazed again at the scene.  The younger guests
+were talking and eating with animation; their elders were
+searching for titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their
+plates like sows nuzzling for acorns.  Three drinks seemed
+to be sacred to the company--port, sherry, and rum; outside
+which old-established trinity few or no palates ranged.
+
+A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides,
+and each primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table,
+and these were promptly filled with grog at such high
+temperatures as to raise serious considerations for the
+articles exposed to its vapours.  But Elizabeth-Jane noticed
+that, though this filling went on with great promptness up
+and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor's glass, who
+still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler
+behind the clump of crystal vessels intended for wine and
+spirits.
+
+"They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine-glasses," she ventured
+to say to her elbow acquaintance, the old man.
+
+"Ah, no; don't ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining
+worthy of that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never
+touches nothing.  O yes, he've strong qualities that way.  I
+have heard tell that he sware a gospel oath in bygone times,
+and has bode by it ever since.  So they don't press him,
+knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that: for yer
+gospel oath is a serious thing."
+
+Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in
+by inquiring, "How much longer have he got to suffer from
+it, Solomon Longways?"
+
+"Another two year, they say.  I don't know the why and the
+wherefore of his fixing such a time, for 'a never has told
+anybody.  But 'tis exactly two calendar years longer, they
+say.  A powerful mind to hold out so long!"
+
+"True....But there's great strength in hope.  Knowing that
+in four-and-twenty months' time ye'll be out of your
+bondage, and able to make up for all you've suffered, by
+partaking without stint--why, it keeps a man up, no doubt."
+
+"No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt.  And 'a must need
+such reflections--a lonely widow man," said Longways.
+
+"When did he lose his wife?" asked Elizabeth.
+
+"I never knowed her.  'Twas afore he came to Casterbridge,"
+Solomon Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if
+the fact of his ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient
+to deprive her history of all interest.  "But I know that
+'a's a banded teetotaller, and that if any of his men be
+ever so little overtook by a drop he's down upon 'em as
+stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews."
+
+"Has he many men, then?" said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Many!  Why, my good maid, he's the powerfullest member of
+the Town Council, and quite a principal man in the country
+round besides.  Never a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats,
+hay, roots, and such-like but Henchard's got a hand in it.
+Ay, and he'll go into other things too; and that's where he
+makes his mistake.  He worked his way up from nothing when
+'a came here; and now he's a pillar of the town.  Not but
+what he's been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn
+he has supplied in his contracts.  I've seen the sun rise
+over Durnover Moor these nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr.
+Henchard has never cussed me unfairly ever since I've worked
+for'n, seeing I be but a little small man, I must say that I
+have never before tasted such rough bread as has been made
+from Henchard's wheat lately.  'Tis that growed out that ye
+could a'most call it malt, and there's a list at bottom o'
+the loaf as thick as the sole of one's shoe."
+
+The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it
+was ended the dinner was over, and speeches began to be
+made.  The evening being calm, and the windows still open,
+these orations could be distinctly heard.  Henchard's voice
+arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his hay-
+dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who
+had been bent upon outwitting him.
+
+"Ha-ha-ha!" responded his audience at the upshot of the
+story; and hilarity was general till a new voice arose with,
+"This is all very well; but how about the bad bread?"
+
+It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a
+group of minor tradesmen who, although part of the company,
+appeared to be a little below the social level of the
+others; and who seemed to nourish a certain independence of
+opinion and carry on discussions not quite in harmony with
+those at the head; just as the west end of a church is
+sometimes persistently found to sing out of time and tune
+with the leading spirits in the chancel.
+
+This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite
+satisfaction to the loungers outside, several of whom were
+in the mood which finds its pleasure in others'
+discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely, "Hey!  How
+about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor?" Moreover, feeling none of
+the restraints of those who shared the feast, they could
+afford to add, "You rather ought to tell the story o' that,
+sir!"
+
+The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to
+notice it.
+
+"Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly," he said.
+"But I was taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who
+bought it o' me."
+
+"And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no," said
+the inharmonious man outside the window.
+
+Henchard's face darkened.  There was temper under the thin
+bland surface--the temper which, artificially intensified,
+had banished a wife nearly a score of years before.
+
+"You must make allowances for the accidents of a large
+business," he said.  "You must bear in mind that the weather
+just at the harvest of that corn was worse than we have
+known it for years.  However, I have mended my arrangements
+on account o't.  Since I have found my business too large to
+be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for
+a thorough good man as manager of the corn department.  When
+I've got him you will find these mistakes will no longer
+occur--matters will be better looked into."
+
+"But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?"
+inquired the man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be
+a baker or miller.  "Will you replace the grown flour we've
+still got by sound grain?"
+
+Henchard's face had become still more stern at these
+interruptions, and he drank from his tumbler of water as if
+to calm himself or gain time.  Instead of vouchsafing a
+direct reply, he stiffly observed--
+
+"If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into
+wholesome wheat I'll take it back with pleasure.  But it
+can't be done."
+
+Henchard was not to be drawn again.  Having said this, he
+sat down.
+
+
+
+6.
+
+
+Now the group outside the window had within the last few
+minutes been reinforced by new arrivals, some of them
+respectable shopkeepers and their assistants, who had come
+out for a whiff of air after putting up the shutters for the
+night; some of them of a lower class.  Distinct from either
+there appeared a stranger--a young man of remarkably
+pleasant aspect--who carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the
+smart floral pattern prevalent in such articles at that
+time.
+
+He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed, and
+slight in build.  He might possibly have passed by without
+stopping at all, or at most for half a minute to glance in
+at the scene, had not his advent coincided with the
+discussion on corn and bread, in which event this history
+had never been enacted.  But the subject seemed to arrest
+him, and he whispered some inquiries of the other
+bystanders, and remained listening.
+
+When he heard Henchard's closing words, "It can't be done,"
+he smiled impulsively, drew out his pocketbook, and wrote
+down a few words by the aid of the light in the window.  He
+tore out the leaf, folded and directed it, and seemed about
+to throw it in through the open sash upon the dining-table;
+but, on second thoughts, edged himself through the
+loiterers, till he reached the door of the hotel, where one
+of the waiters who had been serving inside was now idly
+leaning against the doorpost.
+
+"Give this to the Mayor at once," he said, handing in his
+hasty note.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words,
+which attracted her both by their subject and by their
+accent--a strange one for those parts.  It was quaint and
+northerly.
+
+The waiter took the note, while the young stranger
+continued--
+
+"And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that's a little
+more moderate than this?"
+
+The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.
+
+"They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very
+good place," he languidly answered; "but I have never stayed
+there myself."
+
+The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled
+on in the direction of the Three Mariners aforesaid,
+apparently more concerned about the question of an inn than
+about the fate of his note, now that the momentary impulse
+of writing it was over.  While he was disappearing slowly
+down the street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane
+saw with some interest the note brought into the dining-room
+and handed to the Mayor.
+
+Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand,
+and glanced it through.  Thereupon it was curious to note an
+unexpected effect.  The nettled, clouded aspect which had
+held possession of his face since the subject of his corn-
+dealings had been broached, changed itself into one of
+arrested attention.  He read the note slowly, and fell into
+thought, not moody, but fitfully intense, as that of a man
+who has been captured by an idea.
+
+By this time toasts and speeches had given place to songs,
+the wheat subject being quite forgotten.  Men were putting
+their heads together in twos and threes, telling good
+stories, with pantomimic laughter which reached convulsive
+grimace.  Some were beginning to look as if they did not
+know how they had come there, what they had come for, or how
+they were going to get home again; and provisionally sat on
+with a dazed smile.  Square-built men showed a tendency to
+become hunchbacks; men with a dignified presence lost it in
+a curious obliquity of figure, in which their features grew
+disarranged and one-sided, whilst the heads of a few who had
+dined with extreme thoroughness were somehow sinking into
+their shoulders, the corners of their mouth and eyes being
+bent upwards by the subsidence.  Only Henchard did not
+conform to these flexuous changes; he remained stately and
+vertical, silently thinking.
+
+The clock struck nine.  Elizabeth-Jane turned to her
+companion.  "The evening is drawing on, mother," she said.
+"What do you propose to do?"
+
+She was surprised to find how irresolute her mother had
+become.  "We must get a place to lie down in," she murmured.
+"I have seen--Mr. Henchard; and that's all I wanted to do."
+
+"That's enough for to-night, at any rate," Elizabeth-Jane
+replied soothingly.  "We can think to-morrow what is best to
+do about him.  The question now is--is it not?--how shall we
+find a lodging?"
+
+As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane's mind reverted
+to the words of the waiter, that the Three Mariners was an
+inn of moderate charges.  A recommendation good for one
+person was probably good for another.  "Let's go where the
+young man has gone to," she said.  "He is respectable.  What
+do you say?"
+
+Her mother assented, and down the street they went.
+
+In the meantime the Mayor's thoughtfulness, engendered by
+the note as stated, continued to hold him in abstraction;
+till, whispering to his neighbour to take his place, he
+found opportunity to leave the chair.  This was just after
+the departure of his wife and Elizabeth.
+
+Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter, and
+beckoning to him asked who had brought the note which had
+been handed in a quarter of an hour before.
+
+"A young man, sir--a sort of traveller.  He was a Scotchman
+seemingly."
+
+"Did he say how he had got it?"
+
+"He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window."
+
+"Oh--wrote it himself....Is the young man in the hotel?"
+
+"No, sir.  He went to the Three Mariners, I believe."
+
+The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of the hotel with
+his hands under his coat tails, as if he were merely seeking
+a cooler atmosphere than that of the room he had quitted.
+But there could be no doubt that he was in reality still
+possessed to the full by the new idea, whatever that might
+be.  At length he went back to the door of the dining-room,
+paused, and found that the songs, toasts, and conversation
+were proceeding quite satisfactorily without his presence.
+The Corporation, private residents, and major and minor
+tradesmen had, in fact, gone in for comforting beverages to
+such an extent that they had quite forgotten, not only the
+Mayor, but all those vast, political, religious, and social
+differences which they felt necessary to maintain in the
+daytime, and which separated them like iron grills.  Seeing
+this the Mayor took his hat, and when the waiter had helped
+him on with a thin holland overcoat, went out and stood
+under the portico.
+
+Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes, by a
+sort of attraction, turned and dwelt upon a spot about a
+hundred yards further down.  It was the house to which the
+writer of the note had gone--the Three Mariners--whose two
+prominent Elizabethan gables, bow-window, and passage-light
+could be seen from where he stood.  Having kept his eyes on
+it for a while he strolled in that direction.
+
+This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, now,
+unfortunately, pulled down, was built of mellow sandstone,
+with mullioned windows of the same material, markedly out of
+perpendicular from the settlement of foundations.  The bay
+window projecting into the street, whose interior was so
+popular among the frequenters of the inn, was closed with
+shutters, in each of which appeared a heart-shaped aperture,
+somewhat more attenuated in the right and left ventricles
+than is seen in Nature.  Inside these illuminated holes, at
+a distance of about three inches, were ranged at this hour,
+as every passer knew, the ruddy polls of Billy Wills the
+glazier, Smart the shoemaker, Buzzford the general dealer,
+and others of a secondary set of worthies, of a grade
+somewhat below that of the diners at the King's Arms, each
+with his yard of clay.
+
+A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, and over
+the arch the signboard, now visible in the rays of an
+opposite lamp.  Hereon the Mariners, who had been
+represented by the artist as persons of two dimensions only--
+in other words, flat as a shadow--were standing in a row in
+paralyzed attitudes.  Being on the sunny side of the street
+the three comrades had suffered largely from warping,
+splitting, fading, and shrinkage, so that they were but a
+half-invisible film upon the reality of the grain, and
+knots, and nails, which composed the signboard.  As a matter
+of fact, this state of things was not so much owing to
+Stannidge the landlord's neglect, as from the lack of a
+painter in Casterbridge who would undertake to reproduce the
+features of men so traditional.
+
+A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to the inn,
+within which passage the horses going to their stalls at the
+back, and the coming and departing human guests, rubbed
+shoulders indiscriminately, the latter running no slight
+risk of having their toes trodden upon by the animals.  The
+good stabling and the good ale of the Mariners, though
+somewhat difficult to reach on account of there being but
+this narrow way to both, were nevertheless perseveringly
+sought out by the sagacious old heads who knew what was what
+in Casterbridge.
+
+Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants; then
+lowering the dignity of his presence as much as possible by
+buttoning the brown holland coat over his shirt-front, and
+in other ways toning himself down to his ordinary everyday
+appearance, he entered the inn door.
+
+
+
+7.
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twenty
+minutes earlier.  Outside the house they had stood and
+considered whether even this homely place, though
+recommended as moderate, might not be too serious in its
+prices for their light pockets.  Finally, however, they had
+found courage to enter, and duly met Stannidge the landlord,
+a silent man, who drew and carried frothing measures to this
+room and to that, shoulder to shoulder with his waiting-
+maids--a stately slowness, however, entering into his
+ministrations by contrast with theirs, as became one whose
+service was somewhat optional.  It would have been
+altogether optional but for the orders of the landlady, a
+person who sat in the bar, corporeally motionless, but with
+a flitting eye and quick ear, with which she observed and
+heard through the open door and hatchway the pressing needs
+of customers whom her husband overlooked though close at
+hand.  Elizabeth and her mother were passively accepted as
+sojourners, and shown to a small bedroom under one of the
+gables, where they sat down.
+
+The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensate for the
+antique awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurity of the
+passages, floors, and windows, by quantities of clean linen
+spread about everywhere, and this had a dazzling effect upon
+the travellers.
+
+"'Tis too good for us--we can't meet it!" said the elder
+woman, looking round the apartment with misgiving as soon as
+they were left alone.
+
+"I fear it is, too," said Elizabeth.  "But we must be
+respectable."
+
+"We must pay our way even before we must be respectable,"
+replied her mother.  "Mr. Henchard is too high for us to
+make ourselves known to him, I much fear; so we've only our
+own pockets to depend on."
+
+"I know what I'll do," said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval
+of waiting, during which their needs seemed quite forgotten
+under the press of business below.  And leaving the room,
+she descended the stairs and penetrated to the bar.
+
+If there was one good thing more than another which
+characterized this single-hearted girl it was a willingness
+to sacrifice her personal comfort and dignity to the common
+weal.
+
+"As you seem busy here to-night, and mother's not well off,
+might I take out part of our accommodation by helping?" she
+asked of the landlady.
+
+The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she
+had been melted into it when in a liquid state, and could
+not now be unstuck, looked the girl up and down inquiringly,
+with her hands on the chair-arms.  Such arrangements as the
+one Elizabeth proposed were not uncommon in country
+villages; but, though Casterbridge was old-fashioned, the
+custom was well-nigh obsolete here.  The mistress of the
+house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made
+no objection.  Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods
+and motions from the taciturn landlord as to where she could
+find the different things, trotted up and down stairs with
+materials for her own and her parent's meal.
+
+While she was doing this the wood partition in the centre of
+the house thrilled to its centre with the tugging of a bell-
+pull upstairs.  A bell below tinkled a note that was feebler
+in sound than the twanging of wires and cranks that had
+produced it.
+
+"'Tis the Scotch gentleman," said the landlady omnisciently;
+and turning her eyes to Elizabeth, "Now then, can you go and
+see if his supper is on the tray? If it is you can take it
+up to him.  The front room over this."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponed serving
+herself awhile, and applied to the cook in the kitchen
+whence she brought forth the tray of supper viands, and
+proceeded with it upstairs to the apartment indicated.  The
+accommodation of the Three Mariners was far from spacious,
+despite the fair area of ground it covered.  The room
+demanded by intrusive beams and rafters, partitions,
+passages, staircases, disused ovens, settles, and four-
+posters, left comparatively small quarters for human beings.
+Moreover, this being at a time before home-brewing was
+abandoned by the smaller victuallers, and a house in which
+the twelve-bushel strength was still religiously adhered to
+by the landlord in his ale, the quality of the liquor was
+the chief attraction of the premises, so that everything had
+to make way for utensils and operations in connection
+therewith.  Thus Elizabeth found that the Scotchman was
+located in a room quite close to the small one that had been
+allotted to herself and her mother.
+
+When she entered nobody was present but the young man
+himself--the same whom she had seen lingering without the
+windows of the King's Arms Hotel.  He was now idly reading a
+copy of the local paper, and was hardly conscious of her
+entry, so that she looked at him quite coolly, and saw how
+his forehead shone where the light caught it, and how nicely
+his hair was cut, and the sort of velvet-pile or down that
+was on the skin at the back of his neck, and how his cheek
+was so truly curved as to be part of a globe, and how
+clearly drawn were the lids and lashes which hid his bent
+eyes.
+
+She set down the tray, spread his supper, and went away
+without a word.  On her arrival below the landlady, who was
+as kind as she was fat and lazy, saw that Elizabeth-Jane was
+rather tired, though in her earnestness to be useful she was
+waiving her own needs altogether.  Mrs. Stannidge thereupon
+said with a considerate peremptoriness that she and her
+mother had better take their own suppers if they meant to
+have any.
+
+Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as she had
+fetched the Scotchman's, and went up to the little chamber
+where she had left her mother, noiselessly pushing open the
+door with the edge of the tray.  To her surprise her mother,
+instead of being reclined on the bed where she had left her
+was in an erect position, with lips parted.  At Elizabeth's
+entry she lifted her finger.
+
+The meaning of this was soon apparent.  The room allotted to
+the two women had at one time served as a dressing-room to
+the Scotchman's chamber, as was evidenced by signs of a door
+of communication between them--now screwed up and pasted
+over with the wall paper.  But, as is frequently the case
+with hotels of far higher pretensions than the Three
+Mariners, every word spoken in either of these rooms was
+distinctly audible in the other.  Such sounds came through
+now.
+
+Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her
+mother whispered as she drew near, "'Tis he."
+
+"Who?" said the girl.
+
+"The Mayor."
+
+The tremors in Susan Henchard's tone might have led any
+person but one so perfectly unsuspicious of the truth as the
+girl was, to surmise some closer connection than the
+admitted simple kinship as a means of accounting for them.
+
+Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber, the
+young Scotchman and Henchard, who, having entered the inn
+while Elizabeth-Jane was in the kitchen waiting for the
+supper, had been deferentially conducted upstairs by host
+Stannidge himself.  The girl noiselessly laid out their
+little meal, and beckoned to her mother to join her, which
+Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her attention being fixed on
+the conversation through the door.
+
+"I merely strolled in on my way home to ask you a question
+about something that has excited my curiosity," said the
+Mayor, with careless geniality.  "But I see you have not
+finished supper."
+
+"Ay, but I will be done in a little!  Ye needn't go, sir.
+Take a seat.  I've almost done, and it makes no difference
+at all."
+
+Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in a moment he
+resumed: "Well, first I should ask, did you write this?" A
+rustling of paper followed.
+
+"Yes, I did," said the Scotchman.
+
+"Then," said Henchard, "I am under the impression that we
+have met by accident while waiting for the morning to keep
+an appointment with each other? My name is Henchard, ha'n't
+you replied to an advertisement for a corn-factor's manager
+that I put into the paper--ha'n't you come here to see me
+about it?"
+
+"No," said the Scotchman, with some surprise.
+
+"Surely you are the man," went on Henchard insistingly, "who
+arranged to come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp--Jopp--
+what was his name?"
+
+"You're wrong!" said the young man.  "My name is Donald
+Farfrae.  It is true I am in the corren trade--but I have
+replied to no advertisement, and arranged to see no one.  I
+am on my way to Bristol--from there to the other side of the
+warrld, to try my fortune in the great wheat-growing
+districts of the West!  I have some inventions useful to the
+trade, and there is no scope for developing them heere."
+
+"To America--well, well," said Henchard, in a tone of
+disappointment, so strong as to make itself felt like a damp
+atmosphere.  "And yet I could have sworn you were the man!"
+
+The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a
+silence, till Henchard resumed: "Then I am truly and
+sincerely obliged to you for the few words you wrote on that
+paper."
+
+"It was nothing, sir."
+
+"Well, it has a great importance for me just now.  This row
+about my grown wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn't
+know to be bad till the people came complaining, has put me
+to my wits' end.  I've some hundreds of quarters of it on
+hand; and if your renovating process will make it wholesome,
+why, you can see what a quag 'twould get me out of.  I saw
+in a moment there might be truth in it.  But I should like
+to have it proved; and of course you don't care to tell the
+steps of the process sufficiently for me to do that, without
+my paying ye well for't first."
+
+The young man reflected a moment or two.  "I don't know that
+I have any objection," he said.  "I'm going to another
+country, and curing bad corn is not the line I'll take up
+there.  Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of it--you'll make more
+out of it heere than I will in a foreign country.  Just look
+heere a minute, sir.  I can show ye by a sample in my
+carpet-bag."
+
+The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and
+rustling; then a discussion about so many ounces to the
+bushel, and drying, and refrigerating, and so on.
+
+"These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with," came
+in the young fellow's voice; and after a pause, during which
+some operation seemed to be intently watched by them both,
+he exclaimed, "There, now, do you taste that."
+
+"It's complete!--quite restored, or--well--nearly."
+
+"Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it," said
+the Scotchman.  "To fetch it back entirely is impossible;
+Nature won't stand so much as that, but heere you go a great
+way towards it.  Well, sir, that's the process, I don't
+value it, for it can be but of little use in countries where
+the weather is more settled than in ours; and I'll be only
+too glad if it's of service to you."
+
+"But hearken to me," pleaded Henchard.  "My business you
+know, is in corn and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay-
+trusser simply, and hay is what I understand best though I
+now do more in corn than in the other.  If you'll accept the
+place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely, and
+receive a commission in addition to salary."
+
+"You're liberal--very liberal, but no, no--I cannet!" the
+young man still replied, with some distress in his accents.
+
+"So be it!" said Henchard conclusively.  "Now--to change the
+subject--one good turn deserves another; don't stay to
+finish that miserable supper.  Come to my house, I can find
+something better for 'ee than cold ham and ale."
+
+Donald Farfrae was grateful--said he feared he must decline--
+that he wished to leave early next day.
+
+"Very well," said Henchard quickly, "please yourself.  But I
+tell you, young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it
+has done for the sample, you have saved my credit, stranger
+though you be.  What shall I pay you for this knowledge?"
+
+"Nothing at all, nothing at all.  It may not prove necessary
+to ye to use it often, and I don't value it at all.  I
+thought I might just as well let ye know, as you were in a
+difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye."
+
+Henchard paused.  "I shan't soon forget this," he said.
+"And from a stranger!...I couldn't believe you were not the
+man I had engaged!  Says I to myself, 'He knows who I am, and
+recommends himself by this stroke.' And yet it turns out,
+after all, that you are not the man who answered my
+advertisement, but a stranger!"
+
+"Ay, ay; that's so," said the young man.
+
+Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came
+thoughtfully: "Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my
+poor brother's--now dead and gone; and the nose, too, isn't
+unlike his.  You must be, what--five foot nine, I reckon? I
+am six foot one and a half out of my shoes.  But what of
+that? In my business, 'tis true that strength and bustle
+build up a firm.  But judgment and knowledge are what keep
+it established.  Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae;
+bad at figures--a rule o' thumb sort of man.  You are just
+the reverse--I can see that.  I have been looking for such
+as you these two year, and yet you are not for me.  Well,
+before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young
+man I thought you were, what's the difference? Can't ye stay
+just the same? Have you really made up your mind about this
+American notion? I won't mince matters.  I feel you would be
+invaluable to me--that needn't be said--and if you will bide
+and be my manager, I will make it worth your while."
+
+"My plans are fixed," said the young man, in negative tones.
+"I have formed a scheme, and so we need na say any more
+about it.  But will you not drink with me, sir? I find this
+Casterbridge ale warreming to the stomach."
+
+"No, no; I fain would, but I can't," said Henchard gravely,
+the scraping of his chair informing the listeners that he
+was rising to leave.  "When I was a young man I went in for
+that sort of thing too strong--far too strong--and was well-
+nigh ruined by it!  I did a deed on account of it which I
+shall be ashamed of to my dying day.  It made such an
+impression on me that I swore, there and then, that I'd
+drink nothing stronger than tea for as many years as I was
+old that day.  I have kept my oath; and though, Farfrae, I
+am sometimes that dry in the dog days that I could drink a
+quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think o' my oath, and
+touch no strong drink at all."
+
+"I'll no' press ye, sir--I'll no' press ye.  I respect your
+vow.
+
+"Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt," said
+Henchard, with strong feeling in his tones.  "But it will be
+long before I see one that would suit me so well!"
+
+The young man appeared much moved by Henchard's warm
+convictions of his value.  He was silent till they reached
+the door.  "I wish I could stay--sincerely I would like to,"
+he replied.  "But no--it cannet be! it cannet!  I want to see
+the warrld."
+
+
+
+8.
+
+
+Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained
+each in her thoughts over their meal, the mother's face
+being strangely bright since Henchard's avowal of shame for
+a past action.  The quivering of the partition to its core
+presented denoted that Donald Farfrae had again rung his
+bell, no doubt to have his supper removed; for humming a
+tune, and walking up and down, he seemed to be attracted by
+the lively bursts of conversation and melody from the
+general company below.  He sauntered out upon the landing,
+and descended the staircase.
+
+When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and
+also that used by her mother and herself, she found the
+bustle of serving to be at its height below, as it always
+was at this hour.  The young woman shrank from having
+anything to do with the ground-floor serving, and crept
+silently about observing the scene--so new to her, fresh
+from the seclusion of a seaside cottage.  In the general
+sitting-room, which was large, she remarked the two or three
+dozen strong-backed chairs that stood round against the
+wall, each fitted with its genial occupant; the sanded
+floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the
+wall within the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator
+of all that went on without herself being particularly seen.
+
+The young Scotchman had just joined the guests.  These, in
+addition to the respectable master-tradesmen occupying the
+seats of privileges in the bow-window and its neighbourhood,
+included an inferior set at the unlighted end, whose seats
+were mere benches against the wall, and who drank from cups
+instead of from glasses.  Among the latter she noticed some
+of those personages who had stood outside the windows of the
+King's Arms.
+
+Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel
+ventilator in one of the panes, which would suddenly start
+off spinning with a jingling sound, as suddenly stop, and as
+suddenly start again.
+
+While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of
+a song greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a
+melody and accent of peculiar charm.  There had been some
+singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman had made
+himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the
+master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a
+ditty.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing
+to listen; and the longer she listened the more she was
+enraptured.  She had never heard any singing like this and
+it was evident that the majority of the audience had not
+heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a much
+greater degree than usual.  They neither whispered, nor
+drank, nor dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten
+them, nor pushed the mug to their neighbours.  The singer
+himself grew emotional, till she could imagine a tear in his
+eye as the words went on:--
+
+
+  "It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain would I be,
+   O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
+   There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
+   As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;
+   When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
+   The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!"
+
+
+There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was
+even more eloquent than the applause.  It was of such a kind
+that the snapping of a pipe-stem too long for him by old
+Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered at the shady
+end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act.  Then
+the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off
+for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald's song was
+temporarily effaced.
+
+"'Twas not amiss--not at all amiss!" muttered Christopher
+Coney, who was also present.  And removing his pipe a
+finger's breadth from his lips, he said aloud, "Draw on with
+the next verse, young gentleman, please."
+
+"Yes.  Let's have it again, stranger," said the glazier, a
+stout, bucket-headed man, with a white apron rolled up round
+his waist.  "Folks don't lift up their hearts like that in
+this part of the world."  And turning aside, he said in
+undertones, "Who is the young man?--Scotch, d'ye say?"
+
+"Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe,"
+replied Coney.
+
+Young Farfrae repeated the last verse.  It was plain that
+nothing so pathetic had been heard at the Three Mariners for
+a considerable time.  The difference of accent, the
+excitability of the singer, the intense local feeling, and
+the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a climax,
+surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to
+shut up their emotions with caustic words.
+
+"Danged if our country down here is worth singing about like
+that!" continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again
+melodized with a dying fall, "My ain countree!" "When you
+take away from among us the fools and the rogues, and the
+lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and
+such like, there's cust few left to ornament a song with in
+Casterbridge, or the country round."
+
+"True," said Buzzford, the dealer, looking at the grain of
+the table.  "Casterbridge is a old, hoary place o'
+wickedness, by all account.  'Tis recorded in history that
+we rebelled against the King one or two hundred years ago,
+in the time of the Romans, and that lots of us was hanged on
+Gallows Hill, and quartered, and our different jints sent
+about the country like butcher's meat; and for my part I can
+well believe it."
+
+"What did ye come away from yer own country for, young
+maister, if ye be so wownded about it?" inquired Christopher
+Coney, from the background, with the tone of a man who
+preferred the original subject.  "Faith, it wasn't worth
+your while on our account, for as Maister Billy Wills says,
+we be bruckle folk here--the best o' us hardly honest
+sometimes, what with hard winters, and so many mouths to
+fill, and Goda'mighty sending his little taties so terrible
+small to fill 'em with.  We don't think about flowers and
+fair faces, not we--except in the shape o' cauliflowers and
+pigs' chaps."
+
+"But, no!" said Donald Farfrae, gazing round into their
+faces with earnest concern; "the best of ye hardly honest--
+not that surely? None of ye has been stealing what didn't
+belong to him?"
+
+"Lord! no, no!" said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly.
+"That's only his random way o' speaking.  'A was always such
+a man of underthoughts."  (And reprovingly towards
+Christopher): "Don't ye be so over-familiar with a gentleman
+that ye know nothing of--and that's travelled a'most from
+the North Pole."
+
+Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no
+public sympathy, he mumbled his feelings to himself: "Be
+dazed, if I loved my country half as well as the young
+feller do, I'd live by claning my neighbour's pigsties afore
+I'd go away!  For my part I've no more love for my country
+than I have for Botany Bay!"
+
+"Come," said Longways; "let the young man draw onward with
+his ballet, or we shall be here all night."
+
+"That's all of it," said the singer apologetically.
+
+"Soul of my body, then we'll have another!" said the general
+dealer.
+
+"Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?" inquired a fat
+woman with a figured purple apron, the waiststring of which
+was overhung so far by her sides as to be invisible.
+
+"Let him breathe--let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom.  He hain't
+got his second wind yet," said the master glazier.
+
+"Oh yes, but I have!" exclaimed the young man; and he at
+once rendered "O Nannie" with faultless modulations, and
+another or two of the like sentiment, winding up at their
+earnest request with "Auld Lang Syne."
+
+By this time he had completely taken possession of the
+hearts of the Three Mariners' inmates, including even old
+Coney.  Notwithstanding an occasional odd gravity which
+awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the moment, they
+began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of
+his mind seemed to raise around him.  Casterbridge had
+sentiment--Casterbridge had romance; but this stranger's
+sentiment was of differing quality.  Or rather, perhaps, the
+difference was mainly superficial; he was to them like the
+poet of a new school who takes his contemporaries by storm;
+who is not really new, but is the first to articulate what
+all his listeners have felt, though but dumbly till then.
+
+The silent landlord came and leant over the settle while the
+young man sang; and even Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick
+herself from the framework of her chair in the bar and get
+as far as the door-post, which movement she accomplished by
+rolling herself round, as a cask is trundled on the chine by
+a drayman without losing much of its perpendicular.
+
+"And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?" she asked.
+
+"Ah--no!" said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in
+his voice, "I'm only passing thirrough!  I am on my way to
+Bristol, and on frae there to foreign parts."
+
+"We be truly sorry to hear it," said Solomon Longways.  "We
+can ill afford to lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when
+they fall among us.  And verily, to mak' acquaintance with a
+man a-come from so far, from the land o' perpetual snow, as
+we may say, where wolves and wild boars and other dangerous
+animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about--why, 'tis
+a thing we can't do every day; and there's good sound
+information for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens
+his mouth."
+
+"Nay, but ye mistake my country," said the young man,
+looking round upon them with tragic fixity, till his eye
+lighted up and his cheek kindled with a sudden enthusiasm to
+right their errors.  "There are not perpetual snow and
+wolves at all in it!--except snow in winter, and--well--a
+little in summer just sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two
+stalking about here and there, if ye may call them
+dangerous.  Eh, but you should take a summer jarreny to
+Edinboro', and Arthur's Seat, and all round there, and then
+go on to the lochs, and all the Highland scenery--in May and
+June--and you would never say 'tis the land of wolves and
+perpetual snow!"
+
+"Of course not--it stands to reason," said Buzzford.  "'Tis
+barren ignorance that leads to such words.  He's a simple
+home-spun man, that never was fit for good company--think
+nothing of him, sir."
+
+"And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your
+crock, and your bit of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as
+I may say?" inquired Christopher Coney.
+
+"I've sent on my luggage--though it isn't much; for the
+voyage is long."  Donald's eyes dropped into a remote gaze as
+he added: "But I said to myself, 'Never a one of the prizes
+of life will I come by unless I undertake it!' and I decided
+to go."
+
+A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared
+not least, made itself apparent in the company.  As she
+looked at Farfrae from the back of the settle she decided
+that his statements showed him to be no less thoughtful than
+his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial and
+impassioned.  She admired the serious light in which he
+looked at serious things.  He had seen no jest in
+ambiguities and roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had
+done; and rightly not--there was none.  She disliked those
+wretched humours of Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he
+did not appreciate them.  He seemed to feel exactly as she
+felt about life and its surroundings--that they were a
+tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could
+be gay on occasion, moments of gaiety were interludes, and
+no part of the actual drama.  It was extraordinary how
+similar their views were.
+
+Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his
+wish to retire, whereupon the landlady whispered to
+Elizabeth to run upstairs and turn down his bed.  She took a
+candlestick and proceeded on her mission, which was the act
+of a few moments only.  When, candle in hand, she reached
+the top of the stairs on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae was
+at the foot coming up.  She could not very well retreat;
+they met and passed in the turn of the staircase.
+
+She must have appeared interesting in some way--not-
+withstanding her plain dress--or rather, possibly, in
+consequence of it, for she was a girl characterized by
+earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simple drapery
+accorded well.  Her face flushed, too, at the slight
+awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes
+bent on the candle-flame that she carried just below her
+nose.  Thus it happened that when confronting her he smiled;
+and then, with the manner of a temporarily light-hearted
+man, who has started himself on a flight of song whose
+momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old
+ditty that she seemed to suggest--
+
+
+    "As I came in by my bower door,
+       As day was waxin' wearie,
+    Oh wha came tripping down the stair
+       But bonnie Peg my dearie."
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the
+Scotchman's voice died away, humming more of the same within
+the closed door of his room.
+
+Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present.  When
+soon after, the girl rejoined her mother, the latter was
+still in thought--on quite another matter than a young man's
+song.
+
+"We've made a mistake," she whispered (that the Scotch-man
+might not overhear).  "On no account ought ye to have helped
+serve here to-night.  Not because of ourselves, but for the
+sake of him.  If he should befriend us, and take us up, and
+then find out what you did when staying here, 'twould grieve
+and wound his natural pride as Mayor of the town."
+
+Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this
+than her mother had she known the real relationship, was not
+much disturbed about it as things stood.  Her "he" was
+another man than her poor mother's.  "For myself," she said,
+"I didn't at all mind waiting a little upon him.  He's so
+respectable, and educated--far above the rest of 'em in the
+inn.  They thought him very simple not to know their grim
+broad way of talking about themselves here.  But of course
+he didn't know--he was too refined in his mind to know such
+things!" Thus she earnestly pleaded.
+
+Meanwhile, the "he" of her mother was not so far away as
+even they thought.  After leaving the Three Mariners he had
+sauntered up and down the empty High Street, passing and
+repassing the inn in his promenade.  When the Scotchman sang
+his voice had reached Henchard's ears through the heart-
+shaped holes in the window-shutters, and had led him to
+pause outside them a long while.
+
+"To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow does draw me!" he
+had said to himself.  "I suppose 'tis because I'm so lonely.
+I'd have given him a third share in the business to have
+stayed!"
+
+
+
+9.
+
+
+When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casement next morning
+the mellow air brought in the feel of imminent autumn almost
+as distinctly as if she had been in the remotest hamlet.
+Casterbridge was the complement of the rural life around,
+not its urban opposite.  Bees and butterflies in the
+cornfields at the top of the town, who desired to get to the
+meads at the bottom, took no circuitous course, but flew
+straight down High Street without any apparent consciousness
+that they were traversing strange latitudes.  And in autumn
+airy spheres of thistledown floated into the same street,
+lodged upon the shop fronts, blew into drains, and
+innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the
+pavement, and stole through people's doorways into their
+passages with a hesitating scratch on the floor, like the
+skirts of timid visitors.
+
+Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew
+her head and glanced from behind the window-curtains.  Mr.
+Henchard--now habited no longer as a great personage, but as
+a thriving man of business--was pausing on his way up the
+middle of the street, and the Scotchman was looking from the
+window adjoining her own.  Henchard it appeared, had gone a
+little way past the inn before he had noticed his
+acquaintance of the previous evening.  He came back a few
+steps, Donald Farfrae opening the window further.
+
+"And you are off soon, I suppose?" said Henchard upwards.
+
+"Yes--almost this moment, sir," said the other.  "Maybe I'll
+walk on till the coach makes up on me."
+
+"Which way?"
+
+"The way ye are going."
+
+"Then shall we walk together to the top o' town?"
+
+"If ye'll wait a minute," said the Scotchman.
+
+In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand.  Henchard
+looked at the bag as at an enemy.  It showed there was no
+mistake about the young man's departure.  "Ah, my lad," he
+said, "you should have been a wise man, and have stayed with
+me."
+
+"Yes, yes--it might have been wiser," said Donald, looking
+microscopically at the houses that were furthest off.  "It
+is only telling ye the truth when I say my plans are vague."
+
+They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the
+inn, and Elizabeth-Jane heard no more.  She saw that they
+continued in conversation, Henchard turning to the other
+occasionally, and emphasizing some remark with a gesture.
+Thus they passed the King's Arms Hotel, the Market House,
+St. Peter's churchyard wall, ascending to the upper end of
+the long street till they were small as two grains of corn;
+when they bent suddenly to the right into the Bristol Road,
+and were out of view.
+
+"He was a good man--and he's gone," she said to herself.  "I
+was nothing to him, and there was no reason why he should
+have wished me good-bye."
+
+The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had
+moulded itself out of the following little fact: when the
+Scotchman came out at the door he had by accident glanced up
+at her; and then he had looked away again without nodding,
+or smiling, or saying a word.
+
+"You are still thinking, mother," she said, when she turned
+inwards.
+
+"Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard's sudden liking for that
+young man.  He was always so.  Now, surely, if he takes so
+warmly to people who are not related to him at all, may he
+not take as warmly to his own kin?"
+
+While they debated this question a procession of five large
+waggons went past, laden with hay up to the bedroom windows.
+They came in from the country, and the steaming horses had
+probably been travelling a great part of the night.  To the
+shaft of each hung a little board, on which was painted in
+white letters, "Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant."  The
+spectacle renewed his wife's conviction that, for her
+daughter's sake, she should strain a point to rejoin him.
+
+The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end
+of it was that Mrs. Henchard decided, for good or for ill,
+to send Elizabeth-Jane with a message to Henchard, to the
+effect that his relative Susan, a sailor's widow, was in the
+town; leaving it to him to say whether or not he would
+recognize her.  What had brought her to this determination
+were chiefly two things.  He had been described as a lonely
+widower; and he had expressed shame for a past transaction
+of his life.  There was promise in both.
+
+"If he says no," she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Jane stood,
+bonnet on, ready to depart; "if he thinks it does not become
+the good position he has reached to in the town, to own--to
+let us call on him as--his distant kinfolk, say, 'Then, sir,
+we would rather not intrude; we will leave Casterbridge as
+quietly as we have come, and go back to our own
+country.'...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so,
+as I have not seen him for so many years, and we are so--
+little allied to him!"
+
+"And if he say yes?" inquired the more sanguine one.
+
+"In that case," answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, "ask him
+to write me a note, saying when and how he will see us--or ME."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing.  "And
+tell him," continued her mother, "that I fully know I have
+no claim upon him--that I am glad to find he is thriving;
+that I hope his life may be long and happy--there, go."  Thus
+with a half-hearted willingness, a smothered reluctance, did
+the poor forgiving woman start her unconscious daughter on
+this errand.
+
+It was about ten o'clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth
+paced up the High Street, in no great hurry; for to herself
+her position was only that of a poor relation deputed to
+hunt up a rich one.  The front doors of the private houses
+were mostly left open at this warm autumn time, no thought
+of umbrella stealers disturbing the minds of the placid
+burgesses.  Hence, through the long, straight, entrance
+passages thus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels,
+the mossy gardens at the back, glowing with nasturtiums,
+fuchsias, scarlet geraniums, "bloody warriors," snapdragons,
+and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by crusted grey
+stone-work remaining from a yet remoter Casterbridge than
+the venerable one visible in the street.  The old-fashioned
+fronts of these houses, which had older than old-fashioned
+backs, rose sheer from the pavement, into which the bow
+windows protruded like bastions, necessitating a pleasing
+chassez-dechassez movement to the time-pressed pedestrian
+at every few yards.  He was bound also to evolve other
+Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers,
+cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging
+angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become
+bow-legged and knock-kneed.
+
+In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke so
+cheerfully of individual unrestraint as to boundaries,
+movables occupied the path and roadway to a perplexing
+extent.  First the vans of the carriers in and out of
+Casterbridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The
+Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe, and many
+other towns and villages round.  Their owners were numerous
+enough to be regarded as a tribe, and had almost
+distinctiveness enough to be regarded as a race.  Their vans
+had just arrived, and were drawn up on each side of the
+street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between
+the pavement and the roadway.  Moreover every shop pitched
+out half its contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb,
+extending the display each week a little further and further
+into the roadway, despite the expostulations of the two
+feeble old constables, until there remained but a tortuous
+defile for carriages down the centre of the street, which
+afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins.  Over
+the pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so
+constructed as to give the passenger's hat a smart buffet
+off his head, as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun's Goblin
+Page, celebrated in romantic lore.
+
+Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the
+pavement, their hind legs in the street, in which position
+they occasionally nipped little boys by the shoulder who
+were passing to school.  And any inviting recess in front of
+a house that had been modestly kept back from the general
+line was utilized by pig-dealers as a pen for their stock.
+
+The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to
+transact business in these ancient streets, spoke in other
+ways than by articulation.  Not to hear the words of your
+interlocutor in metropolitan centres is to know nothing of
+his meaning.  Here the face, the arms, the hat, the stick,
+the body throughout spoke equally with the tongue.  To
+express satisfaction the Casterbridge market-man added to
+his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the
+eyes, a throwing back of the shoulders, which was
+intelligible from the other end of the street.  If he
+wondered, though all Henchard's carts and waggons were
+rattling past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside of
+his crimson mouth, and a target-like circling of his eyes.
+Deliberation caused sundry attacks on the moss of adjoining
+walls with the end of his stick, a change of his hat from
+the horizontal to the less so; a sense of tediousness
+announced itself in a lowering of the person by spreading
+the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the
+arms.  Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the
+streets of this honest borough to all appearance; and it was
+said that the lawyers in the Court House hard by
+occasionally threw in strong arguments for the other side
+out of pure generosity (though apparently by mischance) when
+advancing their own.
+
+Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus,
+or nerve-knot of the surrounding country life; differing
+from the many manufacturing towns which are as foreign
+bodies set down, like boulders on a plain, in a green world
+with which they have nothing in common.  Casterbridge lived
+by agriculture at one remove further from the fountainhead
+than the adjoining villages--no more.  The townsfolk
+understood every fluctuation in the rustic's condition, for
+it affected their receipts as much as the labourer's; they
+entered into the troubles and joys which moved the
+aristocratic families ten miles round--for the same reason.
+And even at the dinner-parties of the professional families
+the subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease, sowing
+and reaping, fencing and planting; while politics were
+viewed by them less from their own standpoint of burgesses
+with rights and privileges than from the standpoint of their
+country neighbours.
+
+All the venerable contrivances and confusions which
+delighted the eye by their quaintness, and in a measure
+reasonableness, in this rare old market-town, were
+metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of Elizabeth-
+Jane, fresh from netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage.
+Very little inquiry was necessary to guide her footsteps.
+Henchard's house was one of the best, faced with dull red-
+and-grey old brick.  The front door was open, and, as in
+other houses, she could see through the passage to the end
+of the garden--nearly a quarter of a mile off.
+
+Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard.
+She was conducted into the mossy garden, and through a door
+in the wall, which was studded with rusty nails speaking of
+generations of fruit-trees that had been trained there.  The
+door opened upon the yard, and here she was left to find him
+as she could.  It was a place flanked by hay-barns, into
+which tons of fodder, all in trusses, were being packed from
+the waggons she had seen pass the inn that morning.  On
+other sides of the yard were wooden granaries on stone
+staddles, to which access was given by Flemish ladders, and
+a store-house several floors high.  Wherever the doors of
+these places were open, a closely packed throng of bursting
+wheat-sacks could be seen standing inside, with the air of
+awaiting a famine that would not come.
+
+She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of
+the impending interview, till she was quite weary of
+searching; she ventured to inquire of a boy in what quarter
+Mr. Henchard could be found.  He directed her to an office
+which she had not seen before, and knocking at the door she
+was answered by a cry of "Come in."
+
+Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her,
+bending over some sample-bags on a table, not the corn-
+merchant, but the young Scotchman Mr. Farfrae--in the act of
+pouring some grains of wheat from one hand to the other.
+His hat hung on a peg behind him, and the roses of his
+carpet-bag glowed from the corner of the room.
+
+Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for
+Mr. Henchard, and for him alone, she was for the moment
+confounded.
+
+"Yes, what it is?" said the Scotchman, like a man who
+permanently ruled there.
+
+She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
+
+"Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He's engaged just now,"
+said the young man, apparently not recognizing her as the
+girl at the inn.  He handed her a chair, bade her sit down
+and turned to his sample-bags again.  While Elizabeth-Jane
+sits waiting in great amaze at the young man's presence we
+may briefly explain how he came there.
+
+When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that
+morning towards the Bath and Bristol road they went on
+silently, except for a few commonplaces, till they had gone
+down an avenue on the town walls called the Chalk Walk,
+leading to an angle where the North and West escarpments
+met.  From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast
+extent of country could be seen.  A footpath ran steeply
+down the green slope, conducting from the shady promenade on
+the walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp.  It was by
+this path the Scotchman had to descend.
+
+"Well, here's success to 'ee," said Henchard, holding out
+his right hand and leaning with his left upon the wicket
+which protected the descent.  In the act there was the
+inelegance of one whose feelings are nipped and wishes
+defeated.  "I shall often think of this time, and of how you
+came at the very moment to throw a light upon my
+difficulty."
+
+Still holding the young man's hand he paused, and then added
+deliberately: "Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost
+for want of a word.  And before ye are gone for ever I'll
+speak.  Once more, will ye stay? There it is, flat and
+plain.  You can see that it isn't all selfishness that makes
+me press 'ee; for my business is not quite so scientific as
+to require an intellect entirely out of the common.  Others
+would do for the place without doubt.  Some selfishness
+perhaps there is, but there is more; it isn't for me to
+repeat what.  Come bide with me--and name your own terms.
+I'll agree to 'em willingly and 'ithout a word of
+gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!"
+
+The young man's hand remained steady in Henchard's for a
+moment or two.  He looked over the fertile country that
+stretched beneath them, then backward along the shaded walk
+reaching to the top of the town.  His face flushed.
+
+"I never expected this--I did not!" he said.  "It's
+Providence!  Should any one go against it? No; I'll not go to
+America; I'll stay and be your man!"
+
+His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard's, returned
+the latter's grasp.
+
+"Done," said Henchard.
+
+"Done," said Donald Farfrae.
+
+The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfaction that
+was almost fierce in its strength.  "Now you are my friend!"
+he exclaimed.  "Come back to my house; let's clinch it at
+once by clear terms, so as to be comfortable in our minds."
+Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the North-West Avenue
+in Henchard's company as he had come.  Henchard was all
+confidence now.
+
+"I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don't care
+for a man," he said.  "But when a man takes my fancy he
+takes it strong.  Now I am sure you can eat another
+breakfast? You couldn't have eaten much so early, even if
+they had anything at that place to gi'e thee, which they
+hadn't; so come to my house and we will have a solid,
+staunch tuck-in, and settle terms in black-and-white if you
+like; though my word's my bond.  I can always make a good
+meal in the morning.  I've got a splendid cold pigeon-pie
+going just now.  You can have some home-brewed if you want
+to, you know."
+
+"It is too airly in the morning for that," said Farfrae with
+a smile.
+
+"Well, of course, I didn't know.  I don't drink it because
+of my oath, but I am obliged to brew for my work-people."
+
+Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard's premises
+by the back way or traffic entrance.  Here the matter was
+settled over the breakfast, at which Henchard heaped the
+young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal fulness.  He would not
+rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his luggage from
+Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the post-office.  When
+it was done this man of strong impulses declared that his
+new friend should take up his abode in his house--at least
+till some suitable lodgings could be found.
+
+He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the
+stores of grain, and other stock; and finally entered the
+offices where the younger of them has already been
+discovered by Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+10.
+
+
+While she still sat under the Scotchman's eyes a man came up
+to the door, reaching it as Henchard opened the door of the
+inner office to admit Elizabeth.  The newcomer stepped
+forward like the quicker cripple at Bethesda, and entered in
+her stead.  She could hear his words to Henchard: "Joshua
+Jopp, sir--by appointment--the new manager."
+
+"The new manager!--he's in his office," said Henchard
+bluntly.
+
+"In his office!" said the man, with a stultified air.
+
+"I mentioned Thursday," said Henchard; "and as you did not
+keep your appointment, I have engaged another manager.  At
+first I thought he must be you.  Do you think I can wait
+when business is in question?"
+
+"You said Thursday or Saturday, sir," said the newcomer,
+pulling out a letter.
+
+"Well, you are too late," said the corn-factor.  "I can say
+no more."
+
+"You as good as engaged me," murmured the man.
+
+"Subject to an interview," said Henchard.  "I am sorry for
+you--very sorry indeed.  But it can't be helped."
+
+There was no more to be said, and the man came out,
+encountering Elizabeth-Jane in his passage.  She could see
+that his mouth twitched with anger, and that bitter
+disappointment was written in his face everywhere.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the master of
+the premises.  His dark pupils--which always seemed to have
+a red spark of light in them, though this could hardly be a
+physical fact--turned indifferently round under his dark
+brows until they rested on her figure.  "Now then, what is
+it, my young woman?" he said blandly.
+
+"Can I speak to you--not on business, sir?" said she.
+
+"Yes--I suppose."  He looked at her more thoughtfully.
+
+"I am sent to tell you, sir," she innocently went on, "that
+a distant relative of yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a
+sailor's widow, is in the town, and to ask whether you would
+wish to see her."
+
+The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance underwent a
+slight change.  "Oh--Susan is--still alive?" he asked with
+difficulty.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Are you her daughter?"
+
+"Yes, sir--her only daughter."
+
+"What--do you call yourself--your Christian name?"
+
+"Elizabeth-Jane, sir."
+
+"Newson?"
+
+"Elizabeth-Jane Newson."
+
+This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of
+his early married life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the
+family history.  It was more than he could have expected.
+His wife had behaved kindly to him in return for his
+unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to her child
+or to the world.
+
+"I am--a good deal interested in your news," he said.  "And
+as this is not a matter of business, but pleasure, suppose
+we go indoors."
+
+It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to
+Elizabeth, that he showed her out of the office and through
+the outer room, where Donald Farfrae was overhauling bins
+and samples with the inquiring inspection of a beginner in
+charge.  Henchard preceded her through the door in the wall
+to the suddenly changed scene of the garden and flowers, and
+onward into the house.  The dining-room to which he
+introduced her still exhibited the remnants of the lavish
+breakfast laid for Farfrae.  It was furnished to profusion
+with heavy mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanish
+hues.  Pembroke tables, with leaves hanging so low that they
+well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the walls on legs
+and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay
+three huge folio volumes--a Family Bible, a "Josephus," and
+a "Whole Duty of Man."  In the chimney comer was a fire-grate
+with a fluted semicircular back, having urns and festoons
+cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of the kind
+which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of
+Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their
+patterns may have been such as those illustrious carpenters
+never saw or heard of.
+
+"Sit down--Elizabeth-Jane--sit down," he said, with a shake
+in his voice as he uttered her name, and sitting down
+himself he allowed his hands to hang between his knees while
+he looked upon the carpet.  "Your mother, then, is quite
+well?"
+
+"She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling."
+
+"A sailor's widow--when did he die?"
+
+"Father was lost last spring."
+
+Henchard winced at the word "father," thus applied.  "Do you
+and she come from abroad--America or Australia?" he asked.
+
+"No.  We have been in England some years.  I was twelve when
+we came here from Canada."
+
+"Ah; exactly."  By such conversation he discovered the
+circumstances which had enveloped his wife and her child in
+such total obscurity that he had long ago believed them to
+be in their graves.  These things being clear, he returned
+to the present.  "And where is your mother staying?"
+
+"At the Three Mariners."
+
+"And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?" repeated
+Henchard.  He arose, came close to her, and glanced in her
+face.  "I think," he said, suddenly turning away with a wet
+eye, "you shall take a note from me to your mother.  I
+should like to see her....She is not left very well off by
+her late husband?" His eye fell on Elizabeth's clothes,
+which, though a respectable suit of black, and her very
+best, were decidedly old-fashioned even to Casterbridge
+eyes.
+
+"Not very well," she said, glad that he had divined this
+without her being obliged to express it.
+
+He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking
+from his pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the
+envelope with the letter, adding to it, as by an
+afterthought, five shillings.  Sealing the whole up
+carefully, he directed it to "Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners
+Inn," and handed the packet to Elizabeth.
+
+"Deliver it to her personally, please," said Henchard.
+"Well, I am glad to see you here, Elizabeth-Jane--very glad.
+We must have a long talk together--but not just now."
+
+He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she,
+who had known so little friendship, was much affected, and
+tears rose to her aerial-grey eyes.  The instant that she
+was gone Henchard's state showed itself more distinctly;
+having shut the door he sat in his dining-room stiffly
+erect, gazing at the opposite wall as if he read his history
+there.
+
+"Begad!" he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up.  "I didn't think
+of that.  Perhaps these are impostors--and Susan and the
+child dead after all!"
+
+However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him
+that, as regarded her, at least, there could be little
+doubt.  And a few hours would settle the question of her
+mother's identity; for he had arranged in his note to see
+her that evening.
+
+"It never rains but it pours!" said Henchard.  His keenly
+excited interest in his new friend the Scotchman was now
+eclipsed by this event, and Donald Farfrae saw so little of
+him during the rest of the day that he wondered at the
+suddenness of his employer's moods.
+
+In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn.  Her mother,
+instead of taking the note with the curiosity of a poor
+woman expecting assistance, was much moved at sight of it.
+She did not read it at once, asking Elizabeth to describe
+her reception, and the very words Mr. Henchard used.
+Elizabeth's back was turned when her mother opened the
+letter.  It ran thus:--
+
+
+"Meet me at eight o'clock this evening, if you can, at the
+Ring on the Budmouth road.  The place is easy to find.  I
+can say no more now.  The news upsets me almost.  The girl
+seems to be in ignorance.  Keep her so till I have seen you.
+M.  H."
+
+
+He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas.  The
+amount was significant; it may tacitly have said to her that
+he bought her back again.  She waited restlessly for the
+close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Jane that she was
+invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would go alone.  But
+she said nothing to show that the place of meeting was not
+at his house, nor did she hand the note to Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+11.
+
+
+The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of one of
+the finest Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest,
+remaining in Britain.
+
+Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley, and
+precinct.  It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome,
+concealed dead men of Rome.  It was impossible to dig more
+than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens
+without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the
+Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest
+for a space of fifteen hundred years.  He was mostly found
+lying on his side, in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a
+chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to his chest;
+sometimes with the remains of his spear against his arm, a
+fibula or brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urn
+at his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth;
+and mystified conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes
+of Casterbridge street boys and men, who had turned a moment
+to gaze at the familiar spectacle as they passed by.
+
+Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an
+unpleasantness at the discovery of a comparatively modern
+skeleton in their gardens, were quite unmoved by these hoary
+shapes.  They had lived so long ago, their time was so
+unlike the present, their hopes and motives were so widely
+removed from ours, that between them and the living there
+seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to pass.
+
+The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a notch
+at opposite extremities of its diameter north and south.
+From its sloping internal form it might have been called the
+spittoon of the Jotuns.  It was to Casterbridge what the
+ruined Coliseum is to modern Rome, and was nearly of the
+same magnitude.  The dusk of evening was the proper hour at
+which a true impression of this suggestive place could be
+received.  Standing in the middle of the arena at that time
+there by degrees became apparent its real vastness, which a
+cursory view from the summit at noon-day was apt to obscure.
+Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet accessible from every
+part of the town, the historic circle was the frequent spot
+for appointments of a furtive kind.  Intrigues were arranged
+there; tentative meetings were there experimented after
+divisions and feuds.  But one kind of appointment--in itself
+the most common of any--seldom had place in the
+Amphitheatre: that of happy lovers.
+
+Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible,
+and sequestered spot for interviews, the cheerfullest form
+of those occurrences never took kindly to the soil of the
+ruin, would be a curious inquiry.  Perhaps it was because
+its associations had about them something sinister.  Its
+history proved that.  Apart from the sanguinary nature of
+the games originally played therein, such incidents attached
+to its past as these: that for scores of years the town-
+gallows had stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman who
+had murdered her husband was half-strangled and then burnt
+there in the presence of ten thousand spectators.  Tradition
+reports that at a certain stage of the burning her heart
+burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all,
+and that not one of those ten thousand people ever cared
+particularly for hot roast after that.  In addition to these
+old tragedies, pugilistic encounters almost to the death had
+come off down to recent dates in that secluded arena,
+entirely invisible to the outside world save by climbing to
+the top of the enclosure, which few towns-people in the
+daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do.  So
+that, though close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be
+perpetrated there unseen at mid-day.
+
+Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin by
+using the central arena as a cricket-ground.  But the game
+usually languished for the aforesaid reason--the dismal
+privacy which the earthen circle enforced, shutting out
+every appreciative passer's vision, every commendatory
+remark from outsiders--everything, except the sky; and to
+play at games in such circumstances was like acting to an
+empty house.  Possibly, too, the boys were timid, for some
+old people said that at certain moments in the summer time,
+in broad daylight, persons sitting with a book or dozing in
+the arena had, on lifting their eyes, beheld the slopes
+lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian's soldiery as if
+watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of
+their excited voices, that the scene would remain but a
+moment, like a lightning flash, and then disappear.
+
+It was related that there still remained under the south
+entrance excavated cells for the reception of the wild
+animals and athletes who took part in the games.  The arena
+was still smooth and circular, as if used for its original
+purpose not so very long ago.  The sloping pathways by which
+spectators had ascended to their seats were pathways yet.
+But the whole was grown over with grass, which now, at the
+end of summer, was bearded with withered bents that formed
+waves under the brush of the wind, returning to the
+attentive ear aeolian modulations, and detaining for moments
+the flying globes of thistledown.
+
+Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from
+observation which he could think of for meeting his long-
+lost wife, and at the same time as one easily to be found by
+a stranger after nightfall.  As Mayor of the town, with a
+reputation to keep up, he could not invite her to come to
+his house till some definite course had been decided on.
+
+Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-work and
+entered by the south path which descended over the 
+debris of the former dens.  In a few moments he could
+discern a female figure creeping in by the great north gap,
+or public gateway.  They met in the middle of the arena.
+Neither spoke just at first--there was no necessity for
+speech--and the poor woman leant against Henchard, who
+supported her in his arms.
+
+"I don't drink," he said in a low, halting, apologetic
+voice.  "You hear, Susan?--I don't drink now--I haven't
+since that night."  Those were his first words.
+
+He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she
+understood.  After a minute or two he again began:
+
+"If I had known you were living, Susan!  But there was every
+reason to suppose you and the child were dead and gone.  I
+took every possible step to find you--travelled--advertised.
+My opinion at last was that you had started for some colony
+with that man, and had been drowned on your voyage.  Why did
+you keep silent like this?"
+
+"O Michael! because of him--what other reason could there
+be? I thought I owed him faithfulness to the end of one of
+our lives--foolishly I believed there was something solemn
+and binding in the bargain; I thought that even in honour I
+dared not desert him when he had paid so much for me in good
+faith.  I meet you now only as his widow--I consider myself
+that, and that I have no claim upon you.  Had he not died I
+should never have come--never!  Of that you may be sure."
+
+"Ts-s-s!  How could you be so simple?"
+
+"I don't know.  Yet it would have been very wicked--if I had
+not thought like that!" said Susan, almost crying.
+
+"Yes--yes--so it would.  It is only that which makes me feel
+'ee an innocent woman.  But--to lead me into this!"
+
+"What, Michael?" she asked, alarmed.
+
+"Why, this difficulty about our living together again, and
+Elizabeth-Jane.  She cannot be told all--she would so
+despise us both that--I could not bear it!"
+
+"That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you.  I
+could not bear it either."
+
+"Well--we must talk of a plan for keeping her in her present
+belief, and getting matters straight in spite of it.  You
+have heard I am in a large way of business here--that I am
+Mayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I don't know what
+all?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured.
+
+"These things, as well as the dread of the girl discovering
+our disgrace, makes it necessary to act with extreme
+caution.  So that I don't see how you two can return openly
+to my house as the wife and daughter I once treated badly,
+and banished from me; and there's the rub o't."
+
+"We'll go away at once.  I only came to see--"
+
+"No, no, Susan; you are not to go--you mistake me!" he said
+with kindly severity.  "I have thought of this plan: that
+you and Elizabeth take a cottage in the town as the widow
+Mrs. Newson and her daughter; that I meet you, court you,
+and marry you.  Elizabeth-Jane coming to my house as my
+step-daughter.  The thing is so natural and easy that it is
+half done in thinking o't.  This would leave my shady, head-
+strong, disgraceful life as a young man absolutely unopened;
+the secret would be yours and mine only; and I should have
+the pleasure of seeing my own only child under my roof, as
+well as my wife."
+
+"I am quite in your hands, Michael," she said meekly.  "I
+came here for the sake of Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell
+me to leave again to-morrow morning, and never come near you
+more, I am content to go."
+
+"Now, now; we don't want to hear that," said Henchard
+gently.  "Of course you won't leave again.  Think over the
+plan I have proposed for a few hours; and if you can't hit
+upon a better one we'll adopt it.  I have to be away for a
+day or two on business, unfortunately; but during that time
+you can get lodgings--the only ones in the town fit for you
+are those over the china-shop in High Street--and you can
+also look for a cottage."
+
+"If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Never mind--you MUST start genteel if our plan is to be
+carried out.  Look to me for money.  Have you enough till I
+come back?"
+
+"Quite," said she.
+
+"And are you comfortable at the inn?"
+
+"O yes."
+
+"And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her
+case and ours?--that's what makes me most anxious of all."
+
+"You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream
+of the truth.  How could she ever suppose such a thing?"
+
+True!
+
+"I like the idea of repeating our marriage," said Mrs.
+Henchard, after a pause.  "It seems the only right course,
+after all this.  Now I think I must go back to Elizabeth-
+Jane, and tell her that our kinsman, Mr. Henchard, kindly
+wishes us to stay in the town."
+
+"Very well--arrange that yourself.  I'll go some way with
+you."
+
+"No, no.  Don't run any risk!" said his wife anxiously.  "I
+can find my way back--it is not late.  Please let me go
+alone."
+
+"Right," said Henchard.  "But just one word.  Do you forgive
+me, Susan?"
+
+She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to
+frame her answer.
+
+"Never mind--all in good time," said he.  "Judge me by my
+future works--good-bye!"
+
+He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the
+Amphitheatre while his wife passed out through the lower
+way, and descended under the trees to the town.  Then
+Henchard himself went homeward, going so fast that by the
+time he reached his door he was almost upon the heels of the
+unconscious woman from whom he had just parted.  He watched
+her up the street, and turned into his house.
+
+
+
+12.
+
+
+On entering his own door after watching his wife out of
+sight, the Mayor walked on through the tunnel-shaped passage
+into the garden, and thence by the back door towards the
+stores and granaries.  A light shone from the office-window,
+and there being no blind to screen the interior Henchard
+could see Donald Farfrae still seated where he had left him,
+initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by
+overhauling the books.  Henchard entered, merely observing,
+"Don't let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so late."
+
+He stood behind Farfrae's chair, watching his dexterity in
+clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to
+grow so thick in Henchard's books as almost to baffle even
+the Scotchman's perspicacity.  The corn-factor's mien was
+half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for
+the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to
+such finnikin details.  Henchard himself was mentally and
+physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper;
+he had in a modern sense received the education of Achilles,
+and found penmanship a tantalizing art.
+
+"You shall do no more to-night," he said at length,
+spreading his great hand over the paper.  "There's time
+enough to-morrow.  Come indoors with me and have some
+supper.  Now you shall!  I am determined on't."  He shut the
+account-books with friendly force.
+
+Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw
+that his friend and employer was a man who knew no
+moderation in his requests and impulses, and he yielded
+gracefully.  He liked Henchard's warmth, even if it
+inconvenienced him; the great difference in their characters
+adding to the liking.
+
+They locked up the office, and the young man followed his
+companion through the private little door which, admitting
+directly into Henchard's garden, permitted a passage from
+the utilitarian to the beautiful at one step.  The garden
+was silent, dewy, and full of perfume.  It extended a long
+way back from the house, first as lawn and flower-beds, then
+as fruit-garden, where the long-tied espaliers, as old as
+the old house itself, had grown so stout, and cramped, and
+gnarled that they had pulled their stakes out of the ground
+and stood distorted and writhing in vegetable agony, like
+leafy Laocoons.  The flowers which smelt so sweetly were not
+discernible; and they passed through them into the house.
+
+The hospitalities of the morning were repeated, and when
+they were over Henchard said, "Pull your chair round to the
+fireplace, my dear fellow, and let's make a blaze--there's
+nothing I hate like a black grate, even in September."  He
+applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a cheerful radiance
+spread around.
+
+"It is odd," said Henchard, "that two men should meet as we
+have done on a purely business ground, and that at the end
+of the first day I should wish to speak to 'ee on a family
+matter.  But, damn it all, I am a lonely man, Farfrae: I
+have nobody else to speak to; and why shouldn't I tell it to
+'ee?"
+
+"I'll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any service," said
+Donald, allowing his eyes to travel over the intricate wood-
+carvings of the chimney-piece, representing garlanded lyres,
+shields, and quivers, on either side of a draped ox-skull,
+and flanked by heads of Apollo and Diana in low relief.
+
+"I've not been always what I am now," continued Henchard,
+his firm deep voice being ever so little shaken.  He was
+plainly under that strange influence which sometimes prompts
+men to confide to the new-found friend what they will not
+tell to the old.  "I began life as a working hay-trusser,
+and when I was eighteen I married on the strength o' my
+calling.  Would you think me a married man?"
+
+"I heard in the town that you were a widower."
+
+"Ah, yes--you would naturally have heard that.  Well, I lost
+my wife nineteen years ago or so--by my own fault....This is
+how it came about.  One summer evening I was travelling for
+employment, and she was walking at my side, carying the
+baby, our only child.  We came to a booth in a country fair.
+I was a drinking man at that time."
+
+Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so that his
+elbow rested on the table, his forehead being shaded by his
+hand, which, however, did not hide the marks of
+introspective inflexibility on his features as he narrated
+in fullest detail the incidents of the transaction with the
+sailor.  The tinge of indifference which had at first been
+visible in the Scotchman now disappeared.
+
+Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife;
+the oath he swore; the solitary life he led during the years
+which followed.  "I have kept my oath for nineteen years,"
+he went on; "I have risen to what you see me now."
+
+"Ay!"
+
+"Well--no wife could I hear of in all that time; and being
+by nature something of a woman-hater, I have found it no
+hardship to keep mostly at a distance from the sex.  No wife
+could I hear of, I say, till this very day.  And now--she
+has come back."
+
+"Come back, has she!"
+
+"This morning--this very morning.  And what's to be done?"
+
+"Can ye no' take her and live with her, and make some
+amends?"
+
+"That's what I've planned and proposed.  But, Farfrae," said
+Henchard gloomily, "by doing right with Susan I wrong
+another innocent woman."
+
+"Ye don't say that?"
+
+"In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is almost impossible
+that a man of my sort should have the good fortune to tide
+through twenty years o' life without making more blunders
+than one.  It has been my custom for many years to run
+across to Jersey in the the way of business, particularly in
+the potato and root season.  I do a large trade wi' them in
+that line.  Well, one autumn when stopping there I fell
+quite ill, and in my illness I sank into one of those gloomy
+fits I sometimes suffer from, on account o' the loneliness
+of my domestic life, when the world seems to have the
+blackness of hell, and, like Job, I could curse the day that
+gave me birth."
+
+"Ah, now, I never feel like it," said Farfrae.
+
+"Then pray to God that you never may, young man.  While in
+this state I was taken pity on by a woman--a young lady I
+should call her, for she was of good family, well bred, and
+well educated--the daughter of some harum-scarum military
+officer who had got into difficulties, and had his pay
+sequestrated.  He was dead now, and her mother too, and she
+was as lonely as I.  This young creature was staying at the
+boarding-house where I happened to have my lodging; and when
+I was pulled down she took upon herself to nurse me.  From
+that she got to have a foolish liking for me.  Heaven knows
+why, for I wasn't worth it.  But being together in the same
+house, and her feeling warm, we got naturally intimate.  I
+won't go into particulars of what our relations were.  It is
+enough to say that we honestly meant to marry.  There arose
+a scandal, which did me no harm, but was of course ruin to
+her.  Though, Farfrae, between you and me, as man and man, I
+solemnly declare that philandering with womankind has
+neither been my vice nor my virtue.  She was terribly
+careless of appearances, and I was perhaps more, because o'
+my dreary state; and it was through this that the scandal
+arose.  At last I was well, and came away.  When I was gone
+she suffered much on my account, and didn't forget to tell
+me so in letters one after another; till latterly, I felt I
+owed her something, and thought that, as I had not heard of
+Susan for so long, I would make this other one the only
+return I could make, and ask her if she would run the risk
+of Susan being alive (very slight as I believed) and marry
+me, such as I was.  She jumped for joy, and we should no
+doubt soon have been married--but, behold, Susan appears!"
+
+Donald showed his deep concern at a complication so far
+beyond the degree of his simple experiences.
+
+"Now see what injury a man may cause around him!  Even after
+that wrong-doing at the fair when I was young, if I had
+never been so selfish as to let this giddy girl devote
+herself to me over at Jersey, to the injury of her name, all
+might now be well.  Yet, as it stands, I must bitterly
+disappoint one of these women; and it is the second.  My
+first duty is to Susan--there's no doubt about that."
+
+"They are both in a very melancholy position, and that's
+true!" murmured Donald.
+
+"They are!  For myself I don't care--'twill all end one way.
+But these two."  Henchard paused in reverie.  "I feel I
+should like to treat the second, no less than the first, as
+kindly as a man can in such a case."
+
+"Ah, well, it cannet be helped!" said the other, with
+philosophic woefulness.  "You mun write to the young lady,
+and in your letter you must put it plain and honest that it
+turns out she cannet be your wife, the first having come
+back; that ye cannet see her more; and that--ye wish her
+weel."
+
+"That won't do.  'Od seize it, I must do a little more than
+that!  I must--though she did always brag about her rich
+uncle or rich aunt, and her expectations from 'em--I must
+send a useful sum of money to her, I suppose--just as a
+little recompense, poor girl....Now, will you help me in
+this, and draw up an explanation to her of all I've told ye,
+breaking it as gently as you can? I'm so bad at letters."
+
+"And I will."
+
+"Now, I haven't told you quite all yet.  My wife Susan has
+my daughter with her--the baby that was in her arms at the
+fair; and this girl knows nothing of me beyond that I am
+some sort of relation by marriage.  She has grown up in the
+belief that the sailor to whom I made over her mother, and
+who is now dead, was her father, and her mother's husband.
+
+What her mother has always felt, she and I together feel
+now--that we can't proclaim our disgrace to the girl by
+letting her know the truth.  Now what would you do?--I want
+your advice."
+
+"I think I'd run the risk, and tell her the truth.  She'll
+forgive ye both."
+
+"Never!" said Henchard.  "I am not going to let her know the
+truth.  Her mother and I be going to marry again; and it
+will not only help us to keep our child's respect, but it
+will be more proper.  Susan looks upon herself as the
+sailor's widow, and won't think o' living with me as
+formerly without another religious ceremony--and she's
+right."
+
+Farfrae thereupon said no more.  The letter to the young
+Jersey woman was carefully framed by him, and the interview
+ended, Henchard saying, as the Scotchman left, "I feel it a
+great relief, Farfrae, to tell some friend o' this!  You see
+now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so thriving in his
+mind as it seems he might be from the state of his pocket."
+
+"I do.  And I'm sorry for ye!" said Farfrae.
+
+When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing
+a cheque, took it to the post-office, from which he walked
+back thoughtfully.
+
+"Can it be that it will go off so easily!" he said.  "Poor
+thing--God knows!  Now then, to make amends to Susan!"
+
+
+
+13.
+
+
+The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan
+under her name of Newson--in pursuance of their plan--was in
+the upper or western part of the town, near the Roman wall,
+and the avenue which overshadowed it. The evening sun seemed
+to shine more yellowly there than anywhere else this autumn--
+stretching its rays, as the hours grew later, under the
+lowest sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the
+dwelling, with its green shutters, in a substratum of
+radiance which the foliage screened from the upper parts.
+Beneath these sycamores on the town walls could be seen from
+the sitting-room the tumuli and earth forts of the distant
+uplands; making it altogether a pleasant spot, with the
+usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked prospect lends.
+
+As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably
+installed, with a white-aproned servant and all complete,
+Henchard paid them a visit, and remained to tea.  During the
+entertainment Elizabeth was carefully hoodwinked by the very
+general tone of the conversation that prevailed--a
+proceeding which seemed to afford some humour to Henchard,
+though his wife was not particularly happy in it.  The visit
+was repeated again and again with business-like
+determination by the Mayor, who seemed to have schooled
+himself into a course of strict mechanical rightness towards
+this woman of prior claim, at any expense to the later one
+and to his own sentiments.
+
+One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard
+came, and he said drily, "This is a very good opportunity
+for me to ask you to name the happy day, Susan."
+
+The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy
+pleasantries on a situation into which she had entered
+solely for the sake of her girl's reputation.  She liked
+them so little, indeed, that there was room for wonder why
+she had countenanced deception at all, and had not bravely
+let the girl know her history.  But the flesh is weak; and
+the true explanation came in due course.
+
+"O Michael!" she said, "I am afraid all this is taking up
+your time and giving trouble--when I did not expect any such
+thing!" And she looked at him and at his dress as a man of
+affluence, and at the furniture he had provided for the
+room--ornate and lavish to her eyes.
+
+"Not at all," said Henchard, in rough benignity.  "This is
+only a cottage--it costs me next to nothing.  And as to
+taking up my time"--here his red and black visage kindled
+with satisfaction--"I've a splendid fellow to superintend my
+business now--a man whose like I've never been able to lay
+hands on before.  I shall soon be able to leave everything
+to him, and have more time to call my own than I've had for
+these last twenty years."
+
+Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and so regular that
+it soon became whispered, and then openly discussed in
+Casterbridge that the masterful, coercive Mayor of the town
+was raptured and enervated by the genteel widow Mrs. Newson.
+His well-known haughty indifference to the society of
+womankind, his silent avoidance of converse with the sex,
+contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an
+unromantic matter enough.  That such a poor fragile woman
+should be his choice was inexplicable, except on the ground
+that the engagement was a family affair in which sentimental
+passion had no place; for it was known that they were
+related in some way.  Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the
+boys called her "The Ghost."  Sometimes Henchard overheard
+this epithet when they passed together along the Walks--as
+the avenues on the walls were named--at which his face would
+darken with an expression of destructiveness towards the
+speakers ominous to see; but he said nothing.
+
+He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather
+reunion, with this pale creature in a dogged, unflinching
+spirit which did credit to his conscientiousness.  Nobody
+would have conceived from his outward demeanour that there
+was no amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as stimulant
+to the bustle going on in his gaunt, great house; nothing
+but three large resolves--one, to make amends to his
+neglected Susan, another, to provide a comfortable home for
+Elizabeth-Jane under his paternal eye; and a third, to
+castigate himself with the thorns which these restitutory
+acts brought in their train; among them the lowering of his
+dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively
+humble a woman.
+
+Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her
+life when she stepped into the plain brougham which drew up
+at the door on the wedding-day to take her and Elizabeth-
+Jane to church.  It was a windless morning of warm November
+rain, which floated down like meal, and lay in a powdery
+form on the nap of hats and coats.  Few people had gathered
+round the church door though they were well packed within.
+The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of course the
+only one present, beyond the chief actors, who knew the true
+situation of the contracting parties.  He, however, was too
+inexperienced, too thoughtful, too judicial, too strongly
+conscious of the serious side of the business, to enter into
+the scene in its dramatic aspect.  That required the special
+genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and
+their fellows.  But they knew nothing of the secret; though,
+as the time for coming out of church drew on, they gathered
+on the pavement adjoining, and expounded the subject
+according to their lights.
+
+"'Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this
+here town," said Coney; "but daze me if I ever see a man
+wait so long before to take so little!  There's a chance even
+for thee after this, Nance Mockridge."  The remark was
+addressed to a woman who stood behind his shoulder--the same
+who had exhibited Henchard's bad bread in public when
+Elizabeth and her mother entered Casterbridge.
+
+"Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or thee either,"
+replied that lady.  "As for thee, Christopher, we know what
+ye be, and the less said the better.  And as for he--well,
+there--(lowering her voice) 'tis said 'a was a poor parish
+'prentice--I wouldn't say it for all the world--but 'a was a
+poor parish 'prentice, that began life wi' no more belonging
+to 'en than a carrion crow."
+
+"And now he's worth ever so much a minute," murmured
+Longways.  "When a man is said to be worth so much a minute,
+he's a man to be considered!"
+
+Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases,
+and recognized the smiling countenance of the fat woman who
+had asked for another song at the Three Mariners.  "Well,
+Mother Cuxsom," he said, "how's this? Here's Mrs. Newson, a
+mere skellinton, has got another husband to keep her, while
+a woman of your tonnage have not."
+
+"I have not.  Nor another to beat me....Ah, yes, Cuxsom's
+gone, and so shall leather breeches!"
+
+"Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go."
+
+"'Tisn't worth my old while to think of another husband,"
+continued Mrs. Cuxsom.  "And yet I'll lay my life I'm as
+respectable born as she."
+
+"True; your mother was a very good woman--I can mind her.
+She were rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having
+begot the greatest number of healthy children without parish
+assistance, and other virtuous marvels."
+
+"'Twas that that kept us so low upon ground--that great
+hungry family."
+
+"Ay.  Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin."
+
+"And dostn't mind how mother would sing, Christopher?"
+continued Mrs. Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; "and
+how we went with her to the party at Mellstock, do ye mind?--
+at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Shinar's aunt, do ye mind?--
+she we used to call Toad-skin, because her face were so
+yaller and freckled, do ye mind?"
+
+"I do, hee-hee, I do!" said Christopher Coney.
+
+"And well do I--for I was getting up husband-high at that
+time--one-half girl, and t'other half woman, as one may say.
+And canst mind"--she prodded Solomon's shoulder with her
+finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled between the crevices of
+their lids--"canst mind the sherry-wine, and the zilver-
+snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took bad when we were
+coming home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through
+the mud; and how 'a let her fall in Dairyman Sweet-apple's
+cow-barton, and we had to clane her gown wi' grass--never
+such a mess as a' were in?"
+
+"Ay--that I do--hee-hee, such doggery as there was in them
+ancient days, to be sure!  Ah, the miles I used to walk then;
+and now I can hardly step over a furrow!"
+
+Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearance of the
+reunited pair--Henchard looking round upon the idlers with
+that ambiguous gaze of his, which at one moment seemed to
+mean satisfaction, and at another fiery disdain.
+
+"Well--there's a difference between 'em, though he do call
+himself a teetotaller," said Nance Mockridge.  "She'll wish
+her cake dough afore she's done of him.  There's a blue-
+beardy look about 'en; and 'twill out in time."
+
+"Stuff--he's well enough!  Some folk want their luck
+buttered.  If I had a choice as wide as the ocean sea I
+wouldn't wish for a better man.  A poor twanking woman like
+her--'tis a godsend for her, and hardly a pair of jumps or
+night-rail to her name."
+
+The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, and the
+idlers dispersed.  "Well, we hardly know how to look at
+things in these times!" said Solomon.  "There was a man
+dropped down dead yesterday, not so very many miles from
+here; and what wi' that, and this moist weather, 'tis scarce
+worth one's while to begin any work o' consequence to-day.
+I'm in such a low key with drinking nothing but small table
+ninepenny this last week or two that I shall call and warm
+up at the Mar'ners as I pass along."
+
+"I don't know but that I may as well go with 'ee, Solomon,"
+said Christopher; "I'm as clammy as a cockle-snail."
+
+
+
+14.
+
+
+A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard's life set in with her
+entry into her husband's large house and respectable social
+orbit; and it was as bright as such summers well can be.
+Lest she should pine for deeper affection than he could give
+he made a point of showing some semblance of it in external
+action.  Among other things he had the iron railings, that
+had smiled sadly in dull rust for the last eighty years,
+painted a bright green, and the heavy-barred, small-paned
+Georgian sash windows enlivened with three coats of white.
+He was as kind to her as a man, mayor, and churchwarden
+could possibly be.  The house was large, the rooms lofty,
+and the landings wide; and the two unassuming women scarcely
+made a perceptible addition to its contents.
+
+To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one.  The
+freedom she experienced, the indulgence with which she was
+treated, went beyond her expectations.  The reposeful, easy,
+affluent life to which her mother's marriage had introduced
+her was, in truth, the beginning of a great change in
+Elizabeth.  She found she could have nice personal
+possessions and ornaments for the asking, and, as the
+mediaeval saying puts it, "Take, have, and keep, are
+pleasant words."  With peace of mind came development, and
+with development beauty.  Knowledge--the result of great
+natural insight--she did not lack; learning, accomplishment--
+those, alas, she had not; but as the winter and spring
+passed by her thin face and figure filled out in rounder and
+softer curves; the lines and contractions upon her young
+brow went away; the muddiness of skin which she had looked
+upon as her lot by nature departed with a change to
+abundance of good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek.
+Perhaps, too, her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed an arch
+gaiety sometimes; but this was infrequent; the sort of
+wisdom which looked from their pupils did not readily keep
+company with these lighter moods.  Like all people who have
+known rough times, light-heartedness seemed to her too
+irrational and inconsequent to be indulged in except as a
+reckless dram now and then; for she had been too early
+habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly.
+She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit which beset
+so many people without cause; never--to paraphrase a recent
+poet--never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well
+knew how it came there; and her present cheerfulness was
+fairly proportionate to her solid guarantees for the same.
+
+It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly
+becoming good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for
+the first time in her life commanding ready money, she would
+go and make a fool of herself by dress.  But no.  The
+reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth did was
+nowhere more conspicuous than in this question of clothes.
+To keep in the rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence
+is as valuable a habit as to keep abreast of opportunity in
+matters of enterprise.  This unsophisticated girl did it by
+an innate perceptiveness that was almost genius.  Thus she
+refrained from bursting out like a water-flower that spring,
+and clothing herself in puffings and knick-knacks, as most
+of the Casterbridge girls would have done in her
+circumstances.  Her triumph was tempered by circumspection,
+she had still that field-mouse fear of the coulter of
+destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the
+thoughtful who have suffered early from poverty and
+oppression.
+
+"I won't be too gay on any account," she would say to
+herself.  "It would be tempting Providence to hurl mother
+and me down, and afflict us again as He used to do."
+
+We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk
+spencer, dark dress, and carrying a sunshade.  In this
+latter article she drew the line at fringe, and had it plain
+edged, with a little ivory ring for keeping it closed.  It
+was odd about the necessity for that sunshade.  She
+discovered that with the clarification of her complexion and
+the birth of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive
+to the sun's rays.  She protected those cheeks forthwith,
+deeming spotlessness part of womanliness.
+
+Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with
+him more frequently than with her mother now.  Her
+appearance one day was so attractive that he looked at her
+critically.
+
+"I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up," she
+faltered, thinking him perhaps dissatisfied with some rather
+bright trimming she had donned for the first time.
+
+"Ay--of course--to be sure," he replied in his leonine way.
+"Do as you like--or rather as your mother advises ye.  'Od
+send--I've nothing to say to't!"
+
+Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that
+arched like a white rainbow from ear to ear.  All in front
+of this line was covered with a thick encampment of curls;
+all behind was dressed smoothly, and drawn to a knob.
+
+The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast
+one day, and Henchard was looking silently, as he often did,
+at this head of hair, which in colour was brown--rather
+light than dark.  "I thought Elizabeth-Jane's hair--didn't
+you tell me that Elizabeth-Jane's hair promised to be black
+when she was a baby?" he said to his wife.
+
+She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and
+murmured, "Did I?"
+
+As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard
+resumed.  "Begad, I nearly forgot myself just now!  What I
+meant was that the girl's hair certainly looked as if it
+would be darker, when she was a baby."
+
+"It did; but they alter so," replied Susan.
+
+"Their hair gets darker, I know--but I wasn't aware it
+lightened ever?"
+
+"O yes."  And the same uneasy expression came out on her
+face, to which the future held the key.  It passed as
+Henchard went on:
+
+"Well, so much the better.  Now Susan, I want to have her
+called Miss Henchard--not Miss Newson.  Lots o' people do it
+already in carelessness--it is her legal name--so it may as
+well be made her usual name--I don't like t'other name at
+all for my own flesh and blood.  I'll advertise it in the
+Casterbridge paper--that's the way they do it.  She won't
+object."
+
+"No.  O no.  But--"
+
+"Well, then, I shall do it," he said, peremptorily.
+"Surely, if she's willing, you must wish it as much as I?"
+
+"O yes--if she agrees let us do it by all means," she
+replied.
+
+Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might
+have been called falsely, but that her manner was emotional
+and full of the earnestness of one who wishes to do right at
+great hazard.  She went to Elizabeth-Jane, whom she found
+sewing in her own sitting-room upstairs, and told her what
+had been proposed about her surname.  "Can you agree--is it
+not a slight upon Newson--now he's dead and gone?"
+
+Elizabeth reflected.  "I'll think of it, mother," she
+answered.
+
+When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to
+the matter at once, in a way which showed that the line of
+feeling started by her mother had been persevered in.  "Do
+you wish this change so very much, sir?" she asked.
+
+"Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women
+make about a trifle!  I proposed it--that's all.  Now,
+'Lizabeth-Jane, just please yourself.  Curse me if I care
+what you do.  Now, you understand, don't 'ee go agreeing to
+it to please me."
+
+Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said, and
+nothing was done, and Elizabeth still passed as Miss Newson,
+and not by her legal name.
+
+Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by
+Henchard throve under the management of Donald Farfrae as it
+had never thriven before.  It had formerly moved in jolts;
+now it went on oiled casters.  The old crude viva voce
+system of Henchard, in which everything depended upon his
+memory, and bargains were made by the tongue alone, was
+swept away.  Letters and ledgers took the place of "I'll
+do't," and "you shall hae't"; and, as in all such cases of
+advance, the rugged picturesqueness of the old method
+disappeared with its inconveniences.
+
+The position of Elizabeth-Jane's room--rather high in the
+house, so that it commanded a view of the hay-stores and
+granaries across the garden--afforded her opportunity for
+accurate observation of what went on there.  She saw that
+Donald and Mr. Henchard were inseparables.  When walking
+together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on his
+manager's shoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother,
+bearing so heavily that his slight frame bent under the
+weight.  Occasionally she would hear a perfect cannonade of
+laughter from Henchard, arising from something Donald had
+said, the latter looking quite innocent and not laughing at
+all.  In Henchard's somewhat lonely life he evidently found
+the young man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful
+for consultations.  Donald's brightness of intellect
+maintained in the corn-factor the admiration it had won at
+the first hour of their meeting.  The poor opinion, and but
+ill-concealed, that he entertained of the slim Farfrae's
+physical girth, strength, and dash was more than
+counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his
+brains.
+
+Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard's tigerish affection
+for the younger man, his constant liking to have Farfrae
+near him, now and then resulted in a tendency to domineer,
+which, however, was checked in a moment when Donald
+exhibited marks of real offence.  One day, looking down on
+their figures from on high, she heard the latter remark, as
+they stood in the doorway between the garden and yard, that
+their habit of walking and driving about together rather
+neutralized Farfrae's value as a second pair of eyes, which
+should be used in places where the principal was not.  "'Od
+damn it," cried Henchard, "what's all the world!  I like a
+fellow to talk to.  Now come along and hae some supper, and
+don't take too much thought about things, or ye'll drive me
+crazy."
+
+When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she
+often beheld the Scotchman looking at them with a curious
+interest.  The fact that he had met her at the Three
+Mariners was insufficient to account for it, since on the
+occasions on which she had entered his room he had never
+raised his eyes.  Besides, it was at her mother more
+particularly than at herself that he looked, to Elizabeth-
+Jane's half-conscious, simple-minded, perhaps pardonable,
+disappointment.  Thus she could not account for this
+interest by her own attractiveness, and she decided that it
+might be apparent only--a way of turning his eyes that Mr.
+Farfrae had.
+
+She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner,
+without personal vanity, that was afforded by the fact of
+Donald being the depositary of Henchard's confidence in
+respect of his past treatment of the pale, chastened mother
+who walked by her side.  Her conjectures on that past never
+went further than faint ones based on things casually heard
+and seen--mere guesses that Henchard and her mother might
+have been lovers in their younger days, who had quarrelled
+and parted.
+
+Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in
+the block upon a corn-field.  There was no suburb in the
+modern sense, or transitional intermixture of town and down.
+It stood, with regard to the wide fertile land adjoining,
+clean-cut and distinct, like a chess-board on a green
+tablecloth.  The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow
+and pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk;
+reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintances
+standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge, when
+he condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the
+tune of Baa, that floated in at the window from the
+remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at executions
+the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the
+drop, out of which the cows had been temporarily driven to
+give the spectators room.
+
+The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was
+garnered by farmers who lived in an eastern purlieu called
+Durnover.  Here wheat-ricks overhung the old Roman street,
+and thrust their eaves against the church tower; green-
+thatched barns, with doorways as high as the gates of
+Solomon's temple, opened directly upon the main
+thoroughfare.  Barns indeed were so numerous as to alternate
+with every half-dozen houses along the way.  Here lived
+burgesses who daily walked the fallow; shepherds in an
+intra-mural squeeze.  A street of farmers' homesteads--a
+street ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoing with
+the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan,
+and the purr of the milk into the pails--a street which had
+nothing urban in it whatever--this was the Durnover end of
+Casterbridge.
+
+Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or
+bed of small farmers close at hand--and his waggons were
+often down that way.  One day, when arrangements were in
+progress for getting home corn from one of the aforesaid
+farms, Elizabeth-Jane received a note by hand, asking her to
+oblige the writer by coming at once to a granary on Durnover
+Hill.  As this was the granary whose contents Henchard was
+removing, she thought the request had something to do with
+his business, and proceeded thither as soon as she had put
+on her bonnet.  The granary was just within the farm-yard,
+and stood on stone staddles, high enough for persons to walk
+under.  The gates were open, but nobody was within.
+However, she entered and waited.  Presently she saw a figure
+approaching the gate--that of Donald Farfrae.  He looked up
+at the church clock, and came in.  By some unaccountable
+shyness, some wish not to meet him there alone, she quickly
+ascended the step-ladder leading to the granary door, and
+entered it before he had seen her.  Farfrae advanced,
+imagining himself in solitude, and a few drops of rain
+beginning to fall he moved and stood under the shelter where
+she had just been standing.  Here he leant against one of
+the staddles, and gave himself up to patience.  He, too, was
+plainly expecting some one; could it be herself? If so, why?
+In a few minutes he looked at his watch, and then pulled out
+a note, a duplicate of the one she had herself received.
+
+This situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she
+waited the more awkward it became.  To emerge from a door
+just above his head and descend the ladder, and show she had
+been in hiding there, would look so very foolish that she
+still waited on.  A winnowing machine stood close beside
+her, and to relieve her suspense she gently moved the
+handle; whereupon a cloud of wheat husks flew out into her
+face, and covered her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the
+fur of her victorine.  He must have heard the slight
+movement for he looked up, and then ascended the steps.
+
+"Ah--it's Miss Newson," he said as soon as he could see into
+the granary.  "I didn't know you were there.  I have kept
+the appointment, and am at your service."
+
+"O Mr. Farfrae," she faltered, "so have I.  But I didn't
+know it was you who wished to see me, otherwise I--"
+
+"I wished to see you? O no--at least, that is, I am afraid
+there may be a mistake."
+
+"Didn't you ask me to come here? Didn't you write this?"
+Elizabeth held out her note.
+
+"No.  Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it!  And for
+you--didn't you ask me? This is not your writing?" And he
+held up his.
+
+"By no means."
+
+"And is that really so!  Then it's somebody wanting to see us
+both.  Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer."
+
+Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane's
+face being arranged to an expression of preternatural
+composure, and the young Scot, at every footstep in the
+street without, looking from under the granary to see if the
+passer were about to enter and declare himself their
+summoner.  They watched individual drops of rain creeping
+down the thatch of the opposite rick--straw after straw--
+till they reached the bottom; but nobody came, and the
+granary roof began to drip.
+
+"The person is not likely to be coming," said Farfrae.
+"It's a trick perhaps, and if so, it's a great pity to waste
+our time like this, and so much to be done."
+
+"'Tis a great liberty," said Elizabeth.
+
+"It's true, Miss Newson.  We'll hear news of this some day
+depend on't, and who it was that did it.  I wouldn't stand
+for it hindering myself; but you, Miss Newson----"
+
+"I don't mind--much,' she replied.
+
+"Neither do I."
+
+They lapsed again into silence.  "You are anxious to get
+back to Scotland, I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?" she inquired.
+
+"O no, Miss Newson.  Why would I be?"
+
+"I only supposed you might be from the song you sang at the
+Three Mariners--about Scotland and home, I mean--which you
+seemed to feel so deep down in your heart; so that we all
+felt for you."
+
+"Ay--and I did sing there--I did----But, Miss Newson"--and
+Donald's voice musically undulated between two semi-tones as
+it always did when he became earnest--"it's well you feel a
+song for a few minutes, and your eyes they get quite
+tearful; but you finish it, and for all you felt you don't
+mind it or think of it again for a long while.  O no, I
+don't want to go back!  Yet I'll sing the song to you wi'
+pleasure whenever you like.  I could sing it now, and not
+mind at all?"
+
+"Thank you, indeed.  But I fear I must go--rain or no."
+
+"Ay!  Then, Miss Newson, ye had better say nothing about this
+hoax, and take no heed of it.  And if the person should say
+anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not
+mind it--so you'll take the clever person's laugh away."  In
+speaking his eyes became fixed upon her dress, still sown
+with wheat husks.  "There's husks and dust on you.  Perhaps
+you don't know it?" he said, in tones of extreme delicacy.
+"And it's very bad to let rain come upon clothes when
+there's chaff on them.  It washes in and spoils them.  Let
+me help you--blowing is the best."
+
+As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented Donald Farfrae
+began blowing her back hair, and her side hair, and her
+neck, and the crown of her bonnet, and the fur of her
+victorine, Elizabeth saying, "O, thank you," at every puff.
+At last she was fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got
+over his first concern at the situation, seemed in no manner
+of hurry to be gone.
+
+"Ah--now I'll go and get ye an umbrella," he said.
+
+She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone.  Farfrae
+walked slowly after, looking thoughtfully at her diminishing
+figure, and whistling in undertones, "As I came down through
+Cannobie."
+
+
+
+15.
+
+
+At first Miss Newson's budding beauty was not regarded with
+much interest by anybody in Casterbridge.  Donald Farfrae's
+gaze, it is true, was now attracted by the Mayor's so-called
+step-daughter, but he was only one.  The truth is that she
+was but a poor illustrative instance of the prophet Baruch's
+sly definition: "The virgin that loveth to go gay."
+
+When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an
+inner chamber of ideas, and to have slight need for visible
+objects.  She formed curious resolves on checking gay
+fancies in the matter of clothes, because it was
+inconsistent with her past life to blossom gaudily the
+moment she had become possessed of money.  But nothing is
+more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere
+fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.  Henchard gave
+Elizabeth-Jane a box of delicately-tinted gloves one spring
+day.  She wanted to wear them to show her appreciation of
+his kindness, but she had no bonnet that would harmonize.
+As an artistic indulgence she thought she would have such a
+bonnet.  When she had a bonnet that would go with the gloves
+she had no dress that would go with the bonnet.  It was now
+absolutely necessary to finish; she ordered the requisite
+article, and found that she had no sunshade to go with the
+dress.  In for a penny in for a pound; she bought the
+sunshade, and the whole structure was at last complete.
+
+Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygone
+simplicity was the art that conceals art, the "delicate
+imposition" of Rochefoucauld; she had produced an effect, a
+contrast, and it had been done on purpose.  As a matter of
+fact this was not true, but it had its result; for as soon
+as Casterbridge thought her artful it thought her worth
+notice.  "It is the first time in my life that I have been
+so much admired," she said to herself; "though perhaps it is
+by those whose admiration is not worth having."
+
+But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogether the time
+was an exciting one; sex had never before asserted itself in
+her so strongly, for in former days she had perhaps been too
+impersonally human to be distinctively feminine.  After an
+unprecedented success one day she came indoors, went
+upstairs, and leant upon her bed face downwards quite
+forgetting the possible creasing and damage.  "Good Heaven,"
+she whispered, "can it be? Here am I setting up as the town
+beauty!"
+
+When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggerating
+appearances engendered a deep sadness.  "There is something
+wrong in all this," she mused.  "If they only knew what an
+unfinished girl I am--that I can't talk Italian, or use
+globes, or show any of the accomplishments they learn at
+boarding schools, how they would despise me!  Better sell all
+this finery and buy myself grammar-books and dictionaries
+and a history of all the philosophies!"
+
+She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfrae in
+the hay-yard talking, with that impetuous cordiality on the
+Mayor's part, and genial modesty on the younger man's, that
+was now so generally observable in their intercourse.
+Friendship between man and man; what a rugged strength there
+was in it, as evinced by these two.  And yet the seed that
+was to lift the foundation of this friendship was at that
+moment taking root in a chink of its structure.
+
+It was about six o'clock; the men were dropping off homeward
+one by one.  The last to leave was a round-shouldered,
+blinking young man of nineteen or twenty, whose mouth fell
+ajar on the slightest provocation, seemingly because there
+was no chin to support it.  Henchard called aloud to him as
+he went out of the gate, "Here--Abel Whittle!"
+
+Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps.  "Yes, sir," he
+said, in breathless deprecation, as if he knew what was
+coming next.
+
+"Once more--be in time to-morrow morning.  You see what's to
+be done, and you hear what I say, and you know I'm not going
+to be trifled with any longer."
+
+"Yes, sir."  Then Abel Whittle left, and Henchard and
+Farfrae; and Elizabeth saw no more of them.
+
+Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard's
+part.  Poor Abel, as he was called, had an inveterate habit
+of over-sleeping himself and coming late to his work.  His
+anxious will was to be among the earliest; but if his
+comrades omitted to pull the string that he always tied
+round his great toe and left hanging out the window for that
+purpose, his will was as wind.  He did not arrive in time.
+
+As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, or at the
+crane which lifted the sacks, or was one of those who had to
+accompany the waggons into the country to fetch away stacks
+that had been purchased, this affliction of Abel's was
+productive of much inconvenience.  For two mornings in the
+present week he had kept the others waiting nearly an hour;
+hence Henchard's threat.  It now remained to be seen what
+would happen to-morrow.
+
+Six o'clock struck, and there was no Whittle.  At half-past
+six Henchard entered the yard; the waggon was horsed that
+Abel was to accompany; and the other man had been waiting
+twenty minutes.  Then Henchard swore, and Whittle coming up
+breathless at that instant, the corn-factor turned on him,
+and declared with an oath that this was the last time; that
+if he were behind once more, by God, he would come and drag
+him out o' bed.
+
+"There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!" said
+Abel, "especially in the inside, whereas my poor dumb brain
+gets as dead as a clot afore I've said my few scrags of
+prayers.  Yes--it came on as a stripling, just afore I'd got
+man's wages, whereas I never enjoy my bed at all, for no
+sooner do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore I be awake
+I be up.  I've fretted my gizzard green about it, maister,
+but what can I do? Now last night, afore I went to bed, I
+only had a scantling o' cheese and--"
+
+"I don't want to hear it!" roared Henchard.  "To-morrow the
+waggons must start at four, and if you're not here, stand
+clear.  I'll mortify thy flesh for thee!"
+
+"But let me clear up my points, your worshipful----"
+
+Henchard turned away.
+
+"He asked me and he questioned me, and then 'a wouldn't hear
+my points!" said Abel, to the yard in general.  "Now, I
+shall twitch like a moment-hand all night to-night for fear
+o' him!"
+
+The journey to be taken by the waggons next day was a long
+one into Blackmoor Vale, and at four o'clock lanterns were
+moving about the yard.  But Abel was missing.  Before either
+of the other men could run to Abel's and warn him Henchard
+appeared in the garden doorway.  "Where's Abel Whittle? Not
+come after all I've said? Now I'll carry out my word, by my
+blessed fathers--nothing else will do him any good!  I'm
+going up that way."
+
+Henchard went off, entered Abel's house, a little cottage in
+Back Street, the door of which was never locked because the
+inmates had nothing to lose.  Reaching Whittle's bedside the
+corn-factor shouted a bass note so vigorously that Abel
+started up instantly, and beholding Henchard standing over
+him, was galvanized into spasmodic movements which had not
+much relation to getting on his clothes.
+
+"Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, or you leave my
+employ to-day!  'Tis to teach ye a lesson.  March on; never
+mind your breeches!"
+
+The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat, and
+managed to get into his boots at the bottom of the stairs,
+while Henchard thrust his hat over his head.  Whittle then
+trotted on down Back Street, Henchard walking sternly
+behind.
+
+Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard's house
+to look for him, came out of the back gate, and saw
+something white fluttering in the morning gloom, which he
+soon perceived to be part of Abel's shirt that showed below
+his waistcoat.
+
+"For maircy's sake, what object's this?" said Farfrae,
+following Abel into the yard, Henchard being some way in the
+rear by this time.
+
+"Ye see, Mr. Farfrae," gibbered Abel with a resigned smile
+of terror, "he said he'd mortify my flesh if so be I didn't
+get up sooner, and now he's a-doing on't!  Ye see it can't be
+helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do happen queer sometimes!  Yes--
+I'll go to Blackmoor Vale half naked as I be, since he do
+command; but I shall kill myself afterwards; I can't outlive
+the disgrace, for the women-folk will be looking out of
+their winders at my mortification all the way along, and
+laughing me to scorn as a man 'ithout breeches!  You know how
+I feel such things, Maister Farfrae, and how forlorn
+thoughts get hold upon me.  Yes--I shall do myself harm--I
+feel it coming on!"
+
+"Get back home, and slip on your breeches, and come to wark
+like a man!  If ye go not, you'll ha'e your death standing
+there!"
+
+"I'm afeard I mustn't!  Mr. Henchard said----"
+
+"I don't care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else!  'Tis
+simple foolishness to do this.  Go and dress yourself
+instantly Whittle."
+
+"Hullo, hullo!" said Henchard, coming up behind.  "Who's
+sending him back?"
+
+All the men looked towards Farfrae.
+
+"I am," said Donald.  "I say this joke has been carried far
+enough."
+
+"And I say it hasn't!  Get up in the waggon, Whittle."
+
+"Not if I am manager," said Farfrae.  "He either goes home,
+or I march out of this yard for good."
+
+Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red.  But he
+paused for a moment, and their eyes met.  Donald went up to
+him, for he saw in Henchard's look that he began to regret
+this.
+
+"Come," said Donald quietly, "a man o' your position should
+ken better, sir!  It is tyrannical and no worthy of you."
+
+"'Tis not tyrannical!" murmured Henchard, like a sullen boy.
+"It is to make him remember!" He presently added, in a tone
+of one bitterly hurt: "Why did you speak to me before them
+like that, Farfrae? You might have stopped till we were
+alone.  Ah--I know why!  I've told ye the secret o' my life--
+fool that I was to do't--and you take advantage of me!"
+
+"I had forgot it," said Farfrae simply.
+
+Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more, and turned
+away.  During the day Farfrae learnt from the men that
+Henchard had kept Abel's old mother in coals and snuff all
+the previous winter, which made him less antagonistic to the
+corn-factor.  But Henchard continued moody and silent, and
+when one of the men inquired of him if some oats should be
+hoisted to an upper floor or not, he said shortly, "Ask Mr.
+Farfrae.  He's master here!"
+
+Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it.  Henchard,
+who had hitherto been the most admired man in his circle,
+was the most admired no longer.  One day the daughters of a
+deceased farmer in Durnover wanted an opinion of the value
+of their haystack, and sent a messenger to ask Mr. Farfrae
+to oblige them with one.  The messenger, who was a child,
+met in the yard not Farfrae, but Henchard.
+
+"Very well," he said. "I'll come."
+
+"But please will Mr. Farfrae come?" said the child.
+
+"I am going that way....Why Mr. Farfrae?" said Henchard,
+with the fixed look of thought.  "Why do people always want
+Mr. Farfrae?"
+
+"I suppose because they like him so--that's what they say."
+
+"Oh--I see--that's what they say--hey? They like him because
+he's cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more;
+and, in short, Mr. Henchard can't hold a candle to him--
+hey?"
+
+"Yes--that's just it, sir--some of it."
+
+"Oh, there's more? Of course there's more!  What besides?
+Come, here's a sixpence for a fairing."
+
+"'And he's better tempered, and Henchard's a fool to him,'
+they say.  And when some of the women were a-walking home
+they said, 'He's a diment--he's a chap o' wax--he's the
+best--he's the horse for my money,' says they.  And they
+said, 'He's the most understanding man o' them two by long
+chalks.  I wish he was the master instead of Henchard,' they
+said."
+
+"They'll talk any nonsense," Henchard replied with covered
+gloom.  "Well, you can go now.  And I am coming to value the
+hay, d'ye hear?--I."  The boy departed, and Henchard
+murmured, "Wish he were master here, do they?"
+
+He went towards Durnover.  On his way he overtook Farfrae.
+They walked on together, Henchard looking mostly on the
+ground.
+
+"You're no yoursel' the day?" Donald inquired.
+
+"Yes, I am very well," said Henchard.
+
+"But ye are a bit down--surely ye are down? Why, there's
+nothing to be angry about!  'Tis splendid stuff that we've
+got from Blackmoor Vale.  By the by, the people in Durnover
+want their hay valued."
+
+"Yes.  I am going there."
+
+"I'll go with ye."
+
+As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music
+sotto voce, till, getting near the bereaved people's
+door, he stopped himself with--
+
+"Ah, as their father is dead I won't go on with such as
+that.  How could I forget?"
+
+"Do you care so very much about hurting folks' feelings?"
+observed Henchard with a half sneer.  "You do, I know--
+especially mine!"
+
+"I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir," replied Donald,
+standing still, with a second expression of the same
+sentiment in the regretfulness of his face.  "Why should you
+say it--think it?"
+
+The cloud lifted from Henchard's brow, and as Donald
+finished the corn-merchant turned to him, regarding his
+breast rather than his face.
+
+"I have been hearing things that vexed me," he said.  "'Twas
+that made me short in my manner--made me overlook what you
+really are.  Now, I don't want to go in here about this hay--
+Farfrae, you can do it better than I.  They sent for 'ee,
+too.  I have to attend a meeting of the Town Council at
+eleven, and 'tis drawing on for't."
+
+They parted thus in renewed friendship, Donald forbearing to
+ask Henchard for meanings that were not very plain to him.
+On Henchard's part there was now again repose; and yet,
+whenever he thought of Farfrae, it was with a dim dread; and
+he often regretted that he had told the young man his whole
+heart, and confided to him the secrets of his life.
+
+
+
+16.
+
+
+On this account Henchard's manner towards Farfrae insensibly
+became more reserved.  He was courteous--too courteous--and
+Farfrae was quite surprised at the good breeding which now
+for the first time showed itself among the qualities of a
+man he had hitherto thought undisciplined, if warm and
+sincere.  The corn-factor seldom or never again put his arm
+upon the young man's shoulder so as to nearly weigh him down
+with the pressure of mechanized friendship.  He left off
+coming to Donald's lodgings and shouting into the passage.
+"Hoy, Farfrae, boy, come and have some dinner with us!  Don't
+sit here in solitary confinement!" But in the daily routine
+of their business there was little change.
+
+Thus their lives rolled on till a day of public rejoicing
+was suggested to the country at large in celebration of a
+national event that had recently taken place.
+
+For some time Casterbridge, by nature slow, made no
+response.  Then one day Donald Farfrae broached the subject
+to Henchard by asking if he would have any objection to lend
+some rick-cloths to himself and a few others, who
+contemplated getting up an entertainment of some sort on the
+day named, and required a shelter for the same, to which
+they might charge admission at the rate of so much a head.
+
+"Have as many cloths as you like," Henchard replied.
+
+When his manager had gone about the business Henchard was
+fired with emulation.  It certainly had been very remiss of
+him, as Mayor, he thought, to call no meeting ere this, to
+discuss what should be done on this holiday.  But Farfrae
+had been so cursed quick in his movements as to give old-
+fashioned people in authority no chance of the initiative.
+However, it was not too late; and on second thoughts he
+determined to take upon his own shoulders the responsibility
+of organizing some amusements, if the other Councilmen would
+leave the matter in his hands.  To this they quite readily
+agreed, the majority being fine old crusted characters who
+had a decided taste for living without worry.
+
+So Henchard set about his preparations for a really
+brilliant thing--such as should be worthy of the venerable
+town.  As for Farfrae's little affair, Henchard nearly
+forgot it; except once now and then when, on it coming into
+his mind, he said to himself, "Charge admission at so much a
+head--just like a Scotchman!--who is going to pay anything a
+head?" The diversions which the Mayor intended to provide
+were to be entirely free.
+
+He had grown so dependent upon Donald that he could scarcely
+resist calling him in to consult.  But by sheer self-
+coercion he refrained.  No, he thought, Farfrae would be
+suggesting such improvements in his damned luminous way that
+in spite of himself he, Henchard, would sink to the position
+of second fiddle, and only scrape harmonies to his manager's
+talents.
+
+Everybody applauded the Mayor's proposed entertainment,
+especially when it became known that he meant to pay for it
+all himself.
+
+Close to the town was an elevated green spot surrounded by
+an ancient square earthwork--earthworks square and not
+square, were as common as blackberries hereabout--a spot
+whereon the Casterbridge people usually held any kind of
+merry-making, meeting, or sheep-fair that required more
+space than the streets would afford.  On one side it sloped
+to the river Froom, and from any point a view was obtained
+of the country round for many miles.  This pleasant upland
+was to be the scene of Henchard's exploit.
+
+He advertised about the town, in long posters of a pink
+colour, that games of all sorts would take place here; and
+set to work a little battalion of men under his own eye.
+They erected greasy-poles for climbing, with smoked hams and
+local cheeses at the top.  They placed hurdles in rows for
+jumping over; across the river they laid a slippery pole,
+with a live pig of the neighbourhood tied at the other end,
+to become the property of the man who could walk over and
+get it.  There were also provided wheelbarrows for racing,
+donkeys for the same, a stage for boxing, wrestling, and
+drawing blood generally; sacks for jumping in.  Moreover,
+not forgetting his principles, Henchard provided a mammoth
+tea, of which everybody who lived in the borough was invited
+to partake without payment.  The tables were laid parallel
+with the inner slope of the rampart, and awnings were
+stretched overhead.
+
+Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractive
+exterior of Farfrae's erection in the West Walk, rick-cloths
+of different sizes and colours being hung up to the arching
+trees without any regard to appearance.  He was easy in his
+mind now, for his own preparations far transcended these.
+
+The morning came.  The sky, which had been remarkably clear
+down to within a day or two, was overcast, and the weather
+threatening, the wind having an unmistakable hint of water
+in it.  Henchard wished he had not been quite so sure about
+the continuance of a fair season.  But it was too late to
+modify or postpone, and the proceedings went on.  At twelve
+o'clock the rain began to fall, small and steady, commencing
+and increasing so insensibly that it was difficult to state
+exactly when dry weather ended or wet established itself.
+In an hour the slight moisture resolved itself into a
+monotonous smiting of earth by heaven, in torrents to which
+no end could be prognosticated.
+
+A number of people had heroically gathered in the field but
+by three o'clock Henchard discerned that his project was
+doomed to end in failure.  The hams at the top of the poles
+dripped watered smoke in the form of a brown liquor, the pig
+shivered in the wind, the grain of the deal tables showed
+through the sticking tablecloths, for the awning allowed the
+rain to drift under at its will, and to enclose the sides at
+this hour seemed a useless undertaking.  The landscape over
+the river disappeared; the wind played on the tent-cords in
+aeolian improvisations, and at length rose to such a pitch
+that the whole erection slanted to the ground those who had
+taken shelter within it having to crawl out on their hands
+and knees.
+
+But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breeze shook
+the moisture from the grass bents.  It seemed possible to
+carry out the programme after all.  The awning was set up
+again; the band was called out from its shelter, and ordered
+to begin, and where the tables had stood a place was cleared
+for dancing.
+
+"But where are the folk?" said Henchard, after the lapse of
+half-an-hour, during which time only two men and a woman had
+stood up to dance.  "The shops are all shut.  Why don't they
+come?"
+
+"They are at Farfrae's affair in the West Walk," answered a
+Councilman who stood in the field with the Mayor.
+
+"A few, I suppose.  But where are the body o 'em?"
+
+"All out of doors are there."
+
+"Then the more fools they!"
+
+Henchard walked away moodily.  One or two young fellows
+gallantly came to climb the poles, to save the hams from
+being wasted; but as there were no spectators, and the whole
+scene presented the most melancholy appearance Henchard gave
+orders that the proceedings were to be suspended, and the
+entertainment closed, the food to be distributed among the
+poor people of the town.  In a short time nothing was left
+in the field but a few hurdles, the tents, and the poles.
+
+Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wife and
+daughter, and then walked out.  It was now dusk.  He soon
+saw that the tendency of all promenaders was towards a
+particular spot in the Walks, and eventually proceeded
+thither himself.  The notes of a stringed band came from the
+enclosure that Farfrae had erected--the pavilion as he
+called it--and when the Mayor reached it he perceived that a
+gigantic tent had been ingeniously constructed without poles
+or ropes.  The densest point of the avenue of sycamores had
+been selected, where the boughs made a closely interlaced
+vault overhead; to these boughs the canvas had been hung,
+and a barrel roof was the result.  The end towards the wind
+was enclosed, the other end was open.  Henchard went round
+and saw the interior.
+
+In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with one gable
+removed, but the scene within was anything but devotional.
+A reel or fling of some sort was in progress; and the
+usually sedate Farfrae was in the midst of the other dancers
+in the costume of a wild Highlander, flinging himself about
+and spinning to the tune.  For a moment Henchard could not
+help laughing.  Then he perceived the immense admiration for
+the Scotchman that revealed itself in the women's faces; and
+when this exhibition was over, and a new dance proposed, and
+Donald had disappeared for a time to return in his natural
+garments, he had an unlimited choice of partners, every girl
+being in a coming-on disposition towards one who so
+thoroughly understood the poetry of motion as he.
+
+All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightful idea of
+a ballroom never having occurred to the inhabitants before.
+Among the rest of the onlookers were Elizabeth and her
+mother--the former thoughtful yet much interested, her eyes
+beaming with a longing lingering light, as if Nature had
+been advised by Correggio in their creation.  The dancing
+progressed with unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and
+waited till his wife should be disposed to go home.  He did
+not care to keep in the light, and when he went into the
+dark it was worse, for there he heard remarks of a kind
+which were becoming too frequent:
+
+"Mr. Henchard's rejoicings couldn't say good morning to
+this," said one.  "A man must be a headstrong stunpoll to
+think folk would go up to that bleak place to-day."
+
+The other answered that people said it was not only in such
+things as those that the Mayor was wanting.  "Where would
+his business be if it were not for this young fellow? 'Twas
+verily Fortune sent him to Henchard.  His accounts were like
+a bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came.  He used to reckon his
+sacks by chalk strokes all in a row like garden-palings,
+measure his ricks by stretching with his arms, weigh his
+trusses by a lift, judge his hay by a chaw, and settle the
+price with a curse.  But now this accomplished young man
+does it all by ciphering and mensuration.  Then the wheat--
+that sometimes used to taste so strong o' mice when made
+into bread that people could fairly tell the breed--Farfrae
+has a plan for purifying, so that nobody would dream the
+smallest four-legged beast had walked over it once.  O yes,
+everybody is full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to
+keep him, to be sure!" concluded this gentleman.
+
+"But he won't do it for long, good-now," said the other.
+
+"No!" said Henchard to himself behind the tree.  "Or if he
+do, he'll be honeycombed clean out of all the character and
+standing that he's built up in these eighteen year!"
+
+He went back to the dancing pavilion.  Farfrae was footing a
+quaint little dance with Elizabeth-Jane--an old country
+thing, the only one she knew, and though he considerately
+toned down his movements to suit her demurer gait, the
+pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of his
+boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander.  The
+tune had enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy,
+vaulting, leaping sort--some low notes on the silver string
+of each fiddle, then a skipping on the small, like running
+up and down ladders--"Miss M'Leod of Ayr" was its name, so
+Mr. Farfrae had said, and that it was very popular in his
+own country.
+
+It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchard for
+approval; but he did not give it.  He seemed not to see her.
+"Look here, Farfrae," he said, like one whose mind was
+elsewhere, "I'll go to Port-Bredy Great Market to-morrow
+myself.  You can stay and put things right in your clothes-
+box, and recover strength to your knees after your
+vagaries."  He planted on Donald an antagonistic glare that
+had begun as a smile.
+
+Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside.  "What's
+this, Henchard," said Alderman Tubber, applying his thumb to
+the corn-factor like a cheese-taster.  "An opposition randy
+to yours, eh? Jack's as good as his master, eh? Cut ye out
+quite, hasn't he?"
+
+"You see, Mr. Henchard," said the lawyer, another good-
+natured friend, "where you made the mistake was in going so
+far afield.  You should have taken a leaf out of his book,
+and have had your sports in a sheltered place like this.
+But you didn't think of it, you see; and he did, and that's
+where he's beat you."
+
+"He'll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore
+him," added jocular Mr. Tubber.
+
+"No," said Henchard gloomily.  "He won't be that, because
+he's shortly going to leave me."  He looked towards Donald,
+who had come near.  "Mr. Farfrae's time as my manager is
+drawing to a close--isn't it, Farfrae?"
+
+The young man, who could now read the lines and folds of
+Henchard's strongly-traced face as if they were clear verbal
+inscriptions, quietly assented; and when people deplored the
+fact, and asked why it was, he simply replied that Mr.
+Henchard no longer required his help.
+
+Henchard went home, apparently satisfied.  But in the
+morning, when his jealous temper had passed away, his heart
+sank within him at what he had said and done.  He was the
+more disturbed when he found that this time Farfrae was
+determined to take him at his word.
+
+
+
+17.
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard's manner that in
+assenting to dance she had made a mistake of some kind.  In
+her simplicity she did not know what it was till a hint from
+a nodding acquaintance enlightened her.  As the Mayor's
+step-daughter, she learnt, she had not been quite in her
+place in treading a measure amid such a mixed throng as
+filled the dancing pavilion.
+
+Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like live coals
+at the dawning of the idea that her tastes were not good
+enough for her position, and would bring her into disgrace.
+
+This made her very miserable, and she looked about for her
+mother; but Mrs. Henchard, who had less idea of
+conventionality than Elizabeth herself, had gone away,
+leaving her daughter to return at her own pleasure.  The
+latter moved on into the dark dense old avenues, or rather
+vaults of living woodwork, which ran along the town
+boundary, and stood reflecting.
+
+A man followed in a few minutes, and her face being to-wards
+the shine from the tent he recognized her.  It was Farfrae--
+just come from the dialogue with Henchard which had
+signified his dismissal.
+
+"And it's you, Miss Newson?--and I've been looking for ye
+everywhere!" he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the
+estrangement with the corn-merchant.  "May I walk on with
+you as far as your street-corner?"
+
+She thought there might be something wrong in this, but did
+not utter any objection.  So together they went on, first
+down the West Walk, and then into the Bowling Walk, till
+Farfrae said, "It's like that I'm going to leave you soon."
+
+She faltered, "Why?"
+
+"Oh--as a mere matter of business--nothing more.  But we'll
+not concern ourselves about it--it is for the best.  I hoped
+to have another dance with you."
+
+She said she could not dance--in any proper way.
+
+"Nay, but you do!  It's the feeling for it rather than the
+learning of steps that makes pleasant dancers....I fear I
+offended your father by getting up this!  And now, perhaps,
+I'll have to go to another part o' the warrld altogether!"
+
+This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Jane
+breathed a sigh--letting it off in fragments that he might
+not hear her.  But darkness makes people truthful, and the
+Scotchman went on impulsively--perhaps he had heard her
+after all:
+
+"I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and your stepfather had
+not been offended, I would ask you something in a short
+time--yes, I would ask you to-night.  But that's not for
+me!"
+
+What he would have asked her he did not say, and instead of
+encouraging him she remained incompetently silent.  Thus
+afraid one of another they continued their promenade along
+the walls till they got near the bottom of the Bowling Walk;
+twenty steps further and the trees would end, and the
+street-corner and lamps appear.  In consciousness of this
+they stopped.
+
+"I never found out who it was that sent us to Durnover
+granary on a fool's errand that day," said Donald, in his
+undulating tones.  "Did ye ever know yourself, Miss Newson?"
+
+"Never," said she.
+
+"I wonder why they did it!"
+
+"For fun, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps it was not for fun.  It might have been that they
+thought they would like us to stay waiting there, talking to
+one another? Ay, well!  I hope you Casterbridge folk will not
+forget me if I go."
+
+"That I'm sure we won't!" she said earnestly.  "I--wish you
+wouldn't go at all."
+
+They had got into the lamplight.  "Now, I'll think over
+that," said Donald Farfrae.  "And I'll not come up to your
+door; but part from you here; lest it make your father more
+angry still."
+
+They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark Bowling Walk,
+and Elizabeth-Jane going up the street.  Without any
+consciousness of what she was doing she started running with
+all her might till she reached her father's door.  "O dear
+me--what am I at?" she thought, as she pulled up breathless.
+
+Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae's
+enigmatic words about not daring to ask her what he fain
+would.  Elizabeth, that silent observing woman, had long
+noted how he was rising in favour among the townspeople; and
+knowing Henchard's nature now she had feared that Farfrae's
+days as manager were numbered, so that the announcement gave
+her little surprise.  Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridge
+despite his words and her father's dismissal? His occult
+breathings to her might be solvable by his course in that
+respect.
+
+The next day was windy--so windy that walking in the garden
+she picked up a portion of the draft of a letter on business
+in Donald Farfrae's writing, which had flown over the wall
+from the office.  The useless scrap she took indoors, and
+began to copy the calligraphy, which she much admired.  The
+letter began "Dear Sir," and presently writing on a loose
+slip "Elizabeth-Jane," she laid the latter over "Sir,"
+making the phrase "Dear Elizabeth-Jane."  When she saw the
+effect a quick red ran up her face and warmed her through,
+though nobody was there to see what she had done.  She
+quickly tore up the slip, and threw it away.  After this she
+grew cool and laughed at herself, walked about the room, and
+laughed again; not joyfully, but distressfully rather.
+
+It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfrae and
+Henchard had decided to dispense with each other.
+Elizabeth-Jane's anxiety to know if Farfrae were going away
+from the town reached a pitch that disturbed her, for she
+could no longer conceal from herself the cause.  At length
+the news reached her that he was not going to leave the
+place.  A man following the same trade as Henchard, but on a
+very small scale, had sold his business to Farfrae, who was
+forthwith about to start as corn and hay merchant on his own
+account.
+
+Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step of Donald's,
+proving that he meant to remain; and yet, would a man who
+cared one little bit for her have endangered his suit by
+setting up a business in opposition to Mr. Henchard's?
+Surely not; and it must have been a passing impulse only
+which had led him to address her so softly.
+
+To solve the problem whether her appearance on the evening
+of the dance were such as to inspire a fleeting love at
+first sight, she dressed herself up exactly as she had
+dressed then--the muslin, the spencer, the sandals, the
+para-sol--and looked in the mirror The picture glassed back
+was in her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspire
+that fleeting regard, and no more--"just enough to make him
+silly, and not enough to keep him so," she said luminously;
+and Elizabeth thought, in a much lower key, that by this
+time he had discovered how plain and homely was the
+informing spirit of that pretty outside.
+
+Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, she would
+say to herself with a mock pleasantry that carried an ache
+with it, "No, no, Elizabeth-Jane--such dreams are not for
+you!" She tried to prevent herself from seeing him, and
+thinking of him; succeeding fairly well in the former
+attempt, in the latter not so completely.
+
+Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfrae did not
+mean to put up with his temper any longer, was incensed
+beyond measure when he learnt what the young man had done as
+an alternative.  It was in the town-hall, after a council
+meeting, that he first became aware of Farfrae's coup
+for establishing himself independently in the town; and his
+voice might have been heard as far as the town-pump
+expressing his feelings to his fellow councilmen.  These
+tones showed that, though under a long reign of self-control
+he had become Mayor and churchwarden and what not, there was
+still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneath the rind of
+Michael Henchard as when he had sold his wife at Weydon
+Fair.
+
+"Well, he's a friend of mine, and I'm a friend of his--or if
+we are not, what are we? 'Od send, if I've not been his
+friend, who has, I should like to know? Didn't he come here
+without a sound shoe to his voot? Didn't I keep him here--
+help him to a living? Didn't I help him to money, or
+whatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms--I said 'Name
+your own price.' I'd have shared my last crust with that
+young fellow at one time, I liked him so well.  And now he's
+defied me!  But damn him, I'll have a tussle with him now--at
+fair buying and selling, mind--at fair buying and selling!
+And if I can't overbid such a stripling as he, then I'm not
+wo'th a varden!  We'll show that we know our business as well
+as one here and there!"
+
+His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond.
+Henchard was less popular now than he had been when nearly
+two years before, they had voted him to the chief magistracy
+on account of his amazing energy.  While they had
+collectively profited by this quality of the corn-factor's
+they had been made to wince individually on more than one
+occasion.  So he went out of the hall and down the street
+alone.
+
+Reaching home he seemed to recollect something with a sour
+satisfaction.  He called Elizabeth-Jane.  Seeing how he
+looked when she entered she appeared alarmed.
+
+"Nothing to find fault with," he said, observing her
+concern.  "Only I want to caution you, my dear.  That man,
+Farfrae--it is about him.  I've seen him talking to you two
+or three times--he danced with 'ee at the rejoicings, and
+came home with 'ee.  Now, now, no blame to you.  But just
+harken: Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone the
+least bit beyond sniff and snaff at all?"
+
+"No.  I have promised him nothing."
+
+"Good.  All's well that ends well.  I particularly wish you
+not to see him again."
+
+"Very well, sir."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+She hesitated for a moment, and then said--
+
+"Yes, if you much wish it."
+
+"I do.  He's an enemy to our house!"
+
+When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to
+Farfrae thus:--
+
+
+SIR,--I make request that henceforth you and my step-
+daughter be as strangers to each other.  She on her part has
+promised to welcome no more addresses from you; and I trust,
+therefore, you will not attempt to force them upon her.
+M.  HENCHARD
+
+
+One would almost have supposed Henchard to have had policy
+to see that no better modus vivendi could be arrived at
+with Farfrae than by encouraging him to become his son-in-
+law.  But such a scheme for buying over a rival had nothing
+to recommend it to the Mayor's headstrong faculties.  With
+all domestic finesse of that kind he was hopelessly at
+variance.  Loving a man or hating him, his diplomacy was as
+wrongheaded as a buffalo's; and his wife had not ventured to
+suggest the course which she, for many reasons, would have
+welcomed gladly.
+
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerce on
+his own account at a spot on Durnover Hill--as far as
+possible from Henchard's stores, and with every intention of
+keeping clear of his former friend and employer's customers.
+There was, it seemed to the younger man, room for both of
+them and to spare.  The town was small, but the corn and
+hay-trade was proportionately large, and with his native
+sagacity he saw opportunity for a share of it.
+
+So determined was he to do nothing which should seem like
+trade-antagonism to the Mayor that he refused his first
+customer--a large farmer of good repute--because Henchard
+and this man had dealt together within the preceding three
+months.
+
+"He was once my friend," said Farfrae, "and it's not for me
+to take business from him.  I am sorry to disappoint you,
+but I cannot hurt the trade of a man who's been so kind to
+me."
+
+In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman's trade
+increased.  Whether it were that his northern energy was an
+overmastering force among the easy-going Wessex worthies, or
+whether it was sheer luck, the fact remained that whatever
+he touched he prospered in.  Like Jacob in Padan-Aram, he
+would no sooner humbly limit himself to the ringstraked-and-
+spotted exceptions of trade than the ringstraked-and-spotted
+would multiply and prevail.
+
+But most probably luck had little to do with it.  Character
+is Fate, said Novalis, and Farfrae's character was just the
+reverse of Henchard's, who might not inaptly be described as
+Faust has been described--as a vehement gloomy being who had
+quitted the ways of vulgar men without light to guide him on
+a better way.
+
+Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions
+to Elizabeth-Jane.  His acts of that kind had been so slight
+that the request was almost superfluous.  Yet he had felt a
+considerable interest in her, and after some cogitation he
+decided that it would be as well to enact no Romeo part just
+then--for the young girl's sake no less than his own.  Thus
+the incipient attachment was stifled down.
+
+A time came when, avoid collision with his former friend as
+he might, Farfrae was compelled, in sheer self-defence, to
+close with Henchard in mortal commercial combat.  He could
+no longer parry the fierce attacks of the latter by simple
+avoidance.  As soon as their war of prices began everybody
+was interested, and some few guessed the end.  It was, in
+some degree, Northern insight matched against Southern
+doggedness--the dirk against the cudgel--and Henchard's
+weapon was one which, if it did not deal ruin at the first
+or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nigh at his
+antagonist's mercy.
+
+Almost every Saturday they encountered each other amid the
+crowd of farmers which thronged about the market-place in
+the weekly course of their business.  Donald was always
+ready, and even anxious, to say a few friendly words, but
+the Mayor invariably gazed stormfully past him, like one who
+had endured and lost on his account, and could in no sense
+forgive the wrong; nor did Farfrae's snubbed manner of
+perplexity at all appease him.  The large farmers, corn-
+merchants, millers, auctioneers, and others had each an
+official stall in the corn-market room, with their names
+painted thereon; and when to the familiar series of
+"Henchard," "Everdene," "Shiner," "Darton," and so on, was
+added one inscribed "Farfrae," in staring new letters,
+Henchard was stung into bitterness; like Bellerophon, he
+wandered away from the crowd, cankered in soul.
+
+From that day Donald Farfrae's name was seldom mentioned in
+Henchard's house.  If at breakfast or dinner Elizabeth-
+Jane's mother inadvertently alluded to her favourite's
+movements, the girl would implore her by a look to be
+silent; and her husband would say, "What--are you, too, my
+enemy?"
+
+
+
+18.
+
+
+There came a shock which had been foreseen for some time by
+Elizabeth, as the box passenger foresees the approaching
+jerk from some channel across the highway.
+
+Her mother was ill--too unwell to leave her room.  Henchard,
+who treated her kindly, except in moments of irritation,
+sent at once for the richest, busiest doctor, whom he
+supposed to be the best.  Bedtime came, and they burnt a
+light all night.  In a day or two she rallied.
+
+Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appear at
+breakfast on the second morning, and Henchard sat down
+alone.  He was startled to see a letter for him from Jersey
+in a writing he knew too well, and had expected least to
+behold again.  He took it up in his hands and looked at it
+as at a picture, a vision, a vista of past enactments; and
+then he read it as an unimportant finale to conjecture.
+
+The writer said that she at length perceived how impossible
+it would be for any further communications to proceed
+between them now that his re-marriage had taken place.  That
+such reunion had been the only straightforward course open
+to him she was bound to admit.
+
+
+"On calm reflection, therefore," she went on, "I quite
+forgive you for landing me in such a dilemma, remembering
+that you concealed nothing before our ill-advised
+acquaintance; and that you really did set before me in your
+grim way the fact of there being a certain risk in intimacy
+with you, slight as it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen
+years of silence on your wife's part.  I thus look upon the
+whole as a misfortune of mine, and not a fault of yours.
+
+"So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlook those letters
+with which I pestered you day after day in the heat of my
+feelings.  They were written whilst I thought your conduct
+to me cruel; but now I know more particulars of the position
+you were in I see how inconsiderate my reproaches were.
+
+"Now you will, I am sure, perceive that the one condition
+which will make any future happiness possible for me is that
+the past connection between our lives be kept secret outside
+this isle.  Speak of it I know you will not; and I can trust
+you not to write of it.  One safe-guard more remains to be
+mentioned--that no writings of mine, or trifling articles
+belonging to me, should be left in your possession through
+neglect or forgetfulness.  To this end may I request you to
+return to me any such you may have, particularly the letters
+written in the first abandonment of feeling.
+
+"For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to
+the wound I heartily thank you.
+
+"I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my only relative.
+She is rich, and I hope will do something for me.  I shall
+return through Casterbridge and Budmouth, where I shall take
+the packet-boat.  Can you meet me with the letters and other
+trifles? I shall be in the coach which changes horses at the
+Antelope Hotel at half-past five Wednesday evening; I shall
+be wearing a Paisley shawl with a red centre, and thus may
+easily be found.  I should prefer this plan of receiving
+them to having them sent.--I remain still, yours; ever,
+
+                                              LUCETTA
+
+
+Henchard breathed heavily.  "Poor thing--better you had not
+known me!  Upon my heart and soul, if ever I should be left
+in a position to carry out that marriage with thee, I 
+OUGHT to do it--I ought to do it, indeed!"
+
+The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course, the
+death of Mrs. Henchard.
+
+As requested, he sealed up Lucetta's letters, and put the
+parcel aside till the day she had appointed; this plan of
+returning them by hand being apparently a little ruse of
+the young lady for exchanging a word or two with him on past
+times.  He would have preferred not to see her; but deeming
+that there could be no great harm in acquiescing thus far,
+he went at dusk and stood opposite the coach-office.
+
+The evening was chilly, and the coach was late.  Henchard
+crossed over to it while the horses were being changed; but
+there was no Lucetta inside or out.  Concluding that
+something had happened to modify her arrangements he gave
+the matter up and went home, not without a sense of relief.
+Meanwhile Mrs. Henchard was weakening visibly.  She could
+not go out of doors any more.  One day, after much thinking
+which seemed to distress her, she said she wanted to write
+something.  A desk was put upon her bed with pen and paper,
+and at her request she was left alone.  She remained writing
+for a short time, folded her paper carefully, called
+Elizabeth-Jane to bring a taper and wax, and then, still
+refusing assistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and
+locked it in her desk.  She had directed it in these words:--
+
+"MR. MICHAEL HENCHARD.  NOT TO BE OPENED TILL ELIZABETH-
+JANE'S WEDDING-DAY."
+
+The latter sat up with her mother to the utmost of her
+strength night after night.  To learn to take the universe
+seriously there is no quicker way than to watch--to be a
+"waker," as the country-people call it.  Between the hours
+at which the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrow
+shook himself, the silence in Casterbridge--barring the rare
+sound of the watchman--was broken in Elizabeth's ear only by
+the time-piece in the bedroom ticking frantically against
+the clock on the stairs; ticking harder and harder till it
+seemed to clang like a gong; and all this while the subtle-
+souled girl asking herself why she was born, why sitting in
+a room, and blinking at the candle; why things around her
+had taken the shape they wore in preference to every other
+possible shape.  Why they stared at her so helplessly, as if
+waiting for the touch of some wand that should release them
+from terrestrial constraint; what that chaos called
+consciousness, which spun in her at this moment like a top,
+tended to, and began in.  Her eyes fell together; she was
+awake, yet she was asleep.
+
+A word from her mother roused her.  Without preface, and as
+the continuation of a scene already progressing in her mind,
+Mrs. Henchard said: "You remember the note sent to you and
+Mr. Farfrae--asking you to meet some one in Durnover Barton--
+and that you thought it was a trick to make fools of you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It was not to make fools of you--it was done to bring you
+together.  'Twas I did it."
+
+"Why?" said Elizabeth, with a start.
+
+"I--wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae."
+
+"O mother!" Elizabeth-Jane bent down her head so much that
+she looked quite into her own lap.  But as her mother did
+not go on, she said, "What reason?"
+
+"Well, I had a reason.  'Twill out one day.  I wish it could
+have been in my time!  But there--nothing is as you wish it!
+Henchard hates him."
+
+"Perhaps they'll be friends again," murmured the girl.
+
+"I don't know--I don't know."  After this her mother was
+silent, and dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.
+
+Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard's
+house on a Sunday morning, when he observed that the blinds
+were all down.  He rang the bell so softly that it only
+sounded a single full note and a small one; and then he was
+informed that Mrs. Henchard was dead--just dead--that very
+hour.
+
+At the town-pump there were gathered when he passed a few
+old inhabitants, who came there for water whenever they had,
+as at present, spare time to fetch it, because it was purer
+from that original fount than from their own wells.  Mrs.
+Cuxsom, who had been standing there for an indefinite time
+with her pitcher, was describing the incidents of Mrs.
+Henchard's death, as she had learnt them from the nurse.
+
+"And she was white as marble-stone," said Mrs. Cuxsom.  "And
+likewise such a thoughtful woman, too--ah, poor soul--that
+a' minded every little thing that wanted tending.  'Yes,'
+says she, 'when I'm gone, and my last breath's blowed, look
+in the top drawer o' the chest in the back room by the
+window, and you'll find all my coffin clothes, a piece of
+flannel--that's to put under me, and the little piece is to
+put under my head; and my new stockings for my feet--they
+are folded alongside, and all my other things.  And there's
+four ounce pennies, the heaviest I could find, a-tied up in
+bits of linen, for weights--two for my right eye and two for
+my left,' she said.  'And when you've used 'em, and my eyes
+don't open no more, bury the pennies, good souls and don't
+ye go spending 'em, for I shouldn't like it.  And open the
+windows as soon as I am carried out, and make it as cheerful
+as you can for Elizabeth-Jane.'"
+
+"Ah, poor heart!"
+
+"Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ounce pennies in
+the garden.  But if ye'll believe words, that man,
+Christopher Coney, went and dug 'em up, and spent 'em at the
+Three Mariners.  'Faith,' he said, 'why should death rob
+life o' fourpence? Death's not of such good report that we
+should respect 'en to that extent,' says he."
+
+"'Twas a cannibal deed!" deprecated her listeners.
+
+"Gad, then I won't quite ha'e it," said Solomon Longways.
+"I say it to-day, and 'tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn't
+speak wrongfully for a zilver zixpence at such a time.  I
+don't see noo harm in it.  To respect the dead is sound
+doxology; and I wouldn't sell skellintons--leastwise
+respectable skellintons--to be varnished for 'natomies,
+except I were out o' work.  But money is scarce, and throats
+get dry.  Why SHOULD death rob life o' fourpence? I say
+there was no treason in it."
+
+"Well, poor soul; she's helpless to hinder that or anything
+now," answered Mother Cuxsom.  "And all her shining keys
+will be took from her, and her cupboards opened; and little
+things a' didn't wish seen, anybody will see; and her wishes
+and ways will all be as nothing!"
+
+
+
+19.
+
+
+Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire.  It was
+three weeks after Mrs. Henchard's funeral, the candles were
+not lighted, and a restless, acrobatic flame, poised on a
+coal, called from the shady walls the smiles of all shapes
+that could respond--the old pier-glass, with gilt columns
+and huge entablature, the picture-frames, sundry knobs and
+handles, and the brass rosette at the bottom of each riband
+bell-pull on either side of the chimney-piece.
+
+"Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?" said Henchard.
+
+"Yes, sir; often," she said.
+
+"Who do you put in your pictures of 'em?"
+
+"Mother and father--nobody else hardly."
+
+Henchard always looked like one bent on resisting pain when
+Elizabeth-Jane spoke of Richard Newson as "father."  "Ah!  I
+am out of all that, am I not?" he said...."Was Newson a kind
+father?"
+
+"Yes, sir; very."
+
+Henchard's face settled into an expression of stolid
+loneliness which gradually modulated into something softer.
+"Suppose I had been your real father?" he said.  "Would you
+have cared for me as much as you cared for Richard Newson?"
+
+"I can't think it," she said quickly.  "I can think of no
+other as my father, except my father."
+
+Henchard's wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend
+and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by
+ignorance.  It seemed to him that only one of them could
+possibly be recalled, and that was the girl.  His mind began
+vibrating between the wish to reveal himself to her and the
+policy of leaving well alone, till he could no longer sit
+still.  He walked up and down, and then he came and stood
+behind her chair, looking down upon the top of her head.  He
+could no longer restrain his impulse.  "What did your mother
+tell you about me--my history?" he asked.
+
+"That you were related by marriage."
+
+"She should have told more--before you knew me!  Then my task
+would not have been such a hard one....Elizabeth, it is I
+who am your father, and not Richard Newson.  Shame alone
+prevented your wretched parents from owning this to you
+while both of 'em were alive."
+
+The back of Elizabeth's head remained still, and her
+shoulders did not denote even the movements of breathing.
+Henchard went on: "I'd rather have your scorn, your fear,
+anything than your ignorance; 'tis that I hate!  Your mother
+and I were man and wife when we were young.  What you saw
+was our second marriage.  Your mother was too honest.  We
+had thought each other dead--and--Newson became her
+husband."
+
+This was the nearest approach Henchard could make to the
+full truth.  As far as he personally was concerned he would
+have screened nothing; but he showed a respect for the young
+girl's sex and years worthy of a better man.
+
+When he had gone on to give details which a whole series of
+slight and unregarded incidents in her past life strangely
+corroborated; when, in short, she believed his story to be
+true, she became greatly agitated, and turning round to the
+table flung her face upon it weeping.
+
+"Don't cry--don't cry!" said Henchard, with vehement pathos,
+"I can't bear it, I won't bear it.  I am your father; why
+should you cry? Am I so dreadful, so hateful to 'ee? Don't
+take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!" he cried, grasping her wet
+hand.  "Don't take against me--though I was a drinking man
+once, and used your mother roughly--I'll be kinder to you
+than HE was!  I'll do anything, if you will only look
+upon me as your father!"
+
+She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully; but she
+could not; she was troubled at his presence, like the
+brethren at the avowal of Joseph.
+
+"I don't want you to come to me all of a sudden," said
+Henchard in jerks, and moving like a great tree in a wind.
+"No, Elizabeth, I don't.  I'll go away and not see you till
+to-morrow, or when you like, and then I'll show 'ee papers
+to prove my words.  There, I am gone, and won't disturb you
+any more....'Twas I that chose your name, my daughter; your
+mother wanted it Susan.  There, don't forget 'twas I gave
+you your name!" He went out at the door and shut her softly
+in, and she heard him go away into the garden.  But he had
+not done.  Before she had moved, or in any way recovered
+from the effect of his disclosure, he reappeared.
+
+"One word more, Elizabeth," he said.  "You'll take my
+surname now--hey? Your mother was against it, but it will be
+much more pleasant to me.  'Tis legally yours, you know.
+But nobody need know that.  You shall take it as if by
+choice.  I'll talk to my lawyer--I don't know the law of it
+exactly; but will you do this--let me put a few lines into
+the newspaper that such is to be your name?"
+
+"If it is my name I must have it, mustn't I?" she asked.
+
+"Well, well; usage is everything in these matters."
+
+"I wonder why mother didn't wish it?"
+
+"Oh, some whim of the poor soul's.  Now get a bit of paper
+and draw up a paragraph as I shall tell you.  But let's have
+a light."
+
+"I can see by the firelight," she answered.  "Yes--I'd
+rather."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fender wrote
+at his dictation words which he had evidently got by heart
+from some advertisement or other--words to the effect that
+she, the writer, hitherto known as Elizabeth-Jane Newson,
+was going to call herself Elizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith.
+It was done, and fastened up, and directed to the office of
+the Casterbridge Chronicle.
+
+"Now," said Henchard, with the blaze of satisfaction that he
+always emitted when he had carried his point--though
+tenderness softened it this time--"I'll go upstairs and hunt
+for some documents that will prove it all to you.  But I
+won't trouble you with them till to-morrow.  Good-night, my
+Elizabeth-Jane!"
+
+He was gone before the bewildered girl could realize what it
+all meant, or adjust her filial sense to the new center of
+gravity.  She was thankful that he had left her to herself
+for the evening, and sat down over the fire.  Here she
+remained in silence, and wept--not for her mother now, but
+for the genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemed
+doing a wrong.
+
+Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs.  Papers of a
+domestic nature he kept in a drawer in his bedroom, and this
+he unlocked.  Before turning them over he leant back and
+indulged in reposeful thought.  Elizabeth was his at last
+and she was a girl of such good sense and kind heart that
+she would be sure to like him.  He was the kind of man to
+whom some human object for pouring out his heart upon--were
+it emotive or were it choleric--was almost a necessity.  The
+craving for his heart for the re-establishment of this
+tenderest human tie had been great during his wife's
+lifetime, and now he had submitted to its mastery without
+reluctance and without fear.  He bent over the drawer again,
+and proceeded in his search.
+
+Among the other papers had been placed the contents of his
+wife's little desk, the keys of which had been handed to him
+at her request.  Here was the letter addressed to him with
+the restriction, "NOT TO BE OPENED TILL ELIZABETH-JANE'S
+WEDDING-DAY."
+
+Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband, had
+been no practical hand at anything.  In sealing up the
+sheet, which was folded and tucked in without an envelope,
+in the old-fashioned way, she had overlaid the junction with
+a large mass of wax without the requisite under-touch of the
+same.  The seal had cracked, and the letter was open.
+Henchard had no reason to suppose the restriction one of
+serious weight, and his feeling for his late wife had not
+been of the nature of deep respect.  "Some trifling fancy or
+other of poor Susan's, I suppose," he said; and without
+curiosity he allowed his eyes to scan the letter:--
+
+
+MY DEAR MICHAEL,--For the good of all three of us I have
+kept one thing a secret from you till now.  I hope you will
+understand why; I think you will; though perhaps you may not
+forgive me.  But, dear Michael, I have done it for the best.
+I shall be in my grave when you read this, and Elizabeth-
+Jane will have a home.  Don't curse me Mike--think of how I
+was situated.  I can hardly write it, but here it is.
+Elizabeth-Jane is not your Elizabeth-Jane--the child who was
+in my arms when you sold me.  No; she died three months
+after that, and this living one is my other husband's.  I
+christened her by the same name we had given to the first,
+and she filled up the ache I felt at the other's loss.
+Michael, I am dying, and I might have held my tongue; but I
+could not.  Tell her husband of this or not, as you may
+judge; and forgive, if you can, a woman you once deeply
+wronged, as she forgives you.
+
+                                      SUSAN HENCHARD
+
+
+Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-pane
+through which he saw for miles.  His lips twitched, and he
+seemed to compress his frame, as if to bear better.  His
+usual habit was not to consider whether destiny were hard
+upon him or not--the shape of his ideals in cases of
+affliction being simply a moody "I am to suffer, I
+perceive."  "This much scourging, then, it is for me."  But
+now through his passionate head there stormed this thought--
+that the blasting disclosure was what he had deserved.
+
+His wife's extreme reluctance to have the girl's name
+altered from Newson to Henchard was now accounted for fully.
+It furnished another illustration of that honesty in
+dishonesty which had characterized her in other things.
+
+He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of
+hours; till he suddenly said, "Ah--I wonder if it is true!"
+
+He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and
+went with a candle to the door of Elizabeth-Jane's room,
+where he put his ear to the keyhole and listened.  She was
+breathing profoundly.  Henchard softly turned the handle,
+entered, and shading the light, approached the bedside.
+Gradually bringing the light from behind a screening curtain
+he held it in such a manner that it fell slantwise on her
+face without shining on her eyes.  He steadfastly regarded
+her features.
+
+They were fair: his were dark.  But this was an unimportant
+preliminary.  In sleep there come to the surface buried
+genealogical facts, ancestral curves, dead men's traits,
+which the mobility of daytime animation screens and
+overwhelms.  In the present statuesque repose of the young
+girl's countenance Richard Newson's was unmistakably
+reflected.  He could not endure the sight of her, and
+hastened away.
+
+Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it.
+His wife was dead, and the first impulse for revenge died
+with the thought that she was beyond him.  He looked out at
+the night as at a fiend.  Henchard, like all his kind, was
+superstitious, and he could not help thinking that the
+concatenation of events this evening had produced was the
+scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him.
+Yet they had developed naturally.  If he had not revealed
+his past history to Elizabeth he would not have searched the
+drawer for papers, and so on.  The mockery was, that he
+should have no sooner taught a girl to claim the shelter of
+his paternity than he discovered her to have no kinship with
+him.
+
+This ironical sequence of things angered him like an impish
+trick from a fellow-creature.  Like Prester John's, his
+table had been spread, and infernal harpies had snatched up
+the food.  He went out of the house, and moved sullenly
+onward down the pavement till he came to the bridge at the
+bottom of the High Street.  Here he turned in upon a bypath
+on the river bank, skirting the north-eastern limits of the
+town.
+
+These precincts embodied the mournful phases of Casterbridge
+life, as the south avenues embodied its cheerful moods.  The
+whole way along here was sunless, even in summer time; in
+spring, white frosts lingered here when other places were
+steaming with warmth; while in winter it was the seed-field
+of all the aches, rheumatisms, and torturing cramps of the
+year.  The Casterbridge doctors must have pined away for
+want of sufficient nourishment but for the configuration of
+the landscape on the north-eastern side.
+
+The river--slow, noiseless, and dark--the Schwarzwasser of
+Casterbridge--ran beneath a low cliff, the two together
+forming a defence which had rendered walls and artificial
+earthworks on this side unnecessary.  Here were ruins of a
+Franciscan priory, and a mill attached to the same, the
+water of which roared down a back-hatch like the voice of
+desolation.  Above the cliff, and behind the river, rose a
+pile of buildings, and in the front of the pile a square
+mass cut into the sky.  It was like a pedestal lacking its
+statue.  This missing feature, without which the design
+remained incomplete, was, in truth, the corpse of a man, for
+the square mass formed the base of the gallows, the
+extensive buildings at the back being the county gaol.  In
+the meadow where Henchard now walked the mob were wont to
+gather whenever an execution took place, and there to the
+tune of the roaring weir they stood and watched the
+spectacle.
+
+The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the glooms of
+this region impressed Henchard more than he had expected.
+The lugubrious harmony of the spot with his domestic
+situation was too perfect for him, impatient of effects
+scenes, and adumbrations.  It reduced his heartburning to
+melancholy, and he exclaimed, "Why the deuce did I come
+here!" He went on past the cottage in which the old local
+hangman had lived and died, in times before that calling was
+monopolized over all England by a single gentleman; and
+climbed up by a steep back lane into the town.
+
+For the sufferings of that night, engendered by his bitter
+disappointment, he might well have been pitied.  He was like
+one who had half fainted, and could neither recover nor
+complete the swoon.  In words he could blame his wife, but
+not in his heart; and had he obeyed the wise directions
+outside her letter this pain would have been spared him for
+long--possibly for ever, Elizabeth-Jane seeming to show no
+ambition to quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for
+the speculative path of matrimony.
+
+The morning came after this night of unrest, and with it the
+necessity for a plan.  He was far too self-willed to recede
+from a position, especially as it would involve humiliation.
+His daughter he had asserted her to be, and his daughter she
+should always think herself, no matter what hyprocrisy it
+involved.
+
+But he was ill-prepared for the first step in this new
+situation.  The moment he came into the breakfast-room
+Elizabeth advanced with open confidence to him and took him
+by the arm.
+
+"I have thought and thought all night of it," she said
+frankly.  "And I see that everything must be as you say.
+And I am going to look upon you as the father that you are,
+and not to call you Mr. Henchard any more.  It is so plain
+to me now.  Indeed, father, it is.  For, of course, you
+would not have done half the things you have done for me,
+and let me have my own way so entirely, and bought me
+presents, if I had only been your step-daughter!  He--Mr.
+Newson--whom my poor mother married by such a strange
+mistake" (Henchard was glad that he had disguised matters
+here), "was very kind--O so kind!" (she spoke with tears in
+her eyes); "but that is not the same thing as being one's
+real father after all.  Now, father, breakfast is ready!"
+she said cheerfully.
+
+Henchard bent and kissed her cheek.  The moment and the act
+he had prefigured for weeks with a thrill of pleasure; yet
+it was no less than a miserable insipidity to him now that
+it had come.  His reinstation of her mother had been chiefly
+for the girl's sake, and the fruition of the whole scheme
+was such dust and ashes as this.
+
+
+
+20.
+
+
+Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl there can
+have been seldom one like that which followed Henchard's
+announcement of himself to Elizabeth as her father.  He had
+done it in an ardour and an agitation which had half carried
+the point of affection with her; yet, behold, from the next
+morning onwards his manner was constrained as she had never
+seen it before.
+
+The coldness soon broke out into open chiding.  One grievous
+failing of Elizabeth's was her occasional pretty and
+picturesque use of dialect words--those terrible marks of
+the beast to the truly genteel.
+
+It was dinner-time--they never met except at meals--and she
+happened to say when he was rising from table, wishing to
+show him something, "If you'll bide where you be a minute,
+father, I'll get it."
+
+"'Bide where you be,'" he echoed sharply, "Good God, are you
+only fit to carry wash to a pig-trough, that ye use such
+words as those?"
+
+She reddened with shame and sadness.
+
+"I meant 'Stay where you are,' father," she said, in a low,
+humble voice.  "I ought to have been more careful."
+
+He made no reply, and went out of the room.
+
+The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and in time it
+came to pass that for "fay" she said "succeed"; that she no
+longer spoke of "dumbledores" but of "humble bees"; no
+longer said of young men and women that they "walked
+together," but that they were "engaged"; that she grew to
+talk of "greggles" as "wild hyacinths"; that when she had
+not slept she did not quaintly tell the servants next
+morning that she had been "hag-rid," but that she had
+"suffered from indigestion."
+
+These improvements, however, are somewhat in advance of the
+story.  Henchard, being uncultivated himself, was the
+bitterest critic the fair girl could possibly have had of
+her own lapses--really slight now, for she read
+omnivorously.  A gratuitous ordeal was in store for her in
+the matter of her handwriting.  She was passing the dining-
+room door one evening, and had occasion to go in for
+something.  It was not till she had opened the door that she
+knew the Mayor was there in the company of a man with whom
+he transacted business.
+
+"Here, Elizabeth-Jane," he said, looking round at her, "just
+write down what I tell you--a few words of an agreement for
+me and this gentleman to sign.  I am a poor tool with a
+pen."
+
+"Be jowned, and so be I," said the gentleman.
+
+She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink, and sat
+down.
+
+"Now then--'An agreement entered into this sixteenth day of
+October'--write that first."
+
+She started the pen in an elephantine march across the
+sheet.  It was a splendid round, bold hand of her own
+conception, a style that would have stamped a woman as
+Minerva's own in more recent days.  But other ideas reigned
+then: Henchard's creed was that proper young girls wrote
+ladies'-hand--nay, he believed that bristling characters
+were as innate and inseparable a part of refined womanhood
+as sex itself.  Hence when, instead of scribbling, like the
+Princess Ida,--
+
+
+     "In such a hand as when a field of corn
+      Bows all its ears before the roaring East,"
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags,
+he reddened in angry shame for her, and, peremptorily
+saying, "Never mind--I'll finish it," dismissed her there
+and then.
+
+Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to her now.
+She was, it must be admitted, sometimes provokingly and
+unnecessarily willing to saddle herself with manual labours.
+She would go to the kitchen instead of ringing, "Not to make
+Phoebe come up twice."  She went down on her knees, shovel in
+hand, when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle; moreover,
+she would persistently thank the parlour-maid for
+everything, till one day, as soon as the girl was gone from
+the room, Henchard broke out with, "Good God, why dostn't
+leave off thanking that girl as if she were a goddess-born!
+Don't I pay her a dozen pound a year to do things for 'ee?"
+Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation that he
+became sorry a few minutes after, and said that he did not
+mean to be rough.
+
+These domestic exhibitions were the small protruding
+needlerocks which suggested rather than revealed what was
+underneath.  But his passion had less terror for her than
+his coldness.  The increasing frequency of the latter mood
+told her the sad news that he disliked her with a growing
+dislike.  The more interesting that her appearance and
+manners became under the softening influences which she
+could now command, and in her wisdom did command, the more
+she seemed to estrange him.  Sometimes she caught him
+looking at her with a louring invidiousness that she could
+hardly bear.  Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockery
+that she should for the first time excite his animosity when
+she had taken his surname.
+
+But the most terrible ordeal was to come.  Elizabeth had
+latterly been accustomed of an afternoon to present a cup of
+cider or ale and bread-and-cheese to Nance Mockridge, who
+worked in the yard wimbling hay-bonds.  Nance accepted this
+offering thankfully at first; afterwards as a matter of
+course.  On a day when Henchard was on the premises he saw
+his step-daughter enter the hay-barn on this errand; and, as
+there was no clear spot on which to deposit the provisions,
+she at once set to work arranging two trusses of hay as a
+table, Mockridge meanwhile standing with her hands on her
+hips, easefully looking at the preparations on her behalf.
+
+"Elizabeth, come here!" said Henchard; and she obeyed.
+
+"Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?" he said with
+suppressed passion.  "Haven't I told you o't fifty times?
+Hey? Making yourself a drudge for a common workwoman of such
+a character as hers!  Why, ye'll disgrace me to the dust!"
+
+Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance
+inside the barn door, who fired up immediately at the slur
+upon her personal character.  Coming to the door she cried
+regardless of consequences, "Come to that, Mr. Henchard, I
+can let 'ee know she've waited on worse!"
+
+"Then she must have had more charity than sense," said
+Henchard.
+
+"O no, she hadn't.  'Twere not for charity but for hire; and
+at a public-house in this town!"
+
+"It is not true!" cried Henchard indignantly.
+
+"Just ask her," said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a
+manner that she could comfortably scratch her elbows.
+
+Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now
+pink and white from confinement, lost nearly all of the
+former colour.  "What does this mean?" he said to her.
+"Anything or nothing?"
+
+"It is true," said Elizabeth-Jane.  "But it was only--"
+
+"Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?"
+
+"At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when
+we were staying there."
+
+Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailed into the
+barn; for assuming that she was to be discharged on the
+instant she had resolved to make the most of her victory.
+Henchard, however, said nothing about discharging her.
+Unduly sensitive on such points by reason of his own past,
+he had the look of one completely ground down to the last
+indignity.  Elizabeth followed him to the house like a
+culprit; but when she got inside she could not see him.  Nor
+did she see him again that day.
+
+Convinced of the scathing damage to his local repute and
+position that must have been caused by such a fact, though
+it had never before reached his own ears, Henchard showed a
+positive distaste for the presence of this girl not his own,
+whenever he encountered her.  He mostly dined with the
+farmers at the market-room of one of the two chief hotels,
+leaving her in utter solitude.  Could he have seen how she
+made use of those silent hours he might have found reason to
+reserve his judgment on her quality.  She read and took
+notes incessantly, mastering facts with painful
+laboriousness, but never flinching from her self-imposed
+task.  She began the study of Latin, incited by the Roman
+characteristics of the town she lived in.  "If I am not
+well-informed it shall be by no fault of my own," she would
+say to herself through the tears that would occasionally
+glide down her peachy cheeks when she was fairly baffled by
+the portentous obscurity of many of these educational works.
+
+Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feeling, great-eyed
+creature, construed by not a single contiguous being;
+quenching with patient fortitude her incipient interest in
+Farfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided, unmaidenly, and
+unwise.  True, that for reasons best known to herself, she
+had, since Farfrae's dismissal, shifted her quarters from
+the back room affording a view of the yard (which she had
+occupied with such zest) to a front chamber overlooking the
+street; but as for the young man, whenever he passed the
+house he seldom or never turned his head.
+
+Winter had almost come, and unsettled weather made her still
+more dependent upon indoor resources.  But there were
+certain early winter days in Casterbridge--days of
+firmamental exhaustion which followed angry south-westerly
+tempests--when, if the sun shone, the air was like velvet.
+She seized on these days for her periodical visits to the
+spot where her mother lay buried--the still-used burial-
+ground of the old Roman-British city, whose curious feature
+was this, its continuity as a place of sepulture.  Mrs.
+Henchard's dust mingled with the dust of women who lay
+ornamented with glass hair-pins and amber necklaces, and men
+who held in their mouths coins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and
+the Constantines.
+
+Half-past ten in the morning was about her hour for seeking
+this spot--a time when the town avenues were deserted as the
+avenues of Karnac.  Business had long since passed down them
+into its daily cells, and Leisure had not arrived there.  So
+Elizabeth-Jane walked and read, or looked over the edge of
+the book to think, and thus reached the churchyard.
+
+There, approaching her mother's grave she saw a solitary
+dark figure in the middle of the gravel-walk.  This figure,
+too, was reading; but not from a book: the words which
+engrossed it being the inscription on Mrs. Henchard's
+tombstone.  The personage was in mourning like herself, was
+about her age and size, and might have been her wraith or
+double, but for the fact that it was a lady much more
+beautifully dressed than she.  Indeed, comparatively
+indifferent as Elizabeth-Jane was to dress, unless for some
+temporary whim or purpose, her eyes were arrested by the
+artistic perfection of the lady's appearance.  Her gait,
+too, had a flexuousness about it, which seemed to avoid
+angularity.  It was a revelation to Elizabeth that human
+beings could reach this stage of external development--she
+had never suspected it.  She felt all the freshness and
+grace to be stolen from herself on the instant by the
+neighbourhood of such a stranger.  And this was in face of
+the fact that Elizabeth could now have been writ handsome,
+while the young lady was simply pretty.
+
+Had she been envious she might have hated the woman; but she
+did not do that--she allowed herself the pleasure of feeling
+fascinated.  She wondered where the lady had come from.  The
+stumpy and practical walk of honest homeliness which mostly
+prevailed there, the two styles of dress thereabout, the
+simple and the mistaken, equally avouched that this figure
+was no Casterbridge woman's, even if a book in her hand
+resembling a guide-book had not also suggested it.
+
+The stranger presently moved from the tombstone of Mrs.
+Henchard, and vanished behind the corner of the wall.
+Elizabeth went to the tomb herself; beside it were two foot-
+prints distinct in the soil, signifying that the lady had
+stood there a long time.  She returned homeward, musing on
+what she had seen, as she might have mused on a rainbow or
+the Northern Lights, a rare butterfly or a cameo.
+
+Interesting as things had been out of doors, at home it
+turned out to be one of her bad days.  Henchard, whose two
+years' mayoralty was ending, had been made aware that he was
+not to be chosen to fill a vacancy in the list of aldermen;
+and that Farfrae was likely to become one of the Council.
+This caused the unfortunate discovery that she had played
+the waiting-maid in the town of which he was Mayor to rankle
+in his mind yet more poisonously.  He had learnt by personal
+inquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae--that
+treacherous upstart--that she had thus humiliated herself.
+And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attach no great
+importance to the incident--the cheerful souls at the Three
+Mariners having exhausted its aspects long ago--such was
+Henchard's haughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed was
+regarded as little less than a social catastrophe by him.
+
+Ever since the evening of his wife's arrival with her
+daughter there had been something in the air which had
+changed his luck.  That dinner at the King's Arms with his
+friends had been Henchard's Austerlitz: he had had his
+successes since, but his course had not been upward.  He was
+not to be numbered among the aldermen--that Peerage of
+burghers--as he had expected to be, and the consciousness of
+this soured him to-day.
+
+"Well, where have you been?" he said to her with offhand
+laconism.
+
+"I've been strolling in the Walks and churchyard, father,
+till I feel quite leery."  She clapped her hand to her mouth,
+but too late.
+
+This was just enough to incense Henchard after the other
+crosses of the day.  "I WON'T have you talk like that!"
+he thundered.  "'Leery,' indeed.  One would think you worked
+upon a farm!  One day I learn that you lend a hand in public-
+houses.  Then I hear you talk like a clodhopper.  I'm
+burned, if it goes on, this house can't hold us two."
+
+The only way of getting a single pleasant thought to go to
+sleep upon after this was by recalling the lady she had seen
+that day, and hoping she might see her again.
+
+Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over his jealous
+folly in forbidding Farfrae to pay his addresses to this
+girl who did not belong to him, when if he had allowed them
+to go on he might not have been encumbered with her.  At
+last he said to himself with satisfaction as he jumped up
+and went to the writing-table: "Ah! he'll think it means
+peace, and a marriage portion--not that I don't want my
+house to be troubled with her, and no portion at all!" He
+wrote as follows:--
+
+
+Sir,--On consideration, I don't wish to interfere with your
+courtship of Elizabeth-Jane, if you care for her.  I
+therefore withdraw my objection; excepting in this--that the
+business be not carried on in my house.--
+
+Yours,
+                                  M.  HENCHARD
+Mr. Farfrae.
+
+
+The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Jane again in
+the churchyard, but while looking for the lady she was
+startled by the apparition of Farfrae, who passed outside
+the gate.  He glanced up for a moment from a pocket-book in
+which he appeared to be making figures as he went; whether
+or not he saw her he took no notice, and disappeared.
+
+Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluity she
+thought he probably scorned her; and quite broken in spirit
+sat down on a bench.  She fell into painful thought on her
+position, which ended with her saying quite loud, "O, I wish
+I was dead with dear mother!"
+
+Behind the bench was a little promenade under the wall where
+people sometimes walked instead of on the gravel.  The bench
+seemed to be touched by something, she looked round, and a
+face was bending over her, veiled, but still distinct, the
+face of the young woman she had seen yesterday.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowing she
+had been overheard, though there was pleasure in her
+confusion.  "Yes, I heard you," said the lady, in a
+vivacious voice, answering her look.  "What can have
+happened?"
+
+"I don't--I can't tell you," said Elizabeth, putting her
+hand to her face to hide a quick flush that had come.
+
+There was no movement or word for a few seconds; then the
+girl felt that the young lady was sitting down beside her.
+
+"I guess how it is with you," said the latter.  "That was
+your mother."  She waved her hand towards the tombstone.
+Elizabeth looked up at her as if inquiring of herself
+whether there should be confidence.  The lady's manner was
+so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decided there should
+be confidence.  "It was my mother," she said, "my only
+friend."
+
+"But your father, Mr. Henchard.  He is living?"
+
+"Yes, he is living," said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Is he not kind to you?"
+
+"I've no wish to complain of him."
+
+"There has been a disagreement?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"Perhaps you were to blame," suggested the stranger.
+
+"I was--in many ways," sighed the meek Elizabeth.  "I swept
+up the coals when the servants ought to have done it; and I
+said I was leery;--and he was angry with me."
+
+The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply.  "Do you
+know the impression your words give me?" she said
+ingenuously.  "That he is a hot-tempered man--a little
+proud--perhaps ambitious; but not a bad man."  Her anxiety
+not to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabeth was
+curious.
+
+"O no; certainly not BAD," agreed the honest girl.  "And
+he has not even been unkind to me till lately--since mother
+died.  But it has been very much to bear while it has
+lasted.  All is owing to my defects, I daresay; and my
+defects are owing to my history."
+
+"What is your history?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner.  She
+found that her questioner was looking at her, turned her
+eyes down; and then seemed compelled to look back again.
+"My history is not gay or attractive," she said.  "And yet I
+can tell it, if you really want to know."
+
+The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereupon
+Elizabeth-Jane told the tale of her life as she understood
+it, which was in general the true one, except that the sale
+at the fair had no part therein.
+
+Contrary to the girl's expectation her new friend was not
+shocked.  This cheered her; and it was not till she thought
+of returning to that home in which she had been treated so
+roughly of late that her spirits fell.
+
+"I don't know how to return," she murmured.  "I think of
+going away.  But what can I do? Where can I go?"
+
+"Perhaps it will be better soon," said her friend gently.
+"So I would not go far.  Now what do you think of this: I
+shall soon want somebody to live in my house, partly as
+housekeeper, partly as companion; would you mind coming to
+me? But perhaps--"
+
+"O yes," cried Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes.  "I would,
+indeed--I would do anything to be independent; for then
+perhaps my father might get to love me.  But, ah!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am no accomplished person.  And a companion to you must
+be that."
+
+"O, not necessarily."
+
+"Not? But I can't help using rural words sometimes, when I
+don't mean to."
+
+"Never mind, I shall like to know them."
+
+"And--O, I know I shan't do!"--she cried with a distressful
+laugh.  "I accidentally learned to write round hand instead
+of ladies'-hand.  And, of course, you want some one who can
+write that?"
+
+"Well, no."
+
+"What, not necessary to write ladies'-hand?" cried the
+joyous Elizabeth.
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"But where do you live?"
+
+"In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be living here after
+twelve o'clock to-day."
+
+Elizabeth expressed her astonishment.
+
+"I have been staying at Budmouth for a few days while my
+house was getting ready.  The house I am going into is that
+one they call High-Place Hall--the old stone one looking
+down the lane to the market.  Two or three rooms are fit for
+occupation, though not all: I sleep there to-night for the
+first time.  Now will you think over my proposal, and meet
+me here the first fine day next week, and say if you are
+still in the same mind?"
+
+Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of a change
+from an unbearable position, joyfully assented; and the two
+parted at the gate of the churchyard.
+
+
+
+21.
+
+
+As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remains
+practically unmarked till some mature experience enforces
+it, so did this High-Place Hall now for the first time
+really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though her ears had
+heard its name on a hundred occasions.
+
+Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger, and the
+house, and her own chance of living there, all the rest of
+the day.  In the afternoon she had occasion to pay a few
+bills in the town and do a little shopping when she learnt
+that what was a new discovery to herself had become a common
+topic about the streets.  High-Place Hall was undergoing
+repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the
+shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance
+of her being a customer.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to
+information so new to her in the bulk.  The lady, she said,
+had arrived that day.
+
+When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as
+to render chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth,
+almost with a lover's feeling, thought she would like to
+look at the outside of High-Place Hall.  She went up the
+street in that direction.
+
+The Hall, with its grey facade and parapet, was the only
+residence of its sort so near the centre of the town.  It
+had, in the first place, the characteristics of a country
+mansion--birds' nests in its chimneys, damp nooks where
+fungi grew and irregularities of surface direct from
+Nature's trowel.  At night the forms of passengers were
+patterned by the lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.
+
+This evening motes of straw lay around, and other signs of
+the premises having been in that lawless condition which
+accompanies the entry of a new tenant.  The house was
+entirely of stone, and formed an example of dignity without
+great size.  It was not altogether aristocratic, still less
+consequential, yet the old-fashioned stranger instinctively
+said "Blood built it, and Wealth enjoys it" however vague
+his opinions of those accessories might be.
+
+Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger would have been
+wrong, for until this very evening, when the new lady had
+arrived, the house had been empty for a year or two while
+before that interval its occupancy had been irregular.  The
+reason of its unpopularity was soon made manifest.  Some of
+its rooms overlooked the market-place; and such a prospect
+from such a house was not considered desirable or seemly by
+its would-be occupiers.
+
+Elizabeth's eyes sought the upper rooms, and saw lights
+there.  The lady had obviously arrived.  The impression that
+this woman of comparatively practised manner had made upon
+the studious girl's mind was so deep that she enjoyed
+standing under an opposite archway merely to think that the
+charming lady was inside the confronting walls, and to
+wonder what she was doing.  Her admiration for the
+architecture of that front was entirely on account of the
+inmate it screened.  Though for that matter the architecture
+deserved admiration, or at least study, on its own account.
+It was Palladian, and like most architecture erected since
+the Gothic age was a compilation rather than a design.  But
+its reasonableness made it impressive.  It was not rich, but
+rich enough.  A timely consciousness of the ultimate vanity
+of human architecture, no less than of other human things,
+had prevented artistic superfluity.
+
+Men had still quite recently been going in and out with
+parcels and packing-cases, rendering the door and hall
+within like a public thoroughfare.  Elizabeth trotted
+through the open door in the dusk, but becoming alarmed at
+her own temerity she went quickly out again by another which
+stood open in the lofty wall of the back court.  To her
+surprise she found herself in one of the little-used alleys
+of the town.  Looking round at the door which had given her
+egress, by the light of the solitary lamp fixed in the
+alley, she saw that it was arched and old--older even than
+the house itself.  The door was studded, and the keystone of
+the arch was a mask.  Originally the mask had exhibited a
+comic leer, as could still be discerned; but generations of
+Casterbridge boys had thrown stones at the mask, aiming at
+its open mouth; and the blows thereon had chipped off the
+lips and jaws as if they had been eaten away by disease.
+The appearance was so ghastly by the weakly lamp-glimmer
+that she could not bear to look at it--the first unpleasant
+feature of her visit.
+
+The position of the queer old door and the odd presence of
+the leering mask suggested one thing above all others as
+appertaining to the mansion's past history--intrigue.  By
+the alley it had been possible to come unseen from all sorts
+of quarters in the town--the old play-house, the old bull-
+stake, the old cock-pit, the pool wherein nameless infants
+had been used to disappear.  High-Place Hall could boast of
+its conveniences undoubtedly.
+
+She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward,
+which was down the alley, but hearing footsteps approaching
+in that quarter, and having no great wish to be found in
+such a place at such a time she quickly retreated.  There
+being no other way out she stood behind a brick pier till
+the intruder should have gone his ways.
+
+Had she watched she would have been surprised.  She would
+have seen that the pedestrian on coming up made straight for
+the arched doorway: that as he paused with his hand upon the
+latch the lamplight fell upon the face of Henchard.
+
+But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook that she
+discerned nothing of this.  Henchard passed in, as ignorant
+of her presence as she was ignorant of his identity, and
+disappeared in the darkness.  Elizabeth came out a second
+time into the alley, and made the best of her way home.
+
+Henchard's chiding, by begetting in her a nervous fear of
+doing anything definable as unladylike, had operated thus
+curiously in keeping them unknown to each other at a
+critical moment.  Much might have resulted from recognition--
+at the least a query on either side in one and the self-
+same form: What could he or she possibly be doing there?
+
+Henchard, whatever his business at the lady's house, reached
+his own home only a few minutes later than Elizabeth-Jane.
+Her plan was to broach the question of leaving his roof this
+evening; the events of the day had urged her to the course.
+But its execution depended upon his mood, and she anxiously
+awaited his manner towards her.  She found that it had
+changed.  He showed no further tendency to be angry; he
+showed something worse.  Absolute indifference had taken the
+place of irritability; and his coldness was such that it
+encouraged her to departure, even more than hot temper could
+have done.
+
+"Father, have you any objection to my going away?" she
+asked.
+
+"Going away!  No--none whatever.  Where are you going?"
+
+She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to say anything
+at present about her destination to one who took so little
+interest in her.  He would know that soon enough.  "I have
+heard of an opportunity of getting more cultivated and
+finished, and being less idle," she answered, with
+hesitation.  "A chance of a place in a household where I can
+have advantages of study, and seeing refined life."
+
+"Then make the best of it, in Heaven's name--if you can't
+get cultivated where you are."
+
+"You don't object?"
+
+"Object--I? Ho--no!  Not at all."  After a pause he said, "But
+you won't have enough money for this lively scheme without
+help, you know? If you like I should be willing to make you
+an allowance, so that you not be bound to live upon the
+starvation wages refined folk are likely to pay 'ee."
+
+She thanked him for this offer.
+
+"It had better be done properly," he added after a pause.
+"A small annuity is what I should like you to have--so as to
+be independent of me--and so that I may be independent of
+you.  Would that please ye?"
+
+Certainly.
+
+"Then I'll see about it this very day."  He seemed relieved
+to get her off his hands by this arrangement, and as far as
+they were concerned the matter was settled.  She now simply
+waited to see the lady again.
+
+The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell.
+Elizabeth-Jane having now changed her orbit from one of gay
+independence to laborious self-help, thought the weather
+good enough for such declined glory as hers, if her friend
+would only face it--a matter of doubt.  She went to the
+boot-room where her pattens had hung ever since her
+apotheosis; took them down, had their mildewed leathers
+blacked, and put them on as she had done in old times.  Thus
+mounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she went off to the
+place of appointment--intending, if the lady were not there,
+to call at the house.
+
+One side of the churchyard--the side towards the weather--
+was sheltered by an ancient thatched mud wall whose eaves
+overhung as much as one or two feet.  At the back of the
+wall was a corn-yard with its granary and barns--the place
+wherein she had met Farfrae many months earlier.  Under the
+projection of the thatch she saw a figure.  The young lady
+had come.
+
+Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl's
+utmost hopes that she almost feared her good fortune.
+Fancies find rooms in the strongest minds.  Here, in a
+churchyard old as civilization, in the worst of weathers,
+was a strange woman of curious fascinations never seen
+elsewhere: there might be some devilry about her presence.
+However, Elizabeth went on to the church tower, on whose
+summit the rope of a flagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus
+she came to the wall.
+
+The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzle that
+Elizabeth forgot her fancy.  "Well," said the lady, a little
+of the whiteness of her teeth appearing with the word
+through the black fleece that protected her face, "have you
+decided?"
+
+"Yes, quite," said the other eagerly.
+
+"Your father is willing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then come along."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now--as soon as you like.  I had a good mind to send to you
+to come to my house, thinking you might not venture up here
+in the wind.  But as I like getting out of doors, I thought
+I would come and see first."
+
+"It was my own thought."
+
+"That shows we shall agree.  Then can you come to-day? My
+house is so hollow and dismal that I want some living thing
+there."
+
+"I think I might be able to," said the girl, reflecting.
+
+Voices were borne over to them at that instant on the wind
+and raindrops from the other side of the wall.  There came
+such words as "sacks," "quarters," "threshing," "tailing,"
+"next Saturday's market," each sentence being disorganized
+by the gusts like a face in a cracked mirror.  Both the
+women listened.
+
+"Who are those?" said the lady.
+
+"One is my father.  He rents that yard and barn."
+
+The lady seemed to forget the immediate business in
+listening to the technicalities of the corn trade.  At last
+she said suddenly, "Did you tell him where you were going
+to?"
+
+"No."
+
+"O--how was that?"
+
+"I thought it safer to get away first--as he is so uncertain
+in his temper."
+
+"Perhaps you are right....Besides, I have never told you my
+name.  It is Miss Templeman....Are they gone--on the other
+side?"
+
+"No.  They have only gone up into the granary."
+
+"Well, it is getting damp here.  I shall expect you to-day--
+this evening, say, at six."
+
+"Which way shall I come, ma'am?"
+
+"The front way--round by the gate.  There is no other that I
+have noticed."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley.
+
+"Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination, you
+may as well keep silent upon it till you are clear off.  Who
+knows but that he may alter his mind?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane shook her head.  "On consideration I don't
+fear it," she said sadly.  "He has grown quite cold to me."
+
+"Very well.  Six o'clock then."
+
+When they had emerged upon the open road and parted, they
+found enough to do in holding their bowed umbrellas to the
+wind.  Nevertheless the lady looked in at the corn-yard
+gates as she passed them, and paused on one foot for a
+moment.  But nothing was visible there save the ricks, and
+the humpbacked barn cushioned with moss, and the granary
+rising against the church-tower behind, where the smacking
+of the rope against the flag-staff still went on.
+
+Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion that Elizabeth-
+Jane's movement was to be so prompt.  Hence when, just
+before six, he reached home and saw a fly at the door from
+the King's Arms, and his step-daughter, with all her little
+bags and boxes, getting into it, he was taken by surprise.
+
+"But you said I might go, father?" she explained through the
+carriage window.
+
+"Said!--yes.  But I thought you meant next month, or next
+year.  'Od, seize it--you take time by the forelock!  This,
+then, is how you be going to treat me for all my trouble
+about ye?"
+
+"O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of
+you!" she said with spirit.
+
+"Well, well, have your own way," he replied.  He entered the
+house, and, seeing that all her things had not yet been
+brought down, went up to her room to look on.  He had never
+been there since she had occupied it.  Evidences of her
+care, of her endeavours for improvement, were visible all
+around, in the form of books, sketches, maps, and little
+arrangements for tasteful effects.  Henchard had known
+nothing of these efforts.  He gazed at them, turned suddenly
+about, and came down to the door.
+
+"Look here," he said, in an altered voice--he never called
+her by name now--"don't 'ee go away from me.  It may be I've
+spoke roughly to you--but I've been grieved beyond
+everything by you--there's something that caused it."
+
+"By me?" she said, with deep concern.  "What have I done?"
+
+"I can't tell you now.  But if you'll stop, and go on living
+as my daughter, I'll tell you all in time."
+
+But the proposal had come ten minutes too late.  She was in
+the fly--was already, in imagination, at the house of the
+lady whose manner had such charms for her.  "Father," she
+said, as considerately as she could, "I think it best for us
+that I go on now.  I need not stay long; I shall not be far
+away, and if you want me badly I can soon come back again."
+
+He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decision and
+no more.  "You are not going far, you say.  What will be
+your address, in case I wish to write to you? Or am I not to
+know?"
+
+"Oh yes--certainly.  It is only in the town--High-Place
+Hall!"
+
+"Where?" said Henchard, his face stilling.
+
+She repeated the words.  He neither moved nor spoke, and
+waving her hand to him in utmost friendliness she signified
+to the flyman to drive up the street.
+
+
+
+22.
+
+
+We go back for a moment to the preceding night, to account
+for Henchard's attitude.
+
+At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplating her
+stealthy reconnoitring excursion to the abode of the lady of
+her fancy, he had been not a little amazed at receiving a
+letter by hand in Lucetta's well-known characters.  The
+self-repression, the resignation of her previous
+communication had vanished from her mood; she wrote with
+some of the natural lightness which had marked her in their
+early acquaintance.
+
+
+HIGH-PLACE HALL
+
+MY DEAR MR. HENCHARD,--Don't be surprised.  It is for your
+good and mine, as I hope, that I have come to live at
+Casterbridge--for how long I cannot tell.  That depends upon
+another; and he is a man, and a merchant, and a Mayor, and
+one who has the first right to my affections.
+
+Seriously, mon ami, I am not so light-hearted as I may
+seem to be from this.  I have come here in consequence of
+hearing of the death of your wife--whom you used to think of
+as dead so many years before!  Poor woman, she seems to have
+been a sufferer, though uncomplaining, and though weak in
+intellect not an imbecile.  I am glad you acted fairly by
+her.  As soon as I knew she was no more, it was brought home
+to me very forcibly by my conscience that I ought to
+endeavour to disperse the shade which my etourderie
+flung over my name, by asking you to carry out your promise
+to me.  I hope you are of the same mind, and that you will
+take steps to this end.  As, however, I did not know how you
+were situated, or what had happened since our separation, I
+decided to come and establish myself here before
+communicating with you.
+
+You probably feel as I do about this.  I shall be able to
+see you in a day or two.  Till then, farewell.--Yours,
+
+LUCETTA .
+
+P.S.--I was unable to keep my appointment to meet you for a
+moment or two in passing through Casterbridge the other day.
+My plans were altered by a family event, which it will
+surprise you to hear of.
+
+
+Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall was being
+prepared for a tenant.  He said with a puzzled air to the
+first person he encountered, "Who is coming to live at the
+Hall?"
+
+"A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir," said his
+informant.
+
+Henchard thought it over.  "Lucetta is related to her, I
+suppose," he said to himself.  "Yes, I must put her in her
+proper position, undoubtedly."
+
+It was by no means with the oppression that would once have
+accompanied the thought that he regarded the moral necessity
+now; it was, indeed, with interest, if not warmth.  His
+bitter disappointment at finding Elizabeth-Jane to be none
+of his, and himself a childless man, had left an emotional
+void in Henchard that he unconsciously craved to fill.  In
+this frame of mind, though without strong feeling, he had
+strolled up the alley and into High-Place Hall by the
+postern at which Elizabeth had so nearly encountered him.
+He had gone on thence into the court, and inquired of a man
+whom he saw unpacking china from a crate if Miss Le Sueur
+was living there.  Miss Le Sueur had been the name under
+which he had known Lucetta--or "Lucette," as she had called
+herself at that time.
+
+The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templeman only
+had come.  Henchard went away, concluding that Lucetta had
+not as yet settled in.
+
+He was in this interested stage of the inquiry when he
+witnessed Elizabeth-Jane's departure the next day.  On
+hearing her announce the address there suddenly took
+possession of him the strange thought that Lucetta and Miss
+Templeman were one and the same person, for he could recall
+that in her season of intimacy with him the name of the rich
+relative whom he had deemed somewhat a mythical personage
+had been given as Templeman.  Though he was not a fortune-
+hunter, the possibility that Lucetta had been sublimed into
+a lady of means by some munificent testament on the part of
+this relative lent a charm to her image which it might not
+otherwise have acquired.  He was getting on towards the dead
+level of middle age, when material things increasingly
+possess the mind.
+
+But Henchard was not left long in suspense.  Lucetta was
+rather addicted to scribbling, as had been shown by the
+torrent of letters after the fiasco in their marriage
+arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth gone away when
+another note came to the Mayor's house from High-Place Hall.
+
+
+"I am in residence," she said, "and comfortable, though
+getting here has been a wearisome undertaking.  You probably
+know what I am going to tell you, or do you not? My good
+Aunt Templeman, the banker's widow, whose very existence you
+used to doubt, much more her affluence, has lately died, and
+bequeathed some of her property to me.  I will not enter
+into details except to say that I have taken her name--as a
+means of escape from mine, and its wrongs.
+
+"I am now my own mistress, and have chosen to reside in
+Casterbridge--to be tenant of High-Place Hall, that at least
+you may be put to no trouble if you wish to see me.  My
+first intention was to keep you in ignorance of the changes
+in my life till you should meet me in the street; but I have
+thought better of this.
+
+"You probably are aware of my arrangement with your
+daughter, and have doubtless laughed at the--what shall I
+call it?--practical joke (in all affection) of my getting
+her to live with me.  But my first meeting with her was
+purely an accident.  Do you see, Michael, partly why I have
+done it?--why, to give you an excuse for coming here as if
+to visit HER, and thus to form my acquaintance
+naturally.  She is a dear, good girl, and she thinks you
+have treated her with undue severity.  You may have done so
+in your haste, but not deliberately, I am sure.  As the
+result has been to bring her to me I am not disposed to
+upbraid you.--In haste, yours always,
+
+LUCETTA.
+
+
+The excitement which these announcements produced in
+Henchard's gloomy soul was to him most pleasurable.  He sat
+over his dining-table long and dreamily, and by an almost
+mechanical transfer the sentiments which had run to waste
+since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Jane and Donald
+Farfrae gathered around Lucetta before they had grown dry.
+She was plainly in a very coming-on disposition for
+marriage.  But what else could a poor woman be who had given
+her time and her heart to him so thoughtlessly, at that
+former time, as to lose her credit by it? Probably
+conscience no less than affection had brought her here.  On
+the whole he did not blame her.
+
+"The artful little woman!" he said, smiling (with reference
+to Lucetta's adroit and pleasant manoeuvre with Elizabeth-
+Jane).
+
+To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was with Henchard
+to start for her house.  He put on his hat and went.  It was
+between eight and nine o'clock when he reached her door.
+The answer brought him was that Miss Templeman was engaged
+for that evening; but that she would be happy to see him the
+next day.
+
+"That's rather like giving herself airs!" he thought.  "And
+considering what we--" But after all, she plainly had not
+expected him, and he took the refusal quietly.  Nevertheless
+he resolved not to go next day.  "These cursed women--
+there's not an inch of straight grain in 'em!" he said.
+
+Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard's thought as if it
+were a clue line, and view the interior of High-Place Hall
+on this particular evening.
+
+On Elizabeth-Jane's arrival she had been phlegmatically
+asked by an elderly woman to go upstairs and take off her
+things.  She replied with great earnestness that she would
+not think of giving that trouble, and on the instant
+divested herself of her bonnet and cloak in the passage.
+She was then conducted to the first floor on the landing,
+and left to find her way further alone.
+
+The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoir or
+small drawing-room, and on a sofa with two cylindrical
+pillows reclined a dark-haired, large-eyed, pretty woman, of
+unmistakably French extraction on one side or the other.
+She was probably some years older than Elizabeth, and had a
+sparkling light in her eye.  In front of the sofa was a
+small table, with a pack of cards scattered upon it faces
+upward.
+
+The attitude had been so full of abandonment that she
+bounded up like a spring on hearing the door open.
+
+Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease, and
+came across to her with a reckless skip that innate grace
+only prevented from being boisterous.
+
+"Why, you are late," she said, taking hold of Elizabeth-
+Jane's hands.
+
+"There were so many little things to put up."
+
+"And you seem dead-alive and tired.  Let me try to enliven
+you by some wonderful tricks I have learnt, to kill time.
+Sit there and don't move."  She gathered up the pack of
+cards, pulled the table in front of her, and began to deal
+them rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.
+
+"Well, have you chosen?" she asked flinging down the last
+card.
+
+"No," stammered Elizabeth, arousing herself from a reverie.
+"I forgot, I was thinking of--you, and me--and how strange
+it is that I am here."
+
+Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest, and
+laid down the cards.  "Ah! never mind," she said.  "I'll lie
+here while you sit by me; and we'll talk."
+
+Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa, but with
+obvious pleasure.  It could be seen that though in years she
+was younger than her entertainer in manner and general
+vision she seemed more of the sage.  Miss Templeman
+deposited herself on the sofa in her former flexuous
+position, and throwing her arm above her brow--somewhat in
+the pose of a well-known conception of Titian's--talked up
+at Elizabeth-Jane invertedly across her forehead and arm.
+
+"I must tell you something," she said.  "I wonder if you
+have suspected it.  I have only been mistress of a large
+house and fortune a little while."
+
+"Oh--only a little while?" murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her
+countenance slightly falling.
+
+"As a girl I lived about in garrison towns and elsewhere
+with my father, till I was quite flighty and unsettled.  He
+was an officer in the army.  I should not have mentioned
+this had I not thought it best you should know the truth."
+
+"Yes, yes."  She looked thoughtfully round the room--at the
+little square piano with brass inlayings, at the window-
+curtains, at the lamp, at the fair and dark kings and queens
+on the card-table, and finally at the inverted face of
+Lucetta Templeman, whose large lustrous eyes had such an odd
+effect upside down.
+
+Elizabeth's mind ran on acquirements to an almost morbid
+degree.  "You speak French and Italian fluently, no doubt,"
+she said.  "I have not been able to get beyond a wretched
+bit of Latin yet."
+
+"Well, for that matter, in my native isle speaking French
+does not go for much.  It is rather the other way."
+
+"Where is your native isle?"
+
+It was with rather more reluctance that Miss Templeman said,
+"Jersey.  There they speak French on one side of the street
+and English on the other, and a mixed tongue in the middle
+of the road.  But it is a long time since I was there.  Bath
+is where my people really belong to, though my ancestors in
+Jersey were as good as anybody in England.  They were the Le
+Sueurs, an old family who have done great things in their
+time.  I went back and lived there after my father's death.
+But I don't value such past matters, and am quite an English
+person in my feelings and tastes."
+
+Lucetta's tongue had for a moment outrun her discretion.
+She had arrived at Casterbridge as a Bath lady, and there
+were obvious reasons why Jersey should drop out of her life.
+But Elizabeth had tempted her to make free, and a
+deliberately formed resolve had been broken.
+
+It could not, however, have been broken in safer company.
+Lucetta's words went no further, and after this day she was
+so much upon her guard that there appeared no chance of her
+identification with the young Jersey woman who had been
+Henchard's dear comrade at a critical time.  Not the least
+amusing of her safeguards was her resolute avoidance of a
+French word if one by accident came to her tongue more
+readily than its English equivalent.  She shirked it with
+the suddenness of the weak Apostle at the accusation, "Thy
+speech bewrayeth thee!"
+
+Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning.  She
+dressed herself for Mr. Henchard, and restlessly awaited his
+call before mid-day; as he did not come she waited on
+through the afternoon.  But she did not tell Elizabeth that
+the person expected was the girl's stepfather.
+
+They sat in adjoining windows of the same room in Lucetta's
+great stone mansion, netting, and looking out upon the
+market, which formed an animated scene.  Elizabeth could see
+the crown of her stepfather's hat among the rest beneath,
+and was not aware that Lucetta watched the same object with
+yet intenser interest.  He moved about amid the throng, at
+this point lively as an ant-hill; elsewhere more reposeful,
+and broken up by stalls of fruit and vegetables.
+
+The farmers as a rule preferred the open carrefour for
+their transactions, despite its inconvenient jostlings and
+the danger from crossing vehicles, to the gloomy sheltered
+market-room provided for them.  Here they surged on this one
+day of the week, forming a little world of leggings,
+switches, and sample-bags; men of extensive stomachs,
+sloping like mountain sides; men whose heads in walking
+swayed as the trees in November gales; who in conversing
+varied their attitudes much, lowering themselves by
+spreading their knees, and thrusting their hands into the
+pockets of remote inner jackets.  Their faces radiated
+tropical warmth; for though when at home their countenances
+varied with the seasons, their market-faces all the year
+round were glowing little fires.
+
+All over-clothes here were worn as if they were an
+inconvenience, a hampering necessity.  Some men were well
+dressed; but the majority were careless in that respect,
+appearing in suits which were historical records of their
+wearer's deeds, sun-scorchings, and daily struggles for many
+years past.  Yet many carried ruffled cheque-books in their
+pockets which regulated at the bank hard by a balance of
+never less than four figures.  In fact, what these gibbous
+human shapes specially represented was ready money--money
+insistently ready--not ready next year like a nobleman's--
+often not merely ready at the bank like a professional
+man's, but ready in their large plump hands.
+
+It happened that to-day there rose in the midst of them all
+two or three tall apple-trees standing as if they grew on
+the spot; till it was perceived that they were held by men
+from the cider-districts who came here to sell them,
+bringing the clay of their county on their boots.
+Elizabeth-Jane, who had often observed them, said, "I wonder
+if the same trees come every week?"
+
+"What trees?" said Lucetta, absorbed in watching for
+Henchard.
+
+Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident checked her.
+Behind one of the trees stood Farfrae, briskly discussing a
+sample-bag with a farmer.  Henchard had come up,
+accidentally encountering the young man, whose face seemed
+to inquire, "Do we speak to each other?"
+
+She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eye which
+answered "No!" Elizabeth-Jane sighed.
+
+"Are you particularly interested in anybody out there?" said
+Lucetta.
+
+"O, no," said her companion, a quick red shooting over her
+face.
+
+Luckily Farfrae's figure was immediately covered by the
+apple-tree.
+
+Lucetta looked hard at her.  "Quite sure?" she said.
+
+"O yes," said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+Again Lucetta looked out.  "They are all farmers, I
+suppose?" she said.
+
+"No.  There's Mr. Bulge--he's a wine merchant; there's
+Benjamin Brownlet--a horse dealer; and Kitson, the pig
+breeder; and Yopper, the auctioneer; besides maltsters, and
+millers--and so on."  Farfrae stood out quite distinctly now;
+but she did not mention him.
+
+The Saturday afternoon slipped on thus desultorily.  The
+market changed from the sample-showing hour to the idle hour
+before starting homewards, when tales were told.  Henchard
+had not called on Lucetta though he had stood so near.  He
+must have been too busy, she thought.  He would come on
+Sunday or Monday.
+
+The days came but not the visitor, though Lucetta repeated
+her dressing with scrupulous care.  She got disheartened.
+It may at once be declared that Lucetta no longer bore
+towards Henchard all that warm allegiance which had
+characterized her in their first acquaintance, the then
+unfortunate issue of things had chilled pure love
+considerably.  But there remained a conscientious wish to
+bring about her union with him, now that there was nothing
+to hinder it--to right her position--which in itself was a
+happiness to sigh for.  With strong social reasons on her
+side why their marriage should take place there had ceased
+to be any worldly reason on his why it should be postponed,
+since she had succeeded to fortune.
+
+Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair.  At breakfast she said
+to Elizabeth-Jane quite coolly: "I imagine your father may
+call to see you to-day.  I suppose he stands close by in the
+market-place with the rest of the corn-dealers?"
+
+She shook her head.  "He won't come."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He has taken against me," she said in a husky voice.
+
+"You have quarreled more deeply than I know of."
+
+Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her
+father from any charge of unnatural dislike, said "Yes."
+
+"Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will
+avoid?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded sadly.
+
+Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrows and
+lip, and burst into hysterical sobs.  Here was a disaster--
+her ingenious scheme completely stultified.
+
+"O, my dear Miss Templeman--what's the matter?" cried her
+companion.
+
+"I like your company much!" said Lucetta, as soon as she
+could speak.
+
+"Yes, yes--and so do I yours!" Elizabeth chimed in
+soothingly.
+
+"But--but--" She could not finish the sentence, which was,
+naturally, that if Henchard had such a rooted dislike for
+the girl as now seemed to be the case, Elizabeth-Jane would
+have to be got rid of--a disagreeable necessity.
+
+A provisional resource suggested itself.  "Miss Henchard--
+will you go on an errand for me as soon as breakfast is
+over?--Ah, that's very good of you.  Will you go and order--
+" Here she enumerated several commissions at sundry shops,
+which would occupy Elizabeth's time for the next hour or
+two, at least.
+
+"And have you ever seen the Museum?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had not.
+
+"Then you should do so at once.  You can finish the morning
+by going there.  It is an old house in a back street--I
+forget where--but you'll find out--and there are crowds of
+interesting things--skeletons, teeth, old pots and pans,
+ancient boots and shoes, birds' eggs--all charmingly
+instructive.  You'll be sure to stay till you get quite
+hungry."
+
+Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed.  "I wonder
+why she wants to get rid of me to-day!" she said sorrowfully
+as she went.  That her absence, rather than her services or
+instruction, was in request, had been readily apparent to
+Elizabeth-Jane, simple as she seemed, and difficult as it
+was to attribute a motive for the desire.
+
+She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta's
+servants was sent to Henchard's with a note.  The contents
+were briefly:--
+
+
+DEAR MICHAEL,--You will be standing in view of my house to-
+day for two or three hours in the course of your business,
+so do please call and see me.  I am sadly disappointed that
+you have not come before, for can I help anxiety about my
+own equivocal relation to you?--especially now my aunt's
+fortune has brought me more prominently before society? Your
+daughter's presence here may be the cause of your neglect;
+and I have therefore sent her away for the morning.  Say you
+come on business--I shall be quite alone.
+
+LUCETTA.
+
+
+When the messenger returned her mistress gave directions
+that if a gentleman called he was to be admitted at once,
+and sat down to await results.
+
+Sentimentally she did not much care to see him--his delays
+had wearied her, but it was necessary; and with a sigh she
+arranged herself picturesquely in the chair; first this way,
+then that; next so that the light fell over her head.  Next
+she flung herself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve which
+so became her, and with her arm over her brow looked towards
+the door.  This, she decided, was the best position after
+all, and thus she remained till a man's step was heard on
+the stairs.  Whereupon Lucetta, forgetting her curve (for
+Nature was too strong for Art as yet), jumped up and ran and
+hid herself behind one of the window-curtains in a freak of
+timidity.  In spite of the waning of passion the situation
+was an agitating one--she had not seen Henchard since his
+(supposed) temporary parting from her in Jersey.
+
+She could hear the servant showing the visitor into the
+room, shutting the door upon him, and leaving as if to go
+and look for her mistress.  Lucetta flung back the curtain
+with a nervous greeting.  The man before her was not
+Henchard.
+
+
+
+23.
+
+
+A conjecture that her visitor might be some other person
+had, indeed, flashed through Lucetta's mind when she was on
+the point of bursting out; but it was just too late to
+recede.
+
+He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge; fair,
+fresh, and slenderly handsome.  He wore genteel cloth
+leggings with white buttons, polished boots with infinite
+lace holes, light cord breeches under a black velveteen coat
+and waistcoat; and he had a silver-topped switch in his
+hand.  Lucetta blushed, and said with a curious mixture of
+pout and laugh on her face--"O, I've made a mistake!"
+
+The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle.
+
+"But I'm very sorry!" he said, in deprecating tones.  "I
+came and I inquired for Miss Henchard, and they showed me up
+here, and in no case would I have caught ye so unmannerly if
+I had known!"
+
+"I was the unmannerly one," she said.
+
+"But is it that I have come to the wrong house, madam?" said
+Mr. Farfrae, blinking a little in his bewilderment and
+nervously tapping his legging with his switch.
+
+"O no, sir,--sit down.  You must come and sit down now you
+are here," replied Lucetta kindly, to relieve his
+embarrassment.  "Miss Henchard will be here directly."
+
+Now this was not strictly true; but that something about the
+young man--that hyperborean crispness, stringency, and
+charm, as of a well-braced musical instrument, which had
+awakened the interest of Henchard, and of Elizabeth-Jane and
+of the Three Mariners' jovial crew, at sight, made his
+unexpected presence here attractive to Lucetta.  He
+hesitated, looked at the chair, thought there was no danger
+in it (though there was), and sat down.
+
+Farfrae's sudden entry was simply the result of Henchard's
+permission to him to see Elizabeth if he were minded to woo
+her.  At first he had taken no notice of Henchard's brusque
+letter; but an exceptionally fortunate business transaction
+put him on good terms with everybody, and revealed to him
+that he could undeniably marry if he chose.  Then who so
+pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as
+Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a
+reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the
+natural course of things, flow from such a union.  He
+therefore forgave the Mayor his curtness; and this morning
+on his way to the fair he had called at her house, where he
+learnt that she was staying at Miss Templeman's.  A little
+stimulated at not finding her ready and waiting--so fanciful
+are men!--he hastened on to High-Place Hall to encounter no
+Elizabeth but its mistress herself.
+
+"The fair to-day seems a large one," she said when, by
+natural deviation, their eyes sought the busy scene without.
+"Your numerous fairs and markets keep me interested.  How
+many things I think of while I watch from here!"
+
+He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble without
+reached them as they sat--voices as of wavelets on a looping
+sea, one ever and anon rising above the rest.  "Do you look
+out often?" he asked.
+
+"Yes--very often."
+
+"Do you look for any one you know?"
+
+Why should she have answered as she did?
+
+"I look as at a picture merely.  But," she went on, turning
+pleasantly to him, "I may do so now--I may look for you.
+You are always there, are you not? Ah--I don't mean it
+seriously!  But it is amusing to look for somebody one knows
+in a crowd, even if one does not want him.  It takes off the
+terrible oppressiveness of being surrounded by a throng, and
+having no point of junction with it through a single
+individual."
+
+"Ay!  Maybe you'll be very lonely, ma'am?"
+
+"Nobody knows how lonely."
+
+"But you are rich, they say?"
+
+"If so, I don't know how to enjoy my riches.  I came to
+Casterbridge thinking I should like to live here.  But I
+wonder if I shall."
+
+"Where did ye come from, ma'am?"
+
+"The neighbourhood of Bath."
+
+"And I from near Edinboro'," he murmured.  "It's better to
+stay at home, and that's true; but a man must live where his
+money is made.  It is a great pity, but it's always so!  Yet
+I've done very well this year.  O yes," he went on with
+ingenuous enthusiasm.  "You see that man with the drab
+kerseymere coat? I bought largely of him in the autumn when
+wheat was down, and then afterwards when it rose a little I
+sold off all I had!  It brought only a small profit to me;
+while the farmers kept theirs, expecting higher figures--
+yes, though the rats were gnawing the ricks hollow.  Just
+when I sold the markets went lower, and I bought up the corn
+of those who had been holding back at less price than my
+first purchases.  And then," cried Farfrae impetuously, his
+face alight, "I sold it a few weeks after, when it happened
+to go up again!  And so, by contenting mysel' with small
+profits frequently repeated, I soon made five hundred
+pounds--yes!"--(bringing down his hand upon the table, and
+quite forgetting where he was)--"while the others by keeping
+theirs in hand made nothing at all!"
+
+Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest.  He was quite
+a new type of person to her.  At last his eye fell upon the
+lady's and their glances met.
+
+"Ay, now, I'm wearying you!" he exclaimed.
+
+She said, "No, indeed," colouring a shade.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Quite otherwise.  You are most interesting."
+
+It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.
+
+"I mean all you Scotchmen," she added in hasty correction.
+"So free from Southern extremes.  We common people are all
+one way or the other--warm or cold, passionate or frigid.
+You have both temperatures going on in you at the same
+time."
+
+"But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly,
+ma'am."
+
+"You are animated--then you are thinking of getting on.  You
+are sad the next moment--then you are thinking of Scotland
+and friends."
+
+"Yes.  I think of home sometimes!" he said simply.
+
+"So do I--as far as I can.  But it was an old house where I
+was born, and they pulled it down for improvements, so I
+seem hardly to have any home to think of now."
+
+Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house
+was in St. Helier, and not in Bath.
+
+"But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are
+there!  And don't they seem like home?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"They do to me--they do to me," he murmured.  And his mind
+could be seen flying away northwards.  Whether its origin
+were national or personal, it was quite true what Lucetta
+had said, that the curious double strands in Farfrae's
+thread of life--the commercial and the romantic--were very
+distinct at times.  Like the colours in a variegated cord
+those contrasts could be seen intertwisted, yet not
+mingling.
+
+"You are wishing you were back again," she said.
+
+"Ah, no, ma'am," said Farfrae, suddenly recalling himself.
+
+The fair without the windows was now raging thick and loud.
+It was the chief hiring fair of the year, and differed quite
+from the market of a few days earlier.  In substance it was
+a whitey-brown crowd flecked with white--this being the body
+of labourers waiting for places.  The long bonnets of the
+women, like waggon-tilts, their cotton gowns and checked
+shawls, mixed with the carters' smockfrocks; for they, too,
+entered into the hiring.  Among the rest, at the corner of
+the pavement, stood an old shepherd, who attracted the eyes
+of Lucetta and Farfrae by his stillness.  He was evidently a
+chastened man.  The battle of life had been a sharp one with
+him, for, to begin with, he was a man of small frame.  He
+was now so bowed by hard work and years that, approaching
+from behind, a person could hardly see his head.  He had
+planted the stem of his crook in the gutter and was resting
+upon the bow, which was polished to silver brightness by the
+long friction of his hands.  He had quite forgotten where he
+was, and what he had come for, his eyes being bent on the
+ground.  A little way off negotiations were proceeding which
+had reference to him; but he did not hear them, and there
+seemed to be passing through his mind pleasant visions of
+the hiring successes of his prime, when his skill laid open
+to him any farm for the asking.
+
+The negotiations were between a farmer from a distant county
+and the old man's son.  In these there was a difficulty.
+The farmer would not take the crust without the crumb of the
+bargain, in other words, the old man without the younger;
+and the son had a sweetheart on his present farm, who stood
+by, waiting the issue with pale lips.
+
+"I'm sorry to leave ye, Nelly," said the young man with
+emotion.  "But, you see, I can't starve father, and he's out
+o' work at Lady-day.  'Tis only thirty-five mile."
+
+The girl's lips quivered.  "Thirty-five mile!" she murmured.
+"Ah!  'tis enough!  I shall never see 'ee again!" It was,
+indeed, a hopeless length of traction for Dan Cupid's
+magnet; for young men were young men at Casterbridge as
+elsewhere.
+
+"O! no, no--I never shall," she insisted, when he pressed
+her hand; and she turned her face to Lucetta's wall to hide
+her weeping.  The farmer said he would give the young man
+half-an-hour for his answer, and went away, leaving the
+group sorrowing.
+
+Lucetta's eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae's.  His, too, to
+her surprise, were moist at the scene.
+
+"It is very hard," she said with strong feelings.  "Lovers
+ought not to be parted like that!  O, if I had my wish, I'd
+let people live and love at their pleasure!"
+
+"Maybe I can manage that they'll not be parted," said
+Farfrae.  "I want a young carter; and perhaps I'll take the
+old man too--yes; he'll not be very expensive, and doubtless
+he will answer my pairrpose somehow."
+
+"O, you are so good!" she cried, delighted.  "Go and tell
+them, and let me know if you have succeeded!"
+
+Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group.  The
+eyes of all brightened; the bargain was soon struck.
+Farfrae returned to her immediately it was concluded.
+
+"It is kind-hearted of you, indeed," said Lucetta.  "For my
+part, I have resolved that all my servants shall have lovers
+if they want them!  Do make the same resolve!"
+
+Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn.
+"I must be a little stricter than that," he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You are a--a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and-
+corn merchant."
+
+"I am a very ambitious woman."
+
+"Ah, well, I cannet explain.  I don't know how to talk to
+ladies, ambitious or no; and that's true," said Donald with
+grave regret.  "I try to be civil to a' folk--no more!"
+
+"I see you are as you say," replied she, sensibly getting
+the upper hand in these exchanges of sentiment.  Under this
+revelation of insight Farfrae again looked out of the window
+into the thick of the fair.
+
+Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the
+window their remarks could be heard as others' had been.
+
+"Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?" asked one.
+"He promised to meet me here at the stroke of twelve; but
+I've gone athwart and about the fair half-a-dozen times, and
+never a sign of him: though he's mostly a man to his word."
+
+"I quite forgot the engagement," murmured Farfrae.
+
+"Now you must go," said she; "must you not?"
+
+"Yes," he replied.  But he still remained.
+
+"You had better go," she urged.  "You will lose a customer.
+
+"Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry," exclaimed
+Farfrae.
+
+"Then suppose you don't go; but stay a little longer?"
+
+He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seeking him and
+who just then ominously walked across to where Henchard was
+standing, and he looked into the room and at her.  "I like
+staying; but I fear I must go!" he said.  "Business ought
+not to be neglected, ought it?
+
+"Not for a single minute."
+
+"It's true.  I'll come another time--if I may, ma'am?"
+
+"Certainly," she said.  "What has happened to us to-day is
+very curious."
+
+"Something to think over when we are alone, it's like to
+be?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know that.  It is commonplace after all."
+
+"No, I'll not say that.  O no!"
+
+"Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market
+calls you to be gone."
+
+"Yes, yes.  Market--business!  I wish there were no business
+in the warrld."
+
+Lucetta almost laughed--she would quite have laughed--but
+that there was a little emotion going in her at the time.
+"How you change!" she said.  "You should not change like
+this.
+
+"I have never wished such things before," said the
+Scotchman, with a simple, shamed, apologetic look for his
+weakness.  "It is only since coming here and seeing you!"
+
+"If that's the case, you had better not look at me any
+longer.  Dear me, I feel I have quite demoralized you!"
+
+"But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts.  Well,
+I'll go--thank you for the pleasure of this visit."
+
+"Thank you for staying."
+
+"Maybe I'll get into my market-mind when I've been out a few
+minutes," he murmured.  "But I don't know--I don't know!"
+
+As he went she said eagerly, "You may hear them speak of me
+in Casterbridge as time goes on.  If they tell you I'm a
+coquette, which some may, because of the incidents of my
+life, don't believe it, for I am not."
+
+"I swear I will not!" he said fervidly.
+
+Thus the two.  She had enkindled the young man's enthusiasm
+till he was quite brimming with sentiment; while he from
+merely affording her a new form of idleness, had gone on to
+wake her serious solicitude.  Why was this? They could not
+have told.
+
+Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked at a
+tradesman.  But her ups and downs, capped by her
+indiscretions with Henchard had made her uncritical as to
+station.  In her poverty she had met with repulse from the
+society to which she had belonged, and she had no great zest
+for renewing an attempt upon it now.  Her heart longed for
+some ark into which it could fly and be at rest.  Rough or
+smooth she did not care so long as it was warm.
+
+Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escaped him that
+he had called to see Elizabeth.  Lucetta at the window
+watched him threading the maze of farmers and farmers' men.
+She could see by his gait that he was conscious of her eyes,
+and her heart went out to him for his modesty--pleaded with
+her sense of his unfitness that he might be allowed to come
+again.  He entered the market-house, and she could see him
+no more.
+
+Three minutes later, when she had left the window, knocks,
+not of multitude but of strength, sounded through the house,
+and the waiting-maid tripped up.
+
+"The Mayor," she said.
+
+Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was looking dreamily
+through her fingers.  She did not answer at once, and the
+maid repeated the information with the addition, "And he's
+afraid he hasn't much time to spare, he says."
+
+"Oh!  Then tell him that as I have a headache I won't detain
+him to-day."
+
+The message was taken down, and she heard the door close.
+
+Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard's
+feelings with regard to her.  She had quickened them, and
+now she was indifferent to the achievement.
+
+Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbing element
+changed, and she no longer felt strongly the necessity of
+getting rid of the girl for her stepfather's sake.  When the
+young woman came in, sweetly unconscious of the turn in the
+tide, Lucetta went up to her, and said quite sincerely--
+
+"I'm so glad you've come.  You'll live with me a long time,
+won't you?"
+
+Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off--what a new
+idea.  Yet it was not unpleasing.  Henchard had neglected
+her all these days, after compromising her indescribably in
+the past.  The least he could have done when he found
+himself free, and herself affluent, would have been to
+respond heartily and promptly to her invitation.
+
+Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild
+surmise at their suddenness; and so passed Lucetta's
+experiences of that day.
+
+
+24.
+
+
+Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignant star
+had done to blast the budding attentions she had won from
+Donald Farfrae, was glad to hear Lucetta's words about
+remaining.
+
+For in addition to Lucetta's house being a home, that raking
+view of the market-place which it afforded had as much
+attraction for her as for Lucetta.  The carrefour was
+like the regulation Open Place in spectacular dramas, where
+the incidents that occur always happen to bear on the lives
+of the adjoining residents.  Farmers, merchants, dairymen,
+quacks, hawkers, appeared there from week to week, and
+disappeared as the afternoon wasted away.  It was the node
+of all orbits.
+
+From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day with the
+two young women now.  In an emotional sense they did not
+live at all during the intervals.  Wherever they might go
+wandering on other days, on market-day they were sure to be
+at home.  Both stole sly glances out of the window at
+Farfrae's shoulders and poll.  His face they seldom saw,
+for, either through shyness, or not to disturb his
+mercantile mood, he avoided looking towards their quarters.
+
+Thus things went on, till a certain market-morning brought a
+new sensation.  Elizabeth and Lucetta were sitting at
+breakfast when a parcel containing two dresses arrived for
+the latter from London.  She called Elizabeth from her
+breakfast, and entering her friend's bedroom Elizabeth saw
+the gowns spread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry
+colour, the other lighter--a glove lying at the end of each
+sleeve, a bonnet at the top of each neck, and parasols
+across the gloves, Lucetta standing beside the suggested
+human figure in an attitude of contemplation.
+
+"I wouldn't think so hard about it," said Elizabeth, marking
+the intensity with which Lucetta was alternating the
+question whether this or that would suit best.
+
+"But settling upon new clothes is so trying," said Lucetta.
+"You are that person" (pointing to one of the arrangements),
+"or you are THAT totally different person" (pointing to
+the other), "for the whole of the coming spring and one of
+the two, you don't know which, may turn out to be very
+objectionable."
+
+It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be
+the cherry-coloured person at all hazards.  The dress was
+pronounced to be a fit, and Lucetta walked with it into the
+front room, Elizabeth following her.
+
+The morning was exceptionally bright for the time of year.
+The sun fell so flat on the houses and pavement opposite
+Lucetta's residence that they poured their brightness into
+her rooms.  Suddenly, after a rumbling of wheels, there were
+added to this steady light a fantastic series of circling
+irradiations upon the ceiling, and the companions turned to
+the window.  Immediately opposite a vehicle of strange
+description had come to a standstill, as if it had been
+placed there for exhibition.
+
+It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement called a
+horse-drill, till then unknown, in its modern shape, in this
+part of the country, where the venerable seed-lip was still
+used for sowing as in the days of the Heptarchy.  Its
+arrival created about as much sensation in the corn-market
+as a flying machine would create at Charing Cross.  The
+farmers crowded round it, women drew near it, children crept
+under and into it.  The machine was painted in bright hues
+of green, yellow, and red, and it resembled as a whole a
+compound of hornet, grasshopper, and shrimp, magnified
+enormously.  Or it might have been likened to an upright
+musical instrument with the front gone.  That was how it
+struck Lucetta.  "Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano,"
+she said.
+
+"It has something to do with corn," said Elizabeth.
+
+"I wonder who thought of introducing it here?"
+
+Donald Farfrae was in the minds of both as the innovator,
+for though not a farmer he was closely leagued with farming
+operations.  And as if in response to their thought he came
+up at that moment, looked at the machine, walked round it,
+and handled it as if he knew something about its make.  The
+two watchers had inwardly started at his coming, and
+Elizabeth left the window, went to the back of the room, and
+stood as if absorbed in the panelling of the wall.  She
+hardly knew that she had done this till Lucetta, animated by
+the conjunction of her new attire with the sight of Farfrae,
+spoke out: "Let us go and look at the instrument, whatever
+it is."
+
+Elizabeth-Jane's bonnet and shawl were pitchforked on in a
+moment, and they went out.  Among all the agriculturists
+gathered round the only appropriate possessor of the new
+machine seemed to be Lucetta, because she alone rivalled it
+in colour.
+
+They examined it curiously; observing the rows of trumpet-
+shaped tubes one within the other, the little scoops, like
+revolving salt-spoons, which tossed the seed into the upper
+ends of the tubes that conducted it to the ground; till
+somebody said, "Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane."  She looked
+up, and there was her stepfather.
+
+His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous, and
+Elizabeth-Jane, embarrassed out of her equanimity, stammered
+at random, "This is the lady I live with, father--Miss
+Templeman."
+
+Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he brought down with
+a great wave till it met his body at the knee.  Miss
+Templeman bowed.  "I am happy to become acquainted with you,
+Mr. Henchard," she said.  "This is a curious machine."
+
+"Yes," Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and
+still more forcibly to ridicule it.
+
+"Who brought it here?" said Lucetta.
+
+"Oh, don't ask me, ma'am!" said Henchard.  "The thing--why
+'tis impossible it should act.  'Twas brought here by one of
+our machinists on the recommendation of a jumped-up
+jackanapes of a fellow who thinks----" His eye caught
+Elizabeth-Jane's imploring face, and he stopped, probably
+thinking that the suit might be progressing.
+
+He turned to go away.  Then something seemed to occur which
+his stepdaughter fancied must really be a hallucination of
+hers.  A murmur apparently came from Henchard's lips in
+which she detected the words, "You refused to see me!"
+reproachfully addressed to Lucetta.  She could not believe
+that they had been uttered by her stepfather; unless,
+indeed, they might have been spoken to one of the yellow-
+gaitered farmers near them.  Yet Lucetta seemed silent, and
+then all thought of the incident was dissipated by the
+humming of a song, which sounded as though from the interior
+of the machine.  Henchard had by this time vanished into the
+market-house, and both the women glanced towards the corn-
+drill.  They could see behind it the bent back of a man who
+was pushing his head into the internal works to master their
+simple secrets.  The hummed song went on--
+
+
+     "'Tw--s on a s--m--r aftern--n,
+       A wee be--re the s--n w--nt d--n,
+       When Kitty wi' a braw n--w g--wn
+       C--me ow're the h--lls to Gowrie."
+
+
+Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment, and
+looked guilty of she did not know what.  Lucetta next
+recognized him, and more mistress of herself said archly,
+"The 'Lass of Gowrie' from inside of a seed-drill--what a
+phenomenon!"
+
+Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood
+upright, and met their eyes across the summit.
+
+"We are looking at the wonderful new drill," Miss Templeman
+said.  "But practically it is a stupid thing--is it not?"
+she added, on the strength of Henchard's information.
+
+"Stupid? O no!" said Farfrae gravely.  "It will
+revolutionize sowing heerabout!  No more sowers flinging
+their seed about broadcast, so that some falls by the
+wayside and some among thorns, and all that.  Each grain
+will go straight to its intended place, and nowhere else
+whatever!"
+
+"Then the romance of the sower is gone for good," observed
+Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one with Farfrae in
+Bible-reading at least.  "'He that observeth the wind shall
+not sow,' so the Preacher said; but his words will not be to
+the point any more.  How things change!"
+
+"Ay; ay....It must be so!" Donald admitted, his gaze fixing
+itself on a blank point far away.  "But the machines are
+already very common in the East and North of England," he
+added apologetically.
+
+Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment, her
+acquaintance with the Scriptures being somewhat limited.
+"Is the machine yours?" she asked of Farfrae.
+
+"O no, madam," said he, becoming embarrassed and deferential
+at the sound of her voice, though with Elizabeth Jane he was
+quite at his ease.  No, no--I merely recommended that it
+should be got."
+
+In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared only
+conscious of her; to have passed from perception of
+Elizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence than she
+appertained to.  Lucetta, discerning that he was much mixed
+that day, partly in his mercantile mood and partly in his
+romantic one, said gaily to him--
+
+"Well, don't forsake the machine for us," and went indoors
+with her companion.
+
+The latter felt that she had been in the way, though why was
+unaccountable to her.  Lucetta explained the matter somewhat
+by saying when they were again in the sitting-room--
+
+"I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and
+so I knew him this morning."
+
+Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day.  Together
+they saw the market thicken, and in course of time thin away
+with the slow decline of the sun towards the upper end of
+town, its rays taking the street endways and enfilading the
+long thoroughfare from top to bottom.  The gigs and vans
+disappeared one by one till there was not a vehicle in the
+street.  The time of the riding world was over the
+pedestrian world held sway.  Field labourers and their wives
+and children trooped in from the villages for their weekly
+shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheels and a tramp of
+horses ruling the sound as earlier, there was nothing but
+the shuffle of many feet.  All the implements were gone; all
+the farmers; all the moneyed class.  The character of the
+town's trading had changed from bulk to multiplicity and
+pence were handled now as pounds had been handled earlier in
+the day.
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for though it
+was night and the street lamps were lighted, they had kept
+their shutters unclosed.  In the faint blink of the fire
+they spoke more freely.
+
+"Your father was distant with you," said Lucetta.
+
+"Yes."  And having forgotten the momentary mystery of
+Henchard's seeming speech to Lucetta she continued, "It is
+because he does not think I am respectable.  I have tried to
+be so more than you can imagine, but in vain!  My mother's
+separation from my father was unfortunate for me.  You don't
+know what it is to have shadows like that upon your life."
+
+Lucetta seemed to wince.  "I do not--of that kind
+precisely," she said, "but you may feel a--sense of
+disgrace--shame--in other ways."
+
+"Have you ever had any such feeling?" said the younger
+innocently.
+
+"O no," said Lucetta quickly.  "I was thinking of--what
+happens sometimes when women get themselves in strange
+positions in the eyes of the world from no fault of their
+own."
+
+"It must make them very unhappy afterwards."
+
+"It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise
+them?"
+
+"Not altogether despise them.  Yet not quite like or respect
+them."
+
+Lucetta winced again.  Her past was by no means secure from
+investigation, even in Casterbridge.  For one thing Henchard
+had never returned to her the cloud of letters she had
+written and sent him in her first excitement.  Possibly they
+were destroyed; but she could have wished that they had
+never been written.
+
+The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towards Lucetta
+had made the reflective Elizabeth more observant of her
+brilliant and amiable companion.  A few days afterwards,
+when her eyes met Lucetta's as the latter was going out, she
+somehow knew that Miss Templeman was nourishing a hope of
+seeing the attractive Scotchman.  The fact was printed large
+all over Lucetta's cheeks and eyes to any one who could read
+her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginning to do.  Lucetta passed
+on and closed the street door.
+
+A seer's spirit took possession of Elizabeth, impelling her
+to sit down by the fire and divine events so surely from
+data already her own that they could be held as witnessed.
+She followed Lucetta thus mentally--saw her encounter Donald
+somewhere as if by chance--saw him wear his special look
+when meeting women, with an added intensity because this one
+was Lucetta.  She depicted his impassioned manner; beheld
+the indecision of both between their lothness to separate
+and their desire not to be observed; depicted their shaking
+of hands; how they probably parted with frigidity in their
+general contour and movements, only in the smaller features
+showing the spark of passion, thus invisible to all but
+themselves.  This discerning silent witch had not done
+thinking of these things when Lucetta came noiselessly
+behind her and made her start.
+
+It was all true as she had pictured--she could have sworn
+it.  Lucetta had a heightened luminousness in her eye over
+and above the advanced colour of her cheeks.
+
+"You've seen Mr. Farfrae," said Elizabeth demurely.
+
+"Yes," said Lucetta.  "How did you know?"
+
+She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend's hands
+excitedly in her own.  But after all she did not say when or
+how she had seen him or what he had said.
+
+That night she became restless; in the morning she was
+feverish; and at breakfast-time she told her companion that
+she had something on her mind--something which concerned a
+person in whom she was interested much.  Elizabeth was
+earnest to listen and sympathize.
+
+"This person--a lady--once admired a man much--very much,"
+she said tentatively.
+
+"Ah," said Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"They were intimate--rather.  He did not think so deeply of
+her as she did of him.  But in an impulsive moment, purely
+out of reparation, he proposed to make her his wife.  She
+agreed.  But there was an unsuspected hitch in the
+proceedings; though she had been so far compromised with him
+that she felt she could never belong to another man, as a
+pure matter of conscience, even if she should wish to.
+After that they were much apart, heard nothing of each other
+for a long time, and she felt her life quite closed up for
+her."
+
+"Ah--poor girl!"
+
+"She suffered much on account of him; though I should add
+that he could not altogether be blamed for what had
+happened.  At last the obstacle which separated them was
+providentially removed; and he came to marry her."
+
+"How delightful!"
+
+"But in the interval she--my poor friend--had seen a man,
+she liked better than him.  Now comes the point: Could she
+in honour dismiss the first?"
+
+"A new man she liked better--that's bad!"
+
+"Yes," said Lucetta, looking pained at a boy who was
+swinging the town pump-handle.  "It is bad!  Though you must
+remember that she was forced into an equivocal position with
+the first man by an accident--that he was not so well
+educated or refined as the second, and that she had
+discovered some qualities in the first that rendered him
+less desirable as a husband than she had at first thought
+him to be."
+
+"I cannot answer," said Elizabeth-Jane thoughtfully.  "It is
+so difficult.  It wants a Pope to settle that!"
+
+"You prefer not to perhaps?" Lucetta showed in her appealing
+tone how much she leant on Elizabeth's judgment.
+
+"Yes, Miss Templeman," admitted Elizabeth.  "I would rather
+not say."
+
+Nevertheless, Lucetta seemed relieved by the simple fact of
+having opened out the situation a little, and was slowly
+convalescent of her headache.  "Bring me a looking-glass.
+How do I appear to people?" she said languidly.
+
+"Well--a little worn," answered Elizabeth, eyeing her as a
+critic eyes a doubtful painting; fetching the glass she
+enabled Lucetta to survey herself in it, which Lucetta
+anxiously did.
+
+"I wonder if I wear well, as times go!" she observed after a
+while.
+
+"Yes--fairly.
+
+"Where am I worst?"
+
+"Under your eyes--I notice a little brownness there."
+
+"Yes.  That is my worst place, I know.  How many years more
+do you think I shall last before I get hopelessly plain?"
+
+There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth,
+though the younger, had come to play the part of experienced
+sage in these discussions.  "It may be five years," she said
+judicially.  "Or, with a quiet life, as many as ten.  With
+no love you might calculate on ten."
+
+Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable,
+impartial verdict.  She told Elizabeth-Jane no more of the
+past attachment she had roughly adumbrated as the
+experiences of a third person; and Elizabeth, who in spite
+of her philosophy was very tender-hearted, sighed that night
+in bed at the thought that her pretty, rich Lucetta did not
+treat her to the full confidence of names and dates in her
+confessions.  For by the "she" of Lucetta's story Elizabeth
+had not been beguiled.
+
+
+
+25.
+
+
+The next phase of the supersession of Henchard in Lucetta's
+heart was an experiment in calling on her performed by
+Farfrae with some apparent trepidation.  Conventionally
+speaking he conversed with both Miss Templeman and her
+companion; but in fact it was rather that Elizabeth sat
+invisible in the room.  Donald appeared not to see her at
+all, and answered her wise little remarks with curtly
+indifferent monosyllables, his looks and faculties hanging
+on the woman who could boast of a more Protean variety in
+her phases, moods, opinions, and also principles, than could
+Elizabeth.  Lucetta had persisted in dragging her into the
+circle; but she had remained like an awkward third point
+which that circle would not touch.
+
+Susan Henchard's daughter bore up against the frosty ache of
+the treatment, as she had borne up under worse things, and
+contrived as soon as possible to get out of the inharmonious
+room without being missed.  The Scotchman seemed hardly the
+same Farfrae who had danced with her and walked with her in
+a delicate poise between love and friendship--that period in
+the history of a love when alone it can be said to be
+unalloyed with pain.
+
+She stoically looked from her bedroom window, and
+contemplated her fate as if it were written on the top of
+the church-tower hard by.  "Yes," she said at last, bringing
+down her palm upon the sill with a pat: "HE is the
+second man of that story she told me!"
+
+All this time Henchard's smouldering sentiments towards
+Lucetta had been fanned into higher and higher inflammation
+by the circumstances of the case.  He was discovering that
+the young woman for whom he once felt a pitying warmth which
+had been almost chilled out of him by reflection, was, when
+now qualified with a slight inaccessibility and a more
+matured beauty, the very being to make him satisfied with
+life.  Day after day proved to him, by her silence, that it
+was no use to think of bringing her round by holding aloof;
+so he gave in, and called upon her again, Elizabeth-Jane
+being absent.
+
+He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of some
+awkwardness, his strong, warm gaze upon her--like the sun
+beside the moon in comparison with Farfrae's modest look--
+and with something of a hail-fellow bearing, as, indeed, was
+not unnatural.  But she seemed so transubstantiated by her
+change of position, and held out her hand to him in such
+cool friendship, that he became deferential, and sat down
+with a perceptible loss of power.  He understood but little
+of fashion in dress, yet enough to feel himself inadequate
+in appearance beside her whom he had hitherto been dreaming
+of as almost his property.  She said something very polite
+about his being good enough to call.  This caused him to
+recover balance.  He looked her oddly in the face, losing
+his awe.
+
+"Why, of course I have called, Lucetta," he said.  "What
+does that nonsense mean? You know I couldn't have helped
+myself if I had wished--that is, if I had any kindness at
+all.  I've called to say that I am ready, as soon as custom
+will permit, to give you my name in return for your devotion
+and what you lost by it in thinking too little of yourself
+and too much of me; to say that you can fix the day or
+month, with my full consent, whenever in your opinion it
+would be seemly: you know more of these things than I."
+
+"It is full early yet," she said evasively.
+
+"Yes, yes; I suppose it is.  But you know, Lucetta, I felt
+directly my poor ill-used Susan died, and when I could not
+bear the idea of marrying again, that after what had
+happened between us it was my duty not to let any
+unnecessary delay occur before putting things to rights.
+Still, I wouldn't call in a hurry, because--well, you can
+guess how this money you've come into made me feel."  His
+voice slowly fell; he was conscious that in this room his
+accents and manner wore a roughness not observable in the
+street.  He looked about the room at the novel hangings and
+ingenious furniture with which she had surrounded herself.
+
+"Upon my life I didn't know such furniture as this could be
+bought in Casterbridge," he said.
+
+"Nor can it be " said she.  "Nor will it till fifty years
+more of civilization have passed over the town.  It took a
+waggon and four horses to get it here."
+
+"H'm.  It looks as if you were living on capital."
+
+"O no, I am not."
+
+"So much the better.  But the fact is, your setting up like
+this makes my beaming towards you rather awkward."
+
+"Why?"
+
+An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnish one.
+"Well," he went on, "there's nobody in the world I would
+have wished to see enter into this wealth before you,
+Lucetta, and nobody, I am sure, who will become it more."  He
+turned to her with congratulatory admiration so fervid that
+she shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knew him so
+well.
+
+"I am greatly obliged to you for all that," said she, rather
+with an air of speaking ritual.  The stint of reciprocal
+feeling was perceived, and Henchard showed chagrin at once--
+nobody was more quick to show that than he.
+
+"You may be obliged or not for't.  Though the things I say
+may not have the polish of what you've lately learnt to
+expect for the first time in your life, they are real, my
+lady Lucetta."
+
+"That's rather a rude way of speaking to me," pouted
+Lucetta, with stormy eyes.
+
+"Not at all!" replied Henchard hotly.  "But there, there, I
+don't wish to quarrel with 'ee.  I come with an honest
+proposal for silencing your Jersey enemies, and you ought to
+be thankful."
+
+"How can you speak so!" she answered, firing quickly.
+"Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish
+girl's passion for you with too little regard for
+correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the
+time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting!
+I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to
+tell me of your wife's return and my consequent dismissal,
+and if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege
+is due to me!"
+
+"Yes, it is," he said.  "But it is not by what is, in this
+life, but by what appears, that you are judged; and I
+therefore think you ought to accept me--for your own good
+name's sake.  What is known in your native Jersey may get
+known here."
+
+"How you keep on about Jersey!  I am English!"
+
+"Yes, yes.  Well, what do you say to my proposal?"
+
+For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta had the
+move; and yet she was backward.  "For the present let things
+be," she said with some embarrassment.  "Treat me as an
+acquaintance, and I'll treat you as one.  Time will--" She
+stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap for awhile,
+there being no pressure of half acquaintance to drive them
+into speech if they were not minded for it.
+
+"That's the way the wind blows, is it?" he said at last
+grimly, nodding an affirmative to his own thoughts.
+
+A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the room for a
+few instants.  It was produced by the passing of a load of
+newly trussed hay from the country, in a waggon marked with
+Farfrae's name.  Beside it rode Farfrae himself on horse-
+back.  Lucetta's face became--as a woman's face becomes when
+the man she loves rises upon her gaze like an apparition.
+
+A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window, and
+the secret of her inaccessibility would have been revealed.
+But Henchard in estimating her tone was looking down so
+plumb-straight that he did not note the warm consciousness
+upon Lucetta's face.
+
+"I shouldn't have thought it--I shouldn't have thought it of
+women!" he said emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking
+himself into activity; while Lucetta was so anxious to
+divert him from any suspicion of the truth that she asked
+him to be in no hurry.  Bringing him some apples she
+insisted upon paring one for him.
+
+He would not take it.  "No, no; such is not for me," he said
+drily, and moved to the door.  At going out he turned his
+eye upon her.
+
+"You came to live in Casterbridge entirely on my account,"
+he said.  "Yet now you are here you won't have anything to
+say to my offer!"
+
+He had hardly gone down the staircase when she dropped upon
+the sofa and jumped up again in a fit of desperation.  "I 
+WILL love him!" she cried passionately; "as for HIM--
+he's hot-tempered and stern, and it would be madness to bind
+myself to him knowing that.  I won't be a slave to the past--
+I'll love where I choose!"
+
+Yet having decided to break away from Henchard one might
+have supposed her capable of aiming higher than Farfrae.
+But Lucetta reasoned nothing: she feared hard words from the
+people with whom she had been earlier associated; she had no
+relatives left; and with native lightness of heart took
+kindly to what fate offered.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucetta between
+her two lovers from the crystalline sphere of a
+straightforward mind, did not fail to perceive that her
+father, as she called him, and Donald Farfrae became more
+desperately enamoured of her friend every day.  On Farfrae's
+side it was the unforced passion of youth.  On Henchard's
+the artificially stimulated coveting of maturer age.
+
+The pain she experienced from the almost absolute
+obliviousness to her existence that was shown by the pair of
+them became at times half dissipated by her sense of its
+humourousness.  When Lucetta had pricked her finger they
+were as deeply concerned as if she were dying; when she
+herself had been seriously sick or in danger they uttered a
+conventional word of sympathy at the news, and forgot all
+about it immediately.  But, as regarded Henchard, this
+perception of hers also caused her some filial grief; she
+could not help asking what she had done to be neglected so,
+after the professions of solicitude he had made.  As
+regarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection, that
+it was quite natural.  What was she beside Lucetta?--as one
+of the "meaner beauties of the night," when the moon had
+risen in the skies.
+
+She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and was as
+familiar with the wreck of each day's wishes as with the
+diurnal setting of the sun.  If her earthly career had
+taught her few book philosophies it had at least well
+practised her in this.  Yet her experience had consisted
+less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of
+substitutions.  Continually it had happened that what she
+had desired had not been granted her, and that what had been
+granted her she had not desired.  So she viewed with an
+approach to equanimity the new cancelled days when Donald
+had been her undeclared lover, and wondered what unwished-
+for thing Heaven might send her in place of him.
+
+
+
+26.
+
+
+It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchard and
+Farfrae met in the chestnut-walk which ran along the south
+wall of the town.  Each had just come out from his early
+breakfast, and there was not another soul near.  Henchard
+was reading a letter from Lucetta, sent in answer to a note
+from him, in which she made some excuse for not immediately
+granting him a second interview that he had desired.
+
+Donald had no wish to enter into conversation with his
+former friend on their present constrained terms; neither
+would he pass him in scowling silence.  He nodded, and
+Henchard did the same.  They receded from each other several
+paces when a voice cried "Farfrae!" It was Henchard's, who
+stood regarding him.
+
+"Do you remember," said Henchard, as if it were the presence
+of the thought and not of the man which made him speak, "do
+you remember my story of that second woman--who suffered for
+her thoughtless intimacy with me?"
+
+"I do," said Farfrae.
+
+"Do you remember my telling 'ee how it all began and how it
+ended?
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I have offered to marry her now that I can; but she
+won't marry me.  Now what would you think of her--I put it
+to you?"
+
+"Well, ye owe her nothing more now," said Farfrae heartily.
+
+"It is true," said Henchard, and went on.
+
+That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questions
+completely shut out from Farfrae's mind all vision of
+Lucetta as the culprit.  Indeed, her present position was so
+different from that of the young woman of Henchard's story
+as of itself to be sufficient to blind him absolutely to her
+identity.  As for Henchard, he was reassured by Farfrae's
+words and manner against a suspicion which had crossed his
+mind.  They were not those of a conscious rival.
+
+Yet that there was rivalry by some one he was firmly
+persuaded.  He could feel it in the air around Lucetta, see
+it in the turn of her pen.  There was an antagonistic force
+in exercise, so that when he had tried to hang near her he
+seemed standing in a refluent current.  That it was not
+innate caprice he was more and more certain.  Her windows
+gleamed as if they did not want him; her curtains seem to
+hang slily, as if they screened an ousting presence.  To
+discover whose presence that was--whether really Farfrae's
+after all, or another's--he exerted himself to the utmost to
+see her again; and at length succeeded.
+
+At the interview, when she offered him tea, he made it a
+point to launch a cautious inquiry if she knew Mr. Farfrae.
+
+O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not help
+knowing almost everybody in Casterbridge, living in such a
+gazebo over the centre and arena of the town.
+
+"Pleasant young fellow," said Henchard.
+
+"Yes," said Lucetta.
+
+"We both know him," said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her
+companion's divined embarrassment.
+
+There was a knock at the door; literally, three full knocks
+and a little one at the end.
+
+"That kind of knock means half-and-half--somebody between
+gentle and simple," said the corn-merchant to himself.  "I
+shouldn't wonder therefore if it is he."  In a few seconds
+surely enough Donald walked in.
+
+Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, which
+increased Henchard's suspicions without affording any
+special proof of their correctness.  He was well-nigh
+ferocious at the sense of the queer situation in which he
+stood towards this woman.  One who had reproached him for
+deserting her when calumniated, who had urged claims upon
+his consideration on that account, who had lived waiting for
+him, who at the first decent opportunity had come to ask him
+to rectify, by making her his, the false position into which
+she had placed herself for his sake; such she had been.  And
+now he sat at her tea-table eager to gain her attention, and
+in his amatory rage feeling the other man present to be a
+villain, just as any young fool of a lover might feel.
+
+They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table, like
+some Tuscan painting of the two disciples supping at Emmaus.
+Lucetta, forming the third and haloed figure, was opposite
+them; Elizabeth-Jane, being out of the game, and out of the
+group, could observe all from afar, like the evangelist who
+had to write it down: that there were long spaces of
+taciturnity, when all exterior circumstances were subdued to
+the touch of spoons and china, the click of a heel on the
+pavement under the window, the passing of a wheelbarrow or
+cart, the whistling of the carter, the gush of water into
+householders' buckets at the town-pump opposite, the
+exchange of greetings among their neighbours, and the rattle
+of the yokes by which they carried off their evening supply.
+
+"More bread-and-butter?" said Lucetta to Henchard and
+Farfrae equally, holding out between them a plateful of long
+slices.  Henchard took a slice by one end and Donald by the
+other; each feeling certain he was the man meant; neither
+let go, and the slice came in two.
+
+"Oh--I am so sorry!" cried Lucetta, with a nervous titter.
+Farfrae tried to laugh; but he was too much in love to see
+the incident in any but a tragic light.
+
+"How ridiculous of all three of them!" said Elizabeth to
+herself.
+
+Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture, though
+without a grain of proof, that the counterattraction was
+Farfrae; and therefore he would not make up his mind.  Yet
+to Elizabeth-Jane it was plain as the town-pump that Donald
+and Lucetta were incipient lovers.  More than once, in spite
+of her care, Lucetta had been unable to restrain her glance
+from flitting across into Farfrae's eyes like a bird to its
+nest.  But Henchard was constructed upon too large a scale
+to discern such minutiae as these by an evening light, which
+to him were as the notes of an insect that lie above the
+compass of the human ear.
+
+But he was disturbed.  And the sense of occult rivalry in
+suitorship was so much superadded to the palpable rivalry of
+their business lives.  To the coarse materiality of that
+rivalry it added an inflaming soul.
+
+The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of action by
+Henchard sending for Jopp, the manager originally displaced
+by Farfrae's arrival.  Henchard had frequently met this man
+about the streets, observed that his clothing spoke of
+neediness, heard that he lived in Mixen Lane--a back slum of
+the town, the pis aller of Casterbridge domiciliation--
+itself almost a proof that a man had reached a stage when he
+would not stick at trifles.
+
+Jopp came after dark, by the gates of the storeyard, and
+felt his way through the hay and straw to the office where
+Henchard sat in solitude awaiting him.
+
+"I am again out of a foreman," said the corn-factor.  "Are
+you in a place?"
+
+"Not so much as a beggar's, sir."
+
+"How much do you ask?"
+
+Jopp named his price, which was very moderate.
+
+"When can you come?"
+
+"At this hour and moment, sir," said Jopp, who, standing
+hands-pocketed at the street corner till the sun had faded
+the shoulders of his coat to scarecrow green, had regularly
+watched Henchard in the market-place, measured him, and
+learnt him, by virtue of the power which the still man has
+in his stillness of knowing the busy one better than he
+knows himself.  Jopp too, had had a convenient experience;
+he was the only one in Casterbridge besides Henchard and the
+close-lipped Elizabeth who knew that Lucetta came truly from
+Jersey, and but proximately from Bath.  "I know Jersey too,
+sir," he said.  "Was living there when you used to do
+business that way.  O yes--have often seen ye there."
+
+"Indeed!  Very good.  Then the thing is settled.  The
+testimonials you showed me when you first tried for't are
+sufficient.
+
+That characters deteriorated in time of need possibly did
+not occur to, Henchard.  Jopp said, "Thank you," and stood
+more firmly, in the consciousness that at last he officially
+belonged to that spot.
+
+"Now," said Henchard, digging his strong eyes into Jopp's
+face, "one thing is necessary to me, as the biggest corn-
+and-hay dealer in these parts.  The Scotchman, who's taking
+the town trade so bold into his hands, must be cut out.
+D'ye hear? We two can't live side by side--that's clear and
+certain."
+
+"I've seen it all," said Jopp.
+
+"By fair competition I mean, of course," Henchard continued.
+"But as hard, keen, and unflinching as fair--rather more so.
+By such a desperate bid against him for the farmers' custom
+as will grind him into the ground--starve him out.  I've
+capital, mind ye, and I can do it."
+
+"I'm all that way of thinking," said the new foreman.
+Jopp's dislike of Farfrae as the man who had once ursurped
+his place, while it made him a willing tool, made him, at
+the same time, commercially as unsafe a colleague as
+Henchard could have chosen.
+
+"I sometimes think," he added, "that he must have some glass
+that he sees next year in.  He has such a knack of making
+everything bring him fortune."
+
+"He's deep beyond all honest men's discerning, but we must
+make him shallower.  We'll undersell him, and over-buy him,
+and so snuff him out."
+
+They then entered into specific details of the process by
+which this would be accomplished, and parted at a late hour.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane heard by accident that Jopp had been engaged
+by her stepfather.  She was so fully convinced that he was
+not the right man for the place that, at the risk of making
+Henchard angry, she expressed her apprehension to him when
+they met.  But it was done to no purpose.  Henchard shut up
+her argument with a sharp rebuff.
+
+The season's weather seemed to favour their scheme.  The
+time was in the years immediately before foreign competition
+had revolutionized the trade in grain; when still, as from
+the earliest ages, the wheat quotations from month to month
+depended entirely upon the home harvest.  A bad harvest, or
+the prospect of one, would double the price of corn in a few
+weeks; and the promise of a good yield would lower it as
+rapidly.  Prices were like the roads of the period, steep in
+gradient, reflecting in their phases the local conditions,
+without engineering, levellings, or averages.
+
+The farmer's income was ruled by the wheat-crop within his
+own horizon, and the wheat-crop by the weather.  Thus in
+person, he became a sort of flesh-barometer, with feelers
+always directed to the sky and wind around him.  The local
+atmosphere was everything to him; the atmospheres of other
+countries a matter of indifference.  The people, too, who
+were not farmers, the rural multitude, saw in the god of the
+weather a more important personage than they do now.
+Indeed, the feeling of the peasantry in this matter was so
+intense as to be almost unrealizable in these equable days.
+Their impulse was well-nigh to prostrate themselves in
+lamentation before untimely rains and tempests, which came
+as the Alastor of those households whose crime it was to be
+poor.
+
+After midsummer they watched the weather-cocks as men
+waiting in antechambers watch the lackey.  Sun elated them;
+quiet rain sobered them; weeks of watery tempest stupefied
+them.  That aspect of the sky which they now regard as
+disagreeable they then beheld as maleficent.
+
+It was June, and the weather was very unfavourable.
+Casterbridge, being as it were the bell-board on which all
+the adjacent hamlets and villages sounded their notes, was
+decidedly dull.  Instead of new articles in the shop-windows
+those that had been rejected in the foregoing summer were
+brought out again; superseded reap-hooks, badly-shaped
+rakes, shop-worn leggings, and time-stiffened water-tights
+reappeared, furbished up as near to new as possible.
+
+Henchard, backed by Jopp, read a disastrous garnering, and
+resolved to base his strategy against Farfrae upon that
+reading.  But before acting he wished--what so many have
+wished--that he could know for certain what was at present
+only strong probability.  He was superstitious--as such
+head-strong natures often are--and he nourished in his mind
+an idea bearing on the matter; an idea he shrank from
+disclosing even to Jopp.
+
+In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town--so lonely that
+what are called lonely villages were teeming by comparison--
+there lived a man of curious repute as a forecaster or
+weather-prophet.  The way to his house was crooked and miry--
+even difficult in the present unpropitious season.  One
+evening when it was raining so heavily that ivy and laurel
+resounded like distant musketry, and an out-door man could
+be excused for shrouding himself to his ears and eyes, such
+a shrouded figure on foot might have been perceived
+travelling in the direction of the hazel-copse which dripped
+over the prophet's cot.  The turnpike-road became a lane,
+the lane a cart-track, the cart-track a bridle-path, the
+bridle-path a foot-way, the foot-way overgrown.  The
+solitary walker slipped here and there, and stumbled over
+the natural springes formed by the brambles, till at length
+he reached the house, which, with its garden, was surrounded
+with a high, dense hedge.  The cottage, comparatively a
+large one, had been built of mud by the occupier's own
+hands, and thatched also by himself.  Here he had always
+lived, and here it was assumed he would die.
+
+He existed on unseen supplies; for it was an anomalous thing
+that while there was hardly a soul in the neighbourhood but
+affected to laugh at this man's assertions, uttering the
+formula, "There's nothing in 'em," with full assurance on
+the surface of their faces, very few of them were
+unbelievers in their secret hearts.  Whenever they consulted
+him they did it "for a fancy."  When they paid him they said,
+"Just a trifle for Christmas," or "Candlemas," as the case
+might be.
+
+He would have preferred more honesty in his clients, and
+less sham ridicule; but fundamental belief consoled him for
+superficial irony.  As stated, he was enabled to live;
+people supported him with their backs turned.  He was
+sometimes astonished that men could profess so little and
+believe so much at his house, when at church they professed
+so much and believed so little.
+
+Behind his back he was called "Wide-oh," on account of his
+reputation; to his face "Mr."  Fall.
+
+The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance,
+and a door was inserted as in a wall.  Outside the door the
+tall traveller stopped, bandaged his face with a
+handkerchief as if he were suffering from toothache, and
+went up the path.  The window shutters were not closed, and
+he could see the prophet within, preparing his supper.
+
+In answer to the knock Fall came to the door, candle in
+hand.  The visitor stepped back a little from the light, and
+said, "Can I speak to 'ee?" in significant tones.  The
+other's invitation to come in was responded to by the
+country formula, "This will do, thank 'ee," after which the
+householder had no alternative but to come out.  He placed
+the candle on the corner of the dresser, took his hat from a
+nail, and joined the stranger in the porch, shutting the
+door behind him.
+
+"I've long heard that you can--do things of a sort?" began
+the other, repressing his individuality as much as he could.
+
+"Maybe so, Mr. Henchard," said the weather-caster.
+
+"Ah--why do you call me that?" asked the visitor with a
+start.
+
+"Because it's your name.  Feeling you'd come I've waited for
+'ee; and thinking you might be leery from your walk I laid
+two supper plates--look ye here."  He threw open the door and
+disclosed the supper-table, at which appeared a second
+chair, knife and fork, plate and mug, as he had declared.
+
+Henchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel; he
+remained in silence for a few moments, then throwing off the
+disguise of frigidity which he had hitherto preserved he
+said, "Then I have not come in vain....Now, for instance,
+can ye charm away warts?"
+
+"Without trouble."
+
+"Cure the evil?"
+
+"That I've done--with consideration--if they will wear the
+toad-bag by night as well as by day."
+
+"Forecast the weather?"
+
+"With labour and time."
+
+"Then take this," said Henchard.  "'Tis a crownpiece.  Now,
+what is the harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?'
+
+"I've worked it out already, and you can know at once."  (The
+fact was that five farmers had already been there on the
+same errand from different parts of the country.) "By the
+sun, moon, and stars, by the clouds, the winds, the trees,
+and grass, the candle-flame and swallows, the smell of the
+herbs; likewise by the cats' eyes, the ravens, the leeches,
+the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnight in August
+will be--rain and tempest."
+
+"You are not certain, of course?"
+
+"As one can be in a world where all's unsure.  'Twill be
+more like living in Revelations this autumn than in England.
+
+Shall I sketch it out for 'ee in a scheme?"
+
+"O no, no," said Henchard.  "I don't altogether believe in
+forecasts, come to second thoughts on such.  But I--"
+
+"You don't--you don't--'tis quite understood," said Wide-oh,
+without a sound of scorn.  "You have given me a crown
+because you've one too many.  But won't you join me at
+supper, now 'tis waiting and all?"
+
+Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savour of the
+stew had floated from the cottage into the porch with such
+appetizing distinctness that the meat, the onions, the
+pepper, and the herbs could be severally recognized by his
+nose.  But as sitting down to hob-and-nob there would have
+seemed to mark him too implicitly as the weather-caster's
+apostle, he declined, and went his way.
+
+The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such an enormous
+extent that there was quite a talk about his purchases among
+his neighbours the lawyer, the wine merchant, and the
+doctor; also on the next, and on all available days.  When
+his granaries were full to choking all the weather-cocks of
+Casterbridge creaked and set their faces in another
+direction, as if tired of the south-west.  The weather
+changed; the sunlight, which had been like tin for weeks,
+assumed the hues of topaz.  The temperament of the welkin
+passed from the phlegmatic to the sanguine; an excellent
+harvest was almost a certainty; and as a consequence prices
+rushed down.
+
+All these transformations, lovely to the outsider, to the
+wrong-headed corn-dealer were terrible.  He was reminded of
+what he had well known before, that a man might gamble upon
+the square green areas of fields as readily as upon those of
+a card-room.
+
+Henchard had backed bad weather, and apparently lost.  He
+had mistaken the turn of the flood for the turn of the ebb.
+His dealings had been so extensive that settlement could not
+long be postponed, and to settle he was obliged to sell off
+corn that he had bought only a few weeks before at figures
+higher by many shillings a quarter.  Much of the corn he had
+never seen; it had not even been moved from the ricks in
+which it lay stacked miles away.  Thus he lost heavily.
+
+In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfrae in the
+market-place.  Farfrae knew of his dealings (though he did
+not guess their intended bearing on himself) and
+commiserated him; for since their exchange of words in the
+South Walk they had been on stiffly speaking terms.
+Henchard for the moment appeared to resent the sympathy; but
+he suddenly took a careless turn.
+
+"Ho, no, no!--nothing serious, man!" he cried with fierce
+gaiety.  "These things always happen, don't they? I know it
+has been said that figures have touched me tight lately; but
+is that anything rare? The case is not so bad as folk make
+out perhaps.  And dammy, a man must be a fool to mind the
+common hazards of trade!"
+
+But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that day for
+reasons which had never before sent him there--and to sit a
+long time in the partners' room with a constrained bearing.
+It was rumoured soon after that much real property as well
+as vast stores of produce, which had stood in Henchard's
+name in the town and neighbourhood, was actually the
+possession of his bankers.
+
+Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp.  The
+gloomy transactions just completed within had added fever to
+the original sting of Farfrae's sympathy that morning, which
+Henchard fancied might be a satire disguised so that Jopp
+met with anything but a bland reception.  The latter was in
+the act of taking off his hat to wipe his forehead, and
+saying, "A fine hot day," to an acquaintance.
+
+"You can wipe and wipe, and say, 'A fine hot day,' can ye!"
+cried Henchard in a savage undertone, imprisoning Jopp
+between himself and the bank wall.  "If it hadn't been for
+your blasted advice it might have been a fine day enough!
+Why did ye let me go on, hey?--when a word of doubt from you
+or anybody would have made me think twice!  For you can never
+be sure of weather till 'tis past."
+
+"My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best."
+
+"A useful fellow!  And the sooner you help somebody else in
+that way the better!" Henchard continued his address to Jopp
+in similar terms till it ended in Jopp s dismissal there and
+then, Henchard turning upon his heel and leaving him.
+
+"You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry as a man can be!"
+said Jopp, standing pale, and looking after the corn-
+merchant as he disappeared in the crowd of market-men hard
+by.
+
+
+
+27.
+
+
+It was the eve of harvest.  Prices being low Farfrae was
+buying.  As was usual, after reckoning too surely on famine
+weather the local farmers had flown to the other extreme,
+and (in Farfrae's opinion) were selling off too recklessly--
+calculating with just a trifle too much certainty upon an
+abundant yield.  So he went on buying old corn at its
+comparatively ridiculous price: for the produce of the
+previous year, though not large, had been of excellent
+quality.
+
+When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrous way,
+and got rid of his burdensome purchases at a monstrous loss,
+the harvest began.  There were three days of excellent
+weather, and then--"What if that curst conjuror should be
+right after all!" said Henchard.
+
+The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begun to play
+than the atmosphere suddenly felt as if cress would grow in
+it without other nourishment.  It rubbed people's cheeks
+like damp flannel when they walked abroad.  There was a
+gusty, high, warm wind; isolated raindrops starred the
+window-panes at remote distances: the sunlight would flap
+out like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern of the
+window upon the floor of the room in a milky, colourless
+shine, and withdraw as suddenly as it had appeared.
+
+From that day and hour it was clear that there was not to be
+so successful an ingathering after all.  If Henchard had
+only waited long enough he might at least have avoided loss
+though he had not made a profit.  But the momentum of his
+character knew no patience.  At this turn of the scales he
+remained silent.  The movements of his mind seemed to tend
+to the thought that some power was working against him.
+
+"I wonder," he asked himself with eerie misgiving; "I wonder
+if it can be that somebody has been roasting a waxen image
+of me, or stirring an unholy brew to confound me!  I don't
+believe in such power; and yet--what if they should ha' been
+doing it!" Even he could not admit that the perpetrator, if
+any, might be Farfrae.  These isolated hours of superstition
+came to Henchard in time of moody depression, when all his
+practical largeness of view had oozed out of him.
+
+Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered.  He had purchased in so
+depressed a market that the present moderate stiffness of
+prices was sufficient to pile for him a large heap of gold
+where a little one had been.
+
+"Why, he'll soon be Mayor!" said Henchard.  It was indeed
+hard that the speaker should, of all others, have to follow
+the triumphal chariot of this man to the Capitol.
+
+The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.
+
+September-night shades had fallen upon Casterbridge; the
+clocks had struck half-past eight, and the moon had risen.
+The streets of the town were curiously silent for such a
+comparatively early hour.  A sound of jangling horse-bells
+and heavy wheels passed up the street.  These were followed
+by angry voices outside Lucetta's house, which led her and
+Elizabeth-Jane to run to the windows, and pull up the
+blinds.
+
+The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abutted against
+its next neighbour the Church except in the lower storey,
+where an arched thoroughfare gave admittance to a large
+square called Bull Stake.  A stone post rose in the midst,
+to which the oxen had formerly been tied for baiting with
+dogs to make them tender before they were killed in the
+adjoining shambles.  In a corner stood the stocks.
+
+The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blocked by two
+four-horse waggons and horses, one laden with hay-trusses,
+the leaders having already passed each other, and become
+entangled head to tail.  The passage of the vehicles might
+have been practicable if empty; but built up with hay to the
+bedroom windows as one was, it was impossible.
+
+"You must have done it a' purpose!" said Farfrae's waggoner.
+"You can hear my horses' bells half-a-mile such a night as
+this!"
+
+"If ye'd been minding your business instead of zwailing
+along in such a gawk-hammer way, you would have zeed me!"
+retorted the wroth representative of Henchard.
+
+However, according to the strict rule of the road it
+appeared that Henchard's man was most in the wrong, he
+therefore attempted to back into the High Street.  In doing
+this the near hind-wheel rose against the churchyard wall
+and the whole mountainous load went over, two of the four
+wheels rising in the air, and the legs of the thill horse.
+
+Instead of considering how to gather up the load the two men
+closed in a fight with their fists.  Before the first round
+was quite over Henchard came upon the spot, somebody having
+run for him.
+
+Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directions
+by collaring one with each hand, turned to the horse that
+was down, and extricated him after some trouble.  He then
+inquired into the circumstances; and seeing the state of his
+waggon and its load began hotly rating Farfrae's man.
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run down to the
+street corner, whence they watched the bright heap of new
+hay lying in the moon's rays, and passed and repassed by the
+forms of Henchard and the waggoners.  The women had
+witnessed what nobody else had seen--the origin of the
+mishap; and Lucetta spoke.
+
+"I saw it all, Mr. Henchard," she cried; "and your man was
+most in the wrong!"
+
+Henchard paused in his harangue and turned.  "Oh, I didn't
+notice you, Miss Templeman," said he.  "My man in the wrong?
+Ah, to be sure; to be sure!  But I beg your pardon
+notwithstanding.  The other's is the empty waggon, and he
+must have been most to blame for coming on."
+
+"No; I saw it, too," said Elizabeth-Jane.  "And I can assure
+you he couldn't help it."
+
+"You can't trust THEIR senses!" murmured Henchard's man.
+
+"Why not?" asked Henchard sharply.
+
+"Why, you see, sir, all the women side with Farfrae--being a
+damn young dand--of the sort that he is--one that creeps
+into a maid's heart like the giddying worm into a sheep's
+brain--making crooked seem straight to their eyes!"
+
+"But do you know who that lady is you talk about in such a
+fashion? Do you know that I pay my attentions to her, and
+have for some time? Just be careful!"
+
+"Not I.  I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a
+week."
+
+"And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it? He's sharp in
+trade, but he wouldn't do anything so underhand as what you
+hint at."
+
+Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, or not her
+white figure disappeared from her doorway inward, and the
+door was shut before Henchard could reach it to converse
+with her further.  This disappointed him, for he had been
+sufficiently disturbed by what the man had said to wish to
+speak to her more closely.  While pausing the old constable
+came up.
+
+"Just see that nobody drives against that hay and waggon to-
+night, Stubberd," said the corn-merchant.  "It must bide
+till the morning, for all hands are in the field still.  And
+if any coach or road-waggon wants to come along, tell 'em
+they must go round by the back street, and be hanged to
+'em....Any case tomorrow up in Hall?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  One in number, sir."
+
+"Oh, what's that?"
+
+"An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committing a
+nuisance in a horrible profane manner against the church
+wall, sir, as if 'twere no more than a pot-house!  That's
+all, sir."
+
+"Oh.  The Mayor's out o' town, isn't he?"
+
+"He is, sir."
+
+"Very well, then I'll be there.  Don't forget to keep an eye
+on that hay.  Good night t' 'ee."
+
+During those moments Henchard had determined to follow up
+Lucetta notwithstanding her elusiveness, and he knocked for
+admission.
+
+The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman's
+sorrow at being unable to see him again that evening because
+she had an engagement to go out.
+
+Henchard walked away from the door to the opposite side of
+the street, and stood by his hay in a lonely reverie, the
+constable having strolled elsewhere, and the horses being
+removed.  Though the moon was not bright as yet there were
+no lamps lighted, and he entered the shadow of one of the
+projecting jambs which formed the thoroughfare to Bull
+Stake; here he watched Lucetta's door.
+
+Candle-lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom, and
+it was obvious that she was dressing for the appointment,
+whatever the nature of that might be at such an hour.  The
+lights disappeared, the clock struck nine, and almost at the
+moment Farfrae came round the opposite corner and knocked.
+That she had been waiting just inside for him was certain,
+for she instantly opened the door herself.  They went
+together by the way of a back lane westward, avoiding the
+front street; guessing where they were going he determined
+to follow.
+
+The harvest had been so delayed by the capricious weather
+that whenever a fine day occurred all sinews were strained
+to save what could be saved of the damaged crops.  On
+account of the rapid shortening of the days the harvesters
+worked by moonlight.  Hence to-night the wheat-fields
+abutting on the two sides of the square formed by
+Casterbridge town were animated by the gathering hands.
+Their shouts and laughter had reached Henchard at the Market
+House, while he stood there waiting, and he had little doubt
+from the turn which Farfrae and Lucetta had taken that they
+were bound for the spot.
+
+Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields.  The
+Casterbridge populace still retained the primitive habit of
+helping one another in time of need; and thus, though the
+corn belonged to the farming section of the little
+community--that inhabiting the Durnover quarter--the
+remainder was no less interested in the labour of getting it
+home.
+
+Reaching the top of the lane Henchard crossed the shaded
+avenue on the walls, slid down the green rampart, and stood
+amongst the stubble.  The "stitches" or shocks rose like
+tents about the yellow expanse, those in the distance
+becoming lost in the moonlit hazes.
+
+He had entered at a point removed from the scene of
+immediate operations; but two others had entered at that
+place, and he could see them winding among the shocks.  They
+were paying no regard to the direction of their walk, whose
+vague serpentining soon began to bear down towards Henchard.
+A meeting promised to be awkward, and he therefore stepped
+into the hollow of the nearest shock, and sat down.
+
+"You have my leave," Lucetta was saying gaily.  "Speak what
+you like."
+
+"Well, then," replied Farfrae, with the unmistakable
+inflection of the lover pure, which Henchard had never heard
+in full resonance of his lips before, "you are sure to be
+much sought after for your position, wealth, talents, and
+beauty.  But will ye resist the temptation to be one of
+those ladies with lots of admirers--ay--and be content to
+have only a homely one?"
+
+"And he the speaker?" said she, laughing.  "Very well, sir,
+what next?"
+
+"Ah!  I'm afraid that what I feel will make me forget my
+manners!"
+
+"Then I hope you'll never have any, if you lack them only
+for that cause."  After some broken words which Henchard lost
+she added, "Are you sure you won't be jealous?"
+
+Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, by taking
+her hand.
+
+"You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else," she
+presently said.  "But I should wish to have my own way in
+some things."
+
+"In everything!  What special thing did you mean?"
+
+"If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for
+instance, upon finding that I should not be happy here?"
+
+Henchard did not hear the reply; he might have done so and
+much more, but he did not care to play the eavesdropper.
+They went on towards the scene of activity, where the
+sheaves were being handed, a dozen a minute, upon the carts
+and waggons which carried them away.
+
+Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrae when they drew near
+the workpeople.  He had some business with them and, thought
+he entreated her to wait a few minutes, she was inexorable,
+and tripped off homeward alone.
+
+Henchard thereupon left the field and followed her.  His
+state of mind was such that on reaching Lucetta's door he
+did not knock but opened it, and walked straight up to her
+sitting-room, expecting to find her there.  But the room was
+empty, and he perceived that in his haste he had somehow
+passed her on the way hither.  He had not to wait many
+minutes, however, for he soon heard her dress rustling in
+the hall, followed by a soft closing of the door.  In a
+moment she appeared.
+
+The light was so low that she did not notice Henchard at
+first.  As soon as she saw him she uttered a little cry,
+almost of terror.
+
+"How can you frighten me so?" she exclaimed, with a flushed
+face.  "It is past ten o'clock, and you have no right to
+surprise me here at such a time."
+
+"I don't know that I've not the right.  At any rate I have
+the excuse.  Is it so necessary that I should stop to think
+of manners and customs?"
+
+"It is too late for propriety, and might injure me."
+
+"I called an hour ago, and you would not see me, and I
+thought you were in when I called now.  It is you, Lucetta,
+who are doing wrong.  It is not proper in 'ee to throw me
+over like this.  I have a little matter to remind you of,
+which you seem to forget."
+
+She sank into a chair, and turned pale.
+
+"I don't want to hear it--I don't want to hear it!" she said
+through her hands, as he, standing close to the edge of her
+gown, began to allude to the Jersey days.
+
+"But you ought to hear it," said he.
+
+"It came to nothing; and through you.  Then why not leave me
+the freedom that I gained with such sorrow!  Had I found that
+you proposed to marry me for pure love I might have felt
+bound now.  But I soon learnt that you had planned it out of
+mere charity--almost as an unpleasant duty--because I had
+nursed you, and compromised myself, and you thought you must
+repay me.  After that I did not care for you so deeply as
+before."
+
+"Why did you come here to find me, then?"
+
+"I thought I ought to marry you for conscience' sake, since
+you were free, even though I--did not like you so well."
+
+"And why then don't you think so now?"
+
+She was silent.  It was only too obvious that conscience had
+ruled well enough till new love had intervened and usurped
+that rule.  In feeling this she herself forgot for the
+moment her partially justifying argument--that having
+discovered Henchard's infirmities of temper, she had some
+excuse for not risking her happiness in his hands after once
+escaping them.  The only thing she could say was, "I was a
+poor girl then; and now my circumstances have altered, so I
+am hardly the same person."
+
+"That's true.  And it makes the case awkward for me.  But I
+don't want to touch your money.  I am quite willing that
+every penny of your property shall remain to your personal
+use.  Besides, that argument has nothing in it.  The man you
+are thinking of is no better than I."
+
+"If you were as good as he you would leave me!" she cried
+passionately.
+
+This unluckily aroused Henchard.  "You cannot in honour
+refuse me," he said.  "And unless you give me your promise
+this very night to be my wife, before a witness, I'll reveal
+our intimacy--in common fairness to other men!"
+
+A look of resignation settled upon her.  Henchard saw its
+bitterness; and had Lucetta's heart been given to any other
+man in the world than Farfrae he would probably have had
+pity upon her at that moment.  But the supplanter was the
+upstart (as Henchard called him) who had mounted into
+prominence upon his shoulders, and he could bring himself to
+show no mercy.
+
+Without another word she rang the bell, and directed that
+Elizabeth-Jane should be fetched from her room.  The latter
+appeared, surprised in the midst of her lucubrations.  As
+soon as she saw Henchard she went across to him dutifully.
+
+"Elizabeth-Jane," he said, taking her hand, "I want you to
+hear this."  And turning to Lucetta: "Will you, or will you
+not, marry me?
+
+"If you--wish it, I must agree!"
+
+"You say yes?"
+
+"I do."
+
+No sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a
+fainting state.
+
+"What dreadful thing drives her to say this, father, when it
+is such a pain to her?" asked Elizabeth, kneeling down by
+Lucetta.  "Don't compel her to do anything against her will!
+I have lived with her, and know that she cannot bear much."
+
+"Don't be a no'thern simpleton!" said Henchard drily.  "This
+promise will leave him free for you, if you want him, won't
+it?"
+
+At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start.
+
+"Him? Who are you talking about?" she said wildly.
+
+"Nobody, as far as I am concerned," said Elizabeth firmly.
+
+"Oh--well.  Then it is my mistake," said Henchard.  "But the
+business is between me and Miss Templeman.  She agrees to be
+my wife."
+
+"But don't dwell on it just now," entreated Elizabeth,
+holding Lucetta's hand.
+
+"I don't wish to, if she promises," said Henchard.
+
+"I have, I have," groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like
+fluid, from very misery and faintness.  "Michael, please
+don't argue it any more!"
+
+"I will not," he said.  And taking up his hat he went away.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta.  "What is
+this?" she said.  "You called my father 'Michael' as if you
+knew him well? And how is it he has got this power over you,
+that you promise to marry him against your will? Ah--you
+have many many secrets from me!"
+
+"Perhaps you have some from me," Lucetta murmured with
+closed eyes, little thinking, however, so unsuspicious was
+she, that the secret of Elizabeth's heart concerned the
+young man who had caused this damage to her own.
+
+"I would not--do anything against you at all!" stammered
+Elizabeth, keeping in all signs of emotion till she was
+ready to burst.  "I cannot understand how my father can
+command you so; I don't sympathize with him in it at all.
+I'll go to him and ask him to release you."
+
+"No, no," said Lucetta.  "Let it all be."
+
+
+
+28.
+
+
+The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall below
+Lucetta's house, to attend Petty Sessions, being still a
+magistrate for the year by virtue of his late position as
+Mayor.  In passing he looked up at her windows, but nothing
+of her was to be seen.
+
+Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seem to be
+an even greater incongruity than Shallow and Silence
+themselves.  But his rough and ready perceptions, his
+sledge-hammer directness, had often served him better than
+nice legal knowledge in despatching such simple business as
+fell to his hands in this Court.  To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the
+Mayor for the year, being absent, the corn-merchant took the
+big chair, his eyes still abstractedly stretching out of the
+window to the ashlar front of High-Place Hall.
+
+There was one case only, and the offender stood before him.
+She was an old woman of mottled countenance, attired in a
+shawl of that nameless tertiary hue which comes, but cannot
+be made--a hue neither tawny, russet, hazel, nor ash; a
+sticky black bonnet that seemed to have been worn in the
+country of the Psalmist where the clouds drop fatness; and
+an apron that had been white in time so comparatively recent
+as still to contrast visibly with the rest of her clothes.
+The steeped aspect of the woman as a whole showed her to be
+no native of the country-side or even of a country-town.
+
+She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate,
+and Henchard looked at her, with a momentary pause, as if
+she had reminded him indistinctly of somebody or something
+which passed from his mind as quickly as it had come.
+"Well, and what has she been doing?" he said, looking down
+at the charge sheet.
+
+"She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female
+and nuisance," whispered Stubberd.
+
+"Where did she do that?" said the other magistrate.
+
+"By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the
+world!--I caught her in the act, your worship."
+
+"Stand back then," said Henchard, "and let's hear what
+you've got to say."
+
+Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate's clerk dipped his
+pen, Henchard being no note-taker himself, and the constable
+began--
+
+"Hearing a' illegal noise I went down the street at twenty-
+five minutes past eleven P.M. on the night of the fifth
+instinct, Hannah Dominy.  When I had--
+
+"Don't go so fast, Stubberd," said the clerk.
+
+The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk's pen, till
+the latter stopped scratching and said, "yes."  Stubberd
+continued: "When I had proceeded to the spot I saw defendant
+at another spot, namely, the gutter."  He paused, watching
+the point of the clerk's pen again.
+
+"Gutter, yes, Stubberd."
+
+"Spot measuring twelve feet nine inches or thereabouts from
+where I--" Still careful not to outrun the clerk's
+penmanship Stubberd pulled up again; for having got his
+evidence by heart it was immaterial to him whereabouts he
+broke off.
+
+"I object to that," spoke up the old woman, "'spot measuring
+twelve feet nine or thereabouts from where I,' is not sound
+testimony!"
+
+The magistrates consulted, and the second one said that the
+bench was of opinion that twelve feet nine inches from a man
+on his oath was admissible.
+
+Stubberd, with a suppressed gaze of victorious rectitude at
+the old woman, continued: "Was standing myself.  She was
+wambling about quite dangerous to the thoroughfare and when
+I approached to draw near she committed the nuisance, and
+insulted me."
+
+"'Insulted me.'...Yes, what did she say?"
+
+"She said, 'Put away that dee lantern,' she says."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Says she, 'Dost hear, old turmit-head? Put away that dee
+lantern.  I have floored fellows a dee sight finer-looking
+than a dee fool like thee, you son of a bee, dee me if I
+haint,' she says.
+
+"I object to that conversation!" interposed the old woman.
+"I was not capable enough to hear what I said, and what is
+said out of my hearing is not evidence."
+
+There was another stoppage for consultation, a book was
+referred to, and finally Stubberd was allowed to go on
+again.  The truth was that the old woman had appeared in
+court so many more times than the magistrates themselves,
+that they were obliged to keep a sharp look-out upon their
+procedure.  However, when Stubberd had rambled on a little
+further Henchard broke out impatiently, "Come--we don't want
+to hear any more of them cust dees and bees!  Say the words
+out like a man, and don't be so modest, Stubberd; or else
+leave it alone!" Turning to the woman, "Now then, have you
+any questions to ask him, or anything to say?"
+
+"Yes," she replied with a twinkle in her eye; and the clerk
+dipped his pen.
+
+"Twenty years ago or thereabout I was selling of furmity in
+a tent at Weydon Fair----"
+
+"'Twenty years ago'--well, that's beginning at the
+beginning; suppose you go back to the Creation!" said the
+clerk, not without satire.
+
+But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidence and
+what was not.
+
+"A man and a woman with a little child came into my tent,"
+the woman continued.  "They sat down and had a basin apiece.
+Ah, Lord's my life!  I was of a more respectable station in
+the world then than I am now, being a land smuggler in a
+large way of business; and I used to season my furmity with
+rum for them who asked for't.  I did it for the man; and
+then he had more and more; till at last he quarrelled with
+his wife, and offered to sell her to the highest bidder.  A
+sailor came in and bid five guineas, and paid the money, and
+led her away.  And the man who sold his wife in that fashion
+is the man sitting there in the great big chair."  The
+speaker concluded by nodding her head at Henchard and
+folding her arms.
+
+Everybody looked at Henchard.  His face seemed strange, and
+in tint as if it had been powdered over with ashes.  "We
+don't want to hear your life and adventures," said the
+second magistrate sharply, filling the pause which followed.
+"You've been asked if you've anything to say bearing on the
+case."
+
+"That bears on the case.  It proves that he's no better than
+I, and has no right to sit there in judgment upon me."
+
+"'Tis a concocted story," said the clerk.  "So hold your
+tongue!"
+
+"No--'tis true."  The words came from Henchard.  "'Tis as
+true as the light," he said slowly.  "And upon my soul it
+does prove that I'm no better than she!  And to keep out of
+any temptation to treat her hard for her revenge, I'll leave
+her to you."
+
+The sensation in the court was indescribably great.
+Henchard left the chair, and came out, passing through a
+group of people on the steps and outside that was much
+larger than usual; for it seemed that the old furmity dealer
+had mysteriously hinted to the denizens of the lane in which
+she had been lodging since her arrival, that she knew a
+queer thing or two about their great local man Mr. Henchard,
+if she chose to tell it.  This had brought them hither.
+
+"Why are there so many idlers round the Town Hall to-day?"
+said Lucetta to her servant when the case was over.  She had
+risen late, and had just looked out of the window.
+
+"Oh, please, ma'am, 'tis this larry about Mr. Henchard.  A
+woman has proved that before he became a gentleman he sold
+his wife for five guineas in a booth at a fair."
+
+In all the accounts which Henchard had given her of the
+separation from his wife Susan for so many years, of his
+belief in her death, and so on, he had never clearly
+explained the actual and immediate cause of that separation.
+The story she now heard for the first time.
+
+A gradual misery overspread Lucetta's face as she dwelt upon
+the promise wrung from her the night before.  At bottom,
+then, Henchard was this.  How terrible a contingency for a
+woman who should commit herself to his care.
+
+During the day she went out to the Ring and to other places,
+not coming in till nearly dusk.  As soon as she saw
+Elizabeth-Jane after her return indoors she told her that
+she had resolved to go away from home to the seaside for a
+few days--to Port-Bredy; Casterbridge was so gloomy.
+
+Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed,
+encouraged her in the idea, thinking a change would afford
+her relief.  She could not help suspecting that the gloom
+which seemed to have come over Casterbridge in Lucetta's
+eyes might be partially owing to the fact that Farfrae was
+away from home.
+
+Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, and took
+charge of High-Place Hall till her return.  After two or
+three days of solitude and incessant rain Henchard called at
+the house.  He seemed disappointed to hear of Lucetta's
+absence and though he nodded with outward indifference he
+went away handling his beard with a nettled mien.
+
+The next day he called again.  "Is she come now?" he asked.
+
+"Yes.  She returned this morning," replied his step-
+daughter.  "But she is not indoors.  She has gone for a walk
+along the turnpike-road to Port-Bredy.  She will be home by
+dusk."
+
+After a few words, which only served to reveal his restless
+impatience, he left the house again.
+
+
+
+29.
+
+
+At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road to Port-
+Bredy just as Elizabeth had announced.  That she had chosen
+for her afternoon walk the road along which she had returned
+to Casterbridge three hours earlier in a carriage was
+curious--if anything should be called curious in
+concatenations of phenomena wherein each is known to have
+its accounting cause.  It was the day of the chief market--
+Saturday--and Farfrae for once had been missed from his
+corn-stand in the dealers' room.  Nevertheless, it was known
+that he would be home that night--"for Sunday," as
+Casterbridge expressed it.
+
+Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reached the
+end of the ranked trees which bordered the highway in this
+and other directions out of the town.  This end marked a
+mile; and here she stopped.
+
+The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities, and the
+road, still adhering to its Roman foundation, stretched
+onward straight as a surveyor's line till lost to sight on
+the most distant ridge.  There was neither hedge nor tree in
+the prospect now, the road clinging to the stubby expanse of
+corn-land like a strip to an undulating garment.  Near her
+was a barn--the single building of any kind within her
+horizon.
+
+She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothing
+appeared thereon--not so much as a speck.  She sighed one
+word--"Donald!" and turned her face to the town for retreat.
+
+Here the case was different.  A single figure was
+approaching her--Elizabeth-Jane's.
+
+Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a little vexed.
+Elizabeth's face, as soon as she recognized her friend,
+shaped itself into affectionate lines while yet beyond
+speaking distance.  "I suddenly thought I would come and
+meet you," she said, smiling.
+
+Lucetta's reply was taken from her lips by an unexpected
+diversion.  A by-road on her right hand descended from the
+fields into the highway at the point where she stood, and
+down the track a bull was rambling uncertainly towards her
+and Elizabeth, who, facing the other way, did not observe
+him.
+
+In the latter quarter of each year cattle were at once the
+mainstay and the terror of families about Casterbridge and
+its neighbourhood, where breeding was carried on with
+Abrahamic success.  The head of stock driven into and out of
+the town at this season to be sold by the local auctioneer
+was very large; and all these horned beasts, in travelling
+to and fro, sent women and children to shelter as nothing
+else could do.  In the main the animals would have walked
+along quietly enough; but the Casterbridge tradition was
+that to drive stock it was indispensable that hideous cries,
+coupled with Yahoo antics and gestures, should be used,
+large sticks flourished, stray dogs called in, and in
+general everything done that was likely to infuriate the
+viciously disposed and terrify the mild.  Nothing was
+commoner than for a house-holder on going out of his parlour
+to find his hall or passage full of little children,
+nursemaids, aged women, or a ladies' school, who apologized
+for their presence by saying, "A bull passing down street
+from the sale."
+
+Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt, he
+meanwhile drawing vaguely towards them.  It was a large
+specimen of the breed, in colour rich dun, though disfigured
+at present by splotches of mud about his seamy sides.  His
+horns were thick and tipped with brass; his two nostrils
+like the Thames Tunnel as seen in the perspective toys of
+yore.  Between them, through the gristle of his nose, was a
+stout copper ring, welded on, and irremovable as Gurth's
+collar of brass.  To the ring was attached an ash staff
+about a yard long, which the bull with the motions of his
+head flung about like a flail.
+
+It was not till they observed this dangling stick that the
+young women were really alarmed; for it revealed to them
+that the bull was an old one, too savage to be driven, which
+had in some way escaped, the staff being the means by which
+the drover controlled him and kept his horns at arms'
+length.
+
+They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place, and
+thought of the barn hard by.  As long as they had kept their
+eyes on the bull he had shown some deference in his manner
+of approach; but no sooner did they turn their backs to seek
+the barn than he tossed his head and decided to thoroughly
+terrify them.  This caused the two helpless girls to run
+wildly, whereupon the bull advanced in a deliberate charge.
+
+The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it was closed
+save as to one of the usual pair of doors facing them, which
+had been propped open by a hurdle-stick, and for this
+opening they made.  The interior had been cleared by a
+recent bout of threshing except at one end, where there was
+a stack of dry clover.  Elizabeth-Jane took in the
+situation.  "We must climb up there," she said.
+
+But before they had even approached it they heard the bull
+scampering through the pond without, and in a second he
+dashed into the barn, knocking down the hurdle-stake in
+passing; the heavy door slammed behind him; and all three
+were imprisoned in the barn together.  The mistaken creature
+saw them, and stalked towards the end of the barn into which
+they had fled.  The girls doubled so adroitly that their
+pursuer was against the wall when the fugitives were already
+half way to the other end.  By the time that his length
+would allow him to turn and follow them thither they had
+crossed over; thus the pursuit went on, the hot air from his
+nostrils blowing over them like a sirocco, and not a moment
+being attainable by Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open
+the door.  What might have happened had their situation
+continued cannot be said; but in a few moments a rattling of
+the door distracted their adversary's attention, and a man
+appeared.  He ran forward towards the leading-staff, seized
+it, and wrenched the animal's head as if he would snap it
+off.  The wrench was in reality so violent that the thick
+neck seemed to have lost its stiffness and to become half-
+paralyzed, whilst the nose dropped blood.  The premeditated
+human contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunning for
+impulsive brute force, and the creature flinched.
+
+The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framed and
+unhesitating.  He led the bull to the door, and the light
+revealed Henchard.  He made the bull fast without, and re-
+entered to the succour of Lucetta; for he had not perceived
+Elizabeth, who had climbed on to the clover-heap.  Lucetta
+was hysterical, and Henchard took her in his arms and
+carried her to the door.
+
+"You--have saved me!" she cried, as soon as she could speak.
+
+"I have returned your kindness," he responded tenderly.
+"You once saved me."
+
+"How--comes it to be you--you?" she asked, not heeding his
+reply.
+
+"I came out here to look for you.  I have been wanting to
+tell you something these two or three days; but you have
+been away, and I could not.  Perhaps you cannot talk now?"
+
+"Oh--no!  Where is Elizabeth?"
+
+"Here am I!" cried the missing one cheerfully; and without
+waiting for the ladder to be placed she slid down the face
+of the clover-stack to the floor.
+
+Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Jane
+on the other, they went slowly along the rising road.  They
+had reached the top and were descending again when Lucetta,
+now much recovered, recollected that she had dropped her
+muff in the barn.
+
+"I'll run back," said Elizabeth-Jane.  "I don't mind it at
+all, as I am not tired as you are."  She thereupon hastened
+down again to the barn, the others pursuing their way.
+
+Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article being by no
+means small at that time.  Coming out she paused to look for
+a moment at the bull, now rather to be pitied with his
+bleeding nose, having perhaps rather intended a practical
+joke than a murder.  Henchard had secured him by jamming the
+staff into the hinge of the barn-door, and wedging it there
+with a stake.  At length she turned to hasten onward after
+her contemplation, when she saw a green-and-black gig
+approaching from the contrary direction, the vehicle being
+driven by Farfrae.
+
+His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta's walk that way.
+Donald saw her, drew up, and was hastily made acquainted
+with what had occurred.  At Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how
+greatly Lucetta had been jeopardized, he exhibited an
+agitation different in kind no less than in intensity from
+any she had seen in him before.  He became so absorbed in
+the circumstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledge
+of what he was doing to think of helping her up beside him.
+
+"She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?" he inquired at
+last.
+
+"Yes.  He is taking her home.  They are almost there by this
+time."
+
+"And you are sure she can get home?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure.
+
+"Your stepfather saved her?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+Farfrae checked his horse's pace; she guessed why.  He was
+thinking that it would be best not to intrude on the other
+two just now.  Henchard had saved Lucetta, and to provoke a
+possible exhibition of her deeper affection for himself was
+as ungenerous as it was unwise.
+
+The immediate subject of their talk being exhausted she felt
+more embarrassed at sitting thus beside her past lover; but
+soon the two figures of the others were visible at the
+entrance to the town.  The face of the woman was frequently
+turned back, but Farfrae did not whip on the horse.  When
+these reached the town walls Henchard and his companion had
+disappeared down the street; Farfrae set down Elizabeth-Jane
+on her expressing a particular wish to alight there, and
+drove round to the stables at the back of his lodgings.
+
+On this account he entered the house through his garden, and
+going up to his apartments found them in a particularly
+disturbed state, his boxes being hauled out upon the
+landing, and his bookcase standing in three pieces.  These
+phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not the least
+surprise.  "When will everything be sent up?" he said to the
+mistress of the house, who was superintending.
+
+"I am afraid not before eight, sir," said she.  "You see we
+wasn't aware till this morning that you were going to move,
+or we could have been forwarder."
+
+"A--well, never mind, never mind!" said Farfrae cheerily.
+"Eight o'clock will do well enough if it be not later.  Now,
+don't ye be standing here talking, or it will be twelve, I
+doubt."  Thus speaking he went out by the front door and up
+the street.
+
+During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had had
+experiences of a different kind.  After Elizabeth's
+departure for the muff the corn-merchant opened himself
+frankly, holding her hand within his arm, though she would
+fain have withdrawn it.  "Dear Lucetta, I have been very,
+very anxious to see you these two or three days," he said,
+"ever since I saw you last!  I have thought over the way I
+got your promise that night.  You said to me, 'If I were a
+man I should not insist.' That cut me deep.  I felt that
+there was some truth in it.  I don't want to make you
+wretched; and to marry me just now would do that as nothing
+else could--it is but too plain.  Therefore I agree to an
+indefinite engagement--to put off all thought of marriage
+for a year or two."
+
+"But--but--can I do nothing of a different kind?" said
+Lucetta.  "I am full of gratitude to you--you have saved my
+life.  And your care of me is like coals of fire on my head!
+I am a monied person now.  Surely I can do something in
+return for your goodness--something practical?"
+
+Henchard remained in thought.  He had evidently not expected
+this.  "There is one thing you might do, Lucetta," he said.
+"But not exactly of that kind."
+
+"Then of what kind is it?" she asked with renewed misgiving.
+
+"I must tell you a secret to ask it.--You may have heard
+that I have been unlucky this year? I did what I have never
+done before--speculated rashly; and I lost.  That's just put
+me in a strait.
+
+"And you would wish me to advance some money?"
+
+"No, no!" said Henchard, almost in anger.  "I'm not the man
+to sponge on a woman, even though she may be so nearly my
+own as you.  No, Lucetta; what you can do is this and it
+would save me.  My great creditor is Grower, and it is at
+his hands I shall suffer if at anybody's; while a
+fortnight's forbearance on his part would be enough to allow
+me to pull through.  This may be got out of him in one way--
+that you would let it be known to him that you are my
+intended--that we are to be quietly married in the next
+fortnight.--Now stop, you haven't heard all!  Let him have
+this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact
+that the actual engagement between us is to be a long one.
+Nobody else need know: you could go with me to Mr. Grower
+and just let me speak to 'ee before him as if we were on
+such terms.  We'll ask him to keep it secret.  He will
+willingly wait then.  At the fortnight's end I shall be able
+to face him; and I can coolly tell him all is postponed
+between us for a year or two.  Not a soul in the town need
+know how you've helped me.  Since you wish to be of use,
+there's your way."
+
+It being now what the people called the "pinking in" of the
+day, that is, the quarter-hour just before dusk, he did not
+at first observe the result of his own words upon her.
+
+"If it were anything else," she began, and the dryness of
+her lips was represented in her voice.
+
+"But it is such a little thing!" he said, with a deep
+reproach.  "Less than you have offered--just the beginning
+of what you have so lately promised!  I could have told him
+as much myself, but he would not have believed me."
+
+"It is not because I won't--it is because I absolutely
+can't," she said, with rising distress.
+
+"You are provoking!" he burst out.  "It is enough to make me
+force you to carry out at once what you have promised."
+
+"I cannot!" she insisted desperately.
+
+"Why? When I have only within these few minutes released you
+from your promise to do the thing offhand."
+
+"Because--he was a witness!"
+
+"Witness? Of what?
+
+"If I must tell you----.  Don't, don't upbraid me!"
+
+"Well!  Let's hear what you mean?"
+
+"Witness of my marriage--Mr. Grower was!"
+
+"Marriage?"
+
+"Yes.  With Mr. Farfrae.  O Michael!  I am already his wife.
+We were married this week at Port-Bredy.  There were reasons
+against our doing it here.  Mr. Grower was a witness because
+he happened to be at Port-Bredy at the time."
+
+Henchard stood as if idiotized.  She was so alarmed at his
+silence that she murmured something about lending him
+sufficient money to tide over the perilous fortnight.
+
+"Married him?" said Henchard at length.  "My good--what,
+married him whilst--bound to marry me?"
+
+"It was like this," she explained, with tears in her eyes
+and quavers in her voice; "don't--don't be cruel!  I loved
+him so much, and I thought you might tell him of the past--
+and that grieved me!  And then, when I had promised you, I
+learnt of the rumour that you had--sold your first wife at a
+fair like a horse or cow!  How could I keep my promise after
+hearing that? I could not risk myself in your hands; it
+would have been letting myself down to take your name after
+such a scandal.  But I knew I should lose Donald if I did
+not secure him at once--for you would carry out your threat
+of telling him of our former acquaintance, as long as there
+was a chance of keeping me for yourself by doing so.  But
+you will not do so now, will you, Michael? for it is too
+late to separate us."
+
+The notes of St. Peter's bells in full peal had been wafted
+to them while he spoke, and now the genial thumping of the
+town band, renowned for its unstinted use of the drum-stick,
+throbbed down the street.
+
+"Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I
+suppose?" said he.
+
+"Yes--I think he has told them, or else Mr. Grower
+has....May I leave you now? My--he was detained at Port-
+Bredy to-day, and sent me on a few hours before him."
+
+"Then it is HIS WIFE'S life I have saved this
+afternoon."
+
+"Yes--and he will be for ever grateful to you."
+
+"I am much obliged to him....O you false woman!" burst from
+Henchard.  "You promised me!"
+
+"Yes, yes!  But it was under compulsion, and I did not know
+all your past----"
+
+"And now I've a mind to punish you as you deserve!  One word
+to this bran-new husband of how you courted me, and your
+precious happiness is blown to atoms!"
+
+"Michael--pity me, and be generous!"
+
+"You don't deserve pity!  You did; but you don't now."
+
+"I'll help you to pay off your debt."
+
+"A pensioner of Farfrae's wife--not I!  Don't stay with me
+longer--I shall say something worse.  Go home!"
+
+She disappeared under the trees of the south walk as the
+band came round the corner, awaking the echoes of every
+stock and stone in celebration of her happiness.  Lucetta
+took no heed, but ran up the back street and reached her own
+home unperceived.
+
+
+
+30.
+
+
+Farfrae's words to his landlady had referred to the removal
+of his boxes and other effects from his late lodgings to
+Lucetta's house.  The work was not heavy, but it had been
+much hindered on account of the frequent pauses necessitated
+by exclamations of surprise at the event, of which the good
+woman had been briefly informed by letter a few hours
+earlier.
+
+At the last moment of leaving Port-Bredy, Farfrae, like John
+Gilpin, had been detained by important customers, whom, even
+in the exceptional circumstances, he was not the man to
+neglect.  Moreover, there was a convenience in Lucetta
+arriving first at her house.  Nobody there as yet knew what
+had happened; and she was best in a position to break the
+news to the inmates, and give directions for her husband's
+accommodation.  He had, therefore, sent on his two-days'
+bride in a hired brougham, whilst he went across the country
+to a certain group of wheat and barley ricks a few miles
+off, telling her the hour at which he might be expected the
+same evening.  This accounted for her trotting out to meet
+him after their separation of four hours.
+
+By a strenuous effort, after leaving Henchard she calmed
+herself in readiness to receive Donald at High-Place Hall
+when he came on from his lodgings.  One supreme fact
+empowered her to this, the sense that, come what would, she
+had secured him.  Half-an-hour after her arrival he walked
+in, and she met him with a relieved gladness, which a
+month's perilous absence could not have intensified.
+
+"There is one thing I have not done; and yet it is
+important," she said earnestly, when she had finished
+talking about the adventure with the bull.  "That is, broken
+the news of our marriage to my dear Elizabeth-Jane."
+
+"Ah, and you have not?" he said thoughtfully.  "I gave her a
+lift from the barn homewards; but I did not tell her either;
+for I thought she might have heard of it in the town, and
+was keeping back her congratulations from shyness, and all
+that."
+
+"She can hardly have heard of it.  But I'll find out; I'll
+go to her now.  And, Donald, you don't mind her living on
+with me just the same as before? She is so quiet and
+unassuming."
+
+"O no, indeed I don't," Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a
+faint awkwardness.  "But I wonder if she would care to?"
+
+"O yes!" said Lucetta eagerly.  "I am sure she would like
+to.  Besides, poor thing, she has no other home."
+
+Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspect the
+secret of her more reserved friend.  He liked her all the
+better for the blindness.  "Arrange as you like with her by
+all means," he said.  "It is I who have come to your house,
+not you to mine."
+
+"I'll run and speak to her," said Lucetta.
+
+When she got upstairs to Elizabeth-Jane's room the latter
+had taken off her out-door things, and was resting over a
+book.  Lucetta found in a moment that she had not yet learnt
+the news.
+
+"I did not come down to you, Miss Templeman," she said
+simply.  "I was coming to ask if you had quite recovered
+from your fright, but I found you had a visitor.  What are
+the bells ringing for, I wonder? And the band, too, is
+playing.  Somebody must be married; or else they are
+practising for Christmas."
+
+Lucetta uttered a vague "Yes," and seating herself by the
+other young woman looked musingly at her.  "What a lonely
+creature you are," she presently said; "never knowing what's
+going on, or what people are talking about everywhere with
+keen interest.  You should get out, and gossip about as
+other women do, and then you wouldn't be obliged to ask me a
+question of that kind.  Well, now, I have something to tell
+you.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herself
+receptive.
+
+"I must go rather a long way back," said Lucetta, the
+difficulty of explaining herself satisfactorily to the
+pondering one beside her growing more apparent at each
+syllable.  "You remember that trying case of conscience I
+told you of some time ago--about the first lover and the
+second lover?" She let out in jerky phrases a leading word
+or two of the story she had told.
+
+"O yes--I remember the story of YOUR FRIEND," said
+Elizabeth drily, regarding the irises of Lucetta's eyes as
+though to catch their exact shade.  "The two lovers--the old
+one and the new: how she wanted to marry the second, but
+felt she ought to marry the first; so that she neglected the
+better course to follow the evil, like the poet Ovid I've
+just been construing: 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora
+sequor.'"
+
+"O no; she didn't follow evil exactly!" said Lucetta
+hastily.
+
+"But you said that she--or as I may say you"--answered
+Elizabeth, dropping the mask, "were in honour and conscience
+bound to marry the first?"
+
+Lucetta's blush at being seen through came and went again
+before she replied anxiously, "You will never breathe this,
+will you, Elizabeth-Jane?"
+
+"Certainly not, if you say not.
+
+"Then I will tell you that the case is more complicated--
+worse, in fact--than it seemed in my story.  I and the first
+man were thrown together in a strange way, and felt that we
+ought to be united, as the world had talked of us.  He was a
+widower, as he supposed.  He had not heard of his first wife
+for many years.  But the wife returned, and we parted.  She
+is now dead, and the husband comes paying me addresses
+again, saying, 'Now we'll complete our purposes.' But,
+Elizabeth-Jane, all this amounts to a new courtship of me by
+him; I was absolved from all vows by the return of the other
+woman."
+
+"Have you not lately renewed your promise?" said the younger
+with quiet surmise.  She had divined Man Number One.
+
+"That was wrung from me by a threat."
+
+"Yes, it was.  But I think when any one gets coupled up with
+a man in the past so unfortunately as you have done she
+ought to become his wife if she can, even if she were not
+the sinning party."
+
+Lucetta's countenance lost its sparkle.  "He turned out to
+be a man I should be afraid to marry," she pleaded.  "Really
+afraid!  And it was not till after my renewed promise that I
+knew it."
+
+"Then there is only one course left to honesty.  You must
+remain a single woman."
+
+"But think again!  Do consider----"
+
+"I am certain," interrupted her companion hardily.  "I have
+guessed very well who the man is.  My father; and I say it
+is him or nobody for you."
+
+Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Jane like a
+red rag to a bull.  Her craving for correctness of procedure
+was, indeed, almost vicious.  Owing to her early troubles
+with regard to her mother a semblance of irregularity had
+terrors for her which those whose names are safeguarded from
+suspicion know nothing of.  "You ought to marry Mr. Henchard
+or nobody--certainly not another man!" she went on with a
+quivering lip in whose movement two passions shared.
+
+"I don't admit that!" said Lucetta passionately.
+
+"Admit it or not, it is true!"
+
+Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as if she
+could plead no more, holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Why, you HAVE married him!" cried the latter, jumping
+up with pleasure after a glance at Lucetta's fingers.  "When
+did you do it? Why did you not tell me, instead of teasing
+me like this? How very honourable of you!  He did treat my
+mother badly once, it seems, in a moment of intoxication.
+And it is true that he is stern sometimes.  But you will
+rule him entirely, I am sure, with your beauty and wealth
+and accomplishments.  You are the woman he will adore, and
+we shall all three be happy together now!"
+
+"O, my Elizabeth-Jane!" cried Lucetta distressfully.  "'Tis
+somebody else that I have married!  I was so desperate--so
+afraid of being forced to anything else--so afraid of
+revelations that would quench his love for me, that I
+resolved to do it offhand, come what might, and purchase a
+week of happiness at any cost!"
+
+"You--have--married Mr. Farfrae!" cried Elizabeth-Jane, in
+Nathan tones
+
+Lucetta bowed.  She had recovered herself.
+
+"The bells are ringing on that account," she said.  "My
+husband is downstairs.  He will live here till a more
+suitable house is ready for us; and I have told him that I
+want you to stay with me just as before."
+
+"Let me think of it alone," the girl quickly replied,
+corking up the turmoil of her feeling with grand control.
+
+"You shall.  I am sure we shall be happy together."
+
+Lucetta departed to join Donald below, a vague uneasiness
+floating over her joy at seeing him quite at home there.
+Not on account of her friend Elizabeth did she feel it: for
+of the bearings of Elizabeth-Jane's emotions she had not the
+least suspicion; but on Henchard's alone.
+
+Now the instant decision of Susan Henchard's daughter was to
+dwell in that house no more.  Apart from her estimate of the
+propriety of Lucetta's conduct, Farfrae had been so nearly
+her avowed lover that she felt she could not abide there.
+
+It was still early in the evening when she hastily put on
+her things and went out.  In a few minutes, knowing the
+ground, she had found a suitable lodging, and arranged to
+enter it that night.  Returning and entering noiselessly she
+took off her pretty dress and arrayed herself in a plain
+one, packing up the other to keep as her best; for she would
+have to be very economical now.  She wrote a note to leave
+for Lucetta, who was closely shut up in the drawing-room
+with Farfrae; and then Elizabeth-Jane called a man with a
+wheel-barrow; and seeing her boxes put into it she trotted
+off down the street to her rooms.  They were in the street
+in which Henchard lived, and almost opposite his door.
+
+Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence.
+The little annual sum settled on her by her stepfather would
+keep body and soul together.  A wonderful skill in netting
+of all sorts--acquired in childhood by making seines in
+Newson's home--might serve her in good stead; and her
+studies, which were pursued unremittingly, might serve her
+in still better.
+
+By this time the marriage that had taken place was known
+throughout Casterbridge; had been discussed noisily on
+kerbstones, confidentially behind counters, and jovially at
+the Three Mariners.  Whether Farfrae would sell his business
+and set up for a gentleman on his wife's money, or whether
+he would show independence enough to stick to his trade in
+spite of his brilliant alliance, was a great point of
+interest.
+
+
+
+31.
+
+
+The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrates had
+spread; and in four-and-twenty hours there was not a person
+in Casterbridge who remained unacquainted with the story of
+Henchard's mad freak at Weydon-Priors Fair, long years
+before.  The amends he had made in after life were lost
+sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act.  Had the
+incident been well known of old and always, it might by this
+time have grown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall
+wild oat, but well-nigh the single one, of a young man with
+whom the steady and mature (if somewhat headstrong) burgher
+of to-day had scarcely a point in common.  But the act
+having lain as dead and buried ever since, the interspace of
+years was unperceived; and the black spot of his youth wore
+the aspect of a recent crime.
+
+Small as the police-court incident had been in itself, it
+formed the edge or turn in the incline of Henchard's
+fortunes.  On that day--almost at that minute--he passed the
+ridge of prosperity and honour, and began to descend rapidly
+on the other side.  It was strange how soon he sank in
+esteem.  Socially he had received a startling fillip
+downwards; and, having already lost commercial buoyancy from
+rash transactions, the velocity of his descent in both
+aspects became accelerated every hour.
+
+He now gazed more at the pavements and less at the house-
+fronts when he walked about; more at the feet and leggings
+of men, and less into the pupils of their eyes with the
+blazing regard which formerly had made them blink.
+
+New events combined to undo him.  It had been a bad year for
+others besides himself, and the heavy failure of a debtor
+whom he had trusted generously completed the overthrow of
+his tottering credit.  And now, in his desperation, he
+failed to preserve that strict correspondence between bulk
+and sample which is the soul of commerce in grain.  For
+this, one of his men was mainly to blame; that worthy, in
+his great unwisdom, having picked over the sample of an
+enormous quantity of second-rate corn which Henchard had in
+hand, and removed the pinched, blasted, and smutted grains
+in great numbers.  The produce if honestly offered would
+have created no scandal; but the blunder of
+misrepresentation, coming at such a moment, dragged
+Henchard's name into the ditch.
+
+The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind.  One
+day Elizabeth-Jane was passing the King's Arms, when she saw
+people bustling in and out more than usual where there was
+no market.  A bystander informed her, with some surprise at
+her ignorance, that it was a meeting of the Commissioners
+under Mr. Henchard's bankruptcy.  She felt quite tearful,
+and when she heard that he was present in the hotel she
+wished to go in and see him, but was advised not to intrude
+that day.
+
+The room in which debtor and creditors had assembled was a
+front one, and Henchard, looking out of the window, had
+caught sight of Elizabeth-Jane through the wire blind.  His
+examination had closed, and the creditors were leaving.  The
+appearance of Elizabeth threw him into a reverie, till,
+turning his face from the window, and towering above all the
+rest, he called their attention for a moment more.  His
+countenance had somewhat changed from its flush of
+prosperity; the black hair and whiskers were the same as
+ever, but a film of ash was over the rest.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "over and above the assets that we've
+been talking about, and that appear on the balance-sheet,
+there be these.  It all belongs to ye, as much as everything
+else I've got, and I don't wish to keep it from you, not I."
+Saying this, he took his gold watch from his pocket and laid
+it on the table; then his purse--the yellow canvas money-
+bag, such as was carried by all farmers and dealers--untying
+it, and shaking the money out upon the table beside the
+watch.  The latter he drew back quickly for an instant, to
+remove the hair-guard made and given him by Lucetta.
+"There, now you have all I've got in the world," he said.
+"And I wish for your sakes 'twas more."
+
+The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked at the watch,
+and at the money, and into the street; when Farmer James
+Everdene of Weatherbury spoke.
+
+"No, no, Henchard," he said warmly.  "We don't want that.
+'Tis honourable in ye; but keep it.  What do you say,
+neighbours--do ye agree?"
+
+"Ay, sure: we don't wish it at all," said Grower, another
+creditor.
+
+"Let him keep it, of course," murmured another in the
+background--a silent, reserved young man named Boldwood; and
+the rest responded unanimously.
+
+"Well," said the senior Commissioner, addressing Henchard,
+"though the case is a desperate one, I am bound to admit
+that I have never met a debtor who behaved more fairly.
+I've proved the balance-sheet to be as honestly made out as
+it could possibly be; we have had no trouble; there have
+been no evasions and no concealments.  The rashness of
+dealing which led to this unhappy situation is obvious
+enough; but as far as I can see every attempt has been made
+to avoid wronging anybody."
+
+Henchard was more affected by this than he cared to let them
+perceive, and he turned aside to the window again.  A
+general murmur of agreement followed the Commissioner's
+words, and the meeting dispersed.  When they were gone
+Henchard regarded the watch they had returned to him.
+"'Tisn't mine by rights," he said to himself.  "Why the
+devil didn't they take it?--I don't want what don't belong
+to me!" Moved by a recollection he took the watch to the
+maker's just opposite, sold it there and then for what the
+tradesman offered, and went with the proceeds to one among
+the smaller of his creditors, a cottager of Durnover in
+straitened circumstances, to whom he handed the money.
+
+When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned, and
+the auctions were in progress, there was quite a sympathetic
+reaction in the town, which till then for some time past had
+done nothing but condemn him.  Now that Henchard's whole
+career was pictured distinctly to his neighbours, and they
+could see how admirably he had used his one talent of energy
+to create a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing--
+which was really all he could show when he came to the town
+as a journeyman hay-trusser, with his wimble and knife in
+his basket--they wondered and regretted his fall.
+
+Try as she might, Elizabeth could never meet with him.  She
+believed in him still, though nobody else did; and she
+wanted to be allowed to forgive him for his roughness to
+her, and to help him in his trouble.
+
+She wrote to him; he did not reply.  She then went to his
+house--the great house she had lived in so happily for a
+time--with its front of dun brick, vitrified here and there
+and its heavy sash-bars--but Henchard was to be found there
+no more.  The ex-Mayor had left the home of his prosperity,
+and gone into Jopp's cottage by the Priory Mill--the sad
+purlieu to which he had wandered on the night of his
+discovery that she was not his daughter.  Thither she went.
+
+Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on this spot to
+retire to, but assumed that necessity had no choice.  Trees
+which seemed old enough to have been planted by the friars
+still stood around, and the back hatch of the original mill
+yet formed a cascade which had raised its terrific roar for
+centuries.  The cottage itself was built of old stones from
+the long dismantled Priory, scraps of tracery, moulded
+window-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed in with the
+rubble of the walls.
+
+In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp, whom
+Henchard had employed, abused, cajoled, and dismissed by
+turns, being the householder.  But even here her stepfather
+could not be seen.
+
+"Not by his daughter?" pleaded Elizabeth.
+
+"By nobody--at present: that's his order," she was informed.
+
+Afterwards she was passing by the corn-stores and hay-barns
+which had been the headquarters of his business.  She knew
+that he ruled there no longer; but it was with amazement
+that she regarded the familiar gateway.  A smear of decisive
+lead-coloured paint had been laid on to obliterate
+Henchard's name, though its letters dimly loomed through
+like ships in a fog.  Over these, in fresh white, spread the
+name of Farfrae.
+
+Abel Whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicket, and
+she said, "Mr. Farfrae is master here?"
+
+"Yaas, Miss Henchet," he said, "Mr. Farfrae have bought the
+concern and all of we work-folk with it; and 'tis better for
+us than 'twas--though I shouldn't say that to you as a
+daughter-law.  We work harder, but we bain't made afeard
+now.  It was fear made my few poor hairs so thin!  No busting
+out, no slamming of doors, no meddling with yer eternal soul
+and all that; and though 'tis a shilling a week less I'm the
+richer man; for what's all the world if yer mind is always
+in a larry, Miss Henchet?"
+
+The intelligence was in a general sense true; and Henchard's
+stores, which had remained in a paralyzed condition during
+the settlement of his bankruptcy, were stirred into activity
+again when the new tenant had possession.  Thenceforward the
+full sacks, looped with the shining chain, went scurrying up
+and down under the cat-head, hairy arms were thrust out from
+the different door-ways, and the grain was hauled in;
+trusses of hay were tossed anew in and out of the barns, and
+the wimbles creaked; while the scales and steel-yards began
+to be busy where guess-work had formerly been the rule.
+
+
+
+32.
+
+
+Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridge town.
+The first, of weather-stained brick, was immediately at the
+end of High Street, where a diverging branch from that
+thoroughfare ran round to the low-lying Durnover lanes; so
+that the precincts of the bridge formed the merging point of
+respectability and indigence.  The second bridge, of stone,
+was further out on the highway--in fact, fairly in the
+meadows, though still within the town boundary.
+
+These bridges had speaking countenances.  Every projection
+in each was worn down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more
+by friction from generations of loungers, whose toes and
+heels had from year to year made restless movements against
+these parapets, as they had stood there meditating on the
+aspect of affairs.  In the case of the more friable bricks
+and stones even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the
+same mixed mechanism.  The masonry of the top was clamped
+with iron at each joint; since it had been no uncommon thing
+for desperate men to wrench the coping off and throw it down
+the river, in reckless defiance of the magistrates.
+
+For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of
+the town; those who had failed in business, in love, in
+sobriety, in crime.  Why the unhappy hereabout usually chose
+the bridges for their meditations in preference to a
+railing, a gate, or a stile, was not so clear.
+
+There was a marked difference of quality between the
+personages who haunted the near bridge of brick and the
+personages who haunted the far one of stone.  Those of
+lowest character preferred the former, adjoining the town;
+they did not mind the glare of the public eye.  They had
+been of comparatively no account during their successes; and
+though they might feel dispirited, they had no particular
+sense of shame in their ruin.  Their hands were mostly kept
+in their pockets; they wore a leather strap round their hips
+or knees, and boots that required a great deal of lacing,
+but seemed never to get any.  Instead of sighing at their
+adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had
+entered into their souls they said they were down on their
+luck.  Jopp in his time of distress had often stood here; so
+had Mother Cuxsom, Christopher Coney, and poor Abel Whittle.
+
+The miserables who would pause on the remoter bridge
+were of a politer stamp.  They included bankrupts,
+hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called "out of a
+situation" from fault or lucklessness, the inefficient of
+the professional class--shabby-genteel men, who did not know
+how to get rid of the weary time between breakfast and
+dinner, and the yet more weary time between dinner and dark.
+The eye of this species were mostly directed over the
+parapet upon the running water below.  A man seen there
+looking thus fixedly into the river was pretty sure to be
+one whom the world did not treat kindly for some reason or
+other.  While one in straits on the townward bridge did not
+mind who saw him so, and kept his back to the parapet to
+survey the passers-by, one in straits on this never faced
+the road, never turned his head at coming footsteps, but,
+sensitive to his own condition, watched the current whenever
+a stranger approached, as if some strange fish interested
+him, though every finned thing had been poached out of the
+river years before.
+
+There and thus they would muse; if their grief were the
+grief of oppression they would wish themselves kings; if
+their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires; if
+sin, they would wish they were saints or angels; if despised
+love, that they were some much-courted Adonis of county
+fame.  Some had been known to stand and think so long with
+this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed
+their poor carcases to follow that gaze; and they were
+discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles,
+either here or in the deep pool called Blackwater, a little
+higher up the river.
+
+To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunates had come
+before him, his way thither being by the riverside path on
+the chilly edge of the town.  Here he was standing one windy
+afternoon when Durnover church clock struck five.  While the
+gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp
+intervening flat a man passed behind him and greeted
+Henchard by name.  Henchard turned slightly and saw that the
+corner was Jopp, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to
+whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings because
+Jopp was the one man in Casterbridge whose observation and
+opinion the fallen corn-merchant despised to the point of
+indifference.
+
+Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Jopp
+stopped.
+
+"He and she are gone into their new house to-day," said
+Jopp.
+
+"Oh," said Henchard absently.  "Which house is that?"
+
+"Your old one."
+
+"Gone into my house?" And starting up Henchard added, "
+MY house of all others in the town!"
+
+"Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn't,
+it can do 'ee no harm that he's the man."
+
+It was quite true: he felt that it was doing him no harm.
+Farfrae, who had already taken the yards and stores, had
+acquired possession of the house for the obvious convenience
+of its contiguity.  And yet this act of his taking up
+residence within those roomy chambers while he, their former
+tenant, lived in a cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.
+
+Jopp continued: "And you heard of that fellow who bought all
+the best furniture at your sale? He was bidding for no other
+than Farfrae all the while!  It has never been moved out of
+the house, as he'd already got the lease."
+
+"My furniture too!  Surely he'll buy my body and soul
+likewise!"
+
+"There's no saying he won't, if you be willing to sell."  And
+having planted these wounds in the heart of his once
+imperious master Jopp went on his way; while Henchard stared
+and stared into the racing river till the bridge seemed
+moving backward with him.
+
+The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey, When
+the landscape looked like a picture blotted in with ink,
+another traveller approached the great stone bridge.  He was
+driving a gig, his direction being also townwards.  On the
+round of the middle of the arch the gig stopped.  "Mr
+Henchard?" came from it in the voice of Farfrae.  Henchard
+turned his face.
+
+Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told the man who
+accompanied him to drive home; while he alighted and went up
+to his former friend.
+
+"I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?"
+he said.  "Is it true? I have a real reason for asking."
+
+Henchard withheld his answer for several instants, and then
+said, "Yes; it is true.  I am going where you were going to
+a few years ago, when I prevented you and got you to bide
+here.  'Tis turn and turn about, isn't it!  Do ye mind how we
+stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I persuaded 'ee to
+stay? You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I
+was the master of the house in corn Street.  But now I stand
+without a stick or a rag, and the master of that house is
+you."
+
+"Yes, yes; that's so!  It's the way o' the warrld," said
+Farfrae.
+
+"Ha, ha, true!" cried Henchard, throwing himself into a mood
+of jocularity.  "Up and down!  I'm used to it.  What's the
+odds after all!"
+
+"Now listen to me, if it's no taking up your time," said
+Farfrae, "just as I listened to you.  Don't go.  Stay at
+home."
+
+"But I can do nothing else, man!" said Henchard scornfully.
+"The little money I have will just keep body and soul
+together for a few weeks, and no more.  I have not felt
+inclined to go back to journey-work yet; but I can't stay
+doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere."
+
+"No; but what I propose is this--if ye will listen.  Come
+and live in your old house.  We can spare some rooms very
+well--I am sure my wife would not mind it at all--until
+there's an opening for ye."
+
+Henchard started.  Probably the picture drawn by the
+unsuspecting Donald of himself under the same roof with
+Lucetta was too striking to be received with equanimity.
+"No, no," he said gruffly; "we should quarrel."
+
+"You should hae a part to yourself," said Farfrae; "and
+nobody to interfere wi' you.  It will be a deal healthier
+than down there by the river where you live now."
+
+Still Henchard refused.  "You don't know what you ask," he
+said.  "However, I can do no less than thank 'ee."
+
+They walked into the town together side by side, as they had
+done when Henchard persuaded the young Scotchman to remain.
+"Will you come in and have some supper?" said Farfrae when
+they reached the middle of the town, where their paths
+diverged right and left.
+
+"No, no."
+
+"By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot.  I bought a good deal of
+your furniture.
+
+"So I have heard."
+
+"Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself;
+but I wish ye to pick out all that you care to have--such
+things as may be endeared to ye by associations, or
+particularly suited to your use.  And take them to your own
+house--it will not be depriving me, we can do with less very
+well, and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting
+more."
+
+"What--give it to me for nothing?" said Henchard.  "But you
+paid the creditors for it!"
+
+"Ah, yes; but maybe it's worth more to you than it is to
+me."
+
+Henchard was a little moved.  "I--sometimes think I've
+wronged 'ee!" he said, in tones which showed the disquietude
+that the night shades hid in his face.  He shook Farfrae
+abruptly by the hand, and hastened away as if unwilling to
+betray himself further.  Farfrae saw him turn through the
+thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down towards the
+Priory Mill.
+
+Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no larger than
+the Prophet's chamber, and with the silk attire of her palmy
+days packed away in a box, was netting with great industry
+between the hours which she devoted to studying such books
+as she could get hold of.
+
+Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather's former
+residence, now Farfrae's, she could see Donald and Lucetta
+speeding in and out of their door with all the bounding
+enthusiasm of their situation.  She avoided looking that way
+as much as possible, but it was hardly in human nature to
+keep the eyes averted when the door slammed.
+
+While living on thus quietly she heard the news that
+Henchard had caught cold and was confined to his room--
+possibly a result of standing about the meads in damp
+weather.  She went off to his house at once.  This time she
+was determined not to be denied admittance, and made her way
+upstairs.  He was sitting up in the bed with a greatcoat
+round him, and at first resented her intrusion.  "Go away--
+go away," he said.  "I don't like to see 'ee!"
+
+"But, father--"
+
+"I don't like to see 'ee," he repeated.
+
+However, the ice was broken, and she remained.  She made the
+room more comfortable, gave directions to the people below,
+and by the time she went away had reconciled her stepfather
+to her visiting him.
+
+The effect, either of her ministrations or of her mere
+presence, was a rapid recovery.  He soon was well enough to
+go out; and now things seemed to wear a new colour in his
+eyes.  He no longer thought of emigration, and thought more
+of Elizabeth.  The having nothing to do made him more dreary
+than any other circumstance; and one day, with better views
+of Farfrae than he had held for some time, and a sense that
+honest work was not a thing to be ashamed of, he stoically
+went down to Farfrae's yard and asked to be taken on as a
+journeyman hay-trusser.  He was engaged at once.  This
+hiring of Henchard was done through a foreman, Farfrae
+feeling that it was undesirable to come personally in
+contact with the ex-corn-factor more than was absolutely
+necessary.  While anxious to help him he was well aware by
+this time of his uncertain temper, and thought reserved
+relations best.  For the same reason his orders to Henchard
+to proceed to this and that country farm trussing in the
+usual way were always given through a third person.
+
+For a time these arrangements worked well, it being the
+custom to truss in the respective stack-yards, before
+bringing it away, the hay bought at the different farms
+about the neighbourhood; so that Henchard was often absent
+at such places the whole week long.  When this was all done,
+and Henchard had become in a measure broken in, he came to
+work daily on the home premises like the rest.  And thus the
+once flourishing merchant and Mayor and what not stood as a
+day-labourer in the barns and granaries he formerly had
+owned.
+
+"I have worked as a journeyman before now, ha'n't I?" he
+would say in his defiant way; "and why shouldn't I do it
+again?" But he looked a far different journeyman from the
+one he had been in his earlier days.  Then he had worn
+clean, suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue; leggings
+yellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new flax, and a
+neckerchief like a flower-garden.  Now he wore the remains
+of an old blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty
+silk hat, and a once black satin stock, soiled and shabby.
+Clad thus he went to and fro, still comparatively an active
+man--for he was not much over forty--and saw with the other
+men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in and out the green
+door that led to the garden, and the big house, and Lucetta.
+
+At the beginning of the winter it was rumoured about
+Casterbridge that Mr. Farfrae, already in the Town Council,
+was to be proposed for Mayor in a year or two.
+
+"Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!" said
+Henchard to himself when he heard of this one day on his way
+to Farfrae's hay-barn.  He thought it over as he wimbled his
+bonds, and the piece of news acted as a reviviscent breath
+to that old view of his--of Donald Farfrae as his triumphant
+rival who rode rough-shod over him.
+
+"A fellow of his age going to be Mayor, indeed!" he murmured
+with a corner-drawn smile on his mouth.  "But 'tis her money
+that floats en upward.  Ha-ha--how cust odd it is!  Here be
+I, his former master, working for him as man, and he the man
+standing as master, with my house and my furniture and my
+what-you-may-call wife all his own."
+
+He repeated these things a hundred times a day.  During the
+whole period of his acquaintance with Lucetta he had never
+wished to claim her as his own so desperately as he now
+regretted her loss.  It was no mercenary hankering after her
+fortune that moved him, though that fortune had been the
+means of making her so much the more desired by giving her
+the air of independence and sauciness which attracts men of
+his composition.  It had given her servants, house, and fine
+clothing--a setting that invested Lucetta with a startling
+novelty in the eyes of him who had known her in her narrow
+days.
+
+He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at every allusion
+to the possibility of Farfrae's near election to the
+municipal chair his former hatred of the Scotchman returned.
+Concurrently with this he underwent a moral change.  It
+resulted in his significantly saying every now and then, in
+tones of recklessness, "Only a fortnight more!"--"Only a
+dozen days!" and so forth, lessening his figures day by day.
+
+"Why d'ye say only a dozen days?" asked Solomon Longways as
+he worked beside Henchard in the granary weighing oats.
+
+"Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath."
+
+"What oath?"
+
+"The oath to drink no spirituous liquid.  In twelve days it
+will be twenty-one years since I swore it, and then I mean
+to enjoy myself, please God!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and while there
+she heard in the street below a conversation which
+introduced Henchard's name.  She was wondering what was the
+matter, when a third person who was passing by asked the
+question in her mind.
+
+"Michael Henchard have busted out drinking after taking
+nothing for twenty-one years!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane jumped up, put on her things, and went out.
+
+
+
+33.
+
+
+At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial
+custom--scarcely recognized as such, yet none the less
+established.  On the afternoon of every Sunday a large
+contingent of the Casterbridge journeymen--steady church-
+goers and sedate characters--having attended service, filed
+from the church doors across the way to the Three Mariners
+Inn.  The rear was usually brought up by the choir, with
+their bass-viols, fiddles, and flutes under their arms.
+
+The great point, the point of honour, on these sacred
+occasions was for each man to strictly limit himself to
+half-a-pint of liquor.  This scrupulosity was so well
+understood by the landlord that the whole company was served
+in cups of that measure.  They were all exactly alike--
+straight-sided, with two leafless lime-trees done in eel-
+brown on the sides--one towards the drinker's lips, the
+other confronting his comrade.  To wonder how many of these
+cups the landlord possessed altogether was a favourite
+exercise of children in the marvellous.  Forty at least
+might have been seen at these times in the large room,
+forming a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged
+oak table, like the monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its
+pristine days.  Outside and above the forty cups came a
+circle of forty smoke-jets from forty clay pipes; outside
+the pipes the countenances of the forty church-goers,
+supported at the back by a circle of forty chairs.
+
+The conversation was not the conversation of week-days, but
+a thing altogether finer in point and higher in tone.  They
+invariably discussed the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it,
+as above or below the average--the general tendency being to
+regard it as a scientific feat or performance which had no
+relation to their own lives, except as between critics and
+the thing criticized.  The bass-viol player and the clerk
+usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account
+of their official connection with the preacher.
+
+Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the
+place for closing his long term of dramless years.  He had
+so timed his entry as to be well established in the large
+room by the time the forty church-goers entered to their
+customary cups.  The flush upon his face proclaimed at once
+that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the era of
+recklessness begun anew.  He was seated on a small table,
+drawn up to the side of the massive oak board reserved for
+the churchmen, a few of whom nodded to him as they took
+their places and said, "How be ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a
+stranger here."
+
+Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a few
+moments, and his eyes rested on his stretched-out legs and
+boots.  "Yes," he said at length; "that's true.  I've been
+down in spirit for weeks; some of ye know the cause.  I am
+better now, but not quite serene.  I want you fellows of the
+choir to strike up a tune; and what with that and this brew
+of Stannidge's, I am in hopes of getting altogether out of
+my minor key."
+
+"With all my heart," said the first fiddle.  "We've let back
+our strings, that's true, but we can soon pull 'em up again.
+Sound A, neighbours, and give the man a stave."
+
+"I don't care a curse what the words be," said Henchard.
+"Hymns, ballets, or rantipole rubbish; the Rogue's March or
+the cherubim's warble--'tis all the same to me if 'tis good
+harmony, and well put out."
+
+"Well--heh, heh--it may be we can do that, and not a man
+among us that have sat in the gallery less than twenty
+year," said the leader of the band.  "As 'tis Sunday,
+neighbours, suppose we raise the Fourth Psa'am, to Samuel
+Wakely's tune, as improved by me?"
+
+"Hang Samuel Wakely's tune, as improved by thee!" said
+Henchard.  "Chuck across one of your psalters--old Wiltshire
+is the only tune worth singing--the psalm-tune that would
+make my blood ebb and flow like the sea when I was a steady
+chap.  I'll find some words to fit en."  He took one of the
+psalters and began turning over the leaves.
+
+Chancing to look out of the window at that moment he saw a
+flock of people passing by, and perceived them to be the
+congregation of the upper church, now just dismissed, their
+sermon having been a longer one than that the lower parish
+was favoured with.  Among the rest of the leading
+inhabitants walked Mr. Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon
+his arm, the observed and imitated of all the smaller
+tradesmen's womankind.  Henchard's mouth changed a little,
+and he continued to turn over the leaves.
+
+"Now then," he said, "Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the
+tune of Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen.  I gi'e ye the
+words:
+
+
+
+  "His seed shall orphans be, his wife
+     A widow plunged in grief;
+   His vagrant children beg their bread
+     Where none can give relief.
+
+   His ill-got riches shall be made
+     To usurers a prey;
+   The fruit of all his toil shall be
+     By strangers borne away.
+
+   None shall be found that to his wants
+     Their mercy will extend,
+   Or to his helpless orphan seed
+     The least assistance lend.
+
+   A swift destruction soon shall seize
+     On his unhappy race;
+   And the next age his hated name
+     Shall utterly deface."
+
+
+"I know the Psa'am--I know the Psa'am!" said the leader
+hastily; "but I would as lief not sing it.  'Twasn't made
+for singing.  We chose it once when the gipsy stole the
+pa'son's mare, thinking to please him, but pa'son were quite
+upset.  Whatever Servant David were thinking about when he
+made a Psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing
+himself, I can't fathom!  Now then, the Fourth Psalm, to
+Samuel Wakely's tune, as improved by me."
+
+"'Od seize your sauce--I tell ye to sing the Hundred-and-
+Ninth to Wiltshire, and sing it you shall!" roared Henchard.
+"Not a single one of all the droning crew of ye goes out of
+this room till that Psalm is sung!" He slipped off the
+table, seized the poker, and going to the door placed his
+back against it.  "Now then, go ahead, if you don't wish to
+have your cust pates broke!"
+
+"Don't 'ee, don't'ee take on so!--As 'tis the Sabbath-day,
+and 'tis Servant David's words and not ours, perhaps we
+don't mind for once, hey?" said one of the terrified choir,
+looking round upon the rest.  So the instruments were tuned
+and the comminatory verses sung.
+
+"Thank ye, thank ye," said Henchard in a softened voice, his
+eyes growing downcast, and his manner that of a man much
+moved by the strains.  "Don't you blame David," he went on
+in low tones, shaking his head without raising his eyes.
+"He knew what he was about when he wrote that!...If I could
+afford it, be hanged if I wouldn't keep a church choir at my
+own expense to play and sing to me at these low, dark times
+of my life.  But the bitter thing is, that when I was rich I
+didn't need what I could have, and now I be poor I can't
+have what I need!"
+
+While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again, this
+time homeward, it being their custom to take, like others, a
+short walk out on the highway and back, between church and
+tea-time.  "There's the man we've been singing about," said
+Henchard.
+
+The players and singers turned their heads and saw his
+meaning.  "Heaven forbid!" said the bass-player.
+
+"'Tis the man," repeated Henchard doggedly.
+
+"Then if I'd known," said the performer on the clarionet
+solemnly, "that 'twas meant for a living man, nothing should
+have drawn out of my wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so
+help me!
+
+"Nor from mine," said the first singer.  "But, thought I, as
+it was made so long ago perhaps there isn't much in it, so
+I'll oblige a neighbour; for there's nothing to be said
+against the tune."
+
+"Ah, my boys, you've sung it," said Henchard triumphantly.
+"As for him, it was partly by his songs that he got over me,
+and heaved me out....I could double him up like that--and
+yet I don't."  He laid the poker across his knee, bent it as
+if it were a twig, flung it down, and came away from the
+door.
+
+It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heard where
+her stepfather was, entered the room with a pale and
+agonized countenance.  The choir and the rest of the company
+moved off, in accordance with their half-pint regulation.
+Elizabeth-Jane went up to Henchard, and entreated him to
+accompany her home.
+
+By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt
+down, and having drunk no great quantity as yet he was
+inclined to acquiesce.  She took his arm, and together they
+went on.  Henchard walked blankly, like a blind man,
+repeating to himself the last words of the singers--
+
+
+  "And the next age his hated name
+     Shall utterly deface."
+
+
+At length he said to her, "I am a man to my word.  I have
+kept my oath for twenty-one years; and now I can drink with
+a good conscience....If I don't do for him--well, I am a
+fearful practical joker when I choose!  He has taken away
+everything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him I won't
+answer for my deeds!"
+
+These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth--all the more by
+reason of the still determination of Henchard's mien.
+
+"What will you do?" she asked cautiously, while trembling
+with disquietude, and guessing Henchard's allusion only too
+well.
+
+Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had
+reached his cottage.  "May I come in?" she said.
+
+"No, no; not to-day," said Henchard; and she went away;
+feeling that to caution Farfrae was almost her duty, as it
+was certainly her strong desire.
+
+As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae and Lucetta
+might have been seen flitting about the town like two
+butterflies--or rather like a bee and a butterfly in league
+for life.  She seemed to take no pleasure in going anywhere
+except in her husband's company; and hence when business
+would not permit him to waste an afternoon she remained
+indoors waiting for the time to pass till his return, her
+face being visible to Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft.
+The latter, however, did not say to herself that Farfrae
+should be thankful for such devotion, but, full of her
+reading, she cited Rosalind's exclamation: "Mistress, know
+yourself; down on your knees and thank Heaven fasting for a
+good man's love."
+
+She kept her eye upon Henchard also.  One day he answered
+her inquiry for his health by saying that he could not
+endure Abel Whittle's pitying eyes upon him while they
+worked together in the yard.  "He is such a fool," said
+Henchard, "that he can never get out of his mind the time
+when I was master there."
+
+"I'll come and wimble for you instead of him, if you will
+allow me," said she.  Her motive on going to the yard was to
+get an opportunity of observing the general position of
+affairs on Farfrae's premises now that her stepfather was a
+workman there.  Henchard's threats had alarmed her so much
+that she wished to see his behaviour when the two were face
+to face.
+
+For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make
+any appearance.  Then one afternoon the green door opened,
+and through came, first Farfrae, and at his heels Lucetta.
+Donald brought his wife forward without hesitation, it being
+obvious that he had no suspicion whatever of any antecedents
+in common between her and the now journeyman hay-trusser.
+
+Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair,
+keeping them fixed on the bond he twisted, as if that alone
+absorbed him.  A feeling of delicacy, which ever prompted
+Farfrae to avoid anything that might seem like triumphing
+over a fallen rivel, led him to keep away from the hay-barn
+where Henchard and his daughter were working, and to go on
+to the corn department.  Meanwhile Lucetta, never having
+been informed that Henchard had entered her husband's
+service, rambled straight on to the barn, where she came
+suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little "Oh!"
+which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear.
+Henchard, with withering humility of demeanour, touched the
+brim of his hat to her as Whittle and the rest had done, to
+which she breathed a dead-alive "Good afternoon."
+
+"I beg your pardon, ma'am?" said Henchard, as if he had not
+heard.
+
+"I said good afternoon," she faltered.
+
+"O yes, good afternoon, ma'am," he replied, touching his hat
+again.  "I am glad to see you, ma'am."  Lucetta looked
+embarrassed, and Henchard continued: "For we humble workmen
+here feel it a great honour that a lady should look in and
+take an interest in us."
+
+She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter,
+too unendurable.
+
+"Can you tell me the time, ma'am?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she said hastily; "half-past four."
+
+"Thank 'ee.  An hour and a half longer before we are
+released from work.  Ah, ma'am, we of the lower classes know
+nothing of the gay leisure that such as you enjoy!"
+
+As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, nodded and
+smiled to Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husband at the
+other end of the enclosure, where she could be seen leading
+him away by the outer gates, so as to avoid passing Henchard
+again.  That she had been taken by surprise was obvious.
+The result of this casual rencounter was that the next
+morning a note was put into Henchard's hand by the postman.
+
+"Will you," said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she
+could put into a small communication, "will you kindly
+undertake not to speak to me in the biting undertones you
+used to-day, if I walk through the yard at any time? I bear
+you no ill-will, and I am only too glad that you should have
+employment of my dear husband; but in common fairness treat
+me as his wife, and do not try to make me wretched by covert
+sneers.  I have committed no crime, and done you no injury.
+
+"Poor fool!" said Henchard with fond savagery, holding out
+the note.  "To know no better than commit herself in writing
+like this!  Why, if I were to show that to her dear husband--
+pooh!" He threw the letter into the fire.
+
+Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn.
+She would rather have died than run the risk of encountering
+Henchard at such close quarters a second time.  The gulf
+between them was growing wider every day.  Farfrae was
+always considerate to his fallen acquaintance; but it was
+impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard
+the ex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen.
+Henchard saw this, and concealed his feelings under a cover
+of stolidity, fortifying his heart by drinking more freely
+at the Three Mariners every evening.
+
+Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to prevent his
+taking other liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at
+five o'clock.  Arriving one day on this errand she found her
+stepfather was measuring up clover-seed and rape-seed in the
+corn-stores on the top floor, and she ascended to him.  Each
+floor had a door opening into the air under a cat-head, from
+which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks.
+
+When Elizabeth's head rose through the trap she perceived
+that the upper door was open, and that her stepfather and
+Farfrae stood just within it in conversation, Farfrae being
+nearest the dizzy edge, and Henchard a little way behind.
+Not to interrupt them she remained on the steps without
+raising her head any higher.  While waiting thus she saw--or
+fancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain--
+her stepfather slowly raise his hand to a level behind
+Farfrae's shoulders, a curious expression taking possession
+of his face.  The young man was quite unconscious of the
+action, which was so indirect that, if Farfrae had observed
+it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle
+outstretching of the arm.  But it would have been possible,
+by a comparatively light touch, to push Farfrae off his
+balance, and send him head over heels into the air.
+
+Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this
+MIGHT have meant.  As soon as they turned she
+mechanically took the tea to Henchard, left it, and went
+away.  Reflecting, she endeavoured to assure herself that
+the movement was an idle eccentricity, and no more.  Yet, on
+the other hand, his subordinate position in an establishment
+where he once had been master might be acting on him like an
+irritant poison; and she finally resolved to caution Donald.
+
+
+
+34.
+
+
+Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o'clock and went
+into the street.  It was not yet light; a dense fog
+prevailed, and the town was as silent as it was dark, except
+that from the rectangular avenues which framed in the
+borough there came a chorus of tiny rappings, caused by the
+fall of water-drops condensed on the boughs; now it was
+wafted from the West Walk, now from the South Walk; and then
+from both quarters simultaneously.  She moved on to the
+bottom of corn Street, and, knowing his time well, waited
+only a few minutes before she heard the familiar bang of his
+door, and then his quick walk towards her.  She met him at
+the point where the last tree of the engirding avenue
+flanked the last house in the street.
+
+He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he
+said, "What--Miss Henchard--and are ye up so airly?"
+
+She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an
+unseemly time.  "But I am anxious to mention something," she
+said.  "And I wished not to alarm Mrs. Farfrae by calling."
+
+"Yes?" said he, with the cheeriness of a superior.  "And
+what may it be? It's very kind of ye, I'm sure."
+
+She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the
+exact aspect of possibilities in her own.  But she somehow
+began, and introduced Henchard's name.  "I sometimes fear,"
+she said with an effort, "that he may be betrayed into some
+attempt to--insult you, sir.
+
+"But we are the best of friends?"
+
+"Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir.  Remember
+that he has been hardly used."
+
+"But we are quite friendly?"
+
+"Or to do something--that would injure you--hurt you--wound
+you."  Every word cost her twice its length of pain.  And she
+could see that Farfrae was still incredulous.  Henchard, a
+poor man in his employ, was not to Farfrae's view the
+Henchard who had ruled him.  Yet he was not only the same
+man, but that man with his sinister qualities, formerly
+latent, quickened into life by his buffetings.
+
+Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted in making
+light of her fears.  Thus they parted, and she went
+homeward, journeymen now being in the street, waggoners
+going to the harness-makers for articles left to be
+repaired, farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths, and the
+sons of labour showing themselves generally on the move.
+Elizabeth entered her lodging unhappily, thinking she had
+done no good, and only made herself appear foolish by her
+weak note of warning.
+
+But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whom an
+incident is never absolutely lost.  He revised impressions
+from a subsequent point of view, and the impulsive judgment
+of the moment was not always his permanent one.  The vision
+of Elizabeth's earnest face in the rimy dawn came back to
+him several times during the day.  Knowing the solidity of
+her character he did not treat her hints altogether as idle
+sounds.
+
+But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard's
+account that engaged him just then; and when he met Lawyer
+Joyce, the town-clerk, later in the day, he spoke of it as
+if nothing had occurred to damp it.
+
+"About that little seedsman's shop," he said, "the shop
+overlooking the churchyard, which is to let.  It is not for
+myself I want it, but for our unlucky fellow-townsman
+Henchard.  It would be a new beginning for him, if a small
+one; and I have told the Council that I would head a private
+subscription among them to set him up in it--that I would be
+fifty pounds, if they would make up the other fifty among
+them."
+
+"Yes, yes; so I've heard; and there's nothing to say against
+it for that matter," the town-clerk replied, in his plain,
+frank way.  "But, Farfrae, others see what you don't.
+Henchard hates 'ee--ay, hates 'ee; and 'tis right that you
+should know it.  To my knowledge he was at the Three
+Mariners last night, saying in public that about you which a
+man ought not to say about another."
+
+"Is that so--ah, is that so?" said Farfrae, looking down.
+"Why should he do it?" added the young man bitterly; "what
+harm have I done him that he should try to wrong me?"
+
+"God only knows," said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows.  "It
+shows much long-suffering in you to put up with him, and
+keep him in your employ."
+
+"But I cannet discharge a man who was once a good friend to
+me.  How can I forget that when I came here 'twas he enabled
+me to make a footing for mysel'? No, no.  As long as I've a
+day's work to offer he shall do it if he chooses.  'Tis not
+I who will deny him such a little as that.  But I'll drop
+the idea of establishing him in a shop till I can think more
+about it."
+
+It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme.  But a damp
+having been thrown over it by these and other voices in the
+air, he went and countermanded his orders.  The then
+occupier of the shop was in it when Farfrae spoke to him and
+feeling it necessary to give some explanation of his
+withdrawal from the negotiation Donald mentioned Henchard's
+name, and stated that the intentions of the Council had been
+changed.
+
+The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-way
+informed Henchard, as soon as he saw him, that a scheme of
+the Council for setting him up in a shop had been knocked on
+the head by Farfrae.  And thus out of error enmity grew.
+
+When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettle was
+singing on the high hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate.
+Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran forward and seized his hands,
+whereupon Farfrae duly kissed her.
+
+"Oh!" she cried playfully, turning to the window.  "See--the
+blinds are not drawn down, and the people can look in--what
+a scandal!"
+
+When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the
+twain sat at tea, she noticed that he looked serious.
+Without directly inquiring why she let her eyes linger
+solicitously on his face.
+
+"Who has called?" he absently asked.  "Any folk for me?"
+
+"No," said Lucetta.  "What's the matter, Donald?"
+
+"Well--nothing worth talking of," he responded sadly.
+
+"Then, never mind it.  You will get through it, Scotchmen
+are always lucky."
+
+"No--not always!" he said, shaking his head gloomily as he
+contemplated a crumb on the table.  "I know many who have
+not been so!  There was Sandy Macfarlane, who started to
+America to try his fortune, and he was drowned; and
+Archibald Leith, he was murdered!  And poor Willie Dunbleeze
+and Maitland Macfreeze--they fell into bad courses, and went
+the way of all such!"
+
+"Why--you old goosey--I was only speaking in a general
+sense, of course!  You are always so literal.  Now when we
+have finished tea, sing me that funny song about high-heeled
+shoon and siller tags, and the one-and-forty wooers."
+
+"No, no.  I couldna sing to-night!  It's Henchard--he hates
+me; so that I may not be his friend if I would.  I would
+understand why there should be a wee bit of envy; but I
+cannet see a reason for the whole intensity of what he
+feels.  Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashioned
+rivalry in love than just a bit of rivalry in trade."
+
+Lucetta had grown somewhat wan.  "No," she replied.
+
+"I give him employment--I cannet refuse it.  But neither can
+I blind myself to the fact that with a man of passions such
+as his, there is no safeguard for conduct!"
+
+"What have you heard--O Donald, dearest?" said Lucetta in
+alarm.  The words on her lips were "anything about me?"--but
+she did not utter them.  She could not, however, suppress
+her agitation, and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"No, no--it is not so serious as ye fancy," declared Farfrae
+soothingly; though he did not know its seriousness so well
+as she.
+
+"I wish you would do what we have talked of," mournfully
+remarked Lucetta.  "Give up business, and go away from here.
+We have plenty of money, and why should we stay?"
+
+Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and
+they talked thereon till a visitor was announced.  Their
+neighbour Alderman Vatt came in.
+
+"You've heard, I suppose of poor Doctor Chalkfield's death?
+Yes--died this afternoon at five," said Mr. Vatt Chalkfield
+was the Councilman who had succeeded to the Mayoralty in the
+preceding November.
+
+Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt
+continued: "Well, we know he's been going some days, and as
+his family is well provided for we must take it all as it
+is.  Now I have called to ask 'ee this--quite privately.  If
+I should nominate 'ee to succeed him, and there should be no
+particular opposition, will 'ee accept the chair?"
+
+"But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I'm over
+young, and may be thought pushing!" said Farfrae after a
+pause.
+
+"Not at all.  I don't speak for myself only, several have
+named it.  You won't refuse?"
+
+"We thought of going away," interposed Lucetta, looking at
+Farfrae anxiously.
+
+"It was only a fancy," Farfrae murmured.  "I wouldna refuse
+if it is the wish of a respectable majority in the Council."
+
+"Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected.  We have
+had older men long enough."
+
+When he was gone Farfrae said musingly, "See now how it's
+ourselves that are ruled by the Powers above us!  We plan
+this, but we do that.  If they want to make me Mayor I will
+stay, and Henchard must rave as he will."
+
+From this evening onward Lucetta was very uneasy.  If she
+had not been imprudence incarnate she would not have acted
+as she did when she met Henchard by accident a day or two
+later.  It was in the bustle of the market, when no one
+could readily notice their discourse.
+
+"Michael," said she, "I must again ask you what I asked you
+months ago--to return me any letters or papers of mine that
+you may have--unless you have destroyed them? You must see
+how desirable it is that the time at Jersey should be
+blotted out, for the good of all parties."
+
+"Why, bless the woman!--I packed up every scrap of your
+handwriting to give you in the coach--but you never
+appeared."
+
+She explained how the death of her aunt had prevented her
+taking the journey on that day.  "And what became of the
+parcel then?" she asked.
+
+He could not say--he would consider.  When she was gone he
+recollected that he had left a heap of useless papers in his
+former dining-room safe--built up in the wall of his old
+house--now occupied by Farfrae.  The letters might have been
+amongst them.
+
+A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard's face.  Had that
+safe been opened?
+
+On the very evening which followed this there was a great
+ringing of bells in Casterbridge, and the combined brass,
+wood, catgut, and leather bands played round the town with
+more prodigality of percussion-notes than ever.  Farfrae was
+Mayor--the two-hundredth odd of a series forming an elective
+dynasty dating back to the days of Charles I--and the fair
+Lucetta was the courted of the town....But, Ah! the worm i'
+the bud--Henchard; what he could tell!
+
+He, in the meantime, festering with indignation at some
+erroneous intelligence of Farfrae's opposition to the scheme
+for installing him in the little seed-shop, was greeted with
+the news of the municipal election (which, by reason of
+Farfrae's comparative youth and his Scottish nativity--a
+thing unprecedented in the case--had an interest far beyond
+the ordinary).  The bell-ringing and the band-playing, loud
+as Tamerlane's trumpet, goaded the downfallen Henchard
+indescribably: the ousting now seemed to him to be complete.
+
+The next morning he went to the corn-yard as usual, and
+about eleven o'clock Donald entered through the green door,
+with no trace of the worshipful about him.  The yet more
+emphatic change of places between him and Henchard which
+this election had established renewed a slight embarrassment
+in the manner of the modest young man; but Henchard showed
+the front of one who had overlooked all this; and Farfrae
+met his amenities half-way at once.
+
+"I was going to ask you," said Henchard, "about a packet
+that I may possibly have left in my old safe in the dining-
+room."  He added particulars.
+
+"If so, it is there now," said Farfrae.  "I have never
+opened the safe at all as yet; for I keep ma papers at the
+bank, to sleep easy o' nights."
+
+"It was not of much consequence--to me," said Henchard.
+"But I'll call for it this evening, if you don't mind?"
+
+It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise.  He had
+primed himself with grog, as he did very frequently now, and
+a curl of sardonic humour hung on his lip as he approached
+the house, as though he were contemplating some terrible
+form of amusement.  Whatever it was, the incident of his
+entry did not diminish its force, this being his first visit
+to the house since he had lived there as owner.  The ring of
+the bell spoke to him like the voice of a familiar drudge
+who had been bribed to forsake him; the movements of the
+doors were revivals of dead days.
+
+Farfrae invited him into the dining-room, where he at once
+unlocked the iron safe built into the wall, HIS,
+Henchard's safe, made by an ingenious locksmith under his
+direction.  Farfrae drew thence the parcel, and other
+papers, with apologies for not having returned them.
+
+"Never mind," said Henchard drily.  "The fact is they are
+letters mostly....Yes," he went on, sitting down and
+unfolding Lucetta's passionate bundle, "here they be.  That
+ever I should see 'em again!  I hope Mrs. Farfrae is well
+after her exertions of yesterday?"
+
+"She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that
+account.
+
+Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them over with
+interest, Farfrae being seated at the other end of the
+dining-table.  "You don't forget, of course," he resumed,
+"that curious chapter in the history of my past which I told
+you of, and that you gave me some assistance in? These
+letters are, in fact, related to that unhappy business.
+Though, thank God, it is all over now."
+
+"What became of the poor woman?" asked Farfrae.
+
+"Luckily she married, and married well," said Henchard.  "So
+that these reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause
+me any twinges, as they might otherwise have done....Just
+listen to what an angry woman will say!"
+
+Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite
+uninterested, and bursting with yawns, gave well-mannered
+attention.
+
+"'For me,'" Henchard read, "'there is practically no future.
+A creature too unconventionally devoted to you--who feels it
+impossible that she can be the wife of any other man; and
+who is yet no more to you than the first woman you meet in
+the street--such am I.  I quite acquit you of any intention
+to wrong me, yet you are the door through which wrong has
+come to me.  That in the event of your present wife's death
+you will place me in her position is a consolation so far as
+it goes--but how far does it go? Thus I sit here, forsaken
+by my few acquaintance, and forsaken by you!'"
+
+"That's how she went on to me," said Henchard, "acres of
+words like that, when what had happened was what I could not
+cure."
+
+"Yes," said Farfrae absently, "it is the way wi' women."  But
+the fact was that he knew very little of the sex; yet
+detecting a sort of resemblance in style between the
+effusions of the woman he worshipped and those of the
+supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever spoke
+thus, whosesoever the personality she assumed.
+
+Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it through
+likewise, stopping at the subscription as before.  "Her name
+I don't give," he said blandly.  "As I didn't marry her, and
+another man did, I can scarcely do that in fairness to her."
+
+"Tr-rue, tr-rue," said Farfrae.  "But why didn't you marry
+her when your wife Susan died?" Farfrae asked this and the
+other questions in the comfortably indifferent tone of one
+whom the matter very remotely concerned.
+
+"Ah--well you may ask that!" said Henchard, the new-moon-
+shaped grin adumbrating itself again upon his mouth.  "In
+spite of all her protestations, when I came forward to do
+so, as in generosity bound, she was not the woman for me."
+
+"She had already married another--maybe?"
+
+Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the
+wind to descend further into particulars, and he answered
+"Yes."
+
+"The young lady must have had a heart that bore
+transplanting very readily!"
+
+"She had, she had," said Henchard emphatically.
+
+He opened a third and fourth letter, and read.  This time he
+approached the conclusion as if the signature were indeed
+coming with the rest.  But again he stopped short.  The
+truth was that, as may be divined, he had quite intended to
+effect a grand catastrophe at the end of this drama by
+reading out the name, he had come to the house with no other
+thought.  But sitting here in cold blood he could not do it.
+
+Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him.  His quality
+was such that he could have annihilated them both in the
+heat of action; but to accomplish the deed by oral poison
+was beyond the nerve of his enmity.
+
+
+
+35.
+
+
+As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to her room
+because of fatigue.  She had, however, not gone to rest, but
+sat in the bedside chair reading and thinking over the
+events of the day.  At the ringing of the door-bell by
+Henchard she wondered who it should be that would call at
+that comparatively late hour.  The dining-room was almost
+under her bed-room; she could hear that somebody was
+admitted there, and presently the indistinct murmur of a
+person reading became audible.
+
+The usual time for Donald's arrival upstairs came and
+passed, yet still the reading and conversation went on.
+This was very singular.  She could think of nothing but that
+some extraordinary crime had been committed, and that the
+visitor, whoever he might be, was reading an account of it
+from a special edition of the Casterbridge Chronicle.
+At last she left the room, and descended the stairs.  The
+dining-room door was ajar, and in the silence of the resting
+household the voice and the words were recognizable before
+she reached the lower flight.  She stood transfixed.  Her
+own words greeted her in Henchard's voice, like spirits from
+the grave.
+
+Lucetta leant upon the banister with her cheek against the
+smooth hand-rail, as if she would make a friend of it in her
+misery.  Rigid in this position, more and more words fell
+successively upon her ear.  But what amazed her most was the
+tone of her husband.  He spoke merely in the accents of a
+man who made a present of his time.
+
+"One word," he was saying, as the crackling of paper denoted
+that Henchard was unfolding yet another sheet.  "Is it quite
+fair to this young woman's memory to read at such length to
+a stranger what was intended for your eye alone?"
+
+"Well, yes," said Henchard.  "By not giving her name I make
+it an example of all womankind, and not a scandal to one."
+
+"If I were you I would destroy them," said Farfrae, giving
+more thought to the letters than he had hitherto done.  "As
+another man's wife it would injure the woman if it were
+known.
+
+"No, I shall not destroy them," murmured Henchard, putting
+the letters away.  Then he arose, and Lucetta heard no more.
+
+She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state.  For
+very fear she could not undress, but sat on the edge of the
+bed, waiting.  Would Henchard let out the secret in his
+parting words? Her suspense was terrible.  Had she confessed
+all to Donald in their early acquaintance he might possibly
+have got over it, and married her just the same--unlikely as
+it had once seemed; but for her or any one else to tell him
+now would be fatal.
+
+The door slammed; she could hear her husband bolting it.
+After looking round in his customary way he came leisurely
+up the stairs.  The spark in her eyes well-nigh went out
+when he appeared round the bedroom door.  Her gaze hung
+doubtful for a moment, then to her joyous amazement she saw
+that he looked at her with the rallying smile of one who had
+just been relieved of a scene that was irksome.  She could
+hold out no longer, and sobbed hysterically.
+
+When he had restored her Farfrae naturally enough spoke of
+Henchard.  "Of all men he was the least desirable as a
+visitor," he said; "but it is my belief that he's just a bit
+crazed.  He has been reading to me a long lot of letters
+relating to his past life; and I could do no less than
+indulge him by listening.
+
+This was sufficient.  Henchard, then, had not told.
+Henchard's last words to Farfrae, in short, as he stood on
+the doorstep, had been these: "Well--I'm obliged to 'ee for
+listening.  I may tell more about her some day."
+
+Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard's
+motives in opening the matter at all; for in such cases we
+attribute to an enemy a power of consistent action which we
+never find in ourselves or in our friends; and forget that
+abortive efforts from want of heart are as possible to
+revenge as to generosity.
+
+Next morning Lucetta remained in bed, meditating how to
+parry this incipient attack.  The bold stroke of telling
+Donald the truth, dimly conceived, was yet too bold; for she
+dreaded lest in doing so he, like the rest of the world,
+should believe that the episode was rather her fault than
+her misfortune.  She decided to employ persuasion--not with
+Donald but with the enemy himself.  It seemed the only
+practicable weapon left her as a woman.  Having laid her
+plan she rose, and wrote to him who kept her on these
+tenterhooks:--
+
+"I overheard your interview with my husband last night, and
+saw the drift of your revenge.  The very thought of it
+crushes me!  Have pity on a distressed woman!  If you could
+see me you would relent.  You do not know how anxiety has
+told upon me lately.  I will be at the Ring at the time you
+leave work--just before the sun goes down.  Please come that
+way.  I cannot rest till I have seen you face to face, and
+heard from your mouth that you will carry this horse-play no
+further."
+
+To herself she said, on closing up her appeal: "If ever
+tears and pleadings have served the weak to fight the
+strong, let them do so now!"
+
+With this view she made a toilette which differed from all
+she had ever attempted before.  To heighten her natural
+attraction had hitherto been the unvarying endeavour of her
+adult life, and one in which she was no novice.  But now she
+neglected this, and even proceeded to impair the natural
+presentation.  Beyond a natural reason for her slightly
+drawn look, she had not slept all the previous night, and
+this had produced upon her pretty though slightly worn
+features the aspect of a countenance ageing prematurely from
+extreme sorrow.  She selected--as much from want of spirit
+as design--her poorest, plainest and longest discarded
+attire.
+
+To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiled
+herself, and slipped out of the house quickly.  The sun was
+resting on the hill like a drop of blood on an eyelid by the
+time she had got up the road opposite the amphitheatre,
+which she speedily entered.  The interior was shadowy, and
+emphatic of the absence of every living thing.
+
+She was not disappointed in the fearful hope with which
+she awaited him.  Henchard came over the top, descended and
+Lucetta waited breathlessly.  But having reached the arena
+she saw a change in his bearing: he stood still at a little
+distance from her; she could not think why.
+
+Nor could any one else have known.  The truth was that in
+appointing this spot, and this hour, for the rendezvous,
+Lucetta had unwittingly backed up her entreaty by the
+strongest argument she could have used outside words, with
+this man of moods, glooms, and superstitions.  Her figure in
+the midst of the huge enclosure, the unusual plainness of
+her dress, her attitude of hope and appeal, so strongly
+revived in his soul the memory of another ill-used woman who
+had stood there and thus in bygone days, and had now passed
+away into her rest, that he was unmanned, and his heart
+smote him for having attempted reprisals on one of a sex so
+weak.  When he approached her, and before she had spoken a
+word, her point was half gained.
+
+His manner as he had come down had been one of cynical
+carelessness; but he now put away his grim half-smile, and
+said in a kindly subdued tone, "Goodnight t'ye.  Of course I
+in glad to come if you want me."
+
+"O, thank you," she said apprehensively.
+
+"I am sorry to see 'ee looking so ill," he stammered with
+unconcealed compunction.
+
+She shook her head.  "How can you be sorry," she asked,
+"when you deliberately cause it?"
+
+"What!" said Henchard uneasily.  "Is it anything I have done
+that has pulled you down like that?"
+
+"It is all your doing," she said.  "I have no other grief.
+My happiness would be secure enough but for your threats.  O
+Michael! don't wreck me like this!  You might think that you
+have done enough!  When I came here I was a young woman; now
+I am rapidly becoming an old one.  Neither my husband nor
+any other man will regard me with interest long."
+
+Henchard was disarmed.  His old feeling of supercilious pity
+for womankind in general was intensified by this suppliant
+appearing here as the double of the first.  Moreover that
+thoughtless want of foresight which had led to all her
+trouble remained with poor Lucetta still; she had come to
+meet him here in this compromising way without
+perceiving the risk.  Such a woman was very small deer to
+hunt; he felt ashamed, lost all zest and desire to humiliate
+Lucetta there and then, and no longer envied Farfrae his
+bargain.  He had married money, but nothing more.  Henchard
+was anxious to wash his hands of the game.
+
+"Well, what do you want me to do?" he said gently.  "I am
+sure I shall be very willing.  My reading of those letters
+was only a sort of practical joke, and I revealed nothing."
+
+"To give me back the letters and any papers you may have
+that breathe of matrimony or worse."
+
+"So be it.  Every scrap shall be yours....But, between you
+and me, Lucetta, he is sure to find out something of the
+matter, sooner or later.
+
+"Ah!" she said with eager tremulousness; "but not till I
+have proved myself a faithful and deserving wife to him, and
+then he may forgive me everything!"
+
+Henchard silently looked at her: he almost envied Farfrae
+such love as that, even now.  "H'm--I hope so," he said.
+"But you shall have the letters without fail.  And your
+secret shall be kept.  I swear it."
+
+"How good you are!--how shall I get them?"
+
+He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning.
+"Now don't doubt me," he added.  "I can keep my word.
+
+
+
+36.
+
+
+Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by
+the lamp nearest to her own door.  When she stopped to go in
+he came and spoke to her.  It was Jopp.
+
+He begged her pardon for addressing her.  But he had heard
+that Mr. Farfrae had been applied to by a neighbouring corn-
+merchant to recommend a working partner; if so he wished to
+offer himself.  He could give good security, and had stated
+as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter; but he would feel
+much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his favour to
+her husband.
+
+"It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta coldly.
+
+"But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than
+anybody, ma'am," said Jopp.  "I was in Jersey several years,
+and knew you there by sight."
+
+"Indeed," she replied.  "But I knew nothing of you."
+
+"I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure
+for me what I covet very much," he persisted.
+
+She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair,
+and cutting him short, because of her anxiety to get indoors
+before her husband should miss her, left him on the
+pavement.
+
+He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home.
+When he got there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner
+looking at the iron dogs, and the wood laid across them for
+heating the morning kettle.  A movement upstairs disturbed
+him, and Henchard came down from his bedroom, where he
+seemed to have been rummaging boxes.
+
+"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp,
+now--to-night, I mean, if you can.  Leave this at Mrs.
+Farfrae's for her.  I should take it myself, of course, but
+I don't wish to be seen there."
+
+He handed a package in brown paper, sealed.  Henchard had
+been as good as his word.  Immediately on coming indoors he
+had searched over his few belongings, and every scrap of
+Lucetta's writing that he possessed was here.  Jopp
+indifferently expressed his willingness.
+
+"Well, how have ye got on to-day?" his lodger asked.  "Any
+prospect of an opening?"
+
+"I am afraid not," said Jopp, who had not told the other of
+his application to Farfrae.
+
+"There never will be in Casterbridge," declared Henchard
+decisively.  "You must roam further afield."  He said good-
+night to Jopp, and returned to his own part of the house.
+
+Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of
+the candle-snuff on the wall, and looking at the original he
+found that it had formed itself into a head like a red-hot
+cauliflower.  Henchard's packet next met his gaze.  He knew
+there had been something of the nature of wooing between
+Henchard and the now Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague ideas
+on the subject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchard
+had a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he had reasons
+for not returning that parcel to her in person.  What could
+be inside it? So he went on and on till, animated by
+resentment at Lucetta's haughtiness, as he thought it, and
+curiosity to learn if there were any weak sides to this
+transaction with Henchard, he examined the package.  The pen
+and all its relations being awkward tools in Henchard's
+hands he had affixed the seals without an impression, it
+never occurring to him that the efficacy of such a fastening
+depended on this.  Jopp was far less of a tyro; he lifted
+one of the seals with his penknife, peeped in at the end
+thus opened, saw that the bundle consisted of letters; and,
+having satisfied himself thus far, sealed up the end again
+by simply softening the wax with the candle, and went off
+with the parcel as requested.
+
+His path was by the river-side at the foot of the town.
+Coming into the light at the bridge which stood at the end
+of High Street he beheld lounging thereon Mother Cuxsom and
+Nance Mockridge.
+
+"We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to look into Peter's
+finger afore creeping to bed," said Mrs. Cuxsom.  "There's a
+fiddle and tambourine going on there.  Lord, what's all the
+world--do ye come along too, Jopp--'twon't hinder ye five
+minutes."
+
+Jopp had mostly kept himself out of this company, but
+present circumstances made him somewhat more reckless than
+usual, and without many words he decided to go to his
+destination that way.
+
+
+Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composed of a
+curious congeries of barns and farm-steads, there was a less
+picturesque side to the parish.  This was Mixen Lane, now in
+great part pulled down.
+
+Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surrounding villages.
+It was the hiding-place of those who were in distress, and
+in debt, and trouble of every kind.  Farm-labourers and
+other peasants, who combined a little poaching with their
+farming, and a little brawling and bibbing with their
+poaching, found themselves sooner or later in Mixen Lane.
+Rural mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants
+too rebellious to serve, drifted or were forced into Mixen
+Lane.
+
+The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages
+stretched out like a spit into the moist and misty lowland.
+Much that was sad, much that was low, some things that were
+baneful, could be seen in Mixen Lane.  Vice ran freely in
+and out certain of the doors in the neighbourhood;
+recklessness dwelt under the roof with the crooked chimney;
+shame in some bow-windows; theft (in times of privation) in
+the thatched and mud-walled houses by the sallows.  Even
+slaughter had not been altogether unknown here.  In a block
+of cottages up an alley there might have been erected an
+altar to disease in years gone by.  Such was Mixen Lane in
+the times when Henchard and Farfrae were Mayors.
+
+Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing
+Casterbridge plant lay close to the open country; not a
+hundred yards from a row of noble elms, and commanding a
+view across the moor of airy uplands and corn-fields, and
+mansions of the great.  A brook divided the moor from the
+tenements, and to outward view there was no way across it--
+no way to the houses but round about by the road.  But under
+every householder's stairs there was kept a mysterious plank
+nine inches wide; which plank was a secret bridge.
+
+If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from
+business after dark--and this was the business time here--
+you stealthily crossed the moor, approached the border of
+the aforesaid brook, and whistled opposite the house to
+which you belonged.  A shape thereupon made its appearance
+on the other side bearing the bridge on end against the sky;
+it was lowered; you crossed, and a hand helped you to land
+yourself, together with the pheasants and hares gathered
+from neighbouring manors.  You sold them slily the next
+morning, and the day after you stood before the magistrates
+with the eyes of all your sympathizing neighbours
+concentrated on your back.  You disappeared for a time; then
+you were again found quietly living in Mixen Lane.
+
+Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struck by
+two or three peculiar features therein.  One was an
+intermittent rumbling from the back premises of the inn
+half-way up; this meant a skittle alley.  Another was the
+extensive prevalence of whistling in the various
+domiciles--a piped note of some kind coming from nearly
+every open door.  Another was the frequency of white aprons
+over dingy gowns among the women around the doorways.  A
+white apron is a suspicious vesture in situations where
+spotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and
+cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by
+the postures and gaits of the women who wore it--their
+knuckles being mostly on their hips (an attitude which lent
+them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and their shoulders
+against door-posts; while there was a curious alacrity in
+the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck and in
+the twirl of her honest eyes, at any noise resembling a
+masculine footfall along the lane.
+
+Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectability also
+found a home.  Under some of the roofs abode pure and
+virtuous souls whose presence there was due to the iron hand
+of necessity, and to that alone.  Families from decayed
+villages--families of that once bulky, but now nearly
+extinct, section of village society called "liviers," or
+lifeholders--copyholders and others, whose roof-trees had
+fallen for some reason or other, compelling them to quit the
+rural spot that had been their home for generations--came
+here, unless they chose to lie under a hedge by the wayside.
+
+The inn called Peter's finger was the church of Mixen Lane.
+
+It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore
+about the same social relation to the Three Mariners as the
+latter bore to the King's Arms.  At first sight the inn was
+so respectable as to be puzzling.  The front door was kept
+shut, and the step was so clean that evidently but few
+persons entered over its sanded surface.  But at the corner
+of the public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividing it
+from the next building.  Half-way up the alley was a narrow
+door, shiny and paintless from the rub of infinite hands and
+shoulders.  This was the actual entrance to the inn.
+
+A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing along Mixen
+Lane; and then, in a moment, he would vanish, causing the
+gazer to blink like Ashton at the disappearance of
+Ravenswood.  That abstracted pedestrian had edged into the
+slit by the adroit fillip of his person sideways; from the
+slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of
+skill.
+
+The company at the Three Mariners were persons of quality in
+comparison with the company which gathered here; though it
+must be admitted that the lowest fringe of the Mariner's
+party touched the crest of Peter's at points.  Waifs and
+strays of all sorts loitered about here.  The landlady was a
+virtuous woman who years ago had been unjustly sent to gaol
+as an accessory to something or other after the fact.  She
+underwent her twelvemonth, and had worn a martyr's
+countenance ever since, except at times of meeting the
+constable who apprehended her, when she winked her eye.
+
+To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived.  The
+settles on which they sat down were thin and tall, their
+tops being guyed by pieces of twine to hooks in the ceiling;
+for when the guests grew boisterous the settles would rock
+and overturn without some such security.  The thunder of
+bowls echoed from the backyard; swingels hung behind the
+blower of the chimney; and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers,
+whom squires had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing
+each other--men who in past times had met in fights under
+the moon, till lapse of sentences on the one part, and loss
+of favour and expulsion from service on the other, brought
+them here together to a common level, where they sat calmly
+discussing old times.
+
+"Dost mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble,
+and not ruffle the stream, Charl?" a deposed keeper was
+saying.  "'Twas at that I caught 'ee once, if you can mind?"
+
+"That I can.  But the worst larry for me was that pheasant
+business at Yalbury Wood.  Your wife swore false that time,
+Joe--O, by Gad, she did--there's no denying it."
+
+"How was that?" asked Jopp.
+
+"Why--Joe closed wi' me, and we rolled down together, close
+to his garden hedge.  Hearing the noise, out ran his wife
+with the oven pyle, and it being dark under the trees she
+couldn't see which was uppermost.  'Where beest thee, Joe,
+under or top?' she screeched.  'O--under, by Gad!' says he.
+She then began to rap down upon my skull, back, and ribs
+with the pyle till we'd roll over again.  'Where beest now,
+dear Joe, under or top?' she'd scream again.  By George,
+'twas through her I was took!  And then when we got up
+in hall she sware that the cock pheasant was one of her
+rearing, when 'twas not your bird at all, Joe; 'twas Squire
+Brown's bird--that's whose 'twas--one that we'd picked off
+as we passed his wood, an hour afore.  It did hurt my
+feelings to be so wronged!...Ah well--'tis over now."
+
+"I might have had 'ee days afore that," said the keeper.  "I
+was within a few yards of 'ee dozens of times, with a sight
+more of birds than that poor one."
+
+"Yes--'tis not our greatest doings that the world gets wind
+of," said the furmity-woman, who, lately settled in this
+purlieu, sat among the rest.  Having travelled a great deal
+in her time she spoke with cosmopolitan largeness of idea.
+It was she who presently asked Jopp what was the parcel he
+kept so snugly under his arm.
+
+"Ah, therein lies a grand secret," said Jopp. "It is the
+passion of love.  To think that a woman should love one man
+so well, and hate another so unmercifully."
+
+"Who's the object of your meditation, sir?"
+
+"One that stands high in this town.  I'd like to shame her!
+Upon my life, 'twould be as good as a play to read her love-
+letters, the proud piece of silk and wax-work!  For 'tis her
+love-letters that I've got here."
+
+"Love letters? then let's hear 'em, good soul," said Mother
+Cuxsom.  "Lord, do ye mind, Richard, what fools we used to
+be when we were younger? Getting a schoolboy to write ours
+for us; and giving him a penny, do ye mind, not to tell
+other folks what he'd put inside, do ye mind?"
+
+By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under the seals, and
+unfastened the letters, tumbling them over and picking up
+one here and there at random, which he read aloud.  These
+passages soon began to uncover the secret which Lucetta had
+so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the epistles,
+being allusive only, did not make it altogether plain.
+
+"Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!" said Nance Mockridge.  "'Tis a
+humbling thing for us, as respectable women, that one of the
+same sex could do it.  And now she's avowed herself to
+another man!"
+
+"So much the better for her," said the aged furmity-woman.
+"Ah, I saved her from a real bad marriage, and she's
+never been the one to thank me."
+
+"I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride," said
+Nance.
+
+"True," said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting.  "'Tis as good a
+ground for a skimmity-ride as ever I knowed; and it ought
+not to be wasted.  The last one seen in Casterbridge must
+have been ten years ago, if a day."
+
+At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady
+said to the man who had been called Charl, "'Tis Jim coming
+in.  Would ye go and let down the bridge for me?"
+
+Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, and
+receiving a lantern from her went out at the back door and
+down the garden-path, which ended abruptly at the edge of
+the stream already mentioned.  Beyond the stream was the
+open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces
+as they advanced.  Taking up the board that had lain in
+readiness one of them lowered it across the water, and the
+instant its further end touched the ground footsteps entered
+upon it, and there appeared from the shade a stalwart man
+with straps round his knees, a double-barrelled gun under
+his arm and some birds slung up behind him.  They asked him
+if he had had much luck.
+
+"Not much," he said indifferently.  "All safe inside?"
+
+Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards, the
+others withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in
+his rear.  Before, however, they had entered the house a cry
+of "Ahoy" from the moor led them to pause.
+
+The cry was repeated.  They pushed the lantern into an
+outhouse, and went back to the brink of the stream.
+
+"Ahoy--is this the way to Casterbridge?" said some one from
+the other side.
+
+"Not in particular," said Charl.  "There's a river afore
+'ee."
+
+"I don't care--here's for through it!" said the man in the
+moor.  "I've had travelling enough for to-day."
+
+"Stop a minute, then," said Charl, finding that the man was
+no enemy.  "Joe, bring the plank and lantern; here's
+somebody that's lost his way.  You should have kept along
+the turnpike road, friend, and not have strook across here."
+
+"I should--as I see now.  But I saw a light here, and says I
+to myself, that's an outlying house, depend on't."
+
+The plank was now lowered; and the stranger's form
+shaped itself from the darkness.  He was a middle-aged man,
+with hair and whiskers prematurely grey, and a broad and
+genial face.  He had crossed on the plank without
+hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit.
+He thanked them, and walked between them up the garden.
+"What place is this?" he asked, when they reached the door.
+
+"A public-house."
+
+"Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at.  Now then, come
+in and wet your whistle at my expense for the lift over you
+have given me."
+
+They followed him into the inn, where the increased light
+exhibited him as one who would stand higher in an estimate
+by the eye than in one by the ear.  He was dressed with a
+certain clumsy richness--his coat being furred, and his head
+covered by a cap of seal-skin, which, though the nights were
+chilly, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being
+somewhat advanced.  In his hand he carried a small mahogany
+case, strapped, and clamped with brass.
+
+Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted
+him through the kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea
+of putting up at the house; but taking the situation
+lightly, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them as
+he stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on his way by
+the front door.  This was barred, and while the landlady was
+unfastening it the conversation about the skimmington was
+continued in the sitting-room, and reached his ears.
+
+"What do they mean by a 'skimmity-ride'?" he asked.
+
+"O, sir!" said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with
+deprecating modesty; "'tis a' old foolish thing they do in
+these parts when a man's wife is--well, not too particularly
+his own.  But as a respectable householder I don't encourage
+it.
+
+"Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight
+to see, I suppose?"
+
+"Well, sir!" she simpered.  And then, bursting into
+naturalness, and glancing from the corner of her eye, "'Tis
+the funniest thing under the sun!  And it costs money."
+
+"Ah!  I remember hearing of some such thing.  Now I shall be
+in Casterbridge for two or three weeks to come, and
+should not mind seeing the performance.  Wait a
+moment."  He turned back, entered the sitting-room, and said,
+"Here, good folks; I should like to see the old custom you
+are talking of, and I don't mind being something towards it--
+take that."  He threw a sovereign on the table and returned
+to the landlady at the door, of whom, having inquired the
+way into the town, he took his leave.
+
+"There were more where that one came from," said Charl when
+the sovereign had been taken up and handed to the landlady
+for safe keeping.  "By George! we ought to have got a few
+more while we had him here."
+
+"No, no," answered the landlady.  "This is a respectable
+house, thank God!  And I'll have nothing done but what's
+honourable."
+
+"Well," said Jopp; "now we'll consider the business begun,
+and will soon get it in train."
+
+"We will!" said Nance.  "A good laugh warms my heart more
+than a cordial, and that's the truth on't."
+
+Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhat late
+he did not attempt to call at Farfrae's with them that
+night.  He reached home, sealed them up as before, and
+delivered the parcel at its address next morning.  Within an
+hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who,
+poor soul! was inclined to fall down on her knees in
+thankfulness that at last no evidence remained of the
+unlucky episode with Henchard in her past.  For though hers
+had been rather the laxity of inadvertence than of
+intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely
+to operate fatally between herself and her husband.
+
+
+
+37.
+
+
+Such was the state of things when the current affairs of
+Casterbridge were interrupted by an event of such magnitude
+that its influence reached to the lowest social stratum
+there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously
+with the preparations for the skimmington.  It was one of
+those excitements which, when they move a country town,
+leave permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a warm
+summer permanently marks the ring in the tree-trunk
+corresponding to its date.
+
+A Royal Personage was about to pass through the borough on
+his course further west, to inaugurate an immense
+engineering work out that way.  He had consented to halt
+half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receive an address
+from the corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a
+representative centre of husbandry, wished thus to express
+its sense of the great services he had rendered to
+agricultural science and economics, by his zealous promotion
+of designs for placing the art of farming on a more
+scientific footing.
+
+Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of
+the third King George, and then only by candlelight for a
+few minutes, when that monarch, on a night-journey, had
+stopped to change horses at the King's Arms.  The
+inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough fete
+carillonee of the unwonted occasion.  Half-an-hour's pause
+was not long, it is true; but much might be done in it by a
+judicious grouping of incidents, above all, if the weather
+were fine.
+
+The address was prepared on parchment by an artist who was
+handy at ornamental lettering, and was laid on with the best
+gold-leaf and colours that the sign-painter had in his shop.
+The Council had met on the Tuesday before the appointed day,
+to arrange the details of the procedure.  While they were
+sitting, the door of the Council Chamber standing open, they
+heard a heavy footstep coming up the stairs.  It advanced
+along the passage, and Henchard entered the room, in clothes
+of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very clothes which
+he had used to wear in the primal days when he had sat among
+them.
+
+"I have a feeling," he said, advancing to the table and
+laying his hand upon the green cloth, "that I should like to
+join ye in this reception of our illustrious visitor.  I
+suppose I could walk with the rest?"
+
+Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the Council and Grower
+nearly ate the end of his quill-pen off, so gnawed he it
+during the silence.  Farfrae the young Mayor, who by virtue
+of his office sat in the large chair, intuitively caught the
+sense of the meeting, and as spokesman was obliged to
+utter it, glad as he would have been that the duty should
+have fallen to another tongue.
+
+"I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard," said
+he.  "The Council are the Council, and as ye are no longer
+one of the body, there would be an irregularity in the
+proceeding.  If ye were included, why not others?"
+
+"I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the
+ceremony."
+
+Farfrae looked round.  "I think I have expressed the feeling
+of the Council," he said.
+
+"Yes, yes," from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and
+several more.
+
+"Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it
+officially?"
+
+"I am afraid so; it is out of the question, indeed.  But of
+course you can see the doings full well, such as they are to
+be, like the rest of the spectators."
+
+Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and,
+turning on his heel, went away.
+
+It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition
+crystallized it into a determination.  "I'll welcome his
+Royal Highness, or nobody shall!" he went about saying.  "I
+am not going to be sat upon by Farfrae, or any of the rest
+of the paltry crew!  You shall see."
+
+The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun
+confronting early window-gazers eastward, and all perceived
+(for they were practised in weather-lore) that there was
+permanence in the glow.  Visitors soon began to flock in
+from county houses, villages, remote copses, and lonely
+uplands, the latter in oiled boots and tilt bonnets, to see
+the reception, or if not to see it, at any rate to be near
+it.  There was hardly a workman in the town who did not put
+a clean shirt on.  Solomon Longways, Christopher Coney,
+Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity, showed their
+sense of the occasion by advancing their customary eleven
+o'clock pint to half-past ten; from which they found a
+difficulty in getting back to the proper hour for several
+days.
+
+Henchard had determined to do no work that day.  He primed
+himself in the morning with a glass of rum, and walking down
+the street met Elizabeth-Jane, whom he had not seen for
+a week.  "It was lucky," he said to her, "my twenty-one
+years had expired before this came on, or I should never
+have had the nerve to carry it out."
+
+"Carry out what?" said she, alarmed.
+
+"This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor."
+
+She was perplexed.  "Shall we go and see it together?" she
+said.
+
+"See it!  I have other fish to fry.  You see it.  It will be
+worth seeing!"
+
+She could do nothing to elucidate this, and decked herself
+out with a heavy heart.  As the appointed time drew near she
+got sight again of her stepfather.  She thought he was going
+to the Three Mariners; but no, he elbowed his way through
+the gay throng to the shop of Woolfrey, the draper.  She
+waited in the crowd without.
+
+In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a
+brilliant rosette, while more surprising still, in his hand
+he carried a flag of somewhat homely construction, formed by
+tacking one of the small Union Jacks, which abounded in the
+town to-day, to the end of a deal wand--probably the roller
+from a piece of calico.  Henchard rolled up his flag on the
+doorstep, put it under his arm, and went down the street.
+
+Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads,
+and the shorter stood on tiptoe.  It was said that the Royal
+cortege approached.  The railway had stretched out an
+arm towards Casterbridge at this time, but had not reached
+it by several miles as yet; so that the intervening
+distance, as well as the remainder of the journey, was to be
+traversed by road in the old fashion.  People thus waited--
+the county families in their carriages, the masses on foot--
+and watched the far-stretching London highway to the ringing
+of bells and chatter of tongues.
+
+From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene.  Some
+seats had been arranged from which ladies could witness the
+spectacle, and the front seat was occupied by Lucetta, the
+Mayor's wife, just at present.  In the road under her eyes
+stood Henchard.  She appeared so bright and pretty that, as
+it seemed, he was experiencing the momentary weakness of
+wishing for her notice.  But he was far from attractive to a
+woman's eye, ruled as that is so largely by the
+superficies of things.  He was not only a journeyman,
+unable to appear as he formerly had appeared, but he
+disdained to appear as well as he might.  Everybody else,
+from the Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture
+according to means; but Henchard had doggedly retained the
+fretted and weather-beaten garments of bygone years.
+
+Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta's eyes slid over him to
+this side and to that without anchoring on his features--as
+gaily dressed women's eyes will too often do on such
+occasions.  Her manner signified quite plainly that she
+meant to know him in public no more.
+
+But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in
+animated converse with his friends a few yards off, wearing
+round his young neck the official gold chain with great
+square links, like that round the Royal unicorn.  Every
+trifling emotion that her husband showed as he talked had
+its reflex on her face and lips, which moved in little
+duplicates to his.  She was living his part rather than her
+own, and cared for no one's situation but Farfrae's that
+day.
+
+At length a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high
+road, namely, on the second bridge of which mention has been
+made, gave a signal, and the Corporation in their robes
+proceeded from the front of the Town Hall to the archway
+erected at the entrance to the town.  The carriages
+containing the Royal visitor and his suite arrived at the
+spot in a cloud of dust, a procession was formed, and the
+whole came on to the Town Hall at a walking pace.
+
+This spot was the centre of interest.  There were a few
+clear yards in front of the Royal carriage, sanded; and into
+this space a man stepped before any one could prevent him.
+It was Henchard.  He had unrolled his private flag, and
+removing his hat he staggered to the side of the slowing
+vehicle, waving the Union Jack to and fro with his left hand
+while he blandly held out his right to the Illustrious
+Personage.
+
+All the ladies said with bated breath, "O, look there!" and
+Lucetta was ready to faint.  Elizabeth-Jane peeped through
+the shoulders of those in front, saw what it was, and was
+terrified; and then her interest in the spectacle as a
+strange phenomenon got the better of her fear.
+
+Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to
+the occasion.  He seized Henchard by the shoulder, dragged
+him back, and told him roughly to be off.  Henchard's eyes
+met his, and Farfrae observed the fierce light in them
+despite his excitement and irritation.  For a moment
+Henchard stood his ground rigidly; then by an unaccountable
+impulse gave way and retired.  Farfrae glanced to the
+ladies' gallery, and saw that his Calphurnia's cheek was
+pale.
+
+"Why--it is your husband's old patron!" said Mrs. Blowbody,
+a lady of the neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta.
+
+"Patron!" said Donald's wife with quick indignation.
+
+"Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrae's?"
+observed Mrs. Bath, the physician's wife, a new-comer to the
+town through her recent marriage with the doctor.
+
+"He works for my husband," said Lucetta.
+
+"Oh--is that all? They have been saying to me that it was
+through him your husband first got a footing in
+Casterbridge.  What stories people will tell!"
+
+"They will indeed.  It was not so at all.  Donald's genius
+would have enabled him to get a footing anywhere, without
+anybody's help!  He would have been just the same if there
+had been no Henchard in the world!"
+
+It was partly Lucetta's ignorance of the circumstances of
+Donald's arrival which led her to speak thus, partly the
+sensation that everybody seemed bent on snubbing her at this
+triumphant time.  The incident had occupied but a few
+moments, but it was necessarily witnessed by the Royal
+Personage, who, however, with practised tact affected not to
+have noticed anything unusual.  He alighted, the Mayor
+advanced, the address was read; the Illustrious Personage
+replied, then said a few words to Farfrae, and shook hands
+with Lucetta as the Mayor's wife.  The ceremony occupied but
+a few minutes, and the carriages rattled heavily as
+Pharaoh's chariots down Corn Street and out upon the
+Budmouth Road, in continuation of the journey coastward.
+
+In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways "Some
+difference between him now and when he zung at the Dree
+Mariners," said the first.  "'Tis wonderful how he could get
+a lady of her quality to go snacks wi' en in such quick
+time."
+
+"True.  Yet how folk do worship fine clothes!  Now
+there's a better-looking woman than she that nobody notices
+at all, because she's akin to that hontish fellow Henchard."
+
+"I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that," remarked Nance
+Mockridge.  "I do like to see the trimming pulled off such
+Christmas candles.  I am quite unequal to the part of
+villain myself, or I'd gi'e all my small silver to see that
+lady toppered....And perhaps I shall soon," she added
+significantly.
+
+"That's not a noble passiont for a 'oman to keep up," said
+Longways.
+
+Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant.  The
+ideas diffused by the reading of Lucetta's letters at
+Peter's finger had condensed into a scandal, which was
+spreading like a miasmatic fog through Mixen Lane, and
+thence up the back streets of Casterbridge.
+
+The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently
+fell apart into two bands by a process of natural selection,
+the frequenters of Peter's Finger going off Mixen Lane-
+wards, where most of them lived, while Coney, Buzzford,
+Longways, and that connection remained in the street.
+
+"You know what's brewing down there, I suppose?" said
+Buzzford mysteriously to the others.
+
+Coney looked at him.  "Not the skimmity-ride?"
+
+Buzzford nodded.
+
+"I have my doubts if it will be carried out," said Longways.
+"If they are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.
+
+"I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all
+events."
+
+"If I were sure o't I'd lay information," said Longways
+emphatically.  "'Tis too rough a joke, and apt to wake riots
+in towns.  We know that the Scotchman is a right enough man,
+and that his lady has been a right enough 'oman since she
+came here, and if there was anything wrong about her afore,
+that's their business, not ours."
+
+Coney reflected.  Farfrae was still liked in the community;
+but it must be owned that, as the Mayor and man of money,
+engrossed with affairs and ambitions, he had lost in the
+eyes of the poorer inhabitants something of that wondrous
+charm which he had had for them as a light-hearted
+penniless young man, who sang ditties as readily as the
+birds in the trees.  Hence the anxiety to keep him from
+annoyance showed not quite the ardour that would have
+animated it in former days.
+
+"Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher,"
+continued Longways; "and if we find there's really anything
+in it, drop a letter to them most concerned, and advise 'em
+to keep out of the way?"
+
+This course was decided on, and the group separated,
+Buzzford saying to Coney, "Come, my ancient friend; let's
+move on.  There's nothing more to see here."
+
+These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had
+they known how ripe the great jocular plot really was.
+"Yes, to-night," Jopp had said to the Peter's party at the
+corner of Mixen Lane.  "As a wind-up to the Royal visit the
+hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great
+elevation to-day."
+
+To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.
+
+
+38.
+
+
+The proceedings had been brief--too brief--to Lucetta whom
+an intoxicating Weltlust had fairly mastered; but they
+had brought her a great triumph nevertheless.  The shake of
+the Royal hand still lingered in her fingers; and the chit-
+chat she had overheard, that her husband might possibly
+receive the honour of knighthood, though idle to a degree,
+seemed not the wildest vision; stranger things had occurred
+to men so good and captivating as her Scotchman was.
+
+After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawn
+behind the ladies' stand; and there he stood, regarding with
+a stare of abstraction the spot on the lapel of his coat
+where Farfrae's hand had seized it.  He put his own hand
+there, as if he could hardly realize such an outrage from
+one whom it had once been his wont to treat with ardent
+generosity.  While pausing in this half-stupefied state
+the conversation of Lucetta with the other ladies
+reached his ears; and he distinctly heard her deny him--deny
+that he had assisted Donald, that he was anything more than
+a common journeyman.
+
+He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the
+Bull Stake.  "So you've had a snub," said Jopp.
+
+"And what if I have?" answered Henchard sternly.
+
+"Why, I've had one too, so we are both under the same cold
+shade."  He briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta's
+intercession.
+
+Henchard merely heard his story, without taking it deeply
+in.  His own relation to Farfrae and Lucetta overshadowed
+all kindred ones.  He went on saying brokenly to himself,
+"She has supplicated to me in her time; and now her tongue
+won't own me nor her eyes see me!...And he--how angry he
+looked.  He drove me back as if I were a bull breaking
+fence....I took it like a lamb, for I saw it could not be
+settled there.  He can rub brine on a green wound!...But he
+shall pay for it, and she shall be sorry.  It must come to a
+tussle--face to face; and then we'll see how a coxcomb can
+front a man!"
+
+Without further reflection the fallen merchant, bent on some
+wild purpose, ate a hasty dinner and went forth to find
+Farfrae.  After being injured by him as a rival, and snubbed
+by him as a journeyman, the crowning degradation had been
+reserved for this day--that he should be shaken at the
+collar by him as a vagabond in the face of the whole town.
+
+The crowds had dispersed.  But for the green arches which
+still stood as they were erected Casterbridge life had
+resumed its ordinary shape.  Henchard went down corn Street
+till he came to Farfrae's house, where he knocked, and left
+a message that he would be glad to see his employer at the
+granaries as soon as he conveniently could come there.
+Having done this he proceeded round to the back and entered
+the yard.
+
+Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the labourers
+and carters were enjoying a half-holiday on account of the
+events of the morning--though the carters would have to
+return for a short time later on, to feed and litter down
+the horses.  He had reached the granary steps and was
+about to ascend, when he said to himself aloud, "I'm
+stronger than he."
+
+Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a short piece
+of rope from several pieces that were lying about; hitching
+one end of this to a nail, he took the other in his right
+hand and turned himself bodily round, while keeping his arm
+against his side; by this contrivance he pinioned the arm
+effectively.  He now went up the ladders to the top floor of
+the corn-stores.
+
+It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end
+was the door often mentioned, opening under the cathead and
+chain that hoisted the sacks.  He fixed the door open and
+looked over the sill.  There was a depth of thirty or forty
+feet to the ground; here was the spot on which he had been
+standing with Farfrae when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift
+his arm, with many misgivings as to what the movement
+portended.
+
+He retired a few steps into the loft and waited.  From this
+elevated perch his eyes could sweep the roofs round about,
+the upper parts of the luxurious chestnut trees, now
+delicate in leaves of a week's age, and the drooping boughs
+of the lines; Farfrae's garden and the green door leading
+therefrom.  In course of time--he could not say how long--
+that green door opened and Farfrae came through.  He was
+dressed as if for a journey.  The low light of the nearing
+evening caught his head and face when he emerged from the
+shadow of the wall, warming them to a complexion of flame-
+colour.  Henchard watched him with his mouth firmly set the
+squareness of his jaw and the verticality of his profile
+being unduly marked.
+
+Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a
+tune in a way which told that the words were most in his
+mind.  They were those of the song he had sung when he
+arrived years before at the Three Mariners, a poor young
+man, adventuring for life and fortune, and scarcely knowing
+witherward:--
+
+
+     "And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,
+        And gie's a hand o' thine."
+
+
+Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody.  He sank
+back.  "No; I can't do it!" he gasped.  "Why does the
+infernal fool begin that now!"
+
+At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the
+loft door.  "Will ye come up here?" he said.
+
+"Ay, man," said Farfrae.  "I couldn't see ye.  What's
+wrang?"
+
+A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowest ladder.
+He heard him land on the first floor, ascend and land on the
+second, begin the ascent to the third.  And then his head
+rose through the trap behind.
+
+"What are you doing up here at this time?" he asked, coming
+forward.  "Why didn't ye take your holiday like the rest of
+the men?" He spoke in a tone which had just severity enough
+in it to show that he remembered the untoward event of the
+forenoon, and his conviction that Henchard had been
+drinking.
+
+Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed the stair
+hatchway, and stamped upon it so that it went tight into its
+frame; he next turned to the wondering young man, who by
+this time observed that one of Henchard's arms was bound to
+his side.
+
+"Now," said Henchard quietly, "we stand face to face--man
+and man.  Your money and your fine wife no longer lift 'ee
+above me as they did but now, and my poverty does not press
+me down."
+
+"What does it all mean?" asked Farfrae simply.
+
+"Wait a bit, my lad.  You should ha' thought twice before
+you affronted to extremes a man who had nothing to lose.
+I've stood your rivalry, which ruined me, and your snubbing,
+which humbled me; but your hustling, that disgraced me, I
+won't stand!"
+
+Farfrae warmed a little at this.  "Ye'd no business there,"
+he said.
+
+"As much as any one among ye!  What, you forward stripling,
+tell a man of my age he'd no business there!" The anger-vein
+swelled in his forehead as he spoke.
+
+"You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and 'twas my duty, as the
+chief magistrate, to stop you."
+
+"Royalty be damned," said Henchard.  "I am as loyal as
+you, come to that!"
+
+"I am not here to argue.  Wait till you cool doon, wait till
+you cool; and you will see things the same way as I do."
+
+"You may be the one to cool first," said Henchard grimly.
+"Now this is the case.  Here be we, in this four-square
+loft, to finish out that little wrestle you began this
+morning.  There's the door, forty foot above ground.  One of
+us two puts the other out by that door--the master stays
+inside.  If he likes he may go down afterwards and give the
+alarm that the other has fallen out by accident--or he may
+tell the truth--that's his business.  As the strongest man
+I've tied one arm to take no advantage of 'ee.  D'ye
+understand? Then here's at 'ee!"
+
+There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but one thing, to
+close with Henchard, for the latter had come on at once.  It
+was a wrestling match, the object of each being to give his
+antagonist a back fall; and on Henchard's part,
+unquestionably, that it should be through the door.
+
+At the outset Henchard's hold by his only free hand, the
+right, was on the left side of Farfrae's collar, which he
+firmly grappled, the latter holding Henchard by his collar
+with the contrary hand.  With his right he endeavoured to
+get hold of his antagonist's left arm, which, however, he
+could not do, so adroitly did Henchard keep it in the rear
+as he gazed upon the lowered eyes of his fair and slim
+antagonist.
+
+Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossing him
+with his; and thus far the struggle had very much the
+appearance of the ordinary wrestling of those parts.
+Several minutes were passed by them in this attitude, the
+pair rocking and writhing like trees in a gale, both
+preserving an absolute silence.  By this time their
+breathing could be heard.  Then Farfrae tried to get hold of
+the other side of Henchard's collar, which was resisted by
+the larger man exerting all his force in a wrenching
+movement, and this part of the struggle ended by his forcing
+Farfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his
+muscular arms.  Hampered as he was, however, he could not
+keep him there, and Farfrae finding his feet again the
+struggle proceeded as before.
+
+By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously near the
+precipice; seeing his position the Scotchman for the first
+time locked himself to his adversary, and all the efforts of
+that infuriated Prince of Darkness--as he might have been
+called from his appearance just now--were inadequate to lift
+or loosen Farfrae for a time.  By an extraordinary effort he
+succeeded at last, though not until they had got far back
+again from the fatal door.  In doing so Henchard contrived
+to turn Farfrae a complete somersault.  Had Henchard's other
+arm been free it would have been all over with Farfrae then.
+But again he regained his feet, wrenching Henchard's arm
+considerably, and causing him sharp pain, as could be seen
+from the twitching of his face.  He instantly delivered the
+younger man an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as it
+used to be expressed, and following up his advantage thrust
+him towards the door, never loosening his hold till
+Farfrae's fair head was hanging over the window-sill, and
+his arm dangling down outside the wall.
+
+"Now," said Henchard between his gasps, "this is the end of
+what you began this morning.  Your life is in my hands."
+
+"Then take it, take it!" said Farfrae.  "Ye've wished to
+long enough!"
+
+Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and their eyes
+met.  "O Farfrae!--that's not true!" he said bitterly.  "God
+is my witness that no man ever loved another as I did thee
+at one time....And now--though I came here to kill 'ee, I
+cannot hurt thee!  Go and give me in charge--do what you
+will--I care nothing for what comes of me!"
+
+He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm,
+and flung himself in a corner upon some sacks, in the
+abandonment of remorse.  Farfrae regarded him in silence;
+then went to the hatch and descended through it.  Henchard
+would fain have recalled him, but his tongue failed in its
+task, and the young man's steps died on his ear.
+
+Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach.
+The scenes of his first acquaintance with Farfrae rushed
+back upon him--that time when the curious mixture of romance
+and thrift in the young man's composition so commanded his
+heart that Farfrae could play upon him as on an instrument.
+So thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the sacks
+in a crouching attitude, unusual for a man, and for
+such a man.  Its womanliness sat tragically on the figure of
+so stern a piece of virility.  He heard a conversation
+below, the opening of the coach-house door, and the putting
+in of a horse, but took no notice.
+
+Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque
+obscurity, and the loft-door became an oblong of gray light--
+the only visible shape around.  At length he arose, shook
+the dust from his clothes wearily, felt his way to the
+hatch, and gropingly descended the steps till he stood in
+the yard.
+
+"He thought highly of me once," he murmured.  "Now he'll
+hate me and despise me for ever!"
+
+He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfrae
+again that night, and by some desperate pleading to attempt
+the well-nigh impossible task of winning pardon for his late
+mad attack.  But as he walked towards Farfrae's door he
+recalled the unheeded doings in the yard while he had lain
+above in a sort of stupor.  Farfrae he remembered had gone
+to the stable and put the horse into the gig; while doing so
+Whittle had brought him a letter; Farfrae had then said that
+he would not go towards Budmouth as he had intended--that he
+was unexpectedly summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to call
+at Mellstock on his way thither, that place lying but one or
+two miles out of his course.
+
+He must have come prepared for a journey when he first
+arrived in the yard, unsuspecting enmity; and he must have
+driven off (though in a changed direction) without saying a
+word to any one on what had occurred between themselves.
+
+It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae's house
+till very late.
+
+There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though
+waiting was almost torture to his restless and self-accusing
+soul.  He walked about the streets and outskirts of the
+town, lingering here and there till he reached the stone
+bridge of which mention has been made, an accustomed
+halting-place with him now.  Here he spent a long time, the
+purl of waters through the weirs meeting his ear, and the
+Casterbridge lights glimmering at no great distance off.
+
+While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attention
+was awakened by sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town
+quarter.  They were a confusion of rhythmical noises,
+to which the streets added yet more confusion by
+encumbering them with echoes.  His first incurious thought
+that the clangour arose from the town band, engaged in an
+attempt to round off a memorable day in a burst of evening
+harmony, was contradicted by certain peculiarities of
+reverberation.  But inexplicability did not rouse him to
+more than a cursory heed; his sense of degradation was too
+strong for the admission of foreign ideas; and he leant
+against the parapet as before.
+
+
+
+39.
+
+
+When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his
+encounter with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover
+himself.  He arrived at the yard with the intention of
+putting the horse into the gig himself (all the men having a
+holiday), and driving to a village on the Budmouth Road.
+Despite the fearful struggle he decided still to persevere
+in his journey, so as to recover himself before going
+indoors and meeting the eyes of Lucetta.  He wished to
+consider his course in a case so serious.
+
+When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived
+with a note badly addressed, and bearing the word
+"immediate" upon the outside.  On opening it he was
+surprised to see that it was unsigned.  It contained a brief
+request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening about
+some business which he was conducting there.  Farfrae knew
+nothing that could make it pressing; but as he was bent upon
+going out he yielded to the anonymous request, particularly
+as he had a call to make at Mellstock which could be
+included in the same tour.  Thereupon he told Whittle of his
+change of direction, in words which Henchard had overheard,
+and set out on his way.  Farfrae had not directed his man to
+take the message indoors, and Whittle had not been supposed
+to do so on his own responsibility.
+
+Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy
+contrivance of Longways and other of Farfrae's men to
+get him out of the way for the evening, in order that the
+satirical mummery should fall flat, if it were attempted.
+By giving open information they would have brought down upon
+their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who
+enjoyed these boisterous old games; and therefore the plan
+of sending a letter recommended itself by its indirectness.
+
+For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing
+with the majority there was some truth in the scandal, which
+she would have to bear as she best might.
+
+It was about eight o'clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the
+drawing-room alone.  Night had set in for more than half an
+hour, but she had not had the candles lighted, for when
+Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for him by the
+firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of the
+window-sashes a little way open that the sound of his wheels
+might reach her ears early.  She was leaning back in the
+chair, in a more hopeful mood than she had enjoyed since her
+marriage.  The day had been such a success, and the
+temporary uneasiness which Henchard's show of effrontery had
+wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance of
+Henchard himself under her husband's reproof.  The floating
+evidences of her absurd passion for him, and its
+consequences, had been destroyed, and she really seemed to
+have no cause for fear.
+
+The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was
+disturbed by a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment
+by moment.  It did not greatly surprise her, the afternoon
+having been given up to recreation by a majority of the
+populace since the passage of the Royal equipages.  But her
+attention was at once riveted to the matter by the voice of
+a maid-servant next door, who spoke from an upper window
+across the street to some other maid even more elevated than
+she.
+
+"Which way be they going now?" inquired the first with
+interest.
+
+"I can't be sure for a moment," said the second, "because of
+the malter's chimbley.  O yes--I can see 'em.  Well, I
+declare, I declare!
+
+"What, what?" from the first, more enthusiastically.
+
+"They are coming up Corn Street after all!  They sit
+back to back!"
+
+"What--two of 'em--are there two figures?"
+
+"Yes.  Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows
+tied to one another's!  She's facing the head, and he's
+facing the tail."
+
+"Is it meant for anybody in particular?"
+
+"Well--it mid be.  The man has got on a blue coat and
+kerseymere leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish
+face.  'Tis a stuffed figure, with a falseface."
+
+The din was increasing now--then it lessened a little.
+
+"There--I shan't see, after all!" cried the disappointed
+first maid.
+
+"They have gone into a back street--that's all," said the
+one who occupied the enviable position in the attic.
+"There--now I have got 'em all endways nicely!"
+
+"What's the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment
+if 'tis meant for one I've in mind."
+
+"My--why--'tis dressed just as SHE dressed when she sat
+in the front seat at the time the play-actors came to the
+Town Hall!"
+
+Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the
+door of the room was quickly and softly opened.  Elizabeth-
+Jane advanced into the firelight.
+
+"I have come to see you," she said breathlessly.  "I did not
+stop to knock--forgive me!  I see you have not shut your
+shutters, and the window is open."
+
+Without waiting for Lucetta's reply she crossed quickly to
+the window and pulled out one of the shutters.  Lucetta
+glided to her side.  "Let it be--hush!" she said
+perempority, in a dry voice, while she seized Elizabeth-Jane
+by the hand, and held up her finger.  Their intercourse had
+been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the
+conversation without, which had thus proceeded:--
+
+"Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-
+comb in place; she's got on a puce silk, and white
+stockings, and coloured shoes."
+
+Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but
+Lucetta held her by main force.
+
+"'Tis me!" she said, with a face pale as death.  "A
+procession--a scandal--an effigy of me, and him!"
+
+The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it
+already.
+
+"Let us shut it out," coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the
+rigid wildness of Lucetta's features was growing yet more
+rigid and wild with the meaning of the noise and laughter.
+"Let us shut it out!"
+
+"It is of no use!" she shrieked.  "He will see it, won't he?
+Donald will see it!  He is just coming home--and it will
+break his heart--he will never love me any more--and O, it
+will kill me--kill me!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now.  "O, can't something be done
+to stop it?" she cried.  "Is there nobody to do it--not
+one?"
+
+She relinquished Lucetta's hands, and ran to the door.
+Lucetta herself, saying recklessly "I will see it!" turned
+to the window, threw up the sash, and went out upon the
+balcony.  Elizabeth immediately followed, and put her arm
+round her to pull her in.  Lucetta's eyes were straight upon
+the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly.
+The numerous lights round the two effigies threw them up
+into lurid distinctness; it was impossible to mistake the
+pair for other than the intended victims.
+
+"Come in, come in," implored Elizabeth; "and let me shut the
+window!"
+
+"She's me--she's me--even to the parasol--my green parasol!"
+cried Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in.  She
+stood motionless for one second--then fell heavily to the
+floor.
+
+Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the
+skimmington ceased.  The roars of sarcastic laughter went
+off in ripples, and the trampling died out like the rustle
+of a spent wind.  Elizabeth was only indirectly conscious of
+this; she had rung the bell, and was bending over Lucetta,
+who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of an
+epileptic seizure.  She rang again and again, in vain; the
+probability being that the servants had all run out of the
+house to see more of the Daemonic Sabbath than they could
+see within.
+
+At last Farfrae's man, who had been agape on the door-
+step, came up; then the cook.  The shutters, hastily
+pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite closed, a light was
+obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man sent off
+for a doctor.  While Elizabeth was undressing her she
+recovered consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what
+had passed the fit returned.
+
+The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been
+standing at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar
+meant.  As soon as he saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in
+answer to Elizabeth's mute appeal, "This is serious."
+
+"It is a fit," Elizabeth said.
+
+"Yes.  But a fit in the present state of her health means
+mischief.  You must send at once for Mr. Farfrae.  Where is
+he?"
+
+"He has driven into the country, sir," said the parlour-
+maid; "to some place on the Budmouth Road.  He's likely to
+be back soon."
+
+"Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not
+hurry."  The doctor returned to the bedside again.  The man
+was despatched, and they soon heard him clattering out of
+the yard at the back.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of
+whom mention has been already made, hearing the din of
+cleavers, tongs, tambourines, kits, crouds, humstrums,
+serpents, rams'-horns, and other historical kinds of music
+as he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat and
+gone out to learn the cause.  He came to the corner above
+Farfrae's, and soon guessed the nature of the proceedings;
+for being a native of the town he had witnessed such rough
+jests before.  His first move was to search hither and
+thither for the constables, there were two in the town,
+shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an
+alley yet more shrivelled than usual, having some not
+ungrounded fears that they might be roughly handled if seen.
+
+"What can we two poor lammigers do against such a
+multitude!" expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower's
+chiding.  "'Tis tempting 'em to commit felo-de-se upon
+us, and that would be the death of the perpetrator; and we
+wouldn't be the cause of a fellow-creature's death on no
+account, not we!"
+
+"Get some help, then!  Here, I'll come with you.  We'll see
+what a few words of authority can do.  Quick now; have
+you got your staves?"
+
+"We didn't want the folk to notice us as law officers, being
+so short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover'ment staves up
+this water-pipe.
+
+"Out with 'em, and come along, for Heaven's sake!  Ah, here's
+Mr. Blowbody; that's lucky."  (Blowbody was the third of the
+three borough magistrates.)
+
+"Well, what's the row?" said Blowbody.  "Got their names--
+hey?"
+
+"No.  Now," said Grower to one of the constables, "you go
+with Mr. Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the
+street; and I'll go with Stubberd straight forward.  By this
+plan we shall have 'em between us.  Get their names only: no
+attack or interruption."
+
+Thus they started.  But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced
+into Corn Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were
+surprised that no procession could be seen.  They passed
+Farfrae's, and looked to the end of the street.  The lamp
+flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few loungers stood
+about with their hands in their pockets.  Everything was as
+usual.
+
+"Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?" Grower
+said magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who
+smoked a short pipe and wore straps round his knees.
+
+"Beg yer pardon, sir?" blandly said the person addressed,
+who was no other than Charl, of Peter's finger.  Mr. Grower
+repeated the words.
+
+Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance.
+"No; we haven't seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was
+here afore I."
+
+Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
+
+"H'm--that's odd," said Mr. Grower.  "Ah--here's a
+respectable man coming that I know by sight.  Have you," he
+inquired, addressing the nearing shape of Jopp, "have you
+seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a noise--
+skimmington riding, or something of the sort?"
+
+"O no--nothing, sir," Jopp replied, as if receiving the most
+singular news.  "But I've not been far tonight, so perhaps--
+"
+
+"Oh, 'twas here--just here," said the magistrate.
+
+"Now I've noticed, come to think o't that the wind in the
+Walk trees makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night,
+sir; more than common; so perhaps 'twas that?" Jopp
+suggested, as he rearranged his hand in his greatcoat pocket
+(where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen tongs and
+a cow's horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
+
+"No, no, no--d'ye think I'm a fool? Constable, come this
+way.  They must have gone into the back street."
+
+Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could
+the disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second
+constable, who came up at this time, brought similar
+intelligence.  Effigies, donkey, lanterns, band, all had
+disappeared like the crew of Comus.
+
+"Now," said Mr. Grower, "there's only one thing more we can
+do.  Get ye half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen
+Lane, and into Peter's finger.  I'm much mistaken if you
+don't find a clue to the perpetrators there."
+
+The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance
+as soon as they could, and the whole party marched off to
+the lane of notoriety.  It was no rapid matter to get there
+at night, not a lamp or glimmer of any sort offering itself
+to light the way, except an occasional pale radiance through
+some window-curtain, or through the chink of some door which
+could not be closed because of the smoky chimney within.  At
+last they entered the inn boldly, by the till then bolted
+front-door, after a prolonged knocking of loudness
+commensurate with the importance of their standing.
+
+In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by
+cords as usual for stability, an ordinary group sat drinking
+and smoking with statuesque quiet of demeanour.  The
+landlady looked mildly at the invaders, saying in honest
+accents, "Good evening, gentlemen; there's plenty of room.
+I hope there's nothing amiss?"
+
+They looked round the room.  "Surely," said Stubberd to one
+of the men, "I saw you by now in Corn Street--Mr. Grower
+spoke to 'ee?"
+
+The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently.  "I've been
+here this last hour, hain't I, Nance?" he said to the woman
+who meditatively sipped her ale near him.
+
+"Faith, that you have.  I came in for my quiet supper-
+time half-pint, and you were here then, as well as all the
+rest."
+
+The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw
+reflected in the glass a quick motion by the landlady.
+Turning sharply, he caught her closing the oven-door.
+
+"Something curious about that oven, ma'am!" he observed
+advancing, opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.
+
+"Ah," she said apologetically, "that's what we keep here to
+use when there's a little quiet dancing.  You see damp
+weather spoils it, so I put it there to keep it dry."
+
+The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew was
+nothing.  Nohow could anything be elicited from this mute
+and inoffensive assembly.  In a few minutes the
+investigators went out, and joining those of their
+auxiliaries who had been left at the door they pursued their
+way elsewhither.
+
+
+
+40.
+
+
+Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminations on
+the bridge, had repaired towards the town.  When he stood at
+the bottom of the street a procession burst upon his view,
+in the act of turning out of an alley just above him.  The
+lanterns, horns, and multitude startled him; he saw the
+mounted images, and knew what it all meant.
+
+They crossed the way, entered another street, and
+disappeared.  He turned back a few steps and was lost in
+grave reflection, finally wending his way homeward by the
+obscure river-side path.  Unable to rest there he went to
+his step-daughter's lodging, and was told that Elizabeth-
+Jane had gone to Mr. Farfrae's.  Like one acting in
+obedience to a charm, and with a nameless apprehension, he
+followed in the same direction in the hope of meeting her,
+the roysterers having vanished.  Disappointed in this he
+gave the gentlest of pulls to the door-bell, and then learnt
+particulars of what had occurred, together with the doctor's
+imperative orders that Farfrae should be brought home, and
+how they had set out to meet him on the Budmouth Road.
+
+"But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!" exclaimed
+Henchard, now unspeakably grieved.  "Not Budmouth way at
+all."
+
+But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name.  They
+would not believe him, taking his words but as the frothy
+utterances of recklessness.  Though Lucetta's life seemed at
+that moment to depend upon her husband's return (she being
+in great mental agony lest he should never know the
+unexaggerated truth of her past relations with Henchard), no
+messenger was despatched towards Weatherbury.  Henchard, in
+a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determined to seek
+Farfrae himself.
+
+To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern
+road over Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward
+in the moderate darkness of this spring night till he had
+reached a second and almost a third hill about three miles
+distant.  In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain, at the foot of the
+hill, he listened.  At first nothing, beyond his own heart-
+throbs, was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan
+among the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood which
+clothed the heights on either hand; but presently there came
+the sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the
+newly stoned patches of road, accompanied by the distant
+glimmer of lights.
+
+He knew it was Farfrae's gig descending the hill from an
+indescribable personality in its noise, the vehicle having
+been his own till bought by the Scotchman at the sale of his
+effects.  Henchard thereupon retraced his steps along
+Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as its driver
+slackened speed between two plantations.
+
+It was a point in the highway near which the road to
+Mellstock branched off from the homeward direction.  By
+diverging to that village, as he had intended to do, Farfrae
+might probably delay his return by a couple of hours.  It
+soon appeared that his intention was to do so still, the
+light swerving towards Cuckoo Lane, the by-road aforesaid.
+Farfrae's off gig-lamp flashed in Henchard's face.  At the
+same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist.
+
+"Farfrae--Mr. Farfrae!" cried the breathless Henchard,
+holding up his hand.
+
+Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the
+branch lane before he pulled up.  He then drew rein, and
+said "Yes?" over his shoulder, as one would towards a
+pronounced enemy.
+
+"Come back to Casterbridge at once!" Henchard said.
+"There's something wrong at your house--requiring your
+return.  I've run all the way here on purpose to tell ye."
+
+Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard's soul sank
+within him.  Why had he not, before this, thought of what
+was only too obvious? He who, four hours earlier, had
+enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle stood now in the
+darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting him
+to come a particular way, where an assailant might have
+confederates, instead of going his purposed way, where there
+might be a better opportunity of guarding himself from
+attack.  Henchard could almost feel this view of things in
+course of passage through Farfrae's mind.
+
+"I have to go to Mellstock," said Farfrae coldly, as he
+loosened his reins to move on.
+
+"But," implored Henchard, "the matter is more serious than
+your business at Mellstock.  It is--your wife!  She is ill.
+I can tell you particulars as we go along."
+
+The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased
+Farfrae's suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him on
+to the next wood, where might be effectually compassed what,
+from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had failed to do
+earlier in the day.  He started the horse.
+
+"I know what you think," deprecated Henchard running after,
+almost bowed down with despair as he perceived the image of
+unscrupulous villainy that he assumed in his former friend's
+eyes.  "But I am not what you think!" he cried hoarsely.
+"Believe me, Farfrae; I have come entirely on your own and
+your wife's account.  She is in danger.  I know no more; and
+they want you to come.  Your man has gone the other way in a
+mistake.  O Farfrae! don't mistrust me--I am a wretched man;
+but my heart is true to you still!"
+
+Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly.  He knew his
+wife was with child, but he had left her not long ago in
+perfect health; and Henchard's treachery was more credible
+than his story.  He had in his time heard bitter
+ironies from Henchard's lips, and there might be ironies
+now.  He quickened the horse's pace, and had soon risen into
+the high country lying between there and Mellstock,
+Henchard's spasmodic run after him lending yet more
+substance to his thought of evil purposes.
+
+The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in
+Henchard's eyes; his exertions for Farfrae's good had been
+in vain.  Over this repentant sinner, at least, there was to
+be no joy in heaven.  He cursed himself like a less
+scrupulous Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses
+self-respect, the last mental prop under poverty.  To this
+he had come after a time of emotional darkness of which the
+adjoining woodland shade afforded inadequate illustration.
+Presently he began to walk back again along the way by which
+he had arrived.  Farfrae should at all events have no reason
+for delay upon the road by seeing him there when he took his
+journey homeward later on.
+
+Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae's
+house to make inquiries.  As soon as the door opened anxious
+faces confronted his from the staircase, hall, and landing;
+and they all said in grievous disappointment, "O--it is not
+he!" The manservant, finding his mistake, had long since
+returned, and all hopes had centred upon Henchard.
+
+"But haven't you found him?" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes....I cannot tell 'ee!" Henchard replied as he sank down
+on a chair within the entrance.  "He can't be home for two
+hours."
+
+"H'm," said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
+
+"How is she?" asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of
+the group.
+
+"In great danger, father.  Her anxiety to see her husband
+makes her fearfully restless.  Poor woman--I fear they have
+killed her!"
+
+Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants
+as if she struck him in a new light, then, without further
+remark, went out of the door and onward to his lonely
+cottage.  So much for man's rivalry, he thought.  Death was
+to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the shells.  But
+about Elizabeth-lane; in the midst of his gloom she
+seemed to him as a pin-point of light.  He had liked
+the look on her face as she answered him from the stairs.
+There had been affection in it, and above all things what he
+desired now was affection from anything that was good and
+pure.  She was not his own, yet, for the first time, he had
+a faint dream that he might get to like her as his own,--if
+she would only continue to love him.
+
+Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home.  As the
+latter entered the door Jopp said, "This is rather bad about
+Mrs. Farfrae's illness."
+
+"Yes," said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp
+s complicity in the night's harlequinade, and raising his
+eyes just sufficiently to observe that Jopp's face was lined
+with anxiety.
+
+"Somebody has called for you," continued Jopp, when Henchard
+was shutting himself into his own apartment.  "A kind of
+traveller, or sea-captain of some sort."
+
+"Oh?--who could he be?"
+
+"He seemed a well-be-doing man--had grey hair and a broadish
+face; but he gave no name, and no message."
+
+"Nor do I gi'e him any attention."  And, saying this,
+Henchard closed his door.
+
+
+The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae's return very
+nearly the two hours of Henchard's estimate.  Among the
+other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of
+his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician;
+and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state
+bordering on distraction at his misconception of Henchard's
+motives.
+
+A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had
+grown; the night wore on, and the other doctor came in the
+small hours.  Lucetta had been much soothed by Donald's
+arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and when,
+immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to
+him the secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble
+words, lest talking should be dangerous, assuring her there
+was plenty of time to tell him everything.
+
+Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride.
+The dangerous illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was
+soon rumoured through the town, and an apprehensive
+guess having been given as to its cause by the leaders in
+the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over
+all particulars of their orgie; while those immediately
+around Lucetta would not venture to add to her husband's
+distress by alluding to the subject.
+
+What, and how much, Farfrae's wife ultimately explained to
+him of her past entanglement with Henchard, when they were
+alone in the solitude of that sad night, cannot be told.
+That she informed him of the bare facts of her peculiar
+intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from Farfrae's
+own statements.  But in respect of her subsequent conduct--
+her motive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself with
+Henchard--her assumed justification in abandoning him when
+she discovered reasons for fearing him (though in truth her
+inconsequent passion for another man at first sight had most
+to do with that abandonment)--her method of reconciling to
+her conscience a marriage with the second when she was in a
+measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of
+these things remained Farfrae's secret alone.
+
+Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in
+Casterbridge that night there walked a figure up and down
+corn Street hardly less frequently.  It was Henchard's,
+whose retiring to rest had proved itself a futility as soon
+as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and thither,
+and make inquiries about the patient every now and then.  He
+called as much on Farfrae's account as on Lucetta's, and on
+Elizabeth-Jane's even more than on either's.  Shorn one by
+one of all other interests, his life seemed centring on the
+personality of the stepdaughter whose presence but recently
+he could not endure.  To see her on each occasion of his
+inquiry at Lucetta's was a comfort to him.
+
+The last of his calls was made about four o'clock in the
+morning, in the steely light of dawn.  Lucifer was fading
+into day across Durnover Moor, the sparrows were just
+alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle
+from the outhouses.  When within a few yards of Farfrae's he
+saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to
+the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled
+it.  He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely
+flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe
+in human aggression at so early a time.
+
+"Why do you take off that?" said Henchard.
+
+She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not
+answer for an instant or two.  Recognizing him, she said,
+"Because they may knock as loud as they will; she will never
+hear it any more."
+
+
+
+41.
+
+
+Henchard went home.  The morning having now fully broke he
+lit his fire, and sat abstractedly beside it.  He had not
+sat there long when a gentle footstep approached the house
+and entered the passage, a finger tapping lightly at the
+door.  Henchard's face brightened, for he knew the motions
+to be Elizabeth's.  She came into his room, looking wan and
+sad.
+
+"Have you heard?" she asked.  "Mrs. Farfrae!  She is--dead!
+Yes, indeed--about an hour ago!"
+
+"I know it," said Henchard.  "I have but lately come in from
+there.  It is so very good of 'ee, Elizabeth, to come and
+tell me.  You must be so tired out, too, with sitting up.
+Now do you bide here with me this morning.  You can go and
+rest in the other room; and I will call 'ee when breakfast
+is ready."
+
+To please him, and herself--for his recent kindliness was
+winning a surprised gratitude from the lonely girl--she did
+as he bade her, and lay down on a sort of couch which
+Henchard had rigged up out of a settle in the adjoining
+room.  She could hear him moving about in his preparations;
+but her mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death in
+such fulness of life and amid such cheerful hopes of
+maternity was appallingly unexpected.  Presently she fell
+asleep.
+
+Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the
+breakfast in readiness; but finding that she dozed he would
+not call her; he waited on, looking into the fire and
+keeping the kettle boiling with house-wifely care, as if it
+were an honour to have her in his house.  In truth, a
+great change had come over him with regard to her, and he
+was developing the dream of a future lit by her filial
+presence, as though that way alone could happiness lie.
+
+He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to
+open it, rather deprecating a call from anybody just then.
+A stoutly built man stood on the doorstep, with an alien,
+unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing--an air which
+might have been called colonial by people of cosmopolitan
+experience.  It was the man who had asked the way at Peter's
+finger.  Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.
+
+"Good morning, good morning," said the stranger with profuse
+heartiness.  "Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?"
+
+"My name is Henchard."
+
+"Then I've caught 'ee at home--that's right.  Morning's the
+time for business, says I.  Can I have a few words with
+you?"
+
+"By all means," Henchard answered, showing the way in.
+
+"You may remember me?" said his visitor, seating himself.
+
+Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
+
+"Well--perhaps you may not.  My name is Newson."
+
+Henchard's face and eyes seemed to die.  The other did not
+notice it.  "I know the name well," Henchard said at last,
+looking on the floor.
+
+"I make no doubt of that.  Well, the fact is, I've been
+looking for 'ee this fortnight past.  I landed at Havenpool
+and went through Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and
+when I got there, they told me you had some years before
+been living at Casterbridge.  Back came I again, and by long
+and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago.  'He lives
+down by the mill,' says they.  So here I am.  Now--that
+transaction between us some twenty years agone--'tis that
+I've called about.  'Twas a curious business.  I was younger
+then than I am now, and perhaps the less said about it, in
+one sense, the better."
+
+"Curious business!  'Twas worse than curious.  I cannot even
+allow that I'm the man you met then.  I was not in my
+senses, and a man's senses are himself."
+
+"We were young and thoughtless," said Newson.  "However,
+I've come to mend matters rather than open arguments.  Poor
+Susan--hers was a strange experience."
+
+"She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman.  She was not
+what they call shrewd or sharp at all--better she had been."
+
+"She was not."
+
+"As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough
+to think that the sale was in a way binding.  She was as
+guiltless o' wrong-doing in that particular as a saint in
+the clouds."
+
+"I know it, I know it.  I found it out directly," said
+Henchard, still with averted eyes.  "There lay the sting o't
+to me.  If she had seen it as what it was she would never
+have left me.  Never!  But how should she be expected to
+know? What advantages had she? None.  She could write her
+own name, and no more.
+
+"Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed
+was done," said the sailor of former days.  "I thought, and
+there was not much vanity in thinking it, that she would be
+happier with me.  She was fairly happy, and I never would
+have undeceived her till the day of her death.  Your child
+died; she had another, and all went well.  But a time came--
+mind me, a time always does come.  A time came--it was some
+while after she and I and the child returned from America--
+when somebody she had confided her history to, told her my
+claim to her was a mockery, and made a jest of her belief in
+my right.  After that she was never happy with me.  She
+pined and pined, and socked and sighed.  She said she must
+leave me, and then came the question of our child.  Then a
+man advised me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it
+was best.  I left her at Falmouth, and went off to sea.
+When I got to the other side of the Atlantic there was a
+storm, and it was supposed that a lot of us, including
+myself, had been washed overboard.  I got ashore at
+Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
+
+"'Since I'm here, here I'll bide,' I thought to myself;
+''twill be most kindness to her, now she's taken against me,
+to let her believe me lost, for,' I thought, 'while she
+supposes us both alive she'll be miserable; but if she
+thinks me dead she'll go back to him, and the child will
+have a home.' I've never returned to this country till a
+month ago, and I found that, as I supposed, she went to you,
+and my daughter with her.  They told me in Falmouth
+that Susan was dead.  But my Elizabeth-Jane--where is she?"
+
+"Dead likewise," said Henchard doggedly.  "Surely you learnt
+that too?"
+
+The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two
+down the room.  "Dead!" he said, in a low voice.  "Then
+what's the use of my money to me?"
+
+Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were
+rather a question for Newson himself than for him.
+
+"Where is she buried?" the traveller inquired.
+
+"Beside her mother," said Henchard, in the same stolid
+tones.
+
+"When did she die?"
+
+"A year ago and more," replied the other without hesitation.
+
+The sailor continued standing.  Henchard never looked up
+from the floor.  At last Newson said: "My journey hither has
+been for nothing!  I may as well go as I came!  It has served
+me right.  I'll trouble you no longer."
+
+Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the
+sanded floor, the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow
+opening and closing of the door that was natural to a
+baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn his head.
+Newson's shadow passed the window.  He was gone.
+
+Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his
+senses, rose from his seat amazed at what he had done.  It
+had been the impulse of a moment.  The regard he had lately
+acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung hope of his
+loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he
+could feel as proud as of the actual daughter she still
+believed herself to be, had been stimulated by the
+unexpected coming of Newson to a greedy exclusiveness in
+relation to her; so that the sudden prospect of her loss had
+caused him to speak mad lies like a child, in pure mockery
+of consequences.  He had expected questions to close in
+round him, and unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet
+such questioning had not come.  But surely they would come;
+Newson's departure could be but momentary; he would learn
+all by inquiries in the town; and return to curse him, and
+carry his last treasure away!
+
+He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the
+direction that Newson had taken.  Newson's back was soon
+visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake.  Henchard
+followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King's Arms, where
+the morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour
+for another coach which crossed there.  The coach Newson had
+come by was now about to move again.  Newson mounted, his
+luggage was put in, and in a few minutes the vehicle
+disappeared with him.
+
+He had not so much as turned his head.  It was an act of
+simple faith in Henchard's words--faith so simple as to be
+almost sublime.  The young sailor who had taken Susan
+Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the faith of a
+glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still
+living and acting under the form of the grizzled traveller
+who had taken Henchard's words on trust so absolute as to
+shame him as he stood.
+
+Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy
+invention of a moment? "Perhaps not for long," said he.
+Newson might converse with his fellow-travellers, some of
+whom might be Casterbridge people; and the trick would be
+discovered.
+
+This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude,
+and instead of considering how best to right the wrong, and
+acquaint Elizabeth's father with the truth at once, he
+bethought himself of ways to keep the position he had
+accidentally won.  Towards the young woman herself his
+affection grew more jealously strong with each new hazard to
+which his claim to her was exposed.
+
+He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newson
+return on foot, enlightened and indignant, to claim his
+child.  But no figure appeared.  Possibly he had spoken to
+nobody on the coach, but buried his grief in his own heart.
+
+His grief!--what was it, after all, to that which he,
+Henchard, would feel at the loss of her? Newson's affection
+cooled by years, could not equal his who had been constantly
+in her presence.  And thus his jealous soul speciously
+argued to excuse the separation of father and child.
+
+He returned to the house half expecting that she would have
+vanished.  No; there she was--just coming out from the
+inner room, the marks of sleep upon her eyelids, and
+exhibiting a generally refreshed air.
+
+"O father!" she said smiling.  "I had no sooner lain down
+than I napped, though I did not mean to.  I wonder I did not
+dream about poor Mrs. Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but
+I did not.  How strange it is that we do not often dream of
+latest events, absorbing as they may be."
+
+"I am glad you have been able to sleep," he said, taking her
+hand with anxious proprietorship--an act which gave her a
+pleasant surprise.
+
+They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane's thoughts
+reverted to Lucetta.  Their sadness added charm to a
+countenance whose beauty had ever lain in its meditative
+soberness.
+
+"Father," she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the
+outspread meal, "it is so kind of you to get this nice
+breakfast with your own hands, and I idly asleep the while."
+
+"I do it every day," he replied.  "You have left me;
+everybody has left me; how should I live but by my own
+hands."
+
+"You are very lonely, are you not?"
+
+"Ay, child--to a degree that you know nothing of!  It is my
+own fault.  You are the only one who has been near me for
+weeks.  And you will come no more."
+
+"Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to
+see me."
+
+Henchard signified dubiousness.  Though he had so lately
+hoped that Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as
+daughter, he would not ask her to do so now.  Newson might
+return at any moment, and what Elizabeth would think of him
+for his deception it were best to bear apart from her.
+
+When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered,
+till the moment arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to
+go to his daily work.  Then she arose, and with assurance of
+coming again soon went up the hill in the morning sunlight.
+
+"At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is
+towards her, she would live with me here in this humble
+cottage for the asking!  Yet before the evening probably he
+will have come, and then she will scorn me!"
+
+This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to
+himself, accompanied him everywhere through the day.
+His mood was no longer that of the rebellious, ironical,
+reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of one who has
+lost all that can make life interesting, or even tolerable.
+There would remain nobody for him to be proud of, nobody to
+fortify him; for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be but as a
+stranger, and worse.  Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth--
+all had gone from him, one after one, either by his fault or
+by his misfortune.
+
+In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire.  If
+he could have summoned music to his aid his existence might
+even now have been borne; for with Henchard music was of
+regal power.  The merest trumpet or organ tone was enough to
+move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him.  But
+hard fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up
+this Divine spirit in his need.
+
+The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself; there
+was nothing to come, nothing to wait for.  Yet in the
+natural course of life he might possibly have to linger on
+earth another thirty or forty years--scoffed at; at best
+pitied.
+
+The thought of it was unendurable.
+
+To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows through
+which much water flowed.  The wanderer in this direction who
+should stand still for a few moments on a quiet night, might
+hear singular symphonies from these waters, as from a
+lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry tones from
+near and far parts of the moor.  At a hole in a rotten weir
+they executed a recitative; where a tributary brook fell
+over a stone breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an arch
+they performed a metallic cymballing, and at Durnover Hole
+they hissed.  The spot at which their instrumentation rose
+loudest was a place called Ten Hatches, whence during high
+springs there proceeded a very fugue of sounds.
+
+The river here was deep and strong at all times, and the
+hatches on this account were raised and lowered by cogs and
+a winch.  A patch led from the second bridge over the
+highway (so often mentioned) to these Hatches, crossing the
+stream at their head by a narrow plank-bridge.  But after
+night-fall human beings were seldom found going that way,
+the path leading only to a deep reach of the stream
+called Blackwater, and the passage being dangerous.
+
+Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road,
+proceeded to the second, or stone bridge, and thence struck
+into this path of solitude, following its course beside the
+stream till the dark shapes of the Ten Hatches cut the sheen
+thrown upon the river by the weak lustre that still lingered
+in the west.  In a second or two he stood beside the weir-
+hole where the water was at its deepest.  He looked
+backwards and forwards, and no creature appeared in view.
+He then took off his coat and hat, and stood on the brink of
+the stream with his hands clasped in front of him.
+
+While his eyes were bent on the water beneath there slowly
+became visible a something floating in the circular pool
+formed by the wash of centuries; the pool he was intending
+to make his death-bed.  At first it was indistinct by reason
+of the shadow from the bank; but it emerged thence and took
+shape, which was that of a human body, lying stiff and stark
+upon the surface of the stream.
+
+In the circular current imparted by the central flow the
+form was brought forward, till it passed under his eyes; and
+then he perceived with a sense of horror that it was 
+HIMSELF.  Not a man somewhat resembling him, but one in all
+respects his counterpart, his actual double, was floating as
+if dead in Ten Hatches Hole.
+
+The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy
+man, and he turned away as one might have done in the actual
+presence of an appalling miracle.  He covered his eyes and
+bowed his head.  Without looking again into the stream he
+took his coat and hat, and went slowly away.
+
+Presently he found himself by the door of his own dwelling.
+To his surprise Elizabeth-Jane was standing there.  She came
+forward, spoke, called him "father" just as before.  Newson,
+then, had not even yet returned.
+
+"I thought you seemed very sad this morning," she said, "so
+I have come again to see you.  Not that I am anything but
+sad myself.  But everybody and everything seem against you
+so, and I know you must be suffering.
+
+How this woman divined things!  Yet she had not divined their
+whole extremity.
+
+He said to her, "Are miracles still worked, do ye
+think, Elizabeth? I am not a read man.  I don't know so much
+as I could wish.  I have tried to peruse and learn all my
+life; but the more I try to know the more ignorant I seem."
+
+"I don't quite think there are any miracles nowadays," she
+said.
+
+"No interference in the case of desperate intentions, for
+instance? Well, perhaps not, in a direct way.  Perhaps not.
+But will you come and walk with me, and I will show 'ee what
+I mean."
+
+She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway, and
+by the lonely path to Ten Hatches.  He walked restlessly, as
+if some haunting shade, unseen of her, hovered round him and
+troubled his glance.  She would gladly have talked of
+Lucetta, but feared to disturb him.  When they got near the
+weir he stood still, and asked her to go forward and look
+into the pool, and tell him what she saw.
+
+She went, and soon returned to him.  "Nothing," she said.
+
+"Go again," said Henchard, "and look narrowly."
+
+She proceeded to the river brink a second time.  On her
+return, after some delay, she told him that she saw
+something floating round and round there; but what it was
+she could not discern.  It seemed to be a bundle of old
+clothes.
+
+"Are they like mine?" asked Henchard.
+
+"Well--they are.  Dear me--I wonder if--Father, let us go
+away!"
+
+"Go and look once more; and then we will get home."
+
+She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was
+close to the margin of the pool.  She started up, and
+hastened back to his side.
+
+"Well," said Henchard; "what do you say now?"
+
+"Let us go home."
+
+"But tell me--do--what is it floating there?"
+
+"The effigy," she answered hastily.  "They must have thrown
+it into the river higher up amongst the willows at
+Blackwater, to get rid of it in their alarm at discovery by
+the magistrates, and it must have floated down here."
+
+"Ah--to be sure--the image o' me!  But where is the other?
+Why that one only?...That performance of theirs killed her,
+but kept me alive!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words "kept
+me alive," as they slowly retraced their way to the town,
+and at length guessed their meaning.  "Father!--I will not
+leave you alone like this!" she cried.  "May I live with
+you, and tend upon you as I used to do? I do not mind your
+being poor.  I would have agreed to come this morning, but
+you did not ask me."
+
+"May you come to me?" he cried bitterly.  "Elizabeth, don't
+mock me!  If you only would come!"
+
+"I will," said she.
+
+"How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You
+cannot!"
+
+"I have forgotten it.  Talk of that no more."
+
+Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans for reunion;
+and at length each went home.  Then Henchard shaved for the
+first time during many days, and put on clean linen, and
+combed his hair; and was as a man resuscitated thence-
+forward.
+
+The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Jane
+had stated; the effigy was discovered by a cowherd, and that
+of Lucetta a little higher up in the same stream.  But as
+little as possible was said of the matter, and the figures
+were privately destroyed.
+
+Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchard no
+less regarded it as an intervention that the figure should
+have been floating there.  Elizabeth-Jane heard him say,
+"Who is such a reprobate as I!  And yet it seems that even I
+be in Somebody's hand!"
+
+
+
+42.
+
+
+But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody's hand
+began to die out of Henchard's breast as time slowly removed
+into distance the event which had given that feeling birth.
+The apparition of Newson haunted him.  He would surely
+return.
+
+Yet Newson did not arrive.  Lucetta had been borne along
+the churchyard path; Casterbridge had for the last time
+turned its regard upon her, before proceeding to its work as
+if she had never lived.  But Elizabeth remained undisturbed
+in the belief of her relationship to Henchard, and now
+shared his home.  Perhaps, after all, Newson was gone for
+ever.
+
+In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, at least,
+proximate cause of Lucetta's illness and death, and his
+first impulse was naturally enough to wreak vengeance in the
+name of the law upon the perpetrators of the mischief.  He
+resolved to wait till the funeral was over ere he moved in
+the matter.  The time having come he reflected.  Disastrous
+as the result had been, it was obviously in no way foreseen
+or intended by the thoughtless crew who arranged the motley
+procession.  The tempting prospect of putting to the blush
+people who stand at the head of affairs--that supreme and
+piquant enjoyment of those who writhe under the heel of the
+same--had alone animated them, so far as he could see; for
+he knew nothing of Jopp's incitements.  Other considerations
+were also involved.  Lucetta had confessed everything to him
+before her death, and it was not altogether desirable to
+make much ado about her history, alike for her sake, for
+Henchard's, and for his own.  To regard the event as an
+untoward accident seemed, to Farfrae, truest consideration
+for the dead one's memory, as well as best philosophy.
+
+Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet.  For
+Elizabeth's sake the former had fettered his pride
+sufficiently to accept the small seed and root business
+which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had
+purchased to afford him a new opening.  Had he been only
+personally concerned Henchard, without doubt, would have
+declined assistance even remotely brought about by the man
+whom he had so fiercely assailed.  But the sympathy of the
+girl seemed necessary to his very existence; and on her
+account pride itself wore the garments of humility.
+
+Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives
+Henchard anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in
+which paternal regard was heightened by a burning jealous
+dread of rivalry.  Yet that Newson would ever now return to
+Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there was
+little reason to suppose.  He was a wanderer and a
+stranger, almost an alien; he had not seen his daughter for
+several years; his affection for her could not in the nature
+of things be keen; other interests would probably soon
+obscure his recollections of her, and prevent any such
+renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a
+discovery that she was still a creature of the present.  To
+satisfy his conscience somewhat Henchard repeated to himself
+that the lie which had retained for him the coveted treasure
+had not been deliberately told to that end, but had come
+from him as the last defiant word of a despair which took no
+thought of consequences.  Furthermore he pleaded within
+himself that no Newson could love her as he loved her, or
+would tend her to his life's extremity as he was prepared to
+do cheerfully.
+
+Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard,
+and nothing occurred to mark their days during the remainder
+of the year.  Going out but seldom, and never on a market-
+day, they saw Donald Farfrae only at rarest intervals, and
+then mostly as a transitory object in the distance of the
+street.  Yet he was pursuing his ordinary avocations,
+smiling mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with
+bargainers--as bereaved men do after a while.
+
+Time, "in his own grey style," taught Farfrae how to
+estimate his experience of Lucetta--all that it was, and all
+that it was not.  There are men whose hearts insist upon a
+dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by chance into
+their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it
+no rarity--even the reverse, indeed, and without them the
+band of the worthy is incomplete.  But Farfrae was not of
+those.  It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and
+rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead blank
+which his loss threw about him.  He could not but perceive
+that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged a looming
+misery for a simple sorrow.  After that revelation of her
+history, which must have come sooner or later in any
+circumstances, it was hard to believe that life with her
+would have been productive of further happiness.
+
+But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta's
+image still lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only
+the gentlest criticism, and her sufferings attenuating
+wrath at her concealments to a momentary spark now and
+then.
+
+By the end of a year Henchard's little retail seed and grain
+shop, not much larger than a cupboard, had developed its
+trade considerably, and the stepfather and daughter enjoyed
+much serenity in the pleasant, sunny corner in which it
+stood.  The quiet bearing of one who brimmed with an inner
+activity characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period.  She
+took long walks into the country two or three times a week,
+mostly in the direction of Budmouth.  Sometimes it occurred
+to him that when she sat with him in the evening after those
+invigorating walks she was civil rather than affectionate;
+and he was troubled; one more bitter regret being added to
+those he had already experienced at having, by his severe
+censorship, frozen up her precious affection when originally
+offered.
+
+She had her own way in everything now.  In going and coming,
+in buying and selling, her word was law.
+
+"You have got a new muff, Elizabeth," he said to her one day
+quite humbly.
+
+"Yes; I bought it," she said.
+
+He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table.  The
+fur was of a glossy brown, and, though he was no judge of
+such articles, he thought it seemed an unusually good one
+for her to possess.
+
+"Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?" he
+hazarded.
+
+"It was rather above my figure," she said quietly.  "But it
+is not showy."
+
+"O no," said the netted lion, anxious not to pique her in
+the least.
+
+Some little time after, when the year had advanced into
+another spring, he paused opposite her empty bedroom in
+passing it.  He thought of the time when she had cleared out
+of his then large and handsome house in corn Street, in
+consequence of his dislike and harshness, and he had looked
+into her chamber in just the same way.  The present room was
+much humbler, but what struck him about it was the abundance
+of books lying everywhere.  Their number and quality made
+the meagre furniture that supported them seem absurdly
+disproportionate.  Some, indeed many, must have been
+recently purchased; and though he encouraged her to buy in
+reason, he had no notion that she indulged her innate
+passion so extensively in proportion to the narrowness of
+their income.  For the first time he felt a little hurt by
+what he thought her extravagance, and resolved to say a word
+to her about it.  But, before he had found the courage to
+speak an event happened which set his thoughts flying in
+quite another direction.
+
+The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet
+weeks that preceded the hay-season had come--setting their
+special stamp upon Casterbridge by thronging the market with
+wood rakes, new waggons in yellow, green, and red,
+formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong sufficient to
+skewer up a small family.  Henchard, contrary to his wont,
+went out one Saturday afternoon towards the market-place
+from a curious feeling that he would like to pass a few
+minutes on the spot of his former triumphs.  Farfrae, to
+whom he was still a comparative stranger, stood a few steps
+below the Corn Exchange door--a usual position with him at
+this hour--and he appeared lost in thought about something
+he was looking at a little way off.
+
+Henchard's eyes followed Farfrae's, and he saw that the
+object of his gaze was no sample-showing farmer, but his own
+stepdaughter, who had just come out of a shop over the way.
+She, on her part, was quite unconscious of his attention,
+and in this was less fortunate than those young women whose
+very plumes, like those of Juno's bird, are set with Argus
+eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken.
+
+Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there was nothing
+significant after all in Farfrae's look at Elizabeth-Jane at
+that juncture.  Yet he could not forget that the Scotchman
+had once shown a tender interest in her, of a fleeting kind.
+Thereupon promptly came to the surface that idiosyncrasy of
+Henchard's which had ruled his courses from the beginning
+and had mainly made him what he was.  Instead of thinking
+that a union between his cherished step-daughter and the
+energetic thriving Donald was a thing to be desired for her
+good and his own, he hated the very possibility.
+
+Time had been when such instinctive opposition would
+have taken shape in action.  But he was not now the
+Henchard of former days.  He schooled himself to accept her
+will, in this as in other matters, as absolute and
+unquestionable.  He dreaded lest an antagonistic word should
+lose for him such regard as he had regained from her by his
+devotion, feeling that to retain this under separation was
+better than to incur her dislike by keeping her near.
+
+But the mere thought of such separation fevered his spirit
+much, and in the evening he said, with the stillness of
+suspense: "Have you seen Mr. Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some
+confusion that she replied "No."
+
+"Oh--that's right--that's right....It was only that I saw
+him in the street when we both were there."  He was wondering
+if her embarrassment justified him in a new suspicion--that
+the long walks which she had latterly been taking, that the
+new books which had so surprised him, had anything to do
+with the young man.  She did not enlighten him, and lest
+silence should allow her to shape thoughts unfavourable to
+their present friendly relations, he diverted the discourse
+into another channel.
+
+Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act
+stealthily, for good or for evil.  But the solicitus
+timor of his love--the dependence upon Elizabeth's regard
+into which he had declined (or, in another sense, to which
+he had advanced)--denaturalized him.  He would often weigh
+and consider for hours together the meaning of such and such
+a deed or phrase of hers, when a blunt settling question
+would formerly have been his first instinct.  And now,
+uneasy at the thought of a passion for Farfrae which should
+entirely displace her mild filial sympathy with himself, he
+observed her going and coming more narrowly.
+
+There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane's movements
+beyond what habitual reserve induced, and it may at once be
+owned on her account that she was guilty of occasional
+conversations with Donald when they chanced to meet.
+Whatever the origin of her walks on the Budmouth Road, her
+return from those walks was often coincident with Farfrae's
+emergence from corn Street for a twenty minutes' blow on
+that rather windy highway--just to winnow the seeds and
+chaff out of him before sitting down to tea, as he said.
+Henchard became aware of this by going to the Ring, and,
+screened by its enclosure, keeping his eye upon the road
+till he saw them meet.  His face assumed an expression of
+extreme anguish.
+
+"Of her, too, he means to rob me!" he whispered.  "But he
+has the right.  I do not wish to interfere."
+
+The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and
+matters were by no means so far advanced between the young
+people as Henchard's jealous grief inferred.  Could he have
+heard such conversation as passed he would have been
+enlightened thus much:--
+
+HE.--"You like walking this way, Miss Henchard--and is
+it not so?" (uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an
+appraising, pondering gaze at her).
+
+SHE.--"O yes.  I have chosen this road latterly.  I have
+no great reason for it."
+
+HE.--"But that may make a reason for others."
+
+SHE (reddening).--"I don't know that.  My reason,
+however, such as it is, is that I wish to get a glimpse of
+the sea every day.
+
+HE.--"Is it a secret why?"
+
+SHE ( reluctantly ).--"Yes."
+
+HE (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).--"Ah,
+I doubt there will be any good in secrets!  A secret cast a
+deep shadow over my life.  And well you know what it was."
+
+Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from
+confessing why the sea attracted her.  She could not herself
+account for it fully, not knowing the secret possibly to be
+that, in addition to early marine associations, her blood
+was a sailor's.
+
+"Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae," she added
+shyly.  "I wonder if I ought to accept so many!"
+
+"Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you,
+than you to have them!"
+
+"It cannot."
+
+They proceeded along the road together till they reached the
+town, and their paths diverged.
+
+Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own
+devices, put nothing in the way of their courses, whatever
+they might mean.  If he were doomed to be bereft of
+her, so it must be.  In the situation which their marriage
+would create he could see no locus standi for himself at
+all.  Farfrae would never recognize him more than
+superciliously; his poverty ensured that, no less than his
+past conduct.  And so Elizabeth would grow to be a stranger
+to him, and the end of his life would be friendless
+solitude.
+
+With such a possibility impending he could not help
+watchfulness.  Indeed, within certain lines, he had the
+right to keep an eye upon her as his charge.  The meetings
+seemed to become matters of course with them on special days
+of the week.
+
+At last full proof was given him.  He was standing behind a
+wall close to the place at which Farfrae encountered her.
+He heard the young man address her as "Dearest Elizabeth-
+Jane," and then kiss her, the girl looking quickly round to
+assure herself that nobody was near.
+
+When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the
+wall, and mournfully followed them to Casterbridge.  The
+chief looming trouble in this engagement had not decreased.
+Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unlike the rest of the
+people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual daughter,
+from his own assertion while he himself had the same belief;
+and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven him as to have
+no objection to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they
+could never be.  Thus would the girl, who was his only
+friend, be withdrawn from him by degrees through her
+husband's influence, and learn to despise him.
+
+Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than
+the one he had rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in
+days before his spirit was broken, Henchard would have said,
+"I am content."  But content with the prospect as now
+depicted was hard to acquire.
+
+There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts
+unowned, unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes
+allowed to wander for a moment prior to being sent off
+whence they came.  One of these thoughts sailed into
+Henchard's ken now.
+
+Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his
+betrothed was not the child of Michael Henchard at all--
+legally, nobody's child; how would that correct and leading
+townsman receive the information? He might possibly forsake
+Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her step-sire's own
+again.
+
+Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, "God forbid such a thing!
+Why should I still be subject to these visitations of the
+devil, when I try so hard to keep him away?"
+
+
+
+43.
+
+
+What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at
+a little later date by other people.  That Mr. Farfrae
+"walked with that bankrupt Henchard's step-daughter, of all
+women," became a common topic in the town, the simple
+perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a wooing;
+and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who
+had each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of
+making the merchant Councilman happy, indignantly left off
+going to the church Farfrae attended, left off conscious
+mannerisms, left off putting him in their prayers at night
+amongst their blood relations; in short, reverted to their
+normal courses.
+
+Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this
+looming choice of the Scotchman's gave unmixed satisfaction
+were the members of the philosophic party, which included
+Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy Wills, Mr. Buzzford, and
+the like.  The Three Mariners having been, years before, the
+house in which they had witnessed the young man and woman's
+first and humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they
+took a kindly interest in their career, not unconnected,
+perhaps, with visions of festive treatment at their hands
+hereafter.  Mrs. Stannidge, having rolled into the large
+parlour one evening and said that it was a wonder such a man
+as Mr. Farfrae, "a pillow of the town," who might have
+chosen one of the daughters of the professional men or
+private residents, should stoop so low, Coney ventured to
+disagree with her.
+
+"No, ma'am, no wonder at all.  'Tis she that's a
+stooping to he--that's my opinion.  A widow man--whose first
+wife was no credit to him--what is it for a young perusing
+woman that's her own mistress and well liked? But as a neat
+patching up of things I see much good in it.  When a man
+have put up a tomb of best marble-stone to the other one, as
+he've done, and weeped his fill, and thought it all over,
+and said to hisself, 'T'other took me in, I knowed this one
+first; she's a sensible piece for a partner, and there's no
+faithful woman in high life now';--well, he may do worse
+than not to take her, if she's tender-inclined."
+
+Thus they talked at the Mariners.  But we must guard against
+a too liberal use of the conventional declaration that a
+great sensation was caused by the prospective event, that
+all the gossips' tongues were set wagging thereby, and so-
+on, even though such a declaration might lend some eclat to
+the career of our poor only heroine.  When all has been said
+about busy rumourers, a superficial and temporary thing is
+the interest of anybody in affairs which do not directly
+touch them.  It would be a truer representation to say that
+Casterbridge (ever excepting the nineteen young ladies)
+looked up for a moment at the news, and withdrawing its
+attention, went on labouring and victualling, bringing up
+its children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle
+for Farfrae's domestic plans.
+
+Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by
+Elizabeth herself or by Farfrae either.  Reasoning on the
+cause of their reticence he concluded that, estimating him
+by his past, the throbbing pair were afraid to broach the
+subject, and looked upon him as an irksome obstacle whom
+they would be heartily glad to get out of the way.
+Embittered as he was against society, this moody view of
+himself took deeper and deeper hold of Henchard, till the
+daily necessity of facing mankind, and of them particularly
+Elizabeth-Jane, became well-nigh more than he could endure.
+His health declined; he became morbidly sensitive.  He
+wished he could escape those who did not want him, and hide
+his head for ever.
+
+But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no
+necessity that his own absolute separation from her
+should be involved in the incident of her marriage?
+
+He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative--himself
+living like a fangless lion about the back rooms of a house
+in which his stepdaughter was mistress, an inoffensive old
+man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth, and good-naturedly
+tolerated by her husband.  It was terrible to his pride to
+think of descending so low; and yet, for the girl's sake he
+might put up with anything; even from Farfrae; even
+snubbings and masterful tongue-scourgings.  The privilege of
+being in the house she occupied would almost outweigh the
+personal humiliation.
+
+Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the
+courtship--which it evidently now was--had an absorbing
+interest for him.
+
+Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the
+Budmouth Road, and Farfrae as often made it convenient to
+create an accidental meeting with her there.  Two miles out,
+a quarter of a mile from the highway, was the prehistoric
+fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many ramparts,
+within or upon whose enclosures a human being as seen from
+the road, was but an insignificant speck.  Hitherward
+Henchard often resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the
+hedgeless Via--for it was the original track laid out by
+the legions of the Empire--to a distance of two or three
+miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs
+between Farfrae and his charmer.
+
+One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure
+came along the road from Budmouth, and lingered.  Applying
+his telescope to his eye Henchard expected that Farfrae's
+features would be disclosed as usual.  But the lenses
+revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane's lover.
+
+It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned
+in the scrutiny of the road he revealed his face.  Henchard
+lived a lifetime the moment he saw it.  The face was
+Newson's.
+
+Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no
+other movement.  Newson waited, and Henchard waited--if that
+could be called a waiting which was a transfixture.  But
+Elizabeth-Jane did not come.  Something or other had caused
+her to neglect her customary walk that day.  Perhaps
+Farfrae and she had chosen another road for variety's
+sake.  But what did that amount to? She might be here to-
+morrow, and in any case Newson, if bent on a private meeting
+and a revelation of the truth to her, would soon make his
+opportunity.
+
+Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the
+ruse by which he had been once sent away.  Elizabeth's
+strict nature would cause her for the first time to despise
+her stepfather, would root out his image as that of an arch-
+deceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart in his stead.
+
+But Newson did not see anything of her that morning.  Having
+stood still awhile he at last retraced his steps, and
+Henchard felt like a condemned man who has a few hours'
+respite.  When he reached his own house he found her there.
+
+"O father!" she said innocently.  "I have had a letter--a
+strange one--not signed.  Somebody has asked me to meet him,
+either on the Budmouth Road at noon today, or in the evening
+at Mr. Farfrae's.  He says he came to see me some time ago,
+but a trick was played him, so that he did not see me.  I
+don't understand it; but between you and me I think Donald
+is at the bottom of the mystery, and that it is a relation
+of his who wants to pass an opinion on his choice.  But I
+did not like to go till I had seen you.  Shall I go?"
+
+Henchard replied heavily, "Yes; go."
+
+The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever
+disposed of by this closing in of Newson on the scene.
+Henchard was not the man to stand the certainty of
+condemnation on a matter so near his heart.  And being an
+old hand at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal,
+he resolved to make as light as he could of his intentions,
+while immediately taking his measures.
+
+He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his
+all in this world by saying to her, as if he did not care
+about her more: "I am going to leave Casterbridge,
+Elizabeth-Jane."
+
+"Leave Casterbridge!" she cried, "and leave--me?"
+
+"Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well
+as by us both; I don't care about shops and streets and
+folk--I would rather get into the country by myself, out of
+sight, and follow my own ways, and leave you to yours."
+
+She looked down and her tears fell silently.  It seemed
+to her that this resolve of his had come on account of her
+attachment and its probable result.  She showed her devotion
+to Farfrae, however, by mastering her emotion and speaking
+out.
+
+"I am sorry you have decided on this," she said with
+difficult firmness.  "For I thought it probable--possible--
+that I might marry Mr. Farfrae some little time hence, and I
+did not know that you disapproved of the step!"
+
+"I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy," said
+Henchard huskily.  "If I did not approve it would be no
+matter!  I wish to go away.  My presence might make things
+awkward in the future, and, in short, it is best that I go."
+
+Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to
+reconsider his determination; for she could not urge what
+she did not know--that when she should learn he was not
+related to her other than as a step-parent she would refrain
+from despising him, and that when she knew what he had done
+to keep her in ignorance she would refrain from hating him.
+It was his conviction that she would not so refrain; and
+there existed as yet neither word nor event which could
+argue it away.
+
+"Then," she said at last, "you will not be able to come to
+my wedding; and that is not as it ought to be."
+
+"I don't want to see it--I don't want to see it!" he
+exclaimed; adding more softly, "but think of me sometimes in
+your future life--you'll do that, Izzy?--think of me when
+you are living as the wife of the richest, the foremost man
+in the town, and don't let my sins, WHEN YOU KNOW THEM
+ALL, cause 'ee to quite forget that though I loved 'ee late
+I loved 'ee well."
+
+"It is because of Donald!" she sobbed.
+
+"I don't forbid you to marry him," said Henchard.  "Promise
+not to quite forget me when----" He meant when Newson should
+come.
+
+She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same
+evening at dusk Henchard left the town, to whose development
+he had been one of the chief stimulants for many years.
+During the day he had bought a new tool-basket, cleaned up
+his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in fresh
+leggings, kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways
+gone back to the working clothes of his young manhood,
+discarding for ever the shabby-genteel suit of cloth and
+rusty silk hat that since his decline had characterized him
+in the Casterbridge street as a man who had seen better
+days.
+
+He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had
+known him being aware of his departure.  Elizabeth-Jane
+accompanied him as far as the second bridge on the highway--
+for the hour of her appointment with the unguessed visitor
+at Farfrae's had not yet arrived--and parted from him with
+unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or
+two before finally letting him go.  She watched his form
+diminish across the moor, the yellow rush-basket at his back
+moving up and down with each tread, and the creases behind
+his knees coming and going alternately till she could no
+longer see them.  Though she did not know it Henchard formed
+at this moment much the same picture as he had presented
+when entering Casterbridge for the first time nearly a
+quarter of a century before; except, to be sure, that the
+serious addition to his years had considerably lessened the
+spring to his stride, that his state of hopelessness had
+weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as weighted by
+the basket, a perceptible bend.
+
+He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood
+in the bank, half way up a steep hill.  He rested his basket
+on the top of the stone, placed his elbows on it, and gave
+way to a convulsive twitch, which was worse than a sob,
+because it was so hard and so dry.
+
+"If I had only got her with me--if I only had!" he said.
+"Hard work would be nothing to me then!  But that was not to
+be.  I--Cain--go alone as I deserve--an outcast and a
+vagabond.  But my punishment is not greater than I can
+bear!"
+
+He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and
+went on.
+
+Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh,
+recovered her equanimity, and turned her face to
+Casterbridge.  Before she had reached the first house she
+was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae.  This was evidently
+not their first meeting that day; they joined hands without
+ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked, "And is he gone--
+and did you tell him?--I mean of the other matter--not of
+ours."
+
+"He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend.
+Donald, who is he?"
+
+"Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that.  And Mr.
+Henchard will hear of it if he does not go far."
+
+"He will go far--he's bent upon getting out of sight and
+sound!"
+
+She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the
+Crossways, or Bow, turned with him into Corn Street instead
+of going straight on to her own door.  At Farfrae's house
+they stopped and went in.
+
+Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-
+room, saying, "There he is waiting for you," and Elizabeth
+entered.  In the arm-chair sat the broad-faced genial man
+who had called on Henchard on a memorable morning between
+one and two years before this time, and whom the latter had
+seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of his
+arrival.  It was Richard Newson.  The meeting with the
+light-hearted father from whom she had been separated half-
+a-dozen years, as if by death, need hardly be detailed.  It
+was an affecting one, apart from the question of paternity.
+Henchard's departure was in a moment explained.  When the
+true facts came to be handled the difficulty of restoring
+her to her old belief in Newson was not so great as might
+have seemed likely, for Henchard's conduct itself was a
+proof that those facts were true.  Moreover, she had grown
+up under Newson's paternal care; and even had Henchard been
+her father in nature, this father in early domiciliation
+might almost have carried the point against him, when the
+incidents of her parting with Henchard had a little worn
+off.
+
+Newson's pride in what she had grown up to be was more than
+he could express.  He kissed her again and again.
+
+"I've saved you the trouble to come and meet me--ha-ha!"
+said Newson.  "The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said,
+'Come up and stop with me for a day or two, Captain Newson,
+and I'll bring her round.' 'Faith,' says I, 'so I will'; and
+here I am."
+
+"Well, Henchard is gone," said Farfrae, shutting the door.
+"He has done it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from
+Elizabeth, he has been very nice with her.  I was got
+rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and we will have
+no more deefficulties at all."
+
+"Now, that's very much as I thought," said Newson, looking
+into the face of each by turns.  "I said to myself, ay, a
+hundred times, when I tried to get a peep at her unknown to
+herself--'Depend upon it, 'tis best that I should live on
+quiet for a few days like this till something turns up for
+the better.' I now know you are all right, and what can I
+wish for more?"
+
+"Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every
+day now, since it can do no harm," said Farfrae.  "And what
+I've been thinking is that the wedding may as well be kept
+under my own roof, the house being large, and you being in
+lodgings by yourself--so that a great deal of trouble and
+expense would be saved ye?--and 'tis a convenience when a
+couple's married not to hae far to go to get home!"
+
+"With all my heart," said Captain Newson; "since, as ye say,
+it can do no harm, now poor Henchard's gone; though I
+wouldn't have done it otherwise, or put myself in his way at
+all; for I've already in my lifetime been an intruder into
+his family quite as far as politeness can be expected to put
+up with.  But what do the young woman say herself about it?
+Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we be talking
+about, and not bide staring out o' the window as if ye
+didn't hear.'
+
+"Donald and you must settle it," murmured Elizabeth, still
+keeping up a scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the
+street.
+
+"Well, then," continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with
+a face expressing thorough entry into the subject, "that's
+how we'll have it.  And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide so
+much, and houseroom, and all that, I'll do my part in the
+drinkables, and see to the rum and schiedam--maybe a dozen
+jars will be sufficient?--as many of the folk will be
+ladies, and perhaps they won't drink hard enough to make a
+high average in the reckoning? But you know best.  I've
+provided for men and shipmates times enough, but I'm as
+ignorant as a child how many glasses of grog a woman, that's
+not a drinking woman, is expected to consume at these
+ceremonies?"
+
+"Oh, none--we'll no want much of that--O no!" said Farfrae,
+shaking his head with appalled gravity.  "Do you leave all
+to me."
+
+When they had gone a little further in these particulars
+Newson, leaning back in his chair and smiling reflectively
+at the ceiling, said, "I've never told ye, or have I, Mr.
+Farfrae, how Henchard put me off the scent that time?"
+
+He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.
+
+"Ah, I thought I hadn't.  I resolved that I would not, I
+remember, not to hurt the man's name.  But now he's gone I
+can tell ye.  Why, I came to Casterbridge nine or ten months
+before that day last week that I found ye out.  I had been
+here twice before then.  The first time I passed through the
+town on my way westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here.
+Then hearing at some place--I forget where--that a man of
+the name of Henchard had been mayor here, I came back, and
+called at his house one morning.  The old rascal!--he said
+Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago."
+
+Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.
+
+"Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a
+packet," contiued Newson.  "And, if you'll believe me, I was
+that upset, that I went back to the coach that had brought
+me, and took passage onward without lying in the town half-
+an-hour.  Ha-ha!--'twas a good joke, and well carried out,
+and I give the man credit for't!"
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence.  "A joke?--O
+no!" she cried.  "Then he kept you from me, father, all
+those months, when you might have been here?"
+
+The father admitted that such was the case.
+
+"He ought not to have done it!" said Farfrae.
+
+Elizabeth sighed.  "I said I would never forget him.  But O!
+I think I ought to forget him now!"
+
+Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange
+men and strange moralities, failed to perceive the enormity
+of Henchard's crime, notwithstanding that he himself had
+been the chief sufferer therefrom.  Indeed, the attack upon
+the absent culprit waxing serious, he began to take
+Henchard's part.
+
+"Well, 'twas not ten words that he said, after all," Newson
+pleaded.  "And how could he know that I should be such
+a simpleton as to believe him? 'Twas as much my fault as
+his, poor fellow!"
+
+"No," said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of
+feeling.  "He knew your disposition--you always were so
+trusting, father; I've heard my mother say so hundreds of
+times--and he did it to wrong you.  After weaning me from
+you these five years by saying he was my father, he should
+not have done this."
+
+Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before
+Elizabeth any extenuation of the absent one's deceit.  Even
+had he been present Henchard might scarce have pleaded it,
+so little did he value himself or his good name.
+
+"Well, well--never mind--it is all over and past," said
+Newson good-naturedly.  "Now, about this wedding again."
+
+
+
+44.
+
+
+Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitary
+way eastward till weariness overtook him, and he looked
+about for a place of rest.  His heart was so exacerbated at
+parting from the girl that he could not face an inn, or even
+a household of the most humble kind; and entering a field he
+lay down under a wheatrick, feeling no want of food.  The
+very heaviness of his soul caused him to sleep profoundly.
+
+The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the
+stubble awoke him the next morning early.  He opened his
+basket and ate for his breakfast what he had packed for his
+supper; and in doing so overhauled the remainder of his kit.
+Although everything he brought necessitated carriage at his
+own back, he had secreted among his tools a few of
+Elizabeth-Jane's cast-off belongings, in the shape of
+gloves, shoes, a scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and
+in his pocket he carried a curl of her hair.  Having looked
+at these things he closed them up again, and went onward.
+
+During five consecutive days Henchard's rush basket rode
+along upon his shoulder between the highway hedges, the new
+yellow of the rushes catching the eye of an occasional
+field-labourer as he glanced through the quickset,
+together with the wayfarer's hat and head, and down-turned
+face, over which the twig shadows moved in endless
+procession.  It now became apparent that the direction of
+his journey was Weydon Priors, which he reached on the
+afternoon of the sixth day.
+
+The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had been held for
+so many generations was now bare of human beings, and almost
+of aught besides.  A few sheep grazed thereabout, but these
+ran off when Henchard halted upon the summit.  He deposited
+his basket upon the turf, and looked about with sad
+curiosity; till he discovered the road by which his wife and
+himself had entered on the upland so memorable to both,
+five-and-twenty years before.
+
+"Yes, we came up that way," he said, after ascertaining his
+bearings.  "She was carrying the baby, and I was reading a
+ballet-sheet.  Then we crossed about here--she so sad and
+weary, and I speaking to her hardly at all, because of my
+cursed pride and mortification at being poor.  Then we saw
+the tent--that must have stood more this way."  He walked to
+another spot, it was not really where the tent had stood but
+it seemed so to him.  "Here we went in, and here we sat
+down.  I faced this way.  Then I drank, and committed my
+crime.  It must have been just on that very pixy-ring that
+she was standing when she said her last words to me before
+going off with him; I can hear their sound now, and the
+sound of her sobs: 'O Mike!  I've lived with thee all this
+while, and had nothing but temper.  Now I'm no more to 'ee--
+I'll try my luck elsewhere.'"
+
+He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds,
+in looking back upon an ambitious course, that what he has
+sacrificed in sentiment was worth as much as what he has
+gained in substance; but the superadded bitterness of seeing
+his very recantation nullified.  He had been sorry for all
+this long ago; but his attempts to replace ambition by love
+had been as fully foiled as his ambition itself.  His
+wronged wife had foiled them by a fraud so grandly simple as
+to be almost a virtue.  It was an odd sequence that out of
+all this tampering with social law came that flower of
+Nature, Elizabeth.  Part of his wish to wash his hands of
+life arose from his perception of its contrarious
+inconsistencies--of Nature's jaunty readiness to support
+unorthodox social principles.
+
+He intended to go on from this place--visited as an act of
+penance--into another part of the country altogether.  But
+he could not help thinking of Elizabeth, and the quarter of
+the horizon in which she lived.  Out of this it happened
+that the centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness of the
+world was counteracted by the centripetal influence of his
+love for his stepdaughter.  As a consequence, instead of
+following a straight course yet further away from
+Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almost unconsciously,
+deflected from that right line of his first intention; till,
+by degrees, his wandering, like that of the Canadian
+woodsman, became part of a circle of which Casterbridge
+formed the centre.  In ascending any particular hill he
+ascertained the bearings as nearly as he could by means of
+the sun, moon, or stars, and settled in his mind the exact
+direction in which Casterbridge and Elizabeth-Jane lay.
+Sneering at himself for his weakness he yet every hour--nay,
+every few minutes--conjectured her actions for the time
+being--her sitting down and rising up, her goings and
+comings, till thought of Newson's and Farfrae's counter-
+influence would pass like a cold blast over a pool, and
+efface her image.  And then he would say to himself, "O you
+fool!  All this about a daughter who is no daughter of
+thine!"
+
+At length he obtained employment at his own occupation of
+hay-trusser, work of that sort being in demand at this
+autumn time.  The scene of his hiring was a pastoral farm
+near the old western highway, whose course was the channel
+of all such communications as passed between the busy
+centres of novelty and the remote Wessex boroughs.  He had
+chosen the neighbourhood of this artery from a sense that,
+situated here, though at a distance of fifty miles, he was
+virtually nearer to her whose welfare was so dear than he
+would be at a roadless spot only half as remote.
+
+And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise
+standing which he had occupied a quarter of a century
+before.  Externally there was nothing to hinder his making
+another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights
+achieving higher things than his soul in its half-
+formed state had been able to accomplish.  But the ingenious
+machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human
+possibilities of amelioration to a minimum--which arranges
+that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with the
+departure of zest for doing--stood in the way of all that.
+He had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world
+that had become a mere painted scene to him.
+
+Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among the sweet-
+smelling grassy stems, he would survey mankind and say to
+himself: "Here and everywhere be folk dying before their
+time like frosted leaves, though wanted by their families,
+the country, and the world; while I, an outcast, an
+encumberer of the ground, wanted by nobody, and despised by
+all, live on against my will!"
+
+He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation of those
+who passed along the road--not from a general curiosity by
+any means--but in the hope that among these travellers
+between Casterbridge and London some would, sooner or later,
+speak of the former place.  The distance, however, was too
+great to lend much probability to his desire; and the
+highest result of his attention to wayside words was that he
+did indeed hear the name "Casterbridge" uttered one day by
+the driver of a road-waggon.  Henchard ran to the gate of
+the field he worked in, and hailed the speaker, who was a
+stranger.
+
+"Yes--I've come from there, maister," he said, in answer to
+Henchard's inquiry.  "I trade up and down, ye know; though,
+what with this travelling without horses that's getting so
+common, my work will soon be done."
+
+"Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?"
+
+"All the same as usual."
+
+"I've heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of
+getting married.  Now is that true or not?"
+
+"I couldn't say for the life o' me.  O no, I should think
+not."
+
+"But yes, John--you forget," said a woman inside the waggon-
+tilt.  "What were them packages we carr'd there at the
+beginning o' the week? Surely they said a wedding was coming
+off soon--on Martin's Day?"
+
+The man declared he remembered nothing about it; and
+the waggon went on jangling over the hill.
+
+Henchard was convinced that the woman's memory served her
+well.  The date was an extremely probable one, there being
+no reason for delay on either side.  He might, for that
+matter, write and inquire of Elizabeth; but his instinct for
+sequestration had made the course difficult.  Yet before he
+left her she had said that for him to be absent from her
+wedding was not as she wished it to be.
+
+The remembrance would continually revive in him now that it
+was not Elizabeth and Farfrae who had driven him away from
+them, but his own haughty sense that his presence was no
+longer desired.  He had assumed the return of Newson without
+absolute proof that the Captain meant to return; still less
+that Elizabeth-Jane would welcome him; and with no proof
+whatever that if he did return he would stay.  What if he
+had been mistaken in his views; if there had been no
+necessity that his own absolute separation from her he loved
+should be involved in these untoward incidents? To make one
+more attempt to be near her: to go back, to see her, to
+plead his cause before her, to ask forgiveness for his
+fraud, to endeavour strenuously to hold his own in her love;
+it was worth the risk of repulse, ay, of life itself.
+
+But how to initiate this reversal of all his former resolves
+without causing husband and wife to despise him for his
+inconsistency was a question which made him tremble and
+brood.
+
+He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and then he
+concluded his hesitancies by a sudden reckless determination
+to go to the wedding festivity.  Neither writing nor message
+would be expected of him.  She had regretted his decision to
+be absent--his unanticipated presence would fill the little
+unsatisfied corner that would probably have place in her
+just heart without him.
+
+To intrude as little of his personality as possible upon a
+gay event with which that personality could show nothing in
+keeping, he decided not to make his appearance till evening--
+when stiffness would have worn off, and a gentle wish to
+let bygones be bygones would exercise its sway in all
+hearts.
+
+He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin's-tide,
+allowing himself about sixteen miles to perform for
+each of the three days' journey, reckoning the wedding-day
+as one.  There were only two towns, Melchester and
+Shottsford, of any importance along his course, and at the
+latter he stopped on the second night, not only to rest, but
+to prepare himself for the next evening.
+
+Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stood in--now
+stained and distorted by their two months of hard usage, he
+entered a shop to make some purchases which should put him,
+externally at any rate, a little in harmony with the
+prevailing tone of the morrow.  A rough yet respectable coat
+and hat, a new shirt and neck-cloth, were the chief of
+these; and having satisfied himself that in appearance at
+least he would not now offend her, he proceeded to the more
+interesting particular of buying her some present.
+
+What should that present be? He walked up and down the
+street, regarding dubiously the display in the shop windows,
+from a gloomy sense that what he might most like to give her
+would be beyond his miserable pocket.  At length a caged
+goldfinch met his eye.  The cage was a plain and small one,
+the shop humble, and on inquiry he concluded he could afford
+the modest sum asked.  A sheet of newspaper was tied round
+the little creature's wire prison, and with the wrapped up
+cage in his hand Henchard sought a lodging for the night.
+
+Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soon within
+the district which had been his dealing ground in bygone
+years.  Part of the distance he travelled by carrier,
+seating himself in the darkest corner at the back of that
+trader's van; and as the other passengers, mainly women
+going short journeys, mounted and alighted in front of
+Henchard, they talked over much local news, not the least
+portion of this being the wedding then in course of
+celebration at the town they were nearing.  It appeared from
+their accounts that the town band had been hired for the
+evening party, and, lest the convivial instincts of that
+body should get the better of their skill, the further step
+had been taken of engaging the string band from Budmouth, so
+that there would be a reserve of harmony to fall back upon
+in case of need.
+
+He heard, however, but few particulars beyond those
+known to him already, the incident of the deepest interest
+on the journey being the soft pealing of the Casterbridge
+bells, which reached the travellers' ears while the van
+paused on the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag lowered.
+The time was just after twelve o'clock.
+
+Those notes were a signal that all had gone well; that there
+had been no slip 'twixt cup and lip in this case; that
+Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae were man and wife.
+
+Henchard did not care to ride any further with his
+chattering companions after hearing this sound.  Indeed, it
+quite unmanned him; and in pursuance of his plan of not
+showing himself in Casterbridge street till evening, lest he
+should mortify Farfrae and his bride, he alighted here, with
+his bundle and bird-cage, and was soon left as a lonely
+figure on the broad white highway.
+
+It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae,
+almost two years earlier, to tell him of the serious illness
+of his wife Lucetta.  The place was unchanged; the same
+larches sighed the same notes; but Farfrae had another wife--
+and, as Henchard knew, a better one.  He only hoped that
+Elizabeth-Jane had obtained a better home than had been hers
+at the former time.
+
+He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curious high-
+strung condition, unable to do much but think of the
+approaching meeting with her, and sadly satirize himself for
+his emotions thereon, as a Samson shorn.  Such an innovation
+on Casterbridge customs as a flitting of bridegroom and
+bride from the town immediately after the ceremony, was not
+likely, but if it should have taken place he would wait till
+their return.  To assure himself on this point he asked a
+market-man when near the borough if the newly-married couple
+had gone away, and was promptly informed that they had not;
+they were at that hour, according to all accounts,
+entertaining a houseful of guests at their home in Corn
+Street.
+
+Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at the
+riverside, and proceeded up the town under the feeble lamps.
+He need have made no inquiries beforehand, for on drawing
+near Farfrae's residence it was plain to the least observant
+that festivity prevailed within, and that Donald
+himself shared it, his voice being distinctly audible in the
+street, giving strong expression to a song of his dear
+native country that he loved so well as never to have
+revisited it.  Idlers were standing on the pavement in
+front; and wishing to escape the notice of these Henchard
+passed quickly on to the door.
+
+It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and
+people were going up and down the stairs.  His courage
+failed him; to enter footsore, laden, and poorly dressed
+into the midst of such resplendency was to bring needless
+humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse from
+her husband.  Accordingly he went round into the street at
+the back that he knew so well, entered the garden, and came
+quietly into the house through the kitchen, temporarily
+depositing the bird and cage under a bush outside, to lessen
+the awkwardness of his arrival.
+
+Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard that he now
+feared circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he
+began to wish that he had not taken upon himself to arrive
+at such a juncture.  However, his progress was made
+unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in the kitchen an
+elderly woman who seemed to be acting as provisional
+housekeeper during the convulsions from which Farfrae's
+establishment was just then suffering.  She was one of those
+people whom nothing surprises, and though to her, a total
+stranger, his request must have seemed odd, she willingly
+volunteered to go up and inform the master and mistress of
+the house that "a humble old friend" had come.
+
+On second thought she said that he had better not wait in
+the kitchen, but come up into the little back-parlour, which
+was empty.  He thereupon followed her thither, and she left
+him.  Just as she got across the landing to the door of the
+best parlour a dance was struck up, and she returned to say
+that she would wait till that was over before announcing
+him--Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure.
+
+The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to
+give more space, and that of the room Henchard sat in being
+ajar, he could see fractional parts of the dancers whenever
+their gyrations brought them near the doorway, chiefly in
+the shape of the skirts of dresses and streaming curls of
+hair; together with about three-fifths of the band in
+profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler's elbow,
+and the tip of the bass-viol bow.
+
+The gaiety jarred upon Henchard's spirits; and he could not
+quite understand why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a
+widower, who had had his trials, should have cared for it
+all, notwithstanding the fact that he was quite a young man
+still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by dance and song.
+That the quiet Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised life at
+a moderate value, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood
+that marriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should have
+had zest for this revelry surprised him still more.
+However, young people could not be quite old people, he
+concluded, and custom was omnipotent.
+
+With the progress of the dance the performers spread out
+somewhat, and then for the first time he caught a glimpse of
+the once despised daughter who had mastered him, and made
+his heart ache.  She was in a dress of white silk or satin,
+he was not near enough to say which--snowy white, without a
+tinge of milk or cream; and the expression of her face was
+one of nervous pleasure rather than of gaiety.  Presently
+Farfrae came round, his exuberant Scotch movement making him
+conspicuous in a moment.  The pair were not dancing
+together, but Henchard could discern that whenever the
+chances of the figure made them the partners of a moment
+their emotions breathed a much subtler essence than at other
+times.
+
+By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod
+by some one who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory
+intenseness.  This was strange, and it was stranger to find
+that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth-Jane's partner.
+The first time that Henchard saw him he was sweeping grandly
+round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in the form
+of an X and his back towards the door.  The next time he
+came round in the other direction, his white waist-coat
+preceding his face, and his toes preceding his white
+waistcoat.  That happy face--Henchard's complete
+discomfiture lay in it.  It was Newson's, who had indeed
+come and supplanted him.
+
+Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made
+no other movement.  He rose to his feet, and stood like
+a dark ruin, obscured by "the shade from his own soul up-
+thrown."
+
+But he was no longer the man to stand these reverses
+unmoved.  His agitation was great, and he would fain have
+been gone, but before he could leave the dance had ended,
+the housekeeper had informed Elizabeth-Jane of the stranger
+who awaited her, and she entered the room immediately.
+
+"Oh--it is--Mr. Henchard!" she said, starting back.
+
+"What, Elizabeth?" he cried, as she seized her hand.  "What
+do you say?--Mr. Henchard? Don't, don't scourge me like
+that!  Call me worthless old Henchard--anything--but don't
+'ee be so cold as this!  O my maid--I see you have another--a
+real father in my place.  Then you know all; but don't give
+all your thought to him!  Do ye save a little room for me!"
+
+She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away.  "I could
+have loved you always--I would have, gladly," she said.
+"But how can I when I know you have deceived me so--so
+bitterly deceived me!  You persuaded me that my father was
+not my father--allowed me to live on in ignorance of the
+truth for years; and then when he, my warm-hearted real
+father, came to find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked
+invention of my death, which nearly broke his heart.  O how
+can I love as I once did a man who has served us like this!"
+
+Henchard's lips half parted to begin an explanation.  But he
+shut them up like a vice, and uttered not a sound.  How
+should he, there and then, set before her with any effect
+the palliatives of his great faults--that he had himself
+been deceived in her identity at first, till informed by her
+mother's letter that his own child had died; that, in the
+second accusation, his lie had been the last desperate throw
+of a gamester who loved her affection better than his own
+honour? Among the many hindrances to such a pleading not the
+least was this, that he did not sufficiently value himself
+to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal or elaborate
+argument.
+
+Waiving, therefore, his privilege of self-defence, he
+regarded only his discomposure.  "Don't ye distress yourself
+on my account," he said, with proud superiority.  "I would
+not wish it--at such a time, too, as this.  I have done
+wrong in coming to 'ee--I see my error.  But it is only for
+once, so forgive it.  I'll never trouble 'ee again,
+Elizabeth-Jane--no, not to my dying day!  Good-night.  Good-
+bye!"
+
+Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchard went
+out from her rooms, and departed from the house by the back
+way as he had come; and she saw him no more.
+
+
+
+45.
+
+
+It was about a month after the day which closed as in the
+last chapter.  Elizabeth-Jane had grown accustomed to the
+novelty of her situation, and the only difference between
+Donald's movements now and formerly was that he hastened
+indoors rather more quickly after business hours than he had
+been in the habit of doing for some time.
+
+Newson had stayed in Casterbridge three days after the
+wedding party (whose gaiety, as might have been surmised,
+was of his making rather than of the married couple's), and
+was stared at and honoured as became the returned Crusoe of
+the hour.  But whether or not because Casterbridge was
+difficult to excite by dramatic returns and disappearances
+through having been for centuries an assize town, in which
+sensational exits from the world, antipodean absences, and
+such like, were half-yearly occurrences, the inhabitants did
+not altogether lose their equanimity on his account.  On the
+fourth morning he was discovered disconsolately climbing a
+hill, in his craving to get a glimpse of the sea from
+somewhere or other.  The contiguity of salt water proved to
+be such a necessity of his existence that he preferred
+Budmouth as a place of residence, notwithstanding the
+society of his daughter in the other town.  Thither he went,
+and settled in lodgings in a green-shuttered cottage which
+had a bow-window, jutting out sufficiently to afford
+glimpses of a vertical strip of blue sea to any one opening
+the sash, and leaning forward far enough to look through a
+narrow lane of tall intervening houses.
+
+Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her
+upstairs parlour, critically surveying some re-arrangement
+of articles with her head to one side, when the housemaid
+came in with the announcement, "Oh, please ma'am, we know
+now how that bird-cage came there."
+
+In exploring her new domain during the first week of
+residence, gazing with critical satisfaction on this
+cheerful room and that, penetrating cautiously into dark
+cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to the garden,
+now leaf-strewn by autumn winds, and thus, like a wise
+field-marshal, estimating the capabilities of the site
+whereon she was about to open her housekeeping campaign--
+Mrs. Donald Farfrae had discovered in a screened corner a
+new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper, and at the bottom of
+the cage a little ball of feathers--the dead body of a
+goldfinch.  Nobody could tell her how the bird and cage had
+come there, though that the poor little songster had been
+starved to death was evident.  The sadness of the incident
+had made an impression on her.  She had not been able to
+forget it for days, despite Farfrae's tender banter; and now
+when the matter had been nearly forgotten it was again
+revived.
+
+"Oh, please ma'am, we know how the bird-cage came there.
+That farmer's man who called on the evening of the wedding--
+he was seen wi' it in his hand as he came up the street; and
+'tis thoughted that he put it down while he came in with his
+message, and then went away forgetting where he had left
+it."
+
+This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and in thinking
+she seized hold of the idea, at one feminine bound, that the
+caged bird had been brought by Henchard for her as a wedding
+gift and token of repentance.  He had not expressed to her
+any regrets or excuses for what he had done in the past; but
+it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and live
+on as one of his own worst accusers.  She went out, looked
+at the cage, buried the starved little singer, and from that
+hour her heart softened towards the self-alienated man.
+
+When her husband came in she told him her solution of the
+bird-cage mystery; and begged Donald to help her in finding
+out, as soon as possible, whither Henchard had banished
+himself, that she might make her peace with him; try to do
+something to render his life less that of an outcast, and
+more tolerable to him.  Although Farfrae had never so
+passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had liked him, he
+had, on the other hand, never so passionately hated in the
+same direction as his former friend had done, and he was
+therefore not the least indisposed to assist Elizabeth-Jane
+in her laudable plan.
+
+But it was by no means easy to set about discovering
+Henchard.  He had apparently sunk into the earth on leaving
+Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae's door.  Elizabeth-Jane remembered what
+he had once attempted; and trembled.
+
+But though she did not know it Henchard had become a changed
+man since then--as far, that is, as change of emotional
+basis can justify such a radical phrase; and she needed not
+to fear.  In a few days Farfrae's inquiries elicited that
+Henchard had been seen by one who knew him walking steadily
+along the Melchester highway eastward, at twelve o'clock at
+night--in other words, retracing his steps on the road by
+which he had come.
+
+This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae might have
+been discovered driving his gig out of Casterbridge in that
+direction, Elizabeth-Jane sitting beside him, wrapped in a
+thick flat fur--the victorine of the period--her complexion
+somewhat richer than formerly, and an incipient matronly
+dignity, which the serene Minerva-eyes of one "whose
+gestures beamed with mind" made becoming, settling on her
+face.  Having herself arrived at a promising haven from at
+least the grosser troubles of her life, her object was to
+place Henchard in some similar quietude before he should
+sink into that lower stage of existence which was only too
+possible to him now.
+
+After driving along the highway for a few miles they made
+further inquiries, and learnt of a road-mender, who had been
+working thereabouts for weeks, that he had observed such a
+man at the time mentioned; he had left the Melchester
+coachroad at Weatherbury by a forking highway which skirted
+the north of Egdon Heath.  Into this road they directed the
+horse's head, and soon were bowling across that ancient
+country whose surface never had been stirred to a
+finger's depth, save by the scratchings of rabbits,
+since brushed by the feet of the earliest tribes.  The
+tumuli these had left behind, dun and shagged with heather,
+jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as though they
+were the full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinely extended
+there.
+
+They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard.  Farfrae drove
+onward, and by the afternoon reached the neighbourhood of
+some extension of the heath to the north of Anglebury, a
+prominent feature of which, in the form of a blasted clump
+of firs on a summit of a hill, they soon passed under.  That
+the road they were following had, up to this point, been
+Henchard's track on foot they were pretty certain; but the
+ramifications which now began to reveal themselves in the
+route made further progress in the right direction a matter
+of pure guess-work, and Donald strongly advised his wife to
+give up the search in person, and trust to other means for
+obtaining news of her stepfather.  They were now a score of
+miles at least from home, but, by resting the horse for a
+couple of hours at a village they had just traversed, it
+would be possible to get back to Casterbridge that same day,
+while to go much further afield would reduce them to the
+necessity of camping out for the night, "and that will make
+a hole in a sovereign," said Farfrae.  She pondered the
+position, and agreed with him.
+
+He accordingly drew rein, but before reversing their
+direction paused a moment and looked vaguely round upon the
+wide country which the elevated position disclosed.  While
+they looked a solitary human form came from under the clump
+of trees, and crossed ahead of them.  The person was some
+labourer; his gait was shambling, his regard fixed in front
+of him as absolutely as if he wore blinkers; and in his hand
+he carried a few sticks.  Having crossed the road he
+descended into a ravine, where a cottage revealed itself,
+which he entered.
+
+"If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say
+that must be poor Whittle.  'Tis just like him," observed
+Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"And it may be Whittle, for he's never been to the yard
+these three weeks, going away without saying any word at
+all; and I owing him for two days' work, without
+knowing who to pay it to."
+
+The possibility led them to alight, and at least make an
+inquiry at the cottage.  Farfrae hitched the reins to the
+gate-post, and they approached what was of humble dwellings
+surely the humblest.  The walls, built of kneaded clay
+originally faced with a trowel, had been worn by years of
+rain-washings to a lumpy crumbling surface, channelled and
+sunken from its plane, its gray rents held together here and
+there by a leafy strap of ivy which could scarcely find
+substance enough for the purpose.  The rafters were sunken,
+and the thatch of the roof in ragged holes.  Leaves from the
+fence had been blown into the corners of the doorway, and
+lay there undisturbed.  The door was ajar; Farfrae knocked;
+and he who stood before them was Whittle, as they had
+conjectured.
+
+His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lighting on
+them with an unfocused gaze; and he still held in his hand
+the few sticks he had been out to gather.  As soon as he
+recognized them he started.
+
+"What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?" said Farfrae.
+
+"Ay, yes sir!  You see he was kind-like to mother when she
+wer here below, though 'a was rough to me."
+
+"Who are you talking of?"
+
+"O sir--Mr. Henchet!  Didn't ye know it? He's just gone--
+about half-an-hour ago, by the sun; for I've got no watch to
+my name."
+
+"Not--dead?" faltered Elizabeth-Jane.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, he's gone!  He was kind-like to mother when she
+wer here below, sending her the best ship-coal, and hardly
+any ashes from it at all; and taties, and such-like that
+were very needful to her.  I seed en go down street on the
+night of your worshipful's wedding to the lady at yer side,
+and I thought he looked low and faltering.  And I followed
+en over Grey's Bridge, and he turned and zeed me, and said,
+'You go back!' But I followed, and he turned again, and
+said, 'Do you hear, sir? Go back!' But I zeed that he was
+low, and I followed on still.  Then 'a said, 'Whittle, what
+do ye follow me for when I've told ye to go back all these
+times?' And I said, 'Because, sir, I see things be bad with
+'ee, and ye wer kind-like to mother if ye wer rough to
+me, and I would fain be kind-like to you.' Then he walked
+on, and I followed; and he never complained at me no more.
+We walked on like that all night; and in the blue o' the
+morning, when 'twas hardly day, I looked ahead o' me, and I
+zeed that he wambled, and could hardly drag along.  By the
+time we had got past here, but I had seen that this house
+was empty as I went by, and I got him to come back; and I
+took down the boards from the windows, and helped him
+inside.  'What, Whittle,' he said, 'and can ye really be
+such a poor fond fool as to care for such a wretch as I!'
+Then I went on further, and some neighbourly woodmen lent me
+a bed, and a chair, and a few other traps, and we brought
+'em here, and made him as comfortable as we could.  But he
+didn't gain strength, for you see, ma'am, he couldn't eat--
+no appetite at all--and he got weaker; and to-day he died.
+One of the neighbours have gone to get a man to measure
+him."
+
+"Dear me--is that so!" said Farfrae.
+
+As for Elizabeth, she said nothing.
+
+"Upon the head of his bed he pinned a piece of paper, with
+some writing upon it," continued Abel Whittle.  "But not
+being a man o' letters, I can't read writing; so I don't
+know what it is.  I can get it and show ye."
+
+They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage;
+returning in a moment with a crumpled scrap of paper.  On it
+there was pencilled as follows:--
+
+
+MICHAEL HENCHARD'S WILL
+
+"That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or
+made to grieve on account of me.
+  "& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground.
+  "& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.
+  "& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.
+  "& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.
+  "& that no flours be planted on my grave,
+  "& that no man remember me.
+  "To this I put my name.
+
+                                     MICHAEL HENCHARD
+
+
+"What are we to do?" said Donald, when he had handed
+the paper to her.
+
+She could not answer distinctly.  "O Donald!" she cried at
+last through her tears, "what bitterness lies there!  O I
+would not have minded so much if it had not been for my
+unkindness at that last parting!...But there's no altering--
+so it must be."
+
+What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dying was
+respected as far as practicable by Elizabeth-Jane, though
+less from a sense of the sacredness of last words, as such,
+than from her independent knowledge that the man who wrote
+them meant what he said.  She knew the directions to be a
+piece of the same stuff that his whole life was made of, and
+hence were not to be tampered with to give herself a
+mournful pleasure, or her husband credit for large-
+heartedness.
+
+All was over at last, even her regrets for having
+misunderstood him on his last visit, for not having searched
+him out sooner, though these were deep and sharp for a good
+while.  From this time forward Elizabeth-Jane found herself
+in a latitude of calm weather, kindly and grateful in
+itself, and doubly so after the Capharnaum in which some of
+her preceding years had been spent.  As the lively and
+sparkling emotions of her early married live cohered into an
+equable serenity, the finer movements of her nature found
+scope in discovering to the narrow-lived ones around her the
+secret (as she had once learnt it) of making limited
+opportunities endurable; which she deemed to consist in the
+cunning enlargement, by a species of microscopic treatment,
+of those minute forms of satisfaction that offer themselves
+to everybody not in positive pain; which, thus handled, have
+much of the same inspiring effect upon life as wider
+interests cursorily embraced.
+
+Her teaching had a reflex action upon herself, insomuch that
+she thought she could perceive no great personal difference
+between being respected in the nether parts of Casterbridge
+and glorified at the uppermost end of the social world.  Her
+position was, indeed, to a marked degree one that, in the
+common phrase, afforded much to be thankful for.  That she
+was not demonstratively thankful was no fault of hers.  Her
+experience had been of a kind to teach her, rightly or
+wrongly, that the doubtful honour of a brief transmit
+through a sorry world hardly called for effusiveness, even
+when the path was suddenly irradiated at some half-way point
+by daybeams rich as hers.  But her strong sense that neither
+she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did
+not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving
+less who had deserved much more.  And in being forced to
+class herself among the fortunate she did not cease to
+wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to
+whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the
+adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that
+happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama
+of pain.
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Mayor of Casterbridge by Hardy
+
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