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diff --git a/old/143-h/143-h.htm b/old/143-h/143-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8df81e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/143-h/143-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,18316 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The 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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then is there any house to let—a little small new cottage just a +builded, or such like?” asked the other. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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 “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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve never tasted it,” 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’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. +</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, “Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may have trouble in +getting it if we don’t go soon.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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’s high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies +by an early imprudent marriage, was the theme. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s them that would do that,” some of the guests +replied, looking at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for this gem +o’ creation.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’ve said it before; I meant it. All I want is a +buyer.” +</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’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. +“Here—I am waiting to know about this offer of mine. The woman is +no good to me. Who’ll have her?” +</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: “Come, come, it is getting dark, and this nonsense +won’t do. If you don’t come along, I shall go without you. +Come!” +</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, “I asked +this question, and nobody answered to ’t. Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw +among ye buy my goods?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman’s manner changed, and her face assumed the grim shape and +colour of which mention has been made. +</p> + +<p> +“Mike, Mike,” she said; “this is getting serious. +O!—too serious!” +</p> + +<p> +“Will anybody buy her?” said the man. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish somebody would,” said she firmly. “Her present owner +is not at all to her liking!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The woman, however, did stand up. “Now, who’s auctioneer?” +cried the hay-trusser. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a supreme +effort of will. +</p> + +<p> +“Five shillings,” said someone, at which there was a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“No insults,” said the husband. “Who’ll say a +guinea?” +</p> + +<p> +Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces interposed. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Set it higher, auctioneer,” said the trusser. +</p> + +<p> +“Two guineas!” said the auctioneer; and no one replied. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Three guineas—going for three guineas!” said the rheumy man. +</p> + +<p> +“No bid?” said the husband. “Good Lord, why she’s cost +me fifty times the money, if a penny. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Four guineas!” cried the auctioneer. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +She bowed her head with absolute indifference. +</p> + +<p> +“Five guineas,” said the auctioneer, “or she’ll be +withdrawn. Do anybody give it? The last time. Yes or no?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” 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> +“You say you do?” asked the husband, staring at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I say so,” replied the sailor. +</p> + +<p> +“Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where’s the +money?” +</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—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’ faces, and they waited with parting +lips. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is +willing,” said the sailor blandly. “I wouldn’t hurt her +feelings for the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“That you swear?” said the sailor to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said she, after glancing at her husband’s face and +seeing no repentance there. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Is she gone?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, ay! she’s gone clane enough,” 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> +“Where do the sailor live?” asked a spectator, when they had vainly +gazed around. +</p> + +<p> +“God knows that,” replied the man who had seen high life. +“He’s without doubt a stranger here.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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—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. +</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’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. “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. +</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’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> +“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!” +</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’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— +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’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. +</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’ 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’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. +</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> +“Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to +get onward?” said the maiden. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane,” explained the other. “But I +had a fancy for looking up here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was here I first met with Newson—on such a day as this.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly had it told +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is, or was—for he may be dead—a connection by +marriage,” said her mother deliberately. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not by any means.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was a hay-trusser, wasn’t he, when you last heard of him? +</p> + +<p> +“He was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he never knew me?” the girl innocently continued. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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, “Good furmity +sold here!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“She was here at that time,” resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as +if to draw nearer. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t speak to her—it isn’t respectable!” urged +the other. +</p> + +<p> +“I will just say a word—you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here.” +</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’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 <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, “Just a +thought o’ rum in it?—smuggled, you know—say two +penn’orth—’twill make it slip down like cordial!” +</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, “You’ve seen better days?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes. I think so.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</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’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to the village, where +they obtained a night’s lodging. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV.</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“Why, surely,” said Elizabeth, as they receded, “those men +mentioned the name of Henchard in their talk—the name of our +relative?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought so too,” said Mrs. Newson. +</p> + +<p> +“That seems a hint to us that he is still here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I run after them, and ask them about him——” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse, or +in the stocks, for all we know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me—why should you think that, mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas just something to say—that’s all! But we must +make private inquiries.” +</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’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—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’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. +</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—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. +</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’s. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And less good beer than swipes,” said a man with his hands in his +pockets. +</p> + +<p> +“How does it happen there’s no good bread?” asked Mrs. +Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said Elizabeth’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’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 “The Roast Beef of Old +England.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed her directions and +stood among the idlers. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Henchard!” 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’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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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. “Have you seen him, +mother?” whispered the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know at all—I can’t tell what to set about. I +feel so down.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But wait a little time and consider.” +</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—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’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> +“They don’t fill Mr. Henchard’s wine-glasses,” she +ventured to say to her elbow acquaintance, the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in by inquiring, +“How much longer have he got to suffer from it, Solomon Longways?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And ’a must need such +reflections—a lonely widow man,” said Longways. +</p> + +<p> +“When did he lose his wife?” asked Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he many men, then?” said Elizabeth-Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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> +“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?” +</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’ 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!” +</p> + +<p> +The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no,” said the +inharmonious man outside the window. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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—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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“Give this to the Mayor at once,” 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—a strange one for those parts. +It was quaint and northerly. +</p> + +<p> +The waiter took the note, while the young stranger continued— +</p> + +<p> +“And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that’s a little more +moderate than this?” +</p> + +<p> +The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street. +</p> + +<p> +“They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very good +place,” he languidly answered; “but I have never stayed there +myself.” +</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. “The +evening is drawing on, mother,” she said. “What do you propose to +do?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +Her mother assented, and down the street they went. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“A young man, sir—a sort of traveller. He was a Scotchman +seemingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he say how he had got it?” +</p> + +<p> +“He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—wrote it himself.... Is the young man in the hotel?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners, I believe.” +</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—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. +</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’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—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. +</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—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> +“’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. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear it is, too,” said Elizabeth. “But we must be +respectable.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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> +“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. +</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’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> +“’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.” +</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—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. +</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’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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her mother whispered +as she drew near, “’Tis he.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“The Mayor.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did,” said the Scotchman. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said the Scotchman, with some surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you are the man,” went on Henchard insistingly, “who +arranged to come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp—Jopp—what was his +name?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was nothing, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s complete!—quite restored, +or—well—nearly.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re liberal—very liberal, but no, no—I +cannet!” the young man still replied, with some distress in his accents. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Donald Farfrae was grateful—said he feared he must decline—that he +wished to leave early next day. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay; that’s so,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll no’ press ye, sir—I’ll no’ press ye. +I respect your vow.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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’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. +</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—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’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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“It’s hame, and it’s hame, hame fain would I be,<br /> +O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!<br /> +There’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!” +</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’s song was temporarily effaced. +</p> + +<p> +“’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe,” 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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Longways; “let the young man draw onward with +his ballet, or we shall be here all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all of it,” said the singer apologetically. +</p> + +<p> +“Soul of my body, then we’ll have another!” said the general +dealer. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him breathe—let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom. He hain’t +got his second wind yet,” said the master glazier. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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—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. +</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—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— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“As I came in by my bower door,<br /> +    As day was waxin’ wearie,<br /> +Oh wha came tripping down the stair<br /> +    But bonnie Peg my dearie.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—on quite another +matter than a young man’s song. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>him</i>. 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.” +</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 “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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +“And you are off soon, I suppose?” said Henchard upwards. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—almost this moment, sir,” said the other. “Maybe +I’ll walk on till the coach makes up on me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which way?” +</p> + +<p> +“The way ye are going.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then shall we walk together to the top o’ town?” +</p> + +<p> +“If ye’ll wait a minute,” 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’s +departure. “Ah, my lad,” he said, “you should have been a +wise man, and have stayed with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“You are still thinking, mother,” she said, when she turned +inwards. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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, +“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. +</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’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> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“And if he say yes?” inquired the more sanguine one. +</p> + +<p> +“In that case,” answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, “ask him +to write me a note, saying when and how he will see us—or +<i>me</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <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’s hat a smart buffet off his head, +as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun’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’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—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. +</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’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. +</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 “Come in.” +</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—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> +“Yes, what it is?” said the Scotchman, like a man who permanently +ruled there. +</p> + +<p> +She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard’s, returned the +latter’s grasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Done,” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“Done,” said Donald Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is too airly in the morning for that,” said Farfrae with a +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“The new manager!—he’s in his office,” said Henchard +bluntly. +</p> + +<p> +“In his office!” said the man, with a stultified air. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“You said Thursday or Saturday, sir,” said the newcomer, pulling +out a letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are too late,” said the corn-factor. “I can say no +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“You as good as engaged me,” murmured the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Subject to an interview,” said Henchard. “I am sorry for +you—very sorry indeed. But it can’t be helped.” +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +“Can I speak to you—not on business, sir?” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—I suppose.” He looked at her more thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The rich <i>rouge-et-noir</i> of his countenance underwent a slight change. +“Oh—Susan is—still alive?” he asked with difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you her daughter?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir—her only daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“What—do you call yourself—your Christian name?” +</p> + +<p> +“Elizabeth-Jane, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Newson?” +</p> + +<p> +“Elizabeth-Jane Newson.” +</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> +“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.” +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling.” +</p> + +<p> +“A sailor’s widow—when did he die?” +</p> + +<p> +“Father was lost last spring.” +</p> + +<p> +Henchard winced at the word “father,” thus applied. “Do you +and she come from abroad—America or Australia?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when we came here +from Canada.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“At the Three Mariners.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Not very well,” 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 “Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners Inn,” and +handed the packet to Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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> +“Begad!” he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. “I didn’t +think of that. Perhaps these are impostors—and Susan and the child dead +after all!” +</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’s identity; for he had arranged in his note to see +her that evening. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’s back was +turned when her mother opened the letter. It ran thus:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“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.” +</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—in itself the most common of any—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—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. +</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—there was no necessity for speech—and the poor woman leant +against Henchard, who supported her in his arms. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that she understood. After a minute +or two he again began: +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tut-tut! How could you be so simple?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. Yet it would have been very wicked—if I had +not thought like that!” said Susan, almost crying. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—yes—so it would. It is only that which makes me feel +’ee an innocent woman. But—to lead me into this!” +</p> + +<p> +“What, Michael?” she asked, alarmed. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“That was why she was brought up in ignorance of you. I could not bear it +either.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll go away at once. I only came to see—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the lodgings are in High Street they are dear, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind—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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“And are you comfortable at the inn?” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the girl is quite safe from learning the shame of her case and +ours?—that’s what makes me most anxious of all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would be surprised to find how unlikely she is to dream of the +truth. How could she ever suppose such a thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“True!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well—arrange that yourself. I’ll go some way with +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right,” said Henchard. “But just one word. Do you forgive +me, Susan?” +</p> + +<p> +She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficult to frame her answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind—all in good time,” said he. “Judge me by my +future works—good-bye!” +</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, “Don’t let me interrupt you, if ye will stay so +late.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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’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, “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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I heard in the town that you were a widower.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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. “I have kept my +oath for nineteen years,” he went on; “I have risen to what you see +me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come back, has she!” +</p> + +<p> +“This morning—this very morning. And what’s to be +done?” +</p> + +<p> +“Can ye no’ take her and live with her, and make some +amends?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I’ve planned and proposed. But, Farfrae,” +said Henchard gloomily, “by doing right with Susan I wrong another +innocent woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye don’t say that?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, now, I never feel like it,” said Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Donald showed his deep concern at a complication so far beyond the degree of +his simple experiences. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are both in a very melancholy position, and that’s +true!” murmured Donald. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I will.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I’d run the risk, and tell her the truth. She’ll +forgive ye both.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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, “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do. And I’m sorry for ye!” 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> +“Can it be that it will go off so easily!” he said. “Poor +thing—God knows! Now then, to make amends to Susan!” +</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—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. +</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—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, “This is a very good opportunity for me to ask you to name the +happy day, Susan.” +</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’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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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> +“’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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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. “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not. Nor another to beat me.... Ah, yes, Cuxsom’s gone, and +so shall leather breeches!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go.” +</p> + +<p> +“’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas that that kept us so low upon ground—that great hungry +family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runs thin.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do, hee-hee, I do!” said Christopher Coney. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know but that I may as well go with ’ee, +Solomon,” said Christopher; “I’m as clammy as a +cockle-snail.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV.</h2> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</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> +“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.” +</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’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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, “Did +I?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It did; but they alter so,” replied Susan. +</p> + +<p> +“Their hair gets darker, I know—but I wasn’t aware it +lightened ever?” +</p> + +<p> +“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: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. O no. But—” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I shall do it,” he said, peremptorily. “Surely, +if she’s willing, you must wish it as much as I?” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes—if she agrees let us do it by all means,” 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. “Can you agree—is it not a slight upon +Newson—now he’s dead and gone?” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth reflected. “I’ll think of it, mother,” 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. “Do you wish this change so very much, sir?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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 “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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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’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. +</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’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. +</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’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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Mr. Farfrae,” she faltered, “so have I. But I didn’t +know it was you who wished to see me, otherwise I—” +</p> + +<p> +“I wished to see you? O no—at least, that is, I am afraid there may +be a mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you ask me to come here? Didn’t you write +this?” Elizabeth held out her note. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“By no means.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is that really so! Then it’s somebody wanting to see us both. +Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a great liberty,” said Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“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——” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mind—much,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Neither do I.” +</p> + +<p> +They lapsed again into silence. “You are anxious to get back to Scotland, +I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?” she inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go—rain or no.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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, “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. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—now I’ll go and get ye an umbrella,” 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, +“As I came down through Cannobie.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV.</h2> + +<p> +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.” +</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 “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.” +</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. “Good Heaven,” she whispered, “can it be? Here am I +setting up as the town beauty!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. “Yes, sir,” he said, in +breathless deprecation, as if he knew what was coming next. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” 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’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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“But let me clear up my points, your worshipful——” +</p> + +<p> +Henchard turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afeard I mustn’t! Mr. Henchard said——” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care what Mr. Henchard said, nor anybody else! ’Tis +simple foolishness to do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, hullo!” said Henchard, coming up behind. “Who’s +sending him back?” +</p> + +<p> +All the men looked towards Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said Donald. “I say this joke has been carried far +enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I say it hasn’t! Get up in the waggon, Whittle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I am manager,” said Farfrae. “He either goes home, or +I march out of this yard for good.” +</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’s look +that he began to regret this. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Donald quietly, “a man o’ your position +should ken better, sir! It is tyrannical and no worthy of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“’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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I had forgot it,” 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’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!” +</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> +“Very well,” he said. “I’ll come.” +</p> + +<p> +“But please will Mr. Farfrae come?” said the child. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going that way.... Why Mr. Farfrae?” said Henchard, with the +fixed look of thought. “Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose because they like him so—that’s what they +say.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—that’s just it, sir—some of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s more? Of course there’s more! What besides? +Come, here’s a sixpence for a fairing.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘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.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’ll talk any nonsense,” Henchard replied with covered +gloom. “Well, you can go now. And <i>I</i> am coming to value the hay, +d’ye hear?—I.” The boy departed, and Henchard murmured, +“Wish he were master here, do they?” +</p> + +<p> +He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtook Farfrae. They walked on +together, Henchard looking mostly on the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re no yoursel’ the day?” Donald inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am very well,” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I am going there.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go with ye.” +</p> + +<p> +As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a piece of music <i>sotto voce</i>, +till, getting near the bereaved people’s door, he stopped himself +with— +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, as their father is dead I won’t go on with such as that. How +could I forget?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you care so very much about hurting folks’ feelings?” +observed Henchard with a half sneer. “You do, I know—especially +mine!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +The cloud lifted from Henchard’s brow, and as Donald finished the +corn-merchant turned to him, regarding his breast rather than his face. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI.</h2> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“Have as many cloths as you like,” 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—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. +</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’s talents. +</p> + +<p> +Everybody applauded the Mayor’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—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. +</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’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’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’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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are at Farfrae’s affair in the West Walk,” answered a +Councilman who stood in the field with the Mayor. +</p> + +<p> +“A few, I suppose. But where are the body o’ ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +“All out of doors are there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the more fools they!” +</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—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. +</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’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—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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“But he won’t do it for long, good-now,” said the other. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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. “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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be top-sawyer soon of you two, and carry all afore +him,” added jocular Mr. Tubber. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</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—just come from the dialogue with +Henchard which had signified his dismissal. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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, “It’s like that I’m +going to leave you soon.” +</p> + +<p> +She faltered, “Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She said she could not dance—in any proper way. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder why they did it!” +</p> + +<p> +“For fun, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That I’m sure we won’t!” she said earnestly. +“I—wish you wouldn’t go at all.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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’s door. +“O dear me—what am I at?” she thought, as she pulled up +breathless. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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. +</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, “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. +</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’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> +“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!” +</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’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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I have promised him nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good. All’s well that ends well. I particularly wish you not to +see him again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“You promise?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated for a moment, and then said— +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, if you much wish it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do. He’s an enemy to our house!” +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavy hand to Farfrae +thus:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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. +</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’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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—for the young girl’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—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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</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—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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“For the handsome sum you forwarded to me as a plaster to the wound I +heartily thank you. +</p> + +<p> +“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, +</p> + +<p> +“LUCETTA” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>ought</i> to do it—I ought to do it, +indeed!” +</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’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:— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Mr. Michael Henchard. Not to be opened till Elizabeth-Jane’s +wedding-day.</i>” +</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—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. +</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: “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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not to make fools of you—it was done to bring you together. +’Twas I did it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” said Elizabeth, with a start. +</p> + +<p> +“I—wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps they’ll be friends again,” murmured the girl. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know—I don’t know.” 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’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. +</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’s death, as she had learnt +them from the nurse. +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, poor heart!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas a cannibal deed!” deprecated her listeners. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>should</i> +death rob life o’ fourpence? I say there was no treason in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; often,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Who do you put in your pictures of ’em?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mother and father—nobody else hardly.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir; very.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think it,” she said quickly. “I can think of +no other as my father, except my father.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“That you were related by marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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’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> +“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 +<i>he</i> was! I’ll do anything, if you will only look upon me as your +father!” +</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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“If it is my name I must have it, mustn’t I?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well; usage is everything in these matters.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder why mother didn’t wish it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can see by the firelight,” she answered. +“Yes—I’d rather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well.” +</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—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> +“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!” +</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—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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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, “<i>Not to be opened till +Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding-day</i>.” +</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. “Some trifling fancy or other of poor +Susan’s, I suppose,” he said; and without curiosity he allowed his +eyes to scan the letter:— +</p> + +<p class="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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a couple of hours; till he +suddenly said, “Ah—I wonder if it is true!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</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’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—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. +</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, +“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. +</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—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> +“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. +</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’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’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’s was her occasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect +words—those terrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘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?” +</p> + +<p> +She reddened with shame and sadness. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant ‘Stay where you are,’ father,” she said, in a +low, humble voice. “I ought to have been more careful.” +</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 +“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.” +</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—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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be jowned, and so be I,” said the gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink, and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then—‘An agreement entered into this sixteenth day of +October’—write that first.” +</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’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,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“In such a hand as when a field of corn<br /> +Bows all its ears before the roaring East,” +</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, “Never +mind—I’ll finish it,” 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, “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. +</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> +“Elizabeth, come here!” said Henchard; and she obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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, “Come to that, Mr. Henchard, I +can let ’ee know she’ve waited on worse!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she must have had more charity than sense,” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“O no, she hadn’t. ’Twere not for charity but for hire; and +at a public-house in this town!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not true!” cried Henchard indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Just ask her,” 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. “What does this +mean?” he said to her. “Anything or nothing?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “But it was +only—” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you do it, or didn’t you? Where was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“At the Three Mariners; one evening for a little while, when we were +staying there.” +</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. “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. +</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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’ 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, where have you been?” he said to her with offhand laconism. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +This was just enough to incense Henchard after the other crosses of the day. +“I <i>won’t</i> 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.” +</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: “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:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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, +</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, +“O, I wish I was dead with dear mother!” +</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. “Yes, I heard you,” +said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering her look. “What can have +happened?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t—I can’t tell you,” 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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he is living,” said Elizabeth-Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he not kind to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no wish to complain of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“There has been a disagreement?” +</p> + +<p> +“A little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you were to blame,” suggested the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“O no; certainly not <i>bad</i>,” 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is your history?” +</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. “My history is not gay or attractive,” she +said. “And yet I can tell it, if you really want to know.” +</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’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> +“I don’t know how to return,” she murmured. “I think of +going away. But what can I do? Where can I go?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am no accomplished person. And a companion to you must be that.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, not necessarily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not? But I can’t help using rural words sometimes, when I +don’t mean to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, I shall like to know them.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, not necessary to write ladies’-hand?” cried the joyous +Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where do you live?” +</p> + +<p> +“In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be living here after twelve +o’clock to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth expressed her astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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’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—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. +</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 “Blood built it, and Wealth +enjoys it” 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’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. +</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—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. +</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’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. +</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’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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Father, have you any objection to my going away?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Going away! No—none whatever. Where are you going?” +</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. “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then make the best of it, in Heaven’s name—if you +can’t get cultivated where you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t object?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She thanked him for this offer. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, quite,” said the other eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“Your father is willing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then come along.” +</p> + +<p> +“When?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my own thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I might be able to,” 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 “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. +</p> + +<p> +“Who are those?” said the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“One is my father. He rents that yard and barn.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“O—how was that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it safer to get away first—as he is so uncertain in his +temper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you are right.... Besides, I have never told you my name. It is +Miss Templeman.... Are they gone—on the other side?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. They have only gone up into the granary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it is getting damp here. I shall expect you to-day—this +evening, say, at six.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which way shall I come, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“The front way—round by the gate. There is no other that I have +noticed.” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in the alley. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. “On consideration I don’t fear +it,” she said sadly. “He has grown quite cold to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well. Six o’clock then.” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“But you said I might go, father?” she explained through the +carriage window. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“O father! how can you speak like that? It is unjust of you!” she +said with spirit. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“By me?” she said, with deep concern. “What have I +done?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes—certainly. It is only in the town—High-Place +Hall!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where?” 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’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’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,—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.<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—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.—Yours, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +LUCETTA. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>P.S.</i>—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, +“Who is coming to live at the Hall?” +</p> + +<p> +“A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir,” said his +informant. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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—or “Lucette,” 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’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’s house from High-Place Hall. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <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.—In haste, yours always, +</p> + +<p> +“LUCETTA.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The artful little woman!” he said, smiling (with reference to +Lucetta’s adroit and pleasant manÅ“uvre 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’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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“Why, you are late,” she said, taking hold of +Elizabeth-Jane’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“There were so many little things to put up.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, have you chosen?” she asked flinging down the last card. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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—somewhat in the pose of a well-known conception of +Titian’s—talked up at Elizabeth-Jane invertedly across her forehead +and arm. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—only a little while?” murmured Elizabeth-Jane, her +countenance slightly falling. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, for that matter, in my native isle speaking French does not go for +much. It is rather the other way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is your native isle?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</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’s stepfather. +</p> + +<p> +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 <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’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. +</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, “I wonder if the same trees come every week?” +</p> + +<p> +“What trees?” 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, +“Do we speak to each other?” +</p> + +<p> +She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eye which answered +“No!” Elizabeth-Jane sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you particularly interested in anybody out there?” said +Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +“O, no,” said her companion, a quick red shooting over her face. +</p> + +<p> +Luckily Farfrae’s figure was immediately covered by the apple-tree. +</p> + +<p> +Lucetta looked hard at her. “Quite sure?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“O yes,” said Elizabeth-Jane. +</p> + +<p> +Again Lucetta looked out. “They are all farmers, I suppose?” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. “He won’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has taken against me,” she said in a husky voice. +</p> + +<p> +“You have quarreled more deeply than I know of.” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believed to be her father from any +charge of unnatural dislike, said “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then where you are is, of all places, the one he will avoid?” +</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—her ingenious scheme completely +stultified. +</p> + +<p> +“O, my dear Miss Templeman—what’s the matter?” cried +her companion. +</p> + +<p> +“I like your company much!” said Lucetta, as soon as she could +speak. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes—and so do I yours!” Elizabeth chimed in soothingly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“And have you ever seen the Museum?” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane had not. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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. +</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—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. +</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’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—“O, +I’ve made a mistake!” +</p> + +<p> +The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half a wrinkle. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was the unmannerly one,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—very often.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you look for any one you know?” +</p> + +<p> +Why should she have answered as she did? +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! Maybe you’ll be very lonely, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody knows how lonely.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you are rich, they say?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did ye come from, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“The neighbourhood of Bath.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’s and their glances +met. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, now, I’m wearying you!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +She said, “No, indeed,” colouring a shade. +</p> + +<p> +“What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite otherwise. You are most interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But how do you mean that? Ye were best to explain clearly, +ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are animated—then you are thinking of getting on. You are sad +the next moment—then you are thinking of Scotland and friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I think of home sometimes!” he said simply. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, that the house was in St. Helier, +and not in Bath. +</p> + +<p> +“But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks, they are there! And +don’t they seem like home?” +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You are wishing you were back again,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, no, ma’am,” 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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Lucetta’s eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae’s. His, too, to her +surprise, were moist at the scene. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, you are so good!” she cried, delighted. “Go and tell +them, and let me know if you have succeeded!” +</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> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a half turn. “I must be a +little stricter than that,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a—a thriving woman; and I am a struggling hay-and-corn +merchant.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am a very ambitious woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite near the window their remarks +could be heard as others’ had been. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I quite forgot the engagement,” murmured Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“Now you must go,” said she; “must you not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he replied. But he still remained. +</p> + +<p> +“You had better go,” she urged. “You will lose a customer. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry,” exclaimed Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“Then suppose you don’t go; but stay a little longer?” +</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. “I like staying; but I fear I must go!” he said. +“Business ought not to be neglected, ought it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for a single minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s true. I’ll come another time—if I may, +ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” she said. “What has happened to us to-day is +very curious.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something to think over when we are alone, it’s like to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know that. It is commonplace after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’ll not say that. O no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, whatever it has been, it is now over; and the market calls you to +be gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. Market—business! I wish there were no business in the +warrld.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“If that’s the case, you had better not look at me any longer. Dear +me, I feel I have quite demoralized you!” +</p> + +<p> +“But look or look not, I will see you in my thoughts. Well, I’ll +go—thank you for the pleasure of this visit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for staying.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I swear I will not!” he said fervidly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’ 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. +</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> +“The Mayor,” 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, “And he’s afraid he hasn’t much time to spare, he +says.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headache I won’t detain him +to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +The message was taken down, and she heard the door close. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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— +</p> + +<p> +“I’m so glad you’ve come. You’ll live with me a long +time, won’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her with wild surmise at their +suddenness; and so passed Lucetta’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’s words about remaining. +</p> + +<p> +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 <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’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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“But settling upon new clothes is so trying,” said Lucetta. +“You are that person” (pointing to one of the arrangements), +“or you are <i>that</i> 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.” +</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’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. “Why, it is a sort of agricultural piano,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“It has something to do with corn,” said Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder who thought of introducing it here?” +</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: “Let us go and look at +the instrument, whatever it is.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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, “Good morning, Elizabeth-Jane.” 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, “This is the lady +I live with, father—Miss Templeman.” +</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. “I am happy to become +acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard,” she said. “This is a curious +machine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Henchard replied; and he proceeded to explain it, and still +more forcibly to ridicule it. +</p> + +<p> +“Who brought it here?” said Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“’Tw—s on a s—m—r aftern—n,<br /> +A wee be—re the s—n w—nt d—n,<br /> +When Kitty wi’ a braw n—w g—wn<br /> +C—me ow’re the h—lls to Gowrie.” +</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, “The ‘Lass of Gowrie’ from inside of a +seed-drill—what a phenomenon!” +</p> + +<p> +Satisfied at last with his investigation the young man stood upright, and met +their eyes across the summit. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t forsake the machine for us,” 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— +</p> + +<p> +“I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae the other day, and so I knew him +this morning.” +</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’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> +“Your father was distant with you,” said Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever had any such feeling?” said the younger innocently. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must make them very unhappy afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“It makes them anxious; for might not other women despise them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not altogether despise them. Yet not quite like or respect them.” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve seen Mr. Farfrae,” said Elizabeth demurely. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lucetta. “How did you know?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—something which concerned a person in whom she was interested much. +Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize. +</p> + +<p> +“This person—a lady—once admired a man much—very +much,” she said tentatively. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Elizabeth-Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—poor girl!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How delightful!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“A new man she liked better—that’s bad!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot answer,” said Elizabeth-Jane thoughtfully. “It is +so difficult. It wants a Pope to settle that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You prefer not to perhaps?” Lucetta showed in her appealing tone +how much she leant on Elizabeth’s judgment. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Miss Templeman,” admitted Elizabeth. “I would rather +not say.” +</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. +“Bring me a looking-glass. How do I appear to people?” she said +languidly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if I wear well, as times go!” she observed after a while. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—fairly. +</p> + +<p> +“Where am I worst?” +</p> + +<p> +“Under your eyes—I notice a little brownness there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. That is my worst place, I know. How many years more do you think I +shall last before I get hopelessly plain?” +</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. “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.” +</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 “she” of Lucetta’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’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’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. +</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. “Yes,” she +said at last, bringing down her palm upon the sill with a pat: “<i>He</i> +is the second man of that story she told me!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is full early yet,” she said evasively. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my life I didn’t know such furniture as this could be bought +in Casterbridge,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m. It looks as if you were living on capital.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, I am not.” +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better. But the fact is, your setting up like this makes my +beaming towards you rather awkward.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s rather a rude way of speaking to me,” pouted Lucetta, +with stormy eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to my proposal?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the way the wind blows, is it?” 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’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. +</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’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>him</i>—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!” +</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’s side it was the unforced +passion of youth. On Henchard’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?—as one of the “meaner +beauties of the night,” 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’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 “Farfrae!” It was Henchard’s, who stood +regarding him. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do,” said Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember my telling ’ee how it all began and how it ended? +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ye owe her nothing more now,” said Farfrae heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said Henchard, and went on. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—whether really Farfrae’s after +all, or another’s—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> +“Pleasant young fellow,” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +“We both know him,” said kind Elizabeth-Jane, to relieve her +companion’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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’ 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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“How ridiculous of all three of them!” 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’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’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 +<i>pis aller</i> of Casterbridge domiciliation—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> +“I am again out of a foreman,” said the corn-factor. “Are you +in a place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so much as a beggar’s, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much do you ask?” +</p> + +<p> +Jopp named his price, which was very moderate. +</p> + +<p> +“When can you come?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! Very good. Then the thing is settled. The testimonials you +showed me when you first tried for’t are sufficient.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen it all,” said Jopp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</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 “Wide-oh,” on account of his +reputation; to his face “Mr.” 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, “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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve long heard that you can—do things of a sort?” +began the other, repressing his individuality as much as he could. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe so, Mr. Henchard,” said the weather-caster. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah—why do you call me that?” asked the visitor with a start. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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, “Then I have not come in vain.... Now, for +instance, can ye charm away warts?” +</p> + +<p> +“Without trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cure the evil?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I’ve done—with consideration—if they will wear +the toad-bag by night as well as by day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Forecast the weather?” +</p> + +<p> +“With labour and time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then take this,” said Henchard. “’Tis a crownpiece. +Now, what is the harvest fortnight to be? When can I know?’ +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not certain, of course?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, no,” said Henchard. “I don’t altogether believe +in forecasts, come to second thoughts on such. But I—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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’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> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“My advice, sir, was to do what you thought best.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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. +</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—“What if that curst conjuror +should be right after all!” 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’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> +“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. +</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> +“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. +</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’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> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“I saw it all, Mr. Henchard,” she cried; “and your man was +most in the wrong!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I saw it, too,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “And I can assure +you he couldn’t help it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t trust <i>their</i> senses!” murmured +Henchard’s man. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” asked Henchard sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillings a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir. One in number, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh. The Mayor’s out o’ town, isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then I’ll be there. Don’t forget to keep an eye +on that hay. Good night t’ ’ee.” +</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’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’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—that inhabiting the Durnover quarter—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 +“stitches” 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> +“You have my leave,” Lucetta was saying gaily. “Speak what +you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“And he the speaker?” said she, laughing. “Very well, sir, +what next?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I’m afraid that what I feel will make me forget my +manners!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, by taking her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobody else,” she presently +said. “But I should wish to have my own way in some things.” +</p> + +<p> +“In everything! What special thing did you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge, for instance, upon +finding that I should not be happy here?” +</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’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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is too late for propriety, and might injure me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She sank into a chair, and turned pale. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“But you ought to hear it,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you come here to find me, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought I ought to marry you for conscience’ sake, since you +were free, even though I—did not like you so well.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why then don’t you think so now?” +</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—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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were as good as he you would leave me!” she cried +passionately. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +“If you—wish it, I must agree!” +</p> + +<p> +“You say yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do.” +</p> + +<p> +No sooner had she given the promise than she fell back in a fainting state. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon with a start. +</p> + +<p> +“Him? Who are you talking about?” she said wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody, as far as I am concerned,” said Elizabeth firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—well. Then it is my mistake,” said Henchard. “But +the business is between me and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t dwell on it just now,” entreated Elizabeth, +holding Lucetta’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to, if she promises,” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“I have, I have,” groaned Lucetta, her limbs hanging like fluid, +from very misery and faintness. “Michael, please don’t argue it any +more!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not,” he said. And taking up his hat he went away. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Lucetta. “Let it all be.” +</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’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—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. +“Well, and what has she been doing?” he said, looking down at the +charge sheet. +</p> + +<p> +“She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderly female and +nuisance,” whispered Stubberd. +</p> + +<p> +“Where did she do that?” said the other magistrate. +</p> + +<p> +“By the church, sir, of all the horrible places in the world!—I +caught her in the act, your worship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stand back then,” said Henchard, “and let’s hear what +you’ve got to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate’s clerk dipped his pen, Henchard +being no note-taker himself, and the constable began— +</p> + +<p> +“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— +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t go so fast, Stubberd,” said the clerk. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Gutter, yes, Stubberd.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I object to that,” spoke up the old woman, “‘spot +measuring twelve feet nine or thereabouts from where I,’ is not sound +testimony!” +</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: “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Insulted me.’ ...Yes, what did she say?” +</p> + +<p> +“She said, ‘Put away that dee lantern,’ she says.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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, +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye; and the clerk dipped +his pen. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty years ago or thereabout I was selling of furmity in a tent at +Weydon Fair——” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Twenty years ago’—well, that’s beginning at the +beginning; suppose you go back to the Creation!” said the clerk, not +without satire. +</p> + +<p> +But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidence and what was not. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a concocted story,” said the clerk. “So hold your +tongue!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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—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’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’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. “Is she come now?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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—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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Here the case was different. A single figure was approaching +her—Elizabeth-Jane’s. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’ school, who apologized for their presence by saying, +“A bull passing down street from the sale.” +</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’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’ 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. “We must climb up +there,” 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’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. +</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> +“You—have saved me!” she cried, as soon as she could speak. +</p> + +<p> +“I have returned your kindness,” he responded tenderly. “You +once saved me.” +</p> + +<p> +“How—comes it to be you—you?” she asked, not heeding +his reply. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—no! Where is Elizabeth?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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> +“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. +</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’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> +“She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?” he inquired at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. He is taking her home. They are almost there by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you are sure she can get home?” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure. +</p> + +<p> +“Your stepfather saved her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Entirely.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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. “When +will everything be sent up?” he said to the mistress of the house, who +was superintending. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then of what kind is it?” she asked with renewed misgiving. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“And you would wish me to advance some money?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“If it were anything else,” she began, and the dryness of her lips +was represented in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not because I won’t—it is because I absolutely +can’t,” she said, with rising distress. +</p> + +<p> +“You are provoking!” he burst out. “It is enough to make me +force you to carry out at once what you have promised.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot!” she insisted desperately. +</p> + +<p> +“Why? When I have only within these few minutes released you from your +promise to do the thing offhand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because—he was a witness!” +</p> + +<p> +“Witness? Of what? +</p> + +<p> +“If I must tell you——. Don’t, don’t upbraid +me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well! Let’s hear what you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Witness of my marriage—Mr. Grower was!” +</p> + +<p> +“Marriage?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“Married him?” said Henchard at length. “My good—what, +married him whilst—bound to marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Then this racket they are making is on account of it, I suppose?” +said he. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is <i>his wife’s</i> life I have saved this +afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—and he will be for ever grateful to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to him.... O you false woman!” burst from +Henchard. “You promised me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes! But it was under compulsion, and I did not know all your +past——” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Michael—pity me, and be generous!” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t deserve pity! You did; but you don’t now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll help you to pay off your debt.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pensioner of Farfrae’s wife—not I! Don’t stay with +me longer—I shall say something worse. Go home!” +</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’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. +</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’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. +</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’s perilous absence could not have +intensified. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, indeed I don’t,” Farfrae answered with, perhaps, a +faint awkwardness. “But I wonder if she would care to?” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes!” said Lucetta eagerly. “I am sure she would like to. +Besides, poor thing, she has no other home.” +</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. “Arrange +as you like with her by all means,” he said. “It is I who have come +to your house, not you to mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll run and speak to her,” said Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herself receptive. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“O yes—I remember the story of <i>your friend</i>,” 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no; she didn’t do evil exactly!” said Lucetta hastily. +</p> + +<p> +“But you said that she—or as I may say <i>you</i>”—answered +Elizabeth, dropping the mask, “were in honour and conscience bound to +marry the first?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucetta’s blush at being seen through came and went again before she +replied anxiously, “You will never breathe this, will you, +Elizabeth-Jane?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not, if you say not. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you not lately renewed your promise?” said the younger with +quiet surmise. She had divined Man Number One. +</p> + +<p> +“That was wrung from me by a threat.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there is only one course left to honesty. You must remain a single +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“But think again! Do consider——” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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. “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. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t admit that!” said Lucetta passionately. +</p> + +<p> +“Admit it or not, it is true!” +</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> +“Why, you <i>have</i> 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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“You—have—married Mr. Farfrae!” cried Elizabeth-Jane, +in Nathan tones +</p> + +<p> +Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me think of it alone,” the girl quickly replied, corking up +the turmoil of her feeling with grand control. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall. I am sure we shall be happy together.” +</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’s emotions she had not +the least suspicion; but on Henchard’s alone. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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. +</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’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’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’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. +</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’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’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. +</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> +“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.” +</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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sure: we don’t wish it at all,” said Grower, another +creditor. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him keep it, of course,” murmured another in the +background—a silent, reserved young man named Boldwood; and the rest +responded unanimously. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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. +</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’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. +</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—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. +</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> +“Not by his daughter?” pleaded Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“By nobody—at present: that’s his order,” 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’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, “Mr. +Farfrae is master here?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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 +“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. +</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> +“He and she are gone into their new house to-day,” said Jopp. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Henchard absently. “Which house is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your old one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone into my house?” And starting up Henchard added, +“<i>My</i> house of all others in the town!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as somebody was sure to live there, and you couldn’t, it can +do ’ee no harm that he’s the man.” +</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: “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“My furniture too! Surely he’ll buy my body and soul +likewise!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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. “Mr. Henchard?” +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> +“I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henchard?” he said. +“Is it true? I have a real reason for asking.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; that’s so! It’s the way o’ the +warrld,” said Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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. “No, no,” he said gruffly; “we should +quarrel.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Still Henchard refused. “You don’t know what you ask,” he +said. “However, I can do no less than thank ’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I bought a good deal of your furniture. +</p> + +<p> +“So I have heard.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What—give it to me for nothing?” said Henchard. “But +you paid the creditors for it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes; but maybe it’s worth more to you than it is to me.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, father—” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like to see ’ee,” 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’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> +“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. +</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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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—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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why d’ye say only a dozen days?” asked Solomon Longways as +he worked beside Henchard in the granary weighing oats. +</p> + +<p> +“Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath.” +</p> + +<p> +“What oath?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Michael Henchard have busted out drinking after taking nothing for +twenty-one years!” +</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—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. +</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—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. +</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—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, “How be ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a stranger here.” +</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. “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’s womankind. Henchard’s mouth changed a +little, and he continued to turn over the leaves. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then,” he said, “Psalm the Hundred-and-Ninth, to the +tune of Wiltshire: verses ten to fifteen. I gi’e ye the words: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“’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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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. “There’s the man we’ve +been singing about,” said Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. “Heaven +forbid!” said the bass-player. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis the man,” repeated Henchard doggedly. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And the next age his hated name<br /> +    Shall utterly deface.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth—all the more by reason of the +still determination of Henchard’s mien. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you do?” she asked cautiously, while trembling with +disquietude, and guessing Henchard’s allusion only too well. +</p> + +<p> +Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his cottage. +“May I come in?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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—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.” +</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’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” said Henchard, as if he had not +heard. +</p> + +<p> +“I said good afternoon,” she faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was too bitter, too unendurable. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you tell me the time, ma’am?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said hastily; “half-past four.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’s hand by the postman. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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’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. +</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’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, +“What—Miss Henchard—and are ye up so airly?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” said he, with the cheeriness of a superior. “And what +may it be? It’s very kind of ye, I’m sure.” +</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’s name. “I sometimes fear,” she said with an effort, +“that he may be betrayed into some attempt to—insult you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we are the best of friends?” +</p> + +<p> +“Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir. Remember that he has been +hardly used.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we are quite friendly?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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’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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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> +“Oh!” she cried playfully, turning to the window. +“See—the blinds are not drawn down, and the people can look +in—what a scandal!” +</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> +“Who has called?” he absently asked. “Any folk for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Lucetta. “What’s the matter, Donald?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—nothing worth talking of,” he responded sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, never mind it. You will get through it, Scotchmen are always +lucky.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. “No,” she replied. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no—it is not so serious as ye fancy,” declared Farfrae +soothingly; though he did not know its seriousness so well as she. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“But there are folk whose turn is before mine; and I’m over young, +and may be thought pushing!” said Farfrae after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. I don’t speak for myself only, several have named it. +You won’t refuse?” +</p> + +<p> +“We thought of going away,” interposed Lucetta, looking at Farfrae +anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“It was only a fancy,” Farfrae murmured. “I wouldna refuse if +it is the wish of a respectable majority in the Council.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected. We have had older men +long enough.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, bless the woman!—I packed up every scrap of your handwriting +to give you in the coach—but you never appeared.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard’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—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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not of much consequence—to me,” said Henchard. +“But I’ll call for it this evening, if you don’t mind?” +</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’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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bed airly on that +account.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What became of the poor woman?” asked Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quite uninterested, and bursting +with yawns, gave well-mannered attention. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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!’” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She had already married another—maybe?” +</p> + +<p> +Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the wind to descend +further into particulars, and he answered “Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“The young lady must have had a heart that bore transplanting very +readily!” +</p> + +<p> +“She had, she had,” 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’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’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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes,” said Henchard. “By not giving her name I make it +an example of all womankind, and not a scandal to one.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shall not destroy them,” 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—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. “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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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:— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</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—as much from want of spirit as design—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, +“Goodnight t’ye. Of course I’m glad to come if you want +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, thank you,” she said apprehensively. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry to see ’ee looking so ill,” he stammered with +unconcealed compunction. +</p> + +<p> +She shook her head. “How can you be sorry,” she asked, “when +you deliberately cause it?” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” said Henchard uneasily. “Is it anything I have done +that has pulled you down like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“To give me back the letters and any papers you may have that breathe of +matrimony or worse.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How good you are!—how shall I get them?” +</p> + +<p> +He reflected, and said he would send them the next morning. “Now +don’t doubt me,” he added. “I can keep my word.” +</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> +“It is a thing I know nothing about,” said Lucetta coldly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed,” she replied. “But I knew nothing of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think, ma’am, that a word or two from you would secure for me +what I covet very much,” 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> +“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.” +</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’s writing that he possessed was here. Jopp +indifferently expressed his willingness. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how have ye got on to-day?” his lodger asked. “Any +prospect of an opening?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid not,” said Jopp, who had not told the other of his +application to Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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. +</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> +“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.” +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +The inn called Peter’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’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’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. +</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—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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How was that?” asked Jopp. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s the object of your meditation, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride,” said Nance. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</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> +“Not much,” he said indifferently. “All safe inside?” +</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 “Ahoy” 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> +“Ahoy—is this the way to Casterbridge?” said some one from +the other side. +</p> + +<p> +“Not in particular,” said Charl. “There’s a river afore +’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care—here’s for through it!” said the +man in the moor. “I’ve had travelling enough for to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“A public-house.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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—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> +“What do they mean by a ‘skimmity-ride’?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I +suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” answered the landlady. “This is a respectable +house, thank God! And I’ll have nothing done but what’s +honourable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Jopp; “now we’ll consider the business +begun, and will soon get it in train.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will!” said Nance. “A good laugh warms my heart more than +a cordial, and that’s the truth on’t.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’s Arms. The +inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough <i>fête carillonée</i> 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. +</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> +“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?” +</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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony.” +</p> + +<p> +Farfrae looked round. “I think I have expressed the feeling of the +Council,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes,” from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and +several more. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it +officially?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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. “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.” +</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’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. “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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Carry out what?” said she, alarmed. +</p> + +<p> +“This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor.” +</p> + +<p> +She was perplexed. “Shall we go and see it together?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“See it! I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth +seeing!” +</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—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—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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’s situation but Farfrae’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, “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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why—it is your husband’s old patron!” said Mrs. +Blowbody, a lady of the neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +“Patron!” said Donald’s wife with quick indignation. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“He works for my husband,” said Lucetta. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not a noble passiont for a ’oman to keep up,” +said Longways. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’s +Finger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of them lived, while Coney, +Buzzford, Longways, and that connection remained in the street. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what’s brewing down there, I suppose?” said +Buzzford mysteriously to the others. +</p> + +<p> +Coney looked at him. “Not the skimmity-ride?” +</p> + +<p> +Buzzford nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“I have my doubts if it will be carried out,” said Longways. +“If they are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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—too brief—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’ 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. +</p> + +<p> +He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake. “So +you’ve had a snub,” said Jopp. +</p> + +<p> +“And what if I have?” answered Henchard sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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, “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!” +</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—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’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—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.” +</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’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. +</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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And here’s a hand, my trusty fiere,<br /> +    And gie’s a hand o’ thine.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the loft door. +“Will ye come up here?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, man,” said Farfrae. “I couldn’t see ye. +What’s wrang?” +</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> +“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. +</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’s arms was +bound to his side. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What does it all mean?” asked Farfrae simply. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Farfrae warmed a little at this. “Ye’d no business there,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and ’twas my duty, as the chief +magistrate, to stop you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Royalty be damned,” said Henchard. “I am as loyal as you, +come to that!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</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’s part, unquestionably, that it should be through the door. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said Henchard between his gasps, “this is the end of +what you began this morning. Your life is in my hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then take it, take it!” said Farfrae. “Ye’ve wished to +long enough!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He thought highly of me once,” he murmured. “Now he’ll +hate me and despise me for ever!” +</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’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. +</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’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 “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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</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> +“Which way be they going now?” inquired the first with interest. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“What, what?” from the first, more enthusiastically. +</p> + +<p> +“They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!” +</p> + +<p> +“What—two of ’em—are there two figures?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it meant for anybody in particular?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The din was increasing now—then it lessened a little. +</p> + +<p> +“There—I shan’t see, after all!” cried the disappointed +first maid. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if +’tis meant for one I’ve in mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“My—why—’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!” +</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> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held her by +main force. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis me!” she said, with a face pale as death. “A +procession—a scandal—an effigy of me, and him!” +</p> + +<p> +The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. “O, can’t something be done to stop +it?” she cried. “Is there nobody to do it—not one?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, come in,” implored Elizabeth; “and let me shut the +window!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’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’s mute appeal, +“This is serious.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a fit,” Elizabeth said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You +must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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’-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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>felo de se</i> 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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.) +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what’s the row?” said Blowbody. “Got their +names—hey?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Beg yer pardon, sir?” blandly said the person addressed, who was +no other than Charl, of Peter’s Finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“O no—nothing, sir,” Jopp replied, as if receiving the most +singular news. “But I’ve not been far tonight, so +perhaps—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’twas here—just here,” said the magistrate. +</p> + +<p> +“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). +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, no—d’ye think I’m a fool? Constable, come this +way. They must have gone into the back street.” +</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> +“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.” +</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, “Good evening, gentlemen; there’s plenty of room. I hope +there’s nothing amiss?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and +you were here then, as well as all the rest.” +</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> +“Something curious about that oven, ma’am!” he observed +advancing, opening it, and drawing out a tambourine. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +“But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!” exclaimed Henchard, +now unspeakably grieved. “Not Budmouth way at all.” +</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’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. +</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’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’s off gig-lamp flashed in +Henchard’s face. At the same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist. +</p> + +<p> +“Farfrae—Mr. Farfrae!” 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 “Yes?” over his shoulder, as +one would towards a pronounced enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I have to go to Mellstock,” said Farfrae coldly, as he loosened +his reins to move on. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased Farfrae’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> +“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!” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“But haven’t you found him?” said the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“H’m,” said the surgeon, returning upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“How is she?” asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of the +group. +</p> + +<p> +“In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband makes her +fearfully restless. Poor woman—I fear they have killed her!” +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh?—who could he be?” +</p> + +<p> +“He seemed a well-be-doing man—had grey hair and a broadish face; +but he gave no name, and no message.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor do I gi’e him any attention.” And, saying this, Henchard +closed his door. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</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’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’s distress by alluding to the subject. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you take off that?” 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, “Because they may knock as loud as +they will; she will never hear it any more.” +</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’s face brightened, for he knew the motions to be +Elizabeth’s. She came into his room, looking wan and sad. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you heard?” she asked. “Mrs. Farfrae! She +is—dead! Yes, indeed—about an hour ago!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, good morning,” said the stranger with profuse +heartiness. “Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Henchard.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“By all means,” Henchard answered, showing the way in. +</p> + +<p> +“You may remember me?” said his visitor, seating himself. +</p> + +<p> +Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—perhaps you may not. My name is Newson.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not what they call +shrewd or sharp at all—better she had been.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was not.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“‘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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dead likewise,” said Henchard doggedly. “Surely you learnt +that too?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were rather a question +for Newson himself than for him. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is she buried?” the traveller inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Beside her mother,” said Henchard, in the same stolid tones. +</p> + +<p> +“When did she die?” +</p> + +<p> +“A year ago and more,” replied the other without hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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’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’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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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!—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do it every day,” he replied. “You have left me; everybody +has left me; how should I live but by my own hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very lonely, are you not?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to see me.” +</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> +“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!” +</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—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—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 +“father” just as before. Newson, then, had not even yet returned. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +How this woman divined things! Yet she had not divined their whole extremity. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t quite think there are any miracles nowadays,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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. “Nothing,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Go again,” said Henchard, “and look narrowly.” +</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> +“Are they like mine?” asked Henchard. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—they are. Dear me—I wonder if—Father, let us go +away!” +</p> + +<p> +“Go and look once more; and then we will get home.” +</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> +“Well,” said Henchard; “what do you say now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us go home.” +</p> + +<p> +“But tell me—do—what is it floating there?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“May you come to me?” he cried bitterly. “Elizabeth, +don’t mock me! If you only would come!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You cannot!” +</p> + +<p> +“I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more.” +</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, “Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it seems that even +I be in Somebody’s hand!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>XLII.</h2> + +<p> +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. +</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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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—as bereaved men do after a while. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She had her own way in everything now. In going and coming, in buying and +selling, her word was law. +</p> + +<p> +“You have got a new muff, Elizabeth,” he said to her one day quite +humbly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I bought it,” 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> +“Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?” he hazarded. +</p> + +<p> +“It was rather above my figure,” she said quietly. “But it is +not showy.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no,” 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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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: “Have you seen Mr. +Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some confusion that she +replied “No.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Of her, too, he means to rob me!” he whispered. “But he has +the right. I do not wish to interfere.” +</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’s jealous +grief inferred. Could he have heard such conversation as passed he would have +been enlightened thus much:— +</p> + +<p> +<i>He</i>.—“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). +</p> + +<p> +<i>She</i>.—“O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have no +great reason for it.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>He</i>.—“But that may make a reason for others.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>She</i> (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.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>He</i>.—“Is it a secret why?” +</p> + +<p> +<i>She</i> ( reluctantly ).—“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>He</i> (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.” +</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’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae,” she added shyly. +“I wonder if I ought to accept so many!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you, than you to +have them!” +</p> + +<p> +“It cannot.” +</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 +“Dearest Elizabeth-Jane,” 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’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, “I am content.” 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’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—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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</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 “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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’ 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. +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the courtship—which +it evidently now was—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>—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. +</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’s features would be disclosed as usual. But the +lenses revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane’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’s. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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’ respite. When he reached his own house he found her there. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Henchard replied heavily, “Yes; go.” +</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: “I am going to +leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave Casterbridge!” she cried, “and leave—me?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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—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> +“Then,” she said at last, “you will not be able to come to my +wedding; and that is not as it ought to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“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, <i>when you know them all</i>, cause ’ee to +quite forget that though I loved ’ee late I loved ’ee well.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is because of Donald!” she sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t forbid you to marry him,” said Henchard. +“Promise not to quite forget me when——” 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—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. +</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> +“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 <i>not</i> greater than I can bear!” +</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, “And is he gone—and did you tell him?—I mean of the +other matter—not of ours.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend. Donald, who is +he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr. Henchard will +hear of it if he does not go far.” +</p> + +<p> +“He will go far—he’s bent upon getting out of sight and +sound!” +</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’s house they stopped and went in. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Newson’s pride in what she had grown up to be was more than he could +express. He kissed her again and again. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Donald and you must settle it,” murmured Elizabeth, still keeping +up a scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the street. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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, “I’ve +never told ye, or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me off the scent that +time?” +</p> + +<p> +He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +The father admitted that such was the case. +</p> + +<p> +“He ought not to have done it!” said Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth sighed. “I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I +ought to forget him now!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well—never mind—it is all over and past,” said +Newson good-naturedly. “Now, about this wedding again.” +</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’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’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. +</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> +“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.’” +</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—of Nature’s jaunty readiness to support unorthodox +social principles. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</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—which arranges that +wisdom to do shall come <i>pari passu</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“All the same as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of +getting married. Now is that true or not?” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t say for the life o’ me. O no, I should think +not.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</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’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—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—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’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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’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’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’ ears while the van +paused on the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag lowered. The time was just +after twelve o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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’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’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. +</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—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’s elbow, and the tip of the bass-viol bow. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</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—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’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. +</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 “the shade from +his own soul up-thrown.” +</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> +“Oh—it is—Mr. Henchard!” she said, starting back. +</p> + +<p> +“What, Elizabeth?” he cried, as he seized her hand. “What do +you say?—<i>Mr.</i> 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!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</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’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’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, “Oh, please ma’am, we know +now how that bird-cage came there.” +</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—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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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’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—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. +</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—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. +</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’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. +</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’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. +</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> +“If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say that must be +poor Whittle. ’Tis just like him,” observed Elizabeth-Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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> +“What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?” said Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, yes sir! You see he was kind-like to mother when she wer here below, +though ’a was rough to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are you talking of?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not—dead?” faltered Elizabeth-Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me—is that so!” said Farfrae. +</p> + +<p> +As for Elizabeth, she said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</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:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +MICHAEL HENCHARD’S WILL.<br /> +“That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve +on account of me.<br /> +“& that I be not bury’d in consecrated ground.<br /> +“& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.<br /> +“& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.<br /> +“& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.<br /> +“& that no flours be planted on my grave.<br /> +“& that no man remember me.<br /> +“To this I put my name. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“MICHAEL HENCHARD.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are we to do?” said Donald, when he had handed the paper to +her. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</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> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 143-h.htm or 143-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/143/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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