The Mayor of Casterbridge eBook (2024)

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

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Table of Contents
Section	Page
Start of eBook	1
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE	1
SUSAN HENCHARD	81
HIGH-PLACE HALL	95
MICHAEL HENCHARD’S WILL	217

THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

by Thomas Hardy

1.

One evening of late summer, before the nineteenthcentury had reached one-third of its span, a youngman and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approachingthe large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex,on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad, thoughthe thick hoar of dust which had accumulated on theirshoes and garments from an obviously long journeylent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearancejust now.

The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern inaspect; and he showed in profile a facial angle soslightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular.He wore a short jacket of brown corduroy, newer thanthe remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoatwith white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tannedleggings, and a straw hat overlaid with black glazedcanvas. At his back he carried by a looped strapa rush basket, from which protruded at one end thecrutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds beingalso visible in the aperture. His measured, springlesswalk was the walk of the skilled countryman as distinctfrom the desultory shamble of the general labourer;while in the turn and plant of each foot there was,further, a dogged and cynical indifference personalto himself, showing its presence even in the regularlyinterchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, nowin the right, as he paced along.

What was really peculiar, however, in this couple’sprogress, and would have attracted the attention ofany casual observer otherwise disposed to overlookthem, was the perfect silence they preserved.They walked side by side in such a way as to suggestafar off the low, easy, confidential chat of peoplefull of reciprocity; but on closer view it could bediscerned that the man was reading, or pretending toread, a ballad sheet which he kept before his eyeswith some difficulty by the hand that was passed throughthe basket strap. Whether this apparent causewere the real cause, or whether it were an assumedone to escape an intercourse that would have beenirksome to him, nobody but himself could have saidprecisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and thewoman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence.Virtually she walked the highway alone, save for thechild she bore. Sometimes the man’s bentelbow almost touched her shoulder, for she kept asclose 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 surpriseat his ignoring silence she appeared to receive itas a natural thing. If any word at all were utteredby the little group, it was an occasional whisperof the woman to the child—­a tiny girl inshort clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn—­andthe murmured babble of the child in reply.

The chief—­almost the only—­attractionof the young woman’s face was its mobility.When she looked down sideways to the girl she becamepretty, and even handsome, particularly that in theaction her features caught slantwise the rays of thestrongly coloured sun, which made transparencies ofher eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips.When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silentlythinking, she had the hard, half-apathetic expressionof one who deems anything possible at the hands ofTime and Chance except, perhaps, fair play. Thefirst phase was the work of Nature, the second probablyof civilization.

That the man and woman were husband and wife, andthe parents of the girl in arms there could be littledoubt. No other than such relationship wouldhave accounted for the atmosphere of stale familiaritywhich the trio carried along with them like a nimbusas they moved down the road.

The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, thoughwith little interest—­the scene for thatmatter being one that might have been matched at almostany spot in any county in England at this time ofthe year; a road neither straight nor crooked, neitherlevel nor hilly, bordered by hedges, trees, and othervegetation, which had entered the blackened-greenstage of colour that the doomed leaves pass throughon their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. Thegrassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerowboughs, were powdered by the dust that had been stirredover them by hasty vehicles, the same dust as it layon the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet;and this, with the aforesaid total absence of conversation,allowed every extraneous sound to be heard.

For a long time there was none, beyond the voice ofa weak bird singing a trite old evening song thatmight doubtless have been heard on the hill at thesame hour, and with the self-same trills, quavers,and breves, at any sunset of that season for centuriesuntold. But as they approached the village sundrydistant shouts and rattles reached their ears fromsome elevated spot in that direction, as yet screenedfrom view by foliage. When the outlying housesof Weydon-Priors could just be described, the familygroup was met by a turnip-ho*r with his hoe on hisshoulder, and his dinner-bag suspended from it.The reader promptly glanced up.

“Any trade doing here?” he asked phlegmatically,designating the village in his van by a wave of thebroadsheet. And thinking the labourer did notunderstand him, he added, “Anything in the hay-trussingline?”

The turnip-ho*r had already begun shaking his head.“Why, save the man, what wisdom’s in himthat ’a should come to Weydon for a job of thatsort this time o’ year?”

“Then is there any house to let—­alittle small new cottage just a builded, or such like?”asked the other.

The pessimist still maintained a negative. “Pullingdown is more the nater of Weydon. There werefive houses cleared away last year, and three this;and the volk nowhere to go—­no, not so muchas a thatched hurdle; that’s the way o’Weydon-Priors.”

The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded withsome superciliousness. Looking towards the village,he continued, “There is something going on here,however, is there not?”

“Ay. ’Tis Fair Day. Though whatyou hear now is little more than the clatter and scurryof 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 allday, but I didn’t go up—­not I.’Twas no business of mine.”

The trusser and his family proceeded on their way,and soon entered the Fair-field, which showed standing-placesand pens where many hundreds of horses and sheep hadbeen exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but werenow in great part taken away. At present, as theirinformant had observed, but little real business remainedon hand, the chief being the sale by auction of afew inferior animals, that could not otherwise bedisposed of, and had been absolutely refused by thebetter class of traders, who came and went early.Yet the crowd was denser now than during the morninghours, the frivolous contingent of visitors, includingjourneymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or twocome on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like,having latterly flocked in; persons whose activitiesfound a congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands,waxworks, inspired monsters, disinterested medicalmen who travelled for the public good, thimble-riggers,nick-nack vendors, and readers of Fate.

Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for thesethings, and they looked around for a refreshment tentamong the many which dotted the down. Two, whichstood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiringsunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. Onewas formed of new, milk-hued canvas, and bore redflags on its summit; it announced “Good Home-brewedBeer, Ale, and Cyder.” The other was lessnew; a little iron stove-pipe came out of it at theback and in front appeared the placard, “GoodFurmity Sold Hear.” The man mentally weighedthe two inscriptions and inclined to the former tent.

“No—­no—­the other one,”said the woman. “I always like furmity;and so does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you.It is nourishing after a long hard day.”

“I’ve never tasted it,” said theman. However, he gave way to her representations,and they entered the furmity booth forthwith.

A rather numerous company appeared within, seatedat the long narrow tables that ran down the tent oneach side. At the upper end stood a stove, containinga charcoal fire, over which hung a large three-leggedcrock, sufficiently polished round the rim to showthat it was made of bell-metal. A haggish creatureof about fifty presided, in a white apron, which asit threw an air of respectability over her as far asit extended, was made so wide as to reach nearly roundher waist. She slowly stirred the contents ofthe pot. The dull scrape of her large spoon wasaudible throughout the tent as she thus kept from burningthe mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins,currants, and what not, that composed the antiquatedslop in which she dealt. Vessels holding theseparate ingredients stood on a white-clothed tableof boards and trestles close by.

The young man and woman ordered a basin each of themixture, steaming hot, and sat down to consume itat leisure. This was very well so far, for furmity,as the woman had said, was nourishing, and as propera food as could be obtained within the four seas;though, to those not accustomed to it, the grainsof wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floatedon its surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.

But there was more in that tent than met the cursoryglance; and the man, with the instinct of a perversecharacter, scented it quickly. After a mincingattack on his bowl, he watched the hag’s proceedingsfrom the corner of his eye, and saw the game she played.He winked to her, and passed up his basin in replyto her nod; when she took a bottle from under thetable, 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 slilysent back money in payment.

He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, muchmore to his satisfaction than it had been in its naturalstate. His wife had observed the proceeding withmuch uneasiness; but he persuaded her to have herslaced also, and she agreed to a milder allowance aftersome misgiving.

The man finished his basin, and called for another,the rum being signalled for in yet stronger proportion.The effect of it was soon apparent in his manner,and his wife but too sadly perceived that in strenuouslysteering off the rocks of the licensed liquor-tentshe had only got into maelstrom depths here amongstthe smugglers.

The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wifemore than once said to her husband, “Michael,how about our lodging? You know we may have troublein getting it if we don’t go soon.”

But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings.He talked loud to the company. The child’sblack eyes, after slow, round, ruminating gazes atthe candles when they were lighted, fell together;then they opened, then shut again, and she slept.

At the end of the first basin the man had risen toserenity; at the second he was jovial; at the third,argumentative, at the fourth, the qualities signifiedby the shape of his face, the occasional clench ofhis mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, beganto tell in his conduct; he was overbearing—­evenbrilliantly quarrelsome.

The conversation took a high turn, as it often doeson such occasions. The ruin of good men by badwives, and, more particularly, the frustration ofmany a promising youth’s high aims and hopesand the extinction of his energies by an early imprudentmarriage, was the theme.

“I did for myself that way thoroughly,”said the trusser with a contemplative bitterness thatwas well-night resentful. “I married ateighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is theconsequence o’t.” He pointed at himselfand family with a wave of the hand intended to bringout the penuriousness of the exhibition.

The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed tosuch remarks, acted as if she did not hear them, andcontinued her intermittent private words of tendertrifles to the sleeping and waking child, who was justbig enough to be placed for a moment on the bench besideher when she wished to ease her arms. The mancontinued—­

“I haven’t more than fifteen shillingsin the world, and yet I am a good experienced handin my line. I’d challenge England to beatme in the fodder business; and if I were a free managain I’d be worth a thousand pound before I’ddone o’t. But a fellow never knows theselittle things till all chance of acting upon ’emis past.”

The auctioneer selling the old horses in the fieldoutside could be heard saying, “Now this isthe last lot—­now who’ll take the lastlot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings?’Tis a very promising broodmare, a trifle overfive years old, and nothing the matter with the hossat all, except that she’s a little holler inthe back and had her left eye knocked out by the kickof another, her own sister, coming along the road.”

“For my part I don’t see why men who havegot wives and don’t want ’em, shouldn’tget rid of ’em as these gipsy fellows do theirold horses,” said the man in the tent.“Why shouldn’t they put ’em up andsell ’em by auction to men who are in need ofsuch articles? Hey? Why, begad, I’dsell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!”

“There’s them that would do that,”some of the guests replied, looking at the woman,who was by no means ill-favoured.

“True,” said a smoking gentleman, whosecoat had the fine polish about the collar, elbows,seams, and shoulder-blades that long-continued frictionwith grimy surfaces will produce, and which is usuallymore desired on furniture than on clothes. Fromhis appearance he had possibly been in former timegroom or coachman to some neighbouring county family.“I’ve had my breedings in as good circles,I may say, as any man,” he added, “andI know true cultivation, or nobody do; and I can declareshe’s got it—­in the bone, mind ye,I say—­as much as any female in the fair—­thoughit may want a little bringing out.” Then,crossing his legs, he resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjustedgaze at a point in the air.

The fuddled young husband stared for a few secondsat this unexpected praise of his wife, half in doubtof the wisdom of his own attitude towards the possessorof such qualities. But he speedily lapsed intohis former conviction, and said harshly—­

“Well, then, now is your chance; I am open toan offer for this gem o’ creation.”

She turned to her husband and murmured, “Michael,you have talked this nonsense in public places before.A joke is a joke, but you may make it once too often,mind!”

“I know I’ve said it before; I meant it.All I want is a buyer.”

At the moment a swallow, one among the last of theseason, which had by chance found its way throughan opening into the upper part of the tent, flew toand from quick curves above their heads, causing alleyes to follow it absently. In watching the birdtill it made its escape the assembled company neglectedto respond to the workman’s offer, and the subjectdropped.

But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had goneon lacing his furmity more and more heavily, thoughhe was either so strong-minded or such an intrepidtoper that he still appeared fairly sober, recurredto the old strain, as in a musical fantasy the instrumentfetches up the original theme. “Here—­Iam waiting to know about this offer of mine.The woman is no good to me. Who’ll haveher?”

The company had by this time decidedly degenerated,and the renewed inquiry was received with a laughof appreciation. The woman whispered; she wasimploring and anxious: “Come, come, it isgetting dark, and this nonsense won’t do.If you don’t come along, I shall go without you.Come!”

She waited and waited; yet he did not move. Inten minutes the man broke in upon the desultory conversationof the furmity drinkers with. “I askedthis question, and nobody answered to ’t.Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw among ye buy my goods?”

The woman’s manner changed, and her face assumedthe grim shape and colour of which mention has beenmade.

“Mike, Mike,” she said; “this isgetting serious. O!—­too serious!”

“Will anybody buy her?” said the man.

“I wish somebody would,” said she firmly.“Her present owner is not at all to her liking!”

“Nor you to mine,” said he. “Sowe are agreed about that. Gentlemen, you hear?It’s an agreement to part. She shall takethe girl if she wants to, and go her ways. I’lltake my tools, and go my ways. ’Tis simpleas Scripture history. Now then, stand up, Susan,and show yourself.”

“Don’t, my chiel,” whispered a buxomstaylace dealer in voluminous petticoats, who satnear the woman; “yer good man don’t knowwhat he’s saying.”

The woman, however, did stand up. “Now,who’s auctioneer?” cried the hay-trusser.

“I be,” promptly answered a short man,with a nose resembling a copper knob, a damp voice,and eyes like button-holes. “Who’llmake an offer for this lady?”

The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintainedher position by a supreme effort of will.

“Five shillings,” said someone, at whichthere was a laugh.

“No insults,” said the husband. “Who’llsay a guinea?”

Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylacesinterposed.

“Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven’slove! Ah, what a cruelty is the poor soul marriedto! Bed and board is dear at some figures ’ponmy ’vation ’tis!”

“Set it higher, auctioneer,” said thetrusser.

“Two guineas!” said the auctioneer; andno one replied.

“If they don’t take her for that, in tenseconds they’ll have to give more,” saidthe husband. “Very well. Now auctioneer,add another.”

“Three guineas—­going for three guineas!”said the rheumy man.

“No bid?” said the husband. “GoodLord, why she’s cost me fifty times the money,if a penny. Go on.”

“Four guineas!” cried the auctioneer.

“I’ll tell ye what—­I won’tsell 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 anyman that will pay me the money, and treat her well;and he shall have her for ever, and never hear aughto’ me. But she shan’t go for less.Now then—­five guineas—­and she’syours. Susan, you agree?”

She bowed her head with absolute indifference.

“Five guineas,” said the auctioneer, “orshe’ll be withdrawn. Do anybody give it?The last time. Yes or no?”

“Yes,” said a loud voice from the doorway.

All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangularopening which formed the door of the tent was a sailor,who, unobserved by the rest, had arrived there withinthe last two or three minutes. A dead silencefollowed his affirmation.

“You say you do?” asked the husband, staringat him.

“I say so,” replied the sailor.

“Saying is one thing, and paying is another.Where’s the money?”

The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at thewoman, came in, unfolded five crisp pieces of paper,and threw them down upon the tablecloth. Theywere Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Uponthe face of this he clinked down the shillings severally—­one,two, three, four, five.

The sight of real money in full amount, in answerto a challenge for the same till then deemed slightlyhypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators.Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chiefactors, and then upon the notes as they lay, weightedby the shillings, on the table.

Up to this moment it could not positively have beenasserted that the man, in spite of his tantalizingdeclaration, was really in earnest. The spectatorshad indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a pieceof mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumedthat, being out of work, he was, as a consequence,out of temper with the world, and society, and hisnearest kin. But with the demand and responseof real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed.A lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and changethe aspect of all therein. The mirth-wrinklesleft the listeners’ faces, and they waited withparting lips.

“Now,” said the woman, breaking the silence,so that her low dry voice sounded quite loud, “beforeyou go further, Michael, listen to me. If youtouch that money, I and this girl go with the man.Mind, it is a joke no longer.”

“A joke? Of course it is not a joke!”shouted her husband, his resentment rising at hersuggestion. “I take the money; the sailortakes you. That’s plain enough. Ithas been done elsewhere—­and why not here?”

“’Tis quite on the understanding thatthe young woman is willing,” said the sailorblandly. “I wouldn’t hurt her feelingsfor the world.”

“Faith, nor I,” said her husband.“But she is willing, provided she can have thechild. She said so only the other day when I talkedo’t!”

“That you swear?” said the sailor to her.

“I do,” said she, after glancing at herhusband’s face and seeing no repentance there.

“Very well, she shall have the child, and thebargain’s complete,” said the trusser.He took the sailor’s notes and deliberately foldedthem, and put them with the shillings in a high remotepocket, with an air of finality.

The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. “Comealong!” he said kindly. “The littleone too—­the more the merrier!” Shepaused 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 towardsthe door. On reaching it, she turned, and pullingoff her wedding-ring, flung it across the booth inthe hay-trusser’s face.

“Mike,” she said, “I’ve livedwith thee a couple of years, and had nothing but temper!Now I’m no more to ’ee; I’ll trymy luck elsewhere. ’Twill be better forme and Elizabeth-Jane, both. So good-bye!”

Seizing the sailor’s arm with her right hand,and mounting the little girl on her left, she wentout of the tent sobbing bitterly.

A stolid look of concern filled the husband’sface, as if, after all, he had not quite anticipatedthis ending; and some of the guests laughed.

“Is she gone?” he said.

“Faith, ay! she’s gone clane enough,”said some rustics near the door.

He rose and walked to the entrance with the carefultread of one conscious of his alcoholic load.Some others followed, and they stood looking intothe twilight. The difference between the peacefulnessof inferior nature and the wilful hostilities of mankindwas very apparent at this place. In contrastwith the harshness of the act just ended within thetent was the sight of several horses crossing theirnecks and rubbing each other lovingly as they waitedin patience to be harnessed for the homeward journey.Outside the fair, in the valleys and woods, all wasquiet. The sun had recently set, and the westheaven was hung with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent,yet slowly changed. To watch it was like lookingat some grand feat of stagery from a darkened auditorium.In presence of this scene after the other there wasa natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on anotherwise kindly universe; till it was rememberedthat all terrestrial conditions were intermittent,and that mankind might some night be innocently sleepingwhen these quiet objects were raging loud.

“Where do the sailor live?” asked a spectator,when they had vainly gazed around.

“God knows that,” replied the man whohad seen high life. “He’s withoutdoubt a stranger here.”

“He came in about five minutes ago,” saidthe furmity woman, joining the rest with her handson her hips. “And then ’a steppedback, and then ’a looked in again. I’mnot a penny the better for him.”

“Serves the husband well be-right,” saidthe staylace vendor. “A comely respectablebody like her—­what can a man want more?I glory in the woman’s sperrit. I’dha’ done it myself—­od send if I wouldn’t,if a husband had behaved so to me! I’dgo, and ’a might call, and call, till his keacornwas raw; but I’d never come back—­no,not till the great trumpet, would I!”

“Well, the woman will be better off,”said another of a more deliberative turn. “Forseafaring natures be very good shelter for shorn lambs,and the man do seem to have plenty of money, whichis what she’s not been used to lately, by allshowings.”

“Mark me—­I’ll not go afterher!” said the trusser, returning doggedly tohis seat. “Let her go! If she’sup to such vagaries she must suffer for ’em.She’d no business to take the maid—­’tismy maid; and if it were the doing again she shouldn’thave her!”

Perhaps from some little sense of having countenancedan indefensible proceeding, perhaps because it waslate, the customers thinned away from the tent shortlyafter this episode. The man stretched his elbowsforward on the table leant his face upon his arms,and soon began to snore. The furmity seller decidedto 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 thetent was not to be struck that night, the fair continuingfor two or three days, she decided to let the sleeper,who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, andhis basket with him. Extinguishing the last candle,and lowering the flap of the tent, she left it, anddrove away.

2.

The morning sun was streaming through the crevicesof the canvas when the man awoke. A warm glowpervaded the whole atmosphere of the marquee, anda single big blue fly buzzed musically round and roundit. Besides the buzz of the fly there was nota sound. He looked about—­at the benches—­atthe table supported by trestles—­at his basketof tools—­at the stove where the furmityhad been boiled—­at the empty basins—­atsome shed grains of wheat—­at the corks whichdotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and endshe discerned a little shining object, and picked itup. It was his wife’s ring.

A confused picture of the events of the previous eveningseemed to come back to him, and he thrust his handinto his breast-pocket. A rustling revealed thesailor’s bank-notes thrust carelessly in.

This second verification of his dim memories was enough;he knew now they were not dreams. He remainedseated, 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 onewho could not catch his thoughts without pronouncingthem. “She’s gone—­to besure she is—­gone with that sailor who boughther, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here,and I had the furmity, and rum in it—­andsold her. Yes, that’s what’s happenedand here am I. Now, what am I to do—­amI sober enough to walk, I wonder?” He stoodup, found that he was in fairly good condition forprogress, unencumbered. Next he shouldered histool basket, and found he could carry it. Thenlifting the tent door he emerged into the open air.

Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity.The freshness of the September morning inspired andbraced him as he stood. He and his family hadbeen weary when they arrived the night before, andthey had observed but little of the place; so thathe now beheld it as a new thing. It exhibiteditself as the top of an open down, bounded on one extremeby a plantation, and approached by a winding road.At the bottom stood the village which lent its nameto the upland and the annual fair that was held thereon.The spot stretched downward into valleys, and onwardto other uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenchedwith the remains of prehistoric forts. The wholescene lay under the rays of a newly risen sun, whichhad not as yet dried a single blade of the heavilydewed grass, whereon the shadows of the yellow andred vans were projected far away, those thrown bythe felloe of each wheel being elongated in shapeto the orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmenwho had remained on the ground lay snug within theircarts and tents or wrapped in horse-cloths under them,and were silent and still as death, with the exceptionof an occasional snore that revealed their presence.But the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of themysterious breeds that vagrants own, that are as muchlike cats as dogs and as much like foxes as cats alsolay about here. A little one started up underone of the carts, barked as a matter of principle,and quickly lay down again. He was the only positivespectator of the hay-trusser’s exit from theWeydon Fair-field.

This seemed to accord with his desire. He wenton in silent thought, unheeding the yellowhammerswhich flitted about the hedges with straws in theirbills, the crowns of the mushrooms, and the tinklingof local sheep-bells, whose wearer had had the goodfortune not to be included in the fair. Whenhe reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of theprevious evening, the man pitched his basket and leantupon a gate. A difficult problem or two occupiedhis mind.

“Did I tell my name to anybody last night, ordidn’t I tell my name?” he said to himself;and at last concluded that he did not. His generaldemeanour was enough to show how he was surprised andnettled that his wife had taken him so literally—­asmuch could be seen in his face, and in the way henibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge.He knew that she must have been somewhat excited todo this; moreover, she must have believed that therewas some sort of binding force in the transaction.On this latter point he felt almost certain, knowingher freedom from levity of character, and the extremesimplicity of her intellect. There may, too,have been enough recklessness and resentment beneathher ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentarydoubts. On a previous occasion when he had declaredduring a fuddle that he would dispose of her as hehad done, she had replied that she would not hearhim say that many times more before it happened, in

the resigned tones of a fatalist.... “Yetshe knows I am not in my senses when I do that!”he exclaimed. “Well, I must walk about tillI find her....Seize her, why didn’t she knowbetter than bring me into this disgrace!” heroared out. “She wasn’t queer if Iwas. ’Tis like Susan to show such idioticsimplicity. Meek—­that meekness hasdone me more harm than the bitterest temper!”

When he was calmer he turned to his original convictionthat he must somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane,and put up with the shame as best he could. Itwas of his own making, and he ought to bear it.But first he resolved to register an oath, a greateroath than he had ever sworn before: and to doit properly he required a fit place and imagery; forthere was something fetichistic in this man’sbeliefs.

He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting hiseyes inquisitively round upon the landscape as hewalked, and at the distance of three or four milesperceived the roofs of a village and the tower of achurch. He instantly made towards the latterobject. The village was quite still, it beingthat motionless hour of rustic daily life which fillsthe interval between the departure of the field-labourersto their work, and the rising of their wives and daughtersto prepare the breakfast for their return. Hencehe reached the church without observation, and thedoor being only latched he entered. The hay-trusserdeposited his basket by the font, went up the navetill he reached the altar-rails, and opening the gateentered the sacrarium, where he seemed to feel a senseof the strangeness for a moment; then he knelt uponthe footpace. Dropping his head upon the clampedbook which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud—­

“I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of thesixteenth of September, do take an oath before Godhere in this solemn place that I will avoid all strongliquors 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 mayI be strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break thismy oath!”

When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusserarose, and seemed relieved at having made a startin a new direction. While standing in the porcha moment he saw a thick jet of wood smoke suddenlystart up from the red chimney of a cottage near, andknew that the occupant had just lit her fire.He went round to the door, and the housewife agreedto prepare him some breakfast for a trifling payment,which was done. Then he started on the searchfor his wife and child.

The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparentsoon enough. Though he examined and inquired,and walked hither and thither day after day, no suchcharacters as those he described had anywhere beenseen since the evening of the fair. To add tothe difficulty he could gain no sound of the sailor’sname. As money was short with him he decided,after some hesitation, to spend the sailor’smoney in the prosecution of this search; but it wasequally in vain. The truth was that a certainshyness of revealing his conduct prevented MichaelHenchard from following up the investigation withthe loud hue-and-cry such a pursuit demanded to renderit effectual; and it was probably for this reasonthat he obtained no clue, though everything was doneby him that did not involve an explanation of thecirc*mstances under which he had lost her.

Weeks counted up to months, and still he searchedon, maintaining himself by small jobs of work in theintervals. By this time he had arrived at a seaport,and there he derived intelligence that persons answeringsomewhat to his description had emigrated a littletime before. Then he said he would search nolonger, and that he would go and settle in the districtwhich he had had for some time in his mind.

Next day he started, journeying south-westward, anddid not pause, except for nights’ lodgings,till he reached the town of Casterbridge, in a fardistant part of Wessex.

3.

The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors wasagain carpeted with dust. The trees had put onas of yore their aspect of dingy green, and wherethe Henchard family of three had once walked along,two persons not unconnected with the family walkednow.

The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previouscharacter, even to the voices and rattle from theneighbouring village down, that it might for thatmatter have been the afternoon following the previouslyrecorded episode. Change was only to be observedin details; but here it was obvious that a long processionof years had passed by. One of the two who walkedthe road was she who had figured as the young wifeof Henchard on the previous occasion; now her facehad lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergonea textural change; and though her hair had not lostcolour 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-formedyoung woman about eighteen, completely possessed ofthat ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itselfbeauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.

A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that thiswas Susan Henchard’s grown-up daughter.While life’s middle summer had set its hardeningmark on the mother’s face, her former spring-likespecialities were transferred so dexterously by Timeto the second figure, her child, that the absenceof certain facts within her mother’s knowledgefrom the girl’s mind would have seemed for themoment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be acurious imperfection in Nature’s powers of continuity.

They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceivedthat this was the act of simple affection. Thedaughter carried in her outer hand a withy basketof old-fashioned make; the mother a blue bundle, whichcontrasted oddly with her black stuff gown.

Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursuedthe 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 noticedin the roundabouts and high-fliers, machines for testingrustic strength and weight, and in the erections devotedto shooting for nuts. But the real business ofthe fair had considerably dwindled. The new periodicalgreat markets of neighbouring towns were beginningto interfere seriously with the trade carried on herefor centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropesfor 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, andthe vehicles were far less numerous. The motherand daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance,and then stood still.

“Why did we hinder our time by coming in here?I thought you wished to get onward?” said themaiden.

“Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane,” explainedthe other. “But I had a fancy for lookingup here.”

“Why?”

“It was here I first met with Newson—­onsuch a day as this.”

“First met with father here? Yes, you havetold me so before. And now he’s drownedand gone from us!” As she spoke the girl drewa card from her pocket and looked at it with a sigh.It was edged with black, and inscribed within a designresembling a mural tablet were the words, “Inaffectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, whowas unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of November184—­, aged forty-one years.”

“And it was here,” continued her mother,with more hesitation, “that I last saw the relationwe are going to look for—­Mr. Michael Henchard.”

“What is his exact kin to us, mother? Ihave never clearly had it told me.”

“He is, or was—­for he may be dead—­aconnection by marriage,” said her mother deliberately.

“That’s exactly what you have said a scoreof times before!” replied the young woman, lookingabout her inattentively. “He’s nota near relation, I suppose?”

“Not by any means.”

“He was a hay-trusser, wasn’t he, whenyou last heard of him?

“He was.”

“I suppose he never knew me?” the girlinnocently continued.

Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered un-easily,“Of course not, Elizabeth-Jane. But comethis way.” She moved on to another partof the field.

“It is not much use inquiring here for anybody,I should think,” the daughter observed, as shegazed round about. “People at fairs changelike the leaves of trees; and I daresay you are theonly one here to-day who was here all those yearsago.”

“I am not so sure of that,” said Mrs.Newson, as she now called herself, keenly eyeing somethingunder a green bank a little way off. “Seethere.”

The daughter looked in the direction signified.The object pointed out was a tripod of sticks stuckinto the earth, from which hung a three-legged crock,kept hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Overthe pot stooped an old woman haggard, wrinkled, andalmost in rags. She stirred the contents of thepot with a large spoon, and occasionally croaked ina broken voice, “Good furmity sold here!”

It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent—­oncethriving, cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking withmoney—­now tentless, dirty, owning no tablesor benches, and having scarce any customers excepttwo small whity-brown boys, who came up and asked for“A ha’p’orth, please—­goodmeasure,” which she served in a couple of chippedyellow basins of commonest clay.

“She was here at that time,” resumed Mrs.Newson, making a step as if to draw nearer.

“Don’t speak to her—­it isn’trespectable!” urged the other.

“I will just say a word—­you, Elizabeth-Jane,can stay here.”

The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls ofcoloured prints while her mother went forward.The old woman begged for the latter’s customas soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson’srequest for a pennyworth with more alacrity than shehad shown in selling six-pennyworths in her youngerdays. When the soi-disant widow had taken thebasin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoctionof the former time, the hag opened a little basketbehind the fire, and looking up slily, whispered,“Just a thought o’ rum in it?—­smuggled,you know—­say two penn’orth—­’twillmake it slip down like cordial!”

Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of theold trick, and shook her head with a meaning the oldwoman was far from translating. She pretendedto eat a little of the furmity with the leaden spoonoffered, and as she did so said blandly to the hag,“You’ve seen better days?”

“Ah, ma’am—­well ye may sayit!” responded the old woman, opening the sluicesof her heart forthwith. “I’ve stoodin this fair-ground, maid, wife, and widow, thesenine-and-thirty years, and in that time have knownwhat it was to do business with the richest stomachsin the land! Ma’am you’d hardly believethat I was once the owner of a great pavilion-tentthat was the attraction of the fair. Nobody couldcome, nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs.Goodenough’s furmity. I knew the clergy’staste, the dandy gent’s taste; I knew the town’staste, the country’s taste. I even knowedthe taste of the coarse shameless females. ButLord’s my life—­the world’s nomemory; straightforward dealings don’t bringprofit—­’tis the sly and the underhandthat get on in these times!”

Mrs. Newson glanced round—­her daughterwas still bending over the distant stalls. “Canyou call to mind,” she said cautiously to theold woman, “the sale of a wife by her husbandin your tent eighteen years ago to-day?”

The hag reflected, and half shook her head. “Ifit had been a big thing I should have minded it ina moment,” she said. “I can mind everyserious fight o’ married parties, every murder,every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking—­leastwiselarge ones—­that ’t has been my lotto witness. But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?”

“Well, yes. I think so.”

The furmity woman half shook her head again.“And yet,” she said, “I do.At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o’the sort—­a man in a cord jacket, with abasket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don’tgi’e it head-room, we don’t, such as that.The only reason why I can mind the man is that hecame back here to the next year’s fair, and toldme quite private-like that if a woman ever asked forhim I was to say he had gone to—­where?—­Casterbridge—­yes—­toCasterbridge, said he. But, Lord’s my life,I shouldn’t ha’ thought of it again!”

Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as faras her small means afforded had she not discreetlyborne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous person’sliquor her husband had been degraded. She brieflythanked her informant, and rejoined Elizabeth, whogreeted her with, “Mother, do let’s geton—­it was hardly respectable for you tobuy refreshments there. I see none but the lowestdo.”

“I have learned what I wanted, however,”said her mother quietly. “The last timeour relative visited this fair he said he was livingat Casterbridge. It is a long, long way fromhere, and it was many years ago that he said it, butthere I think we’ll go.”

With this they descended out of the fair, and wentonward to the village, where they obtained a night’slodging.

4.

Henchard’s wife acted for the best, but shehad involved herself in difficulties. A hundredtimes she had been upon the point of telling her daughterElizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragicalcrisis of which had been the transaction at WeydonFair, when she was not much older than the girl nowbeside her. But she had refrained. An innocentmaiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relationsbetween the genial sailor and her mother were theordinary ones that they had always appeared to be.The risk of endangering a child’s strong affectionby disturbing ideas which had grown with her growthwas to Mrs. Henchard too fearful a thing to contemplate.It had seemed, indeed folly to think of making Elizabeth-Janewise.

But Susan Henchard’s fear of losing her dearlyloved daughter’s heart by a revelation had littleto do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own part.Her simplicity—­the original ground of Henchard’scontempt for her—­had allowed her to liveon in the conviction that Newson had acquired a morallyreal and justifiable right to her by his purchase—­thoughthe exact bearings and legal limits of that right werevague. It may seem strange to sophisticated mindsthat a sane young matron could believe in the seriousnessof such a transfer; and were there not numerous otherinstances of the same belief the thing might scarcelybe credited. But she was by no means the firstor last peasant woman who had religiously adheredto her purchaser, as too many rural records show.

The history of Susan Henchard’s adventures inthe interim can be told in two or three sentences.Absolutely helpless she had been taken off to Canadawhere they had lived several years without any greatworldly success, though she worked as hard as anywoman could to keep their cottage cheerful and well-provided.When Elizabeth-Jane was about twelve years old thethree returned to England, and settled at Falmouth,where Newson made a living for a few years as boatmanand general handy shoreman.

He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and itwas during this period that Susan had an awakening.A friend to whom she confided her history ridiculedher grave acceptance of her position; and all was overwith her peace of mind. When Newson came homeat the end of one winter he saw that the delusionhe had so carefully sustained had vanished for ever.

There was then a time of sadness, in which she toldhim her doubts if she could live with him longer.Newson left home again on the Newfoundland trade whenthe season came round. The vague news of hisloss at sea a little later on solved a problem whichhad become torture to her meek conscience. Shesaw him no more.

Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liegesubjects of Labour, the England of those days wasa continent, and a mile a geographical degree.

Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness.One day a month or so after receiving intelligenceof Newson’s death off the Bank of Newfoundland,when the girl was about eighteen, she was sitting ona willow chair in the cottage they still occupied,working twine nets for the fishermen. Her motherwas in a back corner of the same room engaged in thesame labour, and dropping the heavy wood needle shewas filling she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully.The sun shone in at the door upon the young woman’shead and hair, which was worn loose, so that the raysstreamed into its depths as into a hazel copse.Her face, though somewhat wan and incomplete, possessedthe raw materials of beauty in a promising degree.There was an under-handsomeness in it, strugglingto reveal itself through the provisional curves ofimmaturity, and the casual disfigurements that resultedfrom the straitened circ*mstances of their lives.She was handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsomein the flesh. She possibly might never be fullyhandsome, unless the carking accidents of her dailyexistence could be evaded before the mobile partsof her countenance had settled to their final mould.

The sight of the girl made her mother sad—­notvaguely but by logical inference. They both werestill in that strait-waistcoat of poverty from whichshe had tried so many times to be delivered for thegirl’s sake. The woman had long perceivedhow zealously and constantly the young mind of hercompanion was struggling for enlargement; and yet now,in her eighteenth year, it still remained but littleunfolded. The desire—­sober and repressed—­ofElizabeth-Jane’s heart was indeed to see, tohear, and to understand. How could she becomea woman of wider knowledge, higher repute—­“better,”as she termed it—­this was her constantinquiry of her mother. She sought further intothings than other girls in her position ever did,and her mother groaned as she felt she could not aidin the search.

The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost tothem; and Susan’s staunch, religious adherenceto him as her husband in principle, till her viewshad been disturbed by enlightenment, was demanded nomore. She asked herself whether the present moment,now that she was a free woman again, were not as opportunea one as she would find in a world where everythinghad been so inopportune, for making a desperate effortto advance Elizabeth. To pocket her pride andsearch for the first husband seemed, wisely or not,the best initiatory step. He had possibly drunkhimself into his tomb. But he might, on the otherhand, have had too much sense to do so; for in hertime with him he had been given to bouts only, andwas not a habitual drunkard.

At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, ifhe lived, was unquestionable. The awkwardnessof searching for him lay in enlightening Elizabeth,a proceeding which her mother could not endure tocontemplate. She finally resolved to undertakethe search without confiding to the girl her formerrelations with Henchard, leaving it to him if theyfound him to take what steps he might choose to thatend. This will account for their conversationat the fair and the half-informed state at which Elizabethwas led onward.

In this attitude they proceeded on their journey,trusting solely to the dim light afforded of Henchard’swhereabouts by the furmity woman. The strictesteconomy was indispensable. Sometimes they mighthave been seen on foot, sometimes on farmers’waggons, sometimes in carriers’ vans; and thusthey drew near to Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Janediscovered to her alarm that her mother’s healthwas not what it once had been, and there was everand anon in her talk that renunciatory tone which showedthat, but for the girl, she would not be very sorryto quit a life she was growing thoroughly weary of.

It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of Septemberand just before dusk, that they reached the summitof 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 satdown. The spot commanded a full view of the townand its environs.

“What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!”said Elizabeth-Jane, while her silent mother musedon other things than topography. “It ishuddled all together; and it is shut in by a squarewall of trees, like a plot of garden ground by a box-edging.”

Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic whichmost struck the eye in this antiquated borough, theborough of Casterbridge—­at that time, recentas it was, untouched by the faintest sprinkle of modernism.It was compact as a box of dominoes. It had nosuburbs—­in the ordinary sense. Countryand town met at a mathematical line.

To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge musthave appeared on this fine evening as a mosaic-workof subdued reds, browns, greys, and crystals, heldtogether by a rectangular frame of deep green.To the level eye of humanity it stood as an indistinctmass behind a dense stockade of limes and chestnuts,set in the midst of miles of rotund down and concavefield. The mass became gradually dissected bythe vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and casem*nts,the highest glazings shining bleared and bloodshotwith the coppery fire they caught from the belt ofsunlit cloud in the west.

From the centre of each side of this tree-bound squareran avenues east, west, and south into the wide expanseof cornland and coomb to the distance of a mile orso. It was by one of these avenues that the pedestrianswere about to enter. Before they had risen toproceed two men passed outside the hedge, engagedin argumentative conversation.

“Why, surely,” said Elizabeth, as theyreceded, “those men mentioned the name of Henchardin their talk—­the name of our relative?”

“I thought so too,” said Mrs. Newson.

“That seems a hint to us that he is still here.”

“Yes.”

“Shall I run after them, and ask them abouthim——­”

“No, no, no! Not for the world just yet.He may be in the workhouse, or in the stocks, forall we know.”

“Dear me—­why should you think that,mother?”

“’Twas just something to say—­that’sall! But we must make private inquiries.”

Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on theirway at evenfall. The dense trees of the avenuerendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the openland on each side was still under a faint daylight,in other words, they passed down a midnight betweentwo gloamings. The features of the town had akeen interest for Elizabeth’s mother, now thatthe human side came to the fore. As soon as theyhad wandered about they could see that the stockadeof gnarled trees which framed in Casterbridge was itselfan avenue, standing on a low green bank or escarpment,with a ditch yet visible without. Within theavenue and bank was a wall more or less discontinuous,and within the wall were packed the abodes of theburghers.

Though the two women did not know it these externalfeatures were but the ancient defences of the town,planted as a promenade.

The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdlingtrees, conveying a sense of great smugness and comfortinside, and rendering at the same time the unlightedcountry without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect,considering its nearness to life. The differencebetween burgh and champaign was increased, too, bysounds which now reached them above others—­thenotes of a brass band. The travellers returnedinto the High Street, where there were timber houseswith overhanging stories, whose small-paned latticeswere screened by dimity curtains on a drawing-string,and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved in thebreeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, whichderived their chief support from those adjoining.There were slate roofs patched with tiles, and tileroofs patched with slate, with occasionally a roofof thatch.

The agricultural and pastoral character of the peopleupon whom the town depended for its existence wasshown by the class of objects displayed in the shopwindows. Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks,spades, mattocks, and hoes at the iron-monger’s;bee-hives, butter-firkins, churns, milking stoolsand pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons, and seed-lipsat the cooper’s; cart-ropes and plough-harnessat the saddler’s; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gearat the wheelwright’s and machinist’s,horse-embrocations at the chemist’s; at theglover’s and leather-cutter’s, hedging-gloves,thatchers’ knee-caps, ploughmen’s leggings,villagers’ pattens and clogs.

They came to a grizzled church, whose massive squaretower rose unbroken into the darkening sky, the lowerparts being illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficientlyto show how completely the mortar from the jointsof the stonework had been nibbled out by time and weather,which had planted in the crevices thus made littletufts of stone-crop and grass almost as far up asthe very battlements. From this tower the clockstruck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll witha peremptory clang. The curfew was still rungin Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the inhabitantsas a signal for shutting their shops. No soonerdid the deep notes of the bell throb between the house-frontsthan a clatter of shutters arose through the wholelength of the High Street. In a few minutes businessat Casterbridge was ended for the day.

Other clocks struck eight from time to time—­onegloomily from the gaol, another from the gable ofan 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’sshop joined in one after another just as the shutterswere enclosing them, like a row of actors deliveringtheir final speeches before the fall of the curtain;then chimes were heard stammering out the SicilianMariners’ Hymn; so that chronologists of theadvanced school were appreciably on their way to thenext hour before the whole business of the old onewas satisfactorily wound up.

In an open space before the church walked a womanwith her gown-sleeves rolled up so high that the edgeof her underlinen was visible, and her skirt tuckedup through her pocket hole. She carried a loadunder her arm from which she was pulling pieces ofbread, and handing them to some other women who walkedwith her, which pieces they nibbled critically.The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her daughterthat they had an appetite; and they inquired of thewoman for the nearest baker’s.

“Ye may as well look for manna-food as goodbread in Casterbridge just now,” she said, afterdirecting them. “They can blare their trumpetsand thump their drums, and have their roaring dinners”—­wavingher hand towards a point further along the street,where the brass band could be seen standing in frontof an illuminated building—­“but wemust needs be put-to for want of a wholesome crust.There’s less good bread than good beer in Casterbridgenow.”

“And less good beer than swipes,” saida man with his hands in his pockets.

“How does it happen there’s no good bread?”asked Mrs. Henchard.

“Oh, ’tis the corn-factor—­he’sthe man that our millers and bakers all deal wi’,and he has sold ’em growed wheat, which theydidn’t know was growed, so they say, tillthe dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver;so that the loaves be as fiat as toads, and like suetpudden inside. I’ve been a wife, and I’vebeen a mother, and I never see such unprincipled breadin Casterbridge as this before.—­But youmust be a real stranger here not to know what’smade all the poor volks’ insides plim like blowedbladders this week?”

“I am,” said Elizabeth’s mothershyly.

Not wishing to be observed further till she knew moreof her future in this place, she withdrew with herdaughter from the speaker’s side. Gettinga couple of biscuits at the shop indicated as a temporarysubstitute for a meal, they next bent their steps instinctivelyto where the music was playing.

5.

A few score yards brought them to the spot where thetown band was now shaking the window-panes with thestrains of “The Roast Beef of Old England.”

The building before whose doors they had pitched theirmusic-stands was the chief hotel in Casterbridge—­namely,the King’s Arms. A spacious bow-windowprojected into the street over the main portico, andfrom the open sashes came the babble of voices, thejingle of glasses, and the drawing of corks.The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the wholeinterior of this room could be surveyed from the topof a flight of stone steps to the road-waggon officeopposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gatheredthere.

“We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiriesabout—­our relation Mr. Henchard,”whispered Mrs. Newson who, since her entry into Casterbridge,had seemed strangely weak and agitated, “Andthis, I think, would be a good place for trying it—­justto ask, you know, how he stands in the town—­ifhe is here, as I think he must be. You, Elizabeth-Jane,had better be the one to do it. I’m tooworn out to do anything—­pull down yourfall first.”

She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Janeobeyed her directions and stood among the idlers.

“What’s going on to-night?” askedthe girl, after singling out an old man and standingby him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right ofconverse.

“Well, ye must be a stranger sure,” saidthe old man, without taking his eyes from the window.“Why, ’tis a great public dinner of thegentle-people and such like leading volk—­wi’the Mayor in the chair. As we plainer fellowsbain’t invited, they leave the winder-shuttersopen that we may get jist a sense o’t out here.If you mount the steps you can see em. That’sMr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the table, afacing ye; and that’s the Council men right andleft....Ah, lots of them when they begun life wereno more than I be now!”

“Henchard!” said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised,but by no means suspecting the whole force of therevelation. She ascended to the top of the steps.

Her mother, though her head was bowed, had alreadycaught from the inn-window tones that strangely rivetedher attention, before the old man’s words, “Mr.Henchard, the Mayor,” reached her ears.She arose, and stepped up to her daughter’sside as soon as she could do so without showing exceptionaleagerness.

The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread outbefore her, with its tables, and glass, and plate,and inmates. Facing the window, in the chairof dignity, sat a man about forty years of age; ofheavy 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 someremark among the guests, his large mouth parted sofar back as to show to the rays of the chandeliera full score or more of the two-and-thirty sound whiteteeth that he obviously still could boast of.

That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and henceit 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 whichwould have no pity for weakness, but would be readyto yield ungrudging admiration to greatness and strength.Its producer’s personal goodness, if he hadany, would be of a very fitful cast—­an occasionalalmost oppressive generosity rather than a mild andconstant kindness.

Susan Henchard’s husband—­in law,at least—­sat before them, matured in shape,stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined,thought-marked—­in a word, older. Elizabeth,encumbered with no recollections as her mother was,regarded him with nothing more than the keen curiosityand interest which the discovery of such unexpectedsocial standing in the long-sought relative naturallybegot. He was dressed in an old-fashioned eveningsuit, an expanse of frilled shirt showing on his broadbreast; jewelled studs, and a heavy gold chain.Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to hiswife’s surprise, the two for wine were empty,while the third, a tumbler, was half full of water.

When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroyjacket, fustian waistcoat and breeches, and tannedleather leggings, with a basin of hot furmity beforehim. Time, the magician, had wrought much here.Watching him, and thus thinking of past days, shebecame so moved that she shrank back against the jambof the waggon-office doorway to which the steps gaveaccess, the shadow from it conveniently hiding herfeatures. She forgot her daughter till a touchfrom Elizabeth-Jane aroused her. “Haveyou seen him, mother?” whispered the girl.

“Yes, yes,” answered her companion hastily.“I have seen him, and it is enough for me!Now I only want to go—­pass away—­die.”

“Why—­O what?” She drew closer,and whispered in her mother’s ear, “Doeshe seem to you not likely to befriend us? I thoughthe looked a generous man. What a gentleman heis, isn’t he? and how his diamond studs shine!How strange that you should have said he might be inthe stocks, or in the workhouse, or dead! Didever anything go more by contraries! Why do youfeel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I’llcall upon him—­he can but say he don’town such remote kin.”

“I don’t know at all—­I can’ttell what to set about. I feel so down.”

“Don’t be that, mother, now we have gothere and all! Rest there where you be a littlewhile—­I will look on and find out more abouthim.”

“I don’t think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard.He is not how I thought he would be—­heoverpowers me! I don’t wish to see him anymore.”

“But wait a little time and consider.”

Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested inanything in her life as in their present position,partly from the natural elation she felt at discoveringherself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at thescene. The younger guests were talking and eatingwith animation; their elders were searching for titbits,and sniffing and grunting over their plates like sowsnuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed to besacred to the company—­port, sherry, andrum; outside which old-established trinity few orno palates ranged.

A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on theirsides, and each primed with a spoon, was now placeddown the table, and these were promptly filled withgrog at such high temperatures as to raise seriousconsiderations for the articles exposed to its vapours.But Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this fillingwent on with great promptness up and down the table,nobody filled the Mayor’s glass, who still dranklarge quantities of water from the tumbler behind theclump of crystal vessels intended for wine and spirits.

“They don’t fill Mr. Henchard’swine-glasses,” she ventured to say to her elbowacquaintance, the old man.

“Ah, no; don’t ye know him to be the celebratedabstaining worthy of that name? He scorns alltempting liquors; never touches nothing. O yes,he’ve strong qualities that way. I haveheard tell that he sware a gospel oath in bygone times,and has bode by it ever since. So they don’tpress him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the faceof that: for yer gospel oath is a serious thing.”

Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joinedin by inquiring, “How much longer have he gotto suffer from it, Solomon Longways?”

“Another two year, they say. I don’tknow the why and the wherefore of his fixing sucha time, for ’a never has told anybody. But’tis exactly two calendar years longer, theysay. A powerful mind to hold out so long!”

“True....But there’s great strength inhope. Knowing that in four-and-twenty months’time ye’ll be out of your bondage, and able tomake up for all you’ve suffered, by partakingwithout stint—­why, it keeps a man up, nodoubt.”

“No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt.And ’a must need such reflections—­alonely widow man,” said Longways.

“When did he lose his wife?” asked Elizabeth.

“I never knowed her. ’Twas aforehe came to Casterbridge,” Solomon Longways repliedwith terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his ignoranceof Mrs. Henchard were sufficient to deprive her historyof all interest. “But I know that ’a’sa banded teetotaller, and that if any of his men beever so little overtook by a drop he’s down upon’em as stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews.”

“Has he many men, then?” said Elizabeth-Jane.

“Many! Why, my good maid, he’s thepowerfullest member of the Town Council, and quitea 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; andthat’s where he makes his mistake. He workedhis way up from nothing when ’a came here; andnow he’s a pillar of the town. Not but whathe’s been shaken a little to-year about thisbad corn he has supplied in his contracts. I’veseen the sun rise over Durnover Moor these nine-and-sixtyyear, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed meunfairly ever since I’ve worked for’n,seeing I be but a little small man, I must say thatI have never before tasted such rough bread as hasbeen made from Henchard’s wheat lately.’Tis that growed out that ye could a’mostcall it malt, and there’s a list at bottom o’the loaf as thick as the sole of one’s shoe.”

The band now struck up another melody, and by thetime it was ended the dinner was over, and speechesbegan to be made. The evening being calm, andthe windows still open, these orations could be distinctlyheard. Henchard’s voice arose above therest; he was telling a story of his hay-dealing experiences,in which he had outwitted a sharper who had been bentupon outwitting him.

“Ha-ha-ha!” responded his audience atthe upshot of the story; and hilarity was generaltill a new voice arose with, “This is all verywell; but how about the bad bread?”

It came from the lower end of the table, where theresat a group of minor tradesmen who, although partof the company, appeared to be a little below thesocial level of the others; and who seemed to nourisha certain independence of opinion and carry on discussionsnot quite in harmony with those at the head; justas the west end of a church is sometimes persistentlyfound to sing out of time and tune with the leadingspirits in the chancel.

This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinitesatisfaction to the loungers outside, several of whomwere 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 thosewho shared the feast, they could afford to add, “Yourather ought to tell the story o’ that, sir!”

The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayorto notice it.

“Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly,”he said. “But I was taken in in buyingit as much as the bakers who bought it o’ me.”

“And the poor folk who had to eat it whetheror no,” said the inharmonious man outside thewindow.

Henchard’s face darkened. There was temperunder the thin bland surface—­the temperwhich, artificially intensified, had banished a wifenearly a score of years before.

“You must make allowances for the accidentsof a large business,” he said. “Youmust bear in mind that the weather just at the harvestof that corn was worse than we have known it for years.However, I have mended my arrangements on accounto’t. Since I have found my business toolarge to be well looked after by myself alone, I haveadvertised for a thorough good man as manager of thecorn department. When I’ve got him youwill find these mistakes will no longer occur—­matterswill be better looked into.”

“But what are you going to do to repay us forthe past?” inquired the man who had before spoken,and who seemed to be a baker or miller. “Willyou replace the grown flour we’ve still got bysound grain?”

Henchard’s face had become still more sternat these interruptions, and he drank from his tumblerof water as if to calm himself or gain time.Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed—­

“If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheatinto wholesome wheat I’ll take it back withpleasure. But it can’t be done.”

Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having saidthis, he sat down.

6.

Now the group outside the window had within the lastfew minutes been reinforced by new arrivals, someof them respectable shopkeepers and their assistants,who had come out for a whiff of air after putting upthe shutters for the night; some of them of a lowerclass. Distinct from either there appeared astranger—­a young man of remarkably pleasantaspect—­who carried in his hand a carpet-bagof the smart floral pattern prevalent in such articlesat that time.

He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed,and slight in build. He might possibly have passedby without stopping at all, or at most for half aminute to glance in at the scene, had not his adventcoincided with the discussion on corn and bread, inwhich event this history had never been enacted.But the subject seemed to arrest him, and he whisperedsome inquiries of the other bystanders, and remainedlistening.

When he heard Henchard’s closing words, “Itcan’t be done,” he smiled impulsively,drew out his pocketbook, and wrote down a few wordsby the aid of the light in the window. He toreout the leaf, folded and directed it, and seemed aboutto throw it in through the open sash upon the dining-table;but, on second thoughts, edged himself through theloiterers, till he reached the door of the hotel, whereone of the waiters who had been serving inside wasnow idly leaning against the doorpost.

“Give this to the Mayor at once,” he said,handing in his hasty note.

Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard thewords, which attracted her both by their subject andby their accent—­a strange one for thoseparts. It was quaint and northerly.

The waiter took the note, while the young strangercontinued—­

“And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that’sa little more moderate than this?”

The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.

“They say the Three Mariners, just below here,is a very good place,” he languidly answered;“but I have never stayed there myself.”

The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, andstrolled on in the direction of the Three Marinersaforesaid, apparently more concerned about the questionof an inn than about the fate of his note, now thatthe momentary impulse of writing it was over.While he was disappearing slowly down the street thewaiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane saw withsome interest the note brought into the dining-roomand handed to the Mayor.

Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it withone hand, and glanced it through. Thereupon itwas curious to note an unexpected effect. Thenettled, clouded aspect which had held possession ofhis face since the subject of his corn-dealings hadbeen broached, changed itself into one of arrestedattention. He read the note slowly, and fell intothought, not moody, but fitfully intense, as thatof a man who has been captured by an idea.

By this time toasts and speeches had given place tosongs, the wheat subject being quite forgotten.Men were putting their heads together in twos andthrees, telling good stories, with pantomimic laughterwhich reached convulsive grimace. Some were beginningto look as if they did not know how they had comethere, what they had come for, or how they were goingto get home again; and provisionally sat on with adazed smile. Square-built men showed a tendencyto become hunchbacks; men with a dignified presencelost it in a curious obliquity of figure, in whichtheir features grew disarranged and one-sided, whilstthe heads of a few who had dined with extreme thoroughnesswere somehow sinking into their shoulders, the cornersof their mouth and eyes being bent upwards by thesubsidence. Only Henchard did not conform to theseflexuous changes; he remained stately and vertical,silently thinking.

The clock struck nine. Elizabeth-Jane turnedto her companion. “The evening is drawingon, mother,” she said. “What do youpropose to do?”

She was surprised to find how irresolute her motherhad become. “We must get a place to liedown in,” she murmured. “I have seen—­Mr.Henchard; and that’s all I wanted to do.”

“That’s enough for to-night, at any rate,”Elizabeth-Jane replied soothingly. “Wecan think to-morrow what is best to do about him.The question now is—­is it not?—­howshall we find a lodging?”

As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane’smind reverted to the words of the waiter, that theThree Mariners was an inn of moderate charges.A recommendation good for one person was probablygood for another. “Let’s go wherethe young man has gone to,” she said. “Heis respectable. What do you say?”

Her mother assented, and down the street they went.

In the meantime the Mayor’s thoughtfulness,engendered by the note as stated, continued to holdhim in abstraction; till, whispering to his neighbourto take his place, he found opportunity to leave thechair. This was just after the departure of hiswife and Elizabeth.

Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter,and beckoning to him asked who had brought the notewhich had been handed in a quarter of an hour before.

“A young man, sir—­a sort of traveller.He was a Scotchman seemingly.”

“Did he say how he had got it?”

“He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outsidethe window.”

“Oh—­wrote it himself....Is the youngman in the hotel?”

“No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners,I believe.”

The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of thehotel with his hands under his coat tails, as if hewere merely seeking a cooler atmosphere than thatof the room he had quitted. But there could beno doubt that he was in reality still possessed tothe 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 conversationwere proceeding quite satisfactorily without his presence.The Corporation, private residents, and major andminor tradesmen had, in fact, gone in for comfortingbeverages to such an extent that they had quite forgotten,not only the Mayor, but all those vast, political,religious, and social differences which they feltnecessary to maintain in the daytime, and which separatedthem like iron grills. Seeing this the Mayortook his hat, and when the waiter had helped him onwith a thin holland overcoat, went out and stood underthe portico.

Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes,by a sort of attraction, turned and dwelt upon a spotabout a hundred yards further down. It was thehouse to which the writer of the note had gone—­theThree Mariners—­whose two prominent Elizabethangables, bow-window, and passage-light could be seenfrom where he stood. Having kept his eyes onit for a while he strolled in that direction.

This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast,now, unfortunately, pulled down, was built of mellowsandstone, with mullioned windows of the same material,markedly out of perpendicular from the settlementof foundations. The bay window projecting intothe street, whose interior was so popular among thefrequenters of the inn, was closed with shutters,in each of which appeared a heart-shaped aperture,somewhat more attenuated in the right and left ventriclesthan is seen in Nature. Inside these illuminatedholes, at a distance of about three inches, were rangedat this hour, as every passer knew, the ruddy pollsof Billy Wills the glazier, Smart the shoemaker, Buzzfordthe general dealer, and others of a secondary set ofworthies, of a grade somewhat below that of the dinersat the King’s Arms, each with his yard of clay.

A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, andover the arch the signboard, now visible in the raysof an opposite lamp. Hereon the Mariners, whohad been represented by the artist as persons of twodimensions only—­in other words, flat asa shadow—­were standing in a row in paralyzedattitudes. Being on the sunny side of the streetthe three comrades had suffered largely from warping,splitting, fading, and shrinkage, so that they werebut a half-invisible film upon the reality of thegrain, and knots, and nails, which composed the signboard.As a matter of fact, this state of things was notso much owing to Stannidge the landlord’s neglect,as from the lack of a painter in Casterbridge whowould undertake to reproduce the features of men sotraditional.

A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to theinn, within which passage the horses going to theirstalls at the back, and the coming and departing humanguests, rubbed shoulders indiscriminately, the latterrunning no slight risk of having their toes troddenupon by the animals. The good stabling and thegood ale of the Mariners, though somewhat difficultto reach on account of there being but this narrowway to both, were nevertheless perseveringly soughtout by the sagacious old heads who knew what was whatin Casterbridge.

Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants;then lowering the dignity of his presence as muchas possible by buttoning the brown holland coat overhis shirt-front, and in other ways toning himself downto his ordinary everyday appearance, he entered theinn door.

7.

Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twentyminutes earlier. Outside the house they had stoodand considered whether even this homely place, thoughrecommended as moderate, might not be too serious inits prices for their light pockets. Finally,however, they had found courage to enter, and dulymet Stannidge the landlord, a silent man, who drewand carried frothing measures to this room and to that,shoulder to shoulder with his waiting-maids—­astately slowness, however, entering into his ministrationsby contrast with theirs, as became one whose servicewas somewhat optional. It would have been altogetheroptional but for the orders of the landlady, a personwho sat in the bar, corporeally motionless, but witha flitting eye and quick ear, with which she observedand heard through the open door and hatchway the pressingneeds of customers whom her husband overlooked thoughclose at hand. Elizabeth and her mother werepassively accepted as sojourners, and shown to a smallbedroom under one of the gables, where they sat down.

The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensatefor the antique awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurityof the passages, floors, and windows, by quantitiesof clean linen spread about everywhere, and this hada dazzling effect upon the travellers.

“’Tis too good for us—­we can’tmeet it!” said the elder woman, looking roundthe apartment with misgiving as soon as they were leftalone.

“I fear it is, too,” said Elizabeth.“But we must be respectable.”

“We must pay our way even before we must berespectable,” replied her mother. “Mr.Henchard is too high for us to make ourselves knownto him, I much fear; so we’ve only our own pocketsto depend on.”

“I know what I’ll do,” said Elizabeth-Janeafter an interval of waiting, during which their needsseemed quite forgotten under the press of businessbelow. And leaving the room, she descended thestairs and penetrated to the bar.

If there was one good thing more than another whichcharacterized this single-hearted girl it was a willingnessto sacrifice her personal comfort and dignity to thecommon weal.

“As you seem busy here to-night, and mother’snot well off, might I take out part of our accommodationby helping?” she asked of the landlady.

The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chairas if she had been melted into it when in a liquidstate, and could not now be unstuck, looked the girlup and down inquiringly, with her hands on the chair-arms.Such arrangements as the one Elizabeth proposed werenot uncommon in country villages; but, though Casterbridgewas old-fashioned, the custom was well-nigh obsoletehere. The mistress of the house, however, wasan easy woman to strangers, and she made no objection.Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods and motionsfrom the taciturn landlord as to where she could findthe different things, trotted up and down stairs withmaterials for her own and her parent’s meal.

While she was doing this the wood partition in thecentre of the house thrilled to its centre with thetugging of a bell-pull upstairs. A bell belowtinkled a note that was feebler in sound than the twangingof wires and cranks that had produced it.

“’Tis the Scotch gentleman,” saidthe landlady omnisciently; and turning her eyes toElizabeth, “Now then, can you go and see if hissupper is on the tray? If it is you can takeit up to him. The front room over this.”

Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponedserving herself awhile, and applied to the cook inthe kitchen whence she brought forth the tray of supperviands, and proceeded with it upstairs to the apartmentindicated. The accommodation of the Three Marinerswas far from spacious, despite the fair area of groundit covered. The room demanded by intrusive beamsand rafters, partitions, passages, staircases, disusedovens, settles, and four-posters, left comparativelysmall quarters for human beings. Moreover, thisbeing at a time before home-brewing was abandonedby the smaller victuallers, and a house in which thetwelve-bushel strength was still religiously adheredto by the landlord in his ale, the quality of theliquor was the chief attraction of the premises, sothat everything had to make way for utensils and operationsin connection therewith. Thus Elizabeth foundthat the Scotchman was located in a room quite closeto the small one that had been allotted to herselfand her mother.

When she entered nobody was present but the youngman himself—­the same whom she had seenlingering without the windows of the King’s ArmsHotel. He was now idly reading a copy of the localpaper, and was hardly conscious of her entry, so thatshe looked at him quite coolly, and saw how his foreheadshone where the light caught it, and how nicely hishair was cut, and the sort of velvet-pile or down thatwas on the skin at the back of his neck, and how hischeek was so truly curved as to be part of a globe,and how clearly drawn were the lids and lashes whichhid his bent eyes.

She set down the tray, spread his supper, and wentaway without a word. On her arrival below thelandlady, who was as kind as she was fat and lazy,saw that Elizabeth-Jane was rather tired, though inher earnestness to be useful she was waiving her ownneeds altogether. Mrs. Stannidge thereupon saidwith a considerate peremptoriness that she and hermother had better take their own suppers if they meantto have any.

Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as shehad fetched the Scotchman’s, and went up tothe little chamber where she had left her mother,noiselessly pushing open the door with the edge ofthe tray. To her surprise her mother, insteadof being reclined on the bed where she had left herwas in an erect position, with lips parted. AtElizabeth’s entry she lifted her finger.

The meaning of this was soon apparent. The roomallotted to the two women had at one time served asa dressing-room to the Scotchman’s chamber,as was evidenced by signs of a door of communicationbetween them—­now screwed up and pastedover with the wall paper. But, as is frequentlythe case with hotels of far higher pretensions thanthe Three Mariners, every word spoken in either ofthese rooms was distinctly audible in the other.Such sounds came through now.

Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray,and her mother whispered as she drew near, “’Tishe.”

“Who?” said the girl.

“The Mayor.”

The tremors in Susan Henchard’s tone might haveled any person but one so perfectly unsuspicious ofthe truth as the girl was, to surmise some closerconnection than the admitted simple kinship as a meansof accounting for them.

Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber,the young Scotchman and Henchard, who, having enteredthe inn while Elizabeth-Jane was in the kitchen waitingfor the supper, had been deferentially conducted upstairsby host Stannidge himself. The girl noiselesslylaid out their little meal, and beckoned to her motherto join her, which Mrs. Henchard mechanically did,her attention being fixed on the conversation throughthe door.

“I merely strolled in on my way home to askyou a question about something that has excited mycuriosity,” said the Mayor, with careless geniality.“But I see you have not finished supper.”

“Ay, but I will be done in a little! Yeneedn’t go, sir. Take a seat. I’vealmost done, and it makes no difference at all.”

Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in amoment he resumed: “Well, first I shouldask, did you write this?” A rustling of paperfollowed.

“Yes, I did,” said the Scotchman.

“Then,” said Henchard, “I am underthe impression that we have met by accident whilewaiting for the morning to keep an appointment witheach other? My name is Henchard, ha’n’tyou replied to an advertisem*nt for a corn-factor’smanager that I put into the paper—­ha’n’tyou come here to see me about it?”

“No,” said the Scotchman, with some surprise.

“Surely you are the man,” went on Henchardinsistingly, “who arranged to come and see me?Joshua, Joshua, Jipp—­Jopp—­whatwas his name?”

“You’re wrong!” said the young man.“My name is Donald Farfrae. It is trueI am in the corren trade—­but I have repliedto no advertisem*nt, and arranged to see no one.I am on my way to Bristol—­from there tothe other side of the warrld, to try my fortune inthe great wheat-growing districts of the West!I have some inventions useful to the trade, and thereis no scope for developing them heere.”

“To America—­well, well,” saidHenchard, in a tone of disappointment, so strong asto make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. “Andyet I could have sworn you were the man!”

The Scotchman murmured another negative, and therewas a silence, till Henchard resumed: “ThenI am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the fewwords you wrote on that paper.”

“It was nothing, sir.”

“Well, it has a great importance for me justnow. This row about my grown wheat, which I declareto Heaven I didn’t know to be bad till the peoplecame 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 outof. I saw in a moment there might be truth init. But I should like to have it proved; andof course you don’t care to tell the steps ofthe process sufficiently for me to do that, withoutmy paying ye well for’t first.”

The young man reflected a moment or two. “Idon’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 takeup there. Yes, I’ll tell ye the whole ofit—­you’ll make more out of it heerethan I will in a foreign country. Just look heerea minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in mycarpet-bag.”

The click of a lock followed, and there was a siftingand rustling; then a discussion about so many ouncesto the bushel, and drying, and refrigerating, andso on.

“These few grains will be sufficient to showye with,” came in the young fellow’s voice;and after a pause, during which some operation seemedto be intently watched by them both, he exclaimed,“There, now, do you taste that.”

“It’s complete!—­quite restored,or—­well—­nearly.”

“Quite enough restored to make good secondsout of it,” said the Scotchman. “Tofetch it back entirely is impossible; Nature won’tstand so much as that, but heere you go a great waytowards it. Well, sir, that’s the process,I don’t value it, for it can be but of littleuse in countries where the weather is more settledthan in ours; and I’ll be only too glad if it’sof service to you.”

“But hearken to me,” pleaded Henchard.“My business you know, is in corn and in hay,but I was brought up as a hay-trusser simply, and hayis what I understand best though I now do more incorn than in the other. If you’ll acceptthe place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely,and receive a commission in addition to salary.”

“You’re liberal—­very liberal,but no, no—­I cannet!” the young manstill replied, with some distress in his accents.

“So be it!” said Henchard conclusively.“Now—­to change the subject—­onegood turn deserves another; don’t stay to finishthat miserable supper. Come to my house, I canfind something better for ’ee than cold ham andale.”

Donald Farfrae was grateful—­said he fearedhe must decline—­that he wished to leaveearly next day.

“Very well,” said Henchard quickly, “pleaseyourself. But I tell you, young man, if thisholds good for the bulk, as it has done for the sample,you have saved my credit, stranger though you be.What shall I pay you for this knowledge?”

“Nothing at all, nothing at all. It maynot prove necessary to ye to use it often, and I don’tvalue it at all. I thought I might just as welllet ye know, as you were in a difficulty, and theywere harrd upon ye.”

Henchard paused. “I shan’t soon forgetthis,” he said. “And from a stranger!...I couldn’t believe you were not the man I hadengaged! Says I to myself, ‘He knows whoI am, and recommends himself by this stroke.’And yet it turns out, after all, that you are not theman who answered my advertisem*nt, but a stranger!”

“Ay, ay; that’s so,” said the youngman.

Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voicecame thoughtfully: “Your forehead, Farfrae,is something like my poor brother’s—­nowdead and gone; and the nose, too, isn’t unlikehis. You must be, what—­five foot nine,I reckon? I am six foot one and a half out ofmy shoes. But what of that? In my business,’tis true that strength and bustle build upa firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keepit established. Unluckily, I am bad at science,Farfrae; bad at figures—­a rule o’thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse—­Ican see that. I have been looking for such asyou these two year, and yet you are not for me.Well, before I go, let me ask this: Though youare not the young man I thought you were, what’sthe difference? Can’t ye stay just thesame? Have you really made up your mind aboutthis American notion? I won’t mince matters.I feel you would be invaluable to me—­thatneedn’t be said—­and if you will bideand be my manager, I will make it worth your while.”

“My plans are fixed,” said the young man,in negative tones. “I have formed a scheme,and so we need na say any more about it. But willyou not drink with me, sir? I find this Casterbridgeale warreming to the stomach.”

“No, no; I fain would, but I can’t,”said Henchard gravely, the scraping of his chair informingthe listeners that he was rising to leave. “WhenI was a young man I went in for that sort of thingtoo strong—­far too strong—­andwas well-nigh ruined by it! I did a deed on accountof it which I shall be ashamed of to my dying day.It made such an impression on me that I swore, thereand then, that I’d drink nothing stronger thantea for as many years as I was old that day. Ihave kept my oath; and though, Farfrae, I am sometimesthat dry in the dog days that I could drink a quarter-barrelto the pitching, I think o’ my oath, and touchno strong drink at all.”

“I’ll no’ press ye, sir—­I’llno’ press ye. I respect your vow.

“Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt,”said Henchard, with strong feeling in his tones.“But it will be long before I see one that wouldsuit me so well!”

The young man appeared much moved by Henchard’swarm convictions of his value. He was silenttill they reached the door. “I wish I couldstay—­sincerely I would like to,” hereplied. “But no—­it cannet be!it cannet! I want to see the warrld.”

8.

Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her motherremained each in her thoughts over their meal, themother’s face being strangely bright since Henchard’savowal of shame for a past action. The quiveringof the partition to its core presented denoted thatDonald Farfrae had again rung his bell, no doubt tohave his supper removed; for humming a tune, and walkingup and down, he seemed to be attracted by the livelybursts of conversation and melody from the generalcompany below. He sauntered out upon the landing,and descended the staircase.

When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray,and also that used by her mother and herself, shefound the bustle of serving to be at its height below,as it always was at this hour. The young womanshrank from having anything to do with the ground-floorserving, and crept silently about observing the scene—­sonew to her, fresh from the seclusion of a seasidecottage. In the general sitting-room, which waslarge, she remarked the two or three dozen strong-backedchairs that stood round against the wall, each fittedwith its genial occupant; the sanded floor; the blacksettle which, projecting endwise from the wall withinthe door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator ofall that went on without herself being particularlyseen.

The young Scotchman had just joined the guests.These, in addition to the respectable master-tradesmenoccupying the seats of privileges in the bow-windowand its neighbourhood, included an inferior set atthe unlighted end, whose seats were mere benches againstthe wall, and who drank from cups instead of fromglasses. Among the latter she noticed some ofthose personages who had stood outside the windowsof the King’s Arms.

Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheelventilator in one of the panes, which would suddenlystart off spinning with a jingling sound, as suddenlystop, and as suddenly start again.

While thus furtively making her survey the openingwords of a song greeted her ears from the front ofthe settle, in a melody and accent of peculiar charm.There had been some singing before she came down; andnow the Scotchman had made himself so soon at homethat, at the request of some of the master-tradesmen,he, too, was favouring the room with a ditty.

Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not helppausing to listen; and the longer she listened themore she was enraptured. She had never heardany singing like this and it was evident that the majorityof the audience had not heard such frequently, forthey were attentive to a much greater degree thanusual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nordipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten them,nor pushed the mug to their neighbours. The singerhimself grew emotional, till she could imagine a tearin his eye as the words went on:—­

“It’s hame,and it’s hame, hame fain would I be,
O hame, hame, hame tomy ain countree!
There’s an eyethat ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
As I pass through AnnanWater with my bonnie bands again;
When the flower is inthe bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
The lark shall singme hame to my ain countree!”

There was a burst of applause, and a deep silencewhich was even more eloquent than the applause.It was of such a kind that the snapping of a pipe-stemtoo long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was oneof those gathered at the shady end of the room, seemeda harsh and irreverent act. Then the ventilatorin the window-pane spasmodically started off for anew spin, and the pathos of Donald’s song wastemporarily effaced.

“’Twas not amiss—­not at allamiss!” muttered Christopher Coney, who wasalso present. And removing his pipe a finger’sbreadth from his lips, he said aloud, “Drawon with the next verse, young gentleman, please.”

“Yes. Let’s have it again, stranger,”said the glazier, a stout, bucket-headed man, witha white apron rolled up round his waist. “Folksdon’t lift up their hearts like that in thispart of the world.” And turning aside,he said in undertones, “Who is the young man?—­Scotch,d’ye say?”

“Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland,I believe,” replied Coney.

Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It wasplain that nothing so pathetic had been heard at theThree Mariners for a considerable time. The differenceof accent, the excitability of the singer, the intenselocal feeling, and the seriousness with which he workedhimself up to a climax, surprised this set of worthies,who were only too prone to shut up their emotionswith caustic words.

“Danged if our country down here is worth singingabout like that!” continued the glazier, asthe Scotchman again melodized with a dying fall, “Myain countree!” “When you take away fromamong us the fools and the rogues, and the lammigers,and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and suchlike, there’s cust few left to ornament a songwith in Casterbridge, or the country round.”

“True,” said Buzzford, the dealer, lookingat the grain of the table. “Casterbridgeis a old, hoary place o’ wickedness, by all account.’Tis recorded in history that we rebelled againstthe King one or two hundred years ago, in the timeof the Romans, and that lots of us was hanged on GallowsHill, and quartered, and our different jints sent aboutthe country like butcher’s meat; and for mypart I can well believe it.”

“What did ye come away from yer own countryfor, young maister, if ye be so wownded about it?”inquired Christopher Coney, from the background, withthe tone of a man who preferred the original subject.“Faith, it wasn’t worth your while onour account, for as Maister Billy Wills says, we bebruckle folk here—­the best o’ us hardlyhonest sometimes, what with hard winters, and so manymouths to fill, and Goda’mighty sending hislittle taties so terrible small to fill ’em with.We don’t think about flowers and fair faces,not we—­except in the shape o’ cauliflowersand pigs’ chaps.”

“But, no!” said Donald Farfrae, gazinground into their faces with earnest concern; “thebest of ye hardly honest—­not that surely?None of ye has been stealing what didn’t belongto him?”

“Lord! no, no!” said Solomon Longways,smiling grimly. “That’s only hisrandom way o’ speaking. ’A was alwayssuch a man of underthoughts.” (And reprovinglytowards Christopher): “Don’t ye beso over-familiar with a gentleman that ye know nothingof—­and that’s travelled a’mostfrom the North Pole.”

Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could getno public sympathy, he mumbled his feelings to himself:“Be dazed, if I loved my country half as wellas the young feller do, I’d live by claning myneighbour’s pigsties afore I’d go away!For my part I’ve no more love for my countrythan I have for Botany Bay!”

“Come,” said Longways; “let theyoung man draw onward with his ballet, or we shallbe here all night.”

“That’s all of it,” said the singerapologetically.

“Soul of my body, then we’ll have another!”said the general dealer.

“Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?”inquired a fat woman with a figured purple apron,the waiststring of which was overhung so far by hersides as to be invisible.

“Let him breathe—­let him breathe,Mother Cuxsom. He hain’t got his secondwind yet,” said the master glazier.

“Oh yes, but I have!” exclaimed the youngman; and he at once rendered “O Nannie”with faultless modulations, and another or two of thelike sentiment, winding up at their earnest requestwith “Auld Lang Syne.”

By this time he had completely taken possession ofthe hearts of the Three Mariners’ inmates, includingeven old Coney. Notwithstanding an occasionalodd gravity which awoke their sense of the ludicrousfor the moment, they began to view him through a goldenhaze which the tone of his mind seemed to raise aroundhim. Casterbridge had sentiment—­Casterbridgehad romance; but this stranger’s sentiment wasof differing quality. Or rather, perhaps, thedifference was mainly superficial; he was to themlike the poet of a new school who takes his contemporariesby storm; who is not really new, but is the firstto articulate what all his listeners have felt, thoughbut dumbly till then.

The silent landlord came and leant over the settlewhile the young man sang; and even Mrs. Stannidgemanaged to unstick herself from the framework of herchair in the bar and get as far as the door-post,which movement she accomplished by rolling herselfround, as a cask is trundled on the chine by a draymanwithout losing much of its perpendicular.

“And are you going to bide in Casterbridge,sir?” she asked.

“Ah—­no!” said the Scotchman,with melancholy fatality in his voice, “I’monly passing thirrough! I am on my way to Bristol,and on frae there to foreign parts.”

“We be truly sorry to hear it,” said SolomonLongways. “We can ill afford to lose tunefulwynd-pipes like yours when they fall among us.And verily, to mak’ acquaintance with a man a-comefrom so far, from the land o’ perpetual snow,as we may say, where wolves and wild boars and otherdangerous animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about—­why,’tis a thing we can’t do every day; andthere’s good sound information for bide-at-homeslike we when such a man opens his mouth.”

“Nay, but ye mistake my country,” saidthe young man, looking round upon them with tragicfixity, till his eye lighted up and his cheek kindledwith a sudden enthusiasm to right their errors.“There are not perpetual snow and wolves atall in it!—­except snow in winter, and—­well—­alittle in summer just sometimes, and a ‘gaberlunzie’or two stalking about here and there, if ye may callthem dangerous. Eh, but you should take a summerjarreny to Edinboro’, and Arthur’s Seat,and all round there, and then go on to the lochs,and all the Highland scenery—­in May andJune—­and you would never say ’tisthe land of wolves and perpetual snow!”

“Of course not—­it stands to reason,”said Buzzford. “’Tis barren ignorancethat leads to such words. He’s a simplehome-spun man, that never was fit for good company—­thinknothing of him, sir.”

“And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt,and your crock, and your bit of chiney? or do ye goin bare bones, as I may say?” inquired ChristopherConey.

“I’ve sent on my luggage—­thoughit isn’t much; for the voyage is long.”Donald’s eyes dropped into a remote gaze as headded: “But I said to myself, ’Nevera one of the prizes of life will I come by unless Iundertake it!’ and I decided to go.”

A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Janeshared not least, made itself apparent in the company.As she looked at Farfrae from the back of the settleshe decided that his statements showed him to be noless thoughtful than his fascinating melodies revealedhim to be cordial and impassioned. She admiredthe serious light in which he looked at serious things.He had seen no jest in ambiguities and roguery, asthe Casterbridge toss-pots had done; and rightly not—­therewas none. She disliked those wretched humoursof Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he did notappreciate them. He seemed to feel exactly asshe felt about life and its surroundings—­thatthey were a tragical rather than a comical thing;that though one could be gay on occasion, momentsof gaiety were interludes, and no part of the actualdrama. It was extraordinary how similar theirviews were.

Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressedhis wish to retire, whereupon the landlady whisperedto 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 stairson her way down again, Mr. Farfrae was at the footcoming up. She could not very well retreat; theymet and passed in the turn of the staircase.

She must have appeared interesting in some way—­not-withstandingher plain dress—­or rather, possibly, inconsequence of it, for she was a girl characterizedby earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simpledrapery accorded well. Her face flushed, too,at the slight awkwardness of the meeting, and shepassed him with her eyes bent on the candle-flamethat she carried just below her nose. Thus ithappened that when confronting her he smiled; andthen, with the manner of a temporarily light-heartedman, who has started himself on a flight of song whosemomentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned anold ditty that she seemed to suggest—­

“As I came in by mybower door,
As day was waxin’ wearie,
Oh wha came tripping down the stair
But bonnie Peg my dearie.”

Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on;and the Scotchman’s voice died away, hummingmore of the same within the closed door of his room.

Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present.When soon after, the girl rejoined her mother, thelatter was still in thought—­on quite anothermatter than a young man’s song.

“We’ve made a mistake,” she whispered(that the Scotch-man might not overhear). “Onno account ought ye to have helped serve here to-night.Not because of ourselves, but for the sake of him.If he should befriend us, and take us up, and thenfind out what you did when staying here, ’twouldgrieve and wound his natural pride as Mayor of thetown.”

Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmedat 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 poormother’s. “For myself,” shesaid, “I didn’t at all mind waiting a littleupon him. He’s so respectable, and educated—­farabove the rest of ’em in the inn. Theythought him very simple not to know their grim broadway of talking about themselves here. But ofcourse he didn’t know—­he was too refinedin his mind to know such things!” Thus she earnestlypleaded.

Meanwhile, the “he” of her mother wasnot so far away as even they thought. After leavingthe Three Mariners he had sauntered up and down theempty High Street, passing and repassing the inn inhis promenade. When the Scotchman sang his voicehad reached Henchard’s ears through the heart-shapedholes in the window-shutters, and had led him to pauseoutside them a long while.

“To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow doesdraw me!” he had said to himself. “Isuppose ’tis because I’m so lonely.I’d have given him a third share in the businessto have stayed!”

9.

When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casem*nt nextmorning the mellow air brought in the feel of imminentautumn almost as distinctly as if she had been inthe remotest hamlet. Casterbridge was the complementof the rural life around, not its urban opposite.Bees and butterflies in the cornfields at the topof the town, who desired to get to the meads at thebottom, took no circuitous course, but flew straightdown High Street without any apparent consciousnessthat they were traversing strange latitudes.And in autumn airy spheres of thistledown floatedinto the same street, lodged upon the shop fronts,blew into drains, and innumerable tawny and yellowleaves skimmed along the pavement, and stole throughpeople’s doorways into their passages with ahesitating scratch on the floor, like the skirts oftimid visitors.

Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, shewithdrew her head and glanced from behind the window-curtains.Mr. Henchard—­now habited no longer as agreat personage, but as a thriving man of business—­waspausing on his way up the middle of the street, andthe Scotchman was looking from the window adjoiningher own. Henchard it appeared, had gone a littleway past the inn before he had noticed his acquaintanceof the previous evening. He came back a few steps,Donald Farfrae opening the window further.

“And you are off soon, I suppose?” saidHenchard upwards.

“Yes—­almost this moment, sir,”said the other. “Maybe I’ll walk ontill the coach makes up on me.”

“Which way?”

“The way ye are going.”

“Then shall we walk together to the top o’town?”

“If ye’ll wait a minute,” said theScotchman.

In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand.Henchard looked at the bag as at an enemy. Itshowed there was no mistake about the young man’sdeparture. “Ah, my lad,” he said,“you should have been a wise man, and have stayedwith me.”

“Yes, yes—­it might have been wiser,”said Donald, looking microscopically at the housesthat were furthest off. “It is only tellingye the truth when I say my plans are vague.”

They had by this time passed on from the precinctsof the inn, and Elizabeth-Jane heard no more.She saw that they continued in conversation, Henchardturning to the other occasionally, and emphasizingsome remark with a gesture. Thus they passed theKing’s Arms Hotel, the Market House, St. Peter’schurchyard wall, ascending to the upper end of thelong street till they were small as two grains of corn;when they bent suddenly to the right into the BristolRoad, and were out of view.

“He was a good man—­and he’sgone,” she said to herself. “I wasnothing to him, and there was no reason why he shouldhave wished me good-bye.”

The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight,had moulded itself out of the following little fact:when the Scotchman came out at the door he had byaccident glanced up at her; and then he had lookedaway again without nodding, or smiling, or sayinga word.

“You are still thinking, mother,” shesaid, when she turned inwards.

“Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard’ssudden liking for that young man. He was alwaysso. Now, surely, if he takes so warmly to peoplewho are not related to him at all, may he not takeas warmly to his own kin?”

While they debated this question a procession of fivelarge waggons went past, laden with hay up to thebedroom windows. They came in from the country,and the steaming horses had probably been travellinga great part of the night. To the shaft of eachhung a little board, on which was painted in whiteletters, “Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant.”The spectacle renewed his wife’s conviction that,for her daughter’s sake, she should strain apoint to rejoin him.

The discussion was continued during breakfast, andthe end of it was that Mrs. Henchard decided, forgood or for ill, to send Elizabeth-Jane with a messageto Henchard, to the effect that his relative Susan,a sailor’s widow, was in the town; leaving itto him to say whether or not he would recognize her.What had brought her to this determination were chieflytwo things. He had been described as a lonelywidower; and he had expressed shame for a past transactionof his life. There was promise in both.

“If he says no,” she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Janestood, bonnet on, ready to depart; “if he thinksit does not become the good position he has reachedto in the town, to own—­to let us call onhim as—­his distant kinfolk, say, ’Then,sir, we would rather not intrude; we will leave Casterbridgeas quietly as we have come, and go back to our owncountry.’...I almost feel that I would ratherhe did say so, as I have not seen him for so manyyears, and we are so—­little allied to him!”

“And if he say yes?” inquired the moresanguine one.

“In that case,” answered Mrs. Henchardcautiously, “ask him to write me a note, sayingwhen and how he will see us—­or me.”

Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing.“And tell him,” continued her mother,“that I fully know I have no claim upon him—­thatI am glad to find he is thriving; that I hope his lifemay be long and happy—­there, go.”Thus with a half-hearted willingness, a smotheredreluctance, did the poor forgiving woman start herunconscious daughter on this errand.

It was about ten o’clock, and market-day, whenElizabeth paced up the High Street, in no great hurry;for to herself her position was only that of a poorrelation deputed to hunt up a rich one. The frontdoors of the private houses were mostly left openat this warm autumn time, no thought of umbrella stealersdisturbing the minds of the placid burgesses.Hence, through the long, straight, entrance passagesthus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels, themossy 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 remoterCasterbridge than the venerable one visible in thestreet. The old-fashioned fronts of these houses,which had older than old-fashioned backs, rose sheerfrom the pavement, into which the bow windows protrudedlike bastions, necessitating a pleasing chassez-dechassezmovement to the time-pressed pedestrian at every fewyards. He was bound also to evolve other Terpsichoreanfigures in respect of door-steps, scrapers, cellar-hatches,church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of wallswhich, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-leggedand knock-kneed.

In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke socheerfully of individual unrestraint as to boundaries,movables occupied the path and roadway to a perplexingextent. First the vans of the carriers in andout of Casterbridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury,The Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe,and many other towns and villages round. Theirowners were numerous enough to be regarded as a tribe,and had almost distinctiveness enough to be regardedas a race. Their vans had just arrived, and weredrawn up on each side of the street in close file,so as to form at places a wall between the pavementand the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched outhalf its contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb,extending the display each week a little further andfurther into the roadway, despite the expostulationsof the two feeble old constables, until there remainedbut a tortuous defile for carriages down the centreof the street, which afforded fine opportunities forskill with the reins. Over the pavement on thesunny side of the way hung shopblinds so constructedas to give the passenger’s hat a smart buffetoff his head, as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun’sGoblin Page, celebrated in romantic lore.

Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegson the pavement, their hind legs in the street, inwhich position they occasionally nipped little boysby the shoulder who were passing to school. Andany inviting recess in front of a house that had beenmodestly kept back from the general line was utilizedby pig-dealers as a pen for their stock.

The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, whocame to transact business in these ancient streets,spoke in other ways than by articulation. Notto hear the words of your interlocutor in metropolitancentres is to know nothing of his meaning. Herethe face, the arms, the hat, the stick, the body throughoutspoke equally with the tongue. To express satisfactionthe Casterbridge market-man added to his utterancea broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the eyes,a throwing back of the shoulders, which was intelligiblefrom the other end of the street. If he wondered,though all Henchard’s carts and waggons wererattling past him, you knew it from perceiving theinside of his crimson mouth, and a target-like circlingof his eyes. Deliberation caused sundry attacks

on the moss of adjoining walls with the end of hisstick, a change of his hat from the horizontal tothe less so; a sense of tediousness announced itselfin a lowering of the person by spreading the kneesto a lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the arms.Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the streetsof this honest borough to all appearance; and it wassaid that the lawyers in the Court House hard by occasionallythrew in strong arguments for the other side out ofpure generosity (though apparently by mischance) whenadvancing their own.

Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole,focus, or nerve-knot of the surrounding country life;differing from the many manufacturing towns whichare as foreign bodies set down, like boulders on aplain, in a green world with which they have nothingin common. Casterbridge lived by agricultureat one remove further from the fountainhead than theadjoining villages—­no more. The townsfolkunderstood every fluctuation in the rustic’scondition, for it affected their receipts as muchas the labourer’s; they entered into the troublesand joys which moved the aristocratic families tenmiles round—­for the same reason. Andeven at the dinner-parties of the professional familiesthe subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease,sowing and reaping, fencing and planting; while politicswere viewed by them less from their own standpointof burgesses with rights and privileges than fromthe standpoint of their country neighbours.

All the venerable contrivances and confusions whichdelighted the eye by their quaintness, and in a measurereasonableness, in this rare old market-town, weremetropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes ofElizabeth-Jane, fresh from netting fish-seines in aseaside cottage. Very little inquiry was necessaryto guide her footsteps. Henchard’s housewas one of the best, faced with dull red-and-grey oldbrick. The front door was open, and, as in otherhouses, she could see through the passage to the endof the garden—­nearly a quarter of a mileoff.

Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard.She was conducted into the mossy garden, and througha door in the wall, which was studded with rusty nailsspeaking of generations of fruit-trees that had beentrained 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 tonsof fodder, all in trusses, were being packed from thewaggons she had seen pass the inn that morning.On other sides of the yard were wooden granaries onstone staddles, to which access was given by Flemishladders, and a store-house several floors high.Wherever the doors of these places were open, a closelypacked throng of bursting wheat-sacks could be seenstanding inside, with the air of awaiting a faminethat would not come.

She wandered about this place, uncomfortably consciousof the impending interview, till she was quite wearyof searching; she ventured to inquire of a boy inwhat quarter Mr. Henchard could be found. Hedirected her to an office which she had not seen before,and knocking at the door she was answered by a cryof “Come in.”

Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood beforeher, bending over some sample-bags on a table, notthe corn-merchant, but the young Scotchman Mr. Farfrae—­inthe act of pouring some grains of wheat from one handto the other. His hat hung on a peg behind him,and the roses of his carpet-bag glowed from the cornerof the room.

Having toned her feelings and arranged words on herlips for Mr. Henchard, and for him alone, she wasfor the moment confounded.

“Yes, what it is?” said the Scotchman,like a man who permanently ruled there.

She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.

“Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He’sengaged just now,” said the young man, apparentlynot recognizing her as the girl at the inn. Hehanded her a chair, bade her sit down and turned tohis sample-bags again. While Elizabeth-Jane sitswaiting in great amaze at the young man’s presencewe may briefly explain how he came there.

When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sightthat morning towards the Bath and Bristol road theywent on silently, except for a few commonplaces, tillthey had gone down an avenue on the town walls calledthe Chalk Walk, leading to an angle where the Northand West escarpments met. From this high cornerof the square earthworks a vast extent of countrycould be seen. A footpath ran steeply down thegreen slope, conducting from the shady promenade onthe walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp.It was by this path the Scotchman had to descend.

“Well, here’s success to ’ee,”said Henchard, holding out his right hand and leaningwith his left upon the wicket which protected the descent.In the act there was the inelegance of one whose feelingsare nipped and wishes defeated. “I shalloften think of this time, and of how you came at thevery moment to throw a light upon my difficulty.”

Still holding the young man’s hand he paused,and then added deliberately: “Now I amnot 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 andplain. You can see that it isn’t all selfishnessthat makes me press ’ee; for my business is notquite so scientific as to require an intellect entirelyout of the common. Others would do for the placewithout doubt. Some selfishness perhaps thereis, but there is more; it isn’t for me to repeatwhat. Come bide with me—­and name yourown terms. I’ll agree to ’em willinglyand ’ithout a word of gainsaying; for, hangit, Farfrae, I like thee well!”

The young man’s hand remained steady in Henchard’sfor a moment or two. He looked over the fertilecountry that stretched beneath them, then backwardalong the shaded walk reaching to the top of the town.His face flushed.

“I never expected this—­I did not!”he said. “It’s Providence! Shouldany one go against it? No; I’ll not go toAmerica; I’ll stay and be your man!”

His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard’s,returned the latter’s grasp.

“Done,” said Henchard.

“Done,” said Donald Farfrae.

The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfactionthat was almost fierce in its strength. “Nowyou are my friend!” he exclaimed. “Comeback to my house; let’s clinch it at once byclear terms, so as to be comfortable in our minds.”Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the North-WestAvenue in Henchard’s company as he had come.Henchard was all confidence now.

“I am the most distant fellow in the world whenI 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, evenif they had anything at that place to gi’e thee,which they hadn’t; so come to my house and wewill have a solid, staunch tuck-in, and settle termsin black-and-white if you like; though my word’smy bond. I can always make a good meal in themorning. I’ve got a splendid cold pigeon-piegoing just now. You can have some home-brewedif you want to, you know.”

“It is too airly in the morning for that,”said Farfrae with a smile.

“Well, of course, I didn’t know.I don’t drink it because of my oath, but I amobliged to brew for my work-people.”

Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard’spremises by the back way or traffic entrance.Here the matter was settled over the breakfast, atwhich Henchard heaped the young Scotchman’s plateto a prodigal fulness. He would not rest satisfiedtill 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 declaredthat his new friend should take up his abode in hishouse—­at least till some suitable lodgingscould be found.

He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place,and the stores of grain, and other stock; and finallyentered the offices where the younger of them hasalready been discovered by Elizabeth.

10.

While she still sat under the Scotchman’s eyesa man came up to the door, reaching it as Henchardopened the door of the inner office to admit Elizabeth.The newcomer stepped forward like the quicker crippleat Bethesda, and entered in her stead. She couldhear his words to Henchard: “Joshua Jopp,sir—­by appointment—­the new manager.”

“The new manager!—­he’s in hisoffice,” said Henchard bluntly.

“In his office!” said the man, with astultified air.

“I mentioned Thursday,” said Henchard;“and as you did not keep your appointment, Ihave engaged another manager. At first I thoughthe must be you. Do you think I can wait whenbusiness is in question?”

“You said Thursday or Saturday, sir,”said the newcomer, pulling out a letter.

“Well, you are too late,” said the corn-factor.“I can say no more.”

“You as good as engaged me,” murmuredthe man.

“Subject to an interview,” said Henchard.“I am sorry for you—­very sorry indeed.But it can’t be helped.”

There was no more to be said, and the man came out,encountering Elizabeth-Jane in his passage. Shecould see that his mouth twitched with anger, andthat bitter disappointment was written in his faceeverywhere.

Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the masterof the premises. His dark pupils—­whichalways seemed to have a red spark of light in them,though this could hardly be a physical fact—­turnedindifferently round under his dark brows until theyrested on her figure. “Now then, what isit, my young woman?” he said blandly.

“Can I speak to you—­not on business,sir?” said she.

“Yes—­I suppose.” He lookedat her more thoughtfully.

“I am sent to tell you, sir,” she innocentlywent on, “that a distant relative of yours bymarriage, Susan Newson, a sailor’s widow, isin the town, and to ask whether you would wish tosee her.”

The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance underwenta slight change. “Oh—­Susan is—­stillalive?” he asked with difficulty.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you her daughter?”

“Yes, sir—­her only daughter.”

“What—­do you call yourself—­yourChristian name?”

“Elizabeth-Jane, sir.”

“Newson?”

“Elizabeth-Jane Newson.”

This at once suggested to Henchard that the transactionof his early married life at Weydon Fair was unrecordedin the family history. It was more than he couldhave expected. His wife had behaved kindly tohim in return for his unkindness, and had never proclaimedher wrong to her child or to the world.

“I am—­a good deal interested in yournews,” he said. “And as this is nota matter of business, but pleasure, suppose we go indoors.”

It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprisingto Elizabeth, that he showed her out of the officeand through the outer room, where Donald Farfrae wasoverhauling bins and samples with the inquiring inspectionof a beginner in charge. Henchard preceded herthrough the door in the wall to the suddenly changedscene of the garden and flowers, and onward into thehouse. The dining-room to which he introducedher still exhibited the remnants of the lavish breakfastlaid for Farfrae. It was furnished to profusionwith heavy mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanishhues. Pembroke tables, with leaves hanging solow that they well-nigh touched the floor, stood againstthe walls on legs and feet shaped like those of anelephant, and on one lay three huge folio volumes—­aFamily Bible, a “Josephus,” and a “WholeDuty of Man.” In the chimney corner wasa fire-grate with a fluted semicircular back, havingurns and festoons cast in relief thereon, and the chairswere of the kind which, since that day, has cast lustreupon the names of Chippendale and Sheraton, though,in point of fact, their patterns may have been suchas those illustrious carpenters never saw or heardof.

“Sit down—­Elizabeth-Jane—­sitdown,” he said, with a shake in his voice ashe uttered her name, and sitting down himself he allowedhis hands to hang between his knees while he lookedupon the carpet. “Your mother, then, isquite well?”

“She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling.”

“A sailor’s widow—­when didhe die?”

“Father was lost last spring.”

Henchard winced at the word “father,”thus applied. “Do you and she come fromabroad—­America or Australia?” he asked.

“No. We have been in England some years.I was twelve when we came here from Canada.”

“Ah; exactly.” By such conversationhe discovered the circ*mstances which had envelopedhis wife and her child in such total obscurity thathe had long ago believed them to be in their graves.These things being clear, he returned to the present.“And where is your mother staying?”

“At the Three Mariners.”

“And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?”repeated Henchard. He arose, came close to her,and glanced in her face. “I think,”he said, suddenly turning away with a wet eye, “youshall take a note from me to your mother. I shouldlike to see her....She is not left very well off byher late husband?” His eye fell on Elizabeth’sclothes, which, though a respectable suit of black,and her very best, were decidedly old-fashioned evento Casterbridge eyes.

“Not very well,” she said, glad that hehad divined this without her being obliged to expressit.

He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, nexttaking from his pocket-book a five-pound note, whichhe put in the envelope with the letter, adding toit, as by an afterthought, five shillings. Sealingthe whole up carefully, he directed it to “Mrs.Newson, Three Mariners Inn,” and handed thepacket to Elizabeth.

“Deliver it to her personally, please,”said Henchard. “Well, I am glad to seeyou here, Elizabeth-Jane—­very glad.We must have a long talk together—­but notjust now.”

He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmlythat she, who had known so little friendship, wasmuch affected, and tears rose to her aerial-grey eyes.The instant that she was gone Henchard’s stateshowed itself more distinctly; having shut the doorhe sat in his dining-room stiffly erect, gazing atthe opposite wall as if he read his history there.

“Begad!” he suddenly exclaimed, jumpingup. “I didn’t think of that.Perhaps these are impostors—­and Susan andthe child dead after all!”

However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assuredhim that, as regarded her, at least, there could belittle doubt. And a few hours would settle thequestion of her mother’s identity; for he hadarranged in his note to see her that evening.

“It never rains but it pours!” said Henchard.His keenly excited interest in his new friend theScotchman was now eclipsed by this event, and DonaldFarfrae saw so little of him during the rest of theday that he wondered at the suddenness of his employer’smoods.

In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn.Her mother, instead of taking the note with the curiosityof a poor woman expecting assistance, was much movedat sight of it. She did not read it at once, askingElizabeth to describe her reception, and the very wordsMr. Henchard used. Elizabeth’s back wasturned when her mother opened the letter. Itran thus:—­

“Meet me at eight o’clock this evening,if you can, at the Ring on the Budmouth road.The place is easy to find. I can say no more now.The news upsets me almost. The girl seems tobe in ignorance. Keep her so till I have seenyou. M. H.”

He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas.The amount was significant; it may tacitly have saidto her that he bought her back again. She waitedrestlessly for the close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Janethat she was invited to see Mr. Henchard; that shewould go alone. But she said nothing to showthat the place of meeting was not at his house, nordid she hand the note to Elizabeth.

11.

The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local nameof one of the finest
Roman Amphitheatres, if not the very finest, remainingin Britain.

Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley,and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the artof Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It was impossibleto dig more than a foot or two deep about the townfields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldieror other of the Empire, who had lain there in hissilent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundredyears. He was mostly found lying on his side,in an oval scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in itsshell; his knees drawn up to his chest; sometimeswith the remains of his spear against his arm, a fibulaor brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead, an urnat his knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at hismouth; and mystified conjecture pouring down uponhim from the eyes of Casterbridge street boys andmen, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiarspectacle as they passed by.

Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an unpleasantnessat the discovery of a comparatively modern skeletonin their gardens, were quite unmoved by these hoaryshapes. They had lived so long ago, their timewas so unlike the present, their hopes and motiveswere so widely removed from ours, that between themand the living there seemed to stretch a gulf toowide for even a spirit to pass.

The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, witha notch at opposite extremities of its diameter northand south. From its sloping internal form itmight have been called the spittoon of the Jotuns.It was to Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum isto modern Rome, and was nearly of the same magnitude.The dusk of evening was the proper hour at which atrue impression of this suggestive place could be received.Standing in the middle of the arena at that time thereby degrees became apparent its real vastness, which

a cursory view from the summit at noon-day was aptto obscure. Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yetaccessible from every part of the town, the historiccircle was the frequent spot for appointments of afurtive kind. Intrigues were arranged there; tentativemeetings were there experimented after divisions andfeuds. But one kind of appointment—­initself the most common of any—­seldom hadplace in the Amphitheatre: that of happy lovers.

Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible,and sequestered spot for interviews, the cheerfullestform of those occurrences never took kindly to thesoil of the ruin, would be a curious inquiry.Perhaps it was because its associations had about themsomething sinister. Its history proved that.Apart from the sanguinary nature of the games originallyplayed therein, such incidents attached to its pastas these: that for scores of years the town-gallowshad stood at one corner; that in 1705 a woman whohad murdered her husband was half-strangled and thenburnt there in the presence of ten thousand spectators.Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burningher heart burst and leapt out of her body, to theterror of them all, and that not one of those tenthousand people ever cared particularly for hot roastafter that. In addition to these old tragedies,pugilistic encounters almost to the death had comeoff down to recent dates in that secluded arena, entirelyinvisible to the outside world save by climbing tothe top of the enclosure, which few towns-people inthe daily round of their lives ever took the troubleto do. So that, though close to the turnpike-road,crimes might be perpetrated there unseen at mid-day.

Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to theruin by using the central arena as a cricket-ground.But the game usually languished for the aforesaidreason—­the dismal privacy which the earthencircle enforced, shutting out every appreciative passer’svision, every commendatory remark from outsiders—­everything,except the sky; and to play at games in such circ*mstanceswas like acting to an empty house. Possibly,too, the boys were timid, for some old people saidthat at certain moments in the summer time, in broaddaylight, persons sitting with a book or dozing inthe arena had, on lifting their eyes, beheld the slopeslined with a gazing legion of Hadrian’s soldieryas if watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heardthe roar of their excited voices, that the scene wouldremain but a moment, like a lightning flash, and thendisappear.

It was related that there still remained under thesouth entrance excavated cells for the reception ofthe wild animals and athletes who took part in thegames. The arena was still smooth and circular,as if used for its original purpose not so very longago. The sloping pathways by which spectatorshad 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 bentsthat formed waves under the brush of the wind, returningto the attentive ear aeolian modulations, and detainingfor moments the flying globes of thistledown.

Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safestfrom observation which he could think of for meetinghis long-lost wife, and at the same time as one easilyto be found by a stranger after nightfall. AsMayor of the town, with a reputation to keep up, hecould not invite her to come to his house till somedefinite course had been decided on.

Just before eight he approached the deserted earth-workand entered by the south path which descended overthe debris of the former dens. In a few momentshe could discern a female figure creeping in by thegreat north gap, or public gateway. They metin the middle of the arena. Neither spoke justat first—­there was no necessity for speech—­andthe poor woman leant against Henchard, who supportedher in his arms.

“I don’t drink,” he said in a low,halting, apologetic voice. “You hear, Susan?—­Idon’t drink now—­I haven’t sincethat night.” Those were his first words.

He felt her bow her head in acknowledgment that sheunderstood. After a minute or two he again began:

“If I had known you were living, Susan!But there was every reason to suppose you and thechild were dead and gone. I took every possiblestep to find you—­travelled—­advertised.My opinion at last was that you had started for somecolony with that man, and had been drowned on yourvoyage. Why did you keep silent like this?”

“O Michael! because of him—­what otherreason could there be? I thought I owed him faithfulnessto the end of one of our lives—­foolishlyI believed there was something solemn and binding inthe bargain; I thought that even in honour I darednot desert him when he had paid so much for me ingood faith. I meet you now only as his widow—­Iconsider myself that, and that I have no claim uponyou. Had he not died I should never have come—­never!Of that you may be sure.”

“Ts-s-s! How could you be so simple?”

“I don’t know. Yet it would havebeen very wicked—­if I had not thought likethat!” said Susan, almost crying.

“Yes—­yes—­so it would.It is only that which makes me feel ’ee an innocentwoman. But—­to lead me into this!”

“What, Michael?” she asked, alarmed.

“Why, this difficulty about our living togetheragain, and Elizabeth-Jane. She cannot be toldall—­she would so despise us both that—­Icould not bear it!”

“That was why she was brought up in ignoranceof you. I could not bear it either.”

“Well—­we must talk of a plan forkeeping her in her present belief, and getting mattersstraight in spite of it. You have heard I am ina large way of business here—­that I amMayor of the town, and churchwarden, and I don’tknow what all?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“These things, as well as the dread of the girldiscovering our disgrace, makes it necessary to actwith extreme caution. So that I don’t seehow you two can return openly to my house as the wifeand daughter I once treated badly, and banished fromme; and there’s the rub o’t.”

“We’ll go away at once. I only cameto see—­”

“No, no, Susan; you are not to go—­youmistake me!” he said with kindly severity.“I have thought of this plan: that you andElizabeth take a cottage in the town as the widowMrs. Newson and her daughter; that I meet you, courtyou, and marry you. Elizabeth-Jane coming to myhouse as my step-daughter. The thing is so naturaland easy that it is half done in thinking o’t.This would leave my shady, headstrong, disgracefullife as a young man absolutely unopened; the secretwould be yours and mine only; and I should have thepleasure of seeing my own only child under my roof,as well as my wife.”

“I am quite in your hands, Michael,” shesaid meekly. “I came here for the sakeof Elizabeth; for myself, if you tell me to leave againto-morrow morning, and never come near you more, Iam content to go.”

“Now, now; we don’t want to hear that,”said Henchard gently. “Of course you won’tleave again. Think over the plan I have proposedfor a few hours; and if you can’t hit upon abetter one we’ll adopt it. I have to beaway for a day or two on business, unfortunately; butduring that time you can get lodgings—­theonly ones in the town fit for you are those over thechina-shop in High Street—­and you can alsolook for a cottage.”

“If the lodgings are in High Street they aredear, I suppose?”

“Never mind—­you must start genteelif our plan is to be carried out. Look to mefor money. Have you enough till I come back?”

“Quite,” said she.

“And are you comfortable at the inn?”

“O yes.”

“And the girl is quite safe from learning theshame of her case and ours?—­that’swhat makes me most anxious of all.”

“You would be surprised to find how unlikelyshe is to dream of the truth. How could she eversuppose such a thing?”

True!

“I like the idea of repeating our marriage,”said Mrs. Henchard, after a pause. “Itseems the only right course, after all this. NowI think I must go back to Elizabeth-Jane, and tellher that our kinsman, Mr. Henchard, kindly wishesus to stay in the town.”

“Very well—­arrange that yourself.I’ll go some way with you.”

“No, no. Don’t run any risk!”said his wife anxiously. “I can find myway back—­it is not late. Please letme go alone.”

“Right,” said Henchard. “Butjust one word. Do you forgive me, Susan?”

She murmured something; but seemed to find it difficultto frame her answer.

“Never mind—­all in good time,”said he. “Judge me by my future works—­good-bye!”

He retreated, and stood at the upper side of the Amphitheatrewhile his wife passed out through the lower way, anddescended under the trees to the town. Then Henchardhimself went homeward, going so fast that by the timehe reached his door he was almost upon the heels ofthe unconscious woman from whom he had just parted.He watched her up the street, and turned into hishouse.

12.

On entering his own door after watching his wife outof sight, the Mayor walked on through the tunnel-shapedpassage into the garden, and thence by the back doortowards the stores and granaries. A light shonefrom the office-window, and there being no blind toscreen the interior Henchard could see Donald Farfraestill seated where he had left him, initiating himselfinto the managerial work of the house by overhaulingthe books. Henchard entered, merely observing,“Don’t let me interrupt you, if ye willstay so late.”

He stood behind Farfrae’s chair, watching hisdexterity in clearing up the numerical fogs whichhad been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard’sbooks as almost to baffle even the Scotchman’sperspicacity. The corn-factor’s mien washalf admiring, and yet it was not without a dash ofpity for the tastes of any one who could care to givehis mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himselfwas mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtletiesfrom soiled paper; he had in a modern sense receivedthe education of Achilles, and found penmanship atantalizing art.

“You shall do no more to-night,” he saidat length, spreading his great hand over the paper.“There’s time enough to-morrow. Comeindoors with me and have some supper. Now youshall! I am determined on’t.”He shut the account-books with friendly force.

Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he alreadysaw that his friend and employer was a man who knewno moderation in his requests and impulses, and heyielded gracefully. He liked Henchard’swarmth, even if it inconvenienced him; the great differencein their characters adding to the liking.

They locked up the office, and the young man followedhis companion through the private little door which,admitting directly into Henchard’s garden, permitteda passage from the utilitarian to the beautiful atone step. The garden was silent, dewy, and fullof perfume. It extended a long way back fromthe house, first as lawn and flower-beds, then asfruit-garden, where the long-tied espaliers, as oldas the old house itself, had grown so stout, and cramped,and gnarled that they had pulled their stakes outof the ground and stood distorted and writhing invegetable agony, like leafy Laocoons. The flowerswhich smelt so sweetly were not discernible; and theypassed through them into the house.

The hospitalities of the morning were repeated, andwhen they were over Henchard said, “Pull yourchair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow, andlet’s make a blaze—­there’s nothingI hate like a black grate, even in September.”He applied a light to the laid-in fuel, and a cheerfulradiance spread around.

“It is odd,” said Henchard, “thattwo men should meet as we have done on a purely businessground, and that at the end of the first day I shouldwish 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’tI tell it to ’ee?”

“I’ll be glad to hear it, if I can beof any service,” said Donald, allowing his eyesto travel over the intricate wood-carvings of thechimney-piece, representing garlanded lyres, shields,and quivers, on either side of a draped ox-skull,and flanked by heads of Apollo and Diana in low relief.

“I’ve not been always what I am now,”continued Henchard, his firm deep voice being everso little shaken. He was plainly under that strangeinfluence which sometimes prompts men to confide tothe new-found friend what they will not tell to theold. “I began life as a working hay-trusser,and when I was eighteen I married on the strength o’my calling. Would you think me a married man?”

“I heard in the town that you were a widower.”

“Ah, yes—­you would naturally haveheard that. Well, I lost my wife nineteen yearsago or so—­by my own fault....This is howit came about. One summer evening I was travellingfor employment, and she was walking at my side, carryingthe baby, our only child. We came to a booth ina country fair. I was a drinking man at thattime.”

Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so thathis elbow rested on the table, his forehead beingshaded by his hand, which, however, did not hide themarks of introspective inflexibility on his featuresas he narrated in fullest detail the incidents ofthe transaction with the sailor. The tinge ofindifference which had at first been visible in theScotchman now disappeared.

Henchard went on to describe his attempts to findhis wife; the oath he swore; the solitary life heled during the years which followed. “Ihave kept my oath for nineteen years,” he wenton; “I have risen to what you see me now.”

“Ay!”

“Well—­no wife could I hear of inall that time; and being by nature something of awoman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostlyat a distance from the sex. No wife could I hearof, I say, till this very day. And now—­shehas come back.”

“Come back, has she!”

“This morning—­this very morning.And what’s to be done?”

“Can ye no’ take her and live with her,and make some amends?”

“That’s what I’ve planned and proposed.But, Farfrae,” said Henchard gloomily, “bydoing right with Susan I wrong another innocent woman.”

“Ye don’t say that?”

“In the nature of things, Farfrae, it is almostimpossible that a man of my sort should have the goodfortune to tide through twenty years o’ lifewithout making more blunders than one. It hasbeen my custom for many years to run across to Jerseyin the the way of business, particularly in the potatoand root season. I do a large trade wi’them in that line. Well, one autumn when stoppingthere I fell quite ill, and in my illness I sank intoone 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 mebirth.”

“Ah, now, I never feel like it,” saidFarfrae.

“Then pray to God that you never may, youngman. While in this state I was taken pity onby a woman—­a young lady I should call her,for she was of good family, well bred, and well educated—­thedaughter of some harum-scarum military officer whohad got into difficulties, and had his pay sequestrated.He was dead now, and her mother too, and she was aslonely as I. This young creature was staying at theboarding-house where I happened to have my lodging;and when I was pulled down she took upon herself tonurse me. From that she got to have a foolishliking for me. Heaven knows why, for I wasn’tworth 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 relationswere. It is enough to say that we honestly meantto marry. There arose a scandal, which did meno harm, but was of course ruin to her. Though,Farfrae, between you and me, as man and man, I solemnlydeclare that philandering with womankind has neitherbeen my vice nor my virtue. She was terribly carelessof appearances, and I was perhaps more, because o’my dreary state; and it was through this that thescandal arose. At last I was well, and came away.When I was gone she suffered much on my account, anddidn’t forget to tell me so in letters one afteranother; till latterly, I felt I owed her something,and thought that, as I had not heard of Susan for solong, I would make this other one the only return Icould make, and ask her if she would run the riskof Susan being alive (very slight as I believed) andmarry me, such as I was. She jumped for joy, andwe should no doubt soon have been married—­but,behold, Susan appears!”

Donald showed his deep concern at a complication sofar beyond the degree of his simple experiences.

“Now see what injury a man may cause aroundhim! Even after that wrong-doing at the fairwhen I was young, if I had never been so selfish asto let this giddy girl devote herself to me over atJersey, to the injury of her name, all might now bewell. Yet, as it stands, I must bitterly disappointone of these women; and it is the second. My firstduty is to Susan—­there’s no doubtabout that.”

“They are both in a very melancholy position,and that’s true!” murmured Donald.

“They are! For myself I don’t care—­’twillall end one way. But these two.” Henchardpaused in reverie. “I feel I should liketo treat the second, no less than the first, as kindlyas a man can in such a case.”

“Ah, well, it cannet be helped!” saidthe other, with philosophic woefulness. “Youmun write to the young lady, and in your letter youmust put it plain and honest that it turns out shecannet be your wife, the first having come back; thatye cannet see her more; and that—­ye wishher weel.”

“That won’t do. ’Od seize it,I must do a little more than that! I must—­thoughshe did always brag about her rich uncle or rich aunt,and her expectations from ’em—­I mustsend a useful sum of money to her, I suppose—­justas a little recompense, poor girl....Now, will youhelp me in this, and draw up an explanation to herof all I’ve told ye, breaking it as gently asyou can? I’m so bad at letters.”

“And I will.”

“Now, I haven’t told you quite all yet.My wife Susan has my daughter with her—­thebaby that was in her arms at the fair; and this girlknows nothing of me beyond that I am some sort ofrelation by marriage. She has grown up in thebelief that the sailor to whom I made over her mother,and who is now dead, was her father, and her mother’shusband. What her mother has always felt, sheand I together feel now—­that we can’tproclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her knowthe truth. Now what would you do?—­Iwant your advice.”

“I think I’d run the risk, and tell herthe truth. She’ll forgive ye both.”

“Never!” said Henchard. “Iam not going to let her know the truth. Her motherand I be going to marry again; and it will not onlyhelp us to keep our child’s respect, but itwill be more proper. Susan looks upon herselfas the sailor’s widow, and won’t thinko’ living with me as formerly without anotherreligious ceremony—­and she’s right.”

Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter tothe young Jersey woman was carefully framed by him,and the interview ended, Henchard saying, as the Scotchmanleft, “I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, totell some friend o’ this! You see now thatthe Mayor of Casterbridge is not so thriving in hismind as it seems he might be from the state of hispocket.”

“I do. And I’m sorry for ye!”said Farfrae.

When he was gone Henchard copied the letter, and,enclosing a cheque, took it to the post-office, fromwhich he walked back thoughtfully.

“Can it be that it will go off so easily!”he said. “Poor thing—­God knows!Now then, to make amends to Susan!”

13.

The cottage which Michael Henchard hired for his wifeSusan under her name of Newson—­in pursuanceof their plan—­was in the upper or westernpart of the town, near the Roman wall, and the avenuewhich overshadowed it. The evening sun seemedto shine more yellowly there than anywhere else thisautumn—­stretching its rays, as the hoursgrew later, under the lowest sycamore boughs, andsteeping the ground-floor of the dwelling, with itsgreen shutters, in a substratum of radiance which thefoliage screened from the upper parts. Beneaththese sycamores on the town walls could be seen fromthe sitting-room the tumuli and earth forts of thedistant uplands; making it altogether a pleasant spot,with the usual touch of melancholy that a past-markedprospect lends.

As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortablyinstalled, with a white-aproned servant and all complete,Henchard paid them a visit, and remained to tea.During the entertainment Elizabeth was carefully hoodwinkedby the very general tone of the conversation thatprevailed—­a proceeding which seemed to affordsome humour to Henchard, though his wife was not particularlyhappy in it. The visit was repeated again andagain with business-like determination by the Mayor,who seemed to have schooled himself into a courseof strict mechanical rightness towards this womanof prior claim, at any expense to the later one andto his own sentiments.

One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchardcame, and he said drily, “This is a very goodopportunity for me to ask you to name the happy day,Susan.”

The poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy pleasantrieson a situation into which she had entered solely forthe sake of her girl’s reputation. Sheliked them so little, indeed, that there was room forwonder why she had countenanced deception at all, andhad not bravely let the girl know her history.But the flesh is weak; and the true explanation camein due course.

“O Michael!” she said, “I am afraidall this is taking up your time and giving trouble—­whenI did not expect any such thing!” And she lookedat him and at his dress as a man of affluence, andat the furniture he had provided for the room—­ornateand lavish to her eyes.

“Not at all,” said Henchard, in roughbenignity. “This is only a cottage—­itcosts me next to nothing. And as to taking upmy time”—­here his red and black visagekindled with satisfaction—­“I’vea splendid fellow to superintend my business now—­aman whose like I’ve never been able to lay handson before. I shall soon be able to leave everythingto him, and have more time to call my own than I’vehad for these last twenty years.”

Henchard’s visits here grew so frequent andso regular that it soon became whispered, and thenopenly discussed in Casterbridge that the masterful,coercive Mayor of the town was raptured and enervatedby the genteel widow Mrs. Newson. His well-knownhaughty indifference to the society of womankind,his silent avoidance of converse with the sex, contributeda piquancy to what would otherwise have been an unromanticmatter enough. That such a poor fragile womanshould be his choice was inexplicable, except on theground that the engagement was a family affair inwhich sentimental passion had no place; for it wasknown that they were related in some way. Mrs.Henchard was so pale that the boys called her “TheGhost.” Sometimes Henchard overheard thisepithet when they passed together along the Walks—­asthe avenues on the walls were named—­atwhich his face would darken with an expression ofdestructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see;but he said nothing.

He pressed on the preparations for his union, or ratherreunion, with this pale creature in a dogged, unflinchingspirit which did credit to his conscientiousness.Nobody would have conceived from his outward demeanourthat there was no amatory fire or pulse of romanceacting as stimulant to the bustle going on in hisgaunt, great house; nothing but three large resolves—­one,to make amends to his neglected Susan, another, toprovide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane underhis paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himselfwith the thorns which these restitutory acts broughtin their train; among them the lowering of his dignityin public opinion by marrying so comparatively humblea woman.

Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first timein her life when she stepped into the plain broughamwhich drew up at the door on the wedding-day to takeher and Elizabeth-Jane to church. It was a windlessmorning of warm November rain, which floated down likemeal, and lay in a powdery form on the nap of hatsand coats. Few people had gathered round thechurch door though they were well packed within.The Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of coursethe only one present, beyond the chief actors, whoknew the true situation of the contracting parties.He, however, was too inexperienced, too thoughtful,too judicial, too strongly conscious of the seriousside of the business, to enter into the scene in itsdramatic aspect. That required the special geniusof Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, andtheir fellows. But they knew nothing of the secret;though, as the time for coming out of church drewon, they gathered on the pavement adjoining, and expoundedthe subject according to their lights.

“’Tis five-and-forty years since I hadmy settlement in this here town,” said Coney;“but daze me if I ever see a man wait so longbefore to take so little! There’s a chanceeven for thee after this, Nance Mockridge.”The remark was addressed to a woman who stood behindhis shoulder—­the same who had exhibitedHenchard’s bad bread in public when Elizabethand her mother entered Casterbridge.

“Be cust if I’d marry any such as he,or thee either,” replied that lady. “Asfor thee, Christopher, we know what ye be, and theless said the better. And as for he—­well,there—­(lowering her voice) ’tis said’a was a poor parish ’prentice—­Iwouldn’t say it for all the world—­but’a was a poor parish ‘prentice, that beganlife wi’ no more belonging to ’en thana carrion crow.”

“And now he’s worth ever so much a minute,”murmured Longways. “When a man is saidto be worth so much a minute, he’s a man to beconsidered!”

Turning, he saw a circular disc reticulated with creases,and recognized the smiling countenance of the fatwoman who had asked for another song at the ThreeMariners. “Well, Mother Cuxsom,” hesaid, “how’s this? Here’s Mrs.Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another husbandto keep her, while a woman of your tonnage have not.”

“I have not. Nor another to beat me....Ah,yes, Cuxsom’s gone, and so shall leather breeches!”

“Yes; with the blessing of God leather breechesshall go.”

“’Tisn’t worth my old while to thinkof another husband,” continued Mrs. Cuxsom.“And yet I’ll lay my life I’m asrespectable born as she.”

“True; your mother was a very good woman—­Ican mind her. She were rewarded by the AgriculturalSociety for having begot the greatest number of healthychildren without parish assistance, and other virtuousmarvels.”

“’Twas that that kept us so low upon ground—­thatgreat hungry family.”

“Ay. Where the pigs be many the wash runsthin.”

“And dostn’t mind how mother would sing,Christopher?” continued Mrs. Cuxsom, kindlingat the retrospection; “and how we went with herto the party at Mellstock, do ye mind?—­atold 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 yemind?”

“I do, hee-hee, I do!” said ChristopherConey.

“And well do I—­for I was gettingup husband-high at that time—­one-half girl,and t’other half woman, as one may say.And canst mind”—­she prodded Solomon’sshoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkledbetween the crevices of their lids—­“canstmind the sherry-wine, and the zilver-snuffers, andhow Joan Dummett was took bad when we were cominghome, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her throughthe mud; and how ’a let her fall in DairymanSweet-apple’s cow-barton, and we had to claneher gown wi’ grass—­never such a messas a’ were in?”

“Ay—­that I do—­hee-hee,such doggery as there was in them ancient days, tobe sure! Ah, the miles I used to walk then; andnow I can hardly step over a furrow!”

Their reminiscences were cut short by the appearanceof the reunited pair—­Henchard looking roundupon the idlers with that ambiguous gaze of his, whichat one moment seemed to mean satisfaction, and at anotherfiery disdain.

“Well—­there’s a differencebetween ’em, though he do call himself a teetotaller,”said Nance Mockridge. “She’ll wishher cake dough afore she’s done of him.There’s a blue-beardy look about ’en; and’twill out in time.”

“Stuff—­he’s well enough!Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had achoice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn’t wishfor a better man. A poor twanking woman likeher—­’tis a godsend for her, and hardlya pair of jumps or night-rail to her name.”

The plain little brougham drove off in the mist, andthe idlers dispersed. “Well, we hardlyknow how to look at things in these times!”said Solomon. “There was a man dropped downdead yesterday, not so very many miles from here;and what wi’ that, and this moist weather, ’tisscarce worth one’s while to begin any work o’consequence to-day. I’m in such a low keywith drinking nothing but small table ninepenny thislast week or two that I shall call and warm up at theMar’ners as I pass along.”

“I don’t know but that I may as well gowith ’ee, Solomon,” said Christopher;“I’m as clammy as a co*ckle-snail.”

14.

A Martinmas summer of Mrs. Henchard’s life setin with her entry into her husband’s large houseand respectable social orbit; and it was as brightas such summers well can be. Lest she should pinefor deeper affection than he could give he made apoint of showing some semblance of it in externalaction. Among other things he had the iron railings,that had smiled sadly in dull rust for the last eightyyears, painted a bright green, and the heavy-barred,small-paned Georgian sash windows enlivened with threecoats of white. He was as kind to her as a man,mayor, and churchwarden could possibly be. Thehouse was large, the rooms lofty, and the landingswide; and the two unassuming women scarcely made aperceptible addition to its contents.

To Elizabeth-Jane the time was a most triumphant one.The freedom she experienced, the indulgence with whichshe was treated, went beyond her expectations.The reposeful, easy, affluent life to which her mother’smarriage had introduced her was, in truth, the beginningof a great change in Elizabeth. She found shecould have nice personal possessions and ornamentsfor the asking, and, as the mediaeval saying puts it,“Take, have, and keep, are pleasant words.”With peace of mind came development, and with developmentbeauty. Knowledge—­the result of greatnatural insight—­she did not lack; learning,accomplishment—­those, alas, she had not;but as the winter and spring passed by her thin faceand figure filled out in rounder and softer curves;the lines and contractions upon her young brow wentaway; the muddiness of skin which she had looked uponas her lot by nature departed with a change to abundanceof good things, and a bloom came upon her cheek.Perhaps, too, her grey, thoughtful eyes revealed anarch gaiety sometimes; but this was infrequent; thesort of wisdom which looked from their pupils didnot readily keep company with these lighter moods.Like all people who have known rough times, light-heartednessseemed to her too irrational and inconsequent to beindulged in except as a reckless dram now and then;for she had been too early habituated to anxious reasoningto drop the habit suddenly. She felt none ofthose ups and downs of spirit which beset so manypeople without cause; never—­to paraphrasea recent poet—­never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane’ssoul but she well knew how it came there; and herpresent cheerfulness was fairly proportionate to hersolid guarantees for the same.

It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidlybecoming good-looking, comfortably circ*mstanced,and for the first time in her life commanding readymoney, she would go and make a fool of herself bydress. But no. The reasonableness of almosteverything that Elizabeth did was nowhere more conspicuousthan in this question of clothes. To keep inthe rear of opportunity in matters of indulgence isas valuable a habit as to keep abreast of opportunityin matters of enterprise. This unsophisticatedgirl did it by an innate perceptiveness that was almostgenius. Thus she refrained from bursting out likea water-flower that spring, and clothing herself inpuffings and knick-knacks, as most of the Casterbridgegirls would have done in her circ*mstances. Hertriumph was tempered by circ*mspection, she had stillthat field-mouse fear of the coulter of destiny despitefair promise, which is common among the thoughtfulwho have suffered early from poverty and oppression.

“I won’t be too gay on any account,”she would say to herself. “It would betempting Providence to hurl mother and me down, andafflict us again as He used to do.”

We now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantleor 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 forkeeping it closed. It was odd about the necessityfor that sunshade. She discovered that with theclarification of her complexion and the birth of pinkcheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the sun’srays. She protected those cheeks forthwith, deemingspotlessness part of womanliness.

Henchard had become very fond of her, and she wentout with him more frequently than with her mothernow. Her appearance one day was so attractivethat he looked at her critically.

“I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I madeit up,” she faltered, thinking him perhaps dissatisfiedwith some rather bright trimming she had donned forthe first time.

“Ay—­of course—­to be sure,”he replied in his leonine way. “Do as youlike—­or rather as your mother advises ye.’Od send—­I’ve nothing to sayto’t!”

Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a partingthat arched like a white rainbow from ear to ear.All in front of this line was covered with a thickencampment of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly,and drawn to a knob.

The three members of the family were sitting at breakfastone day, and Henchard was looking silently, as heoften did, at this head of hair, which in colour wasbrown—­rather light than dark. “Ithought Elizabeth-Jane’s hair—­didn’tyou tell me that Elizabeth-Jane’s hair promisedto be black when she was a baby?” he said tohis wife.

She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, andmurmured, “Did I?”

As soon as Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchardresumed. “Begad, I nearly forgot myselfjust now! What I meant was that the girl’shair certainly looked as if it would be darker, whenshe was a baby.”

“It did; but they alter so,” replied Susan.

“Their hair gets darker, I know—­butI wasn’t aware it lightened ever?”

“O yes.” And the same uneasy expressioncame out on her face, to which the future held thekey. It passed as Henchard went on:

“Well, so much the better. Now Susan, Iwant to have her called Miss Henchard—­notMiss Newson. Lots o’ people do it alreadyin carelessness—­it is her legal name—­soit may as well be made her usual name—­Idon’t like t’other name at all for my ownflesh and blood. I’ll advertise it in theCasterbridge paper—­that’s the waythey do it. She won’t object.”

“No. O no. But—­”

“Well, then, I shall do it,” he said,peremptorily. “Surely, if she’s willing,you must wish it as much as I?”

“O yes—­if she agrees let us do itby all means,” she replied.

Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently;it might have been called falsely, but that her mannerwas emotional and full of the earnestness of one whowishes to do right at great hazard. She went toElizabeth-Jane, whom she found sewing in her own sitting-roomupstairs, and told her what had been proposed abouther surname. “Can you agree—­isit not a slight upon Newson—­now he’sdead and gone?”

Elizabeth reflected. “I’ll thinkof it, mother,” she answered.

When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she advertedto the matter at once, in a way which showed thatthe line of feeling started by her mother had beenpersevered in. “Do you wish this changeso very much, sir?” she asked.

“Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, whatan ado you women make about a trifle! I proposedit—­that’s all. Now, ’Lizabeth-Jane,just please yourself. Curse me if I care whatyou do. Now, you understand, don’t ’eego agreeing to it to please me.”

Here the subject dropped, and nothing more was said,and nothing was done, and Elizabeth still passed asMiss Newson, and not by her legal name.

Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conductedby Henchard throve under the management of DonaldFarfrae as it had never thriven before. It hadformerly moved in jolts; now it went on oiled casters.The old crude viva voce system of Henchard, in whicheverything depended upon his memory, and bargainswere made by the tongue alone, was swept away.Letters and ledgers took the place of “I’lldo’t,” and “you shall hae’t”;and, as in all such cases of advance, the rugged picturesquenessof the old method disappeared with its inconveniences.

The position of Elizabeth-Jane’s room—­ratherhigh in the house, so that it commanded a view ofthe hay-stores and granaries across the garden—­affordedher opportunity for accurate observation of what wenton there. She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchardwere inseparables. When walking together Henchardwould lay his arm familiarly on his manager’sshoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearingso heavily that his slight frame bent under the weight.Occasionally she would hear a perfect cannonade oflaughter from Henchard, arising from something Donaldhad said, the latter looking quite innocent and notlaughing at all. In Henchard’s somewhatlonely life he evidently found the young man as desirablefor comradeship as he was useful for consultations.Donald’s brightness of intellect maintained inthe corn-factor the admiration it had won at the firsthour of their meeting. The poor opinion, andbut ill-concealed, that he entertained of the slimFarfrae’s physical girth, strength, and dashwas more than counterbalanced by the immense respecthe had for his brains.

Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard’s tigerishaffection for the younger man, his constant likingto have Farfrae near him, now and then resulted ina tendency to domineer, which, however, was checkedin 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 thedoorway between the garden and yard, that their habitof walking and driving about together rather neutralizedFarfrae’s value as a second pair of eyes, whichshould be used in places where the principal was not.“’Od damn it,” cried Henchard, “what’sall the world! I like a fellow to talk to.Now come along and hae some supper, and don’ttake too much thought about things, or ye’lldrive me crazy.”

When she walked with her mother, on the other hand,she often beheld the Scotchman looking at them witha curious interest. The fact that he had mether at the Three Mariners was insufficient to accountfor it, since on the occasions on which she had enteredhis room he had never raised his eyes. Besides,it was at her mother more particularly than at herselfthat he looked, to Elizabeth-Jane’s half-conscious,simple-minded, perhaps pardonable, disappointment.Thus she could not account for this interest by herown attractiveness, and she decided that it mightbe apparent only—­a way of turning his eyesthat Mr. Farfrae had.

She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner,without personal vanity, that was afforded by thefact of Donald being the depositary of Henchard’sconfidence in respect of his past treatment of thepale, chastened mother who walked by her side.Her conjectures on that past never went further thanfaint ones based on things casually heard and seen—­mereguesses that Henchard and her mother might have beenlovers in their younger days, who had quarrelled andparted.

Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place depositedin the block upon a corn-field. There was nosuburb in the modern sense, or transitional intermixtureof town and down. It stood, with regard to thewide fertile land adjoining, clean-cut and distinct,like a chess-board on a green tablecloth. Thefarmer’s boy could sit under his barley-mowand pitch a stone into the office-window of the town-clerk;reapers at work among the sheaves nodded to acquaintancesstanding on the pavement-corner; the red-robed judge,when he condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentenceto the tune of Baa, that floated in at the windowfrom the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; andat executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadowimmediately before the drop, out of which the cowshad been temporarily driven to give the spectatorsroom.

The corn grown on the upland side of the borough wasgarnered by farmers who lived in an eastern purlieucalled Durnover. Here wheat-ricks overhung theold Roman street, and thrust their eaves against thechurch tower; green-thatched barns, with doorwaysas high as the gates of Solomon’s temple, openeddirectly upon the main thoroughfare. Barns indeedwere so numerous as to alternate with every half-dozenhouses along the way. Here lived burgesses whodaily walked the fallow; shepherds in an intra-muralsqueeze. A street of farmers’ homesteads—­astreet ruled by a mayor and corporation, yet echoingwith the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan,and the purr of the milk into the pails—­astreet which had nothing urban in it whatever—­thiswas the Durnover end of Casterbridge.

Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with thisnursery or bed of small farmers close at hand—­andhis waggons were often down that way. One day,when arrangements were in progress for getting homecorn from one of the aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Janereceived a note by hand, asking her to oblige thewriter by coming at once to a granary on DurnoverHill. As this was the granary whose contents Henchardwas removing, she thought the request had somethingto do with his business, and proceeded thither assoon as she had put on her bonnet. The granarywas just within the farm-yard, and stood on stone staddles,high enough for persons to walk under. The gateswere open, but nobody was within. However, sheentered and waited. Presently she saw a figureapproaching the gate—­that of Donald Farfrae.He looked up at the church clock, and came in.By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to meethim there alone, she quickly ascended the step-ladderleading to the granary door, and entered it beforehe had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagininghimself in solitude, and a few drops of rain beginningto fall he moved and stood under the shelter whereshe had just been standing. Here he leant againstone of the staddles, and gave himself up to patience.He, too, was plainly expecting some one; could itbe herself? If so, why? In a few minuteshe looked at his watch, and then pulled out a note,a duplicate of the one she had herself received.

This situation began to be very awkward, and the longershe waited the more awkward it became. To emergefrom a door just above his head and descend the ladder,and show she had been in hiding there, would look sovery foolish that she still waited on. A winnowingmachine stood close beside her, and to relieve hersuspense she gently moved the handle; whereupon acloud of wheat husks flew out into her face, and coveredher clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur of hervictorine. He must have heard the slight movementfor he looked up, and then ascended the steps.

“Ah—­it’s Miss Newson,”he said as soon as he could see into the granary.“I didn’t know you were there. I havekept the appointment, and am at your service.”

“O Mr. Farfrae,” she faltered, “sohave I. But I didn’t know it was you who wishedto see me, otherwise I—­”

“I wished to see you? O no—­atleast, that is, I am afraid there may be a mistake.”

“Didn’t you ask me to come here?Didn’t you write this?” Elizabeth heldout her note.

“No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thoughtof it! And for you—­didn’t youask me? This is not your writing?” And heheld up his.

“By no means.”

“And is that really so! Then it’ssomebody wanting to see us both. Perhaps we woulddo well to wait a little longer.”

Acting on this consideration they lingered, Elizabeth-Jane’sface being arranged to an expression of preternaturalcomposure, and the young Scot, at every footstep inthe street without, looking from under the granaryto see if the passer were about to enter and declarehimself their summoner. They watched individualdrops of rain creeping down the thatch of the oppositerick—­straw after straw—­till theyreached the bottom; but nobody came, and the granaryroof began to drip.

“The person is not likely to be coming,”said Farfrae. “It’s a trick perhaps,and if so, it’s a great pity to waste our timelike this, and so much to be done.”

“’Tis a great liberty,” said Elizabeth.

“It’s true, Miss Newson. We’llhear news of this some day depend on’t, andwho it was that did it. I wouldn’t standfor it hindering myself; but you, Miss Newson——­”

“I don’t mind—­much,’she replied.

“Neither do I.”

They lapsed again into silence. “You areanxious to get back to Scotland, I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?”she inquired.

“O no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?”

“I only supposed you might be from the songyou sang at the Three Mariners—­about Scotlandand home, I mean—­which you seemed to feelso deep down in your heart; so that we all felt foryou.”

“Ay—­and I did sing there—­Idid——­But, Miss Newson”—­andDonald’s voice musically undulated between twosemi-tones as it always did when he became earnest—­“it’swell you feel a song for a few minutes, and your eyesthey get quite tearful; but you finish it, and forall you felt you don’t mind it or think of itagain for a long while. O no, I don’t wantto go back! Yet I’ll sing the song to youwi’ pleasure whenever you like. I couldsing it now, and not mind at all?”

“Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go—­rainor no.”

“Ay! Then, Miss Newson, ye had better saynothing about this hoax, and take no heed of it.And if the person should say anything to you, be civilto him or her, as if you did not mind it—­soyou’ll take the clever person’s laughaway.” In speaking his eyes became fixedupon her dress, still sown with wheat husks.“There’s husks and dust on you. Perhapsyou don’t know it?” he said, in tones ofextreme delicacy. “And it’s verybad to let rain come upon clothes when there’schaff on them. It washes in and spoils them.Let me help you—­blowing is the best.”

As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented DonaldFarfrae began blowing her back hair, and her sidehair, and her neck, and the crown of her bonnet, andthe fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, “O,thank you,” at every puff. At last shewas fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got overhis first concern at the situation, seemed in no mannerof hurry to be gone.

“Ah—­now I’ll go and get yean umbrella,” he said.

She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone.Farfrae walked slowly after, looking thoughtfullyat her diminishing figure, and whistling in undertones,“As I came down through Cannobie.”

15.

At first Miss Newson’s budding beauty was notregarded with much interest by anybody in Casterbridge.Donald Farfrae’s gaze, it is true, was now attractedby the Mayor’s so-called step-daughter, but hewas only one. The truth is that she was but apoor illustrative instance of the prophet Baruch’ssly definition: “The virgin that lovethto go gay.”

When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied withan inner chamber of ideas, and to have slight needfor visible objects. She formed curious resolveson checking gay fancies in the matter of clothes,because it was inconsistent with her past life to blossomgaudily the moment she had become possessed of money.But nothing is more insidious than the evolution ofwishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.Henchard gave Elizabeth-Jane a box of delicately-tintedgloves one spring day. She wanted to wear themto show her appreciation of his kindness, but shehad no bonnet that would harmonize. As an artisticindulgence she thought she would have such a bonnet.When she had a bonnet that would go with the glovesshe had no dress that would go with the bonnet.It was now absolutely necessary to finish; she orderedthe requisite article, and found that she had no sunshadeto go with the dress. In for a penny in for apound; she bought the sunshade, and the whole structurewas at last complete.

Everybody was attracted, and some said that her bygonesimplicity was the art that conceals art, the “delicateimposition” of Rochefoucauld; she had producedan effect, a contrast, and it had been done on purpose.As a matter of fact this was not true, but it had itsresult; for as soon as Casterbridge thought her artfulit thought her worth notice. “It is thefirst time in my life that I have been so much admired,”she said to herself; “though perhaps it is bythose whose admiration is not worth having.”

But Donald Farfrae admired her, too; and altogetherthe time was an exciting one; sex had never beforeasserted itself in her so strongly, for in formerdays she had perhaps been too impersonally human tobe distinctively feminine. After an unprecedentedsuccess one day she came indoors, went upstairs, andleant upon her bed face downwards quite forgettingthe possible creasing and damage. “GoodHeaven,” she whispered, “can it be?Here am I setting up as the town beauty!”

When she had thought it over, her usual fear of exaggeratingappearances engendered a deep sadness. “Thereis something wrong in all this,” she mused.“If they only knew what an unfinished girl Iam—­that I can’t talk Italian, oruse globes, or show any of the accomplishments theylearn at boarding schools, how they would despise me!Better sell all this finery and buy myself grammar-booksand dictionaries and a history of all the philosophies!”

She looked from the window and saw Henchard and Farfraein the hay-yard talking, with that impetuous cordialityon the Mayor’s part, and genial modesty on theyounger man’s, that was now so generally observablein their intercourse. Friendship between man andman; what a rugged strength there was in it, as evincedby these two. And yet the seed that was to liftthe foundation of this friendship was at that momenttaking root in a chink of its structure.

It was about six o’clock; the men were droppingoff homeward one by one. The last to leave wasa round-shouldered, blinking young man of nineteenor 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 thegate, “Here—­Abel Whittle!”

Whittle turned, and ran back a few steps. “Yes,sir,” he said, in breathless deprecation, asif he knew what was coming next.

“Once more—­be in time to-morrow morning.You see what’s to be done, and you hear whatI say, and you know I’m not going to be trifledwith any longer.”

“Yes, sir.” Then Abel Whittle left,and Henchard and Farfrae; and Elizabeth saw no moreof them.

Now there was good reason for this command on Henchard’spart. Poor Abel, as he was called, had an inveteratehabit of over-sleeping himself and coming late tohis work. His anxious will was to be among theearliest; but if his comrades omitted to pull the stringthat he always tied round his great toe and left hangingout the window for that purpose, his will was as wind.He did not arrive in time.

As he was often second hand at the hay-weighing, orat the crane which lifted the sacks, or was one ofthose who had to accompany the waggons into the countryto fetch away stacks that had been purchased, thisaffliction of Abel’s was productive of much inconvenience.For two mornings in the present week he had kept theothers waiting nearly an hour; hence Henchard’sthreat. It now remained to be seen what wouldhappen to-morrow.

Six o’clock struck, and there was no Whittle.At half-past six Henchard entered the yard; the waggonwas horsed that Abel was to accompany; and the otherman had been waiting twenty minutes. Then Henchardswore, and Whittle coming up breathless at that instant,the corn-factor turned on him, and declared with anoath that this was the last time; that if he werebehind once more, by God, he would come and drag himout o’ bed.

“There is sommit wrong in my make, your worshipful!”said Abel, “especially in the inside, whereasmy poor dumb brain gets as dead as a clot afore I’vesaid my few scrags of prayers. Yes—­itcame on as a stripling, just afore I’d got man’swages, whereas I never enjoy my bed at all, for nosooner do I lie down than I be asleep, and afore Ibe awake I be up. I’ve fretted my gizzardgreen about it, maister, but what can I do? Nowlast night, afore I went to bed, I only had a scantlingo’ cheese and—­”

“I don’t want to hear it!” roaredHenchard. “To-morrow the waggons must startat four, and if you’re not here, stand clear.I’ll mortify thy flesh for thee!”

“But let me clear up my points, your worshipful——­”

Henchard turned away.

“He asked me and he questioned me, and then’a wouldn’t hear my points!” saidAbel, to the yard in general. “Now, I shalltwitch like a moment-hand all night to-night for fearo’ him!”

The journey to be taken by the waggons next day wasa long one into Blackmoor Vale, and at four o’clocklanterns were moving about the yard. But Abelwas missing. Before either of the other men couldrun to Abel’s and warn him Henchard appearedin the garden doorway. “Where’s AbelWhittle? Not come after all I’ve said?Now I’ll carry out my word, by my blessed fathers—­nothingelse will do him any good! I’m going upthat way.”

Henchard went off, entered Abel’s house, a littlecottage in Back Street, the door of which was neverlocked because the inmates had nothing to lose.Reaching Whittle’s bedside the corn-factor shouteda bass note so vigorously that Abel started up instantly,and beholding Henchard standing over him, was galvanizedinto spasmodic movements which had not much relationto getting on his clothes.

“Out of bed, sir, and off to the granary, oryou leave my employ to-day! ’Tis to teachye a lesson. March on; never mind your breeches!”

The unhappy Whittle threw on his sleeve waistcoat,and managed to get into his boots at the bottom ofthe stairs, while Henchard thrust his hat over hishead. Whittle then trotted on down Back Street,Henchard walking sternly behind.

Just at this time Farfrae, who had been to Henchard’shouse to look for him, came out of the back gate,and saw something white fluttering in the morninggloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel’sshirt that showed below his waistcoat.

“For maircy’s sake, what object’sthis?” said Farfrae, following Abel into theyard, Henchard being some way in the rear by this time.

“Ye see, Mr. Farfrae,” gibbered Abel witha resigned smile of terror, “he said he’dmortify my flesh if so be I didn’t get up sooner,and now he’s a-doing on’t! Ye seeit can’t be helped, Mr. Farfrae; things do happenqueer sometimes! Yes—­I’ll goto Blackmoor Vale half naked as I be, since he docommand; but I shall kill myself afterwards; I can’toutlive the disgrace, for the women-folk will be lookingout of their winders at my mortification all the wayalong, and laughing me to scorn as a man ’ithoutbreeches! You know how I feel such things, MaisterFarfrae, and how forlorn thoughts get hold upon me.Yes—­I shall do myself harm—­Ifeel it coming on!”

“Get back home, and slip on your breeches, andcome to wark like a man! If ye go not, you’llha’e your death standing there!”

“I’m afeard I mustn’t! Mr.Henchard said——­”

“I don’t care what Mr. Henchard said,nor anybody else! ’Tis simple foolishnessto do this. Go and dress yourself instantly Whittle.”

“Hullo, hullo!” said Henchard, comingup behind. “Who’s sending him back?”

All the men looked towards Farfrae.

“I am,” said Donald. “I saythis joke has been carried far enough.”

“And I say it hasn’t! Get up in thewaggon, Whittle.”

“Not if I am manager,” said Farfrae.“He either goes home, or I march out of thisyard for good.”

Henchard looked at him with a face stern and red.But he paused for a moment, and their eyes met.Donald went up to him, for he saw in Henchard’slook that he began to regret this.

“Come,” said Donald quietly, “aman o’ your position should ken better, sir!It is tyrannical and no worthy of you.”

“’Tis not tyrannical!” murmuredHenchard, like a sullen boy. “It is tomake him remember!” He presently added, in atone of one bitterly hurt: “Why did youspeak to me before them like that, Farfrae? Youmight have stopped till we were alone. Ah—­Iknow why! I’ve told ye the secret o’my life—­fool that I was to do’t—­andyou take advantage of me!”

“I had forgot it,” said Farfrae simply.

Henchard looked on the ground, said nothing more,and turned away. During the day Farfrae learntfrom the men that Henchard had kept Abel’s oldmother in coals and snuff all the previous winter,which made him less antagonistic to the corn-factor.But Henchard continued moody and silent, and whenone of the men inquired of him if some oats shouldbe hoisted to an upper floor or not, he said shortly,“Ask Mr. Farfrae. He’s master here!”

Morally he was; there could be no doubt of it.Henchard, who had hitherto been the most admired manin his circle, was the most admired no longer.One day the daughters of a deceased farmer in Durnoverwanted an opinion of the value of their haystack,and sent a messenger to ask Mr. Farfrae to obligethem with one. The messenger, who was a child,met in the yard not Farfrae, but Henchard.

“Very well,” he said. “I’llcome.”

“But please will Mr. Farfrae come?” saidthe child.

“I am going that way....Why Mr. Farfrae?”said Henchard, with the fixed look of thought.“Why do people always want Mr. Farfrae?”

“I suppose because they like him so—­that’swhat they say.”

“Oh—­I see—­that’swhat they say—­hey? They like him becausehe’s cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and becausehe knows more; and, in short, Mr. Henchard can’thold a candle to him—­hey?”

“Yes—­that’s just it, sir—­someof it.”

“Oh, there’s more? Of course there’smore! What besides? Come, here’s asixpence for a fairing.”

“‘And he’s better tempered, andHenchard’s a fool to him,’ they say.And when some of the women were a-walking home theysaid, ’He’s a diment—­he’sa chap o’ wax—­he’s the best—­he’sthe horse for my money,’ says they. Andthey said, ‘He’s the most understandingman o’ them two by long chalks. I wishhe was the master instead of Henchard,’ theysaid.”

“They’ll talk any nonsense,” Henchardreplied with covered gloom. “Well, youcan go now. And I am coming to value the hay,d’ye hear?—­I.” The boydeparted, and Henchard murmured, “Wish he weremaster here, do they?”

He went towards Durnover. On his way he overtookFarfrae. They walked on together, Henchard lookingmostly on the ground.

“You’re no yoursel’ the day?”Donald inquired.

“Yes, I am very well,” said Henchard.

“But ye are a bit down—­surely yeare down? Why, there’s nothing to be angryabout! ’Tis splendid stuff that we’vegot from Blackmoor Vale. By the by, the peoplein Durnover want their hay valued.”

“Yes. I am going there.”

“I’ll go with ye.”

As Henchard did not reply Donald practised a pieceof music sotto voce, till, getting near the bereavedpeople’s door, he stopped himself with—­

“Ah, as their father is dead I won’t goon with such as that. How could I forget?”

“Do you care so very much about hurting folks’feelings?” observed Henchard with a half sneer.“You do, I know—­especially mine!”

“I am sorry if I have hurt yours, sir,”replied Donald, standing still, with a second expressionof the same sentiment in the regretfulness of hisface. “Why should you say it—­thinkit?”

The cloud lifted from Henchard’s brow, and asDonald finished the corn-merchant turned to him, regardinghis breast rather than his face.

“I have been hearing things that vexed me,”he said. “’Twas that made me short inmy manner—­made me overlook what you reallyare. Now, I don’t want to go in here aboutthis hay—­Farfrae, you can do it better thanI. They sent for ’ee, too. I have to attenda meeting of the Town Council at eleven, and ’tisdrawing on for’t.”

They parted thus in renewed friendship, Donald forbearingto ask Henchard for meanings that were not very plainto him. On Henchard’s part there was nowagain repose; and yet, whenever he thought of Farfrae,it was with a dim dread; and he often regretted thathe had told the young man his whole heart, and confidedto him the secrets of his life.

16.

On this account Henchard’s manner towards Farfraeinsensibly became more reserved. He was courteous—­toocourteous—­and Farfrae was quite surprisedat the good breeding which now for the first timeshowed itself among the qualities of a man he had hithertothought undisciplined, if warm and sincere. Thecorn-factor seldom or never again put his arm uponthe young man’s shoulder so as to nearly weighhim down with the pressure of mechanized friendship.He left off coming to Donald’s lodgings andshouting into the passage. “Hoy, Farfrae,boy, come and have some dinner with us! Don’tsit here in solitary confinement!” But in thedaily routine of their business there was little change.

Thus their lives rolled on till a day of public rejoicingwas suggested to the country at large in celebrationof a national event that had recently taken place.

For some time Casterbridge, by nature slow, made noresponse. Then one day Donald Farfrae broachedthe subject to Henchard by asking if he would haveany objection to lend some rick-cloths to himself anda few others, who contemplated getting up an entertainmentof some sort on the day named, and required a shelterfor the same, to which they might charge admissionat the rate of so much a head.

“Have as many cloths as you like,” Henchardreplied.

When his manager had gone about the business Henchardwas fired with emulation. It certainly had beenvery remiss of him, as Mayor, he thought, to callno meeting ere this, to discuss what should be doneon this holiday. But Farfrae had been so cursedquick in his movements as to give oldfashioned peoplein authority no chance of the initiative. However,it was not too late; and on second thoughts he determinedto take upon his own shoulders the responsibility oforganizing some amusem*nts, if the other Councilmenwould leave the matter in his hands. To thisthey quite readily agreed, the majority being fineold crusted characters who had a decided taste forliving without worry.

So Henchard set about his preparations for a reallybrilliant thing—­such as should be worthyof the venerable town. As for Farfrae’slittle affair, Henchard nearly forgot it; except oncenow and then when, on it coming into his mind, hesaid to himself, “Charge admission at so mucha head—­just like a Scotchman!—­whois going to pay anything a head?” The diversionswhich the Mayor intended to provide were to be entirelyfree.

He had grown so dependent upon Donald that he couldscarcely resist calling him in to consult. Butby sheer self-coercion he refrained. No, he thought,Farfrae would be suggesting such improvements in hisdamned luminous way that in spite of himself he, Henchard,would sink to the position of second fiddle, and onlyscrape harmonies to his manager’s talents.

Everybody applauded the Mayor’s proposed entertainment,especially when it became known that he meant to payfor it all himself.

Close to the town was an elevated green spot surroundedby an ancient square earthwork—­earthworkssquare and not square, were as common as blackberrieshereabout—­a spot whereon the Casterbridgepeople usually held any kind of merry-making, meeting,or sheep-fair that required more space than the streetswould afford. On one side it sloped to the riverFroom, and from any point a view was obtained of thecountry round for many miles. This pleasant uplandwas to be the scene of Henchard’s exploit.

He advertised about the town, in long posters of apink colour, that games of all sorts would take placehere; and set to work a little battalion of men underhis 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; acrossthe river they laid a slippery pole, with a live pigof the neighbourhood tied at the other end, to becomethe property of the man who could walk over and getit. There were also provided wheelbarrows forracing, donkeys for the same, a stage for boxing,wrestling, and drawing blood generally; sacks forjumping in. Moreover, not forgetting his principles,Henchard provided a mammoth tea, of which everybodywho lived in the borough was invited to partake withoutpayment. The tables were laid parallel with theinner slope of the rampart, and awnings were stretchedoverhead.

Passing to and fro the Mayor beheld the unattractiveexterior of Farfrae’s erection in the West Walk,rick-cloths of different sizes and colours being hungup to the arching trees without any regard to appearance.He was easy in his mind now, for his own preparationsfar transcended these.

The morning came. The sky, which had been remarkablyclear down to within a day or two, was overcast, andthe weather threatening, the wind having an unmistakablehint of water in it. Henchard wished he had notbeen quite so sure about the continuance of a fairseason. But it was too late to modify or postpone,and the proceedings went on. At twelve o’clockthe rain began to fall, small and steady, commencingand increasing so insensibly that it was difficultto state exactly when dry weather ended or wet establisheditself. In an hour the slight moisture resolveditself into a monotonous smiting of earth by heaven,in torrents to which no end could be prognosticated.

A number of people had heroically gathered in thefield but by three o’clock Henchard discernedthat his project was doomed to end in failure.The hams at the top of the poles dripped watered smokein the form of a brown liquor, the pig shivered inthe wind, the grain of the deal tables showed throughthe sticking tablecloths, for the awning allowed therain to drift under at its will, and to enclose thesides at this hour seemed a useless undertaking.The landscape over the river disappeared; the windplayed on the tent-cords in aeolian improvisations,and at length rose to such a pitch that the wholeerection slanted to the ground those who had takenshelter within it having to crawl out on their handsand knees.

But towards six the storm abated, and a drier breezeshook the moisture from the grass bents. It seemedpossible to carry out the programme after all.The awning was set up again; the band was called outfrom its shelter, and ordered to begin, and wherethe tables had stood a place was cleared for dancing.

“But where are the folk?” said Henchard,after the lapse of half-an-hour, during which timeonly two men and a woman had stood up to dance.“The shops are all shut. Why don’tthey come?”

“They are at Farfrae’s affair in the WestWalk,” answered a Councilman who stood in thefield with the Mayor.

“A few, I suppose. But where are the bodyo ’em?”

“All out of doors are there.”

“Then the more fools they!”

Henchard walked away moodily. One or two youngfellows gallantly came to climb the poles, to savethe hams from being wasted; but as there were no spectators,and the whole scene presented the most melancholyappearance Henchard gave orders that the proceedingswere to be suspended, and the entertainment closed,the food to be distributed among the poor people ofthe town. In a short time nothing was left inthe field but a few hurdles, the tents, and the poles.

Henchard returned to his house, had tea with his wifeand daughter, and then walked out. It was nowdusk. He soon saw that the tendency of all promenaderswas towards a particular spot in the Walks, and eventuallyproceeded thither himself. The notes of a stringedband came from the enclosure that Farfrae had erected—­thepavilion as he called it—­and when the Mayorreached it he perceived that a gigantic tent had beeningeniously constructed without poles or ropes.The densest point of the avenue of sycamores had beenselected, where the boughs made a closely interlacedvault overhead; to these boughs the canvas had beenhung, and a barrel roof was the result. The endtowards the wind was enclosed, the other end was open.Henchard went round and saw the interior.

In form it was like the nave of a cathedral with onegable removed, but the scene within was anything butdevotional. A reel or fling of some sort wasin progress; and the usually sedate Farfrae was inthe midst of the other dancers in the costume of awild Highlander, flinging himself about and spinningto the tune. For a moment Henchard could not helplaughing. Then he perceived the immense admirationfor the Scotchman that revealed itself in the women’sfaces; and when this exhibition was over, and a newdance proposed, and Donald had disappeared for a timeto return in his natural garments, he had an unlimitedchoice of partners, every girl being in a coming-ondisposition towards one who so thoroughly understoodthe poetry of motion as he.

All the town crowded to the Walk, such a delightfulidea of a ballroom never having occurred to the inhabitantsbefore. Among the rest of the onlookers wereElizabeth and her mother—­the former thoughtfulyet much interested, her eyes beaming with a longinglingering light, as if Nature had been advised byCorreggio in their creation. The dancing progressedwith unabated spirit, and Henchard walked and waitedtill his wife should be disposed to go home.He did not care to keep in the light, and when hewent into the dark it was worse, for there he heardremarks of a kind which were becoming too frequent:

“Mr. Henchard’s rejoicings couldn’tsay good morning to this,” said one. “Aman must be a headstrong stunpoll to think folk wouldgo up to that bleak place to-day.”

The other answered that people said it was not onlyin such things as those that the Mayor was wanting.“Where would his business be if it were notfor this young fellow? ’Twas verily Fortunesent him to Henchard. His accounts were likea bramblewood when Mr. Farfrae came. He usedto reckon his sacks by chalk strokes all in a row likegarden-palings, measure his ricks by stretching withhis arms, weigh his trusses by a lift, judge his hayby a chaw, and settle the price with a curse.But now this accomplished young man does it all byciphering and mensuration. Then the wheat—­thatsometimes used to taste so strong o’ mice whenmade into bread that people could fairly tell thebreed—­Farfrae has a plan for purifying,so that nobody would dream the smallest four-leggedbeast had walked over it once. O yes, everybodyis full of him, and the care Mr. Henchard has to keephim, to be sure!” concluded this gentleman.

“But he won’t do it for long, good-now,”said the other.

“No!” said Henchard to himself behindthe tree. “Or if he do, he’ll behoneycombed clean out of all the character and standingthat he’s built up in these eighteen year!”

He went back to the dancing pavilion. Farfraewas footing a quaint little dance with Elizabeth-Jane—­anold country thing, the only one she knew, and thoughhe considerately toned down his movements to suit herdemurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nailsin the soles of his boots became familiar to the eyesof every bystander. The tune had enticed herinto it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leapingsort—­some low notes on the silver stringof each fiddle, then a skipping on the small, likerunning up and down ladders—­“MissM’Leod of Ayr” was its name, so Mr. Farfraehad said, and that it was very popular in his owncountry.

It was soon over, and the girl looked at Henchardfor approval; but he did not give it. He seemednot to see her. “Look here, Farfrae,”he said, like one whose mind was elsewhere, “I’llgo 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 hadbegun as a smile.

Some other townsmen came up, and Donald drew aside.“What’s this, Henchard,” said AldermanTubber, applying his thumb to the corn-factor likea cheese-taster. “An opposition randy toyours, eh? Jack’s as good as his master,eh? Cut ye out quite, hasn’t he?”

“You see, Mr. Henchard,” said the lawyer,another goodnatured friend, “where you madethe mistake was in going so far afield. You shouldhave taken a leaf out of his book, and have had yoursports in a sheltered place like this. But youdidn’t think of it, you see; and he did, andthat’s where he’s beat you.”

“He’ll be top-sawyer soon of you two,and carry all afore him,” added jocular Mr.Tubber.

“No,” said Henchard gloomily. “Hewon’t be that, because he’s shortly goingto leave me.” He looked towards Donald,who had come near. “Mr. Farfrae’stime as my manager is drawing to a close—­isn’tit, Farfrae?”

The young man, who could now read the lines and foldsof Henchard’s strongly-traced face as if theywere clear verbal inscriptions, quietly assented;and when people deplored the fact, and asked why itwas, he simply replied that Mr. Henchard no longerrequired his help.

Henchard went home, apparently satisfied. Butin the morning, when his jealous temper had passedaway, his heart sank within him at what he had saidand done. He was the more disturbed when he foundthat this time Farfrae was determined to take himat his word.

17.

Elizabeth-Jane had perceived from Henchard’smanner that in assenting to dance she had made a mistakeof some kind. In her simplicity she did not knowwhat it was till a hint from a nodding acquaintanceenlightened her. As the Mayor’s step-daughter,she learnt, she had not been quite in her place intreading a measure amid such a mixed throng as filledthe dancing pavilion.

Thereupon her ears, cheeks, and chin glowed like livecoals at the dawning of the idea that her tastes werenot good enough for her position, and would bringher into disgrace.

This made her very miserable, and she looked aboutfor her mother; but Mrs. Henchard, who had less ideaof conventionality than Elizabeth herself, had goneaway, 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 alongthe town boundary, and stood reflecting.

A man followed in a few minutes, and her face beingto-wards the shine from the tent he recognized her.It was Farfrae—­just come from the dialoguewith Henchard which had signified his dismissal.

“And it’s you, Miss Newson?—­andI’ve been looking for ye everywhere!”he said, overcoming a sadness imparted by the estrangementwith the corn-merchant. “May I walk onwith you as far as your street-corner?”

She thought there might be something wrong in this,but did not utter any objection. So togetherthey went on, first down the West Walk, and then intothe Bowling Walk, till Farfrae said, “It’slike that I’m going to leave you soon.”

She faltered, “Why?”

“Oh—­as a mere matter of business—­nothingmore. But we’ll not concern ourselves aboutit—­it is for the best. I hoped to haveanother dance with you.”

She said she could not dance—­in any properway.

“Nay, but you do! It’s the feelingfor it rather than the learning of steps that makespleasant dancers....I fear I offended your father bygetting up this! And now, perhaps, I’llhave to go to another part o’ the warrld altogether!”

This seemed such a melancholy prospect that Elizabeth-Janebreathed a sigh—­letting it off in fragmentsthat he might not hear her. But darkness makespeople truthful, and the Scotchman went on impulsively—­perhapshe had heard her after all:

“I wish I was richer, Miss Newson; and yourstepfather had not been offended, I would ask yousomething in a short time—­yes, I would askyou to-night. But that’s not for me!”

What he would have asked her he did not say, and insteadof encouraging him she remained incompetently silent.Thus afraid one of another they continued their promenadealong the walls till they got near the bottom of theBowling Walk; twenty steps further and the trees wouldend, and the street-corner and lamps appear.In consciousness of this they stopped.

“I never found out who it was that sent us toDurnover granary on a fool’s errand that day,”said Donald, in his undulating tones. “Didye ever know yourself, Miss Newson?”

“Never,” said she.

“I wonder why they did it!”

“For fun, perhaps.”

“Perhaps it was not for fun. It might havebeen that they thought they would like us to staywaiting there, talking to one another? Ay, well!I hope you Casterbridge folk will not forget me ifI go.”

“That I’m sure we won’t!”she said earnestly. “I—­wish youwouldn’t go at all.”

They had got into the lamplight. “Now,I’ll think over that,” said Donald Farfrae.“And I’ll not come up to your door; butpart from you here; lest it make your father moreangry still.”

They parted, Farfrae returning into the dark BowlingWalk, and Elizabeth-Jane going up the street.Without any consciousness of what she was doing shestarted running with all her might till she reachedher father’s door. “O dear me—­whatam I at?” she thought, as she pulled up breathless.

Indoors she fell to conjecturing the meaning of Farfrae’senigmatic words about not daring to ask her what hefain would. Elizabeth, that silent observingwoman, had long noted how he was rising in favour amongthe townspeople; and knowing Henchard’s naturenow she had feared that Farfrae’s days as managerwere numbered, so that the announcement gave her littlesurprise. Would Mr. Farfrae stay in Casterbridgedespite his words and her father’s dismissal?His occult breathings to her might be solvable byhis course in that respect.

The next day was windy—­so windy that walkingin the garden she picked up a portion of the draftof a letter on business in Donald Farfrae’swriting, which had flown over the wall from the office.The useless scrap she took indoors, and began to copythe calligraphy, which she much admired. Theletter began “Dear Sir,” and presentlywriting on a loose slip “Elizabeth-Jane,”she laid the latter over “Sir,” makingthe phrase “Dear Elizabeth-Jane.”When she saw the effect a quick red ran up her faceand warmed her through, though nobody was there tosee what she had done. She quickly tore up theslip, and threw it away. After this she grewcool and laughed at herself, walked about the room,and laughed again; not joyfully, but distressfullyrather.

It was quickly known in Casterbridge that Farfraeand Henchard had decided to dispense with each other.Elizabeth-Jane’s anxiety to know if Farfraewere going away from the town reached a pitch thatdisturbed her, for she could no longer conceal fromherself the cause. At length the news reachedher that he was not going to leave the place.A man following the same trade as Henchard, but ona very small scale, had sold his business to Farfrae,who was forthwith about to start as corn and hay merchanton his own account.

Her heart fluttered when she heard of this step ofDonald’s, proving that he meant to remain; andyet, would a man who cared one little bit for herhave endangered his suit by setting up a business inopposition to Mr. Henchard’s? Surely not;and it must have been a passing impulse only whichhad led him to address her so softly.

To solve the problem whether her appearance on theevening of the dance were such as to inspire a fleetinglove at first sight, she dressed herself up exactlyas she had dressed then—­the muslin, thespencer, the sandals, the para-sol—­andlooked in the mirror The picture glassed back wasin her opinion, precisely of such a kind as to inspirethat fleeting regard, and no more—­“justenough to make him silly, and not enough to keep himso,” she said luminously; and Elizabeth thought,in a much lower key, that by this time he had discoveredhow plain and homely was the informing spirit of thatpretty outside.

Hence, when she felt her heart going out to him, shewould say to herself with a mock pleasantry that carriedan ache with it, “No, no, Elizabeth-Jane—­suchdreams are not for you!” She tried to preventherself from seeing him, and thinking of him; succeedingfairly well in the former attempt, in the latter notso completely.

Henchard, who had been hurt at finding that Farfraedid not mean to put up with his temper any longer,was incensed beyond measure when he learnt what theyoung man had done as an alternative. It was inthe town-hall, after a council meeting, that he firstbecame aware of Farfrae’s coup for establishinghimself independently in the town; and his voice mighthave been heard as far as the town-pump expressinghis feelings to his fellow councilmen. Thesetones showed that, though under a long reign of self-controlhe had become Mayor and churchwarden and what not,there was still the same unruly volcanic stuff beneaththe rind of Michael Henchard as when he had sold hiswife at Weydon Fair.

“Well, he’s a friend of mine, and I’ma friend of his—­or if we are not, whatare we? ’Od send, if I’ve not beenhis friend, who has, I should like to know? Didn’the come here without a sound shoe to his voot?Didn’t I keep him here—­help him toa living? Didn’t I help him to money, orwhatever he wanted? I stuck out for no terms—­Isaid ’Name your own price.’ I’dhave shared my last crust with that young fellow atone time, I liked him so well. And now he’sdefied me! But damn him, I’ll have a tusslewith him now—­at fair buying and selling,mind—­at fair buying and selling! Andif I can’t overbid such a stripling as he, thenI’m not wo’th a varden! We’llshow that we know our business as well as one hereand there!”

His friends of the Corporation did not specially respond.Henchard was less popular now than he had been whennearly two years before, they had voted him to thechief magistracy on account of his amazing energy.While they had collectively profited by this qualityof the corn-factor’s they had been made to winceindividually on more than one occasion. So hewent out of the hall and down the street alone.

Reaching home he seemed to recollect something witha sour satisfaction. He called Elizabeth-Jane.Seeing how he looked when she entered she appearedalarmed.

“Nothing to find fault with,” he said,observing her concern. “Only I want tocaution you, my dear. That man, Farfrae—­itis about him. I’ve seen him talking toyou two or three times—­he danced with ’eeat the rejoicings, and came home with ’ee.Now, now, no blame to you. But just harken:Have you made him any foolish promise? Gone theleast bit beyond sniff and snaff at all?”

“No. I have promised him nothing.”

“Good. All’s well that ends well.I particularly wish you not to see him again.”

“Very well, sir.”

“You promise?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then said—­

“Yes, if you much wish it.”

“I do. He’s an enemy to our house!”

When she had gone he sat down, and wrote in a heavyhand to Farfrae thus:—­

Sir,—­I make request that henceforthyou and my stepdaughter be as strangers to each other.She on her part has promised to welcome no more addressesfrom you; and I trust, therefore, you will not attemptto force them upon her.

M. Henchard.

One would almost have supposed Henchard to have hadpolicy to see that no better modus vivendi could bearrived at with Farfrae than by encouraging him tobecome his son-in-law. But such a scheme for buyingover a rival had nothing to recommend it to the Mayor’sheadstrong faculties. With all domestic finesseof that kind he was hopelessly at variance. Lovinga man or hating him, his diplomacy was as wrongheadedas a buffalo’s; and his wife had not venturedto suggest the course which she, for many reasons,would have welcomed gladly.

Meanwhile Donald Farfrae had opened the gates of commerceon his own account at a spot on Durnover Hill—­asfar as possible from Henchard’s stores, andwith every intention of keeping clear of his formerfriend and employer’s customers. Therewas, it seemed to the younger man, room for both ofthem and to spare. The town was small, but thecorn and hay-trade was proportionately large, andwith his native sagacity he saw opportunity for ashare of it.

So determined was he to do nothing which should seemlike trade-antagonism to the Mayor that he refusedhis first customer—­a large farmer of goodrepute—­because Henchard and this man haddealt together within the preceding three months.

“He was once my friend,” said Farfrae,“and it’s not for me to take businessfrom him. I am sorry to disappoint you, but Icannot hurt the trade of a man who’s been sokind to me.”

In spite of this praiseworthy course the Scotchman’strade increased. Whether it were that his northernenergy was an overmastering force among the easy-goingWessex worthies, or whether it was sheer luck, thefact remained that whatever he touched he prosperedin. Like Jacob in Padan-Aram, he would no soonerhumbly limit himself to the ringstraked-and-spottedexceptions of trade than the ringstraked-and-spottedwould multiply and prevail.

But most probably luck had little to do with it.Character is Fate, said Novalis, and Farfrae’scharacter was just the reverse of Henchard’s,who might not inaptly be described as Faust has beendescribed—­as a vehement gloomy being whohad quitted the ways of vulgar men without light toguide him on a better way.

Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentionsto Elizabeth-Jane. His acts of that kind hadbeen so slight that the request was almost superfluous.Yet he had felt a considerable interest in her, andafter some cogitation he decided that it would be aswell to enact no Romeo part just then—­forthe young girl’s sake no less than his own.Thus the incipient attachment was stifled down.

A time came when, avoid collision with his formerfriend as he might, Farfrae was compelled, in sheerself-defence, to close with Henchard in mortal commercialcombat. He could no longer parry the fierce attacksof the latter by simple avoidance. As soon astheir war of prices began everybody was interested,and some few guessed the end. It was, in somedegree, Northern insight matched against Southern doggedness—­thedirk against the cudgel—­and Henchard’sweapon was one which, if it did not deal ruin at thefirst or second stroke, left him afterwards well-nighat his antagonist’s mercy.

Almost every Saturday they encountered each otheramid the crowd of farmers which thronged about themarket-place in the weekly course of their business.Donald was always ready, and even anxious, to say afew friendly words, but the Mayor invariably gazedstormfully past him, like one who had endured andlost on his account, and could in no sense forgivethe wrong; nor did Farfrae’s snubbed manner ofperplexity at all appease him. The large farmers,corn-merchants, millers, auctioneers, and others hadeach an official stall in the corn-market room, withtheir names painted thereon; and when to the familiarseries of “Henchard,” “Everdene,”“Shiner,” “Darton,” and soon, was added one inscribed “Farfrae,”in staring new letters, Henchard was stung into bitterness;like Bellerophon, he wandered away from the crowd,cankered in soul.

From that day Donald Farfrae’s name was seldommentioned in Henchard’s house. If at breakfastor dinner Elizabeth-Jane’s mother inadvertentlyalluded to her favourite’s movements, the girlwould implore her by a look to be silent; and herhusband would say, “What—­are you,too, my enemy?”

18.

There came a shock which had been foreseen for sometime by Elizabeth, as the box passenger foresees theapproaching jerk from some channel across the highway.

Her mother was ill—­too unwell to leaveher room. Henchard, who treated her kindly, exceptin moments of irritation, sent at once for the richest,busiest doctor, whom he supposed to be the best.Bedtime came, and they burnt a light all night.In a day or two she rallied.

Elizabeth, who had been staying up, did not appearat breakfast on the second morning, and Henchard satdown alone. He was startled to see a letter forhim from Jersey in a writing he knew too well, andhad expected least to behold again. He took itup in his hands and looked at it as at a picture,a vision, a vista of past enactments; and then heread it as an unimportant finale to conjecture.

The writer said that she at length perceived how impossibleit would be for any further communications to proceedbetween them now that his re-marriage had taken place.That such reunion had been the only straightforwardcourse open to him she was bound to admit.

“On calm reflection, therefore,” she wenton, “I quite forgive you for landing me in sucha dilemma, remembering that you concealed nothingbefore our ill-advised acquaintance; and that you reallydid set before me in your grim way the fact of therebeing a certain risk in intimacy with you, slightas it seemed to be after fifteen or sixteen years ofsilence on your wife’s part. I thus lookupon the whole as a misfortune of mine, and not afault of yours.

“So that, Michael, I must ask you to overlookthose letters with which I pestered you day afterday in the heat of my feelings. They were writtenwhilst I thought your conduct to me cruel; but nowI know more particulars of the position you were inI see how inconsiderate my reproaches were.

“Now you will, I am sure, perceive that theone condition which will make any future happinesspossible for me is that the past connection betweenour lives be kept secret outside this isle. Speakof it I know you will not; and I can trust you notto write of it. One safe-guard more remains tobe mentioned—­that no writings of mine, ortrifling articles belonging to me, should be leftin your possession through neglect or forgetfulness.To this end may I request you to return to me anysuch you may have, particularly the letters writtenin the first abandonment of feeling.

“For the handsome sum you forwarded to me asa plaster to the wound I heartily thank you.

“I am now on my way to Bristol, to see my onlyrelative. She is rich, and I hope will do somethingfor me. I shall return through Casterbridge andBudmouth, 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 theAntelope 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 preferthis plan of receiving them to having them sent.—­Iremain still, yours; ever,

“Lucetta”

Henchard breathed heavily. “Poor thing—­betteryou had not known me! Upon my heart and soul,if ever I should be left in a position to carry outthat marriage with thee, I ought to do it—­Iought to do it, indeed!”

The contingency that he had in his mind was, of course,the death of Mrs. Henchard.

As requested, he sealed up Lucetta’s letters,and put the parcel aside till the day she had appointed;this plan of returning them by hand being apparentlya little ruse of the young lady for exchanging a wordor two with him on past times. He would have preferrednot to see her; but deeming that there could be nogreat harm in acquiescing thus far, he went at duskand stood opposite the coach-office.

The evening was chilly, and the coach was late.Henchard crossed over to it while the horses werebeing changed; but there was no Lucetta inside orout. Concluding that something had happened tomodify her arrangements he gave the matter up andwent home, not without a sense of relief. MeanwhileMrs. Henchard was weakening visibly. She couldnot go out of doors any more. One day, aftermuch thinking which seemed to distress her, she saidshe wanted to write something. A desk was putupon her bed with pen and paper, and at her requestshe was left alone. She remained writing fora short time, folded her paper carefully, called Elizabeth-Janeto bring a taper and wax, and then, still refusingassistance, sealed up the sheet, directed it, and lockedit in her desk. She had directed it in thesewords:—­

“Mr. Michael Henchard. Notto be opened till Elizabeth-Jane’swedding-day.”

The latter sat up with her mother to the utmost ofher strength night after night. To learn to takethe universe seriously there is no quicker way thanto watch—­to be a “waker,” asthe country-people call it. Between the hoursat which the last toss-pot went by and the first sparrowshook himself, the silence in Casterbridge—­barringthe rare sound of the watchman—­was brokenin Elizabeth’s ear only by the time-piece inthe bedroom ticking frantically against the clock onthe stairs; ticking harder and harder till it seemedto clang like a gong; and all this while the subtle-souledgirl asking herself why she was born, why sittingin a room, and blinking at the candle; why thingsaround her had taken the shape they wore in preferenceto every other possible shape. Why they staredat her so helplessly, as if waiting for the touchof some wand that should release them from terrestrialconstraint; what that chaos called consciousness, whichspun in her at this moment like a top, tended to,and began in. Her eyes fell together; she wasawake, yet she was asleep.

A word from her mother roused her. Without preface,and as the continuation of a scene already progressingin her mind, Mrs. Henchard said: “You rememberthe note sent to you and Mr. Farfrae—­askingyou to meet some one in Durnover Barton—­andthat you thought it was a trick to make fools of you?”

“Yes.”

“It was not to make fools of you—­itwas done to bring you together. ’Twas Idid it.”

“Why?” said Elizabeth, with a start.

“I—­wanted you to marry Mr. Farfrae.”

“O mother!” Elizabeth-Jane bent down herhead so much that she looked quite into her own lap.But as her mother did not go on, she said, “Whatreason?”

“Well, I had a reason. ’Twill outone day. I wish it could have been in my time!But there—­nothing is as you wish it!Henchard hates him.”

“Perhaps they’ll be friends again,”murmured the girl.

“I don’t know—­I don’tknow.” After this her mother was silent,and dozed; and she spoke on the subject no more.

Some little time later on Farfrae was passing Henchard’shouse on a Sunday morning, when he observed that theblinds were all down. He rang the bell so softlythat it only sounded a single full note and a smallone; and then he was informed that Mrs. Henchard wasdead—­just dead—­that very hour.

At the town-pump there were gathered when he passeda few old inhabitants, who came there for water wheneverthey had, as at present, spare time to fetch it, becauseit was purer from that original fount than from theirown wells. Mrs. Cuxsom, who had been standingthere for an indefinite time with her pitcher, wasdescribing the incidents of Mrs. Henchard’sdeath, as she had learnt them from the nurse.

“And she was white as marble-stone,” saidMrs. Cuxsom. “And likewise such a thoughtfulwoman, too—­ah, poor soul—­thata’ minded every little thing that wanted tending.‘Yes,’ says she, ’when I’mgone, and my last breath’s blowed, look in thetop drawer o’ the chest in the back room bythe window, and you’ll find all my coffin clothes,a piece of flannel—­that’s to putunder me, and the little piece is to put under myhead; and my new stockings for my feet—­theyare folded alongside, and all my other things.And there’s four ounce pennies, the heaviestI could find, a-tied up in bits of linen, for weights—­twofor my right eye and two for my left,’ she said.’And when you’ve used ’em, and myeyes don’t open no more, bury the pennies, goodsouls and don’t ye go spending ’em, forI shouldn’t like it. And open the windowsas soon as I am carried out, and make it as cheerfulas you can for Elizabeth-Jane.’”

“Ah, poor heart!”

“Well, and Martha did it, and buried the ouncepennies in the garden. But if ye’ll believewords, that man, Christopher Coney, went and dug ’emup, and spent ’em at the Three Mariners.‘Faith,’ he said, ’why should deathrob life o’ fourpence? Death’s notof such good report that we should respect ‘ento that extent,’ says he.”

“’Twas a cannibal deed!” deprecatedher listeners.

“Gad, then I won’t quite ha’e it,”said Solomon Longways. “I say it to-day,and ’tis a Sunday morning, and I wouldn’tspeak wrongfully for a zilver zixpence at such a time.I don’t see noo harm in it. To respectthe dead is sound doxology; and I wouldn’t sellskellintons—­leastwise respectable skellintons—­tobe varnished for ’natomies, except I were outo’ work. But money is scarce, and throatsget dry. Why should death rob life o’fourpence? I say there was no treason in it.”

“Well, poor soul; she’s helpless to hinderthat 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 herwishes and ways will all be as nothing!”

19.

Henchard and Elizabeth sat conversing by the fire.It was three weeks after Mrs. Henchard’s funeral,the candles were not lighted, and a restless, acrobaticflame, poised on a coal, called from the shady wallsthe smiles of all shapes that could respond—­theold pier-glass, with gilt columns and huge entablature,the picture-frames, sundry knobs and handles, andthe brass rosette at the bottom of each riband bell-pullon either side of the chimney-piece.

“Elizabeth, do you think much of old times?”said Henchard.

“Yes, sir; often,” she said.

“Who do you put in your pictures of ’em?”

“Mother and father—­nobody else hardly.”

Henchard always looked like one bent on resistingpain when Elizabeth-Jane spoke of Richard Newson as“father.” “Ah! I am outof all that, am I not?” he said.... “WasNewson a kind father?”

“Yes, sir; very.”

Henchard’s face settled into an expression ofstolid loneliness which gradually modulated into somethingsofter. “Suppose I had been your real father?”he said. “Would you have cared for me asmuch as you cared for Richard Newson?”

“I can’t think it,” she said quickly.“I can think of no other as my father, exceptmy father.”

Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death;his friend and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Janeby ignorance. It seemed to him that only oneof them could possibly be recalled, and that was thegirl. His mind began vibrating between the wishto reveal himself to her and the policy of leavingwell alone, till he could no longer sit still.He walked up and down, and then he came and stoodbehind her chair, looking down upon the top of herhead. He could no longer restrain his impulse.“What did your mother tell you about me—­myhistory?” he asked.

“That you were related by marriage.”

“She should have told more—­beforeyou knew me! Then my task would not have beensuch a hard one....Elizabeth, it is I who am your father,and not Richard Newson. Shame alone preventedyour wretched parents from owning this to you whileboth of ’em were alive.”

The back of Elizabeth’s head remained still,and her shoulders did not denote even the movementsof breathing. Henchard went on: “I’drather have your scorn, your fear, anything than yourignorance; ’tis that I hate! Your motherand I were man and wife when we were young. Whatyou saw was our second marriage. Your motherwas too honest. We had thought each other dead—­and—­Newsonbecame her husband.”

This was the nearest approach Henchard could maketo the full truth. As far as he personally wasconcerned he would have screened nothing; but he showeda respect for the young girl’s sex and yearsworthy of a better man.

When he had gone on to give details which a wholeseries of slight and unregarded incidents in her pastlife strangely corroborated; when, in short, she believedhis story to be true, she became greatly agitated,and turning round to the table flung her face uponit weeping.

“Don’t cry—­don’t cry!”said Henchard, with vehement pathos, “I can’tbear it, I won’t bear it. I am your father;why should you cry? Am I so dreadful, so hatefulto ’ee? Don’t take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!”he cried, grasping her wet hand. “Don’ttake against me—­though I was a drinkingman once, and used your mother roughly—­I’llbe kinder to you than he was! I’lldo anything, if you will only look upon me as yourfather!”

She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully;but she could not; she was troubled at his presence,like the brethren at the avowal of Joseph.

“I don’t want you to come to me all ofa sudden,” said Henchard in jerks, and movinglike a great tree in a wind. “No, Elizabeth,I don’t. I’ll go away and not seeyou till to-morrow, or when you like, and then I’llshow ’ee papers to prove my words. There,I am gone, and won’t disturb you any more....’TwasI that chose your name, my daughter; your mother wantedit Susan. There, don’t forget ’twasI gave you your name!” He went out at the doorand shut her softly in, and she heard him go awayinto the garden. But he had not done. Beforeshe had moved, or in any way recovered from the effectof his disclosure, he reappeared.

“One word more, Elizabeth,” he said.“You’ll take my surname now—­hey?Your mother was against it, but it will be much morepleasant to me. ’Tis legally yours, youknow. But nobody need know that. You shalltake it as if by choice. I’ll talk to mylawyer—­I don’t know the law of itexactly; but will you do this—­let me puta few lines into the newspaper that such is to beyour name?”

“If it is my name I must have it, mustn’tI?” she asked.

“Well, well; usage is everything in these matters.”

“I wonder why mother didn’t wish it?”

“Oh, some whim of the poor soul’s.Now get a bit of paper and draw up a paragraph asI shall tell you. But let’s have a light.”

“I can see by the firelight,” she answered.“Yes—­I’d rather.”

“Very well.”

She got a piece of paper, and bending over the fenderwrote at his dictation words which he had evidentlygot by heart from some advertisem*nt or other—­wordsto the effect that she, the writer, hitherto knownas Elizabeth-Jane Newson, was going to call herselfElizabeth-Jane Henchard forthwith. It was done,and fastened up, and directed to the office of theCasterbridge Chronicle.

“Now,” said Henchard, with the blaze ofsatisfaction that he always emitted when he had carriedhis point—­though tenderness softened itthis time—­“I’ll go upstairsand hunt for some documents that will prove it allto you. But I won’t trouble you with themtill to-morrow. Good-night, my Elizabeth-Jane!”

He was gone before the bewildered girl could realizewhat it all meant, or adjust her filial sense to thenew center of gravity. She was thankful thathe had left her to herself for the evening, and satdown over the fire. Here she remained in silence,and wept—­not for her mother now, but forthe genial sailor Richard Newson, to whom she seemeddoing a wrong.

Henchard in the meantime had gone upstairs. Papersof a domestic nature he kept in a drawer in his bedroom,and this he unlocked. Before turning them overhe leant back and indulged in reposeful thought.Elizabeth was his at last and she was a girl of suchgood sense and kind heart that she would be sure tolike him. He was the kind of man to whom somehuman object for pouring out his heart upon—­wereit emotive or were it choleric—­was almosta necessity. The craving for his heart for there-establishment of this tenderest human tie had beengreat during his wife’s lifetime, and now hehad submitted to its mastery without reluctance andwithout fear. He bent over the drawer again, andproceeded in his search.

Among the other papers had been placed the contentsof his wife’s little desk, the keys of whichhad been handed to him at her request. Here wasthe letter addressed to him with the restriction, “Notto be opened till Elizabeth-Jane’swedding-day.”

Mrs. Henchard, though more patient than her husband,had been no practical hand at anything. In sealingup the sheet, which was folded and tucked in withoutan envelope, in the old-fashioned way, she had overlaidthe junction with a large mass of wax without the requisiteunder-touch of the same. The seal had cracked,and the letter was open. Henchard had no reasonto suppose the restriction one of serious weight,and his feeling for his late wife had not been of thenature of deep respect. “Some triflingfancy or other of poor Susan’s, I suppose,”he said; and without curiosity he allowed his eyesto scan the letter:—­

My dear Michael,—­For thegood of all three of us I have kept one thing a secretfrom you till now. I hope you will understandwhy; I think you will; though perhaps you may notforgive me. But, dear Michael, I have done itfor the best. I shall be in my grave when youread this, and Elizabeth-Jane will have a home.Don’t curse me Mike—­think of how Iwas situated. I can hardly write it, but hereit is. Elizabeth-Jane is not your Elizabeth-Jane—­thechild who was in my arms when you sold me. No;she died three months after that, and this living oneis my other husband’s. I christened herby the same name we had given to the first, and shefilled 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 ornot, as you may judge; and forgive, if you can, awoman you once deeply wronged, as she forgives you.

SUSAN HENCHARD

Her husband regarded the paper as if it were a window-panethrough which he saw for miles. His lips twitched,and he seemed to compress his frame, as if to bearbetter. His usual habit was not to consider whetherdestiny were hard upon him or not—­the shapeof his ideals in cases of affliction being simplya moody “I am to suffer, I perceive.”“This much scourging, then, it is for me.”But now through his passionate head there stormedthis thought—­that the blasting disclosurewas what he had deserved.

His wife’s extreme reluctance to have the girl’sname altered from Newson to Henchard was now accountedfor fully. It furnished another illustrationof that honesty in dishonesty which had characterizedher in other things.

He remained unnerved and purposeless for near a coupleof hours; till he suddenly said, “Ah—­Iwonder if it is true!”

He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers,and went with a candle to the door of Elizabeth-Jane’sroom, where he put his ear to the keyhole and listened.She was breathing profoundly. Henchard softlyturned the handle, entered, and shading the light,approached the bedside. Gradually bringing thelight from behind a screening curtain he held it insuch a manner that it fell slantwise on her face withoutshining on her eyes. He steadfastly regarded herfeatures.

They were fair: his were dark. But thiswas an unimportant preliminary. In sleep therecome to the surface buried genealogical facts, ancestralcurves, dead men’s traits, which the mobilityof daytime animation screens and overwhelms.In the present statuesque repose of the young girl’scountenance Richard Newson’s was unmistakablyreflected. He could not endure the sight of her,and hastened away.

Misery taught him nothing more than defiant enduranceof it. His wife was dead, and the first impulsefor revenge died with the thought that she was beyondhim. He looked out at the night as at a fiend.Henchard, like all his kind, was superstitious, andhe could not help thinking that the concatenationof events this evening had produced was the schemeof some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him.Yet they had developed naturally. If he had notrevealed his past history to Elizabeth he would nothave searched the drawer for papers, and so on.The mockery was, that he should have no sooner taughta girl to claim the shelter of his paternity thanhe discovered her to have no kinship with him.

This ironical sequence of things angered him likean impish trick from a fellow-creature. LikePrester John’s, his table had been spread, andinfernal harpies had snatched up the food. Hewent out of the house, and moved sullenly onward downthe pavement till he came to the bridge at the bottomof the High Street. Here he turned in upon a bypathon the river bank, skirting the north-eastern limitsof the town.

These precincts embodied the mournful phases of Casterbridgelife, as the south avenues embodied its cheerful moods.The whole way along here was sunless, even in summertime; in spring, white frosts lingered here when otherplaces were steaming with warmth; while in winter itwas the seed-field of all the aches, rheumatisms,and torturing cramps of the year. The Casterbridgedoctors must have pined away for want of sufficientnourishment but for the configuration of the landscapeon the north-eastern side.

The river—­slow, noiseless, and dark—­theSchwarzwasser of Casterbridge—­ran beneatha low cliff, the two together forming a defence whichhad rendered walls and artificial earthworks on thisside unnecessary. Here were ruins of a Franciscanpriory, and a mill attached to the same, the waterof which roared down a back-hatch like the voice ofdesolation. Above the cliff, and behind the river,rose a pile of buildings, and in the front of thepile a square mass cut into the sky. It was likea pedestal lacking its statue. This missing feature,without which the design remained incomplete, was,in truth, the corpse of a man, for the square massformed the base of the gallows, the extensive buildingsat the back being the county gaol. In the meadowwhere Henchard now walked the mob were wont to gatherwhenever an execution took place, and there to thetune of the roaring weir they stood and watched thespectacle.

The exaggeration which darkness imparted to the gloomsof this region impressed Henchard more than he hadexpected. The lugubrious harmony of the spotwith his domestic situation was too perfect for him,impatient of effects scenes, and adumbrations.It reduced his heartburning to melancholy, and heexclaimed, “Why the deuce did I come here!”He went on past the cottage in which the old localhangman had lived and died, in times before that callingwas monopolized over all England by a single gentleman;and climbed up by a steep back lane into the town.

For the sufferings of that night, engendered by hisbitter disappointment, he might well have been pitied.He was like one who had half fainted, and could neitherrecover nor complete the swoon. In words he couldblame his wife, but not in his heart; and had he obeyedthe wise directions outside her letter this pain wouldhave been spared him for long—­possiblyfor ever, Elizabeth-Jane seeming to show no ambitionto quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for thespeculative path of matrimony.

The morning came after this night of unrest, and withit the necessity for a plan. He was far too self-willedto recede from a position, especially as it wouldinvolve humiliation. His daughter he had assertedher to be, and his daughter she should always thinkherself, no matter what hyprocrisy it involved.

But he was ill-prepared for the first step in thisnew situation. The moment he came into the breakfast-roomElizabeth advanced with open confidence to him andtook him by the arm.

“I have thought and thought all night of it,”she said frankly. “And I see that everythingmust be as you say. And I am going to look uponyou as the father that you are, and not to call youMr. Henchard any more. It is so plain to me now.Indeed, father, it is. For, of course, you wouldnot have done half the things you have done for me,and let me have my own way so entirely, and boughtme presents, if I had only been your step-daughter!He—­Mr. Newson—­whom my poor mothermarried by such a strange mistake” (Henchardwas glad that he had disguised matters here), “wasvery kind—­O so kind!” (she spoke withtears in her eyes); “but that is not the samething as being one’s real father after all.Now, father, breakfast is ready!” she said cheerfully.

Henchard bent and kissed her cheek. The momentand the act he had prefigured for weeks with a thrillof pleasure; yet it was no less than a miserable insipidityto him now that it had come. His reinstation ofher mother had been chiefly for the girl’s sake,and the fruition of the whole scheme was such dustand ashes as this.

20.

Of all the enigmas which ever confronted a girl therecan have been seldom one like that which followedHenchard’s announcement of himself to Elizabethas her father. He had done it in an ardour andan agitation which had half carried the point of affectionwith her; yet, behold, from the next morning onwardshis manner was constrained as she had never seen itbefore.

The coldness soon broke out into open chiding.One grievous failing of Elizabeth’s was heroccasional pretty and picturesque use of dialect words—­thoseterrible marks of the beast to the truly genteel.

It was dinner-time—­they never met exceptat meals—­and she happened to say when hewas rising from table, wishing to show him something,“If you’ll bide where you be a minute,father, I’ll get it.”

“‘Bide where you be,’” heechoed sharply, “Good God, are you only fit tocarry wash to a pig-trough, that ye use such wordsas those?”

She reddened with shame and sadness.

“I meant ‘Stay where you are,’ father,”she said, in a low, humble voice. “I oughtto have been more careful.”

He made no reply, and went out of the room.

The sharp reprimand was not lost upon her, and intime it came to pass that for “fay” shesaid “succeed”; that she no longer spokeof “dumbledores” but of “humblebees”; no longer said of young men and womenthat they “walked together,” but that theywere “engaged”; that she grew to talkof “greggles” as “wild hyacinths”;that when she had not slept she did not quaintly tellthe servants next morning that she had been “hag-rid,”but that she had “suffered from indigestion.”

These improvements, however, are somewhat in advanceof the story. Henchard, being uncultivated himself,was the bitterest critic the fair girl could possiblyhave had of her own lapses—­really slightnow, for she read omnivorously. A gratuitousordeal 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 wasnot till she had opened the door that she knew theMayor was there in the company of a man with whomhe transacted business.

“Here, Elizabeth-Jane,” he said, lookinground at her, “just write down what I tell you—­afew words of an agreement for me and this gentlemanto sign. I am a poor tool with a pen.”

“Be jowned, and so be I,” said the gentleman.

She brought forward blotting-book, paper, and ink,and sat down.

“Now then—­’An agreement enteredinto this sixteenth day of October’—­writethat first.”

She started the pen in an elephantine march acrossthe sheet. It was a splendid round, bold handof her own conception, a style that would have stampeda woman as Minerva’s own in more recent days.But other ideas reigned then: Henchard’screed was that proper young girls wrote ladies’-hand—­nay,he believed that bristling characters were as innateand inseparable a part of refined womanhood as sexitself. Hence when, instead of scribbling, likethe Princess Ida,—­

“In such a handas when a field of corn
Bows all its ears beforethe roaring East,”

Elizabeth-Jane produced a line of chain-shot and sand-bags,he reddened in angry shame for her, and, peremptorilysaying, “Never mind—­I’ll finish*t,” dismissed her there and then.

Her considerate disposition became a pitfall to hernow. She was, it must be admitted, sometimesprovokingly and unnecessarily willing to saddle herselfwith manual labours. She would go to the kitcheninstead of ringing, “Not to make Phoebe comeup twice.” She went down on her knees,shovel in hand, when the cat overturned the coal-scuttle;moreover, she would persistently thank the parlour-maidfor everything, till one day, as soon as the girlwas gone from the room, Henchard broke out with, “GoodGod, why dostn’t leave off thanking that girlas if she were a goddess-born! Don’t Ipay her a dozen pound a year to do things for ’ee?”Elizabeth shrank so visibly at the exclamation thathe became sorry a few minutes after, and said thathe did not mean to be rough.

These domestic exhibitions were the small protrudingneedlerocks which suggested rather than revealed whatwas underneath. But his passion had less terrorfor her than his coldness. The increasing frequencyof the latter mood told her the sad news that he dislikedher with a growing dislike. The more interestingthat her appearance and manners became under the softeninginfluences which she could now command, and in herwisdom did command, the more she seemed to estrangehim. Sometimes she caught him looking at herwith a louring invidiousness that she could hardlybear. Not knowing his secret it was cruel mockerythat she should for the first time excite his animositywhen she had taken his surname.

But the most terrible ordeal was to come. Elizabethhad latterly been accustomed of an afternoon to presenta cup of cider or ale and bread-and-cheese to NanceMockridge, who worked in the yard wimbling hay-bonds.Nance accepted this offering thankfully at first; afterwardsas a matter of course. On a day when Henchardwas on the premises he saw his step-daughter enterthe hay-barn on this errand; and, as there was noclear spot on which to deposit the provisions, sheat once set to work arranging two trusses of hay asa table, Mockridge meanwhile standing with her handson her hips, easefully looking at the preparationson her behalf.

“Elizabeth, come here!” said Henchard;and she obeyed.

“Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?”he said with suppressed passion. “Haven’tI told you o’t fifty times? Hey? Makingyourself a drudge for a common workwoman of such acharacter as hers! Why, ye’ll disgraceme to the dust!”

Now these words were uttered loud enough to reachNance inside the barn door, who fired up immediatelyat the slur upon her personal character. Comingto the door she cried regardless of consequences, “Cometo that, Mr. Henchard, I can let ’ee know she’vewaited on worse!”

“Then she must have had more charity than sense,”said Henchard.

“O no, she hadn’t. ’Twere notfor charity but for hire; and at a public-house inthis town!”

“It is not true!” cried Henchard indignantly.

“Just ask her,” said Nance, folding hernaked arms in such a manner that she could comfortablyscratch her elbows.

Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion,now pink and white from confinement, lost nearly allof the former colour. “What does this mean?”he said to her. “Anything or nothing?”

“It is true,” said Elizabeth-Jane.“But it was only—­”

“Did you do it, or didn’t you? Wherewas it?”

“At the Three Mariners; one evening for a littlewhile, when we were staying there.”

Nance glanced triumphantly at Henchard, and sailedinto the barn; for assuming that she was to be dischargedon the instant she had resolved to make the most ofher victory. Henchard, however, said nothing aboutdischarging her. Unduly sensitive on such pointsby reason of his own past, he had the look of onecompletely ground down to the last indignity.Elizabeth followed him to the house like a culprit;but when she got inside she could not see him.Nor did she see him again that day.

Convinced of the scathing damage to his local reputeand position that must have been caused by such afact, though it had never before reached his own ears,Henchard showed a positive distaste for the presenceof this girl not his own, whenever he encounteredher. He mostly dined with the farmers at themarket-room of one of the two chief hotels, leavingher in utter solitude. Could he have seen howshe made use of those silent hours he might have foundreason to reserve his judgment on her quality.She read and took notes incessantly, mastering factswith painful laboriousness, but never flinching fromher self-imposed task. She began the study ofLatin, incited by the Roman characteristics of thetown she lived in. “If I am not well-informedit shall be by no fault of my own,” she wouldsay to herself through the tears that would occasionallyglide down her peachy cheeks when she was fairly baffledby the portentous obscurity of many of these educationalworks.

Thus she lived on, a dumb, deep-feeling, great-eyedcreature, construed by not a single contiguous being;quenching with patient fortitude her incipient interestin Farfrae, because it seemed to be one-sided, unmaidenly,and unwise. True, that for reasons best knownto herself, she had, since Farfrae’s dismissal,shifted her quarters from the back room affordinga view of the yard (which she had occupied with suchzest) to a front chamber overlooking the street; butas for the young man, whenever he passed the househe seldom or never turned his head.

Winter had almost come, and unsettled weather madeher still more dependent upon indoor resources.But there were certain early winter days in Casterbridge—­daysof firmamental exhaustion which followed angry south-westerlytempests—­when, if the sun shone, the airwas like velvet. She seized on these days forher periodical visits to the spot where her motherlay buried—­the still-used burial-groundof the old Roman-British city, whose curious featurewas this, its continuity as a place of sepulture.Mrs. Henchard’s dust mingled with the dust ofwomen who lay ornamented with glass hair-pins andamber necklaces, and men who held in their mouthscoins of Hadrian, Posthumus, and the Constantines.

Half-past ten in the morning was about her hour forseeking this spot—­a time when the townavenues were deserted as the avenues of Karnac.Business had long since passed down them into its dailycells, and Leisure had not arrived there. SoElizabeth-Jane walked and read, or looked over theedge of the book to think, and thus reached the churchyard.

There, approaching her mother’s grave she sawa 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 inscriptionon Mrs. Henchard’s tombstone. The personagewas in mourning like herself, was about her age andsize, and might have been her wraith or double, butfor the fact that it was a lady much more beautifullydressed than she. Indeed, comparatively indifferentas Elizabeth-Jane was to dress, unless for some temporarywhim or purpose, her eyes were arrested by the artisticperfection of the lady’s appearance. Hergait, too, had a flexuousness about it, which seemedto avoid angularity. It was a revelation to Elizabeththat human beings could reach this stage of externaldevelopment—­she had never suspected it.She felt all the freshness and grace to be stolenfrom herself on the instant by the neighbourhood ofsuch a stranger. And this was in face of the factthat Elizabeth could now have been writ handsome,while the young lady was simply pretty.

Had she been envious she might have hated the woman;but she did not do that—­she allowed herselfthe pleasure of feeling fascinated. She wonderedwhere the lady had come from. The stumpy and practicalwalk of honest homeliness which mostly prevailed there,the two styles of dress thereabout, the simple andthe mistaken, equally avouched that this figure wasno Casterbridge woman’s, even if a book in herhand resembling a guide-book had not also suggestedit.

The stranger presently moved from the tombstone ofMrs. Henchard, and vanished behind the corner of thewall. Elizabeth went to the tomb herself; besideit were two footprints distinct in the soil, signifyingthat the lady had stood there a long time. Shereturned homeward, musing on what she had seen, asshe might have mused on a rainbow or the NorthernLights, a rare butterfly or a cameo.

Interesting as things had been out of doors, at homeit turned out to be one of her bad days. Henchard,whose two years’ mayoralty was ending, had beenmade aware that he was not to be chosen to fill a vacancyin the list of aldermen; and that Farfrae was likelyto become one of the Council. This caused theunfortunate discovery that she had played the waiting-maidin the town of which he was Mayor to rankle in hismind yet more poisonously. He had learnt by personalinquiry at the time that it was to Donald Farfrae—­thattreacherous upstart—­that she had thus humiliatedherself. And though Mrs. Stannidge seemed to attachno great importance to the incident—­thecheerful souls at the Three Mariners having exhaustedits aspects long ago—­such was Henchard’shaughty spirit that the simple thrifty deed was regardedas little less than a social catastrophe by him.

Ever since the evening of his wife’s arrivalwith her daughter there had been something in theair which had changed his luck. That dinner atthe King’s Arms with his friends had been Henchard’sAusterlitz: he had had his successes since, buthis course had not been upward. He was not tobe numbered among the aldermen—­that Peerageof burghers—­as he had expected to be, andthe consciousness of this soured him to-day.

“Well, where have you been?” he said toher with offhand laconism.

“I’ve been strolling in the Walks andchurchyard, father, till I feel quite leery.”She clapped her hand to her mouth, but too late.

This was just enough to incense Henchard after theother crosses of the day. “I won’thave 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’mburned, if it goes on, this house can’t holdus two.”

The only way of getting a single pleasant thoughtto go to sleep upon after this was by recalling thelady she had seen that day, and hoping she might seeher again.

Meanwhile Henchard was sitting up, thinking over hisjealous folly in forbidding Farfrae to pay his addressesto this girl who did not belong to him, when if hehad allowed them to go on he might not have been encumberedwith her. At last he said to himself with satisfactionas he jumped up and went to the writing-table:“Ah! he’ll think it means peace, and amarriage portion—­not that I don’twant my house to be troubled with her, and no portionat all!” He wrote as follows:—­

Sir,—­On consideration, I don’t wishto interfere with your courtship of Elizabeth-Jane,if you care for her. I therefore withdraw my objection;excepting in this—­that the business be notcarried on in my house.—­

Yours, M. Henchard Mr. Farfrae.

The morrow, being fairly fine, found Elizabeth-Janeagain in the churchyard, but while looking for thelady she was startled by the apparition of Farfrae,who passed outside the gate. He glanced up fora moment from a pocket-book in which he appeared tobe making figures as he went; whether or not he sawher he took no notice, and disappeared.

Unduly depressed by a sense of her own superfluityshe thought he probably scorned her; and quite brokenin spirit sat down on a bench. She fell intopainful thought on her position, which ended with hersaying quite loud, “O, I wish I was dead withdear mother!”

Behind the bench was a little promenade under thewall where people sometimes walked instead of on thegravel. 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 womanshe had seen yesterday.

Elizabeth-Jane looked confounded for a moment, knowingshe had been overheard, though there was pleasurein her confusion. “Yes, I heard you,”said the lady, in a vivacious voice, answering herlook. “What can have happened?”

“I don’t—­I can’t tellyou,” said Elizabeth, putting her hand to herface to hide a quick flush that had come.

There was no movement or word for a few seconds; thenthe girl felt that the young lady was sitting downbeside her.

“I guess how it is with you,” said thelatter. “That was your mother.”She waved her hand towards the tombstone. Elizabethlooked up at her as if inquiring of herself whetherthere should be confidence. The lady’smanner was so desirous, so anxious, that the girl decidedthere should be confidence. “It was mymother,” she said, “my only friend.”

“But your father, Mr. Henchard. He is living?”

“Yes, he is living,” said Elizabeth-Jane.

“Is he not kind to you?”

“I’ve no wish to complain of him.”

“There has been a disagreement?”

“A little.”

“Perhaps you were to blame,” suggestedthe stranger.

“I was—­in many ways,” sighedthe meek Elizabeth. “I swept up the coalswhen the servants ought to have done it; and I saidI was leery;—­and he was angry with me.”

The lady seemed to warm towards her for that reply.“Do you know the impression your words giveme?” she said ingenuously. “That heis a hot-tempered man—­a little proud—­perhapsambitious; but not a bad man.” Her anxietynot to condemn Henchard while siding with Elizabethwas curious.

“O no; certainly not bad,” agreedthe honest girl. “And he has not even beenunkind 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 defectsare owing to my history.”

“What is your history?”

Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner.She found that her questioner was looking at her,turned her eyes down; and then seemed compelled tolook back again. “My history is not gayor attractive,” she said. “And yetI can tell it, if you really want to know.”

The lady assured her that she did want to know; whereuponElizabeth-Jane told the tale of her life as she understoodit, which was in general the true one, except thatthe sale at the fair had no part therein.

Contrary to the girl’s expectation her new friendwas not shocked. This cheered her; and it wasnot till she thought of returning to that home inwhich she had been treated so roughly of late thather spirits fell.

“I don’t know how to return,” shemurmured. “I think of going away. Butwhat can I do? Where can I go?”

“Perhaps it will be better soon,” saidher friend gently. “So I would not go far.Now what do you think of this: I shall soon wantsomebody to live in my house, partly as housekeeper,partly as companion; would you mind coming to me?But perhaps—­”

“O yes,” cried Elizabeth, with tears inher eyes. “I would, indeed—­Iwould do anything to be independent; for then perhapsmy father might get to love me. But, ah!”

“What?”

“I am no accomplished person. And a companionto you must be that.”

“O, not necessarily.”

“Not? But I can’t help using ruralwords sometimes, when I don’t mean to.”

“Never mind, I shall like to know them.”

“And—­O, I know I shan’t do!”—­shecried with a distressful laugh. “I accidentallylearned to write round hand instead of ladies’-hand.And, of course, you want some one who can write that?”

“Well, no.”

“What, not necessary to write ladies’-hand?”cried the joyous Elizabeth.

“Not at all.”

“But where do you live?”

“In Casterbridge, or rather I shall be livinghere after twelve o’clock to-day.”

Elizabeth expressed her astonishment.

“I have been staying at Budmouth for a few dayswhile my house was getting ready. The house Iam going into is that one they call High-Place Hall—­theold stone one looking down the lane to the market.Two or three rooms are fit for occupation, though notall: I sleep there to-night for the first time.Now will you think over my proposal, and meet me herethe first fine day next week, and say if you are stillin the same mind?”

Elizabeth, her eyes shining at this prospect of achange from an unbearable position, joyfully assented;and the two parted at the gate of the churchyard.

21.

As a maxim glibly repeated from childhood remainspractically unmarked till some mature experience enforcesit, so did this High-Place Hall now for the firsttime really show itself to Elizabeth-Jane, though herears had heard its name on a hundred occasions.

Her mind dwelt upon nothing else but the stranger,and the house, and her own chance of living there,all the rest of the day. In the afternoon shehad occasion to pay a few bills in the town and doa little shopping when she learnt that what was anew discovery to herself had become a common topicabout the streets. High-Place Hall was undergoingrepair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; allthe shop-people knew it, and had already discountedthe chance of her being a customer.

Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touchto information so new to her in the bulk. Thelady, she said, had arrived that day.

When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not sodark as to render chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible,Elizabeth, almost with a lover’s feeling, thoughtshe would like to look at the outside of High-PlaceHall. She went up the street in that direction.

The Hall, with its grey facade and parapet, was theonly residence of its sort so near the centre of thetown. It had, in the first place, the characteristicsof a country mansion—­birds’ nestsin its chimneys, damp nooks where fungi grew and irregularitiesof surface direct from Nature’s trowel.At night the forms of passengers were patterned bythe lamps in black shadows upon the pale walls.

This evening motes of straw lay around, and othersigns of the premises having been in that lawlesscondition which accompanies the entry of a new tenant.The house was entirely of stone, and formed an exampleof dignity without great size. It was not altogetheraristocratic, still less consequential, yet the old-fashionedstranger instinctively said “Blood built it,and Wealth enjoys it” however vague his opinionsof those accessories might be.

Yet as regards the enjoying it the stranger wouldhave been wrong, for until this very evening, whenthe new lady had arrived, the house had been emptyfor a year or two while before that interval its occupancyhad been irregular. The reason of its unpopularitywas soon made manifest. Some of its rooms overlookedthe market-place; and such a prospect from such ahouse was not considered desirable or seemly by itswould-be occupiers.

Elizabeth’s eyes sought the upper rooms, andsaw lights there. The lady had obviously arrived.The impression that this woman of comparatively practisedmanner had made upon the studious girl’s mindwas so deep that she enjoyed standing under an oppositearchway merely to think that the charming lady wasinside the confronting walls, and to wonder what shewas doing. Her admiration for the architectureof that front was entirely on account of the inmateit screened. Though for that matter the architecturedeserved admiration, or at least study, on its ownaccount. It was Palladian, and like most architectureerected since the Gothic age was a compilation ratherthan a design. But its reasonableness made itimpressive. It was not rich, but rich enough.A timely consciousness of the ultimate vanity of humanarchitecture, no less than of other human things,had prevented artistic superfluity.

Men had still quite recently been going in and outwith parcels and packing-cases, rendering the doorand hall within like a public thoroughfare. Elizabethtrotted through the open door in the dusk, but becomingalarmed at her own temerity she went quickly out againby another which stood open in the lofty wall of theback court. To her surprise she found herselfin 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—­oldereven than the house itself. The door was studded,and the keystone of the arch was a mask. Originallythe mask had exhibited a comic leer, as could stillbe discerned; but generations of Casterbridge boyshad thrown stones at the mask, aiming at its open mouth;and the blows thereon had chipped off the lips andjaws as if they had been eaten away by disease.The appearance was so ghastly by the weakly lamp-glimmerthat she could not bear to look at it—­thefirst unpleasant feature of her visit.

The position of the queer old door and the odd presenceof the leering mask suggested one thing above allothers as appertaining to the mansion’s pasthistory—­intrigue. By the alley it hadbeen possible to come unseen from all sorts of quartersin the town—­the old play-house, the oldbull-stake, the old co*ck-pit, the pool wherein namelessinfants had been used to disappear. High-PlaceHall could boast of its conveniences undoubtedly.

She turned to come away in the nearest direction homeward,which was down the alley, but hearing footsteps approachingin that quarter, and having no great wish to be foundin such a place at such a time she quickly retreated.There being no other way out she stood behind a brickpier till the intruder should have gone his ways.

Had she watched she would have been surprised.She would have seen that the pedestrian on comingup made straight for the arched doorway: thatas he paused with his hand upon the latch the lamplightfell upon the face of Henchard.

But Elizabeth-Jane clung so closely to her nook thatshe discerned nothing of this. Henchard passedin, as ignorant of her presence as she was ignorantof his identity, and disappeared in the darkness.Elizabeth came out a second time into the alley, andmade the best of her way home.

Henchard’s chiding, by begetting in her a nervousfear of doing anything definable as unladylike, hadoperated thus curiously in keeping them unknown toeach other at a critical moment. Much might haveresulted from recognition—­at the leasta query on either side in one and the selfsame form:What could he or she possibly be doing there?

Henchard, whatever his business at the lady’shouse, reached his own home only a few minutes laterthan Elizabeth-Jane. Her plan was to broach thequestion of leaving his roof this evening; the eventsof the day had urged her to the course. But itsexecution depended upon his mood, and she anxiouslyawaited his manner towards her. She found thatit had changed. He showed no further tendencyto be angry; he showed something worse. Absoluteindifference had taken the place of irritability;and his coldness was such that it encouraged her todeparture, even more than hot temper could have done.

“Father, have you any objection to my goingaway?” she asked.

“Going away! No—­none whatever.Where are you going?”

She thought it undesirable and unnecessary to sayanything at present about her destination to one whotook so little interest in her. He would knowthat soon enough. “I have heard of an opportunityof getting more cultivated and finished, and beingless idle,” she answered, with hesitation.“A chance of a place in a household where I canhave advantages of study, and seeing refined life.”

“Then make the best of it, in Heaven’sname—­if you can’t get cultivatedwhere you are.”

“You don’t object?”

“Object—­I? Ho—­no!Not at all.” After a pause he said, “Butyou won’t have enough money for this livelyscheme without help, you know? If you like Ishould be willing to make you an allowance, so thatyou not be bound to live upon the starvation wagesrefined folk are likely to pay ’ee.”

She thanked him for this offer.

“It had better be done properly,” he addedafter a pause. “A small annuity is whatI should like you to have—­so as to be independentof me—­and so that I may be independentof you. Would that please ye?”

Certainly.

“Then I’ll see about it this very day.”He seemed relieved to get her off his hands by thisarrangement, and as far as they were concerned thematter was settled. She now simply waited to seethe lady again.

The day and the hour came; but a drizzling rain fell.Elizabeth-Jane having now changed her orbit from oneof gay independence to laborious self-help, thoughtthe weather good enough for such declined glory ashers, if her friend would only face it—­amatter of doubt. She went to the boot-room whereher pattens had hung ever since her apotheosis; tookthem down, had their mildewed leathers blacked, andput them on as she had done in old times. Thusmounted, and with cloak and umbrella, she went offto the place of appointment—­intending, ifthe lady were not there, to call at the house.

One side of the churchyard—­the side towardsthe weather—­was sheltered by an ancientthatched mud wall whose eaves overhung as much as oneor two feet. At the back of the wall was a corn-yardwith its granary and barns—­the place whereinshe had met Farfrae many months earlier. Underthe projection of the thatch she saw a figure.The young lady had come.

Her presence so exceptionally substantiated the girl’sutmost 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 ofweathers, was a strange woman of curious fascinationsnever seen elsewhere: there might be some devilryabout her presence. However, Elizabeth went onto the church tower, on whose summit the rope of aflagstaff rattled in the wind; and thus she came tothe wall.

The lady had such a cheerful aspect in the drizzlethat Elizabeth forgot her fancy. “Well,”said the lady, a little of the whiteness of her teethappearing with the word through the black fleece thatprotected her face, “have you decided?”

“Yes, quite,” said the other eagerly.

“Your father is willing?”

“Yes.”

“Then come along.”

“When?”

“Now—­as soon as you like. Ihad 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 wouldcome and see first.”

“It was my own thought.”

“That shows we shall agree. Then can youcome to-day? My house is so hollow and dismalthat I want some living thing there.”

“I think I might be able to,” said thegirl, reflecting.

Voices were borne over to them at that instant onthe wind and raindrops from the other side of thewall. There came such words as “sacks,”“quarters,” “threshing,” “tailing,”“next Saturday’s market,” each sentencebeing disorganized by the gusts like a face in a crackedmirror. Both the women listened.

“Who are those?” said the lady.

“One is my father. He rents that yard andbarn.”

The lady seemed to forget the immediate business inlistening to the technicalities of the corn trade.At last she said suddenly, “Did you tell himwhere you were going to?”

“No.”

“O—­how was that?”

“I thought it safer to get away first—­ashe is so uncertain in his temper.”

“Perhaps you are right....Besides, I have nevertold you my name. It is Miss Templeman....Arethey gone—­on the other side?”

“No. They have only gone up into the granary.”

“Well, it is getting damp here. I shallexpect you to-day—­this evening, say, atsix.”

“Which way shall I come, ma’am?”

“The front way—­round by the gate.There is no other that I have noticed.”

Elizabeth-Jane had been thinking of the door in thealley.

“Perhaps, as you have not mentioned your destination,you may as well keep silent upon it till you are clearoff. Who knows but that he may alter his mind?”

Elizabeth-Jane shook her head. “On considerationI don’t fear it,” she said sadly.“He has grown quite cold to me.”

“Very well. Six o’clock then.”

When they had emerged upon the open road and parted,they found enough to do in holding their bowed umbrellasto the wind. Nevertheless the lady looked inat the corn-yard gates as she passed them, and pausedon one foot for a moment. But nothing was visiblethere save the ricks, and the humpbacked barn cushionedwith moss, and the granary rising against the church-towerbehind, where the smacking of the rope against theflag-staff still went on.

Now Henchard had not the slightest suspicion thatElizabeth-Jane’s movement was to be so prompt.Hence when, just before six, he reached home and sawa fly at the door from the King’s Arms, and hisstep-daughter, with all her little bags and boxes,getting into it, he was taken by surprise.

“But you said I might go, father?” sheexplained through the carriage window.

“Said!—­yes. But I thought youmeant next month, or next year. ’Od, seizeit—­you take time by the forelock! This,then, is how you be going to treat me for all my troubleabout ye?”

“O father! how can you speak like that?It is unjust of you!” she said with spirit.

“Well, well, have your own way,” he replied.He entered the house, and, seeing that all her thingshad not yet been brought down, went up to her roomto look on. He had never been there since shehad occupied it. Evidences of her care, of herendeavours for improvement, were visible all around,in the form of books, sketches, maps, and little arrangementsfor tasteful effects. Henchard had known nothingof these efforts. He gazed at them, turned suddenlyabout, and came down to the door.

“Look here,” he said, in an altered voice—­henever called her by name now—­“don’t’ee go away from me. It may be I’vespoke roughly to you—­but I’ve beengrieved beyond everything by you—­there’ssomething that caused it.”

“By me?” she said, with deep concern.“What have I done?”

“I can’t tell you now. But if you’llstop, and go on living as my daughter, I’lltell you all in time.”

But the proposal had come ten minutes too late.She was in the fly—­was already, in imagination,at the house of the lady whose manner had such charmsfor her. “Father,” she said, as consideratelyas she could, “I think it best for us that Igo on now. I need not stay long; I shall notbe far away, and if you want me badly I can soon comeback again.”

He nodded ever so slightly, as a receipt of her decisionand no more. “You are not going far, yousay. What will be your address, in case I wishto write to you? Or am I not to know?”

“Oh yes—­certainly. It is onlyin the town—­High-Place Hall!”

“Where?” said Henchard, his face stilling.

She repeated the words. He neither moved norspoke, and waving her hand to him in utmost friendlinessshe signified to the flyman to drive up the street.

22.

We go back for a moment to the preceding night, toaccount for
Henchard’s attitude.

At the hour when Elizabeth-Jane was contemplatingher stealthy reconnoitring excursion to the abodeof the lady of her fancy, he had been not a littleamazed at receiving a letter by hand in Lucetta’swell-known characters. The self-repression, theresignation of her previous communication had vanishedfrom her mood; she wrote with some of the naturallightness which had marked her in their early acquaintance.

HIGH-PLACE HALL

My dear Mr. Henchard,—­Don’tbe surprised. It is for your good and mine, asI hope, that I have come to live at Casterbridge—­forhow long I cannot tell. That depends upon another;and he is a man, and a merchant, and a Mayor, andone who has the first right to my affections.

Seriously, mon ami, I am not so light-hearted as Imay seem to be from this. I have come here inconsequence of hearing of the death of your wife—­whomyou used to think of as dead so many years before!Poor woman, she seems to have been a sufferer, thoughuncomplaining, and though weak in intellect not animbecile. I am glad you acted fairly by her.As soon as I knew she was no more, it was brought hometo me very forcibly by my conscience that I oughtto endeavour to disperse the shade which my etourderieflung over my name, by asking you to carry out yourpromise 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, orwhat had happened since our separation, I decided tocome and establish myself here before communicatingwith you.

You probably feel as I do about this. I shallbe able to see you in a day or two. Till then,farewell.—­Yours,

Lucetta.

P.S.—­I was unable to keep my appointmentto meet you for a moment or two in passing throughCasterbridge the other day. My plans were alteredby a family event, which it will surprise you to hearof.

Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall wasbeing prepared for a tenant. He said with a puzzledair to the first person he encountered, “Whois coming to live at the Hall?”

“A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe,sir,” said his informant.

Henchard thought it over. “Lucetta is relatedto her, I suppose,” he said to himself.“Yes, I must put her in her proper position,undoubtedly.”

It was by no means with the oppression that wouldonce have accompanied the thought that he regardedthe moral necessity now; it was, indeed, with interest,if not warmth. His bitter disappointment at findingElizabeth-Jane to be none of his, and himself a childlessman, had left an emotional void in Henchard that heunconsciously craved to fill. In this frame ofmind, though without strong feeling, he had strolledup the alley and into High-Place Hall by the posternat which Elizabeth had so nearly encountered him.He had gone on thence into the court, and inquiredof a man whom he saw unpacking china from a crate ifMiss Le Sueur was living there. Miss Le Sueurhad been the name under which he had known Lucetta—­or“Lucette,” as she had called herself atthat time.

The man replied in the negative; that Miss Templemanonly had come. Henchard went away, concludingthat Lucetta had not as yet settled in.

He was in this interested stage of the inquiry whenhe witnessed Elizabeth-Jane’s departure thenext day. On hearing her announce the addressthere suddenly took possession of him the strange thoughtthat Lucetta and Miss Templeman were one and the sameperson, for he could recall that in her season ofintimacy with him the name of the rich relative whomhe had deemed somewhat a mythical personage had beengiven as Templeman. Though he was not a fortune-hunter,the possibility that Lucetta had been sublimed intoa lady of means by some munificent testament on thepart of this relative lent a charm to her image whichit might not otherwise have acquired. He was gettingon towards the dead level of middle age, when materialthings increasingly possess the mind.

But Henchard was not left long in suspense. Lucettawas rather addicted to scribbling, as had been shownby the torrent of letters after the fiasco in theirmarriage arrangements, and hardly had Elizabeth goneaway when another note came to the Mayor’s housefrom High-Place Hall.

“I am in residence,” she said, “andcomfortable, though getting here has been a wearisomeundertaking. You probably know what I am goingto tell you, or do you not? My good Aunt Templeman,the banker’s widow, whose very existence youused to doubt, much more her affluence, has latelydied, and bequeathed some of her property to me.I will not enter into details except to say that Ihave taken her name—­as a means of escapefrom mine, and its wrongs.

“I am now my own mistress, and have chosen toreside in Casterbridge—­to be tenant ofHigh-Place Hall, that at least you may be put to notrouble if you wish to see me. My first intentionwas to keep you in ignorance of the changes in mylife till you should meet me in the street; but Ihave thought better of this.

“You probably are aware of my arrangement withyour daughter, and have doubtless laughed at the—­whatshall I call it?—­practical joke (in allaffection) 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 visither, and thus to form my acquaintance naturally.She is a dear, good girl, and she thinks you havetreated her with undue severity. You may havedone so in your haste, but not deliberately, I amsure. As the result has been to bring her tome I am not disposed to upbraid you.—­Inhaste, yours always,

“Lucetta.”

The excitement which these announcements producedin Henchard’s gloomy soul was to him most pleasurable.He sat over his dining-table long and dreamily, andby an almost mechanical transfer the sentiments whichhad run to waste since his estrangement from Elizabeth-Janeand Donald Farfrae gathered around Lucetta beforethey had grown dry. She was plainly in a verycoming-on disposition for marriage. But what elsecould a poor woman be who had given her time and herheart to him so thoughtlessly, at that former time,as to lose her credit by it? Probably conscienceno less than affection had brought her here. Onthe whole he did not blame her.

“The artful little woman!” he said, smiling(with reference to Lucetta’s adroit and pleasantmanoeuvre with Elizabeth-Jane).

To feel that he would like to see Lucetta was withHenchard to start for her house. He put on hishat and went. It was between eight and nine o’clockwhen he reached her door. The answer brought himwas that Miss Templeman was engaged for that evening;but that she would be happy to see him the next day.

“That’s rather like giving herself airs!”he thought. “And considering what we—­”But after all, she plainly had not expected him, andhe took the refusal quietly. Nevertheless heresolved not to go next day. “These cursedwomen—­there’s not an inch of straightgrain in ’em!” he said.

Let us follow the train of Mr. Henchard’s thoughtas if it were a clue line, and view the interior ofHigh-Place Hall on this particular evening.

On Elizabeth-Jane’s arrival she had been phlegmaticallyasked by an elderly woman to go upstairs and takeoff her things. She replied with great earnestnessthat she would not think of giving that trouble, andon the instant divested herself of her bonnet and cloakin the passage. She was then conducted to thefirst floor on the landing, and left to find her wayfurther alone.

The room disclosed was prettily furnished as a boudoiror small drawing-room, and on a sofa with two cylindricalpillows reclined a dark-haired, large-eyed, prettywoman, of unmistakably French extraction on one sideor the other. She was probably some years olderthan Elizabeth, and had a sparkling light in her eye.In front of the sofa was a small table, with a packof cards scattered upon it faces upward.

The attitude had been so full of abandonment thatshe bounded up like a spring on hearing the door open.

Perceiving that it was Elizabeth she lapsed into ease,and came across to her with a reckless skip that innategrace only prevented from being boisterous.

“Why, you are late,” she said, takinghold of Elizabeth-Jane’s hands.

“There were so many little things to put up.”

“And you seem dead-alive and tired. Letme try to enliven you by some wonderful tricks I havelearnt, to kill time. Sit there and don’tmove.” She gathered up the pack of cards,pulled the table in front of her, and began to dealthem rapidly, telling Elizabeth to choose some.

“Well, have you chosen?” she asked flingingdown the last card.

“No,” stammered Elizabeth, arousing herselffrom a reverie. “I forgot, I was thinkingof—­you, and me—­and how strangeit is that I am here.”

Miss Templeman looked at Elizabeth-Jane with interest,and laid down the cards. “Ah! never mind,”she said. “I’ll lie here while yousit by me; and we’ll talk.”

Elizabeth drew up silently to the head of the sofa,but with obvious pleasure. It could be seen thatthough in years she was younger than her entertainerin manner and general vision she seemed more of thesage. Miss Templeman deposited herself on thesofa in her former flexuous position, and throwingher arm above her brow—­somewhat in the poseof a well-known conception of Titian’s—­talkedup at Elizabeth-Jane invertedly across her foreheadand arm.

“I must tell you something,” she said.“I wonder if you have suspected it. I haveonly been mistress of a large house and fortune a littlewhile.”

“Oh—­only a little while?” murmuredElizabeth-Jane, her countenance slightly falling.

“As a girl I lived about in garrison towns andelsewhere with my father, till I was quite flightyand unsettled. He was an officer in the army.I should not have mentioned this had I not thoughtit best you should know the truth.”

“Yes, yes.” She looked thoughtfullyround the room—­at the little square pianowith brass inlayings, at the window-curtains, at thelamp, at the fair and dark kings and queens on thecard-table, and finally at the inverted face of LucettaTempleman, whose large lustrous eyes had such an oddeffect upside down.

Elizabeth’s mind ran on acquirements to an almostmorbid degree. “You speak French and Italianfluently, no doubt,” she said. “Ihave not been able to get beyond a wretched bit ofLatin yet.”

“Well, for that matter, in my native isle speakingFrench does not go for much. It is rather theother way.”

“Where is your native isle?”

It was with rather more reluctance that Miss Templemansaid, “Jersey. There they speak Frenchon 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. Bathis where my people really belong to, though my ancestorsin Jersey were as good as anybody in England.They were the Le Sueurs, an old family who have donegreat things in their time. I went back and livedthere after my father’s death. But I don’tvalue such past matters, and am quite an English personin my feelings and tastes.”

Lucetta’s tongue had for a moment outrun herdiscretion. She had arrived at Casterbridge asa Bath lady, and there were obvious reasons why Jerseyshould drop out of her life. But Elizabeth hadtempted her to make free, and a deliberately formedresolve had been broken.

It could not, however, have been broken in safer company.Lucetta’s words went no further, and after thisday she was so much upon her guard that there appearedno chance of her identification with the young Jerseywoman who had been Henchard’s dear comrade ata critical time. Not the least amusing of hersafeguards was her resolute avoidance of a Frenchword if one by accident came to her tongue more readilythan its English equivalent. She shirked it withthe suddenness of the weak Apostle at the accusation,“Thy speech bewrayeth thee!”

Expectancy sat visibly upon Lucetta the next morning.She dressed herself for Mr. Henchard, and restlesslyawaited his call before mid-day; as he did not comeshe waited on through the afternoon. But shedid not tell Elizabeth that the person expected wasthe girl’s stepfather.

They sat in adjoining windows of the same room inLucetta’s great stone mansion, netting, andlooking out upon the market, which formed an animatedscene. Elizabeth could see the crown of her stepfather’shat among the rest beneath, and was not aware thatLucetta watched the same object with yet intenserinterest. He moved about amid the throng, atthis 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 carrefourfor their transactions, despite its inconvenient jostlingsand the danger from crossing vehicles, to the gloomysheltered market-room provided for them. Herethey surged on this one day of the week, forming alittle world of leggings, switches, and sample-bags;men of extensive stomachs, sloping like mountain sides;men whose heads in walking swayed as the trees inNovember gales; who in conversing varied their attitudesmuch, lowering themselves by spreading their knees,and thrusting their hands into the pockets of remoteinner jackets. Their faces radiated tropicalwarmth; for though when at home their countenancesvaried with the seasons, their market-faces all theyear round were glowing little fires.

All over-clothes here were worn as if they were aninconvenience, a hampering necessity. Some menwere well dressed; but the majority were carelessin that respect, appearing in suits which were historicalrecords of their wearer’s deeds, sun-scorchings,and daily struggles for many years past. Yetmany carried ruffled cheque-books in their pocketswhich regulated at the bank hard by a balance of neverless than four figures. In fact, what these gibboushuman shapes specially represented was ready money—­moneyinsistently ready—­not ready next year likea nobleman’s—­often not merely readyat the bank like a professional man’s, but readyin their large plump hands.

It happened that to-day there rose in the midst ofthem all two or three tall apple-trees standing asif they grew on the spot; till it was perceived thatthey were held by men from the cider-districts whocame here to sell them, bringing the clay of theircounty on their boots. Elizabeth-Jane, who hadoften observed them, said, “I wonder if the sametrees come every week?”

“What trees?” said Lucetta, absorbed inwatching for Henchard.

Elizabeth replied vaguely, for an incident checkedher. Behind one of the trees stood Farfrae, brisklydiscussing a sample-bag with a farmer. Henchardhad come up, accidentally encountering the young man,whose face seemed to inquire, “Do we speak toeach other?”

She saw her stepfather throw a shine into his eyewhich answered “No!” Elizabeth-Jane sighed.

“Are you particularly interested in anybodyout there?” said Lucetta.

“O, no,” said her companion, a quick redshooting over her face.

Luckily Farfrae’s figure was immediately coveredby the apple-tree.

Lucetta looked hard at her. “Quite sure?”she said.

“O yes,” said Elizabeth-Jane.

Again Lucetta looked out. “They are allfarmers, I suppose?” she said.

“No. There’s Mr. Bulge—­he’sa wine merchant; there’s Benjamin Brownlet—­ahorse dealer; and Kitson, the pig breeder; and Yopper,the auctioneer; besides maltsters, and millers—­andso on.” Farfrae stood out quite distinctlynow; but she did not mention him.

The Saturday afternoon slipped on thus desultorily.The market changed from the sample-showing hour tothe idle hour before starting homewards, when taleswere told. Henchard had not called on Lucettathough he had stood so near. He must have beentoo busy, she thought. He would come on Sundayor Monday.

The days came but not the visitor, though Lucettarepeated her dressing with scrupulous care. Shegot disheartened. It may at once be declaredthat Lucetta no longer bore towards Henchard all thatwarm allegiance which had characterized her in theirfirst acquaintance, the then unfortunate issue ofthings had chilled pure love considerably. Butthere remained a conscientious wish to bring abouther union with him, now that there was nothing tohinder it—­to right her position—­whichin itself was a happiness to sigh for. With strongsocial reasons on her side why their marriage shouldtake place there had ceased to be any worldly reasonon his why it should be postponed, since she had succeededto fortune.

Tuesday was the great Candlemas fair. At breakfastshe said to Elizabeth-Jane quite coolly: “Iimagine your father may call to see you to-day.I suppose he stands close by in the market-place withthe rest of the corn-dealers?”

She shook her head. “He won’t come.”

“Why?”

“He has taken against me,” she said ina husky voice.

“You have quarreled more deeply than I knowof.”

Elizabeth, wishing to shield the man she believedto be her father from any charge of unnatural dislike,said “Yes.”

“Then where you are is, of all places, the onehe will avoid?”

Elizabeth nodded sadly.

Lucetta looked blank, twitched up her lovely eyebrowsand lip, and burst into hysterical sobs. Herewas a disaster—­her ingenious scheme completelystultified.

“O, my dear Miss Templeman—­what’sthe matter?” cried her companion.

“I like your company much!” said Lucetta,as soon as she could speak.

“Yes, yes—­and so do I yours!”Elizabeth chimed in soothingly.

“But—­but—­” She couldnot finish the sentence, which was, naturally, thatif Henchard had such a rooted dislike for the girlas now seemed to be the case, Elizabeth-Jane wouldhave to be got rid of—­a disagreeable necessity.

A provisional resource suggested itself. “MissHenchard—­will you go on an errand for meas soon as breakfast is over?—­Ah, that’svery good of you. Will you go and order—­”Here she enumerated several commissions at sundryshops, which would occupy Elizabeth’s time forthe next hour or two, at least.

“And have you ever seen the Museum?”

Elizabeth-Jane had not.

“Then you should do so at once. You canfinish the morning by going there. It is an oldhouse in a back street—­I forget where—­butyou’ll find out—­and there are crowdsof interesting things—­skeletons, teeth,old pots and pans, ancient boots and shoes, birds’eggs—­all charmingly instructive. You’llbe sure to stay till you get quite hungry.”

Elizabeth hastily put on her things and departed.“I wonder why she wants to get rid of me to-day!”she said sorrowfully as she went. That her absence,rather than her services or instruction, was in request,had been readily apparent to Elizabeth-Jane, simpleas she seemed, and difficult as it was to attributea motive for the desire.

She had not been gone ten minutes when one of Lucetta’sservants was sent to Henchard’s with a note.The contents were briefly:—­

Dear Michael,—­You will be standingin view of my house to-day for two or three hoursin the course of your business, so do please call andsee me. I am sadly disappointed that you havenot come before, for can I help anxiety about my ownequivocal relation to you?—­especially nowmy aunt’s fortune has brought me more prominentlybefore society? Your daughter’s presencehere may be the cause of your neglect; and I havetherefore sent her away for the morning. Say youcome on business—­I shall be quite alone.

Lucetta.

When the messenger returned her mistress gave directionsthat if a gentleman called he was to be admitted atonce, and sat down to await results.

Sentimentally she did not much care to see him—­hisdelays had wearied her, but it was necessary; andwith a sigh she arranged herself picturesquely inthe chair; first this way, then that; next so thatthe light fell over her head. Next she flungherself on the couch in the cyma-recta curve whichso became her, and with her arm over her brow lookedtowards the door. This, she decided, was the bestposition after all, and thus she remained till a man’sstep was heard on the stairs. Whereupon Lucetta,forgetting her curve (for Nature was too strong forArt as yet), jumped up and ran and hid herself behindone of the window-curtains in a freak of timidity.In spite of the waning of passion the situation wasan agitating one—­she had not seen Henchardsince his (supposed) temporary parting from her inJersey.

She could hear the servant showing the visitor intothe room, shutting the door upon him, and leavingas if to go and look for her mistress. Lucettaflung back the curtain with a nervous greeting.The man before her was not Henchard.

23.

A conjecture that her visitor might be some otherperson had, indeed, flashed through Lucetta’smind when she was on the point of bursting out; butit was just too late to recede.

He was years younger than the Mayor of Casterbridge;fair, fresh, and slenderly handsome. He woregenteel cloth leggings with white buttons, polishedboots with infinite lace holes, light cord breechesunder a black velveteen coat and waistcoat; and hehad a silver-topped switch in his hand. Lucettablushed, and said with a curious mixture of pout andlaugh on her face—­“O, I’ve madea mistake!”

The visitor, on the contrary, did not laugh half awrinkle.

“But I’m very sorry!” he said, indeprecating tones. “I came and I inquiredfor Miss Henchard, and they showed me up here, andin no case would I have caught ye so unmannerly ifI had known!”

“I was the unmannerly one,” she said.

“But is it that I have come to the wrong house,madam?” said Mr. Farfrae, blinking a littlein his bewilderment and nervously tapping his leggingwith his switch.

“O no, sir,—­sit down. You mustcome and sit down now you are here,” repliedLucetta kindly, to relieve his embarrassment.“Miss Henchard will be here directly.”

Now this was not strictly true; but that somethingabout the young man—­that hyperborean crispness,stringency, and charm, as of a well-braced musicalinstrument, which had awakened the interest of Henchard,and of Elizabeth-Jane and of the Three Mariners’jovial crew, at sight, made his unexpected presencehere attractive to Lucetta. He hesitated, lookedat the chair, thought there was no danger in it (thoughthere was), and sat down.

Farfrae’s sudden entry was simply the resultof Henchard’s permission to him to see Elizabethif he were minded to woo her. At first he hadtaken no notice of Henchard’s brusque letter;but an exceptionally fortunate business transactionput him on good terms with everybody, and revealedto him that he could undeniably marry if he chose.Then who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory inevery way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personalrecommendations a reconciliation with his former friendHenchard would, in the natural course of things, flowfrom such a union. He therefore forgave the Mayorhis curtness; and this morning on his way to the fairhe had called at her house, where he learnt that shewas staying at Miss Templeman’s. A littlestimulated at not finding her ready and waiting—­sofanciful are men!—­he hastened on to High-PlaceHall to encounter no Elizabeth but its mistress herself.

“The fair to-day seems a large one,” shesaid when, by natural deviation, their eyes soughtthe busy scene without. “Your numerousfairs and markets keep me interested. How manythings I think of while I watch from here!”

He seemed in doubt how to answer, and the babble withoutreached them as they sat—­voices as of waveletson a looping sea, one ever and anon rising above therest. “Do you look out often?” heasked.

“Yes—­very often.”

“Do you look for any one you know?”

Why should she have answered as she did?

“I look as at a picture merely. But,”she went on, turning pleasantly to him, “I maydo so now—­I may look for you. You arealways there, are you not? Ah—­I don’tmean it seriously! But it is amusing to look forsomebody one knows in a crowd, even if one does notwant him. It takes off the terrible oppressivenessof being surrounded by a throng, and having no pointof junction with it through a single individual.”

“Ay! Maybe you’ll be very lonely,ma’am?”

“Nobody knows how lonely.”

“But you are rich, they say?”

“If so, I don’t know how to enjoy my riches.I came to Casterbridge thinking I should like to livehere. But I wonder if I shall.”

“Where did ye come from, ma’am?”

“The neighbourhood of Bath.”

“And I from near Edinboro’,” hemurmured. “It’s better to stay athome, and that’s true; but a man must live wherehis money is made. It is a great pity, but it’salways so! Yet I’ve done very well thisyear. O yes,” he went on with ingenuousenthusiasm. “You see that man with thedrab kerseymere coat? I bought largely of himin the autumn when wheat was down, and then afterwardswhen it rose a little I sold off all I had! Itbrought only a small profit to me; while the farmerskept theirs, expecting higher figures—­yes,though the rats were gnawing the ricks hollow.Just when I sold the markets went lower, and I boughtup the corn of those who had been holding back atless price than my first purchases. And then,”cried Farfrae impetuously, his face alight, “Isold it a few weeks after, when it happened to go upagain! And so, by contenting mysel’ withsmall profits frequently repeated, I soon made fivehundred pounds—­yes!”—­(bringingdown his hand upon the table, and quite forgettingwhere he was)—­“while the others bykeeping theirs in hand made nothing at all!”

Lucetta regarded him with a critical interest.He was quite a new type of person to her. Atlast his eye fell upon the lady’s and their glancesmet.

“Ay, now, I’m wearying you!” heexclaimed.

She said, “No, indeed,” colouring a shade.

“What then?”

“Quite otherwise. You are most interesting.”

It was now Farfrae who showed the modest pink.

“I mean all you Scotchmen,” she addedin hasty correction. “So free from Southernextremes. We common people are all one way orthe other—­warm or cold, passionate or frigid.You have both temperatures going on in you at thesame time.”

“But how do you mean that? Ye were bestto explain clearly, ma’am.”

“You are animated—­then you are thinkingof getting on. You are sad the next moment—­thenyou are thinking of Scotland and friends.”

“Yes. I think of home sometimes!”he said simply.

“So do I—­as far as I can. Butit was an old house where I was born, and they pulledit down for improvements, so I seem hardly to haveany home to think of now.”

Lucetta did not add, as she might have done, thatthe house was in St. Helier, and not in Bath.

“But the mountains, and the mists and the rocks,they are there! And don’t they seem likehome?”

She shook her head.

“They do to me—­they do to me,”he murmured. And his mind could be seen flyingaway northwards. Whether its origin were nationalor personal, it was quite true what Lucetta had said,that the curious double strands in Farfrae’sthread of life—­the commercial and the romantic—­werevery distinct at times. Like the colours in avariegated cord those contrasts could be seen intertwisted,yet not mingling.

“You are wishing you were back again,”she said.

“Ah, no, ma’am,” said Farfrae, suddenlyrecalling himself.

The fair without the windows was now raging thickand loud. It was the chief hiring fair of theyear, and differed quite from the market of a fewdays earlier. In substance it was a whitey-browncrowd flecked with white—­this being thebody of labourers waiting for places. The longbonnets of the women, like waggon-tilts, their cottongowns and checked shawls, mixed with the carters’smockfrocks; for they, too, entered into the hiring.Among the rest, at the corner of the pavement, stoodan old shepherd, who attracted the eyes of Lucettaand Farfrae by his stillness. He was evidentlya chastened man. The battle of life had beena sharp one with him, for, to begin with, he was aman of small frame. He was now so bowed by hardwork and years that, approaching from behind, a personcould hardly see his head. He had planted thestem of his crook in the gutter and was resting uponthe bow, which was polished to silver brightness bythe long friction of his hands. He had quiteforgotten where he was, and what he had come for, hiseyes being bent on the ground. A little way offnegotiations were proceeding which had reference tohim; but he did not hear them, and there seemed tobe passing through his mind pleasant visions of thehiring successes of his prime, when his skill laidopen to him any farm for the asking.

The negotiations were between a farmer from a distantcounty and the old man’s son. In thesethere was a difficulty. The farmer would not takethe crust without the crumb of the bargain, in otherwords, the old man without the younger; and the sonhad a sweetheart on his present farm, who stood by,waiting the issue with pale lips.

“I’m sorry to leave ye, Nelly,”said the young man with emotion. “But,you see, I can’t starve father, and he’sout o’ work at Lady-day. ’Tis onlythirty-five mile.”

The girl’s lips quivered. “Thirty-fivemile!” she murmured. “Ah! ’tisenough! I shall never see ’ee again!”It was, indeed, a hopeless length of traction forDan Cupid’s magnet; for young men were youngmen at Casterbridge as elsewhere.

“O! no, no—­I never shall,”she insisted, when he pressed her hand; and she turnedher face to Lucetta’s wall to hide her weeping.The farmer said he would give the young man half-an-hourfor his answer, and went away, leaving the group sorrowing.

Lucetta’s eyes, full of tears, met Farfrae’s.His, too, to her surprise, were moist at the scene.

“It is very hard,” she said with strongfeelings. “Lovers ought not to be partedlike that! O, if I had my wish, I’d letpeople live and love at their pleasure!”

“Maybe I can manage that they’ll not beparted,” said Farfrae. “I want ayoung carter; and perhaps I’ll take the old mantoo—­yes; he’ll not be very expensive,and doubtless he will answer my pairrpose somehow.”

“O, you are so good!” she cried, delighted.“Go and tell them, and let me know if you havesucceeded!”

Farfrae went out, and she saw him speak to the group.The eyes of all brightened; the bargain was soon struck.Farfrae returned to her immediately it was concluded.

“It is kind-hearted of you, indeed,” saidLucetta. “For my part, I have resolvedthat all my servants shall have lovers if they wantthem! Do make the same resolve!”

Farfrae looked more serious, waving his head a halfturn. “I must be a little stricter thanthat,” he said.

“Why?”

“You are a—­a thriving woman; andI am a struggling hay-and-corn merchant.”

“I am a very ambitious woman.”

“Ah, well, I cannet explain. I don’tknow how to talk to ladies, ambitious or no; and that’strue,” said Donald with grave regret. “Itry to be civil to a’ folk—­no more!”

“I see you are as you say,” replied she,sensibly getting the upper hand in these exchangesof sentiment. Under this revelation of insightFarfrae again looked out of the window into the thickof the fair.

Two farmers met and shook hands, and being quite nearthe window their remarks could be heard as others’had been.

“Have you seen young Mr. Farfrae this morning?”asked one. “He promised to meet me hereat the stroke of twelve; but I’ve gone athwartand about the fair half-a-dozen times, and never asign of him: though he’s mostly a man tohis word.”

“I quite forgot the engagement,” murmuredFarfrae.

“Now you must go,” said she; “mustyou not?”

“Yes,” he replied. But he still remained.

“You had better go,” she urged. “Youwill lose a customer.

“Now, Miss Templeman, you will make me angry,”exclaimed Farfrae.

“Then suppose you don’t go; but stay alittle longer?”

He looked anxiously at the farmer who was seekinghim and who just then ominously walked across to whereHenchard was standing, and he looked into the roomand at her. “I like staying; but I fearI must go!” he said. “Business oughtnot to be neglected, ought it?

“Not for a single minute.”

“It’s true. I’ll come anothertime—­if I may, ma’am?”

“Certainly,” she said. “Whathas happened to us to-day is very curious.”

“Something to think over when we are alone,it’s like to be?”

“Oh, I don’t know that. It is commonplaceafter all.”

“No, I’ll not say that. O no!”

“Well, whatever it has been, it is now over;and the market calls you to be gone.”

“Yes, yes. Market—­business!I wish there were no business in the warrld.”

Lucetta almost laughed—­she would quitehave laughed—­but that there was a littleemotion going in her at the time. “How youchange!” she said. “You should notchange like this.

“I have never wished such things before,”said the Scotchman, with a simple, shamed, apologeticlook for his weakness. “It is only sincecoming here and seeing you!”

“If that’s the case, you had better notlook at me any longer. Dear me, I feel I havequite demoralized you!”

“But look or look not, I will see you in mythoughts. Well, I’ll go—­thankyou for the pleasure of this visit.”

“Thank you for staying.”

“Maybe I’ll get into my market-mind whenI’ve been out a few minutes,” he murmured.“But I don’t know—­I don’tknow!”

As he went she said eagerly, “You may hear themspeak of me in Casterbridge as time goes on.If they tell you I’m a coquette, which somemay, because of the incidents of my life, don’tbelieve it, for I am not.”

“I swear I will not!” he said fervidly.

Thus the two. She had enkindled the young man’senthusiasm 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. Whywas this? They could not have told.

Lucetta as a young girl would hardly have looked ata tradesman. But her ups and downs, capped byher indiscretions with Henchard had made her uncriticalas to station. In her poverty she had met withrepulse from the society to which she had belonged,and she had no great zest for renewing an attemptupon it now. Her heart longed for some ark intowhich it could fly and be at rest. Rough or smoothshe did not care so long as it was warm.

Farfrae was shown out, it having entirely escapedhim that he had called to see Elizabeth. Lucettaat the window watched him threading the maze of farmersand farmers’ men. She could see by his gaitthat he was conscious of her eyes, and her heart wentout to him for his modesty—­pleaded withher sense of his unfitness that he might be allowedto come again. He entered the market-house, andshe could see him no more.

Three minutes later, when she had left the window,knocks, not of multitude but of strength, soundedthrough the house, and the waiting-maid tripped up.

“The Mayor,” she said.

Lucetta had reclined herself, and she was lookingdreamily through her fingers. She did not answerat once, and the maid repeated the information withthe addition, “And he’s afraid he hasn’tmuch time to spare, he says.”

“Oh! Then tell him that as I have a headacheI won’t detain him to-day.”

The message was taken down, and she heard the doorclose.

Lucetta had come to Casterbridge to quicken Henchard’sfeelings with regard to her. She had quickenedthem, and now she was indifferent to the achievement.

Her morning view of Elizabeth-Jane as a disturbingelement changed, and she no longer felt strongly thenecessity of getting rid of the girl for her stepfather’ssake. When the young woman came in, sweetly unconsciousof the turn in the tide, Lucetta went up to her, andsaid quite sincerely—­

“I’m so glad you’ve come. You’lllive with me a long time, won’t you?”

Elizabeth as a watch-dog to keep her father off—­whata new idea. Yet it was not unpleasing. Henchardhad neglected her all these days, after compromisingher indescribably in the past. The least he couldhave done when he found himself free, and herselfaffluent, would have been to respond heartily andpromptly to her invitation.

Her emotions rose, fell, undulated, filled her withwild surmise at their suddenness; and so passed Lucetta’sexperiences of that day.

24.

Poor Elizabeth-Jane, little thinking what her malignantstar had done to blast the budding attentions shehad won from Donald Farfrae, was glad to hear Lucetta’swords about remaining.

For in addition to Lucetta’s house being a home,that raking view of the market-place which it affordedhad as much attraction for her as for Lucetta.The carrefour was like the regulation Open Place inspectacular dramas, where the incidents that occuralways happen to bear on the lives of the adjoiningresidents. Farmers, merchants, dairymen, quacks,hawkers, appeared there from week to week, and disappearedas the afternoon wasted away. It was the nodeof all orbits.

From Saturday to Saturday was as from day to day withthe two young women now. In an emotional sensethey did not live at all during the intervals.Wherever they might go wandering on other days, onmarket-day they were sure to be at home. Bothstole sly glances out of the window at Farfrae’sshoulders and poll. His face they seldom saw,for, either through shyness, or not to disturb hismercantile mood, he avoided looking towards theirquarters.

Thus things went on, till a certain market-morningbrought a new sensation. Elizabeth and Lucettawere sitting at breakfast when a parcel containingtwo dresses arrived for the latter from London.She called Elizabeth from her breakfast, and enteringher friend’s bedroom Elizabeth saw the gownsspread out on the bed, one of a deep cherry colour,the other lighter—­a glove lying at the endof each sleeve, a bonnet at the top of each neck,and parasols across the gloves, Lucetta standing besidethe suggested human figure in an attitude of contemplation.

“I wouldn’t think so hard about it,”said Elizabeth, marking the intensity with which Lucettawas alternating the question whether this or thatwould suit best.

“But settling upon new clothes is so trying,”said Lucetta. “You are that person”(pointing to one of the arrangements), “or youare that totally different person” (pointingto the other), “for the whole of the comingspring and one of the two, you don’t know which,may turn out to be very objectionable.”

It was finally decided by Miss Templeman that shewould be the cherry-coloured person at all hazards.The dress was pronounced to be a fit, and Lucettawalked with it into the front room, Elizabeth followingher.

The morning was exceptionally bright for the timeof year. The sun fell so flat on the houses andpavement opposite Lucetta’s residence that theypoured their brightness into her rooms. Suddenly,after a rumbling of wheels, there were added to thissteady light a fantastic series of circling irradiationsupon the ceiling, and the companions turned to thewindow. Immediately opposite a vehicle of strangedescription had come to a standstill, as if it hadbeen placed there for exhibition.

It was the new-fashioned agricultural implement calleda horse-drill, till then unknown, in its modern shape,in this part of the country, where the venerable seed-lipwas still used for sowing as in the days of the Heptarchy.Its arrival created about as much sensation in thecorn-market as a flying machine would create at CharingCross. The farmers crowded round it, women drewnear it, children crept under and into it. Themachine was painted in bright hues of green, yellow,and red, and it resembled as a whole a compound ofhornet, grasshopper, and shrimp, magnified enormously.Or it might have been likened to an upright musicalinstrument with the front gone. That was how itstruck Lucetta. “Why, it is a sort of agriculturalpiano,” she said.

“It has something to do with corn,” saidElizabeth.

“I wonder who thought of introducing it here?”

Donald Farfrae was in the minds of both as the innovator,for though not a farmer he was closely leagued withfarming operations. And as if in response totheir thought he came up at that moment, looked atthe machine, walked round it, and handled it as ifhe knew something about its make. The two watchershad inwardly started at his coming, and Elizabethleft the window, went to the back of the room, andstood 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 withthe sight of Farfrae, spoke out: “Let usgo and look at the instrument, whatever it is.”

Elizabeth-Jane’s bonnet and shawl were pitchforkedon in a moment, and they went out. Among allthe agriculturists gathered round the only appropriatepossessor of the new machine seemed to be Lucetta,because she alone rivalled it in colour.

They examined it curiously; observing the rows oftrumpet-shaped tubes one within the other, the littlescoops, like revolving salt-spoons, which tossed theseed into the upper ends of the tubes that conductedit to the ground; till somebody said, “Goodmorning, Elizabeth-Jane.” She looked up,and there was her stepfather.

His greeting had been somewhat dry and thunderous,and Elizabeth-Jane, embarrassed out of her equanimity,stammered at random, “This is the lady I livewith, father—­Miss Templeman.”

Henchard put his hand to his hat, which he broughtdown with a great wave till it met his body at theknee. Miss Templeman bowed. “I amhappy to become acquainted with you, Mr. Henchard,”she said. “This is a curious machine.”

“Yes,” Henchard replied; and he proceededto explain it, and still more forcibly to ridiculeit.

“Who brought it here?” said Lucetta.

“Oh, don’t ask me, ma’am!”said Henchard. “The thing—­why’tis impossible it should act. ’Twasbrought here by one of our machinists on the recommendationof 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 mightbe progressing.

He turned to go away. Then something seemed tooccur which his stepdaughter fancied must really bea hallucination of hers. A murmur apparentlycame from Henchard’s lips in which she detectedthe words, “You refused to see me!” reproachfullyaddressed to Lucetta. She could not believe thatthey had been uttered by her stepfather; unless, indeed,they might have been spoken to one of the yellow-gaiteredfarmers near them. Yet Lucetta seemed silent,and then all thought of the incident was dissipatedby the humming of a song, which sounded as thoughfrom the interior of the machine. Henchard hadby this time vanished into the market-house, and boththe women glanced towards the corn-drill. Theycould see behind it the bent back of a man who waspushing his head into the internal works to mastertheir simple secrets. The hummed song went on—­

“’Tw—­son a s—­m—­r aftern—­n,
A wee be—­rethe s—­n w—­nt d—­n,
When Kitty wi’a braw n—­w g—­wn
C—­me ow’rethe h—­lls to Gowrie.”

Elizabeth-Jane had apprehended the singer in a moment,and looked guilty of she did not know what. Lucettanext recognized him, and more mistress of herselfsaid archly, “The ‘Lass of Gowrie’from inside of a seed-drill—­what a phenomenon!”

Satisfied at last with his investigation the youngman stood upright, and met their eyes across the summit.

“We are looking at the wonderful new drill,”Miss Templeman said. “But practically itis a stupid thing—­is it not?” sheadded, on the strength of Henchard’s information.

“Stupid? O no!” said Farfrae gravely.“It will revolutionize sowing heerabout!No more sowers flinging their seed about broadcast,so that some falls by the wayside and some among thorns,and all that. Each grain will go straight toits intended place, and nowhere else whatever!”

“Then the romance of the sower is gone for good,”observed Elizabeth-Jane, who felt herself at one withFarfrae in Bible-reading at least. “‘Hethat observeth the wind shall not sow,’ so thePreacher said; but his words will not be to the pointany more. How things change!”

“Ay; ay....It must be so!” Donald admitted,his gaze fixing itself on a blank point far away.“But the machines are already very common inthe East and North of England,” he added apologetically.

Lucetta seemed to be outside this train of sentiment,her acquaintance with the Scriptures being somewhatlimited. “Is the machine yours?” sheasked of Farfrae.

“O no, madam,” said he, becoming embarrassedand deferential at the sound of her voice, thoughwith Elizabeth Jane he was quite at his ease.“No, no—­I merely recommended thatit should be got.”

In the silence which followed Farfrae appeared onlyconscious of her; to have passed from perception ofElizabeth into a brighter sphere of existence thanshe appertained to. Lucetta, discerning that hewas much mixed that day, partly in his mercantilemood and partly in his romantic one, said gaily tohim—­

“Well, don’t forsake the machine for us,”and went indoors with her companion.

The latter felt that she had been in the way, thoughwhy was unaccountable to her. Lucetta explainedthe matter somewhat by saying when they were againin the sitting-room—­

“I had occasion to speak to Mr. Farfrae theother day, and so I knew him this morning.”

Lucetta was very kind towards Elizabeth that day.Together they saw the market thicken, and in courseof time thin away with the slow decline of the suntowards the upper end of town, its rays taking thestreet endways and enfilading the long thoroughfarefrom top to bottom. The gigs and vans disappearedone by one till there was not a vehicle in the street.The time of the riding world was over the pedestrianworld held sway. Field labourers and their wivesand children trooped in from the villages for theirweekly shopping, and instead of a rattle of wheelsand 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; allthe moneyed class. The character of the town’strading had changed from bulk to multiplicity andpence were handled now as pounds had been handledearlier in the day.

Lucetta and Elizabeth looked out upon this, for thoughit was night and the street lamps were lighted, theyhad kept their shutters unclosed. In the faintblink of the fire they spoke more freely.

“Your father was distant with you,” saidLucetta.

“Yes.” And having forgotten the momentarymystery of Henchard’s seeming speech to Lucettashe continued, “It is because he does not thinkI am respectable. I have tried to be so morethan you can imagine, but in vain! My mother’sseparation from my father was unfortunate for me.You don’t know what it is to have shadows likethat upon your life.”

Lucetta seemed to wince. “I do not—­ofthat kind precisely,” she said, “but youmay feel a—­sense of disgrace—­shame—­inother ways.”

“Have you ever had any such feeling?”said the younger innocently.

“O no,” said Lucetta quickly. “Iwas thinking of—­what happens sometimeswhen women get themselves in strange positions in theeyes of the world from no fault of their own.”

“It must make them very unhappy afterwards.”

“It makes them anxious; for might not otherwomen despise them?”

“Not altogether despise them. Yet not quitelike or respect them.”

Lucetta winced again. Her past was by no meanssecure from investigation, even in Casterbridge.For one thing Henchard had never returned to her thecloud of letters she had written and sent him in herfirst excitement. Possibly they were destroyed;but she could have wished that they had never beenwritten.

The rencounter with Farfrae and his bearings towardsLucetta had made the reflective Elizabeth more observantof her brilliant and amiable companion. A fewdays afterwards, when her eyes met Lucetta’sas the latter was going out, she somehow knew thatMiss Templeman was nourishing a hope of seeing theattractive Scotchman. The fact was printed largeall over Lucetta’s cheeks and eyes to any onewho could read her as Elizabeth-Jane was beginningto do. Lucetta passed on and closed the streetdoor.

A seer’s spirit took possession of Elizabeth,impelling her to sit down by the fire and divine eventsso surely from data already her own that they couldbe held as witnessed. She followed Lucetta thusmentally—­saw her encounter Donald somewhereas if by chance—­saw him wear his speciallook when meeting women, with an added intensity becausethis one was Lucetta. She depicted his impassionedmanner; beheld the indecision of both between theirlothness to separate and their desire not to be observed;depicted their shaking of hands; how they probablyparted with frigidity in their general contour andmovements, only in the smaller features showing thespark of passion, thus invisible to all but themselves.This discerning silent witch had not done thinkingof these things when Lucetta came noiselessly behindher and made her start.

It was all true as she had pictured—­shecould have sworn it. Lucetta had a heightenedluminousness in her eye over and above the advancedcolour of her cheeks.

“You’ve seen Mr. Farfrae,” saidElizabeth demurely.

“Yes,” said Lucetta. “How didyou know?”

She knelt down on the hearth and took her friend’shands excitedly in her own. But after all shedid not say when or how she had seen him or what hehad said.

That night she became restless; in the morning shewas feverish; and at breakfast-time she told her companionthat she had something on her mind—­somethingwhich concerned a person in whom she was interestedmuch. Elizabeth was earnest to listen and sympathize.

“This person—­a lady—­onceadmired a man much—­very much,” shesaid tentatively.

“Ah,” said Elizabeth-Jane.

“They were intimate—­rather.He did not think so deeply of her as she did of him.But in an impulsive moment, purely out of reparation,he proposed to make her his wife. She agreed.But there was an unsuspected hitch in the proceedings;though she had been so far compromised with him thatshe felt she could never belong to another man, asa pure matter of conscience, even if she should wishto. After that they were much apart, heard nothingof each other for a long time, and she felt her lifequite closed up for her.”

“Ah—­poor girl!”

“She suffered much on account of him; thoughI should add that he could not altogether be blamedfor what had happened. At last the obstacle whichseparated them was providentially removed; and he cameto marry her.”

“How delightful!”

“But in the interval she—­my poorfriend—­had seen a man, she liked betterthan him. Now comes the point: Could shein honour dismiss the first?”

“A new man she liked better—­that’sbad!”

“Yes,” said Lucetta, looking pained ata boy who was swinging the town pump-handle.“It is bad! Though you must remember thatshe was forced into an equivocal position with thefirst man by an accident—­that he was notso well educated or refined as the second, and thatshe had discovered some qualities in the first thatrendered him less desirable as a husband than shehad at first thought him to be.”

“I cannot answer,” said Elizabeth-Janethoughtfully. “It is so difficult.It wants a Pope to settle that!”

“You prefer not to perhaps?” Lucetta showedin her appealing tone how much she leant on Elizabeth’sjudgment.

“Yes, Miss Templeman,” admitted Elizabeth.“I would rather not say.”

Nevertheless, Lucetta seemed relieved by the simplefact of having opened out the situation a little,and was slowly convalescent of her headache.“Bring me a looking-glass. How do I appearto people?” she said languidly.

“Well—­a little worn,” answeredElizabeth, eyeing her as a critic eyes a doubtfulpainting; fetching the glass she enabled Lucetta tosurvey herself in it, which Lucetta anxiously did.

“I wonder if I wear well, as times go!”she observed after a while.

“Yes—­fairly.

“Where am I worst?”

“Under your eyes—­I notice a littlebrownness there.”

“Yes. That is my worst place, I know.How many years more do you think I shall last beforeI get hopelessly plain?”

There was something curious in the way in which Elizabeth,though the younger, had come to play the part of experiencedsage in these discussions. “It may be fiveyears,” she said judicially. “Or,with a quiet life, as many as ten. With no loveyou might calculate on ten.”

Lucetta seemed to reflect on this as on an unalterable,impartial verdict. She told Elizabeth-Jane nomore of the past attachment she had roughly adumbratedas 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 confidenceof names and dates in her confessions. For bythe “she” of Lucetta’s story Elizabethhad not been beguiled.

25.

The next phase of the supersession of Henchard inLucetta’s heart was an experiment in callingon her performed by Farfrae with some apparent trepidation.Conventionally speaking he conversed with both MissTempleman and her companion; but in fact it was ratherthat Elizabeth sat invisible in the room. Donaldappeared not to see her at all, and answered her wiselittle remarks with curtly indifferent monosyllables,his looks and faculties hanging on the woman who couldboast 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 whichthat circle would not touch.

Susan Henchard’s daughter bore up against thefrosty ache of the treatment, as she had borne upunder worse things, and contrived as soon as possibleto get out of the inharmonious room without being missed.The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who haddanced with her and walked with her in a delicatepoise between love and friendship—­thatperiod in the history of a love when alone it can besaid to be unalloyed with pain.

She stoically looked from her bedroom window, andcontemplated her fate as if it were written on thetop of the church-tower hard by. “Yes,”she said at last, bringing down her palm upon thesill with a pat: “He is the secondman of that story she told me!”

All this time Henchard’s smouldering sentimentstowards Lucetta had been fanned into higher and higherinflammation by the circ*mstances of the case.He was discovering that the young woman for whom heonce felt a pitying warmth which had been almost chilledout of him by reflection, was, when now qualifiedwith 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, thatit was no use to think of bringing her round by holdingaloof; so he gave in, and called upon her again, Elizabeth-Janebeing absent.

He crossed the room to her with a heavy tread of someawkwardness, his strong, warm gaze upon her—­likethe sun beside the moon in comparison with Farfrae’smodest look—­and with something of a hail-fellowbearing, as, indeed, was not unnatural. But sheseemed 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 perceptibleloss of power. He understood but little of fashionin dress, yet enough to feel himself inadequate inappearance beside her whom he had hitherto been dreamingof as almost his property. She said somethingvery polite about his being good enough to call.This caused him to recover balance. He lookedher oddly in the face, losing his awe.

“Why, of course I have called, Lucetta,”he said. “What does that nonsense mean?You know I couldn’t have helped myself if I hadwished—­that is, if I had any kindness atall. I’ve called to say that I am ready,as soon as custom will permit, to give you my namein return for your devotion and what you lost by itin thinking too little of yourself and too much ofme; to say that you can fix the day or month, withmy full consent, whenever in your opinion it wouldbe seemly: you know more of these things thanI.”

“It is full early yet,” she said evasively.

“Yes, yes; I suppose it is. But you know,Lucetta, I felt directly my poor ill-used Susan died,and when I could not bear the idea of marrying again,that after what had happened between us it was my dutynot to let any unnecessary delay occur before puttingthings to rights. Still, I wouldn’t callin a hurry, because—­well, you can guesshow this money you’ve come into made me feel.”His voice slowly fell; he was conscious that in thisroom his accents and manner wore a roughness not observablein the street. He looked about the room at thenovel hangings and ingenious furniture with whichshe had surrounded herself.

“Upon my life I didn’t know such furnitureas this could be bought in Casterbridge,” hesaid.

“Nor can it be,” said she. “Norwill it till fifty years more of civilization havepassed over the town. It took a waggon and fourhorses to get it here.”

“H’m. It looks as if you were livingon capital.”

“O no, I am not.”

“So much the better. But the fact is, yoursetting up like this makes my beaming towards yourather awkward.”

“Why?”

An answer was not really needed, and he did not furnishone. “Well,” he went on, “there’snobody in the world I would have wished to see enterinto this wealth before you, Lucetta, and nobody, Iam sure, who will become it more.” He turnedto her with congratulatory admiration so fervid thatshe shrank somewhat, notwithstanding that she knewhim so well.

“I am greatly obliged to you for all that,”said she, rather with an air of speaking ritual.The stint of reciprocal feeling was perceived, andHenchard showed chagrin at once—­nobody wasmore quick to show that than he.

“You may be obliged or not for’t.Though the things I say may not have the polish ofwhat you’ve lately learnt to expect for the firsttime in your life, they are real, my lady Lucetta.”

“That’s rather a rude way of speakingto me,” pouted Lucetta, with stormy eyes.

“Not at all!” replied Henchard hotly.“But there, there, I don’t wish to quarrelwith ’ee. I come with an honest proposalfor silencing your Jersey enemies, and you ought tobe thankful.”

“How can you speak so!” she answered,firing quickly. “Knowing that my only crimewas the indulging in a foolish girl’s passionfor you with too little regard for correctness, andthat I was what I call innocent all the time theycalled me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting!I suffered enough at that worrying time, when youwrote to tell me of your wife’s return and myconsequent dismissal, and if I am a little independentnow, surely the privilege is due to me!”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “Butit is not by what is, in this life, but by what appears,that you are judged; and I therefore think you oughtto accept me—­for your own good name’ssake. What is known in your native Jersey mayget known here.”

“How you keep on about Jersey! I am English!”

“Yes, yes. Well, what do you say to myproposal?”

For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta hadthe move; and yet she was backward. “Forthe present let things be,” she said with someembarrassment. “Treat me as an acquaintance,and I’ll treat you as one. Time will—­”She stopped; and he said nothing to fill the gap forawhile, there being no pressure of half acquaintanceto drive them into speech if they were not mindedfor it.

“That’s the way the wind blows, is it?”he said at last grimly, nodding an affirmative tohis own thoughts.

A yellow flood of reflected sunlight filled the roomfor a few instants. It was produced by the passingof a load of newly trussed hay from the country, ina waggon marked with Farfrae’s name. Besideit rode Farfrae himself on horseback. Lucetta’sface became—­as a woman’s face becomeswhen the man she loves rises upon her gaze like anapparition.

A turn of the eye by Henchard, a glance from the window,and the secret of her inaccessibility would have beenrevealed. But Henchard in estimating her tonewas looking down so plumb-straight that he did notnote the warm consciousness upon Lucetta’s face.

“I shouldn’t have thought it—­Ishouldn’t have thought it of women!” hesaid emphatically by-and-by, rising and shaking himselfinto activity; while Lucetta was so anxious to diverthim from any suspicion of the truth that she askedhim to be in no hurry. Bringing him some applesshe insisted upon paring one for him.

He would not take it. “No, no; such isnot for me,” he said drily, and moved to thedoor. At going out he turned his eye upon her.

“You came to live in Casterbridge entirely onmy account,” he said. “Yet now youare here you won’t have anything to say to myoffer!”

He had hardly gone down the staircase when she droppedupon the sofa and jumped up again in a fit of desperation.“I will love him!” she cried passionately;“as for him—­he’s hot-temperedand stern, and it would be madness to bind myselfto him knowing that. I won’t be a slaveto the past—­I’ll love where I choose!”

Yet having decided to break away from Henchard onemight have supposed her capable of aiming higher thanFarfrae. But Lucetta reasoned nothing: shefeared hard words from the people with whom she hadbeen earlier associated; she had no relatives left;and with native lightness of heart took kindly towhat fate offered.

Elizabeth-Jane, surveying the position of Lucettabetween her two lovers from the crystalline sphereof a straightforward mind, did not fail to perceivethat her father, as she called him, and Donald Farfraebecame more desperately enamoured of her friend everyday. On Farfrae’s side it was the unforcedpassion of youth. On Henchard’s the artificiallystimulated coveting of maturer age.

The pain she experienced from the almost absoluteobliviousness to her existence that was shown by thepair of them became at times half dissipated by hersense of its humourousness. When Lucetta had prickedher finger they were as deeply concerned as if shewere dying; when she herself had been seriously sickor in danger they uttered a conventional word of sympathyat the news, and forgot all about it immediately.But, as regarded Henchard, this perception of hersalso caused her some filial grief; she could not helpasking what she had done to be neglected so, afterthe professions of solicitude he had made. Asregarded Farfrae, she thought, after honest reflection,that it was quite natural. What was she besideLucetta?—­as one of the “meaner beautiesof the night,” when the moon had risen in theskies.

She had learnt the lesson of renunciation, and wasas familiar with the wreck of each day’s wishesas with the diurnal setting of the sun. If herearthly career had taught her few book philosophiesit had at least well practised her in this. Yether experience had consisted less in a series of puredisappointments than in a series of substitutions.Continually it had happened that what she had desiredhad not been granted her, and that what had been grantedher she had not desired. So she viewed with anapproach to equanimity the new cancelled days whenDonald had been her undeclared lover, and wonderedwhat unwished-for thing Heaven might send her in placeof him.

26.

It chanced that on a fine spring morning Henchardand Farfrae met in the chestnut-walk which ran alongthe south wall of the town. Each had just comeout from his early breakfast, and there was not anothersoul near. Henchard was reading a letter fromLucetta, sent in answer to a note from him, in whichshe made some excuse for not immediately granting hima second interview that he had desired.

Donald had no wish to enter into conversation withhis former friend on their present constrained terms;neither would he pass him in scowling silence.He nodded, and Henchard did the same. They recededfrom each other several paces when a voice cried “Farfrae!”It was Henchard’s, who stood regarding him.

“Do you remember,” said Henchard, as ifit were the presence of the thought and not of theman which made him speak, “do you remember mystory of that second woman—­who sufferedfor her thoughtless intimacy with me?”

“I do,” said Farfrae.

“Do you remember my telling ’ee how itall began and how it ended?

“Yes.”

“Well, I have offered to marry her now thatI can; but she won’t marry me. Now whatwould you think of her—­I put it to you?”

“Well, ye owe her nothing more now,” saidFarfrae heartily.

“It is true,” said Henchard, and wenton.

That he had looked up from a letter to ask his questionscompletely shut out from Farfrae’s mind allvision of Lucetta as the culprit. Indeed, herpresent position was so different from that of theyoung woman of Henchard’s story as of itselfto be sufficient to blind him absolutely to her identity.As for Henchard, he was reassured by Farfrae’swords and manner against a suspicion which had crossedhis mind. They were not those of a consciousrival.

Yet that there was rivalry by some one he was firmlypersuaded. He could feel it in the air aroundLucetta, see it in the turn of her pen. Therewas an antagonistic force in exercise, so that whenhe had tried to hang near her he seemed standing ina refluent current. That it was not innate capricehe was more and more certain. Her windows gleamedas if they did not want him; her curtains seem tohang slily, as if they screened an ousting presence.To discover whose presence that was—­whetherreally Farfrae’s after all, or another’s—­heexerted himself to the utmost to see her again; andat length succeeded.

At the interview, when she offered him tea, he madeit a point to launch a cautious inquiry if she knewMr. Farfrae.

O yes, she knew him, she declared; she could not helpknowing almost everybody in Casterbridge, living insuch a gazebo over the centre and arena of the town.

“Pleasant young fellow,” said Henchard.

“Yes,” said Lucetta.

“We both know him,” said kind Elizabeth-Jane,to relieve her companion’s divined embarrassment.

There was a knock at the door; literally, three fullknocks and a little one at the end.

“That kind of knock means half-and-half—­somebodybetween gentle and simple,” said the corn-merchantto himself. “I shouldn’t wonder thereforeif it is he.” In a few seconds surely enoughDonald walked in.

Lucetta was full of little fidgets and flutters, whichincreased Henchard’s suspicions without affordingany special proof of their correctness. He waswell-nigh ferocious at the sense of the queer situationin which he stood towards this woman. One whohad reproached him for deserting her when calumniated,who had urged claims upon his consideration on thataccount, who had lived waiting for him, who at thefirst decent opportunity had come to ask him to rectify,by making her his, the false position into which shehad placed herself for his sake; such she had been.And now he sat at her tea-table eager to gain herattention, and in his amatory rage feeling the otherman present to be a villain, just as any young foolof a lover might feel.

They sat stiffly side by side at the darkening table,like some Tuscan painting of the two disciples suppingat Emmaus. Lucetta, forming the third and haloedfigure, was opposite them; Elizabeth-Jane, being outof the game, and out of the group, could observe allfrom afar, like the evangelist who had to write itdown: that there were long spaces of taciturnity,when all exterior circ*mstances were subdued to thetouch of spoons and china, the click of a heel onthe pavement under the window, the passing of a wheelbarrowor cart, the whistling of the carter, the gush ofwater into householders’ buckets at the town-pumpopposite, the exchange of greetings among their neighbours,and the rattle of the yokes by which they carriedoff their evening supply.

“More bread-and-butter?” said Lucettato Henchard and Farfrae equally, holding out betweenthem a plateful of long slices. Henchard tooka slice by one end and Donald by the other; each feelingcertain he was the man meant; neither let go, andthe slice came in two.

“Oh—­I am so sorry!” cried Lucetta,with a nervous titter. Farfrae tried to laugh;but he was too much in love to see the incident inany but a tragic light.

“How ridiculous of all three of them!”said Elizabeth to herself.

Henchard left the house with a ton of conjecture,though without a grain of proof, that the counterattractionwas Farfrae; and therefore he would not make up hismind. Yet to Elizabeth-Jane it was plain as thetown-pump that Donald and Lucetta were incipient lovers.More than once, in spite of her care, Lucetta hadbeen unable to restrain her glance from flitting acrossinto Farfrae’s eyes like a bird to its nest.But Henchard was constructed upon too large a scaleto discern such minutiae as these by an evening light,which to him were as the notes of an insect that lieabove the compass of the human ear.

But he was disturbed. And the sense of occultrivalry in suitorship was so much superadded to thepalpable rivalry of their business lives. Tothe coarse materiality of that rivalry it added aninflaming soul.

The thus vitalized antagonism took the form of actionby Henchard sending for Jopp, the manager originallydisplaced by Farfrae’s arrival. Henchardhad frequently met this man about the streets, observedthat his clothing spoke of neediness, heard that helived in Mixen Lane—­a back slum of thetown, the pis aller of Casterbridge domiciliation—­itselfalmost a proof that a man had reached a stage whenhe would not stick at trifles.

Jopp came after dark, by the gates of the storeyard,and felt his way through the hay and straw to theoffice where Henchard sat in solitude awaiting him.

“I am again out of a foreman,” said thecorn-factor. “Are you in a place?”

“Not so much as a beggar’s, sir.”

“How much do you ask?”

Jopp named his price, which was very moderate.

“When can you come?”

“At this hour and moment, sir,” said Jopp,who, standing hands-pocketed at the street cornertill the sun had faded the shoulders of his coat toscarecrow green, had regularly watched Henchard inthe market-place, measured him, and learnt him, byvirtue of the power which the still man has in hisstillness of knowing the busy one better than he knowshimself. Jopp too, had had a convenient experience;he was the only one in Casterbridge besides Henchardand the close-lipped Elizabeth who knew that Lucettacame truly from Jersey, and but proximately from Bath.“I know Jersey too, sir,” he said.“Was living there when you used to do businessthat way. O yes—­have often seen yethere.”

“Indeed! Very good. Then the thingis settled. The testimonials you showed me whenyou first tried for’t are sufficient.”

That characters deteriorated in time of need possiblydid not occur to Henchard. Jopp said, “Thankyou,” and stood more firmly, in the consciousnessthat at last he officially belonged to that spot.

“Now,” said Henchard, digging his strongeyes into Jopp’s face, “one thing is necessaryto me, as the biggest corn-and-hay dealer in theseparts. The Scotchman, who’s taking the towntrade so bold into his hands, must be cut out.D’ye hear? We two can’t live sideby side—­that’s clear and certain.”

“I’ve seen it all,” said Jopp.

“By fair competition I mean, of course,”Henchard continued. “But as hard, keen,and unflinching as fair—­rather more so.By such a desperate bid against him for the farmers’custom as will grind him into the ground—­starvehim out. I’ve capital, mind ye, and I cando it.”

“I’m all that way of thinking,”said the new foreman. Jopp’s dislike ofFarfrae as the man who had once ursurped his place,while it made him a willing tool, made him, at thesame time, commercially as unsafe a colleague as Henchardcould have chosen.

“I sometimes think,” he added, “thathe must have some glass that he sees next year in.He has such a knack of making everything bring himfortune.”

“He’s deep beyond all honest men’sdiscerning, but we must make him shallower. We’llundersell him, and over-buy him, and so snuff him out.”

They then entered into specific details of the processby which this would be accomplished, and parted ata late hour.

Elizabeth-Jane heard by accident that Jopp had beenengaged by her stepfather. She was so fully convincedthat he was not the right man for the place that,at the risk of making Henchard angry, she expressedher apprehension to him when they met. But itwas done to no purpose. Henchard shut up herargument with a sharp rebuff.

The season’s weather seemed to favour theirscheme. The time was in the years immediatelybefore foreign competition had revolutionized thetrade in grain; when still, as from the earliest ages,the wheat quotations from month to month dependedentirely upon the home harvest. A bad harvest,or the prospect of one, would double the price of cornin a few weeks; and the promise of a good yield wouldlower it as rapidly. Prices were like the roadsof the period, steep in gradient, reflecting in theirphases the local conditions, without engineering, levellings,or averages.

The farmer’s income was ruled by the wheat-cropwithin his own horizon, and the wheat-crop by theweather. Thus in person, he became a sort offlesh-barometer, with feelers always directed to thesky and wind around him. The local atmospherewas everything to him; the atmospheres of other countriesa matter of indifference. The people, too, whowere not farmers, the rural multitude, saw in thegod of the weather a more important personage thanthey do now. Indeed, the feeling of the peasantryin this matter was so intense as to be almost unrealizablein these equable days. Their impulse was well-nighto prostrate themselves in lamentation before untimelyrains and tempests, which came as the Alastor of thosehouseholds whose crime it was to be poor.

After midsummer they watched the weather-co*cks asmen waiting in antechambers watch the lackey.Sun elated them; quiet rain sobered them; weeks ofwatery tempest stupefied them. That aspect ofthe sky which they now regard as disagreeable theythen beheld as maleficent.

It was June, and the weather was very unfavourable.Casterbridge, being as it were the bell-board on whichall the adjacent hamlets and villages sounded theirnotes, was decidedly dull. Instead of new articlesin the shop-windows those that had been rejected inthe foregoing summer were brought out again; supersededreap-hooks, badly-shaped rakes, shop-worn leggings,and time-stiffened water-tights reappeared, furbishedup as near to new as possible.

Henchard, backed by Jopp, read a disastrous garnering,and resolved to base his strategy against Farfraeupon that reading. But before acting he wished—­whatso many have wished—­that he could know forcertain what was at present only strong probability.He was superstitious—­as such head-strongnatures often are—­and he nourished in hismind an idea bearing on the matter; an idea he shrankfrom disclosing even to Jopp.

In a lonely hamlet a few miles from the town—­solonely that what are called lonely villages were teemingby comparison—­there lived a man of curiousrepute as a forecaster or weather-prophet. Theway to his house was crooked and miry—­evendifficult in the present unpropitious season.One evening when it was raining so heavily that ivyand laurel resounded like distant musketry, and anout-door man could be excused for shrouding himselfto his ears and eyes, such a shrouded figure on footmight have been perceived travelling in the directionof the hazel-copse which dripped over the prophet’scot. The turnpike-road became a lane, the lanea cart-track, the cart-track a bridle-path, the bridle-patha foot-way, the foot-way overgrown. The solitarywalker slipped here and there, and stumbled over thenatural springes formed by the brambles, till at lengthhe reached the house, which, with its garden, wassurrounded with a high, dense hedge. The cottage,comparatively a large one, had been built of mud bythe occupier’s own hands, and thatched alsoby himself. Here he had always lived, and hereit was assumed he would die.

He existed on unseen supplies; for it was an anomalousthing that while there was hardly a soul in the neighbourhoodbut affected to laugh at this man’s assertions,uttering the formula, “There’s nothingin ’em,” with full assurance on the surfaceof their faces, very few of them were unbelieversin their secret hearts. Whenever they consultedhim they did it “for a fancy.” Whenthey paid him they said, “Just a trifle forChristmas,” or “Candlemas,” as thecase might be.

He would have preferred more honesty in his clients,and less sham ridicule; but fundamental belief consoledhim for superficial irony. As stated, he wasenabled to live; people supported him with their backsturned. He was sometimes astonished that men couldprofess so little and believe so much at his house,when at church they professed so much and believedso little.

Behind his back he was called “Wide-oh,”on account of his reputation; to his face “Mr.”Fall.

The hedge of his garden formed an arch over the entrance,and a door was inserted as in a wall. Outsidethe door the tall traveller stopped, bandaged hisface with a handkerchief as if he were suffering fromtoothache, and went up the path. The window shutterswere not closed, and he could see the prophet within,preparing his supper.

In answer to the knock Fall came to the door, candlein hand. The visitor stepped back a little fromthe light, and said, “Can I speak to ’ee?”in significant tones. The other’s invitationto come in was responded to by the country formula,“This will do, thank ’ee,” afterwhich the householder had no alternative but to comeout. He placed the candle on the corner of thedresser, took his hat from a nail, and joined thestranger in the porch, shutting the door behind him.

“I’ve long heard that you can—­dothings of a sort?” began the other, repressinghis individuality as much as he could.

“Maybe so, Mr. Henchard,” said the weather-caster.

“Ah—­why do you call me that?”asked the visitor with a start.

“Because it’s your name. Feelingyou’d come I’ve waited for ’ee;and thinking you might be leery from your walk I laidtwo supper plates—­look ye here.”He threw open the door and disclosed the supper-table,at which appeared a second chair, knife and fork, plateand mug, as he had declared.

Henchard felt like Saul at his reception by Samuel;he remained in silence for a few moments, then throwingoff the disguise of frigidity which he had hithertopreserved he said, “Then I have not come invain....Now, for instance, can ye charm away warts?”

“Without trouble.”

“Cure the evil?”

“That I’ve done—­with consideration—­ifthey will wear the toad-bag by night as well as byday.”

“Forecast the weather?”

“With labour and time.”

“Then take this,” said Henchard. “’Tisa crownpiece. Now, what is the harvest fortnightto be? When can I know?’

“I’ve worked it out already, and you canknow at once.” (The fact was that five farmershad already been there on the same errand from differentparts of the country.) “By the sun, moon, andstars, 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, theleeches, the spiders, and the dungmixen, the last fortnightin August will be—­rain and tempest.”

“You are not certain, of course?”

“As one can be in a world where all’sunsure. ’Twill be more like living in Revelationsthis autumn than in England. Shall I sketch itout for ’ee in a scheme?”

“O no, no,” said Henchard. “Idon’t altogether believe in forecasts, cometo second thoughts on such. But I—­”

“You don’t—­you don’t—­’tisquite understood,” said Wide-oh, without a soundof scorn. “You have given me a crown becauseyou’ve one too many. But won’t youjoin me at supper, now ’tis waiting and all?”

Henchard would gladly have joined; for the savourof the stew had floated from the cottage into theporch with such appetizing distinctness that the meat,the onions, the pepper, and the herbs could be severallyrecognized by his nose. But as sitting down tohob-and-nob there would have seemed to mark him tooimplicitly as the weather-caster’s apostle,he declined, and went his way.

The next Saturday Henchard bought grain to such anenormous extent that there was quite a talk abouthis purchases among his neighbours the lawyer, thewine merchant, and the doctor; also on the next, andon all available days. When his granaries werefull to choking all the weather-co*cks of Casterbridgecreaked 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, assumedthe hues of topaz. The temperament of the welkinpassed from the phlegmatic to the sanguine; an excellentharvest was almost a certainty; and as a consequenceprices rushed down.

All these transformations, lovely to the outsider,to the wrong-headed corn-dealer were terrible.He was reminded of what he had well known before,that a man might gamble upon the square green areasof fields as readily as upon those of a card-room.

Henchard had backed bad weather, and apparently lost.He had mistaken the turn of the flood for the turnof the ebb. His dealings had been so extensivethat settlement could not long be postponed, and tosettle he was obliged to sell off corn that he hadbought only a few weeks before at figures higher bymany shillings a quarter. Much of the corn hehad never seen; it had not even been moved from thericks in which it lay stacked miles away. Thushe lost heavily.

In the blaze of an early August day he met Farfraein the market-place. Farfrae knew of his dealings(though he did not guess their intended bearing onhimself) and commiserated him; for since their exchangeof words in the South Walk they had been on stifflyspeaking terms. Henchard for the moment appearedto resent the sympathy; but he suddenly took a carelessturn.

“Ho, no, no!—­nothing serious, man!”he cried with fierce gaiety. “These thingsalways happen, don’t they? I know it hasbeen said that figures have touched me tight lately;but is that anything rare? The case is not sobad as folk make out perhaps. And dammy, a manmust be a fool to mind the common hazards of trade!”

But he had to enter the Casterbridge Bank that dayfor reasons which had never before sent him there—­andto sit a long time in the partners’ room witha constrained bearing. It was rumoured soon afterthat much real property as well as vast stores ofproduce, which had stood in Henchard’s namein the town and neighbourhood, was actually the possessionof his bankers.

Coming down the steps of the bank he encountered Jopp.The gloomy transactions just completed within hadadded fever to the original sting of Farfrae’ssympathy that morning, which Henchard fancied mightbe a satire disguised so that Jopp met with anythingbut a bland reception. The latter was in theact of taking off his hat to wipe his forehead, andsaying, “A fine hot day,” to an acquaintance.

“You can wipe and wipe, and say, ‘A finehot day,’ can ye!” cried Henchard in asavage undertone, imprisoning Jopp between himselfand the bank wall. “If it hadn’tbeen for your blasted advice it might have been afine day enough! Why did ye let me go on, hey?—­whena word of doubt from you or anybody would have mademe think twice! For you can never be sure ofweather till ’tis past.”

“My advice, sir, was to do what you thoughtbest.”

“A useful fellow! And the sooner you helpsomebody else in that way the better!” Henchardcontinued his address to Jopp in similar terms tillit ended in Jopp s dismissal there and then, Henchardturning upon his heel and leaving him.

“You shall be sorry for this, sir; sorry asa man can be!” said Jopp, standing pale, andlooking after the corn-merchant as he disappeared inthe crowd of market-men hard by.

27.

It was the eve of harvest. Prices being low Farfraewas buying. As was usual, after reckoning toosurely on famine weather the local farmers had flownto the other extreme, and (in Farfrae’s opinion)were selling off too recklessly—­calculatingwith just a trifle too much certainty upon an abundantyield. So he went on buying old corn at its comparativelyridiculous price: for the produce of the previousyear, though not large, had been of excellent quality.

When Henchard had squared his affairs in a disastrousway, and got rid of his burdensome purchases at amonstrous loss, the harvest began. There werethree days of excellent weather, and then—­“Whatif that curst conjuror should be right after all!”said Henchard.

The fact was, that no sooner had the sickles begunto play than the atmosphere suddenly felt as if cresswould grow in it without other nourishment. Itrubbed people’s cheeks like damp flannel whenthey walked abroad. There was a gusty, high,warm wind; isolated raindrops starred the window-panesat remote distances: the sunlight would flapout like a quickly opened fan, throw the pattern ofthe window upon the floor of the room in a milky,colourless shine, and withdraw as suddenly as it hadappeared.

From that day and hour it was clear that there wasnot to be so successful an ingathering after all.If Henchard had only waited long enough he might atleast 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 thoughtthat some power was working against him.

“I wonder,” he asked himself with eeriemisgiving; “I wonder if it can be that somebodyhas been roasting a waxen image of me, or stirringan unholy brew to confound me! I don’tbelieve in such power; and yet—­what ifthey should ha’ been doing it!” Even hecould not admit that the perpetrator, if any, mightbe Farfrae. These isolated hours of superstitioncame to Henchard in time of moody depression, whenall his practical largeness of view had oozed outof him.

Meanwhile Donald Farfrae prospered. He had purchasedin so depressed a market that the present moderatestiffness of prices was sufficient to pile for hima large heap of gold where a little one had been.

“Why, he’ll soon be Mayor!” saidHenchard. It was indeed hard that the speakershould, of all others, have to follow the triumphalchariot of this man to the Capitol.

The rivalry of the masters was taken up by the men.

September-night shades had fallen upon Casterbridge;the clocks had struck half-past eight, and the moonhad risen. The streets of the town were curiouslysilent for such a comparatively early hour. Asound of jangling horse-bells and heavy wheels passedup the street. These were followed by angry voicesoutside Lucetta’s house, which led her and Elizabeth-Janeto run to the windows, and pull up the blinds.

The neighbouring Market House and Town Hall abuttedagainst its next neighbour the Church except in thelower storey, where an arched thoroughfare gave admittanceto a large square called Bull Stake. A stonepost rose in the midst, to which the oxen had formerlybeen tied for baiting with dogs to make them tenderbefore they were killed in the adjoining shambles.In a corner stood the stocks.

The thoroughfare leading to this spot was now blockedby two four-horse waggons and horses, one laden withhay-trusses, the leaders having already passed eachother, and become entangled head to tail. Thepassage of the vehicles might have been practicableif empty; but built up with hay to the bedroom windowsas one was, it was impossible.

“You must have done it a’ purpose!”said Farfrae’s waggoner. “You canhear my horses’ bells half-a-mile such a nightas this!”

“If ye’d been minding your business insteadof zwailing along in such a gawk-hammer way, you wouldhave zeed me!” retorted the wroth representativeof Henchard.

However, according to the strict rule of the roadit appeared that Henchard’s man was most inthe wrong, he therefore attempted to back into theHigh Street. In doing this the near hind-wheelrose against the churchyard wall and the whole mountainousload went over, two of the four wheels rising in theair, and the legs of the thill horse.

Instead of considering how to gather up the load thetwo men closed in a fight with their fists. Beforethe first round was quite over Henchard came uponthe spot, somebody having run for him.

Henchard sent the two men staggering in contrary directionsby collaring one with each hand, turned to the horsethat was down, and extricated him after some trouble.He then inquired into the circ*mstances; and seeingthe state of his waggon and its load began hotly ratingFarfrae’s man.

Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane had by this time run downto the street corner, whence they watched the brightheap of new hay lying in the moon’s rays, andpassed and repassed by the forms of Henchard and thewaggoners. The women had witnessed what nobodyelse had seen—­the origin of the mishap;and Lucetta spoke.

“I saw it all, Mr. Henchard,” she cried;“and your man was most in the wrong!”

Henchard paused in his harangue and turned. “Oh,I didn’t notice you, Miss Templeman,”said he. “My man in the wrong? Ah,to be sure; to be sure! But I beg your pardonnotwithstanding. The other’s is the emptywaggon, and he must have been most to blame for comingon.”

“No; I saw it, too,” said Elizabeth-Jane.“And I can assure you he couldn’t helpit.”

“You can’t trust their senses!”murmured Henchard’s man.

“Why not?” asked Henchard sharply.

“Why, you see, sir, all the women side withFarfrae—­being a damn young dand—­ofthe sort that he is—­one that creeps intoa maid’s heart like the giddying worm into asheep’s brain—­making crooked seemstraight to their eyes!”

“But do you know who that lady is you talk aboutin such a fashion? Do you know that I pay myattentions to her, and have for some time? Justbe careful!”

“Not I. I know nothing, sir, outside eight shillingsa week.”

“And that Mr. Farfrae is well aware of it?He’s sharp in trade, but he wouldn’t doanything so underhand as what you hint at.”

Whether because Lucetta heard this low dialogue, ornot her white figure disappeared from her doorwayinward, and the door was shut before Henchard couldreach it to converse with her further. This disappointedhim, for he had been sufficiently disturbed by whatthe man had said to wish to speak to her more closely.While pausing the old constable came up.

“Just see that nobody drives against that hayand waggon to-night, Stubberd,” said the corn-merchant.“It must bide till the morning, for all handsare in the field still. And if any coach or road-waggonwants to come along, tell ’em they must go roundby the back street, and be hanged to ’em....Anycase tomorrow up in Hall?”

“Yes, sir. One in number, sir.”

“Oh, what’s that?”

“An old flagrant female, sir, swearing and committinga nuisance in a horrible profane manner against thechurch wall, sir, as if ’twere no more thana pot-house! That’s all, sir.”

“Oh. The Mayor’s out o’ town,isn’t he?”

“He is, sir.”

“Very well, then I’ll be there. Don’tforget to keep an eye on that hay. Good nightt’ ’ee.”

During those moments Henchard had determined to followup Lucetta notwithstanding her elusiveness, and heknocked for admission.

The answer he received was an expression of Miss Templeman’ssorrow at being unable to see him again that eveningbecause she had an engagement to go out.

Henchard walked away from the door to the oppositeside of the street, and stood by his hay in a lonelyreverie, the constable having strolled elsewhere,and the horses being removed. Though the moonwas not bright as yet there were no lamps lighted,and he entered the shadow of one of the projectingjambs which formed the thoroughfare to Bull Stake;here he watched Lucetta’s door.

Candle-lights were flitting in and out of her bedroom,and it was obvious that she was dressing for the appointment,whatever the nature of that might be at such an hour.The lights disappeared, the clock struck nine, andalmost at the moment Farfrae came round the oppositecorner and knocked. That she had been waitingjust inside for him was certain, for she instantlyopened the door herself. They went together bythe way of a back lane westward, avoiding the frontstreet; guessing where they were going he determinedto follow.

The harvest had been so delayed by the capriciousweather that whenever a fine day occurred all sinewswere strained to save what could be saved of the damagedcrops. On account of the rapid shortening of thedays the harvesters worked by moonlight. Henceto-night the wheat-fields abutting on the two sidesof the square formed by Casterbridge town were animatedby the gathering hands. Their shouts and laughterhad reached Henchard at the Market House, while hestood there waiting, and he had little doubt fromthe turn which Farfrae and Lucetta had taken that theywere bound for the spot.

Nearly the whole town had gone into the fields.The Casterbridge populace still retained the primitivehabit of helping one another in time of need; andthus, though the corn belonged to the farming sectionof the little community—­that inhabitingthe Durnover quarter—­the remainder wasno less interested in the labour of getting it home.

Reaching the top of the lane Henchard crossed theshaded 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 moonlithazes.

He had entered at a point removed from the scene ofimmediate operations; but two others had entered atthat place, and he could see them winding among theshocks. They were paying no regard to the directionof their walk, whose vague serpentining soon beganto bear down towards Henchard. A meeting promisedto be awkward, and he therefore stepped into the hollowof the nearest shock, and sat down.

“You have my leave,” Lucetta was sayinggaily. “Speak what you like.”

“Well, then,” replied Farfrae, with theunmistakable inflection of the lover pure, which Henchardhad never heard in full resonance of his lips before,“you are sure to be much sought after for yourposition, wealth, talents, and beauty. But willye resist the temptation to be one of those ladieswith lots of admirers—­ay—­andbe content to have only a homely one?”

“And he the speaker?” said she, laughing.“Very well, sir, what next?”

“Ah! I’m afraid that what I feelwill make me forget my manners!”

“Then I hope you’ll never have any, ifyou lack them only for that cause.” Aftersome broken words which Henchard lost she added, “Areyou sure you won’t be jealous?”

Farfrae seemed to assure her that he would not, bytaking her hand.

“You are convinced, Donald, that I love nobodyelse,” she presently said. “But Ishould wish to have my own way in some things.”

“In everything! What special thing didyou mean?”

“If I wished not to live always in Casterbridge,for instance, upon finding that I should not be happyhere?”

Henchard did not hear the reply; he might have doneso and much more, but he did not care to play theeavesdropper. They went on towards the sceneof activity, where the sheaves were being handed, adozen a minute, upon the carts and waggons which carriedthem away.

Lucetta insisted on parting from Farfrae when theydrew near the workpeople. He had some businesswith them and, thought he entreated her to wait afew minutes, she was inexorable, and tripped off homewardalone.

Henchard thereupon left the field and followed her.His state of mind was such that on reaching Lucetta’sdoor he did not knock but opened it, and walked straightup to her sitting-room, expecting to find her there.But the room was empty, and he perceived that in hishaste he had somehow passed her on the way hither.He had not to wait many minutes, however, for he soonheard her dress rustling in the hall, followed by asoft closing of the door. In a moment she appeared.

The light was so low that she did not notice Henchardat first. As soon as she saw him she uttereda little cry, almost of terror.

“How can you frighten me so?” she exclaimed,with a flushed face. “It is past ten o’clock,and you have no right to surprise me here at such atime.”

“I don’t know that I’ve not theright. At any rate I have the excuse. Isit so necessary that I should stop to think of mannersand customs?”

“It is too late for propriety, and might injureme.”

“I called an hour ago, and you would not seeme, and I thought you were in when I called now.It is you, Lucetta, who are doing wrong. It isnot proper in ’ee to throw me over like this.I have a little matter to remind you of, which youseem to forget.”

She sank into a chair, and turned pale.

“I don’t want to hear it—­Idon’t want to hear it!” she said throughher hands, as he, standing close to the edge of hergown, began to allude to the Jersey days.

“But you ought to hear it,” said he.

“It came to nothing; and through you. Thenwhy not leave me the freedom that I gained with suchsorrow! Had I found that you proposed to marryme for pure love I might have felt bound now.But I soon learnt that you had planned it out of merecharity—­almost as an unpleasant duty—­becauseI had nursed you, and compromised myself, and you thoughtyou must repay me. After that I did not care foryou so deeply as before.”

“Why did you come here to find me, then?”

“I thought I ought to marry you for conscience’sake, since you were free, even though I—­didnot like you so well.”

“And why then don’t you think so now?”

She was silent. It was only too obvious thatconscience had ruled well enough till new love hadintervened and usurped that rule. In feelingthis she herself forgot for the moment her partiallyjustifying argument—­that having discoveredHenchard’s infirmities of temper, she had someexcuse for not risking her happiness in his hands afteronce escaping them. The only thing she couldsay was, “I was a poor girl then; and now mycirc*mstances have altered, so I am hardly the sameperson.”

“That’s true. And it makes the caseawkward for me. But I don’t want to touchyour money. I am quite willing that every pennyof your property shall remain to your personal use.Besides, that argument has nothing in it. Theman you are thinking of is no better than I.”

“If you were as good as he you would leave me!”she cried passionately.

This unluckily aroused Henchard. “You cannotin honour refuse me,” he said. “Andunless you give me your promise this very night tobe my wife, before a witness, I’ll reveal ourintimacy—­in common fairness to other men!”

A look of resignation settled upon her. Henchardsaw its bitterness; and had Lucetta’s heartbeen given to any other man in the world than Farfraehe would probably have had pity upon her at that moment.But the supplanter was the upstart (as Henchard calledhim) who had mounted into prominence upon his shoulders,and he could bring himself to show no mercy.

Without another word she rang the bell, and directedthat Elizabeth-Jane should be fetched from her room.The latter appeared, surprised in the midst of herlucubrations. As soon as she saw Henchard shewent across to him dutifully.

“Elizabeth-Jane,” he said, taking herhand, “I want you to hear this.”And turning to Lucetta: “Will you, or willyou not, marry me?

“If you—­wish it, I must agree!”

“You say yes?”

“I do.”

No sooner had she given the promise than she fellback in a fainting state.

“What dreadful thing drives her to say this,father, when it is such a pain to her?” askedElizabeth, kneeling down by Lucetta. “Don’tcompel her to do anything against her will! Ihave lived with her, and know that she cannot bearmuch.”

“Don’t be a no’thern simpleton!”said Henchard drily. “This promise willleave him free for you, if you want him, won’tit?”

At this Lucetta seemed to wake from her swoon witha start.

“Him? Who are you talking about?”she said wildly.

“Nobody, as far as I am concerned,” saidElizabeth firmly.

“Oh—­well. Then it is my mistake,”said Henchard. “But the business is betweenme and Miss Templeman. She agrees to be my wife.”

“But don’t dwell on it just now,”entreated Elizabeth, holding Lucetta’s hand.

“I don’t wish to, if she promises,”said Henchard.

“I have, I have,” groaned Lucetta, herlimbs hanging like fluid, from very misery and faintness.“Michael, please don’t argue it any more!”

“I will not,” he said. And takingup his hat he went away.

Elizabeth-Jane continued to kneel by Lucetta.“What is this?” she said. “Youcalled my father ‘Michael’ as if you knewhim well? And how is it he has got this powerover you, that you promise to marry him against yourwill? Ah—­you have many many secretsfrom me!”

“Perhaps you have some from me,” Lucettamurmured with closed eyes, little thinking, however,so unsuspicious was she, that the secret of Elizabeth’sheart concerned the young man who had caused this damageto her own.

“I would not—­do anything againstyou at all!” stammered Elizabeth, keeping inall signs of emotion till she was ready to burst.“I cannot understand how my father can commandyou so; I don’t sympathize with him in it atall. I’ll go to him and ask him to releaseyou.”

“No, no,” said Lucetta. “Letit all be.”

28.

The next morning Henchard went to the Town Hall belowLucetta’s house, to attend Petty Sessions, beingstill a magistrate for the year by virtue of his lateposition as Mayor. In passing he looked up ather windows, but nothing of her was to be seen.

Henchard as a Justice of the Peace may at first seemto be an even greater incongruity than Shallow andSilence themselves. But his rough and ready perceptions,his sledge-hammer directness, had often served himbetter than nice legal knowledge in despatching suchsimple business as fell to his hands in this Court.To-day Dr. Chalkfield, the Mayor for the year, beingabsent, the corn-merchant took the big chair, his eyesstill abstractedly stretching out of the window tothe ashlar front of High-Place Hall.

There was one case only, and the offender stood beforehim. She was an old woman of mottled countenance,attired in a shawl of that nameless tertiary hue whichcomes, but cannot be made—­a hue neithertawny, russet, hazel, nor ash; a sticky black bonnetthat seemed to have been worn in the country of thePsalmist where the clouds drop fatness; and an apronthat had been white in time so comparatively recentas still to contrast visibly with the rest of herclothes. The steeped aspect of the woman as awhole showed her to be no native of the country-sideor even of a country-town.

She looked cursorily at Henchard and the second magistrate,and Henchard looked at her, with a momentary pause,as if she had reminded him indistinctly of somebodyor something which passed from his mind as quicklyas it had come. “Well, and what has shebeen doing?” he said, looking down at the chargesheet.

“She is charged, sir, with the offence of disorderlyfemale and nuisance,” whispered Stubberd.

“Where did she do that?” said the othermagistrate.

“By the church, sir, of all the horrible placesin the world!—­I caught her in the act,your worship.”

“Stand back then,” said Henchard, “andlet’s hear what you’ve got to say.”

Stubberd was sworn in, the magistrate’s clerkdipped his pen, Henchard being no note-taker himself,and the constable began—­

“Hearing a’ illegal noise I went downthe street at twenty-five minutes past eleven P.M.on the night of the fifth instinct, Hannah Dominy.When I had—­

“Don’t go so fast, Stubberd,” saidthe clerk.

The constable waited, with his eyes on the clerk’spen, till the latter stopped scratching and said,“yes.” Stubberd continued: “WhenI had proceeded to the spot I saw defendant at anotherspot, namely, the gutter.” He paused, watchingthe point of the clerk’s pen again.

“Gutter, yes, Stubberd.”

“Spot measuring twelve feet nine inches or thereaboutsfrom where I—­” Still careful notto outrun the clerk’s penmanship Stubberd pulledup again; for having got his evidence by heart itwas immaterial to him whereabouts he broke off.

“I object to that,” spoke up the old woman,“’spot measuring twelve feet nine or thereaboutsfrom where I,’ is not sound testimony!”

The magistrates consulted, and the second one saidthat the bench was of opinion that twelve feet nineinches from a man on his oath was admissible.

Stubberd, with a suppressed gaze of victorious rectitudeat the old woman, continued: “Was standingmyself. She was wambling about quite dangerousto the thoroughfare and when I approached to draw nearshe committed the nuisance, and insulted me.”

“’Insulted me.’...Yes, what didshe say?”

“She said, ‘Put away that dee lantern,’she says.”

“Yes.”

“Says she, ’Dost hear, old turmit-head?Put away that dee lantern. I have floored fellowsa dee sight finer-looking than a dee fool like thee,you son of a bee, dee me if I haint,’ she says.

“I object to that conversation!” interposedthe old woman. “I was not capable enoughto hear what I said, and what is said out of my hearingis not evidence.”

There was another stoppage for consultation, a bookwas referred to, and finally Stubberd was allowedto go on again. The truth was that the old womanhad appeared in court so many more times than the magistratesthemselves, that they were obliged to keep a sharplook-out upon their procedure. However, whenStubberd had rambled on a little further Henchardbroke out impatiently, “Come—­we don’twant to hear any more of them cust dees and bees!Say the words out like a man, and don’t be somodest, Stubberd; or else leave it alone!” Turningto the woman, “Now then, have you any questionsto ask him, or anything to say?”

“Yes,” she replied with a twinkle in hereye; and the clerk dipped his pen.

“Twenty years ago or thereabout I was sellingof furmity in a tent at Weydon Fair——­”

“’Twenty years ago’—­well,that’s beginning at the beginning; suppose yougo back to the Creation!” said the clerk, notwithout satire.

But Henchard stared, and quite forgot what was evidenceand what was not.

“A man and a woman with a little child cameinto my tent,” the woman continued. “Theysat down and had a basin apiece. Ah, Lord’smy life! I was of a more respectable stationin the world then than I am now, being a land smugglerin a large way of business; and I used to season myfurmity 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 offeredto sell her to the highest bidder. A sailor camein and bid five guineas, and paid the money, and ledher away. And the man who sold his wife in thatfashion is the man sitting there in the great big chair.”The speaker concluded by nodding her head at Henchardand folding her arms.

Everybody looked at Henchard. His face seemedstrange, and in tint as if it had been powdered overwith ashes. “We don’t want to hearyour life and adventures,” said the second magistratesharply, filling the pause which followed. “You’vebeen asked if you’ve anything to say bearingon the case.”

“That bears on the case. It proves thathe’s no better than I, and has no right to sitthere in judgment upon me.”

“’Tis a concocted story,” said theclerk. “So hold your tongue!”

“No—­’tis true.”The words came from Henchard. “’Tis astrue as the light,” he said slowly. “Andupon my soul it does prove that I’m no betterthan she! And to keep out of any temptation totreat her hard for her revenge, I’ll leave herto you.”

The sensation in the court was indescribably great.Henchard left the chair, and came out, passing througha group of people on the steps and outside that wasmuch larger than usual; for it seemed that the oldfurmity dealer had mysteriously hinted to the denizensof the lane in which she had been lodging since herarrival, that she knew a queer thing or two abouttheir great local man Mr. Henchard, if she chose totell it. This had brought them hither.

“Why are there so many idlers round the TownHall to-day?” said Lucetta to her servant whenthe case was over. She had risen late, and hadjust looked out of the window.

“Oh, please, ma’am, ’tis this larryabout Mr. Henchard. A woman has proved that beforehe became a gentleman he sold his wife for five guineasin a booth at a fair.”

In all the accounts which Henchard had given her ofthe separation from his wife Susan for so many years,of his belief in her death, and so on, he had neverclearly explained the actual and immediate cause ofthat separation. The story she now heard forthe first time.

A gradual misery overspread Lucetta’s face asshe dwelt upon the promise wrung from her the nightbefore. At bottom, then, Henchard was this.How terrible a contingency for a woman who should commitherself to his care.

During the day she went out to the Ring and to otherplaces, not coming in till nearly dusk. As soonas she saw Elizabeth-Jane after her return indoorsshe told her that she had resolved to go away fromhome to the seaside for a few days—­to Port-Bredy;Casterbridge was so gloomy.

Elizabeth, seeing that she looked wan and disturbed,encouraged her in the idea, thinking a change wouldafford her relief. She could not help suspectingthat the gloom which seemed to have come over Casterbridgein Lucetta’s eyes might be partially owing tothe fact that Farfrae was away from home.

Elizabeth saw her friend depart for Port-Bredy, andtook charge of High-Place Hall till her return.After two or three days of solitude and incessantrain Henchard called at the house. He seemed disappointedto hear of Lucetta’s absence and though he noddedwith outward indifference he went away handling hisbeard with a nettled mien.

The next day he called again. “Is she comenow?” he asked.

“Yes. She returned this morning,”replied his stepdaughter. “But she is notindoors. She has gone for a walk along the turnpike-roadto Port-Bredy. She will be home by dusk.”

After a few words, which only served to reveal hisrestless impatience, he left the house again.

29.

At this hour Lucetta was bounding along the road toPort-Bredy just as Elizabeth had announced. Thatshe had chosen for her afternoon walk the road alongwhich she had returned to Casterbridge three hoursearlier in a carriage was curious—­if anythingshould be called curious in concatenations of phenomenawherein each is known to have its accounting cause.It was the day of the chief market—­Saturday—­andFarfrae for once had been missed from his corn-standin the dealers’ room. Nevertheless, itwas known that he would be home that night—­“forSunday,” as Casterbridge expressed it.

Lucetta, in continuing her walk, had at length reachedthe end of the ranked trees which bordered the highwayin this and other directions out of the town.This end marked a mile; and here she stopped.

The spot was a vale between two gentle acclivities,and the road, still adhering to its Roman foundation,stretched onward straight as a surveyor’s linetill 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-landlike a strip to an undulating garment. Near herwas a barn—­the single building of any kindwithin her horizon.

She strained her eyes up the lessening road, but nothingappeared thereon—­not so much as a speck.She sighed one word—­“Donald!”and turned her face to the town for retreat.

Here the case was different. A single figurewas approaching her—­Elizabeth-Jane’s.

Lucetta, in spite of her loneliness, seemed a littlevexed. Elizabeth’s face, as soon as sherecognized her friend, shaped itself into affectionatelines while yet beyond speaking distance. “Isuddenly thought I would come and meet you,”she said, smiling.

Lucetta’s reply was taken from her lips by anunexpected diversion. A by-road on her righthand descended from the fields into the highway atthe point where she stood, and down the track a bullwas rambling uncertainly towards her and Elizabeth,who, facing the other way, did not observe him.

In the latter quarter of each year cattle were atonce the mainstay and the terror of families aboutCasterbridge and its neighbourhood, where breedingwas carried on with Abrahamic success. The headof stock driven into and out of the town at this seasonto be sold by the local auctioneer was very large;and all these horned beasts, in travelling to andfro, sent women and children to shelter as nothingelse could do. In the main the animals wouldhave walked along quietly enough; but the Casterbridgetradition was that to drive stock it was indispensablethat hideous cries, coupled with Yahoo antics andgestures, should be used, large sticks flourished,stray dogs called in, and in general everything donethat was likely to infuriate the viciously disposedand terrify the mild. Nothing was commoner thanfor a house-holder on going out of his parlour tofind his hall or passage full of little children, nursemaids,aged women, or a ladies’ school, who apologizedfor their presence by saying, “A bull passingdown street from the sale.”

Lucetta and Elizabeth regarded the animal in doubt,he meanwhile drawing vaguely towards them. Itwas a large specimen of the breed, in colour richdun, though disfigured at present by splotches of mudabout his seamy sides. His horns were thick andtipped with brass; his two nostrils like the ThamesTunnel as seen in the perspective toys of yore.Between them, through the gristle of his nose, wasa stout copper ring, welded on, and irremovable asGurth’s collar of brass. To the ring wasattached an ash staff about a yard long, which thebull with the motions of his head flung about likea flail.

It was not till they observed this dangling stickthat the young women were really alarmed; for it revealedto them that the bull was an old one, too savage tobe driven, which had in some way escaped, the staffbeing the means by which the drover controlled himand kept his horns at arms’ length.

They looked round for some shelter or hiding-place,and thought of the barn hard by. As long as theyhad kept their eyes on the bull he had shown somedeference in his manner of approach; but no soonerdid they turn their backs to seek the barn than hetossed his head and decided to thoroughly terrifythem. This caused the two helpless girls to runwildly, whereupon the bull advanced in a deliberatecharge.

The barn stood behind a green slimy pond, and it wasclosed save as to one of the usual pair of doors facingthem, which had been propped open by a hurdle-stick,and for this opening they made. The interior hadbeen cleared by a recent bout of threshing exceptat one end, where there was a stack of dry clover.Elizabeth-Jane took in the situation. “Wemust climb up there,” she said.

But before they had even approached it they heardthe bull scampering through the pond without, andin a second he dashed into the barn, knocking downthe hurdle-stake in passing; the heavy door slammedbehind him; and all three were imprisoned in the barntogether. The mistaken creature saw them, andstalked towards the end of the barn into which theyhad fled. The girls doubled so adroitly that theirpursuer was against the wall when the fugitives werealready half way to the other end. By the timethat his length would allow him to turn and followthem thither they had crossed over; thus the pursuitwent on, the hot air from his nostrils blowing overthem like a sirocco, and not a moment being attainableby Elizabeth or Lucetta in which to open the door.What might have happened had their situation continuedcannot be said; but in a few moments a rattling ofthe door distracted their adversary’s attention,and a man appeared. He ran forward towards theleading-staff, seized it, and wrenched the animal’shead as if he would snap it off. The wrench wasin reality so violent that the thick neck seemed tohave lost its stiffness and to become half-paralyzed,whilst the nose dropped blood. The premeditatedhuman contrivance of the nose-ring was too cunningfor impulsive brute force, and the creature flinched.

The man was seen in the partial gloom to be large-framedand unhesitating. He led the bull to the door,and the light revealed Henchard. He made thebull fast without, and re-entered to the succour ofLucetta; for he had not perceived Elizabeth, who hadclimbed on to the clover-heap. Lucetta was hysterical,and Henchard took her in his arms and carried herto the door.

“You—­have saved me!” she cried,as soon as she could speak.

“I have returned your kindness,” he respondedtenderly. “You once saved me.”

“How—­comes it to be you—­you?”she asked, not heeding his reply.

“I came out here to look for you. I havebeen wanting to tell you something these two or threedays; but you have been away, and I could not.Perhaps you cannot talk now?”

“Oh—­no! Where is Elizabeth?”

“Here am I!” cried the missing one cheerfully;and without waiting for the ladder to be placed sheslid down the face of the clover-stack to the floor.

Henchard supporting Lucetta on one side, and Elizabeth-Janeon the other, they went slowly along the rising road.They had reached the top and were descending againwhen Lucetta, now much recovered, recollected thatshe had dropped her muff in the barn.

“I’ll run back,” said Elizabeth-Jane.“I don’t mind it at all, as I am not tiredas you are.” She thereupon hastened downagain to the barn, the others pursuing their way.

Elizabeth soon found the muff, such an article beingby no means small at that time. Coming out shepaused to look for a moment at the bull, now ratherto be pitied with his bleeding nose, having perhapsrather intended a practical joke than a murder.Henchard had secured him by jamming the staff intothe hinge of the barn-door, and wedging it there witha stake. At length she turned to hasten onwardafter her contemplation, when she saw a green-and-blackgig approaching from the contrary direction, the vehiclebeing driven by Farfrae.

His presence here seemed to explain Lucetta’swalk that way. Donald saw her, drew up, and washastily made acquainted with what had occurred.At Elizabeth-Jane mentioning how greatly Lucetta hadbeen jeopardized, he exhibited an agitation differentin kind no less than in intensity from any she hadseen in him before. He became so absorbed in thecirc*mstance that he scarcely had sufficient knowledgeof what he was doing to think of helping her up besidehim.

“She has gone on with Mr. Henchard, you say?”he inquired at last.

“Yes. He is taking her home. Theyare almost there by this time.”

“And you are sure she can get home?”

Elizabeth-Jane was quite sure.

“Your stepfather saved her?”

“Entirely.”

Farfrae checked his horse’s pace; she guessedwhy. He was thinking that it would be best notto intrude on the other two just now. Henchardhad saved Lucetta, and to provoke a possible exhibitionof her deeper affection for himself was as ungenerousas it was unwise.

The immediate subject of their talk being exhaustedshe felt more embarrassed at sitting thus beside herpast lover; but soon the two figures of the otherswere visible at the entrance to the town. Theface of the woman was frequently turned back, butFarfrae did not whip on the horse. When thesereached the town walls Henchard and his companionhad disappeared down the street; Farfrae set down Elizabeth-Janeon her expressing a particular wish to alight there,and drove round to the stables at the back of hislodgings.

On this account he entered the house through his garden,and going up to his apartments found them in a particularlydisturbed state, his boxes being hauled out upon thelanding, and his bookcase standing in three pieces.These phenomena, however, seemed to cause him not theleast surprise. “When will everything besent up?” he said to the mistress of the house,who was superintending.

“I am afraid not before eight, sir,” saidshe. “You see we wasn’t aware tillthis morning that you were going to move, or we couldhave been forwarder.”

“A—­well, never mind, never mind!”said Farfrae cheerily. “Eight o’clockwill do well enough if it be not later. Now, don’tye be standing here talking, or it will be twelve,I doubt.” Thus speaking he went out bythe front door and up the street.

During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had hadexperiences of a different kind. After Elizabeth’sdeparture for the muff the corn-merchant opened himselffrankly, holding her hand within his arm, though shewould fain have withdrawn it. “Dear Lucetta,I have been very, very anxious to see you these twoor three days,” he said, “ever since Isaw you last! I have thought over the way I gotyour promise that night. You said to me, ‘IfI were a man I should not insist.’ Thatcut me deep. I felt that there was some truthin it. I don’t want to make you wretched;and to marry me just now would do that as nothingelse could—­it is but too plain. ThereforeI agree to an indefinite engagement—­toput off all thought of marriage for a year or two.”

“But—­but—­can I do nothingof a different kind?” said Lucetta. “Iam full of gratitude to you—­you have savedmy life. And your care of me is like coals offire on my head! I am a monied person now.Surely I can do something in return for your goodness—­somethingpractical?”

Henchard remained in thought. He had evidentlynot expected this. “There is one thingyou might do, Lucetta,” he said. “Butnot exactly of that kind.”

“Then of what kind is it?” she asked withrenewed misgiving.

“I must tell you a secret to ask it.—­Youmay have heard that I have been unlucky this year?I did what I have never done before—­speculatedrashly; and I lost. That’s just put me ina strait.

“And you would wish me to advance some money?”

“No, no!” said Henchard, almost in anger.“I’m not the man to sponge on a woman,even though she may be so nearly my own as you.No, Lucetta; what you can do is this and it wouldsave me. My great creditor is Grower, and itis at his hands I shall suffer if at anybody’s;while a fortnight’s forbearance on his partwould be enough to allow me to pull through.This may be got out of him in one way—­thatyou would let it be known to him that you are my intended—­thatwe are to be quietly married in the next fortnight.—­Nowstop, you haven’t heard all! Let him havethis story, without, of course, any prejudice to thefact that the actual engagement between us is to bea long one. Nobody else need know: you couldgo with me to Mr. Grower and just let me speak to ’eebefore him as if we were on such terms. We’llask him to keep it secret. He will willinglywait then. At the fortnight’s end I shallbe able to face him; and I can coolly tell him allis postponed between us for a year or two. Nota soul in the town need know how you’ve helpedme. Since you wish to be of use, there’syour way.”

It being now what the people called the “pinkingin” of the day, that is, the quarter-hour justbefore dusk, he did not at first observe the resultof his own words upon her.

“If it were anything else,” she began,and the dryness of her lips was represented in hervoice.

“But it is such a little thing!” he said,with a deep reproach. “Less than you haveoffered—­just the beginning of what you haveso lately promised! I could have told him asmuch myself, but he would not have believed me.”

“It is not because I won’t—­itis because I absolutely can’t,” she said,with rising distress.

“You are provoking!” he burst out.“It is enough to make me force you to carryout at once what you have promised.”

“I cannot!” she insisted desperately.

“Why? When I have only within these fewminutes released you from your promise to do the thingoffhand.”

“Because—­he was a witness!”

“Witness? Of what?

“If I must tell you——. Don’t,don’t upbraid me!”

“Well! Let’s hear what you mean?”

“Witness of my marriage—­Mr. Growerwas!”

“Marriage?”

“Yes. With Mr. Farfrae. O Michael!I am already his wife. We were married this weekat Port-Bredy. There were reasons against ourdoing it here. Mr. Grower was a witness becausehe happened to be at Port-Bredy at the time.”

Henchard stood as if idiotized. She was so alarmedat his silence that she murmured something about lendinghim sufficient money to tide over the perilous fortnight.

“Married him?” said Henchard at length.“My good—­what, married him whilst—­boundto marry me?”

“It was like this,” she explained, withtears in her eyes and quavers in her voice; “don’t—­don’tbe cruel! I loved him so much, and I thoughtyou might tell him of the past—­and thatgrieved me! And then, when I had promised you,I learnt of the rumour that you had—­soldyour 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 havebeen letting myself down to take your name after sucha scandal. But I knew I should lose Donald ifI did not secure him at once—­for you wouldcarry out your threat of telling him of our formeracquaintance, as long as there was a chance of keepingme for yourself by doing so. But you will notdo so now, will you, Michael? for it is too late toseparate us.”

The notes of St. Peter’s bells in full pealhad been wafted to them while he spoke, and now thegenial thumping of the town band, renowned for itsunstinted use of the drum-stick, throbbed down thestreet.

“Then this racket they are making is on accountof it, I suppose?” said he.

“Yes—­I think he has told them, orelse Mr. Grower has....May I leave you now? My—­hewas detained at Port-Bredy to-day, and sent me on afew hours before him.”

“Then it is his wife’s lifeI have saved this afternoon.”

“Yes—­and he will be for ever gratefulto you.”

“I am much obliged to him....O you false woman!”burst from Henchard. “You promised me!”

“Yes, yes! But it was under compulsion,and I did not know all your past——­”

“And now I’ve a mind to punish you asyou deserve! One word to this bran-new husbandof how you courted me, and your precious happinessis blown to atoms!”

“Michael—­pity me, and be generous!”

“You don’t deserve pity! You did;but you don’t now.”

“I’ll help you to pay off your debt.”

“A pensioner of Farfrae’s wife—­notI! Don’t stay with me longer—­Ishall say something worse. Go home!”

She disappeared under the trees of the south walkas the band came round the corner, awaking the echoesof every stock and stone in celebration of her happiness.Lucetta took no heed, but ran up the back street andreached her own home unperceived.

30.

Farfrae’s words to his landlady had referredto the removal of his boxes and other effects fromhis late lodgings to Lucetta’s house. Thework was not heavy, but it had been much hinderedon account of the frequent pauses necessitated byexclamations of surprise at the event, of which thegood woman had been briefly informed by letter a fewhours earlier.

At the last moment of leaving Port-Bredy, Farfrae,like John Gilpin, had been detained by important customers,whom, even in the exceptional circ*mstances, he wasnot the man to neglect. Moreover, there was aconvenience in Lucetta arriving first at her house.Nobody there as yet knew what had happened; and shewas 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’ bridein a hired brougham, whilst he went across the countryto a certain group of wheat and barley ricks a fewmiles off, telling her the hour at which he might beexpected the same evening. This accounted forher trotting out to meet him after their separationof four hours.

By a strenuous effort, after leaving Henchard shecalmed herself in readiness to receive Donald at High-PlaceHall when he came on from his lodgings. One supremefact empowered her to this, the sense that, come whatwould, she had secured him. Half-an-hour afterher arrival he walked in, and she met him with a relievedgladness, which a month’s perilous absence couldnot have intensified.

“There is one thing I have not done; and yetit is important,” she said earnestly, when shehad finished talking about the adventure with thebull. “That is, broken the news of our marriageto my dear Elizabeth-Jane.”

“Ah, and you have not?” he said thoughtfully.“I gave her a lift from the barn homewards;but I did not tell her either; for I thought she mighthave heard of it in the town, and was keeping backher congratulations from shyness, and all that.”

“She can hardly have heard of it. But I’llfind out; I’ll go to her now. And, Donald,you don’t mind her living on with me just thesame as before? She is so quiet and unassuming.”

“O no, indeed I don’t,” Farfraeanswered with, perhaps, a faint awkwardness.“But I wonder if she would care to?”

“O yes!” said Lucetta eagerly. “Iam sure she would like to. Besides, poor thing,she has no other home.”

Farfrae looked at her and saw that she did not suspectthe secret of her more reserved friend. He likedher all the better for the blindness. “Arrangeas you like with her by all means,” he said.“It is I who have come to your house, not youto mine.”

“I’ll run and speak to her,” saidLucetta.

When she got upstairs to Elizabeth-Jane’s roomthe latter had taken off her out-door things, andwas resting over a book. Lucetta found in a momentthat she had not yet learnt the news.

“I did not come down to you, Miss Templeman,”she said simply. “I was coming to ask ifyou had quite recovered from your fright, but I foundyou had a visitor. What are the bells ringingfor, I wonder? And the band, too, is playing.Somebody must be married; or else they are practisingfor Christmas.”

Lucetta uttered a vague “Yes,” and seatingherself by the other young woman looked musingly ather. “What a lonely creature you are,”she presently said; “never knowing what’sgoing on, or what people are talking about everywherewith keen interest. You should get out, and gossipabout as other women do, and then you wouldn’tbe obliged to ask me a question of that kind.Well, now, I have something to tell you.”

Elizabeth-Jane said she was so glad, and made herselfreceptive.

“I must go rather a long way back,” saidLucetta, the difficulty of explaining herself satisfactorilyto the pondering one beside her growing more apparentat each syllable. “You remember that tryingcase of conscience I told you of some time ago—­aboutthe first lover and the second lover?” She letout in jerky phrases a leading word or two of thestory she had told.

“O yes—­I remember the story of yourfriend,” said Elizabeth drily, regardingthe irises of Lucetta’s eyes as though to catchtheir exact shade. “The two lovers—­theold one and the new: how she wanted to marrythe second, but felt she ought to marry the first;so that she neglected the better course to followthe evil, like the poet Ovid I’ve just beenconstruing: ‘Video meliora proboque, deteriorasequor.’”

“O no; she didn’t follow evil exactly!”said Lucetta hastily.

“But you said that she—­or as I maysay you”—­answered Elizabeth, droppingthe mask, “were in honour and conscience boundto marry the first?”

Lucetta’s blush at being seen through came andwent again before she replied anxiously, “Youwill never breathe this, will you, Elizabeth-Jane?”

“Certainly not, if you say not.

“Then I will tell you that the case is morecomplicated—­worse, in fact—­thanit seemed in my story. I and the first man werethrown together in a strange way, and felt that weought to be united, as the world had talked of us.He was a widower, as he supposed. He had notheard of his first wife for many years. But thewife 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 courtshipof me by him; I was absolved from all vows by thereturn of the other woman.”

“Have you not lately renewed your promise?”said the younger with quiet surmise. She haddivined Man Number One.

“That was wrung from me by a threat.”

“Yes, it was. But I think when any onegets coupled up with a man in the past so unfortunatelyas you have done she ought to become his wife if shecan, even if she were not the sinning party.”

Lucetta’s countenance lost its sparkle.“He turned out to be a man I should be afraidto marry,” she pleaded. “Really afraid!And it was not till after my renewed promise thatI knew it.”

“Then there is only one course left to honesty.You must remain a single woman.”

“But think again! Do consider——­”

“I am certain,” interrupted her companionhardily. “I have guessed very well whothe man is. My father; and I say it is him ornobody for you.”

Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Janelike a red rag to a bull. Her craving for correctnessof procedure was, indeed, almost vicious. Owingto her early troubles with regard to her mother asemblance of irregularity had terrors for her whichthose whose names are safeguarded from suspicion knownothing of. “You ought to marry Mr. Henchardor nobody—­certainly not another man!”she went on with a quivering lip in whose movementtwo passions shared.

“I don’t admit that!” said Lucettapassionately.

“Admit it or not, it is true!”

Lucetta covered her eyes with her right hand, as ifshe could plead no more, holding out her left to Elizabeth-Jane.

“Why, you have married him!” criedthe latter, jumping up with pleasure after a glanceat Lucetta’s fingers. “When did youdo it? Why did you not tell me, instead of teasingme like this? How very honourable of you!He did treat my mother badly once, it seems, in a momentof intoxication. And it is true that he is sternsometimes. But you will rule him entirely, Iam sure, with your beauty and wealth and accomplishments.You are the woman he will adore, and we shall all threebe happy together now!”

“O, my Elizabeth-Jane!” cried Lucettadistressfully. “’Tis somebody else thatI have married! I was so desperate—­soafraid of being forced to anything else—­soafraid of revelations that would quench his love forme, that I resolved to do it offhand, come what might,and purchase a week of happiness at any cost!”

“You—­have—­married Mr.Farfrae!” cried Elizabeth-Jane, in Nathan tones

Lucetta bowed. She had recovered herself.

“The bells are ringing on that account,”she said. “My husband is downstairs.He will live here till a more suitable house is readyfor us; and I have told him that I want you to staywith me just as before.”

“Let me think of it alone,” the girl quicklyreplied, corking up the turmoil of her feeling withgrand control.

“You shall. I am sure we shall be happytogether.”

Lucetta departed to join Donald below, a vague uneasinessfloating over her joy at seeing him quite at homethere. Not on account of her friend Elizabethdid she feel it: for of the bearings of Elizabeth-Jane’semotions she had not the least suspicion; but on Henchard’salone.

Now the instant decision of Susan Henchard’sdaughter was to dwell in that house no more.Apart from her estimate of the propriety of Lucetta’sconduct, Farfrae had been so nearly her avowed loverthat she felt she could not abide there.

It was still early in the evening when she hastilyput 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. Returningand entering noiselessly she took off her pretty dressand arrayed herself in a plain one, packing up theother to keep as her best; for she would have to bevery economical now. She wrote a note to leavefor Lucetta, who was closely shut up in the drawing-roomwith Farfrae; and then Elizabeth-Jane called a manwith a wheel-barrow; and seeing her boxes put intoit she trotted off down the street to her rooms.They were in the street in which Henchard lived, andalmost opposite his door.

Here she sat down and considered the means of subsistence.The little annual sum settled on her by her stepfatherwould keep body and soul together. A wonderfulskill in netting of all sorts—­acquired inchildhood by making seines in Newson’s home—­mightserve her in good stead; and her studies, which werepursued unremittingly, might serve her in still better.

By this time the marriage that had taken place wasknown throughout Casterbridge; had been discussednoisily on kerbstones, confidentially behind counters,and jovially at the Three Mariners. Whether Farfraewould sell his business and set up for a gentlemanon his wife’s money, or whether he would showindependence enough to stick to his trade in spiteof his brilliant alliance, was a great point of interest.

31.

The retort of the furmity-woman before the magistrateshad spread; and in four-and-twenty hours there wasnot a person in Casterbridge who remained unacquaintedwith the story of Henchard’s mad freak at Weydon-PriorsFair, long years before. The amends he had madein after life were lost sight of in the dramatic glareof the original act. Had the incident been wellknown of old and always, it might by this time havegrown to be lightly regarded as the rather tall wildoat, but well-nigh the single one, of a young manwith 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 blackspot of his youth wore the aspect of a recent crime.

Small as the police-court incident had been in itself,it formed the edge or turn in the incline of Henchard’sfortunes. On that day—­almost at thatminute—­he passed the ridge of prosperityand honour, and began to descend rapidly on the otherside. It was strange how soon he sank in esteem.Socially he had received a startling fillip downwards;and, having already lost commercial buoyancy fromrash transactions, the velocity of his descent inboth aspects became accelerated every hour.

He now gazed more at the pavements and less at thehouse-fronts when he walked about; more at the feetand leggings of men, and less into the pupils of theireyes with the blazing regard which formerly had madethem blink.

New events combined to undo him. It had beena bad year for others besides himself, and the heavyfailure of a debtor whom he had trusted generouslycompleted the overthrow of his tottering credit.And now, in his desperation, he failed to preservethat strict correspondence between bulk and samplewhich is the soul of commerce in grain. For this,one of his men was mainly to blame; that worthy, inhis great unwisdom, having picked over the sampleof an enormous quantity of second-rate corn whichHenchard had in hand, and removed the pinched, blasted,and smutted grains in great numbers. The produceif honestly offered would have created no scandal;but the blunder of misrepresentation, coming at sucha moment, dragged Henchard’s name into the ditch.

The details of his failure were of the ordinary kind.One day Elizabeth-Jane was passing the King’sArms, when she saw people bustling in and out morethan usual where there was no market. A bystanderinformed 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 hotelshe wished to go in and see him, but was advised notto intrude that day.

The room in which debtor and creditors had assembledwas a front one, and Henchard, looking out of thewindow, had caught sight of Elizabeth-Jane throughthe wire blind. His examination had closed, andthe creditors were leaving. The appearance ofElizabeth threw him into a reverie, till, turninghis face from the window, and towering above all therest, he called their attention for a moment more.His countenance had somewhat changed from its flushof prosperity; the black hair and whiskers were thesame as ever, but a film of ash was over the rest.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “over andabove 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’vegot, and I don’t wish to keep it from you, notI.” Saying this, he took his gold watchfrom his pocket and laid it on the table; then hispurse—­the yellow canvas moneybag, suchas was carried by all farmers and dealers—­untyingit, and shaking the money out upon the table besidethe watch. The latter he drew back quickly foran instant, to remove the hair-guard made and givenhim by Lucetta. “There, now you have allI’ve got in the world,” he said.“And I wish for your sakes ’twas more.”

The creditors, farmers almost to a man, looked atthe watch, and at the money, and into the street;when Farmer James Everdene of Weatherbury spoke.

“No, no, Henchard,” he said warmly.“We don’t want that. ’Tis honourablein ye; but keep it. What do you say, neighbours—­doye agree?”

“Ay, sure: we don’t wish it at all,”said Grower, another creditor.

“Let him keep it, of course,” murmuredanother in the background—­a silent, reservedyoung man named Boldwood; and the rest responded unanimously.

“Well,” said the senior Commissioner,addressing Henchard, “though the case is a desperateone, I am bound to admit that I have never met a debtorwho behaved more fairly. I’ve proved thebalance-sheet to be as honestly made out as it couldpossibly be; we have had no trouble; there have beenno evasions and no concealments. The rashnessof dealing which led to this unhappy situation isobvious enough; but as far as I can see every attempthas been made to avoid wronging anybody.”

Henchard was more affected by this than he cared tolet them perceive, and he turned aside to the windowagain. A general murmur of agreement followedthe Commissioner’s words, and the meeting dispersed.When they were gone Henchard regarded the watch theyhad returned to him. “’Tisn’t mineby rights,” he said to himself. “Whythe devil didn’t they take it?—­Idon’t want what don’t belong to me!”Moved by a recollection he took the watch to the maker’sjust opposite, sold it there and then for what thetradesman offered, and went with the proceeds to oneamong the smaller of his creditors, a cottager ofDurnover in straitened circ*mstances, to whom he handedthe money.

When everything was ticketed that Henchard had owned,and the auctions were in progress, there was quitea sympathetic reaction in the town, which till thenfor some time past had done nothing but condemn him.Now that Henchard’s whole career was pictureddistinctly to his neighbours, and they could see howadmirably he had used his one talent of energy tocreate a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing—­whichwas really all he could show when he came to the townas a journeyman hay-trusser, with his wimble and knifein his basket—­they wondered and regrettedhis fall.

Try as she might, Elizabeth could never meet withhim. She believed in him still, though nobodyelse did; and she wanted to be allowed to forgivehim for his roughness to her, and to help him in histrouble.

She wrote to him; he did not reply. She thenwent to his house—­the great house she hadlived in so happily for a time—­with itsfront of dun brick, vitrified here and there and itsheavy sash-bars—­but Henchard was to befound there no more. The ex-Mayor had left thehome of his prosperity, and gone into Jopp’scottage by the Priory Mill—­the sad purlieuto which he had wandered on the night of his discoverythat she was not his daughter. Thither she went.

Elizabeth thought it odd that he had fixed on thisspot to retire to, but assumed that necessity hadno choice. Trees which seemed old enough to havebeen planted by the friars still stood around, andthe back hatch of the original mill yet formed a cascadewhich had raised its terrific roar for centuries.The cottage itself was built of old stones from thelong dismantled Priory, scraps of tracery, mouldedwindow-jambs, and arch-labels, being mixed in withthe rubble of the walls.

In this cottage he occupied a couple of rooms, Jopp,whom Henchard had employed, abused, cajoled, and dismissedby turns, being the householder. But even hereher stepfather could not be seen.

“Not by his daughter?” pleaded Elizabeth.

“By nobody—­at present: that’shis order,” she was informed.

Afterwards she was passing by the corn-stores andhay-barns which had been the headquarters of his business.She knew that he ruled there no longer; but it waswith amazement that she regarded the familiar gateway.A smear of decisive lead-coloured paint had been laidon to obliterate Henchard’s name, though itsletters dimly loomed through like ships in a fog.Over these, in fresh white, spread the name of Farfrae.

Abel Whittle was edging his skeleton in at the wicket,and she said, “Mr. Farfrae is master here?”

“Yaas, Miss Henchet,” he said, “Mr.Farfrae have bought the concern and all of we work-folkwith it; and ’tis better for us than ’twas—­thoughI 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! Nobusting out, no slamming of doors, no meddling withyer eternal soul and all that; and though ’tisa shilling a week less I’m the richer man; forwhat’s all the world if yer mind is always ina larry, Miss Henchet?”

The intelligence was in a general sense true; andHenchard’s stores, which had remained in a paralyzedcondition during the settlement of his bankruptcy,were stirred into activity again when the new tenanthad possession. Thenceforward the full sacks,looped with the shining chain, went scurrying up anddown under the cat-head, hairy arms were thrust outfrom the different door-ways, and the grain was hauledin; trusses of hay were tossed anew in and out ofthe barns, and the wimbles creaked; while the scalesand steel-yards began to be busy where guess-workhad formerly been the rule.

32.

Two bridges stood near the lower part of Casterbridgetown. The first, of weather-stained brick, wasimmediately at the end of High Street, where a divergingbranch from that thoroughfare ran round to the low-lyingDurnover lanes; so that the precincts of the bridgeformed the merging point of respectability and indigence.The second bridge, of stone, was further out on thehighway—­in fact, fairly in the meadows,though still within the town boundary.

These bridges had speaking countenances. Everyprojection in each was worn down to obtuseness, partlyby weather, more by friction from generations of loungers,whose toes and heels had from year to year made restlessmovements against these parapets, as they had stoodthere meditating on the aspect of affairs. Inthe case of the more friable bricks and stones eventhe flat faces were worn into hollows by the samemixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clampedwith iron at each joint; since it had been no uncommonthing for desperate men to wrench the coping off andthrow it down the river, in reckless defiance of themagistrates.

For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failuresof the town; those who had failed in business, inlove, in sobriety, in crime. Why the unhappyhereabout usually chose the bridges for their meditationsin preference to a railing, a gate, or a stile, wasnot so clear.

There was a marked difference of quality between thepersonages who haunted the near bridge of brick andthe personages who haunted the far one of stone.Those of lowest character preferred the former, adjoiningthe town; they did not mind the glare of the publiceye. They had been of comparatively no accountduring their successes; and though they might feeldispirited, they had no particular sense of shame intheir ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in theirpockets; they wore a leather strap round their hipsor knees, and boots that required a great deal oflacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead ofsighing at their adversities they spat, and insteadof saying the iron had entered into their souls theysaid they were down on their luck. Jopp in histime of distress had often stood here; so had MotherCuxsom, Christopher Coney, and poor Abel Whittle.

The miserables who would pause on the remoter bridgewere of a politer stamp. They included bankrupts,hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called “outof a situation” from fault or lucklessness, theinefficient of the professional class—­shabby-genteelmen, who did not know how to get rid of the wearytime between breakfast and dinner, and the yet moreweary time between dinner and dark. The eye ofthis species were mostly directed over the parapetupon the running water below. A man seen therelooking thus fixedly into the river was pretty sureto be one whom the world did not treat kindly forsome reason or other. While one in straits onthe townward bridge did not mind who saw him so, andkept his back to the parapet to survey the passers-by,one in straits on this never faced the road, neverturned his head at coming footsteps, but, sensitiveto his own condition, watched the current whenevera stranger approached, as if some strange fish interestedhim, though every finned thing had been poached outof the river years before.

There and thus they would muse; if their grief werethe grief of oppression they would wish themselveskings; if their grief were poverty, wish themselvesmillionaires; if sin, they would wish they were saintsor angels; if despised love, that they were some much-courtedAdonis of county fame. Some had been known tostand and think so long with this fixed gaze downwardthat eventually they had allowed their poor carcasesto follow that gaze; and they were discovered the nextmorning out of reach of their troubles, either hereor in the deep pool called Blackwater, a little higherup the river.

To this bridge came Henchard, as other unfortunateshad come before him, his way thither being by theriverside path on the chilly edge of the town.Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Durnoverchurch clock struck five. While the gusts werebringing the notes to his ears across the damp interveningflat a man passed behind him and greeted Henchardby name. Henchard turned slightly and saw thatthe corner was Jopp, his old foreman, now employedelsewhere, to whom, though he hated him, he had gonefor lodgings because Jopp was the one man in Casterbridgewhose observation and opinion the fallen corn-merchantdespised to the point of indifference.

Henchard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod,and Jopp stopped.

“He and she are gone into their new house to-day,”said Jopp.

“Oh,” said Henchard absently. “Whichhouse is that?”

“Your old one.”

“Gone into my house?” And starting upHenchard added, “My house of all othersin the town!”

“Well, as somebody was sure to live there, andyou couldn’t, it can do ’ee no harm thathe’s the man.”

It was quite true: he felt that it was doinghim no harm. Farfrae, who had already taken theyards and stores, had acquired possession of the housefor the obvious convenience of its contiguity.And yet this act of his taking up residence withinthose roomy chambers while he, their former tenant,lived in a cottage, galled Henchard indescribably.

Jopp continued: “And you heard of thatfellow 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’dalready got the lease.”

“My furniture too! Surely he’ll buymy body and soul likewise!”

“There’s no saying he won’t, ifyou be willing to sell.” And having plantedthese wounds in the heart of his once imperious masterJopp went on his way; while Henchard stared and staredinto the racing river till the bridge seemed movingbackward with him.

The low land grew blacker, and the sky a deeper grey,When the landscape looked like a picture blotted inwith ink, another traveller approached the great stonebridge. He was driving a gig, his direction beingalso townwards. On the round of the middle ofthe arch the gig stopped. “Mr Henchard?”came from it in the voice of Farfrae. Henchardturned his face.

Finding that he had guessed rightly Farfrae told theman who accompanied him to drive home; while he alightedand went up to his former friend.

“I have heard that you think of emigrating,Mr. Henchard?” he said. “Is it true?I have a real reason for asking.”

Henchard withheld his answer for several instants,and then said, “Yes; it is true. I am goingwhere you were going to a few years ago, when I preventedyou and got you to bide here. ’Tis turnand turn about, isn’t it! Do ye mind howwe stood like this in the Chalk Walk when I persuaded’ee to stay? You then stood without a chattelto your name, and I was the master of the house incorn Street. But now I stand without a stickor a rag, and the master of that house is you.”

“Yes, yes; that’s so! It’sthe way o’ the warrld,” said Farfrae.

“Ha, ha, true!” cried Henchard, throwinghimself into a mood of jocularity. “Upand down! I’m used to it. What’sthe odds after all!”

“Now listen to me, if it’s no taking upyour time,” said Farfrae, “just as I listenedto you. Don’t go. Stay at home.”

“But I can do nothing else, man!” saidHenchard scornfully. “The little moneyI have will just keep body and soul together for afew weeks, and no more. I have not felt inclinedto go back to journey-work yet; but I can’tstay doing nothing, and my best chance is elsewhere.”

“No; but what I propose is this—­ifye will listen. Come and live in your old house.We can spare some rooms very well—­I am suremy wife would not mind it at all—­untilthere’s an opening for ye.”

Henchard started. Probably the picture drawnby the unsuspecting Donald of himself under the sameroof with Lucetta was too striking to be receivedwith equanimity. “No, no,” he saidgruffly; “we should quarrel.”

“You should hae a part to yourself,” saidFarfrae; “and nobody to interfere wi’you. It will be a deal healthier than down thereby the river where you live now.”

Still Henchard refused. “You don’tknow what you ask,” he said. “However,I can do no less than thank ’ee.”

They walked into the town together side by side, asthey had done when Henchard persuaded the young Scotchmanto remain. “Will you come in and have somesupper?” said Farfrae when they reached the middleof the town, where their paths diverged right andleft.

“No, no.”

“By-the-bye, I had nearly forgot. I boughta good deal of your furniture.

“So I have heard.”

“Well, it was no that I wanted it so very muchfor myself; but I wish ye to pick out all that youcare to have—­such things as may be endearedto ye by associations, or particularly suited to youruse. And take them to your own house—­itwill not be depriving me, we can do with less verywell, and I will have plenty of opportunities of gettingmore.”

“What—­give it to me for nothing?”said Henchard. “But you paid the creditorsfor it!”

“Ah, yes; but maybe it’s worth more toyou than it is to me.”

Henchard was a little moved. “I—­sometimesthink I’ve wronged ’ee!” he said,in tones which showed the disquietude that the nightshades hid in his face. He shook Farfrae abruptlyby the hand, and hastened away as if unwilling tobetray himself further. Farfrae saw him turn throughthe thoroughfare into Bull Stake and vanish down towardsthe Priory Mill.

Meanwhile Elizabeth-Jane, in an upper room no largerthan the Prophet’s chamber, and with the silkattire of her palmy days packed away in a box, wasnetting with great industry between the hours whichshe devoted to studying such books as she could gethold of.

Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather’sformer residence, now Farfrae’s, she could seeDonald and Lucetta speeding in and out of their doorwith 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 eyesaverted when the door slammed.

While living on thus quietly she heard the news thatHenchard had caught cold and was confined to his room—­possiblya result of standing about the meads in damp weather.She went off to his house at once. This timeshe was determined not to be denied admittance, andmade her way upstairs. He was sitting up in thebed with a greatcoat round him, and at first resentedher intrusion. “Go away—­go away,”he said. “I don’t like to see ’ee!”

“But, father—­”

“I don’t like to see ’ee,”he repeated.

However, the ice was broken, and she remained.She made the room more comfortable, gave directionsto the people below, and by the time she went awayhad reconciled her stepfather to her visiting him.

The effect, either of her ministrations or of hermere presence, was a rapid recovery. He soonwas well enough to go out; and now things seemed towear a new colour in his eyes. He no longer thoughtof emigration, and thought more of Elizabeth.The having nothing to do made him more dreary thanany other circ*mstance; and one day, with better viewsof Farfrae than he had held for some time, and a sensethat honest work was not a thing to be ashamed of,he stoically went down to Farfrae’s yard andasked to be taken on as a journeyman hay-trusser.He was engaged at once. This hiring of Henchardwas done through a foreman, Farfrae feeling that itwas undesirable to come personally in contact withthe ex-corn-factor more than was absolutely necessary.While anxious to help him he was well aware by thistime of his uncertain temper, and thought reservedrelations best. For the same reason his ordersto Henchard to proceed to this and that country farmtrussing in the usual way were always given througha third person.

For a time these arrangements worked well, it beingthe custom to truss in the respective stack-yards,before bringing it away, the hay bought at the differentfarms about the neighbourhood; so that Henchard wasoften absent at such places the whole week long.When this was all done, and Henchard had become ina measure broken in, he came to work daily on thehome premises like the rest. And thus the onceflourishing merchant and Mayor and what not stoodas a day-labourer in the barns and granaries he formerlyhad owned.

“I have worked as a journeyman before now, ha’n’tI?” he would say in his defiant way; “andwhy shouldn’t I do it again?” But he lookeda far different journeyman from the one he had beenin his earlier days. Then he had worn clean,suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue; leggingsyellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new flax,and a neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now hewore the remains of an old blue cloth suit of hisgentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once blacksatin stock, soiled and shabby. Clad thus he wentto and fro, still comparatively an active man—­forhe was not much over forty—­and saw withthe other men in the yard Donald Farfrae going in andout the green door that led to the garden, and thebig house, and Lucetta.

At the beginning of the winter it was rumoured aboutCasterbridge that Mr. Farfrae, already in the TownCouncil, was to be proposed for Mayor in a year ortwo.

“Yes, she was wise, she was wise in her generation!”said Henchard to himself when he heard of this oneday on his way to Farfrae’s hay-barn. Hethought it over as he wimbled his bonds, and the pieceof news acted as a reviviscent breath to that oldview of his—­of Donald Farfrae as his triumphantrival who rode rough-shod over him.

“A fellow of his age going to be Mayor, indeed!”he murmured with a corner-drawn smile on his mouth.“But ’tis her money that floats en upward.Ha-ha—­how cust odd it is! Here be I,his former master, working for him as man, and hethe man standing as master, with my house and my furnitureand my what-you-may-call wife all his own.”

He repeated these things a hundred times a day.During the whole period of his acquaintance with Lucettahe had never wished to claim her as his own so desperatelyas he now regretted her loss. It was no mercenaryhankering after her fortune that moved him, thoughthat fortune had been the means of making her so muchthe more desired by giving her the air of independenceand sauciness which attracts men of his composition.It had given her servants, house, and fine clothing—­asetting that invested Lucetta with a startling noveltyin the eyes of him who had known her in her narrowdays.

He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at everyallusion to the possibility of Farfrae’s nearelection to the municipal chair his former hatredof the Scotchman returned. Concurrently with thishe underwent a moral change. It resulted in hissignificantly saying every now and then, in tonesof recklessness, “Only a fortnight more!”—­“Onlya dozen days!” and so forth, lessening his figuresday by day.

“Why d’ye say only a dozen days?”asked Solomon Longways as he worked beside Henchardin the granary weighing oats.

“Because in twelve days I shall be releasedfrom my oath.”

“What oath?”

“The oath to drink no spirituous liquid.In twelve days it will be twenty-one years since Iswore it, and then I mean to enjoy myself, pleaseGod!”

Elizabeth-Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and whilethere she heard in the street below a conversationwhich introduced Henchard’s name. She waswondering what was the matter, when a third personwho was passing by asked the question in her mind.

“Michael Henchard have busted out drinking aftertaking nothing for twenty-one years!”

Elizabeth-Jane jumped up, put on her things, and wentout.

33.

At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivialcustom—­scarcely recognized as such, yetnone the less established. On the afternoon ofevery Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridgejourneymen—­steady churchgoers and sedatecharacters—­having attended service, filedfrom the church doors across the way to the ThreeMariners Inn. The rear was usually brought upby the choir, with their bass-viols, fiddles, andflutes under their arms.

The great point, the point of honour, on these sacredoccasions was for each man to strictly limit himselfto half-a-pint of liquor. This scrupulosity wasso well understood by the landlord that the wholecompany was served in cups of that measure. Theywere all exactly alike—­straight-sided,with two leafless lime-trees done in eel-brown onthe sides—­one towards the drinker’slips, the other confronting his comrade. To wonderhow many of these cups the landlord possessed altogetherwas a favourite exercise of children in the marvellous.Forty at least might have been seen at these timesin the large room, forming a ring round the marginof the great sixteen-legged oak table, like the monolithiccircle of Stonehenge in its pristine days. Outsideand above the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke-jetsfrom forty clay pipes; outside the pipes the countenancesof the forty church-goers, supported at the back bya circle of forty chairs.

The conversation was not the conversation of week-days,but a thing altogether finer in point and higher intone. They invariably discussed the sermon, dissectingit, weighing it, as above or below the average—­thegeneral tendency being to regard it as a scientificfeat or performance which had no relation to theirown lives, except as between critics and the thingcriticized. The bass-viol player and the clerkusually spoke with more authority than the rest onaccount of their official connection with the preacher.

Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchardas the place for closing his long term of dramlessyears. He had so timed his entry as to be wellestablished in the large room by the time the fortychurch-goers entered to their customary cups.The flush upon his face proclaimed at once that thevow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the era ofrecklessness begun anew. He was seated on a smalltable, drawn up to the side of the massive oak boardreserved for the churchmen, a few of whom nodded tohim as they took their places and said, “Howbe ye, Mr. Henchard? Quite a stranger here.”

Henchard did not take the trouble to reply for a fewmoments, and his eyes rested on his stretched-outlegs and boots. “Yes,” he said atlength; “that’s true. I’ve beendown in spirit for weeks; some of ye know the cause.I am better now, but not quite serene. I wantyou fellows of the choir to strike up a tune; andwhat with that and this brew of Stannidge’s,I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my minorkey.”

“With all my heart,” said the first fiddle.“We’ve let back our strings, that’strue, but we can soon pull ’em up again.Sound A, neighbours, and give the man a stave.”

“I don’t care a curse what the words be,”said Henchard. “Hymns, ballets, or rantipolerubbish; the Rogue’s March or the cherubim’swarble—­’tis all the same to me if’tis good harmony, and well put out.”

“Well—­heh, heh—­it maybe we can do that, and not a man among us that havesat in the gallery less than twenty year,” saidthe leader of the band. “As ’tisSunday, neighbours, suppose we raise the Fourth Psa’am,to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by me?”

“Hang Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improvedby thee!” said Henchard. “Chuck acrossone of your psalters—­old Wiltshire is theonly tune worth singing—­the psalm-tunethat would make my blood ebb and flow like the seawhen I was a steady chap. I’ll find somewords to fit en.” He took one of the psaltersand began turning over the leaves.

Chancing to look out of the window at that momenthe saw a flock of people passing by, and perceivedthem to be the congregation of the upper church, nowjust dismissed, their sermon having been a longerone than that the lower parish was favoured with.Among the rest of the leading inhabitants walked Mr.Councillor Farfrae with Lucetta upon his arm, theobserved and imitated of all the smaller tradesmen’swomankind. Henchard’s mouth changed a little,and he continued to turn over the leaves.

“Now then,” he said, “Psalm theHundred-and-Ninth, to the tune of Wiltshire:verses ten to fifteen. I gi’e ye the words:

“His seed shall orphansbe, his wife
A widow plunged in grief;
His vagrant children beg their bread
Where none can give relief.

His ill-got riches shall bemade
To usurers a prey;
The fruit of all his toil shall be
By strangers borne away.

None shall be found that tohis wants
Their mercy will extend,
Or to his helpless orphan seed
The least assistance lend.

A swift destruction soon shallseize
On his unhappy race;
And the next age his hated name
Shall utterly deface.”

“I know the Psa’am—­I know thePsa’am!” said the leader hastily; “butI would as lief not sing it. ’Twasn’tmade for singing. We chose it once when the gipsystole the pa’son’s mare, thinking to pleasehim, but pa’son were quite upset. WhateverServant David were thinking about when he made a Psalmthat nobody can sing without disgracing himself, Ican’t fathom! Now then, the Fourth Psalm,to Samuel Wakely’s tune, as improved by me.”

“’Od seize your sauce—­I tellye to sing the Hundred-and-Ninth to Wiltshire, andsing it you shall!” roared Henchard. “Nota single one of all the droning crew of ye goes outof this room till that Psalm is sung!” He slippedoff the table, seized the poker, and going to the doorplaced his back against it. “Now then, goahead, if you don’t wish to have your cust patesbroke!”

“Don’t ’ee, don’t’eetake on so!—­As ’tis the Sabbath-day,and ’tis Servant David’s words and notours, perhaps we don’t mind for once, hey?”said one of the terrified choir, looking round uponthe rest. So the instruments were tuned and thecomminatory verses sung.

“Thank ye, thank ye,” said Henchard ina softened voice, his eyes growing downcast, and hismanner that of a man much moved by the strains.“Don’t you blame David,” he wenton in low tones, shaking his head without raisinghis eyes. “He knew what he was about whenhe wrote that!... If I could afford it, be hangedif I wouldn’t keep a church choir at my ownexpense to play and sing to me at these low, dark timesof my life. But the bitter thing is, that whenI was rich I didn’t need what I could have,and now I be poor I can’t have what I need!”

While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrae passed again,this time homeward, it being their custom to take,like others, a short walk out on the highway and back,between church and tea-time. “There’sthe man we’ve been singing about,” saidHenchard.

The players and singers turned their heads and sawhis meaning. “Heaven forbid!” saidthe bass-player.

“’Tis the man,” repeated Hencharddoggedly.

“Then if I’d known,” said the performeron the clarionet solemnly, “that ’twasmeant for a living man, nothing should have drawn outof my wynd-pipe the breath for that Psalm, so helpme!

“Nor from mine,” said the first singer.“But, thought I, as it was made so long agoperhaps there isn’t much in it, so I’lloblige a neighbour; for there’s nothing to besaid against the tune.”

“Ah, my boys, you’ve sung it,” saidHenchard triumphantly. “As for him, itwas partly by his songs that he got over me, and heavedme out....I could double him up like that—­andyet I don’t.” He laid the poker acrosshis knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down,and came away from the door.

It was at this time that Elizabeth-Jane, having heardwhere her stepfather was, entered the room with apale and agonized countenance. The choir andthe rest of the company moved off, in accordance withtheir half-pint regulation. Elizabeth-Jane wentup to Henchard, and entreated him to accompany herhome.

By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature hadburnt down, and having drunk no great quantity asyet he was inclined to acquiesce. She took hisarm, and together they went on. Henchard walkedblankly, like a blind man, repeating to himself thelast words of the singers—­

“Andthe next age his hated name
Shallutterly deface.”

At length he said to her, “I am a man to myword. I have kept my oath for twenty-one years;and now I can drink with a good conscience....If Idon’t do for him—­well, I am a fearfulpractical joker when I choose! He has taken awayeverything from me, and by heavens, if I meet him Iwon’t answer for my deeds!”

These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth—­allthe more by reason of the still determination of Henchard’smien.

“What will you do?” she asked cautiously,while trembling with disquietude, and guessing Henchard’sallusion only too well.

Henchard did not answer, and they went on till theyhad reached his cottage. “May I come in?”she said.

“No, no; not to-day,” said Henchard; andshe went away; feeling that to caution Farfrae wasalmost her duty, as it was certainly her strong desire.

As on the Sunday, so on the week-days, Farfrae andLucetta might have been seen flitting about the townlike two butterflies—­or rather like a beeand a butterfly in league for life. She seemedto take no pleasure in going anywhere except in herhusband’s company; and hence when business wouldnot permit him to waste an afternoon she remained indoorswaiting for the time to pass till his return, her facebeing visible to Elizabeth-Jane from her window aloft.The latter, however, did not say to herself that Farfraeshould be thankful for such devotion, but, full ofher reading, she cited Rosalind’s exclamation:“Mistress, know yourself; down on your kneesand thank Heaven fasting for a good man’s love.”

She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One dayhe answered her inquiry for his health by saying thathe could not endure Abel Whittle’s pitying eyesupon him while they worked together in the yard.“He is such a fool,” said Henchard, “thathe can never get out of his mind the time when I wasmaster there.”

“I’ll come and wimble for you insteadof him, if you will allow me,” said she.Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunityof observing the general position of affairs on Farfrae’spremises now that her stepfather was a workman there.Henchard’s threats had alarmed her so much thatshe wished to see his behaviour when the two were faceto face.

For two or three days after her arrival Donald didnot make any appearance. Then one afternoon thegreen door opened, and through came, first Farfrae,and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wifeforward without hesitation, it being obvious thathe had no suspicion whatever of any antecedents incommon between her and the now journeyman hay-trusser.

Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of thepair, keeping them fixed on the bond he twisted, asif that alone absorbed him. A feeling of delicacy,which ever prompted Farfrae to avoid anything thatmight seem like triumphing over a fallen rivel, ledhim to keep away from the hay-barn where Henchardand his daughter were working, and to go on to thecorn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never havingbeen informed that Henchard had entered her husband’sservice, rambled straight on to the barn, where shecame suddenly upon Henchard, and gave vent to a little“Oh!” which the happy and busy Donald wastoo far off to hear. Henchard, with witheringhumility of demeanour, touched the brim of his hatto her as Whittle and the rest had done, to whichshe breathed a dead-alive “Good afternoon.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” saidHenchard, as if he had not heard.

“I said good afternoon,” she faltered.

“O yes, good afternoon, ma’am,”he replied, touching his hat again. “Iam glad to see you, ma’am.” Lucettalooked embarrassed, and Henchard continued: “Forwe humble workmen here feel it a great honour thata lady should look in and take an interest in us.”

She glanced at him entreatingly; the sarcasm was toobitter, too unendurable.

“Can you tell me the time, ma’am?”he asked.

“Yes,” she said hastily; “half-pastfour.”

“Thank ’ee. An hour and a half longerbefore we are released from work. Ah, ma’am,we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisurethat such as you enjoy!”

As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him, noddedand smiled to Elizabeth-Jane, and joined her husbandat the other end of the enclosure, where she couldbe seen leading him away by the outer gates, so asto avoid passing Henchard again. That she hadbeen taken by surprise was obvious. The resultof this casual rencounter was that the next morninga note was put into Henchard’s hand by the postman.

“Will you,” said Lucetta, with as muchbitterness as she could put into a small communication,“will you kindly undertake not to speak to mein the biting undertones you used to-day, if I walkthrough the yard at any time? I bear you no ill-will,and I am only too glad that you should have employmentof my dear husband; but in common fairness treat meas his wife, and do not try to make me wretched bycovert sneers. I have committed no crime, anddone you no injury.

“Poor fool!” said Henchard with fond savagery,holding out the note. “To know no betterthan commit herself in writing like this! Why,if I were to show that to her dear husband—­pooh!”He threw the letter into the fire.

Lucetta took care not to come again among the hayand corn. She would rather have died than runthe risk of encountering Henchard at such close quartersa second time. The gulf between them was growingwider every day. Farfrae was always considerateto his fallen acquaintance; but it was impossiblethat he should not, by degrees, cease to regard theex-corn-merchant as more than one of his other workmen.Henchard saw this, and concealed his feelings undera cover of stolidity, fortifying his heart by drinkingmore freely at the Three Mariners every evening.

Often did Elizabeth-Jane, in her endeavours to preventhis taking other liquor, carry tea to him in a littlebasket at five o’clock. Arriving one dayon this errand she found her stepfather was measuringup clover-seed and rape-seed in the corn-stores onthe top floor, and she ascended to him. Eachfloor had a door opening into the air under a cat-head,from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks.

When Elizabeth’s head rose through the trapshe perceived that the upper door was open, and thather stepfather and Farfrae stood just within it inconversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge,and Henchard a little way behind. Not to interruptthem she remained on the steps without raising herhead any higher. While waiting thus she saw—­orfancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain—­herstepfather slowly raise his hand to a level behindFarfrae’s shoulders, a curious expression takingpossession of his face. The young man was quiteunconscious of the action, which was so indirect that,if Farfrae had observed it, he might almost have regardedit as an idle outstretching of the arm. But itwould have been possible, by a comparatively lighttouch, to push Farfrae off his balance, and send himhead over heels into the air.

Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking ofwhat this might have meant. As soon as theyturned she mechanically took the tea to Henchard,left it, and went away. Reflecting, she endeavouredto assure herself that the movement was an idle eccentricity,and no more. Yet, on the other hand, his subordinateposition in an establishment where he once had beenmaster might be acting on him like an irritant poison;and she finally resolved to caution Donald.

34.

Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o’clockand went into the street. It was not yet light;a dense fog prevailed, and the town was as silentas it was dark, except that from the rectangular avenueswhich framed in the borough there came a chorus oftiny rappings, caused by the fall of water-drops condensedon the boughs; now it was wafted from the West Walk,now from the South Walk; and then from both quarterssimultaneously. She moved on to the bottom ofcorn Street, and, knowing his time well, waited onlya few minutes before she heard the familiar bang ofhis door, and then his quick walk towards her.She met him at the point where the last tree of theengirding avenue flanked the last house in the street.

He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly,he said, “What—­Miss Henchard—­andare ye up so airly?”

She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at suchan unseemly time. “But I am anxious tomention something,” she said. “AndI wished not to alarm Mrs. Farfrae by calling.”

“Yes?” said he, with the cheeriness ofa superior. “And what may it be? It’svery kind of ye, I’m sure.”

She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mindthe exact aspect of possibilities in her own.But she somehow began, and introduced Henchard’sname. “I sometimes fear,” she saidwith an effort, “that he may be betrayed intosome attempt to—­insult you, sir.

“But we are the best of friends?”

“Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir.Remember that he has been hardly used.”

“But we are quite friendly?”

“Or to do something—­that would injureyou—­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’sview the Henchard who had ruled him. Yet he wasnot only the same man, but that man with his sinisterqualities, formerly latent, quickened into life byhis buffetings.

Farfrae, happy, and thinking no evil, persisted inmaking light of her fears. Thus they parted,and she went homeward, journeymen now being in thestreet, waggoners going to the harness-makers for articlesleft to be repaired, farm-horses going to the shoeing-smiths,and the sons of labour showing themselves generallyon the move. Elizabeth entered her lodging unhappily,thinking she had done no good, and only made herselfappear foolish by her weak note of warning.

But Donald Farfrae was one of those men upon whoman incident is never absolutely lost. He revisedimpressions from a subsequent point of view, and theimpulsive judgment of the moment was not always hispermanent one. The vision of Elizabeth’searnest face in the rimy dawn came back to him severaltimes during the day. Knowing the solidity ofher character he did not treat her hints altogetheras idle sounds.

But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henchard’saccount that engaged him just then; and when he metLawyer Joyce, the town-clerk, later in the day, hespoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it.

“About that little seedsman’s shop,”he said, “the shop overlooking the churchyard,which is to let. It is not for myself I want it,but for our unlucky fellow-townsman Henchard.It would be a new beginning for him, if a small one;and I have told the Council that I would head a privatesubscription among them to set him up in it—­thatI would be fifty pounds, if they would make up theother fifty among them.”

“Yes, yes; so I’ve heard; and there’snothing 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 lastnight, saying in public that about you which a manought not to say about another.”

“Is that so—­ah, is that so?”said Farfrae, looking down. “Why shouldhe do it?” added the young man bitterly; “whatharm have I done him that he should try to wrong me?”

“God only knows,” said Joyce, liftinghis eyebrows. “It shows much long-sufferingin you to put up with him, and keep him in your employ.”

“But I cannet discharge a man who was once agood friend to me. How can I forget that whenI came here ’twas he enabled me to make a footingfor mysel’? No, no. As long as I’vea day’s work to offer he shall do it if he chooses.’Tis not I who will deny him such a little asthat. But I’ll drop the idea of establishinghim in a shop till I can think more about it.”

It grieved Farfrae much to give up this scheme.But a damp having been thrown over it by these andother voices in the air, he went and countermandedhis orders. The then occupier of the shop wasin it when Farfrae spoke to him and feeling it necessaryto give some explanation of his withdrawal from thenegotiation Donald mentioned Henchard’s name,and stated that the intentions of the Council had beenchanged.

The occupier was much disappointed, and straight-wayinformed Henchard, as soon as he saw him, that a schemeof the Council for setting him up in a shop had beenknocked on the head by Farfrae. And thus out oferror enmity grew.

When Farfrae got indoors that evening the tea-kettlewas singing on the high hob of the semi-egg-shapedgrate. Lucetta, light as a sylph, ran forwardand seized his hands, whereupon Farfrae duly kissedher.

“Oh!” she cried playfully, turning tothe window. “See—­the blinds arenot drawn down, and the people can look in—­whata scandal!”

When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn,and the twain sat at tea, she noticed that he lookedserious. Without directly inquiring why she lether eyes linger solicitously on his face.

“Who has called?” he absently asked.“Any folk for me?”

“No,” said Lucetta. “What’sthe matter, Donald?”

“Well—­nothing worth talking of,”he responded sadly.

“Then, never mind it. You will get throughit, Scotchmen are always lucky.”

“No—­not always!” he said, shakinghis head gloomily as he contemplated a crumb on thetable. “I know many who have not been so!There was Sandy Macfarlane, who started to Americato try his fortune, and he was drowned; and ArchibaldLeith, he was murdered! And poor Willie Dunbleezeand Maitland Macfreeze—­they fell into badcourses, and went the way of all such!”

“Why—­you old goosey—­Iwas only speaking in a general sense, of course!You are always so literal. Now when we have finishedtea, sing me that funny song about high-heeled shoonand siller tags, and the one-and-forty wooers.”

“No, no. I couldna sing to-night!It’s Henchard—­he hates me; so thatI may not be his friend if I would. I would understandwhy there should be a wee bit of envy; but I cannetsee a reason for the whole intensity of what he feels.Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old-fashionedrivalry in love than just a bit of rivalry in trade.”

Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. “No,”she replied.

“I give him employment—­I cannet refuseit. But neither can I blind myself to the factthat with a man of passions such as his, there is nosafeguard for conduct!”

“What have you heard—­O Donald, dearest?”said Lucetta in alarm. The words on her lipswere “anything about me?”—­butshe did not utter them. She could not, however,suppress her agitation, and her eyes filled with tears.

“No, no—­it is not so serious as yefancy,” declared Farfrae soothingly; thoughhe did not know its seriousness so well as she.

“I wish you would do what we have talked of,”mournfully remarked Lucetta. “Give up business,and go away from here. We have plenty of money,and why should we stay?”

Farfrae seemed seriously disposed to discuss thismove, and they talked thereon till a visitor was announced.Their neighbour Alderman Vatt came in.

“You’ve heard, I suppose of poor DoctorChalkfield’s death? Yes—­diedthis afternoon at five,” said Mr. Vatt Chalkfieldwas the Councilman who had succeeded to the Mayoraltyin the preceding November.

Farfrae was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vattcontinued: “Well, we know he’s beengoing some days, and as his family is well providedfor we must take it all as it is. Now I havecalled to ask ’ee this—­quite privately.If I should nominate ’ee to succeed him, andthere should be no particular opposition, will ’eeaccept the chair?”

“But there are folk whose turn is before mine;and I’m over young, and may be thought pushing!”said Farfrae after a pause.

“Not at all. I don’t speak for myselfonly, several have named it. You won’trefuse?”

“We thought of going away,” interposedLucetta, looking at Farfrae anxiously.

“It was only a fancy,” Farfrae murmured.“I wouldna refuse if it is the wish of a respectablemajority in the Council.”

“Very well, then, look upon yourself as elected.We have had older men long enough.”

When he was gone Farfrae said musingly, “Seenow how it’s ourselves that are ruled by thePowers above us! We plan this, but we do that.If they want to make me Mayor I will stay, and Henchardmust rave as he will.”

From this evening onward Lucetta was very uneasy.If she had not been imprudence incarnate she wouldnot have acted as she did when she met Henchard byaccident a day or two later. It was in the bustleof the market, when no one could readily notice theirdiscourse.

“Michael,” said she, “I must againask you what I asked you months ago—­toreturn me any letters or papers of mine that you mayhave—­unless you have destroyed them?You must see how desirable it is that the time atJersey should be blotted out, for the good of allparties.”

“Why, bless the woman!—­I packed upevery scrap of your handwriting to give you in thecoach—­but you never appeared.”

She explained how the death of her aunt had preventedher taking the journey on that day. “Andwhat became of the parcel then?” she asked.

He could not say—­he would consider.When she was gone he recollected that he had lefta heap of useless papers in his former dining-roomsafe—­built up in the wall of his old house—­nowoccupied by Farfrae. The letters might have beenamongst them.

A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henchard’sface. Had that safe been opened?

On the very evening which followed this there wasa great ringing of bells in Casterbridge, and thecombined brass, wood, catgut, and leather bands playedround the town with more prodigality of percussion-notesthan ever. Farfrae was Mayor—­the two-hundredthodd of a series forming an elective dynasty datingback to the days of Charles I—­and the fairLucetta was the courted of the town....But, Ah! theworm i’ the bud—­Henchard; what hecould tell!

He, in the meantime, festering with indignation atsome erroneous intelligence of Farfrae’s oppositionto 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 youthand his Scottish nativity—­a thing unprecedentedin the case—­had an interest far beyondthe ordinary). The bell-ringing and the band-playing,loud as Tamerlane’s trumpet, goaded the downfallenHenchard indescribably: the ousting now seemedto him to be complete.

The next morning he went to the corn-yard as usual,and about eleven o’clock Donald entered throughthe green door, with no trace of the worshipful abouthim. The yet more emphatic change of places betweenhim and Henchard which this election had establishedrenewed a slight embarrassment in the manner of themodest young man; but Henchard showed the front ofone who had overlooked all this; and Farfrae met hisamenities half-way at once.

“I was going to ask you,” said Henchard,“about a packet that I may possibly have leftin my old safe in the dining-room.” He addedparticulars.

“If so, it is there now,” said Farfrae.“I have never opened the safe at all as yet;for I keep ma papers at the bank, to sleep easy o’nights.”

“It was not of much consequence—­tome,” said Henchard. “But I’llcall for it this evening, if you don’t mind?”

It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise.He had primed himself with grog, as he did very frequentlynow, and a curl of sardonic humour hung on his lipas he approached the house, as though he were contemplatingsome terrible form of amusem*nt. Whatever it was,the incident of his entry did not diminish its force,this being his first visit to the house since he hadlived there as owner. The ring of the bell spoketo him like the voice of a familiar drudge who hadbeen bribed to forsake him; the movements of the doorswere revivals of dead days.

Farfrae invited him into the dining-room, where heat once unlocked the iron safe built into the wall,his, Henchard’s safe, made by an ingeniouslocksmith under his direction. Farfrae drew thencethe parcel, and other papers, with apologies for nothaving returned them.

“Never mind,” said Henchard drily.“The fact is they are letters mostly....Yes,”he went on, sitting down and unfolding Lucetta’spassionate bundle, “here they be. That everI should see ’em again! I hope Mrs. Farfraeis well after her exertions of yesterday?”

“She has felt a bit weary; and has gone to bedairly on that account.”

Henchard returned to the letters, sorting them overwith interest, Farfrae being seated at the other endof the dining-table. “You don’t forget,of course,” he resumed, “that curious chapterin the history of my past which I told you of, andthat you gave me some assistance in? These lettersare, in fact, related to that unhappy business.Though, thank God, it is all over now.”

“What became of the poor woman?” askedFarfrae.

“Luckily she married, and married well,”said Henchard. “So that these reproachesshe poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges,as they might otherwise have done....Just listen towhat an angry woman will say!”

Farfrae, willing to humour Henchard, though quiteuninterested, and bursting with yawns, gave well-manneredattention.

“‘For me,’” Henchard read,“’there is practically no future.A creature too unconventionally devoted to you—­whofeels it impossible that she can be the wife of anyother man; and who is yet no more to you than thefirst woman you meet in the street—­sucham I. I quite acquit you of any intention to wrongme, yet you are the door through which wrong has cometo me. That in the event of your present wife’sdeath you will place me in her position is a consolationso far as it goes—­but how far does it go?Thus I sit here, forsaken by my few acquaintance, andforsaken by you!’”

“That’s how she went on to me,”said Henchard, “acres of words like that, whenwhat had happened was what I could not cure.”

“Yes,” said Farfrae absently, “itis the way wi’ women.” But the factwas that he knew very little of the sex; yet detectinga sort of resemblance in style between the effusionsof the woman he worshipped and those of the supposedstranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever spoke thus,whosesoever the personality she assumed.

Henchard unfolded another letter, and read it throughlikewise, stopping at the subscription as before.“Her name I don’t give,” he saidblandly. “As I didn’t marry her,and another man did, I can scarcely do that in fairnessto her.”

“Tr-rue, tr-rue,” said Farfrae. “Butwhy didn’t you marry her when your wife Susandied?” Farfrae asked this and the other questionsin the comfortably indifferent tone of one whom thematter very remotely concerned.

“Ah—­well you may ask that!”said Henchard, the new-moon-shaped grin adumbratingitself again upon his mouth. “In spite ofall her protestations, when I came forward to do so,as in generosity bound, she was not the woman forme.”

“She had already married another—­maybe?”

Henchard seemed to think it would be sailing too nearthe wind to descend further into particulars, andhe answered “Yes.”

“The young lady must have had a heart that boretransplanting very readily!”

“She had, she had,” said Henchard emphatically.

He opened a third and fourth letter, and read.This time he approached the conclusion as if the signaturewere indeed coming with the rest. But again hestopped short. The truth was that, as may be divined,he had quite intended to effect a grand catastropheat the end of this drama by reading out the name,he had come to the house with no other thought.But sitting here in cold blood he could not do it.

Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him.His quality was such that he could have annihilatedthem both in the heat of action; but to accomplishthe deed by oral poison was beyond the nerve of hisenmity.

35.

As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to herroom because of fatigue. She had, however, notgone to rest, but sat in the bedside chair readingand thinking over the events of the day. At theringing of the door-bell by Henchard she wonderedwho it should be that would call at that comparativelylate hour. The dining-room was almost under herbed-room; she could hear that somebody was admittedthere, and presently the indistinct murmur of a personreading became audible.

The usual time for Donald’s arrival upstairscame and passed, yet still the reading and conversationwent on. This was very singular. She couldthink of nothing but that some extraordinary crimehad been committed, and that the visitor, whoeverhe might be, was reading an account of it from a specialedition of the Casterbridge Chronicle. At lastshe left the room, and descended the stairs.The dining-room door was ajar, and in the silenceof the resting household the voice and the words wererecognizable before she reached the lower flight.She stood transfixed. Her own words greeted herin Henchard’s voice, like spirits from the grave.

Lucetta leant upon the banister with her cheek againstthe smooth hand-rail, as if she would make a friendof 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 apresent of his time.

“One word,” he was saying, as the cracklingof paper denoted that Henchard was unfolding yet anothersheet. “Is it quite fair to this youngwoman’s memory to read at such length to a strangerwhat was intended for your eye alone?”

“Well, yes,” said Henchard. “Bynot giving her name I make it an example of all womankind,and not a scandal to one.”

“If I were you I would destroy them,”said Farfrae, giving more thought to the letters thanhe had hitherto done. “As another man’swife it would injure the woman if it were known.

“No, I shall not destroy them,” murmuredHenchard, putting the letters away. Then he arose,and Lucetta heard no more.

She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state.For very fear she could not undress, but sat on theedge of the bed, waiting. Would Henchard letout the secret in his parting words? Her suspensewas terrible. Had she confessed all to Donaldin their early acquaintance he might possibly havegot over it, and married her just the same—­unlikelyas it had once seemed; but for her or any one elseto tell him now would be fatal.

The door slammed; she could hear her husband boltingit. After looking round in his customary wayhe came leisurely up the stairs. The spark inher eyes well-nigh went out when he appeared roundthe bedroom door. Her gaze hung doubtful fora moment, then to her joyous amazement she saw thathe looked at her with the rallying smile of one whohad just been relieved of a scene that was irksome.She could hold out no longer, and sobbed hysterically.

When he had restored her Farfrae naturally enoughspoke of Henchard. “Of all men he was theleast desirable as a visitor,” he said; “butit is my belief that he’s just a bit crazed.He has been reading to me a long lot of letters relatingto his past life; and I could do no less than indulgehim by listening.”

This was sufficient. Henchard, then, had nottold. Henchard’s last words to Farfrae,in short, as he stood on the doorstep, had been these:“Well—­I’m obliged to ’eefor listening. I may tell more about her someday.”

Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard’smotives in opening the matter at all; for in suchcases we attribute to an enemy a power of consistentaction which we never find in ourselves or in our friends;and forget that abortive efforts from want of heartare as possible to revenge as to generosity.

Next morning Lucetta remained in bed, meditating howto parry this incipient attack. The bold strokeof telling Donald the truth, dimly conceived, wasyet too bold; for she dreaded lest in doing so he,like the rest of the world, should believe that theepisode was rather her fault than her misfortune.She decided to employ persuasion—­not withDonald but with the enemy himself. It seemed theonly practicable weapon left her as a woman.Having laid her plan she rose, and wrote to him whokept her on these tenterhooks:—­

“I overheard your interview with my husbandlast night, and saw the drift of your revenge.The very thought of it crushes me! Have pity ona distressed woman! If you could see me you wouldrelent. You do not know how anxiety has toldupon me lately. I will be at the Ring at the timeyou leave work—­just before the sun goesdown. Please come that way. I cannot resttill I have seen you face to face, and heard from yourmouth that you will carry this horse-play no further.”

To herself she said, on closing up her appeal:“If ever tears and pleadings have served theweak to fight the strong, let them do so now!”

With this view she made a toilette which differedfrom all she had ever attempted before. To heightenher natural attraction had hitherto been the unvaryingendeavour of her adult life, and one in which she wasno novice. But now she neglected this, and evenproceeded to impair the natural presentation.Beyond a natural reason for her slightly drawn look,she had not slept all the previous night, and thishad produced upon her pretty though slightly wornfeatures the aspect of a countenance ageing prematurelyfrom extreme sorrow. She selected—­asmuch from want of spirit as design—­her poorest,plainest and longest discarded attire.

To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiledherself, and slipped out of the house quickly.The sun was resting on the hill like a drop of bloodon an eyelid by the time she had got up the road oppositethe amphitheatre, which she speedily entered.The interior was shadowy, and emphatic of the absenceof every living thing.

She was not disappointed in the fearful hope withwhich she awaited him. Henchard came over thetop, descended and Lucetta waited breathlessly.But having reached the arena she saw a change in hisbearing: he stood still at a little distancefrom her; she could not think why.

Nor could any one else have known. The truthwas that in appointing this spot, and this hour, forthe rendezvous, Lucetta had unwittingly backed upher entreaty by the strongest argument she could haveused outside words, with this man of moods, glooms,and superstitions. Her figure in the midst ofthe huge enclosure, the unusual plainness of her dress,her attitude of hope and appeal, so strongly revivedin his soul the memory of another ill-used woman whohad stood there and thus in bygone days, and had nowpassed away into her rest, that he was unmanned, andhis heart smote him for having attempted reprisalson one of a sex so weak. When he approached her,and before she had spoken a word, her point was halfgained.

His manner as he had come down had been one of cynicalcarelessness; but he now put away his grim half-smile,and said in a kindly subdued tone, “Goodnightt’ye. Of course I in glad to come if youwant me.”

“O, thank you,” she said apprehensively.

“I am sorry to see ’ee looking so ill,”he stammered with unconcealed compunction.

She shook her head. “How can you be sorry,”she asked, “when you deliberately cause it?”

“What!” said Henchard uneasily. “Isit anything I have done that has pulled you down likethat?”

“It is all your doing,” she said.“I have no other grief. My happiness wouldbe secure enough but for your threats. O Michael!don’t wreck me like this! You might thinkthat you have done enough! When I came here Iwas a young woman; now I am rapidly becoming an oldone. Neither my husband nor any other man willregard me with interest long.”

Henchard was disarmed. His old feeling of superciliouspity for womankind in general was intensified by thissuppliant appearing here as the double of the first.Moreover that thoughtless want of foresight whichhad led to all her trouble remained with poor Lucettastill; she had come to meet him here in this compromisingway without perceiving the risk. Such a womanwas very small deer to hunt; he felt ashamed, lostall zest and desire to humiliate Lucetta there andthen, and no longer envied Farfrae his bargain.He had married money, but nothing more. Henchardwas anxious to wash his hands of the game.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” hesaid gently. “I am sure I shall be verywilling. My reading of those letters was onlya sort of practical joke, and I revealed nothing.”

“To give me back the letters and any papersyou may have that breathe of matrimony or worse.”

“So be it. Every scrap shall be yours....But,between you and me, Lucetta, he is sure to find outsomething of the matter, sooner or later.

“Ah!” she said with eager tremulousness;“but not till I have proved myself a faithfuland deserving wife to him, and then he may forgiveme everything!”

Henchard silently looked at her: he almost enviedFarfrae such love as that, even now. “H’m—­Ihope so,” he said. “But you shallhave the letters without fail. And your secretshall be kept. I swear it.”

“How good you are!—­how shall I getthem?”

He reflected, and said he would send them the nextmorning. “Now don’t doubt me,”he added. “I can keep my word.”

36.

Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waitingby the lamp nearest to her own door. When shestopped to go in he came and spoke to her. Itwas Jopp.

He begged her pardon for addressing her. Buthe had heard that Mr. Farfrae had been applied toby a neighbouring corn-merchant to recommend a workingpartner; if so he wished to offer himself. Hecould give good security, and had stated as much toMr. Farfrae in a letter; but he would feel much obligedif Lucetta would say a word in his favour to her husband.

“It is a thing I know nothing about,”said Lucetta coldly.

“But you can testify to my trustworthiness betterthan anybody, ma’am,” said Jopp.“I was in Jersey several years, and knew youthere by sight.”

“Indeed,” she replied. “ButI knew nothing of you.”

“I think, ma’am, that a word or two fromyou would secure for me what I covet very much,”he persisted.

She steadily refused to have anything to do with theaffair, and cutting him short, because of her anxietyto get indoors before her husband should miss her,left him on the pavement.

He watched her till she had vanished, and then wenthome. When he got there he sat down in the firelesschimney corner looking at the iron dogs, and the woodlaid across them for heating the morning kettle.A movement upstairs disturbed him, and Henchard camedown from his bedroom, where he seemed to have beenrummaging boxes.

“I wish,” said Henchard, “you woulddo me a service, Jopp, now—­to-night, Imean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfrae’sfor her. I should take it myself, of course,but I don’t wish to be seen there.”

He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchardhad been as good as his word. Immediately oncoming indoors he had searched over his few belongings,and every scrap of Lucetta’s writing that hepossessed was here. Jopp indifferently expressedhis willingness.

“Well, how have ye got on to-day?” hislodger asked. “Any prospect of an opening?”

“I am afraid not,” said Jopp, who hadnot told the other of his application to Farfrae.

“There never will be in Casterbridge,”declared Henchard decisively. “You mustroam further afield.” He said goodnightto Jopp, and returned to his own part of the house.

Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadowof the candle-snuff on the wall, and looking at theoriginal he found that it had formed itself into ahead like a red-hot cauliflower. Henchard’spacket next met his gaze. He knew there had beensomething of the nature of wooing between Henchardand the now Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague ideas on thesubject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchardhad a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfrae, and he hadreasons for not returning that parcel to her in person.What could be inside it? So he went on and ontill, animated by resentment at Lucetta’s haughtiness,as he thought it, and curiosity to learn if therewere any weak sides to this transaction with Henchard,he examined the package. The pen and all its relationsbeing awkward tools in Henchard’s hands he hadaffixed the seals without an impression, it neveroccurring to him that the efficacy of such a fasteningdepended on this. Jopp was far less of a tyro;he lifted one of the seals with his penknife, peepedin at the end thus opened, saw that the bundle consistedof letters; and, having satisfied himself thus far,sealed up the end again by simply softening the waxwith the candle, and went off with the parcel as requested.

His path was by the river-side at the foot of thetown. Coming into the light at the bridge whichstood at the end of High Street he beheld loungingthereon Mother Cuxsom and Nance Mockridge.

“We be just going down Mixen Lane way, to lookinto Peter’s finger afore creeping to bed,”said Mrs. Cuxsom. “There’s a fiddleand tambourine going on there. Lord, what’sall the world—­do ye come along too, Jopp—­’twon’thinder ye five minutes.”

Jopp had mostly kept himself out of this company,but present circ*mstances made him somewhat more recklessthan usual, and without many words he decided to goto his destination that way.

Though the upper part of Durnover was mainly composedof a curious congeries of barns and farm-steads, therewas a less picturesque side to the parish. Thiswas Mixen Lane, now in great part pulled down.

Mixen Lane was the Adullam of all the surroundingvillages. It was the hiding-place of those whowere in distress, and in debt, and trouble of everykind. Farm-labourers and other peasants, who combineda little poaching with their farming, and a littlebrawling and bibbing with their poaching, found themselvessooner or later in Mixen Lane. Rural mechanicstoo idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebelliousto serve, drifted or were forced into Mixen Lane.

The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottagesstretched out like a spit into the moist and mistylowland. Much that was sad, much that was low,some things that were baneful, could be seen in MixenLane. Vice ran freely in and out certain of thedoors in the neighbourhood; recklessness dwelt underthe roof with the crooked chimney; shame in some bow-windows;theft (in times of privation) in the thatched andmud-walled houses by the sallows. Even slaughterhad not been altogether unknown here. In a blockof cottages up an alley there might have been erectedan altar to disease in years gone by. Such wasMixen Lane in the times when Henchard and Farfrae wereMayors.

Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishingCasterbridge plant lay close to the open country;not a hundred yards from a row of noble elms, andcommanding a view across the moor of airy uplands andcorn-fields, and mansions of the great. A brookdivided the moor from the tenements, and to outwardview there was no way across it—­no wayto the houses but round about by the road. Butunder every householder’s stairs there was kepta mysterious plank nine inches wide; which plank wasa secret bridge.

If you, as one of those refugee householders, camein from business after dark—­and this wasthe business time here—­you stealthily crossedthe 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 otherside bearing the bridge on end against the sky; itwas lowered; you crossed, and a hand helped you toland yourself, together with the pheasants and haresgathered from neighbouring manors. You sold themslily the next morning, and the day after you stoodbefore the magistrates with the eyes of all your sympathizingneighbours concentrated on your back. You disappearedfor a time; then you were again found quietly livingin Mixen Lane.

Walking along the lane at dusk the stranger was struckby two or three peculiar features therein. Onewas an intermittent rumbling from the back premisesof the inn half-way up; this meant a skittle alley.Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling inthe various domiciles—­a piped note of somekind coming from nearly every open door. Anotherwas the frequency of white aprons over dingy gownsamong the women around the doorways. A whiteapron is a suspicious vesture in situations wherespotlessness is difficult; moreover, the industry and

cleanliness which the white apron expressed were beliedby the postures and gaits of the women who wore it—­theirknuckles being mostly on their hips (an attitude whichlent them the aspect of two-handled mugs), and theirshoulders against door-posts; while there was a curiousalacrity in the turn of each honest woman’shead upon her neck and in the twirl of her honesteyes, at any noise resembling a masculine footfallalong the lane.

Yet amid so much that was bad needy respectabilityalso found a home. Under some of the roofs abodepure and virtuous souls whose presence there was dueto the iron hand of necessity, and to that alone.Families from decayed villages—­familiesof that once bulky, but now nearly extinct, sectionof village society called “liviers,” orlifeholders—­copyholders and others, whoseroof-trees had fallen for some reason or other, compellingthem to quit the rural spot that had been their homefor generations—­came here, unless they choseto lie under a hedge by the wayside.

The inn called Peter’s finger was the churchof Mixen Lane.

It was centrally situate, as such places should be,and bore about the same social relation to the ThreeMariners as the latter bore to the King’s Arms.At first sight the inn was so respectable as to bepuzzling. The front door was kept shut, and thestep was so clean that evidently but few persons enteredover its sanded surface. But at the corner ofthe public-house was an alley, a mere slit, dividingit from the next building. Half-way up the alleywas a narrow door, shiny and paintless from the rubof infinite hands and shoulders. This was theactual entrance to the inn.

A pedestrian would be seen abstractedly passing alongMixen Lane; and then, in a moment, he would vanish,causing the gazer to blink like Ashton at the disappearanceof Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian hadedged into the slit by the adroit fillip of his personsideways; from the slit he edged into the tavern bya similar exercise of skill.

The company at the Three Mariners were persons ofquality in comparison with the company which gatheredhere; though it must be admitted that the lowest fringeof the Mariner’s party touched the crest of Peter’sat points. Waifs and strays of all sorts loiteredabout here. The landlady was a virtuous womanwho years ago had been unjustly sent to gaol as anaccessory to something or other after the fact.She underwent her twelvemonth, and had worn a martyr’scountenance ever since, except at times of meetingthe constable who apprehended her, when she winkedher eye.

To this house Jopp and his acquaintances had arrived.The settles on which they sat down were thin and tall,their tops being guyed by pieces of twine to hooksin the ceiling; for when the guests grew boisterousthe settles would rock and overturn without some suchsecurity. The thunder of bowls echoed from thebackyard; swingels hung behind the blower of the chimney;and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers, whom squires hadpersecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each other—­menwho in past times had met in fights under the moon,till lapse of sentences on the one part, and lossof favour and expulsion from service on the other,brought them here together to a common level, wherethey sat calmly discussing old times.

“Dost mind how you could jerk a trout ashorewith a bramble, and not ruffle the stream, Charl?”a deposed keeper was saying. “’Twas atthat I caught ’ee once, if you can mind?”

“That I can. But the worst larry for mewas that pheasant business at Yalbury Wood. Yourwife swore false that time, Joe—­O, by Gad,she did—­there’s no denying it.”

“How was that?” asked Jopp.

“Why—­Joe closed wi’ me, andwe 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’tsee which was uppermost. ‘Where beest thee,Joe, under or top?’ she screeched. ’O—­under,by Gad!’ says he. She then began to rapdown upon my skull, back, and ribs with the pyle tillwe’d roll over again. ’Where beestnow, dear Joe, under or top?’ she’d screamagain. By George, ’twas through her I wastook! And then when we got up in hall she swarethat the co*ck pheasant was one of her rearing, when’twas not your bird at all, Joe; ’twasSquire Brown’s bird—­that’s whose’twas—­one that we’d picked offas we passed his wood, an hour afore. It didhurt my feelings to be so wronged!... Ah well—­’tisover now.”

“I might have had ’ee days afore that,”said the keeper. “I was within a few yardsof ’ee dozens of times, with a sight more ofbirds than that poor one.”

“Yes—­’tis not our greatestdoings that the world gets wind of,” said thefurmity-woman, who, lately settled in this purlieu,sat among the rest. Having travelled a greatdeal in her time she spoke with cosmopolitan largenessof idea. It was she who presently asked Jopp whatwas the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm.

“Ah, therein lies a grand secret,” saidJopp. “It is the passion of love.To think that a woman should love one man so well,and hate another so unmercifully.”

“Who’s the object of your meditation,sir?”

“One that stands high in this town. I’dlike to shame her! Upon my life, ’twouldbe as good as a play to read her love-letters, theproud piece of silk and wax-work! For ’tisher love-letters that I’ve got here.”

“Love letters? then let’s hear ’em,good soul,” said Mother Cuxsom. “Lord,do ye mind, Richard, what fools we used to be whenwe were younger? Getting a schoolboy to writeours for us; and giving him a penny, do ye mind, notto tell other folks what he’d put inside, doye mind?”

By this time Jopp had pushed his finger under theseals, and unfastened the letters, tumbling them overand picking up one here and there at random, whichhe read aloud. These passages soon began to uncoverthe secret which Lucetta had so earnestly hoped tokeep buried, though the epistles, being allusive only,did not make it altogether plain.

“Mrs. Farfrae wrote that!” said NanceMockridge. “’Tis a humbling thing forus, as respectable women, that one of the same sexcould do it. And now she’s avowed herselfto another man!”

“So much the better for her,” said theaged furmity-woman. “Ah, I saved her froma real bad marriage, and she’s never been theone to thank me.”

“I say, what a good foundation for a skimmity-ride,”said Nance.

“True,” said Mrs. Cuxsom, reflecting.“’Tis as good a ground for a skimmity-rideas ever I knowed; and it ought not to be wasted.The last one seen in Casterbridge must have been tenyears ago, if a day.”

At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and thelandlady said to the man who had been called Charl,“’Tis Jim coming in. Would ye go andlet down the bridge for me?”

Without replying Charl and his comrade Joe rose, andreceiving a lantern from her went out at the backdoor and down the garden-path, which ended abruptlyat the edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyondthe stream was the open moor, from which a clammybreeze smote upon their faces as they advanced.Taking up the board that had lain in readiness oneof them lowered it across the water, and the instantit* further end touched the ground footsteps enteredupon it, and there appeared from the shade a stalwartman with straps round his knees, a double-barrelledgun under his arm and some birds slung up behind him.They asked him if he had had much luck.

“Not much,” he said indifferently.“All safe inside?”

Receiving a reply in the affirmative he went on inwards,the others withdrawing the bridge and beginning toretreat in his rear. Before, however, they hadentered the house a cry of “Ahoy” fromthe moor led them to pause.

The cry was repeated. They pushed the lanterninto an outhouse, and went back to the brink of thestream.

“Ahoy—­is this the way to Casterbridge?”said some one from the other side.

“Not in particular,” said Charl.“There’s a river afore ’ee.”

“I don’t care—­here’sfor through it!” said the man in the moor.“I’ve had travelling enough for to-day.”

“Stop a minute, then,” said Charl, findingthat the man was no enemy. “Joe, bringthe plank and lantern; here’s somebody that’slost his way. You should have kept along theturnpike road, friend, and not have strook acrosshere.”

“I should—­as I see now. ButI saw a light here, and says I to myself, that’san outlying house, depend on’t.”

The plank was now lowered; and the stranger’sform shaped itself from the darkness. He wasa middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurelygrey, and a broad and genial face. He had crossedon the plank without hesitation, and seemed to seenothing odd in the transit. He thanked them,and walked between them up the garden. “Whatplace is this?” he asked, when they reachedthe door.

“A public-house.”

“Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up at.Now then, come in and wet your whistle at my expensefor the lift over you have given me.”

They followed him into the inn, where the increasedlight exhibited him as one who would stand higherin an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear.He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness—­hiscoat being furred, and his head covered by a cap ofseal-skin, which, though the nights were chilly, musthave been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhatadvanced. In his hand he carried a small mahoganycase, strapped, and clamped with brass.

Apparently surprised at the kind of company whichconfronted him through the kitchen door, he at onceabandoned his idea of putting up at the house; buttaking the situation lightly, he called for glassesof 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 unfasteningit the conversation about the skimmington was continuedin the sitting-room, and reached his ears.

“What do they mean by a ’skimmity-ride’?”he asked.

“O, sir!” said the landlady, swingingher long earrings with deprecating modesty; “‘tisa’ old foolish thing they do in these parts whena man’s wife is—­well, not too particularlyhis own. But as a respectable householder I don’tencourage it.

“Still, are they going to do it shortly?It is a good sight to see, I suppose?”

“Well, sir!” she simpered. And then,bursting into naturalness, and glancing from the cornerof her eye, “’Tis the funniest thing underthe sun! And it costs money.”

“Ah! I remember hearing of some such thing.Now I shall be in Casterbridge for two or three weeksto come, and should not mind seeing the performance.Wait a moment.” He turned back, enteredthe sitting-room, and said, “Here, good folks;I should like to see the old custom you are talkingof, and I don’t mind being something towardsit—­take that.” He threw a sovereignon the table and returned to the landlady at the door,of whom, having inquired the way into the town, hetook his leave.

“There were more where that one came from,”said Charl when the sovereign had been taken up andhanded to the landlady for safe keeping. “ByGeorge! we ought to have got a few more while we hadhim here.”

“No, no,” answered the landlady.“This is a respectable house, thank God!And I’ll have nothing done but what’s honourable.”

“Well,” said Jopp; “now we’llconsider the business begun, and will soon get itin train.”

“We will!” said Nance. “A goodlaugh warms my heart more than a cordial, and that’sthe truth on’t.”

Jopp gathered up the letters, and it being now somewhatlate he did not attempt to call at Farfrae’swith them that night. He reached home, sealedthem up as before, and delivered the parcel at itsaddress next morning. Within an hour its contentswere reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul!was inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulnessthat at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episodewith Henchard in her past. For though hers hadbeen rather the laxity of inadvertence than of intention,that episode, if known, was not the less likely tooperate fatally between herself and her husband.

37.

Such was the state of things when the current affairsof Casterbridge were interrupted by an event of suchmagnitude that its influence reached to the lowestsocial stratum there, stirring the depths of its societysimultaneously with the preparations for the skimmington.It was one of those excitements which, when they movea country town, leave permanent mark upon its chronicles,as a warm summer permanently marks the ring in thetree-trunk corresponding to its date.

A Royal Personage was about to pass through the boroughon his course further west, to inaugurate an immenseengineering work out that way. He had consentedto halt half-an-hour or so in the town, and to receivean address from the corporation of Casterbridge, which,as a representative centre of husbandry, wished thusto express its sense of the great services he hadrendered to agricultural science and economics, byhis zealous promotion of designs for placing the artof farming on a more scientific footing.

Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since thedays of the third King George, and then only by candlelightfor 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 thoroughfete carillonee of the unwonted occasion. Half-an-hour’spause was not long, it is true; but much might bedone in it by a judicious grouping of incidents, aboveall, if the weather were fine.

The address was prepared on parchment by an artistwho was handy at ornamental lettering, and was laidon with the best gold-leaf and colours that the sign-painterhad in his shop. The Council had met on the Tuesdaybefore the appointed day, to arrange the details ofthe procedure. While they were sitting, the doorof the Council Chamber standing open, they heard aheavy footstep coming up the stairs. It advancedalong the passage, and Henchard entered the room, inclothes of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the veryclothes which he had used to wear in the primal dayswhen he had sat among them.

“I have a feeling,” he said, advancingto the table and laying his hand upon the green cloth,“that I should like to join ye in this receptionof our illustrious visitor. I suppose I couldwalk with the rest?”

Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the Counciland Grower nearly ate the end of his quill-pen off,so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfrae theyoung Mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in thelarge chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting,and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad ashe would have been that the duty should have fallento another tongue.

“I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard,”said he. “The Council are the Council,and as ye are no longer one of the body, there wouldbe an irregularity in the proceeding. If ye wereincluded, why not others?”

“I have a particular reason for wishing to assistat the ceremony.”

Farfrae looked round. “I think I have expressedthe feeling of the Council,” he said.

“Yes, yes,” from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long,Alderman Tubber, and several more.

“Then I am not to be allowed to have anythingto do with it officially?”

“I am afraid so; it is out of the question,indeed. But of course you can see the doingsfull well, such as they are to be, like the rest ofthe spectators.”

Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion,and, turning on his heel, went away.

It had been only a passing fancy of his, but oppositioncrystallized it into a determination. “I’llwelcome his Royal Highness, or nobody shall!”he went about saying. “I am not going tobe sat upon by Farfrae, or any of the rest of thepaltry crew! You shall see.”

The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sunconfronting early window-gazers eastward, and allperceived (for they were practised in weather-lore)that there was permanence in the glow. Visitorssoon began to flock in from county houses, villages,remote copses, and lonely uplands, the latter in oiledboots and tilt bonnets, to see the reception, or ifnot to see it, at any rate to be near it. Therewas hardly a workman in the town who did not put aclean shirt on. Solomon Longways, ChristopherConey, Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity,showed their sense of the occasion by advancing theircustomary eleven o’clock pint to half-past ten;from which they found a difficulty in getting backto the proper hour for several days.

Henchard had determined to do no work that day.He primed himself in the morning with a glass of rum,and walking down the street met Elizabeth-Jane, whomhe had not seen for a week. “It was lucky,”he said to her, “my twenty-one years had expiredbefore this came on, or I should never have had thenerve to carry it out.”

“Carry out what?” said she, alarmed.

“This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor.”

She was perplexed. “Shall we go and seeit together?” she said.

“See it! I have other fish to fry.You see it. It will be worth seeing!”

She could do nothing to elucidate this, and deckedherself out with a heavy heart. As the appointedtime drew near she got sight again of her stepfather.She thought he was going to the Three Mariners; butno, he elbowed his way through the gay throng to theshop of Woolfrey, the draper. She waited in thecrowd without.

In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise,a brilliant rosette, while more surprising still,in his hand he carried a flag of somewhat homely construction,formed by tacking one of the small Union Jacks, whichabounded in the town to-day, to the end of a dealwand—­probably the roller from a piece ofcalico. Henchard rolled up his flag on the doorstep,put it under his arm, and went down the street.

Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned theirheads, and the shorter stood on tiptoe. It wassaid that the Royal cortege approached. The railwayhad stretched out an arm towards Casterbridge at thistime, but had not reached it by several miles as yet;so that the intervening distance, as well as the remainderof the journey, was to be traversed by road in theold fashion. People thus waited—­thecounty families in their carriages, the masses onfoot—­and watched the far-stretching Londonhighway to the ringing of bells and chatter of tongues.

From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene.Some seats had been arranged from which ladies couldwitness the spectacle, and the front seat was occupiedby Lucetta, the Mayor’s wife, just at present.In the road under her eyes stood Henchard. Sheappeared so bright and pretty that, as it seemed,he was experiencing the momentary weakness of wishingfor her notice. But he was far from attractiveto a woman’s eye, ruled as that is so largelyby the superficies of things. He was not onlya 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 Henchardhad doggedly retained the fretted and weather-beatengarments of bygone years.

Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta’s eyesslid over him to this side and to that without anchoringon his features—­as gaily dressed women’seyes will too often do on such occasions. Hermanner signified quite plainly that she meant to knowhim in public no more.

But she was never tired of watching Donald, as hestood in animated converse with his friends a fewyards off, wearing round his young neck the officialgold chain with great square links, like that roundthe Royal unicorn. Every trifling emotion thather husband showed as he talked had its reflex onher face and lips, which moved in little duplicatesto his. She was living his part rather than herown, and cared for no one’s situation but Farfrae’sthat day.

At length a man stationed at the furthest turn ofthe high road, namely, on the second bridge of whichmention has been made, gave a signal, and the Corporationin their robes proceeded from the front of the TownHall to the archway erected at the entrance to thetown. The carriages containing the Royal visitorand his suite arrived at the spot in a cloud of dust,a procession was formed, and the whole came on to theTown Hall at a walking pace.

This spot was the centre of interest. There werea few clear yards in front of the Royal carriage,sanded; and into this space a man stepped before anyone could prevent him. It was Henchard. Hehad unrolled his private flag, and removing his hathe staggered to the side of the slowing vehicle, wavingthe Union Jack to and fro with his left hand whilehe blandly held out his right to the Illustrious Personage.

All the ladies said with bated breath, “O, lookthere!” and Lucetta was ready to faint.Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of thosein front, saw what it was, and was terrified; andthen her interest in the spectacle as a strange phenomenongot the better of her fear.

Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately roseto 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 observedthe fierce light in them despite his excitement andirritation. For a moment Henchard stood his groundrigidly; then by an unaccountable impulse gave wayand retired. Farfrae glanced to the ladies’gallery, and saw that his Calphurnia’s cheekwas pale.

“Why—­it is your husband’s oldpatron!” said Mrs. Blowbody, a lady of the neighbourhoodwho sat beside Lucetta.

“Patron!” said Donald’s wife withquick indignation.

“Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr.Farfrae’s?” observed Mrs. Bath, the physician’swife, a new-comer to the town through her recent marriagewith the doctor.

“He works for my husband,” said Lucetta.

“Oh—­is that all? They have beensaying to me that it was through him your husbandfirst got a footing in Casterbridge. What storiespeople will tell!”

“They will indeed. It was not so at all.Donald’s genius would have enabled him to geta footing anywhere, without anybody’s help!He would have been just the same if there had beenno Henchard in the world!”

It was partly Lucetta’s ignorance of the circ*mstancesof Donald’s arrival which led her to speak thus,partly the sensation that everybody seemed bent onsnubbing her at this triumphant time. The incidenthad occupied but a few moments, but it was necessarilywitnessed by the Royal Personage, who, however, withpractised tact affected not to have noticed anythingunusual. He alighted, the Mayor advanced, theaddress was read; the Illustrious Personage replied,then said a few words to Farfrae, and shook handswith Lucetta as the Mayor’s wife. The ceremonyoccupied but a few minutes, and the carriages rattledheavily as Pharaoh’s chariots down Corn Streetand out upon the Budmouth Road, in continuation ofthe journey coastward.

In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways “Somedifference between him now and when he zung at theDree Mariners,” said the first. “‘Tiswonderful how he could get a lady of her quality togo snacks wi’ en in such quick time.”

“True. Yet how folk do worship fine clothes!Now there’s a better-looking woman than shethat nobody notices at all, because she’s akinto that hontish fellow Henchard.”

“I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that,”remarked Nance Mockridge. “I do like tosee 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 seethat lady toppered....And perhaps I shall soon,”she added significantly.

“That’s not a noble passiont for a ’omanto keep up,” said Longways.

Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant.The ideas diffused by the reading of Lucetta’sletters at Peter’s finger had condensed intoa scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fogthrough Mixen Lane, and thence up the back streetsof Casterbridge.

The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each otherpresently fell apart into two bands by a process ofnatural selection, the frequenters of Peter’sFinger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of themlived, while Coney, Buzzford, Longways, and that connectionremained in the street.

“You know what’s brewing down there, Isuppose?” said Buzzford mysteriously to theothers.

Coney looked at him. “Not the skimmity-ride?”

Buzzford nodded.

“I have my doubts if it will be carried out,”said Longways. “If they are getting itup they are keeping it mighty close.

“I heard they were thinking of it a fortnightago, at all events.”

“If I were sure o’t I’d lay information,”said Longways emphatically. “’Tistoo 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 ’omansince she came here, and if there was anything wrongabout her afore, that’s their business, notours.”

Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in thecommunity; but it must be owned that, as the Mayorand man of money, engrossed with affairs and ambitions,he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants somethingof that wondrous charm which he had had for them asa light-hearted penniless young man, who sang dittiesas readily as the birds in the trees. Hence theanxiety to keep him from annoyance showed not quitethe ardour that would have animated it in former days.

“Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher,”continued Longways; “and if we find there’sreally anything in it, drop a letter to them mostconcerned, and advise ’em to keep out of theway?”

This course was decided on, and the group separated,Buzzford saying to Coney, “Come, my ancientfriend; let’s move on. There’s nothingmore to see here.”

These well-intentioned ones would have been surprisedhad they known how ripe the great jocular plot reallywas. “Yes, to-night,” Jopp had saidto the Peter’s party at the corner of Mixen Lane.“As a wind-up to the Royal visit the hit willbe all the more pat by reason of their great elevationto-day.”

To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.

38.

The proceedings had been brief—­too brief—­toLucetta whom an intoxicating Weltlust had fairly mastered;but they had brought her a great triumph nevertheless.The shake of the Royal hand still lingered in herfingers; and the chit-chat she had overheard, thather 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 captivatingas her Scotchman was.

After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawnbehind the ladies’ stand; and there he stood,regarding with a stare of abstraction the spot onthe lapel of his coat where Farfrae’s hand hadseized it. He put his own hand there, as if hecould hardly realize such an outrage from one whomit had once been his wont to treat with ardent generosity.While pausing in this half-stupefied state the conversationof Lucetta with the other ladies reached his ears;and he distinctly heard her deny him—­denythat he had assisted Donald, that he was anything morethan a common journeyman.

He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archwayto the Bull Stake. “So you’ve hada snub,” said Jopp.

“And what if I have?” answered Henchardsternly.

“Why, I’ve had one too, so we are bothunder the same cold shade.” He brieflyrelated his attempt to win Lucetta’s intercession.

Henchard merely heard his story, without taking itdeeply in. His own relation to Farfrae and Lucettaovershadowed all kindred ones. He went on sayingbrokenly to himself, “She has supplicated tome in her time; and now her tongue won’t ownme nor her eyes see me!... And he—­howangry he looked. He drove me back as if I werea bull breaking fence.... I took it like a lamb,for I saw it could not be settled there. He canrub brine on a green wound!... But he shall payfor it, and she shall be sorry. It must cometo a tussle—­face to face; and then we’llsee how a coxcomb can front a man!”

Without further reflection the fallen merchant, benton some wild purpose, ate a hasty dinner and wentforth to find Farfrae. After being injured byhim as a rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman,the crowning degradation had been reserved for thisday—­that he should be shaken at the collarby him as a vagabond in the face of the whole town.

The crowds had dispersed. But for the green archeswhich still stood as they were erected Casterbridgelife had resumed its ordinary shape. Henchardwent down corn Street till he came to Farfrae’shouse, where he knocked, and left a message that hewould be glad to see his employer at the granariesas soon as he conveniently could come there. Havingdone this he proceeded round to the back and enteredthe yard.

Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, thelabourers and carters were enjoying a half-holidayon account of the events of the morning—­thoughthe carters would have to return for a short time lateron, to feed and litter down the horses. He hadreached the granary steps and was about to ascend,when he said to himself aloud, “I’m strongerthan he.”

Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a shortpiece of rope from several pieces that were lyingabout; hitching one end of this to a nail, he tookthe other in his right hand and turned himself bodilyround, while keeping his arm against his side; by thiscontrivance he pinioned the arm effectively.He now went up the ladders to the top floor of thecorn-stores.

It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the furtherend was the door often mentioned, opening under thecathead and chain that hoisted the sacks. Hefixed 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 withFarfrae when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift hisarm, with many misgivings as to what the movement portended.

He retired a few steps into the loft and waited.From this elevated perch his eyes could sweep theroofs round about, the upper parts of the luxuriouschestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week’sage, and the drooping boughs of the lines; Farfrae’sgarden and the green door leading therefrom.In course of time—­he could not say how long—­thatgreen door opened and Farfrae came through. Hewas dressed as if for a journey. The low lightof the nearing evening caught his head and face whenhe emerged from the shadow of the wall, warming themto a complexion of flame-colour. Henchard watchedhim with his mouth firmly set the squareness of hisjaw and the verticality of his profile being undulymarked.

Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humminga tune in a way which told that the words were mostin his mind. They were those of the song he hadsung when he arrived years before at the Three Mariners,a poor young man, adventuring for life and fortune,and scarcely knowing witherward:—­

“And here’s ahand, my trusty fiere,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine.”

Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody. Hesank back. “No; I can’t do it!”he gasped. “Why does the infernal fool beginthat now!”

At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard lookedout of the loft door. “Will ye come uphere?” he said.

“Ay, man,” said Farfrae. “Icouldn’t see ye. What’s wrang?”

A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowestladder. He heard him land on the first floor,ascend and land on the second, begin the ascent tothe third. And then his head rose through thetrap behind.

“What are you doing up here at this time?”he asked, coming forward. “Why didn’tye take your holiday like the rest of the men?”He spoke in a tone which had just severity enoughin it to show that he remembered the untoward eventof the forenoon, and his conviction that Henchard hadbeen drinking.

Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed thestair hatchway, and stamped upon it so that it wenttight into its frame; he next turned to the wonderingyoung man, who by this time observed that one of Henchard’sarms was bound to his side.

“Now,” said Henchard quietly, “westand face to face—­man and man. Yourmoney and your fine wife no longer lift ’ee aboveme as they did but now, and my poverty does not pressme down.”

“What does it all mean?” asked Farfraesimply.

“Wait a bit, my lad. You should ha’thought twice before you affronted to extremes a manwho had nothing to lose. I’ve stood yourrivalry, which ruined me, and your snubbing, whichhumbled me; but your hustling, that disgraced me,I won’t stand!”

Farfrae warmed a little at this. “Ye’dno business there,” he said.

“As much as any one among ye! What, youforward stripling, tell a man of my age he’dno business there!” The anger-vein swelled inhis forehead as he spoke.

“You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and ’twasmy duty, as the chief magistrate, to stop you.”

“Royalty be damned,” said Henchard.“I am as loyal as you, come to that!”

“I am not here to argue. Wait till youcool doon, wait till you cool; and you will see thingsthe same way as I do.”

“You may be the one to cool first,” saidHenchard grimly. “Now this is the case.Here be we, in this four-square loft, to finish outthat little wrestle you began this morning. There’sthe door, forty foot above ground. One of ustwo puts the other out by that door—­themaster stays inside. If he likes he may go downafterwards and give the alarm that the other has fallenout by accident—­or he may tell the truth—­that’shis business. As the strongest man I’vetied one arm to take no advantage of ’ee.D’ye understand? Then here’s at ’ee!”

There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but onething, to close with Henchard, for the latter hadcome on at once. It was a wrestling match, theobject of each being to give his antagonist a backfall; and on Henchard’s part, unquestionably,that it should be through the door.

At the outset Henchard’s hold by his only freehand, the right, was on the left side of Farfrae’scollar, which he firmly grappled, the latter holdingHenchard by his collar with the contrary hand.With his right he endeavoured to get hold of his antagonist’sleft arm, which, however, he could not do, so adroitlydid Henchard keep it in the rear as he gazed uponthe lowered eyes of his fair and slim antagonist.

Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossinghim with his; and thus far the struggle had very muchthe appearance of the ordinary wrestling of thoseparts. Several minutes were passed by them inthis attitude, the pair rocking and writhing liketrees 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 ofHenchard’s collar, which was resisted by thelarger man exerting all his force in a wrenching movement,and this part of the struggle ended by his forcingFarfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of oneof his muscular arms. Hampered as he was, however,he could not keep him there, and Farfrae finding hisfeet again the struggle proceeded as before.

By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously nearthe precipice; seeing his position the Scotchman forthe first time locked himself to his adversary, andall the efforts of that infuriated Prince of Darkness—­ashe might have been called from his appearance justnow—­were inadequate to lift or loosen Farfraefor a time. By an extraordinary effort he succeededat last, though not until they had got far back againfrom the fatal door. In doing so Henchard contrivedto turn Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard’sother arm been free it would have been all over withFarfrae then. But again he regained his feet,

wrenching Henchard’s arm considerably, and causinghim sharp pain, as could be seen from the twitchingof his face. He instantly delivered the youngerman an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as itused to be expressed, and following up his advantagethrust him towards the door, never loosening his holdtill Farfrae’s fair head was hanging over thewindow-sill, and his arm dangling down outside thewall.

“Now,” said Henchard between his gasps,“this is the end of what you began this morning.Your life is in my hands.”

“Then take it, take it!” said Farfrae.“Ye’ve wished to long enough!”

Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and theireyes met. “O Farfrae!—­that’snot true!” he said bitterly. “Godis my witness that no man ever loved another as Idid thee at one time....And now—­though Icame here to kill ’ee, I cannot hurt thee!Go and give me in charge—­do what you will—­Icare nothing for what comes of me!”

He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosenedhis arm, and flung himself in a corner upon some sacks,in the abandonment of remorse. Farfrae regardedhim in silence; then went to the hatch and descendedthrough it. Henchard would fain have recalledhim, but his tongue failed in its task, and the youngman’s steps died on his ear.

Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach.The scenes of his first acquaintance with Farfraerushed back upon him—­that time when thecurious mixture of romance and thrift in the youngman’s composition so commanded his heart thatFarfrae could play upon him as on an instrument.So thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on thesacks in a crouching attitude, unusual for a man,and for such a man. Its womanliness sat tragicallyon the figure of so stern a piece of virility.He heard a conversation below, the opening of the coach-housedoor, and the putting in of a horse, but took no notice.

Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaqueobscurity, and the loft-door became an oblong of graylight—­the only visible shape around.At length he arose, shook the dust from his clotheswearily, felt his way to the hatch, and gropinglydescended the steps till he stood in the yard.

“He thought highly of me once,” he murmured.“Now he’ll hate me and despise me forever!”

He became possessed by an overpowering wish to seeFarfrae again that night, and by some desperate pleadingto attempt the well-nigh impossible task of winningpardon for his late mad attack. But as he walkedtowards Farfrae’s door he recalled the unheededdoings in the yard while he had lain above in a sortof stupor. Farfrae he remembered had gone tothe stable and put the horse into the gig; while doingso Whittle had brought him a letter; Farfrae had thensaid that he would not go towards Budmouth as he hadintended—­that he was unexpectedly summonedto Weatherbury, and meant to call at Mellstock on hisway thither, that place lying but one or two milesout of his course.

He must have come prepared for a journey when he firstarrived in the yard, unsuspecting enmity; and he musthave driven off (though in a changed direction) withoutsaying a word to any one on what had occurred betweenthemselves.

It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae’shouse till very late.

There was no help for it but to wait till his return,though waiting was almost torture to his restlessand self-accusing soul. He walked about the streetsand outskirts of the town, lingering here and theretill he reached the stone bridge of which mentionhas been made, an accustomed halting-place with himnow. Here he spent a long time, the purl of watersthrough the weirs meeting his ear, and the Casterbridgelights glimmering at no great distance off.

While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attentionwas awakened by sounds of an unaccustomed kind fromthe town quarter. They were a confusion of rhythmicalnoises, to which the streets added yet more confusionby encumbering them with echoes. His first incuriousthought that the clangour arose from the town band,engaged in an attempt to round off a memorable dayin a burst of evening harmony, was contradicted bycertain peculiarities of reverberation. But inexplicabilitydid not rouse him to more than a cursory heed; hissense of degradation was too strong for the admissionof foreign ideas; and he leant against the parapetas before.

39.

When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathlessfrom his encounter with Henchard, he paused at thebottom to recover himself. He arrived at theyard with the intention of putting the horse into thegig himself (all the men having a holiday), and drivingto a village on the Budmouth Road. Despite thefearful struggle he decided still to persevere in hisjourney, so as to recover himself before going indoorsand meeting the eyes of Lucetta. He wished toconsider his course in a case so serious.

When he was just on the point of driving off Whittlearrived with a note badly addressed, and bearing theword “immediate” upon the outside.On opening it he was surprised to see that it wasunsigned. It contained a brief request that hewould go to Weatherbury that evening about some businesswhich he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothingthat could make it pressing; but as he was bent upongoing out he yielded to the anonymous request, particularlyas he had a call to make at Mellstock which couldbe included in the same tour. Thereupon he toldWhittle of his change of direction, in words whichHenchard had overheard, and set out on his way.Farfrae had not directed his man to take the messageindoors, and Whittle had not been supposed to do soon his own responsibility.

Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned butclumsy contrivance of Longways and other of Farfrae’smen to get him out of the way for the evening, inorder that the satirical mummery should fall flat,if it were attempted. By giving open informationthey would have brought down upon their heads thevengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyedthese boisterous old games; and therefore the planof sending a letter recommended itself by its indirectness.

For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure,believing with the majority there was some truth inthe scandal, which she would have to bear as she bestmight.

It was about eight o’clock, and Lucetta wassitting in the drawing-room alone. Night hadset in for more than half an hour, but she had nothad the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was awayshe preferred waiting for him by the firelight, and,if it were not too cold, keeping one of the window-sashesa little way open that the sound of his wheels mightreach her ears early. She was leaning back inthe chair, in a more hopeful mood than she had enjoyedsince her marriage. The day had been such a success,and the temporary uneasiness which Henchard’sshow of effrontery had wrought in her disappearedwith the quiet disappearance of Henchard himself underher husband’s reproof. The floating evidencesof her absurd passion for him, and its consequences,had been destroyed, and she really seemed to haveno cause for fear.

The reverie in which these and other subjects mingledwas disturbed by a hubbub in the distance, that increasedmoment by moment. It did not greatly surpriseher, the afternoon having been given up to recreationby a majority of the populace since the passage ofthe Royal equipages. But her attention was atonce riveted to the matter by the voice of a maid-servantnext door, who spoke from an upper window across thestreet to some other maid even more elevated thanshe.

“Which way be they going now?” inquiredthe first with interest.

“I can’t be sure for a moment,”said the second, “because of the malter’schimbley. O yes—­I can see ’em.Well, I declare, I declare!

“What, what?” from the first, more enthusiastically.

“They are coming up Corn Street after all!They sit back to back!”

“What—­two of ’em—­arethere two figures?”

“Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back,their elbows tied to one another’s! She’sfacing the head, and he’s facing the tail.”

“Is it meant for anybody in particular?”

“Well—­it mid be. The man hasgot on a blue coat and kerseymere leggings; he hasblack whiskers, and a reddish face. ’Tisa stuffed figure, with a falseface.”

The din was increasing now—­then it lesseneda little.

“There—­I shan’t see, afterall!” cried the disappointed first maid.

“They have gone into a back street—­that’sall,” said the one who occupied the enviableposition in the attic. “There—­nowI have got ’em all endways nicely!”

“What’s the woman like? Just say,and I can tell in a moment if ’tis meant forone I’ve in mind.”

“My—­why—­’tis dressedjust as she dressed when she sat in the frontseat at the time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!”

Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instantthe door of the room was quickly and softly opened.Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the firelight.

“I have come to see you,” she said breathlessly.“I did not stop to knock—­forgiveme! I see you have not shut your shutters, andthe window is open.”

Without waiting for Lucetta’s reply she crossedquickly to the window and pulled out one of the shutters.Lucetta glided to her side. “Let it be—­hush!”she said perempority, in a dry voice, while she seizedElizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger.Their intercourse had been so low and hurried thatnot a word had been lost of the conversation without,which had thus proceeded:—­

“Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands,and her back-comb in place; she’s got on a pucesilk, and white stockings, and coloured shoes.”

Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window,but Lucetta held her by main force.

“’Tis me!” she said, with a facepale as death. “A procession—­ascandal—­an effigy of me, and him!”

The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knewit already.

“Let us shut it out,” coaxed Elizabeth-Jane,noting that the rigid wildness of Lucetta’sfeatures was growing yet more rigid and wild withthe meaning of the noise and laughter. “Letus shut it out!”

“It is of no use!” she shrieked.“He will see it, won’t he? Donaldwill see it! He is just coming home—­andit will break his heart—­he will never loveme any more—­and O, it will kill me—­killme!”

Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. “O, can’tsomething be done to stop it?” she cried.“Is there nobody to do it—­not one?”

She relinquished Lucetta’s hands, and ran tothe 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 roundher to pull her in. Lucetta’s eyes werestraight upon the spectacle of the uncanny revel,now dancing rapidly. The numerous lights roundthe two effigies threw them up into lurid distinctness;it was impossible to mistake the pair for other thanthe intended victims.

“Come in, come in,” implored Elizabeth;“and let me shut the window!”

“She’s me—­she’s me—­evento the parasol—­my green parasol!”cried Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in.She stood motionless for one second—­thenfell heavily to the floor.

Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music ofthe skimmington ceased. The roars of sarcasticlaughter went off in ripples, and the trampling diedout like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabethwas only indirectly conscious of this; she had rungthe bell, and was bending over Lucetta, who remainedconvulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of an epilepticseizure. She rang again and again, in vain; theprobability being that the servants had all run outof the house to see more of the Daemonic Sabbath thanthey could see within.

At last Farfrae’s man, who had been agape onthe 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 Elizabethwas undressing her she recovered consciousness; butas soon as she remembered what had passed the fitreturned.

The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; hehad been standing at his door, like others, wonderingwhat the uproar meant. As soon as he saw theunhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth’smute appeal, “This is serious.”

“It is a fit,” Elizabeth said.

“Yes. But a fit in the present state ofher health means mischief. You must send at oncefor Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?”

“He has driven into the country, sir,”said the parlour-maid; “to some place on theBudmouth Road. He’s likely to be back soon.”

“Never mind, he must be sent for, in case heshould not hurry.” The doctor returnedto the bedside again. The man was despatched,and they soon heard him clattering out of the yardat the back.

Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgessof whom mention has been already made, hearing thedin of cleavers, tongs, tambourines, kits, crouds,humstrums, serpents, rams’-horns, and other historicalkinds 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 soonguessed the nature of the proceedings; for being anative of the town he had witnessed such rough jestsbefore. His first move was to search hither andthither for the constables, there were two in thetown, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hidingup an alley yet more shrivelled than usual, havingsome not ungrounded fears that they might be roughlyhandled if seen.

“What can we two poor lammigers do against sucha multitude!” expostulated Stubberd, in answerto Mr. Grower’s chiding. “’Tis tempting’em to commit felo-de-se upon us, and that wouldbe the death of the perpetrator; and we wouldn’tbe the cause of a fellow-creature’s death onno account, not we!”

“Get some help, then! Here, I’llcome with you. We’ll see what a few wordsof authority can do. Quick now; have you got yourstaves?”

“We didn’t want the folk to notice usas law officers, being so short-handed, sir; so wepushed our Gover’ment staves up this water-pipe.

“Out with ’em, and come along, for Heaven’ssake! Ah, here’s Mr. Blowbody; that’slucky.” (Blowbody was the third of the threeborough magistrates.)

“Well, what’s the row?” said Blowbody.“Got their names—­hey?”

“No. Now,” said Grower to one ofthe constables, “you go with Mr. Blowbody roundby the Old Walk and come up the street; and I’llgo with Stubberd straight forward. By this planwe shall have ’em between us. Get theirnames only: no attack or interruption.”

Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Groweradvanced 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 endof the street. The lamp flames waved, the Walktrees soughed, a few loungers stood about with theirhands in their pockets. Everything was as usual.

“Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?”Grower said magisterially to one of these in a fustianjacket, who smoked a short pipe and wore straps roundhis knees.

“Beg yer pardon, sir?” blandly said theperson addressed, who was no other than Charl, ofPeter’s finger. Mr. Grower repeated thewords.

Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance.“No; we haven’t seen anything; have we,Joe? And you was here afore I.”

Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.

“H’m—­that’s odd,”said Mr. Grower. “Ah—­here’sa respectable man coming that I know by sight.Have you,” he inquired, addressing the nearingshape of Jopp, “have you seen any gang of fellowsmaking a devil of a noise—­skimmington riding,or something of the sort?”

“O no—­nothing, sir,” Jopp replied,as if receiving the most singular news. “ButI’ve not been far tonight, so perhaps—­”

“Oh, ’twas here—­just here,”said the magistrate.

“Now I’ve noticed, come to think o’tthat the wind in the Walk trees makes a peculiar poetical-likemurmur to-night, sir; more than common; so perhaps’twas that?” Jopp suggested, as he rearrangedhis hand in his greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniouslysupported a pair of kitchen tongs and a cow’shorn, thrust up under his waistcoat).

“No, no, no—­d’ye think I’ma fool? Constable, come this way. They musthave gone into the back street.”

Neither in back street nor in front street, however,could the disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody andthe second constable, who came up at this time, broughtsimilar intelligence. Effigies, donkey, lanterns,band, all had disappeared like the crew of Comus.

“Now,” said Mr. Grower, “there’sonly one thing more we can do. Get ye half-a-dozenhelpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter’sfinger. I’m much mistaken if you don’tfind a clue to the perpetrators there.”

The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistanceas soon as they could, and the whole party marchedoff to the lane of notoriety. It was no rapidmatter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmerof any sort offering itself to light the way, exceptan occasional pale radiance through some window-curtain,or through the chink of some door which could notbe closed because of the smoky chimney within.At last they entered the inn boldly, by the till thenbolted front-door, after a prolonged knocking of loudnesscommensurate with the importance of their standing.

In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceilingby cords as usual for stability, an ordinary groupsat drinking and smoking with statuesque quiet ofdemeanour. The landlady looked mildly at theinvaders, saying in honest accents, “Good evening,gentlemen; there’s plenty of room. I hopethere’s nothing amiss?”

They looked round the room. “Surely,”said Stubberd to one of the men, “I saw youby now in Corn Street—­Mr. Grower spoke to’ee?”

The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently.“I’ve been here this last hour, hain’tI, Nance?” he said to the woman who meditativelysipped her ale near him.

“Faith, that you have. I came in for myquiet suppertime half-pint, and you were here then,as well as all the rest.”

The other constable was facing the clock-case, wherehe saw reflected in the glass a quick motion by thelandlady. Turning sharply, he caught her closingthe oven-door.

“Something curious about that oven, ma’am!”he observed advancing, opening it, and drawing outa tambourine.

“Ah,” she said apologetically, “that’swhat we keep here to use when there’s a littlequiet dancing. You see damp weather spoils it,so I put it there to keep it dry.”

The constable nodded knowingly, but what he knew wasnothing. Nohow could anything be elicited fromthis mute and inoffensive assembly. In a fewminutes the investigators went out, and joining thoseof their auxiliaries who had been left at the doorthey pursued their way elsewhither.

40.

Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminationson the bridge, had repaired towards the town.When he stood at the bottom of the street a processionburst upon his view, in the act of turning out of analley just above him. The lanterns, horns, andmultitude startled him; he saw the mounted images,and knew what it all meant.

They crossed the way, entered another street, anddisappeared. He turned back a few steps and waslost in grave reflection, finally wending his wayhomeward by the obscure river-side path. Unableto rest there he went to his step-daughter’slodging, and was told that Elizabeth-Jane had goneto Mr. Farfrae’s. Like one acting in obedienceto a charm, and with a nameless apprehension, he followedin the same direction in the hope of meeting her,the roysterers having vanished. Disappointed inthis he gave the gentlest of pulls to the door-bell,and then learnt particulars of what had occurred,together with the doctor’s imperative ordersthat Farfrae should be brought home, and how they hadset out to meet him on the Budmouth Road.

“But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!”exclaimed Henchard, now unspeakably grieved.“Not Budmouth way at all.”

But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name.They would not believe him, taking his words but asthe frothy utterances of recklessness. ThoughLucetta’s life seemed at that moment to dependupon her husband’s return (she being in greatmental agony lest he should never know the unexaggeratedtruth of her past relations with Henchard), no messengerwas despatched towards Weatherbury. Henchard,in a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determinedto seek Farfrae himself.

To this end he hastened down the town, ran along theeastern road over Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond,and thus onward in the moderate darkness of this springnight till he had reached a second and almost a thirdhill 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, wasto be heard but the slow wind making its moan amongthe masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood whichclothed the heights on either hand; but presentlythere came the sound of light wheels whetting theirfelloes against the newly stoned patches of road,accompanied by the distant glimmer of lights.

He knew it was Farfrae’s gig descending thehill from an indescribable personality in its noise,the vehicle having been his own till bought by theScotchman at the sale of his effects. Henchardthereupon retraced his steps along Yalbury Plain,the gig coming up with him as its driver slackenedspeed between two plantations.

It was a point in the highway near which the roadto Mellstock branched off from the homeward direction.By diverging to that village, as he had intended todo, Farfrae might probably delay his return by a coupleof hours. It soon appeared that his intentionwas to do so still, the light swerving towards CuckooLane, the by-road aforesaid. Farfrae’s offgig-lamp flashed in Henchard’s face. Atthe same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist.

“Farfrae—­Mr. Farfrae!” criedthe breathless Henchard, holding up his hand.

Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps intothe branch lane before he pulled up. He thendrew rein, and said “Yes?” over his shoulder,as one would towards a pronounced enemy.

“Come back to Casterbridge at once!” Henchardsaid. “There’s something wrong atyour house—­requiring your return. I’verun all the way here on purpose to tell ye.”

Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard’ssoul sank within him. Why had he not, beforethis, thought of what was only too obvious? Hewho, four hours earlier, had enticed Farfrae into adeadly wrestle stood now in the darkness of late night-timeon a lonely road, inviting him to come a particularway, where an assailant might have confederates, insteadof going his purposed way, where there might be a betteropportunity of guarding himself from attack. Henchardcould almost feel this view of things in course ofpassage through Farfrae’s mind.

“I have to go to Mellstock,” said Farfraecoldly, as he loosened his reins to move on.

“But,” implored Henchard, “the matteris more serious than your business at Mellstock.It is—­your wife! She is ill. Ican tell you particulars as we go along.”

The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increasedFarfrae’s suspicion that this was a ruse todecoy him on to the next wood, where might be effectuallycompassed what, from policy or want of nerve, Henchardhad failed to do earlier in the day. He startedthe horse.

“I know what you think,” deprecated Henchardrunning after, almost bowed down with despair as heperceived the image of unscrupulous villainy thathe assumed in his former friend’s eyes.“But I am not what you think!” he criedhoarsely. “Believe me, Farfrae; I have comeentirely on your own and your wife’s account.She is in danger. I know no more; and they wantyou to come. Your man has gone the other way ina mistake. O Farfrae! don’t mistrust me—­Iam a wretched man; but my heart is true to you still!”

Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. Heknew his wife was with child, but he had left hernot long ago in perfect health; and Henchard’streachery was more credible than his story. Hehad in his time heard bitter ironies from Henchard’slips, and there might be ironies now. He quickenedthe horse’s pace, and had soon risen into thehigh country lying between there and Mellstock, Henchard’sspasmodic run after him lending yet more substanceto his thought of evil purposes.

The gig and its driver lessened against the sky inHenchard’s eyes; his exertions for Farfrae’sgood had been in vain. Over this repentant sinner,at least, there was to be no joy in heaven. Hecursed himself like a less scrupulous Job, as a vehementman will do when he loses self-respect, the last mentalprop under poverty. To this he had come aftera time of emotional darkness of which the adjoiningwoodland shade afforded inadequate illustration.Presently he began to walk back again along the wayby which he had arrived. Farfrae should at allevents have no reason for delay upon the road by seeinghim there when he took his journey homeward lateron.

Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae’shouse to make inquiries. As soon as the dooropened 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, andall hopes had centred upon Henchard.

“But haven’t you found him?” saidthe doctor.

“Yes....I cannot tell ’ee!” Henchardreplied as he sank down on a chair within the entrance.“He can’t be home for two hours.”

“H’m,” said the surgeon, returningupstairs.

“How is she?” asked Henchard of Elizabeth,who formed one of the group.

“In great danger, father. Her anxiety tosee her husband makes her fearfully restless.Poor woman—­I fear they have killed her!”

Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a fewinstants as if she struck him in a new light, then,without further remark, went out of the door and onwardto his lonely cottage. So much for man’srivalry, he thought. Death was to have the oyster,and Farfrae and himself the shells. But aboutElizabeth-lane; in the midst of his gloom she seemedto him as a pin-point of light. He had liked thelook on her face as she answered him from the stairs.There had been affection in it, and above all thingswhat he desired now was affection from anything thatwas good and pure. She was not his own, yet,for the first time, he had a faint dream that he mightget to like her as his own,—­if she wouldonly continue to love him.

Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home.As the latter entered the door Jopp said, “Thisis rather bad about Mrs. Farfrae’s illness.”

“Yes,” said Henchard shortly, though littledreaming of Jopp s complicity in the night’sharlequinade, and raising his eyes just sufficientlyto observe that Jopp’s face was lined with anxiety.

“Somebody has called for you,” continuedJopp, when Henchard was shutting himself into hisown apartment. “A kind of traveller, orsea-captain of some sort.”

“Oh?—­who could he be?”

“He seemed a well-be-doing man—­hadgrey hair and a broadish face; but he gave no name,and no message.”

“Nor do I gi’e him any attention.”And, saying this, Henchard closed his door.

The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae’sreturn very nearly the two hours of Henchard’sestimate. Among the other urgent reasons for hispresence had been the need of his authority to sendto Budmouth for a second physician; and when at lengthFarfrae did come back he was in a state borderingon distraction at his misconception of Henchard’smotives.

A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as ithad grown; the night wore on, and the other doctorcame in the small hours. Lucetta had been muchsoothed by Donald’s arrival; he seldom or neverleft her side; and when, immediately after his entry,she had tried to lisp out to him the secret whichso oppressed her, he checked her feeble words, lesttalking should be dangerous, assuring her there wasplenty of time to tell him everything.

Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride.The dangerous illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfraewas soon rumoured through the town, and an apprehensiveguess having been given as to its cause by the leadersin the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silenceover all particulars of their orgie; while those immediatelyaround Lucetta would not venture to add to her husband’sdistress by alluding to the subject.

What, and how much, Farfrae’s wife ultimatelyexplained 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 barefacts of her peculiar intimacy with the corn-merchantbecame plain from Farfrae’s own statements.But in respect of her subsequent conduct—­hermotive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself withHenchard—­her assumed justification in abandoninghim when she discovered reasons for fearing him (thoughin truth her inconsequent passion for another manat first sight had most to do with that abandonment)—­hermethod of reconciling to her conscience a marriagewith the second when she was in a measure committedto the first: to what extent she spoke of thesethings remained Farfrae’s secret alone.

Besides the watchman who called the hours and weatherin Casterbridge that night there walked a figure upand down corn Street hardly less frequently.It was Henchard’s, whose retiring to rest hadproved itself a futility as soon as attempted; andhe gave it up to go hither and thither, and make inquiriesabout the patient every now and then. He calledas 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 lifeseemed centring on the personality of the stepdaughterwhose presence but recently he could not endure.To see her on each occasion of his inquiry at Lucetta’swas a comfort to him.

The last of his calls was made about four o’clockin the morning, in the steely light of dawn.Lucifer was fading into day across Durnover Moor,the sparrows were just alighting into the street, andthe hens had begun to cackle from the outhouses.When within a few yards of Farfrae’s he sawthe door gently opened, and a servant raise her handto the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth whichhad muffled it. He went across, the sparrowsin his way scarcely flying up from the road-litter,so little did they believe in human aggression atso early a time.

“Why do you take off that?” said Henchard.

She turned in some surprise at his presence, and didnot answer for an instant or two. Recognizinghim, she said, “Because they may knock as loudas they will; she will never hear it any more.”

41.

Henchard went home. The morning having now fullybroke he lit his fire, and sat abstractedly besideit. He had not sat there long when a gentle footstepapproached the house and entered the passage, a fingertapping lightly at the door. Henchard’sface brightened, for he knew the motions to be Elizabeth’s.She came into his room, looking wan and sad.

“Have you heard?” she asked. “Mrs.Farfrae! She is—­dead! Yes, indeed—­aboutan hour ago!”

“I know it,” said Henchard. “Ihave but lately come in from there. It is sovery good of ’ee, Elizabeth, to come and tellme. You must be so tired out, too, with sittingup. Now do you bide here with me this morning.You can go and rest in the other room; and I will call’ee when breakfast is ready.”

To please him, and herself—­for his recentkindliness was winning a surprised gratitude fromthe lonely girl—­she did as he bade her,and lay down on a sort of couch which Henchard hadrigged 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 deathin such fulness of life and amid such cheerful hopesof maternity was appallingly unexpected. Presentlyshe fell asleep.

Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had setthe breakfast in readiness; but finding that she dozedhe would not call her; he waited on, looking intothe fire and keeping the kettle boiling with house-wifelycare, as if it were an honour to have her in his house.In truth, a great change had come over him with regardto her, and he was developing the dream of a futurelit by her filial presence, as though that way alonecould happiness lie.

He was disturbed by another knock at the door, androse to open it, rather deprecating a call from anybodyjust then. A stoutly built man stood on the doorstep,with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure andbearing—­an air which might have been calledcolonial by people of cosmopolitan experience.It was the man who had asked the way at Peter’sfinger. Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.

“Good morning, good morning,” said thestranger with profuse heartiness. “Is itMr. Henchard I am talking to?”

“My name is Henchard.”

“Then I’ve caught ’ee at home—­that’sright. Morning’s the time for business,says I. Can I have a few words with you?”

“By all means,” Henchard answered, showingthe way in.

“You may remember me?” said his visitor,seating himself.

Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook hishead.

“Well—­perhaps you may not. Myname is Newson.”

Henchard’s face and eyes seemed to die.The other did not notice it. “I know thename well,” Henchard said at last, looking onthe floor.

“I make no doubt of that. Well, the factis, I’ve been looking for ’ee this fortnightpast. I landed at Havenpool and went through Casterbridgeon my way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they toldme you had some years before been living at Casterbridge.Back came I again, and by long and by late I got hereby coach, ten minutes ago. ’He lives downby the mill,’ says they. So here I am.Now—­that transaction between us some twentyyears agone—­’tis that I’ve calledabout. ’Twas a curious business. Iwas younger then than I am now, and perhaps the lesssaid about it, in one sense, the better.”

“Curious business! ’Twas worse thancurious. I cannot even allow that I’m theman you met then. I was not in my senses, anda man’s senses are himself.”

“We were young and thoughtless,” saidNewson. “However, I’ve come to mendmatters rather than open arguments. Poor Susan—­herswas a strange experience.”

“She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman.She was not what they call shrewd or sharp at all—­bettershe had been.”

“She was not.”

“As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-mindedenough to think that the sale was in a way binding.She was as guiltless o’ wrong-doing in thatparticular as a saint in the clouds.”

“I know it, I know it. I found it out directly,”said Henchard, still with averted eyes. “Therelay the sting o’t to me. If she had seenit 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 couldwrite her own name, and no more.

“Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive herwhen the deed was done,” said the sailor offormer days. “I thought, and there was notmuch vanity in thinking it, that she would be happierwith me. She was fairly happy, and I never wouldhave 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 alwaysdoes come. A time came—­it was somewhile after she and I and the child returned fromAmerica—­when somebody she had confidedher history to, told her my claim to her was a mockery,and made a jest of her belief in my right. Afterthat she was never happy with me. She pined andpined, and socked and sighed. She said she mustleave me, and then came the question of our child.Then a man advised me how to act, and I did it, forI thought it was best. I left her at Falmouth,and went off to sea. When I got to the other sideof the Atlantic there was a storm, and it was supposedthat a lot of us, including myself, had been washedoverboard. I got ashore at Newfoundland, andthen I asked myself what I should do.

“‘Since I’m here, here I’llbide,’ I thought to myself; ’’twillbe most kindness to her, now she’s taken againstme, to let her believe me lost, for,’ I thought,’while she supposes us both alive she’llbe miserable; but if she thinks me dead she’llgo back to him, and the child will have a home.’I’ve never returned to this country till a monthago, and I found that, as I supposed, she went toyou, and my daughter with her. They told me inFalmouth that Susan was dead. But my Elizabeth-Jane—­whereis she?”

“Dead likewise,” said Henchard doggedly.“Surely you learnt that too?”

The sailor started up, and took an enervated paceor two down the room. “Dead!” hesaid, in a low voice. “Then what’sthe use of my money to me?”

Henchard, without answering, shook his head as ifthat were rather a question for Newson himself thanfor him.

“Where is she buried?” the traveller inquired.

“Beside her mother,” said Henchard, inthe same stolid tones.

“When did she die?”

“A year ago and more,” replied the otherwithout hesitation.

The sailor continued standing. Henchard neverlooked 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 meright. I’ll trouble you no longer.”

Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newsonupon the sanded floor, the mechanical lifting of thelatch, the slow opening and closing of the door thatwas natural to a baulked or dejected man; but he didnot turn his head. Newson’s shadow passedthe window. He was gone.

Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence ofhis senses, rose from his seat amazed at what he haddone. It had been the impulse of a moment.The regard he had lately acquired for Elizabeth, thenew-sprung hope of his loneliness that she would beto him a daughter of whom he could feel as proud asof the actual daughter she still believed herselfto be, had been stimulated by the unexpected comingof Newson to a greedy exclusiveness in relation toher; so that the sudden prospect of her loss had causedhim to speak mad lies like a child, in pure mockeryof consequences. He had expected questions toclose in round him, and unmask his fabrication infive minutes; yet such questioning had not come.But surely they would come; Newson’s departurecould be but momentary; he would learn all by inquiriesin the town; and return to curse him, and carry hislast treasure away!

He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the directionthat Newson had taken. Newson’s back wassoon visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake.Henchard followed, and saw his visitor stop at theKing’s Arms, where the morning coach which hadbrought him waited half-an-hour for another coachwhich crossed there. The coach Newson had comeby was now about to move again. Newson mounted,his luggage was put in, and in a few minutes the vehicledisappeared with him.

He had not so much as turned his head. It wasan act of simple faith in Henchard’s words—­faithso simple as to be almost sublime. The youngsailor who had taken Susan Henchard on the spur ofthe moment and on the faith of a glance at her face,more than twenty years before, was still living andacting under the form of the grizzled traveller whohad taken Henchard’s words on trust so absoluteas to shame him as he stood.

Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of thishardy invention of a moment? “Perhaps notfor long,” said he. Newson might conversewith his fellow-travellers, some of whom might beCasterbridge people; and the trick would be discovered.

This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude,and instead of considering how best to right the wrong,and acquaint Elizabeth’s father with the truthat once, he bethought himself of ways to keep theposition he had accidentally won. Towards theyoung woman herself his affection grew more jealouslystrong with each new hazard to which his claim toher was exposed.

He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newsonreturn on foot, enlightened and indignant, to claimhis child. But no figure appeared. Possiblyhe had spoken to nobody on the coach, but buried hisgrief in his own heart.

His grief!—­what was it, after all, to thatwhich he, Henchard, would feel at the loss of her?Newson’s affection cooled by years, could notequal his who had been constantly in her presence.And thus his jealous soul speciously argued to excusethe separation of father and child.

He returned to the house half expecting that she wouldhave vanished. No; there she was—­justcoming out from the inner room, the marks of sleepupon her eyelids, and exhibiting a generally refreshedair.

“O father!” she said smiling. “Ihad no sooner lain down than I napped, though I didnot mean to. I wonder I did not dream about poorMrs. Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but I didnot. How strange it is that we do not often dreamof latest events, absorbing as they may be.”

“I am glad you have been able to sleep,”he said, taking her hand with anxious proprietorship—­anact which gave her a pleasant surprise.

They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane’sthoughts reverted to Lucetta. Their sadness addedcharm to a countenance whose beauty had ever lainin its meditative soberness.

“Father,” she said, as soon as she recalledherself to the outspread meal, “it is so kindof you to get this nice breakfast with your own hands,and I idly asleep the while.”

“I do it every day,” he replied.“You have left me; everybody has left me; howshould I live but by my own hands.”

“You are very lonely, are you not?”

“Ay, child—­to a degree that you knownothing of! It is my own fault. You arethe only one who has been near me for weeks. Andyou will come no more.”

“Why do you say that? Indeed I will, ifyou would like to see me.”

Henchard signified dubiousness. Though he hadso lately hoped that Elizabeth-Jane might again livein his house as daughter, he would not ask her todo so now. Newson might return at any moment,and what Elizabeth would think of him for his deceptionit were best to bear apart from her.

When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered,till the moment arrived at which Henchard was accustomedto go to his daily work. Then she arose, andwith assurance of coming again soon went up the hillin the morning sunlight.

“At this moment her heart is as warm towardsme as mine is towards her, she would live with mehere in this humble cottage for the asking! Yetbefore the evening probably he will have come, andthen she will scorn me!”

This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard tohimself, accompanied him everywhere through the day.His mood was no longer that of the rebellious, ironical,reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of onewho has lost all that can make life interesting, oreven tolerable. There would remain nobody forhim to be proud of, nobody to fortify him; for Elizabeth-Janewould soon be but as a stranger, and worse. Susan,Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth—­all had gonefrom him, one after one, either by his fault or byhis misfortune.

In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire.If he could have summoned music to his aid his existencemight even now have been borne; for with Henchardmusic was of regal power. The merest trumpet ororgan tone was enough to move him, and high harmoniestransubstantiated him. But hard fate had ordainedthat he should be unable to call up this Divine spiritin his need.

The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself;there was nothing to come, nothing to wait for.Yet in the natural course of life he might possiblyhave to linger on earth another thirty or forty years—­scoffedat; at best pitied.

The thought of it was unendurable.

To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadowsthrough which much water flowed. The wandererin this direction who should stand still for a fewmoments on a quiet night, might hear singular symphoniesfrom these waters, as from a lampless orchestra, allplaying in their sundry tones from near and far partsof the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir theyexecuted a recitative; where a tributary brook fellover a stone breastwork they trilled cheerily; underan arch they performed a metallic cymballing, andat Durnover Hole they hissed. The spot at whichtheir instrumentation rose loudest was a place calledTen Hatches, whence during high springs there proceededa very fugue of sounds.

The river here was deep and strong at all times, andthe hatches on this account were raised and loweredby cogs and a winch. A patch led from the secondbridge over the highway (so often mentioned) to theseHatches, crossing the stream at their head by a narrowplank-bridge. But after night-fall human beingswere seldom found going that way, the path leadingonly to a deep reach of the stream called Blackwater,and the passage being dangerous.

Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road,proceeded to the second, or stone bridge, and thencestruck into this path of solitude, following its coursebeside the stream till the dark shapes of the TenHatches cut the sheen thrown upon the river by theweak lustre that still lingered in the west.In a second or two he stood beside the weir-hole wherethe water was at its deepest. He looked backwardsand forwards, and no creature appeared in view.He then took off his coat and hat, and stood on thebrink of the stream with his hands clasped in frontof him.

While his eyes were bent on the water beneath thereslowly became visible a something floating in thecircular pool formed by the wash of centuries; thepool he was intending to make his death-bed. Atfirst it was indistinct by reason of the shadow fromthe bank; but it emerged thence and took shape, whichwas that of a human body, lying stiff and stark uponthe surface of the stream.

In the circular current imparted by the central flowthe form was brought forward, till it passed underhis eyes; and then he perceived with a sense of horrorthat it was himself. Not a man somewhatresembling him, but one in all respects his counterpart,his actual double, was floating as if dead in TenHatches Hole.

The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappyman, and he turned away as one might have done inthe actual presence of an appalling miracle.He covered his eyes and bowed his head. Withoutlooking again into the stream he took his coat andhat, and went slowly away.

Presently he found himself by the door of his owndwelling. To his surprise Elizabeth-Jane wasstanding there. She came forward, spoke, calledhim “father” just as before. Newson,then, had not even yet returned.

“I thought you seemed very sad this morning,”she said, “so I have come again to see you.Not that I am anything but sad myself. But everybodyand everything seem against you so, and I know youmust be suffering.”

How this woman divined things! Yet she had notdivined their whole extremity.

He said to her, “Are miracles still worked,do ye think, Elizabeth? I am not a read man.I don’t know so much as I could wish. Ihave tried to peruse and learn all my life; but themore I try to know the more ignorant I seem.”

“I don’t quite think there are any miraclesnowadays,” she said.

“No interference in the case of desperate intentions,for instance? Well, perhaps not, in a directway. Perhaps not. But will you come andwalk with me, and I will show ’ee what I mean.”

She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway,and by the lonely path to Ten Hatches. He walkedrestlessly, as if some haunting shade, unseen of her,hovered round him and troubled his glance. Shewould gladly have talked of Lucetta, but feared todisturb him. When they got near the weir he stoodstill, and asked her to go forward and look into thepool, and tell him what she saw.

She went, and soon returned to him. “Nothing,”she said.

“Go again,” said Henchard, “andlook narrowly.”

She proceeded to the river brink a second time.On her return, after some delay, she told him thatshe saw something floating round and round there;but what it was she could not discern. It seemedto be a bundle of old clothes.

“Are they like mine?” asked Henchard.

“Well—­they are. Dear me—­Iwonder if—­Father, let us go away!”

“Go and look once more; and then we will gethome.”

She went back, and he could see her stoop till herhead was close to the margin of the pool. Shestarted up, and hastened back to his side.

“Well,” said Henchard; “what doyou say now?”

“Let us go home.”

“But tell me—­do—­what isit floating there?”

“The effigy,” she answered hastily.“They must have thrown it into the river higherup amongst the willows at Blackwater, to get rid ofit in their alarm at discovery by the magistrates,and it must have floated down here.”

“Ah—­to be sure—­the imageo’ me! But where is the other? Whythat one only?... That performance of theirskilled her, but kept me alive!”

Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words“kept me alive,” as they slowly retracedtheir way to the town, and at length guessed theirmeaning. “Father!—­I will notleave you alone like this!” she cried.“May I live with you, and tend upon you as Iused to do? I do not mind your being poor.I would have agreed to come this morning, but you didnot ask me.”

“May you come to me?” he cried bitterly.“Elizabeth, don’t mock me! If youonly would come!”

“I will,” said she.

“How will you forgive all my roughness in formerdays? You cannot!”

“I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more.”

Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans forreunion; and at length each went home. Then Henchardshaved for the first time during many days, and puton clean linen, and combed his hair; and was as a manresuscitated thenceforward.

The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Janehad stated; the effigy was discovered by a cowherd,and that of Lucetta a little higher up in the samestream. But as little as possible was said ofthe matter, and the figures were privately destroyed.

Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchardno less regarded it as an intervention that the figureshould have been floating there. Elizabeth-Janeheard him say, “Who is such a reprobate as I!And yet it seems that even I be in Somebody’shand!”

42.

But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody’shand began to die out of Henchard’s breast astime slowly removed into distance the event whichhad given that feeling birth. The apparition ofNewson haunted him. He would surely return.

Yet Newson did not arrive. Lucetta had been bornealong the churchyard path; Casterbridge had for thelast time turned its regard upon her, before proceedingto its work as if she had never lived. But Elizabethremained undisturbed in the belief of her relationshipto Henchard, and now shared his home. Perhaps,after all, Newson was gone for ever.

In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, atleast, proximate cause of Lucetta’s illnessand death, and his first impulse was naturally enoughto wreak vengeance in the name of the law upon theperpetrators of the mischief. He resolved to waittill the funeral was over ere he moved in the matter.The time having come he reflected. Disastrousas the result had been, it was obviously in no wayforeseen or intended by the thoughtless crew who arrangedthe motley procession. The tempting prospectof putting to the blush people who stand at the headof affairs—­that supreme and piquant enjoymentof those who writhe under the heel of the same—­hadalone animated them, so far as he could see; for heknew nothing of Jopp’s incitements. Otherconsiderations were also involved. Lucetta hadconfessed everything to him before her death, andit was not altogether desirable to make much ado abouther history, alike for her sake, for Henchard’s,and for his own. To regard the event as an untowardaccident seemed, to Farfrae, truest considerationfor the dead one’s memory, as well as best philosophy.

Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet.For Elizabeth’s sake the former had fetteredhis pride sufficiently to accept the small seed androot business which some of the Town Council, headedby Farfrae, had purchased to afford him a new opening.Had he been only personally concerned Henchard, withoutdoubt, would have declined assistance even remotelybrought about by the man whom he had so fiercely assailed.But the sympathy of the girl seemed necessary to hisvery existence; and on her account pride itself worethe garments of humility.

Here they settled themselves; and on each day of theirlives Henchard anticipated her every wish with a watchfulnessin which paternal regard was heightened by a burningjealous dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson wouldever now return to Casterbridge to claim her as a daughterthere was little reason to suppose. He was awanderer and a stranger, almost an alien; he had notseen his daughter for several years; his affectionfor her could not in the nature of things be keen;other interests would probably soon obscure his recollectionsof her, and prevent any such renewal of inquiry intothe past as would lead to a discovery that she wasstill a creature of the present. To satisfy hisconscience somewhat Henchard repeated to himself thatthe lie which had retained for him the coveted treasurehad not been deliberately told to that end, but hadcome from him as the last defiant word of a despairwhich took no thought of consequences. Furthermorehe pleaded within himself that no Newson could loveher as he loved her, or would tend her to his life’sextremity as he was prepared to do cheerfully.

Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard,and nothing occurred to mark their days during theremainder of the year. Going out but seldom,and never on a marketday, they saw Donald Farfrae onlyat rarest intervals, and then mostly as a transitoryobject in the distance of the street. Yet hewas pursuing his ordinary avocations, smiling mechanicallyto fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with bargainers—­asbereaved men do after a while.

Time, “in his own grey style,” taughtFarfrae how to estimate his experience of Lucetta—­allthat it was, and all that it was not. There aremen whose hearts insist upon a dogged fidelity to someimage or cause thrown by chance into their keeping,long after their judgment has pronounced it no rarity—­eventhe reverse, indeed, and without them the band ofthe worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was notof those. It was inevitable that the insight,briskness, and rapidity of his nature should takehim out of the dead blank which his loss threw abouthim. He could not but perceive that by the deathof Lucetta he had exchanged a looming misery for asimple sorrow. After that revelation of her history,which must have come sooner or later in any circ*mstances,it was hard to believe that life with her would havebeen productive of further happiness.

But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions,Lucetta’s image still lived on with him, herweaknesses provoking only the gentlest criticism,and her sufferings attenuating wrath at her concealmentsto a momentary spark now and then.

By the end of a year Henchard’s little retailseed and grain shop, not much larger than a cupboard,had developed its trade considerably, and the stepfatherand daughter enjoyed much serenity in the pleasant,sunny corner in which it stood. The quiet bearingof one who brimmed with an inner activity characterizedElizabeth-Jane at this period. She took longwalks into the country two or three times a week, mostlyin the direction of Budmouth. Sometimes it occurredto him that when she sat with him in the evening afterthose invigorating walks she was civil rather thanaffectionate; and he was troubled; one more bitterregret being added to those he had already experiencedat having, by his severe censorship, frozen up herprecious affection when originally offered.

She had her own way in everything now. In goingand coming, in buying and selling, her word was law.

“You have got a new muff, Elizabeth,”he said to her one day quite humbly.

“Yes; I bought it,” she said.

He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table.The fur was of a glossy brown, and, though he wasno judge of such articles, he thought it seemed anunusually good one for her to possess.

“Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?”he hazarded.

“It was rather above my figure,” she saidquietly. “But it is not showy.”

“O no,” said the netted lion, anxiousnot to pique her in the least.

Some little time after, when the year had advancedinto another spring, he paused opposite her emptybedroom in passing it. He thought of the timewhen she had cleared out of his then large and handsomehouse in corn Street, in consequence of his dislikeand harshness, and he had looked into her chamberin just the same way. The present room was muchhumbler, but what struck him about it was the abundanceof books lying everywhere. Their number and qualitymade the meagre furniture that supported them seemabsurdly disproportionate. Some, indeed many,must have been recently purchased; and though he encouragedher to buy in reason, he had no notion that she indulgedher innate passion so extensively in proportion tothe narrowness of their income. For the firsttime 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 eventhappened which set his thoughts flying in quite anotherdirection.

The busy time of the seed trade was over, and thequiet weeks that preceded the hay-season had come—­settingtheir special stamp upon Casterbridge by throngingthe market with wood rakes, new waggons in yellow,green, and red, formidable scythes, and pitchforksof prong sufficient to skewer up a small family.Henchard, contrary to his wont, went out one Saturdayafternoon towards the market-place from a curiousfeeling that he would like to pass a few minutes onthe spot of his former triumphs. Farfrae, towhom he was still a comparative stranger, stood afew steps below the Corn Exchange door—­ausual position with him at this hour—­andhe appeared lost in thought about something he waslooking at a little way off.

Henchard’s eyes followed Farfrae’s, andhe saw that the object of his gaze was no sample-showingfarmer, but his own stepdaughter, who had just comeout of a shop over the way. She, on her part,was quite unconscious of his attention, and in thiswas less fortunate than those young women whose veryplumes, like those of Juno’s bird, are set withArgus eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken.

Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there wasnothing significant after all in Farfrae’s lookat Elizabeth-Jane at that juncture. Yet he couldnot forget that the Scotchman had once shown a tenderinterest in her, of a fleeting kind. Thereuponpromptly came to the surface that idiosyncrasy ofHenchard’s which had ruled his courses from thebeginning and had mainly made him what he was.Instead of thinking that a union between his cherishedstep-daughter and the energetic thriving Donald wasa thing to be desired for her good and his own, hehated the very possibility.

Time had been when such instinctive opposition wouldhave taken shape in action. But he was not nowthe Henchard of former days. He schooled himselfto accept her will, in this as in other matters, asabsolute and unquestionable. He dreaded lestan antagonistic word should lose for him such regardas he had regained from her by his devotion, feelingthat to retain this under separation was better thanto incur her dislike by keeping her near.

But the mere thought of such separation fevered hisspirit much, and in the evening he said, with thestillness of suspense: “Have you seen Mr.Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it waswith some confusion that she replied “No.”

“Oh—­that’s right—­that’sright....It was only that I saw him in the streetwhen we both were there.” He was wonderingif her embarrassment justified him in a new suspicion—­thatthe long walks which she had latterly been taking,that the new books which had so surprised him, hadanything to do with the young man. She did notenlighten him, and lest silence should allow her toshape thoughts unfavourable to their present friendlyrelations, he diverted the discourse into another channel.

Henchard was, by original make, the last man to actstealthily, for good or for evil. But the solicitustimor of his love—­the dependence upon Elizabeth’sregard into which he had declined (or, in another sense,to which he had advanced)—­denaturalizedhim. He would often weigh and consider for hourstogether the meaning of such and such a deed or phraseof hers, when a blunt settling question would formerlyhave been his first instinct. And now, uneasyat the thought of a passion for Farfrae which shouldentirely displace her mild filial sympathy with himself,he observed her going and coming more narrowly.

There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane’smovements beyond what habitual reserve induced, andit may at once be owned on her account that she wasguilty of occasional conversations with Donald whenthey chanced to meet. Whatever the origin ofher walks on the Budmouth Road, her return from thosewalks was often coincident with Farfrae’s emergencefrom corn Street for a twenty minutes’ blow onthat rather windy highway—­just to winnowthe seeds and chaff out of him before sitting downto tea, as he said. Henchard became aware of thisby going to the Ring, and, screened by its enclosure,keeping his eye upon the road till he saw them meet.His face assumed an expression of extreme anguish.

“Of her, too, he means to rob me!” hewhispered. “But he has the right.I do not wish to interfere.”

The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind,and matters were by no means so far advanced betweenthe young people as Henchard’s jealous griefinferred. Could he have heard such conversationas passed he would have been enlightened thus much:—­

He.—­“You like walking this way,Miss Henchard—­and is it not so?”(uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an appraising,pondering gaze at her).

She.—­“O yes. I have chosenthis road latterly. I have no great reason forit.”

He.—­“But that may make a reasonfor others.”

She (reddening).—­“I don’tknow that. My reason, however, such as it is,is that I wish to get a glimpse of the sea every day.”

He.—­“Is it a secret why?”

She ( reluctantly ).—­“Yes.”

He (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).—­“Ah,I doubt there will be any good in secrets! Asecret cast a deep shadow over my life. And wellyou know what it was.”

Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrainedfrom confessing why the sea attracted her. Shecould not herself account for it fully, not knowingthe secret possibly to be that, in addition to earlymarine associations, her blood was a sailor’s.

“Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae,”she added shyly. “I wonder if I ought toaccept so many!”

“Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasureto get them for you, than you to have them!”

“It cannot.”

They proceeded along the road together till they reachedthe town, and their paths diverged.

Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their owndevices, put nothing in the way of their courses,whatever they might mean. If he were doomed tobe bereft of her, so it must be. In the situationwhich their marriage would create he could see nolocus standi for himself at all. Farfrae wouldnever recognize him more than superciliously; hispoverty ensured that, no less than his past conduct.And so Elizabeth would grow to be a stranger to him,and the end of his life would be friendless solitude.

With such a possibility impending he could not helpwatchfulness. Indeed, within certain lines, hehad the right to keep an eye upon her as his charge.The meetings seemed to become matters of course withthem on special days of the week.

At last full proof was given him. He was standingbehind a wall close to the place at which Farfraeencountered her. He heard the young man addressher as “Dearest Elizabeth-Jane,” and thenkiss her, the girl looking quickly round to assureherself that nobody was near.

When they were gone their way Henchard came out fromthe wall, and mournfully followed them to Casterbridge.The chief looming trouble in this engagement had notdecreased. Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unlikethe rest of the people, must suppose Elizabeth to behis actual daughter, from his own assertion whilehe himself had the same belief; and though Farfraemust have so far forgiven him as to have no objectionto own him as a father-in-law, intimate they couldnever be. Thus would the girl, who was his onlyfriend, be withdrawn from him by degrees through herhusband’s influence, and learn to despise him.

Had she lost her heart to any other man in the worldthan the one he had rivalled, cursed, wrestled withfor life in days before his spirit was broken, Henchardwould have said, “I am content.” Butcontent with the prospect as now depicted was hardto acquire.

There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughtsunowned, unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimesallowed to wander for a moment prior to being sentoff whence they came. One of these thoughts sailedinto Henchard’s ken now.

Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the factthat his betrothed was not the child of Michael Henchardat all—­legally, nobody’s child; howwould that correct and leading townsman receive theinformation? He might possibly forsake Elizabeth-Jane,and then she would be her step-sire’s own again.

Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, “God forbidsuch a thing! Why should I still be subject tothese visitations of the devil, when I try so hardto keep him away?”

43.

What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough,seen at a little later date by other people.That Mr. Farfrae “walked with that bankruptHenchard’s step-daughter, of all women,”became a common topic in the town, the simple perambulatingterm being used hereabout to signify a wooing; andthe nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge,who had each looked upon herself as the only womancapable of making the merchant Councilman happy, indignantlyleft off going to the church Farfrae attended, leftoff conscious mannerisms, left off putting him intheir prayers at night amongst their blood relations;in short, reverted to their normal courses.

Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom thislooming choice of the Scotchman’s gave unmixedsatisfaction were the members of the philosophic party,which included Longways, Christopher Coney, BillyWills, Mr. Buzzford, and the like. The Three Marinershaving been, years before, the house in which theyhad witnessed the young man and woman’s firstand humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they

took a kindly interest in their career, not unconnected,perhaps, with visions of festive treatment at theirhands hereafter. Mrs. Stannidge, having rolledinto the large parlour one evening and said that itwas a wonder such a man as Mr. Farfrae, “a pillowof the town,” who might have chosen one of thedaughters of the professional men or private residents,should stoop so low, Coney ventured to disagree withher.

“No, ma’am, no wonder at all. ’Tisshe that’s a stooping to he—­that’smy opinion. A widow man—­whose firstwife was no credit to him—­what is it fora young perusing woman that’s her own mistressand well liked? But as a neat patching up ofthings I see much good in it. When a man haveput up a tomb of best marble-stone to the other one,as he’ve done, and weeped his fill, and thoughtit all over, and said to hisself, ’T’othertook me in, I knowed this one first; she’s asensible piece for a partner, and there’s nofaithful woman in high life now’;—­well,he may do worse than not to take her, if she’stender-inclined.”

Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we mustguard against a too liberal use of the conventionaldeclaration that a great sensation was caused by theprospective event, that all the gossips’ tongueswere set wagging thereby, and so-on, even though sucha declaration might lend some eclat to the careerof our poor only heroine. When all has been saidabout busy rumourers, a superficial and temporary thingis the interest of anybody in affairs which do notdirectly touch them. It would be a truer representationto say that Casterbridge (ever excepting the nineteenyoung ladies) looked up for a moment at the news, andwithdrawing its attention, went on labouring and victualling,bringing up its children, and burying its dead, withoutcaring a tittle for Farfrae’s domestic plans.

Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfatherby Elizabeth herself or by Farfrae either. Reasoningon the cause of their reticence he concluded that,estimating him by his past, the throbbing pair wereafraid to broach the subject, and looked upon him asan irksome obstacle whom they would be heartily gladto get out of the way. Embittered as he was againstsociety, this moody view of himself took deeper anddeeper hold of Henchard, till the daily necessityof facing mankind, and of them particularly Elizabeth-Jane,became well-nigh more than he could endure. Hishealth declined; he became morbidly sensitive.He wished he could escape those who did not want him,and hide his head for ever.

But what if he were mistaken in his views, and therewere no necessity that his own absolute separationfrom her should be involved in the incident of hermarriage?

He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative—­himselfliving like a fangless lion about the back rooms ofa house in which his stepdaughter was mistress, aninoffensive old man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth,and good-naturedly tolerated by her husband. Itwas terrible to his pride to think of descending solow; and yet, for the girl’s sake he might putup with anything; even from Farfrae; even snubbingsand masterful tongue-scourgings. The privilegeof being in the house she occupied would almost outweighthe personal humiliation.

Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse,the courtship—­which it evidently now was—­hadan absorbing interest for him.

Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walkson the Budmouth Road, and Farfrae as often made itconvenient to create an accidental meeting with herthere. Two miles out, a quarter of a mile fromthe highway, was the prehistoric fort called Mai Dun,of huge dimensions and many ramparts, within or uponwhose enclosures a human being as seen from the road,was but an insignificant speck. Hitherward Henchardoften resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the hedgelessVia—­for it was the original track laidout by the legions of the Empire—­to a distanceof two or three miles, his object being to read theprogress of affairs between Farfrae and his charmer.

One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculinefigure came along the road from Budmouth, and lingered.Applying his telescope to his eye Henchard expectedthat Farfrae’s features would be disclosed asusual. But the lenses revealed that today theman was not Elizabeth-Jane’s lover.

It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as heturned in the scrutiny of the road he revealed hisface. Henchard lived a lifetime the moment hesaw it. The face was Newson’s.

Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds madeno other movement. Newson waited, and Henchardwaited—­if that could be called a waitingwhich was a transfixture. But Elizabeth-Jane didnot come. Something or other had caused her toneglect her customary walk that day. PerhapsFarfrae and she had chosen another road for variety’ssake. But what did that amount to? She mightbe here to-morrow, and in any case Newson, if benton a private meeting and a revelation of the truthto her, would soon make his opportunity.

Then he would tell her not only of his paternity,but of the ruse by which he had been once sent away.Elizabeth’s strict nature would cause her forthe first time to despise her stepfather, would rootout his image as that of an arch-deceiver, and Newsonwould reign in her heart in his stead.

But Newson did not see anything of her that morning.Having stood still awhile he at last retraced hissteps, and Henchard felt like a condemned man whohas a few hours’ respite. When he reachedhis own house he found her there.

“O father!” she said innocently.“I have had a letter—­a strange one—­notsigned. Somebody has asked me to meet him, eitheron the Budmouth Road at noon today, or in the eveningat Mr. Farfrae’s. He says he came to seeme some time ago, but a trick was played him, so thathe did not see me. I don’t understand it;but between you and me I think Donald is at the bottomof the mystery, and that it is a relation of his whowants to pass an opinion on his choice. But Idid not like to go till I had seen you. ShallI go?”

Henchard replied heavily, “Yes; go.”

The question of his remaining in Casterbridge wasfor ever disposed of by this closing in of Newsonon the scene. Henchard was not the man to standthe certainty of condemnation on a matter so near hisheart. And being an old hand at bearing anguishin silence, and haughty withal, he resolved to makeas light as he could of his intentions, while immediatelytaking his measures.

He surprised the young woman whom he had looked uponas his all in this world by saying to her, as if hedid not care about her more: “I am goingto leave Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane.”

“Leave Casterbridge!” she cried, “andleave—­me?”

“Yes, this little shop can be managed by youalone as well as by us both; I don’t care aboutshops and streets and folk—­I would ratherget into the country by myself, out of sight, andfollow my own ways, and leave you to yours.”

She looked down and her tears fell silently.It seemed to her that this resolve of his had comeon account of her attachment and its probable result.She showed her devotion to Farfrae, however, by masteringher emotion and speaking out.

“I am sorry you have decided on this,”she said with difficult firmness. “ForI thought it probable—­possible—­thatI might marry Mr. Farfrae some little time hence,and I did not know that you disapproved of the step!”

“I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy,”said Henchard huskily. “If I did not approveit would be no matter! I wish to go away.My presence might make things awkward in the future,and, in short, it is best that I go.”

Nothing that her affection could urge would inducehim to reconsider his determination; for she couldnot urge what she did not know—­that whenshe should learn he was not related to her other thanas a step-parent she would refrain from despisinghim, and that when she knew what he had done to keepher 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 whichcould argue it away.

“Then,” she said at last, “you willnot be able to come to my wedding; and that is notas it ought to be.”

“I don’t want to see it—­I don’twant to see it!” he exclaimed; adding more softly,“but think of me sometimes in your future life—­you’lldo that, Izzy?—­think of me when you areliving as the wife of the richest, the foremost manin the town, and don’t let my sins, whenyou know them all, cause ’eeto quite forget that though I loved ’ee lateI loved ’ee well.”

“It is because of Donald!” she sobbed.

“I don’t forbid you to marry him,”said Henchard. “Promise not to quite forgetme when——­” He meant when Newsonshould come.

She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and thesame evening at dusk Henchard left the town, to whosedevelopment he had been one of the chief stimulantsfor many years. During the day he had bought anew tool-basket, cleaned up his old hay-knife andwimble, set himself up in fresh leggings, kneenapsand corduroys, and in other ways gone back to theworking clothes of his young manhood, discarding forever the shabby-genteel suit of cloth and rusty silkhat that since his decline had characterized him inthe Casterbridge street as a man who had seen betterdays.

He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the manywho had known him being aware of his departure.Elizabeth-Jane accompanied him as far as the secondbridge on the highway—­for the hour of herappointment with the unguessed visitor at Farfrae’shad not yet arrived—­and parted from himwith unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him backa minute or two before finally letting him go.She watched his form diminish across the moor, theyellow rush-basket at his back moving up and down witheach tread, and the creases behind his knees comingand going alternately till she could no longer seethem. Though she did not know it Henchard formedat this moment much the same picture as he had presentedwhen entering Casterbridge for the first time nearlya quarter of a century before; except, to be sure,that the serious addition to his years had considerablylessened the spring to his stride, that his stateof hopelessness had weakened him, and imparted to hisshoulders, as weighted by the basket, a perceptiblebend.

He went on till he came to the first milestone, whichstood in the bank, half way up a steep hill.He rested his basket on the top of the stone, placedhis elbows on it, and gave way to a convulsive twitch,which was worse than a sob, because it was so hardand so dry.

“If I had only got her with me—­ifI only had!” he said. “Hard workwould be nothing to me then! But that was notto be. I—­Cain—­go aloneas I deserve—­an outcast and a vagabond.But my punishment is not greater than I can bear!”

He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket,and went on.

Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh,recovered her equanimity, and turned her face to Casterbridge.Before she had reached the first house she was metin her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was evidentlynot their first meeting that day; they joined handswithout ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked, “Andis he gone—­and did you tell him?—­Imean of the other matter—­not of ours.”

“He is gone; and I told him all I knew of yourfriend. Donald, who is he?”

“Well, well, dearie; you will know soon aboutthat. And Mr. Henchard will hear of it if hedoes not go far.”

“He will go far—­he’s bent upongetting out of sight and sound!”

She walked beside her lover, and when they reachedthe Crossways, or Bow, turned with him into Corn Streetinstead of going straight on to her own door.At Farfrae’s house they stopped and went in.

Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-room,saying, “There he is waiting for you,”and Elizabeth entered. In the arm-chair sat thebroad-faced genial man who had called on Henchard ona memorable morning between one and two years beforethis time, and whom the latter had seen mount thecoach and depart within half-an-hour of his arrival.It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the light-heartedfather 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 ofpaternity. Henchard’s departure was in amoment explained. When the true facts came tobe handled the difficulty of restoring her to herold belief in Newson was not so great as might haveseemed likely, for Henchard’s conduct itselfwas 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, thisfather in early domiciliation might almost have carriedthe point against him, when the incidents of her partingwith Henchard had a little worn off.

Newson’s pride in what she had grown up to bewas more than he could express. He kissed heragain and again.

“I’ve saved you the trouble to come andmeet me—­ha-ha!” said Newson.“The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said,’Come up and stop with me for a day or two,Captain Newson, and I’ll bring her round.’‘Faith,’ says I, ‘so I will’;and here I am.”

“Well, Henchard is gone,” said Farfrae,shutting the door. “He has done it allvoluntarily, and, as I gather from Elizabeth, he hasbeen very nice with her. I was got rather uneasy;but all is as it should be, and we will have no moredeefficulties at all.”

“Now, that’s very much as I thought,”said Newson, looking into the face of each by turns.“I said to myself, ay, a hundred times, whenI tried to get a peep at her unknown to herself—­’Dependupon it, ’tis best that I should live on quietfor a few days like this till something turns up forthe better.’ I now know you are all right,and what can I wish for more?”

“Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to seeye here every day now, since it can do no harm,”said Farfrae. “And what I’ve beenthinking is that the wedding may as well be kept undermy own roof, the house being large, and you beingin lodgings by yourself—­so that a greatdeal of trouble and expense would be saved ye?—­and’tis a convenience when a couple’s marriednot to hae far to go to get home!”

“With all my heart,” said Captain Newson;“since, as ye say, it can do no harm, now poorHenchard’s gone; though I wouldn’t havedone it otherwise, or put myself in his way at all;for I’ve already in my lifetime been an intruderinto his family quite as far as politeness can beexpected to put up with. But what do the youngwoman say herself about it? Elizabeth, my child,come and hearken to what we be talking about, andnot bide staring out o’ the window as if ye didn’thear.’

“Donald and you must settle it,” murmuredElizabeth, still keeping up a scrutinizing gaze atsome small object in the street.

“Well, then,” continued Newson, turninganew to Farfrae with a face expressing thorough entryinto the subject, “that’s how we’llhave it. And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide somuch, and houseroom, and all that, I’ll do mypart in the drinkables, and see to the rum and schiedam—­maybea dozen jars will be sufficient?—­as manyof the folk will be ladies, and perhaps they won’tdrink hard enough to make a high average in the reckoning?But you know best. I’ve provided for menand shipmates times enough, but I’m as ignorantas a child how many glasses of grog a woman, that’snot a drinking woman, is expected to consume at theseceremonies?”

“Oh, none—­we’ll no want muchof that—­O no!” said Farfrae, shakinghis head with appalled gravity. “Do youleave all to me.”

When they had gone a little further in these particularsNewson, leaning back in his chair and smiling reflectivelyat the ceiling, said, “I’ve never toldye, or have I, Mr. Farfrae, how Henchard put me offthe scent that time?”

He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alludedto.

“Ah, I thought I hadn’t. I resolvedthat I would not, I remember, not to hurt the man’sname. But now he’s gone I can tell ye.Why, I came to Casterbridge nine or ten months beforethat day last week that I found ye out. I hadbeen here twice before then. The first time Ipassed through the town on my way westward, not knowingElizabeth lived here. Then hearing at some place—­Iforget where—­that a man of the name ofHenchard had been mayor here, I came back, and calledat his house one morning. The old rascal!—­hesaid Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago.”

Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.

“Now, it never crossed my mind that the manwas selling me a packet,” continued Newson.“And, if you’ll believe me, I was thatupset, that I went back to the coach that had broughtme, and took passage onward without lying in the townhalf-an-hour. Ha-ha!—­’twas agood joke, and well carried out, and I give the mancredit for’t!”

Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence.“A joke?—­O no!” she cried.“Then he kept you from me, father, all thosemonths, when you might have been here?”

The father admitted that such was the case.

“He ought not to have done it!” said Farfrae.

Elizabeth sighed. “I said I would neverforget him. But O! I think I ought to forgethim now!”

Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners amongstrange men and strange moralities, failed to perceivethe enormity of Henchard’s crime, notwithstandingthat he himself had been the chief sufferer therefrom.Indeed, the attack upon the absent culprit waxing serious,he began to take Henchard’s part.

“Well, ’twas not ten words that he said,after all,” Newson pleaded. “Andhow could he know that I should be such a simpletonas to believe him? ’Twas as much my faultas his, poor fellow!”

“No,” said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in herrevulsion of feeling. “He knew your disposition—­youalways were so trusting, father; I’ve heard mymother say so hundreds of times—­and he didit to wrong you. After weaning me from you thesefive years by saying he was my father, he should nothave done this.”

Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set beforeElizabeth any extenuation of the absent one’sdeceit. Even had he been present Henchard mightscarce have pleaded it, so little did he value himselfor his good name.

“Well, well—­never mind—­itis all over and past,” said Newson good-naturedly.“Now, about this wedding again.”

44.

Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitaryway eastward till weariness overtook him, and he lookedabout for a place of rest. His heart was so exacerbatedat parting from the girl that he could not face aninn, or even a household of the most humble kind; andentering a field he lay down under a wheatrick, feelingno want of food. The very heaviness of his soulcaused him to sleep profoundly.

The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes acrossthe stubble awoke him the next morning early.He opened his basket and ate for his breakfast whathe had packed for his supper; and in doing so overhauledthe remainder of his kit. Although everythinghe brought necessitated carriage at his own back,he had secreted among his tools a few of Elizabeth-Jane’scast-off belongings, in the shape of gloves, shoes,a scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and in hispocket he carried a curl of her hair. Havinglooked at these things he closed them up again, andwent onward.

During five consecutive days Henchard’s rushbasket rode along upon his shoulder between the highwayhedges, the new yellow of the rushes catching theeye of an occasional field-labourer as he glanced throughthe quickset, together with the wayfarer’s hatand head, and down-turned face, over which the twigshadows moved in endless procession. It now becameapparent that the direction of his journey was WeydonPriors, which he reached on the afternoon of the sixthday.

The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had beenheld for so many generations was now bare of humanbeings, and almost of aught besides. A few sheepgrazed thereabout, but these ran off when Henchardhalted upon the summit. He deposited his basketupon the turf, and looked about with sad curiosity;till he discovered the road by which his wife and himselfhad entered on the upland so memorable to both, five-and-twentyyears before.

“Yes, we came up that way,” he said, afterascertaining his bearings. “She was carryingthe baby, and I was reading a ballet-sheet. Thenwe crossed about here—­she so sad and weary,and I speaking to her hardly at all, because of mycursed pride and mortification at being poor.Then we saw the tent—­that must have stoodmore this way.” He walked to another spot,it was not really where the tent had stood but it seemedso to him. “Here we went in, and here wesat down. I faced this way. Then I drank,and committed my crime. It must have been juston that very pixy-ring that she was standing whenshe said her last words to me before going off withhim; I can hear their sound now, and the sound ofher sobs: ’O Mike! I’ve livedwith thee all this while, and had nothing but temper.Now I’m no more to ‘ee—­I’lltry my luck elsewhere.’”

He experienced not only the bitterness of a man whofinds, in looking back upon an ambitious course, thatwhat he has sacrificed in sentiment was worth as muchas what he has gained in substance; but the superaddedbitterness of seeing his very recantation nullified.He had been sorry for all this long ago; but his attemptsto replace ambition by love had been as fully foiledas his ambition itself. His wronged wife had foiledthem by a fraud so grandly simple as to be almost avirtue. It was an odd sequence that out of allthis tampering with social law came that flower ofNature, Elizabeth. Part of his wish to wash hishands of life arose from his perception of its contrariousinconsistencies—­of Nature’s jauntyreadiness to support unorthodox social principles.

He intended to go on from this place—­visitedas an act of penance—­into another partof the country altogether. But he could not helpthinking of Elizabeth, and the quarter of the horizonin which she lived. Out of this it happened thatthe centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness ofthe world was counteracted by the centripetal influenceof his love for his stepdaughter. As a consequence,instead of following a straight course yet furtheraway from Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almostunconsciously, deflected from that right line of hisfirst intention; till, by degrees, his wandering,like that of the Canadian woodsman, became part ofa circle of which Casterbridge formed the centre.In ascending any particular hill he ascertained thebearings as nearly as he could by means of the sun,moon, or stars, and settled in his mind the exactdirection in which Casterbridge and Elizabeth-Janelay. Sneering at himself for his weakness heyet every hour—­nay, every few minutes—­conjecturedher actions for the time being—­her sittingdown and rising up, her goings and comings, till thoughtof Newson’s and Farfrae’s counter-influencewould pass like a cold blast over a pool, and effaceher image. And then he would say to himself, “Oyou fool! All this about a daughter who is nodaughter of thine!”

At length he obtained employment at his own occupationof hay-trusser, work of that sort being in demandat this autumn time. The scene of his hiringwas a pastoral farm near the old western highway, whosecourse was the channel of all such communicationsas passed between the busy centres of novelty andthe remote Wessex boroughs. He had chosen theneighbourhood of this artery from a sense that, situatedhere, though at a distance of fifty miles, he wasvirtually nearer to her whose welfare was so dearthan he would be at a roadless spot only half as remote.

And thus Henchard found himself again on the precisestanding which he had occupied a quarter of a centurybefore. Externally there was nothing to hinderhis making another start on the upward slope, and byhis new lights achieving higher things than his soulin its half-formed state had been able to accomplish.But the ingenious machinery contrived by the Godsfor reducing human possibilities of amelioration toa minimum—­which arranges that wisdom todo shall come pari passu with the departure of zestfor doing—­stood in the way of all that.He had no wish to make an arena a second time of aworld that had become a mere painted scene to him.

Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among thesweet-smelling grassy stems, he would survey mankindand say to himself: “Here and everywherebe folk dying before their time like frosted leaves,though wanted by their families, the country, andthe world; while I, an outcast, an encumberer of theground, wanted by nobody, and despised by all, liveon against my will!”

He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation ofthose who passed along the road—­not froma general curiosity by any means—­but inthe hope that among these travellers between Casterbridgeand London some would, sooner or later, speak of theformer place. The distance, however, was toogreat to lend much probability to his desire; and thehighest result of his attention to wayside words wasthat he did indeed hear the name “Casterbridge”uttered one day by the driver of a road-waggon.Henchard ran to the gate of the field he worked in,and hailed the speaker, who was a stranger.

“Yes—­I’ve come from there,maister,” he said, in answer to Henchard’sinquiry. “I trade up and down, ye know;though, what with this travelling without horses that’sgetting so common, my work will soon be done.”

“Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?”

“All the same as usual.”

“I’ve heard that Mr. Farfrae, the latemayor, is thinking of getting married. Now isthat true or not?”

“I couldn’t say for the life o’me. O no, I should think not.”

“But yes, John—­you forget,”said a woman inside the waggon-tilt. “Whatwere them packages we carr’d there at the beginningo’ the week? Surely they said a weddingwas coming off soon—­on Martin’s Day?”

The man declared he remembered nothing about it; andthe waggon went on jangling over the hill.

Henchard was convinced that the woman’s memoryserved her well. The date was an extremely probableone, 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 coursedifficult. Yet before he left her she had saidthat for him to be absent from her wedding was notas she wished it to be.

The remembrance would continually revive in him nowthat it was not Elizabeth and Farfrae who had drivenhim away from them, but his own haughty sense thathis presence was no longer desired. He had assumedthe return of Newson without absolute proof that theCaptain meant to return; still less that Elizabeth-Janewould welcome him; and with no proof whatever thatif he did return he would stay. What if he hadbeen mistaken in his views; if there had been no necessitythat his own absolute separation from her he lovedshould be involved in these untoward incidents?To make one more attempt to be near her: to goback, to see her, to plead his cause before her, toask forgiveness for his fraud, to endeavour strenuouslyto hold his own in her love; it was worth the riskof repulse, ay, of life itself.

But how to initiate this reversal of all his formerresolves without causing husband and wife to despisehim for his inconsistency was a question which madehim tremble and brood.

He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and thenhe concluded his hesitancies by a sudden recklessdetermination to go to the wedding festivity.Neither writing nor message would be expected of him.She had regretted his decision to be absent—­hisunanticipated presence would fill the little unsatisfiedcorner that would probably have place in her justheart without him.

To intrude as little of his personality as possibleupon a gay event with which that personality couldshow nothing in keeping, he decided not to make hisappearance till evening—­when stiffness wouldhave worn off, and a gentle wish to let bygones bebygones would exercise its sway in all hearts.

He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin’s-tide,allowing himself about sixteen miles to perform foreach of the three days’ journey, reckoning thewedding-day as one. There were only two towns,Melchester and Shottsford, of any importance alonghis course, and at the latter he stopped on the secondnight, not only to rest, but to prepare himself forthe next evening.

Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stoodin—­now stained and distorted by their twomonths of hard usage, he entered a shop to make somepurchases which should put him, externally at any rate,a little in harmony with the prevailing tone of themorrow. 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 atleast he would not now offend her, he proceeded tothe more interesting particular of buying her somepresent.

What should that present be? He walked up anddown the street, regarding dubiously the display inthe shop windows, from a gloomy sense that what hemight most like to give her would be beyond his miserablepocket. 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 modestsum asked. A sheet of newspaper was tied roundthe little creature’s wire prison, and withthe wrapped up cage in his hand Henchard sought alodging for the night.

Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soonwithin the district which had been his dealing groundin bygone years. Part of the distance he travelledby carrier, seating himself in the darkest cornerat the back of that trader’s van; and as theother passengers, mainly women going short journeys,mounted and alighted in front of Henchard, they talkedover much local news, not the least portion of thisbeing the wedding then in course of celebration atthe town they were nearing. It appeared fromtheir accounts that the town band had been hired forthe evening party, and, lest the convivial instinctsof that body should get the better of their skill,the further step had been taken of engaging the stringband from Budmouth, so that there would be a reserveof harmony to fall back upon in case of need.

He heard, however, but few particulars beyond thoseknown to him already, the incident of the deepestinterest on the journey being the soft pealing ofthe Casterbridge bells, which reached the travellers’ears while the van paused on the top of Yalbury Hillto have the drag lowered. The time was just aftertwelve o’clock.

Those notes were a signal that all had gone well;that there had been no slip ’twixt cup and lipin this case; that Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfraewere man and wife.

Henchard did not care to ride any further with hischattering companions after hearing this sound.Indeed, it quite unmanned him; and in pursuance ofhis plan of not showing himself in Casterbridge streettill evening, lest he should mortify Farfrae and hisbride, he alighted here, with his bundle and bird-cage,and was soon left as a lonely figure on the broadwhite highway.

It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae,almost two years earlier, to tell him of the seriousillness of his wife Lucetta. The place was unchanged;the same larches sighed the same notes; but Farfraehad another wife—­and, as Henchard knew,a better one. He only hoped that Elizabeth-Janehad obtained a better home than had been hers at theformer time.

He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curioushighstrung condition, unable to do much but thinkof the approaching meeting with her, and sadly satirizehimself for his emotions thereon, as a Samson shorn.Such an innovation on Casterbridge customs as a flittingof bridegroom and bride from the town immediatelyafter the ceremony, was not likely, but if it shouldhave taken place he would wait till their return.To assure himself on this point he asked a market-manwhen near the borough if the newly-married couplehad gone away, and was promptly informed that theyhad not; they were at that hour, according to allaccounts, entertaining a houseful of guests at theirhome in Corn Street.

Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at theriverside, and proceeded up the town under the feeblelamps. He need have made no inquiries beforehand,for on drawing near Farfrae’s residence it wasplain to the least observant that festivity prevailedwithin, and that Donald himself shared it, his voicebeing distinctly audible in the street, giving strongexpression to a song of his dear native country thathe loved so well as never to have revisited it.Idlers were standing on the pavement in front; andwishing to escape the notice of these Henchard passedquickly on to the door.

It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly,and people were going up and down the stairs.His courage failed him; to enter footsore, laden,and poorly dressed into the midst of such resplendencywas to bring needless humiliation upon her he loved,if not to court repulse from her husband. Accordinglyhe went round into the street at the back that heknew so well, entered the garden, and came quietlyinto the house through the kitchen, temporarily depositingthe bird and cage under a bush outside, to lessenthe awkwardness of his arrival.

Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard thathe now feared circ*mstances he would formerly havescorned, and he began to wish that he had not takenupon himself to arrive at such a juncture. However,his progress was made unexpectedly easy by his discoveringalone in the kitchen an elderly woman who seemed tobe acting as provisional housekeeper during the convulsionsfrom which Farfrae’s establishment was justthen suffering. She was one of those people whomnothing surprises, and though to her, a total stranger,his request must have seemed odd, she willingly volunteeredto go up and inform the master and mistress of thehouse that “a humble old friend” had come.

On second thought she said that he had better notwait 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 thelanding to the door of the best parlour a dance wasstruck up, and she returned to say that she wouldwait till that was over before announcing him—­Mr.and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure.

The door of the front room had been taken off itshinges to give more space, and that of the room Henchardsat in being ajar, he could see fractional parts ofthe dancers whenever their gyrations brought themnear the doorway, chiefly in the shape of the skirtsof dresses and streaming curls of hair; together withabout three-fifths of the band in profile, includingthe restless shadow of a fiddler’s elbow, andthe tip of the bass-viol bow.

The gaiety jarred upon Henchard’s spirits; andhe could not quite understand why Farfrae, a much-soberedman, and a widower, who had had his trials, shouldhave cared for it all, notwithstanding the fact thathe was quite a young man still, and quickly kindledto enthusiasm by dance and song. That the quietElizabeth, who had long ago appraised life at a moderatevalue, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood thatmarriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should havehad zest for this revelry surprised him still more.However, young people could not be quite old people,he concluded, and custom was omnipotent.

With the progress of the dance the performers spreadout somewhat, and then for the first time he caughta glimpse of the once despised daughter who had masteredhim, and made his heart ache. She was in a dressof white silk or satin, he was not near enough to saywhich—­snowy white, without a tinge of milkor cream; and the expression of her face was one ofnervous pleasure rather than of gaiety. PresentlyFarfrae came round, his exuberant Scotch movementmaking him conspicuous in a moment. The pairwere not dancing together, but Henchard could discernthat whenever the chances of the figure made them thepartners of a moment their emotions breathed a muchsubtler essence than at other times.

By degrees Henchard became aware that the measurewas trod by some one who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatoryintenseness. This was strange, and it was strangerto find that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth-Jane’spartner. The first time that Henchard saw himhe was sweeping grandly round, his head quiveringand low down, his legs in the form of an X and hisback towards the door. The next time he came roundin the other direction, his white waist-coat precedinghis face, and his toes preceding his white waistcoat.That happy face—­Henchard’s completediscomfiture lay in it. It was Newson’s,who had indeed come and supplanted him.

Henchard pushed to the door, and for some secondsmade no other movement. He rose to his feet,and stood like a dark ruin, obscured by “theshade from his own soul up-thrown.”

But he was no longer the man to stand these reversesunmoved. His agitation was great, and he wouldfain have been gone, but before he could leave thedance had ended, the housekeeper had informed Elizabeth-Janeof the stranger who awaited her, and she entered theroom immediately.

“Oh—­it is—­Mr. Henchard!”she said, starting back.

“What, Elizabeth?” he cried, as she seizedher hand. “What do you say?—­Mr.Henchard? Don’t, don’t scourge melike that! Call me worthless old Henchard—­anything—­butdon’t ’ee be so cold as this! O mymaid—­I see you have another—­areal father in my place. Then you know all; butdon’t give all your thought to him! Do yesave a little room for me!”

She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away.“I could have loved you always—­Iwould have, gladly,” she said. “Buthow can I when I know you have deceived me so—­sobitterly deceived me! You persuaded me that myfather was not my father—­allowed me to liveon in ignorance of the truth for years; and then whenhe, my warm-hearted real father, came to find me,cruelly sent him away with a wicked invention of mydeath, which nearly broke his heart. O how canI love as I once did a man who has served us likethis!”

Henchard’s lips half parted to begin an explanation.But he shut them up like a vice, and uttered not asound. How should he, there and then, set beforeher with any effect the palliatives of his great faults—­thathe had himself been deceived in her identity at first,till informed by her mother’s letter that hisown child had died; that, in the second accusation,his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamesterwho loved her affection better than his own honour?Among the many hindrances to such a pleading not theleast was this, that he did not sufficiently valuehimself to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appealor elaborate argument.

Waiving, therefore, his privilege of self-defence,he regarded only his discomposure. “Don’tye distress yourself on my account,” he said,with proud superiority. “I would not wish*t—­at such a time, too, as this. Ihave done wrong in coming to ’ee—­Isee my error. But it is only for once, so forgiveit. I’ll never trouble ’ee again,Elizabeth-Jane—­no, not to my dying day!Good-night. Good-bye!”

Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchardwent out from her rooms, and departed from the houseby the back way as he had come; and she saw him nomore.

45.

It was about a month after the day which closed asin the last chapter. Elizabeth-Jane had grownaccustomed to the novelty of her situation, and theonly difference between Donald’s movements nowand formerly was that he hastened indoors rather morequickly after business hours than he had been in thehabit of doing for some time.

Newson had stayed in Casterbridge three days afterthe wedding party (whose gaiety, as might have beensurmised, was of his making rather than of the marriedcouple’s), and was stared at and honoured asbecame the returned Crusoe of the hour. But whetheror not because Casterbridge was difficult to exciteby dramatic returns and disappearances through havingbeen for centuries an assize town, in which sensationalexits from the world, antipodean absences, and suchlike, were half-yearly occurrences, the inhabitantsdid not altogether lose their equanimity on his account.On the fourth morning he was discovered disconsolatelyclimbing a hill, in his craving to get a glimpse ofthe sea from somewhere or other. The contiguityof salt water proved to be such a necessity of hisexistence that he preferred Budmouth as a place ofresidence, notwithstanding the society of his daughterin the other town. Thither he went, and settledin lodgings in a green-shuttered cottage which hada bow-window, jutting out sufficiently to afford glimpsesof a vertical strip of blue sea to any one openingthe sash, and leaning forward far enough to look througha narrow lane of tall intervening houses.

Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her upstairsparlour, critically surveying some re-arrangementof articles with her head to one side, when the housemaidcame in with the announcement, “Oh, please ma’am,we know now how that bird-cage came there.”

In exploring her new domain during the first weekof residence, gazing with critical satisfaction onthis cheerful room and that, penetrating cautiouslyinto dark cellars, sallying forth with gingerly treadto the garden, now leaf-strewn by autumn winds, andthus, like a wise field-marshal, estimating the capabilitiesof the site whereon she was about to open her housekeepingcampaign—­Mrs. Donald Farfrae had discoveredin a screened corner a new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper,and at the bottom of the cage a little ball of feathers—­thedead body of a goldfinch. Nobody could tell herhow the bird and cage had come there, though thatthe poor little songster had been starved to deathwas evident. The sadness of the incident had madean impression on her. She had not been able toforget it for days, despite Farfrae’s tenderbanter; and now when the matter had been nearly forgottenit was again revived.

“Oh, please ma’am, we know how the bird-cagecame there. That farmer’s man who calledon the evening of the wedding—­he was seenwi’ it in his hand as he came up the street;and ’tis thoughted that he put it down whilehe came in with his message, and then went away forgettingwhere he had left it.”

This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and inthinking she seized hold of the idea, at one femininebound, that the caged bird had been brought by Henchardfor her as a wedding gift and token of repentance.He had not expressed to her any regrets or excusesfor what he had done in the past; but it was a partof his nature to extenuate nothing, and live on asone of his own worst accusers. She went out, lookedat the cage, buried the starved little singer, andfrom that hour her heart softened towards the self-alienatedman.

When her husband came in she told him her solutionof the bird-cage mystery; and begged Donald to helpher in finding out, as soon as possible, whither Henchardhad banished himself, that she might make her peacewith him; try to do something to render his life lessthat of an outcast, and more tolerable to him.Although Farfrae had never so passionately liked Henchardas Henchard had liked him, he had, on the other hand,never so passionately hated in the same direction ashis former friend had done, and he was therefore notthe least indisposed to assist Elizabeth-Jane in herlaudable plan.

But it was by no means easy to set about discoveringHenchard. He had apparently sunk into the earthon leaving Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae’s door.Elizabeth-Jane remembered what he had once attempted;and trembled.

But though she did not know it Henchard had becomea changed man since then—­as far, that is,as change of emotional basis can justify such a radicalphrase; and she needed not to fear. In a few daysFarfrae’s inquiries elicited that Henchard hadbeen seen by one who knew him walking steadily alongthe Melchester highway eastward, at twelve o’clockat night—­in other words, retracing his stepson the road by which he had come.

This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae mighthave been discovered driving his gig out of Casterbridgein that direction, Elizabeth-Jane sitting beside him,wrapped in a thick flat fur—­the victorineof the period—­her complexion somewhat richerthan formerly, and an incipient matronly dignity,which the serene Minerva-eyes of one “whose gesturesbeamed with mind” made becoming, settling onher face. Having herself arrived at a promisinghaven from at least the grosser troubles of her life,her object was to place Henchard in some similar quietudebefore he should sink into that lower stage of existencewhich was only too possible to him now.

After driving along the highway for a few miles theymade further inquiries, and learnt of a road-mender,who had been working thereabouts for weeks, that hehad observed such a man at the time mentioned; he hadleft the Melchester coachroad at Weatherbury by a forkinghighway which skirted the north of Egdon Heath.Into this road they directed the horse’s head,and soon were bowling across that ancient countrywhose surface never had been stirred to a finger’sdepth, save by the scratchings of rabbits, since brushedby the feet of the earliest tribes. The tumulithese had left behind, dun and shagged with heather,jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as thoughthey were the full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinelyextended there.

They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard. Farfraedrove onward, and by the afternoon reached the neighbourhoodof some extension of the heath to the north of Anglebury,a prominent feature of which, in the form of a blastedclump of firs on a summit of a hill, they soon passedunder. That the road they were following had,up to this point, been Henchard’s track on footthey were pretty certain; but the ramifications whichnow began to reveal themselves in the route made furtherprogress in the right direction a matter of pure guess-work,and Donald strongly advised his wife to give up thesearch in person, and trust to other means for obtainingnews of her stepfather. They were now a scoreof miles at least from home, but, by resting the horsefor a couple of hours at a village they had just traversed,it would be possible to get back to Casterbridge thatsame day, while to go much further afield would reducethem to the necessity of camping out for the night,“and that will make a hole in a sovereign,”said Farfrae. She pondered the position, andagreed with him.

He accordingly drew rein, but before reversing theirdirection paused a moment and looked vaguely roundupon the wide country which the elevated positiondisclosed. While they looked a solitary humanform came from under the clump of trees, and crossedahead of them. The person was some labourer;his gait was shambling, his regard fixed in front ofhim as absolutely as if he wore blinkers; and in hishand he carried a few sticks. Having crossedthe road he descended into a ravine, where a cottagerevealed itself, which he entered.

“If it were not so far away from CasterbridgeI should say that must be poor Whittle. ’Tisjust like him,” observed Elizabeth-Jane.

“And it may be Whittle, for he’s neverbeen to the yard these three weeks, going away withoutsaying any word at all; and I owing him for two days’work, without knowing who to pay it to.”

The possibility led them to alight, and at least makean inquiry at the cottage. Farfrae hitched thereins to the gate-post, and they approached what wasof 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 lumpycrumbling surface, channelled and sunken from itsplane, its gray rents held together here and thereby a leafy strap of ivy which could scarcely findsubstance enough for the purpose. The rafterswere sunken, and the thatch of the roof in ragged holes.Leaves from the fence had been blown into the cornersof the doorway, and lay there undisturbed. Thedoor was ajar; Farfrae knocked; and he who stood beforethem was Whittle, as they had conjectured.

His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lightingon them with an unfocused gaze; and he still heldin his hand the few sticks he had been out to gather.As soon as he recognized them he started.

“What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?”said Farfrae.

“Ay, yes sir! You see he was kind-liketo mother when she wer here below, though ’awas rough to me.”

“Who are you talking of?”

“O sir—­Mr. Henchet! Didn’tye know it? He’s just gone—­abouthalf-an-hour ago, by the sun; for I’ve got nowatch to my name.”

“Not—­dead?” faltered Elizabeth-Jane.

“Yes, ma’am, he’s gone! Hewas kind-like to mother when she wer here below, sendingher the best ship-coal, and hardly any ashes from itat all; and taties, and such-like that were very needfulto her. I seed en go down street on the nightof your worshipful’s wedding to the lady atyer side, and I thought he looked low and faltering.And I followed en over Grey’s Bridge, and heturned and zeed me, and said, ‘You go back!’But I followed, and he turned again, and said, ’Doyou hear, sir? Go back!’ But I zeed thathe was low, and I followed on still. Then ’asaid, ’Whittle, what do ye follow me for whenI’ve told ye to go back all these times?’And I said, ’Because, sir, I see things be badwith ’ee, and ye wer kind-like to mother ifye wer rough to me, and I would fain be kind-liketo you.’ Then he walked on, and I followed;and he never complained at me no more. We walkedon like that all night; and in the blue o’ themorning, when ‘twas hardly day, I looked aheado’ me, and I zeed that he wambled, and couldhardly drag along. By the time we had got pasthere, but I had seen that this house was empty as Iwent by, and I got him to come back; and I took downthe boards from the windows, and helped him inside.‘What, Whittle,’ he said, ’and canye really be such a poor fond fool as to care forsuch a wretch as I!’ Then I went on further,and some neighbourly woodmen lent me a bed, and achair, and a few other traps, and we brought ’emhere, 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—­andhe got weaker; and to-day he died. One of theneighbours have gone to get a man to measure him.”

“Dear me—­is that so!” saidFarfrae.

As for Elizabeth, she said nothing.

“Upon the head of his bed he pinned a pieceof paper, with some writing upon it,” continuedAbel Whittle. “But not being a man o’letters, I can’t read writing; so I don’tknow what it is. I can get it and show ye.”

They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage;returning in a moment with a crumpled scrap of paper.On it there was pencilled as follows:—­

MICHAEL HENCHARD’S WILL

“That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told ofmy death, or made to grieve on account of me. “&that I be not bury’d in consecrated ground.“& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.“& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.“& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.“& that no flours be planted on my grave, “&that no man remember me. “To this I putmy name.

“Michael Henchard”

“What are we to do?” said Donald, whenhe had handed the paper to her.

She could not answer distinctly. “O Donald!”she cried at last through her tears, “what bitternesslies there! O I would not have minded so muchif it had not been for my unkindness at that last parting!...But there’s no altering—­so it mustbe.”

What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dyingwas respected as far as practicable by Elizabeth-Jane,though less from a sense of the sacredness of lastwords, as such, than from her independent knowledgethat the man who wrote them meant what he said.She knew the directions to be a piece of the samestuff that his whole life was made of, and hence werenot to be tampered with to give herself a mournfulpleasure, or her husband credit for large-heartedness.

All was over at last, even her regrets for havingmisunderstood him on his last visit, for not havingsearched him out sooner, though these were deep andsharp for a good while. From this time forwardElizabeth-Jane found herself in a latitude of calmweather, kindly and grateful in itself, and doublyso after the Capharnaum in which some of her precedingyears had been spent. As the lively and sparklingemotions of her early married live cohered into anequable serenity, the finer movements of her naturefound scope in discovering to the narrow-lived onesaround her the secret (as she had once learnt it) ofmaking limited opportunities endurable; which shedeemed to consist in the cunning enlargement, by aspecies of microscopic treatment, of those minuteforms of satisfaction that offer themselves to everybodynot in positive pain; which, thus handled, have muchof the same inspiring effect upon life as wider interestscursorily embraced.

Her teaching had a reflex action upon herself, insomuchthat she thought she could perceive no great personaldifference between being respected in the nether partsof Casterbridge and glorified at the uppermost endof 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 wasnot demonstratively thankful was no fault of hers.Her experience had been of a kind to teach her, rightlyor wrongly, that the doubtful honour of a brief transmitthrough a sorry world hardly called for effusiveness,even when the path was suddenly irradiated at somehalf-way point by daybeams rich as hers. But herstrong sense that neither she nor any human beingdeserved less than was given, did not blind her tothe fact that there were others receiving less whohad deserved much more. And in being forced toclass herself among the fortunate she did not ceaseto wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, whenthe one to whom such unbroken tranquility had beenaccorded in the adult stage was she whose youth hadseemed to teach that happiness was but the occasionalepisode in a general drama of pain.