"'THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE\n\nby Thomas Hardy\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe date at which the following events are assumed to have occurred may\nbe set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old watering place herein\ncalled \"Budmouth\" still retained sufficient afterglow from its Georgian\ngaiety and prestige to lend it an absorbing attractiveness to the\nromantic and imaginative soul of a lonely dweller inland.\n\nUnder the general name of \"Egdon Heath,\" which has been given to the\nsombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of various real\nnames, to the number of at least a dozen; these being virtually one in\ncharacter and aspect, though their original unity, or partial unity, is\nnow somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and slices brought under the\nplough with varying degrees of success, or planted to woodland.\n\nIt is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose\nsouthwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that\ntraditionary King of Wessex--Lear.\n\n\nJuly, 1895.\n\n\n\n\n \"To sorrow\n I bade good morrow,\n And thought to leave her far away behind;\n But cheerly, cheerly,\n She loves me dearly;\n She is so constant to me, and so kind.\n I would deceive her,\n And so leave her,\n But ah! she is so constant and so kind.\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK ONE -- THE THREE WOMEN\n\n\n\n\n1--A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression\n\n\nA Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight,\nand the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned\nitself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud\nshutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its\nfloor.\n\nThe heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with\nthe darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly\nmarked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment\nof night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was\ncome: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood\ndistinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would have been\ninclined to continue work; looking down, he would have decided to\nfinish his faggot and go home. The distant rims of the world and of the\nfirmament seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in\nmatter. The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an\nhour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon,\nanticipate the frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the\nopacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.\n\nIn fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into\ndarkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and\nnobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at\nsuch a time. It could best be felt when it could not clearly be seen,\nits complete effect and explanation lying in this and the succeeding\nhours before the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true\ntale. The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night\nshowed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could be\nperceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and\nhollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the\nheath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it.\nAnd so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed\ntogether in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.\n\nThe place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other\nthings sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and\nlisten. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it\nhad waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises\nof so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last\ncrisis--the final overthrow.\n\nIt was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who loved it\nwith an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of\nflowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently harmonious\nonly with an existence of better reputation as to its issues than the\npresent. Twilight combined with the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a\nthing majestic without severity, impressive without showiness, emphatic\nin its admonitions, grand in its simplicity. The qualifications which\nfrequently invest the facade of a prison with far more dignity than is\nfound in the facade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a\nsublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are\nutterly wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas,\nif times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of\na place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of\nsurroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and\nscarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which\nresponds to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.\n\nIndeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty\nis not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe may be a\ngaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in closer and\ncloser harmony with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to\nour race when it was young. The time seems near, if it has not actually\narrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain\nwill be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods\nof the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest\ntourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle\ngardens of South Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden\nbe passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of\nScheveningen.\n\nThe most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural right to\nwander on Egdon--he was keeping within the line of legitimate indulgence\nwhen he laid himself open to influences such as these. Colours and\nbeauties so far subdued were, at least, the birthright of all. Only in\nsummer days of highest feather did its mood touch the level of gaiety.\nIntensity was more usually reached by way of the solemn than by way of\nthe brilliant, and such a sort of intensity was often arrived at\nduring winter darkness, tempests, and mists. Then Egdon was aroused to\nreciprocity; for the storm was its lover, and the wind its friend.\nThen it became the home of strange phantoms; and it was found to be the\nhitherto unrecognized original of those wild regions of obscurity which\nare vaguely felt to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight\nand disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by\nscenes like this.\n\nIt was at present a place perfectly accordant with man\'s nature--neither\nghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame;\nbut, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly colossal and\nmysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons who have long\nlived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had a\nlonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.\n\nThis obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday.\nIts condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary\nwilderness--\"Bruaria.\" Then follows the length and breadth in leagues;\nand, though some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of this\nancient lineal measure, it appears from the figures that the area of\nEgdon down to the present day has but little diminished. \"Turbaria\nBruaria\"--the right of cutting heath-turf--occurs in charters relating\nto the district. \"Overgrown with heth and mosse,\" says Leland of the\nsame dark sweep of country.\n\nHere at least were intelligible facts regarding landscape--far-reaching\nproofs productive of genuine satisfaction. The untameable, Ishmaelitish\nthing that Egdon now was it always had been. Civilization was its enemy;\nand ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil had worn the\nsame antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment of the\nparticular formation. In its venerable one coat lay a certain vein of\nsatire on human vanity in clothes. A person on a heath in raiment of\nmodern cut and colours has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to\nwant the oldest and simplest human clothing where the clothing of the\nearth is so primitive.\n\nTo recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon, between\nafternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing of the\nworld outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled the\nwhole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around\nand underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars\noverhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by the\nirrepressible New. The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence\nwhich the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is\nold? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a\nyear, in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the\nrivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained. Those\nsurfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by weather, nor so\nflat as to be the victims of floods and deposits. With the exception of\nan aged highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred\nto--themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long\ncontinuance--even the trifling irregularities were not caused by\npickaxe, plough, or spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of\nthe last geological change.\n\nThe above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the heath,\nfrom one horizon to another. In many portions of its course it overlaid\nan old vicinal way, which branched from the great Western road of the\nRomans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street, hard by. On the evening\nunder consideration it would have been noticed that, though the gloom\nhad increased sufficiently to confuse the minor features of the heath,\nthe white surface of the road remained almost as clear as ever.\n\n\n\n\n2--Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble\n\n\nAlong the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain,\nbowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed\nhat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an\nanchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking stick,\nwhich he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly dotting the ground\nwith its point at every few inches\' interval. One would have said that\nhe had been, in his day, a naval officer of some sort or other.\n\nBefore him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and white.\nIt was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected that vast dark\nsurface like the parting-line on a head of black hair, diminishing and\nbending away on the furthest horizon.\n\nThe old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the tract\nthat he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long distance\nin front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be a vehicle, and\nit proved to be going the same way as that in which he himself was\njourneying. It was the single atom of life that the scene contained, and\nit only served to render the general loneliness more evident. Its rate\nof advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it sensibly.\n\nWhen he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in\nshape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver walked\nbeside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye of that\ntincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his\nface, and his hands. He was not temporarily overlaid with the colour; it\npermeated him.\n\nThe old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart was a\nreddleman--a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with redding\nfor their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct in\nWessex, filling at present in the rural world the place which, during\nthe last century, the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a\ncurious, interesting, and nearly perished link between obsolete forms of\nlife and those which generally prevail.\n\nThe decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-wayfarer,\nand wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head, and replied\nin sad and occupied tones. He was young, and his face, if not exactly\nhandsome, approached so near to handsome that nobody would have\ncontradicted an assertion that it really was so in its natural colour.\nHis eye, which glared so strangely through his stain, was in itself\nattractive--keen as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He\nhad neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the\nlower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though,\nas it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at\ntheir corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting\nsuit of corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen\nfor its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It\nshowed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do\nair about the man suggested that he was not poor for his degree.\nThe natural query of an observer would have been, Why should such\na promising being as this have hidden his prepossessing exterior by\nadopting that singular occupation?\n\nAfter replying to the old man\'s greeting he showed no inclination to\ncontinue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the elder\ntraveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that of\nthe booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the\ncrackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two\nshaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a\nbreed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as \"heath-croppers\"\nhere.\n\nNow, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left his\ncompanion\'s side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its interior\nthrough a small window. The look was always anxious. He would then\nreturn to the old man, who made another remark about the state of the\ncountry and so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly replied,\nand then again they would lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to\nneither any sense of awkwardness; in these lonely places wayfarers,\nafter a first greeting, frequently plod on for miles without speech;\ncontiguity amounts to a tacit conversation where, otherwise than in\ncities, such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest inclination,\nand where not to put an end to it is intercourse in itself.\n\nPossibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had\nit not been for the reddleman\'s visits to his van. When he returned\nfrom his fifth time of looking in the old man said, \"You have something\ninside there besides your load?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Somebody who wants looking after?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nNot long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior. The reddleman\nhastened to the back, looked in, and came away again.\n\n\"You have a child there, my man?\"\n\n\"No, sir, I have a woman.\"\n\n\"The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?\"\n\n\"Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling, she\'s\nuneasy, and keeps dreaming.\"\n\n\"A young woman?\"\n\n\"Yes, a young woman.\"\n\n\"That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she\'s your\nwife?\"\n\n\"My wife!\" said the other bitterly. \"She\'s above mating with such as I.\nBut there\'s no reason why I should tell you about that.\"\n\n\"That\'s true. And there\'s no reason why you should not. What harm can I\ndo to you or to her?\"\n\nThe reddleman looked in the old man\'s face. \"Well, sir,\" he said at\nlast, \"I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been better\nif I had not. But she\'s nothing to me, and I am nothing to her; and she\nwouldn\'t have been in my van if any better carriage had been there to\ntake her.\"\n\n\"Where, may I ask?\"\n\n\"At Anglebury.\"\n\n\"I know the town well. What was she doing there?\"\n\n\"Oh, not much--to gossip about. However, she\'s tired to death now, and\nnot at all well, and that\'s what makes her so restless. She dropped off\ninto a nap about an hour ago, and \'twill do her good.\"\n\n\"A nice-looking girl, no doubt?\"\n\n\"You would say so.\"\n\nThe other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van\nwindow, and, without withdrawing them, said, \"I presume I might look in\nupon her?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the reddleman abruptly. \"It is getting too dark for you to\nsee much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you.\nThank God she sleeps so well, I hope she won\'t wake till she\'s home.\"\n\n\"Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?\"\n\n\"\'Tis no matter who, excuse me.\"\n\n\"It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about more or\nless lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has happened.\"\n\n\"\'Tis no matter.... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall soon have\nto part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further to go, and I am\ngoing to rest them under this bank for an hour.\"\n\nThe elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the reddleman\nturned his horses and van in upon the turf, saying, \"Good night.\" The\nold man replied, and proceeded on his way as before.\n\nThe reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road\nand became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took\nsome hay from a truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a\nportion of it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest, which he\nlaid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning\nhis back against the wheel. From the interior a low soft breathing came\nto his ear. It appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed the\nscene, as if considering the next step that he should take.\n\nTo do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a\nduty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that\nin the condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and\nhalting dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining\nto the scene. This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the\napparent repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life so\nnearly resembling the torpor of death is a noticeable thing of its\nsort; to exhibit the inertness of the desert, and at the same time to be\nexercising powers akin to those of the meadow, and even of the forest,\nawakened in those who thought of it the attentiveness usually engendered\nby understatement and reserve.\n\nThe scene before the reddleman\'s eyes was a gradual series of ascents\nfrom the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It\nembraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other, till\nall was finished by a high hill cutting against the still light sky.\nThe traveller\'s eye hovered about these things for a time, and finally\nsettled upon one noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow. This bossy\nprojection of earth above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground\nof the loneliest height that the heath contained. Although from the\nvale it appeared but as a wart on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was\ngreat. It formed the pole and axis of this heathery world.\n\nAs the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its summit,\nhitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was surmounted\nby something higher. It rose from the semiglobular mound like a spike\nfrom a helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative stranger might have\nbeen to suppose it the person of one of the Celts who built the barrow,\nso far had all of modern date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort\nof last man among them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal\nnight with the rest of his race.\n\nThere the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above the plain\nrose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above the barrow rose\nthe figure. Above the figure was nothing that could be mapped elsewhere\nthan on a celestial globe.\n\nSuch a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give\nto the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious\njustification of their outline. Without it, there was the dome without\nthe lantern; with it the architectural demands of the mass were\nsatisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that the vale, the\nupland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted only to unity.\nLooking at this or that member of the group was not observing a complete\nthing, but a fraction of a thing.\n\nThe form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless\nstructure that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a strange\nphenomenon. Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole\nwhich the person formed portion of, the discontinuance of immobility in\nany quarter suggested confusion.\n\nYet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity,\nshifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on\nthe right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a bud,\nand then vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more clearly\nthe characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman\'s.\n\nThe reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping\nout of sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a burden, protruded\ninto the sky on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and deposited the\nburden on the top. A second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth,\nand ultimately the whole barrow was peopled with burdened figures.\n\nThe only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of\nsilhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had\ntaken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither\nfor another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung\nby preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more\ninteresting, more important, more likely to have a history worth knowing\nthan these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as intruders. But\nthey remained, and established themselves; and the lonely person who\nhitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely\nto return.\n\n\n\n\n3--The Custom of the Country\n\n\nHad a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow,\nhe would have learned that these persons were boys and men of the\nneighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily\nladen with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means of a long\nstake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily--two in front and\ntwo behind. They came from a part of the heath a quarter of a mile to\nthe rear, where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a product.\n\nEvery individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying the\nfaggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown them\ndown. The party had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep;\nthat is to say, the strongest first, the weak and young behind.\n\nThe loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet in\ncircumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was known as\nRainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy with matches,\nand in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in loosening the\nbramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others, again, while this\nwas in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the vast expanse of country\ncommanded by their position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade. In\nthe valleys of the heath nothing save its own wild face was visible at\nany time of day; but this spot commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of\nfar extent, and in many cases lying beyond the heath country. None of\nits features could be seen now, but the whole made itself felt as a\nvague stretch of remoteness.\n\nWhile the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in\nthe mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and\ntufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country\nround. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were\nengaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood\nin a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated\naround them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near, glowing\nscarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some were\nMaenades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the silent\nbosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which\nseemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many\nas thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds of the\ndistrict; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when the figures\nthemselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the locality of each\nfire by its angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could be\nviewed.\n\nThe first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting all\neyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their own\nattempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface\nof the human circle--now increased by other stragglers, male and\nfemale--with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around\nwith a lively luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the\nbarrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the\nsegment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even\nthe little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. Not a plough\nhad ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. In the heath\'s\nbarrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the historian. There had\nbeen no obliteration, because there had been no tending.\n\nIt seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant upper\nstory of the world, detached from and independent of the dark stretches\nbelow. The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a\ncontinuation of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to\nthe blaze, could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.\nOccasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their\nfaggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to some\ndistant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to replies\nof the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then the whole\nblack phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink by\nthe sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered articulations of\nthe wind in the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the \"souls\nof mighty worth\" suspended therein.\n\nIt was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and\nfetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with\nthis spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from that\nsummit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. The\nflames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had shone down upon the\nlowlands as these were shining now. Festival fires to Thor and Woden had\nfollowed on the same ground and duly had their day. Indeed, it is pretty\nwell known that such blazes as this the heathmen were now enjoying are\nrather the lineal descendants from jumbled Druidical rites and Saxon\nceremonies than the invention of popular feeling about Gunpowder Plot.\n\nMoreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man\nwhen, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature.\nIt indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat\nthat this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery\nand death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say,\nLet there be light.\n\nThe brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin\nand clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and\ngeneral contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the\npermanent moral expression of each face it was impossible to discover,\nfor as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the\nsurrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes of light upon the\ncountenances of the group changed shape and position endlessly. All\nwas unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Shadowy\neye-sockets, deep as those of a death\'s head, suddenly turned into pits\nof lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles\nwere emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray.\nNostrils were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings;\nthings with no particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects,\nsuch as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried, were as glass;\neyeballs glowed like little lanterns. Those whom Nature had depicted as\nmerely quaint became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural; for\nall was in extremity.\n\nHence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been\ncalled to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere nose\nand chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of human\ncountenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat. With\na speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into the\nconflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally lifting\nhis eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow the great\nsparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The beaming\nsight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a cumulative\ncheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick in his hand\nhe began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals shining and\nswinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also began to\nsing, in the voice of a bee up a flue--\n\n \"The king\' call\'d down\' his no-bles all\',\n By one\', by two\', by three\';\n Earl Mar\'-shal, I\'ll\' go shrive\'-the queen\',\n And thou\' shalt wend\' with me\'.\n\n \"A boon\', a boon\', quoth Earl\' Mar-shal\',\n And fell\' on his bend\'-ded knee\',\n That what\'-so-e\'er\' the queen\' shall say\',\n No harm\' there-of\' may be\'.\"\n\nWant of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown\nattracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept\neach corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his\ncheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might\nerroneously have attached to him.\n\n\"A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard \'tis too much for\nthe mouldy weasand of such a old man as you,\" he said to the wrinkled\nreveller. \"Dostn\'t wish th\' wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you was\nwhen you first learnt to sing it?\"\n\n\"Hey?\" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.\n\n\"Dostn\'t wish wast young again, I say? There\'s a hole in thy poor\nbellows nowadays seemingly.\"\n\n\"But there\'s good art in me? If I couldn\'t make a little wind go a\nlong ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,\nTimothy?\"\n\n\"And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman Inn?\"\nthe other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the direction of the\ndistant highway, but considerably apart from where the reddleman was\nat that moment resting. \"What\'s the rights of the matter about \'em? You\nought to know, being an understanding man.\"\n\n\"But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or he\'s\nnothing. Yet \'tis a gay fault, neigbbour Fairway, that age will cure.\"\n\n\"I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time they must have\ncome. What besides?\"\n\n\"The next thing is for us to go and wish \'em joy, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Well, no.\"\n\n\"No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or \'twould be very unlike me--the\nfirst in every spree that\'s going!\n\n \"Do thou\' put on\' a fri\'-ar\'s coat\',\n And I\'ll\' put on\' a-no\'-ther,\n And we\' will to\' Queen Ele\'anor go\',\n Like Fri\'ar and\' his bro\'ther.\n\nI met Mis\'ess Yeobright, the young bride\'s aunt, last night, and she\ntold me that her son Clym was coming home a\' Christmas. Wonderful\nclever, \'a believe--ah, I should like to have all that\'s under that\nyoung man\'s hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry\nway, and she said, \'O that what\'s shaped so venerable should talk like a\nfool!\'--that\'s what she said to me. I don\'t care for her, be jowned if I\ndo, and so I told her. \'Be jowned if I care for \'ee,\' I said. I had her\nthere--hey?\"\n\n\"I rather think she had you,\" said Fairway.\n\n\"No,\" said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging. \"\'Tisn\'t\nso bad as that with me?\"\n\n\"Seemingly \'tis, however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is\ncoming home a\' Christmas--to make a new arrangement because his mother\nis now left in the house alone?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes--that\'s it. But, Timothy, hearken to me,\" said the Grandfer\nearnestly. \"Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man if\nyou catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell \'ee lots about\nthe married couple. Yes, this morning at six o\'clock they went up the\ncountry to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen of \'em\nsince, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought \'em home again\nman and woman--wife, that is. Isn\'t it spoke like a man, Timothy, and\nwasn\'t Mis\'ess Yeobright wrong about me?\"\n\n\"Yes, it will do. I didn\'t know the two had walked together since last\nfall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new set-to been\nin mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?\"\n\n\"Yes, how long?\" said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to\nHumphrey. \"I ask that question.\"\n\n\"Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the man\nafter all,\" replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the fire.\nHe was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook and leather\ngloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that occupation, being\nsheathed in bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine\'s greaves of\nbrass. \"That\'s why they went away to be married, I count. You see, after\nkicking up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns \'twould have made\nMis\'ess Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the\nsame parish all as if she\'d never gainsaid it.\"\n\n\"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that\'s very bad for the poor things\nthat be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure,\" said Grandfer\nCantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.\n\n\"Ah, well, I was at church that day,\" said Fairway, \"which was a very\ncurious thing to happen.\"\n\n\"If \'twasn\'t my name\'s Simple,\" said the Grandfer emphatically. \"I\nha\'n\'t been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on I won\'t say\nI shall.\"\n\n\"I ha\'n\'t been these three years,\" said Humphrey; \"for I\'m so dead\nsleepy of a Sunday; and \'tis so terrible far to get there; and when you\ndo get there \'tis such a mortal poor chance that you\'ll be chose for up\nabove, when so many bain\'t, that I bide at home and don\'t go at all.\"\n\n\"I not only happened to be there,\" said Fairway, with a fresh collection\nof emphasis, \"but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis\'ess Yeobright.\nAnd though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my blood run cold\nto hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made my blood run\ncold, for I was close at her elbow.\" The speaker looked round upon\nthe bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his lips gathered\ntighter than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive moderation.\n\n\"\'Tis a serious job to have things happen to \'ee there,\" said a woman\nbehind.\n\n\"\'Ye are to declare it,\' was the parson\'s words,\" Fairway continued.\n\"And then up stood a woman at my side--a-touching of me. \'Well, be\ndamned if there isn\'t Mis\'ess Yeobright a-standing up,\' I said to\nmyself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that\'s\nwhat I said. \'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company,\nand I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did say I did\nsay, and \'twould be a lie if I didn\'t own it.\"\n\n\"So \'twould, neighbour Fairway.\"\n\n\"\'Be damned if there isn\'t Mis\'ess Yeobright a-standing up,\' I said,\"\nthe narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same passionless\nseverity of face as before, which proved how entirely necessity and not\ngusto had to do with the iteration. \"And the next thing I heard was, \'I\nforbid the banns,\' from her. \'I\'ll speak to you after the service,\'\nsaid the parson, in quite a homely way--yes, turning all at once into a\ncommon man no holier than you or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you\ncan call to mind that monument in Weatherbury church--the cross-legged\nsoldier that have had his arm knocked away by the schoolchildren? Well,\nhe would about have matched that woman\'s face, when she said, \'I forbid\nthe banns.\'\"\n\nThe audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the\nfire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time\nto weigh the moral of the story.\n\n\"I\'m sure when I heard they\'d been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody\nhad gied me sixpence,\" said an earnest voice--that of Olly Dowden, a\nwoman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature was to be\ncivil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the world\nfor letting her remain alive.\n\n\"And now the maid have married him just the same,\" said Humphrey.\n\n\"After that Mis\'ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,\"\nFairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no\nappendage to Humphrey\'s, but the result of independent reflection.\n\n\"Supposing they were ashamed, I don\'t see why they shouldn\'t have done\nit here-right,\" said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked like\nshoes whenever she stooped or turned. \"\'Tis well to call the neighbours\ntogether and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it may as\nwell be when there\'s a wedding as at tide-times. I don\'t care for close\nways.\"\n\n\"Ah, now, you\'d hardly believe it, but I don\'t care for gay weddings,\"\nsaid Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. \"I hardly blame\nThomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must\nown it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour;\nand they do a man\'s legs no good when he\'s over forty.\"\n\n\"True. Once at the woman\'s house you can hardly say nay to being one in\na jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself worth\nyour victuals.\"\n\n\"You be bound to dance at Christmas because \'tis the time o\' year; you\nmust dance at weddings because \'tis the time o\' life. At christenings\nfolk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if \'tis no further on than the\nfirst or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you\'ve got to\nsing.... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.\nYou\'ve as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even\nbetter. And it don\'t wear your legs to stumps in talking over a poor\nfellow\'s ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes.\"\n\n\"Nine folks out of ten would own \'twas going too far to dance then, I\nsuppose?\" suggested Grandfer Cantle.\n\n\"\'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the mug\nhave been round a few times.\"\n\n\"Well, I can\'t understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin\nYeobright caring to be married in such a mean way,\" said Susan Nunsuch,\nthe wide woman, who preferred the original subject. \"\'Tis worse than the\npoorest do. And I shouldn\'t have cared about the man, though some may\nsay he\'s good-looking.\"\n\n\"To give him his due he\'s a clever, learned fellow in his way--a\'most as\nclever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better things\nthan keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that\'s what the man was, as\nwe know; but he threw away his chance, and so \'a took a public house to\nlive. His learning was no use to him at all.\"\n\n\"Very often the case,\" said Olly, the besom-maker. \"And yet how people\ndo strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn\'t use to\nmake a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names\nnow without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot--what\ndo I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows\nupon.\"\n\n\"True--\'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to,\" said\nHumphrey.\n\n\"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),\nin the year four,\" chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, \"I didn\'t know no\nmore what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And now,\njown it all, I won\'t say what I bain\'t fit for, hey?\"\n\n\"Couldst sign the book, no doubt,\" said Fairway, \"if wast young enough\nto join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis\'ess Tamsin,\nwhich is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in\nlearning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy\nfather\'s mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He\nand your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there\nstood they father\'s cross with arms stretched out like a great banging\nscarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father\'s very\nlikeness in en! To save my soul I couldn\'t help laughing when I zid en,\nthough all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying,\nand what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley\nand a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window. But the next\nmoment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind\nthat if thy father and mother had had high words once, they\'d been at\nit twenty times since they\'d been man and wife, and I zid myself as the\nnext poor stunpoll to get into the same mess.... Ah--well, what a day\n\'twas!\"\n\n\"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few summers. A pretty\nmaid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to tear her\nsmock for a man like that.\"\n\nThe speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,\ncarried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large\ndimensions used in that species of labour, and its well-whetted edge\ngleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.\n\n\"A hundred maidens would have had him if he\'d asked \'em,\" said the wide\nwoman.\n\n\"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?\"\ninquired Humphrey.\n\n\"I never did,\" said the turf-cutter.\n\n\"Nor I,\" said another.\n\n\"Nor I,\" said Grandfer Cantle.\n\n\"Well, now, I did once,\" said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness to\none of his legs. \"I did know of such a man. But only once, mind.\" He\ngave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of every\nperson not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. \"Yes, I knew of\nsuch a man,\" he said.\n\n\"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like, Master\nFairway?\" asked the turf-cutter.\n\n\"Well, \'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man. What\n\'a was I don\'t say.\"\n\n\"Is he known in these parts?\" said Olly Dowden.\n\n\"Hardly,\" said Timothy; \"but I name no name.... Come, keep the fire up\nthere, youngsters.\"\n\n\"Whatever is Christian Cantle\'s teeth a-chattering for?\" said a boy from\namid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. \"Be ye a-cold,\nChristian?\"\n\nA thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, \"No, not at all.\"\n\n\"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn\'t know you were\nhere,\" said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.\n\nThus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a\ngreat quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step or\ntwo by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a dozen\nsteps more. He was Grandfer Cantle\'s youngest son.\n\n\"What be ye quaking for, Christian?\" said the turf-cutter kindly.\n\n\"I\'m the man.\"\n\n\"What man?\"\n\n\"The man no woman will marry.\"\n\n\"The deuce you be!\" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover\nChristian\'s whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer Cantle\nmeanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.\n\n\"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard,\" said Christian. \"D\'ye think\n\'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don\'t care, and swear to it, though\nI do care all the while.\"\n\n\"Well, be damned if this isn\'t the queerest start ever I know\'d,\" said\nMr. Fairway. \"I didn\'t mean you at all. There\'s another in the country,\nthen! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?\"\n\n\"\'Twas to be if \'twas, I suppose. I can\'t help it, can I?\" He turned\nupon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines\nlike targets.\n\n\"No, that\'s true. But \'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold\nwhen you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had\nthought only one. \'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How\'st know the\nwomen won\'t hae thee?\"\n\n\"I\'ve asked \'em.\"\n\n\"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what did\nthe last one say to ye? Nothing that can\'t be got over, perhaps, after\nall?\"\n\n\"\'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight\nfool,\' was the woman\'s words to me.\"\n\n\"Not encouraging, I own,\" said Fairway. \"\'Get out of my sight, you\nslack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,\' is rather a hard way of\nsaying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as\nto let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy\'s head. How old be\nyou, Christian?\"\n\n\"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway.\"\n\n\"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there\'s hope yet.\"\n\n\"That\'s my age by baptism, because that\'s put down in the great book of\nthe Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but Mother told me I was\nborn some time afore I was christened.\"\n\n\"Ah!\"\n\n\"But she couldn\'t tell when, to save her life, except that there was no\nmoon.\"\n\n\"No moon--that\'s bad. Hey, neighbours, that\'s bad for him!\"\n\n\"Yes, \'tis bad,\" said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.\n\n\"Mother know\'d \'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had\nan almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the\nsaying, \'No moon, no man,\' which made her afeard every man-child she\nhad. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no\nmoon?\"\n\n\"Yes. \'No moon, no man.\' \'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.\nThe boy never comes to anything that\'s born at new moon. A bad job for\nthee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all days\nin the month.\"\n\n\"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?\" said\nChristian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.\n\n\"Well, \'a was not new,\" Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested gaze.\n\n\"I\'d sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,\"\ncontinued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. \"\'Tis said I be\nonly the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I suppose\nthat\'s the cause o\'t.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; \"and yet his\nmother cried for scores of hours when \'a was a boy, for fear he should\noutgrow hisself and go for a soldier.\"\n\n\"Well, there\'s many just as bad as he.\" said Fairway.\n\n\"Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul.\"\n\n\"So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o\' nights, Master\nFairway?\"\n\n\"You\'ll have to lie alone all your life; and \'tis not to married couples\nbut to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when \'a do come. One\nhas been seen lately, too. A very strange one.\"\n\n\"No--don\'t talk about it if \'tis agreeable of ye not to! \'Twill make my\nskin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will--ah, you will,\nI know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o\'t! A very strange one?\nWhat sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange one,\nTimothy?--no, no--don\'t tell me.\"\n\n\"I don\'t half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly\nenough--what I was told. \'Twas a little boy that zid it.\"\n\n\"What was it like?--no, don\'t--\"\n\n\"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been\ndipped in blood.\"\n\nChristian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and\nHumphrey said, \"Where has it been seen?\"\n\n\"Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But \'tisn\'t a thing to talk\nabout. What do ye say,\" continued Fairway in brisker tones, and turning\nupon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer Cantle\'s--\"what do you\nsay to giving the new man and wife a bit of a song tonight afore we go\nto bed--being their wedding-day? When folks are just married \'tis as\nwell to look glad o\'t, since looking sorry won\'t unjoin \'em. I am no\ndrinker, as we know, but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone\nhome we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike up a ballet\nin front of the married folks\' door. \'Twill please the young wife, and\nthat\'s what I should like to do, for many\'s the skinful I\'ve had at her\nhands when she lived with her aunt at Blooms-End.\"\n\n\"Hey? And so we will!\" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that his\ncopper seals swung extravagantly. \"I\'m as dry as a kex with biding up\nhere in the wind, and I haven\'t seen the colour of drink since\nnammet-time today. \'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very\npretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in the\nfinishing, why, tomorrow\'s Sunday, and we can sleep it off?\"\n\n\"Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man,\" said\nthe wide woman.\n\n\"I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the women! Klk!\nI\'ll sing the \'Jovial Crew,\' or any other song, when a weak old man\nwould cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.\n\n \"The king\' look\'d o\'-ver his left\' shoul-der\',\n And a grim\' look look\'-ed hee\',\n Earl Mar\'-shal, he said\', but for\' my oath\'\n Or hang\'-ed thou\' shouldst bee\'.\"\n\n\"Well, that\'s what we\'ll do,\" said Fairway. \"We\'ll give \'em a song, an\'\nit please the Lord. What\'s the good of Thomasin\'s cousin Clym a-coming\nhome after the deed\'s done? He should have come afore, if so be he\nwanted to stop it, and marry her himself.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he\'s coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she must\nfeel lonely now the maid\'s gone.\"\n\n\"Now, \'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all,\" said\nGrandfer Cantle. \"I am as brave in the nighttime as a\' admiral!\"\n\nThe bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had not\nbeen of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long. Most\nof the other fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling weak.\nAttentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length of\nexistence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt, and\nthrough that, to some extent the natural produce of the district in\nwhich each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that had\ncharacterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country like\ntheir own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of miles;\nthe rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass showed\nthe lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from\narable land. The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes like\nPlanets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and\nstout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and\nthough comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes, now\nbegan to get the best of them by mere long continuance. The great ones\nhad perished, but these remained. They occupied the remotest visible\npositions--sky-backed summits rising out of rich coppice and plantation\ndistricts to the north, where the soil was different, and heath foreign\nand strange.\n\nSave one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole shining\nthrong. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the little\nwindow in the vale below. Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding\nits actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.\n\nThis quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when their\nown fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even of\nthe wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but no\nchange was perceptible here.\n\n\"To be sure, how near that fire is!\" said Fairway. \"Seemingly. I can see\na fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be said of\nthat fire, surely.\"\n\n\"I can throw a stone there,\" said the boy.\n\n\"And so can I!\" said Grandfer Cantle.\n\n\"No, no, you can\'t, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a mile\noff, for all that \'a seems so near.\"\n\n\"\'Tis in the heath, but no furze,\" said the turf-cutter.\n\n\"\'Tis cleft-wood, that\'s what \'tis,\" said Timothy Fairway. \"Nothing\nwould burn like that except clean timber. And \'tis on the knap afore the\nold captain\'s house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man is! To\nhave a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody else may\nenjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must be, to light\na bonfire when there\'s no youngsters to please.\"\n\n\"Cap\'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired out,\" said\nGrandfer Cantle, \"so \'tisn\'t likely to be he.\"\n\n\"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that,\" said the wide woman.\n\n\"Then it must be his granddaughter,\" said Fairway. \"Not that a body of\nher age can want a fire much.\"\n\n\"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such\nthings please her,\" said Susan.\n\n\"She\'s a well-favoured maid enough,\" said Humphrey the furze-cutter,\n\"especially when she\'s got one of her dandy gowns on.\"\n\n\"That\'s true,\" said Fairway. \"Well, let her bonfire burn an\'t will. Ours\nis well-nigh out by the look o\'t.\"\n\n\"How dark \'tis now the fire\'s gone down!\" said Christian Cantle,\nlooking behind him with his hare eyes. \"Don\'t ye think we\'d better get\nhome-along, neighbours? The heth isn\'t haunted, I know; but we\'d better\nget home.... Ah, what was that?\"\n\n\"Only the wind,\" said the turf-cutter.\n\n\"I don\'t think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except in\ntowns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like this!\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear, you\nand I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before \'tis quite too dark to see\nhow well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have passed since\nyour husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me.\"\n\nThis was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which\nthe beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron\'s broad form\nwhisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled. She\nwas lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway\'s arm, which had been flung round her\nwaist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of the fire\nwas now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the\nfurze having burnt completely away. Once within the circle he whirled\nher round and round in a dance. She was a woman noisily constructed;\nin addition to her enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore\npattens summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her\nboots from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with her, the\nclicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams of\nsurprise, formed a very audible concert.\n\n\"I\'ll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!\" said Mrs. Nunsuch,\nas she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like\ndrumsticks among the sparks. \"My ankles were all in a fever before, from\nwalking through that prickly furze, and now you must make \'em worse with\nthese vlankers!\"\n\nThe vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized old\nOlly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her likewise.\nThe young men were not slow to imitate the example of their elders, and\nseized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form of a\nthree-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute all that could\nbe seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes amid a boiling\nconfusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers as high as their\nwaists. The chief noises were women\'s shrill cries, men\'s laughter,\nSusan\'s stays and pattens, Olly Dowden\'s \"heu-heu-heu!\" and the\nstrumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune\nto the demoniac measure they trod. Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily\nrocking himself as he murmured, \"They ought not to do it--how the\nvlankers do fly! \'tis tempting the Wicked one, \'tis.\"\n\n\"What was that?\" said one of the lads, stopping.\n\n\"Ah--where?\" said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.\n\nThe dancers all lessened their speed.\n\n\"\'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down here.\"\n\n\"Yes--\'tis behind me!\" Christian said. \"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,\nbless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue. What is it?\" said Fairway.\n\n\"Hoi-i-i-i!\" cried a voice from the darkness.\n\n\"Halloo-o-o-o!\" said Fairway.\n\n\"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis\'ess Yeobright\'s, of\nBlooms-End?\" came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim indistinct\nfigure approached the barrow.\n\n\"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as \'tis getting\nlate?\" said Christian. \"Not run away from one another, you know; run\nclose together, I mean.\"\n\n\"Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we can\nsee who the man is,\" said Fairway.\n\nWhen the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red\nfrom top to toe. \"Is there a track across here to Mis\'ess Yeobright\'s\nhouse?\" he repeated.\n\n\"Ay--keep along the path down there.\"\n\n\"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?\"\n\n\"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track is\nrough, but if you\'ve got a light your horses may pick along wi\' care.\nHave ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?\"\n\n\"I\'ve left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I stepped on in\nfront to make sure of the way, as \'tis night-time, and I han\'t been here\nfor so long.\"\n\n\"Oh, well you can get up,\" said Fairway. \"What a turn it did give me\nwhen I saw him!\" he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.\n\"Lord\'s sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble\nus? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain\'t bad-looking in the\ngroundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just to say how\ncurious I felt. I half thought it \'twas the devil or the red ghost the\nboy told of.\"\n\n\"It gied me a turn likewise,\" said Susan Nunsuch, \"for I had a dream\nlast night of a death\'s head.\"\n\n\"Don\'t ye talk o\'t no more,\" said Christian. \"If he had a handkerchief\nover his head he\'d look for all the world like the Devil in the picture\nof the Temptation.\"\n\n\"Well, thank you for telling me,\" said the young reddleman, smiling\nfaintly. \"And good night t\'ye all.\"\n\nHe withdrew from their sight down the barrow.\n\n\"I fancy I\'ve seen that young man\'s face before,\" said Humphrey. \"But\nwhere, or how, or what his name is, I don\'t know.\"\n\nThe reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another\nperson approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a\nwell-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing which\ncan only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face, encompassed by\nthe blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely, and with-out\nhalf-lights, like a cameo.\n\nShe was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type\nusually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned within.\nAt moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied to\nothers around. She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude\nexhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that had risen from\nit. The air with which she looked at the heathmen betokened a certain\nunconcern at their presence, or at what might be their opinions of\nher for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour, thus indirectly\nimplying that in some respect or other they were not up to her level.\nThe explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a small\nfarmer she herself was a curate\'s daughter, who had once dreamt of doing\nbetter things.\n\nPersons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their\natmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered\nnow upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a\ncompany. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence which\nresults from the consciousness of superior communicative power. But\nthe effect of coming into society and light after lonely wandering in\ndarkness is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch, expressed\nin the features even more than in words.\n\n\"Why, \'tis Mis\'ess Yeobright,\" said Fairway. \"Mis\'ess Yeobright, not ten\nminutes ago a man was here asking for you--a reddleman.\"\n\n\"What did he want?\" said she.\n\n\"He didn\'t tell us.\"\n\n\"Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to\nunderstand.\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,\nma\'am,\" said Sam, the turf-cutter. \"What a dog he used to be for\nbonfires!\"\n\n\"Yes. I believe he is coming,\" she said.\n\n\"He must be a fine fellow by this time,\" said Fairway.\n\n\"He is a man now,\" she replied quietly.\n\n\"\'Tis very lonesome for \'ee in the heth tonight, mis\'ess,\" said\nChristian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained. \"Mind\nyou don\'t get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in, and the\nwinds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard \'em afore. Them that\nknow Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times.\"\n\n\"Is that you, Christian?\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"What made you hide away\nfrom me?\"\n\n\"\'Twas that I didn\'t know you in this light, mis\'ess; and being a man of\nthe mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that\'s all. Oftentimes if\nyou could see how terrible down I get in my mind, \'twould make \'ee quite\nnervous for fear I should die by my hand.\"\n\n\"You don\'t take after your father,\" said Mrs. Yeobright, looking towards\nthe fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality, was\ndancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.\n\n\"Now, Grandfer,\" said Timothy Fairway, \"we are ashamed of ye. A reverent\nold patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go hornpiping like\nthat by yourself!\"\n\n\"A harrowing old man, Mis\'ess Yeobright,\" said Christian despondingly.\n\"I wouldn\'t live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get\naway.\"\n\n\"\'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis\'ess\nYeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle,\" said the\nbesom-woman.\n\n\"Faith, and so it would,\" said the reveller checking himself\nrepentantly. \"I\'ve such a bad memory, Mis\'ess Yeobright, that I forget\nhow I\'m looked up to by the rest of \'em. My spirits must be wonderful\ngood, you\'ll say? But not always. \'Tis a weight upon a man to be looked\nup to as commander, and I often feel it.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to stop the talk,\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"But I must be\nleaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my\nniece\'s new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and seeing\nthe bonfire and hearing Olly\'s voice among the rest I came up here to\nlearn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as her way\nis mine.\"\n\n\"Ay, sure, ma\'am, I\'m just thinking of moving,\" said Olly.\n\n\"Why, you\'ll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of,\" said\nFairway. \"He\'s only gone back to get his van. We heard that your niece\nand her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were married,\nand we are going down there shortly, to give \'em a song o\' welcome.\"\n\n\"Thank you indeed,\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go with\nlong clothes; so we won\'t trouble you to wait.\"\n\n\"Very well--are you ready, Olly?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma\'am. And there\'s a light shining from your niece\'s window, see.\nIt will help to keep us in the path.\"\n\nShe indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which Fairway\nhad pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.\n\n\n\n\n4--The Halt on the Turnpike Road\n\n\nDown, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at each\nstep seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched\nnoisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,\nthough dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter\nweather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean\nsituation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two\nunattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a\nfamiliar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of\ndarkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.\n\n\"And so Tamsin has married him at last,\" said Olly, when the incline\nhad become so much less steep that their foot-steps no longer required\nundivided attention.\n\nMrs. Yeobright answered slowly, \"Yes; at last.\"\n\n\"How you will miss her--living with \'ee as a daughter, as she always\nhave.\"\n\n\"I do miss her.\"\n\nOlly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,\nwas saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.\nQuestions that would have been resented in others she could ask with\nimpunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright\'s acquiescence in the\nrevival of an evidently sore subject.\n\n\"I was quite strook to hear you\'d agreed to it, ma\'am, that I was,\"\ncontinued the besom-maker.\n\n\"You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this\ntime, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not\ntell you all of them, even if I tried.\"\n\n\"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your\nfamily. Keeping an inn--what is it? But \'a\'s clever, that\'s true, and\nthey say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by\nbeing too outwardly given.\"\n\n\"I saw that, upon the whole, it would be better she should marry where\nshe wished.\"\n\n\"Poor little thing, her feelings got the better of her, no doubt. \'Tis\nnature. Well, they may call him what they will--he\'ve several acres\nof heth-ground broke up here, besides the public house, and the\nheth-croppers, and his manners be quite like a gentleman\'s. And what\'s\ndone cannot be undone.\"\n\n\"It cannot,\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"See, here\'s the wagon-track at last.\nNow we shall get along better.\"\n\nThe wedding subject was no further dwelt upon; and soon a faint\ndiverging path was reached, where they parted company, Olly first\nbegging her companion to remind Mr. Wildeve that he had not sent\nher sick husband the bottle of wine promised on the occasion of his\nmarriage. The besom-maker turned to the left towards her own house,\nbehind a spur of the hill, and Mrs. Yeobright followed the straight\ntrack, which further on joined the highway by the Quiet Woman Inn,\nwhither she supposed her niece to have returned with Wildeve from their\nwedding at Anglebury that day.\n\nShe first reached Wildeve\'s Patch, as it was called, a plot of land\nredeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought into\ncultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of\nthe labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in\nfertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the\nhonours due to those who had gone before.\n\nWhen Mrs. Yeobright had drawn near to the inn, and was about to enter,\nshe saw a horse and vehicle some two hundred yards beyond it, coming\ntowards her, a man walking alongside with a lantern in his hand. It\nwas soon evident that this was the reddleman who had inquired for her.\nInstead of entering the inn at once, she walked by it and towards the\nvan.\n\nThe conveyance came close, and the man was about to pass her with\nlittle notice, when she turned to him and said, \"I think you have been\ninquiring for me? I am Mrs. Yeobright of Blooms-End.\"\n\nThe reddleman started, and held up his finger. He stopped the horses,\nand beckoned to her to withdraw with him a few yards aside, which she\ndid, wondering.\n\n\"You don\'t know me, ma\'am, I suppose?\" he said.\n\n\"I do not,\" said she. \"Why, yes, I do! You are young Venn--your father\nwas a dairyman somewhere here?\"\n\n\"Yes; and I knew your niece, Miss Tamsin, a little. I have something bad\nto tell you.\"\n\n\"About her--no! She has just come home, I believe, with her husband.\nThey arranged to return this afternoon--to the inn beyond here.\"\n\n\"She\'s not there.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Because she\'s here. She\'s in my van,\" he added slowly.\n\n\"What new trouble has come?\" murmured Mrs. Yeobright, putting her hand\nover her eyes.\n\n\"I can\'t explain much, ma\'am. All I know is that, as I was going along\nthe road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard something\ntrotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, white as\ndeath itself. \'Oh, Diggory Venn!\' she said, \'I thought \'twas you--will\nyou help me? I am in trouble.\'\"\n\n\"How did she know your Christian name?\" said Mrs. Yeobright doubtingly.\n\n\"I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked then\nif she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked her up\nand put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a good\ndeal, but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being that she was\nto have been married this morning. I tried to get her to eat something,\nbut she couldn\'t; and at last she fell asleep.\"\n\n\"Let me see her at once,\" said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards the\nvan.\n\nThe reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first,\nassisted Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being opened\nshe perceived at the end of the van an extemporized couch, around which\nwas hung apparently all the drapery that the reddleman possessed,\nto keep the occupant of the little couch from contact with the red\nmaterials of his trade. A young girl lay thereon, covered with a cloak.\nShe was asleep, and the light of the lantern fell upon her features.\n\nA fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest\nof wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her\neyes were closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining\nin them as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around. The\ngroundwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it now I ay like a\nforeign substance a film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there\nso shortly as to have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet\nbut given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. The scarlet\nof her lips had not had time to abate, and just now it appeared still\nmore intense by the absence of the neighbouring and more transient\ncolour of her cheek. The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of words.\nShe seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal--to require viewing through\nrhyme and harmony.\n\nOne thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at\nthus. The reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs.\nYeobright looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy\nwhich well became him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the\nnext moment she opened her own.\n\nThe lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more of\ndoubt; and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as signalled\nby the changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost\nnicety. An ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as if the flow of\nher existence could be seen passing within her. She understood the scene\nin a moment.\n\n\"O yes, it is I, Aunt,\" she cried. \"I know how frightened you are, and\nhow you cannot believe it; but all the same, it is I who have come home\nlike this!\"\n\n\"Tamsin, Tamsin!\" said Mrs. Yeobright, stooping over the young woman and\nkissing her. \"O my dear girl!\"\n\nThomasin was now on the verge of a sob, but by an unexpected\nself-command she uttered no sound. With a gentle panting breath she sat\nupright.\n\n\"I did not expect to see you in this state, any more than you me,\" she\nwent on quickly. \"Where am I, Aunt?\"\n\n\"Nearly home, my dear. In Egdon Bottom. What dreadful thing is it?\"\n\n\"I\'ll tell you in a moment. So near, are we? Then I will get out and\nwalk. I want to go home by the path.\"\n\n\"But this kind man who has done so much will, I am sure, take you\nright on to my house?\" said the aunt, turning to the reddleman, who had\nwithdrawn from the front of the van on the awakening of the girl, and\nstood in the road.\n\n\"Why should you think it necessary to ask me? I will, of course,\" said\nhe.\n\n\"He is indeed kind,\" murmured Thomasin. \"I was once acquainted with him,\nAunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van to any\nconveyance of a stranger. But I\'ll walk now. Reddleman, stop the horses,\nplease.\"\n\nThe man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them\n\nAunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to its\nowner, \"I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the nice\nbusiness your father left you?\"\n\n\"Well, I did,\" he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.\n\"Then you\'ll not be wanting me any more tonight, ma\'am?\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the\nperishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had\nneared. \"I think not,\" she said, \"since Thomasin wishes to walk. We can\nsoon run up the path and reach home--we know it well.\"\n\nAnd after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving onwards\nwith his van, and the two women remaining standing in the road. As soon\nas the vehicle and its driver had withdrawn so far as to be beyond all\npossible reach of her voice, Mrs. Yeobright turned to her niece.\n\n\"Now, Thomasin,\" she said sternly, \"what\'s the meaning of this\ndisgraceful performance?\"\n\n\n\n\n5--Perplexity among Honest People\n\n\nThomasin looked as if quite overcome by her aunt\'s change of manner.\n\"It means just what it seems to mean: I am--not married,\" she replied\nfaintly. \"Excuse me--for humiliating you, Aunt, by this mishap--I am\nsorry for it. But I cannot help it.\"\n\n\"Me? Think of yourself first.\"\n\n\"It was nobody\'s fault. When we got there the parson wouldn\'t marry us\nbecause of some trifling irregularity in the license.\"\n\n\"What irregularity?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went away\nthis morning that I should come back like this.\" It being dark, Thomasin\nallowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears, which\ncould roll down her cheek unseen.\n\n\"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that\nyou don\'t deserve it,\" continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two\ndistinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew\nfrom one to the other without the least warning. \"Remember, Thomasin,\nthis business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you\nbegan to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make you\nhappy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have believed\nmyself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made myself the\npublic talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don\'t submit to\nthese fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after this.\"\n\n\"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?\" said Thomasin,\nwith a heavy sigh. \"I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but don\'t\npain me by talking like that, Aunt! You would not have had me stay there\nwith him, would you?--and your house is the only home I have to return\nto. He says we can be married in a day or two.\"\n\n\"I wish he had never seen you.\"\n\n\"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not\nlet him see me again. No, I won\'t have him!\"\n\n\"It is too late to speak so. Come with me. I am going to the inn to see\nif he has returned. Of course I shall get to the bottom of this story\nat once. Mr. Wildeve must not suppose he can play tricks upon me, or any\nbelonging to me.\"\n\n\"It was not that. The license was wrong, and he couldn\'t get another the\nsame day. He will tell you in a moment how it was, if he comes.\"\n\n\"Why didn\'t he bring you back?\"\n\n\"That was me!\" again sobbed Thomasin. \"When I found we could not be\nmarried I didn\'t like to come back with him, and I was very ill. Then\nI saw Diggory Venn, and was glad to get him to take me home. I cannot\nexplain it any better, and you must be angry with me if you will.\"\n\n\"I shall see about that,\" said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards\nthe inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of\nwhich represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her\narm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well known\nto frequenters of the inn:--\n\n\nSINCE THE WOMAN\'S QUIET LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.(1)\n\n (1) The inn which really bore this sign and legend stood\n some miles to the northwest of the present scene, wherein\n the house more immediately referred to is now no longer an\n inn; and the surroundings are much changed. But another inn,\n some of whose features are also embodied in this\n description, the RED LION at Winfrith, still remains as a\n haven for the wayfarer (1912).\n\nThe front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose dark\nshape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was a neglected\nbrass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, \"Mr. Wildeve,\nEngineer\"--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when he had been\nstarted in that profession in an office at Budmouth by those who had\nhoped much from him, and had been disappointed. The garden was at the\nback, and behind this ran a still deep stream, forming the margin of the\nheath in that direction, meadow-land appearing beyond the stream.\n\nBut the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of any\nscene at present. The water at the back of the house could be\nheard, idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry\nfeather-headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their\npresence was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly,\nproduced by their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.\n\nThe window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes\nof the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a\npedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow,\nin which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted\nhalf the ceiling.\n\n\"He seems to be at home,\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"Must I come in, too, Aunt?\" asked Thomasin faintly. \"I suppose not; it\nwould be wrong.\"\n\n\"You must come, certainly--to confront him, so that he may make no false\nrepresentations to me. We shall not be five minutes in the house, and\nthen we\'ll walk home.\"\n\nEntering the open passage, she tapped at the door of the private\nparlour, unfastened it, and looked in.\n\nThe back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright\'s eyes and\nthe fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose, and\nadvanced to meet his visitors.\n\nHe was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,\nthe latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement\nwas singular--it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career.\nNext came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a\nprofuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face, lending to his\nforehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and a neck\nwhich was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his figure\nwas of light build. Altogether he was one in whom no man would have seen\nanything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen anything to\ndislike.\n\nHe discerned the young girl\'s form in the passage, and said, \"Thomasin,\nthen, has reached home. How could you leave me in that way, darling?\"\nAnd turning to Mrs. Yeobright--\"It was useless to argue with her. She\nwould go, and go alone.\"\n\n\"But what\'s the meaning of it all?\" demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.\n\n\"Take a seat,\" said Wildeve, placing chairs for the two women. \"Well,\nit was a very stupid mistake, but such mistakes will happen. The license\nwas useless at Anglebury. It was made out for Budmouth, but as I didn\'t\nread it I wasn\'t aware of that.\"\n\n\"But you had been staying at Anglebury?\"\n\n\"No. I had been at Budmouth--till two days ago--and that was where I\nhad intended to take her; but when I came to fetch her we decided upon\nAnglebury, forgetting that a new license would be necessary. There was\nnot time to get to Budmouth afterwards.\"\n\n\"I think you are very much to blame,\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"It was quite my fault we chose Anglebury,\" Thomasin pleaded. \"I\nproposed it because I was not known there.\"\n\n\"I know so well that I am to blame that you need not remind me of it,\"\nreplied Wildeve shortly.\n\n\"Such things don\'t happen for nothing,\" said the aunt. \"It is a great\nslight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will be a\nvery unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in the face\ntomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily forgive. It\nmay even reflect on her character.\"\n\n\"Nonsense,\" said Wildeve.\n\nThomasin\'s large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of\nthe other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, \"Will you\nallow me, Aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes? Will\nyou, Damon?\"\n\n\"Certainly, dear,\" said Wildeve, \"if your aunt will excuse us.\" He led\nher into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.\n\nAs soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said, turning\nup her pale, tearful face to him, \"It is killing me, this, Damon! I did\nnot mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this morning; but I was\nfrightened and hardly knew what I said. I\'ve not let Aunt know how much\nI suffered today; and it is so hard to command my face and voice, and to\nsmile as if it were a slight thing to me; but I try to do so, that she\nmay not be still more indignant with you. I know you could not help it,\ndear, whatever Aunt may think.\"\n\n\"She is very unpleasant.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Thomasin murmured, \"and I suppose I seem so now.... Damon, what do\nyou mean to do about me?\"\n\n\"Do about you?\"\n\n\"Yes. Those who don\'t like you whisper things which at moments make me\ndoubt you. We mean to marry, I suppose, don\'t we?\"\n\n\"Of course we do. We have only to go to Budmouth on Monday, and we marry\nat once.\"\n\n\"Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!\" She hid her face in\nher handkerchief. \"Here am I asking you to marry me, when by rights\nyou ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel mistress, not\nto refuse you, and saying it would break your heart if I did. I used to\nthink it would be pretty and sweet like that; but how different!\"\n\n\"Yes, real life is never at all like that.\"\n\n\"But I don\'t care personally if it never takes place,\" she added with a\nlittle dignity; \"no, I can live without you. It is Aunt I think of. She\nis so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability, that she\nwill be cut down with mortification if this story should get abroad\nbefore--it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much wounded.\"\n\n\"Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather\nunreasonable.\"\n\nThomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the\nmomentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,\nand she humbly said, \"I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely\nfeel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last.\"\n\n\"As a matter of justice it is almost due to me,\" said Wildeve. \"Think\nwhat I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to\nany man to have the banns forbidden--the double insult to a man unlucky\nenough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven\nknows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would\nrejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no\nfurther in the business.\"\n\nShe looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those\nwords, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room could\ndeplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was really\nsuffering he seemed disturbed and added, \"This is merely a reflection\nyou know. I have not the least intention to refuse to complete the\nmarriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it.\"\n\n\"You could not, I know!\" said the fair girl, brightening. \"You, who\ncannot bear the sight of pain in even an insect, or any disagreeable\nsound, or unpleasant smell even, will not long cause pain to me and\nmine.\"\n\n\"I will not, if I can help it.\"\n\n\"Your hand upon it, Damon.\"\n\nHe carelessly gave her his hand.\n\n\"Ah, by my crown, what\'s that?\" he said suddenly.\n\nThere fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in\nfront of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by their\npeculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy thin piping.\nThomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway and Grandfer\nCantle respectively.\n\n\"What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?\" she said, with a\nfrightened gaze at Wildeve.\n\n\"Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to us\na welcome. This is intolerable!\" He began pacing about, the men outside\nsinging cheerily--\n\n\n\"He told\' her that she\' was the joy\' of his life\', And if\' she\'d\ncon-sent\' he would make her his wife\'; She could\' not refuse\' him;\nto church\' so they went\', Young Will was forgot\', and young Sue\' was\ncontent\'; And then\' was she kiss\'d\' and set down\' on his knee\', No man\'\nin the world\' was so lov\'-ing as he\'!\"\n\n\nMrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. \"Thomasin, Thomasin!\" she\nsaid, looking indignantly at Wildeve; \"here\'s a pretty exposure! Let us\nescape at once. Come!\"\n\nIt was, however, too late to get away by the passage. A rugged knocking\nhad begun upon the door of the front room. Wildeve, who had gone to the\nwindow, came back.\n\n\"Stop!\" he said imperiously, putting his hand upon Mrs. Yeobright\'s arm.\n\"We are regularly besieged. There are fifty of them out there if there\'s\none. You stay in this room with Thomasin; I\'ll go out and face them. You\nmust stay now, for my sake, till they are gone, so that it may seem as\nif all was right. Come, Tamsie dear, don\'t go making a scene--we must\nmarry after this; that you can see as well as I. Sit still, that\'s\nall--and don\'t speak much. I\'ll manage them. Blundering fools!\"\n\nHe pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer room and\nopened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage, appeared Grandfer\nCantle singing in concert with those still standing in front of the\nhouse. He came into the room and nodded abstractedly to Wildeve, his\nlips still parted, and his features excruciatingly strained in the\nemission of the chorus. This being ended, he said heartily, \"Here\'s\nwelcome to the new-made couple, and God bless \'em!\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy as a\nthunderstorm.\n\nAt the Grandfer\'s heels now came the rest of the group, which included\nFairway, Christian, Sam the turf-cutter, Humphrey, and a dozen others.\nAll smiled upon Wildeve, and upon his tables and chairs likewise, from\na general sense of friendliness towards the articles as well as towards\ntheir owner.\n\n\"We be not here afore Mrs. Yeobright after all,\" said Fairway,\nrecognizing the matron\'s bonnet through the glass partition which\ndivided the public apartment they had entered from the room where the\nwomen sat. \"We struck down across, d\'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she went\nround by the path.\"\n\n\"And I see the young bride\'s little head!\" said Grandfer, peeping in the\nsame direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside her aunt\nin a miserable and awkward way. \"Not quite settled in yet--well, well,\nthere\'s plenty of time.\"\n\nWildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he treated\nthem the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar, which threw a\nwarm halo over matters at once.\n\n\"That\'s a drop of the right sort, I can see,\" said Grandfer Cantle, with\nthe air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste it.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Wildeve, \"\'tis some old mead. I hope you will like it.\"\n\n\"O ay!\" replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words\ndemanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. \"There\nisn\'t a prettier drink under the sun.\"\n\n\"I\'ll take my oath there isn\'t,\" added Grandfer Cantle. \"All that can be\nsaid against mead is that \'tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a man\na good while. But tomorrow\'s Sunday, thank God.\"\n\n\"I feel\'d for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had some\nonce,\" said Christian.\n\n\"You shall feel so again,\" said Wildeve, with condescension, \"Cups or\nglasses, gentlemen?\"\n\n\"Well, if you don\'t mind, we\'ll have the beaker, and pass \'en round;\n\'tis better than heling it out in dribbles.\"\n\n\"Jown the slippery glasses,\" said Grandfer Cantle. \"What\'s the good of\na thing that you can\'t put down in the ashes to warm, hey, neighbours;\nthat\'s what I ask?\"\n\n\"Right, Grandfer,\" said Sam; and the mead then circulated.\n\n\"Well,\" said Timothy Fairway, feeling demands upon his praise in some\nform or other, \"\'tis a worthy thing to be married, Mr. Wildeve; and the\nwoman you\'ve got is a dimant, so says I. Yes,\" he continued, to Grandfer\nCantle, raising his voice so as to be heard through the partition, \"her\nfather (inclining his head towards the inner room) was as good a\nfeller as ever lived. He always had his great indignation ready against\nanything underhand.\"\n\n\"Is that very dangerous?\" said Christian.\n\n\"And there were few in these parts that were upsides with him,\" said\nSam. \"Whenever a club walked he\'d play the clarinet in the band that\nmarched before \'em as if he\'d never touched anything but a clarinet all\nhis life. And then, when they got to church door he\'d throw down the\nclarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and rozum away as\nif he\'d never played anything but a bass viol. Folk would say--folk that\nknowed what a true stave was--\'Surely, surely that\'s never the same man\nthat I saw handling the clarinet so masterly by now!\"\n\n\"I can mind it,\" said the furze-cutter. \"\'Twas a wonderful thing that\none body could hold it all and never mix the fingering.\"\n\n\"There was Kingsbere church likewise,\" Fairway recommenced, as one\nopening a new vein of the same mine of interest.\n\nWildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced\nthrough the partition at the prisoners.\n\n\"He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old\nacquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man enough,\nbut rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?\"\n\n\"\'A was.\"\n\n\"And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey\'s place for some part of\nthe service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would\nnaturally do.\"\n\n\"As any friend would,\" said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners\nexpressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.\n\n\"No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour\nYeobright\'s wind had got inside Andrey\'s clarinet than everyone in\nchurch feeled in a moment there was a great soul among \'em. All heads\nwould turn, and they\'d say, \'Ah, I thought \'twas he!\' One Sunday I can\nwell mind--a bass viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his own.\n\'Twas the Hundred-and-thirty-third to \'Lydia\'; and when they\'d come\nto \'Ran down his beard and o\'er his robes its costly moisture shed,\'\nneighbour Yeobright, who had just warmed to his work, drove his bow into\nthem strings that glorious grand that he e\'en a\'most sawed the bass\nviol into two pieces. Every winder in church rattled as if \'twere a\nthunderstorm. Old Pa\'son Williams lifted his hands in his great holy\nsurplice as natural as if he\'d been in common clothes, and seemed to say\nhisself, \'O for such a man in our parish!\' But not a soul in Kingsbere\ncould hold a candle to Yeobright.\"\n\n\"Was it quite safe when the winder shook?\" Christian inquired.\n\nHe received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration\nof the performance described. As with Farinelli\'s singing before the\nprincesses, Sheridan\'s renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples,\nthe fortunate condition of its being for ever lost to the world invested\nthe deceased Mr. Yeobright\'s tour de force on that memorable afternoon\nwith a cumulative glory which comparative criticism, had that been\npossible, might considerably have shorn down.\n\n\"He was the last you\'d have expected to drop off in the prime of life,\"\nsaid Humphrey.\n\n\"Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At\nthat time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill\nFair, and my wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid,\nhardly husband-high, went with the rest of the maidens, for \'a was a\ngood, runner afore she got so heavy. When she came home I said--we were\nthen just beginning to walk together--\'What have ye got, my honey?\'\n\'I\'ve won--well, I\'ve won--a gown-piece,\' says she, her colours coming\nup in a moment. \'Tis a smock for a crown, I thought; and so it turned\nout. Ay, when I think what she\'ll say to me now without a mossel of red\nin her face, it do seem strange that \'a wouldn\'t say such a little thing\nthen.... However, then she went on, and that\'s what made me bring up the\nstory. Well, whatever clothes I\'ve won, white or figured, for eyes to\nsee or for eyes not to see\' (\'a could do a pretty stroke of modesty in\nthose days), \'I\'d sooner have lost it than have seen what I have. Poor\nMr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached the fair ground, and was\nforced to go home again.\' That was the last time he ever went out of the\nparish.\"\n\n\"\'A faltered on from one day to another, and then we heard he was gone.\"\n\n\"D\'ye think he had great pain when \'a died?\" said Christian.\n\n\"O no--quite different. Nor any pain of mind. He was lucky enough to be\nGod A\'mighty\'s own man.\"\n\n\"And other folk--d\'ye think \'twill be much pain to \'em, Mister Fairway?\"\n\n\"That depends on whether they be afeard.\"\n\n\"I bain\'t afeard at all, I thank God!\" said Christian strenuously. \"I\'m\nglad I bain\'t, for then \'twon\'t pain me.... I don\'t think I be afeard--or\nif I be I can\'t help it, and I don\'t deserve to suffer. I wish I was not\nafeard at all!\"\n\nThere was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was\nunshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, \"Well, what a fess little\nbonfire that one is, out by Cap\'n Vye\'s! \'Tis burning just the same now\nas ever, upon my life.\"\n\nAll glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve\ndisguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of\nheath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,\nsmall, but steady and persistent as before.\n\n\"It was lighted before ours was,\" Fairway continued; \"and yet every one\nin the country round is out afore \'n.\"\n\n\"Perhaps there\'s meaning in it!\" murmured Christian.\n\n\"How meaning?\" said Wildeve sharply.\n\nChristian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.\n\n\"He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that some\nsay is a witch--ever I should call a fine young woman such a name--is\nalways up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps \'tis she.\"\n\n\"I\'d be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she\'d hae me and take\nthe risk of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me,\" said Grandfer Cantle\nstaunchly.\n\n\"Don\'t ye say it, Father!\" implored Christian.\n\n\"Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won\'t hae an uncommon\npicture for his best parlour,\" said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing\ndown the cup of mead at the end of a good pull.\n\n\"And a partner as deep as the North Star,\" said Sam, taking up the cup\nand finishing the little that remained. \"Well, really, now I think we\nmust be moving,\" said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.\n\n\"But we\'ll gie \'em another song?\" said Grandfer Cantle. \"I\'m as full of\nnotes as a bird!\"\n\n\"Thank you, Grandfer,\" said Wildeve. \"But we will not trouble you now.\nSome other day must do for that--when I have a party.\"\n\n\"Be jown\'d if I don\'t learn ten new songs for\'t, or I won\'t learn a\nline!\" said Grandfer Cantle. \"And you may be sure I won\'t disappoint ye\nby biding away, Mr. Wildeve.\"\n\n\"I quite believe you,\" said that gentleman.\n\nAll then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and\nhappiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some\ntime. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed\nupward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness\nreigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form\nfirst became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving\ninto the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they\npursued their trackless way home.\n\nWhen the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted upon\nthe ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin and her\naunt. The women were gone.\n\nThey could only have left the house in one way, by the back window; and\nthis was open.\n\nWildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly\nreturned to the front room. Here his glance fell upon a bottle of wine\nwhich stood on the mantelpiece. \"Ah--old Dowden!\" he murmured; and going\nto the kitchen door shouted, \"Is anybody here who can take something to\nold Dowden?\"\n\nThere was no reply. The room was empty, the lad who acted as his\nfactotum having gone to bed. Wildeve came back put on his hat, took the\nbottle, and left the house, turning the key in the door, for there was\nno guest at the inn tonight. As soon as he was on the road the little\nbonfire on Mistover Knap again met his eye.\n\n\"Still waiting, are you, my lady?\" he murmured.\n\nHowever, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill to\nthe left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him to a\ncottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this hour, was\nonly saved from being visible by a faint shine from its bedroom window.\nThis house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker, and he entered.\n\nThe lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a table,\nwhereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again upon the\nheath. He stood and looked northeast at the undying little fire--high up\nabove him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.\n\nWe have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the epigram\nis not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in the case,\nand that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and breathed\nperplexedly, and then said to himself with resignation, \"Yes--by Heaven,\nI must go to her, I suppose!\"\n\nInstead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a\npath under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.\n\n\n\n\n6--The Figure against the Sky\n\n\nWhen the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its\naccustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the\nbarrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay. Had\nthe reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the woman\nwho had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the approach\nof strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top, where the red\ncoals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes in the corpse\nof day. There she stood still around her stretching the vast night\natmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with the total\ndarkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial beside a\nmortal sin.\n\nThat she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in her\nmovements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form being\nwrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head in\na large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place.\nHer back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest; but\nwhether she had avoided that aspect because of the chilly gusts which\nplayed about her exceptional position, or because her interest lay in\nthe southeast, did not at first appear.\n\nHer reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle\nof heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her\nconspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among other\nthings an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from that\nsinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear of\nits glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weather\nwhich leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer\'s\nCimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.\n\nIt might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the\nwind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the\nattention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene\nseemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what was\nheard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable series\nfollowed each other from the northwest, and when each one of them raced\npast the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, and\nbass notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole\nover pits and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next there\ncould be heard the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force,\nabove them in pitch, a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which\nwas the peculiar local sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately\ntraceable than the other two, it was far more impressive than either. In\nit lay what may be called the linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and\nbeing audible nowhere on earth off a heath, it afforded a shadow of\nreason for the woman\'s tenseness, which continued as unbroken as ever.\n\nThroughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note\nbore a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the\nthroat of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and\nit brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the\nmaterial minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch.\nIt was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these\nwere neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.\n\nThey were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tender\nand purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to dead\nskins by October suns. So low was an individual sound from these that a\ncombination of hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the myriads\nof the whole declivity reached the woman\'s ear but as a shrivelled and\nintermittent recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many\nafloat tonight could have such power to impress a listener with\nthoughts of its origin. One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined\nmultitudes; and perceived that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on\nentered, scoured and emerged from by the wind as thoroughly as if it\nwere as vast as a crater.\n\n\"The spirit moved them.\" A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon the\nattention; and an emotional listener\'s fetichistic mood might have\nended in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the\nleft-hand expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those\nof the slope in front; but it was the single person of something else\nspeaking through each at once.\n\nSuddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric\nof night a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its\nbeginning and ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and\nthe bushes, and the heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did\nthe woman; and her articulation was but as another phrase of the same\ndiscourse as theirs. Thrown out on the winds it became twined in with\nthem, and with them it flew away.\n\nWhat she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something\nin her mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic\nabandonment about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound the\nwoman\'s brain had authorized what it could not regulate. One point was\nevident in this; that she had been existing in a suppressed state, and\nnot in one of languor, or stagnation.\n\nFar away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn\nstill lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window, or\nwhat was within it, had more to do with the woman\'s sigh than had either\nher own actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her left\nhand, which held a closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as if\nshe were well accustomed to the operation, and raising it to her eye\ndirected it towards the light beaming from the inn.\n\nThe handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown back,\nher face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against the dull\nmonochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows from\nthe features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged upwards from the\ntomb to form an image like neither but suggesting both. This, however,\nwas mere superficiality. In respect of character a face may make certain\nadmissions by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes.\nSo much is this the case that what is called the play of the features\noften helps more in understanding a man or woman than the earnest\nlabours of all the other members together. Thus the night revealed\nlittle of her whose form it was embracing, for the mobile parts of her\ncountenance could not be seen.\n\nAt last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and\nturned to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now\nradiated, except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over their\nfaces and raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of a\ngirl. She stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the brands\na piece of stick which bore the largest live coal at its end, brought it\nto where she had been standing before.\n\nShe held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth at\nthe same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a small\nobject, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch.\nShe blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.\n\n\"Ah!\" she said, as if surprised.\n\nThe light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary\nirradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That\nconsisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still\nenveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the\ntelescope under her arm, and moved on.\n\nAlong the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Those\nwho knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would have\npassed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heath\nwere at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of following these\nincipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere to\nshow a turnpike road, lay in the development of the sense of touch in\nthe feet, which comes with years of night-rambling in little-trodden\nspots. To a walker practised in such places a difference between impact\non maiden herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a slight footway, is\nperceptible through the thickest boot or shoe.\n\nThe solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy\ntune still played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head to\nlook at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence\nas she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of the\nsmall wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at large on the\nundulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract much from the\nsolitude.\n\nThe pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction\nwas afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt,\nand checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along,\nshe yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. When she\nbegan to extricate herself it was by turning round and round, and so\nunwinding the prickly switch. She was in a desponding reverie.\n\nHer course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had\ndrawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the\nvalley below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow upon\nher face, and the fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level\nground, but on a salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction of\ntwo converging bank fences. Outside was a ditch, dry except immediately\nunder the fire, where there was a large pool, bearded all round by\nheather and rushes. In the smooth water of the pool the fire appeared\nupside down.\n\nThe banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was formed\nby disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, like\nimpaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars\nand other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds\nwhenever the flames played brightly enough to reach it. Altogether the\nscene had much the appearance of a fortification upon which had been\nkindled a beacon fire.\n\nNobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above\nthe bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand,\nin the act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all that\ncould be seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there\nalone. Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped with a\nhiss into the pool.\n\nAt one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone who\nwished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was a\npaddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having once\nbeen tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and were\nreasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible an\nirregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings, backed by a clump of\nfirs.\n\nThe young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant bound\nup the bank--walked along the top instead of descending inside, and came\nto the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence\nof the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of\nwood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in\ntwos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay\nin the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face\nof a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece\nof wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed to\nhave engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face was\nsomewhat weary.\n\n\"I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia,\" he said, with a sigh of\nrelief. \"I don\'t like biding by myself.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone\nonly twenty minutes.\"\n\n\"It seemed long,\" murmured the sad boy. \"And you have been so many\ntimes.\"\n\n\"Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not much\nobliged to me for making you one?\"\n\n\"Yes; but there\'s nobody here to play wi\' me.\"\n\n\"I suppose nobody has come while I\'ve been away?\"\n\n\"Nobody except your grandfather--he looked out of doors once for \'ee.\nI told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other\nbonfires.\"\n\n\"A good boy.\"\n\n\"I think I hear him coming again, miss.\"\n\nAn old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction\nof the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on the\nroad that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at\nthe woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,\nshowed like parian from his parted lips.\n\n\"When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?\" he asked. \"\'Tis almost bedtime.\nI\'ve been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely \'tis somewhat\nchildish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting\nsuch fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing, that I\nlaid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt \'em nearly all!\"\n\n\"I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out\njust yet,\" said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was\nabsolute queen here. \"Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow you\nsoon. You like the fire, don\'t you, Johnny?\"\n\nThe boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, \"I don\'t think I want\nit any longer.\"\n\nHer grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy\'s reply.\nAs soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone of pique\nto the child, \"Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Never\nshall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now. Come, tell me\nyou like to do things for me, and don\'t deny it.\"\n\nThe repressed child said, \"Yes, I do, miss,\" and continued to stir the\nfire perfunctorily.\n\n\"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence,\" said\nEustacia, more gently. \"Put in one piece of wood every two or three\nminutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge a\nlittle longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a frog\njump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure you\nrun and tell me, because it is a sign of rain.\"\n\n\"Yes, Eustacia.\"\n\n\"Miss Vye, sir.\"\n\n\"Miss Vy--stacia.\"\n\n\"That will do. Now put in one stick more.\"\n\nThe little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mere\nautomaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia\'s\nwill. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is said\nto have animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move, and be his\nservant.\n\nBefore going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bank\nfor a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a place\nas Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more sheltered\nfrom wind and weather on account of the few firs to the north. The bank\nwhich enclosed the homestead, and protected it from the lawless state of\nthe world without, was formed of thick square clods, dug from the ditch\non the outside, and built up with a slight batter or incline, which\nforms no slight defense where hedges will not grow because of the wind\nand the wilderness, and where wall materials are unattainable. Otherwise\nthe situation was quite open, commanding the whole length of the valley\nwhich reached to the river behind Wildeve\'s house. High above this to\nthe right, and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, the\nblurred contour of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.\n\nAfter her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a\ngesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words\nevery now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden\nlistenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again\nsauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go the\nwhole way.\n\nTwice she reappeared at intervals of a few minutes and each time she\nsaid--\n\n\"Not any flounce into the pond yet, little man?\"\n\n\"No, Miss Eustacia,\" the child replied.\n\n\"Well,\" she said at last, \"I shall soon be going in, and then I will\ngive you the crooked sixpence, and let you go home.\"\n\n\"Thank\'ee, Miss Eustacia,\" said the tired stoker, breathing more easily.\nAnd Eustacia again strolled away from the fire, but this time not\ntowards Rainbarrow. She skirted the bank and went round to the wicket\nbefore the house, where she stood motionless, looking at the scene.\n\nFifty yards off rose the corner of the two converging banks, with the\nfire upon it; within the bank, lifting up to the fire one stick at a\ntime, just as before, the figure of the little child. She idly watched\nhim as he occasionally climbed up in the nook of the bank and stood\nbeside the brands. The wind blew the smoke, and the child\'s hair, and\nthe corner of his pinafore, all in the same direction; the breeze died,\nand the pinafore and hair lay still, and the smoke went up straight.\n\nWhile Eustacia looked on from this distance the boy\'s form visibly\nstarted--he slid down the bank and ran across towards the white gate.\n\n\"Well?\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"A hopfrog have jumped into the pond. Yes, I heard \'en!\"\n\n\"Then it is going to rain, and you had better go home. You will not be\nafraid?\" She spoke hurriedly, as if her heart had leapt into her throat\nat the boy\'s words.\n\n\"No, because I shall hae the crooked sixpence.\"\n\n\"Yes, here it is. Now run as fast as you can--not that way--through the\ngarden here. No other boy in the heath has had such a bonfire as yours.\"\n\nThe boy, who clearly had had too much of a good thing, marched away\ninto the shadows with alacrity. When he was gone Eustacia, leaving her\ntelescope and hourglass by the gate, brushed forward from the wicket\ntowards the angle of the bank, under the fire.\n\nHere, screened by the outwork, she waited. In a few moments a splash was\naudible from the pond outside. Had the child been there he would have\nsaid that a second frog had jumped in; but by most people the sound\nwould have been likened to the fall of a stone into the water. Eustacia\nstepped upon the bank.\n\n\"Yes?\" she said, and held her breath.\n\nThereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the\nlow-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.\nHe came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh escaped\nher--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in tonight. The\nfirst, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed anxiety; the\nsecond, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the present was one\nof triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes rest upon him without\nspeaking, as upon some wondrous thing she had created out of chaos.\n\n\"I have come,\" said the man, who was Wildeve. \"You give me no peace. Why\ndo you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening.\"\nThe words were not without emotion, and retained their level tone as if\nby a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.\n\nAt this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed to\nrepress herself also. \"Of course you have seen my fire,\" she answered\nwith languid calmness, artificially maintained. \"Why shouldn\'t I have a\nbonfire on the Fifth of November, like other denizens of the heath?\"\n\n\"I knew it was meant for me.\"\n\n\"How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you chose\nher, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as if I had\nnever been yours life and soul so irretrievably!\"\n\n\"Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the month\nand at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a signal for\nme to come and see you? Why should there have been a bonfire again by\nCaptain Vye\'s house if not for the same purpose?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes--I own it,\" she cried under her breath, with a drowsy fervour\nof manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her. \"Don\'t begin\nspeaking to me as you did, Damon; you will drive me to say words I would\nnot wish to say to you. I had given you up, and resolved not to think of\nyou any more; and then I heard the news, and I came out and got the fire\nready because I thought that you had been faithful to me.\"\n\n\"What have you heard to make you think that?\" said Wildeve, astonished.\n\n\"That you did not marry her!\" she murmured exultingly. \"And I knew it\nwas because you loved me best, and couldn\'t do it.... Damon, you have\nbeen cruel to me to go away, and I have said I would never forgive you.\nI do not think I can forgive you entirely, even now--it is too much for\na woman of any spirit to quite overlook.\"\n\n\"If I had known you wished to call me up here only to reproach me, I\nwouldn\'t have come.\"\n\n\"But I don\'t mind it, and I do forgive you now that you have not married\nher, and have come back to me!\"\n\n\"Who told you that I had not married her?\"\n\n\"My grandfather. He took a long walk today, and as he was coming home he\novertook some person who told him of a broken-off wedding--he thought it\nmight be yours, and I knew it was.\"\n\n\"Does anybody else know?\"\n\n\"I suppose not. Now Damon, do you see why I lit my signal fire? You did\nnot think I would have lit it if I had imagined you to have become the\nhusband of this woman. It is insulting my pride to suppose that.\"\n\nWildeve was silent; it was evident that he had supposed as much.\n\n\"Did you indeed think I believed you were married?\" she again demanded\nearnestly. \"Then you wronged me; and upon my life and heart I can hardly\nbear to recognize that you have such ill thoughts of me! Damon, you are\nnot worthy of me--I see it, and yet I love you. Never mind, let it go--I\nmust bear your mean opinion as best I may.... It is true, is it not,\" she\nadded with ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no demonstration, \"that\nyou could not bring yourself to give me up, and are still going to love\nme best of all?\"\n\n\"Yes; or why should I have come?\" he said touchily. \"Not that\nfidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech about my\nunworthiness, which should have been said by myself if by anybody, and\ncomes with an ill grace from you. However, the curse of inflammability\nis upon me, and I must live under it, and take any snub from a woman. It\nhas brought me down from engineering to innkeeping--what lower stage it\nhas in store for me I have yet to learn.\" He continued to look upon her\ngloomily.\n\nShe seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the firelight\nshone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile, \"Have you seen\nanything better than that in your travels?\"\n\nEustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position without good\nground. He said quietly, \"No.\"\n\n\"Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?\"\n\n\"Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman.\"\n\n\"That\'s nothing to do with it,\" she cried with quick passionateness. \"We\nwill leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of.\" After a\nlong look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth, \"Must I go\non weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to conceal; and\nown that no words can express how gloomy I have been because of that\ndreadful belief I held till two hours ago--that you had quite deserted\nme?\"\n\n\"I am sorry I caused you that pain.\"\n\n\"But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy,\" she\narchly added. \"It is in my nature to feel like that. It was born in my\nblood, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Hypochondriasis.\"\n\n\"Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough at\nBudmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will be\nbrighter again now.\"\n\n\"I hope it will,\" said Wildeve moodily. \"Do you know the consequence\nof this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come to see you again as\nbefore, at Rainbarrow.\"\n\n\"Of course you will.\"\n\n\"And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended, after this\none good-bye, never to meet you again.\"\n\n\"I don\'t thank you for that,\" she said, turning away, while indignation\nspread through her like subterranean heat. \"You may come again to\nRainbarrow if you like, but you won\'t see me; and you may call, but I\nshall not listen; and you may tempt me, but I won\'t give myself to you\nany more.\"\n\n\"You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours don\'t so\neasily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of that, do such\nnatures as mine.\"\n\n\"This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble,\" she whispered bitterly.\n\"Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring takes place in my\nmind occasionally. I think when I become calm after you woundings, \'Do\nI embrace a cloud of common fog after all?\' You are a chameleon, and now\nyou are at your worst colour. Go home, or I shall hate you!\"\n\nHe looked absently towards Rainbarrow while one might have counted\ntwenty, and said, as if he did not much mind all this, \"Yes, I will go\nhome. Do you mean to see me again?\"\n\n\"If you own to me that the wedding is broken off because you love me\nbest.\"\n\n\"I don\'t think it would be good policy,\" said Wildeve, smiling. \"You\nwould get to know the extent of your power too clearly.\"\n\n\"But tell me!\"\n\n\"You know.\"\n\n\"Where is she now?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not yet\nmarried her; I have come in obedience to your call. That is enough.\"\n\n\"I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would get a\nlittle excitement by calling you up and triumphing over you as the Witch\nof Endor called up Samuel. I determined you should come; and you have\ncome! I have shown my power. A mile and half hither, and a mile and\nhalf back again to your home--three miles in the dark for me. Have I not\nshown my power?\"\n\nHe shook his head at her. \"I know you too well, my Eustacia; I know you\ntoo well. There isn\'t a note in you which I don\'t know; and that hot\nlittle bosom couldn\'t play such a cold-blooded trick to save its life. I\nsaw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking down towards my house. I think\nI drew out you before you drew out me.\"\n\nThe revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve now; and\nhe leant forward as if about to put his face towards her cheek.\n\n\"O no,\" she said, intractably moving to the other side of the decayed\nfire. \"What did you mean by that?\"\n\n\"Perhaps I may kiss your hand?\"\n\n\"No, you may not.\"\n\n\"Then I may shake your hand?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,\ngood-bye.\"\n\nShe returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he\nvanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.\n\nEustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which shook\nher like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an\nelectric light upon her lover--as it sometimes would--and showed his\nimperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second, and\nshe loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on. She\nscattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately, and up to\nher bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which denoted her to be\nundressing in the darkness other heavy breaths frequently came; and the\nsame kind of shudder occasionally moved through her when, ten minutes\nlater, she lay on her bed asleep.\n\n\n\n\n7--Queen of Night\n\n\nEustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would\nhave done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and\ninstincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not\nquite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to\nbe entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the\nspindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would\nhave noticed the change of government. There would have been the same\ninequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely\nthere, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas,\nthe same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now.\n\nShe was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as\nwithout pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was\nto fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form\nits shadow--it closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the\nwestern glow.\n\nHer nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always\nbe softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she would\ninstantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in passing\nunder one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were caught,\nas they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large Ulex\nEuropoeus--which will act as a sort of hairbrush--she would go back a\nfew steps, and pass against it a second time.\n\nShe had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as\nit came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their\noppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller\nthan it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in\nreverie without seeming to do so--she might have been believed capable\nof sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of men and\nwomen were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia\'s\nsoul to be flamelike. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils\ngave the same impression.\n\nThe mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver\nthan to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed\nsideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric\nprecision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as the\ncima-recta, or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that on grim\nEgdon was quite an apparition. It was felt at once that the mouth did\nnot come over from Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met\nlike the two halves of a muffin. One had fancied that such lip-curves\nwere mostly lurking underground in the South as fragments of forgotten\nmarbles. So fine were the lines of her lips that, though full, each\ncorner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. This\nkeenness of corner was only blunted when she was given over to sudden\nfits of gloom, one of the phases of the night-side of sentiment which\nshe knew too well for her years.\n\nHer presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies,\nand tropical midnight; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the march in\nAthalie; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the viola.\nIn a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her general\nfigure might have stood for that of either of the higher female deities.\nThe new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem of\naccidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been adjuncts sufficient\nto strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively, with as\nclose an approximation to the antique as that which passes muster on\nmany respected canvases.\n\nBut celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be\nsomewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the\nconsciousness of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was\nher Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark\nin its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her\nappearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and\nthe shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and\nstifled warmth within her. A true Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow,\nand not factitiously or with marks of constraint, for it had grown in\nher with years.\n\nAcross the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black\nvelvet, restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which\nadded much to this class of majesty by irregularly clouding her\nforehead. \"Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow\nband drawn over the brow,\" says Richter. Some of the neighbouring\ngirls wore coloured ribbon for the same purpose, and sported metallic\nornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested coloured ribbon and\nmetallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went on.\n\nWhy did a woman of this sort live on Egdon Heath? Budmouth was her\nnative place, a fashionable seaside resort at that date. She was the\ndaughter of the bandmaster of a regiment which had been quartered\nthere--a Corfiote by birth, and a fine musician--who met his future\nwife during her trip thither with her father the captain, a man of good\nfamily. The marriage was scarcely in accord with the old man\'s wishes,\nfor the bandmaster\'s pockets were as light as his occupation. But the\nmusician did his best; adopted his wife\'s name, made England permanently\nhis home, took great trouble with his child\'s education, the expenses\nof which were defrayed by the grandfather, and throve as the chief local\nmusician till her mother\'s death, when he left off thriving, drank, and\ndied also. The girl was left to the care of her grandfather, who, since\nthree of his ribs became broken in a shipwreck, had lived in this airy\nperch on Egdon, a spot which had taken his fancy because the house was\nto be had for next to nothing, and because a remote blue tinge on\nthe horizon between the hills, visible from the cottage door, was\ntraditionally believed to be the English Channel. She hated the change;\nshe felt like one banished; but here she was forced to abide.\n\nThus it happened that in Eustacia\'s brain were juxtaposed the strangest\nassortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was no middle\ndistance in her perspective--romantic recollections of sunny afternoons\non an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants around,\nstood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon.\nEvery bizarre effect that could result from the random intertwining of\nwatering-place glitter with the grand solemnity of a heath, was to be\nfound in her. Seeing nothing of human life now, she imagined all the\nmore of what she had seen.\n\nWhere did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous\' line,\nher father hailing from Phaeacia\'s isle?--or from Fitzalan and De Vere,\nher maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage? Perhaps it\nwas the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural laws. Among other\nthings opportunity had of late years been denied her of learning to\nbe undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath renders\nvulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for the\nheath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow life in\nBudmouth might have completely demeaned her.\n\nThe only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over\nis to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph.\nIn the captain\'s cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen.\nPerhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of\nthem, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place around her,\nshe was an embodiment of the phrase \"a populous solitude\"--apparently so\nlistless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.\n\nTo be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the\none cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.\nAnd she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more\nthan for any particular lover.\n\nShe could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed\nless against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind,\nthe chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference she dimly\nfancied it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth--that any love\nshe might win would sink simultaneously with the sand in the glass.\nShe thought of it with an ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which\ntended to breed actions of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch\na year\'s, a week\'s, even an hour\'s passion from anywhere while it could\nbe won. Through want of it she had sung without being merry, possessed\nwithout enjoying, outshone without triumphing. Her loneliness deepened\nher desire. On Egdon, coldest and meanest kisses were at famine prices,\nand where was a mouth matching hers to be found?\n\nFidelity in love for fidelity\'s sake had less attraction for her than\nfor most women; fidelity because of love\'s grip had much. A blaze of\nlove, and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same\nwhich should last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what\nmost women learn only by experience--she had mentally walked round love,\ntold the towers thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded that love\nwas but a doleful joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a desert would be\nthankful for brackish water.\n\nShe often repeated her prayers; not at particular times, but, like the\nunaffectedly devout, when she desired to pray. Her prayer was always\nspontaneous, and often ran thus, \"O deliver my heart from this fearful\ngloom and loneliness; send me great love from somewhere, else I shall\ndie.\"\n\nHer high gods were William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon\nBuonaparte, as they had appeared in the Lady\'s History used at the\nestablishment in which she was educated. Had she been a mother she would\nhave christened her boys such names as Saul or Sisera in preference to\nJacob or David, neither of whom she admired. At school she had used\nto side with the Philistines in several battles, and had wondered if\nPontius Pilate were as handsome as he was frank and fair.\n\nThus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in\nrelation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very\noriginal. Her instincts towards social non-comformity were at the root\nof this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was that of horses who,\nwhen turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon their kind at work on the\nhighway. She only valued rest to herself when it came in the midst of\nother people\'s labour. Hence she hated Sundays when all was at rest, and\noften said they would be the death of her. To see the heathmen in their\nSunday condition, that is, with their hands in their pockets, their\nboots newly oiled, and not laced up (a particularly Sunday sign),\nwalking leisurely among the turves and furze-faggots they had cut during\nthe week, and kicking them critically as if their use were unknown, was\na fearful heaviness to her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day\nshe would overhaul the cupboards containing her grandfather\'s old charts\nand other rubbish, humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people\nthe while. But on Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and\nit was always on a weekday that she read the Bible, that she might be\nunoppressed with a sense of doing her duty.\n\nSuch views of life were to some extent the natural begettings of her\nsituation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying its\nmeanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue. The\nsubtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught its\nvapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet,\na suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy\nwoman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.\n\nEustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible\nglory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for no\nmeaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To have\nlost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have\nacquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper\nwhich cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it denotes a mind\nthat, though disappointed, forswears compromise. But, if congenial to\nphilosophy, it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth. In a world\nwhere doing means marrying, and the commonwealth is one of hearts and\nhands, the same peril attends the condition.\n\nAnd so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not altogether\nunlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that\nnothing is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her existence\nby idealizing Wildeve for want of a better object. This was the sole\nreason of his ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her pride\nrebelled against her passion for him, and she even had longed to be\nfree. But there was only one circumstance which could dislodge him, and\nthat was the advent of a greater man.\n\nFor the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took\nslow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather\'s\ntelescope and her grandmother\'s hourglass--the latter because of a\npeculiar pleasure she derived from watching a material representation of\ntime\'s gradual glide away. She seldom schemed, but when she did scheme,\nher plans showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a general than the\nsmall arts called womanish, though she could utter oracles of Delphian\nambiguity when she did not choose to be direct. In heaven she will\nprobably sit between the Heloises and the Cleopatras.\n\n\n\n\n8--Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody\n\n\nAs soon as the sad little boy had withdrawn from the fire he clasped\nthe money tight in the palm of his hand, as if thereby to fortify his\ncourage, and began to run. There was really little danger in allowing a\nchild to go home alone on this part of Egdon Heath. The distance to\nthe boy\'s house was not more than three-eighths of a mile, his father\'s\ncottage, and one other a few yards further on, forming part of the small\nhamlet of Mistover Knap: the third and only remaining house was that\nof Captain Vye and Eustacia, which stood quite away from the small\ncottages and was the loneliest of lonely houses on these thinly\npopulated slopes.\n\nHe ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more courageous,\nwalked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a little song about a\nsailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in store. In the middle of\nthis the child stopped--from a pit under the hill ahead of him shone a\nlight, whence proceeded a cloud of floating dust and a smacking noise.\n\nOnly unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The shrivelled voice\nof the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar. The thornbushes\nwhich arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for\nthey whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting\non the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.\nLights were not uncommon this evening, but the nature of all of them was\ndifferent from this. Discretion rather than terror prompted the boy\nto turn back instead of passing the light, with a view of asking Miss\nEustacia Vye to let her servant accompany him home.\n\nWhen the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found the fire\nto be still burning on the bank, though lower than before. Beside it,\ninstead of Eustacia\'s solitary form, he saw two persons, the second\nbeing a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain from\nthe nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt so\nsplendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.\n\nAfter listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he turned in\na perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as silently as\nhe had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it advisable to\ninterrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being prepared to bear\nthe whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.\n\nHere was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing when\nagain safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit phenomenon\nas the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope, and\nfollowed the path he had followed before.\n\nThe light had gone, the rising dust had disappeared--he hoped for ever.\nHe marched resolutely along, and found nothing to alarm him till, coming\nwithin a few yards of the sandpit, he heard a slight noise in front,\nwhich led him to halt. The halt was but momentary, for the noise\nresolved itself into the steady bites of two animals grazing.\n\n\"Two he\'th-croppers down here,\" he said aloud. \"I have never known \'em\ncome down so far afore.\"\n\nThe animals were in the direct line of his path, but that the child\nthought little of; he had played round the fetlocks of horses from his\ninfancy. On coming nearer, however, the boy was somewhat surprised to\nfind that the little creatures did not run off, and that each wore a\nclog, to prevent his going astray; this signified that they had been\nbroken in. He could now see the interior of the pit, which, being in\nthe side of the hill, had a level entrance. In the innermost corner the\nsquare outline of a van appeared, with its back towards him. A light\ncame from the interior, and threw a moving shadow upon the vertical face\nof gravel at the further side of the pit into which the vehicle faced.\n\nThe child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread of\nthose wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates rather\nthan pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family from\nbeing gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful\ndistance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order\nto look into the open door of the van and see the original of the\nshadow.\n\nThe picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a\nfigure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin\'s friend.\nHe was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him. Moreover,\nas he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were red also.\n\nAt this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows\nwas audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the\nsound, the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung\nbeside him, and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he\nlifted the lantern to his face, and the light shone into the whites\nof his eyes and upon his ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the\nred surrounding, lent him a startling aspect enough to the gaze of a\njuvenile. The boy knew too well for his peace of mind upon whose lair\nhe had lighted. Uglier persons than gipsies were known to cross Egdon at\ntimes, and a reddleman was one of them.\n\n\"How I wish \'twas only a gipsy!\" he murmured.\n\nThe man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear of\nbeing seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The\nheather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding\nthe actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the\nheather now gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand to\nthe very foot of the man.\n\nThe red man opened the lantern and turned it upon the figure of the\nprostrate boy.\n\n\"Who be ye?\" he said.\n\n\"Johnny Nunsuch, master!\"\n\n\"What were you doing up there?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know.\"\n\n\"Watching me, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes, master.\"\n\n\"What did you watch me for?\"\n\n\"Because I was coming home from Miss Vye\'s bonfire.\"\n\n\"Beest hurt?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why, yes, you be--your hand is bleeding. Come under my tilt and let me\ntie it up.\"\n\n\"Please let me look for my sixpence.\"\n\n\"How did you come by that?\"\n\n\"Miss Vye gied it to me for keeping up her bonfire.\"\n\nThe sixpence was found, and the man went to the van, the boy behind,\nalmost holding his breath.\n\nThe man took a piece of rag from a satchel containing sewing materials,\ntore off a strip, which, like everything else, was tinged red, and\nproceeded to bind up the wound.\n\n\"My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down, master?\" said the\nboy.\n\n\"To be sure, poor chap. \'Tis enough to make you feel fainty. Sit on that\nbundle.\"\n\nThe man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, \"I think I\'ll go\nhome now, master.\"\n\n\"You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?\"\n\nThe child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much misgiving\nand finally said, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\n\"The reddleman!\" he faltered.\n\n\"Yes, that\'s what I be. Though there\'s more than one. You little\nchildren think there\'s only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one devil,\nand one reddleman, when there\'s lots of us all.\"\n\n\"Is there? You won\'t carry me off in your bags, will ye, master? \'Tis\nsaid that the reddleman will sometimes.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these bags\nat the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys--only full of\nred stuff.\"\n\n\"Was you born a reddleman?\"\n\n\"No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up the\ntrade--that is, I should be white in time--perhaps six months; not at\nfirst, because \'tis grow\'d into my skin and won\'t wash out. Now, you\'ll\nnever be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?\"\n\n\"No, never. Willy Orchard said he seed a red ghost here t\'other\nday--perhaps that was you?\"\n\n\"I was here t\'other day.\"\n\n\"Were you making that dusty light I saw by now?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I was beating out some bags. And have you had a good bonfire up\nthere? I saw the light. Why did Miss Vye want a bonfire so bad that she\nshould give you sixpence to keep it up?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know. I was tired, but she made me bide and keep up the fire\njust the same, while she kept going up across Rainbarrow way.\"\n\n\"And how long did that last?\"\n\n\"Until a hopfrog jumped into the pond.\"\n\nThe reddleman suddenly ceased to talk idly. \"A hopfrog?\" he inquired.\n\"Hopfrogs don\'t jump into ponds this time of year.\"\n\n\"They do, for I heard one.\"\n\n\"Certain-sure?\"\n\n\"Yes. She told me afore that I should hear\'n; and so I did. They say\nshe\'s clever and deep, and perhaps she charmed \'en to come.\"\n\n\"And what then?\"\n\n\"Then I came down here, and I was afeard, and I went back; but I didn\'t\nlike to speak to her, because of the gentleman, and I came on here\nagain.\"\n\n\"A gentleman--ah! What did she say to him, my man?\"\n\n\"Told him she supposed he had not married the other woman because he\nliked his old sweetheart best; and things like that.\"\n\n\"What did the gentleman say to her, my sonny?\"\n\n\"He only said he did like her best, and how he was coming to see her\nagain under Rainbarrow o\' nights.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" cried the reddleman, slapping his hand against the side of his van\nso that the whole fabric shook under the blow. \"That\'s the secret o\'t!\"\n\nThe little boy jumped clean from the stool.\n\n\"My man, don\'t you be afraid,\" said the dealer in red, suddenly becoming\ngentle. \"I forgot you were here. That\'s only a curious way reddlemen\nhave of going mad for a moment; but they don\'t hurt anybody. And what\ndid the lady say then?\"\n\n\"I can\'t mind. Please, Master Reddleman, may I go home-along now?\"\n\n\"Ay, to be sure you may. I\'ll go a bit of ways with you.\"\n\nHe conducted the boy out of the gravel pit and into the path leading\nto his mother\'s cottage. When the little figure had vanished in the\ndarkness the reddleman returned, resumed his seat by the fire, and\nproceeded to darn again.\n\n\n\n\n9--Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy\n\n\nReddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the\nintroduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without these\nMephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largely used by\nshepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other routes.\nEven those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence which\ncharacterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant periodical\njourneys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular camping out\nfrom month to month, except in the depth of winter, a peregrination\namong farms which could be counted by the hundred, and in spite of this\nArab existence the preservation of that respectability which is insured\nby the never-failing production of a well-lined purse.\n\nReddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and stamps\nunmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has handled it\nhalf an hour.\n\nA child\'s first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That\nblood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams\nwhich had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. \"The\nreddleman is coming for you!\" had been the formulated threat of Wessex\nmothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a\nwhile, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as\nprocess of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffective the\nolder phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman has\nin his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys, and his\nplace is filled by modern inventions.\n\nThe reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was about\nas thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had nothing\nto do with them. He was more decently born and brought up than the\ncattledrovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings; but they\nmerely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that of pedlars;\nbut they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes straight ahead.\nHe was such an unnatural colour to look at that the men of roundabouts\nand waxwork shows seemed gentlemen beside him; but he considered them\nlow company, and remained aloof. Among all these squatters and folks\nof the road the reddleman continually found himself; yet he was not of\nthem. His occupation tended to isolate him, and isolated he was mostly\nseen to be.\n\nIt was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose\nmisdeeds other men wrongfully suffered--that in escaping the law they\nhad not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade as a\nlifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the present\ncase such a question would have been particularly apposite. The\nreddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of the\npleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular, when an\nugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose. The one\npoint that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour. Freed\nfrom that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic manhood\nas one would often see. A keen observer might have been inclined to\nthink--which was, indeed, partly the truth--that he had relinquished\nhis proper station in life for want of interest in it. Moreover, after\nlooking at him one would have hazarded the guess that good nature, and\nan acuteness as extreme as it could be without verging on craft, formed\nthe framework of his character.\n\nWhile he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought. Softer\nexpressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender sadness\nwhich had sat upon him during his drive along the highway that\nafternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,\narose from his seat, and took a leathern pouch from a hook in the corner\nof the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paper packet,\nwhich, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn folds, seemed\nto have been carefully opened and closed a good many times. He sat down\non a three-legged milking stool that formed the only seat in the van,\nand, examining his packet by the light of a candle, took thence an old\nletter and spread it open. The writing had originally been traced on\nwhite paper, but the letter had now assumed a pale red tinge from the\naccident of its situation; and the black strokes of writing thereon\nlooked like the twigs of a winter hedge against a vermilion sunset. The\nletter bore a date some two years previous to that time, and was signed\n\"Thomasin Yeobright.\" It ran as follows:--\n\n\nDEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you overtook me coming\nhome from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that I am afraid I did not\nmake you exactly understand what I meant. Of course, if my aunt had not\nmet me I could have explained all then at once, but as it was there was\nno chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish\nto pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what\nI seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think of letting\nyou call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you\nwill not much mind my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me\nvery sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I always put\nyou next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we\ncannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter. I did not\nin the least expect that you were going to speak on such a thing when\nyou followed me, because I had never thought of you in the sense of a\nlover at all. You must not becall me for laughing when you spoke; you\nmistook when you thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed\nbecause the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason\nwith my own personal self for not letting you court me is, that I do not\nfeel the things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you\nwith the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think, that I have\nanother in my mind, for I do not encourage anybody, and never have in\nmy life. Another reason is my aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it,\neven if I wished to have you. She likes you very well, but she will\nwant me to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry\na professional man. I hope you will not set your heart against me for\nwriting plainly, but I felt you might try to see me again, and it is\nbetter that we should not meet. I shall always think of you as a good\nman, and be anxious for your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard\'s\nlittle maid,--And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,\n\nTHOMASIN YEOBRIGHT.\n\nTo MR. VENN, Dairy-farmer.\n\n\nSince the arrival of that letter, on a certain autumn morning long ago,\nthe reddleman and Thomasin had not met till today. During the interval\nhe had shifted his position even further from hers than it had\noriginally been, by adopting the reddle trade; though he was really in\nvery good circumstances still. Indeed, seeing that his expenditure was\nonly one-fourth of his income, he might have been called a prosperous\nman.\n\nRejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived bees; and the\nbusiness to which he had cynically devoted himself was in many ways\ncongenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere stress of old emotions,\nhad frequently taken an Egdon direction, though he never intruded upon\nher who attracted him thither. To be in Thomasin\'s heath, and near her,\nyet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb of pleasure left to him.\n\nThen came the incident of that day, and the reddleman, still loving\nher well, was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical\njuncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as\nhitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened it was\nimpossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve\'s intentions.\nBut her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissing his regrets\nVenn determined to aid her to be happy in her own chosen way. That this\nway was, of all others, the most distressing to himself, was awkward\nenough; but the reddleman\'s love was generous.\n\nHis first active step in watching over Thomasin\'s interests was taken\nabout seven o\'clock the next evening and was dictated by the news which\nhe had learnt from the sad boy. That Eustacia was somehow the cause\nof Wildeve\'s carelessness in relation to the marriage had at once been\nVenn\'s conclusion on hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did\nnot occur to his mind that Eustacia\'s love signal to Wildeve was the\ntender effect upon the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her\ngrandfather had brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a\nconspirator against rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin\'s\nhappiness.\n\nDuring the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the condition of\nThomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a threshold to which\nhe was a stranger, particularly at such an unpleasant moment as this. He\nhad occupied his time in moving with his ponies and load to a new point\nin the heath, eastward to his previous station; and here he selected a\nnook with a careful eye to shelter from wind and rain, which seemed to\nmean that his stay there was to be a comparatively extended one. After\nthis he returned on foot some part of the way that he had come; and,\nit being now dark, he diverged to the left till he stood behind a holly\nbush on the edge of a pit not twenty yards from Rainbarrow.\n\nHe watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody except\nhimself came near the spot that night.\n\nBut the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the reddleman.\nHe had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look upon a certain\nmass of disappointment as the natural preface to all realizations,\nwithout which preface they would give cause for alarm.\n\nThe same hour the next evening found him again at the same place; but\nEustacia and Wildeve, the expected trysters, did not appear.\n\nHe pursued precisely the same course yet four nights longer, and without\nsuccess. But on the next, being the day-week of their previous meeting,\nhe saw a female shape floating along the ridge and the outline of\na young man ascending from the valley. They met in the little ditch\nencircling the tumulus--the original excavation from which it had been\nthrown up by the ancient British people.\n\nThe reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was aroused\nto strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept forward on\nhis hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might safely venture\nwithout discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind, the conversation\nof the trysting pair could not be overheard.\n\nNear him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn with\nlarge turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal by\nTimothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these\nas he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and\nshoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have\nbeen quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him\nwith the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He\ncrept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. Had he\napproached without any covering the chances are that he would not\nhave been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he\nburrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the\ntwo were standing.\n\n\"Wish to consult me on the matter?\" reached his ears in the rich,\nimpetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. \"Consult me? It is an indignity to\nme to talk so--I won\'t bear it any longer!\" She began weeping. \"I have\nloved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret; and\nyet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to consult\nwith me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin. Better--of\ncourse it would be. Marry her--she is nearer to your own position in\nlife than I am!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; that\'s very well,\" said Wildeve peremptorily. \"But we must\nlook at things as they are. Whatever blame may attach to me for having\nbrought it about, Thomasin\'s position is at present much worse than\nyours. I simply tell you that I am in a strait.\"\n\n\"But you shall not tell me! You must see that it is only harassing me.\nDamon, you have not acted well; you have sunk in my opinion. You have\nnot valued my courtesy--the courtesy of a lady in loving you--who used\nto think of far more ambitious things. But it was Thomasin\'s fault.\n\n\"She won you away from me, and she deserves to suffer for it. Where is\nshe staying now? Not that I care, nor where I am myself. Ah, if I were\ndead and gone how glad she would be! Where is she, I ask?\"\n\n\"Thomasin is now staying at her aunt\'s shut up in a bedroom, and keeping\nout of everybody\'s sight,\" he said indifferently.\n\n\"I don\'t think you care much about her even now,\" said Eustacia with\nsudden joyousness, \"for if you did you wouldn\'t talk so coolly about\nher. Do you talk so coolly to her about me? Ah, I expect you do! Why did\nyou originally go away from me? I don\'t think I can ever forgive you,\nexcept on one condition, that whenever you desert me, you come back\nagain, sorry that you served me so.\"\n\n\"I never wish to desert you.\"\n\n\"I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth. Indeed,\nI think I like you to desert me a little once now and then. Love is the\ndismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it is a shame to\nsay so; but it is true!\" She indulged in a little laugh. \"My low spirits\nbegin at the very idea. Don\'t you offer me tame love, or away you go!\"\n\n\"I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman,\" said\nWildeve, \"so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy\nperson. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little\nfinger of either of you.\"\n\n\"But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of justice,\"\nreplied Eustacia quickly. \"If you do not love her it is the most\nmerciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That\'s always\nthe best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you have\nleft me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said to\nyou.\"\n\nWildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The\npause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way to\nwindward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as through\na strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched teeth.\n\nShe continued, half sorrowfully, \"Since meeting you last, it has\noccurred to me once or twice that perhaps it was not for love of me you\ndid not marry her. Tell me, Damon--I\'ll try to bear it. Had I nothing\nwhatever to do with the matter?\"\n\n\"Do you press me to tell?\"\n\n\"Yes, I must know. I see I have been too ready to believe in my own\npower.\"\n\n\"Well, the immediate reason was that the license would not do for the\nplace, and before I could get another she ran away. Up to that point\nyou had nothing to do with it. Since then her aunt has spoken to me in a\ntone which I don\'t at all like.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle with\nme. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so much of\nyou!\"\n\n\"Nonsense; do not be so passionate.... Eustacia, how we roved among these\nbushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the shades of the\nhills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!\"\n\nShe remained in moody silence till she said, \"Yes; and how I used to\nlaugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made me\nsuffer for that since.\"\n\n\"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found someone\nfairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia.\"\n\n\"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?\"\n\n\"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don\'t. The scales are balanced so nicely\nthat a feather would turn them.\"\n\n\"But don\'t you really care whether I meet you or whether I don\'t?\" she\nsaid slowly.\n\n\"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest,\" replied the young\nman languidly. \"No, all that\'s past. I find there are two flowers where\nI thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three, or four, or any\nnumber as good as the first.... Mine is a curious fate. Who would have\nthought that all this could happen to me?\"\n\nShe interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger\nseemed an equally possible issue, \"Do you love me now?\"\n\n\"Who can say?\"\n\n\"Tell me; I will know it!\"\n\n\"I do, and I do not,\" said he mischievously. \"That is, I have my times\nand my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too\ndo-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don\'t\nknow what, except--that you are not the whole world to me that you used\nto be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice to meet,\nand I dare say as sweet as ever--almost.\"\n\nEustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a voice\nof suspended mightiness, \"I am for a walk, and this is my way.\"\n\n\"Well, I can do worse than follow you.\"\n\n\"You know you can\'t do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!\" she\nanswered defiantly. \"Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from\nme all that you can--you will never forget me. You will love me all your\nlife long. You would jump to marry me!\"\n\n\"So I would!\" said Wildeve. \"Such strange thoughts as I\'ve had from time\nto time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the heath\nas much as ever; that I know.\"\n\n\"I do,\" she murmured deeply. \"\'Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my\ndeath!\"\n\n\"I abhor it too,\" said he. \"How mournfully the wind blows round us now!\"\n\nShe did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound\nutterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to\nview by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were\nreturned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of\nheather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall;\nwhere it had been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,\nand how near was the pit in which the hollies grew; for these differing\nfeatures had their voices no less than their shapes and colours.\n\n\"God, how lonely it is!\" resumed Wildeve. \"What are picturesque ravines\nand mists to us who see nothing else? Why should we stay here? Will you\ngo with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin.\"\n\n\"That wants consideration.\"\n\n\"It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a\nlandscape-painter. Well?\"\n\n\"Give me time,\" she softly said, taking his hand. \"America is so far\naway. Are you going to walk with me a little way?\"\n\nAs Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the\nbarrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no\nmore.\n\nHe lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and disappeared\nfrom against the sky. They were as two horns which the sluggish heath\nhad put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had now again drawn\nin.\n\nThe reddleman\'s walk across the vale, and over into the next where his\ncart lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His\nspirit was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth\nin that walk carried off upon them the accents of a commination.\n\nHe entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting\nhis candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered\non what he had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his.\nHe uttered a sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more\nindicative than either of a troubled mind.\n\n\"My Tamsie,\" he whispered heavily. \"What can be done? Yes, I will see\nthat Eustacia Vye.\"\n\n\n\n\n10--A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion\n\n\nThe next morning, at the time when the height of the sun appeared very\ninsignificant from any part of the heath as compared with the altitude\nof Rainbarrow, and when all the little hills in the lower levels were\nlike an archipelago in a fog-formed Aegean, the reddleman came from\nthe brambled nook which he had adopted as his quarters and ascended the\nslopes of Mistover Knap.\n\nThough these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several keen\nround eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to\nconverge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding\nwhich would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted\nthe spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have been\nseen in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the valley by\nWildeve\'s. A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this hill, a bird\nso rare that not more than a dozen have ever been seen in England; but\na barbarian rested neither night nor day till he had shot the African\ntruant, and after that event cream-coloured coursers thought fit to\nenter Egdon no more.\n\nA traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants as Venn\nobserved them now could feel himself to be in direct communication with\nregions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard--just\narrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within\nhim an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm\nepisodes, glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin\nunderfoot--the category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird,\nlike many other philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to\nthink that a present moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade of\nmemories.\n\nVenn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty\nwho lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as\ngoing to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional at\nEgdon, this made little difference. He had determined upon the bold\nstroke of asking for an interview with Miss Vye--to attack her position\nas Thomasin\'s rival either by art or by storm, showing therein, somewhat\ntoo conspicuously, the want of gallantry characteristic of a certain\nastute sort of men, from clowns to kings. The great Frederick making war\non the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing terms to the beautiful\nQueen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of sex than the\nreddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the displacement of\nEustacia.\n\nTo call at the captain\'s cottage was always more or less an undertaking\nfor the inferior inhabitants. Though occasionally chatty, his moods\nwere erratic, and nobody could be certain how he would behave at\nany particular moment. Eustacia was reserved, and lived very much\nto herself. Except the daughter of one of the cotters, who was their\nservant, and a lad who worked in the garden and stable, scarcely anyone\nbut themselves ever entered the house. They were the only genteel people\nof the district except the Yeobrights, and though far from rich, they\ndid not feel that necessity for preserving a friendly face towards every\nman, bird, and beast which influenced their poorer neighbours.\n\nWhen the reddleman entered the garden the old man was looking through\nhis glass at the stain of blue sea in the distant landscape, the little\nanchors on his buttons twinkling in the sun. He recognized Venn as\nhis companion on the highway, but made no remark on that circumstance,\nmerely saying, \"Ah, reddleman--you here? Have a glass of grog?\"\n\nVenn declined, on the plea of it being too early, and stated that\nhis business was with Miss Vye. The captain surveyed him from cap to\nwaistcoat and from waistcoat to leggings for a few moments, and finally\nasked him to go indoors.\n\nMiss Vye was not to be seen by anybody just then; and the reddleman\nwaited in the window-bench of the kitchen, his hands hanging across his\ndivergent knees, and his cap hanging from his hands.\n\n\"I suppose the young lady is not up yet?\" he presently said to the\nservant.\n\n\"Not quite yet. Folks never call upon ladies at this time of day.\"\n\n\"Then I\'ll step outside,\" said Venn. \"If she is willing to see me, will\nshe please send out word, and I\'ll come in.\"\n\nThe reddleman left the house and loitered on the hill adjoining. A\nconsiderable time elapsed, and no request for his presence was brought.\nHe was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld\nthe form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. A sense of\nnovelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been sufficient\nto draw her forth.\n\nShe seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man had\ncome on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had thought\nhim; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe uneasily,\nor shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which escape an\ningenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind. On his\ninquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied, \"Yes,\nwalk beside me,\" and continued to move on.\n\nBefore they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman that\nhe would have acted more wisely by appearing less unimpressionable, and\nhe resolved to correct the error as soon as he could find opportunity.\n\n\"I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange\nnews which has come to my ears about that man.\"\n\n\"Ah! what man?\"\n\nHe jerked his elbow to the southeast--the direction of the Quiet Woman.\n\nEustacia turned quickly to him. \"Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?\"\n\n\"Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have come\nto let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to drive\nit away.\"\n\n\"I? What is the trouble?\"\n\n\"It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin\nYeobright after all.\"\n\nEustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her\npart in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, \"I do not wish to\nlisten to this, and you must not expect me to interfere.\"\n\n\"But, miss, you will hear one word?\"\n\n\"I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I\ncould not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding.\"\n\n\"As the only lady on the heath I think you might,\" said Venn with subtle\nindirectness. \"This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would marry\nThomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there were not\nanother woman in the case. This other woman is some person he has picked\nup with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He will never\nmarry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman who loves\nhim dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk,\nwere to insist that he should treat your young neighbour Tamsin with\nhonourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would perhaps do it,\nand save her a good deal of misery.\"\n\n\"Ah, my life!\" said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so\nthat the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar\nscarlet fire. \"You think too much of my influence over menfolk indeed,\nreddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight and\nuse it for the good of anybody who has been kind to me--which Thomasin\nYeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge.\"\n\n\"Can it be that you really don\'t know of it--how much she had always\nthought of you?\"\n\n\"I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart\nI have never been inside her aunt\'s house in my life.\"\n\nThe superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus\nfar he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to\nunmask his second argument.\n\n\"Well, leaving that out of the question, \'tis in your power, I assure\nyou, Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman.\"\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n\"Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who see\n\'ee. They say, \'This well-favoured lady coming--what\'s her name? How\nhandsome!\' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright,\" the reddleman persisted,\nsaying to himself, \"God forgive a rascal for lying!\" And she was\nhandsomer, but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a\ncertain obscurity in Eustacia\'s beauty, and Venn\'s eye was not trained.\nIn her winter dress, as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when\nobserved in dull situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour,\nbut under a full illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.\n\nEustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered\nher dignity thereby. \"Many women are lovelier than Thomasin,\" she said,\n\"so not much attaches to that.\"\n\nThe reddleman suffered the wound and went on: \"He is a man who notices\nthe looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind,\nif you only had the mind.\"\n\n\"Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do\nliving up here away from him.\"\n\nThe reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. \"Miss Vye!\" he said.\n\n\"Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?\" She spoke faintly, and her\nbreathing was quick. \"The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!\"\nshe added, with a forced smile of hauteur. \"What could have been in your\nmind to lead you to speak like that?\"\n\n\"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don\'t know this man?--I\nknow why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed.\"\n\n\"You are mistaken. What do you mean?\"\n\nThe reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. \"I was at the\nmeeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word,\" he said. \"The\nwoman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself.\"\n\nIt was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of\nCandaules\' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip would\ntremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept\ndown.\n\n\"I am unwell,\" she said hurriedly. \"No--it is not that--I am not in a\nhumour to hear you further. Leave me, please.\"\n\n\"I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put\nbefore you is this. However it may come about--whether she is to blame,\nor you--her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your giving up Mr.\nWildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could you marry him?\nNow she cannot get off so easily--everybody will blame her if she loses\nhim. Then I ask you--not because her right is best, but because her\nsituation is worst--to give him up to her.\"\n\n\"No--I won\'t, I won\'t!\" she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her\nprevious manner towards the reddleman as an underling. \"Nobody has ever\nbeen served so! It was going on well--I will not be beaten down--by an\ninferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come and plead for\nher, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble? Am I not\nto show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of a\nparcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my inclination, and now\nthat she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for her!\"\n\n\"Indeed,\" said Venn earnestly, \"she knows nothing whatever about it. It\nis only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her and you\nboth. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady secretly\nmeets a man who has ill-used another woman.\"\n\n\"I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was hers! He came\nback--because--because he liked me best!\" she said wildly. \"But I lose\nall self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!\"\n\n\"I can keep secrets,\" said Venn gently. \"You need not fear. I am the\nonly man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing\nmore to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to him that\nyou hated living here--that Egdon Heath was a jail to you.\"\n\n\"I did say so. There is a sort of beauty in the scenery, I know; but it\nis a jail to me. The man you mention does not save me from that feeling,\nthough he lives here. I should have cared nothing for him had there been\na better person near.\"\n\nThe reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third\nattempt seemed promising. \"As we have now opened our minds a bit, miss,\"\nhe said, \"I\'ll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I have taken\nto the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know.\"\n\nShe inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in the\nmisty vale beneath them.\n\n\"And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful\nplace--wonderful--a great salt sheening sea bending into the land like\na bow--thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down--bands of music\nplaying--officers by sea and officers by land walking among the\nrest--out of every ten folks you meet nine of \'em in love.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" she said disdainfully. \"I know Budmouth better than you.\nI was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from\nabroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now.\"\n\nThe reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on\noccasion. \"If you were, miss,\" he replied, \"in a week\'s time you would\nthink no more of Wildeve than of one of those he\'th-croppers that we see\nyond. Now, I could get you there.\"\n\n\"How?\" said Eustacia, with intense curiosity in her heavy eyes.\n\n\"My uncle has been for five and twenty years the trusty man of a rich\nwidow-lady who has a beautiful house facing the sea. This lady has\nbecome old and lame, and she wants a young company-keeper to read and\nsing to her, but can\'t get one to her mind to save her life, though\nshe\'ve advertised in the papers, and tried half a dozen. She would jump\nto get you, and Uncle would make it all easy.\"\n\n\"I should have to work, perhaps?\"\n\n\"No, not real work--you\'d have a little to do, such as reading and that.\nYou would not be wanted till New Year\'s Day.\"\n\n\"I knew it meant work,\" she said, drooping to languor again.\n\n\"I confess there would be a trifle to do in the way of amusing her;\nbut though idle people might call it work, working people would call\nit play. Think of the company and the life you\'d lead, miss; the gaiety\nyou\'d see, and the gentleman you\'d marry. My uncle is to inquire for a\ntrustworthy young lady from the country, as she don\'t like town girls.\"\n\n\"It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won\'t go. O, if I could\nlive in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my own\ndoings, I\'d give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that\nwould I.\"\n\n\"Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,\"\nurged her companion.\n\n\"Chance--\'tis no chance,\" she said proudly. \"What can a poor man like\nyou offer me, indeed?--I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say.\nDon\'t your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or\ndon\'t you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here\nlike this?\"\n\nVenn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away,\nthat she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The\nmental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed\nfilled his manner with misgiving even from the first few minutes of\nclose quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led him to expect\na simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a system of inducement\nwhich might have carried weaker country lasses along with it had merely\nrepelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth meant fascination on\nEgdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly mirrored in\nthe minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a charming and\nindescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building with Tarentine\nluxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt little less\nextravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her independence\nto get there.\n\nWhen Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and\nlooked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was\nalso in the direction of Wildeve\'s. The mist had now so far collapsed\nthat the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just\nbe discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which\ncloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was inclined\nthitherward; indefinitely, fancifully--twining and untwining about\nhim as the single object within her horizon on which dreams might\ncrystallize. The man who had begun by being merely her amusement, and\nwould never have been more than her hobby but for his skill in deserting\nher at the right moments, was now again her desire. Cessation in his\nlove-making had revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia had idly\ngiven to Wildeve was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to\ntease Wildeve, but that was before another had favoured him. Often a\ndrop of irony into an indifferent situation renders the whole piquant.\n\n\"I will never give him up--never!\" she said impetuously.\n\nThe reddleman\'s hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had\nno permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that\ncontingency as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in\ninherent shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to feel\nthe impact of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly have\ncared what was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics were\nconcerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion she\nwas all the while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret recesses of\nsensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the threshold of conventionality.\n\n\n\n\n11--The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman\n\n\nThe reddleman had left Eustacia\'s presence with desponding views on\nThomasin\'s future happiness; but he was awakened to the fact that one\nother channel remained untried by seeing, as he followed the way to his\nvan, the form of Mrs. Yeobright slowly walking towards the Quiet Woman.\nHe went across to her; and could almost perceive in her anxious face\nthat this journey of hers to Wildeve was undertaken with the same object\nas his own to Eustacia.\n\nShe did not conceal the fact. \"Then,\" said the reddleman, \"you may as\nwell leave it alone, Mrs. Yeobright.\"\n\n\"I half think so myself,\" she said. \"But nothing else remains to be done\nbesides pressing the question upon him.\"\n\n\"I should like to say a word first,\" said Venn firmly. \"Mr. Wildeve is\nnot the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him; and why should not\nanother have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be glad to marry your\nniece and would have done it any time these last two years. There, now\nit is out, and I have never told anybody before but herself.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily glanced\ntowards his singular though shapely figure.\n\n\"Looks are not everything,\" said the reddleman, noticing the glance.\n\"There\'s many a calling that don\'t bring in so much as mine, if it comes\nto money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve. There is\nnobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed; and if you\nshouldn\'t like my redness--well, I am not red by birth, you know; I only\ntook to this business for a freak; and I might turn my hand to something\nelse in good time.\"\n\n\"I am much obliged to you for your interest in my niece; but I fear\nthere would be objections. More than that, she is devoted to this man.\"\n\n\"True; or I shouldn\'t have done what I have this morning.\"\n\n\"Otherwise there would be no pain in the case, and you would not see me\ngoing to his house now. What was Thomasin\'s answer when you told her of\nyour feelings?\"\n\n\"She wrote that you would object to me; and other things.\"\n\n\"She was in a measure right. You must not take this unkindly--I merely\nstate it as a truth. You have been good to her, and we do not forget\nit. But as she was unwilling on her own account to be your wife, that\nsettles the point without my wishes being concerned.\"\n\n\"Yes. But there is a difference between then and now, ma\'am. She is\ndistressed now, and I have thought that if you were to talk to her about\nme, and think favourably of me yourself, there might be a chance of\nwinning her round, and getting her quite independent of this Wildeve\'s\nbackward and forward play, and his not knowing whether he\'ll have her or\nno.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright shook her head. \"Thomasin thinks, and I think with her,\nthat she ought to be Wildeve\'s wife, if she means to appear before the\nworld without a slur upon her name. If they marry soon, everybody will\nbelieve that an accident did really prevent the wedding. If not, it may\ncast a shade upon her character--at any rate make her ridiculous. In\nshort, if it is anyhow possible they must marry now.\"\n\n\"I thought that till half an hour ago. But, after all, why should her\ngoing off with him to Anglebury for a few hours do her any harm? Anybody\nwho knows how pure she is will feel any such thought to be quite\nunjust. I have been trying this morning to help on this marriage with\nWildeve--yes, I, ma\'am--in the belief that I ought to do it, because she\nwas so wrapped up in him. But I much question if I was right, after all.\nHowever, nothing came of it. And now I offer myself.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright appeared disinclined to enter further into the question.\n\"I fear I must go on,\" she said. \"I do not see that anything else can be\ndone.\"\n\nAnd she went on. But though this conversation did not divert Thomasin\'s\naunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it made a considerable\ndifference in her mode of conducting that interview. She thanked God for\nthe weapon which the reddleman had put into her hands.\n\nWildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her silently\ninto the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright began--\n\n\"I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has been made\nto me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect Thomasin greatly;\nand I have decided that it should at least be mentioned to you.\"\n\n\"Yes? What is it?\" he said civilly.\n\n\"It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be aware that\nanother man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin. Now, though\nI have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously refuse him a\nchance any longer. I don\'t wish to be short with you; but I must be fair\nto him and to her.\"\n\n\"Who is the man?\" said Wildeve with surprise.\n\n\"One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you. He\nproposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his\naddresses to her. She may not refuse him twice.\"\n\n\"What is his name?\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright declined to say. \"He is a man Thomasin likes,\" she added,\n\"and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to me that what\nshe refused then she would be glad to get now. She is much annoyed at\nher awkward position.\"\n\n\"She never once told me of this old lover.\"\n\n\"The gentlest women are not such fools as to show EVERY card.\"\n\n\"Well, if she wants him I suppose she must have him.\"\n\n\"It is easy enough to say that; but you don\'t see the difficulty. He\nwants her much more than she wants him; and before I can encourage\nanything of the sort I must have a clear understanding from you that\nyou will not interfere to injure an arrangement which I promote in the\nbelief that it is for the best. Suppose, when they are engaged, and\neverything is smoothly arranged for their marriage, that you should step\nbetween them and renew your suit? You might not win her back, but you\nmight cause much unhappiness.\"\n\n\"Of course I should do no such thing,\" said Wildeve \"But they are not\nengaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?\"\n\n\"That\'s a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the whole\nthe probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time. I flatter\nmyself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable, and I can be\nstrong in my recommendations of him.\"\n\n\"And in your disparagement of me at the same time.\"\n\n\"Well, you may depend upon my not praising you,\" she said drily. \"And\nif this seems like manoeuvring, you must remember that her position is\npeculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also be helped in\nmaking the match by her own desire to escape from the humiliation of her\npresent state; and a woman\'s pride in these cases will lead her a very\ngreat way. A little managing may be required to bring her round; but\nI am equal to that, provided that you agree to the one thing\nindispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration that she is to\nthink no more of you as a possible husband. That will pique her into\naccepting him.\"\n\n\"I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden.\"\n\n\"And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient\nthat you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying\ndistinctly you will have nothing to do with us.\"\n\nWildeve reflected uncomfortably. \"I confess I was not prepared for\nthis,\" he said. \"Of course I\'ll give her up if you wish, if it is\nnecessary. But I thought I might be her husband.\"\n\n\"We have heard that before.\"\n\n\"Now, Mrs. Yeobright, don\'t let us disagree. Give me a fair time. I\ndon\'t want to stand in the way of any better chance she may have; only\nI wish you had let me know earlier. I will write to you or call in a day\nor two. Will that suffice?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied, \"provided you promise not to communicate with\nThomasin without my knowledge.\"\n\n\"I promise that,\" he said. And the interview then terminated, Mrs.\nYeobright returning homeward as she had come.\n\nBy far the greatest effect of her simple strategy on that day was, as\noften happens, in a quarter quite outside her view when arranging it. In\nthe first place, her visit sent Wildeve the same evening after dark to\nEustacia\'s house at Mistover.\n\nAt this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered from\nthe chill and darkness without. Wildeve\'s clandestine plan with her was\nto take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the crevice at the\ntop of the window shutter, which was on the outside, so that it should\nfall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a mouse, between shutter\nand glass. This precaution in attracting her attention was to avoid\narousing the suspicions of her grandfather.\n\nThe soft words, \"I hear; wait for me,\" in Eustacia\'s voice from within\ntold him that she was alone.\n\nHe waited in his customary manner by walking round the enclosure and\nidling by the pool, for Wildeve was never asked into the house by his\nproud though condescending mistress. She showed no sign of coming out in\na hurry. The time wore on, and he began to grow impatient. In the course\nof twenty minutes she appeared from round the corner, and advanced as if\nmerely taking an airing.\n\n\"You would not have kept me so long had you known what I come about,\" he\nsaid with bitterness. \"Still, you are worth waiting for.\"\n\n\"What has happened?\" said Eustacia. \"I did not know you were in trouble.\nI too am gloomy enough.\"\n\n\"I am not in trouble,\" said he. \"It is merely that affairs have come to\na head, and I must take a clear course.\"\n\n\"What course is that?\" she asked with attentive interest.\n\n\"And can you forget so soon what I proposed to you the other night? Why,\ntake you from this place, and carry you away with me abroad.\"\n\n\"I have not forgotten. But why have you come so unexpectedly to repeat\nthe question, when you only promised to come next Saturday? I thought I\nwas to have plenty of time to consider.\"\n\n\"Yes, but the situation is different now.\"\n\n\"Explain to me.\"\n\n\"I don\'t want to explain, for I may pain you.\"\n\n\"But I must know the reason of this hurry.\"\n\n\"It is simply my ardour, dear Eustacia. Everything is smooth now.\"\n\n\"Then why are you so ruffled?\"\n\n\"I am not aware of it. All is as it should be. Mrs. Yeobright--but she\nis nothing to us.\"\n\n\"Ah, I knew she had something to do with it! Come, I don\'t like\nreserve.\"\n\n\"No--she has nothing. She only says she wishes me to give up Thomasin\nbecause another man is anxious to marry her. The woman, now she no\nlonger needs me, actually shows off!\" Wildeve\'s vexation has escaped him\nin spite of himself.\n\nEustacia was silent a long while. \"You are in the awkward position of an\nofficial who is no longer wanted,\" she said in a changed tone.\n\n\"It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin.\"\n\n\"And that irritates you. Don\'t deny it, Damon. You are actually nettled\nby this slight from an unexpected quarter.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is certainly a\nnew position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap.\"\n\n\"Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day.\"\n\nEustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious\nfeeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her\ninterest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism that\nthe glory and the dream departed from the man with the first sound that\nhe was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then, secure of him at\nlast. Thomasin no longer required him. What a humiliating victory!\nHe loved her best, she thought; and yet--dared she to murmur such\ntreacherous criticism ever so softly?--what was the man worth whom a\nwoman inferior to herself did not value? The sentiment which lurks more\nor less in all animate nature--that of not desiring the undesired of\nothers--was lively as a passion in the supersubtle, epicurean heart of\nEustacia. Her social superiority over him, which hitherto had scarcely\never impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first\ntime she felt that she had stooped in loving him.\n\n\"Well, darling, you agree?\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America,\" she\nmurmured languidly. \"Well, I will think. It is too great a thing for me\nto decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less--or loved you more.\"\n\n\"You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough to\ngo anywhere with me.\"\n\n\"And you loved Thomasin.\"\n\n\"Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay,\" he returned, with almost a\nsneer. \"I don\'t hate her now.\"\n\n\"Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her.\"\n\n\"Come--no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don\'t agree to\ngo with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself.\"\n\n\"Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could have\nmarried her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because I\nam--cheapest! Yes, yes--it is true. There was a time when I should have\nexclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but it is all\npast now.\"\n\n\"Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and\nturn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes.\"\n\n\"I want to get away from here at almost any cost,\" she said with\nweariness, \"but I don\'t like to go with you. Give me more time to\ndecide.\"\n\n\"I have already,\" said Wildeve. \"Well, I give you one more week.\"\n\n\"A little longer, so that I may tell you decisively. I have to consider\nso many things. Fancy Thomasin being anxious to get rid of you! I cannot\nforget it.\"\n\n\"Never mind that. Say Monday week. I will be here precisely at this\ntime.\"\n\n\"Let it be at Rainbarrow,\" said she. \"This is too near home; my\ngrandfather may be walking out.\"\n\n\"Thank you, dear. On Monday week at this time I will be at the Barrow.\nTill then good-bye.\"\n\n\"Good-bye. No, no, you must not touch me now. Shaking hands is enough\ntill I have made up my mind.\"\n\nEustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed\nher hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,\nromantic lips parted under that homely impulse--a yawn. She was\nimmediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible\nevanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that she\nmight have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity now was\nto admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that she was\nthe owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the manger had\nsomething in it which at first made her ashamed.\n\nThe fruit of Mrs. Yeobright\'s diplomacy was indeed remarkable,\nthough not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably\ninfluenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover\nwas no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove for, and\nherself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity.\n\nShe went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly\ngrief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter\ndays of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of\nthe dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of\nthe most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the course\nbetween the beginning of a passion and its end.\n\nHer grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some\ngallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square\ncellaret. Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to the\nQuiet Woman, and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand, tell\nremarkable stories of how he had lived seven years under the waterline\nof his ship, and other naval wonders, to the natives, who hoped too\nearnestly for a treat of ale from the teller to exhibit any doubts of\nhis truth.\n\nHe had been there this evening. \"I suppose you have heard the Egdon\nnews, Eustacia?\" he said, without looking up from the bottles. \"The\nmen have been talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national\nimportance.\"\n\n\"I have heard none,\" she said.\n\n\"Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to\nspend Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it\nseems. I suppose you remember him?\"\n\n\"I never saw him in my life.\"\n\n\"Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a\npromising boy.\"\n\n\"Where has he been living all these years?\"\n\n\"In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK TWO -- THE ARRIVAL\n\n\n\n\n1--Tidings of the Comer\n\n\nOn the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain\nephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way, the\nmajestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which, beside those\nof a town, a village, or even a farm, would have appeared as the ferment\nof stagnation merely, a creeping of the flesh of somnolence. But here,\naway from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere\nwalking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine\nhimself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the\nattention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep,\nand set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a\nsafe distance.\n\nThe performance was that of bringing together and building into a stack\nthe furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the captain\'s\nuse during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at the end of the\ndwelling, and the men engaged in building it were Humphrey and Sam, the\nold man looking on.\n\nIt was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o\'clock; but the winter\nsolstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun caused the\nhour to seem later than it actually was, there being little here to\nremind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer experience of the\nsky as a dial. In the course of many days and weeks sunrise had advanced\nits quarters from northeast to southeast, sunset had receded from\nnorthwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly heeded the change.\n\nEustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like a\nkitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The air was\nstill, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of voices in\nconversation came to her ears directly down the chimney. She entered\nthe recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular shaft, with its\ncavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about on its way to the\nsquare bit of sky at the top, from which the daylight struck down with a\npallid glare upon the tatters of soot draping the flue as seaweed drapes\na rocky fissure.\n\nShe remembered: the furze-stack was not far from the chimney, and the\nvoices were those of the workers.\n\nHer grandfather joined in the conversation. \"That lad ought never to\nhave left home. His father\'s occupation would have suited him best, and\nthe boy should have followed on. I don\'t believe in these new moves in\nfamilies. My father was a sailor, so was I, and so should my son have\nbeen if I had had one.\"\n\n\"The place he\'s been living at is Paris,\" said Humphrey, \"and they tell\nme \'tis where the king\'s head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used\nto tell me about that business. \'Hummy,\' she used to say, \'I was a young\nmaid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother\'s caps one afternoon the\nparson came in and said, \"They\'ve cut the king\'s head off, Jane; and\nwhat \'twill be next God knows.\"\'\"\n\n\"A good many of us knew as well as He before long,\" said the captain,\nchuckling. \"I lived seven years under water on account of it in my\nboyhood--in that damned surgery of the Triumph, seeing men brought down\nto the cockpit with their legs and arms blown to Jericho.... And so the\nyoung man has settled in Paris. Manager to a diamond merchant, or some\nsuch thing, is he not?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, that\'s it. \'Tis a blazing great business that he belongs to,\nso I\'ve heard his mother say--like a king\'s palace, as far as diments\ngo.\"\n\n\"I can well mind when he left home,\" said Sam.\n\n\"\'Tis a good thing for the feller,\" said Humphrey. \"A sight of times\nbetter to be selling diments than nobbling about here.\"\n\n\"It must cost a good few shillings to deal at such a place.\"\n\n\"A good few indeed, my man,\" replied the captain. \"Yes, you may make\naway with a deal of money and be neither drunkard nor glutton.\"\n\n\"They say, too, that Clym Yeobright is become a real perusing man, with\nthe strangest notions about things. There, that\'s because he went to\nschool early, such as the school was.\"\n\n\"Strange notions, has he?\" said the old man. \"Ah, there\'s too much of\nthat sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gatepost\nand barn\'s door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other\nchalked upon it by the young rascals--a woman can hardly pass for shame\nsometimes. If they\'d never been taught how to write they wouldn\'t have\nbeen able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn\'t do it, and\nthe country was all the better for it.\"\n\n\"Now, I should think, Cap\'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much in her\nhead that comes from books as anybody about here?\"\n\n\"Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her head\nit would be better for her,\" said the captain shortly; after which he\nwalked away.\n\n\"I say, Sam,\" observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, \"she and Clym\nYeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If they wouldn\'t\nI\'ll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for certain, and learned\nin print, and always thinking about high doctrine--there couldn\'t be a\nbetter couple if they were made o\' purpose. Clym\'s family is as good as\nhers. His father was a farmer, that\'s true; but his mother was a sort\nof lady, as we know. Nothing would please me better than to see them two\nman and wife.\"\n\n\"They\'d look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best clothes\non, whether or no, if he\'s at all the well-favoured fellow he used to\nbe.\"\n\n\"They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible much\nafter so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming I\'d stroll\nout three or four miles to meet him and help carry anything for\'n;\nthough I suppose he\'s altered from the boy he was. They say he can talk\nFrench as fast as a maid can eat blackberries; and if so, depend upon it\nwe who have stayed at home shall seem no more than scroff in his eyes.\"\n\n\"Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn\'t he?\"\n\n\"Yes; but how he\'s coming from Budmouth I don\'t know.\"\n\n\"That\'s a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a\nnice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a\nnunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren\'t married\nat all, after singing to \'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if\nI should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by a\nman. It makes the family look small.\"\n\n\"Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is\nsuffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We never\nsee her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red as a rose,\nas she used to do.\"\n\n\"I\'ve heard she wouldn\'t have Wildeve now if he asked her.\"\n\n\"You have? \'Tis news to me.\"\n\nWhile the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia\'s\nface gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe\nunconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.\n\nThe subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her. A\nyoung and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all\ncontrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from\nheaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled her\nand this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other.\n\nThat five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions enough\nto fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations from mental\nvacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never have believed\nin the morning that her colourless inner world would before night become\nas animated as water under a microscope, and that without the arrival of\na single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey on the harmony between\nthe unknown and herself had on her mind the effect of the invading\nBard\'s prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at which myriads of\nimprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared the stillness of a\nvoid.\n\nInvolved in these imaginings she knew nothing of time. When she became\nconscious of externals it was dusk. The furze-rick was finished; the men\nhad gone home. Eustacia went upstairs, thinking that she would take a\nwalk at this her usual time; and she determined that her walk should be\nin the direction of Blooms-End, the birthplace of young Yeobright and\nthe present home of his mother. She had no reason for walking elsewhere,\nand why should she not go that way? The scene of the daydream is\nsufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen. To look at the palings before\nthe Yeobrights\' house had the dignity of a necessary performance.\nStrange that such a piece of idling should have seemed an important\nerrand.\n\nShe put on her bonnet, and, leaving the house, descended the hill on the\nside towards Blooms-End, where she walked slowly along the valley for a\ndistance of a mile and a half. This brought her to a spot in which the\ngreen bottom of the dale began to widen, the furze bushes to recede\nyet further from the path on each side, till they were diminished to\nan isolated one here and there by the increasing fertility of the soil.\nBeyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row of white palings, which\nmarked the verge of the heath in this latitude. They showed upon the\ndusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace on velvet.\nBehind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an old,\nirregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view\nof the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about\nto return a man whose latter life had been passed in the French\ncapital--the centre and vortex of the fashionable world.\n\n\n\n\n2--The People at Blooms-End Make Ready\n\n\nAll that afternoon the expected arrival of the subject of Eustacia\'s\nruminations created a bustle of preparation at Blooms-End. Thomasin had\nbeen persuaded by her aunt, and by an instinctive impulse of loyalty\ntowards her cousin Clym, to bestir herself on his account with an\nalacrity unusual in her during these most sorrowful days of her life. At\nthe time that Eustacia was listening to the rick-makers\' conversation\non Clym\'s return, Thomasin was climbing into a loft over her aunt\'s\nfuelhouse, where the store-apples were kept, to search out the best and\nlargest of them for the coming holiday-time.\n\nThe loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which the pigeons\ncrept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of the premises; and\nfrom this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow patch upon the figure of\nthe maiden as she knelt and plunged her naked arms into the soft brown\nfern, which, from its abundance, was used on Egdon in packing away\nstores of all kinds. The pigeons were flying about her head with the\ngreatest unconcern, and the face of her aunt was just visible above\nthe floor of the loft, lit by a few stray motes of light, as she stood\nhalfway up the ladder, looking at a spot into which she was not climber\nenough to venture.\n\n\"Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as\nribstones.\"\n\nThomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where more\nmellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking them out\nshe stopped a moment.\n\n\"Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?\" she said, gazing\nabstractedly at the pigeon-hole, which admitted the sunlight so directly\nupon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost seemed to\nshine through her.\n\n\"If he could have been dear to you in another way,\" said Mrs. Yeobright\nfrom the ladder, \"this might have been a happy meeting.\"\n\n\"Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said her aunt, with some warmth. \"To thoroughly fill the air with\nthe past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and keep clear\nof it.\"\n\nThomasin lowered her face to the apples again. \"I am a warning to\nothers, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are,\" she said in a\nlow voice. \"What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to them? \'Tis\nabsurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me think that I do,\nby the way they behave towards me? Why don\'t people judge me by my acts?\nNow, look at me as I kneel here, picking up these apples--do I look\nlike a lost woman?... I wish all good women were as good as I!\" she added\nvehemently.\n\n\"Strangers don\'t see you as I do,\" said Mrs. Yeobright; \"they judge from\nfalse report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame.\"\n\n\"How quickly a rash thing can be done!\" replied the girl. Her lips were\nquivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that she could\nhardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued industriously\nsearching to hide her weakness.\n\n\"As soon as you have finished getting the apples,\" her aunt said,\ndescending the ladder, \"come down, and we\'ll go for the holly. There is\nnobody on the heath this afternoon, and you need not fear being\nstared at. We must get some berries, or Clym will never believe in our\npreparations.\"\n\nThomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together they\nwent through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open hills were\nairy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it often appears\non a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination independently\ntoned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape streaming\nvisibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned light was\nimposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still remoter\nscenes wrapped in frigid grey.\n\nThey reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a conical\npit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general level\nof the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes, as\nshe had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions,\nand with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the\nheavily berried boughs.\n\n\"Don\'t scratch your face,\" said her aunt, who stood at the edge of the\npit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and\nscarlet masses of the tree. \"Will you walk with me to meet him this\nevening?\"\n\n\"I should like to. Else it would seem as if I had forgotten him,\" said\nThomasin, tossing out a bough. \"Not that that would matter much; I\nbelong to one man; nothing can alter that. And that man I must marry,\nfor my pride\'s sake.\"\n\n\"I am afraid--\" began Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"Ah, you think, \'That weak girl--how is she going to get a man to marry\nher when she chooses?\' But let me tell you one thing, Aunt: Mr. Wildeve\nis not a profligate man, any more than I am an improper woman. He has\nan unfortunate manner, and doesn\'t try to make people like him if they\ndon\'t wish to do it of their own accord.\"\n\n\"Thomasin,\" said Mrs. Yeobright quietly, fixing her eye upon her niece,\n\"do you think you deceive me in your defence of Mr. Wildeve?\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"I have long had a suspicion that your love for him has changed its\ncolour since you have found him not to be the saint you thought him, and\nthat you act a part to me.\"\n\n\"He wished to marry me, and I wish to marry him.\"\n\n\"Now, I put it to you: would you at this present moment agree to be his\nwife if that had not happened to entangle you with him?\"\n\nThomasin looked into the tree and appeared much disturbed. \"Aunt,\"\nshe said presently, \"I have, I think, a right to refuse to answer that\nquestion.\"\n\n\"Yes, you have.\"\n\n\"You may think what you choose. I have never implied to you by word or\ndeed that I have grown to think otherwise of him, and I never will. And\nI shall marry him.\"\n\n\"Well, wait till he repeats his offer. I think he may do it, now that he\nknows--something I told him. I don\'t for a moment dispute that it is the\nmost proper thing for you to marry him. Much as I have objected to him\nin bygone days, I agree with you now, you may be sure. It is the only\nway out of a false position, and a very galling one.\"\n\n\"What did you tell him?\"\n\n\"That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours.\"\n\n\"Aunt,\" said Thomasin, with round eyes, \"what DO you mean?\"\n\n\"Don\'t be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now, but\nwhen it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I said it.\"\n\nThomasin was perforce content.\n\n\"And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for the\npresent?\" she next asked.\n\n\"I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon know\nwhat has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that something\nis wrong.\"\n\nThomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. \"Now, hearken to\nme,\" she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a force\nwhich was other than physical. \"Tell him nothing. If he finds out that I\nam not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he loved me once, we\nwill not pain him by telling him my trouble too soon. The air is full of\nthe story, I know; but gossips will not dare to speak of it to him for\nthe first few days. His closeness to me is the very thing that will\nhinder the tale from reaching him early. If I am not made safe from\nsneers in a week or two I will tell him myself.\"\n\nThe earnestness with which Thomasin spoke prevented further objections.\nHer aunt simply said, \"Very well. He should by rights have been told at\nthe time that the wedding was going to be. He will never forgive you for\nyour secrecy.\"\n\n\"Yes, he will, when he knows it was because I wished to spare him, and\nthat I did not expect him home so soon. And you must not let me stand in\nthe way of your Christmas party. Putting it off would only make matters\nworse.\"\n\n\"Of course I shall not. I do not wish to show myself beaten before all\nEgdon, and the sport of a man like Wildeve. We have enough berries now,\nI think, and we had better take them home. By the time we have decked\nthe house with this and hung up the mistletoe, we must think of starting\nto meet him.\"\n\nThomasin came out of the tree, shook from her hair and dress the loose\nberries which had fallen thereon, and went down the hill with her aunt,\neach woman bearing half the gathered boughs. It was now nearly four\no\'clock, and the sunlight was leaving the vales. When the west grew red\nthe two relatives came again from the house and plunged into the heath\nin a different direction from the first, towards a point in the distant\nhighway along which the expected man was to return.\n\n\n\n\n3--How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream\n\n\nEustacia stood just within the heath, straining her eyes in the\ndirection of Mrs. Yeobright\'s house and premises. No light, sound, or\nmovement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was\ndark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after\nlingering ten or fifteen minutes she turned again towards home.\n\nShe had not far retraced her steps when sounds in front of her betokened\nthe approach of persons in conversation along the same path. Soon their\nheads became visible against the sky. They were walking slowly; and\nthough it was too dark for much discovery of character from aspect, the\ngait of them showed that they were not workers on the heath. Eustacia\nstepped a little out of the foot-track to let them pass. They were\ntwo women and a man; and the voices of the women were those of Mrs.\nYeobright and Thomasin.\n\nThey went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared to discern her\ndusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine voice, \"Good night!\"\n\nShe murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She could not,\nfor a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had brought into her\npresence the soul of the house she had gone to inspect, the man without\nwhom her inspection would not have been thought of.\n\nShe strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was her\nintentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were performing the\nfunctions of seeing as well as hearing. This extension of power can\nalmost be believed in at such moments. The deaf Dr. Kitto was probably\nunder the influence of a parallel fancy when he described his body as\nhaving become, by long endeavour, so sensitive to vibrations that he had\ngained the power of perceiving by it as by ears.\n\nShe could follow every word that the ramblers uttered. They were talking\nno secrets. They were merely indulging in the ordinary vivacious chat of\nrelatives who have long been parted in person though not in soul. But\nit was not to the words that Eustacia listened; she could not even\nhave recalled, a few minutes later, what the words were. It was to the\nalternating voice that gave out about one-tenth of them--the voice that\nhad wished her good night. Sometimes this throat uttered Yes, sometimes\nit uttered No; sometimes it made inquiries about a time worn denizen\nof the place. Once it surprised her notions by remarking upon the\nfriendliness and geniality written in the faces of the hills around.\n\nThe three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her ear. Thus\nmuch had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No event could have\nbeen more exciting. During the greater part of the afternoon she had\nbeen entrancing herself by imagining the fascination which must attend\na man come direct from beautiful Paris--laden with its atmosphere,\nfamiliar with its charms. And this man had greeted her.\n\nWith the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of the women\nwasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other stayed on.\nWas there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright\'s son--for Clym\nit was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive. All\nemotional things were possible to the speaker of that \"good night.\"\nEustacia\'s imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one\nriddle. What COULD the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and\ngeniality in these shaggy hills?\n\nOn such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly charged\nwoman\'s head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but the changes,\nthough actual, are minute. Eustacia\'s features went through a rhythmical\nsuccession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity of the\nimagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired; then she\ncooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of visions.\n\nEustacia entered her own house; she was excited. Her grandfather was\nenjoying himself over the fire, raking about the ashes and exposing the\nred-hot surface of the turves, so that their lurid glare irradiated the\nchimney-corner with the hues of a furnace.\n\n\"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?\" she said,\ncoming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth. \"I wish we\nwere. They seem to be very nice people.\"\n\n\"Be hanged if I know why,\" said the captain. \"I liked the old man well\nenough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never have\ncared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure.\"\n\n\"Why shouldn\'t I?\"\n\n\"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in the\nkitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep it clean.\nA sensible way of life; but how would you like it?\"\n\n\"I thought Mrs. Yeobright was a ladylike woman? A curate\'s daughter, was\nshe not?\"\n\n\"Yes; but she was obliged to live as her husband did; and I suppose\nshe has taken kindly to it by this time. Ah, I recollect that I once\naccidentally offended her, and I have never seen her since.\"\n\nThat night was an eventful one to Eustacia\'s brain, and one which she\nhardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human beings, from\nNebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a more remarkable\none. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing, exciting dream was\ncertainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia\'s situation before. It had\nas many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth, as many fluctuations as\nthe northern lights, as much colour as a parterre in June, and was as\ncrowded with figures as a coronation. To Queen Scheherazade the dream\nmight have seemed not far removed from commonplace; and to a girl just\nreturned from all the courts of Europe it might have seemed not more\nthan interesting. But amid the circumstances of Eustacia\'s life it was\nas wonderful as a dream could be.\n\nThere was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation scenes a\nless extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared behind the\ngeneral brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to wondrous music, and\nher partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through\nthe previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed.\nThe mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear\nfrom under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise.\nSuddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one\nof the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into an iridescent\nhollow, arched with rainbows. \"It must be here,\" said the voice by her\nside, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss\nher. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into\nfragments like a pack of cards.\n\nShe cried aloud. \"O that I had seen his face!\"\n\nEustacia awoke. The cracking had been that of the window shutter\ndownstairs, which the maid-servant was opening to let in the day, now\nslowly increasing to Nature\'s meagre allowance at this sickly time of\nthe year. \"O that I had seen his face!\" she said again. \"\'Twas meant for\nMr. Yeobright!\"\n\nWhen she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases of the\ndream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of the day\nbefore. But this detracted little from its interest, which lay in the\nexcellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour. She was at the\nmodulating point between indifference and love, at the stage called\n\"having a fancy for.\" It occurs once in the history of the most gigantic\npassions, and it is a period when they are in the hands of the weakest\nwill.\n\nThe perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision. The\nfantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,\nraised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she\nwould have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and so\nhave killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might have\ngone and circumambulated the Yeobrights\' premises at Blooms-End at any\nmaidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did neither of\nthese things. She acted as the most exemplary might have acted, being\nso influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day upon the Egdon\nhills, and kept her eyes employed.\n\nThe first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.\n\nShe promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.\n\nThe third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without\nmuch hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she\ncould not have seen him.\n\nAt the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents, and\nshe turned back.\n\nThe fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained out\nlong, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay. She\nsaw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear. It\nwas almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense of\nshame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man from Paris no\nmore.\n\nBut Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia\nformed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had\nbeen entirely withholden.\n\n\n\n\n4--Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure\n\n\nIn the evening of this last day of expectation, which was the\ntwenty-third of December, Eustacia was at home alone. She had passed\nthe recent hour in lamenting over a rumour newly come to her ears--that\nYeobright\'s visit to his mother was to be of short duration, and would\nend some time the next week. \"Naturally,\" she said to herself. A man\nin the full swing of his activities in a gay city could not afford to\nlinger long on Egdon Heath. That she would behold face to face the owner\nof the awakening voice within the limits of such a holiday was most\nunlikely, unless she were to haunt the environs of his mother\'s house\nlike a robin, to do which was difficult and unseemly.\n\nThe customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such\ncircumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town\none can safely calculate that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday\ncontiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age or\nennui lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn up in some\npew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and new clothes.\nThus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly a Tussaud\ncollection of celebrities who have been born in the neighbourhood.\nHither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year, can steal and\nobserve the development of the returned lover who has forgotten her, and\nthink as she watches him over her prayer book that he may throb with\na renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm. And hither\na comparatively recent settler like Eustacia may betake herself to\nscrutinize the person of a native son who left home before her advent\nupon the scene, and consider if the friendship of his parents be worth\ncultivating during his next absence in order to secure a knowledge of\nhim on his next return.\n\nBut these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered\ninhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but\nvirtually they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these\nfew isolated houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained\nin their friends\' chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting\nliquors till they left again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud\neverywhere around, they did not care to trudge two or three miles to\nsit wet-footed and splashed to the nape of their necks among those\nwho, though in some measure neighbours, lived close to the church, and\nentered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it was ten to one that Clym\nYeobright would go to no church at all during his few days of leave, and\nthat it would be a waste of labour for her to go driving the pony and\ngig over a bad road in hope to see him there.\n\nIt was dusk, and she was sitting by the fire in the dining-room or\nhall, which they occupied at this time of the year in preference to the\nparlour, because of its large hearth, constructed for turf-fires, a\nfuel the captain was partial to in the winter season. The only visible\narticles in the room were those on the window-sill, which showed their\nshapes against the low sky, the middle article being the old hourglass,\nand the other two a pair of ancient British urns which had been dug\nfrom a barrow near, and were used as flowerpots for two razor-leaved\ncactuses. Somebody knocked at the door. The servant was out; so was her\ngrandfather. The person, after waiting a minute, came in and tapped at\nthe door of the room.\n\n\"Who\'s there?\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"Please, Cap\'n Vye, will you let us----\"\n\nEustacia arose and went to the door. \"I cannot allow you to come in so\nboldly. You should have waited.\"\n\n\"The cap\'n said I might come in without any fuss,\" was answered in a\nlad\'s pleasant voice.\n\n\"Oh, did he?\" said Eustacia more gently. \"What do you want, Charley?\"\n\n\"Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse to try over our\nparts in, tonight at seven o\'clock?\"\n\n\"What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?\"\n\n\"Yes, miss. The cap\'n used to let the old mummers practise here.\"\n\n\"I know it. Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like,\" said Eustacia\nlanguidly.\n\nThe choice of Captain Vye\'s fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was\ndictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the\nheath. The fuelhouse was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable\nplace for such a purpose. The lads who formed the company of players\nlived at different scattered points around, and by meeting in this spot\nthe distances to be traversed by all the comers would be about equally\nproportioned.\n\nFor mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The mummers\nthemselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their art,\nthough at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional\npastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking\nfeature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and\nfervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of\nstir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily\nshould be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the\nagents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted\nparts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is\nthe true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival\nmay be known from a spurious reproduction.\n\nThe piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were\nbehind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of\neach household. Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the\ndresses were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this class\nof assistance was not without its drawbacks. The girls could never be\nbrought to respect tradition in designing and decorating the armour;\nthey insisted on attaching loops and bows of silk and velvet in any\nsituation pleasing to their taste. Gorget, gusset, basinet, cuirass,\ngauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of these feminine eyes were\npracticable spaces whereon to sew scraps of fluttering colour.\n\nIt might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a\nsweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had\none likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the\nknowledge of Joe\'s sweetheart that Jim\'s was putting brilliant silk\nscallops at the bottom of her lover\'s surcoat, in addition to the\nribbons of the visor, the bars of which, being invariably formed of\ncoloured strips about half an inch wide hanging before the face, were\nmostly of that material. Joe\'s sweetheart straight-way placed brilliant\nsilk on the scallops of the hem in question, and, going a little\nfurther, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim\'s, not to be\noutdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.\n\nThe result was that in the end the Valiant Soldier, of the Christian\narmy, was distinguished by no peculiarity of accoutrement from the\nTurkish Knight; and what was worse, on a casual view Saint George\nhimself might be mistaken for his deadly enemy, the Saracen. The guisers\nthemselves, though inwardly regretting this confusion of persons, could\nnot afford to offend those by whose assistance they so largely profited,\nand the innovations were allowed to stand.\n\nThere was, it is true, a limit to this tendency to uniformity. The\nLeech or Doctor preserved his character intact--his darker habiliments,\npeculiar hat, and the bottle of physic slung under his arm, could never\nbe mistaken. And the same might be said of the conventional figure of\nFather Christmas, with his gigantic club, an older man, who accompanied\nthe band as general protector in long night journeys from parish to\nparish, and was bearer of the purse.\n\nSeven o\'clock, the hour of the rehearsal, came round, and in a short\ntime Eustacia could hear voices in the fuelhouse. To dissipate in some\ntrifling measure her abiding sense of the murkiness of human life she\nwent to the \"linhay\" or lean-to shed, which formed the root-store of\ntheir dwelling and abutted on the fuelhouse. Here was a small rough hole\nin the mud wall, originally made for pigeons, through which the interior\nof the next shed could be viewed. A light came from it now; and Eustacia\nstepped upon a stool to look in upon the scene.\n\nOn a ledge in the fuelhouse stood three tall rushlights and by the\nlight of them seven or eight lads were marching about, haranguing, and\nconfusing each other, in endeavours to perfect themselves in the play.\nHumphrey and Sam, the furze-and turf-cutters, were there looking on, so\nalso was Timothy Fairway, who leant against the wall and prompted\nthe boys from memory, interspersing among the set words remarks and\nanecdotes of the superior days when he and others were the Egdon\nmummers-elect that these lads were now.\n\n\"Well, ye be as well up to it as ever ye will be,\" he said. \"Not that\nsuch mumming would have passed in our time. Harry as the Saracen should\nstrut a bit more, and John needn\'t holler his inside out. Beyond that\nperhaps you\'ll do. Have you got all your clothes ready?\"\n\n\"We shall by Monday.\"\n\n\"Your first outing will be Monday night, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Yes. At Mrs. Yeobright\'s.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mrs. Yeobright\'s. What makes her want to see ye? I should think a\nmiddle-aged woman was tired of mumming.\"\n\n\"She\'s got up a bit of a party, because \'tis the first Christmas that\nher son Clym has been home for a long time.\"\n\n\"To be sure, to be sure--her party! I am going myself. I almost forgot\nit, upon my life.\"\n\nEustacia\'s face flagged. There was to be a party at the Yeobrights\';\nshe, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a stranger to all\nsuch local gatherings, and had always held them as scarcely appertaining\nto her sphere. But had she been going, what an opportunity would have\nbeen afforded her of seeing the man whose influence was penetrating her\nlike summer sun! To increase that influence was coveted excitement; to\ncast it off might be to regain serenity; to leave it as it stood was\ntantalizing.\n\nThe lads and men prepared to leave the premises, and Eustacia returned\nto her fireside. She was immersed in thought, but not for long. In a\nfew minutes the lad Charley, who had come to ask permission to use the\nplace, returned with the key to the kitchen. Eustacia heard him, and\nopening the door into the passage said, \"Charley, come here.\"\n\nThe lad was surprised. He entered the front room not without blushing;\nfor he, like many, had felt the power of this girl\'s face and form.\n\nShe pointed to a seat by the fire, and entered the other side of the\nchimney-corner herself. It could be seen in her face that whatever\nmotive she might have had in asking the youth indoors would soon appear.\n\n\"Which part do you play, Charley--the Turkish Knight, do you not?\"\ninquired the beauty, looking across the smoke of the fire to him on the\nother side.\n\n\"Yes, miss, the Turkish Knight,\" he replied diffidently.\n\n\"Is yours a long part?\"\n\n\"Nine speeches, about.\"\n\n\"Can you repeat them to me? If so I should like to hear them.\"\n\nThe lad smiled into the glowing turf and began--\n\n \"Here come I, a Turkish Knight,\n Who learnt in Turkish land to fight,\"\n\ncontinuing the discourse throughout the scenes to the concluding\ncatastrophe of his fall by the hand of Saint George.\n\nEustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When the lad\nended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on without\nhitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the same thing,\nyet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness and finish\nof a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully reproducing the\noriginal subject, entirely distances the original art.\n\nCharley\'s eyes rounded with surprise. \"Well, you be a clever lady!\" he\nsaid, in admiration. \"I\'ve been three weeks learning mine.\"\n\n\"I have heard it before,\" she quietly observed. \"Now, would you do\nanything to please me, Charley?\"\n\n\"I\'d do a good deal, miss.\"\n\n\"Would you let me play your part for one night?\"\n\n\"Oh, miss! But your woman\'s gown--you couldn\'t.\"\n\n\"I can get boy\'s clothes--at least all that would be wanted besides the\nmumming dress. What should I have to give you to lend me your things,\nto let me take your place for an hour or two on Monday night, and on no\naccount to say a word about who or what I am? You would, of course, have\nto excuse yourself from playing that night, and to say that somebody--a\ncousin of Miss Vye\'s--would act for you. The other mummers have never\nspoken to me in their lives so that it would be safe enough; and if it\nwere not, I should not mind. Now, what must I give you to agree to this?\nHalf a crown?\"\n\nThe youth shook his head\n\n\"Five shillings?\"\n\nHe shook his head again. \"Money won\'t do it,\" he said, brushing the iron\nhead of the firedog with the hollow of his hand.\n\n\"What will, then, Charley?\" said Eustacia in a disappointed tone.\n\n\"You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss,\" murmured the lad,\nwithout looking at her, and still stroking the firedog\'s head.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. \"You wanted to join\nhands with me in the ring, if I recollect?\"\n\n\"Half an hour of that, and I\'ll agree, miss.\"\n\nEustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger\nthan herself, but apparently not backward for his age. \"Half an hour of\nwhat?\" she said, though she guessed what.\n\n\"Holding your hand in mine.\"\n\nShe was silent. \"Make it a quarter of an hour,\" she said\n\n\"Yes, Miss Eustacia--I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an hour.\nAnd I\'ll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place without\nanybody knowing. Don\'t you think somebody might know your tongue, miss?\"\n\n\"It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is less\nlikely. Very well; you shall be allowed to have my hand as soon as you\nbring the dress and your sword and staff. I don\'t want you any longer\nnow.\"\n\nCharley departed, and Eustacia felt more and more interest in life.\nHere was something to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly\nadventurous way to see him. \"Ah,\" she said to herself, \"want of an\nobject to live for--that\'s all is the matter with me!\"\n\nEustacia\'s manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions being\nof the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused she\nwould make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move of a\nnaturally lively person.\n\nOn the question of recognition she was somewhat indifferent. By the\nacting lads themselves she was not likely to be known. With the guests\nwho might be assembled she was hardly so secure. Yet detection, after\nall, would be no such dreadful thing. The fact only could be detected,\nher true motive never. It would be instantly set down as the passing\nfreak of a girl whose ways were already considered singular. That she\nwas doing for an earnest reason what would most naturally be done in\njest was at any rate a safe secret.\n\n\nThe next evening Eustacia stood punctually at the fuelhouse door,\nwaiting for the dusk which was to bring Charley with the trappings.\nHer grandfather was at home tonight, and she would be unable to ask her\nconfederate indoors.\n\nHe appeared on the dark ridge of heathland, like a fly on a Negro,\nbearing the articles with him, and came up breathless with his walk.\n\n\"Here are the things,\" he whispered, placing them upon the threshold.\n\"And now, Miss Eustacia--\"\n\n\"The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word.\"\n\nShe leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took it\nin both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it was like\nthat of a child holding a captured sparrow.\n\n\"Why, there\'s a glove on it!\" he said in a deprecating way.\n\n\"I have been walking,\" she observed.\n\n\"But, miss!\"\n\n\"Well--it is hardly fair.\" She pulled off the glove, and gave him her\nbare hand.\n\nThey stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each\nlooking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own\nthoughts.\n\n\"I think I won\'t use it all up tonight,\" said Charley devotedly, when\nsix or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand. \"May I\nhave the other few minutes another time?\"\n\n\"As you like,\" said she without the least emotion. \"But it must be over\nin a week. Now, there is only one thing I want you to do--to wait while\nI put on the dress, and then to see if I do my part properly. But let me\nlook first indoors.\"\n\nShe vanished for a minute or two, and went in. Her grandfather was\nsafely asleep in his chair. \"Now, then,\" she said, on returning, \"walk\ndown the garden a little way, and when I am ready I\'ll call you.\"\n\nCharley walked and waited, and presently heard a soft whistle. He\nreturned to the fuelhouse door.\n\n\"Did you whistle, Miss Vye?\"\n\n\"Yes; come in,\" reached him in Eustacia\'s voice from a back quarter.\n\"I must not strike a light till the door is shut, or it may be seen\nshining. Push your hat into the hole through to the wash-house, if you\ncan feel your way across.\"\n\nCharley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing herself\nto be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from top to toe.\nPerhaps she quailed a little under Charley\'s vigorous gaze, but whether\nany shyness at her male attire appeared upon her countenance could not\nbe seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used to cover the face\nin mumming costumes, representing the barred visor of the mediaeval\nhelmet.\n\n\"It fits pretty well,\" she said, looking down at the white overalls,\n\"except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in the sleeve.\nThe bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay attention.\"\n\nEustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against the\nstaff or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming\nmanner, and strutting up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration with\ncriticism of the gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia\'s hand yet\nremained with him.\n\n\"And now for your excuse to the others,\" she said. \"Where do you meet\nbefore you go to Mrs. Yeobright\'s?\"\n\n\"We thought of meeting here, miss, if you have nothing to say against\nit. At eight o\'clock, so as to get there by nine.\"\n\n\"Yes. Well, you of course must not appear. I will march in about five\nminutes late, ready-dressed, and tell them that you can\'t come. I have\ndecided that the best plan will be for you to be sent somewhere by me,\nto make a real thing of the excuse. Our two heath-croppers are in the\nhabit of straying into the meads, and tomorrow evening you can go and\nsee if they are gone there. I\'ll manage the rest. Now you may leave me.\"\n\n\"Yes, miss. But I think I\'ll have one minute more of what I am owed, if\nyou don\'t mind.\"\n\nEustacia gave him her hand as before.\n\n\"One minute,\" she said, and counted on till she reached seven or eight\nminutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several\nfeet, and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed, she\nraised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall.\n\n\"There, \'tis all gone; and I didn\'t mean quite all,\" he said, with a\nsigh.\n\n\"You had good measure,\" said she, turning away.\n\n\"Yes, miss. Well, \'tis over, and now I\'ll get home-along.\"\n\n\n\n\n5--Through the Moonlight\n\n\nThe next evening the mummers were assembled in the same spot, awaiting\nthe entrance of the Turkish Knight.\n\n\"Twenty minutes after eight by the Quiet Woman, and Charley not come.\"\n\n\"Ten minutes past by Blooms-End.\"\n\n\"It wants ten minutes to, by Grandfer Cantle\'s watch.\"\n\n\"And \'tis five minutes past by the captain\'s clock.\"\n\nOn Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment\nwas a number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets,\nsome of them having originally grown up from a common root, and then\nbecome divided by secession, some having been alien from the beginning.\nWest Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the time of the\nQuiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle\'s watch had numbered many followers in\nyears gone by, but since he had grown older faiths were shaken. Thus,\nthe mummers having gathered hither from scattered points each came with\nhis own tenets on early and late; and they waited a little longer as a\ncompromise.\n\nEustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing that\nnow was the proper moment to enter, she went from the \"linhay\" and\nboldly pulled the bobbin of the fuelhouse door. Her grandfather was safe\nat the Quiet Woman.\n\n\"Here\'s Charley at last! How late you be, Charley.\"\n\n\"\'Tis not Charley,\" said the Turkish Knight from within his visor. \"\'Tis\na cousin of Miss Vye\'s, come to take Charley\'s place from curiosity. He\nwas obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that have got into the\nmeads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he couldn\'t come back\nhere again tonight. I know the part as well as he.\"\n\nHer graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general won\nthe mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if the\nnewcomer were perfect in his part.\n\n\"It don\'t matter--if you be not too young,\" said Saint George.\nEustacia\'s voice had sounded somewhat more juvenile and fluty than\nCharley\'s.\n\n\"I know every word of it, I tell you,\" said Eustacia decisively. Dash\nbeing all that was required to carry her triumphantly through, she\nadopted as much as was necessary. \"Go ahead, lads, with the try-over.\nI\'ll challenge any of you to find a mistake in me.\"\n\nThe play was hastily rehearsed, whereupon the other mummers were\ndelighted with the new knight. They extinguished the candles at\nhalf-past eight, and set out upon the heath in the direction of Mrs.\nYeobright\'s house at Bloom\'s-End.\n\nThere was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though not\nmore than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon the\nfantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons rustled\nin their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over Rainbarrow\nnow, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a little to\nthe east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten yards or\nthereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades of grass\nseemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded. The masses\nof furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever; a mere\nhalf-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.\n\nHalf-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in the\nvalley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of the\nhouse. At sight of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing doubts\nduring her walk with the youths, again was glad that the adventure had\nbeen undertaken. She had come out to see a man who might possibly have\nthe power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression. What was\nWildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps she would see a sufficient\nhero tonight.\n\nAs they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became aware\nthat music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now\nand then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind\ninstrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than\nthe thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more\nthan usual loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. With nearer\napproach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found\nto be the salient points of the tune called \"Nancy\'s Fancy.\"\n\nHe was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps some\nunknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle\nof lures sealing his fate this very instant. To dance with a man is to\nconcentrate a twelvemonth\'s regulation fire upon him in the fragment of\nan hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage\nwithout courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone\nwho tread this royal road. She would see how his heart lay by keen\nobservation of them all.\n\nThe enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate\nin the white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was\nencrusted with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper\nwindows; the front, upon which the moonbeams directly played, had\noriginally been white; but a huge pyracanth now darkened the greater\nportion.\n\nIt became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately\nwithin the surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing\nof skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard\nagainst the very panels. Eustacia, though living within two miles of\nthe place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation.\nBetween Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never existed much\nacquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and purchased the\nlong-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the death of Mrs.\nYeobright\'s husband; and with that event and the departure of her son\nsuch friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.\n\n\"Is there no passage inside the door, then?\" asked Eustacia as they\nstood within the porch.\n\n\"No,\" said the lad who played the Saracen. \"The door opens right upon\nthe front sitting-room, where the spree\'s going on.\"\n\n\"So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance.\"\n\n\"That\'s it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt\nthe back door after dark.\"\n\n\"They won\'t be much longer,\" said Father Christmas.\n\nThis assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the\ninstruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and\npathos as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one without\nany particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the\ndances which throng an inspired fiddler\'s fancy, best conveys the\nidea of the interminable--the celebrated \"Devil\'s Dream.\" The fury of\npersonal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be\napproximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the\noccasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl\nround had been of more than customary velocity.\n\nThe first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the\nmummers. The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a\nquarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively\n\"Dream.\" The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were\nall as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened\nconsiderably.\n\n\"Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?\" Eustacia asked, a\nlittle surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.\n\n\"It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties. She\'s asked the plain\nneighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to give \'em a\ngood supper and such like. Her son and she wait upon the folks.\"\n\n\"I see,\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"\'Tis the last strain, I think,\" said Saint George, with his ear to the\npanel. \"A young man and woman have just swung into this corner, and he\'s\nsaying to her, \'Ah, the pity; \'tis over for us this time, my own.\'\"\n\n\"Thank God,\" said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the wall\nthe conventional lance that each of the mummers carried. Her boots being\nthinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped her feet and\nmade them cold.\n\n\"Upon my song \'tis another ten minutes for us,\" said the Valiant\nSoldier, looking through the keyhole as the tune modulated into another\nwithout stopping. \"Grandfer Cantle is standing in this corner, waiting\nhis turn.\"\n\n\"\'Twon\'t be long; \'tis a six-handed reel,\" said the Doctor.\n\n\"Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us,\" said the Saracen.\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced smartly up\nand down from door to gate to warm herself. \"We should burst into the\nmiddle of them and stop the dance, and that would be unmannerly.\"\n\n\"He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling than\nwe,\" said the Doctor.\n\n\"You may go to the deuce!\" said Eustacia.\n\nThere was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and\none turned to her.\n\n\"Will you tell us one thing?\" he said, not without gentleness. \"Be you\nMiss Vye? We think you must be.\"\n\n\"You may think what you like,\" said Eustacia slowly. \"But honourable\nlads will not tell tales upon a lady.\"\n\n\"We\'ll say nothing, miss. That\'s upon our honour.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she replied.\n\nAt this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the\nserpent emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the\ncomparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken\ntheir seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his\nhead inside the door.\n\n\"Ah, the mummers, the mummers!\" cried several guests at once. \"Clear a\nspace for the mummers.\"\n\nHumpbacked Father Christmas then made a complete entry, swinging his\nhuge club, and in a general way clearing the stage for the actors\nproper, while he informed the company in smart verse that he was come,\nwelcome or welcome not; concluding his speech with\n\n \"Make room, make room, my gallant boys,\n And give us space to rhyme;\n We\'ve come to show Saint George\'s play,\n Upon this Christmas time.\"\n\nThe guests were now arranging themselves at one end of the room, the\nfiddler was mending a string, the serpent-player was emptying his\nmouthpiece, and the play began. First of those outside the Valiant\nSoldier entered, in the interest of Saint George--\n\n \"Here come I, the Valiant Soldier;\n Slasher is my name\";\n\nand so on. This speech concluded with a challenge to the infidel, at the\nend of which it was Eustacia\'s duty to enter as the Turkish Knight.\nShe, with the rest who were not yet on, had hitherto remained in the\nmoonlight which streamed under the porch. With no apparent effort or\nbackwardness she came in, beginning--\n\n \"Here come I, a Turkish Knight,\n Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;\n I\'ll fight this man with courage bold:\n If his blood\'s hot I\'ll make it cold!\"\n\nDuring her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as\nroughly as she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But the\nconcentration upon her part necessary to prevent discovery, the newness\nof the scene, the shine of the candles, and the confusing effect upon\nher vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features, left her\nabsolutely unable to perceive who were present as spectators. On the\nfurther side of a table bearing candles she could faintly discern faces,\nand that was all.\n\nMeanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and, with\na glare upon the Turk, replied--\n\n \"If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,\n Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!\"\n\nAnd fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant\nSoldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia,\nJim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log\nupon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder. Then,\nafter more words from the Turkish Knight, rather too faintly delivered,\nand statements that he\'d fight Saint George and all his crew, Saint\nGeorge himself magnificently entered with the well-known flourish--\n\n \"Here come I, Saint George, the valiant man,\n With naked sword and spear in hand,\n Who fought the dragon and brought him to the slaughter,\n And by this won fair Sabra, the King of Egypt\'s\n daughter;\n What mortal man would dare to stand\n Before me with my sword in hand?\"\n\nThis was the lad who had first recognized Eustacia; and when she now, as\nthe Turk, replied with suitable defiance, and at once began the combat,\nthe young fellow took especial care to use his sword as gently as\npossible. Being wounded, the Knight fell upon one knee, according to the\ndirection. The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by giving him\na draught from the bottle which he carried, and the fight was again\nresumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until quite overcome--dying as hard\nin this venerable drama as he is said to do at the present day.\n\nThis gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why Eustacia\nhad thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not the\nshortest, would suit her best. A direct fall from upright to horizontal,\nwhich was the end of the other fighting characters, was not an elegant\nor decorous part for a girl. But it was easy to die like a Turk, by a\ndogged decline.\n\nEustacia was now among the number of the slain, though not on the\nfloor, for she had managed to sink into a sloping position against\nthe clock-case, so that her head was well elevated. The play proceeded\nbetween Saint George, the Saracen, the Doctor, and Father Christmas;\nand Eustacia, having no more to do, for the first time found leisure to\nobserve the scene round, and to search for the form that had drawn her\nhither.\n\n\n\n\n6--The Two Stand Face to Face\n\n\nThe room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the large oak\ntable having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork to the\nfireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were grouped\nthe guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among whom\nEustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from beyond the\nheath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and Eustacia\nrecollected that a light had shone from an upper window when they were\noutside--the window, probably, of Thomasin\'s room. A nose, chin, hands,\nknees, and toes projected from the seat within the chimney opening,\nwhich members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs.\nYeobright\'s occasional assistant in the garden, and therefore one of the\ninvited. The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front of him, played\nround the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the salt-box, and\ngot lost among the flitches.\n\nAnother part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side of the\nchimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a fire so\nopen that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke. It\nis, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east\nbelt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to\nthe garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young\nwomen shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise. Not a symptom of a\ndraught disturbs the air; the sitters\' backs are as warm as their faces,\nand songs and old tales are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable\nheat, like fruit from melon plants in a frame.\n\nIt was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was\nconcerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the\ndark-tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against\nthe settle\'s outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called\nhere; she knew it could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an\narea of two feet in Rembrandt\'s intensest manner. A strange power in the\nlounger\'s appearance lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was\nvisible, the observer\'s eye was only aware of his face.\n\nTo one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though a\nyouth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity.\nBut it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of\nso many years as its age than of so much experience as its store. The\nnumber of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel,\nand the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be\nmeasured by the intensity of his history.\n\nThe face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind within\nwas beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its\nidiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible\nwould in no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought,\nwhich might just as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there\nwas nothing it could harm. Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a wearing\nhabit of meditation, people would have said, \"A handsome man.\" Had\nhis brain unfolded under sharper contours they would have said, \"A\nthoughtful man.\" But an inner strenuousness was preying upon an outer\nsymmetry, and they rated his look as singular.\n\nHence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him.\nHis countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being\nthought-worn he yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his\nsurroundings, such as are not unfrequently found on men at the end of\nthe four or five years of endeavour which follow the close of placid\npupilage. He already showed that thought is a disease of flesh, and\nindirectly bore evidence that ideal physical beauty is incompatible\nwith emotional development and a full recognition of the coil of things.\nMental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even though there\nis already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight of two demands\non one supply was just showing itself here.\n\nWhen standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers\nare but perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to\nthink. Thus to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually\ndestructive interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been\ninstinctive with these in critically observing Yeobright.\n\nAs for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against\ndepression from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested\nisolation, but it revealed something more. As is usual with bright\nnatures, the deity that lies ignominiously chained within an ephemeral\nhuman carcase shone out of him like a ray.\n\nThe effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of\nexcitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused\nher to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at\nYeobright\'s presence.\n\nThe remainder of the play ended--the Saracen\'s head was cut off, and\nSaint George stood as victor. Nobody commented, any more than they would\nhave commented on the fact of mushrooms coming in autumn or snowdrops\nin spring. They took the piece as phlegmatically as did the actors\nthemselves. It was a phase of cheerfulness which was, as a matter of\ncourse, to be passed through every Christmas; and there was no more to\nbe said.\n\nThey sang the plaintive chant which follows the play, during which all\nthe dead men rise to their feet in a silent and awful manner, like the\nghosts of Napoleon\'s soldiers in the Midnight Review. Afterwards the\ndoor opened, and Fairway appeared on the threshold, accompanied by\nChristian and another. They had been waiting outside for the conclusion\nof the play, as the players had waited for the conclusion of the dance.\n\n\"Come in, come in,\" said Mrs. Yeobright; and Clym went forward to\nwelcome them. \"How is it you are so late? Grandfer Cantle has been here\never so long, and we thought you\'d have come with him, as you live so\nnear one another.\"\n\n\"Well, I should have come earlier,\" Mr. Fairway said and paused to\nlook along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but,\nfinding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all\nthe nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at\nlast relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between the\ncandle-box and the head of the clock-case. \"I should have come earlier,\nma\'am,\" he resumed, with a more composed air, \"but I know what parties\nbe, and how there\'s none too much room in folks\' houses at such times,\nso I thought I wouldn\'t come till you\'d got settled a bit.\"\n\n\"And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright,\" said Christian earnestly, \"but\nFather there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and left home\nalmost afore \'twas dark. I told him \'twas barely decent in a\' old man to\ncome so oversoon; but words be wind.\"\n\n\"Klk! I wasn\'t going to bide waiting about, till half the game was over!\nI\'m as light as a kite when anything\'s going on!\" crowed Grandfer Cantle\nfrom the chimneyseat.\n\nFairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. \"Now,\nyou may not believe it,\" he said to the rest of the room, \"but I should\nnever have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere off his own\nhe\'th--he\'s altered so much.\"\n\n\"You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy,\" said\nYeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.\n\n\"Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,\nhaven\'t I, hey?\" said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself\nsomething above half a foot from Clym\'s eye, to induce the most\nsearching criticism.\n\n\"To be sure we will,\" said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it over\nthe surface of the Grandfer\'s countenance, the subject of his scrutiny\nirradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and giving himself\njerks of juvenility.\n\n\"You haven\'t changed much,\" said Yeobright.\n\n\"If there\'s any difference, Grandfer is younger,\" appended Fairway\ndecisively.\n\n\"And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it,\" said the pleased\nancient. \"But I can\'t be cured of my vagaries; them I plead guilty to.\nYes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am nothing by the\nside of you, Mister Clym.\"\n\n\"Nor any o\' us,\" said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration, not\nintended to reach anybody\'s ears.\n\n\"Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as\ndecent second to him, or even third, if I hadn\'t been a soldier in the\nBang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness),\" said Grandfer\nCantle. \"And even as \'tis we all look a little scammish beside him. But\nin the year four \'twas said there wasn\'t a finer figure in the whole\nSouth Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-winders with\nthe rest of our company on the day we ran out o\' Budmouth because it was\nthoughted that Boney had landed round the point. There was I, straight\nas a young poplar, wi\' my firelock, and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes,\nand my stock sawing my jaws off, and my accoutrements sheening like\nthe seven stars! Yes, neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering\ndays. You ought to have seen me in four!\"\n\n\"\'Tis his mother\'s side where Master Clym\'s figure comes from, bless\nye,\" said Timothy. \"I know\'d her brothers well. Longer coffins were\nnever made in the whole country of South Wessex, and \'tis said that poor\nGeorge\'s knees were crumpled up a little e\'en as \'twas.\"\n\n\"Coffins, where?\" inquired Christian, drawing nearer. \"Have the ghost of\none appeared to anybody, Master Fairway?\"\n\n\"No, no. Don\'t let your mind so mislead your ears, Christian; and be a\nman,\" said Timothy reproachfully.\n\n\"I will.\" said Christian. \"But now I think o\'t my shadder last night\nseemed just the shape of a coffin. What is it a sign of when your\nshade\'s like a coffin, neighbours? It can\'t be nothing to be afeared of,\nI suppose?\"\n\n\"Afeared, no!\" said the Grandfer. \"Faith, I was never afeard of nothing\nexcept Boney, or I shouldn\'t ha\' been the soldier I was. Yes, \'tis a\nthousand pities you didn\'t see me in four!\"\n\nBy this time the mummers were preparing to leave; but Mrs. Yeobright\nstopped them by asking them to sit down and have a little supper. To\nthis invitation Father Christmas, in the name of them all, readily\nagreed.\n\nEustacia was happy in the opportunity of staying a little longer.\nThe cold and frosty night without was doubly frigid to her. But the\nlingering was not without its difficulties. Mrs. Yeobright, for want\nof room in the larger apartment, placed a bench for the mummers halfway\nthrough the pantry door, which opened from the sitting-room. Here they\nseated themselves in a row, the door being left open--thus they were\nstill virtually in the same apartment. Mrs. Yeobright now murmured a few\nwords to her son, who crossed the room to the pantry door, striking his\nhead against the mistletoe as he passed, and brought the mummers beef\nand bread, cake pastry, mead, and elder-wine, the waiting being done by\nhim and his mother, that the little maid-servant might sit as guest. The\nmummers doffed their helmets, and began to eat and drink.\n\n\"But you will surely have some?\" said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he\nstood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat\ncovered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons\nwhich covered her face.\n\n\"None, thank you,\" replied Eustacia.\n\n\"He\'s quite a youngster,\" said the Saracen apologetically, \"and you\nmust excuse him. He\'s not one of the old set, but have jined us because\nt\'other couldn\'t come.\"\n\n\"But he will take something?\" persisted Yeobright. \"Try a glass of mead\nor elder-wine.\"\n\n\"Yes, you had better try that,\" said the Saracen. \"It will keep the cold\nout going home-along.\"\n\nThough Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could\ndrink easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly\naccepted, and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.\n\nAt moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about\nthe security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of\nattentions paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person,\nby the first man she had ever been inclined to adore, complicated\nher emotions indescribably. She had loved him partly because he was\nexceptional in this scene, partly because she had determined to love\nhim, chiefly because she was in desperate need of loving somebody\nafter wearying of Wildeve. Believing that she must love him in spite of\nherself, she had been influenced after the fashion of the second Lord\nLyttleton and other persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a\ncertain day, and by stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought\nabout that event. Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being\nstricken with love for someone at a certain hour and place, and the\nthing is as good as done.\n\nDid anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the creature\nwhom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope both in\nfeeling and in making others feel, and how far her compass transcended\nthat of her companions in the band? When the disguised Queen of Love\nappeared before Aeneas a preternatural perfume accompanied her presence\nand betrayed her quality. If such a mysterious emanation ever was\nprojected by the emotions of an earthly woman upon their object, it must\nhave signified Eustacia\'s presence to Yeobright now. He looked at her\nwistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie, as if he were forgetting\nwhat he observed. The momentary situation ended, he passed on, and\nEustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. The man for\nwhom she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into the small\nroom, and across it to the further extremity.\n\nThe mummers, as has been stated, were seated on a bench, one end of\nwhich extended into the small apartment, or pantry, for want of space\nin the outer room. Eustacia, partly from shyness, had chosen the midmost\nseat, which thus commanded a view of the interior of the pantry as well\nas the room containing the guests. When Clym passed down the pantry her\neyes followed him in the gloom which prevailed there. At the remote\nend was a door which, just as he was about to open it for himself, was\nopened by somebody within; and light streamed forth.\n\nThe person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and\ninteresting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand.\n\"That\'s right, Tamsie,\" he said heartily, as though recalled to himself\nby the sight of her, \"you have decided to come down. I am glad of it.\"\n\n\"Hush--no, no,\" she said quickly. \"I only came to speak to you.\"\n\n\"But why not join us?\"\n\n\"I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we\nshall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good\nlong holiday.\"\n\n\"It isn\'t nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?\"\n\n\"Just a little, my old cousin--here,\" she said, playfully sweeping her\nhand across her heart.\n\n\"Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,\nperhaps?\"\n\n\"O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you--\" Here he\nfollowed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and,\nthe door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only\nother witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.\n\nThe heat flew to Eustacia\'s head and cheeks. She instantly guessed that\nClym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet\nbeen made acquainted with Thomasin\'s painful situation with regard to\nWildeve; and seeing her living there just as she had been living before\nhe left home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild\njealousy of Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might possibly have\ntender sentiments towards another man as yet, how long could they be\nexpected to last when she was shut up here with this interesting and\ntravelled cousin of hers? There was no knowing what affection might not\nsoon break out between the two, so constantly in each other\'s society,\nand not a distracting object near. Clym\'s boyish love for her might have\nlanguished, but it might easily be revived again.\n\nEustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of\nherself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had\nshe known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven\nand earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all\nlost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her\ncoquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a\nsense of the doom of Echo. \"Nobody here respects me,\" she said. She had\noverlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she\nwould be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and\nself-explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so\nsensitive had the situation made her.\n\nWomen have done much for themselves in histrionic dress. To look far\nbelow those who, like a certain fair personator of Polly Peachum early\nin the last century, and another of Lydia Languish early in this, (1)\nhave won not only love but ducal coronets into the bargain, whole shoals\nof them have reached to the initial satisfaction of getting love almost\nwhence they would. But the Turkish Knight was denied even the chance\nof achieving this by the fluttering ribbons which she dared not brush\naside.\n\n (1) Written in 1877.\n\nYeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within two or\nthree feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a thought.\nHe was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted, and wondered\nhow long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a few seconds he\npassed on again.\n\nTo court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct with\ncertain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and shame\nreduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To escape was her\ngreat and immediate desire. The other mummers appeared to be in no\nhurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who sat next to her that she\npreferred waiting for them outside the house, she moved to the door as\nimperceptibly as possible, opened it, and slipped out.\n\nThe calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the palings and\nleant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus but a little\ntime when the door again opened. Expecting to see the remainder of the\nband Eustacia turned; but no--Clym Yeobright came out as softly as she\nhad done, and closed the door behind him.\n\nHe advanced and stood beside her. \"I have an odd opinion,\" he said, \"and\nshould like to ask you a question. Are you a woman--or am I wrong?\"\n\n\"I am a woman.\"\n\nHis eyes lingered on her with great interest. \"Do girls often play as\nmummers now? They never used to.\"\n\n\"They don\'t now.\"\n\n\"Why did you?\"\n\n\"To get excitement and shake off depression,\" she said in low tones.\n\n\"What depressed you?\"\n\n\"Life.\"\n\n\"That\'s a cause of depression a good many have to put up with.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nA long silence. \"And do you find excitement?\" asked Clym at last.\n\n\"At this moment, perhaps.\"\n\n\"Then you are vexed at being discovered?\"\n\n\"Yes; though I thought I might be.\"\n\n\"I would gladly have asked you to our party had I known you wished to\ncome. Have I ever been acquainted with you in my youth?\"\n\n\"Never.\"\n\n\"Won\'t you come in again, and stay as long as you like?\"\n\n\"No. I wish not to be further recognized.\"\n\n\"Well, you are safe with me.\" After remaining in thought a minute he\nadded gently, \"I will not intrude upon you longer. It is a strange way\nof meeting, and I will not ask why I find a cultivated woman playing\nsuch a part as this.\"\n\nShe did not volunteer the reason which he seemed to hope for, and he\nwished her good night, going thence round to the back of the house,\nwhere he walked up and down by himself for some time before re-\nentering.\n\nEustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her companions\nafter this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened the\ngate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her\ngrandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon\nthe hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and\ngoings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise.\nA more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her.\nYeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly discover her\nname. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at the way in\nwhich the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between\nher exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration\nrecurred to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at\npresent a total stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable\nnimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man might be her\nmisery. How could she allow herself to become so infatuated with a\nstranger? And to fill the cup of her sorrow there would be Thomasin,\nliving day after day in inflammable proximity to him; for she had just\nlearnt that, contrary to her first belief, he was going to stay at home\nsome considerable time.\n\nShe reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she\nturned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above\nthe hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with\nsilence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which\ntill that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet\nWildeve by the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer\nto his pleading for an elopement.\n\nShe herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come to\nthe spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.\n\n\"Well, so much the better--it did not hurt him,\" she said serenely.\nWildeve had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked\nglass, and she could say such things as that with the greatest facility.\n\nShe remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin\'s winning manner towards her\ncousin arose again upon Eustacia\'s mind.\n\n\"O that she had been married to Damon before this!\" she said. \"And\nshe would if it hadn\'t been for me! If I had only known--if I had only\nknown!\"\n\nEustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and,\nsighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder,\nentered the shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the\nouthouse, rolled them up, and went indoors to her chamber.\n\n\n\n\n7--A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness\n\n\nThe old captain\'s prevailing indifference to his granddaughter\'s\nmovements left her free as a bird to follow her own courses; but it so\nhappened that he did take upon himself the next morning to ask her why\nshe had walked out so late.\n\n\"Only in search of events, Grandfather,\" she said, looking out of the\nwindow with that drowsy latency of manner which discovered so much force\nbehind it whenever the trigger was pressed.\n\n\"Search of events--one would think you were one of the bucks I knew at\none-and-twenty.\"\n\n\"It is lonely here.\"\n\n\"So much the better. If I were living in a town my whole time would be\ntaken up in looking after you. I fully expected you would have been home\nwhen I returned from the Woman.\"\n\n\"I won\'t conceal what I did. I wanted an adventure, and I went with the\nmummers. I played the part of the Turkish Knight.\"\n\n\"No, never? Ha, ha! Good gad! I didn\'t expect it of you, Eustacia.\"\n\n\"It was my first performance, and it certainly will be my last. Now I\nhave told you--and remember it is a secret.\"\n\n\"Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how \'twould\nhave pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.\nYou may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you don\'t\nbother me; but no figuring in breeches again.\"\n\n\"You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa.\"\n\nHere the conversation ceased, Eustacia\'s moral training never exceeding\nin severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable\nto good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts\nsoon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and\nindescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she\nwent forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as\nAhasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when\nshe beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in\nadvance--dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to\nsignify Diggory Venn.\n\nWhen the farmers who had wished to buy in a new stock of reddle during\nthe last month had inquired where Venn was to be found, people replied,\n\"On Egdon Heath.\" Day after day the answer was the same. Now, since\nEgdon was populated with heath-croppers and furze-cutters rather than\nwith sheep and shepherds, and the downs where most of the latter were\nto be found lay some to the north, some to the west of Egdon, his\nreason for camping about there like Israel in Zin was not apparent. The\nposition was central and occasionally desirable. But the sale of reddle\nwas not Diggory\'s primary object in remaining on the heath, particularly\nat so late a period of the year, when most travellers of his class had\ngone into winter quarters.\n\nEustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at their last\nmeeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright as one ready\nand anxious to take his place as Thomasin\'s betrothed. His figure\nwas perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye bright, his\nintelligence keen, and his position one which he could readily better if\nhe chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not likely that Thomasin\nwould accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she had a cousin like\nYeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time not absolutely\nindifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor Mrs. Yeobright,\nin her anxiety for her niece\'s future, had mentioned this lover to\nstimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side of the\nYeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt\'s desire.\n\n\"Good morning, miss,\" said the reddleman, taking off his cap of\nhareskin, and apparently bearing her no ill-will from recollection of\ntheir last meeting.\n\n\"Good morning, reddleman,\" she said, hardly troubling to lift her\nheavily shaded eyes to his. \"I did not know you were so near. Is your\nvan here too?\"\n\nVenn moved his elbow towards a hollow in which a dense brake of\npurple-stemmed brambles had grown to such vast dimensions as almost to\nform a dell. Brambles, though churlish when handled, are kindly shelter\nin early winter, being the latest of the deciduous bushes to lose their\nleaves.\n\nThe roof and chimney of Venn\'s caravan showed behind the tracery and\ntangles of the brake.\n\n\"You remain near this part?\" she asked with more interest.\n\n\"Yes, I have business here.\"\n\n\"Not altogether the selling of reddle?\"\n\n\"It has nothing to do with that.\"\n\n\"It has to do with Miss Yeobright?\"\n\nHer face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said\nfrankly, \"Yes, miss; it is on account of her.\"\n\n\"On account of your approaching marriage with her?\"\n\nVenn flushed through his stain. \"Don\'t make sport of me, Miss Vye,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"It isn\'t true?\"\n\n\"Certainly not.\"\n\nShe was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs.\nYeobright\'s mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his\npromotion to that lowly standing. \"It was a mere notion of mine,\" she\nsaid quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when,\nlooking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure\nserpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top\nwhere she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back\nwas at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that\nman there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, \"Would you allow\nme to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting\non.\"\n\n\"Certainly, miss; I\'ll make a place for you.\"\n\nShe followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling\ninto which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the\ndoor.\n\n\"That is the best I can do for you,\" he said, stepping down and retiring\nto the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up\nand down.\n\nEustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from\nview on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of\nother feet than the reddleman\'s, a not very friendly \"Good day\"\nuttered by two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the\nfoot-fall of one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her\nneck forward till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders;\nand she felt a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the\nsickening feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all\nin its composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who\nis beloved no more.\n\nWhen Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.\n\"That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss,\" he said slowly, and expressed\nby his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting\nunseen.\n\n\"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill,\" replied Eustacia. \"Why should\nyou tell me that?\" It was a bold question, considering the reddleman\'s\nknowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power to\nrepress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.\n\n\"I am glad to hear that you can ask it,\" said the reddleman bluntly.\n\"And, now I think of it, it agrees with what I saw last night.\"\n\n\"Ah--what was that?\" Eustacia wished to leave him, but wished to know.\n\n\"Mr. Wildeve stayed at Rainbarrow a long time waiting for a lady who\ndidn\'t come.\"\n\n\"You waited too, it seems?\"\n\n\"Yes, I always do. I was glad to see him disappointed. He will be there\nagain tonight.\"\n\n\"To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so\nfar from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin\'s marriage with Mr.\nWildeve, would be very glad to promote it.\"\n\nVenn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it\nclearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from\nexpectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two\nremoves and upwards. \"Indeed, miss,\" he replied.\n\n\"How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again\ntonight?\" she asked.\n\n\"I heard him say to himself that he would. He\'s in a regular temper.\"\n\nEustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting\nher deep dark eyes anxiously to his, \"I wish I knew what to do. I don\'t\nwant to be uncivil to him; but I don\'t wish to see him again; and I have\nsome few little things to return to him.\"\n\n\"If you choose to send \'em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you\nwish to say no more to him, I\'ll take it for you quite privately. That\nwould be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Eustacia. \"Come towards my house, and I will bring it\nout to you.\"\n\nShe went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the\nshaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail.\nShe saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the\nhorizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she\nentered the house alone.\n\nIn ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in\nplacing them in his hand, \"Why are you so ready to take these for me?\"\n\n\"Can you ask that?\"\n\n\"I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as\nanxious as ever to help on her marriage?\"\n\nVenn was a little moved. \"I would sooner have married her myself,\" he\nsaid in a low voice. \"But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy\nwithout him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man\nought.\"\n\nEustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What\na strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of\nselfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion,\nand sometimes its only one! The reddleman\'s disinterestedness was so\nwell deserving of respect that it overshot respect by being barely\ncomprehended; and she almost thought it absurd.\n\n\"Then we are both of one mind at last,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Venn gloomily. \"But if you would tell me, miss, why you\ntake such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and\nstrange.\"\n\nEustacia appeared at a loss. \"I cannot tell you that, reddleman,\" she\nsaid coldly.\n\nVenn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia, went\naway.\n\nRainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the\nlong acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from\nthe earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia\'s emissary.\nHe slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and\nex-engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel\'s spear.\n\n\"The meeting is always at eight o\'clock, at this place,\" said Venn, \"and\nhere we are--we three.\"\n\n\"We three?\" said Wildeve, looking quickly round.\n\n\"Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she.\" He held up the letter and\nparcel.\n\nWildeve took them wonderingly. \"I don\'t quite see what this means,\" he\nsaid. \"How do you come here? There must be some mistake.\"\n\n\"It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter.\nLanterns for one.\" The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of\ntallow-candle which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.\n\n\"Who are you?\" said Wildeve, discerning by the candle-light an obscure\nrubicundity of person in his companion. \"You are the reddleman I saw on\nthe hill this morning--why, you are the man who----\"\n\n\"Please read the letter.\"\n\n\"If you had come from the other one I shouldn\'t have been surprised,\"\nmurmured Wildeve as he opened the letter and read. His face grew\nserious.\n\n\nTO MR. WILDEVE.\n\nAfter some thought I have decided once and for all that we must hold\nno further communication. The more I consider the matter the more I am\nconvinced that there must be an end to our acquaintance. Had you been\nuniformly faithful to me throughout these two years you might now have\nsome ground for accusing me of heartlessness; but if you calmly consider\nwhat I bore during the period of your desertion, and how I passively put\nup with your courtship of another without once interfering, you will, I\nthink, own that I have a right to consult my own feelings when you come\nback to me again. That these are not what they were towards you may,\nperhaps, be a fault in me, but it is one which you can scarcely reproach\nme for when you remember how you left me for Thomasin.\n\nThe little articles you gave me in the early part of our friendship are\nreturned by the bearer of this letter. They should rightly have been\nsent back when I first heard of your engagement to her.\n\nEUSTACIA.\n\n\n\nBy the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which he\nhad read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification. \"I\nam made a great fool of, one way and another,\" he said pettishly. \"Do\nyou know what is in this letter?\"\n\nThe reddleman hummed a tune.\n\n\"Can\'t you answer me?\" asked Wildeve warmly.\n\n\"Ru-um-tum-tum,\" sang the reddleman.\n\nWildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn\'s feet, till he allowed\nhis eyes to travel upwards over Diggory\'s form, as illuminated by the\ncandle, to his head and face. \"Ha-ha! Well, I suppose I deserve it,\nconsidering how I have played with them both,\" he said at last, as much\nto himself as to Venn. \"But of all the odd things that ever I knew, the\noddest is that you should so run counter to your own interests as to\nbring this to me.\"\n\n\"My interests?\"\n\n\"Certainly. \'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send me\ncourting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something like it.\nMrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. \'Tisn\'t true, then?\"\n\n\"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn\'t believe it. When did she\nsay so?\"\n\nWildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.\n\n\"I don\'t believe it now,\" cried Venn.\n\n\"Ru-um-tum-tum,\" sang Wildeve.\n\n\"O Lord--how we can imitate!\" said Venn contemptuously. \"I\'ll have this\nout. I\'ll go straight to her.\"\n\nDiggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve\'s eye passing over his\nform in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-cropper.\nWhen the reddleman\'s figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve himself\ndescended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.\n\nTo lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved of both--was too\nironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save himself\nby Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia\'s repentance, he\nthought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It was no wonder that\nWildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of the scene, should have\nsupposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To believe that the letter was\nnot the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave\nhim up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her\ntransfiguration by that man\'s influence. Who was to know that she had\ngrown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one\ncousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to\nappropriate she gave way?\n\nFull of this resolve to marry in haste, and wring the heart of the proud\ngirl, Wildeve went his way.\n\nMeanwhile Diggory Venn had returned to his van, where he stood looking\nthoughtfully into the stove. A new vista was opened up to him. But,\nhowever promising Mrs. Yeobright\'s views of him might be as a candidate\nfor her niece\'s hand, one condition was indispensable to the favour of\nThomasin herself, and that was a renunciation of his present wild mode\nof life. In this he saw little difficulty.\n\nHe could not afford to wait till the next day before seeing Thomasin and\ndetailing his plan. He speedily plunged himself into toilet operations,\npulled a suit of cloth clothes from a box, and in about twenty minutes\nstood before the van-lantern as a reddleman in nothing but his face, the\nvermilion shades of which were not to be removed in a day. Closing the\ndoor and fastening it with a padlock, Venn set off towards Blooms-End.\n\nHe had reached the white palings and laid his hand upon the gate when\nthe door of the house opened, and quickly closed again. A female form\nhad glided in. At the same time a man, who had seemingly been standing\nwith the woman in the porch, came forward from the house till he was\nface to face with Venn. It was Wildeve again.\n\n\"Man alive, you\'ve been quick at it,\" said Diggory sarcastically.\n\n\"And you slow, as you will find,\" said Wildeve. \"And,\" lowering his\nvoice, \"you may as well go back again now. I\'ve claimed her, and got\nher. Good night, reddleman!\" Thereupon Wildeve walked away.\n\nVenn\'s heart sank within him, though it had not risen unduly high.\nHe stood leaning over the palings in an indecisive mood for nearly a\nquarter of an hour. Then he went up the garden path, knocked, and asked\nfor Mrs. Yeobright.\n\nInstead of requesting him to enter she came to the porch. A discourse\nwas carried on between them in low measured tones for the space of ten\nminutes or more. At the end of the time Mrs. Yeobright went in, and Venn\nsadly retraced his steps into the heath. When he had again regained his\nvan he lit the lantern, and with an apathetic face at once began to pull\noff his best clothes, till in the course of a few minutes he reappeared\nas the confirmed and irretrievable reddleman that he had seemed before.\n\n\n\n\n8--Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart\n\n\nOn that evening the interior of Blooms-End, though cosy and comfortable,\nhad been rather silent. Clym Yeobright was not at home. Since the\nChristmas party he had gone on a few days\' visit to a friend about ten\nmiles off.\n\nThe shadowy form seen by Venn to part from Wildeve in the porch, and\nquickly withdraw into the house, was Thomasin\'s. On entering she threw\ndown a cloak which had been carelessly wrapped round her, and came\nforward to the light, where Mrs. Yeobright sat at her work-table,\ndrawn up within the settle, so that part of it projected into the\nchimney-corner.\n\n\"I don\'t like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin,\" said her aunt\nquietly, without looking up from her work.\n\n\"I have only been just outside the door.\"\n\n\"Well?\" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of\nThomasin\'s voice, and observing her. Thomasin\'s cheek was flushed to a\npitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and her\neyes glittered.\n\n\"It was HE who knocked,\" she said.\n\n\"I thought as much.\"\n\n\"He wishes the marriage to be at once.\"\n\n\"Indeed! What--is he anxious?\" Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching look\nupon her niece. \"Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?\"\n\n\"He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would\nlike the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the\nchurch of his parish--not at ours.\"\n\n\"Oh! And what did you say?\"\n\n\"I agreed to it,\" Thomasin answered firmly. \"I am a practical woman\nnow. I don\'t believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any\ncircumstances since--since Clym\'s letter.\"\n\nA letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright\'s work-basket, and at Thomasin\'s\nwords her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that\nday:--\n\n\n\nWhat is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating\nabout Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal humiliating\nif there was the least chance of its being true. How could such a gross\nfalsehood have arisen? It is said that one should go abroad to hear news\nof home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I contradict the\ntale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how it could have\noriginated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so\nmortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. What has she done?\n\n\n\n\"Yes,\" Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. \"If you\nthink you can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to be\nunceremonious, let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your\nown hands now. My power over your welfare came to an end when you\nleft this house to go with him to Anglebury.\" She continued, half in\nbitterness, \"I may almost ask, why do you consult me in the matter at\nall? If you had gone and married him without saying a word to me, I\ncould hardly have been angry--simply because, poor girl, you can\'t do a\nbetter thing.\"\n\n\"Don\'t say that and dishearten me.\"\n\n\"You are right--I will not.\"\n\n\"I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a\nblind woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don\'t\nnow. But I know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the\nbest.\"\n\n\"And so do I, and we will both continue to,\" said Mrs. Yeobright, rising\nand kissing her. \"Then the wedding, if it comes off, will be on the\nmorning of the very day Clym comes home?\"\n\n\"Yes. I decided that it ought to be over before he came. After that you\ncan look him in the face, and so can I. Our concealments will matter\nnothing.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright moved her head in thoughtful assent, and presently said,\n\"Do you wish me to give you away? I am willing to undertake that, you\nknow, if you wish, as I was last time. After once forbidding the banns I\nthink I can do no less.\"\n\n\"I don\'t think I will ask you to come,\" said Thomasin reluctantly, but\nwith decision. \"It would be unpleasant, I am almost sure. Better let\nthere be only strangers present, and none of my relations at all. I\nwould rather have it so. I do not wish to do anything which may touch\nyour credit, and I feel that I should be uncomfortable if you were\nthere, after what has passed. I am only your niece, and there is no\nnecessity why you should concern yourself more about me.\"\n\n\"Well, he has beaten us,\" her aunt said. \"It really seems as if he had\nbeen playing with you in this way in revenge for my humbling him as I\ndid by standing up against him at first.\"\n\n\"O no, Aunt,\" murmured Thomasin.\n\nThey said no more on the subject then. Diggory Venn\'s knock came soon\nafter; and Mrs. Yeobright, on returning from her interview with him in\nthe porch, carelessly observed, \"Another lover has come to ask for you.\"\n\n\"No?\"\n\n\"Yes, that queer young man Venn.\"\n\n\"Asks to pay his addresses to me?\"\n\n\"Yes; and I told him he was too late.\"\n\nThomasin looked silently into the candle-flame. \"Poor Diggory!\" she\nsaid, and then aroused herself to other things.\n\nThe next day was passed in mere mechanical deeds of preparation, both\nthe women being anxious to immerse themselves in these to escape the\nemotional aspect of the situation. Some wearing apparel and other\narticles were collected anew for Thomasin, and remarks on domestic\ndetails were frequently made, so as to obscure any inner misgivings\nabout her future as Wildeve\'s wife.\n\nThe appointed morning came. The arrangement with Wildeve was that he\nshould meet her at the church to guard against any unpleasant curiosity\nwhich might have affected them had they been seen walking off together\nin the usual country way.\n\nAunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride was\ndressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin\'s\nhair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a\ncalendar system--the more important the day the more numerous the\nstrands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes;\non ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings, gipsyings, and the like,\nshe braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married\nshe would braid it in sevens. She had braided it in sevens today.\n\n\"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all,\" she\nsaid. \"It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad\nabout the time. I mean,\" she added, anxious to correct any wrong\nimpression, \"not sad in itself, but in its having had great\ndisappointment and trouble before it.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh. \"I\nalmost wish Clym had been at home,\" she said. \"Of course you chose the\ntime because of his absence.\"\n\n\"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him\nall; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry out\nthe plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was clear.\"\n\n\"You are a practical little woman,\" said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling. \"I\nwish you and he--no, I don\'t wish anything. There, it is nine o\'clock,\"\nshe interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.\n\n\"I told Damon I would leave at nine,\" said Thomasin, hastening out of\nthe room.\n\nHer aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from the\ndoor to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at her, and\nsaid, \"It is a shame to let you go alone.\"\n\n\"It is necessary,\" said Thomasin.\n\n\"At any rate,\" added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, \"I shall\ncall upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym has\nreturned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show Mr.\nWildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten. Well,\nGod bless you! There, I don\'t believe in old superstitions, but I\'ll\ndo it.\" She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of the girl, who\nturned, smiled, and went on again.\n\nA few steps further, and she looked back. \"Did you call me, Aunt?\" she\ntremulously inquired. \"Good-bye!\"\n\nMoved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs. Yeobright\'s\nworn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came forward, and they met\nagain. \"O--Tamsie,\" said the elder, weeping, \"I don\'t like to let you\ngo.\"\n\n\"I--I am--\" Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her\ngrief, she said \"Good-bye!\" again and went on.\n\nThen Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the\nscratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a pale-blue\nspot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and undefended except by\nthe power of her own hope.\n\nBut the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in the\nlandscape; it was the man.\n\nThe hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so\ntimed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her cousin\nClym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the partial truth\nof what he had heard would be distressing as long as the humiliating\nposition resulting from the event was unimproved. It was only after a\nsecond and successful journey to the altar that she could lift up her\nhead and prove the failure of the first attempt a pure accident.\n\nShe had not been gone from Blooms-End more than half an hour when\nYeobright came by the meads from the other direction and entered the\nhouse.\n\n\"I had an early breakfast,\" he said to his mother after greeting her.\n\"Now I could eat a little more.\"\n\nThey sat down to the repeated meal, and he went on in a low, anxious\nvoice, apparently imagining that Thomasin had not yet come downstairs,\n\"What\'s this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?\"\n\n\"It is true in many points,\" said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; \"but it is all\nright now, I hope.\" She looked at the clock.\n\n\"True?\"\n\n\"Thomasin is gone to him today.\"\n\nClym pushed away his breakfast. \"Then there is a scandal of some sort,\nand that\'s what\'s the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made her\nill?\"\n\n\"Yes. Not a scandal--a misfortune. I will tell you all about it, Clym.\nYou must not be angry, but you must listen, and you\'ll find that what we\nhave done has been done for the best.\"\n\nShe then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the affair\nbefore he returned from Paris was that there had existed an\nattachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first\ndiscountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin,\nlooked upon in a little more favourable light. When she, therefore,\nproceeded to explain all he was greatly surprised and troubled.\n\n\"And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came\nback,\" said Mrs. Yeobright, \"that there might be no chance of her\nmeeting you, and having a very painful time of it. That\'s why she has\ngone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning.\"\n\n\"But I can\'t understand it,\" said Yeobright, rising. \"\'Tis so unlike\nher. I can see why you did not write to me after her unfortunate return\nhome. But why didn\'t you let me know when the wedding was going to\nbe--the first time?\"\n\n\"Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be\nobstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed\nthat she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my\nniece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no\ninterest in it, and should not bother you about it either.\"\n\n\"It wouldn\'t have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong.\"\n\n\"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might\nthrow up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because of\nit, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time in a\nproper manner, I should have told you at once.\"\n\n\"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!\"\n\n\"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It\nmay, considering he\'s the same man.\"\n\n\"Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve\nis really a bad fellow?\"\n\n\"Then he won\'t come, and she\'ll come home again.\"\n\n\"You should have looked more into it.\"\n\n\"It is useless to say that,\" his mother answered with an impatient look\nof sorrow. \"You don\'t know how bad it has been here with us all these\nweeks, Clym. You don\'t know what a mortification anything of that sort\nis to a woman. You don\'t know the sleepless nights we\'ve had in this\nhouse, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since\nthat Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.\nTamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look\nanybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only\nthing that can be done to set that trouble straight.\"\n\n\"No,\" he said slowly. \"Upon the whole I don\'t blame you. But just\nconsider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and\nthen I am told all at once that Tamsie is gone to be married. Well,\nI suppose there was nothing better to do. Do you know, Mother,\" he\ncontinued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own\npast history, \"I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart? Yes, I did. How\nodd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time she seemed so\nmuch more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of those\ndays, particularly on the night of the party, when she was unwell. We\nhad the party just the same--was not that rather cruel to her?\"\n\n\"It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not worth\nwhile to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting ourselves\nup and telling you of Tamsin\'s misfortunes would have been a poor sort\nof welcome.\"\n\nClym remained thinking. \"I almost wish you had not had that party,\" he\nsaid; \"and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We\nmust think of Tamsin now.\"\n\nThey lapsed into silence. \"I\'ll tell you what,\" said Yeobright again,\nin a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. \"I don\'t think it\nkind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us there\nto keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn\'t disgraced\nherself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough that the\nwedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our keeping away\nfrom it in addition. Upon my soul, \'tis almost a shame. I\'ll go.\"\n\n\"It is over by this time,\" said his mother with a sigh; \"unless they\nwere late, or he--\"\n\n\"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don\'t quite like\nyour keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope he\nhas failed to meet her!\"\n\n\"And ruined her character?\"\n\n\"Nonsense--that wouldn\'t ruin Thomasin.\"\n\nHe took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked\nrather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long\nleft alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company\ncame Diggory Venn.\n\n\"I find there isn\'t time for me to get there,\" said Clym.\n\n\"Is she married?\" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a\nface in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.\n\nVenn bowed. \"She is, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"How strange it sounds,\" murmured Clym.\n\n\"And he didn\'t disappoint her this time?\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening\nath\'art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there.\"\n\n\"How came you to be there? How did you know it?\" she asked.\n\n\"I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go in,\"\nsaid the reddleman. \"Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as the clock.\nI didn\'t expect it of him.\" He did not add, as he might have added, that\nhow he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by accident; that,\nsince Wildeve\'s resumption of his right to Thomasin, Venn, with the\nthoroughness which was part of his character, had determined to see the\nend of the episode.\n\n\"Who was there?\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see me.\"\nThe reddleman spoke huskily, and looked into the garden.\n\n\"Who gave her away?\"\n\n\"Miss Vye.\"\n\n\"How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I\nsuppose?\"\n\n\"Who\'s Miss Vye?\" said Clym.\n\n\"Captain Vye\'s granddaughter, of Mistover Knap.\"\n\n\"A proud girl from Budmouth,\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"One not much to my\nliking. People say she\'s a witch, but of course that\'s absurd.\"\n\nThe reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair personage,\nand also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch her, in\naccordance with a promise he had given as soon as he learnt that the\nmarriage was to take place. He merely said, in continuation of the\nstory----\n\n\"I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one\nway, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts,\nlooking at the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the\ndoor, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled\noff my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery. I\nsaw then that the parson and clerk were already there.\"\n\n\"How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a\nwalk that way?\"\n\n\"Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just before\nme, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before beginning, and\nas she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she went up to the\nrails. After that, when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her\nveil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness.\" The\nreddleman told the tale thoughtfully for there lingered upon his vision\nthe changing colour of Wildeve, when Eustacia lifted the thick veil\nwhich had concealed her from recognition and looked calmly into his\nface. \"And then,\" said Diggory sadly, \"I came away, for her history as\nTamsin Yeobright was over.\"\n\n\"I offered to go,\" said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. \"But she said it was\nnot necessary.\"\n\n\"Well, it is no matter,\" said the reddleman. \"The thing is done at last\nas it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now I\'ll\nwish you good morning.\"\n\nHe placed his cap on his head and went out.\n\nFrom that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright\'s door, the reddleman was\nseen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He\nvanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been\nstanding was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign\nremained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a\nlittle redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of\nrain.\n\nThe report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as it\nwent, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him\nthrough his being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin\nwas tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards\nEustacia a glance that said plainly, \"I have punished you now.\" She had\nreplied in a low tone--and he little thought how truly--\"You mistake; it\ngives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THREE -- THE FASCINATION\n\n\n\n\n1--\"My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is\"\n\n\nIn Clym Yeobright\'s face could be dimly seen the typical countenance\nof the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its\nPheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be put\nup with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early\ncivilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution\nof the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted\nas a new artistic departure. People already feel that a man who lives\nwithout disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark of mental\nconcern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed from modern\nperceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful men--the glory\nof the race when it was young--are almost an anachronism now; and we may\nwonder whether, at some time or other, physically beautiful women may\nnot be an anachronism likewise.\n\nThe truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has\npermanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may\nbe called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their\nAeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned\nrevelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we\nuncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man is in\nby their operation.\n\nThe lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this new\nrecognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The observer\'s\neye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a\npage; not by what it was, but by what it recorded. His features were\nattractive in the light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically common\nbecome attractive in language, and as shapes intrinsically simple become\ninteresting in writing.\n\nHe had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all had\nbeen chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or that he\nwould go to the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable. The\nonly absolute certainty about him was that he would not stand still in\nthe circumstances amid which he was born.\n\nHence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen,\nthe listener said, \"Ah, Clym Yeobright--what is he doing now?\" When the\ninstinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is\nfelt that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in\nparticular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some\nregion of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing\nwell. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen\ncomfortable market-men, who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman\nas they passed by in their carts, were partial to the topic. In fact,\nthough they were not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid it while they\nsucked their long clay tubes and regarded the heath through the window.\nClym had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly\nanybody could look upon it without thinking of him. So the subject\nrecurred: if he were making a fortune and a name, so much the better\nfor him; if he were making a tragical figure in the world, so much the\nbetter for a narrative.\n\nThe fact was that Yeobright\'s fame had spread to an awkward extent\nbefore he left home. \"It is bad when your fame outruns your means,\" said\nthe Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a Scripture\nriddle: \"Who was the first man known to wear breeches?\" and applause\nhad resounded from the very verge of the heath. At seven he painted the\nBattle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and black-currant juice, in\nthe absence of water-colours. By the time he reached twelve he had in\nthis manner been heard of as artist and scholar for at least two miles\nround. An individual whose fame spreads three or four thousand yards in\nthe time taken by the fame of others similarly situated to travel six or\neight hundred, must of necessity have something in him. Possibly Clym\'s\nfame, like Homer\'s, owed something to the accidents of his situation;\nnevertheless famous he was.\n\nHe grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which\nstarted Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a\nsurgeon, and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banished\nthe wild and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was with\nthe especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory.\n\nThe details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessary\nto give. At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman had kindly\nundertaken to give the boy a start, and this assumed the form of sending\nhim to Budmouth. Yeobright did not wish to go there, but it was the only\nfeasible opening. Thence he went to London; and thence, shortly after,\nto Paris, where he had remained till now.\n\nSomething being expected of him, he had not been at home many days\nbefore a great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began to arise\nin the heath. The natural term of a holiday had passed, yet he still\nremained. On the Sunday morning following the week of Thomasin\'s\nmarriage a discussion on this subject was in progress at a hair-cutting\nbefore Fairway\'s house. Here the local barbering was always done at\nthis hour on this day, to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the\ninhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great Sunday\ndressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday proper did not begin till\ndinner-time, and even then it was a somewhat battered specimen of the\nday.\n\nThese Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the victim\nsitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a coat, and\nthe neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of hair as\nthey rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out of sight to\nthe four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the scene was the\nsame, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous, when the stool\nwas shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain of cold in sitting\nout of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway told true stories\nbetween the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce yourself\nno man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle of the face at\nthe small stabs under the ear received from those instruments, or at\nscarifications of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross\nbreach of good manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing.\nA bleeding about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply accounted for\nby the explanation. \"I have had my hair cut, you know.\"\n\nThe conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view of the\nyoung man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.\n\n\"A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn\'t bide here two or three weeks\nfor nothing,\" said Fairway. \"He\'s got some project in \'s head--depend\nupon that.\"\n\n\"Well, \'a can\'t keep a diment shop here,\" said Sam.\n\n\"I don\'t see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he had\nnot been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the Lord in\nheaven knows.\"\n\nBefore many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come near;\nand seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them. Marching\nup, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, he said, without\nintroduction, \"Now, folks, let me guess what you have been talking\nabout.\"\n\n\"Ay, sure, if you will,\" said Sam.\n\n\"About me.\"\n\n\"Now, it is a thing I shouldn\'t have dreamed of doing, otherwise,\" said\nFairway in a tone of integrity; \"but since you have named it, Master\nYeobright, I\'ll own that we was talking about \'ee. We were wondering\nwhat could keep you home here mollyhorning about when you have made such\na world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack trade--now, that\'s the\ntruth o\'t.\"\n\n\"I\'ll tell you,\" said Yeobright with unexpected earnestness. \"I am\nnot sorry to have the opportunity. I\'ve come home because, all things\nconsidered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else. But\nI have only lately found this out. When I first got away from home I\nthought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought our life\nhere was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking them, to\ndust your coat with a switch instead of a brush--was there ever anything\nmore ridiculous? I said.\"\n\n\"So \'tis; so \'tis!\"\n\n\"No, no--you are wrong; it isn\'t.\"\n\n\"Beg your pardon, we thought that was your meaning?\"\n\n\"Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found\nthat I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common\nwith myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for another\nsort of life, which was not better than the life I had known before. It\nwas simply different.\"\n\n\"True; a sight different,\" said Fairway.\n\n\"Yes, Paris must be a taking place,\" said Humphrey. \"Grand shop-winders,\ntrumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all winds and\nweathers--\"\n\n\"But you mistake me,\" pleaded Clym. \"All this was very depressing. But\nnot so depressing as something I next perceived--that my business was\nthe idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man could\nbe put to. That decided me--I would give it up and try to follow some\nrational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could\nbe of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out\nmy plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to be\nable to walk over here and have a night-school in my mother\'s house.\nBut I must study a little at first, to get properly qualified. Now,\nneighbours, I must go.\"\n\nAnd Clym resumed his walk across the heath.\n\n\"He\'ll never carry it out in the world,\" said Fairway. \"In a few weeks\nhe\'ll learn to see things otherwise.\"\n\n\"\'Tis good-hearted of the young man,\" said another. \"But, for my part, I\nthink he had better mind his business.\"\n\n\n\n\n2--The New Course Causes Disappointment\n\n\nYeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most men\nwas knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence. He\nwished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than\nindividuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready at\nonce to be the first unit sacrificed.\n\nIn passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate\nstages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of those\nstages is almost sure to be worldly advanced. We can hardly imagine\nbucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without imagining\nsocial aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright\'s local peculiarity was\nthat in striving at high thinking he still cleaved to plain living--nay,\nwild and meagre living in many respects, and brotherliness with clowns.\n\nHe was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance\nfor his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was in\nmany points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date. Much of\nthis development he may have owed to his studious life in Paris, where\nhe had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at the time.\n\nIn consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might\nhave been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him. A\nman should be only partially before his time--to be completely to the\nvanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip\'s warlike son been\nintellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without\nbloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but\nnobody would have heard of an Alexander.\n\nIn the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in the\ncapacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded\nbecause the doctrine they bring into form is that which their listeners\nhave for some time felt without being able to shape. A man who advocates\naesthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only likely to be\nunderstood by a class to which social effort has become a stale matter.\nTo argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the bucolic\nworld may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a sequence\nto which humanity has been long accustomed. Yeobright preaching to\nthe Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene comprehensiveness\nwithout going through the process of enriching themselves was not unlike\narguing to ancient Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the pure\nempyrean it was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heaven\nof ether.\n\nWas Yeobright\'s mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind is\none which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that\nit will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a\nheretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it\nwill never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest,\nor exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.\nIt produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft\nof North, the spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors to\nfind their way to wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off the\nstage, to die comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monument\nwhich, in many cases, they deserve. It never would have allowed\nYeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business to\nbenefit his fellow-creatures.\n\nHe walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone knew\nthe heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with its\nsubstance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. His\neyes had first opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images\nof his memory were mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured by\nit: his toys had been the flint knives and arrow-heads which he found\nthere, wondering why stones should \"grow\" to such odd shapes; his\nflowers, the purple bells and yellow furze: his animal kingdom, the\nsnakes and croppers; his society, its human haunters. Take all the\nvarying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translate\nthem into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon the wide\nprospect as he walked, and was glad.\n\nTo many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its\ncentury generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this.\nIt was an obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could this\nbe otherwise in the days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows\nwatered on a plan so rectangular that on a fine day they looked like\nsilver gridirons? The farmer, in his ride, who could smile at artificial\ngrasses, look with solicitude at the coming corn, and sigh with sadness\nat the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon the distant upland of heath\nnothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright, when he looked\nfrom the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a barbarous\nsatisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at reclamation\nfrom the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or two, had receded\nagain in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reasserting\nthemselves.\n\nHe descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at Blooms-End.\nHis mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants. She looked\nup at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his long stay with\nher; her face had worn that look for several days. He could perceive\nthat the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-cutting group\namounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no question with\nher lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested that he was not\ngoing to leave her soon. Her silence besought an explanation of him more\nloudly than words.\n\n\"I am not going back to Paris again, Mother,\" he said. \"At least, in my\nold capacity. I have given up the business.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright turned in pained surprise. \"I thought something was\namiss, because of the boxes. I wonder you did not tell me sooner.\"\n\n\"I ought to have done it. But I have been in doubt whether you would be\npleased with my plan. I was not quite clear on a few points myself. I am\ngoing to take an entirely new course.\"\n\n\"I am astonished, Clym. How can you want to do better than you\'ve been\ndoing?\"\n\n\"Very easily. But I shall not do better in the way you mean; I suppose\nit will be called doing worse. But I hate that business of mine, and I\nwant to do some worthy thing before I die. As a schoolmaster I think\nto do it--a school-master to the poor and ignorant, to teach them what\nnobody else will.\"\n\n\"After all the trouble that has been taken to give you a start, and when\nthere is nothing to do but to keep straight on towards affluence, you\nsay you will be a poor man\'s schoolmaster. Your fancies will be your\nruin, Clym.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright spoke calmly, but the force of feeling behind the words\nwas but too apparent to one who knew her as well as her son did. He did\nnot answer. There was in his face that hopelessness of being understood\nwhich comes when the objector is constitutionally beyond the reach of\na logic that, even under favouring conditions, is almost too coarse a\nvehicle for the subtlety of the argument.\n\nNo more was said on the subject till the end of dinner. His mother then\nbegan, as if there had been no interval since the morning. \"It disturbs\nme, Clym, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those. I\nhadn\'t the least idea that you meant to go backward in the world by your\nown free choice. Of course, I have always supposed you were going to\npush straight on, as other men do--all who deserve the name--when they\nhave been put in a good way of doing well.\"\n\n\"I cannot help it,\" said Clym, in a troubled tone. \"Mother, I hate\nthe flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man\ndeserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees\nhalf the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and teach\nthem how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every morning\nand see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, as St. Paul\nsays, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering splendours with\nwealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to the meanest\nvanities--I, who have health and strength enough for anything. I have\nbeen troubled in my mind about it all the year, and the end is that I\ncannot do it any more.\"\n\n\"Why can\'t you do it as well as others?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know, except that there are many things other people care for\nwhich I don\'t; and that\'s partly why I think I ought to do this. For one\nthing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy delicacies;\ngood things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that defect to\nadvantage, and by being able to do without what other people require I\ncan spend what such things cost upon anybody else.\"\n\nNow, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from the\nwoman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her through\nher feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might for his\ngood. She spoke with less assurance. \"And yet you might have been a\nwealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large diamond\nestablishment--what better can a man wish for? What a post of trust\nand respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him, you are\ngetting weary of doing well.\"\n\n\"No,\" said her son, \"I am not weary of that, though I am weary of what\nyou mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready\ndefinitions, and, like the \"What is wisdom?\" of Plato\'s Socrates, and\nthe \"What is truth?\" of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright\'s burning question\nreceived no answer.\n\nThe silence was broken by the clash of the garden gate, a tap at the\ndoor, and its opening. Christian Cantle appeared in the room in his\nSunday clothes.\n\nIt was the custom on Egdon to begin the preface to a story before\nabsolutely entering the house, so as to be well in for the body of the\nnarrative by the time visitor and visited stood face to face. Christian\nhad been saying to them while the door was leaving its latch, \"To think\nthat I, who go from home but once in a while, and hardly then, should\nhave been there this morning!\"\n\n\"\'Tis news you have brought us, then, Christian?\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"Ay, sure, about a witch, and ye must overlook my time o\' day; for, says\nI, \'I must go and tell \'em, though they won\'t have half done dinner.\' I\nassure ye it made me shake like a driven leaf. Do ye think any harm will\ncome o\'t?\"\n\n\"Well--what?\"\n\n\"This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa\'son said,\n\'Let us pray.\' \'Well,\' thinks I, \'one may as well kneel as stand\'; so\ndown I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to oblige\nthe man as I. We hadn\'t been hard at it for more than a minute when a\nmost terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody had just\ngied up their heart\'s blood. All the folk jumped up and then we found\nthat Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long stocking-needle, as\nshe had threatened to do as soon as ever she could get the young lady to\nchurch, where she don\'t come very often. She\'ve waited for this chance\nfor weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an end to the bewitching of\nSusan\'s children that has been carried on so long. Sue followed her into\nchurch, sat next to her, and as soon as she could find a chance in went\nthe stocking-needle into my lady\'s arm.\"\n\n\"Good heaven, how horrid!\" said Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"Sue pricked her that deep that the maid fainted away; and as I was\nafeard there might be some tumult among us, I got behind the bass viol\nand didn\'t see no more. But they carried her out into the air, \'tis\nsaid; but when they looked round for Sue she was gone. What a scream\nthat girl gied, poor thing! There were the pa\'son in his surplice\nholding up his hand and saying, \'Sit down, my good people, sit down!\'\nBut the deuce a bit would they sit down. O, and what d\'ye think I\nfound out, Mrs. Yeobright? The pa\'son wears a suit of clothes under his\nsurplice!--I could see his black sleeves when he held up his arm.\"\n\n\"\'Tis a cruel thing,\" said Yeobright.\n\n\"Yes,\" said his mother.\n\n\"The nation ought to look into it,\" said Christian. \"Here\'s Humphrey\ncoming, I think.\"\n\nIn came Humphrey. \"Well, have ye heard the news? But I see you have.\n\'Tis a very strange thing that whenever one of Egdon folk goes to church\nsome rum job or other is sure to be doing. The last time one of us was\nthere was when neighbour Fairway went in the fall; and that was the day\nyou forbad the banns, Mrs. Yeobright.\"\n\n\"Has this cruelly treated girl been able to walk home?\" said Clym.\n\n\"They say she got better, and went home very well. And now I\'ve told it\nI must be moving homeward myself.\"\n\n\"And I,\" said Humphrey. \"Truly now we shall see if there\'s anything in\nwhat folks say about her.\"\n\nWhen they were gone into the heath again Yeobright said quietly to his\nmother, \"Do you think I have turned teacher too soon?\"\n\n\"It is right that there should be schoolmasters, and missionaries, and\nall such men,\" she replied. \"But it is right, too, that I should try to\nlift you out of this life into something richer, and that you should not\ncome back again, and be as if I had not tried at all.\"\n\n\nLater in the day Sam, the turf-cutter, entered. \"I\'ve come a-borrowing,\nMrs. Yeobright. I suppose you have heard what\'s been happening to the\nbeauty on the hill?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sam: half a dozen have been telling us.\"\n\n\"Beauty?\" said Clym.\n\n\"Yes, tolerably well-favoured,\" Sam replied. \"Lord! all the country owns\nthat \'tis one of the strangest things in the world that such a woman\nshould have come to live up there.\"\n\n\"Dark or fair?\"\n\n\"Now, though I\'ve seen her twenty times, that\'s a thing I cannot call to\nmind.\"\n\n\"Darker than Tamsin,\" murmured Mrs. Yeobright.\n\n\"A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say.\"\n\n\"She is melancholy, then?\" inquired Clym.\n\n\"She mopes about by herself, and don\'t mix in with the people.\"\n\n\"Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?\"\n\n\"Not to my knowledge.\"\n\n\"Doesn\'t join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of\nexcitement in this lonely place?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Mumming, for instance?\"\n\n\"No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were far\naway from here, with lords and ladies she\'ll never know, and mansions\nshe\'ll never see again.\"\n\nObserving that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said\nrather uneasily to Sam, \"You see more in her than most of us do. Miss\nVye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that\nshe is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don\'t get\ntreated as witches even on Egdon.\"\n\n\"Nonsense--that proves nothing either way,\" said Yeobright.\n\n\"Well, of course I don\'t understand such niceties,\" said Sam,\nwithdrawing from a possibly unpleasant argument; \"and what she is we\nmust wait for time to tell us. The business that I have really called\nabout is this, to borrow the longest and strongest rope you have. The\ncaptain\'s bucket has dropped into the well, and they are in want of\nwater; and as all the chaps are at home today we think we can get it out\nfor him. We have three cart-ropes already, but they won\'t reach to the\nbottom.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright told him that he might have whatever ropes he could find\nin the outhouse, and Sam went out to search. When he passed by the door\nClym joined him, and accompanied him to the gate.\n\n\"Is this young witch-lady going to stay long at Mistover?\" he asked.\n\n\"I should say so.\"\n\n\"What a cruel shame to ill-use her, She must have suffered greatly--more\nin mind than in body.\"\n\n\"\'Twas a graceless trick--such a handsome girl, too. You ought to see\nher, Mr. Yeobright, being a young man come from far, and with a little\nmore to show for your years than most of us.\"\n\n\"Do you think she would like to teach children?\" said Clym.\n\nSam shook his head. \"Quite a different sort of body from that, I\nreckon.\"\n\n\"O, it was merely something which occurred to me. It would of course be\nnecessary to see her and talk it over--not an easy thing, by the way,\nfor my family and hers are not very friendly.\"\n\n\"I\'ll tell you how you mid see her, Mr. Yeobright,\" said Sam. \"We are\ngoing to grapple for the bucket at six o\'clock tonight at her house, and\nyou could lend a hand. There\'s five or six coming, but the well is deep,\nand another might be useful, if you don\'t mind appearing in that shape.\nShe\'s sure to be walking round.\"\n\n\"I\'ll think of it,\" said Yeobright; and they parted.\n\nHe thought of it a good deal; but nothing more was said about Eustacia\ninside the house at that time. Whether this romantic martyr to\nsuperstition and the melancholy mummer he had conversed with under the\nfull moon were one and the same person remained as yet a problem.\n\n\n\n\n3--The First Act in a Timeworn Drama\n\n\nThe afternoon was fine, and Yeobright walked on the heath for an hour\nwith his mother. When they reached the lofty ridge which divided the\nvalley of Blooms-End from the adjoining valley they stood still and\nlooked round. The Quiet Woman Inn was visible on the low margin of the\nheath in one direction, and afar on the other hand rose Mistover Knap.\n\n\"You mean to call on Thomasin?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Yes. But you need not come this time,\" said his mother.\n\n\"In that case I\'ll branch off here, Mother. I am going to Mistover.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright turned to him inquiringly.\n\n\"I am going to help them get the bucket out of the captain\'s well,\" he\ncontinued. \"As it is so very deep I may be useful. And I should like\nto see this Miss Vye--not so much for her good looks as for another\nreason.\"\n\n\"Must you go?\" his mother asked.\n\n\"I thought to.\"\n\nAnd they parted. \"There is no help for it,\" murmured Clym\'s mother\ngloomily as he withdrew. \"They are sure to see each other. I wish Sam\nwould carry his news to other houses than mine.\"\n\nClym\'s retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and\nfell over the hillocks on his way. \"He is tender-hearted,\" said Mrs.\nYeobright to herself while she watched him; \"otherwise it would matter\nlittle. How he\'s going on!\"\n\nHe was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight as a\nline, as if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long breath,\nand, abandoning the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening films\nbegan to make nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands still\nwere raked by the declining rays of the winter sun, which glanced on\nClym as he walked forward, eyed by every rabbit and field-fare around, a\nlong shadow advancing in front of him.\n\nOn drawing near to the furze-covered bank and ditch which fortified\nthe captain\'s dwelling he could hear voices within, signifying that\noperations had been already begun. At the side-entrance gate he stopped\nand looked over.\n\nHalf a dozen able-bodied men were standing in a line from the\nwell-mouth, holding a rope which passed over the well-roller into the\ndepths below. Fairway, with a piece of smaller rope round his body, made\nfast to one of the standards, to guard against accidents, was leaning\nover the opening, his right hand clasping the vertical rope that\ndescended into the well.\n\n\"Now, silence, folks,\" said Fairway.\n\nThe talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope,\nas if he were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing\nreverberated from the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had\nimparted to the rope had reached the grapnel below.\n\n\"Haul!\" said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather it\nover the wheel.\n\n\"I think we\'ve got sommat,\" said one of the haulers-in.\n\n\"Then pull steady,\" said Fairway.\n\nThey gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well\ncould be heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of the\nbucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled\nin.\n\nFairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering\nit into the well beside the first: Clym came forward and looked down.\nStrange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year,\nand quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern\ndescended; till its rays fell upon a confused mass of rope and bucket\ndangling in the dank, dark air.\n\n\"We\'ve only got en by the edge of the hoop--steady, for God\'s sake!\"\nsaid Fairway.\n\nThey pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared\nabout two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.\nThree or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz\nwent the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of\na falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a\nthunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.\n\n\"Damn the bucket!\" said Fairway.\n\n\"Lower again,\" said Sam.\n\n\"I\'m as stiff as a ram\'s horn stooping so long,\" said Fairway, standing\nup and stretching himself till his joints creaked.\n\n\"Rest a few minutes, Timothy,\" said Yeobright. \"I\'ll take your place.\"\n\nThe grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water\nreached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and\nleaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as\nFairway had done.\n\n\"Tie a rope round him--it is dangerous!\" cried a soft and anxious voice\nsomewhere above them.\n\nEverybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group\nfrom an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the\nwest. Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget\nwhere she was.\n\nThe rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.\nAt the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that\nthey had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The\ntangled mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright\'s\nplace, and the grapnel was lowered again.\n\nYeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood. Of\nthe identity between the lady\'s voice and that of the melancholy\nmummer he had not a moment\'s doubt. \"How thoughtful of her!\" he said to\nhimself.\n\nEustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her\nexclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the\nwindow, though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the\nmen at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap. One\nof them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he wished\nto give for mending the well-tackle. The captain proved to be away from\nhome, and Eustacia appeared at the door and came out. She had lapsed\ninto an easy and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity of life\nin her words of solicitude for Clym\'s safety.\n\n\"Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?\" she inquired.\n\n\"No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can\ndo no more now we\'ll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning.\"\n\n\"No water,\" she murmured, turning away.\n\n\"I can send you up some from Blooms-End,\" said Clym, coming forward and\nraising his hat as the men retired.\n\nYeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each\nhad in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene was\ncommon to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed\nitself to an expression of refinement and warmth; it was like garish\nnoon rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.\n\n\"Thank you; it will hardly be necessary,\" she replied.\n\n\"But if you have no water?\"\n\n\"Well, it is what I call no water,\" she said, blushing, and lifting\nher long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring\nconsideration. \"But my grandfather calls it water enough. I\'ll show you\nwhat I mean.\"\n\nShe moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the\ncorner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the\nboundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange after\nher listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed that her\napparent languor did not arise from lack of force.\n\nClym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top\nof the bank. \"Ashes?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Eustacia. \"We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of\nNovember, and those are the marks of it.\"\n\nOn that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.\n\n\"That\'s the only kind of water we have,\" she continued, tossing a stone\ninto the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of\nan eye without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve\nappeared on the other side, as on a previous occasion there. \"My\ngrandfather says he lived for more than twenty years at sea on water\ntwice as bad as that,\" she went on, \"and considers it quite good enough\nfor us here on an emergency.\"\n\n\"Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of these\npools at this time of the year. It has only just rained into them.\"\n\nShe shook her head. \"I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I\ncannot drink from a pond,\" she said.\n\nClym looked towards the well, which was now deserted, the men having\ngone home. \"It is a long way to send for spring-water,\" he said, after a\nsilence. \"But since you don\'t like this in the pond, I\'ll try to get you\nsome myself.\" He went back to the well. \"Yes, I think I could do it by\ntying on this pail.\"\n\n\"But, since I would not trouble the men to get it, I cannot in\nconscience let you.\"\n\n\"I don\'t mind the trouble at all.\"\n\nHe made fast the pail to the long coil of rope, put it over the wheel,\nand allowed it to descend by letting the rope slip through his hands.\nBefore it had gone far, however, he checked it.\n\n\"I must make fast the end first, or we may lose the whole,\" he said to\nEustacia, who had drawn near. \"Could you hold this a moment, while I do\nit--or shall I call your servant?\"\n\n\"I can hold it,\" said Eustacia; and he placed the rope in her hands,\ngoing then to search for the end.\n\n\"I suppose I may let it slip down?\" she inquired.\n\n\"I would advise you not to let it go far,\" said Clym. \"It will get much\nheavier, you will find.\"\n\nHowever, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried, \"I\ncannot stop it!\"\n\nClym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by twisting\nthe loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a jerk. \"Has\nit hurt you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied.\n\n\"Very much?\"\n\n\"No; I think not.\" She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding; the\nrope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.\n\n\"You should have let go,\" said Yeobright. \"Why didn\'t you?\"\n\n\"You said I was to hold on.... This is the second time I have been\nwounded today.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a\nserious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?\"\n\nThere was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym\'s tone that Eustacia\nslowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright\nred spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.\n\n\"There it is,\" she said, putting her finger against the spot.\n\n\"It was dastardly of the woman,\" said Clym. \"Will not Captain Vye get\nher punished?\"\n\n\"He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had\nsuch a magic reputation.\"\n\n\"And you fainted?\" said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture as\nif he would like to kiss it and make it well.\n\n\"Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And\nnow I shall not go again for ever so long--perhaps never. I cannot face\ntheir eyes after this. Don\'t you think it dreadfully humiliating? I\nwished I was dead for hours after, but I don\'t mind now.\"\n\n\"I have come to clean away these cobwebs,\" said Yeobright. \"Would you\nlike to help me--by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much.\"\n\n\"I don\'t quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my\nfellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.\"\n\n\"Still I think that if you were to hear my scheme you might take an\ninterest in it. There is no use in hating people--if you hate anything,\nyou should hate what produced them.\"\n\n\"Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear\nyour scheme at any time.\"\n\nThe situation had now worked itself out, and the next natural thing was\nfor them to part. Clym knew this well enough, and Eustacia made a move\nof conclusion; yet he looked at her as if he had one word more to say.\nPerhaps if he had not lived in Paris it would never have been uttered.\n\n\"We have met before,\" he said, regarding her with rather more interest\nthan was necessary.\n\n\"I do not own it,\" said Eustacia, with a repressed, still look.\n\n\"But I may think what I like.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You are lonely here.\"\n\n\"I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath is a\ncruel taskmaster to me.\"\n\n\"Can you say so?\" he asked. \"To my mind it is most exhilarating, and\nstrengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills than\nanywhere else in the world.\"\n\n\"It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw.\"\n\n\"And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there.\" He threw a\npebble in the direction signified. \"Do you often go to see it?\"\n\n\"I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone. I\nam aware that there are boulevards in Paris.\"\n\nYeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. \"That means much,\" he said.\n\n\"It does indeed,\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years of a\ngreat city would be a perfect cure for that.\"\n\n\"Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors and\nplaster my wounded hand.\"\n\nThey separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She\nseemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.\nThe effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till some\ntime after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation was\nthat his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman had been\nintertwined with it.\n\nOn reaching the house he went up to the room which was to be made his\nstudy, and occupied himself during the evening in unpacking his books\nfrom the boxes and arranging them on shelves. From another box he drew\na lamp and a can of oil. He trimmed the lamp, arranged his table, and\nsaid, \"Now, I am ready to begin.\"\n\nHe rose early the next morning, read two hours before breakfast by the\nlight of his lamp--read all the morning, all the afternoon. Just when\nthe sun was going down his eyes felt weary, and he leant back in his\nchair.\n\nHis room overlooked the front of the premises and the valley of the\nheath beyond. The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of the\nhouse over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and far\nup the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the surrounding\ntree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs. Having been seated at\nwork all day, he decided to take a turn upon the hills before it got\ndark; and, going out forthwith, he struck across the heath towards\nMistover.\n\nIt was an hour and a half later when he again appeared at the garden\ngate. The shutters of the house were closed, and Christian Cantle, who\nhad been wheeling manure about the garden all day, had gone home. On\nentering he found that his mother, after waiting a long time for him,\nhad finished her meal.\n\n\"Where have you been, Clym?\" she immediately said. \"Why didn\'t you tell\nme that you were going away at this time?\"\n\n\"I have been on the heath.\"\n\n\"You\'ll meet Eustacia Vye if you go up there.\"\n\nClym paused a minute. \"Yes, I met her this evening,\" he said, as though\nit were spoken under the sheer necessity of preserving honesty.\n\n\"I wondered if you had.\"\n\n\"It was no appointment.\"\n\n\"No; such meetings never are.\"\n\n\"But you are not angry, Mother?\"\n\n\"I can hardly say that I am not. Angry? No. But when I consider the\nusual nature of the drag which causes men of promise to disappoint the\nworld I feel uneasy.\"\n\n\"You deserve credit for the feeling, Mother. But I can assure you that\nyou need not be disturbed by it on my account.\"\n\n\"When I think of you and your new crotchets,\" said Mrs. Yeobright,\nwith some emphasis, \"I naturally don\'t feel so comfortable as I did a\ntwelvemonth ago. It is incredible to me that a man accustomed to the\nattractive women of Paris and elsewhere should be so easily worked upon\nby a girl in a heath. You could just as well have walked another way.\"\n\n\"I had been studying all day.\"\n\n\"Well, yes,\" she added more hopefully, \"I have been thinking that you\nmight get on as a schoolmaster, and rise that way, since you really are\ndetermined to hate the course you were pursuing.\"\n\nYeobright was unwilling to disturb this idea, though his scheme was far\nenough removed from one wherein the education of youth should be made\na mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had\nreached the stage in a young man\'s life when the grimness of the general\nhuman situation first becomes clear; and the realization of this causes\nambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to commit\nsuicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much worse, as\nthe case may be.\n\nThe love between the young man and his mother was strangely invisible\nnow. Of love it may be said, the less earthly the less demonstrative. In\nits absolutely indestructible form it reaches a profundity in which all\nexhibition of itself is painful. It was so with these. Had conversations\nbetween them been overheard, people would have said, \"How cold they are\nto each other!\"\n\nHis theory and his wishes about devoting his future to teaching had made\nan impression on Mrs. Yeobright. Indeed, how could it be otherwise\nwhen he was a part of her--when their discourses were as if carried on\nbetween the right and the left hands of the same body? He had despaired\nof reaching her by argument; and it was almost as a discovery to him\nthat he could reach her by a magnetism which was as superior to words as\nwords are to yells.\n\nStrangely enough he began to feel now that it would not be so hard\nto persuade her who was his best friend that comparative poverty was\nessentially the higher course for him, as to reconcile to his feelings\nthe act of persuading her. From every provident point of view his mother\nwas so undoubtedly right, that he was not without a sickness of heart in\nfinding he could shake her.\n\nShe had a singular insight into life, considering that she had never\nmixed with it. There are instances of persons who, without clear ideas\nof the things they criticize have yet had clear ideas of the relations\nof those things. Blacklock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe\nvisual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind,\ngave excellent lectures on colour, and taught others the theory of ideas\nwhich they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones\nare mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and\nestimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.\n\nWhat was the great world to Mrs. Yeobright? A multitude whose tendencies\ncould be perceived, though not its essences. Communities were seen by\nher as from a distance; she saw them as we see the throngs which cover\nthe canvases of Sallaert, Van Alsloot, and others of that school--vast\nmasses of beings, jostling, zigzagging, and processioning in definite\ndirections, but whose features are indistinguishable by the very\ncomprehensiveness of the view.\n\nOne could see that, as far as it had gone, her life was very complete on\nits reflective side. The philosophy of her nature, and its limitation by\ncircumstances, was almost written in her movements. They had a majestic\nfoundation, though they were far from being majestic; and they had a\nground-work of assurance, but they were not assured. As her once elastic\nwalk had become deadened by time, so had her natural pride of life been\nhindered in its blooming by her necessities.\n\nThe next slight touch in the shaping of Clym\'s destiny occurred a few\ndays after. A barrow was opened on the heath, and Yeobright attended the\noperation, remaining away from his study during several hours. In the\nafternoon Christian returned from a journey in the same direction, and\nMrs. Yeobright questioned him.\n\n\"They have dug a hole, and they have found things like flowerpots upside\ndown, Mis\'ess Yeobright; and inside these be real charnel bones. They\nhave carried \'em off to men\'s houses; but I shouldn\'t like to sleep\nwhere they will bide. Dead folks have been known to come and claim their\nown. Mr. Yeobright had got one pot of the bones, and was going to bring\n\'em home--real skellington bones--but \'twas ordered otherwise. You\'ll be\nrelieved to hear that he gave away his pot and all, on second thoughts;\nand a blessed thing for ye, Mis\'ess Yeobright, considering the wind o\'\nnights.\"\n\n\"Gave it away?\"\n\n\"Yes. To Miss Vye. She has a cannibal taste for such churchyard\nfurniture seemingly.\"\n\n\"Miss Vye was there too?\"\n\n\"Ay, \'a b\'lieve she was.\"\n\nWhen Clym came home, which was shortly after, his mother said, in a\ncurious tone, \"The urn you had meant for me you gave away.\"\n\nYeobright made no reply; the current of her feeling was too pronounced\nto admit it.\n\nThe early weeks of the year passed on. Yeobright certainly studied at\nhome, but he also walked much abroad, and the direction of his walk was\nalways towards some point of a line between Mistover and Rainbarrow.\n\nThe month of March arrived, and the heath showed its first signs of\nawakening from winter trance. The awakening was almost feline in its\nstealthiness. The pool outside the bank by Eustacia\'s dwelling, which\nseemed as dead and desolate as ever to an observer who moved and made\nnoises in his observation, would gradually disclose a state of great\nanimation when silently watched awhile. A timid animal world had come to\nlife for the season. Little tadpoles and efts began to bubble up through\nthe water, and to race along beneath it; toads made noises like very\nyoung ducks, and advanced to the margin in twos and threes; overhead,\nbumblebees flew hither and thither in the thickening light, their drone\ncoming and going like the sound of a gong.\n\nOn an evening such as this Yeobright descended into the Blooms-End\nvalley from beside that very pool, where he had been standing with\nanother person quite silently and quite long enough to hear all this\npuny stir of resurrection in nature; yet he had not heard it. His walk\nwas rapid as he came down, and he went with a springy trend. Before\nentering upon his mother\'s premises he stopped and breathed. The light\nwhich shone forth on him from the window revealed that his face was\nflushed and his eye bright. What it did not show was something which\nlingered upon his lips like a seal set there. The abiding presence of\nthis impress was so real that he hardly dared to enter the house, for it\nseemed as if his mother might say, \"What red spot is that glowing upon\nyour mouth so vividly?\"\n\nBut he entered soon after. The tea was ready, and he sat down opposite\nhis mother. She did not speak many words; and as for him, something\nhad been just done and some words had been just said on the hill which\nprevented him from beginning a desultory chat. His mother\'s taciturnity\nwas not without ominousness, but he appeared not to care. He knew why\nshe said so little, but he could not remove the cause of her bearing\ntowards him. These half-silent sittings were far from uncommon with them\nnow. At last Yeobright made a beginning of what was intended to strike\nat the whole root of the matter.\n\n\"Five days have we sat like this at meals with scarcely a word. What\'s\nthe use of it, Mother?\"\n\n\"None,\" said she, in a heart-swollen tone. \"But there is only too good a\nreason.\"\n\n\"Not when you know all. I have been wanting to speak about this, and I\nam glad the subject is begun. The reason, of course, is Eustacia Vye.\nWell, I confess I have seen her lately, and have seen her a good many\ntimes.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; and I know what that amounts to. It troubles me, Clym. You\nare wasting your life here; and it is solely on account of her. If\nit had not been for that woman you would never have entertained this\nteaching scheme at all.\"\n\nClym looked hard at his mother. \"You know that is not it,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, I know you had decided to attempt it before you saw her; but\nthat would have ended in intentions. It was very well to talk of, but\nridiculous to put in practice. I fully expected that in the course of a\nmonth or two you would have seen the folly of such self-sacrifice, and\nwould have been by this time back again to Paris in some business or\nother. I can understand objections to the diamond trade--I really was\nthinking that it might be inadequate to the life of a man like you even\nthough it might have made you a millionaire. But now I see how mistaken\nyou are about this girl I doubt if you could be correct about other\nthings.\"\n\n\"How am I mistaken in her?\"\n\n\"She is lazy and dissatisfied. But that is not all of it. Supposing her\nto be as good a woman as any you can find, which she certainly is not,\nwhy do you wish to connect yourself with anybody at present?\"\n\n\"Well, there are practical reasons,\" Clym began, and then almost broke\noff under an overpowering sense of the weight of argument which could\nbe brought against his statement. \"If I take a school an educated woman\nwould be invaluable as a help to me.\"\n\n\"What! you really mean to marry her?\"\n\n\"It would be premature to state that plainly. But consider what obvious\nadvantages there would be in doing it. She----\"\n\n\"Don\'t suppose she has any money. She hasn\'t a farthing.\"\n\n\"She is excellently educated, and would make a good matron in a\nboarding-school. I candidly own that I have modified my views a little,\nin deference to you; and it should satisfy you. I no longer adhere to\nmy intention of giving with my own mouth rudimentary education to the\nlowest class. I can do better. I can establish a good private school\nfor farmers\' sons, and without stopping the school I can manage to\npass examinations. By this means, and by the assistance of a wife like\nher----\"\n\n\"Oh, Clym!\"\n\n\"I shall ultimately, I hope, be at the head of one of the best schools\nin the county.\"\n\nYeobright had enunciated the word \"her\" with a fervour which, in\nconversation with a mother, was absurdly indiscreet. Hardly a maternal\nheart within the four seas could in such circumstances, have helped\nbeing irritated at that ill-timed betrayal of feeling for a new woman.\n\n\"You are blinded, Clym,\" she said warmly. \"It was a bad day for you when\nyou first set eyes on her. And your scheme is merely a castle in the\nair built on purpose to justify this folly which has seized you, and to\nsalve your conscience on the irrational situation you are in.\"\n\n\"Mother, that\'s not true,\" he firmly answered.\n\n\"Can you maintain that I sit and tell untruths, when all I wish to do\nis to save you from sorrow? For shame, Clym! But it is all through that\nwoman--a hussy!\"\n\nClym reddened like fire and rose. He placed his hand upon his mother\'s\nshoulder and said, in a tone which hung strangely between entreaty and\ncommand, \"I won\'t hear it. I may be led to answer you in a way which we\nshall both regret.\"\n\nHis mother parted her lips to begin some other vehement truth, but on\nlooking at him she saw that in his face which led her to leave the\nwords unsaid. Yeobright walked once or twice across the room, and then\nsuddenly went out of the house. It was eleven o\'clock when he came in,\nthough he had not been further than the precincts of the garden. His\nmother was gone to bed. A light was left burning on the table, and\nsupper was spread. Without stopping for any food he secured the doors\nand went upstairs.\n\n\n\n\n4--An Hour of Bliss and Many Hours of Sadness\n\n\nThe next day was gloomy enough at Blooms-End. Yeobright remained in\nhis study, sitting over the open books; but the work of those hours was\nmiserably scant. Determined that there should be nothing in his conduct\ntowards his mother resembling sullenness, he had occasionally spoken to\nher on passing matters, and would take no notice of the brevity of her\nreplies. With the same resolve to keep up a show of conversation he\nsaid, about seven o\'clock in the evening, \"There\'s an eclipse of the\nmoon tonight. I am going out to see it.\" And, putting on his overcoat,\nhe left her.\n\nThe low moon was not as yet visible from the front of the house, and\nYeobright climbed out of the valley until he stood in the full flood\nof her light. But even now he walked on, and his steps were in the\ndirection of Rainbarrow.\n\nIn half an hour he stood at the top. The sky was clear from verge to\nverge, and the moon flung her rays over the whole heath, but without\nsensibly lighting it, except where paths and water-courses had laid bare\nthe white flints and glistening quartz sand, which made streaks upon the\ngeneral shade. After standing awhile he stooped and felt the heather. It\nwas dry, and he flung himself down upon the barrow, his face towards the\nmoon, which depicted a small image of herself in each of his eyes.\n\nHe had often come up here without stating his purpose to his mother;\nbut this was the first time that he had been ostensibly frank as to\nhis purpose while really concealing it. It was a moral situation which,\nthree months earlier, he could hardly have credited of himself. In\nreturning to labour in this sequestered spot he had anticipated an\nescape from the chafing of social necessities; yet behold they were\nhere also. More than ever he longed to be in some world where personal\nambition was not the only recognized form of progress--such, perhaps, as\nmight have been the case at some time or other in the silvery globe then\nshining upon him. His eye travelled over the length and breadth of that\ndistant country--over the Bay of Rainbows, the sombre Sea of Crises,\nthe Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Dreams, the vast Walled Plains, and\nthe wondrous Ring Mountains--till he almost felt himself to be voyaging\nbodily through its wild scenes, standing on its hollow hills, traversing\nits deserts, descending its vales and old sea bottoms, or mounting to\nthe edges of its craters.\n\nWhile he watched the far-removed landscape a tawny stain grew into being\non the lower verge--the eclipse had begun. This marked a preconcerted\nmoment--for the remote celestial phenomenon had been pressed into\nsublunary service as a lover\'s signal. Yeobright\'s mind flew back to\nearth at the sight; he arose, shook himself and listened. Minute after\nminute passed by, perhaps ten minutes passed, and the shadow on the moon\nperceptibly widened. He heard a rustling on his left hand, a cloaked\nfigure with an upturned face appeared at the base of the Barrow, and\nClym descended. In a moment the figure was in his arms, and his lips\nupon hers.\n\n\"My Eustacia!\"\n\n\"Clym, dearest!\"\n\nSuch a situation had less than three months brought forth.\n\nThey remained long without a single utterance, for no language could\nreach the level of their condition--words were as the rusty implements\nof a by-gone barbarous epoch, and only to be occasionally tolerated.\n\n\"I began to wonder why you did not come,\" said Yeobright, when she had\nwithdrawn a little from his embrace.\n\n\"You said ten minutes after the first mark of shade on the edge of the\nmoon, and that\'s what it is now.\"\n\n\"Well, let us only think that here we are.\"\n\nThen, holding each other\'s hand, they were again silent, and the shadow\non the moon\'s disc grew a little larger.\n\n\"Has it seemed long since you last saw me?\" she asked.\n\n\"It has seemed sad.\"\n\n\"And not long? That\'s because you occupy yourself, and so blind yourself\nto my absence. To me, who can do nothing, it has been like living under\nstagnant water.\"\n\n\"I would rather bear tediousness, dear, than have time made short by\nsuch means as have shortened mine.\"\n\n\"In what way is that? You have been thinking you wished you did not love\nme.\"\n\n\"How can a man wish that, and yet love on? No, Eustacia.\"\n\n\"Men can, women cannot.\"\n\n\"Well, whatever I may have thought, one thing is certain--I do love\nyou--past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness--I,\nwho have never before felt more than a pleasant passing fancy for any\nwoman I have ever seen. Let me look right into your moonlit face and\ndwell on every line and curve in it! Only a few hairbreadths make the\ndifference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I\nknew you; yet what a difference--the difference between everything and\nnothing at all. One touch on that mouth again! there, and there, and\nthere. Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia.\"\n\n\"No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling\nsometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born.\"\n\n\"You don\'t feel it now?\"\n\n\"No. Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can\nensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so\nI feel full of fears.\"\n\n\"You need not.\"\n\n\"Ah, you don\'t know. You have seen more than I, and have been into\ncities and among people that I have only heard of, and have lived more\nyears than I; but yet I am older at this than you. I loved another man\nonce, and now I love you.\"\n\n\"In God\'s mercy don\'t talk so, Eustacia!\"\n\n\"But I do not think I shall be the one who wearies first. It will, I\nfear, end in this way: your mother will find out that you meet me, and\nshe will influence you against me!\"\n\n\"That can never be. She knows of these meetings already.\"\n\n\"And she speaks against me?\"\n\n\"I will not say.\"\n\n\"There, go away! Obey her. I shall ruin you. It is foolish of you\nto meet me like this. Kiss me, and go away forever. Forever--do you\nhear?--forever!\"\n\n\"Not I.\"\n\n\"It is your only chance. Many a man\'s love has been a curse to him.\"\n\n\"You are desperate, full of fancies, and wilful; and you misunderstand.\nI have an additional reason for seeing you tonight besides love of you.\nFor though, unlike you, I feel our affection may be eternal. I feel with\nyou in this, that our present mode of existence cannot last.\"\n\n\"Oh! \'tis your mother. Yes, that\'s it! I knew it.\"\n\n\"Never mind what it is. Believe this, I cannot let myself lose you. I\nmust have you always with me. This very evening I do not like to let\nyou go. There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest--you must be my\nwife.\"\n\nShe started--then endeavoured to say calmly, \"Cynics say that cures the\nanxiety by curing the love.\"\n\n\"But you must answer me. Shall I claim you some day--I don\'t mean at\nonce?\"\n\n\"I must think,\" Eustacia murmured. \"At present speak of Paris to me. Is\nthere any place like it on earth?\"\n\n\"It is very beautiful. But will you be mine?\"\n\n\"I will be nobody else\'s in the world--does that satisfy you?\"\n\n\"Yes, for the present.\"\n\n\"Now tell me of the Tuileries, and the Louvre,\" she continued evasively.\n\n\"I hate talking of Paris! Well, I remember one sunny room in the\nLouvre which would make a fitting place for you to live in--the Galerie\nd\'Apollon. Its windows are mainly east; and in the early morning,\nwhen the sun is bright, the whole apartment is in a perfect blaze of\nsplendour. The rays bristle and dart from the encrustations of gilding\nto the magnificent inlaid coffers, from the coffers to the gold and\nsilver plate, from the plate to the jewels and precious stones, from\nthese to the enamels, till there is a perfect network of light which\nquite dazzles the eye. But now, about our marriage----\"\n\n\"And Versailles--the King\'s Gallery is some such gorgeous room, is it\nnot?\"\n\n\"Yes. But what\'s the use of talking of gorgeous rooms? By the way, the\nLittle Trianon would suit us beautifully to live in, and you might\nwalk in the gardens in the moonlight and think you were in some English\nshrubbery; It is laid out in English fashion.\"\n\n\"I should hate to think that!\"\n\n\"Then you could keep to the lawn in front of the Grand Palace. All about\nthere you would doubtless feel in a world of historical romance.\"\n\nHe went on, since it was all new to her, and described Fontainebleau,\nSt. Cloud, the Bois, and many other familiar haunts of the Parisians;\ntill she said--\n\n\"When used you to go to these places?\"\n\n\"On Sundays.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes. I dislike English Sundays. How I should chime in with their\nmanners over there! Dear Clym, you\'ll go back again?\"\n\nClym shook his head, and looked at the eclipse.\n\n\"If you\'ll go back again I\'ll--be something,\" she said tenderly, putting\nher head near his breast. \"If you\'ll agree I\'ll give my promise, without\nmaking you wait a minute longer.\"\n\n\"How extraordinary that you and my mother should be of one mind about\nthis!\" said Yeobright. \"I have vowed not to go back, Eustacia. It is not\nthe place I dislike; it is the occupation.\"\n\n\"But you can go in some other capacity.\"\n\n\"No. Besides, it would interfere with my scheme. Don\'t press that,\nEustacia. Will you marry me?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell.\"\n\n\"Now--never mind Paris; it is no better than other spots. Promise,\nsweet!\"\n\n\"You will never adhere to your education plan, I am quite sure; and then\nit will be all right for me; and so I promise to be yours for ever and\never.\"\n\nClym brought her face towards his by a gentle pressure of the hand, and\nkissed her.\n\n\"Ah! but you don\'t know what you have got in me,\" she said. \"Sometimes I\nthink there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good\nhomespun wife. Well, let it go--see how our time is slipping, slipping,\nslipping!\" She pointed towards the half-eclipsed moon.\n\n\"You are too mournful.\"\n\n\"No. Only I dread to think of anything beyond the present. What is, we\nknow. We are together now, and it is unknown how long we shall be so;\nthe unknown always fills my mind with terrible possibilities, even\nwhen I may reasonably expect it to be cheerful.... Clym, the eclipsed\nmoonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and shows\nits shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you should be\ndoing better things than this.\"\n\n\"You are ambitious, Eustacia--no, not exactly ambitious, luxurious. I\nought to be of the same vein, to make you happy, I suppose. And yet, far\nfrom that, I could live and die in a hermitage here, with proper work to\ndo.\"\n\nThere was that in his tone which implied distrust of his position as\na solicitous lover, a doubt if he were acting fairly towards one whose\ntastes touched his own only at rare and infrequent points. She saw his\nmeaning, and whispered, in a low, full accent of eager assurance \"Don\'t\nmistake me, Clym--though I should like Paris, I love you for yourself\nalone. To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to me; but I\nwould rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all.\nIt is gain to me either way, and very great gain. There\'s my too candid\nconfession.\"\n\n\"Spoken like a woman. And now I must soon leave you. I\'ll walk with you\ntowards your house.\"\n\n\"But must you go home yet?\" she asked. \"Yes, the sand has nearly slipped\naway, I see, and the eclipse is creeping on more and more. Don\'t go yet!\nStop till the hour has run itself out; then I will not press you any\nmore. You will go home and sleep well; I keep sighing in my sleep! Do\nyou ever dream of me?\"\n\n\"I cannot recollect a clear dream of you.\"\n\n\"I see your face in every scene of my dreams, and hear your voice in\nevery sound. I wish I did not. It is too much what I feel. They say\nsuch love never lasts. But it must! And yet once, I remember, I saw an\nofficer of the Hussars ride down the street at Budmouth, and though he\nwas a total stranger and never spoke to me, I loved him till I thought\nI should really die of love--but I didn\'t die, and at last I left off\ncaring for him. How terrible it would be if a time should come when I\ncould not love you, my Clym!\"\n\n\"Please don\'t say such reckless things. When we see such a time at hand\nwe will say, \'I have outlived my faith and purpose,\' and die. There, the\nhour has expired--now let us walk on.\"\n\nHand in hand they went along the path towards Mistover. When they were\nnear the house he said, \"It is too late for me to see your grandfather\ntonight. Do you think he will object to it?\"\n\n\"I will speak to him. I am so accustomed to be my own mistress that it\ndid not occur to me that we should have to ask him.\"\n\nThen they lingeringly separated, and Clym descended towards Blooms-End.\n\nAnd as he walked further and further from the charmed atmosphere of his\nOlympian girl his face grew sad with a new sort of sadness. A perception\nof the dilemma in which his love had placed him came back in full force.\nIn spite of Eustacia\'s apparent willingness to wait through the period\nof an unpromising engagement, till he should be established in his new\npursuit, he could not but perceive at moments that she loved him rather\nas a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as\na man with a purpose opposed to that recent past of his which so\ninterested her. It meant that, though she made no conditions as to his\nreturn to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed for in\nthe event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an otherwise pleasant\nhour. Along with that came the widening breach between himself and his\nmother. Whenever any little occurrence had brought into more prominence\nthan usual the disappointment that he was causing her it had sent him on\nlone and moody walks; or he was kept awake a great part of the night\nby the turmoil of spirit which such a recognition created. If Mrs.\nYeobright could only have been led to see what a sound and worthy\npurpose this purpose of his was and how little it was being affected by\nhis devotions to Eustacia, how differently would she regard him!\n\nThus as his sight grew accustomed to the first blinding halo kindled\nabout him by love and beauty, Yeobright began to perceive what a\nstrait he was in. Sometimes he wished that he had never known Eustacia,\nimmediately to retract the wish as brutal. Three antagonistic growths\nhad to be kept alive: his mother\'s trust in him, his plan for becoming a\nteacher, and Eustacia\'s happiness. His fervid nature could not afford\nto relinquish one of these, though two of the three were as many as\nhe could hope to preserve. Though his love was as chaste as that of\nPetrarch for his Laura, it had made fetters of what previously was\nonly a difficulty. A position which was not too simple when he stood\nwhole-hearted had become indescribably complicated by the addition of\nEustacia. Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one scheme\nhe had introduced another still bitterer than the first, and the\ncombination was more than she could bear.\n\n\n\n\n5--Sharp Words Are Spoken, and a Crisis Ensues\n\n\nWhen Yeobright was not with Eustacia he was sitting slavishly over his\nbooks; when he was not reading he was meeting her. These meetings were\ncarried on with the greatest secrecy.\n\nOne afternoon his mother came home from a morning visit to Thomasin. He\ncould see from a disturbance in the lines of her face that something had\nhappened.\n\n\"I have been told an incomprehensible thing,\" she said mournfully. \"The\ncaptain has let out at the Woman that you and Eustacia Vye are engaged\nto be married.\"\n\n\"We are,\" said Yeobright. \"But it may not be yet for a very long time.\"\n\n\"I should hardly think it WOULD be yet for a very long time! You will\ntake her to Paris, I suppose?\" She spoke with weary hopelessness.\n\n\"I am not going back to Paris.\"\n\n\"What will you do with a wife, then?\"\n\n\"Keep a school in Budmouth, as I have told you.\"\n\n\"That\'s incredible! The place is overrun with schoolmasters. You have no\nspecial qualifications. What possible chance is there for such as you?\"\n\n\"There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education,\nwhich is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my\nfellow-creatures.\"\n\n\"Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they\nwould have found it out at the universities long before this time.\"\n\n\"Never, Mother. They cannot find it out, because their teachers don\'t\ncome in contact with the class which demands such a system--that\nis, those who have had no preliminary training. My plan is one for\ninstilling high knowledge into empty minds without first cramming them\nwith what has to be uncrammed again before true study begins.\"\n\n\"I might have believed you if you had kept yourself free from\nentanglements; but this woman--if she had been a good girl it would have\nbeen bad enough; but being----\"\n\n\"She is a good girl.\"\n\n\"So you think. A Corfu bandmaster\'s daughter! What has her life been?\nHer surname even is not her true one.\"\n\n\"She is Captain Vye\'s granddaughter, and her father merely took her\nmother\'s name. And she is a lady by instinct.\"\n\n\"They call him \'captain,\' but anybody is captain.\"\n\n\"He was in the Royal Navy!\"\n\n\"No doubt he has been to sea in some tub or other. Why doesn\'t he look\nafter her? No lady would rove about the heath at all hours of the day\nand night as she does. But that\'s not all of it. There was something\nqueer between her and Thomasin\'s husband at one time--I am as sure of it\nas that I stand here.\"\n\n\"Eustacia has told me. He did pay her a little attention a year ago; but\nthere\'s no harm in that. I like her all the better.\"\n\n\"Clym,\" said his mother with firmness, \"I have no proofs against her,\nunfortunately. But if she makes you a good wife, there has never been a\nbad one.\"\n\n\"Believe me, you are almost exasperating,\" said Yeobright vehemently.\n\"And this very day I had intended to arrange a meeting between you. But\nyou give me no peace; you try to thwart my wishes in everything.\"\n\n\"I hate the thought of any son of mine marrying badly! I wish I had\nnever lived to see this; it is too much for me--it is more than I\ndreamt!\" She turned to the window. Her breath was coming quickly, and\nher lips were pale, parted, and trembling.\n\n\"Mother,\" said Clym, \"whatever you do, you will always be dear to\nme--that you know. But one thing I have a right to say, which is, that\nat my age I am old enough to know what is best for me.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright remained for some time silent and shaken, as if she could\nsay no more. Then she replied, \"Best? Is it best for you to injure your\nprospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that? Don\'t you see that\nby the very fact of your choosing her you prove that you do not know\nwhat is best for you? You give up your whole thought--you set your whole\nsoul--to please a woman.\"\n\n\"I do. And that woman is you.\"\n\n\"How can you treat me so flippantly!\" said his mother, turning again to\nhim with a tearful look. \"You are unnatural, Clym, and I did not expect\nit.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" said he cheerlessly. \"You did not know the measure you\nwere going to mete me, and therefore did not know the measure that would\nbe returned to you again.\"\n\n\"You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all things.\"\n\n\"That proves her to be worthy. I have never yet supported what is bad.\nAnd I do not care only for her. I care for you and for myself, and\nfor anything that is good. When a woman once dislikes another she is\nmerciless!\"\n\n\"O Clym! please don\'t go setting down as my fault what is your obstinate\nwrongheadedness. If you wished to connect yourself with an unworthy\nperson why did you come home here to do it? Why didn\'t you do it in\nParis?--it is more the fashion there. You have come only to distress me,\na lonely woman, and shorten my days! I wish that you would bestow your\npresence where you bestow your love!\"\n\nClym said huskily, \"You are my mother. I will say no more--beyond this,\nthat I beg your pardon for having thought this my home. I will no longer\ninflict myself upon you; I\'ll go.\" And he went out with tears in his\neyes.\n\nIt was a sunny afternoon at the beginning of summer, and the moist\nhollows of the heath had passed from their brown to their green stage.\nYeobright walked to the edge of the basin which extended down from\nMistover and Rainbarrow.\n\nBy this time he was calm, and he looked over the landscape. In the minor\nvalleys, between the hillocks which diversified the contour of the vale,\nthe fresh young ferns were luxuriantly growing up, ultimately to reach\na height of five or six feet. He descended a little way, flung himself\ndown in a spot where a path emerged from one of the small hollows, and\nwaited. Hither it was that he had promised Eustacia to bring his mother\nthis afternoon, that they might meet and be friends. His attempt had\nutterly failed.\n\nHe was in a nest of vivid green. The ferny vegetation round him, though\nso abundant, was quite uniform--it was a grove of machine-made foliage,\na world of green triangles with saw-edges, and not a single flower. The\nair was warm with a vaporous warmth, and the stillness was unbroken.\nLizards, grasshoppers, and ants were the only living things to\nbe beheld. The scene seemed to belong to the ancient world of the\ncarboniferous period, when the forms of plants were few, and of the fern\nkind; when there was neither bud nor blossom, nothing but a monotonous\nextent of leafage, amid which no bird sang.\n\nWhen he had reclined for some considerable time, gloomily pondering, he\ndiscerned above the ferns a drawn bonnet of white silk approaching from\nthe left, and Yeobright knew directly that it covered the head of her\nhe loved. His heart awoke from its apathy to a warm excitement, and,\njumping to his feet, he said aloud, \"I knew she was sure to come.\"\n\nShe vanished in a hollow for a few moments, and then her whole form\nunfolded itself from the brake.\n\n\"Only you here?\" she exclaimed, with a disappointed air, whose\nhollowness was proved by her rising redness and her half-guilty low\nlaugh. \"Where is Mrs. Yeobright?\"\n\n\"She has not come,\" he replied in a subdued tone.\n\n\"I wish I had known that you would be here alone,\" she said seriously,\n\"and that we were going to have such an idle, pleasant time as this.\nPleasure not known beforehand is half wasted; to anticipate it is to\ndouble it. I have not thought once today of having you all to myself\nthis afternoon, and the actual moment of a thing is so soon gone.\"\n\n\"It is indeed.\"\n\n\"Poor Clym!\" she continued, looking tenderly into his face. \"You are\nsad. Something has happened at your home. Never mind what is--let us\nonly look at what seems.\"\n\n\"But, darling, what shall we do?\" said he.\n\n\"Still go on as we do now--just live on from meeting to meeting, never\nminding about another day. You, I know, are always thinking of that--I\ncan see you are. But you must not--will you, dear Clym?\"\n\n\"You are just like all women. They are ever content to build their lives\non any incidental position that offers itself; whilst men would fain\nmake a globe to suit them. Listen to this, Eustacia. There is a subject\nI have determined to put off no longer. Your sentiment on the wisdom\nof Carpe diem does not impress me today. Our present mode of life must\nshortly be brought to an end.\"\n\n\"It is your mother!\"\n\n\"It is. I love you none the less in telling you; it is only right you\nshould know.\"\n\n\"I have feared my bliss,\" she said, with the merest motion of her lips.\n\"It has been too intense and consuming.\"\n\n\"There is hope yet. There are forty years of work in me yet, and why\nshould you despair? I am only at an awkward turning. I wish people\nwouldn\'t be so ready to think that there is no progress without\nuniformity.\"\n\n\"Ah--your mind runs off to the philosophical side of it. Well, these sad\nand hopeless obstacles are welcome in one sense, for they enable us to\nlook with indifference upon the cruel satires that Fate loves to indulge\nin. I have heard of people, who, upon coming suddenly into happiness,\nhave died from anxiety lest they should not live to enjoy it. I felt\nmyself in that whimsical state of uneasiness lately; but I shall be\nspared it now. Let us walk on.\"\n\nClym took the hand which was already bared for him--it was a favourite\nway with them to walk bare hand in bare hand--and led her through the\nferns. They formed a very comely picture of love at full flush, as they\nwalked along the valley that late afternoon, the sun sloping down on\ntheir right, and throwing their thin spectral shadows, tall as poplar\ntrees, far out across the furze and fern. Eustacia went with her head\nthrown back fancifully, a certain glad and voluptuous air of triumph\npervading her eyes at having won by her own unaided self a man who was\nher perfect complement in attainment, appearance, and age. On the young\nman\'s part, the paleness of face which he had brought with him\nfrom Paris, and the incipient marks of time and thought, were less\nperceptible than when he returned, the healthful and energetic\nsturdiness which was his by nature having partially recovered its\noriginal proportions. They wandered onward till they reached the nether\nmargin of the heath, where it became marshy and merged in moorland.\n\n\"I must part from you here, Clym,\" said Eustacia.\n\nThey stood still and prepared to bid each other farewell. Everything\nbefore them was on a perfect level. The sun, resting on the horizon\nline, streamed across the ground from between copper-coloured and lilac\nclouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green. All\ndark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread by\na purple haze, against which groups of wailing gnats shone out, rising\nupwards and dancing about like sparks of fire.\n\n\"O! this leaving you is too hard to bear!\" exclaimed Eustacia in a\nsudden whisper of anguish. \"Your mother will influence you too much;\nI shall not be judged fairly, it will get afloat that I am not a good\ngirl, and the witch story will be added to make me blacker!\"\n\n\"They cannot. Nobody dares to speak disrespectfully of you or of me.\"\n\n\"Oh how I wish I was sure of never losing you--that you could not be\nable to desert me anyhow!\"\n\nClym stood silent a moment. His feelings were high, the moment was\npassionate, and he cut the knot.\n\n\"You shall be sure of me, darling,\" he said, folding her in his arms.\n\"We will be married at once.\"\n\n\"O Clym!\"\n\n\"Do you agree to it?\"\n\n\"If--if we can.\"\n\n\"We certainly can, both being of full age. And I have not followed my\noccupation all these years without having accumulated money; and if you\nwill agree to live in a tiny cottage somewhere on the heath, until I\ntake a house in Budmouth for the school, we can do it at a very little\nexpense.\"\n\n\"How long shall we have to live in the tiny cottage, Clym?\"\n\n\"About six months. At the end of that time I shall have finished my\nreading--yes, we will do it, and this heart-aching will be over. We\nshall, of course, live in absolute seclusion, and our married life will\nonly begin to outward view when we take the house in Budmouth, where I\nhave already addressed a letter on the matter. Would your grandfather\nallow you?\"\n\n\"I think he would--on the understanding that it should not last longer\nthan six months.\"\n\n\"I will guarantee that, if no misfortune happens.\"\n\n\"If no misfortune happens,\" she repeated slowly.\n\n\"Which is not likely. Dearest, fix the exact day.\"\n\nAnd then they consulted on the question, and the day was chosen. It was\nto be a fortnight from that time.\n\nThis was the end of their talk, and Eustacia left him. Clym watched her\nas she retired towards the sun. The luminous rays wrapped her up with\nher increasing distance, and the rustle of her dress over the sprouting\nsedge and grass died away. As he watched, the dead flat of the scenery\noverpowered him, though he was fully alive to the beauty of that\nuntarnished early summer green which was worn for the nonce by the\npoorest blade. There was something in its oppressive horizontality which\ntoo much reminded him of the arena of life; it gave him a sense of bare\nequality with, and no superiority to, a single living thing under the\nsun.\n\nEustacia was now no longer the goddess but the woman to him, a being\nto fight for, support, help, be maligned for. Now that he had reached\na cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage; but the\ncard was laid, and he determined to abide by the game. Whether Eustacia\nwas to add one other to the list of those who love too hotly to love\nlong and well, the forthcoming event was certainly a ready way of\nproving.\n\n\n\n\n6--Yeobright Goes, and the Breach Is Complete\n\n\nAll that evening smart sounds denoting an active packing up came from\nYeobright\'s room to the ears of his mother downstairs.\n\nNext morning he departed from the house and again proceeded across the\nheath. A long day\'s march was before him, his object being to secure a\ndwelling to which he might take Eustacia when she became his wife.\nSuch a house, small, secluded, and with its windows boarded up, he had\ncasually observed a month earlier, about two miles beyond the village\nof East Egdon, and six miles distant altogether; and thither he directed\nhis steps today.\n\nThe weather was far different from that of the evening before. The\nyellow and vapoury sunset which had wrapped up Eustacia from his parting\ngaze had presaged change. It was one of those not infrequent days of\nan English June which are as wet and boisterous as November. The cold\nclouds hastened on in a body, as if painted on a moving slide. Vapours\nfrom other continents arrived upon the wind, which curled and parted\nround him as he walked on.\n\nAt length Clym reached the margin of a fir and beech plantation that had\nbeen enclosed from heath land in the year of his birth. Here the trees,\nladen heavily with their new and humid leaves, were now suffering more\ndamage than during the highest winds of winter, when the boughs are\nespecially disencumbered to do battle with the storm. The wet young\nbeeches were undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings, and harsh\nlacerations, from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a day to\ncome, and which would leave scars visible till the day of their burning.\nEach stem was wrenched at the root, where it moved like a bone in its\nsocket, and at every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the\nbranches, as if pain were felt. In a neighbouring brake a finch was\ntrying to sing; but the wind blew under his feathers till they stood on\nend, twisted round his little tail, and made him give up his song.\n\nYet a few yards to Yeobright\'s left, on the open heath, how\nineffectively gnashed the storm! Those gusts which tore the trees merely\nwaved the furze and heather in a light caress. Egdon was made for such\ntimes as these.\n\nYeobright reached the empty house about midday. It was almost as lonely\nas that of Eustacia\'s grandfather, but the fact that it stood near\na heath was disguised by a belt of firs which almost enclosed the\npremises. He journeyed on about a mile further to the village in which\nthe owner lived, and, returning with him to the house, arrangements were\ncompleted, and the man undertook that one room at least should be ready\nfor occupation the next day. Clym\'s intention was to live there alone\nuntil Eustacia should join him on their wedding-day.\n\nThen he turned to pursue his way homeward through the drizzle that had\nso greatly transformed the scene. The ferns, among which he had lain in\ncomfort yesterday, were dripping moisture from every frond, wetting\nhis legs through as he brushed past; and the fur of the rabbits leaping\nbefore him was clotted into dark locks by the same watery surrounding.\n\nHe reached home damp and weary enough after his ten-mile walk. It had\nhardly been a propitious beginning, but he had chosen his course, and\nwould show no swerving. The evening and the following morning were spent\nin concluding arrangements for his departure. To stay at home a minute\nlonger than necessary after having once come to his determination would\nbe, he felt, only to give new pain to his mother by some word, look, or\ndeed.\n\nHe had hired a conveyance and sent off his goods by two o\'clock that\nday. The next step was to get some furniture, which, after serving\nfor temporary use in the cottage, would be available for the house\nat Budmouth when increased by goods of a better description. A mart\nextensive enough for the purpose existed at Anglebury, some miles beyond\nthe spot chosen for his residence, and there he resolved to pass the\ncoming night.\n\nIt now only remained to wish his mother good-bye. She was sitting by the\nwindow as usual when he came downstairs.\n\n\"Mother, I am going to leave you,\" he said, holding out his hand.\n\n\"I thought you were, by your packing,\" replied Mrs. Yeobright in a voice\nfrom which every particle of emotion was painfully excluded.\n\n\"And you will part friends with me?\"\n\n\"Certainly, Clym.\"\n\n\"I am going to be married on the twenty-fifth.\"\n\n\"I thought you were going to be married.\"\n\n\"And then--and then you must come and see us. You will understand me\nbetter after that, and our situation will not be so wretched as it is\nnow.\"\n\n\"I do not think it likely I shall come to see you.\"\n\n\"Then it will not be my fault or Eustacia\'s, Mother. Good-bye!\"\n\nHe kissed her cheek, and departed in great misery, which was several\nhours in lessening itself to a controllable level. The position had\nbeen such that nothing more could be said without, in the first place,\nbreaking down a barrier; and that was not to be done.\n\nNo sooner had Yeobright gone from his mother\'s house than her face\nchanged its rigid aspect for one of blank despair. After a while she\nwept, and her tears brought some relief. During the rest of the day she\ndid nothing but walk up and down the garden path in a state bordering\non stupefaction. Night came, and with it but little rest. The next day,\nwith an instinct to do something which should reduce prostration\nto mournfulness, she went to her son\'s room, and with her own hands\narranged it in order, for an imaginary time when he should return\nagain. She gave some attention to her flowers, but it was perfunctorily\nbestowed, for they no longer charmed her.\n\nIt was a great relief when, early in the afternoon, Thomasin paid her an\nunexpected visit. This was not the first meeting between the relatives\nsince Thomasin\'s marriage; and past blunders having been in a rough way\nrectified, they could always greet each other with pleasure and ease.\n\nThe oblique band of sunlight which followed her through the door became\nthe young wife well. It illuminated her as her presence illuminated the\nheath. In her movements, in her gaze, she reminded the beholder of\nthe feathered creatures who lived around her home. All similes and\nallegories concerning her began and ended with birds. There was as much\nvariety in her motions as in their flight. When she was musing she was\na kestrel, which hangs in the air by an invisible motion of its wings.\nWhen she was in a high wind her light body was blown against trees and\nbanks like a heron\'s. When she was frightened she darted noiselessly\nlike a kingfisher. When she was serene she skimmed like a swallow, and\nthat is how she was moving now.\n\n\"You are looking very blithe, upon my word, Tamsie,\" said Mrs.\nYeobright, with a sad smile. \"How is Damon?\"\n\n\"He is very well.\"\n\n\"Is he kind to you, Thomasin?\" And Mrs. Yeobright observed her narrowly.\n\n\"Pretty fairly.\"\n\n\"Is that honestly said?\"\n\n\"Yes, Aunt. I would tell you if he were unkind.\" She added, blushing,\nand with hesitation, \"He--I don\'t know if I ought to complain to you\nabout this, but I am not quite sure what to do. I want some money, you\nknow, Aunt--some to buy little things for myself--and he doesn\'t give\nme any. I don\'t like to ask him; and yet, perhaps, he doesn\'t give it me\nbecause he doesn\'t know. Ought I to mention it to him, Aunt?\"\n\n\"Of course you ought. Have you never said a word on the matter?\"\n\n\"You see, I had some of my own,\" said Thomasin evasively, \"and I have\nnot wanted any of his until lately. I did just say something about it\nlast week; but he seems--not to remember.\"\n\n\"He must be made to remember. You are aware that I have a little box\nfull of spade-guineas, which your uncle put into my hands to divide\nbetween yourself and Clym whenever I chose. Perhaps the time has come\nwhen it should be done. They can be turned into sovereigns at any\nmoment.\"\n\n\"I think I should like to have my share--that is, if you don\'t mind.\"\n\n\"You shall, if necessary. But it is only proper that you should first\ntell your husband distinctly that you are without any, and see what he\nwill do.\"\n\n\"Very well, I will.... Aunt, I have heard about Clym. I know you are in\ntrouble about him, and that\'s why I have come.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright turned away, and her features worked in her attempt to\nconceal her feelings. Then she ceased to make any attempt, and said,\nweeping, \"O Thomasin, do you think he hates me? How can he bear to\ngrieve me so, when I have lived only for him through all these years?\"\n\n\"Hate you--no,\" said Thomasin soothingly. \"It is only that he loves her\ntoo well. Look at it quietly--do. It is not so very bad of him. Do you\nknow, I thought it not the worst match he could have made. Miss Vye\'s\nfamily is a good one on her mother\'s side; and her father was a romantic\nwanderer--a sort of Greek Ulysses.\"\n\n\"It is no use, Thomasin; it is no use. Your intention is good; but I\nwill not trouble you to argue. I have gone through the whole that can be\nsaid on either side times, and many times. Clym and I have not parted\nin anger; we have parted in a worse way. It is not a passionate quarrel\nthat would have broken my heart; it is the steady opposition and\npersistence in going wrong that he has shown. O Thomasin, he was so good\nas a little boy--so tender and kind!\"\n\n\"He was, I know.\"\n\n\"I did not think one whom I called mine would grow up to treat me like\nthis. He spoke to me as if I opposed him to injure him. As though I\ncould wish him ill!\"\n\n\"There are worse women in the world than Eustacia Vye.\"\n\n\"There are too many better that\'s the agony of it. It was she, Thomasin,\nand she only, who led your husband to act as he did--I would swear it!\"\n\n\"No,\" said Thomasin eagerly. \"It was before he knew me that he thought\nof her, and it was nothing but a mere flirtation.\"\n\n\"Very well; we will let it be so. There is little use in unravelling\nthat now. Sons must be blind if they will. Why is it that a woman can\nsee from a distance what a man cannot see close? Clym must do as he\nwill--he is nothing more to me. And this is maternity--to give one\'s\nbest years and best love to ensure the fate of being despised!\"\n\n\"You are too unyielding. Think how many mothers there are whose sons\nhave brought them to public shame by real crimes before you feel so\ndeeply a case like this.\"\n\n\"Thomasin, don\'t lecture me--I can\'t have it. It is the excess above\nwhat we expect that makes the force of the blow, and that may not\nbe greater in their case than in mine--they may have foreseen the\nworst.... I am wrongly made, Thomasin,\" she added, with a mournful smile.\n\"Some widows can guard against the wounds their children give them by\nturning their hearts to another husband and beginning life again. But I\nalways was a poor, weak, one-idea\'d creature--I had not the compass of\nheart nor the enterprise for that. Just as forlorn and stupefied as\nI was when my husband\'s spirit flew away I have sat ever since--never\nattempting to mend matters at all. I was comparatively a young woman\nthen, and I might have had another family by this time, and have been\ncomforted by them for the failure of this one son.\"\n\n\"It is more noble in you that you did not.\"\n\n\"The more noble, the less wise.\"\n\n\"Forget it, and be soothed, dear Aunt. And I shall not leave you alone\nfor long. I shall come and see you every day.\"\n\nAnd for one week Thomasin literally fulfilled her word. She endeavoured\nto make light of the wedding; and brought news of the preparations, and\nthat she was invited to be present. The next week she was rather unwell,\nand did not appear. Nothing had as yet been done about the guineas, for\nThomasin feared to address her husband again on the subject, and Mrs.\nYeobright had insisted upon this.\n\n\nOne day just before this time Wildeve was standing at the door of\nthe Quiet Woman. In addition to the upward path through the heath\nto Rainbarrow and Mistover, there was a road which branched from the\nhighway a short distance below the inn, and ascended to Mistover by a\ncircuitous and easy incline. This was the only route on that side for\nvehicles to the captain\'s retreat. A light cart from the nearest town\ndescended the road, and the lad who was driving pulled up in front of\nthe inn for something to drink.\n\n\"You come from Mistover?\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"Yes. They are taking in good things up there. Going to be a wedding.\"\nAnd the driver buried his face in his mug.\n\nWildeve had not received an inkling of the fact before, and a sudden\nexpression of pain overspread his face. He turned for a moment into the\npassage to hide it. Then he came back again.\n\n\"Do you mean Miss Vye?\" he said. \"How is it--that she can be married so\nsoon?\"\n\n\"By the will of God and a ready young man, I suppose.\"\n\n\"You don\'t mean Mr. Yeobright?\"\n\n\"Yes. He has been creeping about with her all the spring.\"\n\n\"I suppose--she was immensely taken with him?\"\n\n\"She is crazy about him, so their general servant of all work tells me.\nAnd that lad Charley that looks after the horse is all in a daze about\nit. The stun-poll has got fond-like of her.\"\n\n\"Is she lively--is she glad? Going to be married so soon--well!\"\n\n\"It isn\'t so very soon.\"\n\n\"No; not so very soon.\"\n\nWildeve went indoors to the empty room, a curious heartache within him.\nHe rested his elbow upon the mantelpiece and his face upon his hand.\nWhen Thomasin entered the room he did not tell her of what he had heard.\nThe old longing for Eustacia had reappeared in his soul--and it was\nmainly because he had discovered that it was another man\'s intention to\npossess her.\n\nTo be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care\nfor the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve\'s nature always.\nThis is the true mark of the man of sentiment. Though Wildeve\'s fevered\nfeeling had not been elaborated to real poetical compass, it was of the\nstandard sort. His might have been called the Rousseau of Egdon.\n\n\n\n\n7--The Morning and the Evening of a Day\n\n\nThe wedding morning came. Nobody would have imagined from appearances\nthat Blooms-End had any interest in Mistover that day. A solemn\nstillness prevailed around the house of Clym\'s mother, and there was no\nmore animation indoors. Mrs. Yeobright, who had declined to attend the\nceremony, sat by the breakfast table in the old room which communicated\nimmediately with the porch, her eyes listlessly directed towards the\nopen door. It was the room in which, six months earlier, the merry\nChristmas party had met, to which Eustacia came secretly and as a\nstranger. The only living thing that entered now was a sparrow; and\nseeing no movements to cause alarm, he hopped boldly round the\nroom, endeavoured to go out by the window, and fluttered among the\npot-flowers. This roused the lonely sitter, who got up, released the\nbird, and went to the door. She was expecting Thomasin, who had written\nthe night before to state that the time had come when she would wish to\nhave the money and that she would if possible call this day.\n\nYet Thomasin occupied Mrs. Yeobright\'s thoughts but slightly as she\nlooked up the valley of the heath, alive with butterflies, and with\ngrasshoppers whose husky noises on every side formed a whispered chorus.\nA domestic drama, for which the preparations were now being made a mile\nor two off, was but little less vividly present to her eyes than if\nenacted before her. She tried to dismiss the vision, and walked about\nthe garden plot; but her eyes ever and anon sought out the direction\nof the parish church to which Mistover belonged, and her excited fancy\nclove the hills which divided the building from her eyes. The morning\nwore away. Eleven o\'clock struck--could it be that the wedding was\nthen in progress? It must be so. She went on imagining the scene at\nthe church, which he had by this time approached with his bride. She\npictured the little group of children by the gate as the pony carriage\ndrove up in which, as Thomasin had learnt, they were going to perform\nthe short journey. Then she saw them enter and proceed to the chancel\nand kneel; and the service seemed to go on.\n\nShe covered her face with her hands. \"O, it is a mistake!\" she groaned.\n\"And he will rue it some day, and think of me!\"\n\nWhile she remained thus, overcome by her forebodings, the old clock\nindoors whizzed forth twelve strokes. Soon after, faint sounds floated\nto her ear from afar over the hills. The breeze came from that quarter,\nand it had brought with it the notes of distant bells, gaily starting\noff in a peal: one, two, three, four, five. The ringers at East Egdon\nwere announcing the nuptials of Eustacia and her son.\n\n\"Then it is over,\" she murmured. \"Well, well! and life too will be over\nsoon. And why should I go on scalding my face like this? Cry about one\nthing in life, cry about all; one thread runs through the whole piece.\nAnd yet we say, \'a time to laugh!\'\"\n\nTowards evening Wildeve came. Since Thomasin\'s marriage Mrs. Yeobright\nhad shown him that grim friendliness which at last arises in all such\ncases of undesired affinity. The vision of what ought to have been\nis thrown aside in sheer weariness, and browbeaten human endeavour\nlistlessly makes the best of the fact that is. Wildeve, to do him\njustice, had behaved very courteously to his wife\'s aunt; and it was\nwith no surprise that she saw him enter now.\n\n\"Thomasin has not been able to come, as she promised to do,\" he replied\nto her inquiry, which had been anxious, for she knew that her niece was\nbadly in want of money. \"The captain came down last night and\npersonally pressed her to join them today. So, not to be unpleasant,\nshe determined to go. They fetched her in the pony-chaise, and are\ngoing to bring her back.\"\n\n\"Then it is done,\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"Have they gone to their new\nhome?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know. I have had no news from Mistover since Thomasin left to\ngo.\"\n\n\"You did not go with her?\" said she, as if there might be good reasons\nwhy.\n\n\"I could not,\" said Wildeve, reddening slightly. \"We could not both\nleave the house; it was rather a busy morning, on account of Anglebury\nGreat Market. I believe you have something to give to Thomasin? If you\nlike, I will take it.\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright hesitated, and wondered if Wildeve knew what the\nsomething was. \"Did she tell you of this?\" she inquired.\n\n\"Not particularly. She casually dropped a remark about having arranged\nto fetch some article or other.\"\n\n\"It is hardly necessary to send it. She can have it whenever she chooses\nto come.\"\n\n\"That won\'t be yet. In the present state of her health she must not go\non walking so much as she has done.\" He added, with a faint twang of\nsarcasm, \"What wonderful thing is it that I cannot be trusted to take?\"\n\n\"Nothing worth troubling you with.\"\n\n\"One would think you doubted my honesty,\" he said, with a laugh, though\nhis colour rose in a quick resentfulness frequent with him.\n\n\"You need think no such thing,\" said she drily. \"It is simply that I,\nin common with the rest of the world, feel that there are certain things\nwhich had better be done by certain people than by others.\"\n\n\"As you like, as you like,\" said Wildeve laconically. \"It is not worth\narguing about. Well, I think I must turn homeward again, as the inn must\nnot be left long in charge of the lad and the maid only.\"\n\nHe went his way, his farewell being scarcely so courteous as his\ngreeting. But Mrs. Yeobright knew him thoroughly by this time, and took\nlittle notice of his manner, good or bad.\n\nWhen Wildeve was gone Mrs. Yeobright stood and considered what would be\nthe best course to adopt with regard to the guineas, which she had not\nliked to entrust to Wildeve. It was hardly credible that Thomasin had\ntold him to ask for them, when the necessity for them had arisen\nfrom the difficulty of obtaining money at his hands. At the same time\nThomasin really wanted them, and might be unable to come to Blooms-End\nfor another week at least. To take or send the money to her at the inn\nwould be impolite, since Wildeve would pretty surely be present, or\nwould discover the transaction; and if, as her aunt suspected, he\ntreated her less kindly than she deserved to be treated, he might\nthen get the whole sum out of her gentle hands. But on this particular\nevening Thomasin was at Mistover, and anything might be conveyed to\nher there without the knowledge of her husband. Upon the whole the\nopportunity was worth taking advantage of.\n\nHer son, too, was there, and was now married. There could be no more\nproper moment to render him his share of the money than the present.\nAnd the chance that would be afforded her, by sending him this gift,\nof showing how far she was from bearing him ill-will, cheered the sad\nmother\'s heart.\n\nShe went upstairs and took from a locked drawer a little box, out of\nwhich she poured a hoard of broad unworn guineas that had lain there\nmany a year. There were a hundred in all, and she divided them into two\nheaps, fifty in each. Tying up these in small canvas bags, she went down\nto the garden and called to Christian Cantle, who was loitering about in\nhope of a supper which was not really owed him. Mrs. Yeobright gave\nhim the moneybags, charged him to go to Mistover, and on no account\nto deliver them into any one\'s hands save her son\'s and Thomasin\'s. On\nfurther thought she deemed it advisable to tell Christian precisely\nwhat the two bags contained, that he might be fully impressed with their\nimportance. Christian pocketed the moneybags, promised the greatest\ncarefulness, and set out on his way.\n\n\"You need not hurry,\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"It will be better not to get\nthere till after dusk, and then nobody will notice you. Come back here\nto supper, if it is not too late.\"\n\nIt was nearly nine o\'clock when he began to ascend the vale towards\nMistover; but the long days of summer being at their climax, the first\nobscurity of evening had only just begun to tan the landscape. At\nthis point of his journey Christian heard voices, and found that they\nproceeded from a company of men and women who were traversing a hollow\nahead of him, the tops only of their heads being visible.\n\nHe paused and thought of the money he carried. It was almost too early\neven for Christian seriously to fear robbery; nevertheless he took\na precaution which ever since his boyhood he had adopted whenever he\ncarried more than two or three shillings upon his person--a precaution\nsomewhat like that of the owner of the Pitt Diamond when filled with\nsimilar misgivings. He took off his boots, untied the guineas, and\nemptied the contents of one little bag into the right boot, and of\nthe other into the left, spreading them as flatly as possible over the\nbottom of each, which was really a spacious coffer by no means limited\nto the size of the foot. Pulling them on again and lacing them to the\nvery top, he proceeded on his way, more easy in his head than under his\nsoles.\n\nHis path converged towards that of the noisy company, and on coming\nnearer he found to his relief that they were several Egdon people whom\nhe knew very well, while with them walked Fairway, of Blooms-End.\n\n\"What! Christian going too?\" said Fairway as soon as he recognized the\nnewcomer. \"You\'ve got no young woman nor wife to your name to gie a\ngown-piece to, I\'m sure.\"\n\n\"What d\'ye mean?\" said Christian.\n\n\"Why, the raffle. The one we go to every year. Going to the raffle as\nwell as ourselves?\"\n\n\"Never knew a word o\'t. Is it like cudgel playing or other sportful\nforms of bloodshed? I don\'t want to go, thank you, Mister Fairway, and\nno offence.\"\n\n\"Christian don\'t know the fun o\'t, and \'twould be a fine sight for him,\"\nsaid a buxom woman. \"There\'s no danger at all, Christian. Every man\nputs in a shilling apiece, and one wins a gown-piece for his wife or\nsweetheart if he\'s got one.\"\n\n\"Well, as that\'s not my fortune there\'s no meaning in it to me. But I\nshould like to see the fun, if there\'s nothing of the black art in it,\nand if a man may look on without cost or getting into any dangerous\nwrangle?\"\n\n\"There will be no uproar at all,\" said Timothy. \"Sure, Christian, if\nyou\'d like to come we\'ll see there\'s no harm done.\"\n\n\"And no ba\'dy gaieties, I suppose? You see, neighbours, if so, it\nwould be setting father a bad example, as he is so light moral\'d. But\na gown-piece for a shilling, and no black art--\'tis worth looking in to\nsee, and it wouldn\'t hinder me half an hour. Yes, I\'ll come, if you\'ll\nstep a little way towards Mistover with me afterwards, supposing night\nshould have closed in, and nobody else is going that way?\"\n\nOne or two promised; and Christian, diverging from his direct path,\nturned round to the right with his companions towards the Quiet Woman.\n\nWhen they entered the large common room of the inn they found assembled\nthere about ten men from among the neighbouring population, and the\ngroup was increased by the new contingent to double that number. Most of\nthem were sitting round the room in seats divided by wooden elbows like\nthose of crude cathedral stalls, which were carved with the initials of\nmany an illustrious drunkard of former times who had passed his days\nand his nights between them, and now lay as an alcoholic cinder in the\nnearest churchyard. Among the cups on the long table before the\nsitters lay an open parcel of light drapery--the gown-piece, as it was\ncalled--which was to be raffled for. Wildeve was standing with his back\nto the fireplace smoking a cigar; and the promoter of the raffle, a\npackman from a distant town, was expatiating upon the value of the\nfabric as material for a summer dress.\n\n\"Now, gentlemen,\" he continued, as the newcomers drew up to the table,\n\"there\'s five have entered, and we want four more to make up the number.\nI think, by the faces of those gentlemen who have just come in, that\nthey are shrewd enough to take advantage of this rare opportunity of\nbeautifying their ladies at a very trifling expense.\"\n\nFairway, Sam, and another placed their shillings on the table, and the\nman turned to Christian.\n\n\"No, sir,\" said Christian, drawing back, with a quick gaze of misgiving.\n\"I am only a poor chap come to look on, an it please ye, sir. I don\'t\nso much as know how you do it. If so be I was sure of getting it I would\nput down the shilling; but I couldn\'t otherwise.\"\n\n\"I think you might almost be sure,\" said the pedlar. \"In fact, now I\nlook into your face, even if I can\'t say you are sure to win, I can say\nthat I never saw anything look more like winning in my life.\"\n\n\"You\'ll anyhow have the same chance as the rest of us,\" said Sam.\n\n\"And the extra luck of being the last comer,\" said another.\n\n\"And I was born wi\' a caul, and perhaps can be no more ruined than\ndrowned?\" Christian added, beginning to give way.\n\nUltimately Christian laid down his shilling, the raffle began, and the\ndice went round. When it came to Christian\'s turn he took the box with a\ntrembling hand, shook it fearfully, and threw a pair-royal. Three of the\nothers had thrown common low pairs, and all the rest mere points.\n\n\"The gentleman looked like winning, as I said,\" observed the chapman\nblandly. \"Take it, sir; the article is yours.\"\n\n\"Haw-haw-haw!\" said Fairway. \"I\'m damned if this isn\'t the quarest start\nthat ever I knowed!\"\n\n\"Mine?\" asked Christian, with a vacant stare from his target eyes. \"I--I\nhaven\'t got neither maid, wife, nor widder belonging to me at all, and\nI\'m afeard it will make me laughed at to ha\'e it, Master Traveller. What\nwith being curious to join in I never thought of that! What shall I do\nwi\' a woman\'s clothes in MY bedroom, and not lose my decency!\"\n\n\"Keep \'em, to be sure,\" said Fairway, \"if it is only for luck. Perhaps\n\'twill tempt some woman that thy poor carcase had no power over when\nstanding empty-handed.\"\n\n\"Keep it, certainly,\" said Wildeve, who had idly watched the scene from\na distance.\n\nThe table was then cleared of the articles, and the men began to drink.\n\n\"Well, to be sure!\" said Christian, half to himself. \"To think I should\nhave been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until now!\nWhat curious creatures these dice be--powerful rulers of us all, and\nyet at my command! I am sure I never need be afeared of anything after\nthis.\" He handled the dice fondly one by one. \"Why, sir,\" he said in a\nconfidential whisper to Wildeve, who was near his left hand, \"if I could\nonly use this power that\'s in me of multiplying money I might do some\ngood to a near relation of yours, seeing what I\'ve got about me of\nhers--eh?\" He tapped one of his money-laden boots upon the floor.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"That\'s a secret. Well, I must be going now.\" He looked anxiously\ntowards Fairway.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" Wildeve asked.\n\n\"To Mistover Knap. I have to see Mrs. Thomasin there--that\'s all.\"\n\n\"I am going there, too, to fetch Mrs. Wildeve. We can walk together.\"\n\nWildeve became lost in thought, and a look of inward illumination came\ninto his eyes. It was money for his wife that Mrs. Yeobright could not\ntrust him with. \"Yet she could trust this fellow,\" he said to himself.\n\"Why doesn\'t that which belongs to the wife belong to the husband too?\"\n\nHe called to the pot-boy to bring him his hat, and said, \"Now,\nChristian, I am ready.\"\n\n\"Mr. Wildeve,\" said Christian timidly, as he turned to leave the room,\n\"would you mind lending me them wonderful little things that carry my\nluck inside \'em, that I might practise a bit by myself, you know?\" He\nlooked wistfully at the dice and box lying on the mantlepiece.\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Wildeve carelessly. \"They were only cut out by some\nlad with his knife, and are worth nothing.\" And Christian went back and\nprivately pocketed them.\n\nWildeve opened the door and looked out. The night was warm and cloudy.\n\"By Gad! \'tis dark,\" he continued. \"But I suppose we shall find our\nway.\"\n\n\"If we should lose the path it might be awkward,\" said Christian. \"A\nlantern is the only shield that will make it safe for us.\"\n\n\"Let\'s have a lantern by all means.\" The stable lantern was fetched and\nlighted. Christian took up his gownpiece, and the two set out to ascend\nthe hill.\n\nWithin the room the men fell into chat till their attention was for a\nmoment drawn to the chimney-corner. This was large, and, in addition\nto its proper recess, contained within its jambs, like many on Egdon, a\nreceding seat, so that a person might sit there absolutely unobserved,\nprovided there was no fire to light him up, as was the case now and\nthroughout the summer. From the niche a single object protruded into the\nlight from the candles on the table. It was a clay pipe, and its colour\nwas reddish. The men had been attracted to this object by a voice behind\nthe pipe asking for a light.\n\n\"Upon my life, it fairly startled me when the man spoke!\" said Fairway,\nhanding a candle. \"Oh--\'tis the reddleman! You\'ve kept a quiet tongue,\nyoung man.\"\n\n\"Yes, I had nothing to say,\" observed Venn. In a few minutes he arose\nand wished the company good night.\n\nMeanwhile Wildeve and Christian had plunged into the heath.\n\nIt was a stagnant, warm, and misty night, full of all the heavy perfumes\nof new vegetation not yet dried by hot sun, and among these particularly\nthe scent of the fern. The lantern, dangling from Christian\'s hand,\nbrushed the feathery fronds in passing by, disturbing moths and other\nwinged insects, which flew out and alighted upon its horny panes.\n\n\"So you have money to carry to Mrs. Wildeve?\" said Christian\'s\ncompanion, after a silence. \"Don\'t you think it very odd that it\nshouldn\'t be given to me?\"\n\n\"As man and wife be one flesh, \'twould have been all the same, I should\nthink,\" said Christian. \"But my strict documents was, to give the money\ninto Mrs. Wildeve\'s hand--and \'tis well to do things right.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said Wildeve. Any person who had known the circumstances\nmight have perceived that Wildeve was mortified by the discovery that\nthe matter in transit was money, and not, as he had supposed when at\nBlooms-End, some fancy nick-nack which only interested the two women\nthemselves. Mrs. Yeobright\'s refusal implied that his honour was not\nconsidered to be of sufficiently good quality to make him a safer bearer\nof his wife\'s property.\n\n\"How very warm it is tonight, Christian!\" he said, panting, when they\nwere nearly under Rainbarrow. \"Let us sit down for a few minutes, for\nHeaven\'s sake.\"\n\nWildeve flung himself down on the soft ferns; and Christian, placing the\nlantern and parcel on the ground, perched himself in a cramped position\nhard by, his knees almost touching his chin. He presently thrust one\nhand into his coat-pocket and began shaking it about.\n\n\"What are you rattling in there?\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"Only the dice, sir,\" said Christian, quickly withdrawing his hand.\n\"What magical machines these little things be, Mr. Wildeve! \'Tis a\ngame I should never get tired of. Would you mind my taking \'em out and\nlooking at \'em for a minute, to see how they are made? I didn\'t like\nto look close before the other men, for fear they should think it bad\nmanners in me.\" Christian took them out and examined them in the hollow\nof his hand by the lantern light. \"That these little things should carry\nsuch luck, and such charm, and such a spell, and such power in \'em,\npasses all I ever heard or zeed,\" he went on, with a fascinated gaze at\nthe dice, which, as is frequently the case in country places, were made\nof wood, the points being burnt upon each face with the end of a wire.\n\n\"They are a great deal in a small compass, You think?\"\n\n\"Yes. Do ye suppose they really be the devil\'s playthings, Mr. Wildeve?\nIf so, \'tis no good sign that I be such a lucky man.\"\n\n\"You ought to win some money, now that you\'ve got them. Any woman would\nmarry you then. Now is your time, Christian, and I would recommend you\nnot to let it slip. Some men are born to luck, some are not. I belong to\nthe latter class.\"\n\n\"Did you ever know anybody who was born to it besides myself?\"\n\n\"O yes. I once heard of an Italian, who sat down at a gaming table with\nonly a louis, (that\'s a foreign sovereign), in his pocket. He played on\nfor twenty-four hours, and won ten thousand pounds, stripping the\nbank he had played against. Then there was another man who had lost a\nthousand pounds, and went to the broker\'s next day to sell stock, that\nhe might pay the debt. The man to whom he owed the money went with him\nin a hackney-coach; and to pass the time they tossed who should pay\nthe fare. The ruined man won, and the other was tempted to continue the\ngame, and they played all the way. When the coachman stopped he was told\nto drive home again: the whole thousand pounds had been won back by the\nman who was going to sell.\"\n\n\"Ha--ha--splendid!\" exclaimed Christian. \"Go on--go on!\"\n\n\"Then there was a man of London, who was only a waiter at White\'s\nclubhouse. He began playing first half-crown stakes, and then higher and\nhigher, till he became very rich, got an appointment in India, and rose\nto be Governor of Madras. His daughter married a member of Parliament,\nand the Bishop of Carlisle stood godfather to one of the children.\"\n\n\"Wonderful! wonderful!\"\n\n\"And once there was a young man in America who gambled till he had lost\nhis last dollar. He staked his watch and chain, and lost as before;\nstaked his umbrella, lost again; staked his hat, lost again; staked his\ncoat and stood in his shirt-sleeves, lost again. Began taking off his\nbreeches, and then a looker-on gave him a trifle for his pluck. With\nthis he won. Won back his coat, won back his hat, won back his umbrella,\nhis watch, his money, and went out of the door a rich man.\"\n\n\"Oh, \'tis too good--it takes away my breath! Mr. Wildeve, I think I will\ntry another shilling with you, as I am one of that sort; no danger can\ncome o\'t, and you can afford to lose.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Wildeve, rising. Searching about with the lantern, he\nfound a large flat stone, which he placed between himself and Christian,\nand sat down again. The lantern was opened to give more light, and it\'s\nrays directed upon the stone. Christian put down a shilling, Wildeve\nanother, and each threw. Christian won. They played for two, Christian\nwon again.\n\n\"Let us try four,\" said Wildeve. They played for four. This time the\nstakes were won by Wildeve.\n\n\"Ah, those little accidents will, of course, sometimes happen, to the\nluckiest man,\" he observed.\n\n\"And now I have no more money!\" explained Christian excitedly. \"And yet,\nif I could go on, I should get it back again, and more. I wish this was\nmine.\" He struck his boot upon the ground, so that the guineas chinked\nwithin.\n\n\"What! you have not put Mrs. Wildeve\'s money there?\"\n\n\"Yes. \'Tis for safety. Is it any harm to raffle with a married lady\'s\nmoney when, if I win, I shall only keep my winnings, and give her her\nown all the same; and if t\'other man wins, her money will go to the\nlawful owner?\"\n\n\"None at all.\"\n\nWildeve had been brooding ever since they started on the mean estimation\nin which he was held by his wife\'s friends; and it cut his heart\nseverely. As the minutes passed he had gradually drifted into a\nrevengeful intention without knowing the precise moment of forming it.\nThis was to teach Mrs. Yeobright a lesson, as he considered it to be;\nin other words, to show her if he could that her niece\'s husband was the\nproper guardian of her niece\'s money.\n\n\"Well, here goes!\" said Christian, beginning to unlace one boot. \"I\nshall dream of it nights and nights, I suppose; but I shall always swear\nmy flesh don\'t crawl when I think o\'t!\"\n\nHe thrust his hand into the boot and withdrew one of poor Thomasin\'s\nprecious guineas, piping hot. Wildeve had already placed a sovereign on\nthe stone. The game was then resumed. Wildeve won first, and Christian\nventured another, winning himself this time. The game fluctuated, but\nthe average was in Wildeve\'s favour. Both men became so absorbed in\nthe game that they took no heed of anything but the pigmy objects\nimmediately beneath their eyes, the flat stone, the open lantern, the\ndice, and the few illuminated fern-leaves which lay under the light,\nwere the whole world to them.\n\nAt length Christian lost rapidly; and presently, to his horror, the\nwhole fifty guineas belonging to Thomasin had been handed over to his\nadversary.\n\n\"I don\'t care--I don\'t care!\" he moaned, and desperately set about\nuntying his left boot to get at the other fifty. \"The devil will toss me\ninto the flames on his three-pronged fork for this night\'s work, I know!\nBut perhaps I shall win yet, and then I\'ll get a wife to sit up with\nme o\' nights and I won\'t be afeard, I won\'t! Here\'s another for\'ee, my\nman!\" He slapped another guinea down upon the stone, and the dice-box\nwas rattled again.\n\nTime passed on. Wildeve began to be as excited as Christian himself.\nWhen commencing the game his intention had been nothing further than\na bitter practical joke on Mrs. Yeobright. To win the money, fairly\nor otherwise, and to hand it contemptuously to Thomasin in her aunt\'s\npresence, had been the dim outline of his purpose. But men are drawn\nfrom their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and\nit was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been\nreached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that\nof winning for his own personal benefit. Moreover, he was now no longer\ngambling for his wife\'s money, but for Yeobright\'s; though of this fact\nChristian, in his apprehensiveness, did not inform him till afterwards.\n\nIt was nearly eleven o\'clock, when, with almost a shriek, Christian\nplaced Yeobright\'s last gleaming guinea upon the stone. In thirty\nseconds it had gone the way of its companions.\n\nChristian turned and flung himself on the ferns in a convulsion of\nremorse, \"O, what shall I do with my wretched self?\" he groaned. \"What\nshall I do? Will any good Heaven hae mercy upon my wicked soul?\"\n\n\"Do? Live on just the same.\"\n\n\"I won\'t live on just the same! I\'ll die! I say you are a--a----\"\n\n\"A man sharper than my neighbour.\"\n\n\"Yes, a man sharper than my neighbour; a regular sharper!\"\n\n\"Poor chips-in-porridge, you are very unmannerly.\"\n\n\"I don\'t know about that! And I say you be unmannerly! You\'ve got money\nthat isn\'t your own. Half the guineas are poor Mr. Clym\'s.\"\n\n\"How\'s that?\"\n\n\"Because I had to gie fifty of \'em to him. Mrs. Yeobright said so.\"\n\n\"Oh?... Well, \'twould have been more graceful of her to have given them\nto his wife Eustacia. But they are in my hands now.\"\n\nChristian pulled on his boots, and with heavy breathings, which could be\nheard to some distance, dragged his limbs together, arose, and tottered\naway out of sight. Wildeve set about shutting the lantern to return to\nthe house, for he deemed it too late to go to Mistover to meet his wife,\nwho was to be driven home in the captain\'s four-wheel. While he was\nclosing the little horn door a figure rose from behind a neighbouring\nbush and came forward into the lantern light. It was the reddleman\napproaching.\n\n\n\n\n8--A New Force Disturbs the Current\n\n\nWildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and, without a word\nbeing spoken, he deliberately sat himself down where Christian had been\nseated, thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid\nit on the stone.\n\n\"You have been watching us from behind that bush?\" said Wildeve.\n\nThe reddleman nodded. \"Down with your stake,\" he said. \"Or haven\'t you\npluck enough to go on?\"\n\nNow, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more easily begun\nwith full pockets than left off with the same; and though Wildeve in\na cooler temper might have prudently declined this invitation, the\nexcitement of his recent success carried him completely away. He placed\none of the guineas on a slab beside the reddleman\'s sovereign. \"Mine is\na guinea,\" he said.\n\n\"A guinea that\'s not your own,\" said Venn sarcastically.\n\n\"It is my own,\" answered Wildeve haughtily. \"It is my wife\'s, and what\nis hers is mine.\"\n\n\"Very well; let\'s make a beginning.\" He shook the box, and threw eight,\nten, and nine; the three casts amounted to twenty-seven.\n\nThis encouraged Wildeve. He took the box; and his three casts amounted\nto forty-five.\n\nDown went another of the reddleman\'s sovereigns against his first one\nwhich Wildeve laid. This time Wildeve threw fifty-one points, but no\npair. The reddleman looked grim, threw a raffle of aces, and pocketed\nthe stakes.\n\n\"Here you are again,\" said Wildeve contemptuously. \"Double the stakes.\"\nHe laid two of Thomasin\'s guineas, and the reddleman his two pounds.\nVenn won again. New stakes were laid on the stone, and the gamblers\nproceeded as before.\n\nWildeve was a nervous and excitable man, and the game was beginning\nto tell upon his temper. He writhed, fumed, shifted his seat, and the\nbeating of his heart was almost audible. Venn sat with lips impassively\nclosed and eyes reduced to a pair of unimportant twinkles; he scarcely\nappeared to breathe. He might have been an Arab, or an automaton; he\nwould have been like a red sandstone statue but for the motion of his\narm with the dice-box.\n\nThe game fluctuated, now in favour of one, now in favour of the other,\nwithout any great advantage on the side of either. Nearly twenty minutes\nwere passed thus. The light of the candle had by this time attracted\nheath-flies, moths, and other winged creatures of night, which floated\nround the lantern, flew into the flame, or beat about the faces of the\ntwo players.\n\nBut neither of the men paid much attention to these things, their eyes\nbeing concentrated upon the little flat stone, which to them was an\narena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had\ncome over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty\nguineas--Thomasin\'s fifty, and ten of Clym\'s--had passed into his hands.\nWildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated.\n\n\"\'Won back his coat,\'\" said Venn slily.\n\nAnother throw, and the money went the same way.\n\n\"\'Won back his hat,\'\" continued Venn.\n\n\"Oh, oh!\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"\'Won back his watch, won back his money, and went out of the door a\nrich man,\'\" added Venn sentence by sentence, as stake after stake passed\nover to him.\n\n\"Five more!\" shouted Wildeve, dashing down the money. \"And three casts\nbe hanged--one shall decide.\"\n\nThe red automaton opposite lapsed into silence, nodded, and followed\nhis example. Wildeve rattled the box, and threw a pair of sixes and five\npoints. He clapped his hands; \"I have done it this time--hurrah!\"\n\n\"There are two playing, and only one has thrown,\" said the reddleman,\nquietly bringing down the box. The eyes of each were then so intently\nconverged upon the stone that one could fancy their beams were visible,\nlike rays in a fog.\n\nVenn lifted the box, and behold a triplet of sixes was disclosed.\n\nWildeve was full of fury. While the reddleman was grasping the stakes\nWildeve seized the dice and hurled them, box and all, into the darkness,\nuttering a fearful imprecation. Then he arose and began stamping up and\ndown like a madman.\n\n\"It is all over, then?\" said Venn.\n\n\"No, no!\" cried Wildeve. \"I mean to have another chance yet. I must!\"\n\n\"But, my good man, what have you done with the dice?\"\n\n\"I threw them away--it was a momentary irritation. What a fool I am!\nHere--come and help me to look for them--we must find them again.\"\n\nWildeve snatched up the lantern and began anxiously prowling among the\nfurze and fern.\n\n\"You are not likely to find them there,\" said Venn, following. \"What did\nyou do such a crazy thing as that for? Here\'s the box. The dice can\'t be\nfar off.\"\n\nWildeve turned the light eagerly upon the spot where Venn had found\nthe box, and mauled the herbage right and left. In the course of a few\nminutes one of the dice was found. They searched on for some time, but\nno other was to be seen.\n\n\"Never mind,\" said Wildeve; \"let\'s play with one.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said Venn.\n\nDown they sat again, and recommenced with single guinea stakes; and the\nplay went on smartly. But Fortune had unmistakably fallen in love\nwith the reddleman tonight. He won steadily, till he was the owner of\nfourteen more of the gold pieces. Seventy-nine of the hundred guineas\nwere his, Wildeve possessing only twenty-one. The aspect of the two\nopponents was now singular. Apart from motions, a complete diorama\nof the fluctuations of the game went on in their eyes. A diminutive\ncandle-flame was mirrored in each pupil, and it would have been possible\nto distinguish therein between the moods of hope and the moods of\nabandonment, even as regards the reddleman, though his facial muscles\nbetrayed nothing at all. Wildeve played on with the recklessness of\ndespair.\n\n\"What\'s that?\" he suddenly exclaimed, hearing a rustle; and they both\nlooked up.\n\nThey were surrounded by dusky forms between four and five feet high,\nstanding a few paces beyond the rays of the lantern. A moment\'s\ninspection revealed that the encircling figures were heath-croppers,\ntheir heads being all towards the players, at whom they gazed intently.\n\n\"Hoosh!\" said Wildeve, and the whole forty or fifty animals at once\nturned and galloped away. Play was again resumed.\n\nTen minutes passed away. Then a large death\'s head moth advanced from\nthe obscure outer air, wheeled twice round the lantern, flew straight\nat the candle, and extinguished it by the force of the blow. Wildeve had\njust thrown, but had not lifted the box to see what he had cast; and now\nit was impossible.\n\n\"What the infernal!\" he shrieked. \"Now, what shall we do? Perhaps I have\nthrown six--have you any matches?\"\n\n\"None,\" said Venn.\n\n\"Christian had some--I wonder where he is. Christian!\"\n\nBut there was no reply to Wildeve\'s shout, save a mournful whining\nfrom the herons which were nesting lower down the vale. Both men looked\nblankly round without rising. As their eyes grew accustomed to the\ndarkness they perceived faint greenish points of light among the\ngrass and fern. These lights dotted the hillside like stars of a low\nmagnitude.\n\n\"Ah--glowworms,\" said Wildeve. \"Wait a minute. We can continue the\ngame.\"\n\nVenn sat still, and his companion went hither and thither till he had\ngathered thirteen glowworms--as many as he could find in a space of four\nor five minutes--upon a fox-glove leaf which he pulled for the purpose.\nThe reddleman vented a low humorous laugh when he saw his adversary\nreturn with these. \"Determined to go on, then?\" he said drily.\n\n\"I always am!\" said Wildeve angrily. And shaking the glowworms from\nthe leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone,\nleaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over\nwhich the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine. The game\nwas again renewed. It happened to be that season of the year at which\nglowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light they\nyielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible on\nsuch nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or\nthree.\n\nThe incongruity between the men\'s deeds and their environment was great.\nAmid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the\nmotionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas,\nthe rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.\n\nWildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the\nsolitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.\n\n\"I won\'t play any more--you\'ve been tampering with the dice,\" he\nshouted.\n\n\"How--when they were your own?\" said the reddleman.\n\n\"We\'ll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake--it may cut\noff my ill luck. Do you refuse?\"\n\n\"No--go on,\" said Venn.\n\n\"O, there they are again--damn them!\" cried Wildeve, looking up. The\nheath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect\nheads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they\nwere wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these\nhaunts at this untoward hour.\n\n\"What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!\" he said, and\nflung a stone, which scattered them; when the game was continued as\nbefore.\n\nWildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five. Wildeve threw\nthree points; Venn two, and raked in the coins. The other seized the\ndie, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite\nit in pieces. \"Never give in--here are my last five!\" he cried, throwing\nthem down. \"Hang the glowworms--they are going out. Why don\'t you burn,\nyou little fools? Stir them up with a thorn.\"\n\nHe probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till\nthe bright side of their tails was upwards.\n\n\"There\'s light enough. Throw on,\" said Venn.\n\nWildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked\neagerly. He had thrown ace. \"Well done!--I said it would turn, and it\nhas turned.\" Venn said nothing; but his hand shook slightly.\n\nHe threw ace also.\n\n\"O!\" said Wildeve. \"Curse me!\"\n\nThe die smacked the stone a second time. It was ace again. Venn looked\ngloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft\nsides uppermost.\n\n\"I\'ve thrown nothing at all,\" he said.\n\n\"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth. Here--take your money.\nBlank is less than one.\"\n\n\"I don\'t wish it.\"\n\n\"Take it, I say--you\'ve won it!\" And Wildeve threw the stakes against\nthe reddleman\'s chest. Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from\nthe hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.\n\nWhen he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished\nlantern in his hand, went towards the highroad. On reaching it he stood\nstill. The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one\ndirection; and that was towards Mistover. There he could hear the noise\nof light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the\nhill. Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.\n\nThe vehicle came on and passed before him. It was a hired carriage,\nand behind the coachman were two persons whom he knew well. There sat\nEustacia and Yeobright, the arm of the latter being round her waist.\nThey turned the sharp corner at the bottom towards the temporary home\nwhich Clym had hired and furnished, about five miles to the eastward.\n\nWildeve forgot the loss of the money at the sight of his lost love,\nwhose preciousness in his eyes was increasing in geometrical progression\nwith each new incident that reminded him of their hopeless division.\nBrimming with the subtilized misery that he was capable of feeling, he\nfollowed the opposite way towards the inn.\n\nAbout the same moment that Wildeve stepped into the highway Venn also\nhad reached it at a point a hundred yards further on; and he, hearing\nthe same wheels, likewise waited till the carriage should come up. When\nhe saw who sat therein he seemed to be disappointed. Reflecting a minute\nor two, during which interval the carriage rolled on, he crossed the\nroad, and took a short cut through the furze and heath to a point where\nthe turnpike road bent round in ascending a hill. He was now again in\nfront of the carriage, which presently came up at a walking pace. Venn\nstepped forward and showed himself.\n\nEustacia started when the lamp shone upon him, and Clym\'s arm was\ninvoluntarily withdrawn from her waist. He said, \"What, Diggory? You are\nhaving a lonely walk.\"\n\n\"Yes--I beg your pardon for stopping you,\" said Venn. \"But I am\nwaiting about for Mrs. Wildeve: I have something to give her from Mrs.\nYeobright. Can you tell me if she\'s gone home from the party yet?\"\n\n\"No. But she will be leaving soon. You may possibly meet her at the\ncorner.\"\n\nVenn made a farewell obeisance, and walked back to his former position,\nwhere the byroad from Mistover joined the highway. Here he remained\nfixed for nearly half an hour, and then another pair of lights came down\nthe hill. It was the old-fashioned wheeled nondescript belonging to the\ncaptain, and Thomasin sat in it alone, driven by Charley.\n\nThe reddleman came up as they slowly turned the corner. \"I beg pardon\nfor stopping you, Mrs. Wildeve,\" he said. \"But I have something to\ngive you privately from Mrs. Yeobright.\" He handed a small parcel; it\nconsisted of the hundred guineas he had just won, roughly twisted up in\na piece of paper.\n\nThomasin recovered from her surprise, and took the packet. \"That\'s all,\nma\'am--I wish you good night,\" he said, and vanished from her view.\n\nThus Venn, in his anxiety to rectify matters, had placed in Thomasin\'s\nhands not only the fifty guineas which rightly belonged to her, but also\nthe fifty intended for her cousin Clym. His mistake had been based upon\nWildeve\'s words at the opening of the game, when he indignantly denied\nthat the guinea was not his own. It had not been comprehended by the\nreddleman that at halfway through the performance the game was continued\nwith the money of another person; and it was an error which afterwards\nhelped to cause more misfortune than treble the loss in money value\ncould have done.\n\nThe night was now somewhat advanced; and Venn plunged deeper into the\nheath, till he came to a ravine where his van was standing--a spot\nnot more than two hundred yards from the site of the gambling bout. He\nentered this movable home of his, lit his lantern, and, before closing\nhis door for the night, stood reflecting on the circumstances of the\npreceding hours. While he stood the dawn grew visible in the northeast\nquarter of the heavens, which, the clouds having cleared off, was bright\nwith a soft sheen at this midsummer time, though it was only between one\nand two o\'clock. Venn, thoroughly weary, then shut his door and flung\nhimself down to sleep.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FOUR -- THE CLOSED DOOR\n\n\n\n\n1--The Rencounter by the Pool\n\n\nThe July sun shone over Egdon and fired its crimson heather to scarlet.\nIt was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season,\nin which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the\nsecond or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes\nwhich alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern\nperiod, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the\nheathbells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in\nturn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.\n\nClym and Eustacia, in their little house at Alderworth, beyond East\nEgdon, were living on with a monotony which was delightful to them. The\nheath and changes of weather were quite blotted out from their eyes for\nthe present. They were enclosed in a sort of luminous mist, which hid\nfrom them surroundings of any inharmonious colour, and gave to all\nthings the character of light. When it rained they were charmed, because\nthey could remain indoors together all day with such a show of reason;\nwhen it was fine they were charmed, because they could sit together on\nthe hills. They were like those double stars which revolve round and\nround each other, and from a distance appear to be one. The absolute\nsolitude in which they lived intensified their reciprocal thoughts; yet\nsome might have said that it had the disadvantage of consuming their\nmutual affections at a fearfully prodigal rate. Yeobright did not fear\nfor his own part; but recollection of Eustacia\'s old speech about the\nevanescence of love, now apparently forgotten by her, sometimes caused\nhim to ask himself a question; and he recoiled at the thought that the\nquality of finiteness was not foreign to Eden.\n\nWhen three or four weeks had been passed thus, Yeobright resumed his\nreading in earnest. To make up for lost time he studied indefatigably,\nfor he wished to enter his new profession with the least possible delay.\n\nNow, Eustacia\'s dream had always been that, once married to Clym,\nshe would have the power of inducing him to return to Paris. He had\ncarefully withheld all promise to do so; but would he be proof against\nher coaxing and argument? She had calculated to such a degree on the\nprobability of success that she had represented Paris, and not Budmouth,\nto her grandfather as in all likelihood their future home. Her hopes\nwere bound up in this dream. In the quiet days since their marriage,\nwhen Yeobright had been poring over her lips, her eyes, and the lines of\nher face, she had mused and mused on the subject, even while in the\nact of returning his gaze; and now the sight of the books, indicating a\nfuture which was antagonistic to her dream, struck her with a positively\npainful jar. She was hoping for the time when, as the mistress of some\npretty establishment, however small, near a Parisian Boulevard, she\nwould be passing her days on the skirts at least of the gay world, and\ncatching stray wafts from those town pleasures she was so well fitted\nto enjoy. Yet Yeobright was as firm in the contrary intention as if\nthe tendency of marriage were rather to develop the fantasies of young\nphilanthropy than to sweep them away.\n\nHer anxiety reached a high pitch; but there was something in Clym\'s\nundeviating manner which made her hesitate before sounding him on the\nsubject. At this point in their experience, however, an incident helped\nher. It occurred one evening about six weeks after their union, and\narose entirely out of the unconscious misapplication of Venn of the\nfifty guineas intended for Yeobright.\n\nA day or two after the receipt of the money Thomasin had sent a note to\nher aunt to thank her. She had been surprised at the largeness of the\namount; but as no sum had ever been mentioned she set that down to her\nlate uncle\'s generosity. She had been strictly charged by her aunt to\nsay nothing to her husband of this gift; and Wildeve, as was natural\nenough, had not brought himself to mention to his wife a single\nparticular of the midnight scene in the heath. Christian\'s terror,\nin like manner, had tied his tongue on the share he took in that\nproceeding; and hoping that by some means or other the money had gone\nto its proper destination, he simply asserted as much, without giving\ndetails.\n\nTherefore, when a week or two had passed away, Mrs. Yeobright began to\nwonder why she never heard from her son of the receipt of the present;\nand to add gloom to her perplexity came the possibility that resentment\nmight be the cause of his silence. She could hardly believe as much, but\nwhy did he not write? She questioned Christian, and the confusion in his\nanswers would at once have led her to believe that something was wrong,\nhad not one-half of his story been corroborated by Thomasin\'s note.\n\nMrs. Yeobright was in this state of uncertainty when she was informed\none morning that her son\'s wife was visiting her grandfather at\nMistover. She determined to walk up the hill, see Eustacia, and\nascertain from her daughter-in-law\'s lips whether the family guineas,\nwhich were to Mrs. Yeobright what family jewels are to wealthier\ndowagers, had miscarried or not.\n\nWhen Christian learnt where she was going his concern reached its\nheight. At the moment of her departure he could prevaricate no longer,\nand, confessing to the gambling, told her the truth as far as he knew\nit--that the guineas had been won by Wildeve.\n\n\"What, is he going to keep them?\" Mrs. Yeobright cried.\n\n\"I hope and trust not!\" moaned Christian. \"He\'s a good man, and perhaps\nwill do right things. He said you ought to have gied Mr. Clym\'s share to\nEustacia, and that\'s perhaps what he\'ll do himself.\"\n\nTo Mrs. Yeobright, as soon as she could calmly reflect, there was much\nlikelihood in this, for she could hardly believe that Wildeve would\nreally appropriate money belonging to her son. The intermediate course\nof giving it to Eustacia was the sort of thing to please Wildeve\'s\nfancy. But it filled the mother with anger none the less. That Wildeve\nshould have got command of the guineas after all, and should rearrange\nthe disposal of them, placing Clym\'s share in Clym\'s wife\'s hands,\nbecause she had been his own sweetheart, and might be so still, was as\nirritating a pain as any that Mrs. Yeobright had ever borne.\n\nShe instantly dismissed the wretched Christian from her employ for his\nconduct in the affair; but, feeling quite helpless and unable to do\nwithout him, told him afterwards that he might stay a little longer\nif he chose. Then she hastened off to Eustacia, moved by a much less\npromising emotion towards her daughter-in-law than she had felt half an\nhour earlier, when planning her journey. At that time it was to inquire\nin a friendly spirit if there had been any accidental loss; now it was\nto ask plainly if Wildeve had privately given her money which had been\nintended as a sacred gift to Clym.\n\nShe started at two o\'clock, and her meeting with Eustacia was hastened\nby the appearance of the young lady beside the pool and bank which\nbordered her grandfather\'s premises, where she stood surveying the\nscene, and perhaps thinking of the romantic enactments it had witnessed\nin past days. When Mrs. Yeobright approached, Eustacia surveyed her with\nthe calm stare of a stranger.\n\nThe mother-in-law was the first to speak. \"I was coming to see you,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"Indeed!\" said Eustacia with surprise, for Mrs. Yeobright, much to the\ngirl\'s mortification, had refused to be present at the wedding. \"I did\nnot at all expect you.\"\n\n\"I was coming on business only,\" said the visitor, more coldly than at\nfirst. \"Will you excuse my asking this--Have you received a gift from\nThomasin\'s husband?\"\n\n\"A gift?\"\n\n\"I mean money!\"\n\n\"What--I myself?\"\n\n\"Well, I meant yourself, privately--though I was not going to put it in\nthat way.\"\n\n\"Money from Mr. Wildeve? No--never! Madam, what do you mean by that?\"\nEustacia fired up all too quickly, for her own consciousness of the old\nattachment between herself and Wildeve led her to jump to the conclusion\nthat Mrs. Yeobright also knew of it, and might have come to accuse her\nof receiving dishonourable presents from him now.\n\n\"I simply ask the question,\" said Mrs. Yeobright. \"I have been----\"\n\n\"You ought to have better opinions of me--I feared you were against me\nfrom the first!\" exclaimed Eustacia.\n\n\"No. I was simply for Clym,\" replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much\nemphasis in her earnestness. \"It is the instinct of everyone to look\nafter their own.\"\n\n\"How can you imply that he required guarding against me?\" cried\nEustacia, passionate tears in her eyes. \"I have not injured him by\nmarrying him! What sin have I done that you should think so ill of me?\nYou had no right to speak against me to him when I have never wronged\nyou.\"\n\n\"I only did what was fair under the circumstances,\" said Mrs. Yeobright\nmore softly. \"I would rather not have gone into this question at\npresent, but you compel me. I am not ashamed to tell you the honest\ntruth. I was firmly convinced that he ought not to marry you--therefore\nI tried to dissuade him by all the means in my power. But it is done\nnow, and I have no idea of complaining any more. I am ready to welcome\nyou.\"\n\n\"Ah, yes, it is very well to see things in that business point of view,\"\nmurmured Eustacia with a smothered fire of feeling. \"But why should you\nthink there is anything between me and Mr. Wildeve? I have a spirit\nas well as you. I am indignant; and so would any woman be. It was a\ncondescension in me to be Clym\'s wife, and not a manoeuvre, let me\nremind you; and therefore I will not be treated as a schemer whom it\nbecomes necessary to bear with because she has crept into the family.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mrs. Yeobright, vainly endeavouring to control her anger. \"I\nhave never heard anything to show that my son\'s lineage is not as\ngood as the Vyes\'--perhaps better. It is amusing to hear you talk of\ncondescension.\"\n\n\"It was condescension, nevertheless,\" said Eustacia vehemently. \"And if\nI had known then what I know now, that I should be living in this wild\nheath a month after my marriage, I--I should have thought twice before\nagreeing.\"\n\n\"It would be better not to say that; it might not sound truthful. I\nam not aware that any deception was used on his part--I know there was\nnot--whatever might have been the case on the other side.\"\n\n\"This is too exasperating!\" answered the younger woman huskily, her face\ncrimsoning, and her eyes darting light. \"How can you dare to speak to me\nlike that? I insist upon repeating to you that had I known that my life\nwould from my marriage up to this time have been as it is, I should have\nsaid NO. I don\'t complain. I have never uttered a sound of such a thing\nto him; but it is true. I hope therefore that in the future you will be\nsilent on my eagerness. If you injure me now you injure yourself.\"\n\n\"Injure you? Do you think I am an evil-disposed person?\"\n\n\"You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of\nsecretly favouring another man for money!\"\n\n\"I could not help what I thought. But I have never spoken of you outside\nmy house.\"\n\n\"You spoke of me within it, to Clym, and you could not do worse.\"\n\n\"I did my duty.\"\n\n\"And I\'ll do mine.\"\n\n\"A part of which will possibly be to set him against his mother. It is\nalways so. But why should I not bear it as others have borne it before\nme!\"\n\n\"I understand you,\" said Eustacia, breathless with emotion. \"You\nthink me capable of every bad thing. Who can be worse than a wife who\nencourages a lover, and poisons her husband\'s mind against his relative?\nYet that is now the character given to me. Will you not come and drag\nhim out of my hands?\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright gave back heat for heat.\n\n\"Don\'t rage at me, madam! It ill becomes your beauty, and I am not worth\nthe injury you may do it on my account, I assure you. I am only a poor\nold woman who has lost a son.\"\n\n\"If you had treated me honourably you would have had him still.\"\nEustacia said, while scalding tears trickled from her eyes. \"You have\nbrought yourself to folly; you have caused a division which can never be\nhealed!\"\n\n\"I have done nothing. This audacity from a young woman is more than I\ncan bear.\"\n\n\"It was asked for; you have suspected me, and you have made me speak of\nmy husband in a way I would not have done. You will let him know that I\nhave spoken thus, and it will cause misery between us. Will you go away\nfrom me? You are no friend!\"\n\n\"I will go when I have spoken a word. If anyone says I have come here to\nquestion you without good grounds for it, that person speaks untruly.\nIf anyone says that I attempted to stop your marriage by any but honest\nmeans, that person, too, does not speak the truth. I have fallen on an\nevil time; God has been unjust to me in letting you insult me! Probably\nmy son\'s happiness does not lie on this side of the grave, for he is a\nfoolish man who neglects the advice of his parent. You, Eustacia, stand\non the edge of a precipice without knowing it. Only show my son one-half\nthe temper you have shown me today--and you may before long--and you\nwill find that though he is as gentle as a child with you now, he can be\nas hard as steel!\"\n\nThe excited mother then withdrew, and Eustacia, panting, stood looking\ninto the pool.\n\n\n\n\n2--He Is Set upon by Adversities but He Sings a Song\n\n\nThe result of that unpropitious interview was that Eustacia, instead\nof passing the afternoon with her grandfather, hastily returned home to\nClym, where she arrived three hours earlier than she had been expected.\n\nShe came indoors with her face flushed, and her eyes still showing\ntraces of her recent excitement. Yeobright looked up astonished; he had\nnever seen her in any way approaching to that state before. She\npassed him by, and would have gone upstairs unnoticed, but Clym was so\nconcerned that he immediately followed her.\n\n\"What is the matter, Eustacia?\" he said. She was standing on the\nhearthrug in the bedroom, looking upon the floor, her hands clasped in\nfront of her, her bonnet yet unremoved. For a moment she did not answer;\nand then she replied in a low voice--\n\n\"I have seen your mother; and I will never see her again!\"\n\nA weight fell like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia\nhad arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish\nthat she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-\nlaw, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about a\nreconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had hoped for much.\n\n\"Why is this?\" he asked.\n\n\"I cannot tell--I cannot remember. I met your mother. And I will never\nmeet her again.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"What do I know about Mr. Wildeve now? I won\'t have wicked opinions\npassed on me by anybody. O! it was too humiliating to be asked if I\nhad received any money from him, or encouraged him, or something of the\nsort--I don\'t exactly know what!\"\n\n\"How could she have asked you that?\"\n\n\"She did.\"\n\n\"Then there must have been some meaning in it. What did my mother say\nbesides?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know what she said, except in so far as this, that we both said\nwords which can never be forgiven!\"\n\n\"Oh, there must be some misapprehension. Whose fault was it that her\nmeaning was not made clear?\"\n\n\"I would rather not say. It may have been the fault of the\ncircumstances, which were awkward at the very least. O Clym--I cannot\nhelp expressing it--this is an unpleasant position that you have placed\nme in. But you must improve it--yes, say you will--for I hate it all\nnow! Yes, take me to Paris, and go on with your old occupation, Clym! I\ndon\'t mind how humbly we live there at first, if it can only be Paris,\nand not Egdon Heath.\"\n\n\"But I have quite given up that idea,\" said Yeobright, with surprise.\n\"Surely I never led you to expect such a thing?\"\n\n\"I own it. Yet there are thoughts which cannot be kept out of mind, and\nthat one was mine. Must I not have a voice in the matter, now I am your\nwife and the sharer of your doom?\"\n\n\"Well, there are things which are placed beyond the pale of discussion;\nand I thought this was specially so, and by mutual agreement.\"\n\n\"Clym, I am unhappy at what I hear,\" she said in a low voice; and her\neyes drooped, and she turned away.\n\nThis indication of an unexpected mine of hope in Eustacia\'s bosom\ndisconcerted her husband. It was the first time that he had confronted\nthe fact of the indirectness of a woman\'s movement towards her desire.\nBut his intention was unshaken, though he loved Eustacia well. All the\neffect that her remark had upon him was a resolve to chain himself more\nclosely than ever to his books, so as to be the sooner enabled to appeal\nto substantial results from another course in arguing against her whim.\n\nNext day the mystery of the guineas was explained. Thomasin paid them\na hurried visit, and Clym\'s share was delivered up to him by her own\nhands. Eustacia was not present at the time.\n\n\"Then this is what my mother meant,\" exclaimed Clym. \"Thomasin, do you\nknow that they have had a bitter quarrel?\"\n\nThere was a little more reticence now than formerly in Thomasin\'s manner\ntowards her cousin. It is the effect of marriage to engender in several\ndirections some of the reserve it annihilates in one. \"Your mother\ntold me,\" she said quietly. \"She came back to my house after seeing\nEustacia.\"\n\n\"The worst thing I dreaded has come to pass. Was Mother much disturbed\nwhen she came to you, Thomasin?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Very much indeed?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nClym leant his elbow upon the post of the garden gate, and covered his\neyes with his hand.\n\n\"Don\'t trouble about it, Clym. They may get to be friends.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"Not two people with inflammable natures like theirs.\nWell, what must be will be.\"\n\n\"One thing is cheerful in it--the guineas are not lost.\"\n\n\"I would rather have lost them twice over than have had this happen.\"\n\n\nAmid these jarring events Yeobright felt one thing to be\nindispensable--that he should speedily make some show of progress in his\nscholastic plans. With this view he read far into the small hours during\nmany nights.\n\nOne morning, after a severer strain than usual, he awoke with a\nstrange sensation in his eyes. The sun was shining directly upon the\nwindow-blind, and at his first glance thitherward a sharp pain obliged\nhim to close his eyelids quickly. At every new attempt to look about\nhim the same morbid sensibility to light was manifested, and excoriating\ntears ran down his cheeks. He was obliged to tie a bandage over his brow\nwhile dressing; and during the day it could not be abandoned. Eustacia\nwas thoroughly alarmed. On finding that the case was no better the next\nmorning they decided to send to Anglebury for a surgeon.\n\nTowards evening he arrived, and pronounced the disease to be acute\ninflammation induced by Clym\'s night studies, continued in spite of a\ncold previously caught, which had weakened his eyes for the time.\n\nFretting with impatience at this interruption to a task he was so\nanxious to hasten, Clym was transformed into an invalid. He was shut\nup in a room from which all light was excluded, and his condition would\nhave been one of absolute misery had not Eustacia read to him by the\nglimmer of a shaded lamp. He hoped that the worst would soon be over;\nbut at the surgeon\'s third visit he learnt to his dismay that although\nhe might venture out of doors with shaded eyes in the course of a\nmonth, all thought of pursuing his work, or of reading print of any\ndescription, would have to be given up for a long time to come.\n\nOne week and another week wore on, and nothing seemed to lighten the\ngloom of the young couple. Dreadful imaginings occurred to Eustacia, but\nshe carefully refrained from uttering them to her husband. Suppose\nhe should become blind, or, at all events, never recover sufficient\nstrength of sight to engage in an occupation which would be congenial to\nher feelings, and conduce to her removal from this lonely dwelling among\nthe hills? That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into\nsubstance in the presence of this misfortune. As day after day passed\nby, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful\ngroove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep\ndespairing tears.\n\nYeobright thought he would send for his mother; and then he thought he\nwould not. Knowledge of his state could only make her the more unhappy;\nand the seclusion of their life was such that she would hardly be likely\nto learn the news except through a special messenger. Endeavouring to\ntake the trouble as philosophically as possible, he waited on till the\nthird week had arrived, when he went into the open air for the first\ntime since the attack. The surgeon visited him again at this stage, and\nClym urged him to express a distinct opinion. The young man learnt with\nadded surprise that the date at which he might expect to resume his\nlabours was as uncertain as ever, his eyes being in that peculiar state\nwhich, though affording him sight enough for walking about, would not\nadmit of their being strained upon any definite object without incurring\nthe risk of reproducing ophthalmia in its acute form.\n\nClym was very grave at the intelligence, but not despairing. A quiet\nfirmness, and even cheerfulness, took possession of him. He was not\nto be blind; that was enough. To be doomed to behold the world through\nsmoked glass for an indefinite period was bad enough, and fatal to any\nkind of advance; but Yeobright was an absolute stoic in the face\nof mishaps which only affected his social standing; and, apart from\nEustacia, the humblest walk of life would satisfy him if it could be\nmade to work in with some form of his culture scheme. To keep a cottage\nnight-school was one such form; and his affliction did not master his\nspirit as it might otherwise have done.\n\nHe walked through the warm sun westward into those tracts of Egdon with\nwhich he was best acquainted, being those lying nearer to his old home.\nHe saw before him in one of the valleys the gleaming of whetted iron,\nand advancing, dimly perceived that the shine came from the tool of a\nman who was cutting furze. The worker recognized Clym, and Yeobright\nlearnt from the voice that the speaker was Humphrey.\n\nHumphrey expressed his sorrow at Clym\'s condition, and added, \"Now, if\nyours was low-class work like mine, you could go on with it just the\nsame.\"\n\n\"Yes, I could,\" said Yeobright musingly. \"How much do you get for\ncutting these faggots?\"\n\n\"Half-a-crown a hundred, and in these long days I can live very well on\nthe wages.\"\n\nDuring the whole of Yeobright\'s walk home to Alderworth he was lost in\nreflections which were not of an unpleasant kind. On his coming up to\nthe house Eustacia spoke to him from the open window, and he went across\nto her.\n\n\"Darling,\" he said, \"I am much happier. And if my mother were reconciled\nto me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite.\"\n\n\"I fear that will never be,\" she said, looking afar with her beautiful\nstormy eyes. \"How CAN you say \'I am happier,\' and nothing changed?\"\n\n\"It arises from my having at last discovered something I can do, and get\na living at, in this time of misfortune.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I am going to be a furze- and turf-cutter.\"\n\n\"No, Clym!\" she said, the slight hopefulness previously apparent in her\nface going off again, and leaving her worse than before.\n\n\"Surely I shall. Is it not very unwise in us to go on spending the\nlittle money we\'ve got when I can keep down expenditures by an honest\noccupation? The outdoor exercise will do me good, and who knows but that\nin a few months I shall be able to go on with my reading again?\"\n\n\"But my grandfather offers to assist us, if we require assistance.\"\n\n\"We don\'t require it. If I go furze-cutting we shall be fairly well\noff.\"\n\n\"In comparison with slaves, and the Israelites in Egypt, and such\npeople!\" A bitter tear rolled down Eustacia\'s face, which he did not\nsee. There had been nonchalance in his tone, showing her that he felt no\nabsolute grief at a consummation which to her was a positive horror.\n\nThe very next day Yeobright went to Humphrey\'s cottage, and borrowed of\nhim leggings, gloves, a whetstone, and a hook, to use till he should be\nable to purchase some for himself. Then he sallied forth with his new\nfellow-labourer and old acquaintance, and selecting a spot where the\nfurze grew thickest he struck the first blow in his adopted calling. His\nsight, like the wings in Rasselas, though useless to him for his grand\npurpose, sufficed for this strait, and he found that when a little\npractice should have hardened his palms against blistering he would be\nable to work with ease.\n\nDay after day he rose with the sun, buckled on his leggings, and went\noff to the rendezvous with Humphrey. His custom was to work from four\no\'clock in the morning till noon; then, when the heat of the day was at\nits highest, to go home and sleep for an hour or two; afterwards coming\nout again and working till dusk at nine.\n\nThis man from Paris was now so disguised by his leather accoutrements,\nand by the goggles he was obliged to wear over his eyes, that his\nclosest friend might have passed by without recognizing him. He was a\nbrown spot in the midst of an expanse of olive-green gorse, and nothing\nmore. Though frequently depressed in spirit when not actually at work,\nowing to thoughts of Eustacia\'s position and his mother\'s estrangement,\nwhen in the full swing of labour he was cheerfully disposed and calm.\n\nHis daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being\nlimited to a circuit of a few feet from his person. His familiars were\ncreeping and winged things, and they seemed to enroll him in their band.\nBees hummed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the\nheath and furze-flowers at his side in such numbers as to weigh them\ndown to the sod. The strange amber-coloured butterflies which Egdon\nproduced, and which were never seen elsewhere, quivered in the breath of\nhis lips, alighted upon his bowed back, and sported with the\nglittering point of his hook as he flourished it up and down. Tribes of\nemerald-green grasshoppers leaped over his feet, falling awkwardly on\ntheir backs, heads, or hips, like unskilful acrobats, as chance might\nrule; or engaged themselves in noisy flirtations under the fern-fronds\nwith silent ones of homely hue. Huge flies, ignorant of larders and\nwire-netting, and quite in a savage state, buzzed about him without\nknowing that he was a man. In and out of the fern-dells snakes glided\nin their most brilliant blue and yellow guise, it being the season\nimmediately following the shedding of their old skins, when their\ncolours are brightest. Litters of young rabbits came out from their\nforms to sun themselves upon hillocks, the hot beams blazing through the\ndelicate tissue of each thin-fleshed ear, and firing it to a blood-red\ntransparency in which the veins could be seen. None of them feared\nhim.\n\nThe monotony of his occupation soothed him, and was in itself\na pleasure. A forced limitation of effort offered a justification of\nhomely courses to an unambitious man, whose conscience would hardly have\nallowed him to remain in such obscurity while his powers were unimpeded.\nHence Yeobright sometimes sang to himself, and when obliged to accompany\nHumphrey in search of brambles for faggot-bonds he would amuse his\ncompanion with sketches of Parisian life and character, and so while\naway the time.\n\nOn one of these warm afternoons Eustacia walked out alone in the\ndirection of Yeobright\'s place of work. He was busily chopping away\nat the furze, a long row of faggots which stretched downward from his\nposition representing the labour of the day. He did not observe her\napproach, and she stood close to him, and heard his undercurrent of\nsong. It shocked her. To see him there, a poor afflicted man, earning\nmoney by the sweat of his brow, had at first moved her to tears; but to\nhear him sing and not at all rebel against an occupation which, however\nsatisfactory to himself, was degrading to her, as an educated lady-\nwife, wounded her through. Unconscious of her presence, he still went\non singing:--\n\n \"Le point du jour\n A nos bosquets rend toute leur parure;\n Flore est plus belle a son retour;\n L\'oiseau reprend doux chant d\'amour;\n Tout celebre dans la nature\n Le point du jour.\n\n \"Le point du jour\n Cause parfois, cause douleur extreme;\n Que l\'espace des nuits est court\n Pour le berger brulant d\'amour,\n Force de quitter ce qu\'il aime\n Au point du jour!\"\n\nIt was bitterly plain to Eustacia that he did not care much about\nsocial failure; and the proud fair woman bowed her head and wept in sick\ndespair at thought of the blasting effect upon her own life of that mood\nand condition in him. Then she came forward.\n\n\"I would starve rather than do it!\" she exclaimed vehemently. \"And you\ncan sing! I will go and live with my grandfather again!\"\n\n\"Eustacia! I did not see you, though I noticed something moving,\" he\nsaid gently. He came forward, pulled off his huge leather glove, and\ntook her hand. \"Why do you speak in such a strange way? It is only a\nlittle old song which struck my fancy when I was in Paris, and now\njust applies to my life with you. Has your love for me all died, then,\nbecause my appearance is no longer that of a fine gentleman?\"\n\n\"Dearest, you must not question me unpleasantly, or it may make me not\nlove you.\"\n\n\"Do you believe it possible that I would run the risk of doing that?\"\n\n\"Well, you follow out your own ideas, and won\'t give in to mine when\nI wish you to leave off this shameful labour. Is there anything you\ndislike in me that you act so contrarily to my wishes? I am your wife,\nand why will you not listen? Yes, I am your wife indeed!\"\n\n\"I know what that tone means.\"\n\n\"What tone?\"\n\n\"The tone in which you said, \'Your wife indeed.\' It meant, \'Your wife,\nworse luck.\'\"\n\n\"It is hard in you to probe me with that remark. A woman may have\nreason, though she is not without heart, and if I felt \'worse luck,\' it\nwas no ignoble feeling--it was only too natural. There, you see that at\nany rate I do not attempt untruths. Do you remember how, before we were\nmarried, I warned you that I had not good wifely qualities?\"\n\n\"You mock me to say that now. On that point at least the only noble\ncourse would be to hold your tongue, for you are still queen of me,\nEustacia, though I may no longer be king of you.\"\n\n\"You are my husband. Does not that content you?\"\n\n\"Not unless you are my wife without regret.\"\n\n\"I cannot answer you. I remember saying that I should be a serious\nmatter on your hands.\"\n\n\"Yes, I saw that.\"\n\n\"Then you were too quick to see! No true lover would have seen any such\nthing; you are too severe upon me, Clym--I won\'t like your speaking so\nat all.\"\n\n\"Well, I married you in spite of it, and don\'t regret doing so. How\ncold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a\nwarmer heart than yours.\"\n\n\"Yes, I fear we are cooling--I see it as well as you,\" she sighed\nmournfully. \"And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tired\nof contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. Who could have thought\nthen that by this time my eyes would not seem so very bright to yours,\nnor your lips so very sweet to mine? Two months--is it possible? Yes,\n\'tis too true!\"\n\n\"You sigh, dear, as if you were sorry for it; and that\'s a hopeful\nsign.\"\n\n\"No. I don\'t sigh for that. There are other things for me to sigh for,\nor any other woman in my place.\"\n\n\"That your chances in life are ruined by marrying in haste an\nunfortunate man?\"\n\n\"Why will you force me, Clym, to say bitter things? I deserve pity as\nmuch as you. As much?--I think I deserve it more. For you can sing! It\nwould be a strange hour which should catch me singing under such a cloud\nas this! Believe me, sweet, I could weep to a degree that would astonish\nand confound such an elastic mind as yours. Even had you felt careless\nabout your own affliction, you might have refrained from singing out\nof sheer pity for mine. God! if I were a man in such a position I would\ncurse rather than sing.\"\n\nYeobright placed his hand upon her arm. \"Now, don\'t you suppose, my\ninexperienced girl, that I cannot rebel, in high Promethean fashion,\nagainst the gods and fate as well as you. I have felt more steam and\nsmoke of that sort than you have ever heard of. But the more I see of\nlife the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in\nits greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of\nfurze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed to us\nare not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when\nthey are taken away? So I sing to pass the time. Have you indeed lost\nall tenderness for me, that you begrudge me a few cheerful moments?\"\n\n\"I have still some tenderness left for you.\"\n\n\"Your words have no longer their old flavour. And so love dies with good\nfortune!\"\n\n\"I cannot listen to this, Clym--it will end bitterly,\" she said in a\nbroken voice. \"I will go home.\"\n\n\n\n\n3--She Goes Out to Battle against Depression\n\n\nA few days later, before the month of August has expired, Eustacia and\nYeobright sat together at their early dinner.\n\nEustacia\'s manner had become of late almost apathetic. There was a\nforlorn look about her beautiful eyes which, whether she deserved it or\nnot, would have excited pity in the breast of anyone who had known her\nduring the full flush of her love for Clym. The feelings of husband and\nwife varied, in some measure, inversely with their positions. Clym, the\nafflicted man, was cheerful; and he even tried to comfort her, who had\nnever felt a moment of physical suffering in her whole life.\n\n\"Come, brighten up, dearest; we shall be all right again. Some day\nperhaps I shall see as well as ever. And I solemnly promise that I\'ll\nleave off cutting furze as soon as I have the power to do anything\nbetter. You cannot seriously wish me to stay idling at home all day?\"\n\n\"But it is so dreadful--a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived\nabout the world, and speak French, and German, and who are fit for what\nis so much better than this.\"\n\n\"I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in a\nsort of golden halo to your eyes--a man who knew glorious things,\nand had mixed in brilliant scenes--in short, an adorable, delightful,\ndistracting hero?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, sobbing.\n\n\"And now I am a poor fellow in brown leather.\"\n\n\"Don\'t taunt me. But enough of this. I will not be depressed any more.\nI am going from home this afternoon, unless you greatly object. There is\nto be a village picnic--a gipsying, they call it--at East Egdon, and I\nshall go.\"\n\n\"To dance?\"\n\n\"Why not? You can sing.\"\n\n\"Well, well, as you will. Must I come to fetch you?\"\n\n\"If you return soon enough from your work. But do not inconvenience\nyourself about it. I know the way home, and the heath has no terror for\nme.\"\n\n\"And can you cling to gaiety so eagerly as to walk all the way to a\nvillage festival in search of it?\"\n\n\"Now, you don\'t like my going alone! Clym, you are not jealous?\"\n\n\"No. But I would come with you if it could give you any pleasure;\nthough, as things stand, perhaps you have too much of me already. Still,\nI somehow wish that you did not want to go. Yes, perhaps I am jealous;\nand who could be jealous with more reason than I, a half-blind man, over\nsuch a woman as you?\"\n\n\"Don\'t think like it. Let me go, and don\'t take all my spirits away!\"\n\n\"I would rather lose all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever you\nlike. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all my heart\nyet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag\nupon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for me, I will\nstick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people would shun me. My hook\nand gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle of the leper, warning the\nworld to get out of the way of a sight that would sadden them.\" He\nkissed her, put on his leggings, and went out.\n\nWhen he was gone she rested her head upon her hands and said to herself,\n\"Two wasted lives--his and mine. And I am come to this! Will it drive me\nout of my mind?\"\n\nShe cast about for any possible course which offered the least\nimprovement on the existing state of things, and could find none. She\nimagined how all those Budmouth ones who should learn what had become\nof her would say, \"Look at the girl for whom nobody was good enough!\"\nTo Eustacia the situation seemed such a mockery of her hopes that death\nappeared the only door of relief if the satire of Heaven should go much\nfurther.\n\nSuddenly she aroused herself and exclaimed, \"But I\'ll shake it off. Yes,\nI WILL shake it off! No one shall know my suffering. I\'ll be bitterly\nmerry, and ironically gay, and I\'ll laugh in derision. And I\'ll begin by\ngoing to this dance on the green.\"\n\nShe ascended to her bedroom and dressed herself with scrupulous care.\nTo an onlooker her beauty would have made her feelings almost\nseem reasonable. The gloomy corner into which accident as much as\nindiscretion had brought this woman might have led even a moderate\npartisan to feel that she had cogent reasons for asking the Supreme\nPower by what right a being of such exquisite finish had been placed\nin circumstances calculated to make of her charms a curse rather than a\nblessing.\n\nIt was five in the afternoon when she came out from the house ready\nfor her walk. There was material enough in the picture for twenty new\nconquests. The rebellious sadness that was rather too apparent when she\nsat indoors without a bonnet was cloaked and softened by her outdoor\nattire, which always had a sort of nebulousness about it, devoid of\nharsh edges anywhere; so that her face looked from its environment as\nfrom a cloud, with no noticeable lines of demarcation between flesh and\nclothes. The heat of the day had scarcely declined as yet, and she went\nalong the sunny hills at a leisurely pace, there being ample time for\nher idle expedition. Tall ferns buried her in their leafage whenever her\npath lay through them, which now formed miniature forests, though not\none stem of them would remain to bud the next year.\n\nThe site chosen for the village festivity was one of the lawnlike oases\nwhich were occasionally, yet not often, met with on the plateaux of the\nheath district. The brakes of furze and fern terminated abruptly round\nthe margin, and the grass was unbroken. A green cattletrack skirted the\nspot, without, however, emerging from the screen of fern, and this path\nEustacia followed, in order to reconnoitre the group before joining it.\nThe lusty notes of the East Egdon band had directed her unerringly, and\nshe now beheld the musicians themselves, sitting in a blue wagon with\nred wheels scrubbed as bright as new, and arched with sticks, to which\nboughs and flowers were tied. In front of this was the grand central\ndance of fifteen or twenty couples, flanked by minor dances of inferior\nindividuals whose gyrations were not always in strict keeping with the\ntune.\n\nThe young men wore blue and white rosettes, and with a flush on their\nfaces footed it to the girls, who, with the excitement and the exercise,\nblushed deeper than the pink of their numerous ribbons. Fair ones with\nlong curls, fair ones with short curls, fair ones with lovelocks, fair\nones with braids, flew round and round; and a beholder might well have\nwondered how such a prepossessing set of young women of like size, age,\nand disposition, could have been collected together where there were\nonly one or two villages to choose from. In the background was one happy\nman dancing by himself, with closed eyes, totally oblivious of all the\nrest. A fire was burning under a pollard thorn a few paces off, over\nwhich three kettles hung in a row. Hard by was a table where elderly\ndames prepared tea, but Eustacia looked among them in vain for the\ncattle-dealer\'s wife who had suggested that she should come, and had\npromised to obtain a courteous welcome for her.\n\nThis unexpected absence of the only local resident whom Eustacia knew\nconsiderably damaged her scheme for an afternoon of reckless gaiety.\nJoining in became a matter of difficulty, notwithstanding that, were she\nto advance, cheerful dames would come forward with cups of tea and make\nmuch of her as a stranger of superior grace and knowledge to themselves.\nHaving watched the company through the figures of two dances, she\ndecided to walk a little further, to a cottage where she might get some\nrefreshment, and then return homeward in the shady time of evening.\n\nThis she did, and by the time that she retraced her steps towards the\nscene of the gipsying, which it was necessary to repass on her way to\nAlderworth, the sun was going down. The air was now so still that she\ncould hear the band afar off, and it seemed to be playing with more\nspirit, if that were possible, than when she had come away. On reaching\nthe hill the sun had quite disappeared; but this made little difference\neither to Eustacia or to the revellers, for a round yellow moon was\nrising before her, though its rays had not yet outmastered those from\nthe west. The dance was going on just the same, but strangers had\narrived and formed a ring around the figure, so that Eustacia could\nstand among these without a chance of being recognized.\n\nA whole village-full of sensuous emotion, scattered abroad all the year\nlong, surged here in a focus for an hour. The forty hearts of those\nwaving couples were beating as they had not done since, twelve months\nbefore, they had come together in similar jollity. For the time paganism\nwas revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all, and they\nadored none other than themselves.\n\nHow many of those impassioned but temporary embraces were destined to\nbecome perpetual was possibly the wonder of some of those who indulged\nin them, as well as of Eustacia who looked on. She began to envy those\npirouetters, to hunger for the hope and happiness which the fascination\nof the dance seemed to engender within them. Desperately fond of\ndancing herself, one of Eustacia\'s expectations of Paris had been the\nopportunity it might afford her of indulgence in this favourite pastime.\nUnhappily, that expectation was now extinct within her for ever.\n\nWhilst she abstractedly watched them spinning and fluctuating in the\nincreasing moonlight she suddenly heard her name whispered by a voice\nover her shoulder. Turning in surprise, she beheld at her elbow one\nwhose presence instantly caused her to flush to the temples.\n\nIt was Wildeve. Till this moment he had not met her eye since the\nmorning of his marriage, when she had been loitering in the church,\nand had startled him by lifting her veil and coming forward to sign the\nregister as witness. Yet why the sight of him should have instigated\nthat sudden rush of blood she could not tell.\n\nBefore she could speak he whispered, \"Do you like dancing as much as\never?\"\n\n\"I think I do,\" she replied in a low voice.\n\n\"Will you dance with me?\"\n\n\"It would be a great change for me; but will it not seem strange?\"\n\n\"What strangeness can there be in relations dancing together?\"\n\n\"Ah--yes, relations. Perhaps none.\"\n\n\"Still, if you don\'t like to be seen, pull down your veil; though there\nis not much risk of being known by this light. Lots of strangers are\nhere.\"\n\nShe did as he suggested; and the act was a tacit acknowledgment that she\naccepted his offer.\n\nWildeve gave her his arm and took her down on the outside of the ring\nto the bottom of the dance, which they entered. In two minutes more they\nwere involved in the figure and began working their way upwards to the\ntop. Till they had advanced halfway thither Eustacia wished more than\nonce that she had not yielded to his request; from the middle to the\ntop she felt that, since she had come out to seek pleasure, she was only\ndoing a natural thing to obtain it. Fairly launched into the ceaseless\nglides and whirls which their new position as top couple opened up to\nthem, Eustacia\'s pulses began to move too quickly for long rumination of\nany kind.\n\nThrough the length of five-and-twenty couples they threaded their giddy\nway, and a new vitality entered her form. The pale ray of evening lent\na fascination to the experience. There is a certain degree and tone\nof light which tends to disturb the equilibrium of the senses, and to\npromote dangerously the tenderer moods; added to movement, it drives\nthe emotions to rankness, the reason becoming sleepy and unperceiving in\ninverse proportion; and this light fell now upon these two from the disc\nof the moon. All the dancing girls felt the symptoms, but Eustacia most\nof all. The grass under their feet became trodden away, and the hard,\nbeaten surface of the sod, when viewed aslant towards the moonlight,\nshone like a polished table. The air became quite still, the flag above\nthe wagon which held the musicians clung to the pole, and the players\nappeared only in outline against the sky; except when the circular\nmouths of the trombone, ophicleide, and French horn gleamed out like\nhuge eyes from the shade of their figures. The pretty dresses of the\nmaids lost their subtler day colours and showed more or less of a misty\nwhite. Eustacia floated round and round on Wildeve\'s arm, her face\nrapt and statuesque; her soul had passed away from and forgotten her\nfeatures, which were left empty and quiescent, as they always are when\nfeeling goes beyond their register.\n\nHow near she was to Wildeve! it was terrible to think of. She could feel\nhis breathing, and he, of course, could feel hers. How badly she had\ntreated him! yet, here they were treading one measure. The enchantment\nof the dance surprised her. A clear line of difference divided like\na tangible fence her experience within this maze of motion from her\nexperience without it. Her beginning to dance had been like a change\nof atmosphere; outside, she had been steeped in arctic frigidity by\ncomparison with the tropical sensations here. She had entered the dance\nfrom the troubled hours of her late life as one might enter a brilliant\nchamber after a night walk in a wood. Wildeve by himself would have been\nmerely an agitation; Wildeve added to the dance, and the moonlight, and\nthe secrecy, began to be a delight. Whether his personality supplied the\ngreater part of this sweetly compounded feeling, or whether the dance\nand the scene weighed the more therein, was a nice point upon which\nEustacia herself was entirely in a cloud.\n\nPeople began to say \"Who are they?\" but no invidious inquiries were\nmade. Had Eustacia mingled with the other girls in their ordinary\ndaily walks the case would have been different: here she was not\ninconvenienced by excessive inspection, for all were wrought to their\nbrightest grace by the occasion. Like the planet Mercury surrounded\nby the lustre of sunset, her permanent brilliancy passed without much\nnotice in the temporary glory of the situation.\n\nAs for Wildeve, his feelings are easy to guess. Obstacles were a\nripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of\nexquisite misery. To clasp as his for five minutes what was another\nman\'s through all the rest of the year was a kind of thing he of all men\ncould appreciate. He had long since begun to sigh again for Eustacia;\nindeed, it may be asserted that signing the marriage register with\nThomasin was the natural signal to his heart to return to its first\nquarters, and that the extra complication of Eustacia\'s marriage was the\none addition required to make that return compulsory.\n\nThus, for different reasons, what was to the rest an exhilarating\nmovement was to these two a riding upon the whirlwind. The dance had\ncome like an irresistible attack upon whatever sense of social order\nthere was in their minds, to drive them back into old paths which were\nnow doubly irregular. Through three dances in succession they spun their\nway; and then, fatigued with the incessant motion, Eustacia turned to\nquit the circle in which she had already remained too long. Wildeve\nled her to a grassy mound a few yards distant, where she sat down, her\npartner standing beside her. From the time that he addressed her at the\nbeginning of the dance till now they had not exchanged a word.\n\n\"The dance and the walking have tired you?\" he said tenderly.\n\n\"No; not greatly.\"\n\n\"It is strange that we should have met here of all places, after missing\neach other so long.\"\n\n\"We have missed because we tried to miss, I suppose.\"\n\n\"Yes. But you began that proceeding--by breaking a promise.\"\n\n\"It is scarcely worth while to talk of that now. We have formed other\nties since then--you no less than I.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hear that your husband is ill.\"\n\n\"He is not ill--only incapacitated.\"\n\n\"Yes--that is what I mean. I sincerely sympathize with you in your\ntrouble. Fate has treated you cruelly.\"\n\nShe was silent awhile. \"Have you heard that he has chosen to work as a\nfurze-cutter?\" she said in a low, mournful voice.\n\n\"It has been mentioned to me,\" answered Wildeve hesitatingly. \"But I\nhardly believed it.\"\n\n\"It is true. What do you think of me as a furze-cutter\'s wife?\"\n\n\"I think the same as ever of you, Eustacia. Nothing of that sort can\ndegrade you--you ennoble the occupation of your husband.\"\n\n\"I wish I could feel it.\"\n\n\"Is there any chance of Mr. Yeobright getting better?\"\n\n\"He thinks so. I doubt it.\"\n\n\"I was quite surprised to hear that he had taken a cottage. I thought,\nin common with other people, that he would have taken you off to a home\nin Paris immediately after you had married him. \'What a gay, bright\nfuture she has before her!\' I thought. He will, I suppose, return there\nwith you, if his sight gets strong again?\"\n\nObserving that she did not reply he regarded her more closely. She was\nalmost weeping. Images of a future never to be enjoyed, the revived\nsense of her bitter disappointment, the picture of the neighbour\'s\nsuspended ridicule which was raised by Wildeve\'s words, had been too\nmuch for proud Eustacia\'s equanimity.\n\nWildeve could hardly control his own too forward feelings when he saw\nher silent perturbation. But he affected not to notice this, and she\nsoon recovered her calmness.\n\n\"You do not intend to walk home by yourself?\" he asked.\n\n\"O yes,\" said Eustacia. \"What could hurt me on this heath, who have\nnothing?\"\n\n\"By diverging a little I can make my way home the same as yours. I\nshall be glad to keep you company as far as Throope Corner.\" Seeing that\nEustacia sat on in hesitation he added, \"Perhaps you think it unwise to\nbe seen in the same road with me after the events of last summer?\"\n\n\"Indeed I think no such thing,\" she said haughtily. \"I shall accept\nwhose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable\ninhabitants of Egdon.\"\n\n\"Then let us walk on--if you are ready. Our nearest way is towards that\nholly bush with the dark shadow that you see down there.\"\n\nEustacia arose, and walked beside him in the direction signified,\nbrushing her way over the damping heath and fern, and followed by the\nstrains of the merrymakers, who still kept up the dance. The moon had\nnow waxed bright and silvery, but the heath was proof against such\nillumination, and there was to be observed the striking scene of a dark,\nrayless tract of country under an atmosphere charged from its zenith to\nits extremities with whitest light. To an eye above them their two\nfaces would have appeared amid the expanse like two pearls on a table of\nebony.\n\nOn this account the irregularities of the path were not visible, and\nWildeve occasionally stumbled; whilst Eustacia found it necessary\nto perform some graceful feats of balancing whenever a small tuft of\nheather or root of furze protruded itself through the grass of the\nnarrow track and entangled her feet. At these junctures in her progress\na hand was invariably stretched forward to steady her, holding her\nfirmly until smooth ground was again reached, when the hand was again\nwithdrawn to a respectful distance.\n\nThey performed the journey for the most part in silence, and drew near\nto Throope Corner, a few hundred yards from which a short path branched\naway to Eustacia\'s house. By degrees they discerned coming towards them\na pair of human figures, apparently of the male sex.\n\nWhen they came a little nearer Eustacia broke the silence by saying,\n\"One of those men is my husband. He promised to come to meet me.\"\n\n\"And the other is my greatest enemy,\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"It looks like Diggory Venn.\"\n\n\"That is the man.\"\n\n\"It is an awkward meeting,\" said she; \"but such is my fortune. He knows\ntoo much about me, unless he could know more, and so prove to himself\nthat what he now knows counts for nothing. Well, let it be--you must\ndeliver me up to them.\"\n\n\"You will think twice before you direct me to do that. Here is a man\nwho has not forgotten an item in our meetings at Rainbarrow--he is in\ncompany with your husband. Which of them, seeing us together here, will\nbelieve that our meeting and dancing at the gipsy party was by chance?\"\n\n\"Very well,\" she whispered gloomily. \"Leave me before they come up.\"\n\nWildeve bade her a tender farewell, and plunged across the fern and\nfurze, Eustacia slowly walking on. In two or three minutes she met her\nhusband and his companion.\n\n\"My journey ends here for tonight, reddleman,\" said Yeobright as soon as\nhe perceived her. \"I turn back with this lady. Good night.\"\n\n\"Good night, Mr. Yeobright,\" said Venn. \"I hope to see you better soon.\"\n\nThe moonlight shone directly upon Venn\'s face as he spoke, and revealed\nall its lines to Eustacia. He was looking suspiciously at her. That\nVenn\'s keen eye had discerned what Yeobright\'s feeble vision had not--a\nman in the act of withdrawing from Eustacia\'s side--was within the\nlimits of the probable.\n\nIf Eustacia had been able to follow the reddleman she would soon have\nfound striking confirmation of her thought. No sooner had Clym given her\nhis arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turned back from\nthe beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling\nmerely to accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory\'s van being again in the\nneighbourhood. Stretching out his long legs, he crossed the pathless\nportion of the heath somewhat in the direction which Wildeve had taken.\nOnly a man accustomed to nocturnal rambles could at this hour have\ndescended those shaggy slopes with Venn\'s velocity without falling\nheadlong into a pit, or snapping off his leg by jamming his foot into\nsome rabbit burrow. But Venn went on without much inconvenience to\nhimself, and the course of his scamper was towards the Quiet Woman Inn.\nThis place he reached in about half an hour, and he was well aware that\nno person who had been near Throope Corner when he started could have\ngot down here before him.\n\nThe lonely inn was not yet closed, though scarcely an individual was\nthere, the business done being chiefly with travellers who passed the\ninn on long journeys, and these had now gone on their way. Venn went to\nthe public room, called for a mug of ale, and inquired of the maid in an\nindifferent tone if Mr. Wildeve was at home.\n\nThomasin sat in an inner room and heard Venn\'s voice. When customers\nwere present she seldom showed herself, owing to her inherent dislike\nfor the business; but perceiving that no one else was there tonight she\ncame out.\n\n\"He is not at home yet, Diggory,\" she said pleasantly. \"But I expected\nhim sooner. He has been to East Egdon to buy a horse.\"\n\n\"Did he wear a light wideawake?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Then I saw him at Throope Corner, leading one home,\" said Venn drily.\n\"A beauty, with a white face and a mane as black as night. He will soon\nbe here, no doubt.\" Rising and looking for a moment at the pure, sweet\nface of Thomasin, over which a shadow of sadness had passed since the\ntime when he had last seen her, he ventured to add, \"Mr. Wildeve seems\nto be often away at this time.\"\n\n\"O yes,\" cried Thomasin in what was intended to be a tone of gaiety.\n\"Husbands will play the truant, you know. I wish you could tell me of\nsome secret plan that would help me to keep him home at my will in the\nevenings.\"\n\n\"I will consider if I know of one,\" replied Venn in that same light\ntone which meant no lightness. And then he bowed in a manner of his own\ninvention and moved to go. Thomasin offered him her hand; and without a\nsigh, though with food for many, the reddleman went out.\n\nWhen Wildeve returned, a quarter of an hour later Thomasin said simply,\nand in the abashed manner usual with her now, \"Where is the horse,\nDamon?\"\n\n\"O, I have not bought it, after all. The man asks too much.\"\n\n\"But somebody saw you at Throope Corner leading it home--a beauty, with\na white face and a mane as black as night.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Wildeve, fixing his eyes upon her; \"who told you that?\"\n\n\"Venn the reddleman.\"\n\nThe expression of Wildeve\'s face became curiously condensed. \"That is\na mistake--it must have been someone else,\" he said slowly and testily,\nfor he perceived that Venn\'s countermoves had begun again.\n\n\n\n\n4--Rough Coercion Is Employed\n\n\nThose words of Thomasin, which seemed so little, but meant so much,\nremained in the ears of Diggory Venn: \"Help me to keep him home in the\nevenings.\"\n\nOn this occasion Venn had arrived on Egdon Heath only to cross to the\nother side--he had no further connection with the interests of the\nYeobright family, and he had a business of his own to attend to. Yet\nhe suddenly began to feel himself drifting into the old track of\nmanoeuvring on Thomasin\'s account.\n\nHe sat in his van and considered. From Thomasin\'s words and manner\nhe had plainly gathered that Wildeve neglected her. For whom could\nhe neglect her if not for Eustacia? Yet it was scarcely credible\nthat things had come to such a head as to indicate that Eustacia\nsystematically encouraged him. Venn resolved to reconnoitre somewhat\ncarefully the lonely road which led along the vale from Wildeve\'s\ndwelling to Clym\'s house at Alderworth.\n\nAt this time, as has been seen, Wildeve was quite innocent of any\npredetermined act of intrigue, and except at the dance on the green he\nhad not once met Eustacia since her marriage. But that the spirit of\nintrigue was in him had been shown by a recent romantic habit of his--a\nhabit of going out after dark and strolling towards Alderworth, there\nlooking at the moon and stars, looking at Eustacia\'s house, and walking\nback at leisure.\n\nAccordingly, when watching on the night after the festival, the\nreddleman saw him ascend by the little path, lean over the front gate\nof Clym\'s garden, sigh, and turn to go back again. It was plain that\nWildeve\'s intrigue was rather ideal than real. Venn retreated before him\ndown the hill to a place where the path was merely a deep groove\nbetween the heather; here he mysteriously bent over the ground for a few\nminutes, and retired. When Wildeve came on to that spot his ankle was\ncaught by something, and he fell headlong.\n\nAs soon as he had recovered the power of respiration he sat up and\nlistened. There was not a sound in the gloom beyond the spiritless stir\nof the summer wind. Feeling about for the obstacle which had flung\nhim down, he discovered that two tufts of heath had been tied together\nacross the path, forming a loop, which to a traveller was certain\noverthrow. Wildeve pulled off the string that bound them, and went on\nwith tolerable quickness. On reaching home he found the cord to be of a\nreddish colour. It was just what he had expected.\n\nAlthough his weaknesses were not specially those akin to physical fear,\nthis species of coup-de-Jarnac from one he knew too well troubled the\nmind of Wildeve. But his movements were unaltered thereby. A night\nor two later he again went along the vale to Alderworth, taking the\nprecaution of keeping out of any path. The sense that he was watched,\nthat craft was employed to circumvent his errant tastes, added piquancy\nto a journey so entirely sentimental, so long as the danger was of no\nfearful sort. He imagined that Venn and Mrs. Yeobright were in league,\nand felt that there was a certain legitimacy in combating such a\ncoalition.\n\nThe heath tonight appeared to be totally deserted; and Wildeve, after\nlooking over Eustacia\'s garden gate for some little time, with a cigar\nin his mouth, was tempted by the fascination that emotional smuggling\nhad for his nature to advance towards the window, which was not quite\nclosed, the blind being only partly drawn down. He could see into the\nroom, and Eustacia was sitting there alone. Wildeve contemplated her\nfor a minute, and then retreating into the heath beat the ferns lightly,\nwhereupon moths flew out alarmed. Securing one, he returned to the\nwindow, and holding the moth to the chink, opened his hand. The moth\nmade towards the candle upon Eustacia\'s table, hovered round it two or\nthree times, and flew into the flame.\n\nEustacia started up. This had been a well-known signal in old times when\nWildeve had used to come secretly wooing to Mistover. She at once knew\nthat Wildeve was outside, but before she could consider what to do her\nhusband came in from upstairs. Eustacia\'s face burnt crimson at the\nunexpected collision of incidents, and filled it with an animation that\nit too frequently lacked.\n\n\"You have a very high colour, dearest,\" said Yeobright, when he came\nclose enough to see it. \"Your appearance would be no worse if it were\nalways so.\"\n\n\"I am warm,\" said Eustacia. \"I think I will go into the air for a few\nminutes.\"\n\n\"Shall I go with you?\"\n\n\"O no. I am only going to the gate.\"\n\nShe arose, but before she had time to get out of the room a loud rapping\nbegan upon the front door.\n\n\"I\'ll go--I\'ll go,\" said Eustacia in an unusually quick tone for her;\nand she glanced eagerly towards the window whence the moth had flown;\nbut nothing appeared there.\n\n\"You had better not at this time of the evening,\" he said. Clym stepped\nbefore her into the passage, and Eustacia waited, her somnolent manner\ncovering her inner heat and agitation.\n\nShe listened, and Clym opened the door. No words were uttered outside,\nand presently he closed it and came back, saying, \"Nobody was there. I\nwonder what that could have meant?\"\n\nHe was left to wonder during the rest of the evening, for no explanation\noffered itself, and Eustacia said nothing, the additional fact that she\nknew of only adding more mystery to the performance.\n\nMeanwhile a little drama had been acted outside which saved Eustacia\nfrom all possibility of compromising herself that evening at least.\nWhilst Wildeve had been preparing his moth-signal another person had\ncome behind him up to the gate. This man, who carried a gun in his hand,\nlooked on for a moment at the other\'s operation by the window, walked\nup to the house, knocked at the door, and then vanished round the corner\nand over the hedge.\n\n\"Damn him!\" said Wildeve. \"He has been watching me again.\"\n\nAs his signal had been rendered futile by this uproarious rapping\nWildeve withdrew, passed out at the gate, and walked quickly down the\npath without thinking of anything except getting away unnoticed. Halfway\ndown the hill the path ran near a knot of stunted hollies, which in the\ngeneral darkness of the scene stood as the pupil in a black eye. When\nWildeve reached this point a report startled his ear, and a few spent\ngunshots fell among the leaves around him.\n\nThere was no doubt that he himself was the cause of that gun\'s\ndischarge; and he rushed into the clump of hollies, beating the bushes\nfuriously with his stick; but nobody was there. This attack was a\nmore serious matter than the last, and it was some time before Wildeve\nrecovered his equanimity. A new and most unpleasant system of menace\nhad begun, and the intent appeared to be to do him grievous bodily harm.\nWildeve had looked upon Venn\'s first attempt as a species of horseplay,\nwhich the reddleman had indulged in for want of knowing better; but\nnow the boundary line was passed which divides the annoying from the\nperilous.\n\nHad Wildeve known how thoroughly in earnest Venn had become he might\nhave been still more alarmed. The reddleman had been almost exasperated\nby the sight of Wildeve outside Clym\'s house, and he was prepared to go\nto any lengths short of absolutely shooting him, to terrify the young\ninnkeeper out of his recalcitrant impulses. The doubtful legitimacy of\nsuch rough coercion did not disturb the mind of Venn. It troubles few\nsuch minds in such cases, and sometimes this is not to be regretted.\nFrom the impeachment of Strafford to Farmer Lynch\'s short way with the\nscamps of Virginia there have been many triumphs of justice which are\nmockeries of law.\n\nAbout half a mile below Clym\'s secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where\nlived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of\nAlderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable\'s cottage. Almost\nthe first thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable\'s\ntruncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the\nmeans to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable\'s wife he\nlearnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve said he would wait.\n\nThe minutes ticked on, and the constable did not arrive. Wildeve cooled\ndown from his state of high indignation to a restless dissatisfaction\nwith himself, the scene, the constable\'s wife, and the whole set of\ncircumstances. He arose and left the house. Altogether, the experience\nof that evening had had a cooling, not to say a chilling, effect on\nmisdirected tenderness, and Wildeve was in no mood to ramble again to\nAlderworth after nightfall in hope of a stray glance from Eustacia.\n\nThus far the reddleman had been tolerably successful in his rude\ncontrivances for keeping down Wildeve\'s inclination to rove in the\nevening. He had nipped in the bud the possible meeting between Eustacia\nand her old lover this very night. But he had not anticipated that the\ntendency of his action would be to divert Wildeve\'s movement rather than\nto stop it. The gambling with the guineas had not conduced to make him a\nwelcome guest to Clym; but to call upon his wife\'s relative was natural,\nand he was determined to see Eustacia. It was necessary to choose some\nless untoward hour than ten o\'clock at night. \"Since it is unsafe to go\nin the evening,\" he said, \"I\'ll go by day.\"\n\nMeanwhile Venn had left the heath and gone to call upon Mrs. Yeobright,\nwith whom he had been on friendly terms since she had learnt what a\nprovidential countermove he had made towards the restitution of the\nfamily guineas. She wondered at the lateness of his call, but had no\nobjection to see him.\n\nHe gave her a full account of Clym\'s affliction, and of the state in\nwhich he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon\nthe apparent sadness of her days. \"Now, ma\'am, depend upon it,\" he said,\n\"you couldn\'t do a better thing for either of \'em than to make yourself\nat home in their houses, even if there should be a little rebuff at\nfirst.\"\n\n\"Both she and my son disobeyed me in marrying; therefore I have no\ninterest in their households. Their troubles are of their own making.\"\nMrs. Yeobright tried to speak severely; but the account of her son\'s\nstate had moved her more than she cared to show.\n\n\"Your visits would make Wildeve walk straighter than he is inclined to\ndo, and might prevent unhappiness down the heath.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"I saw something tonight out there which I didn\'t like at all. I wish\nyour son\'s house and Mr. Wildeve\'s were a hundred miles apart instead of\nfour or five.\"\n\n\"Then there WAS an understanding between him and Clym\'s wife when he\nmade a fool of Thomasin!\"\n\n\"We\'ll hope there\'s no understanding now.\"\n\n\"And our hope will probably be very vain. O Clym! O Thomasin!\"\n\n\"There\'s no harm done yet. In fact, I\'ve persuaded Wildeve to mind his\nown business.\"\n\n\"How?\"\n\n\"O, not by talking--by a plan of mine called the silent system.\"\n\n\"I hope you\'ll succeed.\"\n\n\"I shall if you help me by calling and making friends with your son.\nYou\'ll have a chance then of using your eyes.\"\n\n\"Well, since it has come to this,\" said Mrs. Yeobright sadly, \"I will\nown to you, reddleman, that I thought of going. I should be much happier\nif we were reconciled. The marriage is unalterable, my life may be cut\nshort, and I should wish to die in peace. He is my only son; and since\nsons are made of such stuff I am not sorry I have no other. As for\nThomasin, I never expected much from her; and she has not disappointed\nme. But I forgave her long ago; and I forgive him now. I\'ll go.\"\n\nAt this very time of the reddleman\'s conversation with Mrs. Yeobright\nat Blooms-End another conversation on the same subject was languidly\nproceeding at Alderworth.\n\nAll the day Clym had borne himself as if his mind were too full of its\nown matter to allow him to care about outward things, and his words now\nshowed what had occupied his thoughts. It was just after the mysterious\nknocking that he began the theme. \"Since I have been away today,\nEustacia, I have considered that something must be done to heal up this\nghastly breach between my dear mother and myself. It troubles me.\"\n\n\"What do you propose to do?\" said Eustacia abstractedly, for she could\nnot clear away from her the excitement caused by Wildeve\'s recent\nmanoeuvre for an interview.\n\n\"You seem to take a very mild interest in what I propose, little or\nmuch,\" said Clym, with tolerable warmth.\n\n\"You mistake me,\" she answered, reviving at his reproach. \"I am only\nthinking.\"\n\n\"What of?\"\n\n\"Partly of that moth whose skeleton is getting burnt up in the wick of\nthe candle,\" she said slowly. \"But you know I always take an interest in\nwhat you say.\"\n\n\"Very well, dear. Then I think I must go and call upon her.\" ...He went\non with tender feeling: \"It is a thing I am not at all too proud to do,\nand only a fear that I might irritate her has kept me away so long. But\nI must do something. It is wrong in me to allow this sort of thing to go\non.\"\n\n\"What have you to blame yourself about?\"\n\n\"She is getting old, and her life is lonely, and I am her only son.\"\n\n\"She has Thomasin.\"\n\n\"Thomasin is not her daughter; and if she were that would not excuse me.\nBut this is beside the point. I have made up my mind to go to her, and\nall I wish to ask you is whether you will do your best to help me--that\nis, forget the past; and if she shows her willingness to be reconciled,\nmeet her halfway by welcoming her to our house, or by accepting a\nwelcome to hers?\"\n\nAt first Eustacia closed her lips as if she would rather do anything\non the whole globe than what he suggested. But the lines of her mouth\nsoftened with thought, though not so far as they might have softened,\nand she said, \"I will put nothing in your way; but after what has passed\nit is asking too much that I go and make advances.\"\n\n\"You never distinctly told me what did pass between you.\"\n\n\"I could not do it then, nor can I now. Sometimes more bitterness is\nsown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that\nmay be the case here.\" She paused a few moments, and added, \"If you had\nnever returned to your native place, Clym, what a blessing it would have\nbeen for you!... It has altered the destinies of----\"\n\n\"Three people.\"\n\n\"Five,\" Eustacia thought; but she kept that in.\n\n\n\n\n5--The Journey across the Heath\n\n\nThursday, the thirty-first of August, was one of a series of days during\nwhich snug houses were stifling, and when cool draughts were treats;\nwhen cracks appeared in clayey gardens, and were called \"earthquakes\" by\napprehensive children; when loose spokes were discovered in the wheels\nof carts and carriages; and when stinging insects haunted the air, the\nearth, and every drop of water that was to be found.\n\nIn Mrs. Yeobright\'s garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flagged\nby ten o\'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even\nstiff cabbages were limp by noon.\n\nIt was about eleven o\'clock on this day that Mrs. Yeobright started\nacross the heath towards her son\'s house, to do her best in getting\nreconciled with him and Eustacia, in conformity with her words to the\nreddleman. She had hoped to be well advanced in her walk before the heat\nof the day was at its highest, but after setting out she found that this\nwas not to be done. The sun had branded the whole heath with its mark,\neven the purple heath-flowers having put on a brownness under the dry\nblazes of the few preceding days. Every valley was filled with air like\nthat of a kiln, and the clean quartz sand of the winter water-courses,\nwhich formed summer paths, had undergone a species of incineration since\nthe drought had set in.\n\nIn cool, fresh weather Mrs. Yeobright would have found no inconvenience\nin walking to Alderworth, but the present torrid attack made the journey\na heavy undertaking for a woman past middle age; and at the end of the\nthird mile she wished that she had hired Fairway to drive her a portion\nat least of the distance. But from the point at which she had arrived it\nwas as easy to reach Clym\'s house as to get home again. So she went on,\nthe air around her pulsating silently, and oppressing the earth with\nlassitude. She looked at the sky overhead, and saw that the sapphirine\nhue of the zenith in spring and early summer had been replaced by a\nmetallic violet.\n\nOccasionally she came to a spot where independent worlds of ephemerons\nwere passing their time in mad carousal, some in the air, some on the\nhot ground and vegetation, some in the tepid and stringy water of a\nnearly dried pool. All the shallower ponds had decreased to a vaporous\nmud amid which the maggoty shapes of innumerable obscure creatures could\nbe indistinctly seen, heaving and wallowing with enjoyment. Being a\nwoman not disinclined to philosophize she sometimes sat down under her\numbrella to rest and to watch their happiness, for a certain hopefulness\nas to the result of her visit gave ease to her mind, and between\nimportant thoughts left it free to dwell on any infinitesimal matter\nwhich caught her eyes.\n\nMrs. Yeobright had never before been to her son\'s house, and its exact\nposition was unknown to her. She tried one ascending path and another,\nand found that they led her astray. Retracing her steps, she came again\nto an open level, where she perceived at a distance a man at work. She\nwent towards him and inquired the way.\n\nThe labourer pointed out the direction, and added, \"Do you see that\nfurze-cutter, ma\'am, going up that footpath yond?\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright strained her eyes, and at last said that she did perceive\nhim.\n\n\"Well, if you follow him you can make no mistake. He\'s going to the same\nplace, ma\'am.\"\n\nShe followed the figure indicated. He appeared of a russet hue, not more\ndistinguishable from the scene around him than the green caterpillar\nfrom the leaf it feeds on. His progress when actually walking was more\nrapid than Mrs. Yeobright\'s; but she was enabled to keep at an equable\ndistance from him by his habit of stopping whenever he came to a brake\nof brambles, where he paused awhile. On coming in her turn to each of\nthese spots she found half a dozen long limp brambles which he had cut\nfrom the bush during his halt and laid out straight beside the path.\nThey were evidently intended for furze-faggot bonds which he meant to\ncollect on his return.\n\nThe silent being who thus occupied himself seemed to be of no more\naccount in life than an insect. He appeared as a mere parasite of\nthe heath, fretting its surface in his daily labour as a moth frets a\ngarment, entirely engrossed with its products, having no knowledge of\nanything in the world but fern, furze, heath, lichens, and moss.\n\nThe furze-cutter was so absorbed in the business of his journey that he\nnever turned his head; and his leather-legged and gauntleted form at\nlength became to her as nothing more than a moving handpost to show her\nthe way. Suddenly she was attracted to his individuality by observing\npeculiarities in his walk. It was a gait she had seen somewhere before;\nand the gait revealed the man to her, as the gait of Ahimaaz in the\ndistant plain made him known to the watchman of the king. \"His walk\nis exactly as my husband\'s used to be,\" she said; and then the thought\nburst upon her that the furze-cutter was her son.\n\nShe was scarcely able to familiarize herself with this strange reality.\nShe had been told that Clym was in the habit of cutting furze, but she\nhad supposed that he occupied himself with the labour only at odd times,\nby way of useful pastime; yet she now beheld him as a furze-cutter and\nnothing more--wearing the regulation dress of the craft, and thinking\nthe regulation thoughts, to judge by his motions. Planning a dozen hasty\nschemes for at once preserving him and Eustacia from this mode of life,\nshe throbbingly followed the way, and saw him enter his own door.\n\nAt one side of Clym\'s house was a knoll, and on the top of the knoll a\nclump of fir trees so highly thrust up into the sky that their foliage\nfrom a distance appeared as a black spot in the air above the crown\nof the hill. On reaching this place Mrs. Yeobright felt distressingly\nagitated, weary, and unwell. She ascended, and sat down under their\nshade to recover herself, and to consider how best to break the ground\nwith Eustacia, so as not to irritate a woman underneath whose apparent\nindolence lurked passions even stronger and more active than her own.\n\nThe trees beneath which she sat were singularly battered, rude, and\nwild, and for a few minutes Mrs. Yeobright dismissed thoughts of her own\nstorm-broken and exhausted state to contemplate theirs. Not a bough in\nthe nine trees which composed the group but was splintered, lopped,\nand distorted by the fierce weather that there held them at its mercy\nwhenever it prevailed. Some were blasted and split as if by lightning,\nblack stains as from fire marking their sides, while the ground at their\nfeet was strewn with dead fir-needles and heaps of cones blown down in\nthe gales of past years. The place was called the Devil\'s Bellows, and\nit was only necessary to come there on a March or November night to\ndiscover the forcible reasons for that name. On the present heated\nafternoon, when no perceptible wind was blowing, the trees kept up a\nperpetual moan which one could hardly believe to be caused by the air.\n\nHere she sat for twenty minutes or more ere she could summon resolution\nto go down to the door, her courage being lowered to zero by her\nphysical lassitude. To any other person than a mother it might have\nseemed a little humiliating that she, the elder of the two women, should\nbe the first to make advances. But Mrs. Yeobright had well considered\nall that, and she only thought how best to make her visit appear to\nEustacia not abject but wise.\n\nFrom her elevated position the exhausted woman could perceive the roof\nof the house below, and the garden and the whole enclosure of the\nlittle domicile. And now, at the moment of rising, she saw a second man\napproaching the gate. His manner was peculiar, hesitating, and not that\nof a person come on business or by invitation. He surveyed the house\nwith interest, and then walked round and scanned the outer boundary\nof the garden, as one might have done had it been the birthplace of\nShakespeare, the prison of Mary Stuart, or the Chateau of Hougomont.\nAfter passing round and again reaching the gate he went in. Mrs.\nYeobright was vexed at this, having reckoned on finding her son and his\nwife by themselves; but a moment\'s thought showed her that the\npresence of an acquaintance would take off the awkwardness of her first\nappearance in the house, by confining the talk to general matters until\nshe had begun to feel comfortable with them. She came down the hill to\nthe gate, and looked into the hot garden.\n\nThere lay the cat asleep on the bare gravel of the path, as if beds,\nrugs, and carpets were unendurable. The leaves of the hollyhocks hung\nlike half-closed umbrellas, the sap almost simmered in the stems, and\nfoliage with a smooth surface glared like metallic mirrors. A small\napple tree, of the sort called Ratheripe, grew just inside the gate, the\nonly one which throve in the garden, by reason of the lightness of\nthe soil; and among the fallen apples on the ground beneath were wasps\nrolling drunk with the juice, or creeping about the little caves in each\nfruit which they had eaten out before stupefied by its sweetness. By the\ndoor lay Clym\'s furze-hook and the last handful of faggot-bonds she had\nseen him gather; they had plainly been thrown down there as he entered\nthe house.\n\n\n\n\n6--A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian\n\n\nWildeve, as has been stated, was determined to visit Eustacia boldly, by\nday, and on the easy terms of a relation, since the reddleman had spied\nout and spoilt his walks to her by night. The spell that she had thrown\nover him in the moonlight dance made it impossible for a man having no\nstrong puritanic force within him to keep away altogether. He merely\ncalculated on meeting her and her husband in an ordinary manner,\nchatting a little while, and leaving again. Every outward sign was to be\nconventional; but the one great fact would be there to satisfy him--he\nwould see her. He did not even desire Clym\'s absence, since it was just\npossible that Eustacia might resent any situation which could compromise\nher dignity as a wife, whatever the state of her heart towards him.\nWomen were often so.\n\nHe went accordingly; and it happened that the time of his arrival\ncoincided with that of Mrs. Yeobright\'s pause on the hill near the\nhouse. When he had looked round the premises in the manner she had\nnoticed he went and knocked at the door. There was a few minutes\'\ninterval, and then the key turned in the lock, the door opened, and\nEustacia herself confronted him.\n\nNobody could have imagined from her bearing now that here stood the\nwoman who had joined with him in the impassioned dance of the week\nbefore, unless indeed he could have penetrated below the surface and\ngauged the real depth of that still stream.\n\n\"I hope you reached home safely?\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"O yes,\" she carelessly returned.\n\n\"And were you not tired the next day? I feared you might be.\"\n\n\"I was rather. You need not speak low--nobody will over-hear us. My\nsmall servant is gone on an errand to the village.\"\n\n\"Then Clym is not at home?\"\n\n\"Yes, he is.\"\n\n\"O! I thought that perhaps you had locked the door because you were\nalone and were afraid of tramps.\"\n\n\"No--here is my husband.\"\n\nThey had been standing in the entry. Closing the front door and turning\nthe key, as before, she threw open the door of the adjoining room and\nasked him to walk in. Wildeve entered, the room appearing to be empty;\nbut as soon as he had advanced a few steps he started. On the hearthrug\nlay Clym asleep. Beside him were the leggings, thick boots, leather\ngloves, and sleeve-waistcoat in which he worked.\n\n\"You may go in; you will not disturb him,\" she said, following behind.\n\"My reason for fastening the door is that he may not be intruded upon\nby any chance comer while lying here, if I should be in the garden or\nupstairs.\"\n\n\"Why is he sleeping there?\" said Wildeve in low tones.\n\n\"He is very weary. He went out at half-past four this morning, and has\nbeen working ever since. He cuts furze because it is the only thing he\ncan do that does not put any strain upon his poor eyes.\" The contrast\nbetween the sleeper\'s appearance and Wildeve\'s at this moment was\npainfully apparent to Eustacia, Wildeve being elegantly dressed in a new\nsummer suit and light hat; and she continued: \"Ah! you don\'t know how\ndifferently he appeared when I first met him, though it is such a little\nwhile ago. His hands were as white and soft as mine; and look at them\nnow, how rough and brown they are! His complexion is by nature fair, and\nthat rusty look he has now, all of a colour with his leather clothes, is\ncaused by the burning of the sun.\"\n\n\"Why does he go out at all!\" Wildeve whispered.\n\n\"Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn\'t add much to\nour exchequer. However, he says that when people are living upon their\ncapital they must keep down current expenses by turning a penny where\nthey can.\"\n\n\"The fates have not been kind to you, Eustacia Yeobright.\"\n\n\"I have nothing to thank them for.\"\n\n\"Nor has he--except for their one great gift to him.\"\n\n\"What\'s that?\"\n\nWildeve looked her in the eyes.\n\nEustacia blushed for the first time that day. \"Well, I am a questionable\ngift,\" she said quietly. \"I thought you meant the gift of content--which\nhe has, and I have not.\"\n\n\"I can understand content in such a case--though how the outward\nsituation can attract him puzzles me.\"\n\n\"That\'s because you don\'t know him. He\'s an enthusiast about ideas, and\ncareless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle Paul.\"\n\n\"I am glad to hear that he\'s so grand in character as that.\"\n\n\"Yes; but the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in\nthe Bible he would hardly have done in real life.\"\n\nTheir voices had instinctively dropped lower, though at first they had\ntaken no particular care to avoid awakening Clym. \"Well, if that means\nthat your marriage is a misfortune to you, you know who is to blame,\"\nsaid Wildeve.\n\n\"The marriage is no misfortune in itself,\" she retorted with some little\npetulance. \"It is simply the accident which has happened since that has\nbeen the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a\nworldly sense, but how could I tell what time would bring forth?\"\n\n\"Sometimes, Eustacia, I think it is a judgment upon you. You rightly\nbelonged to me, you know; and I had no idea of losing you.\"\n\n\"No, it was not my fault! Two could not belong to you; and remember\nthat, before I was aware, you turned aside to another woman. It was\ncruel levity in you to do that. I never dreamt of playing such a game on\nmy side till you began it on yours.\"\n\n\"I meant nothing by it,\" replied Wildeve. \"It was a mere interlude. Men\nare given to the trick of having a passing fancy for somebody else in\nthe midst of a permanent love, which reasserts itself afterwards just as\nbefore. On account of your rebellious manner to me I was tempted to go\nfurther than I should have done; and when you still would keep playing\nthe same tantalizing part I went further still, and married her.\"\nTurning and looking again at the unconscious form of Clym, he murmured,\n\"I am afraid that you don\'t value your prize, Clym.... He ought to be\nhappier than I in one thing at least. He may know what it is to come\ndown in the world, and to be afflicted with a great personal calamity;\nbut he probably doesn\'t know what it is to lose the woman he loved.\"\n\n\"He is not ungrateful for winning her,\" whispered Eustacia, \"and in that\nrespect he is a good man. Many women would go far for such a husband.\nBut do I desire unreasonably much in wanting what is called life--music,\npoetry, passion, war, and all the beating and pulsing that are going on\nin the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of my youthful\ndream; but I did not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my\nClym.\"\n\n\"And you only married him on that account?\"\n\n\"There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won\'t\nsay that I didn\'t love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of\nthat life in him.\"\n\n\"You have dropped into your old mournful key.\"\n\n\"But I am not going to be depressed,\" she cried perversely. \"I began a\nnew system by going to that dance, and I mean to stick to it. Clym can\nsing merrily; why should not I?\"\n\nWildeve looked thoughtfully at her. \"It is easier to say you will sing\nthan to do it; though if I could I would encourage you in your attempt.\nBut as life means nothing to me, without one thing which is now\nimpossible, you will forgive me for not being able to encourage you.\"\n\n\"Damon, what is the matter with you, that you speak like that?\" she\nasked, raising her deep shady eyes to his.\n\n\"That\'s a thing I shall never tell plainly; and perhaps if I try to tell\nyou in riddles you will not care to guess them.\"\n\nEustacia remained silent for a minute, and she said, \"We are in a\nstrange relationship today. You mince matters to an uncommon nicety. You\nmean, Damon, that you still love me. Well, that gives me sorrow, for I\nam not made so entirely happy by my marriage that I am willing to spurn\nyou for the information, as I ought to do. But we have said too much\nabout this. Do you mean to wait until my husband is awake?\"\n\n\"I thought to speak to him; but it is unnecessary, Eustacia, if I offend\nyou by not forgetting you, you are right to mention it; but do not talk\nof spurning.\"\n\nShe did not reply, and they stood looking musingly at Clym as he slept\non in that profound sleep which is the result of physical labour carried\non in circumstances that wake no nervous fear.\n\n\"God, how I envy him that sweet sleep!\" said Wildeve. \"I have not slept\nlike that since I was a boy--years and years ago.\"\n\nWhile they thus watched him a click at the gate was audible, and a knock\ncame to the door. Eustacia went to a window and looked out.\n\nHer countenance changed. First she became crimson, and then the red\nsubsided till it even partially left her lips.\n\n\"Shall I go away?\" said Wildeve, standing up.\n\n\"I hardly know.\"\n\n\"Who is it?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Yeobright. O, what she said to me that day! I cannot understand\nthis visit--what does she mean? And she suspects that past time of\nours.\"\n\n\"I am in your hands. If you think she had better not see me here I\'ll go\ninto the next room.\"\n\n\"Well, yes--go.\"\n\nWildeve at once withdrew; but before he had been half a minute in the\nadjoining apartment Eustacia came after him.\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"we won\'t have any of this. If she comes in she must see\nyou--and think if she likes there\'s something wrong! But how can I open\nthe door to her, when she dislikes me--wishes to see not me, but her\nson? I won\'t open the door!\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright knocked again more loudly.\n\n\"Her knocking will, in all likelihood, awaken him,\" continued Eustacia,\n\"and then he will let her in himself. Ah--listen.\"\n\nThey could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by the\nknocking, and he uttered the word \"Mother.\"\n\n\"Yes--he is awake--he will go to the door,\" she said, with a breath of\nrelief. \"Come this way. I have a bad name with her, and you must not\nbe seen. Thus I am obliged to act by stealth, not because I do ill, but\nbecause others are pleased to say so.\"\n\nBy this time she had taken him to the back door, which was open,\ndisclosing a path leading down the garden. \"Now, one word, Damon,\" she\nremarked as he stepped forth. \"This is your first visit here; let it\nbe your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, but it won\'t do now.\nGood-bye.\"\n\n\"Good-bye,\" said Wildeve. \"I have had all I came for, and I am\nsatisfied.\"\n\n\"What was it?\"\n\n\"A sight of you. Upon my eternal honour I came for no more.\"\n\nWildeve kissed his hand to the beautiful girl he addressed, and passed\ninto the garden, where she watched him down the path, over the stile at\nthe end, and into the ferns outside, which brushed his hips as he went\nalong till he became lost in their thickets. When he had quite gone she\nslowly turned, and directed her attention to the interior of the house.\n\nBut it was possible that her presence might not be desired by Clym and\nhis mother at this moment of their first meeting, or that it would be\nsuperfluous. At all events, she was in no hurry to meet Mrs. Yeobright.\nShe resolved to wait till Clym came to look for her, and glided back\ninto the garden. Here she idly occupied herself for a few minutes, till\nfinding no notice was taken of her she retraced her steps through the\nhouse to the front, where she listened for voices in the parlour. But\nhearing none she opened the door and went in. To her astonishment Clym\nlay precisely as Wildeve and herself had left him, his sleep apparently\nunbroken. He had been disturbed and made to dream and murmur by the\nknocking, but he had not awakened. Eustacia hastened to the door, and in\nspite of her reluctance to open it to a woman who had spoken of her\nso bitterly, she unfastened it and looked out. Nobody was to be seen.\nThere, by the scraper, lay Clym\'s hook and the handful of faggot-bonds\nhe had brought home; in front of her were the empty path, the garden\ngate standing slightly ajar; and, beyond, the great valley of purple\nheath thrilling silently in the sun. Mrs. Yeobright was gone.\n\n\nClym\'s mother was at this time following a path which lay hidden from\nEustacia by a shoulder of the hill. Her walk thither from the garden\ngate had been hasty and determined, as of a woman who was now no less\nanxious to escape from the scene than she had previously been to enter\nit. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; within her two sights were\ngraven--that of Clym\'s hook and brambles at the door, and that of a\nwoman\'s face at a window. Her lips trembled, becoming unnaturally thin\nas she murmured, \"\'Tis too much--Clym, how can he bear to do it! He is\nat home; and yet he lets her shut the door against me!\"\n\nIn her anxiety to get out of the direct view of the house she had\ndiverged from the straightest path homeward, and while looking about\nto regain it she came upon a little boy gathering whortleberries in a\nhollow. The boy was Johnny Nunsuch, who had been Eustacia\'s stoker\nat the bonfire, and, with the tendency of a minute body to gravitate\ntowards a greater, he began hovering round Mrs. Yeobright as soon as she\nappeared, and trotted on beside her without perceptible consciousness of\nhis act.\n\nMrs. Yeobright spoke to him as one in a mesmeric sleep. \"\'Tis a long way\nhome, my child, and we shall not get there till evening.\"\n\n\"I shall,\" said her small companion. \"I am going to play marnels afore\nsupper, and we go to supper at six o\'clock, because Father comes home.\nDoes your father come home at six too?\"\n\n\"No, he never comes; nor my son either, nor anybody.\"\n\n\"What have made you so down? Have you seen a ooser?\"\n\n\"I have seen what\'s worse--a woman\'s face looking at me through a\nwindowpane.\"\n\n\"Is that a bad sight?\"\n\n\"Yes. It is always a bad sight to see a woman looking out at a weary\nwayfarer and not letting her in.\"\n\n\"Once when I went to Throope Great Pond to catch effets I seed myself\nlooking up at myself, and I was frightened and jumped back like\nanything.\"\n\n...\"If they had only shown signs of meeting my advances halfway how well\nit might have been done! But there is no chance. Shut out! She must have\nset him against me. Can there be beautiful bodies without hearts inside?\nI think so. I would not have done it against a neighbour\'s cat on such a\nfiery day as this!\"\n\n\"What is it you say?\"\n\n\"Never again--never! Not even if they send for me!\"\n\n\"You must be a very curious woman to talk like that.\"\n\n\"O no, not at all,\" she said, returning to the boy\'s prattle. \"Most\npeople who grow up and have children talk as I do. When you grow up your\nmother will talk as I do too.\"\n\n\"I hope she won\'t; because \'tis very bad to talk nonsense.\"\n\n\"Yes, child; it is nonsense, I suppose. Are you not nearly spent with\nthe heat?\"\n\n\"Yes. But not so much as you be.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"Your face is white and wet, and your head is hanging-down-like.\"\n\n\"Ah, I am exhausted from inside.\"\n\n\"Why do you, every time you take a step, go like this?\" The child in\nspeaking gave to his motion the jerk and limp of an invalid.\n\n\"Because I have a burden which is more than I can bear.\"\n\nThe little boy remained silently pondering, and they tottered on side\nby side until more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when Mrs.\nYeobright, whose weakness plainly increased, said to him, \"I must sit\ndown here to rest.\"\n\nWhen she had seated herself he looked long in her face and said, \"How\nfunny you draw your breath--like a lamb when you drive him till he\'s\nnearly done for. Do you always draw your breath like that?\"\n\n\"Not always.\" Her voice was now so low as to be scarcely above a\nwhisper.\n\n\"You will go to sleep there, I suppose, won\'t you? You have shut your\neyes already.\"\n\n\"No. I shall not sleep much till--another day, and then I hope to have\na long, long one--very long. Now can you tell me if Rimsmoor Pond is dry\nthis summer?\"\n\n\"Rimsmoor Pond is, but Oker\'s Pool isn\'t, because he is deep, and is\nnever dry--\'tis just over there.\"\n\n\"Is the water clear?\"\n\n\"Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk into it.\"\n\n\"Then, take this, and go as fast as you can, and dip me up the clearest\nyou can find. I am very faint.\"\n\nShe drew from the small willow reticule that she carried in her hand an\nold-fashioned china teacup without a handle; it was one of half a dozen\nof the same sort lying in the reticule, which she had preserved ever\nsince her childhood, and had brought with her today as a small present\nfor Clym and Eustacia.\n\nThe boy started on his errand, and soon came back with the water, such\nas it was. Mrs. Yeobright attempted to drink, but it was so warm as to\ngive her nausea, and she threw it away. Afterwards she still remained\nsitting, with her eyes closed.\n\nThe boy waited, played near her, caught several of the little brown\nbutterflies which abounded, and then said as he waited again, \"I like\ngoing on better than biding still. Will you soon start again?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know.\"\n\n\"I wish I might go on by myself,\" he resumed, fearing, apparently, that\nhe was to be pressed into some unpleasant service. \"Do you want me any\nmore, please?\"\n\nMrs. Yeobright made no reply.\n\n\"What shall I tell Mother?\" the boy continued.\n\n\"Tell her you have seen a broken-hearted woman cast off by her son.\"\n\nBefore quite leaving her he threw upon her face a wistful glance, as if\nhe had misgivings on the generosity of forsaking her thus. He gazed into\nher face in a vague, wondering manner, like that of one examining some\nstrange old manuscript the key to whose characters is undiscoverable. He\nwas not so young as to be absolutely without a sense that sympathy\nwas demanded, he was not old enough to be free from the terror felt\nin childhood at beholding misery in adult quarters hither-to deemed\nimpregnable; and whether she were in a position to cause trouble or to\nsuffer from it, whether she and her affliction were something to pity or\nsomething to fear, it was beyond him to decide. He lowered his eyes\nand went on without another word. Before he had gone half a mile he had\nforgotten all about her, except that she was a woman who had sat down to\nrest.\n\nMrs. Yeobright\'s exertions, physical and emotional, had well-nigh\nprostrated her; but she continued to creep along in short stages with\nlong breaks between. The sun had now got far to the west of south and\nstood directly in her face, like some merciless incendiary, brand in\nhand, waiting to consume her. With the departure of the boy all visible\nanimation disappeared from the landscape, though the intermittent husky\nnotes of the male grasshoppers from every tuft of furze were enough to\nshow that amid the prostration of the larger animal species an unseen\ninsect world was busy in all the fullness of life.\n\nIn two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths the whole\ndistance from Alderworth to her own home, where a little patch of\nshepherd\'s-thyme intruded upon the path; and she sat down upon the\nperfumed mat it formed there. In front of her a colony of ants\nhad established a thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a\nnever-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was like\nobserving a city street from the top of a tower. She remembered\nthat this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the same\nspot--doubtless those of the old times were the ancestors of these which\nwalked there now. She leant back to obtain more thorough rest, and the\nsoft eastern portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as the\nthyme was to her head. While she looked a heron arose on that side of\nthe sky and flew on with his face towards the sun. He had come dripping\nwet from some pool in the valleys, and as he flew the edges and lining\nof his wings, his thighs and his breast were so caught by the bright\nsunbeams that he appeared as if formed of burnished silver. Up in the\nzenith where he was seemed a free and happy place, away from all contact\nwith the earthly ball to which she was pinioned; and she wished that she\ncould arise uncrushed from its surface and fly as he flew then.\n\nBut, being a mother, it was inevitable that she should soon cease to\nruminate upon her own condition. Had the track of her next thought been\nmarked by a streak in the air, like the path of a meteor, it would have\nshown a direction contrary to the heron\'s, and have descended to the\neastward upon the roof of Clym\'s house.\n\n\n\n\n7--The Tragic Meeting of Two Old Friends\n\n\nHe in the meantime had aroused himself from sleep, sat up, and looked\naround. Eustacia was sitting in a chair hard by him, and though she held\na book in her hand she had not looked into it for some time.\n\n\"Well, indeed!\" said Clym, brushing his eyes with his hands. \"How\nsoundly I have slept! I have had such a tremendous dream, too--one I\nshall never forget.\"\n\n\"I thought you had been dreaming,\" said she.\n\n\"Yes. It was about my mother. I dreamt that I took you to her house to\nmake up differences, and when we got there we couldn\'t get in, though\nshe kept on crying to us for help. However, dreams are dreams. What\no\'clock is it, Eustacia?\"\n\n\"Half-past two.\"\n\n\"So late, is it? I didn\'t mean to stay so long. By the time I have had\nsomething to eat it will be after three.\"\n\n\"Ann is not come back from the village, and I thought I would let you\nsleep on till she returned.\"\n\nClym went to the window and looked out. Presently he said, musingly,\n\"Week after week passes, and yet Mother does not come. I thought I\nshould have heard something from her long before this.\"\n\nMisgiving, regret, fear, resolution, ran their swift course of\nexpression in Eustacia\'s dark eyes. She was face to face with\na monstrous difficulty, and she resolved to get free of it by\npostponement.\n\n\"I must certainly go to Blooms-End soon,\" he continued, \"and I think I\nhad better go alone.\" He picked up his leggings and gloves, threw them\ndown again, and added, \"As dinner will be so late today I will not go\nback to the heath, but work in the garden till the evening, and then,\nwhen it will be cooler, I will walk to Blooms-End. I am quite sure that\nif I make a little advance Mother will be willing to forget all. It will\nbe rather late before I can get home, as I shall not be able to do the\ndistance either way in less than an hour and a half. But you will not\nmind for one evening, dear? What are you thinking of to make you look so\nabstracted?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you,\" she said heavily. \"I wish we didn\'t live here,\nClym. The world seems all wrong in this place.\"\n\n\"Well--if we make it so. I wonder if Thomasin has been to Blooms-End\nlately. I hope so. But probably not, as she is, I believe, expecting to\nbe confined in a month or so. I wish I had thought of that before. Poor\nMother must indeed be very lonely.\"\n\n\"I don\'t like you going tonight.\"\n\n\"Why not tonight?\"\n\n\"Something may be said which will terribly injure me.\"\n\n\"My mother is not vindictive,\" said Clym, his colour faintly rising.\n\n\"But I wish you would not go,\" Eustacia repeated in a low tone. \"If you\nagree not to go tonight I promise to go by myself to her house tomorrow,\nand make it up with her, and wait till you fetch me.\"\n\n\"Why do you want to do that at this particular time, when at every\nprevious time that I have proposed it you have refused?\"\n\n\"I cannot explain further than that I should like to see her alone\nbefore you go,\" she answered, with an impatient move of her head, and\nlooking at him with an anxiety more frequently seen upon those of a\nsanguine temperament than upon such as herself.\n\n\"Well, it is very odd that just when I had decided to go myself you\nshould want to do what I proposed long ago. If I wait for you to go\ntomorrow another day will be lost; and I know I shall be unable to rest\nanother night without having been. I want to get this settled, and will.\nYou must visit her afterwards--it will be all the same.\"\n\n\"I could even go with you now?\"\n\n\"You could scarcely walk there and back without a longer rest than I\nshall take. No, not tonight, Eustacia.\"\n\n\"Let it be as you say, then,\" she replied in the quiet way of one who,\nthough willing to ward off evil consequences by a mild effort, would let\nevents fall out as they might sooner than wrestle hard to direct them.\n\nClym then went into the garden; and a thoughtful languor stole\nover Eustacia for the remainder of the afternoon, which her husband\nattributed to the heat of the weather.\n\nIn the evening he set out on the journey. Although the heat of summer\nwas yet intense the days had considerably shortened, and before he had\nadvanced a mile on his way all the heath purples, browns, and greens\nhad merged in a uniform dress without airiness or graduation, and broken\nonly by touches of white where the little heaps of clean quartz sand\nshowed the entrance to a rabbit burrow, or where the white flints of a\nfootpath lay like a thread over the slopes. In almost every one of\nthe isolated and stunted thorns which grew here and there a nighthawk\nrevealed his presence by whirring like the clack of a mill as long as he\ncould hold his breath, then stopping, flapping his wings, wheeling round\nthe bush, alighting, and after a silent interval of listening beginning\nto whirr again. At each brushing of Clym\'s feet white millermoths\nflew into the air just high enough to catch upon their dusty wings the\nmellowed light from the west, which now shone across the depressions and\nlevels of the ground without falling thereon to light them up.\n\nYeobright walked on amid this quiet scene with a hope that all would\nsoon be well. Three miles on he came to a spot where a soft perfume was\nwafted across his path, and he stood still for a moment to inhale the\nfamiliar scent. It was the place at which, four hours earlier,\nhis mother had sat down exhausted on the knoll covered with\nshepherd\'s-thyme. While he stood a sound between a breathing and a moan\nsuddenly reached his ears.\n\nHe looked to where the sound came from; but nothing appeared there save\nthe verge of the hillock stretching against the sky in an unbroken line.\nHe moved a few steps in that direction, and now he perceived a recumbent\nfigure almost close to his feet.\n\nAmong the different possibilities as to the person\'s individuality there\ndid not for a moment occur to Yeobright that it might be one of his own\nfamily. Sometimes furze-cutters had been known to sleep out of doors at\nthese times, to save a long journey homeward and back again; but\nClym remembered the moan and looked closer, and saw that the form was\nfeminine; and a distress came over him like cold air from a cave. But he\nwas not absolutely certain that the woman was his mother till he stooped\nand beheld her face, pallid, and with closed eyes.\n\nHis breath went, as it were, out of his body and the cry of anguish\nwhich would have escaped him died upon his lips. During the momentary\ninterval that elapsed before he became conscious that something must be\ndone all sense of time and place left him, and it seemed as if he and\nhis mother were as when he was a child with her many years ago on this\nheath at hours similar to the present. Then he awoke to activity; and\nbending yet lower he found that she still breathed, and that her breath\nthough feeble was regular, except when disturbed by an occasional gasp.\n\n\"O, what is it! Mother, are you very ill--you are not dying?\" he cried,\npressing his lips to her face. \"I am your Clym. How did you come here?\nWhat does it all mean?\"\n\nAt that moment the chasm in their lives which his love for Eustacia had\ncaused was not remembered by Yeobright, and to him the present joined\ncontinuously with that friendly past that had been their experience\nbefore the division.\n\nShe moved her lips, appeared to know him, but could not speak; and then\nClym strove to consider how best to move her, as it would be necessary\nto get her away from the spot before the dews were intense. He was\nable-bodied, and his mother was thin. He clasped his arms round her,\nlifted her a little, and said, \"Does that hurt you?\"\n\nShe shook her head, and he lifted her up; then, at a slow pace, went\nonward with his load. The air was now completely cool; but whenever he\npassed over a sandy patch of ground uncarpeted with vegetation there was\nreflected from its surface into his face the heat which it had imbibed\nduring the day. At the beginning of his undertaking he had thought\nbut little of the distance which yet would have to be traversed before\nBlooms-End could be reached; but though he had slept that afternoon he\nsoon began to feel the weight of his burden. Thus he proceeded, like\nAeneas with his father; the bats circling round his head, nightjars\nflapping their wings within a yard of his face, and not a human being\nwithin call.\n\nWhile he was yet nearly a mile from the house his mother exhibited signs\nof restlessness under the constraint of being borne along, as if his\narms were irksome to her. He lowered her upon his knees and looked\naround. The point they had now reached, though far from any road, was\nnot more than a mile from the Blooms-End cottages occupied by Fairway,\nSam, Humphrey, and the Cantles. Moreover, fifty yards off stood a hut,\nbuilt of clods and covered with thin turves, but now entirely disused.\nThe simple outline of the lonely shed was visible, and thither he\ndetermined to direct his steps. As soon as he arrived he laid her down\ncarefully by the entrance, and then ran and cut with his pocketknife\nan armful of the dryest fern. Spreading this within the shed, which was\nentirely open on one side, he placed his mother thereon; then he ran\nwith all his might towards the dwelling of Fairway.\n\nNearly a quarter of an hour had passed, disturbed only by the broken\nbreathing of the sufferer, when moving figures began to animate the\nline between heath and sky. In a few moments Clym arrived with Fairway,\nHumphrey, and Susan Nunsuch; Olly Dowden, who had chanced to be at\nFairway\'s, Christian and Grandfer Cantle following helter-skelter\nbehind. They had brought a lantern and matches, water, a pillow, and a\nfew other articles which had occurred to their minds in the hurry of the\nmoment. Sam had been despatched back again for brandy, and a boy brought\nFairway\'s pony, upon which he rode off to the nearest medical man, with\ndirections to call at Wildeve\'s on his way, and inform Thomasin that her\naunt was unwell.\n\nSam and the brandy soon arrived, and it was administered by the light of\nthe lantern; after which she became sufficiently conscious to signify\nby signs that something was wrong with her foot. Olly Dowden at length\nunderstood her meaning, and examined the foot indicated. It was swollen\nand red. Even as they watched the red began to assume a more livid\ncolour, in the midst of which appeared a scarlet speck, smaller than a\npea, and it was found to consist of a drop of blood, which rose above\nthe smooth flesh of her ankle in a hemisphere.\n\n\"I know what it is,\" cried Sam. \"She has been stung by an adder!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Clym instantly. \"I remember when I was a child seeing just\nsuch a bite. O, my poor mother!\"\n\n\"It was my father who was bit,\" said Sam. \"And there\'s only one way to\ncure it. You must rub the place with the fat of other adders, and the\nonly way to get that is by frying them. That\'s what they did for him.\"\n\n\"\'Tis an old remedy,\" said Clym distrustfully, \"and I have doubts about\nit. But we can do nothing else till the doctor comes.\"\n\n\"\'Tis a sure cure,\" said Olly Dowden, with emphasis. \"I\'ve used it when\nI used to go out nursing.\"\n\n\"Then we must pray for daylight, to catch them,\" said Clym gloomily.\n\n\"I will see what I can do,\" said Sam.\n\nHe took a green hazel which he had used as a walking stick, split it at\nthe end, inserted a small pebble, and with the lantern in his hand\nwent out into the heath. Clym had by this time lit a small fire, and\ndespatched Susan Nunsuch for a frying pan. Before she had returned Sam\ncame in with three adders, one briskly coiling and uncoiling in the\ncleft of the stick, and the other two hanging dead across it.\n\n\"I have only been able to get one alive and fresh as he ought to be,\"\nsaid Sam. \"These limp ones are two I killed today at work; but as they\ndon\'t die till the sun goes down they can\'t be very stale meat.\"\n\nThe live adder regarded the assembled group with a sinister look in its\nsmall black eye, and the beautiful brown and jet pattern on its back\nseemed to intensify with indignation. Mrs. Yeobright saw the creature,\nand the creature saw her--she quivered throughout, and averted her eyes.\n\n\"Look at that,\" murmured Christian Cantle. \"Neighbours, how do we know\nbut that something of the old serpent in God\'s garden, that gied the\napple to the young woman with no clothes, lives on in adders and snakes\nstill? Look at his eye--for all the world like a villainous sort of\nblack currant. \'Tis to be hoped he can\'t ill-wish us! There\'s folks in\nheath who\'ve been overlooked already. I will never kill another adder as\nlong as I live.\"\n\n\"Well, \'tis right to be afeard of things, if folks can\'t help it,\" said\nGrandfer Cantle. \"\'Twould have saved me many a brave danger in my time.\"\n\n\"I fancy I heard something outside the shed,\" said Christian. \"I wish\ntroubles would come in the daytime, for then a man could show his\ncourage, and hardly beg for mercy of the most broomstick old woman he\nshould see, if he was a brave man, and able to run out of her sight!\"\n\n\"Even such an ignorant fellow as I should know better than do that,\"\nsaid Sam.\n\n\"Well, there\'s calamities where we least expect it, whether or no.\nNeighbours, if Mrs. Yeobright were to die, d\'ye think we should be took\nup and tried for the manslaughter of a woman?\"\n\n\"No, they couldn\'t bring it in as that,\" said Sam, \"unless they could\nprove we had been poachers at some time of our lives. But she\'ll fetch\nround.\"\n\n\"Now, if I had been stung by ten adders I should hardly have lost a\nday\'s work for\'t,\" said Grandfer Cantle. \"Such is my spirit when I am on\nmy mettle. But perhaps \'tis natural in a man trained for war. Yes, I\'ve\ngone through a good deal; but nothing ever came amiss to me after I\njoined the Locals in four.\" He shook his head and smiled at a mental\npicture of himself in uniform. \"I was always first in the most\ngalliantest scrapes in my younger days!\"\n\n\"I suppose that was because they always used to put the biggest fool\nafore,\" said Fairway from the fire, beside which he knelt, blowing it\nwith his breath.\n\n\"D\'ye think so, Timothy?\" said Grandfer Cantle, coming forward to\nFairway\'s side with sudden depression in his face. \"Then a man may feel\nfor years that he is good solid company, and be wrong about himself\nafter all?\"\n\n\"Never mind that question, Grandfer. Stir your stumps and get some more\nsticks. \'Tis very nonsense of an old man to prattle so when life and\ndeath\'s in mangling.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said Grandfer Cantle, with melancholy conviction. \"Well,\nthis is a bad night altogether for them that have done well in their\ntime; and if I were ever such a dab at the hautboy or tenor viol, I\nshouldn\'t have the heart to play tunes upon \'em now.\"\n\nSusan now arrived with the frying pan, when the live adder was killed\nand the heads of the three taken off. The remainders, being cut into\nlengths and split open, were tossed into the pan, which began hissing\nand crackling over the fire. Soon a rill of clear oil trickled from the\ncarcases, whereupon Clym dipped the corner of his handkerchief into the\nliquid and anointed the wound.\n\n\n\n\n8--Eustacia Hears of Good Fortune, and Beholds Evil\n\n\nIn the meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth,\nhad become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The\nconsequences which might result from Clym\'s discovery that his mother\nhad been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable,\nand this was a quality in events which she hated as much as the\ndreadful.\n\nTo be left to pass the evening by herself was irksome to her at any\ntime, and this evening it was more irksome than usual by reason of\nthe excitements of the past hours. The two visits had stirred her into\nrestlessness. She was not wrought to any great pitch of uneasiness by\nthe probability of appearing in an ill light in the discussion between\nClym and his mother, but she was wrought to vexation, and her slumbering\nactivities were quickened to the extent of wishing that she had opened\nthe door. She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse\nwould be an honest one as far as it went; but nothing could save her\nfrom censure in refusing to answer at the first knock. Yet, instead of\nblaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders\nof some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World, who had framed her\nsituation and ruled her lot.\n\nAt this time of the year it was pleasanter to walk by night than by day,\nand when Clym had been absent about an hour she suddenly resolved to go\nout in the direction of Blooms-End, on the chance of meeting him on his\nreturn. When she reached the garden gate she heard wheels approaching,\nand looking round beheld her grandfather coming up in his car.\n\n\"I can\'t stay a minute, thank ye,\" he answered to her greeting. \"I am\ndriving to East Egdon; but I came round here just to tell you the news.\nPerhaps you have heard--about Mr. Wildeve\'s fortune?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Eustacia blankly.\n\n\"Well, he has come into a fortune of eleven thousand pounds--uncle died\nin Canada, just after hearing that all his family, whom he was sending\nhome, had gone to the bottom in the Cassiopeia; so Wildeve has come into\neverything, without in the least expecting it.\"\n\nEustacia stood motionless awhile. \"How long has he known of this?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"Well, it was known to him this morning early, for I knew it at ten\no\'clock, when Charley came back. Now, he is what I call a lucky man.\nWhat a fool you were, Eustacia!\"\n\n\"In what way?\" she said, lifting her eyes in apparent calmness.\n\n\"Why, in not sticking to him when you had him.\"\n\n\"Had him, indeed!\"\n\n\"I did not know there had ever been anything between you till lately;\nand, faith, I should have been hot and strong against it if I had known;\nbut since it seems that there was some sniffing between ye, why the\ndeuce didn\'t you stick to him?\"\n\nEustacia made no reply, but she looked as if she could say as much upon\nthat subject as he if she chose.\n\n\"And how is your poor purblind husband?\" continued the old man. \"Not a\nbad fellow either, as far as he goes.\"\n\n\"He is quite well.\"\n\n\"It is a good thing for his cousin what-d\'ye-call-her? By George, you\nought to have been in that galley, my girl! Now I must drive on. Do you\nwant any assistance? What\'s mine is yours, you know.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Grandfather, we are not in want at present,\" she said\ncoldly. \"Clym cuts furze, but he does it mostly as a useful pastime,\nbecause he can do nothing else.\"\n\n\"He is paid for his pastime, isn\'t he? Three shillings a hundred, I\nheard.\"\n\n\"Clym has money,\" she said, colouring, \"but he likes to earn a little.\"\n\n\"Very well; good night.\" And the captain drove on.\n\nWhen her grandfather was gone Eustacia went on her way mechanically;\nbut her thoughts were no longer concerning her mother-in-law and Clym.\nWildeve, notwithstanding his complaints against his fate, had been\nseized upon by destiny and placed in the sunshine once more. Eleven\nthousand pounds! From every Egdon point of view he was a rich man. In\nEustacia\'s eyes, too, it was an ample sum--one sufficient to supply\nthose wants of hers which had been stigmatized by Clym in his more\naustere moods as vain and luxurious. Though she was no lover of money\nshe loved what money could bring; and the new accessories she\nimagined around him clothed Wildeve with a great deal of interest. She\nrecollected now how quietly well-dressed he had been that morning--he\nhad probably put on his newest suit, regardless of damage by briars and\nthorns. And then she thought of his manner towards herself.\n\n\"O I see it, I see it,\" she said. \"How much he wishes he had me now,\nthat he might give me all I desire!\"\n\nIn recalling the details of his glances and words--at the time scarcely\nregarded--it became plain to her how greatly they had been dictated\nby his knowledge of this new event. \"Had he been a man to bear a jilt\nill-will he would have told me of his good fortune in crowing tones;\ninstead of doing that he mentioned not a word, in deference to my\nmisfortunes, and merely implied that he loved me still, as one superior\nto him.\"\n\nWildeve\'s silence that day on what had happened to him was just the kind\nof behaviour calculated to make an impression on such a woman. Those\ndelicate touches of good taste were, in fact, one of the strong points\nin his demeanour towards the other sex. The peculiarity of Wildeve was\nthat, while at one time passionate, upbraiding, and resentful towards a\nwoman, at another he would treat her with such unparalleled grace as\nto make previous neglect appear as no discourtesy, injury as no insult,\ninterference as a delicate attention, and the ruin of her honour as\nexcess of chivalry. This man, whose admiration today Eustacia had\ndisregarded, whose good wishes she had scarcely taken the trouble to\naccept, whom she had shown out of the house by the back door, was\nthe possessor of eleven thousand pounds--a man of fair professional\neducation, and one who had served his articles with a civil engineer.\n\nSo intent was Eustacia upon Wildeve\'s fortunes that she forgot how much\ncloser to her own course were those of Clym; and instead of walking on\nto meet him at once she sat down upon a stone. She was disturbed in her\nreverie by a voice behind, and turning her head beheld the old lover and\nfortunate inheritor of wealth immediately beside her.\n\nShe remained sitting, though the fluctuation in her look might have told\nany man who knew her so well as Wildeve that she was thinking of him.\n\n\"How did you come here?\" she said in her clear low tone. \"I thought you\nwere at home.\"\n\n\"I went on to the village after leaving your garden; and now I have come\nback again--that\'s all. Which way are you walking, may I ask?\"\n\nShe waved her hand in the direction of Blooms-End. \"I am going to meet\nmy husband. I think I may possibly have got into trouble whilst you were\nwith me today.\"\n\n\"How could that be?\"\n\n\"By not letting in Mrs. Yeobright.\"\n\n\"I hope that visit of mine did you no harm.\"\n\n\"None. It was not your fault,\" she said quietly.\n\nBy this time she had risen; and they involuntarily sauntered on\ntogether, without speaking, for two or three minutes; when Eustacia\nbroke silence by saying, \"I assume I must congratulate you.\"\n\n\"On what? O yes; on my eleven thousand pounds, you mean. Well, since I\ndidn\'t get something else, I must be content with getting that.\"\n\n\"You seem very indifferent about it. Why didn\'t you tell me today when\nyou came?\" she said in the tone of a neglected person. \"I heard of it\nquite by accident.\"\n\n\"I did mean to tell you,\" said Wildeve. \"But I--well, I will speak\nfrankly--I did not like to mention it when I saw, Eustacia, that your\nstar was not high. The sight of a man lying wearied out with hard work,\nas your husband lay, made me feel that to brag of my own fortune to you\nwould be greatly out of place. Yet, as you stood there beside him, I\ncould not help feeling too that in many respects he was a richer man\nthan I.\"\n\nAt this Eustacia said, with slumbering mischievousness, \"What, would you\nexchange with him--your fortune for me?\"\n\n\"I certainly would,\" said Wildeve.\n\n\"As we are imagining what is impossible and absurd, suppose we change\nthe subject?\"\n\n\"Very well; and I will tell you of my plans for the future, if you care\nto hear them. I shall permanently invest nine thousand pounds, keep one\nthousand as ready money, and with the remaining thousand travel for a\nyear or so.\"\n\n\"Travel? What a bright idea! Where will you go to?\"\n\n\"From here to Paris, where I shall pass the winter and spring. Then I\nshall go to Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine, before the hot weather\ncomes on. In the summer I shall go to America; and then, by a plan not\nyet settled, I shall go to Australia and round to India. By that time\nI shall have begun to have had enough of it. Then I shall probably come\nback to Paris again, and there I shall stay as long as I can afford to.\"\n\n\"Back to Paris again,\" she murmured in a voice that was nearly a sigh.\nShe had never once told Wildeve of the Parisian desires which Clym\'s\ndescription had sown in her; yet here was he involuntarily in a position\nto gratify them. \"You think a good deal of Paris?\" she added.\n\n\"Yes. In my opinion it is the central beauty-spot of the world.\"\n\n\"And in mine! And Thomasin will go with you?\"\n\n\"Yes, if she cares to. She may prefer to stay at home.\"\n\n\"So you will be going about, and I shall be staying here!\"\n\n\"I suppose you will. But we know whose fault that is.\"\n\n\"I am not blaming you,\" she said quickly.\n\n\"Oh, I thought you were. If ever you SHOULD be inclined to blame me,\nthink of a certain evening by Rainbarrow, when you promised to meet me\nand did not. You sent me a letter; and my heart ached to read that as\nI hope yours never will. That was one point of divergence. I then did\nsomething in haste.... But she is a good woman, and I will say no more.\"\n\n\"I know that the blame was on my side that time,\" said Eustacia. \"But it\nhad not always been so. However, it is my misfortune to be too sudden in\nfeeling. O, Damon, don\'t reproach me any more--I can\'t bear that.\"\n\nThey went on silently for a distance of two or three miles, when\nEustacia said suddenly, \"Haven\'t you come out of your way, Mr. Wildeve?\"\n\n\"My way is anywhere tonight. I will go with you as far as the hill on\nwhich we can see Blooms-End, as it is getting late for you to be alone.\"\n\n\"Don\'t trouble. I am not obliged to be out at all. I think I would\nrather you did not accompany me further. This sort of thing would have\nan odd look if known.\"\n\n\"Very well, I will leave you.\" He took her hand unexpectedly, and kissed\nit--for the first time since her marriage. \"What light is that on the\nhill?\" he added, as it were to hide the caress.\n\nShe looked, and saw a flickering firelight proceeding from the open side\nof a hovel a little way before them. The hovel, which she had hitherto\nalways found empty, seemed to be inhabited now.\n\n\"Since you have come so far,\" said Eustacia, \"will you see me safely\npast that hut? I thought I should have met Clym somewhere about here,\nbut as he doesn\'t appear I will hasten on and get to Blooms-End before\nhe leaves.\"\n\nThey advanced to the turf-shed, and when they got near it the firelight\nand the lantern inside showed distinctly enough the form of a woman\nreclining on a bed of fern, a group of heath men and women standing\naround her. Eustacia did not recognize Mrs. Yeobright in the reclining\nfigure, nor Clym as one of the standers-by till she came close. Then\nshe quickly pressed her hand up on Wildeve\'s arm and signified to him to\ncome back from the open side of the shed into the shadow.\n\n\"It is my husband and his mother,\" she whispered in an agitated voice.\n\"What can it mean? Will you step forward and tell me?\"\n\nWildeve left her side and went to the back wall of the hut. Presently\nEustacia perceived that he was beckoning to her, and she advanced and\njoined him.\n\n\"It is a serious case,\" said Wildeve.\n\nFrom their position they could hear what was proceeding inside.\n\n\"I cannot think where she could have been going,\" said Clym to someone.\n\"She had evidently walked a long way, but even when she was able to\nspeak just now she would not tell me where. What do you really think of\nher?\"\n\n\"There is a great deal to fear,\" was gravely answered, in a voice which\nEustacia recognized as that of the only surgeon in the district. \"She\nhas suffered somewhat from the bite of the adder; but it is exhaustion\nwhich has overpowered her. My impression is that her walk must have been\nexceptionally long.\"\n\n\"I used to tell her not to overwalk herself this weather,\" said Clym,\nwith distress. \"Do you think we did well in using the adder\'s fat?\"\n\n\"Well, it is a very ancient remedy--the old remedy of the\nviper-catchers, I believe,\" replied the doctor. \"It is mentioned as\nan infallible ointment by Hoffman, Mead, and I think the Abbe Fontana.\nUndoubtedly it was as good a thing as you could do; though I question if\nsome other oils would not have been equally efficacious.\"\n\n\"Come here, come here!\" was then rapidly said in anxious female tones,\nand Clym and the doctor could be heard rushing forward from the back\npart of the shed to where Mrs. Yeobright lay.\n\n\"Oh, what is it?\" whispered Eustacia.\n\n\"\'Twas Thomasin who spoke,\" said Wildeve. \"Then they have fetched her. I\nwonder if I had better go in--yet it might do harm.\"\n\nFor a long time there was utter silence among the group within; and it\nwas broken at last by Clym saying, in an agonized voice, \"O Doctor, what\ndoes it mean?\"\n\nThe doctor did not reply at once; ultimately he said, \"She is sinking\nfast. Her heart was previously affected, and physical exhaustion has\ndealt the finishing blow.\"\n\nThen there was a weeping of women, then waiting, then hushed\nexclamations, then a strange gasping sound, then a painful stillness.\n\n\"It is all over,\" said the doctor.\n\nFurther back in the hut the cotters whispered, \"Mrs. Yeobright is dead.\"\n\nAlmost at the same moment the two watchers observed the form of a\nsmall old-fashioned child entering at the open side of the shed. Susan\nNunsuch, whose boy it was, went forward to the opening and silently\nbeckoned to him to go back.\n\n\"I\'ve got something to tell \'ee, Mother,\" he cried in a shrill tone.\n\"That woman asleep there walked along with me today; and she said I was\nto say that I had seed her, and she was a broken-hearted woman and cast\noff by her son, and then I came on home.\"\n\nA confused sob as from a man was heard within, upon which Eustacia\ngasped faintly, \"That\'s Clym--I must go to him--yet dare I do it?\nNo--come away!\"\n\nWhen they had withdrawn from the neighbourhood of the shed she said\nhuskily, \"I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me.\"\n\n\"Was she not admitted to your house after all?\" Wildeve inquired.\n\n\"No, and that\'s where it all lies! Oh, what shall I do! I shall not\nintrude upon them--I shall go straight home. Damon, good-bye! I cannot\nspeak to you any more now.\"\n\nThey parted company; and when Eustacia had reached the next hill she\nlooked back. A melancholy procession was wending its way by the light of\nthe lantern from the hut towards Blooms-End. Wildeve was nowhere to be\nseen.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK FIVE -- THE DISCOVERY\n\n\n\n\n1--\"Wherefore Is Light Given to Him That Is in Misery\"\n\n\nOne evening, about three weeks after the funeral of Mrs. Yeobright, when\nthe silver face of the moon sent a bundle of beams directly upon the\nfloor of Clym\'s house at Alderworth, a woman came forth from within. She\nreclined over the garden gate as if to refresh herself awhile. The pale\nlunar touches which make beauties of hags lent divinity to this face,\nalready beautiful.\n\nShe had not long been there when a man came up the road and with some\nhesitation said to her, \"How is he tonight, ma\'am, if you please?\"\n\n\"He is better, though still very unwell, Humphrey,\" replied Eustacia.\n\n\"Is he light-headed, ma\'am?\"\n\n\"No. He is quite sensible now.\"\n\n\"Do he rave about his mother just the same, poor fellow?\" continued\nHumphrey.\n\n\"Just as much, though not quite so wildly,\" she said in a low voice.\n\n\"It was very unfortunate, ma\'am, that the boy Johnny should ever ha\'\ntold him his mother\'s dying words, about her being broken-hearted and\ncast off by her son. \'Twas enough to upset any man alive.\"\n\nEustacia made no reply beyond that of a slight catch in her breath, as\nof one who fain would speak but could not; and Humphrey, declining her\ninvitation to come in, went away.\n\nEustacia turned, entered the house, and ascended to the front bedroom,\nwhere a shaded light was burning. In the bed lay Clym, pale, haggard,\nwide awake, tossing to one side and to the other, his eyes lit by a hot\nlight, as if the fire in their pupils were burning up their substance.\n\n\"Is it you, Eustacia?\" he said as she sat down.\n\n\"Yes, Clym. I have been down to the gate. The moon is shining\nbeautifully, and there is not a leaf stirring.\"\n\n\"Shining, is it? What\'s the moon to a man like me? Let it shine--let\nanything be, so that I never see another day!... Eustacia, I don\'t know\nwhere to look--my thoughts go through me like swords. O, if any man\nwants to make himself immortal by painting a picture of wretchedness,\nlet him come here!\"\n\n\"Why do you say so?\"\n\n\"I cannot help feeling that I did my best to kill her.\"\n\n\"No, Clym.\"\n\n\"Yes, it was so; it is useless to excuse me! My conduct to her was too\nhideous--I made no advances; and she could not bring herself to forgive\nme. Now she is dead! If I had only shown myself willing to make it up\nwith her sooner, and we had been friends, and then she had died, it\nwouldn\'t be so hard to bear. But I never went near her house, so\nshe never came near mine, and didn\'t know how welcome she would have\nbeen--that\'s what troubles me. She did not know I was going to her house\nthat very night, for she was too insensible to understand me. If she had\nonly come to see me! I longed that she would. But it was not to be.\"\n\nThere escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used to\nshake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.\n\nBut Yeobright was too deeply absorbed in the ramblings incidental to\nhis remorseful state to notice her. During his illness he had been\ncontinually talking thus. Despair had been added to his original grief\nby the unfortunate disclosure of the boy who had received the last\nwords of Mrs. Yeobright--words too bitterly uttered in an hour of\nmisapprehension. Then his distress had overwhelmed him, and he longed\nfor death as a field labourer longs for the shade. It was the pitiful\nsight of a man standing in the very focus of sorrow. He continually\nbewailed his tardy journey to his mother\'s house, because it was an\nerror which could never be rectified, and insisted that he must have\nbeen horribly perverted by some fiend not to have thought before that it\nwas his duty to go to her, since she did not come to him. He would\nask Eustacia to agree with him in his self-condemnation; and when she,\nseared inwardly by a secret she dared not tell, declared that she could\nnot give an opinion, he would say, \"That\'s because you didn\'t know my\nmother\'s nature. She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so;\nbut I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made\nher unyielding. Yet not unyielding--she was proud and reserved, no\nmore.... Yes, I can understand why she held out against me so long. She\nwas waiting for me. I dare say she said a hundred times in her sorrow,\n\'What a return he makes for all the sacrifices I have made for him!\' I\nnever went to her! When I set out to visit her it was too late. To think\nof that is nearly intolerable!\"\n\nSometimes his condition had been one of utter remorse, unsoftened by a\nsingle tear of pure sorrow: and then he writhed as he lay, fevered\nfar more by thought than by physical ills. \"If I could only get one\nassurance that she did not die in a belief that I was resentful,\" he\nsaid one day when in this mood, \"it would be better to think of than a\nhope of heaven. But that I cannot do.\"\n\n\"You give yourself up too much to this wearying despair,\" said Eustacia.\n\"Other men\'s mothers have died.\"\n\n\"That doesn\'t make the loss of mine less. Yet it is less the loss than\nthe circumstances of the loss. I sinned against her, and on that account\nthere is no light for me.\"\n\n\"She sinned against you, I think.\"\n\n\"No, she did not. I committed the guilt; and may the whole burden be\nupon my head!\"\n\n\"I think you might consider twice before you say that,\" Eustacia\nreplied. \"Single men have, no doubt, a right to curse themselves as much\nas they please; but men with wives involve two in the doom they pray\ndown.\"\n\n\"I am in too sorry a state to understand what you are refining on,\" said\nthe wretched man. \"Day and night shout at me, \'You have helped to kill\nher.\' But in loathing myself I may, I own, be unjust to you, my poor\nwife. Forgive me for it, Eustacia, for I scarcely know what I do.\"\n\nEustacia was always anxious to avoid the sight of her husband in such\na state as this, which had become as dreadful to her as the trial scene\nwas to Judas Iscariot. It brought before her eyes the spectre of a\nworn-out woman knocking at a door which she would not open; and she\nshrank from contemplating it. Yet it was better for Yeobright himself\nwhen he spoke openly of his sharp regret, for in silence he endured\ninfinitely more, and would sometimes remain so long in a tense, brooding\nmood, consuming himself by the gnawing of his thought, that it was\nimperatively necessary to make him talk aloud, that his grief might in\nsome degree expend itself in the effort.\n\nEustacia had not been long indoors after her look at the moonlight when\na soft footstep came up to the house, and Thomasin was announced by the\nwoman downstairs.\n\n\"Ah, Thomasin! Thank you for coming tonight,\" said Clym when she entered\nthe room. \"Here am I, you see. Such a wretched spectacle am I, that I\nshrink from being seen by a single friend, and almost from you.\"\n\n\"You must not shrink from me, dear Clym,\" said Thomasin earnestly, in\nthat sweet voice of hers which came to a sufferer like fresh air into a\nBlack Hole. \"Nothing in you can ever shock me or drive me away. I have\nbeen here before, but you don\'t remember it.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do; I am not delirious, Thomasin, nor have I been so at all.\nDon\'t you believe that if they say so. I am only in great misery at what\nI have done, and that, with the weakness, makes me seem mad. But it\nhas not upset my reason. Do you think I should remember all about my\nmother\'s death if I were out of my mind? No such good luck. Two months\nand a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother live\nalone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she was unvisited\nby me, though I was living only six miles off. Two months and a\nhalf--seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her in that\ndeserted state which a dog didn\'t deserve! Poor people who had nothing\nin common with her would have cared for her, and visited her had they\nknown her sickness and loneliness; but I, who should have been all to\nher, stayed away like a cur. If there is any justice in God let Him kill\nme now. He has nearly blinded me, but that is not enough. If He would\nonly strike me with more pain I would believe in Him forever!\"\n\n\"Hush, hush! O, pray, Clym, don\'t, don\'t say it!\" implored Thomasin,\naffrighted into sobs and tears; while Eustacia, at the other side of\nthe room, though her pale face remained calm, writhed in her chair. Clym\nwent on without heeding his cousin.\n\n\"But I am not worth receiving further proof even of Heaven\'s\nreprobation. Do you think, Thomasin, that she knew me--that she did not\ndie in that horrid mistaken notion about my not forgiving her, which I\ncan\'t tell you how she acquired? If you could only assure me of that! Do\nyou think so, Eustacia? Do speak to me.\"\n\n\"I think I can assure you that she knew better at last,\" said Thomasin.\nThe pallid Eustacia said nothing.\n\n\"Why didn\'t she come to my house? I would have taken her in and showed\nher how I loved her in spite of all. But she never came; and I didn\'t go\nto her, and she died on the heath like an animal kicked out, nobody to\nhelp her till it was too late. If you could have seen her, Thomasin, as\nI saw her--a poor dying woman, lying in the dark upon the bare ground,\nmoaning, nobody near, believing she was utterly deserted by all the\nworld, it would have moved you to anguish, it would have moved a brute.\nAnd this poor woman my mother! No wonder she said to the child, \'You\nhave seen a broken-hearted woman.\' What a state she must have been\nbrought to, to say that! and who can have done it but I? It is too\ndreadful to think of, and I wish I could be punished more heavily than I\nam. How long was I what they called out of my senses?\"\n\n\"A week, I think.\"\n\n\"And then I became calm.\"\n\n\"Yes, for four days.\"\n\n\"And now I have left off being calm.\"\n\n\"But try to be quiet--please do, and you will soon be strong. If you\ncould remove that impression from your mind--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" he said impatiently. \"But I don\'t want to get strong. What\'s\nthe use of my getting well? It would be better for me if I die, and it\nwould certainly be better for Eustacia. Is Eustacia there?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"It would be better for you, Eustacia, if I were to die?\"\n\n\"Don\'t press such a question, dear Clym.\"\n\n\"Well, it really is but a shadowy supposition; for unfortunately I am\ngoing to live. I feel myself getting better. Thomasin, how long are\nyou going to stay at the inn, now that all this money has come to your\nhusband?\"\n\n\"Another month or two, probably; until my illness is over. We cannot get\noff till then. I think it will be a month or more.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. Of course. Ah, Cousin Tamsie, you will get over your\ntrouble--one little month will take you through it, and bring something\nto console you; but I shall never get over mine, and no consolation will\ncome!\"\n\n\"Clym, you are unjust to yourself. Depend upon it, Aunt thought kindly\nof you. I know that, if she had lived, you would have been reconciled\nwith her.\"\n\n\"But she didn\'t come to see me, though I asked her, before I married, if\nshe would come. Had she come, or had I gone there, she would never have\ndied saying, \'I am a broken-hearted woman, cast off by my son.\' My door\nhas always been open to her--a welcome here has always awaited her. But\nthat she never came to see.\"\n\n\"You had better not talk any more now, Clym,\" said Eustacia faintly from\nthe other part of the room, for the scene was growing intolerable to\nher.\n\n\"Let me talk to you instead for the little time I shall be here,\"\nThomasin said soothingly. \"Consider what a one-sided way you have of\nlooking at the matter, Clym. When she said that to the little boy you\nhad not found her and taken her into your arms; and it might have been\nuttered in a moment of bitterness. It was rather like Aunt to say things\nin haste. She sometimes used to speak so to me. Though she did not come\nI am convinced that she thought of coming to see you. Do you suppose\na man\'s mother could live two or three months without one forgiving\nthought? She forgave me; and why should she not have forgiven you?\"\n\n\"You laboured to win her round; I did nothing. I, who was going to teach\npeople the higher secrets of happiness, did not know how to keep out of\nthat gross misery which the most untaught are wise enough to avoid.\"\n\n\"How did you get here tonight, Thomasin?\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"Damon set me down at the end of the lane. He has driven into East Egdon\non business, and he will come and pick me up by-and-by.\"\n\nAccordingly they soon after heard the noise of wheels. Wildeve had come,\nand was waiting outside with his horse and gig.\n\n\"Send out and tell him I will be down in two minutes,\" said Thomasin.\n\n\"I will run down myself,\" said Eustacia.\n\nShe went down. Wildeve had alighted, and was standing before the horse\'s\nhead when Eustacia opened the door. He did not turn for a moment,\nthinking the comer Thomasin. Then he looked, startled ever so little,\nand said one word: \"Well?\"\n\n\"I have not yet told him,\" she replied in a whisper.\n\n\"Then don\'t do so till he is well--it will be fatal. You are ill\nyourself.\"\n\n\"I am wretched.... O Damon,\" she said, bursting into tears, \"I--I can\'t\ntell you how unhappy I am! I can hardly bear this. I can tell nobody of\nmy trouble--nobody knows of it but you.\"\n\n\"Poor girl!\" said Wildeve, visibly affected at her distress, and at\nlast led on so far as to take her hand. \"It is hard, when you have done\nnothing to deserve it, that you should have got involved in such a web\nas this. You were not made for these sad scenes. I am to blame most. If\nI could only have saved you from it all!\"\n\n\"But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour\nafter hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her\ndeath, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all,\ndrives me into cold despair. I don\'t know what to do. Should I tell him\nor should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to\ntell him; and yet I am afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill me,\nfor nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now. \'Beware the\nfury of a patient man\' sounds day by day in my ears as I watch him.\"\n\n\"Well, wait till he is better, and trust to chance. And when you tell,\nyou must only tell part--for his own sake.\"\n\n\"Which part should I keep back?\"\n\nWildeve paused. \"That I was in the house at the time,\" he said in a low\ntone.\n\n\"Yes; it must be concealed, seeing what has been whispered. How much\neasier are hasty actions than speeches that will excuse them!\"\n\n\"If he were only to die--\" Wildeve murmured.\n\n\"Do not think of it! I would not buy hope of immunity by so cowardly\na desire even if I hated him. Now I am going up to him again. Thomasin\nbade me tell you she would be down in a few minutes. Good-bye.\"\n\nShe returned, and Thomasin soon appeared. When she was seated in the gig\nwith her husband, and the horse was turning to go off, Wildeve lifted\nhis eyes to the bedroom windows. Looking from one of them he could\ndiscern a pale, tragic face watching him drive away. It was Eustacia\'s.\n\n\n\n\n2--A Lurid Light Breaks in upon a Darkened Understanding\n\n\nClym\'s grief became mitigated by wearing itself out. His strength\nreturned, and a month after the visit of Thomasin he might have been\nseen walking about the garden. Endurance and despair, equanimity and\ngloom, the tints of health and the pallor of death, mingled weirdly\nin his face. He was now unnaturally silent upon all of the past that\nrelated to his mother; and though Eustacia knew that he was thinking\nof it none the less, she was only too glad to escape the topic ever to\nbring it up anew. When his mind had been weaker his heart had led him to\nspeak out; but reason having now somewhat recovered itself he sank into\ntaciturnity.\n\nOne evening when he was thus standing in the garden, abstractedly\nspudding up a weed with his stick, a bony figure turned the corner of\nthe house and came up to him.\n\n\"Christian, isn\'t it?\" said Clym. \"I am glad you have found me out. I\nshall soon want you to go to Blooms-End and assist me in putting the\nhouse in order. I suppose it is all locked up as I left it?\"\n\n\"Yes, Mister Clym.\"\n\n\"Have you dug up the potatoes and other roots?\"\n\n\"Yes, without a drop o\' rain, thank God. But I was coming to tell \'ee of\nsomething else which is quite different from what we have lately had in\nthe family. I am sent by the rich gentleman at the Woman, that we used\nto call the landlord, to tell \'ee that Mrs. Wildeve is doing well of a\ngirl, which was born punctually at one o\'clock at noon, or a few minutes\nmore or less; and \'tis said that expecting of this increase is what have\nkept \'em there since they came into their money.\"\n\n\"And she is getting on well, you say?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. Only Mr. Wildeve is twanky because \'tisn\'t a boy--that\'s what\nthey say in the kitchen, but I was not supposed to notice that.\"\n\n\"Christian, now listen to me.\"\n\n\"Yes, sure, Mr. Yeobright.\"\n\n\"Did you see my mother the day before she died?\"\n\n\"No, I did not.\"\n\nYeobright\'s face expressed disappointment.\n\n\"But I zeed her the morning of the same day she died.\"\n\nClym\'s look lighted up. \"That\'s nearer still to my meaning,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes, I know \'twas the same day; for she said, \'I be going to see him,\nChristian; so I shall not want any vegetables brought in for dinner.\'\"\n\n\"See whom?\"\n\n\"See you. She was going to your house, you understand.\"\n\nYeobright regarded Christian with intense surprise. \"Why did you never\nmention this?\" he said. \"Are you sure it was my house she was coming\nto?\"\n\n\"O yes. I didn\'t mention it because I\'ve never zeed you lately. And as\nshe didn\'t get there it was all nought, and nothing to tell.\"\n\n\"And I have been wondering why she should have walked in the heath on\nthat hot day! Well, did she say what she was coming for? It is a thing,\nChristian, I am very anxious to know.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mister Clym. She didn\'t say it to me, though I think she did to\none here and there.\"\n\n\"Do you know one person to whom she spoke of it?\"\n\n\"There is one man, please, sir, but I hope you won\'t mention my name\nto him, as I have seen him in strange places, particular in dreams. One\nnight last summer he glared at me like Famine and Sword, and it made\nme feel so low that I didn\'t comb out my few hairs for two days. He was\nstanding, as it might be, Mister Yeobright, in the middle of the path to\nMistover, and your mother came up, looking as pale--\"\n\n\"Yes, when was that?\"\n\n\"Last summer, in my dream.\"\n\n\"Pooh! Who\'s the man?\"\n\n\"Diggory, the reddleman. He called upon her and sat with her the evening\nbefore she set out to see you. I hadn\'t gone home from work when he came\nup to the gate.\"\n\n\"I must see Venn--I wish I had known it before,\" said Clym anxiously. \"I\nwonder why he has not come to tell me?\"\n\n\"He went out of Egdon Heath the next day, so would not be likely to know\nyou wanted him.\"\n\n\"Christian,\" said Clym, \"you must go and find Venn. I am otherwise\nengaged, or I would go myself. Find him at once, and tell him I want to\nspeak to him.\"\n\n\"I am a good hand at hunting up folk by day,\" said Christian, looking\ndubiously round at the declining light; \"but as to night-time, never is\nsuch a bad hand as I, Mister Yeobright.\"\n\n\"Search the heath when you will, so that you bring him soon. Bring him\ntomorrow, if you can.\"\n\nChristian then departed. The morrow came, but no Venn. In the evening\nChristian arrived, looking very weary. He had been searching all day,\nand had heard nothing of the reddleman.\n\n\"Inquire as much as you can tomorrow without neglecting your work,\" said\nYeobright. \"Don\'t come again till you have found him.\"\n\nThe next day Yeobright set out for the old house at Blooms-End, which,\nwith the garden, was now his own. His severe illness had hindered all\npreparations for his removal thither; but it had become necessary that\nhe should go and overlook its contents, as administrator to his mother\'s\nlittle property; for which purpose he decided to pass the next night on\nthe premises.\n\nHe journeyed onward, not quickly or decisively, but in the slow walk\nof one who has been awakened from a stupefying sleep. It was early\nafternoon when he reached the valley. The expression of the place, the\ntone of the hour, were precisely those of many such occasions in days\ngone by; and these antecedent similarities fostered the illusion that\nshe, who was there no longer, would come out to welcome him. The garden\ngate was locked and the shutters were closed, just as he himself had\nleft them on the evening after the funeral. He unlocked the gate, and\nfound that a spider had already constructed a large web, tying the door\nto the lintel, on the supposition that it was never to be opened again.\nWhen he had entered the house and flung back the shutters he set about\nhis task of overhauling the cupboards and closets, burning papers, and\nconsidering how best to arrange the place for Eustacia\'s reception,\nuntil such time as he might be in a position to carry out his\nlong-delayed scheme, should that time ever arrive.\n\nAs he surveyed the rooms he felt strongly disinclined for the\nalterations which would have to be made in the time-honoured furnishing\nof his parents and grandparents, to suit Eustacia\'s modern ideas. The\ngaunt oak-cased clock, with the picture of the Ascension on the\ndoor panel and the Miraculous Draught of Fishes on the base; his\ngrandmother\'s corner cupboard with the glass door, through which the\nspotted china was visible; the dumb-waiter; the wooden tea trays; the\nhanging fountain with the brass tap--whither would these venerable\narticles have to be banished?\n\nHe noticed that the flowers in the window had died for want of water,\nand he placed them out upon the ledge, that they might be taken away.\nWhile thus engaged he heard footsteps on the gravel without, and\nsomebody knocked at the door.\n\nYeobright opened it, and Venn was standing before him.\n\n\"Good morning,\" said the reddleman. \"Is Mrs. Yeobright at home?\"\n\nYeobright looked upon the ground. \"Then you have not seen Christian or\nany of the Egdon folks?\" he said.\n\n\"No. I have only just returned after a long stay away. I called here the\nday before I left.\"\n\n\"And you have heard nothing?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"My mother is--dead.\"\n\n\"Dead!\" said Venn mechanically.\n\n\"Her home now is where I shouldn\'t mind having mine.\"\n\nVenn regarded him, and then said, \"If I didn\'t see your face I could\nnever believe your words. Have you been ill?\"\n\n\"I had an illness.\"\n\n\"Well, the change! When I parted from her a month ago everything seemed\nto say that she was going to begin a new life.\"\n\n\"And what seemed came true.\"\n\n\"You say right, no doubt. Trouble has taught you a deeper vein of talk\nthan mine. All I meant was regarding her life here. She has died too\nsoon.\"\n\n\"Perhaps through my living too long. I have had a bitter experience on\nthat score this last month, Diggory. But come in; I have been wanting to\nsee you.\"\n\nHe conducted the reddleman into the large room where the dancing had\ntaken place the previous Christmas, and they sat down in the settle\ntogether. \"There\'s the cold fireplace, you see,\" said Clym. \"When that\nhalf-burnt log and those cinders were alight she was alive! Little has\nbeen changed here yet. I can do nothing. My life creeps like a snail.\"\n\n\"How came she to die?\" said Venn.\n\nYeobright gave him some particulars of her illness and death, and\ncontinued: \"After this no kind of pain will ever seem more than an\nindisposition to me. I began saying that I wanted to ask you something,\nbut I stray from subjects like a drunken man. I am anxious to know what\nmy mother said to you when she last saw you. You talked with her a long\ntime, I think?\"\n\n\"I talked with her more than half an hour.\"\n\n\"About me?\"\n\n\"Yes. And it must have been on account of what we said that she was on\nthe heath. Without question she was coming to see you.\"\n\n\"But why should she come to see me if she felt so bitterly against me?\nThere\'s the mystery.\"\n\n\"Yet I know she quite forgave \'ee.\"\n\n\"But, Diggory--would a woman, who had quite forgiven her son, say,\nwhen she felt herself ill on the way to his house, that she was\nbroken-hearted because of his ill-usage? Never!\"\n\n\"What I know is that she didn\'t blame you at all. She blamed herself for\nwhat had happened, and only herself. I had it from her own lips.\"\n\n\"You had it from her lips that I had NOT ill-treated her; and at the\nsame time another had it from her lips that I HAD ill-treated her? My\nmother was no impulsive woman who changed her opinion every hour without\nreason. How can it be, Venn, that she should have told such different\nstories in close succession?\"\n\n\"I cannot say. It is certainly odd, when she had forgiven you, and had\nforgiven your wife, and was going to see ye on purpose to make friends.\"\n\n\"If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this\nincomprehensible thing!... Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only\nallowed to hold conversation with the dead--just once, a bare minute,\neven through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison--what we\nmight learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And\nthis mystery--I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the\ngrave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?\"\n\nNo reply was returned by his companion, since none could be given; and\nwhen Venn left, a few minutes later, Clym had passed from the dullness\nof sorrow to the fluctuation of carking incertitude.\n\nHe continued in the same state all the afternoon. A bed was made up for\nhim in the same house by a neighbour, that he might not have to return\nagain the next day; and when he retired to rest in the deserted place it\nwas only to remain awake hour after hour thinking the same thoughts. How\nto discover a solution to this riddle of death seemed a query of more\nimportance than highest problems of the living. There was housed in his\nmemory a vivid picture of the face of a little boy as he entered the\nhovel where Clym\'s mother lay. The round eyes, eager gaze, the piping\nvoice which enunciated the words, had operated like stilettos on his\nbrain.\n\nA visit to the boy suggested itself as a means of gleaning new\nparticulars; though it might be quite unproductive. To probe a child\'s\nmind after the lapse of six weeks, not for facts which the child had\nseen and understood, but to get at those which were in their nature\nbeyond him, did not promise much; yet when every obvious channel is\nblocked we grope towards the small and obscure. There was nothing else\nleft to do; after that he would allow the enigma to drop into the abyss\nof undiscoverable things.\n\nIt was about daybreak when he had reached this decision, and he at once\narose. He locked up the house and went out into the green patch which\nmerged in heather further on. In front of the white garden-palings the\npath branched into three like a broad arrow. The road to the right\nled to the Quiet Woman and its neighbourhood; the middle track led to\nMistover Knap; the left-hand track led over the hill to another part\nof Mistover, where the child lived. On inclining into the latter path\nYeobright felt a creeping chilliness, familiar enough to most people,\nand probably caused by the unsunned morning air. In after days he\nthought of it as a thing of singular significance.\n\nWhen Yeobright reached the cottage of Susan Nunsuch, the mother of the\nboy he sought, he found that the inmates were not yet astir. But in\nupland hamlets the transition from a-bed to abroad is surprisingly swift\nand easy. There no dense partition of yawns and toilets divides humanity\nby night from humanity by day. Yeobright tapped at the upper windowsill,\nwhich he could reach with his walking stick; and in three or four\nminutes the woman came down.\n\nIt was not till this moment that Clym recollected her to be the person\nwho had behaved so barbarously to Eustacia. It partly explained the\ninsuavity with which the woman greeted him. Moreover, the boy had been\nailing again; and Susan now, as ever since the night when he had\nbeen pressed into Eustacia\'s service at the bonfire, attributed his\nindispositions to Eustacia\'s influence as a witch. It was one of those\nsentiments which lurk like moles underneath the visible surface of\nmanners, and may have been kept alive by Eustacia\'s entreaty to the\ncaptain, at the time that he had intended to prosecute Susan for the\npricking in church, to let the matter drop; which he accordingly had\ndone.\n\nYeobright overcame his repugnance, for Susan had at least borne his\nmother no ill-will. He asked kindly for the boy; but her manner did not\nimprove.\n\n\"I wish to see him,\" continued Yeobright, with some hesitation, \"to ask\nhim if he remembers anything more of his walk with my mother than what\nhe has previously told.\"\n\nShe regarded him in a peculiar and criticizing manner. To anybody but a\nhalf-blind man it would have said, \"You want another of the knocks which\nhave already laid you so low.\"\n\nShe called the boy downstairs, asked Clym to sit down on a stool, and\ncontinued, \"Now, Johnny, tell Mr. Yeobright anything you can call to\nmind.\"\n\n\"You have not forgotten how you walked with the poor lady on that hot\nday?\" said Clym.\n\n\"No,\" said the boy.\n\n\"And what she said to you?\"\n\nThe boy repeated the exact words he had used on entering the hut.\nYeobright rested his elbow on the table and shaded his face with his\nhand; and the mother looked as if she wondered how a man could want more\nof what had stung him so deeply.\n\n\"She was going to Alderworth when you first met her?\"\n\n\"No; she was coming away.\"\n\n\"That can\'t be.\"\n\n\"Yes; she walked along with me. I was coming away, too.\"\n\n\"Then where did you first see her?\"\n\n\"At your house.\"\n\n\"Attend, and speak the truth!\" said Clym sternly.\n\n\"Yes, sir; at your house was where I seed her first.\"\n\nClym started up, and Susan smiled in an expectant way which did not\nembellish her face; it seemed to mean, \"Something sinister is coming!\"\n\n\"What did she do at my house?\"\n\n\"She went and sat under the trees at the Devil\'s Bellows.\"\n\n\"Good God! this is all news to me!\"\n\n\"You never told me this before?\" said Susan.\n\n\"No, Mother; because I didn\'t like to tell \'ee I had been so far. I was\npicking blackhearts, and went further than I meant.\"\n\n\"What did she do then?\" said Yeobright.\n\n\"Looked at a man who came up and went into your house.\"\n\n\"That was myself--a furze-cutter, with brambles in his hand.\"\n\n\"No; \'twas not you. \'Twas a gentleman. You had gone in afore.\"\n\n\"Who was he?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know.\"\n\n\"Now tell me what happened next.\"\n\n\"The poor lady went and knocked at your door, and the lady with black\nhair looked out of the side window at her.\"\n\nThe boy\'s mother turned to Clym and said, \"This is something you didn\'t\nexpect?\"\n\nYeobright took no more notice of her than if he had been of stone. \"Go\non, go on,\" he said hoarsely to the boy.\n\n\"And when she saw the young lady look out of the window the old lady\nknocked again; and when nobody came she took up the furze-hook and\nlooked at it, and put it down again, and then she looked at the\nfaggot-bonds; and then she went away, and walked across to me, and\nblowed her breath very hard, like this. We walked on together, she and\nI, and I talked to her and she talked to me a bit, but not much, because\nshe couldn\'t blow her breath.\"\n\n\"O!\" murmured Clym, in a low tone, and bowed his head. \"Let\'s have\nmore,\" he said.\n\n\"She couldn\'t talk much, and she couldn\'t walk; and her face was, O so\nqueer!\"\n\n\"How was her face?\"\n\n\"Like yours is now.\"\n\nThe woman looked at Yeobright, and beheld him colourless, in a cold\nsweat. \"Isn\'t there meaning in it?\" she said stealthily. \"What do you\nthink of her now?\"\n\n\"Silence!\" said Clym fiercely. And, turning to the boy, \"And then you\nleft her to die?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the woman, quickly and angrily. \"He did not leave her to die!\nShe sent him away. Whoever says he forsook her says what\'s not true.\"\n\n\"Trouble no more about that,\" answered Clym, with a quivering mouth.\n\"What he did is a trifle in comparison with what he saw. Door kept\nshut, did you say? Kept shut, she looking out of window? Good heart of\nGod!--what does it mean?\"\n\nThe child shrank away from the gaze of his questioner.\n\n\"He said so,\" answered the mother, \"and Johnny\'s a God-fearing boy and\ntells no lies.\"\n\n\"\'Cast off by my son!\' No, by my best life, dear mother, it is not so!\nBut by your son\'s, your son\'s--May all murderesses get the torment they\ndeserve!\"\n\nWith these words Yeobright went forth from the little dwelling. The\npupils of his eyes, fixed steadfastly on blankness, were vaguely lit\nwith an icy shine; his mouth had passed into the phase more or less\nimaginatively rendered in studies of Oedipus. The strangest deeds were\npossible to his mood. But they were not possible to his situation.\nInstead of there being before him the pale face of Eustacia, and a\nmasculine shape unknown, there was only the imperturbable countenance\nof the heath, which, having defied the cataclysmal onsets of centuries,\nreduced to insignificance by its seamed and antique features the wildest\nturmoil of a single man.\n\n\n\n\n3--Eustacia Dresses Herself on a Black Morning\n\n\nA consciousness of a vast impassivity in all which lay around him took\npossession even of Yeobright in his wild walk towards Alderworth. He had\nonce before felt in his own person this overpowering of the fervid by\nthe inanimate; but then it had tended to enervate a passion far sweeter\nthan that which at present pervaded him. It was once when he stood\nparting from Eustacia in the moist still levels beyond the hills.\n\nBut dismissing all this he went onward home, and came to the front of\nhis house. The blinds of Eustacia\'s bedroom were still closely drawn,\nfor she was no early riser. All the life visible was in the shape of\na solitary thrush cracking a small snail upon the door-stone for his\nbreakfast, and his tapping seemed a loud noise in the general silence\nwhich prevailed; but on going to the door Clym found it unfastened, the\nyoung girl who attended upon Eustacia being astir in the back part of\nthe premises. Yeobright entered and went straight to his wife\'s room.\n\nThe noise of his arrival must have aroused her, for when he opened the\ndoor she was standing before the looking glass in her nightdress, the\nends of her hair gathered into one hand, with which she was coiling the\nwhole mass round her head, previous to beginning toilette operations.\nShe was not a woman given to speaking first at a meeting, and she\nallowed Clym to walk across in silence, without turning her head.\nHe came behind her, and she saw his face in the glass. It was ashy,\nhaggard, and terrible. Instead of starting towards him in sorrowful\nsurprise, as even Eustacia, undemonstrative wife as she was, would have\ndone in days before she burdened herself with a secret, she remained\nmotionless, looking at him in the glass. And while she looked the\ncarmine flush with which warmth and sound sleep had suffused her cheeks\nand neck dissolved from view, and the deathlike pallor in his face\nflew across into hers. He was close enough to see this, and the sight\ninstigated his tongue.\n\n\"You know what is the matter,\" he said huskily. \"I see it in your face.\"\n\nHer hand relinquished the rope of hair and dropped to her side, and the\npile of tresses, no longer supported, fell from the crown of her head\nabout her shoulders and over the white nightgown. She made no reply.\n\n\"Speak to me,\" said Yeobright peremptorily.\n\nThe blanching process did not cease in her, and her lips now became as\nwhite as her face. She turned to him and said, \"Yes, Clym, I\'ll speak to\nyou. Why do you return so early? Can I do anything for you?\"\n\n\"Yes, you can listen to me. It seems that my wife is not very well?\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Your face, my dear; your face. Or perhaps it is the pale morning light\nwhich takes your colour away? Now I am going to reveal a secret to you.\nHa-ha!\"\n\n\"O, that is ghastly!\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Your laugh.\"\n\n\"There\'s reason for ghastliness. Eustacia, you have held my happiness in\nthe hollow of your hand, and like a devil you have dashed it down!\"\n\nShe started back from the dressing-table, retreated a few steps from\nhim, and looked him in the face. \"Ah! you think to frighten me,\" she\nsaid, with a slight laugh. \"Is it worth while? I am undefended, and\nalone.\"\n\n\"How extraordinary!\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"As there is ample time I will tell you, though you know well enough.\nI mean that it is extraordinary that you should be alone in my absence.\nTell me, now, where is he who was with you on the afternoon of the\nthirty-first of August? Under the bed? Up the chimney?\"\n\nA shudder overcame her and shook the light fabric of her nightdress\nthroughout. \"I do not remember dates so exactly,\" she said. \"I cannot\nrecollect that anybody was with me besides yourself.\"\n\n\"The day I mean,\" said Yeobright, his voice growing louder and harsher,\n\"was the day you shut the door against my mother and killed her. O, it\nis too much--too bad!\" He leant over the footpiece of the bedstead for\na few moments, with his back towards her; then rising again--\"Tell me,\ntell me! tell me--do you hear?\" he cried, rushing up to her and seizing\nher by the loose folds of her sleeve.\n\nThe superstratum of timidity which often overlies those who are daring\nand defiant at heart had been passed through, and the mettlesome\nsubstance of the woman was reached. The red blood inundated her face,\npreviously so pale.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" she said in a low voice, regarding him with\na proud smile. \"You will not alarm me by holding on so; but it would be\na pity to tear my sleeve.\"\n\nInstead of letting go he drew her closer to him. \"Tell me the\nparticulars of--my mother\'s death,\" he said in a hard, panting whisper;\n\"or--I\'ll--I\'ll--\"\n\n\"Clym,\" she answered slowly, \"do you think you dare do anything to me\nthat I dare not bear? But before you strike me listen. You will get\nnothing from me by a blow, even though it should kill me, as it probably\nwill. But perhaps you do not wish me to speak--killing may be all you\nmean?\"\n\n\"Kill you! Do you expect it?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"No less degree of rage against me will match your previous grief for\nher.\"\n\n\"Phew--I shall not kill you,\" he said contemptuously, as if under a\nsudden change of purpose. \"I did think of it; but--I shall not. That\nwould be making a martyr of you, and sending you to where she is; and\nI would keep you away from her till the universe come to an end, if I\ncould.\"\n\n\"I almost wish you would kill me,\" said she with gloomy bitterness.\n\"It is with no strong desire, I assure you, that I play the part I have\nlately played on earth. You are no blessing, my husband.\"\n\n\"You shut the door--you looked out of the window upon her--you had a\nman in the house with you--you sent her away to die. The inhumanity--the\ntreachery--I will not touch you--stand away from me--and confess every\nword!\"\n\n\"Never! I\'ll hold my tongue like the very death that I don\'t mind\nmeeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by speaking.\nYes. I will! Who of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs\nfrom a wild man\'s mind after such language as this? No; let him go on,\nand think his narrow thoughts, and run his head into the mire. I have\nother cares.\"\n\n\"\'Tis too much--but I must spare you.\"\n\n\"Poor charity.\"\n\n\"By my wretched soul you sting me, Eustacia! I can keep it up, and hotly\ntoo. Now, then, madam, tell me his name!\"\n\n\"Never, I am resolved.\"\n\n\"How often does he write to you? Where does he put his letters--when\ndoes he meet you? Ah, his letters! Do you tell me his name?\"\n\n\"I do not.\"\n\n\"Then I\'ll find it myself.\" His eyes had fallen upon a small desk that\nstood near, on which she was accustomed to write her letters. He went to\nit. It was locked.\n\n\"Unlock this!\"\n\n\"You have no right to say it. That\'s mine.\"\n\nWithout another word he seized the desk and dashed it to the floor. The\nhinge burst open, and a number of letters tumbled out.\n\n\"Stay!\" said Eustacia, stepping before him with more excitement than she\nhad hitherto shown.\n\n\"Come, come! stand away! I must see them.\"\n\nShe looked at the letters as they lay, checked her feeling and moved\nindifferently aside; when he gathered them up, and examined them.\n\nBy no stretch of meaning could any but a harmless construction be placed\nupon a single one of the letters themselves. The solitary exception was\nan empty envelope directed to her, and the handwriting was Wildeve\'s.\nYeobright held it up. Eustacia was doggedly silent.\n\n\"Can you read, madam? Look at this envelope. Doubtless we shall find\nmore soon, and what was inside them. I shall no doubt be gratified by\nlearning in good time what a well-finished and full-blown adept in a\ncertain trade my lady is.\"\n\n\"Do you say it to me--do you?\" she gasped.\n\nHe searched further, but found nothing more. \"What was in this letter?\"\nhe said.\n\n\"Ask the writer. Am I your hound that you should talk to me in this\nway?\"\n\n\"Do you brave me? do you stand me out, mistress? Answer. Don\'t look at\nme with those eyes if you would bewitch me again! Sooner than that I\ndie. You refuse to answer?\"\n\n\"I wouldn\'t tell you after this, if I were as innocent as the sweetest\nbabe in heaven!\"\n\n\"Which you are not.\"\n\n\"Certainly I am not absolutely,\" she replied. \"I have not done what\nyou suppose; but if to have done no harm at all is the only innocence\nrecognized, I am beyond forgiveness. But I require no help from your\nconscience.\"\n\n\"You can resist, and resist again! Instead of hating you I could, I\nthink, mourn for and pity you, if you were contrite, and would confess\nall. Forgive you I never can. I don\'t speak of your lover--I will give\nyou the benefit of the doubt in that matter, for it only affects me\npersonally. But the other--had you half-killed me, had it been that you\nwilfully took the sight away from these feeble eyes of mine, I could\nhave forgiven you. But THAT\'S too much for nature!\"\n\n\"Say no more. I will do without your pity. But I would have saved you\nfrom uttering what you will regret.\"\n\n\"I am going away now. I shall leave you.\"\n\n\"You need not go, as I am going myself. You will keep just as far away\nfrom me by staying here.\"\n\n\"Call her to mind--think of her--what goodness there was in her--it\nshowed in every line of her face! Most women, even when but slightly\nannoyed, show a flicker of evil in some curl of the mouth or some corner\nof the cheek; but as for her, never in her angriest moments was there\nanything malicious in her look. She was angered quickly, but she forgave\njust as readily, and underneath her pride there was the meekness of a\nchild. What came of it?--what cared you? You hated her just as she was\nlearning to love you. O! couldn\'t you see what was best for you, but\nmust bring a curse upon me, and agony and death upon her, by doing that\ncruel deed! What was the fellow\'s name who was keeping you company and\ncausing you to add cruelty to her to your wrong to me? Was it Wildeve?\nWas it poor Thomasin\'s husband? Heaven, what wickedness! Lost your\nvoice, have you? It is natural after detection of that most noble\ntrick.... Eustacia, didn\'t any tender thought of your own mother lead you\nto think of being gentle to mine at such a time of weariness? Did not\none grain of pity enter your heart as she turned away? Think what a vast\nopportunity was then lost of beginning a forgiving and honest course.\nWhy did not you kick him out, and let her in, and say I\'ll be an honest\nwife and a noble woman from this hour? Had I told you to go and quench\neternally our last flickering chance of happiness here you could have\ndone no worse. Well, she\'s asleep now; and have you a hundred gallants,\nneither they nor you can insult her any more.\"\n\n\"You exaggerate fearfully,\" she said in a faint, weary voice; \"but I\ncannot enter into my defence--it is not worth doing. You are nothing to\nme in future, and the past side of the story may as well remain untold.\nI have lost all through you, but I have not complained. Your blunders\nand misfortunes may have been a sorrow to you, but they have been a\nwrong to me. All persons of refinement have been scared away from me\nsince I sank into the mire of marriage. Is this your cherishing--to\nput me into a hut like this, and keep me like the wife of a hind? You\ndeceived me--not by words, but by appearances, which are less seen\nthrough than words. But the place will serve as well as any other--as\nsomewhere to pass from--into my grave.\" Her words were smothered in her\nthroat, and her head drooped down.\n\n\"I don\'t know what you mean by that. Am I the cause of your sin?\"\n(Eustacia made a trembling motion towards him.) \"What, you can begin to\nshed tears and offer me your hand? Good God! can you? No, not I. I\'ll\nnot commit the fault of taking that.\" (The hand she had offered dropped\nnervelessly, but the tears continued flowing.) \"Well, yes, I\'ll take\nit, if only for the sake of my own foolish kisses that were wasted there\nbefore I knew what I cherished. How bewitched I was! How could there be\nany good in a woman that everybody spoke ill of?\"\n\n\"O, O, O!\" she cried, breaking down at last; and, shaking with sobs\nwhich choked her, she sank upon her knees. \"O, will you have done! O,\nyou are too relentless--there\'s a limit to the cruelty of savages! I\nhave held out long--but you crush me down. I beg for mercy--I cannot\nbear this any longer--it is inhuman to go further with this! If I\nhad--killed your--mother with my own hand--I should not deserve such\na scourging to the bone as this. O, O! God have mercy upon a miserable\nwoman!... You have beaten me in this game--I beg you to stay your hand in\npity!... I confess that I--wilfully did not undo the door the first time\nshe knocked--but--I should have unfastened it the second--if I had\nnot thought you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you had not I\nopened it, but she was gone. That\'s the extent of my crime--towards HER.\nBest natures commit bad faults sometimes, don\'t they?--I think they do.\nNow I will leave you--for ever and ever!\"\n\n\"Tell all, and I WILL pity you. Was the man in the house with you\nWildeve?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell,\" she said desperately through her sobbing. \"Don\'t insist\nfurther--I cannot tell. I am going from this house. We cannot both stay\nhere.\"\n\n\"You need not go--I will go. You can stay here.\"\n\n\"No, I will dress, and then I will go.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Where I came from, or ELSEWHERE.\"\n\nShe hastily dressed herself, Yeobright moodily walking up and down the\nroom the whole of the time. At last all her things were on. Her little\nhands quivered so violently as she held them to her chin to fasten her\nbonnet that she could not tie the strings, and after a few moments she\nrelinquished the attempt. Seeing this he moved forward and said, \"Let me\ntie them.\"\n\nShe assented in silence, and lifted her chin. For once at least in her\nlife she was totally oblivious of the charm of her attitude. But he\nwas not, and he turned his eyes aside, that he might not be tempted to\nsoftness.\n\nThe strings were tied; she turned from him. \"Do you still prefer going\naway yourself to my leaving you?\" he inquired again.\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Very well--let it be. And when you will confess to the man I may pity\nyou.\"\n\nShe flung her shawl about her and went downstairs, leaving him standing\nin the room.\n\n\nEustacia had not long been gone when there came a knock at the door of\nthe bedroom; and Yeobright said, \"Well?\"\n\nIt was the servant; and she replied, \"Somebody from Mrs. Wildeve\'s\nhave called to tell \'ee that the mis\'ess and the baby are getting on\nwonderful well, and the baby\'s name is to be Eustacia Clementine.\" And\nthe girl retired.\n\n\"What a mockery!\" said Clym. \"This unhappy marriage of mine to be\nperpetuated in that child\'s name!\"\n\n\n\n\n4--The Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One\n\n\nEustacia\'s journey was at first as vague in direction as that of\nthistledown on the wind. She did not know what to do. She wished it had\nbeen night instead of morning, that she might at least have borne her\nmisery without the possibility of being seen. Tracing mile after mile\nalong between the dying ferns and the wet white spiders\' webs, she at\nlength turned her steps towards her grandfather\'s house. She found the\nfront door closed and locked. Mechanically she went round to the end\nwhere the stable was, and on looking in at the stable door she saw\nCharley standing within.\n\n\"Captain Vye is not at home?\" she said.\n\n\"No, ma\'am,\" said the lad in a flutter of feeling; \"he\'s gone to\nWeatherbury, and won\'t be home till night. And the servant is gone home\nfor a holiday. So the house is locked up.\"\n\nEustacia\'s face was not visible to Charley as she stood at the doorway,\nher back being to the sky, and the stable but indifferently lighted; but\nthe wildness of her manner arrested his attention. She turned and walked\naway across the enclosure to the gate, and was hidden by the bank.\n\nWhen she had disappeared Charley, with misgiving in his eyes, slowly\ncame from the stable door, and going to another point in the bank he\nlooked over. Eustacia was leaning against it on the outside, her face\ncovered with her hands, and her head pressing the dewy heather which\nbearded the bank\'s outer side. She appeared to be utterly indifferent to\nthe circumstance that her bonnet, hair, and garments were becoming\nwet and disarranged by the moisture of her cold, harsh pillow. Clearly\nsomething was wrong.\n\nCharley had always regarded Eustacia as Eustacia had regarded Clym\nwhen she first beheld him--as a romantic and sweet vision, scarcely\nincarnate. He had been so shut off from her by the dignity of her look\nand the pride of her speech, except at that one blissful interval when\nhe was allowed to hold her hand, that he had hardly deemed her a woman,\nwingless and earthly, subject to household conditions and domestic jars.\nThe inner details of her life he had only conjectured. She had been a\nlovely wonder, predestined to an orbit in which the whole of his own was\nbut a point; and this sight of her leaning like a helpless, despairing\ncreature against a wild wet bank filled him with an amazed horror. He\ncould no longer remain where he was. Leaping over, he came up, touched\nher with his finger, and said tenderly, \"You are poorly, ma\'am. What can\nI do?\"\n\nEustacia started up, and said, \"Ah, Charley--you have followed me. You\ndid not think when I left home in the summer that I should come back\nlike this!\"\n\n\"I did not, dear ma\'am. Can I help you now?\"\n\n\"I am afraid not. I wish I could get into the house. I feel\ngiddy--that\'s all.\"\n\n\"Lean on my arm, ma\'am, till we get to the porch, and I will try to open\nthe door.\"\n\nHe supported her to the porch, and there depositing her on a seat\nhastened to the back, climbed to a window by the help of a ladder, and\ndescending inside opened the door. Next he assisted her into the room,\nwhere there was an old-fashioned horsehair settee as large as a donkey\nwagon. She lay down here, and Charley covered her with a cloak he found\nin the hall.\n\n\"Shall I get you something to eat and drink?\" he said.\n\n\"If you please, Charley. But I suppose there is no fire?\"\n\n\"I can light it, ma\'am.\"\n\nHe vanished, and she heard a splitting of wood and a blowing of bellows;\nand presently he returned, saying, \"I have lighted a fire in the\nkitchen, and now I\'ll light one here.\"\n\nHe lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When it\nwas blazing up he said, \"Shall I wheel you round in front of it, ma\'am,\nas the morning is chilly?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you like.\"\n\n\"Shall I go and bring the victuals now?\"\n\n\"Yes, do,\" she murmured languidly.\n\nWhen he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of\nhis movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a\nmoment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an interval\nwhich seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he came in with\na tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was nearly lunch-time.\n\n\"Place it on the table,\" she said. \"I shall be ready soon.\"\n\nHe did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that she\ndid not move he came back a few steps.\n\n\"Let me hold it to you, if you don\'t wish to get up,\" said Charley. He\nbrought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down, adding,\n\"I will hold it for you.\"\n\nEustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. \"You are very kind to me,\nCharley,\" she murmured as she sipped.\n\n\"Well, I ought to be,\" said he diffidently, taking great trouble not\nto rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position,\nEustacia being immediately before him. \"You have been kind to me.\"\n\n\"How have I?\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home.\"\n\n\"Ah, so I did. Why did I do that? My mind is lost--it had to do with the\nmumming, had it not?\"\n\n\"Yes, you wanted to go in my place.\"\n\n\"I remember. I do indeed remember--too well!\"\n\nShe again became utterly downcast; and Charley, seeing that she was not\ngoing to eat or drink any more, took away the tray.\n\nAfterwards he occasionally came in to see if the fire was burning, to\nask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted\nfrom south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some\nblackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or with\nindifference.\n\nShe remained on the settee some time longer, when she aroused herself\nand went upstairs. The room in which she had formerly slept still\nremained much as she had left it, and the recollection that this forced\nupon her of her own greatly changed and infinitely worsened situation\nagain set on her face the undetermined and formless misery which it\nhad worn on her first arrival. She peeped into her grandfather\'s room,\nthrough which the fresh autumn air was blowing from the open window. Her\neye was arrested by what was a familiar sight enough, though it broke\nupon her now with a new significance.\n\nIt was a brace of pistols, hanging near the head of her grandfather\'s\nbed, which he always kept there loaded, as a precaution against possible\nburglars, the house being very lonely. Eustacia regarded them long, as\nif they were the page of a book in which she read a new and a strange\nmatter. Quickly, like one afraid of herself, she returned downstairs and\nstood in deep thought.\n\n\"If I could only do it!\" she said. \"It would be doing much good to\nmyself and all connected with me, and no harm to a single one.\"\n\nThe idea seemed to gather force within her, and she remained in a fixed\nattitude nearly ten minutes, when a certain finality was expressed in\nher gaze, and no longer the blankness of indecision.\n\nShe turned and went up the second time--softly and stealthily now--and\nentered her grandfather\'s room, her eyes at once seeking the head of the\nbed. The pistols were gone.\n\nThe instant quashing of her purpose by their absence affected her brain\nas a sudden vacuum affects the body--she nearly fainted. Who had\ndone this? There was only one person on the premises besides herself.\nEustacia involuntarily turned to the open window which overlooked the\ngarden as far as the bank that bounded it. On the summit of the latter\nstood Charley, sufficiently elevated by its height to see into the room.\nHis gaze was directed eagerly and solicitously upon her.\n\nShe went downstairs to the door and beckoned to him.\n\n\"You have taken them away?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"Why did you do it?\"\n\n\"I saw you looking at them too long.\"\n\n\"What has that to do with it?\"\n\n\"You have been heart-broken all the morning, as if you did not want to\nlive.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"And I could not bear to leave them in your way. There was meaning in\nyour look at them.\"\n\n\"Where are they now?\"\n\n\"Locked up.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"In the stable.\"\n\n\"Give them to me.\"\n\n\"No, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"You refuse?\"\n\n\"I do. I care too much for you to give \'em up.\"\n\nShe turned aside, her face for the first time softening from the stony\nimmobility of the earlier day, and the corners of her mouth resuming\nsomething of that delicacy of cut which was always lost in her moments\nof despair. At last she confronted him again.\n\n\"Why should I not die if I wish?\" she said tremulously. \"I have made\na bad bargain with life, and I am weary of it--weary. And now you have\nhindered my escape. O, why did you, Charley! What makes death painful\nexcept the thought of others\' grief?--and that is absent in my case, for\nnot a sigh would follow me!\"\n\n\"Ah, it is trouble that has done this! I wish in my very soul that he\nwho brought it about might die and rot, even if \'tis transportation to\nsay it!\"\n\n\"Charley, no more of that. What do you mean to do about this you have\nseen?\"\n\n\"Keep it close as night, if you promise not to think of it again.\"\n\n\"You need not fear. The moment has passed. I promise.\" She then went\naway, entered the house, and lay down.\n\nLater in the afternoon her grandfather returned. He was about to\nquestion her categorically, but on looking at her he withheld his words.\n\n\"Yes, it is too bad to talk of,\" she slowly returned in answer to his\nglance. \"Can my old room be got ready for me tonight, Grandfather? I\nshall want to occupy it again.\"\n\nHe did not ask what it all meant, or why she had left her husband, but\nordered the room to be prepared.\n\n\n\n\n5--An Old Move Inadvertently Repeated\n\n\nCharley\'s attentions to his former mistress were unbounded. The only\nsolace to his own trouble lay in his attempts to relieve hers. Hour\nafter hour he considered her wants; he thought of her presence there\nwith a sort of gratitude, and, while uttering imprecations on the cause\nof her unhappiness, in some measure blessed the result. Perhaps she\nwould always remain there, he thought, and then he would be as happy as\nhe had been before. His dread was lest she should think fit to return to\nAlderworth, and in that dread his eyes, with all the inquisitiveness of\naffection, frequently sought her face when she was not observing him,\nas he would have watched the head of a stockdove to learn if it\ncontemplated flight. Having once really succoured her, and possibly\npreserved her from the rashest of acts, he mentally assumed in addition\na guardian\'s responsibility for her welfare.\n\nFor this reason he busily endeavoured to provide her with pleasant\ndistractions, bringing home curious objects which he found in the heath,\nsuch as white trumpet-shaped mosses, redheaded lichens, stone arrowheads\nused by the old tribes on Egdon, and faceted crystals from the hollows\nof flints. These he deposited on the premises in such positions that she\nshould see them as if by accident.\n\nA week passed, Eustacia never going out of the house. Then she walked\ninto the enclosed plot and looked through her grandfather\'s spyglass, as\nshe had been in the habit of doing before her marriage. One day she\nsaw, at a place where the highroad crossed the distant valley, a heavily\nladen wagon passing along. It was piled with household furniture. She\nlooked again and again, and recognized it to be her own. In the evening\nher grandfather came indoors with a rumour that Yeobright had removed\nthat day from Alderworth to the old house at Blooms-End.\n\nOn another occasion when reconnoitring thus she beheld two female\nfigures walking in the vale. The day was fine and clear; and the persons\nnot being more than half a mile off she could see their every detail\nwith the telescope. The woman walking in front carried a white bundle\nin her arms, from one end of which hung a long appendage of drapery; and\nwhen the walkers turned, so that the sun fell more directly upon them,\nEustacia could see that the object was a baby. She called Charley, and\nasked him if he knew who they were, though she well guessed.\n\n\"Mrs. Wildeve and the nurse-girl,\" said Charley.\n\n\"The nurse is carrying the baby?\" said Eustacia.\n\n\"No, \'tis Mrs. Wildeve carrying that,\" he answered, \"and the nurse walks\nbehind carrying nothing.\"\n\nThe lad was in good spirits that day, for the Fifth of November had\nagain come round, and he was planning yet another scheme to divert her\nfrom her too absorbing thoughts. For two successive years his\nmistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire on the bank\noverlooking the valley; but this year she had apparently quite forgotten\nthe day and the customary deed. He was careful not to remind her, and\nwent on with his secret preparations for a cheerful surprise, the more\nzealously that he had been absent last time and unable to assist. At\nevery vacant minute he hastened to gather furze-stumps, thorn-tree\nroots, and other solid materials from the adjacent slopes, hiding them\nfrom cursory view.\n\nThe evening came, and Eustacia was still seemingly unconscious of the\nanniversary. She had gone indoors after her survey through the glass,\nand had not been visible since. As soon as it was quite dark Charley\nbegan to build the bonfire, choosing precisely that spot on the bank\nwhich Eustacia had chosen at previous times.\n\nWhen all the surrounding bonfires had burst into existence Charley\nkindled his, and arranged its fuel so that it should not require tending\nfor some time. He then went back to the house, and lingered round the\ndoor and windows till she should by some means or other learn of his\nachievement and come out to witness it. But the shutters were closed,\nthe door remained shut, and no heed whatever seemed to be taken of his\nperformance. Not liking to call her he went back and replenished the\nfire, continuing to do this for more than half an hour. It was not till\nhis stock of fuel had greatly diminished that he went to the back door\nand sent in to beg that Mrs. Yeobright would open the window-shutters\nand see the sight outside.\n\nEustacia, who had been sitting listlessly in the parlour, started up\nat the intelligence and flung open the shutters. Facing her on the bank\nblazed the fire, which at once sent a ruddy glare into the room where\nshe was, and overpowered the candles.\n\n\"Well done, Charley!\" said Captain Vye from the chimney-corner. \"But I\nhope it is not my wood that he\'s burning.... Ah, it was this time last\nyear that I met with that man Venn, bringing home Thomasin Yeobright--to\nbe sure it was! Well, who would have thought that girl\'s troubles would\nhave ended so well? What a snipe you were in that matter, Eustacia! Has\nyour husband written to you yet?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Eustacia, looking vaguely through the window at the fire,\nwhich just then so much engaged her mind that she did not resent her\ngrandfather\'s blunt opinion. She could see Charley\'s form on the bank,\nshovelling and stirring the fire; and there flashed upon her imagination\nsome other form which that fire might call up.\n\nShe left the room, put on her garden bonnet and cloak, and went out.\nReaching the bank, she looked over with a wild curiosity and misgiving,\nwhen Charley said to her, with a pleased sense of himself, \"I made it o\'\npurpose for you, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said hastily. \"But I wish you to put it out now.\"\n\n\"It will soon burn down,\" said Charley, rather disappointed. \"Is it not\na pity to knock it out?\"\n\n\"I don\'t know,\" she musingly answered.\n\nThey stood in silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames,\ntill Charley, perceiving that she did not want to talk to him, moved\nreluctantly away.\n\nEustacia remained within the bank looking at the fire, intending to go\nindoors, yet lingering still. Had she not by her situation been inclined\nto hold in indifference all things honoured of the gods and of men she\nwould probably have come away. But her state was so hopeless that she\ncould play with it. To have lost is less disturbing than to wonder if we\nmay possibly have won; and Eustacia could now, like other people at such\na stage, take a standing-point outside herself, observe herself as a\ndisinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman\nEustacia was.\n\nWhile she stood she heard a sound. It was the splash of a stone in the\npond.\n\nHad Eustacia received the stone full in the bosom her heart could not\nhave given a more decided thump. She had thought of the possibility\nof such a signal in answer to that which had been unwittingly given by\nCharley; but she had not expected it yet. How prompt Wildeve was! Yet\nhow could he think her capable of deliberately wishing to renew their\nassignations now? An impulse to leave the spot, a desire to stay,\nstruggled within her; and the desire held its own. More than that it did\nnot do, for she refrained even from ascending the bank and looking over.\nShe remained motionless, not disturbing a muscle of her face or raising\nher eyes; for were she to turn up her face the fire on the bank would\nshine upon it, and Wildeve might be looking down.\n\nThere was a second splash into the pond.\n\nWhy did he stay so long without advancing and looking over? Curiosity\nhad its way--she ascended one or two of the earth-steps in the bank and\nglanced out.\n\nWildeve was before her. He had come forward after throwing the last\npebble, and the fire now shone into each of their faces from the bank\nstretching breast-high between them.\n\n\"I did not light it!\" cried Eustacia quickly. \"It was lit without my\nknowledge. Don\'t, don\'t come over to me!\"\n\n\"Why have you been living here all these days without telling me? You\nhave left your home. I fear I am something to blame in this?\"\n\n\"I did not let in his mother; that\'s how it is!\"\n\n\"You do not deserve what you have got, Eustacia; you are in great\nmisery; I see it in your eyes, your mouth, and all over you. My poor,\npoor girl!\" He stepped over the bank. \"You are beyond everything\nunhappy!\"\n\n\"No, no; not exactly--\"\n\n\"It has been pushed too far--it is killing you--I do think it!\"\n\nHer usually quiet breathing had grown quicker with his words. \"I--I--\"\nshe began, and then burst into quivering sobs, shaken to the very heart\nby the unexpected voice of pity--a sentiment whose existence in relation\nto herself she had almost forgotten.\n\nThis outbreak of weeping took Eustacia herself so much by surprise that\nshe could not leave off, and she turned aside from him in some shame,\nthough turning hid nothing from him. She sobbed on desperately; then\nthe outpour lessened, and she became quieter. Wildeve had resisted the\nimpulse to clasp her, and stood without speaking.\n\n\"Are you not ashamed of me, who used never to be a crying animal?\" she\nasked in a weak whisper as she wiped her eyes. \"Why didn\'t you go away?\nI wish you had not seen quite all that; it reveals too much by half.\"\n\n\"You might have wished it, because it makes me as sad as you,\" he said\nwith emotion and deference. \"As for revealing--the word is impossible\nbetween us two.\"\n\n\"I did not send for you--don\'t forget it, Damon; I am in pain, but I did\nnot send for you! As a wife, at least, I\'ve been straight.\"\n\n\"Never mind--I came. O, Eustacia, forgive me for the harm I have done\nyou in these two past years! I see more and more that I have been your\nruin.\"\n\n\"Not you. This place I live in.\"\n\n\"Ah, your generosity may naturally make you say that. But I am the\nculprit. I should either have done more or nothing at all.\"\n\n\"In what way?\"\n\n\"I ought never to have hunted you out, or, having done it, I ought to\nhave persisted in retaining you. But of course I have no right to talk\nof that now. I will only ask this--can I do anything for you? Is there\nanything on the face of the earth that a man can do to make you happier\nthan you are at present? If there is, I will do it. You may command\nme, Eustacia, to the limit of my influence; and don\'t forget that I am\nricher now. Surely something can be done to save you from this! Such\na rare plant in such a wild place it grieves me to see. Do you want\nanything bought? Do you want to go anywhere? Do you want to escape the\nplace altogether? Only say it, and I\'ll do anything to put an end to\nthose tears, which but for me would never have been at all.\"\n\n\"We are each married to another person,\" she said faintly; \"and\nassistance from you would have an evil sound--after--after--\"\n\n\"Well, there\'s no preventing slanderers from having their fill at any\ntime; but you need not be afraid. Whatever I may feel I promise you on\nmy word of honour never to speak to you about--or act upon--until you\nsay I may. I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty to\nyou as a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist you in?\"\n\n\"In getting away from here.\"\n\n\"Where do you wish to go to?\"\n\n\"I have a place in my mind. If you could help me as far as Budmouth I\ncan do all the rest. Steamers sail from there across the Channel, and\nso I can get to Paris, where I want to be. Yes,\" she pleaded earnestly,\n\"help me to get to Budmouth harbour without my grandfather\'s or my\nhusband\'s knowledge, and I can do all the rest.\"\n\n\"Will it be safe to leave you there alone?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. I know Budmouth well.\"\n\n\"Shall I go with you? I am rich now.\"\n\nShe was silent.\n\n\"Say yes, sweet!\"\n\nShe was silent still.\n\n\"Well, let me know when you wish to go. We shall be at our present\nhouse till December; after that we remove to Casterbridge. Command me in\nanything till that time.\"\n\n\"I will think of this,\" she said hurriedly. \"Whether I can honestly make\nuse of you as a friend, or must close with you as a lover--that is what\nI must ask myself. If I wish to go and decide to accept your company I\nwill signal to you some evening at eight o\'clock punctually, and this\nwill mean that you are to be ready with a horse and trap at twelve\no\'clock the same night to drive me to Budmouth harbour in time for the\nmorning boat.\"\n\n\"I will look out every night at eight, and no signal shall escape me.\"\n\n\"Now please go away. If I decide on this escape I can only meet you\nonce more unless--I cannot go without you. Go--I cannot bear it longer.\nGo--go!\"\n\nWildeve slowly went up the steps and descended into the darkness on the\nother side; and as he walked he glanced back, till the bank blotted out\nher form from his further view.\n\n\n\n\n6--Thomasin Argues with Her Cousin, and He Writes a Letter\n\n\nYeobright was at this time at Blooms-End, hoping that Eustacia would\nreturn to him. The removal of furniture had been accomplished only that\nday, though Clym had lived in the old house for more than a week. He had\nspent the time in working about the premises, sweeping leaves from the\ngarden paths, cutting dead stalks from the flower beds, and nailing\nup creepers which had been displaced by the autumn winds. He took no\nparticular pleasure in these deeds, but they formed a screen between\nhimself and despair. Moreover, it had become a religion with him to\npreserve in good condition all that had lapsed from his mother\'s hands\nto his own.\n\nDuring these operations he was constantly on the watch for Eustacia.\nThat there should be no mistake about her knowing where to find him\nhe had ordered a notice board to be affixed to the garden gate at\nAlderworth, signifying in white letters whither he had removed. When a\nleaf floated to the earth he turned his head, thinking it might be her\nfoot-fall. A bird searching for worms in the mould of the flower-beds\nsounded like her hand on the latch of the gate; and at dusk, when soft,\nstrange ventriloquisms came from holes in the ground, hollow stalks,\ncurled dead leaves, and other crannies wherein breezes, worms, and\ninsects can work their will, he fancied that they were Eustacia,\nstanding without and breathing wishes of reconciliation.\n\nUp to this hour he had persevered in his resolve not to invite her back.\nAt the same time the severity with which he had treated her lulled\nthe sharpness of his regret for his mother, and awoke some of his old\nsolicitude for his mother\'s supplanter. Harsh feelings produce harsh\nusage, and this by reaction quenches the sentiments that gave it birth.\nThe more he reflected the more he softened. But to look upon his wife\nas innocence in distress was impossible, though he could ask himself\nwhether he had given her quite time enough--if he had not come a little\ntoo suddenly upon her on that sombre morning.\n\nNow that the first flush of his anger had paled he was disinclined to\nascribe to her more than an indiscreet friendship with Wildeve, for\nthere had not appeared in her manner the signs of dishonour. And this\nonce admitted, an absolutely dark interpretation of her act towards his\nmother was no longer forced upon him.\n\nOn the evening of the fifth November his thoughts of Eustacia were\nintense. Echoes from those past times when they had exchanged tender\nwords all the day long came like the diffused murmur of a seashore left\nmiles behind. \"Surely,\" he said, \"she might have brought herself to\ncommunicate with me before now, and confess honestly what Wildeve was to\nher.\"\n\nInstead of remaining at home that night he determined to go and see\nThomasin and her husband. If he found opportunity he would allude to the\ncause of the separation between Eustacia and himself, keeping silence,\nhowever, on the fact that there was a third person in his house when his\nmother was turned away. If it proved that Wildeve was innocently there\nhe would doubtless openly mention it. If he were there with unjust\nintentions Wildeve, being a man of quick feeling, might possibly say\nsomething to reveal the extent to which Eustacia was compromised.\n\nBut on reaching his cousin\'s house he found that only Thomasin was\nat home, Wildeve being at that time on his way towards the bonfire\ninnocently lit by Charley at Mistover. Thomasin then, as always, was\nglad to see Clym, and took him to inspect the sleeping baby, carefully\nscreening the candlelight from the infant\'s eyes with her hand.\n\n\"Tamsin, have you heard that Eustacia is not with me now?\" he said when\nthey had sat down again.\n\n\"No,\" said Thomasin, alarmed.\n\n\"And not that I have left Alderworth?\"\n\n\"No. I never hear tidings from Alderworth unless you bring them. What is\nthe matter?\"\n\nClym in a disturbed voice related to her his visit to Susan Nunsuch\'s\nboy, the revelation he had made, and what had resulted from his\ncharging Eustacia with having wilfully and heartlessly done the deed. He\nsuppressed all mention of Wildeve\'s presence with her.\n\n\"All this, and I not knowing it!\" murmured Thomasin in an awestruck\ntone, \"Terrible! What could have made her--O, Eustacia! And when you\nfound it out you went in hot haste to her? Were you too cruel?--or is\nshe really so wicked as she seems?\"\n\n\"Can a man be too cruel to his mother\'s enemy?\"\n\n\"I can fancy so.\"\n\n\"Very well, then--I\'ll admit that he can. But now what is to be done?\"\n\n\"Make it up again--if a quarrel so deadly can ever be made up. I almost\nwish you had not told me. But do try to be reconciled. There are ways,\nafter all, if you both wish to.\"\n\n\"I don\'t know that we do both wish to make it up,\" said Clym. \"If she\nhad wished it, would she not have sent to me by this time?\"\n\n\"You seem to wish to, and yet you have not sent to her.\"\n\n\"True; but I have been tossed to and fro in doubt if I ought, after such\nstrong provocation. To see me now, Thomasin, gives you no idea of what I\nhave been; of what depths I have descended to in these few last days. O,\nit was a bitter shame to shut out my mother like that! Can I ever forget\nit, or even agree to see her again?\"\n\n\"She might not have known that anything serious would come of it, and\nperhaps she did not mean to keep Aunt out altogether.\"\n\n\"She says herself that she did not. But the fact remains that keep her\nout she did.\"\n\n\"Believe her sorry, and send for her.\"\n\n\"How if she will not come?\"\n\n\"It will prove her guilty, by showing that it is her habit to nourish\nenmity. But I do not think that for a moment.\"\n\n\"I will do this. I will wait for a day or two longer--not longer than\ntwo days certainly; and if she does not send to me in that time I will\nindeed send to her. I thought to have seen Wildeve here tonight. Is he\nfrom home?\"\n\nThomasin blushed a little. \"No,\" she said. \"He is merely gone out for a\nwalk.\"\n\n\"Why didn\'t he take you with him? The evening is fine. You want fresh\nair as well as he.\"\n\n\"Oh, I don\'t care for going anywhere; besides, there is baby.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. Well, I have been thinking whether I should not consult your\nhusband about this as well as you,\" said Clym steadily.\n\n\"I fancy I would not,\" she quickly answered. \"It can do no good.\"\n\nHer cousin looked her in the face. No doubt Thomasin was ignorant that\nher husband had any share in the events of that tragic afternoon; but\nher countenance seemed to signify that she concealed some suspicion or\nthought of the reputed tender relations between Wildeve and Eustacia in\ndays gone by.\n\nClym, however, could make nothing of it, and he rose to depart, more in\ndoubt than when he came.\n\n\"You will write to her in a day or two?\" said the young woman earnestly.\n\"I do so hope the wretched separation may come to an end.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Clym; \"I don\'t rejoice in my present state at all.\"\n\nAnd he left her and climbed over the hill to Blooms-End. Before going to\nbed he sat down and wrote the following letter:--\n\n\nMY DEAR EUSTACIA,--I must obey my heart without consulting my reason too\nclosely. Will you come back to me? Do so, and the past shall never be\nmentioned. I was too severe; but O, Eustacia, the provocation! You don\'t\nknow, you never will know, what those words of anger cost me which\nyou drew down upon yourself. All that an honest man can promise you I\npromise now, which is that from me you shall never suffer anything on\nthis score again. After all the vows we have made, Eustacia, I think we\nhad better pass the remainder of our lives in trying to keep them. Come\nto me, then, even if you reproach me. I have thought of your sufferings\nthat morning on which I parted from you; I know they were genuine, and\nthey are as much as you ought to bear. Our love must still continue.\nSuch hearts as ours would never have been given us but to be concerned\nwith each other. I could not ask you back at first, Eustacia, for I was\nunable to persuade myself that he who was with you was not there as a\nlover. But if you will come and explain distracting appearances I do\nnot question that you can show your honesty to me. Why have you not\ncome before? Do you think I will not listen to you? Surely not, when you\nremember the kisses and vows we exchanged under the summer moon. Return\nthen, and you shall be warmly welcomed. I can no longer think of you\nto your prejudice--I am but too much absorbed in justifying you.--Your\nhusband as ever,\n\nCLYM.\n\n\n\"There,\" he said, as he laid it in his desk, \"that\'s a good thing done.\nIf she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her.\"\n\nMeanwhile, at the house he had just left Thomasin sat sighing uneasily.\nFidelity to her husband had that evening induced her to conceal all\nsuspicion that Wildeve\'s interest in Eustacia had not ended with\nhis marriage. But she knew nothing positive; and though Clym was her\nwell-beloved cousin there was one nearer to her still.\n\nWhen, a little later, Wildeve returned from his walk to Mistover,\nThomasin said, \"Damon, where have you been? I was getting quite\nfrightened, and thought you had fallen into the river. I dislike being\nin the house by myself.\"\n\n\"Frightened?\" he said, touching her cheek as if she were some domestic\nanimal. \"Why, I thought nothing could frighten you. It is that you are\ngetting proud, I am sure, and don\'t like living here since we have risen\nabove our business. Well, it is a tedious matter, this getting a new\nhouse; but I couldn\'t have set about it sooner, unless our ten thousand\npounds had been a hundred thousand, when we could have afforded to\ndespise caution.\"\n\n\"No--I don\'t mind waiting--I would rather stay here twelve months longer\nthan run any risk with baby. But I don\'t like your vanishing so in the\nevenings. There\'s something on your mind--I know there is, Damon. You go\nabout so gloomily, and look at the heath as if it were somebody\'s gaol\ninstead of a nice wild place to walk in.\"\n\nHe looked towards her with pitying surprise. \"What, do you like Egdon\nHeath?\" he said.\n\n\"I like what I was born near to; I admire its grim old face.\"\n\n\"Pooh, my dear. You don\'t know what you like.\"\n\n\"I am sure I do. There\'s only one thing unpleasant about Egdon.\"\n\n\"What\'s that?\"\n\n\"You never take me with you when you walk there. Why do you wander so\nmuch in it yourself if you so dislike it?\"\n\nThe inquiry, though a simple one, was plainly disconcerting, and he sat\ndown before replying. \"I don\'t think you often see me there. Give an\ninstance.\"\n\n\"I will,\" she answered triumphantly. \"When you went out this evening I\nthought that as baby was asleep I would see where you were going to so\nmysteriously without telling me. So I ran out and followed behind you.\nYou stopped at the place where the road forks, looked round at the\nbonfires, and then said, \'Damn it, I\'ll go!\' And you went quickly up the\nleft-hand road. Then I stood and watched you.\"\n\nWildeve frowned, afterwards saying, with a forced smile, \"Well, what\nwonderful discovery did you make?\"\n\n\"There--now you are angry, and we won\'t talk of this any more.\" She went\nacross to him, sat on a footstool, and looked up in his face.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he said, \"that\'s how you always back out. We will go on\nwith it now we have begun. What did you next see? I particularly want to\nknow.\"\n\n\"Don\'t be like that, Damon!\" she murmured. \"I didn\'t see anything. You\nvanished out of sight, and then I looked round at the bonfires and came\nin.\"\n\n\"Perhaps this is not the only time you have dogged my steps. Are you\ntrying to find out something bad about me?\"\n\n\"Not at all! I have never done such a thing before, and I shouldn\'t have\ndone it now if words had not sometimes been dropped about you.\"\n\n\"What DO you mean?\" he impatiently asked.\n\n\"They say--they say you used to go to Alderworth in the evenings, and it\nputs into my mind what I have heard about--\"\n\nWildeve turned angrily and stood up in front of her. \"Now,\" he said,\nflourishing his hand in the air, \"just out with it, madam! I demand to\nknow what remarks you have heard.\"\n\n\"Well, I heard that you used to be very fond of Eustacia--nothing more\nthan that, though dropped in a bit-by-bit way. You ought not to be\nangry!\"\n\nHe observed that her eyes were brimming with tears. \"Well,\" he said,\n\"there is nothing new in that, and of course I don\'t mean to be rough\ntowards you, so you need not cry. Now, don\'t let us speak of the subject\nany more.\"\n\nAnd no more was said, Thomasin being glad enough of a reason for not\nmentioning Clym\'s visit to her that evening, and his story.\n\n\n\n\n7--The Night of the Sixth of November\n\n\nHaving resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that\nsomething should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that\ncould really change her position was the appearance of Clym. The glory\nwhich had encircled him as her lover was departed now; yet some good\nsimple quality of his would occasionally return to her memory and stir a\nmomentary throb of hope that he would again present himself before her.\nBut calmly considered it was not likely that such a severance as now\nexisted would ever close up--she would have to live on as a painful\nobject, isolated, and out of place. She had used to think of the heath\nalone as an uncongenial spot to be in; she felt it now of the whole\nworld.\n\nTowards evening on the sixth her determination to go away again revived.\nAbout four o\'clock she packed up anew the few small articles she had\nbrought in her flight from Alderworth, and also some belonging to her\nwhich had been left here; the whole formed a bundle not too large to be\ncarried in her hand for a distance of a mile or two. The scene without\ngrew darker; mud-coloured clouds bellied downwards from the sky like\nvast hammocks slung across it, and with the increase of night a stormy\nwind arose; but as yet there was no rain.\n\nEustacia could not rest indoors, having nothing more to do, and she\nwandered to and fro on the hill, not far from the house she was soon\nto leave. In these desultory ramblings she passed the cottage of Susan\nNunsuch, a little lower down than her grandfather\'s. The door was\najar, and a riband of bright firelight fell over the ground without. As\nEustacia crossed the firebeams she appeared for an instant as distinct\nas a figure in a phantasmagoria--a creature of light surrounded by\nan area of darkness; the moment passed, and she was absorbed in night\nagain.\n\nA woman who was sitting inside the cottage had seen and recognized\nher in that momentary irradiation. This was Susan herself, occupied\nin preparing a posset for her little boy, who, often ailing, was\nnow seriously unwell. Susan dropped the spoon, shook her fist at the\nvanished figure, and then proceeded with her work in a musing, absent\nway.\n\nAt eight o\'clock, the hour at which Eustacia had promised to signal\nWildeve if ever she signalled at all, she looked around the premises to\nlearn if the coast was clear, went to the furze-rick, and pulled thence\na long-stemmed bough of that fuel. This she carried to the corner of the\nbank, and, glancing behind to see if the shutters were all closed, she\nstruck a light, and kindled the furze. When it was thoroughly ablaze\nEustacia took it by the stem and waved it in the air above her head till\nit had burned itself out.\n\nShe was gratified, if gratification were possible to such a mood, by\nseeing a similar light in the vicinity of Wildeve\'s residence a minute\nor two later. Having agreed to keep watch at this hour every night, in\ncase she should require assistance, this promptness proved how strictly\nhe had held to his word. Four hours after the present time, that is, at\nmidnight, he was to be ready to drive her to Budmouth, as prearranged.\n\nEustacia returned to the house. Supper having been got over she retired\nearly, and sat in her bedroom waiting for the time to go by. The night\nbeing dark and threatening, Captain Vye had not strolled out to gossip\nin any cottage or to call at the inn, as was sometimes his custom on\nthese long autumn nights; and he sat sipping grog alone downstairs.\nAbout ten o\'clock there was a knock at the door. When the servant opened\nit the rays of the candle fell upon the form of Fairway.\n\n\"I was a-forced to go to Lower Mistover tonight,\" he said, \"and Mr.\nYeobright asked me to leave this here on my way; but, faith, I put it in\nthe lining of my hat, and thought no more about it till I got back and\nwas hasping my gate before going to bed. So I have run back with it at\nonce.\"\n\nHe handed in a letter and went his way. The girl brought it to the\ncaptain, who found that it was directed to Eustacia. He turned it over\nand over, and fancied that the writing was her husband\'s, though he\ncould not be sure. However, he decided to let her have it at once if\npossible, and took it upstairs for that purpose; but on reaching the\ndoor of her room and looking in at the keyhole he found there was no\nlight within, the fact being that Eustacia, without undressing, had\nflung herself upon the bed, to rest and gather a little strength for her\ncoming journey. Her grandfather concluded from what he saw that he ought\nnot to disturb her; and descending again to the parlour he placed the\nletter on the mantelpiece to give it to her in the morning.\n\nAt eleven o\'clock he went to bed himself, smoked for some time in his\nbedroom, put out his light at half-past eleven, and then, as was his\ninvariable custom, pulled up the blind before getting into bed, that he\nmight see which way the wind blew on opening his eyes in the morning,\nhis bedroom window commanding a view of the flagstaff and vane. Just as\nhe had lain down he was surprised to observe the white pole of the staff\nflash into existence like a streak of phosphorus drawn downwards across\nthe shade of night without. Only one explanation met this--a light had\nbeen suddenly thrown upon the pole from the direction of the house. As\neverybody had retired to rest the old man felt it necessary to get\nout of bed, open the window softly, and look to the right and left.\nEustacia\'s bedroom was lighted up, and it was the shine from her window\nwhich had lighted the pole. Wondering what had aroused her, he remained\nundecided at the window, and was thinking of fetching the letter to slip\nit under her door, when he heard a slight brushing of garments on the\npartition dividing his room from the passage.\n\nThe captain concluded that Eustacia, feeling wakeful, had gone for a\nbook, and would have dismissed the matter as unimportant if he had not\nalso heard her distinctly weeping as she passed.\n\n\"She is thinking of that husband of hers,\" he said to himself. \"Ah, the\nsilly goose! she had no business to marry him. I wonder if that letter\nis really his?\"\n\nHe arose, threw his boat-cloak round him, opened the door, and said,\n\"Eustacia!\" There was no answer. \"Eustacia!\" he repeated louder, \"there\nis a letter on the mantelpiece for you.\"\n\nBut no response was made to this statement save an imaginary one from\nthe wind, which seemed to gnaw at the corners of the house, and the\nstroke of a few drops of rain upon the windows.\n\nHe went on to the landing, and stood waiting nearly five minutes. Still\nshe did not return. He went back for a light, and prepared to follow\nher; but first he looked into her bedroom. There, on the outside of the\nquilt, was the impression of her form, showing that the bed had not\nbeen opened; and, what was more significant, she had not taken her\ncandlestick downstairs. He was now thoroughly alarmed; and hastily\nputting on his clothes he descended to the front door, which he himself\nhad bolted and locked. It was now unfastened. There was no longer\nany doubt that Eustacia had left the house at this midnight hour; and\nwhither could she have gone? To follow her was almost impossible. Had\nthe dwelling stood in an ordinary road, two persons setting out, one\nin each direction, might have made sure of overtaking her; but it was\na hopeless task to seek for anybody on a heath in the dark, the\npracticable directions for flight across it from any point being as\nnumerous as the meridians radiating from the pole. Perplexed what to do,\nhe looked into the parlour, and was vexed to find that the letter still\nlay there untouched.\n\n\nAt half-past eleven, finding that the house was silent, Eustacia had\nlighted her candle, put on some warm outer wrappings, taken her bag in\nher hand, and, extinguishing the light again, descended the staircase.\nWhen she got into the outer air she found that it had begun to rain, and\nas she stood pausing at the door it increased, threatening to come on\nheavily. But having committed herself to this line of action there was\nno retreating for bad weather. Even the receipt of Clym\'s letter would\nnot have stopped her now. The gloom of the night was funereal; all\nnature seemed clothed in crape. The spiky points of the fir trees behind\nthe house rose into the sky like the turrets and pinnacles of an abbey.\nNothing below the horizon was visible save a light which was still\nburning in the cottage of Susan Nunsuch.\n\nEustacia opened her umbrella and went out from the enclosure by the\nsteps over the bank, after which she was beyond all danger of being\nperceived. Skirting the pool, she followed the path towards Rainbarrow,\noccasionally stumbling over twisted furze roots, tufts of rushes, or\noozing lumps of fleshy fungi, which at this season lay scattered about\nthe heath like the rotten liver and lungs of some colossal animal.\nThe moon and stars were closed up by cloud and rain to the degree\nof extinction. It was a night which led the traveller\'s thoughts\ninstinctively to dwell on nocturnal scenes of disaster in the\nchronicles of the world, on all that is terrible and dark in history and\nlegend--the last plague of Egypt, the destruction of Sennacherib\'s host,\nthe agony in Gethsemane.\n\nEustacia at length reached Rainbarrow, and stood still there to think.\nNever was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind\nand the chaos of the world without. A sudden recollection had flashed\non her this moment--she had not money enough for undertaking a long\njourney. Amid the fluctuating sentiments of the day her unpractical mind\nhad not dwelt on the necessity of being well-provided, and now that she\nthoroughly realized the conditions she sighed bitterly and ceased to\nstand erect, gradually crouching down under the umbrella as if she were\ndrawn into the Barrow by a hand from beneath. Could it be that she was\nto remain a captive still? Money--she had never felt its value before.\nEven to efface herself from the country means were required. To ask\nWildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to accompany her was\nimpossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in her; to fly as\nhis mistress--and she knew that he loved her--was of the nature of\nhumiliation.\n\nAnyone who had stood by now would have pitied her, not so much on\naccount of her exposure to weather, and isolation from all of humanity\nexcept the mouldered remains inside the tumulus; but for that other form\nof misery which was denoted by the slightly rocking movement that her\nfeelings imparted to her person. Extreme unhappiness weighed visibly\nupon her. Between the drippings of the rain from her umbrella to her\nmantle, from her mantle to the heather, from the heather to the earth,\nvery similar sounds could be heard coming from her lips; and the\ntearfulness of the outer scene was repeated upon her face. The wings of\nher soul were broken by the cruel obstructiveness of all about her; and\neven had she seen herself in a promising way of getting to Budmouth,\nentering a steamer, and sailing to some opposite port, she would have\nbeen but little more buoyant, so fearfully malignant were other things.\nShe uttered words aloud. When a woman in such a situation, neither old,\ndeaf, crazed, nor whimsical, takes upon herself to sob and soliloquize\naloud there is something grievous the matter.\n\n\"Can I go, can I go?\" she moaned. \"He\'s not GREAT enough for me to give\nmyself to--he does not suffice for my desire!... If he had been a Saul or\na Bonaparte--ah! But to break my marriage vow for him--it is too poor a\nluxury!... And I have no money to go alone! And if I could, what comfort\nto me? I must drag on next year, as I have dragged on this year, and the\nyear after that as before. How I have tried and tried to be a splendid\nwoman, and how destiny has been against me!... I do not deserve my lot!\"\nshe cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. \"O, the cruelty of putting me\ninto this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been\ninjured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how\nhard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no\nharm to Heaven at all!\"\n\n\nThe distant light which Eustacia had cursorily observed in leaving\nthe house came, as she had divined, from the cottage window of Susan\nNunsuch. What Eustacia did not divine was the occupation of the woman\nwithin at that moment. Susan\'s sight of her passing figure earlier in\nthe evening, not five minutes after the sick boy\'s exclamation, \"Mother,\nI do feel so bad!\" persuaded the matron that an evil influence was\ncertainly exercised by Eustacia\'s propinquity.\n\nOn this account Susan did not go to bed as soon as the evening\'s work\nwas over, as she would have done at ordinary times. To counteract the\nmalign spell which she imagined poor Eustacia to be working, the\nboy\'s mother busied herself with a ghastly invention of superstition,\ncalculated to bring powerlessness, atrophy, and annihilation on any\nhuman being against whom it was directed. It was a practice well known\non Egdon at that date, and one that is not quite extinct at the present\nday.\n\nShe passed with her candle into an inner room, where, among other\nutensils, were two large brown pans, containing together perhaps a\nhundredweight of liquid honey, the produce of the bees during the\nforegoing summer. On a shelf over the pans was a smooth and solid yellow\nmass of a hemispherical form, consisting of beeswax from the same take\nof honey. Susan took down the lump, and cutting off several thin\nslices, heaped them in an iron ladle, with which she returned to the\nliving-room, and placed the vessel in the hot ashes of the fireplace. As\nsoon as the wax had softened to the plasticity of dough she kneaded the\npieces together. And now her face became more intent. She began moulding\nthe wax; and it was evident from her manner of manipulation that she was\nendeavouring to give it some preconceived form. The form was human.\n\nBy warming and kneading, cutting and twisting, dismembering and\nre-joining the incipient image she had in about a quarter of an hour\nproduced a shape which tolerably well resembled a woman, and was\nabout six inches high. She laid it on the table to get cold and hard.\nMeanwhile she took the candle and went upstairs to where the little boy\nwas lying.\n\n\"Did you notice, my dear, what Mrs. Eustacia wore this afternoon besides\nthe dark dress?\"\n\n\"A red ribbon round her neck.\"\n\n\"Anything else?\"\n\n\"No--except sandal-shoes.\"\n\n\"A red ribbon and sandal-shoes,\" she said to herself.\n\nMrs. Nunsuch went and searched till she found a fragment of the\nnarrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs and tied round the neck\nof the image. Then fetching ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by\nthe window, she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably\ncovered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked cross-lines in\nthe shape taken by the sandalstrings of those days. Finally she tied\na bit of black thread round the upper part of the head, in faint\nresemblance to a snood worn for confining the hair.\n\nSusan held the object at arm\'s length and contemplated it with a\nsatisfaction in which there was no smile. To anybody acquainted with\nthe inhabitants of Egdon Heath the image would have suggested Eustacia\nYeobright.\n\nFrom her workbasket in the window-seat the woman took a paper of pins,\nof the old long and yellow sort, whose heads were disposed to come off\nat their first usage. These she began to thrust into the image in all\ndirections, with apparently excruciating energy. Probably as many as\nfifty were thus inserted, some into the head of the wax model, some into\nthe shoulders, some into the trunk, some upwards through the soles of\nthe feet, till the figure was completely permeated with pins.\n\nShe turned to the fire. It had been of turf; and though the high heap\nof ashes which turf fires produce was somewhat dark and dead on the\noutside, upon raking it abroad with the shovel the inside of the mass\nshowed a glow of red heat. She took a few pieces of fresh turf from the\nchimney-corner and built them together over the glow, upon which the\nfire brightened. Seizing with the tongs the image that she had made of\nEustacia, she held it in the heat, and watched it as it began to waste\nslowly away. And while she stood thus engaged there came from between\nher lips a murmur of words.\n\nIt was a strange jargon--the Lord\'s Prayer repeated backwards--the\nincantation usual in proceedings for obtaining unhallowed assistance\nagainst an enemy. Susan uttered the lugubrious discourse three times\nslowly, and when it was completed the image had considerably diminished.\nAs the wax dropped into the fire a long flame arose from the spot,\nand curling its tongue round the figure ate still further into its\nsubstance. A pin occasionally dropped with the wax, and the embers\nheated it red as it lay.\n\n\n\n\n8--Rain, Darkness, and Anxious Wanderers\n\n\nWhile the effigy of Eustacia was melting to nothing, and the fair woman\nherself was standing on Rainbarrow, her soul in an abyss of desolation\nseldom plumbed by one so young, Yeobright sat lonely at Blooms-End.\nHe had fulfilled his word to Thomasin by sending off Fairway with the\nletter to his wife, and now waited with increased impatience for some\nsound or signal of her return. Were Eustacia still at Mistover the very\nleast he expected was that she would send him back a reply tonight by\nthe same hand; though, to leave all to her inclination, he had cautioned\nFairway not to ask for an answer. If one were handed to him he was\nto bring it immediately; if not, he was to go straight home without\ntroubling to come round to Blooms-End again that night.\n\nBut secretly Clym had a more pleasing hope. Eustacia might possibly\ndecline to use her pen--it was rather her way to work silently--and\nsurprise him by appearing at his door. How fully her mind was made up to\ndo otherwise he did not know.\n\nTo Clym\'s regret it began to rain and blow hard as the evening advanced.\nThe wind rasped and scraped at the corners of the house, and filliped\nthe eavesdroppings like peas against the panes. He walked restlessly\nabout the untenanted rooms, stopping strange noises in windows and\ndoors by jamming splinters of wood into the casements and crevices,\nand pressing together the leadwork of the quarries where it had become\nloosened from the glass. It was one of those nights when cracks in the\nwalls of old churches widen, when ancient stains on the ceilings of\ndecayed manor houses are renewed and enlarged from the size of a man\'s\nhand to an area of many feet. The little gate in the palings before\nhis dwelling continually opened and clicked together again, but when he\nlooked out eagerly nobody was there; it was as if invisible shapes of\nthe dead were passing in on their way to visit him.\n\nBetween ten and eleven o\'clock, finding that neither Fairway nor anybody\nelse came to him, he retired to rest, and despite his anxieties soon\nfell asleep. His sleep, however, was not very sound, by reason of the\nexpectancy he had given way to, and he was easily awakened by a knocking\nwhich began at the door about an hour after. Clym arose and looked out\nof the window. Rain was still falling heavily, the whole expanse of\nheath before him emitting a subdued hiss under the downpour. It was too\ndark to see anything at all.\n\n\"Who\'s there?\" he cried.\n\nLight footsteps shifted their position in the porch, and he could just\ndistinguish in a plaintive female voice the words, \"O Clym, come down\nand let me in!\"\n\nHe flushed hot with agitation. \"Surely it is Eustacia!\" he murmured. If\nso, she had indeed come to him unawares.\n\nHe hastily got a light, dressed himself, and went down. On his flinging\nopen the door the rays of the candle fell upon a woman closely wrapped\nup, who at once came forward.\n\n\"Thomasin!\" he exclaimed in an indescribable tone of disappointment. \"It\nis Thomasin, and on such a night as this! O, where is Eustacia?\"\n\nThomasin it was, wet, frightened, and panting.\n\n\"Eustacia? I don\'t know, Clym; but I can think,\" she said with much\nperturbation. \"Let me come in and rest--I will explain this. There is a\ngreat trouble brewing--my husband and Eustacia!\"\n\n\"What, what?\"\n\n\"I think my husband is going to leave me or do something dreadful--I\ndon\'t know what--Clym, will you go and see? I have nobody to help me but\nyou; Eustacia has not yet come home?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nShe went on breathlessly: \"Then they are going to run off together! He\ncame indoors tonight about eight o\'clock and said in an off-hand way,\n\'Tamsie, I have just found that I must go a journey.\' \'When?\' I\nsaid. \'Tonight,\' he said. \'Where?\' I asked him. \'I cannot tell you at\npresent,\' he said; \'I shall be back again tomorrow.\' He then went and\nbusied himself in looking up his things, and took no notice of me at\nall. I expected to see him start, but he did not, and then it came to\nbe ten o\'clock, when he said, \'You had better go to bed.\' I didn\'t know\nwhat to do, and I went to bed. I believe he thought I fell asleep, for\nhalf an hour after that he came up and unlocked the oak chest we keep\nmoney in when we have much in the house and took out a roll of something\nwhich I believe was banknotes, though I was not aware that he had \'em\nthere. These he must have got from the bank when he went there the other\nday. What does he want banknotes for, if he is only going off for a day?\nWhen he had gone down I thought of Eustacia, and how he had met her the\nnight before--I know he did meet her, Clym, for I followed him part of\nthe way; but I did not like to tell you when you called, and so make you\nthink ill of him, as I did not think it was so serious. Then I could not\nstay in bed; I got up and dressed myself, and when I heard him out in\nthe stable I thought I would come and tell you. So I came downstairs\nwithout any noise and slipped out.\"\n\n\"Then he was not absolutely gone when you left?\"\n\n\"No. Will you, dear Cousin Clym, go and try to persuade him not to go?\nHe takes no notice of what I say, and puts me off with the story of his\ngoing on a journey, and will be home tomorrow, and all that; but I don\'t\nbelieve it. I think you could influence him.\"\n\n\"I\'ll go,\" said Clym. \"O, Eustacia!\"\n\nThomasin carried in her arms a large bundle; and having by this time\nseated herself she began to unroll it, when a baby appeared as the\nkernel to the husks--dry, warm, and unconscious of travel or rough\nweather. Thomasin briefly kissed the baby, and then found time to begin\ncrying as she said, \"I brought baby, for I was afraid what might happen\nto her. I suppose it will be her death, but I couldn\'t leave her with\nRachel!\"\n\nClym hastily put together the logs on the hearth, raked abroad the\nembers, which were scarcely yet extinct, and blew up a flame with the\nbellows.\n\n\"Dry yourself,\" he said. \"I\'ll go and get some more wood.\"\n\n\"No, no--don\'t stay for that. I\'ll make up the fire. Will you go at\nonce--please will you?\"\n\nYeobright ran upstairs to finish dressing himself. While he was gone\nanother rapping came to the door. This time there was no delusion that\nit might be Eustacia\'s--the footsteps just preceding it had been heavy\nand slow. Yeobright thinking it might possibly be Fairway with a note in\nanswer, descended again and opened the door.\n\n\"Captain Vye?\" he said to a dripping figure.\n\n\"Is my granddaughter here?\" said the captain.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then where is she?\".\n\n\"I don\'t know.\"\n\n\"But you ought to know--you are her husband.\"\n\n\"Only in name apparently,\" said Clym with rising excitement. \"I believe\nshe means to elope tonight with Wildeve. I am just going to look to it.\"\n\n\"Well, she has left my house; she left about half an hour ago. Who\'s\nsitting there?\"\n\n\"My cousin Thomasin.\"\n\nThe captain bowed in a preoccupied way to her. \"I only hope it is no\nworse than an elopement,\" he said.\n\n\"Worse? What\'s worse than the worst a wife can do?\"\n\n\"Well, I have been told a strange tale. Before starting in search of her\nI called up Charley, my stable lad. I missed my pistols the other day.\"\n\n\"Pistols?\"\n\n\"He said at the time that he took them down to clean. He has now owned\nthat he took them because he saw Eustacia looking curiously at them; and\nshe afterwards owned to him that she was thinking of taking her life,\nbut bound him to secrecy, and promised never to think of such a thing\nagain. I hardly suppose she will ever have bravado enough to use one\nof them; but it shows what has been lurking in her mind; and people who\nthink of that sort of thing once think of it again.\"\n\n\"Where are the pistols?\"\n\n\"Safely locked up. O no, she won\'t touch them again. But there are\nmore ways of letting out life than through a bullet-hole. What did you\nquarrel about so bitterly with her to drive her to all this? You must\nhave treated her badly indeed. Well, I was always against the marriage,\nand I was right.\"\n\n\"Are you going with me?\" said Yeobright, paying no attention to the\ncaptain\'s latter remark. \"If so I can tell you what we quarrelled about\nas we walk along.\"\n\n\"Where to?\"\n\n\"To Wildeve\'s--that was her destination, depend upon it.\"\n\nThomasin here broke in, still weeping: \"He said he was only going on a\nsudden short journey; but if so why did he want so much money? O, Clym,\nwhat do you think will happen? I am afraid that you, my poor baby, will\nsoon have no father left to you!\"\n\n\"I am off now,\" said Yeobright, stepping into the porch.\n\n\"I would fain go with \'ee,\" said the old man doubtfully. \"But I begin to\nbe afraid that my legs will hardly carry me there such a night as this.\nI am not so young as I was. If they are interrupted in their flight\nshe will be sure to come back to me, and I ought to be at the house to\nreceive her. But be it as \'twill I can\'t walk to the Quiet Woman, and\nthat\'s an end on\'t. I\'ll go straight home.\"\n\n\"It will perhaps be best,\" said Clym. \"Thomasin, dry yourself, and be as\ncomfortable as you can.\"\n\nWith this he closed the door upon her, and left the house in company\nwith Captain Vye, who parted from him outside the gate, taking the\nmiddle path, which led to Mistover. Clym crossed by the right-hand track\ntowards the inn.\n\nThomasin, being left alone, took off some of her wet garments, carried\nthe baby upstairs to Clym\'s bed, and then came down to the sitting-room\nagain, where she made a larger fire, and began drying herself. The fire\nsoon flared up the chimney, giving the room an appearance of comfort\nthat was doubled by contrast with the drumming of the storm without,\nwhich snapped at the windowpanes and breathed into the chimney strange\nlow utterances that seemed to be the prologue to some tragedy.\n\nBut the least part of Thomasin was in the house, for her heart being at\nease about the little girl upstairs she was mentally following Clym on\nhis journey. Having indulged in this imaginary peregrination for\nsome considerable interval, she became impressed with a sense of the\nintolerable slowness of time. But she sat on. The moment then came when\nshe could scarcely sit longer, and it was like a satire on her patience\nto remember that Clym could hardly have reached the inn as yet. At last\nshe went to the baby\'s bedside. The child was sleeping soundly; but her\nimagination of possibly disastrous events at her home, the predominance\nwithin her of the unseen over the seen, agitated her beyond endurance.\nShe could not refrain from going down and opening the door. The rain\nstill continued, the candlelight falling upon the nearest drops and\nmaking glistening darts of them as they descended across the throng of\ninvisible ones behind. To plunge into that medium was to plunge into\nwater slightly diluted with air. But the difficulty of returning to\nher house at this moment made her all the more desirous of doing\nso--anything was better than suspense. \"I have come here well enough,\"\nshe said, \"and why shouldn\'t I go back again? It is a mistake for me to\nbe away.\"\n\nShe hastily fetched the infant, wrapped it up, cloaked herself as\nbefore, and shoveling the ashes over the fire, to prevent accidents,\nwent into the open air. Pausing first to put the door key in its\nold place behind the shutter, she resolutely turned her face to the\nconfronting pile of firmamental darkness beyond the palings, and stepped\ninto its midst. But Thomasin\'s imagination being so actively engaged\nelsewhere, the night and the weather had for her no terror beyond that\nof their actual discomfort and difficulty.\n\nShe was soon ascending Blooms-End valley and traversing the undulations\non the side of the hill. The noise of the wind over the heath was\nshrill, and as if it whistled for joy at finding a night so congenial as\nthis. Sometimes the path led her to hollows between thickets of tall\nand dripping bracken, dead, though not yet prostrate, which enclosed her\nlike a pool. When they were more than usually tall she lifted the baby\nto the top of her head, that it might be out of the reach of their\ndrenching fronds. On higher ground, where the wind was brisk and\nsustained, the rain flew in a level flight without sensible descent, so\nthat it was beyond all power to imagine the remoteness of the point\nat which it left the bosoms of the clouds. Here self-defence was\nimpossible, and individual drops stuck into her like the arrows into\nSaint Sebastian. She was enabled to avoid puddles by the nebulous\npaleness which signified their presence, though beside anything less\ndark than the heath they themselves would have appeared as blackness.\n\nYet in spite of all this Thomasin was not sorry that she had started.\nTo her there were not, as to Eustacia, demons in the air, and malice\nin every bush and bough. The drops which lashed her face were not\nscorpions, but prosy rain; Egdon in the mass was no monster whatever,\nbut impersonal open ground. Her fears of the place were rational, her\ndislikes of its worst moods reasonable. At this time it was in her view\na windy, wet place, in which a person might experience much discomfort,\nlose the path without care, and possibly catch cold.\n\nIf the path is well known the difficulty at such times of keeping\ntherein is not altogether great, from its familiar feel to the feet; but\nonce lost it is irrecoverable. Owing to her baby, who somewhat impeded\nThomasin\'s view forward and distracted her mind, she did at last lose\nthe track. This mishap occurred when she was descending an open slope\nabout two-thirds home. Instead of attempting, by wandering hither and\nthither, the hopeless task of finding such a mere thread, she went\nstraight on, trusting for guidance to her general knowledge of the\ncontours, which was scarcely surpassed by Clym\'s or by that of the\nheath-croppers themselves.\n\nAt length Thomasin reached a hollow and began to discern through the\nrain a faint blotted radiance, which presently assumed the oblong form\nof an open door. She knew that no house stood hereabouts, and was soon\naware of the nature of the door by its height above the ground.\n\n\"Why, it is Diggory Venn\'s van, surely!\" she said.\n\nA certain secluded spot near Rainbarrow was, she knew, often Venn\'s\nchosen centre when staying in this neighbourhood; and she guessed at\nonce that she had stumbled upon this mysterious retreat. The question\narose in her mind whether or not she should ask him to guide her into\nthe path. In her anxiety to reach home she decided that she would appeal\nto him, notwithstanding the strangeness of appearing before his eyes at\nthis place and season. But when, in pursuance of this resolve, Thomasin\nreached the van and looked in she found it to be untenanted; though\nthere was no doubt that it was the reddleman\'s. The fire was burning in\nthe stove, the lantern hung from the nail. Round the doorway the floor\nwas merely sprinkled with rain, and not saturated, which told her that\nthe door had not long been opened.\n\nWhile she stood uncertainly looking in Thomasin heard a footstep\nadvancing from the darkness behind her, and turning, beheld the\nwell-known form in corduroy, lurid from head to foot, the lantern beams\nfalling upon him through an intervening gauze of raindrops.\n\n\"I thought you went down the slope,\" he said, without noticing her face.\n\"How do you come back here again?\"\n\n\"Diggory?\" said Thomasin faintly.\n\n\"Who are you?\" said Venn, still unperceiving. \"And why were you crying\nso just now?\"\n\n\"O, Diggory! don\'t you know me?\" said she. \"But of course you don\'t,\nwrapped up like this. What do you mean? I have not been crying here, and\nI have not been here before.\"\n\nVenn then came nearer till he could see the illuminated side of her\nform.\n\n\"Mrs. Wildeve!\" he exclaimed, starting. \"What a time for us to meet!\nAnd the baby too! What dreadful thing can have brought you out on such a\nnight as this?\"\n\nShe could not immediately answer; and without asking her permission he\nhopped into his van, took her by the arm, and drew her up after him.\n\n\"What is it?\" he continued when they stood within.\n\n\"I have lost my way coming from Blooms-End, and I am in a great hurry to\nget home. Please show me as quickly as you can! It is so silly of me not\nto know Egdon better, and I cannot think how I came to lose the path.\nShow me quickly, Diggory, please.\"\n\n\"Yes, of course. I will go with \'ee. But you came to me before this,\nMrs. Wildeve?\"\n\n\"I only came this minute.\"\n\n\"That\'s strange. I was lying down here asleep about five minutes ago,\nwith the door shut to keep out the weather, when the brushing of a\nwoman\'s clothes over the heath-bushes just outside woke me up, for I\ndon\'t sleep heavy, and at the same time I heard a sobbing or crying from\nthe same woman. I opened my door and held out my lantern, and just as\nfar as the light would reach I saw a woman; she turned her head when\nthe light sheened on her, and then hurried on downhill. I hung up the\nlantern, and was curious enough to pull on my things and dog her a few\nsteps, but I could see nothing of her any more. That was where I had\nbeen when you came up; and when I saw you I thought you were the same\none.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it was one of the heathfolk going home?\"\n\n\"No, it couldn\'t be. \'Tis too late. The noise of her gown over the he\'th\nwas of a whistling sort that nothing but silk will make.\"\n\n\"It wasn\'t I, then. My dress is not silk, you see.... Are we anywhere in\na line between Mistover and the inn?\"\n\n\"Well, yes; not far out.\"\n\n\"Ah, I wonder if it was she! Diggory, I must go at once!\"\n\nShe jumped down from the van before he was aware, when Venn unhooked the\nlantern and leaped down after her. \"I\'ll take the baby, ma\'am,\" he said.\n\"You must be tired out by the weight.\"\n\nThomasin hesitated a moment, and then delivered the baby into Venn\'s\nhands. \"Don\'t squeeze her, Diggory,\" she said, \"or hurt her little arm;\nand keep the cloak close over her like this, so that the rain may not\ndrop in her face.\"\n\n\"I will,\" said Venn earnestly. \"As if I could hurt anything belonging to\nyou!\"\n\n\"I only meant accidentally,\" said Thomasin.\n\n\"The baby is dry enough, but you are pretty wet,\" said the reddleman\nwhen, in closing the door of his cart to padlock it, he noticed on the\nfloor a ring of water drops where her cloak had hung from her.\n\nThomasin followed him as he wound right and left to avoid the larger\nbushes, stopping occasionally and covering the lantern, while he looked\nover his shoulder to gain some idea of the position of Rainbarrow above\nthem, which it was necessary to keep directly behind their backs to\npreserve a proper course.\n\n\"You are sure the rain does not fall upon baby?\"\n\n\"Quite sure. May I ask how old he is, ma\'am?\"\n\n\"He!\" said Thomasin reproachfully. \"Anybody can see better than that in\na moment. She is nearly two months old. How far is it now to the inn?\"\n\n\"A little over a quarter of a mile.\"\n\n\"Will you walk a little faster?\"\n\n\"I was afraid you could not keep up.\"\n\n\"I am very anxious to get there. Ah, there is a light from the window!\"\n\n\"\'Tis not from the window. That\'s a gig-lamp, to the best of my belief.\"\n\n\"O!\" said Thomasin in despair. \"I wish I had been there sooner--give me\nthe baby, Diggory--you can go back now.\"\n\n\"I must go all the way,\" said Venn. \"There is a quag between us and\nthat light, and you will walk into it up to your neck unless I take you\nround.\"\n\n\"But the light is at the inn, and there is no quag in front of that.\"\n\n\"No, the light is below the inn some two or three hundred yards.\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" said Thomasin hurriedly. \"Go towards the light, and not\ntowards the inn.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Venn, swerving round in obedience; and, after a pause,\n\"I wish you would tell me what this great trouble is. I think you have\nproved that I can be trusted.\"\n\n\"There are some things that cannot be--cannot be told to--\" And then her\nheart rose into her throat, and she could say no more.\n\n\n\n\n9--Sights and Sounds Draw the Wanderers Together\n\n\nHaving seen Eustacia\'s signal from the hill at eight o\'clock, Wildeve\nimmediately prepared to assist her in her flight, and, as he hoped,\naccompany her. He was somewhat perturbed, and his manner of informing\nThomasin that he was going on a journey was in itself sufficient to\nrouse her suspicions. When she had gone to bed he collected the few\narticles he would require, and went upstairs to the money-chest, whence\nhe took a tolerably bountiful sum in notes, which had been advanced\nto him on the property he was so soon to have in possession, to defray\nexpenses incidental to the removal.\n\nHe then went to the stable and coach-house to assure himself that the\nhorse, gig, and harness were in a fit condition for a long drive. Nearly\nhalf an hour was spent thus, and on returning to the house Wildeve had\nno thought of Thomasin being anywhere but in bed. He had told the stable\nlad not to stay up, leading the boy to understand that his departure\nwould be at three or four in the morning; for this, though an\nexceptional hour, was less strange than midnight, the time actually\nagreed on, the packet from Budmouth sailing between one and two.\n\nAt last all was quiet, and he had nothing to do but to wait. By no\neffort could he shake off the oppression of spirits which he had\nexperienced ever since his last meeting with Eustacia, but he hoped\nthere was that in his situation which money could cure. He had persuaded\nhimself that to act not ungenerously towards his gentle wife by settling\non her the half of his property, and with chivalrous devotion towards\nanother and greater woman by sharing her fate, was possible. And though\nhe meant to adhere to Eustacia\'s instructions to the letter, to deposit\nher where she wished and to leave her, should that be her will, the\nspell that she had cast over him intensified, and his heart was beating\nfast in the anticipated futility of such commands in the face of a\nmutual wish that they should throw in their lot together.\n\nHe would not allow himself to dwell long upon these conjectures, maxims,\nand hopes, and at twenty minutes to twelve he again went softly to the\nstable, harnessed the horse, and lit the lamps; whence, taking the horse\nby the head, he led him with the covered car out of the yard to a spot\nby the roadside some quarter of a mile below the inn.\n\nHere Wildeve waited, slightly sheltered from the driving rain by a high\nbank that had been cast up at this place. Along the surface of the road\nwhere lit by the lamps the loosened gravel and small stones scudded and\nclicked together before the wind, which, leaving them in heaps, plunged\ninto the heath and boomed across the bushes into darkness. Only one\nsound rose above this din of weather, and that was the roaring of a\nten-hatch weir to the southward, from a river in the meads which formed\nthe boundary of the heath in this direction.\n\nHe lingered on in perfect stillness till he began to fancy that the\nmidnight hour must have struck. A very strong doubt had arisen in\nhis mind if Eustacia would venture down the hill in such weather; yet\nknowing her nature he felt that she might. \"Poor thing! \'tis like her\nill-luck,\" he murmured.\n\nAt length he turned to the lamp and looked at his watch. To his surprise\nit was nearly a quarter past midnight. He now wished that he had driven\nup the circuitous road to Mistover, a plan not adopted because of the\nenormous length of the route in proportion to that of the pedestrian\'s\npath down the open hillside, and the consequent increase of labour for\nthe horse.\n\nAt this moment a footstep approached; but the light of the lamps being\nin a different direction the comer was not visible. The step paused,\nthen came on again.\n\n\"Eustacia?\" said Wildeve.\n\nThe person came forward, and the light fell upon the form of Clym,\nglistening with wet, whom Wildeve immediately recognized; but Wildeve,\nwho stood behind the lamp, was not at once recognized by Yeobright.\n\nHe stopped as if in doubt whether this waiting vehicle could have\nanything to do with the flight of his wife or not. The sight of\nYeobright at once banished Wildeve\'s sober feelings, who saw him again\nas the deadly rival from whom Eustacia was to be kept at all hazards.\nHence Wildeve did not speak, in the hope that Clym would pass by without\nparticular inquiry.\n\nWhile they both hung thus in hesitation a dull sound became audible\nabove the storm and wind. Its origin was unmistakable--it was the fall\nof a body into the stream in the adjoining mead, apparently at a point\nnear the weir.\n\nBoth started. \"Good God! can it be she?\" said Clym.\n\n\"Why should it be she?\" said Wildeve, in his alarm forgetting that he\nhad hitherto screened himself.\n\n\"Ah!--that\'s you, you traitor, is it?\" cried Yeobright. \"Why should it\nbe she? Because last week she would have put an end to her life if she\nhad been able. She ought to have been watched! Take one of the lamps and\ncome with me.\"\n\nYeobright seized the one on his side and hastened on; Wildeve did not\nwait to unfasten the other, but followed at once along the meadow track\nto the weir, a little in the rear of Clym.\n\nShadwater Weir had at its foot a large circular pool, fifty feet in\ndiameter, into which the water flowed through ten huge hatches, raised\nand lowered by a winch and cogs in the ordinary manner. The sides of the\npool were of masonry, to prevent the water from washing away the bank;\nbut the force of the stream in winter was sometimes such as to undermine\nthe retaining wall and precipitate it into the hole. Clym reached the\nhatches, the framework of which was shaken to its foundations by the\nvelocity of the current. Nothing but the froth of the waves could be\ndiscerned in the pool below. He got upon the plank bridge over the race,\nand holding to the rail, that the wind might not blow him off, crossed\nto the other side of the river. There he leant over the wall and lowered\nthe lamp, only to behold the vortex formed at the curl of the returning\ncurrent.\n\nWildeve meanwhile had arrived on the former side, and the light from\nYeobright\'s lamp shed a flecked and agitated radiance across the weir\npool, revealing to the ex-engineer the tumbling courses of the currents\nfrom the hatches above. Across this gashed and puckered mirror a dark\nbody was slowly borne by one of the backward currents.\n\n\"O, my darling!\" exclaimed Wildeve in an agonized voice; and, without\nshowing sufficient presence of mind even to throw off his greatcoat, he\nleaped into the boiling caldron.\n\nYeobright could now also discern the floating body, though but\nindistinctly; and imagining from Wildeve\'s plunge that there was life to\nbe saved he was about to leap after. Bethinking himself of a wiser plan,\nhe placed the lamp against a post to make it stand upright, and running\nround to the lower part of the pool, where there was no wall, he sprang\nin and boldly waded upwards towards the deeper portion. Here he was\ntaken off his legs, and in swimming was carried round into the centre of\nthe basin, where he perceived Wildeve struggling.\n\nWhile these hasty actions were in progress here, Venn and Thomasin had\nbeen toiling through the lower corner of the heath in the direction\nof the light. They had not been near enough to the river to hear the\nplunge, but they saw the removal of the carriage lamp, and watched its\nmotion into the mead. As soon as they reached the car and horse Venn\nguessed that something new was amiss, and hastened to follow in the\ncourse of the moving light. Venn walked faster than Thomasin, and came\nto the weir alone.\n\nThe lamp placed against the post by Clym still shone across the\nwater, and the reddleman observed something floating motionless. Being\nencumbered with the infant, he ran back to meet Thomasin.\n\n\"Take the baby, please, Mrs. Wildeve,\" he said hastily. \"Run home with\nher, call the stable lad, and make him send down to me any men who may\nbe living near. Somebody has fallen into the weir.\"\n\nThomasin took the child and ran. When she came to the covered car the\nhorse, though fresh from the stable, was standing perfectly still, as\nif conscious of misfortune. She saw for the first time whose it was. She\nnearly fainted, and would have been unable to proceed another step but\nthat the necessity of preserving the little girl from harm nerved her\nto an amazing self-control. In this agony of suspense she entered the\nhouse, put the baby in a place of safety, woke the lad and the female\ndomestic, and ran out to give the alarm at the nearest cottage.\n\nDiggory, having returned to the brink of the pool, observed that the\nsmall upper hatches or floats were withdrawn. He found one of these\nlying upon the grass, and taking it under one arm, and with his lantern\nin his hand, entered at the bottom of the pool as Clym had done. As soon\nas he began to be in deep water he flung himself across the hatch; thus\nsupported he was able to keep afloat as long as he chose, holding\nthe lantern aloft with his disengaged hand. Propelled by his feet, he\nsteered round and round the pool, ascending each time by one of the back\nstreams and descending in the middle of the current.\n\nAt first he could see nothing. Then amidst the glistening of the\nwhirlpools and the white clots of foam he distinguished a woman\'s bonnet\nfloating alone. His search was now under the left wall, when something\ncame to the surface almost close beside him. It was not, as he had\nexpected, a woman, but a man. The reddleman put the ring of the lantern\nbetween his teeth, seized the floating man by the collar, and, holding\non to the hatch with his remaining arm, struck out into the strongest\nrace, by which the unconscious man, the hatch, and himself were carried\ndown the stream. As soon as Venn found his feet dragging over the\npebbles of the shallower part below he secured his footing and waded\ntowards the brink. There, where the water stood at about the height of\nhis waist, he flung away the hatch, and attempted to drag forth the man.\nThis was a matter of great difficulty, and he found as the reason that\nthe legs of the unfortunate stranger were tightly embraced by the arms\nof another man, who had hitherto been entirely beneath the surface.\n\nAt this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him,\nand two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran\nto where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned\npersons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn\nturned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost was\nYeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.\n\n\"Now we must search the hole again,\" said Venn. \"A woman is in there\nsomewhere. Get a pole.\"\n\nOne of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The\nreddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below\nas before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to where\nit sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in supposing\nthat any person who had sunk for the last time would be washed down to\nthis point, for when they had examined to about halfway across something\nimpeded their thrust.\n\n\"Pull it forward,\" said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till it\nwas close to their feet.\n\nVenn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet\ndrapery enclosing a woman\'s cold form, which was all that remained of\nthe desperate Eustacia.\n\nWhen they reached the bank there stood Thomasin, in a stress of grief,\nbending over the two unconscious ones who already lay there. The horse\nand cart were brought to the nearest point in the road, and it was the\nwork of a few minutes only to place the three in the vehicle. Venn\nled on the horse, supporting Thomasin upon his arm, and the two men\nfollowed, till they reached the inn.\n\nThe woman who had been shaken out of her sleep by Thomasin had hastily\ndressed herself and lighted a fire, the other servant being left to\nsnore on in peace at the back of the house. The insensible forms of\nEustacia, Clym, and Wildeve were then brought in and laid on the carpet,\nwith their feet to the fire, when such restorative processes as could\nbe thought of were adopted at once, the stableman being in the meantime\nsent for a doctor. But there seemed to be not a whiff of life in either\nof the bodies. Then Thomasin, whose stupor of grief had been thrust\noff awhile by frantic action, applied a bottle of hartshorn to Clym\'s\nnostrils, having tried it in vain upon the other two. He sighed.\n\n\"Clym\'s alive!\" she exclaimed.\n\nHe soon breathed distinctly, and again and again did she attempt to\nrevive her husband by the same means; but Wildeve gave no sign. There\nwas too much reason to think that he and Eustacia both were for ever\nbeyond the reach of stimulating perfumes. Their exertions did not relax\ntill the doctor arrived, when one by one, the senseless three were taken\nupstairs and put into warm beds.\n\nVenn soon felt himself relieved from further attendance, and went to\nthe door, scarcely able yet to realize the strange catastrophe that\nhad befallen the family in which he took so great an interest. Thomasin\nsurely would be broken down by the sudden and overwhelming nature of\nthis event. No firm and sensible Mrs. Yeobright lived now to support the\ngentle girl through the ordeal; and, whatever an unimpassioned spectator\nmight think of her loss of such a husband as Wildeve, there could be no\ndoubt that for the moment she was distracted and horrified by the blow.\nAs for himself, not being privileged to go to her and comfort her, he\nsaw no reason for waiting longer in a house where he remained only as a\nstranger.\n\nHe returned across the heath to his van. The fire was not yet out, and\neverything remained as he had left it. Venn now bethought himself of\nhis clothes, which were saturated with water to the weight of lead. He\nchanged them, spread them before the fire, and lay down to sleep. But\nit was more than he could do to rest here while excited by a vivid\nimagination of the turmoil they were in at the house he had quitted,\nand, blaming himself for coming away, he dressed in another suit,\nlocked up the door, and again hastened across to the inn. Rain was still\nfalling heavily when he entered the kitchen. A bright fire was shining\nfrom the hearth, and two women were bustling about, one of whom was Olly\nDowden.\n\n\"Well, how is it going on now?\" said Venn in a whisper.\n\n\"Mr. Yeobright is better; but Mrs. Yeobright and Mr. Wildeve are dead\nand cold. The doctor says they were quite gone before they were out of\nthe water.\"\n\n\"Ah! I thought as much when I hauled \'em up. And Mrs. Wildeve?\"\n\n\"She is as well as can be expected. The doctor had her put between\nblankets, for she was almost as wet as they that had been in the river,\npoor young thing. You don\'t seem very dry, reddleman.\"\n\n\"Oh, \'tis not much. I have changed my things. This is only a little\ndampness I\'ve got coming through the rain again.\"\n\n\"Stand by the fire. Mis\'ess says you be to have whatever you want, and\nshe was sorry when she was told that you\'d gone away.\"\n\nVenn drew near to the fireplace, and looked into the flames in an absent\nmood. The steam came from his leggings and ascended the chimney with the\nsmoke, while he thought of those who were upstairs. Two were corpses,\none had barely escaped the jaws of death, another was sick and a widow.\nThe last occasion on which he had lingered by that fireplace was when\nthe raffle was in progress; when Wildeve was alive and well; Thomasin\nactive and smiling in the next room; Yeobright and Eustacia just made\nhusband and wife, and Mrs. Yeobright living at Blooms-End. It had seemed\nat that time that the then position of affairs was good for at least\ntwenty years to come. Yet, of all the circle, he himself was the only\none whose situation had not materially changed.\n\nWhile he ruminated a footstep descended the stairs. It was the nurse,\nwho brought in her hand a rolled mass of wet paper. The woman was so\nengrossed with her occupation that she hardly saw Venn. She took from a\ncupboard some pieces of twine, which she strained across the fireplace,\ntying the end of each piece to the firedog, previously pulled forward\nfor the purpose, and, unrolling the wet papers, she began pinning them\none by one to the strings in a manner of clothes on a line.\n\n\"What be they?\" said Venn.\n\n\"Poor master\'s banknotes,\" she answered. \"They were found in his pocket\nwhen they undressed him.\"\n\n\"Then he was not coming back again for some time?\" said Venn.\n\n\"That we shall never know,\" said she.\n\nVenn was loth to depart, for all on earth that interested him lay under\nthis roof. As nobody in the house had any more sleep that night, except\nthe two who slept for ever, there was no reason why he should not\nremain. So he retired into the niche of the fireplace where he had used\nto sit, and there he continued, watching the steam from the double row\nof banknotes as they waved backwards and forwards in the draught of the\nchimney till their flaccidity was changed to dry crispness throughout.\nThen the woman came and unpinned them, and, folding them together,\ncarried the handful upstairs. Presently the doctor appeared from above\nwith the look of a man who could do no more, and, pulling on his gloves,\nwent out of the house, the trotting of his horse soon dying away upon\nthe road.\n\nAt four o\'clock there was a gentle knock at the door. It was from\nCharley, who had been sent by Captain Vye to inquire if anything had\nbeen heard of Eustacia. The girl who admitted him looked in his face as\nif she did not know what answer to return, and showed him in to where\nVenn was seated, saying to the reddleman, \"Will you tell him, please?\"\n\nVenn told. Charley\'s only utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He\nstood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, \"I shall see her\nonce more?\"\n\n\"I dare say you may see her,\" said Diggory gravely. \"But hadn\'t you\nbetter run and tell Captain Vye?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. Only I do hope I shall see her just once again.\"\n\n\"You shall,\" said a low voice behind; and starting round they beheld\nby the dim light, a thin, pallid, almost spectral form, wrapped in a\nblanket, and looking like Lazarus coming from the tomb.\n\nIt was Yeobright. Neither Venn nor Charley spoke, and Clym continued,\n\"You shall see her. There will be time enough to tell the captain when\nit gets daylight. You would like to see her too--would you not, Diggory?\nShe looks very beautiful now.\"\n\nVenn assented by rising to his feet, and with Charley he followed Clym\nto the foot of the staircase, where he took off his boots; Charley did\nthe same. They followed Yeobright upstairs to the landing, where there\nwas a candle burning, which Yeobright took in his hand, and with it led\nthe way into an adjoining room. Here he went to the bedside and folded\nback the sheet.\n\nThey stood silently looking upon Eustacia, who, as she lay there still\nin death, eclipsed all her living phases. Pallor did not include all\nthe quality of her complexion, which seemed more than whiteness; it was\nalmost light. The expression of her finely carved mouth was pleasant,\nas if a sense of dignity had just compelled her to leave off speaking.\nEternal rigidity had seized upon it in a momentary transition between\nfervour and resignation. Her black hair was looser now than either of\nthem had ever seen it before, and surrounded her brow like a forest. The\nstateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller in a\ncountry domicile had at last found an artistically happy background.\n\nNobody spoke, till at length Clym covered her and turned aside. \"Now\ncome here,\" he said.\n\nThey went to a recess in the same room, and there, on a smaller bed,\nlay another figure--Wildeve. Less repose was visible in his face than\nin Eustacia\'s, but the same luminous youthfulness overspread it, and the\nleast sympathetic observer would have felt at sight of him now that he\nwas born for a higher destiny than this. The only sign upon him of his\nrecent struggle for life was in his fingertips, which were worn and\nsacrificed in his dying endeavours to obtain a hold on the face of the\nweir-wall.\n\nYeobright\'s manner had been so quiet, he had uttered so few syllables\nsince his reappearance, that Venn imagined him resigned. It was only\nwhen they had left the room and stood upon the landing that the true\nstate of his mind was apparent. Here he said, with a wild smile,\ninclining his head towards the chamber in which Eustacia lay, \"She is\nthe second woman I have killed this year. I was a great cause of my\nmother\'s death, and I am the chief cause of hers.\"\n\n\"How?\" said Venn.\n\n\"I spoke cruel words to her, and she left my house. I did not invite her\nback till it was too late. It is I who ought to have drowned myself. It\nwould have been a charity to the living had the river overwhelmed me and\nborne her up. But I cannot die. Those who ought to have lived lie dead;\nand here am I alive!\"\n\n\"But you can\'t charge yourself with crimes in that way,\" said Venn. \"You\nmay as well say that the parents be the cause of a murder by the child,\nfor without the parents the child would never have been begot.\"\n\n\"Yes, Venn, that is very true; but you don\'t know all the circumstances.\nIf it had pleased God to put an end to me it would have been a good\nthing for all. But I am getting used to the horror of my existence. They\nsay that a time comes when men laugh at misery through long acquaintance\nwith it. Surely that time will soon come to me!\"\n\n\"Your aim has always been good,\" said Venn. \"Why should you say such\ndesperate things?\"\n\n\"No, they are not desperate. They are only hopeless; and my great regret\nis that for what I have done no man or law can punish me!\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK SIX -- AFTERCOURSES\n\n\n\n\n1--The Inevitable Movement Onward\n\n\nThe story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout\nEgdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known\nincidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and\nmodified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to the\ncounterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. Yet, upon the whole,\nneither the man nor the woman lost dignity by sudden death. Misfortune\nhad struck them gracefully, cutting off their erratic histories with a\ncatastrophic dash, instead of, as with many, attenuating each life to an\nuninteresting meagreness, through long years of wrinkles, neglect, and\ndecay.\n\nOn those most nearly concerned the effect was somewhat different.\nStrangers who had heard of many such cases now merely heard of one more;\nbut immediately where a blow falls no previous imaginings amount to\nappreciable preparation for it. The very suddenness of her bereavement\ndulled, to some extent, Thomasin\'s feelings; yet irrationally enough, a\nconsciousness that the husband she had lost ought to have been a better\nman did not lessen her mourning at all. On the contrary, this fact\nseemed at first to set off the dead husband in his young wife\'s eyes,\nand to be the necessary cloud to the rainbow.\n\nBut the horrors of the unknown had passed. Vague misgivings about her\nfuture as a deserted wife were at an end. The worst had once been matter\nof trembling conjecture; it was now matter of reason only, a limited\nbadness. Her chief interest, the little Eustacia, still remained. There\nwas humility in her grief, no defiance in her attitude; and when this is\nthe case a shaken spirit is apt to be stilled.\n\nCould Thomasin\'s mournfulness now and Eustacia\'s serenity during life\nhave been reduced to common measure, they would have touched the same\nmark nearly. But Thomasin\'s former brightness made shadow of that which\nin a sombre atmosphere was light itself.\n\nThe spring came and calmed her; the summer came and soothed her; the\nautumn arrived, and she began to be comforted, for her little girl\nwas strong and happy, growing in size and knowledge every day. Outward\nevents flattered Thomasin not a little. Wildeve had died intestate, and\nshe and the child were his only relatives. When administration had been\ngranted, all the debts paid, and the residue of her husband\'s uncle\'s\nproperty had come into her hands, it was found that the sum waiting to\nbe invested for her own and the child\'s benefit was little less than ten\nthousand pounds.\n\nWhere should she live? The obvious place was Blooms-End. The old rooms,\nit is true, were not much higher than the between-decks of a frigate,\nnecessitating a sinking in the floor under the new clock-case she\nbrought from the inn, and the removal of the handsome brass knobs on its\nhead, before there was height for it to stand; but, such as the rooms\nwere, there were plenty of them, and the place was endeared to her by\nevery early recollection. Clym very gladly admitted her as a tenant,\nconfining his own existence to two rooms at the top of the back\nstaircase, where he lived on quietly, shut off from Thomasin and the\nthree servants she had thought fit to indulge in now that she was a\nmistress of money, going his own ways, and thinking his own thoughts.\n\nHis sorrows had made some change in his outward appearance; and yet the\nalteration was chiefly within. It might have been said that he had a\nwrinkled mind. He had no enemies, and he could get nobody to reproach\nhim, which was why he so bitterly reproached himself.\n\nHe did sometimes think he had been ill-used by fortune, so far as to say\nthat to be born is a palpable dilemma, and that instead of men aiming to\nadvance in life with glory they should calculate how to retreat out\nof it without shame. But that he and his had been sarcastically and\npitilessly handled in having such irons thrust into their souls he did\nnot maintain long. It is usually so, except with the sternest of men.\nHuman beings, in their generous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that\nshall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a\ndominant power of lower moral quality than their own; and, even while\nthey sit down and weep by the waters of Babylon, invent excuses for the\noppression which prompts their tears.\n\nThus, though words of solace were vainly uttered in his presence, he\nfound relief in a direction of his own choosing when left to himself.\nFor a man of his habits the house and the hundred and twenty pounds a\nyear which he had inherited from his mother were enough to supply all\nworldly needs. Resources do not depend upon gross amounts, but upon the\nproportion of spendings to takings.\n\nHe frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him\nwith its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale.\nHis imagination would then people the spot with its ancient\ninhabitants--forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he\ncould almost live among them, look in their faces, and see them standing\nbeside the barrows which swelled around, untouched and perfect as at the\ntime of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who had chosen\nthe cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had left their\nmarks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. Their\nrecords had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of these\nremained. Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the different\nfates awaiting their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen factors\noperate in the evolution of immortality.\n\nWinter again came round, with its winds, frosts, tame robins, and\nsparkling starlight. The year previous Thomasin had hardly been\nconscious of the season\'s advance; this year she laid her heart open to\nexternal influences of every kind. The life of this sweet cousin, her\nbaby, and her servants, came to Clym\'s senses only in the form of sounds\nthrough a wood partition as he sat over books of exceptionally large\ntype; but his ear became at last so accustomed to these slight noises\nfrom the other part of the house that he almost could witness the\nscenes they signified. A faint beat of half-seconds conjured up Thomasin\nrocking the cradle, a wavering hum meant that she was singing the baby\nto sleep, a crunching of sand as between millstones raised the picture\nof Humphrey\'s, Fairway\'s, or Sam\'s heavy feet crossing the stone floor\nof the kitchen; a light boyish step, and a gay tune in a high key,\nbetokened a visit from Grandfer Cantle; a sudden break-off in the\nGrandfer\'s utterances implied the application to his lips of a mug of\nsmall beer, a bustling and slamming of doors meant starting to go to\nmarket; for Thomasin, in spite of her added scope of gentility, led a\nludicrously narrow life, to the end that she might save every possible\npound for her little daughter.\n\nOne summer day Clym was in the garden, immediately outside the parlour\nwindow, which was as usual open. He was looking at the pot-flowers on\nthe sill; they had been revived and restored by Thomasin to the state in\nwhich his mother had left them. He heard a slight scream from Thomasin,\nwho was sitting inside the room.\n\n\"O, how you frightened me!\" she said to someone who had entered. \"I\nthought you were the ghost of yourself.\"\n\nClym was curious enough to advance a little further and look in at the\nwindow. To his astonishment there stood within the room Diggory Venn,\nno longer a reddleman, but exhibiting the strangely altered hues of\nan ordinary Christian countenance, white shirt-front, light flowered\nwaistcoat, blue-spotted neckerchief, and bottle-green coat. Nothing in\nthis appearance was at all singular but the fact of its great difference\nfrom what he had formerly been. Red, and all approach to red, was\ncarefully excluded from every article of clothes upon him; for what is\nthere that persons just out of harness dread so much as reminders of the\ntrade which has enriched them?\n\nYeobright went round to the door and entered.\n\n\"I was so alarmed!\" said Thomasin, smiling from one to the other. \"I\ncouldn\'t believe that he had got white of his own accord! It seemed\nsupernatural.\"\n\n\"I gave up dealing in reddle last Christmas,\" said Venn. \"It was a\nprofitable trade, and I found that by that time I had made enough to\ntake the dairy of fifty cows that my father had in his lifetime. I\nalways thought of getting to that place again if I changed at all, and\nnow I am there.\"\n\n\"How did you manage to become white, Diggory?\" Thomasin asked.\n\n\"I turned so by degrees, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"You look much better than ever you did before.\"\n\nVenn appeared confused; and Thomasin, seeing how inadvertently she had\nspoken to a man who might possibly have tender feelings for her still,\nblushed a little. Clym saw nothing of this, and added good-humouredly--\n\n\"What shall we have to frighten Thomasin\'s baby with, now you have\nbecome a human being again?\"\n\n\"Sit down, Diggory,\" said Thomasin, \"and stay to tea.\"\n\nVenn moved as if he would retire to the kitchen, when Thomasin said with\npleasant pertness as she went on with some sewing, \"Of course you must\nsit down here. And where does your fifty-cow dairy lie, Mr. Venn?\"\n\n\"At Stickleford--about two miles to the right of Alderworth, ma\'am,\nwhere the meads begin. I have thought that if Mr. Yeobright would like\nto pay me a visit sometimes he shouldn\'t stay away for want of asking.\nI\'ll not bide to tea this afternoon, thank\'ee, for I\'ve got something on\nhand that must be settled. \'Tis Maypole-day tomorrow, and the Shadwater\nfolk have clubbed with a few of your neighbours here to have a pole just\noutside your palings in the heath, as it is a nice green place.\" Venn\nwaved his elbow towards the patch in front of the house. \"I have been\ntalking to Fairway about it,\" he continued, \"and I said to him that\nbefore we put up the pole it would be as well to ask Mrs. Wildeve.\"\n\n\"I can say nothing against it,\" she answered. \"Our property does not\nreach an inch further than the white palings.\"\n\n\"But you might not like to see a lot of folk going crazy round a stick,\nunder your very nose?\"\n\n\"I shall have no objection at all.\"\n\nVenn soon after went away, and in the evening Yeobright strolled as far\nas Fairway\'s cottage. It was a lovely May sunset, and the birch trees\nwhich grew on this margin of the vast Egdon wilderness had put on their\nnew leaves, delicate as butterflies\' wings, and diaphanous as amber.\nBeside Fairway\'s dwelling was an open space recessed from the road, and\nhere were now collected all the young people from within a radius of a\ncouple of miles. The pole lay with one end supported on a trestle,\nand women were engaged in wreathing it from the top downwards with\nwild-flowers. The instincts of merry England lingered on here with\nexceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has\nattached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed,\nthe impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still--in these\nspots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of\nTeutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way\nor other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.\n\nYeobright did not interrupt the preparations, and went home again. The\nnext morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window,\nthere stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into\nthe sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like\nJack\'s bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a better view of the\ngarlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet perfume of the flowers\nhad already spread into the surrounding air, which, being free from\nevery taint, conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance\nreceived from the spire of blossom in its midst. At the top of the\npole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath these came a\nmilk-white zone of Maybloom; then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips,\nthen of lilacs, then of ragged-robins, daffodils, and so on, till the\nlowest stage was reached. Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted\nthat the May revel was to be so near.\n\nWhen afternoon came people began to gather on the green, and Yeobright\nwas interested enough to look out upon them from the open window of\nhis room. Soon after this Thomasin walked out from the door immediately\nbelow and turned her eyes up to her cousin\'s face. She was dressed\nmore gaily than Yeobright had ever seen her dressed since the time of\nWildeve\'s death, eighteen months before; since the day of her marriage\neven she had not exhibited herself to such advantage.\n\n\"How pretty you look today, Thomasin!\" he said. \"Is it because of the\nMaypole?\"\n\n\"Not altogether.\" And then she blushed and dropped her eyes, which he\ndid not specially observe, though her manner seemed to him to be rather\npeculiar, considering that she was only addressing himself. Could it be\npossible that she had put on her summer clothes to please him?\n\nHe recalled her conduct towards him throughout the last few weeks, when\nthey had often been working together in the garden, just as they had\nformerly done when they were boy and girl under his mother\'s eye. What\nif her interest in him were not so entirely that of a relative as it had\nformerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious\nmatter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it. Every pulse of\nloverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia\'s lifetime\nhad gone into the grave with her. His passion for her had occurred too\nfar on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire\nof that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. Even supposing him\ncapable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow and laboured\ngrowth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched\nbird.\n\nHe was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic\nbrass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o\'clock, with\napparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house, he\nwithdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden, through\nthe gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not bear to\nremain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried hard.\n\nNothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same\npath it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The\nboisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from\nbehind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had\npassed through Thomasin\'s division of the house to the front door.\nThomasin was standing within the porch alone.\n\nShe looked at him reproachfully. \"You went away just when it began,\nClym,\" she said.\n\n\"Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?\"\n\n\"No, I did not.\"\n\n\"You appeared to be dressed on purpose.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is\nthere now.\"\n\nYeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the\npaling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy\nfigure, sauntering idly up and down. \"Who is it?\" he said.\n\n\"Mr. Venn,\" said Thomasin.\n\n\"You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been very\nkind to you first and last.\"\n\n\"I will now,\" she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the\nwicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.\n\n\"It is Mr. Venn, I think?\" she inquired.\n\nVenn started as if he had not seen her--artful man that he was--and\nsaid, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Will you come in?\"\n\n\"I am afraid that I--\"\n\n\"I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of the\ngirls for your partners. Is it that you won\'t come in because you wish\nto stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?\"\n\n\"Well, that\'s partly it,\" said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment.\n\"But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to\nwait till the moon rises.\"\n\n\"To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?\"\n\n\"No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens.\"\n\nThomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk\nsome four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason\npointed to only one conclusion--the man must be amazingly interested in\nthat glove\'s owner.\n\n\"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?\" she asked, in a voice which\nrevealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her\nby this disclosure.\n\n\"No,\" he sighed.\n\n\"And you will not come in, then?\"\n\n\"Not tonight, thank you, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person\'s glove, Mr.\nVenn?\"\n\n\"O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will rise\nin a few minutes.\"\n\nThomasin went back to the porch. \"Is he coming in?\" said Clym, who had\nbeen waiting where she had left him.\n\n\"He would rather not tonight,\" she said, and then passed by him into the\nhouse; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.\n\nWhen Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just\nlistening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she\nwent to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain, and\nlooked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of the faint\nradiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till presently\nthe edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley with light.\nDiggory\'s form was now distinct on the green; he was moving about in a\nbowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the precious missing\narticle, walking in zigzags right and left till he should have passed\nover every foot of the ground.\n\n\"How very ridiculous!\" Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which was\nintended to be satirical. \"To think that a man should be so silly as to\ngo mooning about like that for a girl\'s glove! A respectable dairyman,\ntoo, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!\"\n\nAt last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised it to\nhis lips. Then placing it in his breastpocket--the nearest receptacle to\na man\'s heart permitted by modern raiment--he ascended the valley in a\nmathematically direct line towards his distant home in the meadows.\n\n\n\n2--Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road\n\n\nClym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they\nmet she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she was\nthinking of so intently.\n\n\"I am thoroughly perplexed,\" she said candidly. \"I cannot for my life\nthink who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of the\ngirls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must have\nbeen there.\"\n\nClym tried to imagine Venn\'s choice for a moment; but ceasing to be\ninterested in the question he went on again with his gardening.\n\nNo clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one\nafternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had\noccasion to come to the landing and call \"Rachel.\" Rachel was a girl\nabout thirteen, who carried the baby out for airings; and she came\nupstairs at the call.\n\n\"Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?\"\ninquired Thomasin. \"It is the fellow to this one.\"\n\nRachel did not reply.\n\n\"Why don\'t you answer?\" said her mistress.\n\n\"I think it is lost, ma\'am.\"\n\n\"Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once.\"\n\nRachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.\n\"Please, ma\'am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I seed\nyours on the table, and I thought I would borrow \'em. I did not mean to\nhurt \'em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me some money\nto buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to go anywhere to\nget \'em.\"\n\n\"Who\'s somebody?\"\n\n\"Mr. Venn.\"\n\n\"Did he know it was my glove?\"\n\n\"Yes. I told him.\"\n\nThomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot\nto lecture the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move\nfurther than to turn her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole had\nstood. She remained thinking, then said to herself that she would not go\nout that afternoon, but would work hard at the baby\'s unfinished lovely\nplaid frock, cut on the cross in the newest fashion. How she managed to\nwork hard, and yet do no more than she had done at the end of two hours,\nwould have been a mystery to anyone not aware that the recent incident\nwas of a kind likely to divert her industry from a manual to a mental\nchannel.\n\nNext day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of walking\nin the heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now of the\nage when it is a matter of doubt with such characters whether they are\nintended to walk through the world on their hands or on their feet; so\nthat they get into painful complications by trying both. It was very\npleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried the child to some lonely\nplace, to give her a little private practice on the green turf and\nshepherd\'s-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon them\nwhen equilibrium was lost.\n\nOnce, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove\nbits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child\'s\npath, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by\nsome insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by\ndiscovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the\nsoft natural carpet having muffled the horse\'s tread. The rider, who was\nVenn, waved his hat in the air and bowed gallantly.\n\n\"Diggory, give me my glove,\" said Thomasin, whose manner it was under\nany circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which engrossed\nher.\n\nVenn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and\nhanded the glove.\n\n\"Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it.\"\n\n\"It is very good of you to say so.\"\n\n\"O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so\nindifferent that I was surprised to know you thought of me.\"\n\n\"If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn\'t have been\nsurprised.\"\n\n\"Ah, no,\" she said quickly. \"But men of your character are mostly so\nindependent.\"\n\n\"What is my character?\" he asked.\n\n\"I don\'t exactly know,\" said Thomasin simply, \"except it is to cover up\nyour feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them when you\nare alone.\"\n\n\"Ah, how do you know that?\" said Venn strategically.\n\n\"Because,\" said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had managed to\nget herself upside down, right end up again, \"because I do.\"\n\n\"You mustn\'t judge by folks in general,\" said Venn. \"Still I don\'t know\nmuch what feelings are nowadays. I have got so mixed up with business\nof one sort and t\'other that my soft sentiments are gone off in vapour\nlike. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of money. Money is\nall my dream.\"\n\n\"O Diggory, how wicked!\" said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at him\nin exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging them as\nsaid to tease her.\n\n\"Yes, \'tis rather a rum course,\" said Venn, in the bland tone of one\ncomfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.\n\n\"You, who used to be so nice!\"\n\n\"Well, that\'s an argument I rather like, because what a man has once\nbeen he may be again.\" Thomasin blushed. \"Except that it is rather\nharder now,\" Venn continued.\n\n\"Why?\" she asked.\n\n\"Because you be richer than you were at that time.\"\n\n\"O no--not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it was\nmy duty to do, except just enough to live on.\"\n\n\"I am rather glad of that,\" said Venn softly, and regarding her from the\ncorner of his eye, \"for it makes it easier for us to be friendly.\"\n\nThomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a\nnot unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.\n\nThis conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old\nRoman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have been\nobserved that she did not in future walk that way less often from having\nmet Venn there now. Whether or not Venn abstained from riding thither\nbecause he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily have been\nguessed from her proceedings about two months later in the same year.\n\n\n\n\n3--The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin\n\n\nThroughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty\nto his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a\npitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be\ndoomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her\nwinsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an\neconomist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had been\na sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that\nsupreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not to\nentertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.\n\nBut this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother\'s mind a\ngreat fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively amounted\nto a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That they\nshould be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither were\nendangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what course save\none was there now left for any son who reverenced his mother\'s memory\nas Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any particular whim of\nparents, which might have been dispersed by half an hour\'s conversation\nduring their lives, becomes sublimated by their deaths into a fiat the\nmost absolute, with such results to conscientious children as those\nparents, had they lived, would have been the first to decry.\n\nHad only Yeobright\'s own future been involved he would have proposed to\nThomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying out a\ndead mother\'s hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin wedded to the\nmere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be. He had but three\nactivities alive in him. One was his almost daily walk to the little\ngraveyard wherein his mother lay, another, his just as frequent visits\nby night to the more distant enclosure which numbered his Eustacia among\nits dead; the third was self-preparation for a vocation which alone\nseemed likely to satisfy his cravings--that of an itinerant preacher\nof the eleventh commandment. It was difficult to believe that Thomasin\nwould be cheered by a husband with such tendencies as these.\n\nYet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was even\nwith a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs to her\none evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the valley\nthe same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying there times\nout of number while his mother lived.\n\nThomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden. \"I\nhave long been wanting, Thomasin,\" he began, \"to say something about a\nmatter that concerns both our futures.\"\n\n\"And you are going to say it now?\" she remarked quickly, colouring as\nshe met his gaze. \"Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first, for\noddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you.\"\n\n\"By all means say on, Tamsie.\"\n\n\"I suppose nobody can overhear us?\" she went on, casting her eyes around\nand lowering her voice. \"Well, first you will promise me this--that you\nwon\'t be angry and call me anything harsh if you disagree with what I\npropose?\"\n\nYeobright promised, and she continued: \"What I want is your advice,\nfor you are my relation--I mean, a sort of guardian to me--aren\'t you,\nClym?\"\n\n\"Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of\ncourse,\" he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.\n\n\"I am thinking of marrying,\" she then observed blandly. \"But I shall not\nmarry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why don\'t\nyou speak?\"\n\n\"I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad to\nhear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can it be?\nI am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not--\'tis the old doctor!--not\nthat I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after all. Ah--I\nnoticed when he attended you last time!\"\n\n\"No, no,\" she said hastily. \"\'Tis Mr. Venn.\"\n\nClym\'s face suddenly became grave.\n\n\"There, now, you don\'t like him, and I wish I hadn\'t mentioned him!\" she\nexclaimed almost petulantly. \"And I shouldn\'t have done it, either, only\nhe keeps on bothering me so till I don\'t know what to do!\"\n\nClym looked at the heath. \"I like Venn well enough,\" he answered at\nlast. \"He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is clever\ntoo, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But really,\nThomasin, he is not quite--\"\n\n\"Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now that\nI asked you, and I won\'t think any more of him. At the same time I must\nmarry him if I marry anybody--that I WILL say!\"\n\n\"I don\'t see that,\" said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his\nown interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. \"You might\nmarry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going into the\ntown to live and forming acquaintances there.\"\n\n\"I am not fit for town life--so very rural and silly as I always have\nbeen. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?\"\n\n\"Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don\'t now.\"\n\n\"That\'s because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn\'t live in a\nstreet for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got\nused to it, and I couldn\'t be happy anywhere else at all.\"\n\n\"Neither could I,\" said Clym.\n\n\"Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure,\nsay what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He has\nbeen kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many ways that\nI don\'t know of!\" Thomasin almost pouted now.\n\n\"Yes, he has,\" said Clym in a neutral tone. \"Well, I wish with all my\nheart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother\nthought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect her\nopinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we can to\nrespect it now.\"\n\n\"Very well, then,\" sighed Thomasin. \"I will say no more.\"\n\n\"But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think.\"\n\n\"O no--I don\'t want to be rebellious in that way,\" she said sadly. \"I\nhad no business to think of him--I ought to have thought of my family.\nWhat dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!\" Her lips trembled, and\nshe turned away to hide a tear.\n\nClym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a\nmeasure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in\nrelation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days he saw\nher at different times from the window of his room moping disconsolately\nabout the garden. He was half angry with her for choosing Venn; then he\nwas grieved at having put himself in the way of Venn\'s happiness, who\nwas, after all, as honest and persevering a young fellow as any on\nEgdon, since he had turned over a new leaf. In short, Clym did not know\nwhat to do.\n\nWhen next they met she said abruptly, \"He is much more respectable now\nthan he was then!\"\n\n\"Who? O yes--Diggory Venn.\"\n\n\"Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman.\"\n\n\"Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don\'t know all the particulars of my mother\'s\nwish. So you had better use your own discretion.\"\n\n\"You will always feel that I slighted your mother\'s memory.\"\n\n\"No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen\nDiggory in his present position, she would have considered him a fitting\nhusband for you. Now, that\'s my real feeling. Don\'t consult me any more,\nbut do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content.\"\n\nIt is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after\nthis, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not lately\nvisited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, \"I am glad to see\nthat Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again, seemingly.\"\n\n\"Have they?\" said Clym abstractedly.\n\n\"Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out on\nfine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can\'t help feeling\nthat your cousin ought to have married you. \'Tis a pity to make two\nchimleycorners where there need be only one. You could get her away from\nhim now, \'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it.\"\n\n\"How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two women to\ntheir deaths? Don\'t think such a thing, Humphrey. After my experience\nI should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to church and take a\nwife. In the words of Job, \'I have made a covenant with mine eyes; when\nthen should I think upon a maid?\'\"\n\n\"No, Mr. Clym, don\'t fancy that about driving two women to their deaths.\nYou shouldn\'t say it.\"\n\n\"Well, we\'ll leave that out,\" said Yeobright. \"But anyhow God has set a\nmark upon me which wouldn\'t look well in a love-making scene. I have two\nideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a night-school;\nand I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to say to that,\nHumphrey?\"\n\n\"I\'ll come and hear \'ee with all my heart.\"\n\n\"Thanks. \'Tis all I wish.\"\n\nAs Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other path,\nand met him at the gate. \"What do you think I have to tell you, Clym?\"\nshe said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.\n\n\"I can guess,\" he replied.\n\nShe scrutinized his face. \"Yes, you guess right. It is going to be after\nall. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to think\nso too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you don\'t\nobject.\"\n\n\"Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your way\nclear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the treatment\nyou received in days gone by.\"*\n\n * The writer may state here that the original conception of\n the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and\n Venn. He was to have retained his isolated and weird\n character to the last, and to have disappeared mysteriously\n from the heath, nobody knowing whither--Thomasin remaining a\n widow. But certain circumstances of serial publication led\n to a change of intent.\n\nReaders can therefore choose between the endings, and those with an\naustere artistic code can assume the more consistent conclusion to be\nthe true one.\n\n\n\n\n4--Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End, and Clym Finds His\nVocation\n\n\nAnybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o\'clock on the\nmorning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright\'s\nhouse was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came from\nthe dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was chiefly\na noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over the sanded\nfloor within. One man only was visible outside, and he seemed to be\nlater at an appointment than he had intended to be, for he hastened up\nto the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without ceremony.\n\nThe scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the\nroom was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the Egdon\ncoterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle, Humphrey,\nChristian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day, and the men\nwere as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except Christian, who\nhad always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of his clothing when\nin anybody\'s house but his own. Across the stout oak table in the middle\nof the room was thrown a mass of striped linen, which Grandfer Cantle\nheld down on one side, and Humphrey on the other, while Fairway rubbed\nits surface with a yellow lump, his face being damp and creased with the\neffort of the labour.\n\n\"Waxing a bed-tick, souls?\" said the newcomer.\n\n\"Yes, Sam,\" said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.\n\"Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?\"\n\nFairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. \"\'Tis\ngoing to be a good bed, by the look o\'t,\" continued Sam, after an\ninterval of silence. \"Who may it be for?\"\n\n\"\'Tis a present for the new folks that\'s going to set up housekeeping,\"\nsaid Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the majesty of the\nproceedings.\n\n\"Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, \'a b\'lieve.\"\n\n\"Beds be dear to fokes that don\'t keep geese, bain\'t they, Mister\nFairway?\" said Christian, as to an omniscient being.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a\nthorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded\nat the rubbing forthwith. \"Not that this couple be in want of one, but\n\'twas well to show \'em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing\nvagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when they\nwas married, and there have been feathers enough for another in the\nhouse the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we have\nlaid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right way\noutwards, and then I\'ll begin to shake in the feathers.\"\n\nWhen the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward\nvast paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began\nto turn the contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As bag\nafter bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated about the\nroom in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of Christian\'s, who\nshook the contents of one bag outside the tick, the atmosphere of the\nroom became dense with gigantic flakes, which descended upon the workers\nlike a windless snowstorm.\n\n\"I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian,\" said Grandfer\nCantle severely. \"You might have been the son of a man that\'s never been\noutside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really all the\nsoldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to count for\nnothing in forming the nater of the son. As far as that chief Christian\nis concerned I might as well have stayed at home and seed nothing,\nlike all the rest of ye here. Though, as far as myself is concerned, a\ndashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!\"\n\n\"Don\'t ye let me down so, Father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin after\nit. I\'ve made but a bruckle hit, I\'m afeard.\"\n\n\"Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that, Christian;\nyou should try more,\" said Fairway.\n\n\"Yes, you should try more,\" echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as\nif he had been the first to make the suggestion. \"In common conscience\nevery man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. \'Tis a scandal to\nthe nation to do neither one nor t\'other. I did both, thank God! Neither\nto raise men nor to lay \'em low--that shows a poor do-nothing spirit\nindeed.\"\n\n\"I never had the nerve to stand fire,\" faltered Christian. \"But as to\nmarrying, I own I\'ve asked here and there, though without much fruit\nfrom it. Yes, there\'s some house or other that might have had a man for\na master--such as he is--that\'s now ruled by a woman alone. Still it\nmight have been awkward if I had found her; for, d\'ye see, neighbours,\nthere\'d have been nobody left at home to keep down Father\'s spirits to\nthe decent pitch that becomes a old man.\"\n\n\"And you\'ve your work cut out to do that, my son,\" said Grandfer Cantle\nsmartly. \"I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so strong in\nme!--I\'d start the very first thing tomorrow to see the world over\nagain! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high figure for a\nrover.... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I\'d sooner have it in\nguineas than in years!\" And the old man sighed.\n\n\"Don\'t you be mournful, Grandfer,\" said Fairway. \"Empt some more\nfeathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather lean in\nthe stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There\'s time enough left\nto ye yet to fill whole chronicles.\"\n\n\"Begad, I\'ll go to \'em, Timothy--to the married pair!\" said Granfer\nCantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly. \"I\'ll go to\n\'em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey? \'Tis like me to do so, you\nknow; and they\'d see it as such. My \'Down in Cupid\'s Gardens\' was well\nliked in four; still, I\'ve got others as good, and even better. What do\nyou say to my\n\n She cal\'-led to\' her love\'\n From the lat\'-tice a-bove,\n \'O come in\' from the fog-gy fog\'-gy dew\'.\'\n\n\'Twould please \'em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think of\nit, I haven\'t turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good\nsong since Old Midsummer night, when we had the \'Barley Mow\' at the\nWoman; and \'tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there\'s few\nthat have the compass for such things!\"\n\n\"So \'tis, so \'tis,\" said Fairway. \"Now gie the bed a shake down. We\'ve\nput in seventy pounds of best feathers, and I think that\'s as many as\nthe tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap wouldn\'t be amiss now, I\nreckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard if canst\nreach, man, and I\'ll draw a drap o\' sommat to wet it with.\"\n\nThey sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around,\nabove, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came\nto the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity of\ntheir old clothes.\n\n\"Upon my soul I shall be chokt,\" said Fairway when, having extracted a\nfeather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug as\nit was handed round.\n\n\"I\'ve swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill,\" said Sam\nplacidly from the corner.\n\n\"Hullo--what\'s that--wheels I hear coming?\" Grandfer Cantle exclaimed,\njumping up and hastening to the door. \"Why, \'tis they back again--I\ndidn\'t expect \'em yet this half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying can\nbe done when you are in the mind for\'t!\"\n\n\"O yes, it can soon be DONE,\" said Fairway, as if something should be\nadded to make the statement complete.\n\nHe arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the door.\nIn a moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and Mrs.\nVenn, Yeobright, and a grand relative of Venn\'s who had come from\nBudmouth for the occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest town,\nregardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon Heath, in\nVenn\'s opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such a woman\nas Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a walking\nbridal-party.\n\nAs the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they\nshouted \"Hurrah!\" and waved their hands; feathers and down floating\nfrom their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at every\nmotion, and Grandfer Cantle\'s seals dancing merrily in the sunlight as\nhe twirled himself about. The driver of the fly turned a supercilious\ngaze upon them; he even treated the wedded pair themselves with\nsomething like condescension; for in what other state than heathen could\npeople, rich or poor, exist who were doomed to abide in such a world\'s\nend as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such superiority to the group at the\ndoor, fluttering her hand as quickly as a bird\'s wing towards them, and\nasking Diggory, with tears in her eyes, if they ought not to alight and\nspeak to these kind neighbours. Venn, however, suggested that, as they\nwere all coming to the house in the evening, this was hardly necessary.\n\nAfter this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation,\nand the stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when Fairway\nharnessed a horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove off with\nit in the cart to Venn\'s house at Stickleford.\n\n\nYeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which\nnaturally fell to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with\nthe husband and wife, was indisposed to take part in the feasting and\ndancing that wound up the evening. Thomasin was disappointed.\n\n\"I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits,\" he said. \"But I\nmight be too much like the skull at the banquet.\"\n\n\"No, no.\"\n\n\"Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be glad.\nI know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not be happy\nin the company--there, that\'s the truth of it. I shall always be coming\nto see you at your new home, you know, so that my absence now will not\nmatter.\"\n\n\"Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself.\"\n\nClym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and occupied\nhimself during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a sermon, with\nwhich he intended to initiate all that really seemed practicable of the\nscheme that had originally brought him hither, and that he had so long\nkept in view under various modifications, and through evil and good\nreport. He had tested and weighed his convictions again and again, and\nsaw no reason to alter them, though he had considerably lessened his\nplan. His eyesight, by long humouring in his native air, had grown\nstronger, but not sufficiently strong to warrant his attempting his\nextensive educational project. Yet he did not repine--there was still\nmore than enough of an unambitious sort to tax all his energies and\noccupy all his hours.\n\nEvening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of\nthe domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking\nincessantly. The party was to be an early one, and all the guests\nwere assembled long before it was dark. Yeobright went down the back\nstaircase and into the heath by another path than that in front,\nintending to walk in the open air till the party was over, when he would\nreturn to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye as they departed. His\nsteps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path that he had\nfollowed on that terrible morning when he learnt the strange news from\nSusan\'s boy.\n\nHe did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,\nwhence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been Eustacia\'s\nhome. While he stood observing the darkening scene somebody came up.\nClym, seeing him but dimly, would have let him pass silently, had not\nthe pedestrian, who was Charley, recognized the young man and spoken to\nhim.\n\n\"Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time,\" said Yeobright. \"Do\nyou often walk this way?\"\n\n\"No,\" the lad replied. \"I don\'t often come outside the bank.\"\n\n\"You were not at the Maypole.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Charley, in the same listless tone. \"I don\'t care for that\nsort of thing now.\"\n\n\"You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn\'t you?\" Yeobright gently asked.\nEustacia had frequently told him of Charley\'s romantic attachment.\n\n\"Yes, very much. Ah, I wish--\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once\nbelonged to her--if you don\'t mind.\"\n\n\"I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure, Charley.\nLet me think what I have of hers that you would like. But come with me\nto the house, and I\'ll see.\"\n\nThey walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front it\nwas dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the interior\ncould be seen.\n\n\"Come round this way,\" said Clym. \"My entrance is at the back for the\npresent.\"\n\nThe two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till\nClym\'s sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a\ncandle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk,\nand taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three\nundulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black\nstreams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to the\nlad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put it in\nhis pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, \"O, Mr. Clym, how good you\nare to me!\"\n\n\"I will go a little way with you,\" said Clym. And amid the noise of\nmerriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them\nclose to a little side window, whence the rays of candles streamed\nacross the shrubs. The window, being screened from general observation\nby the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person in this private\nnook could see all that was going on within the room which contained\nthe wedding guests, except in so far as vision was hindered by the green\nantiquity of the panes.\n\n\"Charley, what are they doing?\" said Clym. \"My sight is weaker again\ntonight, and the glass of this window is not good.\"\n\nCharley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture, and\nstepped closer to the casement. \"Mr. Venn is asking Christian Cantle to\nsing,\" he replied, \"and Christian is moving about in his chair as if\nhe were much frightened at the question, and his father has struck up a\nstave instead of him.\"\n\n\"Yes, I can hear the old man\'s voice,\" said Clym. \"So there\'s to be no\ndancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something moving\nin front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think.\"\n\n\"Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at\nsomething Fairway has said to her. O my!\"\n\n\"What noise was that?\" said Clym.\n\n\"Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in gieing\na skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite frightened and now\nshe\'s put her hand to his head to feel if there\'s a lump. And now they\nbe all laughing again as if nothing had happened.\"\n\n\"Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?\" Clym asked.\n\n\"No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their glasses\nand drinking somebody\'s health.\"\n\n\"I wonder if it is mine?\"\n\n\"No, \'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn\'s, because he is making a hearty sort of\nspeech. There--now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on her\nthings, I think.\"\n\n\"Well, they haven\'t concerned themselves about me, and it is quite right\nthey should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at least is\nhappy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be coming out\nto go home.\"\n\nHe accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning\nalone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin\nready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence. The\nwedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn\'s\nhead milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them in;\nlittle Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open flap\nbehind; and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose shoes\nclashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the manner of\na body-servant of the last century.\n\n\"Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again,\" said\nThomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. \"It will be\nrather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been making.\"\n\n\"O, that\'s no inconvenience,\" said Clym, smiling rather sadly. And then\nthe party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and Yeobright\nentered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only sound that\ngreeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted as cook,\nvalet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father\'s house. Yeobright\nsat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in thought a long\ntime. His mother\'s old chair was opposite; it had been sat in that\nevening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever was hers. But\nto Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always. Whatever she\nwas in other people\'s memories, in his she was the sublime saint whose\nradiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could not obscure. But his\nheart was heavy, that Mother had NOT crowned him in the day of his\nespousals and in the day of the gladness of his heart. And events had\nborne out the accuracy of her judgment, and proved the devotedness of\nher care. He should have heeded her for Eustacia\'s sake even more than\nfor his own. \"It was all my fault,\" he whispered. \"O, my mother, my\nmother! would to God that I could live my life again, and endure for you\nwhat you endured for me!\"\n\n\nOn the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on\nRainbarrow. From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless\nfigure standing on the top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood on\nthat lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it was fine\nwarm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early afternoon\ninstead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the immediate\nneighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in the centre,\npiercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon the slopes of the\nBarrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining or sitting at their\nease. They listened to the words of the man in their midst, who was\npreaching, while they abstractedly pulled heather, stripped ferns, or\ntossed pebbles down the slope. This was the first of a series of moral\nlectures or Sermons on the Mount, which were to be delivered from the\nsame place every Sunday afternoon as long as the fine weather lasted.\n\nThe commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two reasons:\nfirst, that it occupied a central position among the remote cottages\naround; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen from all\nadjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view of him being\nthus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished to draw near.\nThe speaker was bareheaded, and the breeze at each waft gently lifted\nand lowered his hair, somewhat too thin for a man of his years, these\nstill numbering less than thirty-three. He wore a shade over his eyes,\nand his face was pensive and lined; but, though these bodily features\nwere marked with decay there was no defect in the tones of his voice,\nwhich were rich, musical, and stirring. He stated that his discourses to\npeople were to be sometimes secular, and sometimes religious, but never\ndogmatic; and that his texts would be taken from all kinds of books.\nThis afternoon the words were as follows:--\n\n\"\'And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat\ndown on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king\'s mother;\nand she sat on his right hand. Then she said, I desire one small\npetition of thee; I pray thee say me not nay. And the king said unto\nher, Ask, on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay.\'\"\n\n\nYeobright had, in fact, found his vocation in the career of an itinerant\nopen-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects; and\nfrom this day he laboured incessantly in that office, speaking not only\nin simple language on Rainbarrow and in the hamlets round, but in a more\ncultivated strain elsewhere--from the steps and porticoes of town halls,\nfrom market-crosses, from conduits, on esplanades and on wharves, from\nthe parapets of bridges, in barns and outhouses, and all other such\nplaces in the neighbouring Wessex towns and villages. He left alone\ncreeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more than enough\nto occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions common to all good men.\nSome believed him, and some believed not; some said that his words were\ncommonplace, others complained of his want of theological doctrine;\nwhile others again remarked that it was well enough for a man to take to\npreaching who could not see to do anything else. But everywhere he was\nkindly received, for the story of his life had become generally known.'"