(1878)

　　　　　　　　 　　


I - A Face on Which Time Makes but Little Impression


A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time
of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known
as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead
the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky
was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.
　　　　The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the
earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at
the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath
wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had
taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come:
darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day
stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter
would have been inclined to continue work; looking down,
he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home.
The distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed
to be a division in time no less than a division in matter.
The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an
hour to evening; it could in like manner retard the dawn,
sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely
generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight
to a cause of shaking and dread.
　　　　In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its
nightly roll into darkness the great and particular glory of
the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be said to understand
the heath who had not been there at such a time. It could best
be felt when it could not clearly be seen, its complete effect
and explanation lying in this and the succeeding hours before
the next dawn; then, and only then, did it tell its true tale.
The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and when night
showed itself an apparent tendency to gravitate together could
be perceived in its shades and the scene. The sombre stretch
of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom
in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the
heavens precipitated it. And so the obscurity in the air and
the obscurity in the land closed together in a black fraternization
towards which each advanced halfway.
　　　　The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when
other things sank brooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to
awake and listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await
something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many
centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could
only be imagined to await one last crisis--the final overthrow.
　　　　It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who
loved it with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling
champaigns of flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are
permanently harmonious only with an existence of better reputation
as to its issues than the present. Twilight combined with the
scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity,
impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand
in its simplicity. The qualifications which frequently invest the
facade of a prison with far more dignity than is found in the facade
of a palace double its size lent to this heath a sublimity in which
spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are utterly wanting.
Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas, if times be
not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of a place
too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of surroundings
oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler and scarcer
instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which responds
to the sort of beauty called charming and fair.
　　　　Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox
beauty is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe
may be a gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in
closer and closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness
distasteful to our race when it was young. The time seems near, if
it has not actually arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor,
a sea, or a mountain will be all of nature that is absolutely in
keeping with the moods of the more thinking among mankind. And
ultimately, to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become
what the vineyards and myrtle gardens of South Europe are to him
now; and Heidelberg and Baden be passed unheeded as he hastens from
the Alps to the sand dunes of Scheveningen.
　　　　The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a natural
right to wander on Egdon--he was keeping within the line of legitimate
indulgence when he laid himself open to influences such as these.
Colours and beauties so far subdued were, at least, the birthright
of all. Only in summer days of highest feather did its mood touch
the level of gaiety. Intensity was more usually reached by way of
the solemn than by way of the brilliant, and such a sort of intensity
was often arrived at during winter darkness, tempests, and mists.
Then Egdon was aroused to reciprocity; for the storm was its lover,
and the wind its friend. Then it became the home of strange phantoms;
and it was found to be the hitherto unrecognized original of those
wild regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt to be compassing us
about in midnight dreams of flight and disaster, and are never thought
of after the dream till revived by scenes like this.
　　　　It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's nature--
neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace, unmeaning,
nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and withal singularly
colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some persons
who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to look out of its countenance.
It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.
　　　　This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in Domesday. Its
condition is recorded therein as that of heathy, furzy, briary wilderness--
"Bruaria." Then follows the length and breadth in leagues; and, though
some uncertainty exists as to the exact extent of this ancient lineal
measure, it appears from the figures that the area of Egdon down to the
present day has but little diminished. "Turbaria Bruaria"--the right of
cutting heath-turf--occurs in charters relating to the district.
"Overgrown with heth and mosse," says Leland of the same dark sweep
of country.
　　　　Here at least were intelligible facts regarding landscape--far-
reaching proofs productive of genuine satisfaction. The untameable,
Ishmaelitish thing that Egdon now was it always had been. Civilization
was its enemy; and ever since the beginning of vegetation its soil had
worn the same antique brown dress, the natural and invariable garment
of the particular formation. In its venerable one coat lay a certain
vein of satire on human vanity in clothes. A person on a heath in
raiment of modern cut and colours has more or less an anomalous look.
We seem to want the oldest and simplest human clothing where the
clothing of the earth is so primitive.
　　　　To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of Egdon,
between afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could reach nothing
of the world outside the summits and shoulders of heathland which filled
the whole circumference of its glance, and to know that everything around
and underneath had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars
overhead, gave ballast to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by
the irrepressible New. The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence
which the sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is
old? Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a year,
in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers,
the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained. Those surfaces
were neither so steep as to be destructible by weather, nor so flat as
to be the victims of floods and deposits. With the exception of an aged
highway, and a still more aged barrow presently to be referred to--
themselves almost crystallized to natural products by long continuance--
even the trifling irregularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or
spade, but remained as the very finger-touches of the last geological
change.
　　　　The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the
heath, from one horizon to another. In many portions of its course
it overlaid an old vicinal way, which branched from the great
Western road of the Romans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street,
hard by. On the evening under consideration it would have been
noticed that, though the gloom had increased sufficiently to
confuse the minor features of the heath, the white surface of
the road remained almost as clear as ever.



II - Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with Trouble



　　　　Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a
mountain, bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He
wore a glazed hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons
bearing an anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed
walking stick, which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly
dotting the ground with its point at every few inches' interval. One
would have said that he had been, in his day, a naval officer of
some sort or other.
　　　　Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty, and
white. It was quite open to the heath on each side, and bisected
that vast dark surface like the parting-line on a head of black hair,
diminishing and bending away on the furthest horizon.
　　　　The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over the
tract that he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a long
distance in front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be a
vehicle, and it proved to be going the same way as that in which he
himself was journeying. It was the single atom of life that the scene
contained, and it only served to render the general loneliness more
evident. Its rate of advance was slow, and the old man gained upon it
sensibly.
　　　　When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary
in shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver
walked beside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye of
that tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots,
his face, and his hands. He was not temporarily overlaid with the colour;
it permeated him.
　　　　The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the cart
was a reddleman--a person whose vocation it was to supply farmers with
redding for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly becoming extinct
in Wessex, filling at present in the rural world the place which, during
the last century, the dodo occupied in the world of animals. He is a
curious, interesting, and nearly perished link between obsolete forms of
life and those which generally prevail.
　　　　The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his fellow-
wayfarer, and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned his head,
and replied in sad and occupied tones. He was young, and his face, if
not exactly handsome, approached so near to handsome that nobody
would have contradicted an assertion that it really was so in its natural
colour. His eye, which glared so strangely through his stain, was in itself
attractive--keen as that of a bird of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He
had neither whisker nor moustache, which allowed the soft curves of
the lower part of his face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though,
as it seemed, compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at their
corners now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting suit of
corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for its
purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It showed to
advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do air about
the man suggested that he was not poor for his degree. The natural
query of an observer would have been, Why should such a promising
being as this have hidden his prepossessing exterior by adopting that
singular occupation?
　　　　After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no inclination to
continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the elder
traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but that of the
booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around them, the crackling
wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps of the two shaggy ponies
which drew the van. They were small, hardy animals, of a breed between
Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as "heath-croppers" here.
　　　　Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left
his companion's side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its interior
through a small window. The look was always anxious. He would then return
to the old man, who made another remark about the state of the country and
so on, to which the reddleman again abstractedly replied, and then again
they would lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to neither any sense of
awkwardness; in these lonely places wayfarers, after a first greeting,
frequently plod on for miles without speech; contiguity amounts to a tacit
conversation where, otherwise than in cities, such contiguity can be put
an end to on the merest inclination, and where not to put an end to it is
intercourse in itself.


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"My wife!" said the other bitterly. "She's above mating with such as
I. But there's no reason why I should tell you about that."

"That's true. And there's no reason why you should not. What harm can I
do to you or to her?"

The reddleman looked in the old man's face. "Well, sir," he said at last,
"I knew her before today, though perhaps it would have been better if I
had not. But she's nothing to me, and I am nothing to her; and she wouldn't
have been in my van if any better carriage had been there to take her."

"Where, may I ask?"

"At Anglebury."

"I know the town well. What was she doing there?"

"Oh, not much--to gossip about. However, she's tired to death now, and not
at all well, and that's what makes her so restless. She dropped off into a
nap about an hour ago, and 'twill do her good."

"A nice-looking girl, no doubt?"

"You would say so."

The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the van window,
and, without withdrawing them, said, "I presume I might look in upon her?"

"No," said the reddleman abruptly. "It is getting too dark for you to see
much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to allow you. Thank God
she sleeps so well, I hope she won't wake till she's home."
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　　　　The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on the road
and became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He then took some hay
from a truss which was slung up under the van, and, throwing a portion of
it in front of the horses, made a pad of the rest, which he laid on the
ground beside his vehicle. Upon this he sat down, leaning his back against
the wheel. From the interior a low soft breathing came to his ear. It
appeared to satisfy him, and he musingly surveyed the scene, as if
considering the next step that he should take.
　　　　To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed, to be a
duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for there was that in
the condition of the heath itself which resembled protracted and halting
dubiousness. It was the quality of the repose appertaining to the scene.
This was not the repose of actual stagnation, but the apparent repose of
incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life so nearly resembling the
torpor of death is a noticeable thing of its sort; to exhibit the inertness
of the desert, and at the same time to be exercising powers akin to those
of the meadow, and even of the forest, awakened in those who thought of it
the attentiveness usually engendered by understatement and reserve.
　　　　The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series of ascents
from the level of the road backward into the heart of the heath. It embraced
hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind the other, till all was
finished by a high hill cutting against the still light sky. The traveller's
eye hovered about these things for a time, and finally settled upon one
noteworthy object up there. It was a barrow. This bossy projection of earth
above its natural level occupied the loftiest ground of the loneliest height
that the heath contained. Although from the vale it appeared but as a wart
on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was great. It formed the pole and axis
of this heathery world.
　　　　As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that its
summit, hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect round, was
surmounted by something higher. It rose from the semiglobular mound like
a spike from a helmet. The first instinct of an imaginative stranger might
have been to suppose it the person of one of the Celts who built the barrow,
so far had all of modern date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort of
last man among them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal night
with the rest of his race.
　　　　Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure give to
the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only obvious justification of
their outline. Without it, there was the dome without the lantern; with it the
architectural demands of the mass were satisfied. The scene was strangely
homogeneous, in that the vale, the upland, the barrow, and the figure above
it amounted only to unity. Looking at this or that member of the group was not
observing a complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.
　　　　The form was so much like an organic part of the entire motionless structure
that to see it move would have impressed the mind as a strange phenomenon.
Immobility being the chief characteristic of that whole which the person formed
portion of, the discontinuance of immobility in any quarter suggested confusion.
　　　　Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its fixity,
shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it descended on the
right side of the barrow, with the glide of a water-drop down a bud, and then
vanished. The movement had been sufficient to show more clearly the
characteristics of the figure, and that it was a woman's.
　　　　The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her dropping out
of sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a burden, protruded into the sky
on the left side, ascended the tumulus, and deposited the burden on the top. A
second followed, then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and ultimately the whole barrow
was peopled with burdened figures.
　　　　The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of silhouettes
was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had taken her place, was
sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither for another object than theirs.
The imagination of the observer clung by preference to that vanished, solitary
figure, as to something more interesting, more important, more likely to have a
history worth knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them
as intruders. But they remained, and established themselves; and the lonely
person who hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem
likely to return.



III - The Custom of the Country



　　　　Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the
barrow, he would have learned that these persons were boys and men
of the neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had
been heavily laden with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by
means of a long stake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily--
two in front and two behind. They came from a part of the heath a
quarter of a mile to the rear, where furze almost exclusively
prevailed as a product.
　　　　Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of
carrying the faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he
had thrown them down. The party had marched in trail, like a
travelling flock of sheep; that is to say, the strongest first, the
weak and young behind.
　　　　The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty
feet in circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which
was known as Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves
busy with matches, and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others
in loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together.
Others, again, while this was in progress, lifted their eyes and
swept the vast expanse of country commanded by their position, now
lying nearly obliterated by shade. In the valleys of the heath nothing
save its own wild face was visible at any time of day; but this spot
commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent, and in many cases
lying beyond the heath country. None of its features could be seen now,
but the whole made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.
　　　　While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place
in the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country round.
They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were engaged in
the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood in a dense
atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated around them
in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near, glowing scarlet-red from
the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some were Maenades, with winy
faces and blown hair. These tinctured the silent bosom of the clouds above
them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed thenceforth to become
scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many as thirty bonfires could be counted
within the whole bounds of the district; and as the hour may be told on a
clock-face when the figures themselves are invisible, so did the men
recognize the locality of each fire by its angle and direction, though
nothing of the scenery could be viewed.
　　　　The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting
all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their
own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface
of the human circle--now increased by other stragglers, male and female--
with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around with a
lively luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the barrow
rounded downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the segment of
a globe, as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even the little
ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. Not a plough had ever
disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. In the heath's barrenness to the
farmer lay its fertility to the historian. There had been no obliteration,
because there had been no tending.
　　　　It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant upper
story of the world, detached from and independent of the dark stretches below.
The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a continuation of
what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to the blaze, could see nothing
of the deeps beyond its influence. Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous
flare than usual from their faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp
down the inclines to some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling
these to replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then
the whole black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the
brink by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered articulations of
the wind in the hollows were as complaints and petitions from the "souls of
mighty worth" suspended therein.
　　　　It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and
fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with this
spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from that summit lay
fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread. The flames from funeral
piles long ago kindled there had shone down upon the lowlands as these were
shining now. Festival fires to Thor and Woden had followed on the same ground
and duly had their day. Indeed, it is pretty well known that such blazes as this
the heathmen were now enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling
about Gunpowder Plot.
　　　　Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man when,
at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a
spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat that this recurrent
season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos
comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be light.
　　　　The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin and
clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and general
contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the permanent moral
expression of each face it was impossible to discover, for as the nimble flames
towered, nodded, and swooped through the surrounding air, the blots of shade
and flakes of light upon the countenances of the group changed shape and
position endlessly. All was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning.
Shadowy eye-sockets, deep as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into pits
of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles were
emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray. Nostrils were
dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings; things with no particular
polish on them were glazed; bright objects, such as the tip of a furze-hook
one of the men carried, were as glass; eyeballs glowed like little lanterns.
Those whom Nature had depicted as merely quaint became grotesque, the
grotesque became preternatural; for all was in extremity.
　　　　Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been called
to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere nose and chin that
it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of human countenance. He stood
complacently sunning himself in the heat. With a speaker, or stake, he tossed the
outlying scraps of fuel into the conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile,
occasionally lifting his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow
the great sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The beaming
sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a cumulative
cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick in his hand he
began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals shining and swinging like
a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he also began to sing, in the voice of a
bee up a flue--

"The king' call'd down' his no-bles all',
By one', by two', by three';
Earl Mar'-shal, I'll' go shrive'-the queen',
And thou' shalt wend' with me'.

"A boon', a boon', quoth Earl' Mar-shal',
And fell' on his bend'-ded knee',
That what'-so-e'er' the queen' shall say',
No harm' there-of' may be'.

Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown
attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept each
corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his cheek, as if
to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might erroneously have
attached to him.

"A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too much for the
mouldy weasand of such a old man as you," he said to the wrinkled reveller.
"Dostn't wish th' wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you was when you first
learnt to sing it?"

"Hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.

"Dostn't wish wast young again, I say? There's a hole in thy poor bellows
nowadays seemingly."

"But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind go a long ways
I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I, Timothy?"

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"But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little
wind go a long ways I should seem no younger than the most
aged man, should I, Timothy?"

"And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet
Woman Inn?" the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light
in the direction of the distant highway, but considerably
apart from where the reddleman was at that moment resting.
"What's the rights of the matter about 'em? You ought to
know, being an understanding man."

"But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is
that, or he's nothing. Yet 'tis a gay fault, neigbbour Fairway,
that age will cure."

"I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time they
must have come. What besides?"

"The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I suppose?"

"Well, no."

"No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or 'twould be very unlike
me--the first in every spree that's going!

"Do thou' put on' a fri'-ar's coat',
And I'll' put on' a-no'-ther,
And we' will to' Queen Ele'anor go',
Like Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.

I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt, last night,
and she told me that her son Clym was coming home a' Christmas.
Wonderful clever, 'a believe--ah, I should like to have all
that's under that young man's hair. Well, then, I spoke to her
in my well-known merry way, and she said, 'O that what's shaped
so venerable should talk like a fool!'--that's what she said to
me. I don't care for her, be jowned if I do, and so I told her.
'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I had her there--hey?"

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"I didn't know the two had walked together since last fall,
when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new set-to
been in mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?"

"Yes, how long?" said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise
turning to Humphrey. "I ask that question."

"Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might
have the man after all," replied Humphrey, without removing
his eyes from the fire. He was a somewhat solemn young fellow,
and carried the hook and leather gloves of a furze-cutter,
his legs, by reason of that occupation, being sheathed in
bulging leggings as stiff as the Philistine's greaves of brass.
"That's why they went away to be married, I count. You see,
after kicking up such a nunny-watch and forbidding the banns
'twould have made Mis'ess Yeobright seem foolish-like to have
a banging wedding in the same parish all as if she'd never
gainsaid it."

"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor
things that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure,"
said Grandfer Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible
bearing and mien.

"Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway, "which was
a very curious thing to happen."

"If 'twasn't my name's Simple," said the Grandfer emphatically.
"I ha'n't been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on
I won't say I shall."

"I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey; "for I'm so
dead sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there;
and when you do get there 'tis such a mortal poor chance that
you'll be chose for up above, when so many bain't, that I bide
at home and don't go at all."

"I not only happened to be there," said Fairway, with a fresh
collection of emphasis, "but I was sitting in the same pew as
Mis'ess Yeobright. And though you may not see it as such, it
fairly made my blood run cold to hear her. Yes, it is a curious
thing; but it made my blood run cold, for I was close at her
elbow." The speaker looked round upon the bystanders, now
drawing closer to hear him, with his lips gathered tighter
than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive moderation.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in company, and
I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did say I
did say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own it."

"So 'twould, neighbour Fairway."

"'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I
said," the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the
same passionless severity of face as before, which proved how
entirely necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration.
"And the next thing I heard was, 'I forbid the banns,' from her.
'I'll speak to you after the service,' said the parson, in quite
a homely way--yes, turning all at once into a common man no
holier than you or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you can call
to mind that monument in Weatherbury church--the cross-legged
soldier that have had his arm knocked away by the schoolchildren?
Well, he would about have matched that woman's face, when she
said, 'I forbid the banns.'"

The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into
the fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give
themselves time to weigh the moral of the story.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"And now the maid have married him just the same," said Humphrey.

"After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,"
Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were
no appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of independent reflection.

"Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't have
done it here-right," said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked
like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. "'Tis well to call the
neighbours together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and
it may as well be when there's a wedding as at tide-times. I don't
care for close ways."

"Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay weddings,"
said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. "I hardly blame
Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if I must
own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by the hour;
and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty."

"True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one
in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself
worth your victuals."

"You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o' year; you
must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life. At christenings
folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than the
first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you've got to
sing....For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as anything.
You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties, and even better.
And it don't wear your legs to stumps in talking over a poor fellow's
ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes."

"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle.

"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the
mug have been round a few times."

"Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like Tamsin
Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way," said Susan Nunsuch,
the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. "'Tis worse than the
poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about the man, though some may
say he's good-looking."

"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most
as clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better
things than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that's what the man
was, as we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public
house to live. His learning was no use to him at all."

"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people
do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use to
make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their names
now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single blot--what
do I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their stomachs and elbows
upon."

"True--'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to," said
Humphrey.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy father's
mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name. He and
your mother were the couple married just afore we were and there
stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great
banging scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's
very likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I
zid en, though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the
marrying, and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack
Changley and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window.
But the next moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I
called to mind that if thy father and mother had had high words once,
they'd been at it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I
zid myself as the next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess....
Ah--well, what a day 'twas!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a
boy from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze.
"Be ye a-cold, Christian?"

A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at all."

"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you
were here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that
quarter.

Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders,
and a great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes,
advanced a step or two by his own will, and was pushed by the
will of others half a dozen steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's
youngest son.

"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf- cutter kindly.

"I'm the man."

"What man?"

"The man no woman will marry."

"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to
cover Christian's whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer
Cantle meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.

"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it,
though I do care all the while."

"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd,"
said Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's another in
the country, then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"

"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He
turned upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by
concentric lines like targets.

"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran
cold when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where
I had thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian.
How'st know the women won't hae thee?"

"I've asked 'em."

"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what
did the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps,
after all?"

"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
fool,' was the woman's words to me."

"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way
of saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience,
so as to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head.
How old be you, Christian?"

"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."

"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"No moon--that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"

"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.

"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that
had an almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her,
because of the saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard
every man-child she had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister
Fairway, that there was no moon?"

"Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever
spit out. The boy never comes to anything that's born at new
moon. A bad job for thee, Christian, that you should have showed
your nose then of all days in the month."

"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?" said
Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.

"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested
gaze.

"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no
moon," continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to
married couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows
himself when 'a do come. One has been seen lately, too. A
very strange one."

"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to!
'Twill make my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone.
But you will--ah, you will, I know, Timothy; and I shall
dream all night o't! A very strange one? What sort of a
spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange one,
Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."

"I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it
ghostly enough--what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that
zid it."

"What was it like?--no, don't--"

"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if
it had been dipped in blood."

Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand
his body, and Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

--"what do you say to giving the new man and wife a bit of
a song tonight afore we go to bed--being their wedding-day?
When folks are just married 'tis as well to look glad o't,
since looking sorry won't unjoin 'em. I am no drinker, as
we know, but when the womenfolk and youngsters have gone
home we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman, and strike
up a ballet in front of the married folks' door. 'Twill
please the young wife, and that's what I should like to do,
for many's the skinful I've had at her hands when she lived
with her aunt at Blooms-End."

"Hey? And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly
that his copper seals swung extravagantly. "I'm as dry as a kex
with biding up here in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour
of drink since nammet-time today. 'Tis said that the last brew
at the Woman is very pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we
should be a little late in the finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday,
and we can sleep it off?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for
the fuel had not been of that substantial sort which can support
a blaze long. Most of the other fires within the wide horizon were
also dwindling weak. Attentive observation of their brightness,
colour, and length of existence would have revealed the quality of
the material burnt, and through that, to some extent the natural
produce of the district in which each bonfire was situate. The clear,
kingly effulgence that had characterized the majority expressed a
heath and furze country like their own, which in one direction extended
an unlimited number of miles; the rapid flares and extinctions at other
points of the compass showed the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks,
and the usual waste from arable land.The most enduring of all--steady
unaltering eyes like Planets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches,
thorn-faggots, and stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials
were rare, and though comparatively small in magnitude beside the
transient blazes, now began to get the best of them by mere long
continuance. The great ones had perished, but these remained. They
occupied the remotest visible positions--sky-backed summits rising out
of rich coppice and plantation districts to the north, where the soil
was different, and heath foreign and strange.
　　　　Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the
whole shining throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to
that of the little window in the vale below. Its nearness was such
that, notwithstanding its actual smallness, its glow infinitely
transcended theirs.
　　　　This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and
when their own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some
even of the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline,
but no change was perceptible here.

"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway. "Seemingly.
I can see a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must
be said of that fire, surely."

"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.

"And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle.

"No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than
a mile off, for all that 'a seems so near."

"'Tis in the heath, but no furze," said the turf-cutter.

"'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway. "Nothing
would burn like that except clean timber. And 'tis on the knap afore the
old captain's house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man is! To
have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody else may
enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must be, to light
a bonfire when there's no youngsters to please."

"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired out,"
said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be he."

"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the wide
woman.

"Then it must be his granddaughter," said Fairway. "Not that a body
of her age can want a fire much."

"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and
such things please her," said Susan.

"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the furze-cutter,
"especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear,
you and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before 'tis quite too
dark to see how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers
have passed since your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up
from me."

This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of
which the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's
broad form whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been
kindled. She was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been
flung round her waist before she had become aware of his intention.
The site of the fire was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with
red embers and sparks, the furze having burnt completely away. Once
within the circle he whirled her round and round in a dance. She
was a woman noisily constructed; in addition to her enclosing
framework of whalebone and lath, she wore pattens summer and winter,
in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her boots from wear; and when
Fairway began to jump about with her, the clicking of the pattens,
the creaking of the stays, and her screams of surprise, formed a
very audible concert.

"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs.
Nunsuch, as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing
like drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever
before, from walking through that prickly furze, and now you must
make 'em worse with these vlankers!"

The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized
old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her
likewise. The young men were not slow to imitate the example of
their elders, and seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick
jigged in the form of a three-legged object among the rest; and in
half a minute all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling
of dark shapes amid a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt
around the dancers as high as their waists. The chief noises were
women's shrill cries, men's laughter, Susan's stays and pattens,
Olly Dowden's "heu-heu-heu!" and the strumming of the wind upon
the furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune to the demoniac
measure they trod. Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily rocking
himself as he murmured, "They ought not to do it--how the vlankers
do fly! 'tis tempting the Wicked one, 'tis."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as 'tis
getting late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another, you
know; run close together, I mean." "Scrape up a few stray locks of
furze, and make a blaze, so that we can see who the man is," said
Fairway.

When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and
red from top to toe. "Is there a track across here to Mis'ess
Yeobright's house?" he repeated.

"Ay--keep along the path down there."

"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?"

"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track
is rough, but if you've got a light your horses may pick along wi'
care. Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?"

"I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I stepped on in
front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time, and I han't been
here for so long."

"Oh, well you can get up," said Fairway. "What a turn it did give me
when I saw him!" he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.
"Lord's sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to
trouble us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't
bad-looking in the groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning
is just to say how curious I felt. I half thought it 'twas the devil
or the red ghost the boy told of."

"It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I had a dream
last night of a death's head."

"Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian. "If he had a handkerchief
over his head he'd look for all the world like the Devil in the picture
of the Temptation."

"Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman, smiling
faintly. "And good night t'ye all."

-----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when
another person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to
be a well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a
standing which can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face,
encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely,
and with-out half-lights, like a cameo.
　　　　She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of
the type usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned
within. At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo denied
to others around. She had something of an estranged mien; the solitude
exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that had risen
from it. The air with which she looked at the heathmen betokened a
certain unconcern at their presence, or at what might be their opinions
of her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour, thus indirectly
implying that in some respect or other they were not up to her level.
The explanation lay in the fact that though her husband had been a small
farmer she herself was a curate's daughter, who had once dreamt of doing
better things.
　　　　Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their
atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who entered
now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own tone into a
company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had that reticence which
results from the consciousness of superior communicative power. But the
effect of coming into society and light after lonely wandering in darkness
is a sociability in the comer above its usual pitch, expressed in the
features even more than in words.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess," said
Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained.
"Mind you don't get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in,
and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore.
Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times."

"Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright. "What made you hide
away from me?"

"'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess; and being a
man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's all.
Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind,
'twould make 'ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand."

"You don't take after your father," said Mrs. Yeobright, looking
towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of originality,
was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others had done before.

"Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed of ye. A reverent
old patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go hornpiping like
that by yourself!"

"A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright," said Christian despondingly.
"I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get
away."

"'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis'ess
Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle," said the
besom-woman.

"Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking himself repentantly.
"I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I forget how I'm looked
up to by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be wonderful good, you'll say?
But not always. 'Tis a weight upon a man to be looked up to as commander,
and I often feel it."



IV - The Halt on the Turnpike Road



　　　　Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent
at each step seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were
scratched noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns,
which, though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient
winter weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their
Tartarean situation might by some have been called an imprudent one
for two unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all
seasons a familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the
addition of darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.




Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were
untimely, was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.
Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with
impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the revival
of an evidently sore subject.

"I was quite strook to hear you'd agreed to it, ma'am, that I was,"
continued the besom-maker.

"You were not more struck by it than I should have been last year this
time, Olly. There are a good many sides to that wedding. I could not tell
you all of them, even if I tried."

"I felt myself that he was hardly solid-going enough to mate with your
family. Keeping an inn--what is it? But 'a's clever, that's true, and
they say he was an engineering gentleman once, but has come down by being
too outwardly given."




　　　　She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called, a plot of
land redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought
into cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died
of the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in
fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the
honours due to those who had gone before.




"I can't explain much, ma'am. All I know is that, as I was going along
the road this morning, about a mile out of Anglebury, I heard something
trotting after me like a doe, and looking round there she was, white as
death itself. 'Oh, Diggory Venn!' she said, 'I thought 'twas you--will
you help me? I am in trouble.'"

"How did she know your Christian name?" said Mrs. Yeobright doubtingly.

"I had met her as a lad before I went away in this trade. She asked then
if she might ride, and then down she fell in a faint. I picked her up and
put her in, and there she has been ever since. She has cried a good deal,
but she has hardly spoke; all she has told me being that she was to have
been married this morning. I tried to get her to eat something, but she
couldn't; and at last she fell asleep."

"Let me see her at once," said Mrs. Yeobright, hastening towards the van.

The reddleman followed with the lantern, and, stepping up first, assisted
Mrs. Yeobright to mount beside him. On the door being opened she perceived
at the end of the van an extemporized couch, around which was hung apparently
all the drapery that the reddleman possessed, to keep the occupant of the
little couch from contact with the red materials of his trade. A young girl
lay thereon, covered with a cloak. She was asleep, and the light of the
lantern fell upon her features.

A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest of
wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her eyes
were closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining in them
as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around. The groundwork of
the face was hopefulness; but over it now lay like a foreign substance a
film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there so shortly as to have
abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet but given a dignity to what
it might eventually undermine. The scarlet of her lips had not had time to
abate, and just now it appeared still more intense by the absence of the
neighbouring and more transient colour of her cheek. The lips frequently
parted, with a murmur of words. She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal--
to require viewing through rhyme and harmony.

One thing at least was obvious: she was not made to be looked at thus. The
reddleman had appeared conscious of as much, and, while Mrs. Yeobright
looked in upon her, he cast his eyes aside with a delicacy which well became
him. The sleeper apparently thought so too, for the next moment she opened
her own.

The lips then parted with something of anticipation, something more of doubt;
and her several thoughts and fractions of thoughts, as signalled by the
changes on her face, were exhibited by the light to the utmost nicety. An
ingenuous, transparent life was disclosed, as if the flow of her existence
could be seen passing within her. She understood the scene in a moment.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"He is indeed kind," murmured Thomasin. "I was once acquainted with him,
Aunt, and when I saw him today I thought I should prefer his van to any
conveyance of a stranger. But I'll walk now. Reddleman, stop the horses,
please."

The man regarded her with tender reluctance, but stopped them

Aunt and niece then descended from the van, Mrs. Yeobright saying to its
owner, "I quite recognize you now. What made you change from the nice
business your father left you?"

"Well, I did," he said, and looked at Thomasin, who blushed a little.
"Then you'll not be wanting me any more tonight, ma'am?"

Mrs. Yeobright glanced around at the dark sky, at the hills, at the
perishing bonfires, and at the lighted window of the inn they had neared.
"I think not," she said, "since Thomasin wishes to walk. We can soon run
up the path and reach home--we know it well."

And after a few further words they parted, the reddleman moving onwards
with his van, and the two women remaining standing in the road.



V - Perplexity among Honest People



"I don't know. Mr. Wildeve can explain. I did not think when I went
away this morning that I should come back like this." It being dark,
Thomasin allowed her emotion to escape her by the silent way of tears,
which could roll down her cheek unseen.

"I could almost say that it serves you right--if I did not feel that
you don't deserve it," continued Mrs. Yeobright, who, possessing two
distinct moods in close contiguity, a gentle mood and an angry, flew
from one to the other without the least warning. "Remember, Thomasin,
this business was none of my seeking; from the very first, when you
began to feel foolish about that man, I warned you he would not make
you happy. I felt it so strongly that I did what I would never have
believed myself capable of doing--stood up in the church, and made
myself the public talk for weeks. But having once consented, I don't
submit to these fancies without good reason. Marry him you must after
this."

"Do you think I wish to do otherwise for one moment?" said Thomasin,
with a heavy sigh. "I know how wrong it was of me to love him, but
don't pain me by talking like that, Aunt! You would not have had me
stay there with him, would you?--and your house is the only home I have
to return to. He says we can be married in a day or two."

"I wish he had never seen you."

"Very well; then I will be the miserablest woman in the world, and not
let him see me again. No, I won't have him!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"I cannot explain it any better, and you must be angry with me if
you will."

"I shall see about that," said Mrs. Yeobright; and they turned towards
the inn, known in the neighbourhood as the Quiet Woman, the sign of
which represented the figure of a matron carrying her head under her
arm, beneath which gruesome design was written the couplet so well
known to frequenters of the inn:--

SINCE THE WOMAN'S QUIET
LET NO MAN BREED A RIOT.

The front of the house was towards the heath and Rainbarrow, whose dark
shape seemed to threaten it from the sky. Upon the door was a neglected
brass plate, bearing the unexpected inscription, "Mr. Wildeve, Engineer"
--a useless yet cherished relic from the time when he had been started
in that profession in an office at Budmouth by those who had hoped much
from him, and had been disappointed. The garden was at the back, and
behind this ran a still deep stream, forming the margin of the heath in
that direction, meadow-land appearing beyond the stream.

But the thick obscurity permitted only skylines to be visible of any
scene at present. The water at the back of the house could be heard,
idly spinning whirpools in its creep between the rows of dry feather-
headed reeds which formed a stockade along each bank. Their presence
was denoted by sounds as of a congregation praying humbly, produced by
their rubbing against each other in the slow wind.

The window, whence the candlelight had shone up the vale to the eyes of
the bonfire group, was uncurtained, but the sill lay too high for a
pedestrian on the outside to look over it into the room. A vast shadow,
in which could be dimly traced portions of a masculine contour, blotted
half the ceiling.




　　　　The back and shoulders of a man came between Mrs. Yeobright's eyes
and the fire. Wildeve, whose form it was, immediately turned, arose,
and advanced to meet his visitors.
　　　　He was quite a young man, and of the two properties, form and motion,
the latter first attracted the eye in him. The grace of his movement
was singular--it was the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career.
Next came into notice the more material qualities, among which was a
profuse crop of hair impending over the top of his face, lending to
his forehead the high-cornered outline of an early Gothic shield; and
a neck which was smooth and round as a cylinder. The lower half of his
figure was of light build. Altogether he was one in whom no man would
have seen anything to admire, and in whom no woman would have seen
anything to dislike.

He discerned the young girl's form in the passage, and said, "Thomasin,
then, has reached home. How could you leave me in that way, darling?"
And turning to Mrs. Yeobright--"It was useless to argue with her. She
would go, and go alone."

"But what's the meaning of it all?" demanded Mrs. Yeobright haughtily.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Such things don't happen for nothing," said the aunt. "It is a
great slight to me and my family; and when it gets known there will
be a very unpleasant time for us. How can she look her friends in
the face tomorrow? It is a very great injury, and one I cannot easily
forgive. It may even reflect on her character."

"Nonsense," said Wildeve.

Thomasin's large eyes had flown from the face of one to the face of
the other during this discussion, and she now said anxiously, "Will
you allow me, Aunt, to talk it over alone with Damon for five minutes?
Will you, Damon?"

"Certainly, dear," said Wildeve, "if your aunt will excuse us." He
led her into an adjoining room, leaving Mrs. Yeobright by the fire.

As soon as they were alone, and the door closed, Thomasin said,
turning up her pale, tearful face to him, "It is killing me, this,
Damon! I did not mean to part from you in anger at Anglebury this
morning; but I was frightened and hardly knew what I said. I've not
let Aunt know how much I suffered today; and it is so hard to command
my face and voice, and to smile as if it were a slight thing to me;
but I try to do so, that she may not be still more indignant with you.
I know you could not help it, dear, whatever Aunt may think."

"She is very unpleasant."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Then do let us go!--O Damon, what you make me say!" She hid her
face in her handkerchief. "Here am I asking you to marry me, when
by rights you ought to be on your knees imploring me, your cruel
mistress, not to refuse you, and saying it would break your heart
if I did. I used to think it would be pretty and sweet like that;
but how different!"

"Yes, real life is never at all like that."

"But I don't care personally if it never takes place," she added with
a little dignity; "no, I can live without you. It is Aunt I think of.
She is so proud, and thinks so much of her family respectability,
that she will be cut down with mortification if this story should get
abroad before--it is done. My cousin Clym, too, will be much wounded."

"Then he will be very unreasonable. In fact, you are all rather
unreasonable."

Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the
momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came,
and she humbly said, "I never mean to be, if I can help it. I merely
feel that you have my aunt to some extent in your power at last."

"As a matter of justice it is almost due to me," said Wildeve. "Think
what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to
any man to have the banns forbidden--the double insult to a man unlucky
enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven
knows what, as I am. I can never forget those banns. A harsher man
would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by
going no further in the business."

She looked wistfully at him with her sorrowful eyes as he said those
words, and her aspect showed that more than one person in the room
could deplore the possession of sensitiveness. Seeing that she was
really suffering he seemed disturbed and added, "This is merely a
reflection you know. I have not the least intention to refuse to
complete the marriage, Tamsie mine--I could not bear it."

-----------------------------------------------------------------


There fell upon their ears the sound of numerous voices singing in
front of the house. Among these, two made themselves prominent by
their peculiarity: one was a very strong bass, the other a wheezy
thin piping. Thomasin recognized them as belonging to Timothy Fairway
and Grandfer Cantle respectively.

"What does it mean--it is not skimmity-riding, I hope?" she said,
with a frightened gaze at Wildeve.

"Of course not; no, it is that the heath-folk have come to sing to
us a welcome. This is intolerable!" He began pacing about, the men
outside singing cheerily--

"He told' her that she' was the joy' of his life',
And if' she'd con-sent' he would make her his wife';
She could' not refuse' him; to church' so they went',
Young Will was forgot', and young Sue' was content';
And then' was she kiss'd' and set down' on his knee',
No man' in the world' was so lov'-ing as he'!"

Mrs. Yeobright burst in from the outer room. "Thomasin, Thomasin!"
she said, looking indignantly at Wildeve; "here's a pretty exposure!
Let us escape at once. Come!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I'll manage them. Blundering fools!"

He pressed the agitated girl into a seat, returned to the outer
room and opened the door. Immediately outside, in the passage,
appeared Grandfer Cantle singing in concert with those still
standing in front of the house. He came into the room and nodded
abstractedly to Wildeve, his lips still parted, and his features
excruciatingly strained in the emission of the chorus. This being
ended, he said heartily, "Here's welcome to the new-made couple,
and God bless 'em!"

"Thank you," said Wildeve, with dry resentment, his face as gloomy
as a thunderstorm.


"And I see the young bride's little head!" said Grandfer, peeping
in the same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting
beside her aunt in a miserable and awkward way. "Not quite settled
in yet--well, well, there's plenty of time."

Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner he
treated them the sooner they would go, he produced a stone jar,
which threw a warm halo over matters at once.

"That's a drop of the right sort, I can see," said Grandfer Cantle,
with the air of a man too well-mannered to show any hurry to taste
it.

"Yes," said Wildeve, "'tis some old mead. I hope you will like it."

"O ay!" replied the guests, in the hearty tones natural when the words
demanded by politeness coincide with those of deepest feeling. "There
isn't a prettier drink under the sun."

"I'll take my oath there isn't," added Grandfer Cantle. "All that can
be said against mead is that 'tis rather heady, and apt to lie about a
man a good while. But tomorrow's Sunday, thank God."

"I feel'd for all the world like some bold soldier after I had had some
once," said Christian.

"You shall feel so again," said Wildeve, with condescension, "Cups or
glasses, gentlemen?"

"Well, if you don't mind, we'll have the beaker, and pass 'en round;
'tis better than heling it out in dribbles."

"Jown the slippery glasses," said Grandfer Cantle. "What's the good of
a thing that you can't put down in the ashes to warm, hey, neighbours;
that's what I ask?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Whenever a club walked he'd play the clarinet in the band that
marched before 'em as if he'd never touched anything but a clarinet
all his life. And then, when they got to church door he'd throw
down the clarinet, mount the gallery, snatch up the bass viol, and
rozum away as if he'd never played anything but a bass viol. Folk
would say--folk that knowed what a true stave was--'Surely, surely
that's never the same man that I saw handling the clarinet so
masterly by now!"

"I can mind it," said the furze-cutter. "'Twas a wonderful thing
that one body could hold it all and never mix the fingering."

"There was Kingsbere church likewise," Fairway recommenced, as one
opening a new vein of the same mine of interest.

Wildeve breathed the breath of one intolerably bored, and glanced
through the partition at the prisoners.

"He used to walk over there of a Sunday afternoon to visit his old
acquaintance Andrew Brown, the first clarinet there; a good man
enough, but rather screechy in his music, if you can mind?"

"'A was."

"And neighbour Yeobright would take Andrey's place for some part of
the service, to let Andrey have a bit of a nap, as any friend would
naturally do."

"As any friend would," said Grandfer Cantle, the other listeners
expressing the same accord by the shorter way of nodding their heads.

"No sooner was Andrey asleep and the first whiff of neighbour Yeobright's
wind had got inside Andrey's clarinet than everyone in church feeled in
a moment there was a great soul among 'em. All heads would turn, and
they'd say, 'Ah, I thought 'twas he!' One Sunday I can well mind--a bass
viol day that time, and Yeobright had brought his own. 'Twas the Hundred-
and-thirty-third to 'Lydia'; and when they'd come to 'Ran down his beard
and o'er his robes its costly moisture shed,' neighbour Yeobright, who
had just warmed to his work, drove his bow into them strings that glorious
grand that he e'en a'most sawed the bass viol into two pieces. Every
winder in church rattled as if 'twere a thunderstorm. Old Pa'son Williams
lifted his hands in his great holy surplice as natural as if he'd been in
common clothes, and seemed to say hisself, 'O for such a man in our parish!'
But not a soul in Kingsbere could hold a candle to Yeobright."

"Was it quite safe when the winder shook?" Christian inquired.

He received no answer, all for the moment sitting rapt in admiration of
the performance described. As with Farinelli's singing before the princesses,
Sheridan's renowned Begum Speech, and other such examples, the fortunate
condition of its being for ever lost to the world invested the deceased Mr.
Yeobright's tour de force on that memorable afternoon with a cumulative
glory which comparative criticism, had that been possible, might considerably
have shorn down.

"He was the last you'd have expected to drop off in the prime of life," said
Humphrey.

"Ah, well; he was looking for the earth some months afore he went. At that
time women used to run for smocks and gown-pieces at Greenhill Fair, and my
wife that is now, being a long-legged slittering maid, hardly husband-high,
went with the rest of the maidens, for 'a was a good, runner afore she got
so heavy. When she came home I said--we were then just beginning to walk
together--'What have ye got, my honey?' 'I've won--well, I've won--a gown-
piece,' says she, her colours coming up in a moment. 'Tis a smock for a crown,
I thought; and so it turned out. Ay, when I think what she'll say to me now
without a mossel of red in her face, it do seem strange that 'a wouldn't say
such a little thing then....However, then she went on, and that's what made
me bring up the story. Well, whatever clothes I've won, white or figured,
for eyes to see or for eyes not to see' ('a could do a pretty stroke of
modesty in those days), 'I'd sooner have lost it than have seen what I have.
Poor Mr. Yeobright was took bad directly he reached the fair ground, and was
forced to go home again.' That was the last time he ever went out of the
parish."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

There was a solemn silence, and looking from the window, which was
unshuttered and unblinded, Timothy said, "Well, what a fess little
bonfire that one is, out by Cap'n Vye's! 'Tis burning just the same
now as ever, upon my life."

All glances went through the window, and nobody noticed that Wildeve
disguised a brief, telltale look. Far away up the sombre valley of
heath, and to the right of Rainbarrow, could indeed be seen the light,
small, but steady and persistent as before.

"It was lighted before ours was," Fairway continued; "and yet every
one in the country round is out afore 'n."

"Perhaps there's meaning in it!" murmured Christian.

"How meaning?" said Wildeve sharply.

Christian was too scattered to reply, and Timothy helped him.

"He means, sir, that the lonesome dark-eyed creature up there that some
say is a witch--ever I should call a fine young woman such a name--is
always up to some odd conceit or other; and so perhaps 'tis she."

"I'd be very glad to ask her in wedlock, if she'd hae me and take the risk
of her wild dark eyes ill-wishing me," said Grandfer Cantle staunchly.

"Don't ye say it, Father!" implored Christian.

"Well, be dazed if he who do marry the maid won't hae an uncommon picture
for his best parlour," said Fairway in a liquid tone, placing down the cup
of mead at the end of a good pull.

"And a partner as deep as the North Star," said Sam, taking up the cup and
finishing the little that remained. "Well, really, now I think we must be
moving," said Humphrey, observing the emptiness of the vessel.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


All then took their leave, wishing their entertainer long life and
happiness as a married man, with recapitulations which occupied some
time. Wildeve attended them to the door, beyond which the deep-dyed
upward stretch of heath stood awaiting them, an amplitude of darkness
reigning from their feet almost to the zenith, where a definite form
first became visible in the lowering forehead of Rainbarrow. Diving
into the dense obscurity in a line headed by Sam the turf-cutter, they
pursued their trackless way home.

When the scratching of the furze against their leggings had fainted
upon the ear, Wildeve returned to the room where he had left Thomasin
and her aunt. The women were gone.

They could only have left the house in one way, by the back window; and
this was open.

Wildeve laughed to himself, remained a moment thinking, and idly returned
to the front room.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Still waiting, are you, my lady?" he murmured.

However, he did not proceed that way just then; but leaving the hill
to the left of him, he stumbled over a rutted road that brought him
to a cottage which, like all other habitations on the heath at this
hour, was only saved from being visible by a faint shine from its
bedroom window. This house was the home of Olly Dowden, the besom-maker,
and he entered.

The lower room was in darkness; but by feeling his way he found a table,
whereon he placed the bottle, and a minute later emerged again upon the
heath. He stood and looked northeast at the undying little fire--high up
above him, though not so high as Rainbarrow.

We have been told what happens when a woman deliberates; and the epigram
is not always terminable with woman, provided that one be in the case,
and that a fair one. Wildeve stood, and stood longer, and breathed perplexedly,
and then said to himself with resignation, "Yes--by Heaven, I must go to
her, I suppose!"

Instead of turning in the direction of home he pressed on rapidly by a path
under Rainbarrow towards what was evidently a signal light.



VI - The Figure against the Sky



　　　　When the whole Egdon concourse had left the site of the bonfire to its
accustomed loneliness, a closely wrapped female figure approached the
barrow from that quarter of the heath in which the little fire lay.
Had the reddleman been watching he might have recognized her as the
woman who had first stood there so singularly, and vanished at the
approach of strangers. She ascended to her old position at the top,
where the red coals of the perishing fire greeted her like living eyes
in the corpse of day. There she stood still around her stretching the
vast night atmosphere, whose incomplete darkness in comparison with the
total darkness of the heath below it might have represented a venial
beside a mortal sin.
　　　　That she was tall and straight in build, that she was lady-like in her
movements, was all that could be learnt of her just now, her form being
wrapped in a shawl folded in the old cornerwise fashion, and her head
in a large kerchief, a protection not superfluous at this hour and place.
Her back was towards the wind, which blew from the northwest; but whether
she had avoided that aspect because of the chilly gusts which played
about her exceptional position, or because her interest lay in the
southeast, did not at first appear.
　　　　Her reason for standing so dead still as the pivot of this circle of
heath-country was just as obscure. Her extraordinary fixity, her
conspicuous loneliness, her heedlessness of night, betokened among other
things an utter absence of fear. A tract of country unaltered from that
sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear of
its glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weather
which leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer's
Cimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly to women.
　　　　It might reasonably have been supposed that she was listening to the
wind, which rose somewhat as the night advanced, and laid hold of the
attention. The wind, indeed, seemed made for the scene, as the scene
seemed made for the hour. Part of its tone was quite special; what was
heard there could be heard nowhere else. Gusts in innumerable series
followed each other from the northwest, and when each one of them raced
past the sound of its progress resolved into three. Treble, tenor, and bass
notes were to be found therein. The general ricochet of the whole over pits
and prominences had the gravest pitch of the chime. Next there could be heard
the baritone buzz of a holly tree. Below these in force, above them in pitch,
a dwindled voice strove hard at a husky tune, which was the peculiar local
sound alluded to. Thinner and less immediately traceable than the other two,
it was far more impressive than either. In it lay what may be called the
linguistic peculiarity of the heath; and being audible nowhere on earth
off a heath, it afforded a shadow of reason for the woman's tenseness,
which continued as unbroken as ever.
　　　　Throughout the blowing of these plaintive November winds that note bore
a great resemblance to the ruins of human song which remain to the throat
of fourscore and ten. It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed
so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the material minutiae
in which it originated could be realized as by touch. It was the united
products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these were neither stems,
leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.
　　　　They were the mummied heathbells of the past summer, originally tender
and purple, now washed colourless by Michaelmas rains, and dried to dead skins
by October suns. So low was an individual sound from these that a combination
of hundreds only just emerged from silence, and the myriads of the whole
declivity reached the woman's ear but as a shrivelled and intermittent
recitative. Yet scarcely a single accent among the many afloat tonight
could have such power to impress a listener with thoughts of its origin.
One inwardly saw the infinity of those combined multitudes; and perceived
that each of the tiny trumpets was seized on entered, scoured and emerged
from by the wind as thoroughly as if it were as vast as a crater.
　　　　"The spirit moved them." A meaning of the phrase forced itself upon
the attention; and an emotional listener's fetichistic mood might have ended
in one of more advanced quality. It was not, after all, that the left-hand
expanse of old blooms spoke, or the right-hand, or those of the slope in
front; but it was the single person of something else speaking through each
at once.
　　　　Suddenly, on the barrow, there mingled with all this wild rhetoric of night
a sound which modulated so naturally into the rest that its beginning and
ending were hardly to be distinguished. The bluffs, and the bushes, and the
heather-bells had broken silence; at last, so did the woman; and her
articulation was but as another phrase of the same discourse as theirs.
Thrown out on the winds it became twined in with them, and with them it
flew away.
　　　　What she uttered was a lengthened sighing, apparently at something in her
mind which had led to her presence here. There was a spasmodic abandonment
about it as if, in allowing herself to utter the sound. the woman's brain
had authorized what it could not regulate. One point was evident in this;
that she had been existing in a suppressed state, and not in one of languor,
or stagnation.
　　　　Far away down the valley the faint shine from the window of the inn still
lasted on; and a few additional moments proved that the window, or what was
within it, had more to do with the woman's sigh than had either her own
actions or the scene immediately around. She lifted her left hand, which
held a closed telescope. This she rapidly extended, as if she were well
accustomed to the operation, and raising it to her eye directed it towards
the light beaming from the inn.
　　　　The handkerchief which had hooded her head was now a little thrown
back, her face being somewhat elevated. A profile was visible against the dull
monochrome of cloud around her; and it was as though side shadows from the
features of Sappho and Mrs. Siddons had converged upwards from the tomb to
form an image like neither but suggesting both. This, however, was mere
superficiality. In respect of character a face may make certain admissions
by its outline; but it fully confesses only in its changes. So much is this
the case that what is called the play of the features often helps more in
understanding a man or woman than the earnest labours of all the other
members together. Thus the night revealed little of her whose form it was
embracing, for the mobile parts of her countenance could not be seen.
　　　　At last she gave up her spying attitude, closed the telescope, and turned
to the decaying embers. From these no appreciable beams now radiated,
except when a more than usually smart gust brushed over their faces and
raised a fitful glow which came and went like the blush of a girl. She
stooped over the silent circle, and selecting from the brands a piece of
stick which bore the largest live coal at its end, brought it to where she
had been standing before.
　　　　She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal with her mouth
at the same time; till it faintly illuminated the sod, and revealed a small
object, which turned out to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch. She
blew long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.

"Ah!" she said, as if surprised.

　　　　The light raised by her breath had been very fitful, and a momentary
irradiation of flesh was all that it had disclosed of her face. That
consisted of two matchless lips and a cheek only, her head being still
enveloped. She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand, the
telescope under her arm, and moved on.
　　　　Along the ridge ran a faint foot-track, which the lady followed. Those
who knew it well called it a path; and, while a mere visitor would have
passed it unnoticed even by day, the regular haunters of the heath were
at no loss for it at midnight. The whole secret of following these
incipient paths, when there was not light enough in the atmosphere to
show a turnpike road, lay in the development of the sense of touch in
the feet, which comes with years of night-rambling in little-trodden spots.
To a walker practised in such places a difference between impact on maiden
herbage, and on the crippled stalks of a slight footway, is perceptible
through the thickest boot or shoe.
　　　　The solitary figure who walked this beat took no notice of the windy tune
still played on the dead heathbells. She did not turn her head to look at
a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence as she
skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of the small wild
ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at large on the undulations of
Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract much from the solitude.
　　　　The pedestrian noticed nothing just now, and a clue to her abstraction
was afforded by a trivial incident. A bramble caught hold of her skirt, and
checked her progress. Instead of putting it off and hastening along, she
yielded herself up to the pull, and stood passively still. When she began
to extricate herself it was by turning round and round, and so unwinding
the prickly switch. She was in a desponding reverie.
　　　　Her course was in the direction of the small undying fire which had
drawn the attention of the men on Rainbarrow and of Wildeve in the valley
below. A faint illumination from its rays began to glow upon her face, and the
fire soon revealed itself to be lit, not on the level ground, but on a
salient corner or redan of earth, at the junction of two converging bank
fences. Outside was a ditch, dry except immediately under the fire, where
there was a large pool, bearded all round by heather and rushes. In the
smooth water of the pool the fire appeared upside down.
　　　　The banks meeting behind were bare of a hedge, save such as was
formed by disconnected tufts of furze, standing upon stems along the top, like
impaled heads above a city wall. A white mast, fitted up with spars and
other nautical tackle, could be seen rising against the dark clouds whenever
the flames played brightly enough to reach it. Altogether the scene had
much the appearance of a fortification upon which had been kindled a beacon
fire.
　　　　Nobody was visible; but ever and anon a whitish something moved above
the bank from behind, and vanished again. This was a small human hand, in the
act of lifting pieces of fuel into the fire, but for all that could be
seen the hand, like that which troubled Belshazzar, was there alone.
Occasionally an ember rolled off the bank, and dropped with a hiss into
the pool.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooked six-pence," said
Eustacia, more gently. "Put in one piece of wood every two or three
minutes, but not too much at once. I am going to walk along the ridge
a little longer, but I shall keep on coming to you. And if you hear a
frog jump into the pond with a flounce like a stone thrown in, be sure
you run and tell me, because it is a sign of rain."

"Yes, Eustacia."

"Miss Vye, sir."

"Miss Vy--stacia."

"That will do. Now put in one stick more."

The little slave went on feeding the fire as before. He seemed a mere
automaton, galvanized into moving and speaking by the wayward Eustacia's
will. He might have been the brass statue which Albertus Magnus is said
to have animated just so far as to make it chatter, and move, and be his
servant.

Before going on her walk again the young girl stood still on the bank for
a few instants and listened. It was to the full as lonely a place as
Rainbarrow, though at rather a lower level; and it was more sheltered from
wind and weather on account of the few firs to the north. The bank which
enclosed the homestead, and protected it from the lawless state of the
world without, was formed of thick square clods, dug from the ditch on the
outside, and built up with a slight batter or incline, which forms no
slight defense where hedges will not grow because of the wind and the
wilderness, and where wall materials are unattainable. Otherwise the
situation was quite open, commanding the whole length of the valley which
reached to the river behind Wildeve's house. High above this to the right,
and much nearer thitherward than the Quiet Woman Inn, the blurred contour
of Rainbarrow obstructed the sky.

After her attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a gesture
of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words every now and
then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings between
her sighs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Eustacia stepped upon the bank.

"Yes?" she said, and held her breath.

Thereupon the contour of a man became dimly visible against the
low-reaching sky over the valley, beyond the outer margin of the pool.
He came round it and leapt upon the bank beside her. A low laugh
escaped her--the third utterance which the girl had indulged in
tonight. The first, when she stood upon Rainbarrow, had expressed
anxiety; the second, on the ridge, had expressed impatience; the
present was one of triumphant pleasure. She let her joyous eyes
rest upon him without speaking, as upon some wondrous thing she
had created out of chaos.

"I have come," said the man, who was Wildeve. "You give me no peace.
Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the
evening." The words were not without emotion, and retained their
level tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.

At this unexpectedly repressing manner in her lover the girl seemed
to repress herself also. "Of course you have seen my fire," she
answered with languid calmness, artificially maintained. "Why
shouldn't I have a bonfire on the Fifth of November, like other
denizens of the heath?"

"I knew it was meant for me."

"How did you know it? I have had no word with you since you--you
chose her, and walked about with her, and deserted me entirely, as
if I had never been yours life and soul so irretrievably!"

"Eustacia! could I forget that last autumn at this same day of the
month and at this same place you lighted exactly such a fire as a
signal for me to come and see you? Why should there have been a
bonfire again by Captain Vye's house if not for the same purpose?"

"Yes, yes--I own it," she cried under her breath, with a drowsy
fervour of manner and tone which was quite peculiar to her.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Did you indeed think I believed you were married?" she again
demanded earnestly. "Then you wronged me; and upon my life and
heart I can hardly bear to recognize that you have such ill
thoughts of me! Damon, you are not worthy of me--I see it, and
yet I love you. Never mind, let it go--I must bear your mean
opinion as best I may....It is true, is it not," she added with
ill-concealed anxiety, on his making no demonstration, "that
you could not bring yourself to give me up, and are still going
to love me best of all?"

"Yes; or why should I have come?" he said touchily. "Not that
fidelity will be any great merit in me after your kind speech
about my unworthiness, which should have been said by myself if
by anybody, and comes with an ill grace from you. However, the
curse of inflammability is upon me, and I must live under it,
and take any snub from a woman. It has brought me down from
engineering to innkeeping--what lower stage it has in store for
me I have yet to learn." He continued to look upon her gloomily.

She seized the moment, and throwing back the shawl so that the
firelight shone full upon her face and throat, said with a smile,
"Have you seen anything better than that in your travels?"

Eustacia was not one to commit herself to such a position
without good ground. He said quietly, "No."

"Not even on the shoulders of Thomasin?"

"Thomasin is a pleasing and innocent woman."

"That's nothing to do with it," she cried with quick passionateness.
"We will leave her out; there are only you and me now to think of."
After a long look at him she resumed with the old quiescent warmth,
"Must I go on weakly confessing to you things a woman ought to
conceal; and own that no words can express how gloomy I have been
because of that dreadful belief I held till two hours ago--that you
had quite deserted me?"

"I am sorry I caused you that pain."

"But perhaps it is not wholly because of you that I get gloomy,"
she archly added. "It is in my nature to feel like that. It was
born in my blood, I suppose."

"Hypochondriasis."

"Or else it was coming into this wild heath. I was happy enough
at Budmouth. O the times, O the days at Budmouth! But Egdon will
be brighter again now."

"I hope it will," said Wildeve moodily. "Do you know the
consequence of this recall to me, my old darling? I shall come
to see you again as before, at Rainbarrow."

"Of course you will."

"And yet I declare that until I got here tonight I intended,
after this one good-bye, never to meet you again."

"I don't thank you for that," she said, turning away, while
indignation spread through her like subterranean heat. "You may
come again to Rainbarrow if you like, but you won't see me; and
you may call, but I shall not listen; and you may tempt me, but
I won't give myself to you any more."

"You have said as much before, sweet; but such natures as yours
don't so easily adhere to their words. Neither, for the matter of
that, do such natures as mine."

"This is the pleasure I have won by my trouble," she whispered
bitterly. "Why did I try to recall you? Damon, a strange warring
takes place in my mind occasionally. I think when I become calm
after you woundings, 'Do I embrace a cloud of common fog after
all?' You are a chameleon, and now you are at your worst colour.
Go home, or I shall hate you!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't know. I prefer not to speak of her to you. I have not
yet married her; I have come in obedience to your call. That
is enough."

"I merely lit that fire because I was dull, and thought I would
get a little excitement by calling you up and triumphing over
you as the Witch of Endor called up Samuel. I determined you
should come; and you have come! I have shown my power. A mile
and half hither, and a mile and half back again to your home--
three miles in the dark for me. Have I not shown my power?"

He shook his head at her. "I know you too well, my Eustacia; I
know you too well. There isn't a note in you which I don't know;
and that hot little bosom couldn't play such a cold-blooded trick
to save its life. I saw a woman on Rainbarrow at dusk looking
down towards my house. I think I drew out you before you drew out
me."

The revived embers of an old passion glowed clearly in Wildeve
now; and he leant forward as if about to put his face towards her
cheek.

"O no," she said, intractably moving to the other side of the
decayed fire. "What did you mean by that?"

"Perhaps I may kiss your hand?"

"No, you may not."

"Then I may shake your hand?"

"No."

"Then I wish you good night without caring for either. Good-bye,
good-bye."

She returned no answer, and with the bow of a dancing-master he
vanished on the other side of the pool as he had come.

Eustacia sighed--it was no fragile maiden sigh, but a sigh which
shook her like a shiver. Whenever a flash of reason darted like an
electric light upon her lover- -as it sometimes would--and showed
his imperfections, she shivered thus. But it was over in a second,
and she loved on. She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved
on. She scattered the half-burnt brands, went indoors immediately,
and up to her bedroom without a light. Amid the rustles which
denoted her to be undressing in the darkness other heavy breaths
frequently came; and the same kind of shudder occasionally moved
through her when, ten minutes later, she lay on her bed asleep.



VII - Queen of Night



　　　　Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she
would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions
and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make
not quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind
to be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff,
the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world
would have noticed the change of government. There would have been the
same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of
contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual
dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we
endure now.
　　　　She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness,
as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud. To see her hair was
to fancy that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form its
shadow--it closed over her forehead like nightfall extinguishing the
western glow.
　　　　Her nerves extended into those tresses, and her temper could always
be softened by stroking them down. When her hair was brushed she would
instantly sink into stillness and look like the Sphinx. If, in passing
under one of the Egdon banks, any of its thick skeins were caught, as
they sometimes were, by a prickly tuft of the large Ulex Europoeus--which
will act as a sort of hairbrush--she would go back a few steps, and pass
against it a second time.
　　　　She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light,
as it came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their
oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller
than it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in
reverie without seeming to do so--she might have been believed capable of
sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of men and
women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia's
soul to be flamelike. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils
gave the same impression.
　　　　The mouth seemed formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver
than to kiss. Some might have added, less to kiss than to curl. Viewed
sideways, the closing-line of her lips formed, with almost geometric
precision, the curve so well known in the arts of design as the cima-recta,
or ogee. The sight of such a flexible bend as that on grim Egdon was quite
an apparition. It was felt at once that the mouth did not come over from
Sleswig with a band of Saxon pirates whose lips met like the two halves
of a muffin. One had fancied that such lip-curves were mostly lurking
underground in the South as fragments of forgotten marbles. So fine were
the lines of her lips that, though full, each corner of her mouth was as
clearly cut as the point of a spear. This keenness of corner was only
blunted when she was given over to sudden fits of gloom, one of the phases
of the night-side of sentiment which she knew too well for her years.
　　　　Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses,
rubies, and tropical midnight; her moods recalled lotus-eaters and the
march in Athalie; her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the
viola. In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her
general figure might have stood for that of either of the higher female
deities. The new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem of
accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been adjuncts sufficient to
strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively, with as close an
approximation to the antique as that which passes muster on many respected
canvases.
　　　　But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be
somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the
consciousness of this limitation had biassed her development. Egdon was her
Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in its
tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her appearance
accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and the shady splendour
of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her.
A true Tartarean dignity sat upon her brow, and not factitiously or with
marks of constraint, for it had grown in her with years.
　　　　Across the upper part of her head she wore a thin fillet of black velvet,
restraining the luxuriance of her shady hair, in a way which added much to
this class of majesty by irregularly clouding her forehead. "Nothing can
embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow band drawn over the brow," says
Richter. Some of the neighbouring girls wore coloured ribbon for the same
purpose, and sported metallic ornaments elsewhere; but if anyone suggested
coloured ribbon and metallic ornaments to Eustacia Vye she laughed and went
on.




　　　　But the musician did his best; adopted his wife's name, made
England permanently his home, took great trouble with his child's
education, the expenses of which were defrayed by the grandfather,
and throve as the chief local musician till her mother's death,
when he left off thriving, drank, and died also. The girl was left
to the care of her grandfather, who, since three of his ribs became
broken in a shipwreck, had lived in this airy perch on Egdon, a spot
which had taken his fancy because the house was to be had for next
to nothing, and because a remote blue tinge on the horizon between
the hills, visible from the cottage door, was traditionally believed
to be the English Channel. She hated the change; she felt like one
banished; but here she was forced to abide.
　　　　Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed the
strangest assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was
no middle distance in her perspective--romantic recollections of sunny
afternoons on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants
around, stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding
Egdon. Every bizarre effect that could result from the random
intertwining of watering-place glitter with the grand solemnity of a
heath, was to be found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now, she
imagined all the more of what she had seen.
　　　　Where did her dignity come from? By a latent vein from Alcinous'
line, her father hailing from Phaeacia's isle?--or from Fitzalan and
De Vere, her maternal grandfather having had a cousin in the peerage?
Perhaps it was the gift of Heaven--a happy convergence of natural laws.
Among other things opportunity had of late years been denied her of
learning to be undignified, for she lived lonely. Isolation on a heath
renders vulgarity well-nigh impossible. It would have been as easy for
the heath-ponies, bats, and snakes to be vulgar as for her. A narrow
life in Budmouth might have completely demeaned her.
　　　　The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it
over is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a
triumph. In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had
never seen. Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion
than any of them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place
around her, she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populous solitude"--
apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.
　　　　To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her
the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.
And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more
than for any particular lover.
　　　　She could show a most reproachful look at times, but it was directed
less against human beings than against certain creatures of her mind, the
chief of these being Destiny, through whose interference she dimly fancied
it arose that love alighted only on gliding youth--that any love she might
win would sink simultaneously with the sand in the glass. She thought of
it with an ever-growing consciousness of cruelty, which tended to breed
actions of reckless unconventionality, framed to snatch a year's, a week's,
even an hour's passion from anywhere while it could be won. Through want of
it she had sung without being merry, possessed without enjoying, outshone
without triumphing. Her loneliness deepened her desire. On Egdon, coldest
and meanest kisses were at famine prices, and where was a mouth matching
hers to be found?
　　　　Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her than
for most women; fidelity because of love's grip had much. A blaze of love,
and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same which should
last long years. On this head she knew by prevision what most women learn
only by experience--she had mentally walked round love, told the towers
thereof, considered its palaces, and concluded that love was but a doleful
joy. Yet she desired it, as one in a desert would be thankful for brackish
water.




　　　　Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed,
weighed in relation to her situation among the very rearward of
thinkers, very original. Her instincts towards social non-comformity
were at the root of this. In the matter of holidays, her mood was
that of horses who, when turned out to grass, enjoy looking upon
their kind at work on the highway. She only valued rest to herself
when it came in the midst of other people's labour. Hence she hated
Sundays when all was at rest, and often said they would be the death
of her. To see the heathmen in their Sunday condition, that is, with
their hands in their pockets, their boots newly oiled, and not laced
up (a particularly Sunday sign), walking leisurely among the turves
and furze-faggots they had cut during the week, and kicking them
critically as if their use were unknown, was a fearful heaviness to
her. To relieve the tedium of this untimely day she would overhaul
the cupboards containing her grandfather's old charts and other rubbish,
humming Saturday-night ballads of the country people the while. But on
Saturday nights she would frequently sing a psalm, and it was always
on a weekday that she read the Bible, that she might be unoppressed with
a sense of doing her duty.
　　　　Such views of life were to some extent the natural begettings
of her situation upon her nature. To dwell on a heath without studying
its meanings was like wedding a foreigner without learning his tongue.
The subtle beauties of the heath were lost to Eustacia; she only caught
its vapours. An environment which would have made a contented woman a
poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy
woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.
　　　　Eustacia had got beyond the vision of some marriage of inexpressible
glory; yet, though her emotions were in full vigour, she cared for no
meaner union. Thus we see her in a strange state of isolation. To have
lost the godlike conceit that we may do what we will, and not to have
acquired a homely zest for doing what we can, shows a grandeur of temper
which cannot be objected to in the abstract, for it denotes a mind that,
though disappointed, forswears compromise. But, if congenial to philosophy,
it is apt to be dangerous to the commonwealth. In a world where doing means
marrying, and the commonwealth is one of hearts and hands, the same peril
attends the condition.
　　　　And so we see our Eustacia--for at times she was not altogether
unlovable--arriving at that stage of enlightenment which feels that nothing
is worth while, and filling up the spare hours of her existence by idealizing
Wildeve for want of a better object. This was the sole reason of his
ascendency: she knew it herself. At moments her pride rebelled against her
passion for him, and she even had longed to be free. But there was only one
circumstance which could dislodge him, and that was the advent of a greater
man.
　　　　For the rest, she suffered much from depression of spirits, and took
slow walks to recover them, in which she carried her grandfather's telescope
and her grandmother's hourglass--the latter because of a peculiar pleasure
she derived from watching a material representation of time's gradual glide
away. She seldom schemed, but when she did scheme, her plans showed rather
the comprehensive strategy of a general than the small arts called womanish,
though she could utter oracles of Delphian ambiguity when she did not choose
to be direct. In heaven she will probably sit between the Heloises and the
Cleopatras.



VIII - Those Who Are Found Where There Is Said to Be Nobody



　　　　He ran until he was out of breath, and then, becoming more
courageous, walked leisurely along, singing in an old voice a
little song about a sailor-boy and a fair one, and bright gold in
store. In the middle of this the child stopped--from a pit under
the hill ahead of him shone a light, whence proceeded a cloud of
floating dust and a smacking noise.
　　　　Only unusual sights and sounds frightened the boy. The
shrivelled voice of the heath did not alarm him, for that was familiar.
The thornbushes which arose in his path from time to time were less
satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit
after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling
giants, and hideous cripples. Lights were not uncommon this evening,
but the nature of all of them was different from this. Discretion
rather than terror prompted the boy to turn back instead of passing
the light, with a view of asking Miss Eustacia Vye to let her servant
accompany him home.
　　　　When the boy had reascended to the top of the valley he found
the fire to be still burning on the bank, though lower than before.
Beside it, instead of Eustacia's solitary form, he saw two persons,
the second being a man. The boy crept along under the bank to ascertain
from the nature of the proceedings if it would be prudent to interrupt
so splendid a creature as Miss Eustacia on his poor trivial account.
　　　　After listening under the bank for some minutes to the talk he
turned in a perplexed and doubting manner and began to withdraw as
silently as he had come. That he did not, upon the whole, think it
advisable to interrupt her conversation with Wildeve, without being
prepared to bear the whole weight of her displeasure, was obvious.
　　　　Here was a Scyllaeo-Charybdean position for a poor boy. Pausing
when again safe from discovery, he finally decided to face the pit
phenomenon as the lesser evil. With a heavy sigh he retraced the slope,
and followed the path he had followed before.
　　　　The child assumed that this was the cart of a gipsy, and his dread
of those wanderers reached but to that mild pitch which titillates
rather than pains. Only a few inches of mud wall kept him and his family
from being gipsies themselves. He skirted the gravel pit at a respectful
distance, ascended the slope, and came forward upon the brow, in order
to look into the open door of the van and see the original of the shadow.
　　　　The picture alarmed the boy. By a little stove inside the van sat a
figure red from head to heels--the man who had been Thomasin's friend. He
was darning a stocking, which was red like the rest of him. Moreover, as
he darned he smoked a pipe, the stem and bowl of which were red also.
　　　　At this moment one of the heath-croppers feeding in the outer shadows
was audibly shaking off the clog attached to its foot. Aroused by the sound,
the reddleman laid down his stocking, lit a lantern which hung beside him,
and came out from the van. In sticking up the candle he lifted the lantern
to his face, and the light shone into the whites of his eyes and upon his
ivory teeth, which, in contrast with the red surrounding, lent him a
startling aspect enough to the gaze of a juvenile. The boy knew too well
for his peace of mind upon whose lair he had lighted. Uglier persons than
gipsies were known to cross Egdon at times, and a reddleman was one of them.

"How I wish 'twas only a gipsy!" he murmured.

The man was by this time coming back from the horses. In his fear
of being seen the boy rendered detection certain by nervous motion. The
heather and peat stratum overhung the brow of the pit in mats, hiding the
actual verge. The boy had stepped beyond the solid ground; the heather now
gave way, and down he rolled over the scarp of grey sand to the very foot
of the man.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"My eyes have got foggy-like--please may I sit down, master?"
said the boy.

"To be sure, poor chap. 'Tis enough to make you feel fainty.
Sit on that bundle."

The man finished tying up the gash, and the boy said, "I think
I'll go home now, master."

"You are rather afraid of me. Do you know what I be?"

The child surveyed his vermilion figure up and down with much
misgiving and finally said, "Yes."

"Well, what?"

"The reddleman!" he faltered.

"Yes, that's what I be. Though there's more than one. You little
children think there's only one cuckoo, one fox, one giant, one
devil, and one reddleman, when there's lots of us all."

"Is there? You won't carry me off in your bags, will ye, master?
'Tis said that the reddleman will sometimes."

"Nonsense. All that reddlemen do is sell reddle. You see all these
bags at the back of my cart? They are not full of little boys--only
full of red stuff."

"Was you born a reddleman?"

"No, I took to it. I should be as white as you if I were to give up
the trade--that is, I should be white in time--perhaps six months;
not at first, because 'tis grow'd into my skin and won't wash out.
Now, you'll never be afraid of a reddleman again, will ye?"



IX - Love Leads a Shrewd Man into Strategy



　　　　Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since
the introduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do
without these Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so
largely used by shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained
by other routes. Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of
existence which characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant
periodical journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular
camping out from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a
peregrination among farms which could be counted by the hundred, and
in spite of this Arab existence the preservation of that respectability
which is insured by the never-failing production of a well-lined purse.
　　　　Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and
stamps unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has handled
it half an hour.
　　　　A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams which
had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. "The reddleman
is coming for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessex mothers for
many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a while, at the beginning
of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as process of time rendered the
latter personage stale and ineffective the older phrase resumed its early
prominence. And now the reddleman has in his turn followed Buonaparte to
the land of worn-out bogeys, and his place is filled by modern inventions.




　　　　The reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an
instance of the pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the
singular, when an ugly foundation would have done just as well for
that purpose. The one point that was forbidding about this reddleman
was his colour. Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a
specimen of rustic manhood as one would often see. A keen observer
might have been inclined to think--which was, indeed, partly the
truth--that he had relinquished his proper station in life for want
of interest in it. Moreover, after looking at him one would have
hazarded the guess that good nature, and an acuteness as extreme as
it could be without verging on craft, formed the framework of his
character.




　　　　The writing had originally been traced on white paper, but the
letter had now assumed a pale red tinge from the accident of its
situation; and the black strokes of writing thereon looked like the
twigs of a winter hedge against a vermilion sunset. The letter bore
a date some two years previous to that time, and was signed "Thomasin
Yeobright." It ran as follows:--

　 　Dear Diggory Venn,--The question you put when you overtook
　 　me coming home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that
　 　I am afraid I did not make you exactly understand what I meant.
　 　Of course, if my aunt had not met me I could have explained
　 　all then at once, but as it was there was no chance. I have
　 　been quite uneasy since, as you know I do not wish to pain
　 　you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in contradicting what
　 　I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory, marry you, or think
　 　of letting you call me your sweetheart. I could not, indeed,
　 　Diggory. I hope you will not much mind my saying this, and
　 　feel in a great pain. It makes me very sad when I think it
　 　may, for I like you very much, and I always put you next to
　 　my cousin Clym in my mind. There are so many reasons why we
　 　cannot be married that I can hardly name them all in a letter.
　 　I did not in the least expect that you were going to speak
　 　on such a thing when you followed me, because I had never
　 　thought of you in the sense of a lover at all. You must not
　 　becall me for laughing when you spoke; you mistook when you
　 　thought I laughed at you as a foolish man. I laughed because
　 　the idea was so odd, and not at you at all. The great reason
　 　with my own personal self for not letting you court me is,
　 　that I do not feel the things a woman ought to feel who
　 　consents to walk with you with the meaning of being your
　 　wife.




　　　　Rejected suitors take to roaming as naturally as unhived
bees; and the business to which he had cynically devoted himself
was in many ways congenial to Venn. But his wanderings, by mere
stress of old emotions, had frequently taken an Egdon direction,
though he never intruded upon her who attracted him thither. To be
in Thomasin's heath, and near her, yet unseen, was the one ewe-lamb
of pleasure left to him.
　　　　Then came the incident of that day, and the reddleman,
still loving her well, was excited by this accidental service to
her at a critical juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause,
instead of, as hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had
happened it was impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of
Wildeve's intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him;
and dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy
in her own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most
distressing to himself, was awkward enough; but the reddleman's
love was generous.




　　　　That Eustacia was somehow the cause of Wildeve's carelessness
in relation to the marriage had at once been Venn's conclusion on
hearing of the secret meeting between them. It did not occur to his
mind that Eustacia's love signal to Wildeve was the tender effect upon
the deserted beauty of the intelligence which her grandfather had
brought home. His instinct was to regard her as a conspirator against
rather than as an antecedent obstacle to Thomasin's happiness.
　　　　During the day he had been exceedingly anxious to learn the
condition of Thomasin, but he did not venture to intrude upon a
threshold to which he was a stranger, particularly at such an
unpleasant moment as this. He had occupied his time in moving with his
ponies and load to a new point in the heath, eastward to his previous
station; and here he selected a nook with a careful eye to shelter
from wind and rain, which seemed to mean that his stay there was to
be a comparatively extended one. After this he returned on foot some
part of the way that he had come; and, it being now dark, he diverged
to the left till he stood behind a holly bush on the edge of a pit
not twenty yards from Rainbarrow.
　　　　He watched for a meeting there, but he watched in vain. Nobody
except himself came near the spot that night.
　　　　But the loss of his labour produced little effect upon the
reddleman. He had stood in the shoes of Tantalus, and seemed to look
upon a certain mass of disappointment as the natural preface to all
realizations, without which preface they would give cause for alarm.




　　　　The reddleman, stung with suspicion of wrong to Thomasin, was
aroused to strategy in a moment. He instantly left the bush and crept
forward on his hands and knees. When he had got as close as he might
safely venture without discovery he found that, owing to a cross-wind,
the conversation of the trysting pair could not be overheard.
　　　　Near him, as in divers places about the heath, were areas strewn
with large turves, which lay edgeways and upside down awaiting removal
by Timothy Fairway, previous to the winter weather. He took two of these
as he lay, and dragged them over him till one covered his head and
shoulders, the other his back and legs. The reddleman would now have
been quite invisible, even by daylight; the turves, standing upon him
with the heather upwards, looked precisely as if they were growing. He
crept along again, and the turves upon his back crept with him. Had he
approached without any covering the chances are that he would not have
been perceived in the dusk; approaching thus, it was as though he
burrowed underground. In this manner he came quite close to where the
two were standing.
　　　　"Wish to consult me on the matter?" reached his ears in the
rich, impetuous accents of Eustacia Vye. "Consult me? It is an indignity
to me to talk so--I won't bear it any longer!" She began weeping. "I
have loved you, and have shown you that I loved you, much to my regret;
and yet you can come and say in that frigid way that you wish to consult
with me whether it would not be better to marry Thomasin. Better--of
course it would be. Marry her--she is nearer to your own position in
life than I am!"


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"I never wish to desert you."

"I do not thank you for that. I should hate it to be all smooth.
Indeed, I think I like you to desert me a little once now and then.
Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest. O, it
is a shame to say so; but it is true!" She indulged in a little laugh.
"My low spirits begin at the very idea. Don't you offer me tame love,
or away you go!"

"I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman," said
Wildeve, "so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy
person. It is I who am the sinner after all; I am not worth the little
finger of either of you."

"But you must not sacrifice yourself to her from any sense of justice,"
replied Eustacia quickly. "If you do not love her it is the most
merciful thing in the long run to leave her as she is. That's always
the best way. There, now I have been unwomanly, I suppose. When you
have left me I am always angry with myself for things that I have said
to you."

Wildeve walked a pace or two among the heather without replying. The
pause was filled up by the intonation of a pollard thorn a little way
to windward, the breezes filtering through its unyielding twigs as
through a strainer. It was as if the night sang dirges with clenched
teeth.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes, yes! I am nothing in it--I am nothing in it. You only trifle
with me. Heaven, what can I, Eustacia Vye, be made of to think so
much of you!"

"Nonsense; do not be so passionate....Eustacia, how we roved among
these bushes last year, when the hot days had got cool, and the
shades of the hills kept us almost invisible in the hollows!"

She remained in moody silence till she said, "Yes; and how I used
to laugh at you for daring to look up to me! But you have well made
me suffer for that since."

"Yes, you served me cruelly enough until I thought I had found
someone fairer than you. A blessed find for me, Eustacia."

"Do you still think you found somebody fairer?"

"Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. The scales are balanced so
nicely that a feather would turn them."

"But don't you really care whether I meet you or whether I don't?"
she said slowly.

"I care a little, but not enough to break my rest," replied the
young man languidly. "No, all that's past. I find there are two
flowers where I thought there was only one. Perhaps there are three,
or four, or any number as good as the first....Mine is a curious fate.
Who would have thought that all this could happen to me?"

She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger
seemed an equally possible issue, "Do you love me now?"

"Who can say?"

"Tell me; I will know it!"

"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously. "That is, I have my times
and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are
too do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I
don't know what, except--that you are not the whole world to me that
you used to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know and nice
to meet, and I dare say as sweet as ever--almost."

Eustacia was silent, and she turned from him, till she said, in a
voice of suspended mightiness, "I am for a walk, and this is my way."

"Well, I can do worse than follow you."

"You know you can't do otherwise, for all your moods and changes!" she
answered defiantly. "Say what you will; try as you may; keep away from
me all that you can--you will never forget me. You will love me all
your life long. You would jump to marry me!"

"So I would!" said Wildeve. "Such strange thoughts as I've had from time
to time, Eustacia; and they come to me this moment. You hate the heath
as much as ever; that I know."

"I do," she murmured deeply. "'Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my
death!"

"I abhor it too," said he. "How mournfully the wind blows round us now!"

She did not answer. Its tone was indeed solemn and pervasive. Compound
utterances addressed themselves to their senses, and it was possible to
view by ear the features of the neighbourhood. Acoustic pictures were
returned from the darkened scenery; they could hear where the tracts of
heather began and ended; where the furze was growing stalky and tall;
where it had been recently cut; in what direction the fir-clump lay,
and how near was the pit in which the hollies grew; for these differing
features had their voices no less than their shapes and colours.

"God, how lonely it is!" resumed Wildeve. "What are picturesque ravines
and mists to us who see nothing else?" Why should we stay here? Will you
go with me to America? I have kindred in Wisconsin."

"That wants consideration."

"It seems impossible to do well here, unless one were a wild bird or a
landscape-painter. Well?"

"Give me time," she softly said, taking his hand. "America is so far away.
Are you going to walk with me a little way?"

As Eustacia uttered the latter words she retired from the base of the
barrow, and Wildeve followed her, so that the reddleman could hear no more.

He lifted the turves and arose. Their black figures sank and disappeared
from against the sky. They were as two horns which the sluggish heath had
put forth from its crown, like a mollusc, and had now again drawn in.

The reddleman's walk across the vale, and over into the next where his cart
lay, was not sprightly for a slim young fellow of twenty-four. His spirit
was perturbed to aching. The breezes that blew around his mouth in that walk
carried off upon them the accents of a commination.

He entered the van, where there was a fire in a stove. Without lighting his
candle he sat down at once on the three-legged stool, and pondered on what
he had seen and heard touching that still-loved one of his. He uttered a
sound which was neither sigh nor sob, but was even more indicative than
either of a troubled mind.

"My Tamsie," he whispered heavily. "What can be done? Yes, I will see that
Eustacia Vye."



X - A Desperate Attempt at Persuasion



　　　　Though these shaggy hills were apparently so solitary, several
keen round eyes were always ready on such a wintry morning as this to
converge upon a passer-by. Feathered species sojourned here in hiding
which would have created wonder if found elsewhere. A bustard haunted the
spot, and not many years before this five and twenty might have been seen
in Egdon at one time. Marsh-harriers looked up from the valley by Wildeve's.
A cream-coloured courser had used to visit this hill, a bird so rare that
not more than a dozen have ever been seen in England; but a barbarian rested
neither night nor day till he had shot the African truant, and after that
event cream-coloured coursers thought fit to enter Egdon no more.
　　　　A traveller who should walk and observe any of these visitants
as Venn observed them now could feel himself to be in direct communication
with regions unknown to man. Here in front of him was a wild mallard--just
arrived from the home of the north wind. The creature brought within him
an amplitude of Northern knowledge. Glacial catastrophes, snowstorm episodes,
glittering auroral effects, Polaris in the zenith, Franklin underfoot--the
category of his commonplaces was wonderful. But the bird, like many other
philosophers, seemed as he looked at the reddleman to think that a present
moment of comfortable reality was worth a decade of memories.
　　　　Venn passed on through these towards the house of the isolated beauty
who lived up among them and despised them. The day was Sunday; but as going
to church, except to be married or buried, was exceptional at Egdon, this made
little difference. He had determined upon the bold stroke of asking for an
interview with Miss Vye--to attack her position as Thomasin's rival either by
art or by storm, showing therein, somewhat too conspicuously, the want of
gallantry characteristic of a certain astute sort of men, from clowns to kings.
The great Frederick making war on the beautiful Archduchess, Napoleon refusing
terms to the beautiful Queen of Prussia, were not more dead to difference of
sex than the reddleman was, in his peculiar way, in planning the displacement
of Eustacia.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

　　　　He was beginning to think that his scheme had failed, when he beheld
the form of Eustacia herself coming leisurely towards him. A sense
of novelty in giving audience to that singular figure had been sufficient
to draw her forth.
　　　　She seemed to feel, after a bare look at Diggory Venn, that the man
had come on a strange errand, and that he was not so mean as she had
thought him; for her close approach did not cause him to writhe uneasily,
or shift his feet, or show any of those little signs which escape an
ingenuous rustic at the advent of the uncommon in womankind. On his
inquiring if he might have a conversation with her she replied, "Yes,
walk beside me," and continued to move on.
　　　　Before they had gone far it occurred to the perspicacious reddleman
that he would have acted more wisely by appearing less unimpressionable,
and he resolved to correct the error as soon as he could find opportunity.

"I have made so bold, miss, as to step across and tell you some strange
news which has come to my ears about that man."

"Ah! what man?"

He jerked his elbow to the southeast--the direction of the Quiet Woman.

Eustacia turned quickly to him. "Do you mean Mr. Wildeve?"

"Yes, there is trouble in a household on account of him, and I have come
to let you know of it, because I believe you might have power to drive
it away."

"I? What is the trouble?"

"It is quite a secret. It is that he may refuse to marry Thomasin
Yeobright after all."

Eustacia, though set inwardly pulsing by his words, was equal to her part
in such a drama as this. She replied coldly, "I do not wish to listen to
this, and you must not expect me to interfere."

"But, miss, you will hear one word?"

"I cannot. I am not interested in the marriage, and even if I were I
could not compel Mr. Wildeve to do my bidding."

"As the only lady on the heath I think you might," said Venn with subtle
indirectness. "This is how the case stands. Mr. Wildeve would marry
Thomasin at once, and make all matters smooth, if so be there were not
another woman in the case. This other woman is some person he has picked
up with, and meets on the heath occasionally, I believe. He will never
marry her, and yet through her he may never marry the woman who loves
him dearly. Now, if you, miss, who have so much sway over us menfolk,
were to insist that he should treat your young neighbour Tamsin with
honourable kindness and give up the other woman, he would perhaps do it,
and save her a good deal of misery."

"Ah, my life!" said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips so
that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar
scarlet fire. "You think too much of my influence over menfolk indeed,
reddleman. If I had such a power as you imagine I would go straight and
use it for the good of anybody who has been kind to me--which Thomasin
Yeobright has not particularly, to my knowledge."

"Can it be that you really don't know of it--how much she had always
thought of you?"

"I have never heard a word of it. Although we live only two miles apart
I have never been inside her aunt's house in my life."

The superciliousness that lurked in her manner told Venn that thus far
he had utterly failed. He inwardly sighed and felt it necessary to unmask
his second argument.

"Well, leaving that out of the question, 'tis in your power, I assure you,
Miss Vye, to do a great deal of good to another woman."

She shook her head.

"Your comeliness is law with Mr. Wildeve. It is law with all men who see
'ee. They say, 'This well- favoured lady coming--what's her name? How
handsome!' Handsomer than Thomasin Yeobright," the reddleman persisted,
saying to himself, "God forgive a rascal for lying!" And she was handsomer,
but the reddleman was far from thinking so. There was a certain obscurity
in Eustacia's beauty, and Venn's eye was not trained. In her winter dress,
as now, she was like the tiger-beetle, which, when observed in dull
situations, seems to be of the quietest neutral colour, but under a full
illumination blazes with dazzling splendour.

Eustacia could not help replying, though conscious that she endangered her
dignity thereby. "Many women are lovelier than Thomasin," she said, "so
not much attaches to that."

The reddleman suffered the wound and went on: "He is a man who notices the
looks of women, and you could twist him to your will like withywind, if
you only had the mind."

"Surely what she cannot do who has been so much with him I cannot do
living up here away from him."

The reddleman wheeled and looked her in the face. "Miss Vye!" he said.

"Why do you say that--as if you doubted me?" She spoke faintly, and her
breathing was quick. "The idea of your speaking in that tone to me!" she
added, with a forced smile of hauteur. "What could have been in your mind
to lead you to speak like that?"

"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know this man?--I
know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed."

"You are mistaken. What do you mean?"

The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. "I was at the meeting
by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word," he said. "The woman that
stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself."

It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
Candaules' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip would
tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer be kept
down.

"I am unwell," she said hurriedly. "No--it is not that--I am not in a
humour to hear you further. Leave me, please."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"No--I won't, I won't!" she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. "Nobody has ever
been served so! It was going on well--I will not be beaten down--by an
inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come and plead for
her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own trouble? Am I not
to show favour to any person I may choose without asking permission of
a parcel of cottagers? She has come between me and my inclination, and
now that she finds herself rightly punished she gets you to plead for
her!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The reddleman looked hopeful; after these words from her his third
attempt seemed promising. "As we have now opened our minds a bit,
miss," he said, "I'll tell you what I have got to propose. Since I
have taken to the reddle trade I travel a good deal, as you know."

She inclined her head, and swept round so that her eyes rested in
the misty vale beneath them.

"And in my travels I go near Budmouth. Now Budmouth is a wonderful
place--wonderful--a great salt sheening sea bending into the land
like a bow--thousands of gentlepeople walking up and down--bands of
music playing--officers by sea and officers by land walking among
the rest--out of every ten folks you meet nine of 'em in love."

"I know it," she said disdainfully. "I know Budmouth better than you.
I was born there. My father came to be a military musician there from
abroad. Ah, my soul, Budmouth! I wish I was there now."

The reddleman was surprised to see how a slow fire could blaze on
occasion.


"It is to wear myself out to please her! and I won't go. O, if I could
live in a gay town as a lady should, and go my own ways, and do my
own doings, I'd give the wrinkled half of my life! Yes, reddleman, that
would I."

"Help me to get Thomasin happy, miss, and the chance shall be yours,"
urged her companion.

"Chance--'tis no chance," she said proudly. "What can a poor man like
you offer me, indeed?--I am going indoors. I have nothing more to say.
Don't your horses want feeding, or your reddlebags want mending, or
don't you want to find buyers for your goods, that you stay idling here
like this?"

Venn spoke not another word. With his hands behind him he turned away,
that she might not see the hopeless disappointment in his face. The
mental clearness and power he had found in this lonely girl had indeed
filled his manner with misgiving even from the first few minutes of
close quarters with her. Her youth and situation had led him to expect
a simplicity quite at the beck of his method. But a system of inducement
which might have carried weaker country lasses along with it had merely
repelled Eustacia. As a rule, the word Budmouth meant fascination on
Egdon. That Royal port and watering place, if truly mirrored in the
minds of the heathfolk, must have combined, in a charming and
indescribable manner a Carthaginian bustle of building with Tarentine
luxuriousness and Baian health and beauty. Eustacia felt little less
extravagantly about the place; but she would not sink her independence
to get there.

When Diggory Venn had gone quite away, Eustacia walked to the bank and
looked down the wild and picturesque vale towards the sun, which was
also in the direction of Wildeve's. The mist had now so far collapsed
that the tips of the trees and bushes around his house could just be
discerned, as if boring upwards through a vast white cobweb which
cloaked them from the day. There was no doubt that her mind was inclined
thitherward; indefinitely, fancifully--twining and untwining about him
as the single object within her horizon on which dreams might crystallize.
The man who had begun by being merely her amusement, and would never have
been more than her hobby but for his skill in deserting her at the right
moments, was now again her desire. Cessation in his love-making had
revivified her love. Such feeling as Eustacia had idly given to Wildeve
was dammed into a flood by Thomasin. She had used to tease Wildeve, but
that was before another had favoured him. Often a drop of irony into an
indifferent situation renders the whole piquant.

"I will never give him up--never!" she said impetuously.

The reddleman's hint that rumour might show her to disadvantage had no
permanent terror for Eustacia. She was as unconcerned at that contingency
as a goddess at a lack of linen. This did not originate in inherent
shamelessness, but in her living too far from the world to feel the impact
of public opinion. Zenobia in the desert could hardly have cared what
was said about her at Rome. As far as social ethics were concerned
Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion she was all the
while an epicure. She had advanced to the secret recesses of sensuousness,
yet had hardly crossed the threshold of conventionality.



XI - The Dishonesty of an Honest Woman



"Mr. Wildeve is not the only man who has asked Thomasin to marry him;
and why should not another have a chance? Mrs. Yeobright, I should be
glad to marry your niece. and would have done it any time these last
two years. There, now it is out, and I have never told anybody before
but herself."

Mrs. Yeobright was not demonstrative, but her eyes involuntarily
glanced towards his singular though shapely figure.

"Looks are not everything," said the reddleman, noticing the glance.
"There's many a calling that don't bring in so much as mine, if it
comes to money; and perhaps I am not so much worse off than Wildeve.
There is nobody so poor as these professional fellows who have failed;
and if you shouldn't like my redness--well, I am not red by birth,
you know; I only took to this business for a freak; and I might turn
my hand to something else in good time."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

And she went on. But though this conversation did not divert
Thomasin's aunt from her purposed interview with Wildeve, it
made a considerable difference in her mode of conducting that
interview. She thanked God for the weapon which the reddleman
had put into her hands.

Wildeve was at home when she reached the inn. He showed her
silently into the parlour, and closed the door. Mrs. Yeobright
began--

"I have thought it my duty to call today. A new proposal has
been made to me, which has rather astonished me. It will affect
Thomasin greatly; and I have decided that it should at least
be mentioned to you."

"Yes? What is it?" he said civilly.

"It is, of course, in reference to her future. You may not be
aware that another man has shown himself anxious to marry Thomasin.
Now, though I have not encouraged him yet, I cannot conscientiously
refuse him a chance any longer. I don't wish to be short with you;
but I must be fair to him and to her."

"Who is the man?" said Wildeve with surprise.

"One who has been in love with her longer than she has with you.
He proposed to her two years ago. At that time she refused him."

"Well?"

"He has seen her lately, and has asked me for permission to pay his
addresses to her. She may not refuse him twice."

"What is his name?"

Mrs. Yeobright declined to say. "He is a man Thomasin likes," she
added, "and one whose constancy she respects at least. It seems to
me that what she refused then she would be glad to get now. She is
much annoyed at her awkward position."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Of course I should do no such thing," said Wildeve "But they
are not engaged yet. How do you know that Thomasin would accept him?"

"That's a question I have carefully put to myself; and upon the
whole the probabilities are in favour of her accepting him in time.
I flatter myself that I have some influence over her. She is pliable,
and I can be strong in my recommendations of him."

"And in your disparagement of me at the same time."

"Well, you may depend upon my not praising you," she said drily.
"And if this seems like manoeuvring, you must remember that her
position is peculiar, and that she has been hardly used. I shall also
be helped in making the match by her own desire to escape from the
humiliation of her present state; and a woman's pride in these cases
will lead her a very great way. A little managing may be required to
bring her round; but I am equal to that, provided that you agree to
the one thing indispensable; that is, to make a distinct declaration
that she is to think no more of you as a possible husband. That will
pique her into accepting him."

"I can hardly say that just now, Mrs. Yeobright. It is so sudden."

"And so my whole plan is interfered with! It is very inconvenient that
you refuse to help my family even to the small extent of saying
distinctly you will have nothing to do with us."

Wildeve reflected uncomfortably. "I confess I was not prepared for this,"
he said. "Of course I'll give her up if you wish, if it is necessary.
But I thought I might be her husband."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

At this hour the lonely dwelling was closely blinded and shuttered
from the chill and darkness without. Wildeve's clandestine plan with
her was to take a little gravel in his hand and hold it to the
crevice at the top of the window shutter, which was on the outside,
so that it should fall with a gentle rustle, resembling that of a
mouse, between shutter and glass. This precaution in attracting her
attention was to avoid arousing the suspicions of her grandfather.

The soft words, "I hear; wait for me," in Eustacia's voice from
within told him that she was alone.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"The woman, now she no longer needs me, actually shows off!"
Wildeve's vexation has escaped him in spite of himself.

Eustacia was silent a long while. "You are in the awkward position
of an official who is no longer wanted," she said in a changed tone.

"It seems so. But I have not yet seen Thomasin."

"And that irritates you. Don't deny it, Damon. You are actually
nettled by this slight from an unexpected quarter."

"Well?"

"And you come to get me because you cannot get her. This is
certainly a new position altogether. I am to be a stop-gap."

"Please remember that I proposed the same thing the other day."

Eustacia again remained in a sort of stupefied silence. What curious
feeling was this coming over her? Was it really possible that her
interest in Wildeve had been so entirely the result of antagonism
that the glory and the dream departed from the man with the first
sound that he was no longer coveted by her rival? She was, then,
secure of him at last. Thomasin no longer required him. What a
humiliating victory! He loved her best, she thought; and yet--dared
she to murmur such treacherous criticism ever so softly?--what was
the man worth whom a woman inferior to herself did not value? The
sentiment which lurks more or less in all animate nature--that of
not desiring the undesired of others--was lively as a passion in
the supersubtle, epicurean heart of Eustacia. Her social superiority
over him, which hitherto had scarcely ever impressed her, became
unpleasantly insistent, and for the first time she felt that she
had stooped in loving him.

"Well, darling, you agree?" said Wildeve.

"If it could be London, or even Budmouth, instead of America," she
murmured languidly. "Well, I will think. It is too great a thing
for me to decide offhand. I wish I hated the heath less--or loved
you more."

"You can be painfully frank. You loved me a month ago warmly enough
to go anywhere with me."

"And you loved Thomasin."

"Yes, perhaps that was where the reason lay," he returned, with
almost a sneer. "I don't hate her now."

"Exactly. The only thing is that you can no longer get her."

"Come--no taunts, Eustacia, or we shall quarrel. If you don't agree
to go with me, and agree shortly, I shall go by myself."

"Or try Thomasin again. Damon, how strange it seems that you could
have married her or me indifferently, and only have come to me because
I am--cheapest! Yes, yes--it is true. There was a time when I should
have exclaimed against a man of that sort, and been quite wild; but
it is all past now."

"Will you go, dearest? Come secretly with me to Bristol, marry me, and
turn our backs upon this dog-hole of England for ever? Say Yes."

-----------------------------------------------------------------


Eustacia watched his shadowy form till it had disappeared. She placed
her hand to her forehead and breathed heavily; and then her rich,
romantic lips parted under that homely impulse--a yawn. She was
immediately angry at having betrayed even to herself the possible
evanescence of her passion for him. She could not admit at once that
she might have overestimated Wildeve, for to perceive his mediocrity
now was to admit her own great folly heretofore. And the discovery that
she was the owner of a disposition so purely that of the dog in the
manger had something in it which at first made her ashamed.

The fruit of Mrs. Yeobright's diplomacy was indeed remarkable, though
not as yet of the kind she had anticipated. It had appreciably
influenced Wildeve, but it was influencing Eustacia far more. Her lover
was no longer to her an exciting man whom many women strove for, and
herself could only retain by striving with them. He was a superfluity.

She went indoors in that peculiar state of misery which is not exactly
grief, and which especially attends the dawnings of reason in the latter
days of an ill-judged, transient love. To be conscious that the end of
the dream is approaching, and yet has not absolutely come, is one of the
most wearisome as well as the most curious stages along the course
between the beginning of a passion and its end.

Her grandfather had returned, and was busily engaged in pouring some
gallons of newly arrived rum into the square bottles of his square cellaret.
Whenever these home supplies were exhausted he would go to the Quiet Woman,
and, standing with his back to the fire, grog in hand, tell remarkable
stories of how he had lived seven years under the waterline of his ship,
and other naval wonders, to the natives, who hoped too earnestly for a
treat of ale from the teller to exhibit any doubts of his truth.

He had been there this evening. "I suppose you have heard the Egdon news,
Eustacia?" he said, without looking up from the bottles. "The men have been
talking about it at the Woman as if it were of national importance."

"I have heard none," she said.

"Young Clym Yeobright, as they call him, is coming home next week to spend
Christmas with his mother. He is a fine fellow by this time, it seems. I
suppose you remember him?"

"I never saw him in my life."

"Ah, true; he left before you came here. I well remember him as a promising
boy."

"Where has he been living all these years?"

"In that rookery of pomp and vanity, Paris, I believe."

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I - Tidings of the Comer



　　　　On the fine days at this time of the year, and earlier, certain
ephemeral operations were apt to disturb, in their trifling way,
the majestic calm of Egdon Heath. They were activities which,
beside those of a town, a village, or even a farm, would have
appeared as the ferment of stagnation merely, a creeping of the
flesh of somnolence. But here, away from comparisons, shut in by
the stable hills, among which mere walking had the novelty of
pageantry, and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam
without the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of
every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep, and set
the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks at a
safe distance.
　　　　The performance was that of bringing together and building into
a stack the furze faggots which Humphrey had been cutting for the
captain's use during the foregoing fine days. The stack was at
the end of the dwelling, and the men engaged in building it were
Humphrey and Sam, the old man looking on.
　　　　It was a fine and quiet afternoon, about three o'clock; but the
winter solstice having stealthily come on, the lowness of the sun
caused the hour to seem later than it actually was, there being
little here to remind an inhabitant that he must unlearn his summer
experience of the sky as a dial. In the course of many days and
weeks sunrise had advanced its quarters from northeast to southeast,
sunset had receded from northwest to southwest; but Egdon had hardly
heeded the change.
　　　　Eustacia was indoors in the dining-room, which was really more like
a kitchen, having a stone floor and a gaping chimney-corner. The
air was still, and while she lingered a moment here alone sounds of
voices in conversation came to her ears directly down the chimney.
She entered the recess, and, listening, looked up the old irregular
shaft, with its cavernous hollows, where the smoke blundered about
on its way to the square bit of sky at the top, from which the
daylight struck down with a pallid glare upon the tatters of soot
draping the flue as seaweed drapes a rocky fissure.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too
much of that sending to school in these days! It only does harm.
Every gatepost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some
bad word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals--a woman
can hardly pass for shame sometimes. If they'd never been taught
how to write they wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy.
Their fathers couldn't do it, and the country was all the better
for it."

"Now, I should think, Cap'n, that Miss Eustacia had about as much
in her head that comes from books as anybody about here?"

"Perhaps if Miss Eustacia, too, had less romantic nonsense in her
head it would be better for her," said the captain shortly; after
which he walked away.

"I say, Sam," observed Humphrey when the old man was gone, "she
and Clym Yeobright would make a very pretty pigeon-pair--hey? If
they wouldn't I'll be dazed! Both of one mind about niceties for
certain, and learned in print, and always thinking about high
doctrine--there couldn't be a better couple if they were made o'
purpose. Clym's family is as good as hers. His father was a farmer,
that's true; but his mother was a sort of lady, as we know. Nothing
would please me better than to see them two man and wife."

"They'd look very natty, arm-in-crook together, and their best
clothes on, whether or no, if he's at all the well-favoured fellow
he used to be."

"They would, Humphrey. Well, I should like to see the chap terrible
much after so many years. If I knew for certain when he was coming
I'd stroll out three or four miles to meet him and help carry
anything for'n; though I suppose he's altered from the boy he was.
They say he can talk French as fast as a maid can eat blackberries;
and if so, depend upon it we who have stayed at home shall seem no
more than scroff in his eyes."

"Coming across the water to Budmouth by steamer, isn't he?"

"Yes; but how he's coming from Budmouth I don't know."

"That's a bad trouble about his cousin Thomasin. I wonder such a
nice-notioned fellow as Clym likes to come home into it. What a
nunnywatch we were in, to be sure, when we heard they weren't married
at all, after singing to 'em as man and wife that night! Be dazed if
I should like a relation of mine to have been made such a fool of by
a man. It makes the family look small."

"Yes. Poor maid, her heart has ached enough about it. Her health is
suffering from it, I hear, for she will bide entirely indoors. We
never see her out now, scampering over the furze with a face as red
as a rose, as she used to do."

-----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　While the furze-gatherers had desultorily conversed thus Eustacia's
face gradually bent to the hearth in a profound reverie, her toe
unconsciously tapping the dry turf which lay burning at her feet.
　　　　The subject of their discourse had been keenly interesting to her.
A young and clever man was coming into that lonely heath from, of all
contrasting places in the world, Paris. It was like a man coming from
heaven. More singular still, the heathmen had instinctively coupled
her and this man together in their minds as a pair born for each other.
　　　　That five minutes of overhearing furnished Eustacia with visions
enough to fill the whole blank afternoon. Such sudden alternations
from mental vacuity do sometimes occur thus quietly. She could never
have believed in the morning that her colourless inner world would
before night become as animated as water under a microscope, and that
without the arrival of a single visitor. The words of Sam and Humphrey
on the harmony between the unknown and herself had on her mind the
effect of the invading Bard's prelude in the Castle of Indolence, at
which myriads of imprisoned shapes arose where had previously appeared
the stillness of a void.




　　　　Beyond the irregular carpet of grass was a row of white palings,
which marked the verge of the heath in this latitude. They showed upon
the dusky scene that they bordered as distinctly as white lace on velvet.
Behind the white palings was a little garden; behind the garden an old,
irregular, thatched house, facing the heath, and commanding a full view
of the valley. This was the obscure, removed spot to which was about to
return a man whose latter life had been passed in the French capital--
the centre and vortex of the fashionable world.



II- The People at Blooms-End Make Ready



　　　　The loft was lighted by a semicircular hole, through which
the pigeons crept to their lodgings in the same high quarters of
the premises; and from this hole the sun shone in a bright yellow
patch upon the figure of the maiden as she knelt and plunged her
naked arms into the soft brown fern, which, from its abundance, was
used on Egdon in packing away stores of all kinds. The pigeons were
flying about her head with the greatest unconcern, and the face of
her aunt was just visible above the floor of the loft, lit by a few
stray motes of light, as she stood halfway up the ladder, looking
at a spot into which she was not climber enough to venture.

"Now a few russets, Tamsin. He used to like them almost as well as
ribstones."

Thomasin turned and rolled aside the fern from another nook, where
more mellow fruit greeted her with its ripe smell. Before picking
them out she stopped a moment.

"Dear Clym, I wonder how your face looks now?" she said, gazing
abstractedly at the pigeon-hole. which admitted the sunlight so
directly upon her brown hair and transparent tissues that it almost
seemed to shine through her.

"If he could have been dear to you in another way," said Mrs.
Yeobright from the ladder, "this might have been a happy meeting."

"Is there any use in saying what can do no good, Aunt?"

"Yes," said her aunt, with some warmth. "To thoroughly fill the air
with the past misfortune, so that other girls may take warning and
keep clear of it."

Thomasin lowered her face to the apples again. "I am a warning to
others, just as thieves and drunkards and gamblers are," she said
in a low voice. "What a class to belong to! Do I really belong to
them? 'Tis absurd! Yet why, Aunt, does everybody keep on making me
think that I do, by the way they behave towards me? Why don't people
judge me by my acts? Now, look at me as I kneel here, picking up
these apples--do I look like a lost woman?...I wish all good women
were as good as I!" she added vehemently.

"Strangers don't see you as I do," said Mrs. Yeobright; "they judge
from false report. Well, it is a silly job, and I am partly to blame."

"How quickly a rash thing can be done!" replied the girl. Her lips
were quivering, and tears so crowded themselves into her eyes that
she could hardly distinguish apples from fern as she continued
industriously searching to hide her weakness.

----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　Thomasin came down when the apples were collected, and together
they went through the white palings to the heath beyond. The open
hills were airy and clear, and the remote atmosphere appeared, as it
often appears on a fine winter day, in distinct planes of illumination
independently toned, the rays which lit the nearer tracts of landscape
streaming visibly across those further off; a stratum of ensaffroned
light was imposed on a stratum of deep blue, and behind these lay still
remoter scenes wrapped in frigid grey.
　　　　They reached the place where the hollies grew, which was in a
conical pit, so that the tops of the trees were not much above the general
level of the ground. Thomasin stepped up into a fork of one of the bushes,
as she had done under happier circumstances on many similar occasions, and
with a small chopper that they had brought she began to lop off the heavily
berried boughs.
　　　　"Don't scratch your face," said her aunt, who stood at the edge of
the pit, regarding the girl as she held on amid the glistening green and
scarlet masses of the tree.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"What did you tell him?"

"That he was standing in the way of another lover of yours."

"Aunt," said Thomasin, with round eyes, "what do you mean?"

"Don't be alarmed; it was my duty. I can say no more about it now,
but when it is over I will tell you exactly what I said, and why I
said it."

Thomasin was perforce content.

"And you will keep the secret of my would-be marriage from Clym for
the present?" she next asked.

"I have given my word to. But what is the use of it? He must soon
know what has happened. A mere look at your face will show him that
something is wrong."

Thomasin turned and regarded her aunt from the tree. "Now, hearken
to me," she said, her delicate voice expanding into firmness by a
force which was other than physical. "Tell him nothing. If he finds
out that I am not worthy to be his cousin, let him. But, since he
loved me once, we will not pain him by telling him my trouble too
soon. The air is full of the story, I know; but gossips will not
dare to speak of it to him for the first few days. His closeness to
me is the very thing that will hinder the tale from reaching him
early. If I am not made safe from sneers in a week or two I will
tell him myself."

----------------------------------------------------------------



III - How a Little Sound Produced a Great Dream



　　　　They went by her, and at the moment of passing appeared
to discern her dusky form. There came to her ears in a masculine
voice, "Good night!"
　　　　She murmured a reply, glided by them, and turned round. She
could not, for a moment, believe that chance, unrequested, had
brought into her presence the soul of the house she had gone to
inspect, the man without whom her inspection would not have been
thought of.
　　　　She strained her eyes to see them, but was unable. Such was
her intentness, however, that it seemed as if her ears were
performing the functions of seeing as well as hearing.




　　　　It was to the alternating voice that gave out about one-tenth
of them--the voice that had wished her good night. Sometimes this
throat uttered Yes, sometimes it uttered No; sometimes it made
inquiries about a time worn denizen of the place. Once it surprised
her notions by remarking upon the friendliness and geniality
written in the faces of the hills around.
　　　　The three voices passed on, and decayed and died out upon her
ear. Thus much had been granted her; and all besides withheld. No
event could have been more exciting. During the greater part of the
afternoon she had been entrancing herself by imagining the
fascination which must attend a man come direct from beautiful
Paris--laden with its atmosphere, familiar with its charms. And
this man had greeted her.
　　　　With the departure of the figures the profuse articulations of
the women wasted away from her memory; but the accents of the other
stayed on. Was there anything in the voice of Mrs. Yeobright's son--
for Clym it was--startling as a sound? No; it was simply comprehensive.
All emotional things were possible to the speaker of that "good night."
Eustacia's imagination supplied the rest--except the solution to one
riddle. What could the tastes of that man be who saw friendliness and
geniality in these shaggy hills?
　　　　On such occasions as this a thousand ideas pass through a highly
charged woman's head; and they indicate themselves on her face; but
the changes, though actual, are minute. Eustacia's features went through
a rhythmical succession of them. She glowed; remembering the mendacity
of the imagination, she flagged; then she freshened; then she fired;
then she cooled again. It was a cycle of aspects, produced by a cycle of
visions.


----------------------------------------------------------------

"Why is it that we are never friendly with the Yeobrights?" she
said, coming forward and stretching her soft hands over the warmth.
"I wish we were. They seem to be very nice people."

"Be hanged if I know why," said the captain. "I liked the old man
well enough, though he was as rough as a hedge. But you would never
have cared to go there, even if you might have, I am well sure."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Your town tastes would find them far too countrified. They sit in
the kitchen, drink mead and elder-wine, and sand the floor to keep
it clean. A sensible way of life; but how would you like it?"

----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　That night was an eventful one to Eustacia's brain, and one
which she hardly ever forgot. She dreamt a dream; and few human
beings, from Nebuchadnezzar to the Swaffham tinker, ever dreamt a
more remarkable one. Such an elaborately developed, perplexing,
exciting dream was certainly never dreamed by a girl in Eustacia's
situation before. It had as many ramifications as the Cretan labyrinth,
as many fluctuations as the northern lights, as much colour as a
parterre in June, and was as crowded with figures as a coronation.
To Queen Scheherazade the dream might have seemed not far removed
from commonplace; and to a girl just returned from all the courts of
Europe it might have seemed not more than interesting. But amid the
circumstances of Eustacia's life it was as wonderful as a dream could
be.
　　　　There was, however, gradually evolved from its transformation
scenes a less extravagant episode, in which the heath dimly appeared
behind the general brilliancy of the action. She was dancing to
wondrous music, and her partner was the man in silver armour who had
accompanied her through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of
his helmet being closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft
whispering came into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she
felt like a woman in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from
the mass of dancers, dived into one of the pools of the heath, and
came out somewhere into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows.
"It must be here," said the voice by her side, and blushingly
looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss her. At that
moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into fragments
like a pack of cards.




　　　　When she became cooler she perceived that many of the phases
of the dream had naturally arisen out of the images and fancies of
the day before. But this detracted little from its interest, which
lay in the excellent fuel it provided for newly kindled fervour.
She was at the modulating point between indifference and love, at
the stage called "having a fancy for." It occurs once in the history
of the most gigantic passions, and it is a period when they are in
the hands of the weakest will.
　　　　The perfervid woman was by this time half in love with a vision.
The fantastic nature of her passion, which lowered her as an intellect,
raised her as a soul. If she had had a little more self-control she
would have attenuated the emotion to nothing by sheer reasoning, and
so have killed it off. If she had had a little less pride she might
have gone and circumambulated the Yeobrights' premises at Blooms-End
at any maidenly sacrifice until she had seen him. But Eustacia did
neither of these things. She acted as the most exemplary might have
acted, being so influenced; she took an airing twice or thrice a day
upon the Egdon hills, and kept her eyes employed.
　　　　The first occasion passed, and he did not come that way.
　　　　She promenaded a second time, and was again the sole wanderer there.
　　　　The third time there was a dense fog; she looked around, but without
much hope. Even if he had been walking within twenty yards of her she
could not have seen him.
　　　　At the fourth attempt to encounter him it began to rain in torrents,
and she turned back.
　　　　The fifth sally was in the afternoon; it was fine, and she remained
out long, walking to the very top of the valley in which Blooms-End lay.
She saw the white paling about half a mile off; but he did not appear.
It was almost with heart-sickness that she came home and with a sense of
shame at her weakness. She resolved to look for the man from Paris no
more.
　　　　But Providence is nothing if not coquettish; and no sooner had Eustacia
formed this resolve than the opportunity came which, while sought, had
been entirely withholden.



IV - Eustacia Is Led on to an Adventure



　　　　The customary expedient of provincial girls and men in such
circumstances is churchgoing. In an ordinary village or country town
one can safely calculate that, either on Christmas day or the Sunday
contiguous, any native home for the holidays, who has not through age
or ennui lost the appetite for seeing and being seen, will turn up in
some pew or other, shining with hope, self-consciousness, and new
clothes. Thus the congregation on Christmas morning is mostly a Tussaud
collection of celebrities who have been born in the neighbourhood.
Hither the mistress, left neglected at home all the year, can steal and
observe the development of the returned lover who has forgotten her,
and think as she watches him over her prayer book that he may throb with
a renewed fidelity when novelties have lost their charm.
　　　　But these tender schemes were not feasible among the scattered
inhabitants of Egdon Heath. In name they were parishioners, but virtually
they belonged to no parish at all. People who came to these few isolated
houses to keep Christmas with their friends remained in their friends'
chimney-corners drinking mead and other comforting liquors till they left
again for good and all. Rain, snow, ice, mud everywhere around, they did
not care to trudge two or three miles to sit wet-footed and splashed to
the nape of their necks among those who, though in some measure neighbours,
lived close to the church, and entered it clean and dry. Eustacia knew it
was ten to one that Clym Yeobright would go to no church at all during his
few days of leave, and that it would be a waste of labour for her to go
driving the pony and gig over a bad road in hope to see him there.




　　　　For mummers and mumming Eustacia had the greatest contempt. The
mummers themselves were not afflicted with any such feeling for their
art, though at the same time they were not enthusiastic. A traditional
pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking
feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and
fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of stir
which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily should
be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the agents
seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted parts whether
they will or no.This unweeting manner of performance is the true ring by
which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival may be known from a
spurious reproduction.
　　　　The piece was the well-known play of Saint George, and all who were
behind the scenes assisted in the preparations, including the women of each
household. Without the co-operation of sisters and sweethearts the dresses
were likely to be a failure; but on the other hand, this class of assistance
was not without its drawbacks. The girls could never be brought to respect
tradition in designing and decorating the armour; they insisted on attaching
loops and bows of silk and velvet in any situation pleasing to their taste.
Gorget, gusset, basinet, cuirass, gauntlet, sleeve, all alike in the view of
these feminine eyes were practicable spaces whereon to sew scraps of
fluttering colour.
　　　　It might be that Joe, who fought on the side of Christendom, had a
sweetheart, and that Jim, who fought on the side of the Moslem, had one
likewise. During the making of the costumes it would come to the knowledge
of Joe's sweetheart that Jim's was putting brilliant silk scallops at the
bottom of her lover's surcoat, in addition to the ribbons of the visor, the
bars of which, being invariably formed of coloured strips about half an inch
wide hanging before the face, were mostly of that material. Joe's sweetheart
straight-way placed brilliant silk on the scallops of the hem in question,
and, going a little further, added ribbon tufts to the shoulder pieces. Jim's,
not to be outdone, would affix bows and rosettes everywhere.




　　　　To dissipate in some trifling measure her abiding sense of
the murkiness of human life she went to the "linhay" or lean-to
shed, which formed the root-store of their dwelling and abutted on
the fuelhouse. Here was a small rough hole in the mud wall,
originally made for pigeons, through which the interior of the next
shed could be viewed. A light came from it now; and Eustacia stepped
upon a stool to look in upon the scene.




　　　　Eustacia's face flagged. There was to be a party at the
Yeobrights'; she, naturally, had nothing to do with it. She was a
stranger to all such local gatherings, and had always held them as
scarcely appertaining to her sphere. But had she been going, what
an opportunity would have been afforded her of seeing the man whose
influence was penetrating her like summer sun! To increase that
influence was coveted excitement; to cast it off might be to regain
serenity; to leave it as it stood was tantalizing.




　　　　Eustacia had occasionally heard the part recited before. When
the lad ended she began, precisely in the same words, and ranted on
without hitch or divergence till she too reached the end. It was the
same thing, yet how different. Like in form, it had the added softness
and finish of a Raffaelle after Perugino, which, while faithfully
reproducing the original subject, entirely distances the original art.

Charley's eyes rounded with surprise. "Well, you be a clever lady!"
he said, in admiration. "I've been three weeks learning mine."

----------------------------------------------------------------

"You know what you forbade me at the Maypoling, miss," murmured
the lad, without looking at her, and still stroking the firedog's
head.

"Yes," said Eustacia, with a little more hauteur. "You wanted to
join hands with me in the ring, if I recollect?"

"Half an hour of that, and I'll agree, miss."

Eustacia regarded the youth steadfastly. He was three years younger
than herself, but apparently not backward for his age. "Half an
hour of what?" she said, though she guessed what.

"Holding your hand in mine."

She was silent. "Make it a quarter of an hour," she said

"Yes, Miss Eustacia--I will, if I may kiss it too. A quarter of an
hour. And I'll swear to do the best I can to let you take my place
without anybody knowing. Don't you think somebody might know your
tongue, miss?"

"It is possible. But I will put a pebble in my mouth to make is
less likely.

----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　Eustacia felt more and more interest in life. Here was something
to do: here was some one to see, and a charmingly adventurous way to see
him. "Ah," she said to herself, "want of an object to live for--that's
all is the matter with me!"
　　　　Eustacia's manner was as a rule of a slumberous sort, her passions
being of the massive rather than the vivacious kind. But when aroused she
would make a dash which, just for the time, was not unlike the move of a
naturally lively person.


----------------------------------------------------------------

"The payment. It is quite ready. I am as good as my word."

She leant against the door-post, and gave him her hand. Charley took
it in both his own with a tenderness beyond description, unless it
was like that of a child holding a captured sparrow.

"Why, there's a glove on it!" he said in a deprecating way.

"I have been walking," she observed.

"But, miss!"

"Well--it is hardly fair." She pulled off the glove, and gave him her
bare hand.

They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each
looking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own
thoughts.

"I think I won't use it all up tonight," said Charley devotedly, when
six or eight minutes had been passed by him caressing her hand. "May I
have the other few minutes another time?"

"As you like," said she without the least emotion. "But it must be
over in a week.

----------------------------------------------------------------


　　　　Charley did as commanded, and she struck the light revealing
herself to be changed in sex, brilliant in colours, and armed from
top to toe. Perhaps she quailed a little under Charley's vigorous gaze,
but whether any shyness at her male attire appeared upon her countenance
could not be seen by reason of the strips of ribbon which used to cover
the face in mumming costumes, representing the barred visor of the
mediaeval helmet.

"It fits pretty well," she said, looking down at the white
overalls, "except that the tunic, or whatever you call it, is long in
the sleeve. The bottom of the overalls I can turn up inside. Now pay
attention."

　　　　Eustacia then proceeded in her delivery, striking the sword against
the staff or lance at the minatory phrases, in the orthodox mumming
manner, and strutting up and down. Charley seasoned his admiration with
criticism of the gentlest kind, for the touch of Eustacia's hand yet
remained with him.


----------------------------------------------------------------

"Yes, miss. But I think I'll have one minute more of what I
am owed, if you don't mind."

Eustacia gave him her hand as before.

"One minute," she said, and counted on till she reached seven
or eight minutes. Hand and person she then withdrew to a
distance of several feet, and recovered some of her old dignity.
The contract completed, she raised between them a barrier
impenetrable as a wall.

"There, 'tis all gone; and I didn't mean quite all," he said,
with a sigh.

"You had good measure," said she, turning away.

"Yes, miss. Well, 'tis over, and now I'll get home-along."

----------------------------------------------------------------




V - Through the Moonlight



　　　　On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any
moment was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different
hamlets, some of them having originally grown up from a common root,
and then become divided by secession, some having been alien from the
beginning. West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the
time of the Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle's watch had numbered many
followers in years gone by, but since he had grown older faiths were
shaken. Thus, the mummers having gathered hither from scattered points
each came with his own tenets on early and late; and they waited a
little longer as a compromise.
　　　　Eustacia had watched the assemblage through the hole; and seeing
that now was the proper moment to enter, she went from the "linhay"
and boldly pulled the bobbin of the fuelhouse door. Her grandfather
was safe at the Quiet Woman.

"Here's Charley at last! How late you be, Charley."

"'Tis not Charley," said the Turkish Knight from within his visor.
"'Tis a cousin of Miss Vye's, come to take Charley's place from curiosity.
He was obliged to go and look for the heath-croppers that have got
into the meads, and I agreed to take his place, as he knew he couldn't
come back here again tonight. I know the part as well as he."
　　　　Her graceful gait, elegant figure, and dignified manner in general
won the mummers to the opinion that they had gained by the exchange, if
the newcomer were perfect in his part.




　　　　There was a slight hoarfrost that night, and the moon, though
not more than half full, threw a spirited and enticing brightness upon
the fantastic figures of the mumming band, whose plumes and ribbons
rustled in their walk like autumn leaves. Their path was not over
Rainbarrow now, but down a valley which left that ancient elevation a
little to the east. The bottom of the vale was green to a width of ten
yards or thereabouts, and the shining facets of frost upon the blades
of grass seemed to move on with the shadows of those they surrounded.
The masses of furze and heath to the right and left were dark as ever;
a mere half-moon was powerless to silver such sable features as theirs.
　　　　Half-an-hour of walking and talking brought them to the spot in
the valley where the grass riband widened and led down to the front of
the house. At sight of the place Eustacia who had felt a few passing
doubts during her walk with the youths, again was glad that the adventure
had been undertaken. She had come out to see a man who might possibly
have the power to deliver her soul from a most deadly oppression. What was
Wildeve? Interesting, but inadequate. Perhaps she would see a sufficient
hero tonight.
　　　　As they drew nearer to the front of the house the mummers became
aware that music and dancing were briskly flourishing within. Every now
and then a long low note from the serpent, which was the chief wind
instrument played at these times, advanced further into the heath than
the thin treble part, and reached their ears alone; and next a more than
usual loud tread from a dancer would come the same way. With nearer
approach these fragmentary sounds became pieced together, and were found
to be the salient points of the tune called "Nancy's Fancy."
　　　　He was there, of course. Who was she that he danced with? Perhaps
some unknown woman, far beneath herself in culture, was by the most subtle
of lures sealing his fate this very instant. To dance with a man is to
concentrate a twelvemonth's regulation fire upon him in the fragment of an
hour. To pass to courtship without acquaintance, to pass to marriage
without courtship, is a skipping of terms reserved for those alone who tread
this royal road. She would see how his heart lay by keen observation of them
all.
　　　　The enterprising lady followed the mumming company through the gate in
the white paling, and stood before the open porch. The house was encrusted
with heavy thatchings, which dropped between the upper windows; the front,
upon which the moonbeams directly played, had originally been white; but a
huge pyracanth now darkened the greater portion.
　　　　It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately within
the surface of the door, no apartment intervening. The brushing of skirts and
elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard against the very
panels. Eustacia, though living within two miles of the place, had never seen
the interior of this quaint old habitation. Between Captain Vye and the
Yeobrights there had never existed much acquaintance, the former having come
as a stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long
before the death of Mrs. Yeobright's husband; and with that event and the
departure of her son such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.

"Is there no passage inside the door, then?" asked Eustacia as they stood
within the porch.

"No," said the lad who played the Saracen. "The door opens right upon
the front sitting-room, where the spree's going on."

"So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance."

"That's it. Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt
the back door after dark."

"They won't be much longer," said Father Christmas.

　　　　This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event. Again the
instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and
pathos as if it were the first strain. The air was now that one without any
particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the dances
which throng an inspired fiddler's fancy, best conveys the idea of the
interminable--the celebrated "Devil's Dream." The fury of personal movement
that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be approximately imagined
by these outsiders under the moon, from the occasional kicks of toes and
heels against the door, whenever the whirl round had been of more than
customary velocity.
　　　　The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the
mummers. The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a quarter
of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively "Dream." The
bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were all as vigorous
as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened considerably.


----------------------------------------------------------------

"Why not go in, dancing or no? They sent for us," said the Saracen.

"Certainly not," said Eustacia authoritatively, as she paced smartly
up and down from door to gate to warm herself. "We should burst into
the middle of them and stop the dance, and that would be unmannerly."

"He thinks himself somebody because he has had a bit more schooling
than we," said the Doctor.

"You may go to the deuce!" said Eustacia.

There was a whispered conversation between three or four of them, and
one turned to her.

"Will you tell us one thing?" he said, not without gentleness. "Be
you Miss Vye? We think you must be."

"You may think what you like," said Eustacia slowly. "But honourable
lads will not tell tales upon a lady."

"We'll say nothing, miss. That's upon our honour."

"Thank you," she replied.

At this moment the fiddles finished off with a screech, and the serpent
emitted a last note that nearly lifted the roof. When, from the
comparative quiet within, the mummers judged that the dancers had taken
their seats, Father Christmas advanced, lifted the latch, and put his
head inside the door.

"Ah, the mummers, the mummers!" cried several guests at once. "Clear a
space for the mummers."

----------------------------------------------------------------




　　　　"Here come I, a Turkish Knight,
　　　　Who learnt in Turkish land to fight;
　　　　I'll fight this man with courage bold:
　　　　If his blood's hot I'll make it cold!"

During her declamation Eustacia held her head erect, and spoke as
roughly as she could, feeling pretty secure from observation. But
the concentration upon her part necessary to prevent discovery, the
newness of the scene, the shine of the candles, and the confusing
effect upon her vision of the ribboned visor which hid her features,
left her absolutely unable to perceive who were present as spectators.
On the further side of a table bearing candles she could faintly
discern faces, and that was all.

Meanwhile Jim Starks as the Valiant Soldier had come forward, and,
with a glare upon the Turk, replied--

　　　　"If, then, thou art that Turkish Knight,
　　　　Draw out thy sword, and let us fight!"

And fight they did; the issue of the combat being that the Valiant
Soldier was slain by a preternaturally inadequate thrust from Eustacia,
Jim, in his ardour for genuine histrionic art, coming down like a log
upon the stone floor with force enough to dislocate his shoulder.




　　　　The Doctor now entered, restored the Knight by giving him a
draught from the bottle which he carried, and the fight was again
resumed, the Turk sinking by degrees until quite overcome--dying as
hard in this venerable drama as he is said to do at the present day.
　　　　This gradual sinking to the earth was, in fact, one reason why
Eustacia had thought that the part of the Turkish Knight, though not
the shortest, would suit her best. A direct fall from upright to horizontal,
which was the end of the other fighting characters, was not an elegant or
decorous part for a girl. But it was easy to die like a Turk, by a dogged
decline.




VI - The Two Stand Face to Face



　　　　The room had been arranged with a view to the dancing, the
large oak table having been moved back till it stood as a breastwork
to the fireplace. At each end, behind, and in the chimney-corner were
grouped the guests, many of them being warm-faced and panting, among
whom Eustacia cursorily recognized some well-to-do persons from beyond
the heath. Thomasin, as she had expected, was not visible, and Eustacia
recollected that a light had shone from an upper window when they were
outside--the window, probably, of Thomasin's room. A nose, chin, hands,
knees, and toes projected from the seat within the chimney opening,
which members she found to unite in the person of Grandfer Cantle, Mrs.
Yeobright's occasional assistant in the garden, and therefore one of the
invited. The smoke went up from an Etna of peat in front of him, played
round the notches of the chimney-crook, struck against the salt-box, and
got lost among the flitches.
　　　　Another part of the room soon riveted her gaze. At the other side
of the chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a
fire so open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke.
It is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east
belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to the
garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young women
shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise. Not a symptom of a draught
disturbs the air; the sitters' backs are as warm as their faces, and songs
and old tales are drawn from the occupants by the comfortable heat, like fruit
from melon plants in a frame.
　　　　It was, however, not with those who sat in the settle that Eustacia was
concerned. A face showed itself with marked distinctness against the dark-
tanned wood of the upper part. The owner, who was leaning against the settle's
outer end, was Clement Yeobright, or Clym, as he was called here; she knew it
could be nobody else. The spectacle constituted an area of two feet in
Rembrandt's intensest manner. A strange power in the lounger's appearance
lay in the fact that, though his whole figure was visible, the observer's eye
was only aware of his face.
　　　　To one of middle age the countenance was that of a young man, though
a youth might hardly have seen any necessity for the term of immaturity. But
it was really one of those faces which convey less the idea of so many years
as its age than of so much experience as its store. The number of their years
may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel, and the rest of the
antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be measured by the intensity
of his history. 　　　　The face was well shaped, even excellently. But the mind
within was beginning to use it as a mere waste tablet whereon to trace its
idiosyncrasies as they developed themselves. The beauty here visible would in
no long time be ruthlessly over-run by its parasite, thought, which might just
as well have fed upon a plainer exterior where there was nothing it could harm.
Had Heaven preserved Yeobright from a wearing habit of meditation, people
would have said, "A handsome man." Had his brain unfolded under sharper
contours they would have said, "A thoughtful man." But an inner strenuousness
was preying upon an outer symmetry, and they rated his look as singular.
　　　　Hence people who began by beholding him ended by perusing him. His
countenance was overlaid with legible meanings. Without being thought-worn he
yet had certain marks derived from a perception of his surroundings, such as
are not unfrequently found on men at the end of the four or five years of
endeavour which follow the close of placid pupilage. He already showed that
thought is a disease of flesh, and indirectly bore evidence that ideal physical
beauty is incompatible with emotional development and a full recognition of
the coil of things. Mental luminousness must be fed with the oil of life, even
though there is already a physical need for it; and the pitiful sight of two
demands on one supply was just showing itself here.
　　　　When standing before certain men the philosopher regrets that thinkers
are but perishable tissue, the artist that perishable tissue has to think. Thus
to deplore, each from his point of view, the mutually destructive
interdependence of spirit and flesh would have been instinctive with these in
critically observing Yeobright.
　　　　As for his look, it was a natural cheerfulness striving against depression
from without, and not quite succeeding. The look suggested isolation, but it
revealed something more. As is usual with bright natures, the deity that lies
ignominiously chained within an ephemeral human carcase shone out of him
like a ray.
　　　　The effect upon Eustacia was palpable. The extraordinary pitch of
excitement that she had reached beforehand would, indeed, have caused her
to be influenced by the most commonplace man. She was troubled at
Yeobright's presence.


----------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, I should have come earlier," Mr. Fairway said and paused to
look along the beam of the ceiling for a nail to hang his hat on; but,
finding his accustomed one to be occupied by the mistletoe, and all
the nails in the walls to be burdened with bunches of holly, he at
last relieved himself of the hat by ticklishly balancing it between
the candle-box and the head of the clock-case. "I should have come
earlier, ma'am," he resumed, with a more composed air, "but I know
what parties be, and how there's none too much room in folks' houses
at such times, so I thought I wouldn't come till you'd got settled a
bit."

"And I thought so too, Mrs. Yeobright," said Christian earnestly,
"but Father there was so eager that he had no manners at all, and
left home almost afore 'twas dark. I told him 'twas barely decent in
a' old man to come so oversoon; but words be wind."

"Klk! I wasn't going to bide waiting about, till half the game was
over! I'm as light as a kite when anything's going on!" crowed
Grandfer Cantle from the chimneyseat.

Fairway had meanwhile concluded a critical gaze at Yeobright. "Now,
you may not believe it," he said to the rest of the room, "but I
should never have knowed this gentleman if I had met him anywhere
off his own he'th--he's altered so much."

"You too have altered, and for the better, I think Timothy," said
Yeobright, surveying the firm figure of Fairway.

"Master Yeobright, look me over too. I have altered for the better,
haven't I, hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, rising and placing himself
something above half a foot from Clym's eye, to induce the most
searching criticism.

"To be sure we will," said Fairway, taking the candle and moving it
over the surface of the Grandfer's countenance, the subject of his
scrutiny irradiating himself with light and pleasant smiles, and
giving himself jerks of juvenility.

"You haven't changed much," said Yeobright.

"If there's any difference, Grandfer is younger," appended Fairway
decisively.

"And yet not my own doing, and I feel no pride in it," said the
pleased ancient. "But I can't be cured of my vagaries; them I plead
guilty to. Yes, Master Cantle always was that, as we know. But I am
nothing by the side of you, Mister Clym."

"Nor any o' us," said Humphrey, in a low rich tone of admiration,
not intended to reach anybody's ears.

"Really, there would have been nobody here who could have stood as
decent second to him, or even third, if I hadn't been a soldier in
the Bang-up Locals (as we was called for our smartness)," said Grandfer
Cantle. "And even as 'tis we all look a little scammish beside him.
But in the year four 'twas said there wasn't a finer figure in the
whole South Wessex than I, as I looked when dashing past the shop-
winders with the rest of our company on the day we ran out o'
Budmouth because it was thoughted that Boney had landed round the
point. There was I, straight as a young poplar, wi' my firelock,
and my bagnet, and my spatterdashes, and my stock sawing my jaws
off, and my accoutrements sheening like the seven stars! Yes,
neighbours, I was a pretty sight in my soldiering days. You ought
to have seen me in four!"

----------------------------------------------------------------

"But you will surely have some?" said Clym to the Turkish Knight, as he
stood before that warrior, tray in hand. She had refused, and still sat
covered, only the sparkle of her eyes being visible between the ribbons
which covered her face.

"None, thank you," replied Eustacia.

"He's quite a youngster," said the Saracen apologetically, "and you must
excuse him. He's not one of the old set, but have jined us because
t'other couldn't come."

"But he will take something?" persisted Yeobright. "Try a glass of mead
or elder-wine."

"Yes, you had better try that," said the Saracen. "It will keep the cold
out going home-along."

Though Eustacia could not eat without uncovering her face she could drink
easily enough beneath her disguise. The elder-wine was accordingly accepted,
and the glass vanished inside the ribbons.

　　　　At moments during this performance Eustacia was half in doubt about
the security of her position; yet it had a fearful joy. A series of attentions
paid to her, and yet not to her but to some imaginary person, by the first
man she had ever been inclined to adore, complicated her emotions
indescribably. She had loved him partly because he was exceptional in this
scene, partly because she had determined to love him, chiefly because she
was in desperate need of loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve.
Believing that she must love him in spite of herself, she had been
influenced after the fashion of the second Lord Lyttleton and other
persons, who have dreamed that they were to die on a certain day, and by
stress of a morbid imagination have actually brought about that event.
Once let a maiden admit the possibility of her being stricken with love
for someone at a certain hour and place, and the thing is as good as done.
　　　　Did anything at this moment suggest to Yeobright the sex of the
creature whom that fantastic guise inclosed, how extended was her scope
both in feeling and in making others feel, and how far her compass
transcended that of her companions in the band? When the disguised
Queen of Love appeared before Aeneas a preternatural perfume accompanied
her presence and betrayed her quality. If such a mysterious emanation ever
was projected by the emotions of an earthly woman upon their object, it must
have signified Eustacia's presence to Yeobright now. He looked at her
wistfully, then seemed to fall into a reverie, as if he were forgetting
what he observed. The momentary situation ended, he passed on, and
Eustacia sipped her wine without knowing what she drank. The man for whom
she had pre-determined to nourish a passion went into the small room, and
a cross it to the further extremity.




　　　　When Clym passed down the pantry her eyes followed him in the
gloom which prevailed there. At the remote end was a door which, just as
he was about to open it for himself, was opened by somebody within;
and light streamed forth.
　　　　The person was Thomasin, with a candle, looking anxious, pale, and
interesting. Yeobright appeared glad to see her, and pressed her hand.
"That's right, Tamsie," he said heartily, as though recalled to
himself by the sight of her, "you have decided to come down. I am
glad of it."

"Hush--no, no," she said quickly. "I only came to speak to you."

"But why not join us?"

"I cannot. At least I would rather not. I am not well enough, and we
shall have plenty of time together now you are going to be home a good
long holiday."

"It isn't nearly so pleasant without you. Are you really ill?"

"Just a little, my old cousin--here," she said, playfully sweeping her
hand across her heart.

"Ah, Mother should have asked somebody else to be present tonight,
perhaps?"

"O no, indeed. I merely stepped down, Clym, to ask you--" Here he
followed her through the doorway into the private room beyond, and, the
door closing, Eustacia and the mummer who sat next to her, the only
other witness of the performance, saw and heard no more.

　　　　The heat flew to Eustacia's head and cheeks. She instantly guessed
that Clym, having been home only these two or three days, had not as yet
been made acquainted with Thomasin's painful situation with regard to Wildeve;
and seeing her living there just as she had been living before he left
home, he naturally suspected nothing. Eustacia felt a wild jealousy of
Thomasin on the instant. Though Thomasin might possibly have tender
sentiments towards another man as yet, how long could they be expected to
last when she was shut up here with this interesting and travelled cousin
of hers? There was no knowing what affection might not soon break out
between the two, so constantly in each other's society, and not a
distracting object near. Clym's boyish love for her might have languished,
but it might easily be revived again.
　　　　Eustacia was nettled by her own contrivances. What a sheer waste of
herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had
she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven
and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all
lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her
coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a
sense of the doom of Echo. "Nobody here respects me," she said. She had
overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she would
be treated as a boy. The slight, though of her own causing, and self-
explanatory, she was unable to dismiss as unwittingly shown, so sensitive
had the situation made her.




　　　　Yeobright returned to the room without his cousin. When within
two or three feet of Eustacia he stopped, as if again arrested by a
thought. He was gazing at her. She looked another way, disconcerted,
and wondered how long this purgatory was to last. After lingering a
few seconds he passed on again.
　　　　To court their own discomfiture by love is a common instinct
with certain perfervid women. Conflicting sensations of love, fear, and
shame reduced Eustacia to a state of the utmost uneasiness. To
escape was her great and immediate desire. The other mummers
appeared to be in no hurry to leave; and murmuring to the lad who
sat next to her that she preferred waiting for them outside the
house, she moved to the door as imperceptibly as possible, opened
it, and slipped out.
　　　　The calm, lone scene reassured her. She went forward to the
palings and leant over them, looking at the moon. She had stood thus
but a little time when the door again opened. Expecting to see the
remainder of the band Eustacia turned; but no--Clym Yeobright came
out as softly as she had done, and closed the door behind him.

He advanced and stood beside her. "I have an odd opinion," he said,
"and should like to ask you a question. Are you a woman--or am I
wrong?"

"I am a woman."

His eyes lingered on her with great interest. "Do girls often play
as mummers now? They never used to."

"They don't now."

"Why did you?"

"To get excitement and shake off depression," she said in low tones.

"What depressed you?"

"Life."

"That's a cause of depression a good many have to put up with."

"Yes."

A long silence. "And do you find excitement?" asked Clym at last.

"At this moment, perhaps."




　　　　Eustacia, warmed with an inner fire, could not wait for her
companions after this. She flung back the ribbons from her face, opened
the gate, and at once struck into the heath. She did not hasten along. Her
grandfather was in bed at this hour, for she so frequently walked upon
the hills on moonlight nights that he took no notice of her comings and
goings, and, enjoying himself in his own way, left her to do likewise.
A more important subject than that of getting indoors now engrossed her.
Yeobright, if he had the least curiosity, would infallibly discover her
name. What then? She first felt a sort of exultation at the way in which
the adventure had terminated, even though at moments between her
exultations she was abashed and blushful. Then this consideration recurred
to chill her: What was the use of her exploit? She was at present a total
stranger to the Yeobright family. The unreasonable nimbus of romance with
which she had encircled that man might be her misery. How could she allow
herself to become so infatuated with a stranger? And to fill the cup of
her sorrow there would be Thomasin, living day after day in inflammable
proximity to him; for she had just learnt that, contrary to her first
belief, he was going to stay at home some considerable time.

　　　　She reached the wicket at Mistover Knap, but before opening it she
turned and faced the heath once more. The form of Rainbarrow stood above
the hills, and the moon stood above Rainbarrow. The air was charged with
silence and frost. The scene reminded Eustacia of a circumstance which till
that moment she had totally forgotten. She had promised to meet Wildeve by
the Barrow this very night at eight, to give a final answer to his pleading for
an elopement.

　　　　She herself had fixed the evening and the hour. He had probably come
to the spot, waited there in the cold, and been greatly disappointed.

"Well, so much the better--it did not hurt him," she said serenely. Wildeve
had at present the rayless outline of the sun through smoked glass, and she
could say such things as that with the greatest facility.

She remained deeply pondering; and Thomasin's winning manner towards her
cousin arose again upon Eustacia's mind.

"O that she had been married to Damon before this!" she said. "And she would
if it hadn't been for me! If I had only known--if I had only known!"

　　　　Eustacia once more lifted her deep stormy eyes to the moonlight, and,
sighing that tragic sigh of hers which was so much like a shudder, entered the
shadow of the roof. She threw off her trappings in the outhouse, rolled them
up, and went indoors to her chamber.




VII - A Coalition between Beauty and Oddness



"Of course. But, Eustacia, you never did--ha! ha! Dammy, how 'twould
have pleased me forty years ago! But remember, no more of it, my girl.
You may walk on the heath night or day, as you choose, so that you
don't bother me; but no figuring in breeches again."

"You need have no fear for me, Grandpapa."

Here the conversation ceased, Eustacia's moral training never exceeding
in severity a dialogue of this sort, which, if it ever became profitable
to good works, would be a result not dear at the price. But her thoughts
soon strayed far from her own personality; and, full of a passionate and
indescribable solicitude for one to whom she was not even a name, she
went forth into the amplitude of tanned wild around her, restless as
Ahasuerus the Jew. She was about half a mile from her residence when she
beheld a sinister redness arising from a ravine a little way in advance--
dull and lurid like a flame in sunlight and she guessed it to signify
Diggory Venn.




　　　　Eustacia looked at the lonely man. Wildeve had told her at
their last meeting that Venn had been thrust forward by Mrs. Yeobright
as one ready and anxious to take his place as Thomasin's betrothed.
His figure was perfect, his face young and well outlined, his eye
bright, his intelligence keen, and his position one which he could
readily better if he chose. But in spite of possibilities it was not
likely that Thomasin would accept this Ishmaelitish creature while she
had a cousin like Yeobright at her elbow, and Wildeve at the same time
not absolutely indifferent. Eustacia was not long in guessing that poor
Mrs. Yeobright, in her anxiety for her niece's future, had mentioned
this lover to stimulate the zeal of the other. Eustacia was on the side
of the Yeobrights now, and entered into the spirit of the aunt's desire.




Her face seemed to ask for an armed peace, and he therefore said
frankly, "Yes, miss; it is on account of her."

"On account of your approaching marriage with her?"

Venn flushed through his stain. "Don't make sport of me, Miss Vye,"
he said.

"It isn't true?"

"Certainly not."

She was thus convinced that the reddleman was a mere pis aller in Mrs.
Yeobright's mind; one, moreover, who had not even been informed of his
promotion to that lowly standing. "It was a mere notion of mine," she
said quietly; and was about to pass by without further speech, when,
looking round to the right, she saw a painfully well-known figure
serpentining upwards by one of the little paths which led to the top
where she stood. Owing to the necessary windings of his course his back
was at present towards them. She glanced quickly round; to escape that
man there was only one way. Turning to Venn, she said, "Would you allow
me to rest a few minutes in your van? The banks are damp for sitting on."

"Certainly, miss; I'll make a place for you."

She followed him behind the dell of brambles to his wheeled dwelling
into which Venn mounted, placing the three-legged stool just within the
door.

"That is the best I can do for you," he said, stepping down and retiring
to the path, where he resumed the smoking of his pipe as he walked up
and down.

Eustacia bounded into the vehicle and sat on the stool, ensconced from
view on the side towards the trackway. Soon she heard the brushing of
other feet than the reddleman's, a not very friendly "Good day" uttered by
two men in passing each other, and then the dwindling of the foot-fall of
one of them in a direction onwards. Eustacia stretched her neck forward
till she caught a glimpse of a receding back and shoulders; and she felt
a wretched twinge of misery, she knew not why. It was the sickening
feeling which, if the changed heart has any generosity at all in its
composition, accompanies the sudden sight of a once-loved one who is
beloved no more.

When Eustacia descended to proceed on her way the reddleman came near.
"That was Mr. Wildeve who passed, miss," he said slowly, and expressed
by his face that he expected her to feel vexed at having been sitting
unseen.

"Yes, I saw him coming up the hill," replied Eustacia. "Why should you
tell me that?" It was a bold question, considering the reddleman's
knowledge of her past love; but her undemonstrative manner had power
to repress the opinions of those she treated as remote from her.

"I am glad to hear that you can ask it," said the reddleman bluntly.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"To be again disappointed. The truth is, reddleman, that that lady, so
far from wishing to stand in the way of Thomasin's marriage with Mr.
Wildeve, would be very glad to promote it."

Venn felt much astonishment at this avowal, though he did not show it
clearly; that exhibition may greet remarks which are one remove from
expectation, but it is usually withheld in complicated cases of two
removes and upwards. "Indeed, miss," he replied.

"How do you know that Mr. Wildeve will come to Rainbarrow again tonight?"
she asked.

"I heard him say to himself that he would. He's in a regular temper."

Eustacia looked for a moment what she felt, and she murmured, lifting
her deep dark eyes anxiously to his, "I wish I knew what to do. I don't
want to be uncivil to him; but I don't wish to see him again; and I have
some few little things to return to him."

"If you choose to send 'em by me, miss, and a note to tell him that you
wish to say no more to him, I'll take it for you quite privately. That
would be the most straightforward way of letting him know your mind."

"Very well," said Eustacia. "Come towards my house, and I will bring it
out to you."

She went on, and as the path was an infinitely small parting in the
shaggy locks of the heath, the reddleman followed exactly in her trail.
She saw from a distance that the captain was on the bank sweeping the
horizon with his telescope; and bidding Venn to wait where he stood she
entered the house alone.

In ten minutes she returned with a parcel and a note, and said, in
placing them in his hand, "Why are you so ready to take these for me?"

"Can you ask that?"

"I suppose you think to serve Thomasin in some way by it. Are you as
anxious as ever to help on her marriage?"

Venn was a little moved. "I would sooner have married her myself," he said
in a low voice. "But what I feel is that if she cannot be happy without
him I will do my duty in helping her to get him, as a man ought."

Eustacia looked curiously at the singular man who spoke thus. What a
strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness
which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes
its only one! The reddleman's disinterestedness was so well deserving of
respect that it overshot respect by being barely comprehended; and she
almost thought it absurd.

"Then we are both of one mind at last," she said.

"Yes," replied Venn gloomily. "But if you would tell me, miss, why you
take such an interest in her, I should be easier. It is so sudden and
strange."

Eustacia appeared at a loss. "I cannot tell you that, reddleman," she
said coldly.

Venn said no more. He pocketed the letter, and, bowing to Eustacia,
went away.

Rainbarrow had again become blended with night when Wildeve ascended the
long acclivity at its base. On his reaching the top a shape grew up from
the earth immediately behind him. It was that of Eustacia's emissary. He
slapped Wildeve on the shoulder. The feverish young inn-keeper and ex-
engineer started like Satan at the touch of Ithuriel's spear.

"The meeting is always at eight o'clock, at this place," said Venn, "and
here we are--we three."

"We three?" said Wildeve, looking quickly round.

"Yes; you, and I, and she. This is she." He held up the letter and parcel.

Wildeve took them wonderingly. "I don't quite see what this means," he
said. "How do you come here? There must be some mistake."

"It will be cleared from your mind when you have read the letter. Lanterns
for one." The reddleman struck a light, kindled an inch of tallow-candle
which he had brought, and sheltered it with his cap.

"Who are you?" said Wildeve, discerning by the candle- light an obscure
rubicundity of person in his companion.

----------------------------------------------------------------

By the time that Wildeve reached her name the blankness with which
he had read the first half of the letter intensified to mortification.
"I am made a great fool of, one way and another," he said pettishly.
"Do you know what is in this letter?"

The reddleman hummed a tune.

"Can't you answer me?" asked Wildeve warmly.

"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang the reddleman.

Wildeve stood looking on the ground beside Venn's feet, till he
allowed his eyes to travel upwards over Diggory's form, as
illuminated by the candle, to his head and face. "Ha-ha! Well, I
suppose I deserve it, considering how I have played with them both,"
he said at last, as much to himself as to Venn. "But of all the odd
things that ever I knew, the oddest is that you should so run counter
to your own interests as to bring this to me."

"My interests?"

"Certainly. 'Twas your interest not to do anything which would send
me courting Thomasin again, now she has accepted you--or something
like it. Mrs. Yeobright says you are to marry her. 'Tisn't true,
then?"

"Good Lord! I heard of this before, but didn't believe it. When did
she say so?"

Wildeve began humming as the reddleman had done.

"I don't believe it now," cried Venn.

"Ru-um-tum-tum," sang Wildeve.

"O Lord--how we can imitate!" said Venn contemptuously. "I'll have
this out. I'll go straight to her."

Diggory withdrew with an emphatic step, Wildeve's eye passing over
his form in withering derision, as if he were no more than a heath-
cropper. When the reddleman's figure could no longer be seen, Wildeve
himself descended and plunged into the rayless hollow of the vale.

To lose the two women--he who had been the well-beloved of both--was
too ironical an issue to be endured. He could only decently save
himself by Thomasin; and once he became her husband, Eustacia's
repentance, he thought, would set in for a long and bitter term. It
was no wonder that Wildeve, ignorant of the new man at the back of
the scene, should have supposed Eustacia to be playing a part. To
believe that the letter was not the result of some momentary pique,
to infer that she really gave him up to Thomasin, would have required
previous knowledge of her transfiguration by that man's influence.
Who was to know that she had grown generous in the greediness of a
new passion, that in coveting one cousin she was dealing liberally
with another, that in her eagerness to appropriate she gave way?




VIII - Firmness Is Discovered in a Gentle Heart



"I don't like your going out after dark alone, Tamsin," said her aunt
quietly, without looking up from her work. "I have only been just
outside the door."

"Well?" inquired Mrs. Yeobright, struck by a change in the tone of
Thomasin's voice, and observing her. Thomasin's cheek was flushed to
a pitch far beyond that which it had reached before her troubles, and
her eyes glittered.

"It was he who knocked," she said.

"I thought as much."

"He wishes the marriage to be at once."

"Indeed! What--is he anxious?" Mrs. Yeobright directed a searching
look upon her niece. "Why did not Mr. Wildeve come in?"

"He did not wish to. You are not friends with him, he says. He would
like the wedding to be the day after tomorrow, quite privately; at the
church of his parish--not at ours."

"Oh! And what did you say?"

"I agreed to it," Thomasin answered firmly. "I am a practical woman now.
I don't believe in hearts at all. I would marry him under any circumstances
since--since Clym's letter."

A letter was lying on Mrs. Yeobright's work-basket, and at Thomasin's words
her aunt reopened it, and silently read for the tenth time that day:--

What is the meaning of this silly story that people are circulating
about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve? I should call such a scandal
humiliating if there was the least chance of its being true. How could
such a gross falsehood have arisen? It is said that one should go abroad
to hear news of home, and I appear to have done it. Of course I contradict
the tale everywhere; but it is very vexing, and I wonder how it could have
originated. It is too ridiculous that such a girl as Thomasin could so
mortify us as to get jilted on the wedding day. What has she done?

"Yes," Mrs. Yeobright said sadly, putting down the letter. "If you think you
can marry him, do so. And since Mr. Wildeve wishes it to be unceremonious,
let it be that too. I can do nothing. It is all in your own hands now. My
power over your welfare came to an end when you left this house to go with
him to Anglebury." She continued, half in bitterness, "I may almost ask, why
do you consult me in the matter at all? If you had gone and married him
without saying a word to me, I could hardly have been angry--simply because,
poor girl, you can't do a better thing."

"Don't say that and dishearten me."

"You are right--I will not."

"I do not plead for him, Aunt. Human nature is weak, and I am not a blind
woman to insist that he is perfect. I did think so, but I don't now. But I
know my course, and you know that I know it. I hope for the best."

"And so do I, and we will both continue to," said Mrs. Yeobright, rising
and kissing her.

----------------------------------------------------------------


Aunt and niece stood together in the bedroom where the bride
was dressing. The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of
Thomasin's hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided
according to a calendar system--the more important the day the more
numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she
braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at Maypolings,
gipsyings, and the like, she braided it in fives. Years ago she had
said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. She had
braided it in sevens today.

"I have been thinking that I will wear my blue silk after all," she
said. "It is my wedding day, even though there may be something sad
about the time. I mean," she added, anxious to correct any wrong
impression, "not sad in itself, but in its having had great
disappointment and trouble before it."

Mrs. Yeobright breathed in a way which might have been called a sigh.
"I almost wish Clym had been at home," she said. "Of course you chose
the time because of his absence."

"Partly. I have felt that I acted unfairly to him in not telling him
all; but, as it was done not to grieve him, I thought I would carry
out the plan to its end, and tell the whole story when the sky was
clear."

"You are a practical little woman," said Mrs. Yeobright, smiling.
"I wish you and he--no, I don't wish anything. There, it is nine
o'clock," she interrupted, hearing a whizz and a dinging downstairs.

"I told Damon I would leave at nine," said Thomasin, hastening out
of the room.

Her aunt followed. When Thomasin was going up the little walk from
the door to the wicket-gate, Mrs. Yeobright looked reluctantly at
her, and said, "It is a shame to let you go alone."

"It is necessary," said Thomasin.

"At any rate," added her aunt with forced cheerfulness, "I shall
call upon you this afternoon, and bring the cake with me. If Clym
has returned by that time he will perhaps come too. I wish to show
Mr. Wildeve that I bear him no ill-will. Let the past be forgotten.
Well, God bless you! There, I don't believe in old superstitions,
but I'll do it." She threw a slipper at the retreating figure of
the girl, who turned, smiled, and went on again.

A few steps further, and she looked back. "Did you call me, Aunt?"
she tremulously inquired. "Good-bye!"

Moved by an uncontrollable feeling as she looked upon Mrs.
Yeobright's worn, wet face, she ran back, when her aunt came
forward, and they met again. "O--Tamsie," said the elder, weeping,
"I don't like to let you go."

"I--I am--" Thomasin began, giving way likewise. But, quelling her
grief, she said "Good-bye!" again and went on.

Then Mrs. Yeobright saw a little figure wending its way between the
scratching furze-bushes, and diminishing far up the valley--a
pale-blue spot in a vast field of neutral brown, solitary and
undefended except by the power of her own hope.

But the worst feature in the case was one which did not appear in
the landscape; it was the man.

The hour chosen for the ceremony by Thomasin and Wildeve had been so
timed as to enable her to escape the awkwardness of meeting her
cousin Clym, who was returning the same morning. To own to the
partial truth of what he had heard would be distressing as long as
the humiliating position resulting from the event was unimproved. It
was only after a second and successful journey to the altar that she
could lift up her head and prove the failure of the first attempt a
pure accident.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be
obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind I vowed
that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my niece
after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no
interest in it, and should not bother you about it either."

"It wouldn't have been bothering me. Mother, you did wrong."

"I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might
throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because
of it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time
in a proper manner, I should have told you at once."

"Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!"

"Yes. Unless some accident happens again, as it did the first time. It
may, considering he's the same man."

"Yes, and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve
is really a bad fellow?"

"Then he won't come, and she'll come home again."

"You should have looked more into it."

"It is useless to say that," his mother answered with an impatient look
of sorrow. "You don't know how bad it has been here with us all these
weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of that sort
is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this
house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since
that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again.
Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look
anybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only
thing that can be done to set that trouble straight."

----------------------------------------------------------------

They lapsed into silence. "I'll tell you what," said Yeobright again,
in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. "I don't think
it kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us
there to keep up her spirits or care a bit about her. She hasn't
disgraced herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough
that the wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our
keeping away from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame.
I'll go."

"It is over by this time," said his mother with a sigh; "unless they
were late, or he--"

"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't quite like
your keeping me in ignorance, Mother, after all. Really, I half hope
he has failed to meet her!"

"And ruined her character?"

"Nonsense--that wouldn't ruin Thomasin."

He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked
rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long
left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his
company came Diggory Venn.

"I find there isn't time for me to get there," said Clym.

"Is she married?" Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a
face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.

Venn bowed. "She is, ma'am."

"How strange it sounds," murmured Clym.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was
only on a walk that way?"

"Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just
before me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before
beginning, and as she was the only one near he beckoned to her,
and she went up to the rails. After that, when it came to signing
the book, she pushed up her veil and signed; and Tamsin seemed to
thank her for her kindness."The reddleman told the tale
thoughtfully for there lingered upon his vision the changing
colour of Wildeve, when Eustacia lifted the thick veil which had
concealed her from recognition and looked calmly into his face.
"And then," said Diggory sadly, "I came away, for her history as
Tamsin Yeobright was over."

"I offered to go," said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. "But she said
it was not necessary."

"Well, it is no matter," said the reddleman. "The thing is done at
last as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness.
Now I'll wish you good morning."

He placed his cap on his head and went out.

From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door, the reddleman
was seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months.
He vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had
been standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a
sign remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws,
and a little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next
storm of rain.

The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as
it went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped
him through his being at some distance back in the church. When
Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung
towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, "I have punished you now."
She had replied in a low tone--and he little thought how truly--"You
mistake; it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today."




　　　　　　　　　　　　　



I - "My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"



　　　　In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical countenance
of the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its
Pheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be put up
with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early
civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the constitution
of the advanced races that its facial expression will become accepted as
a new artistic departure. People already feel that a man who lives without
disturbing a curve of feature, or setting a mark of mental concern anywhere
upon himself, is too far removed from modern perceptiveness to be a modern
type. Physically beautiful men--the glory of the race when it was young--
are almost an anachronism now; and we may wonder whether, at some time
or other, physically beautiful women may not be an anachronism likewise.
　　　　The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has
permanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may be
called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their Aeschylus
imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned revelling in the
general situation grows less and less possible as we uncover the defects of
natural laws, and see the quandary that man is in by their operation.
　　　　The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this new
recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The observer's eye
was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by his face as a page; not
by what it was, but by what it recorded. His features were attractive in the
light of symbols, as sounds intrinsically common become attractive in
language, and as shapes intrinsically simple become interesting in writing.




　　　　Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen,
the listener said, "Ah, Clym Yeobright--what is he doing now?" When the
instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it is felt that
he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing in particular.
There is an indefinite sense that he must be invading some region of
singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing well. The
secret faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen comfortable
market-men, who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman as they passed
by in their carts, were partial to the topic. In fact, though they were
not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid it while they sucked their long
clay tubes and regarded the heath through the window. Clym had been so
inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly anybody could look upon
it without thinking of him. So the subject recurred: if he were making a
fortune and a name, so much the better for him; if he were making a
tragical figure in the world, so much the better for a narrative.
　　　　The fact was that Yeobright's fame had spread to an awkward extent
before he left home. "It is bad when your fame outruns your means," said
the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked a Scripture
riddle: "Who was the first man known to wear breeches?" and applause had
resounded from the very verge of the heath. At seven he painted the Battle
of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen and black-currant juice, in the absence
of water-colours. By the time he reached twelve he had in this manner been
heard of as artist and scholar for at least two miles round. An individual
whose fame spreads three or four thousand yards in the time taken by the
fame of others similarly situated to travel six or eight hundred, must of
necessity have something in him. Possibly Clym's fame, like Homer's, owed
something to the accidents of his situation; nevertheless famous he was.
　　　　He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate which
started Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as a surgeon,
and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banished the wild and
ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was with the especial symbols
of self-indulgence and vainglory.




On the Sunday morning following the week of Thomasin's marriage
a discussion on this subject was in progress at a hair-cutting before
Fairway's house. Here the local barbering was always done at this hour
on this day, to be followed by the great Sunday wash of the inhabitants
at noon, which in its turn was followed by the great Sunday dressing an
hour later. On Egdon Heath Sunday proper did not begin till dinner-time,
and even then it was a somewhat battered specimen of the day.

These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; the
victim sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without a coat,
and the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locks of hair as
they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away out of sight to the
four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter the scene was the same,
unless the wind were more than usually blusterous, when the stool was
shifted a few feet round the corner. To complain of cold in sitting out
of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairway told true stories between
the cuts of the scissors, would have been to pronounce yourself no man
at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move a muscle of the face at the small
stabs under the ear received from those instruments, or at scarifications
of the neck by the comb, would have been thought a gross breach of good
manners, considering that Fairway did it all for nothing. A bleeding
about the poll on Sunday afternoons was amply accounted for by the
explanation. "I have had my hair cut, you know."

The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view
of the young man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.

"A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn't bide here two or three weeks
for nothing," said Fairway. "He's got some project in 's head--depend
upon that."

"Well, 'a can't keep a diment shop here," said Sam.

"I don't see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if he had
not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here the Lord
in heaven knows."

Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had come near;
and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them.
Marching up, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, he
said, without introduction, "Now, folks, let me guess what you have
been talking about."

"Ay, sure, if you will," said Sam.

"About me."

"Now, it is a thing I shouldn't have dreamed of doing, otherwise," said
Fairway in a tone of integrity; "but since you have named it, Master
Yeobright, I'll own that we was talking about 'ee. We were wondering
what could keep you home here mollyhorning about when you have made
such a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nack trade--now,
that's the truth o't."

"I'll tell you," said Yeobright. with unexpected earnestness. "I am
not sorry to have the opportunity. I've come home because, all things
considered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else.
But I have only lately found this out. When I first got away from home
I thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thought our life
here was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blacking them, to
dust your coat with a switch instead of a brush--was there ever
anything more ridiculous? I said."

"So 'tis; so 'tis!"

"No, no--you are wrong; it isn't."

"Beg your pardon, we thought that was your maning?"

"Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I found
that I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in common
with myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life for another
sort of life, which was not better than the life I had known before.
It was simply different."

"True; a sight different," said Fairway.

"Yes, Paris must be a taking place," said Humphrey. "Grand shop-winders,
trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in all winds and
weathers--"

"But you mistake me," pleaded Clym. "All this was very depressing. But
not so depressing as something I next perceived--that my business was
the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man could be
put to. That decided me--I would give it up and try to follow some
rational occupation among the people I knew best, and to whom I could
be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I mean to carry out
my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as possible, so as to
be able to walk over here and have a night-school in my mother's house.
But I must study a little at first, to get properly qualified. Now,
neighbours, I must go."

And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.

"He'll never carry it out in the world," said Fairway. "In a few weeks
he'll learn to see things otherwise."

"'Tis good-hearted of the young man," said another. "But, for my part,
I think he had better mind his business."



II - The New Course Causes Disappointment



　　　　Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want
of most men was knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than
affluence. He wished to raise the class at the expense of individuals
rather than individuals at the expense of the class. What was more,
he was ready at once to be the first unit sacrificed.
　　　　In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the
intermediate stages are usually two at least, frequently many more;
and one of those stages is almost sure to be worldly advanced. We
can hardly imagine bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims
without imagining social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's
local peculiarity was that in striving at high thinking he still
cleaved to plain living--nay, wild and meagre living in many respects,
and brotherliness with clowns.
　　　　He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than
repentance for his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that
is, he was in many points abreast with the central town thinkers of his
date. Much of this development he may have owed to his studious life in
Paris, where he had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at
the time.
　　　　In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright
might have been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him.
A man should be only partially before his time--to be completely to the
vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son been
intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilization without
bloodshed, he would have been twice the godlike hero that he seemed, but
nobody would have heard of an Alexander.
　　　　In the interests of renown the forwardness should lie chiefly in
the capacity to handle things. Successful propagandists have succeeded
because the doctrine they bring into form is that which their listeners
have for some time felt without being able to shape. A man who advocates
aesthetic effort and deprecates social effort is only likely to be
understood by a class to which social effort has become a stale matter.
To argue upon the possibility of culture before luxury to the bucolic
world may be to argue truly, but it is an attempt to disturb a sequence
to which humanity has been long accustomed. Yeobright preaching to the
Egdon eremites that they might rise to a serene comprehensiveness without
going through the process of enriching themselves was not unlike arguing
to ancient Chaldeans that in ascending from earth to the pure empyrean it
was not necessary to pass first into the intervening heaven of ether.
　　　　Was Yeobright's mind well-proportioned? No. A well proportioned mind
is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that
it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a
heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will
never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted
as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity. It produces the
poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West, the statecraft of North, the
spiritual guidance of Tomline; enabling its possessors to find their way to
wealth, to wind up well, to step with dignity off the stage, to die comfortably
in their beds, and to get the decent monument which, in many cases, they
deserve. It never would have allowed Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing
as throw up his business to benefit his fellow-creatures.
　　　　He walked along towards home without attending to paths. If anyone
knew the heath well it was Clym. He was permeated with its scenes, with its
substance, and with its odours. He might be said to be its product. His eyes
had first opened thereon; with its appearance all the first images of his
memory were mingled, his estimate of life had been coloured by it: his toys had
been the flint knives and arrow-heads which he found there, wondering why
stones should "grow" to such odd shapes; his flowers, the purple bells and
yellow furze: his animal kingdom, the snakes and croppers; his society, its
human haunters. Take all the varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the
heath, and translate them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He
gazed upon the wide prospect as he walked, and was glad.
　　　　To many persons this Egdon was a place which had slipped out of its
century generations ago, to intrude as an uncouth object into this. It was an
obsolete thing, and few cared to study it. How could this be otherwise in the
days of square fields, plashed hedges, and meadows watered on a plan so
rectangular that on a fine day they looked like silver gridirons? The farmer,
in his ride, who could smile at artificial grasses, look with solicitude at
the coming corn, and sigh with sadness at the fly-eaten turnips, bestowed upon
the distant upland of heath nothing better than a frown. But as for Yeobright,
when he looked from the heights on his way he could not help indulging in a
barbarous satisfaction at observing that, in some of the attempts at reclamation
from the waste, tillage, after holding on for a year or two, had receded again
in despair, the ferns and furze-tufts stubbornly reasserting themselves.
　　　　He descended into the valley, and soon reached his home at
Blooms-End. His mother was snipping dead leaves from the window-plants.
She looked up at him as if she did not understand the meaning of his
long stay with her; her face had worn that look for several days. He
could perceive that the curiosity which had been shown by the hair-
cutting group amounted in his mother to concern. But she had asked no
question with her lips, even when the arrival of his trunk suggested
that he was not going to leave her soon. Her silence besought an
explanation of him more loudly than words.


----------------------------------------------------------------

"It disturbs me, Clym, to find that you have come home with such
thoughts as those. I hadn't the least idea that you meant to go
backward in the world by your own free choice. Of course, I have
always supposed you were going to push straight on, as other men do--
all who deserve the name--when they have been put in a good way of
doing well."

"I cannot help it," said Clym, in a troubled tone. "Mother, I hate
the flashy business. Talk about men who deserve the name, can any man
deserving the name waste his time in that effeminate way, when he sees
half the world going to ruin for want of somebody to buckle to and
teach them how to breast the misery they are born to? I get up every
morning and see the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain,
as St. Paul says, and yet there am I, trafficking in glittering
splendours with wealthy women and titled libertines, and pandering to
the meanest vanities--I, who have health and strength enough for
anything. I have been troubled in my mind about it all the year, and
the end is that I cannot do it any more."

"Why can't you do it as well as others?"

"I don't know, except that there are many things other people care for
which I don't; and that's partly why I think I ought to do this. For
one thing, my body does not require much of me. I cannot enjoy
delicacies; good things are wasted upon me. Well, I ought to turn that
defect to advantage, and by being able to do without what other people
require I can spend what such things cost upon anybody else."

Now, Yeobright, having inherited some of these very instincts from
the woman before him, could not fail to awaken a reciprocity in her
through her feelings, if not by arguments, disguise it as she might
for his good. She spoke with less assurance. "And yet you might have
been a wealthy man if you had only persevered. Manager to that large
diamond establishment--what better can a man wish for? What a post of
trust and respect! I suppose you will be like your father; like him,
you are getting weary of doing well."

"No," said her son, "I am not weary of that, though I am weary of
what you mean by it. Mother, what is doing well?"

Mrs. Yeobright was far too thoughtful a woman to be content with ready
definitions, and, like the "What is wisdom?" of Plato's Socrates, and
the "What is truth?" of Pontius Pilate, Yeobright's burning question
received no answer.

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"This morning at church we was all standing up, and the pa'son said,
'Let us pray.' 'Well,' thinks I, 'one may as well kneel as stand'; so
down I went; and, more than that, all the rest were as willing to oblige
the man as I. We hadn't been hard at it for more than a minute when a
most terrible screech sounded through church, as if somebody had just
gied up their heart's blood. All the folk jumped up and then we found
that Susan Nunsuch had pricked Miss Vye with a long stocking-needle,
as she had threatened to do as soon as ever she could get the young
lady to church, where she don't come very often. She've waited for this
chance for weeks, so as to draw her blood and put an end to the
bewitching of Susan's children that has been carried on so long. Sue
followed her into church, sat next to her, and as soon as she could
find a chance in went the stocking-needle into my lady's arm."

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"A woman who seems to care for nothing at all, as you may say."

"She is melancholy, then?" inquired Clym.

"She mopes about by herself, and don't mix in with the people."

"Is she a young lady inclined for adventures?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Doesn't join in with the lads in their games, to get some sort of
excitement in this lonely place?"

"No."

"Mumming, for instance?"

"No. Her notions be different. I should rather say her thoughts were
far away from here, with lords and ladies she'll never know, and
mansions she'll never see again."

Observing that Clym appeared singularly interested Mrs. Yeobright said
rather uneasily to Sam, "You see more in her than most of us do. Miss
Vye is to my mind too idle to be charming. I have never heard that she
is of any use to herself or to other people. Good girls don't get
treated as witches even on Egdon."



III - The First Act in a Timeworn Drama



Clym's retreating figure got smaller and smaller as it rose and
fell over the hillocks on his way. "He is tender-hearted," said Mrs.
Yeobright to herself while she watched him; "otherwise it would matter
little. How he's going on!"

He was, indeed, walking with a will over the furze, as straight
as a line, as if his life depended upon it. His mother drew a long
breath, and, abandoning the visit to Thomasin, turned back. The evening
films began to make nebulous pictures of the valleys, but the high lands
still were raked by the declining rays of the winter sun, which glanced
on Clym as he walked forward, eyed by every rabbit and field-fare around,
a long shadow advancing in front of him.




The talking ceased, and Fairway gave a circular motion to the rope,
as if he were stirring batter. At the end of a minute a dull splashing
reverberated from the bottom of the well; the helical twist he had
imparted to the rope had reached the grapnel below.

"Haul!" said Fairway; and the men who held the rope began to gather
it over the wheel.

"I think we've got sommat," said one of the haulers-in.

"Then pull steady," said Fairway.

They gathered up more and more, till a regular dripping into the well
could be heard below. It grew smarter with the increasing height of the
bucket, and presently a hundred and fifty feet of rope had been pulled
in.

Fairway then lit a lantern, tied it to another cord, and began lowering
it into the well beside the first: Clym came forward and looked down.
Strange humid leaves, which knew nothing of the seasons of the year, and
quaint-natured mosses were revealed on the wellside as the lantern
descended; till its rays fell upon a confused mass of rope and bucket
dangling in the dank, dark air.

"We've only got en by the edge of the hoop--steady, for God's sake!"
said Fairway.

They pulled with the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared
about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again.
Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz
went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of
a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a
thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The bucket was gone again.




The grapnel was again lowered. Its smart impact upon the distant water
reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and
leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as
Fairway had done.

"Tie a rope round him--it is dangerous!" cried a soft and anxious
voice somewhere above them.

Everybody turned. The speaker was a woman, gazing down upon the group
from an upper window, whose panes blazed in the ruddy glare from the west.
Her lips were parted and she appeared for the moment to forget where she
was.

The rope was accordingly tied round his waist, and the work proceeded.
At the next haul the weight was not heavy, and it was discovered that they
had only secured a coil of the rope detached from the bucket. The tangled
mass was thrown into the background. Humphrey took Yeobright's place, and
the grapnel was lowered again.

Yeobright retired to the heap of recovered rope in a meditative mood.
Of the identity between the lady's voice and that of the melancholy mummer
he had not a moment's doubt. "How thoughtful of her!" he said to himself.

Eustacia, who had reddened when she perceived the effect of her
exclamation upon the group below, was no longer to be seen at the window,
though Yeobright scanned it wistfully. While he stood there the men
at the well succeeded in getting up the bucket without a mishap. One of
them went to inquire for the captain, to learn what orders he wished to give
for mending the well-tackle. The captain proved to be away from home, and
Eustacia appeared at the door and came out. She had lapsed into an easy
and dignified calm, far removed from the intensity of life in her words of
solicitude for Clym's safety.

"Will it be possible to draw water here tonight?" she inquired.

"No, miss; the bottom of the bucket is clean knocked out. And as we can do
no more now we'll leave off, and come again tomorrow morning."

"No water," she murmured, turning away.

"I can send you up some from Blooms-End," said Clym, coming forward and
raising his hat as the men retired.

Yeobright and Eustacia looked at each other for one instant, as if each
had in mind those few moments during which a certain moonlight scene was
common to both. With the glance the calm fixity of her features sublimed
itself to an expression of refinement and warmth; it was like garish noon
rising to the dignity of sunset in a couple of seconds.

"Thank you; it will hardly be necessary," she replied.

"But if you have no water?"

"Well, it is what I call no water," she said, blushing, and lifting her
long-lashed eyelids as if to lift them were a work requiring consideration.
"But my grandfather calls it water enough. I'll show you what I mean."

She moved away a few yards, and Clym followed. When she reached the
corner of the enclosure, where the steps were formed for mounting the
boundary bank, she sprang up with a lightness which seemed strange after
her listless movement towards the well. It incidentally showed that her
apparent languor did not arise from lack of force.

Clym ascended behind her, and noticed a circular burnt patch at the top of
the bank. "Ashes?" he said.

"Yes," said Eustacia. "We had a little bonfire here last Fifth of November,
and those are the marks of it."

On that spot had stood the fire she had kindled to attract Wildeve.

"That's the only kind of water we have," she continued, tossing a stone
into the pool, which lay on the outside of the bank like the white of an eye
without its pupil. The stone fell with a flounce, but no Wildeve appeared on
the other side, as on a previous occasion there. "My grandfather says he
lived for more than twenty years at sea on water twice as bad as that," she
went on, "and considers it quite good enough for us here on an emergency."

"Well, as a matter of fact there are no impurities in the water of these pools
at this time of the year. It has only just rained into them."

She shook her head. "I am managing to exist in a wilderness, but I cannot
drink from a pond," she said.

----------------------------------------------------------------

However, Eustacia had begun to pay out. While he was tying she cried,
"I cannot stop it!"

Clym ran to her side, and found he could only check the rope by twisting
the loose part round the upright post, when it stopped with a jerk. "Has
it hurt you?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Very much?"

"No; I think not." She opened her hands. One of them was bleeding; the
rope had dragged off the skin. Eustacia wrapped it in her handkerchief.

"You should have let go," said Yeobright. "Why didn't you?"

"You said I was to hold on....This is the second time I have been
wounded today."

"Ah, yes; I have heard of it. I blush for my native Egdon. Was it a
serious injury you received in church, Miss Vye?"

There was such an abundance of sympathy in Clym's tone that Eustacia
slowly drew up her sleeve and disclosed her round white arm. A bright
red spot appeared on its smooth surface, like a ruby on Parian marble.

"There it is," she said, putting her finger against the spot.

"It was dastardly of the woman," said Clym. "Will not Captain Vye get
her punished?"

"He is gone from home on that very business. I did not know that I had
such a magic reputation."

"And you fainted?" said Clym, looking at the scarlet little puncture as
if he would like to kiss it and make it well.

"Yes, it frightened me. I had not been to church for a long time. And now
I shall not go again for ever so long--perhaps never. I cannot face their
eyes after this. Don't you think it dreadfully humiliating? I wished I
was dead for hours after, but I don't mind now."

"I have come to clean away these cobwebs," said Yeobright. "Would you like
to help me--by high-class teaching? We might benefit them much."

"I don't quite feel anxious to. I have not much love for my fellow-
creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them."

----------------------------------------------------------------

"You are lonely here."

"I cannot endure the heath, except in its purple season. The heath
is a cruel taskmaster to me."

"Can you say so?" he asked. "To my mind it is most exhilarating,
and strengthening, and soothing. I would rather live on these hills
than anywhere else in the world."

"It is well enough for artists; but I never would learn to draw."

"And there is a very curious druidical stone just out there." He
threw a pebble in the direction signified. "Do you often go to see
it?"

"I was not even aware there existed any such curious druidical stone.
I am aware that there are boulevards in Paris."

Yeobright looked thoughtfully on the ground. "That means much," he
said.

"It does indeed," said Eustacia.

"I remember when I had the same longing for town bustle. Five years
of a great city would be a perfect cure for that."

"Heaven send me such a cure! Now, Mr. Yeobright, I will go indoors
and plaster my wounded hand."

They separated, and Eustacia vanished in the increasing shade. She
seemed full of many things. Her past was a blank, her life had begun.
The effect upon Clym of this meeting he did not fully discover till
some time after. During his walk home his most intelligible sensation
was that his scheme had somehow become glorified. A beautiful woman
had been intertwined with it.