diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:19:37 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:19:37 -0700 |
| commit | 8598d335074fda5a182beee4e65d2ff358f6bfc0 (patch) | |
| tree | bc87339c93f62c32cb62c15e64b3b2eecf4dbda7 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2662-0.txt | 7602 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 2662-h/2662-h.htm | 10447 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/2662.txt | 7397 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/2662.zip | bin | 0 -> 138624 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ungwt10.txt | 7684 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ungwt10.zip | bin | 0 -> 137281 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ungwt11.txt | 7755 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ungwt11.zip | bin | 0 -> 137895 bytes |
11 files changed, 40901 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2662-0.txt b/2662-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca639b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/2662-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7602 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Under the Greenwood Tree + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: June, 2001 [eBook #2662] +[Most recently updated: November 17, 2023] + +Language: English + +Produced by: David Price, Margaret Rose Price and Dagny + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE *** + + + + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + +or + +THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE +A RURAL PAINTING OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL + +by Thomas Hardy + + + + +Contents + + + PREFACE + + PART THE FIRST—WINTER + CHAPTER I. MELLSTOCK-LANE + CHAPTER II. THE TRANTER’S + CHAPTER III. THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE + CHAPTER IV. GOING THE ROUNDS + CHAPTER V. THE LISTENERS + CHAPTER VI. CHRISTMAS MORNING + CHAPTER VII. THE TRANTER’S PARTY + CHAPTER VIII. THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY + CHAPTER IX. DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL + + PART THE SECOND—SPRING + CHAPTER I. PASSING BY THE SCHOOL + CHAPTER II. A MEETING OF THE QUIRE + CHAPTER III. A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION + CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR + CHAPTER V. RETURNING HOME WARD + CHAPTER VI. YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER’S HOUSE + CHAPTER VII. DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL + CHAPTER VIII. DICK MEETS HIS FATHER + + PART THE THIRD—SUMMER + CHAPTER I. DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH + CHAPTER II. FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD + CHAPTER III. A CONFESSION + CHAPTER IV. AN ARRANGEMENT + + PART THE FOURTH—AUTUMN + CHAPTER I. GOING NUTTING + CHAPTER II. HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS + CHAPTER III. FANCY IN THE RAIN + CHAPTER IV. THE SPELL + CHAPTER V. AFTER GAINING HER POINT + CHAPTER VI. INTO TEMPTATION + CHAPTER VII. SECOND THOUGHTS + + PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION + CHAPTER I. ‘THE KNOT THERE’S NO UNTYING’ + CHAPTER II. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + + + +PREFACE + + +This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west-gallery +musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar officials in +_Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters_, and other places, is +intended to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, +ways, and customs which were common among such orchestral bodies in the +villages of fifty or sixty years ago. + +One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical +bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) or +harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of control +and accomplishment which were, no doubt, secured by installing the +single artist, the change has tended to stultify the professed aims of +the clergy, its direct result being to curtail and extinguish the +interest of parishioners in church doings. Under the old plan, from +half a dozen to ten full-grown players, in addition to the numerous +more or less grown-up singers, were officially occupied with the Sunday +routine, and concerned in trying their best to make it an artistic +outcome of the combined musical taste of the congregation. With a +musical executive limited, as it mostly is limited now, to the parson’s +wife or daughter and the school-children, or to the school-teacher and +the children, an important union of interests has disappeared. + +The zest of these bygone instrumentalists must have been keen and +staying to take them, as it did, on foot every Sunday after a toilsome +week, through all weathers, to the church, which often lay at a +distance from their homes. They usually received so little in payment +for their performances that their efforts were really a labour of love. +In the parish I had in my mind when writing the present tale, the +gratuities received yearly by the musicians at Christmas were somewhat +as follows: From the manor-house ten shillings and a supper; from the +vicar ten shillings; from the farmers five shillings each; from each +cottage-household one shilling; amounting altogether to not more than +ten shillings a head annually—just enough, as an old executant told me, +to pay for their fiddle-strings, repairs, rosin, and music-paper (which +they mostly ruled themselves). Their music in those days was all in +their own manuscript, copied in the evenings after work, and their +music-books were home-bound. + +It was customary to inscribe a few jigs, reels, horn-pipes, and ballads +in the same book, by beginning it at the other end, the insertions +being continued from front and back till sacred and secular met +together in the middle, often with bizarre effect, the words of some of +the songs exhibiting that ancient and broad humour which our +grandfathers, and possibly grandmothers, took delight in, and is in +these days unquotable. + +The aforesaid fiddle-strings, rosin, and music-paper were supplied by a +pedlar, who travelled exclusively in such wares from parish to parish, +coming to each village about every six months. Tales are told of the +consternation once caused among the church fiddlers when, on the +occasion of their producing a new Christmas anthem, he did not come to +time, owing to being snowed up on the downs, and the straits they were +in through having to make shift with whipcord and twine for strings. He +was generally a musician himself, and sometimes a composer in a small +way, bringing his own new tunes, and tempting each choir to adopt them +for a consideration. Some of these compositions which now lie before +me, with their repetitions of lines, half-lines, and half-words, their +fugues and their intermediate symphonies, are good singing still, +though they would hardly be admitted into such hymn-books as are +popular in the churches of fashionable society at the present time. + +_August 1896._ + + +_Under the Greenwood Tree_ was first brought out in the summer of 1872 +in two volumes. The name of the story was originally intended to be, +more appropriately, _The Mellstock Quire_, and this has been appended +as a sub-title since the early editions, it having been thought +unadvisable to displace for it the title by which the book first became +known. + +In rereading the narrative after a long interval there occurs the +inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun were +material for another kind of study of this little group of church +musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so lightly, even so +farcically and flippantly at times. But circumstances would have +rendered any aim at a deeper, more essential, more transcendent +handling unadvisable at the date of writing; and the exhibition of the +Mellstock Quire in the following pages must remain the only extant one, +except for the few glimpses of that perished band which I have given in +verse elsewhere. + +T. H. + + +_April_ 1912. + + + + +PART THE FIRST—WINTER + + + + +CHAPTER I. +MELLSTOCK-LANE + + +To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as +well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and +moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it +battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech +rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies +the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its +individuality. + +On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was +passing up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a +plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All +the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his +footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and by the +liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural cadence: + + “With the rose and the lily + And the daffodowndilly, +The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go.” + + +The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of +Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, +casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with +their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the +dark-creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the +sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their +flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at +a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. The +copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so +densely, even at this season of the year, that the draught from the +north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an interruption from +lateral breezes. + +After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white +surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a +ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary +accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either side. + +The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the +place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had +its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in +the shape of “Ho-i-i-i-i-i!” from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, +on the right of the singer who had just emerged from the trees. + +“Ho-i-i-i-i-i!” he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no +idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured. + +“Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?” came from the darkness. + +“Ay, sure, Michael Mail.” + +“Then why not stop for fellow-craters—going to thy own father’s house +too, as we be, and knowen us so well?” + +Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, +implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a +moment’s notice by the placid emotion of friendship. + +Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the +sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of +a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned +hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and +ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further down was invisible +from lack of sky low enough to picture him on. + +Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard +coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade +severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working +villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their +rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat +outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or Etruscan +pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir. + +The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, +and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the +surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to +Dick. + +The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, who, +though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not come to +his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face +fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his +lower waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his +figure. His features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked +round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an instant from the +precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore spectacles of a circular +form. + +The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and +dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman’s, who had now no +distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a +weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder +forward and his head inclined to the left, his arms dangling +nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas +Leaf. + +“Where be the boys?” said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-matched +assembly. + +The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great +depth. + +“We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn’t be +wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on.” + +“Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I +have just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to +warm my feet.” + +“To be sure father did! To be sure ’a did expect us—to taste the little +barrel beyond compare that he’s going to tap.” + +“’Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!” said Mr. Penny, gleams +of delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick meanwhile singing +parenthetically— + +“The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go.” + + +“Neighbours, there’s time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore +bedtime?” said Mail. + +“True, true—time enough to get as drunk as lords!” replied Bowman +cheerfully. + +This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the +varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking their +toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering +indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper +Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of +church-bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon +the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and Weatherbury parishes on +the other side of the hills. A little wicket admitted them to the +garden, and they proceeded up the path to Dick’s house. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +THE TRANTER’S + + +It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer +windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of +the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters were not yet +closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated forth upon the +thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps outside, and upon +the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging about in various +distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined +with careless climbing into their boughs in later years. The walls of +the dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though these +were rather beaten back from the doorway—a feature which was worn and +scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance +of an old keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of +outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a +fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright +attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a +beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard +from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady +regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, +and horses feeding within it. + +The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots +any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house +and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open +doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between +pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy’s father Reuben, by vocation a +“tranter,” or irregular carrier. He was a stout florid man about forty +years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their +acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant +object during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady +sway, and turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in +bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the +process of broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his +eyes at the entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that +they were the expected old comrades. + +The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other +evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung +the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and +extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown person to +walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling his hair. This +apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter’s wife, and the four +remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating +uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four +years—the eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn +by a nearly equal interval. + +Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just +previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a +small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the human +countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to +pause at the various points in each wail that were more than ordinarily +striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general effect. Bessy was +leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist +of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original unfaded pattern of +the material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of +regret that the brightness had passed away from the visible portions. +Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood fire—so +glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and +then rise and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining +the chimney, to reassure herself that they were not being broiled +instead of smoked—a misfortune that had been known to happen now and +then at Christmas-time. + +“Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!” said Reuben Dewy at length, +standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. “How the blood +do puff up in anybody’s head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was +just going out to gate to hark for ye.” He then carefully began to wind +a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he held in his hand. “This in +the cask here is a drop o’ the right sort” (tapping the cask); “’tis a +real drop o’ cordial from the best picked apples—Sansoms, Stubbards, +Five-corners, and such-like—you d’mind the sort, Michael?” (Michael +nodded.) “And there’s a sprinkling of they that grow down by the +orchard-rails—streaked ones—rail apples we d’call ’em, as ’tis by the +rails they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from +’em is as good as most people’s best cider is.” + +“Ay, and of the same make too,” said Bowman. “‘It rained when we wrung +it out, and the water got into it,’ folk will say. But ’tis on’y an +excuse. Watered cider is too common among us.” + +“Yes, yes; too common it is!” said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst +his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather +than at the scene before him. “Such poor liquor do make a man’s throat +feel very melancholy—and is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent.” + +“Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes,” +said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them +upon the door-mat. “I am glad that you’ve stepped up-along at last; +and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes’s and see if you can borrow +some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don’t ye be +afeard! Come and sit here in the settle.” + +This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting +chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in +his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast that +before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher. + +“Hee—hee—ay!” replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for +some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained +in view as the most conspicuous members of his body. + +“Here, Mr. Penny,” resumed Mrs. Dewy, “you sit in this chair. And how’s +your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?” + +“Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair.” He adjusted his spectacles a +quarter of an inch to the right. “But she’ll be worse before she’s +better, ’a b’lieve.” + +“Indeed—poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?” + +“Five; they’ve buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a +maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. +However, ’twas to be, and none can gainsay it.” + +Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. “Wonder where your grandfather James is?” +she inquired of one of the children. “He said he’d drop in to-night.” + +“Out in fuel-house with grandfather William,” said Jimmy. + +“Now let’s see what we can do,” was heard spoken about this time by the +tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again +established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. + +“Reuben, don’t make such a mess o’ tapping that barrel as is mostly +made in this house,” Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. “I’d tap a +hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and +squirting job as ’tis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy +man indoors.” + +“Ay, ay; I know you’d tap a hundred beautiful, Ann—I know you would; +two hundred, perhaps. But I can’t promise. This is a’ old cask, and the +wood’s rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam +Lawson—that ever I should call’n such, now he’s dead and gone, poor +heart!—took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. ‘Reub,’ +says he—’a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!—‘Reub,’ +he said, says he, ‘that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good +as new. ’Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth +have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, +Reub,’—’a said, says he—‘he’s worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if +he’s worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood +ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any man’s money, if—’” + +“I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use +afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is +sinner enough not to be cheated. But ’tis like all your family was, so +easy to be deceived.” + +“That’s as true as gospel of this member,” said Reuben. + +Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and +refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little +Bessy’s hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to +conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement +of some more brown paper for the broaching operation. + +“Ah, who can believe sellers!” said old Michael Mail in a +carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of +affairs. + +“No one at all,” said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully +agreeing with everybody. + +“Ay,” said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody +as a rule, though he did now; “I knowed a’ auctioneering feller once—a +very friendly feller ’a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking +down the front street o’ Casterbridge, jist below the King’s Arms, I +passed a’ open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch, +a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and +went my way, and thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was +oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter didn’t come wi’ a bill +charging me with a feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid +for at Mr. Taylor’s sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked ’em down to +me because I nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for ’em +too. Now, I hold that that was coming it very close, Reuben?” + +“’Twas close, there’s no denying,” said the general voice. + +“Too close, ’twas,” said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. “And as to +Sam Lawson—poor heart! now he’s dead and gone too!—I’ll warrant, that +if so be I’ve spent one hour in making hoops for that barrel, I’ve +spent fifty, first and last. That’s one of my hoops”—touching it with +his elbow—“that’s one of mine, and that, and that, and all these.” + +“Ah, Sam was a man,” said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. + +“Sam was!” said Bowman. + +“Especially for a drap o’ drink,” said the tranter. + +“Good, but not religious-good,” suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, +“Now then, Suze, bring a mug,” he said. “Here’s luck to us, my +sonnies!” + +The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal +shower over Reuben’s hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and +neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under +pressure of more interesting proceedings, was squatting down and +blinking near his father. + +“There ’tis again!” said Mrs. Dewy. + +“Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider +should be wasted like this!” exclaimed the tranter. “Your thumb! Lend +me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger +tap, my sonnies.” + +“Idd it cold inthide te hole?” inquired Charley of Michael, as he +continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. + +“What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!” +Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. “I lay a wager that +he thinks more about how ’tis inside that barrel than in all the other +parts of the world put together.” + +All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the +cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The +operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and +stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body +would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders—thrusting out +his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize +the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to +table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with +wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or +knot in the board upon which the gaze might precipitate itself. + +“Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?” said the +tranter. “Never such a man as father for two things—cleaving up old +dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. ’A’d pass his life +between the two, that ’a would.” He stepped to the door and opened it. + +“Father!” + +“Ay!” rang thinly from round the corner. + +“Here’s the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!” + +A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, +now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and +made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy +family appeared. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE + + +William Dewy—otherwise grandfather William—was now about seventy; yet +an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his +face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe +ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected +from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, seemed to +belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was a +humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent melancholy; and +he had a firm religious faith. But to his neighbours he had no +character in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when +they had been bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called +long-headed men who might do anything in the world if they chose, they +thought concerning him, “Ah, there’s that good-hearted man—open as a +child!” If they saw him just after losing a shilling or half-a-crown, +or accidentally letting fall a piece of crockery, they thought, +“There’s that poor weak-minded man Dewy again! Ah, he’s never done much +in the world either!” If he passed when fortune neither smiled nor +frowned on them, they merely thought him old William Dewy. + +“Ah, so’s—here you be!—Ah, Michael and Joseph and John—and you too, +Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood fire +directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving +’em.” As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which fell in the +chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with something of the +admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living people who had been +very obstinate in holding their own. “Come in, grandfather James.” + +Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a +visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered +him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward +from behind grandfather William, and his stooping figure formed a +well-illuminated picture as he passed towards the fire-place. Being by +trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron reaching almost to his toes, +corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, together with his boots, +graduated in tints of whitish-brown by constant friction against lime +and stone. He also wore a very stiff fustian coat, having folds at the +elbows and shoulders as unvarying in their arrangement as those in a +pair of bellows: the ridges and the projecting parts of the coat +collectively exhibiting a shade different from that of the hollows, +which were lined with small ditch-like accumulations of stone and +mortar-dust. The extremely large side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide +flaps, bulged out convexly whether empty or full; and as he was often +engaged to work at buildings far away—his breakfasts and dinners being +eaten in a strange chimney-corner, by a garden wall, on a heap of +stones, or walking along the road—he carried in these pockets a small +tin canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a small canister of +tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and +meat, forming the substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in his +basket among the hammers and chisels. If a passer-by looked hard at him +when he was drawing forth any of these, “My buttery,” he said, with a +pinched smile. + +“Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?” said +William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a side +table. + +“Wi’ all my heart,” said the choir generally. + +“Number seventy-eight was always a teaser—always. I can mind him ever +since I was growing up a hard boy-chap.” + +“But he’s a good tune, and worth a mint o’ practice,” said Michael. + +“He is; though I’ve been mad enough wi’ that tune at times to seize en +and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he’s a splendid carrel—there’s no +denying that.” + +“The first line is well enough,” said Mr. Spinks; “but when you come to +‘O, thou man,’ you make a mess o’t.” + +“We’ll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the martel. +Half-an-hour’s hammering at en will conquer the toughness of en; I’ll +warn it.” + +“’Od rabbit it all!” said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of his +spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the depths of +a large side-pocket. “If so be I hadn’t been as scatter-brained and +thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at the schoolhouse wi’ a +boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me I really can’t +estimate at all!” + +“The brain has its weaknesses,” murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head +ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once kept +a night-school, and always spoke up to that level. + +“Well, I must call with en the first thing to-morrow. And I’ll empt my +pocket o’ this last too, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Dewy.” He drew forth a +last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of three or four +followed it. + +“Well,” said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest the +object had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and warranted +the last’s being taken up again and exhibited; “now, whose foot do ye +suppose this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey Day’s father, +over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many’s the pair o’ boots he’ve had off the +last! Well, when ’a died, I used the last for Geoffrey, and have ever +since, though a little doctoring was wanted to make it do. Yes, a very +queer natured last it is now, ’a b’lieve,” he continued, turning it +over caressingly. “Now, you notice that there” (pointing to a lump of +leather bradded to the toe), “that’s a very bad bunion that he’ve had +ever since ’a was a boy. Now, this remarkable large piece” (pointing to +a patch nailed to the side), “shows a’ accident he received by the +tread of a horse, that squashed his foot a’most to a pomace. The +horseshoe cam full-butt on this point, you see. And so I’ve just been +over to Geoffrey’s, to know if he wanted his bunion altered or made +bigger in the new pair I’m making.” + +During the latter part of this speech, Mr. Penny’s left hand wandered +towards the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection with the person +speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt close, all but the +extreme margin of the bootmaker’s face was eclipsed by the circular +brim of the vessel. + +“However, I was going to say,” continued Penny, putting down the cup, +“I ought to have called at the school”—here he went groping again in +the depths of his pocket—“to leave this without fail, though I suppose +the first thing to-morrow will do.” + +He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot—small, light, and +prettily shaped—upon the heel of which he had been operating. + +“The new schoolmistress’s!” + +“Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever I +see, and just husband-high.” + +“Never Geoffrey’s daughter Fancy?” said Bowman, as all glances present +converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of them. + +“Yes, sure,” resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone +were his auditor; “’tis she that’s come here schoolmistress. You knowed +his daughter was in training?” + +“Strange, isn’t it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master Penny?” + +“Yes; but here she is, ’a b’lieve.” + +“I know how she comes here—so I do!” chirruped one of the children. + +“Why?” Dick inquired, with subtle interest. + +“Pa’son Maybold was afraid he couldn’t manage us all to-morrow at the +dinner, and he talked o’ getting her jist to come over and help him +hand about the plates, and see we didn’t make pigs of ourselves; and +that’s what she’s come for!” + +“And that’s the boot, then,” continued its mender imaginatively, “that +she’ll walk to church in to-morrow morning. I don’t care to mend boots +I don’t make; but there’s no knowing what it may lead to, and her +father always comes to me.” + +There, between the cider-mug and the candle, stood this interesting +receptacle of the little unknown’s foot; and a very pretty boot it was. +A character, in fact—the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded +localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers +now forgotten—all, as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a +nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling that he had +no right to do so without having first asked the owner of the foot’s +permission. + +“Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it,” the shoemaker went +on, “a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot and that +last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God’s +creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you’d get for +ten-and-sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but ’tis father’s +voot and daughter’s voot to me, as plain as houses.” + +“I don’t doubt there’s a likeness, Master Penny—a mild likeness—a +fantastical likeness,” said Spinks. “But _I_ han’t got imagination +enough to see it, perhaps.” + +Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. + +“Now, I’ll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You +used to know Johnson the dairyman, William?” + +“Ay, sure; I did.” + +“Well, ’twasn’t opposite his house, but a little lower down—by his +paddock, in front o’ Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards +Bloom’s End, and lo and behold, there was a man just brought out o’ the +Pool, dead; he had un’rayed for a dip, but not being able to pitch it +just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at en; women +looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He was covered +wi’ a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just showing out as they +carried en along. ‘I don’t care what name that man went by,’ I said, in +my way, ‘but he’s John Woodward’s brother; I can swear to the family +voot.’ At that very moment up comes John Woodward, weeping and teaving, +‘I’ve lost my brother! I’ve lost my brother!’” + +“Only to think of that!” said Mrs. Dewy. + +“’Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot,” said Mr. Spinks. +“’Tis long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, ’tis +true—I say no more; but show _me_ a man’s foot, and I’ll tell you that +man’s heart.” + +“You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral,” said +the tranter. + +“Well, that’s nothing for me to speak of,” returned Mr. Spinks. “A man +lives and learns. Maybe I’ve read a leaf or two in my time. I don’t +wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe I have.” + +“Yes, I know,” said Michael soothingly, “and all the parish knows, that +ye’ve read sommat of everything a’most, and have been a great filler of +young folks’ brains. Learning’s a worthy thing, and ye’ve got it, +Master Spinks.” + +“I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I +know—it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast—that by the time +a man’s head is finished, ’tis almost time for him to creep +underground. I am over forty-five.” + +Mr. Spinks emitted a look to signify that if his head was not finished, +nobody’s head ever could be. + +“Talk of knowing people by their feet!” said Reuben. “Rot me, my +sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is from all his members put +together, oftentimes.” + +“But still, look is a good deal,” observed grandfather William +absently, moving and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather +James’s nose was exactly in a right line with William’s eye and the +mouth of a miniature cavern he was discerning in the fire. “By the +way,” he continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, “that young +crater, the schoolmis’ess, must be sung to to-night wi’ the rest? If +her ear is as fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be +up-sides with her.” + +“What about her face?” said young Dewy. + +“Well, as to that,” Mr. Spinks replied, “’tis a face you can hardly +gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only a +face, when all is said and done.” + +“Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she’s a pretty maid, and have done wi’ +her,” said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider-barrel. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +GOING THE ROUNDS + + +Shortly after ten o’clock the singing-boys arrived at the tranter’s +house, which was invariably the place of meeting, and preparations were +made for the start. The older men and musicians wore thick coats, with +stiff perpendicular collars, and coloured handkerchiefs wound round and +round the neck till the end came to hand, over all which they just +showed their ears and noses, like people looking over a wall. The +remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, were dressed mainly in +snow-white smock-frocks, embroidered upon the shoulders and breasts, in +ornamental forms of hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cider-mug was +emptied for the ninth time, the music-books were arranged, and the +pieces finally decided upon. The boys in the meantime put the old +horn-lanterns in order, cut candles into short lengths to fit the +lanterns; and, a thin fleece of snow having fallen since the early part +of the evening, those who had no leggings went to the stable and wound +wisps of hay round their ankles to keep the insidious flakes from the +interior of their boots. + +Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets composing +it lying at a much greater distance from each other than is ordinarily +the case. Hence several hours were consumed in playing and singing +within hearing of every family, even if but a single air were bestowed +on each. There was Lower Mellstock, the main village; half a mile from +this were the church and vicarage, and a few other houses, the spot +being rather lonely now, though in past centuries it had been the most +thickly-populated quarter of the parish. A mile north-east lay the +hamlet of Upper Mellstock, where the tranter lived; and at other points +knots of cottages, besides solitary farmsteads and dairies. + +Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his grandson +Dick the treble violin; and Reuben and Michael Mail the tenor and +second violins respectively. The singers consisted of four men and +seven boys, upon whom devolved the task of carrying and attending to +the lanterns, and holding the books open for the players. Directly +music was the theme, old William ever and instinctively came to the +front. + +“Now mind, neighbours,” he said, as they all went out one by one at the +door, he himself holding it ajar and regarding them with a critical +face as they passed, like a shepherd counting out his sheep. “You two +counter-boys, keep your ears open to Michael’s fingering, and don’t ye +go straying into the treble part along o’ Dick and his set, as ye did +last year; and mind this especially when we be in ‘Arise, and hail.’ +Billy Chimlen, don’t you sing quite so raving mad as you fain would; +and, all o’ ye, whatever ye do, keep from making a great scuffle on the +ground when we go in at people’s gates; but go quietly, so as to strike +up all of a sudden, like spirits.” + +“Farmer Ledlow’s first?” + +“Farmer Ledlow’s first; the rest as usual.” + +“And, Voss,” said the tranter terminatively, “you keep house here till +about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the warmer +you’ll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi’ the victuals to +church-hatch, as th’st know.” + +Just before the clock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and +started. The moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the snowstorm; +but the dense accumulation of snow-cloud weakened her power to a faint +twilight, which was rather pervasive of the landscape than traceable to +the sky. The breeze had gone down, and the rustle of their feet and +tones of their speech echoed with an alert rebound from every post, +boundary-stone, and ancient wall they passed, even where the distance +of the echo’s origin was less than a few yards. Beyond their own slight +noises nothing was to be heard, save the occasional bark of foxes in +the direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush of a rabbit among the grass +now and then, as it scampered out of their way. + +Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by about +two o’clock; they then passed across the outskirts of a wooded park +toward the main village, nobody being at home at the Manor. Pursuing no +recognized track, great care was necessary in walking lest their faces +should come in contact with the low-hanging boughs of the old +lime-trees, which in many spots formed dense over-growths of interlaced +branches. + +“Times have changed from the times they used to be,” said Mail, +regarding nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an inward +eye, and letting his outward glance rest on the ground, because it was +as convenient a position as any. “People don’t care much about us now! +I’ve been thinking we must be almost the last left in the county of the +old string players? Barrel-organs, and the things next door to ’em that +you blow wi’ your foot, have come in terribly of late years.” + +“Ay!” said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, +did the same thing. + +“More’s the pity,” replied another. “Time was—long and merry ago +now!—when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served some +of the quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we did, and +kept out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you’d thrive in +musical religion, stick to strings, says I.” + +“Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go,” said Mr. Spinks. + +“Yet there’s worse things than serpents,” said Mr. Penny. “Old things +pass away, ’tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich +note was the serpent.” + +“Clar’nets, however, be bad at all times,” said Michael Mail. “One +Christmas—years agone now, years—I went the rounds wi’ the Weatherbury +quire. ’Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar’nets +froze—ah, they did freeze!—so that ’twas like drawing a cork every time +a key was opened; and the players o’ ’em had to go into a +hedger-and-ditcher’s chimley-corner, and thaw their clar’nets every now +and then. An icicle o’ spet hung down from the end of every man’s +clar’net a span long; and as to fingers—well, there, if ye’ll believe +me, we had no fingers at all, to our knowing.” + +“I can well bring back to my mind,” said Mr. Penny, “what I said to +poor Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for +two-and-forty year) when they thought of having clar’nets there. +‘Joseph,’ I said, says I, ‘depend upon’t, if so be you have them +tooting clar’nets you’ll spoil the whole set-out. Clar’nets were not +made for the service of the Lard; you can see it by looking at ’em,’ I +said. And what came o’t? Why, souls, the parson set up a barrel-organ +on his own account within two years o’ the time I spoke, and the old +quire went to nothing.” + +“As far as look is concerned,” said the tranter, “I don’t for my part +see that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar’net. ’Tis further +off. There’s always a rakish, scampish twist about a fiddle’s looks +that seems to say the Wicked One had a hand in making o’en; while +angels be supposed to play clar’nets in heaven, or som’at like ’em, if +ye may believe picters.” + +“Robert Penny, you was in the right,” broke in the eldest Dewy. “They +should ha’ stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog—well and +good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye—well and good; your +drum-man is a rare bowel-shaker—good again. But I don’t care who hears +me say it, nothing will spak to your heart wi’ the sweetness o’ the man +of strings!” + +“Strings for ever!” said little Jimmy. + +“Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new comers +in creation.” (“True, true!” said Bowman.) “But clarinets was death.” +(“Death they was!” said Mr. Penny.) “And harmonions,” William continued +in a louder voice, and getting excited by these signs of approval, +“harmonions and barrel-organs” (“Ah!” and groans from Spinks) “be +miserable—what shall I call ’em?—miserable—” + +“Sinners,” suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and +did not lag behind like the other little boys. + +“Miserable dumbledores!” + +“Right, William, and so they be—miserable dumbledores!” said the choir +with unanimity. + +By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the +school, which, standing on a slight eminence at the junction of three +ways, now rose in unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. The +instruments were retuned, and all the band entered the school +enclosure, enjoined by old William to keep upon the grass. + +“Number seventy-eight,” he softly gave out as they formed round in a +semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer light, and +directing their rays on the books. + +Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time-worn hymn, +embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted from father +to son through several generations down to the present characters, who +sang them out right earnestly: + +“Remember Adam’s fall, + O thou Man: +Remember Adam’s fall + From Heaven to Hell. +Remember Adam’s fall; +How he hath condemn’d all +In Hell perpetual + There for to dwell. + +Remember God’s goodnesse, + O thou Man: +Remember God’s goodnesse, + His promise made. +Remember God’s goodnesse; +He sent His Son sinlesse +Our ails for to redress; + Be not afraid! + +In Bethlehem He was born, + O thou Man: +In Bethlehem He was born, + For mankind’s sake. +In Bethlehem He was born, +Christmas-day i’ the morn: +Our Saviour thought no scorn + Our faults to take. + +Give thanks to God alway, + O thou Man: +Give thanks to God alway + With heart-most joy. +Give thanks to God alway +On this our joyful day: +Let all men sing and say, + Holy, Holy!” + + +Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, but +found that no sound issued from the schoolhouse. + +“Four breaths, and then, ‘O, what unbounded goodness!’ number +fifty-nine,” said William. + +This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be taken +of the performance. + +“Good guide us, surely ’tisn’t a’ empty house, as befell us in the year +thirty-nine and forty-three!” said old Dewy. + +“Perhaps she’s jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our +doings?” the tranter whispered. + +“’Od rabbit her!” said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a corner +of the school chimney, “I don’t quite stomach her, if this is it. Your +plain music well done is as worthy as your other sort done bad, a’ +b’lieve, souls; so say I.” + +“Four breaths, and then the last,” said the leader authoritatively. +“‘Rejoice, ye Tenants of the Earth,’ number sixty-four.” + +At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud +voice, as he had said in the village at that hour and season for the +previous forty years—“A merry Christmas to ye!” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +THE LISTENERS + + +When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearly +died out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible in one of +the windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the blind that the +exact position of the flame could be perceived from the outside. +Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went upward from before it, +revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, framed as a picture +by the window architrave, and unconsciously illuminating her +countenance to a vivid brightness by a candle she held in her left +hand, close to her face, her right hand being extended to the side of +the window. She was wrapped in a white robe of some kind, whilst down +her shoulders fell a twining profusion of marvellously rich hair, in a +wild disorder which proclaimed it to be only during the invisible hours +of the night that such a condition was discoverable. Her bright eyes +were looking into the grey world outside with an uncertain expression, +oscillating between courage and shyness, which, as she recognized the +semicircular group of dark forms gathered before her, transformed +itself into pleasant resolution. + +Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly—“Thank you, singers, +thank you!” + +Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started +downward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyes +vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. Then +the spot of candlelight shone nebulously as before; then it moved away. + +“How pretty!” exclaimed Dick Dewy. + +“If she’d been rale wexwork she couldn’t ha’ been comelier,” said +Michael Mail. + +“As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever _I_ wish to see!” said +tranter Dewy. + +“O, sich I never, never see!” said Leaf fervently. + +All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their hats, +agreed that such a sight was worth singing for. + +“Now to Farmer Shiner’s, and then replenish our insides, father?” said +the tranter. + +“Wi’ all my heart,” said old William, shouldering his bass-viol. + +Farmer Shiner’s was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of +a lane that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper windows were +much wider than they were high, and this feature, together with a broad +bay-window where the door might have been expected, gave it by day the +aspect of a human countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly and +wicked leer. To-night nothing was visible but the outline of the roof +upon the sky. + +The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries arranged +as usual. + +“Four breaths, and number thirty-two, ‘Behold the Morning Star,’” said +old William. + +They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were +doing the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening chord +of the third verse, when, without a light appearing or any signal being +given, a roaring voice exclaimed— + +“Shut up, woll ’ee! Don’t make your blaring row here! A feller wi’ a +headache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!” + +Slam went the window. + +“Hullo, that’s a’ ugly blow for we!” said the tranter, in a keenly +appreciative voice, and turning to his companions. + +“Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!” commanded old +William; and they continued to the end. + +“Four breaths, and number nineteen!” said William firmly. “Give it him +well; the quire can’t be insulted in this manner!” + +A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer +stood revealed as one in a terrific passion. + +“Drown en!—drown en!” the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. “Play +fortissimy, and drown his spaking!” + +“Fortissimy!” said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so +loud that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was +saying, or was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body +about in the forms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough +invectives to consign the whole parish to perdition. + +“Very onseemly—very!” said old William, as they retired. “Never such a +dreadful scene in the whole round o’ my carrel practice—never! And he a +churchwarden!” + +“Only a drap o’ drink got into his head,” said the tranter. “Man’s well +enough when he’s in his religious frame. He’s in his worldly frame now. +Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrow night, I suppose, and so +put en in humour again. We bear no mortal man ill-will.” + +They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path +beside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with the +hot mead and bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the churchyard. +This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding further, and +they entered the church and ascended to the gallery. The lanterns were +opened, and the whole body sat round against the walls on benches and +whatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of +conversation there could be heard through the floor overhead a little +world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never +spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more +meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time. + +Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, and +once more the party emerged into the night air. + +“Where’s Dick?” said old Dewy. + +Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have been +transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they didn’t know. + +“Well now, that’s what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do,” +said Michael Mail. + +“He’ve clinked off home-along, depend upon’t,” another suggested, +though not quite believing that he had. + +“Dick!” exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth +among the yews. + +He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer, +and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage. + +“The treble man too! Now if he’d been a tenor or counter chap, we might +ha’ contrived the rest o’t without en, you see. But for a quire to lose +the treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . ” The +tranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough for the +occasion. + +“Your head at once,” suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to complete +sentences when there were more pressing things to be done. + +“Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half done +and turning tail like this!” + +“Never,” replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man +in the world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of him. + +“I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!” said his grandfather. + +“O no,” replied tranter Dewy placidly. “Wonder where he’s put that +there fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and good +words besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that instrument +will be unglued and spoilt in ten minutes—ten! ay, two.” + +“What in the name o’ righteousness can have happened?” said old +William, more uneasily. “Perhaps he’s drownded!” + +Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced +their steps along the waterside track. “A strapping lad like Dick +d’know better than let anything happen onawares,” Reuben remarked. +“There’s sure to be some poor little scram reason for’t staring us in +the face all the while.” He lowered his voice to a mysterious tone: +“Neighbours, have ye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in his head, +or suchlike?” + +“Not a glimmer of such a body. He’s as clear as water yet.” + +“And Dicky said he should never marry,” cried Jimmy, “but live at home +always along wi’ mother and we!” + +“Ay, ay, my sonny; every lad has said that in his time.” + +They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner’s, but hearing +nobody in that direction, one or two went across to the schoolhouse. A +light was still burning in the bedroom, and though the blind was down, +the window had been slightly opened, as if to admit the distant notes +of the carollers to the ears of the occupant of the room. + +Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was the +lost man, his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed upon +the illuminated lattice. + +“Why, Dick, is that thee? What b’st doing here?” + +Dick’s body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his head +was seen to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring to +discern some proper answer to that question; and at last he said in +rather feeble accents—“Nothing, father.” + +“Th’st take long enough time about it then, upon my body,” said the +tranter, as they all turned anew towards the vicarage. + +“I thought you hadn’t done having snap in the gallery,” said Dick. + +“Why, we’ve been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, and +thinking you’d done fifty deathly things, and here have you been at +nothing at all!” + +“The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all,” +murmured Mr. Spinks. + +The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold, +the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night’s +harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have +been led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was added +to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold made no stir. + +“A bad sign!” said old William, shaking his head. + +However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming from +inner depths of bedclothes—“Thanks, villagers!” + +“What did he say?” asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. +Bowman’s voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar +within. + +“I said, ‘Thanks, villagers!’” cried the vicar again. + +“Oh, we didn’t hear ’ee the first time!” cried Bowman. + +“Now don’t for heaven’s sake spoil the young man’s temper by answering +like that!” said the tranter. + +“You won’t do that, my friends!” the vicar shouted. + +“Well to be sure, what ears!” said Mr. Penny in a whisper. “Beats any +horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon’t, that’s a sign he’s a +proper clever chap.” + +“We shall see that in time,” said the tranter. + +Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively new +inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but renounced +his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leave +well alone. + +“Now putting two and two together,” the tranter continued, as they went +their way over the hill, and across to the last remaining houses; “that +is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and this +young tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she’ll wind en round her +finger, and twist the pore young feller about like the figure of 8—that +she will so, my sonnies.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +CHRISTMAS MORNING + + +The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the +parish. Dick’s slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for +rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the +incidents that had passed that night in connection with the +school-window going on in his brain every moment of the time. + +In the morning, do what he would—go upstairs, downstairs, out of doors, +speak of the wind and weather, or what not—he could not refrain from an +unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that interesting enactment. +Tilted on the edge of one foot he stood beside the fireplace, watching +his mother grilling rashers; but there was nothing in grilling, he +thought, unless the Vision grilled. The limp rasher hung down between +the bars of the gridiron like a cat in a child’s arms; but there was +nothing in similes, unless She uttered them. He looked at the daylight +shadows of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on +the whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. +“Perhaps the new young wom—sch—Miss Fancy Day will sing in church with +us this morning,” he said. + +The tranter looked a long time before he replied, “I fancy she will; +and yet I fancy she won’t.” + +Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than +admired; though deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a rule, +more to do with the machinery of the tranter’s throat than with the +matter enunciated. + +They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with extreme +alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was so +religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his best light +boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an art. Every +particle and speck of last week’s mud was scraped and brushed from toe +and heel; new blacking from the packet was carefully mixed and made use +of, regardless of expense. A coat was laid on and polished; then +another coat for increased blackness; and lastly a third, to give the +perfect and mirror-like jet which the hoped-for rencounter demanded. + +It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday +particularity. Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to proceed +from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming that he +was there performing his great Sunday wash, lasting half-an-hour, to +which his washings on working-day mornings were mere flashes in the +pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown towel, and the +above-named bubblings and snortings being carried on for about twenty +minutes, the tranter would appear round the edge of the door, smelling +like a summer fog, and looking as if he had just narrowly escaped a +watery grave with the loss of much of his clothes, having since been +weeping bitterly till his eyes were red; a crystal drop of water +hanging ornamentally at the bottom of each ear, one at the tip of his +nose, and others in the form of spangles about his hair. + +After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet +of father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these +preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and +the strings examined and screwed a little above concert-pitch, that +they might keep their tone when the service began, to obviate the +awkward contingency of having to retune them at the back of the gallery +during a cough, sneeze, or amen—an inconvenience which had been known +to arise in damp wintry weather. + +The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the +ewe-lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded +green-baize bags, and old brown music-books in their hands; Dick +continually finding himself in advance of the other two, and the +tranter moving on with toes turned outwards to an enormous angle. + +At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north +gate, or ‘church hatch,’ as it was called here. Seven agile figures in +a clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers +waiting; sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and letting their +heels dangle against it. The musicians being now in sight, the youthful +party scampered off and rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gallery +like a regiment of cavalry; the other boys of the parish waiting +outside and observing birds, cats, and other creatures till the vicar +entered, when they suddenly subsided into sober church-goers, and +passed down the aisle with echoing heels. + +The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own. +A stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether differing from +that of the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as +an intruder whom no originality could make interesting, he was received +above as a curiosity that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery, +too, looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest +peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about +it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk, +beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that +the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying +amen; that he had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon +certain young daughters of the village had left off caring to read +anything so mild as the marriage service for some years, and now +regularly studied the one which chronologically follows it; that a pair +of lovers touched fingers through a knot-hole between their pews in the +manner ordained by their great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. +Ledlow, the farmer’s wife, counted her money and reckoned her week’s +marketing expenses during the first lesson—all news to those below—were +stale subjects here. + +Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello between +his knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the left, came +the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the +tenors. Farther back was old Mail with the altos and supernumeraries. + +But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were standing +in a circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm or two, Dick +cast his eyes over his grandfather’s shoulder, and saw the vision of +the past night enter the porch-door as methodically as if she had never +been a vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed suddenly to be puffed +into the ancient edifice by her movement, which made Dick’s body and +soul tingle with novel sensations. Directed by Shiner, the +churchwarden, she proceeded to the small aisle on the north side of the +chancel, a spot now allotted to a throng of Sunday-school girls, and +distinctly visible from the gallery-front by looking under the curve of +the furthermost arch on that side. + +Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty—now it was +thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked around her +for a permanent place in which to deposit herself—finally choosing the +remotest corner—Dick began to breathe more freely the warm new air she +had brought with her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have +impressions that there was a tie between her and himself visible to all +the congregation. + +Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part of +the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling +occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the +duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the +services of other times. The tunes they that morning essayed remained +with him for years, apart from all others; also the text; also the +appearance of the layer of dust upon the capitals of the piers; that +the holly-bough in the chancel archway was hung a little out of the +centre—all the ideas, in short, that creep into the mind when reason is +only exercising its lowest activity through the eye. + +By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock Church +on that Christmas morning had towards the end of the service the same +instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the shape of the +same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far less developed +stage. And there was this difference, too, that the person in question +was surprised at his condition, and sedulously endeavoured to reduce +himself to his normal state of mind. He was the young vicar, Mr. +Maybold. + +The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of +church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the heavy +exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and now, in +addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in the +atmosphere that still further aggravated the evil. Their strings, from +the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole semitones, and +snapped with a loud twang at the most silent moment; which necessitated +more retiring than ever to the back of the gallery, and made the +gallery throats quite husky with the quantity of coughing and hemming +required for tuning in. The vicar looked cross. + +When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be a +strong and shrill reinforcement from some point, ultimately found to be +the school-girls’ aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and more +distinct. At the third time of singing, these intrusive feminine voices +were as mighty as those of the regular singers; in fact, the flood of +sound from this quarter assumed such an individuality, that it had a +time, a key, almost a tune of its own, surging upwards when the gallery +plunged downwards, and the reverse. + +Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The girls, +like the rest of the congregation, had always been humble and +respectful followers of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if +without gallery leaders; never interfering with the ordinances of these +practised artists—having no will, union, power, or proclivity except it +was given them from the established choir enthroned above them. + +A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats and +strings, which continued throughout the musical portion of the service. +Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny’s spectacles put in +their sheath, and the text had been given out, an indignant whispering +began. + +“Did ye hear that, souls?” Mr. Penny said, in a groaning breath. + +“Brazen-faced hussies!” said Bowman. + +“True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if not +louder!” + +“Fiddles and all!” echoed Bowman bitterly. + +“Shall anything saucier be found than united ’ooman?” Mr. Spinks +murmured. + +“What I want to know is,” said the tranter (as if he knew already, but +that civilization required the form of words), “what business people +have to tell maidens to sing like that when they don’t sit in a +gallery, and never have entered one in their lives? That’s the +question, my sonnies.” + +“’Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows,” said Mr. +Penny. “Why, souls, what’s the use o’ the ancients spending scores of +pounds to build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the +church sing like that at a moment’s notice?” + +“Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, +fiddles and all!” said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a stranger, +would have sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he +addressed could understand the horrible bitterness of irony that lurked +under the quiet words ‘useless ones,’ and the ghastliness of the +laughter apparently so natural. + +“Never mind! Let ’em sing too—’twill make it all the louder—hee, hee!” +said Leaf. + +“Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?” said +grandfather William sternly. + +The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he had lived nowhere at all. + +“When all’s said and done, my sonnies,” Reuben said, “there’d have been +no real harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear ’em, and only +jined in now and then.” + +“None at all,” said Mr. Penny. “But though I don’t wish to accuse +people wrongfully, I’d say before my lord judge that I could hear every +note o’ that last psalm come from ’em as much as from us—every note as +if ’twas their own.” + +“Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!” Mr. Spinks was heard to +observe at this moment, without reference to his fellow players—shaking +his head at some idea he seemed to see floating before him, and smiling +as if he were attending a funeral at the time. “Ah, do I or don’t I +know it!” + +No one said “Know what?” because all were aware from experience that +what he knew would declare itself in process of time. + +“I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi’ that +young man,” said the tranter, pending the continuance of Spinks’s +speech, and looking towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the pulpit. + +“_I_ fancy,” said old William, rather severely, “I fancy there’s too +much whispering going on to be of any spiritual use to gentle or +simple.” Then folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the +vicar, he implied that none but the ignorant would speak again; and +accordingly there was silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks’s telling +speech remaining for ever unspoken. + +Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of the +morning; for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as her intention to +invite the youthful leader of the culprits to the small party it was +customary with them to have on Christmas night—a piece of knowledge +which had given a particular brightness to Dick’s reflections since he +had received it. And in the tranter’s slightly-cynical nature, party +feeling was weaker than in the other members of the choir, though +friendliness and faithful partnership still sustained in him a hearty +earnestness on their account. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +THE TRANTER’S PARTY + + +During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the +precincts of tranter Dewy’s house. The flagstone floor was swept of +dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost +stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then +were produced large knives and forks, which had been shrouded in +darkness and grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing +upon their sides, “Shear-steel, warranted,” in such emphatic letters of +assurance, that the warranter’s name was not required as further proof, +and not given. The key was left in the tap of the cider-barrel, instead +of being carried in a pocket. And finally the tranter had to stand up +in the room and let his wife wheel him round like a turnstile, to see +if anything discreditable was visible in his appearance. + +“Stand still till I’ve been for the scissors,” said Mrs. Dewy. + +The tranter stood as still as a sentinel at the challenge. + +The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers that +had extended beyond the general contour of the mass; a like trimming of +a slightly-frayed edge visible on his shirt-collar; and a final tug at +a grey hair—to all of which operations he submitted in resigned +silence, except the last, which produced a mild “Come, come, Ann,” by +way of expostulation. + +“Really, Reuben, ’tis quite a disgrace to see such a man,” said Mrs. +Dewy, with the severity justifiable in a long-tried companion, giving +him another turn round, and picking several of Smiler’s hairs from the +shoulder of his coat. Reuben’s thoughts seemed engaged elsewhere, and +he yawned. “And the collar of your coat is a shame to behold—so +plastered with dirt, or dust, or grease, or something. Why, wherever +could you have got it?” + +“’Tis my warm nater in summer-time, I suppose. I always did get in such +a heat when I bustle about.” + +“Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarse-skinned family. There’s your +brother Bob just as bad—as fat as a porpoise—wi’ his low, mean, ‘How’st +do, Ann?’ whenever he meets me. I’d ‘How’st do’ him indeed! If the sun +only shines out a minute, there be you all streaming in the face—I +never see!” + +“If I be hot week-days, I must be hot Sundays.” + +“If any of the girls should turn after their father ’twill be a bad +look-out for ’em, poor things! None of my family were sich vulgar +sweaters, not one of ’em. But, Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don’t know +how ever I cam’ into such a family!” + +_“_Your woman’s weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That’s how it was +I suppose.” But the tranter appeared to have heard some such words from +his wife before, and hence his answer had not the energy it might have +shown if the inquiry had possessed the charm of novelty. + +“You never did look so well in a pair o’ trousers as in them,” she +continued in the same unimpassioned voice, so that the unfriendly +criticism of the Dewy family seemed to have been more normal than +spontaneous. “Such a cheap pair as ’twas too. As big as any man could +wish to have, and lined inside, and double-lined in the lower parts, +and an extra piece of stiffening at the bottom. And ’tis a nice high +cut that comes up right under your armpits, and there’s enough turned +down inside the seams to make half a pair more, besides a piece of +cloth left that will make an honest waistcoat—all by my contriving in +buying the stuff at a bargain, and having it made up under my eye. It +only shows what may be done by taking a little trouble, and not going +straight to the rascally tailors.” + +The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on the +scene, with a face and hands of hideous blackness, and a nose like a +guttering candle. Why, on that particularly cleanly afternoon, he +should have discovered that the chimney-crook and chain from which the +hams were suspended should have possessed more merits and general +interest as playthings than any other articles in the house, is a +question for nursing mothers to decide. However, the humour seemed to +lie in the result being, as has been seen, that any given player with +these articles was in the long-run daubed with soot. The last that was +seen of Charley by daylight after this piece of ingenuity was when in +the act of vanishing from his father’s presence round the corner of the +house—looking back over his shoulder with an expression of great sin on +his face, like Cain as the Outcast in Bible pictures. + +The guests had all assembled, and the tranter’s party had reached that +degree of development which accords with ten o’clock P.M. in rural +assemblies. At that hour the sound of a fiddle in process of tuning was +heard from the inner pantry. + +“That’s Dick,” said the tranter. “That lad’s crazy for a jig.” + +“Dick! Now I cannot—really, I cannot have any dancing at all till +Christmas-day is out,” said old William emphatically. “When the clock +ha’ done striking twelve, dance as much as ye like.” + +“Well, I must say there’s reason in that, William,” said Mrs. Penny. +“If you do have a party on Christmas-night, ’tis only fair and +honourable to the sky-folk to have it a sit-still party. Jigging +parties be all very well on the Devil’s holidays; but a jigging party +looks suspicious now. O yes; stop till the clock strikes, young folk—so +say I.” + +It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks’s head +about this time. + +“Dancing,” he said, “is a most strengthening, livening, and courting +movement, ’specially with a little beverage added! And dancing is good. +But why disturb what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the company +zhinerally? Why, I ask, as far as that do go?” + +“Then nothing till after twelve,” said William. + +Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious questions +were mostly disposed of by the old man, whose firmness on this head +quite counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling of domestic +matters. The hopes of the younger members of the household were +therefore relegated to a distance of one hour and three-quarters—a +result that took visible shape in them by a remote and listless look +about the eyes—the singing of songs being permitted in the interim. + +At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the back +quarters; and when at length the clock had whizzed forth the last +stroke, Dick appeared ready primed, and the instruments were boldly +handled; old William very readily taking the bass-viol from its +accustomed nail, and touching the strings as irreligiously as could be +desired. + +The country-dance called the ‘Triumph, or Follow my Lover,’ was the +figure with which they opened. The tranter took for his partner Mrs. +Penny, and Mrs. Dewy was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much of his +limited height by a judicious carriage of the head, straightening of +the back, and important flashes of his spectacle-glasses, that he +seemed almost as tall as the tranter. Mr. Shiner, age about +thirty-five, farmer and church-warden, a character principally composed +of a crimson stare, vigorous breath, and a watch-chain, with a mouth +hanging on a dark smile but never smiling, had come quite willingly to +the party, and showed a wondrous obliviousness of all his antics on the +previous night. But the comely, slender, prettily-dressed prize Fancy +Day fell to Dick’s lot, in spite of some private machinations of the +farmer, for the reason that Mr. Shiner, as a richer man, had shown too +much assurance in asking the favour, whilst Dick had been duly +courteous. + +We gain a good view of our heroine as she advances to her place in the +ladies’ line. She belonged to the taller division of middle height. +Flexibility was her first characteristic, by which she appeared to +enjoy the most easeful rest when she was in gliding motion. Her dark +eyes—arched by brows of so keen, slender, and soft a curve, that they +resembled nothing so much as two slurs in music—showed primarily a +bright sparkle each. This was softened by a frequent thoughtfulness, +yet not so frequent as to do away, for more than a few minutes at a +time, with a certain coquettishness; which in its turn was never so +decided as to banish honesty. Her lips imitated her brows in their +clearly-cut outline and softness of bend; and her nose was well +shaped—which is saying a great deal, when it is remembered that there +are a hundred pretty mouths and eyes for one pretty nose. Add to this, +plentiful knots of dark-brown hair, a gauzy dress of white, with blue +facings; and the slightest idea may be gained of the young maiden who +showed, amidst the rest of the dancing-ladies, like a flower among +vegetables. And so the dance proceeded. Mr. Shiner, according to the +interesting rule laid down, deserted his own partner, and made off down +the middle with this fair one of Dick’s—the pair appearing from the top +of the room like two persons tripping down a lane to be married. Dick +trotted behind with what was intended to be a look of composure, but +which was, in fact, a rather silly expression of feature—implying, with +too much earnestness, that such an elopement could not be tolerated. +Then they turned and came back, when Dick grew more rigid around his +mouth, and blushed with ingenuous ardour as he joined hands with the +rival and formed the arch over his lady’s head; which presumably gave +the figure its name; relinquishing her again at setting to partners, +when Mr. Shiner’s new chain quivered in every link, and all the loose +flesh upon the tranter—who here came into action again—shook like +jelly. Mrs. Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal +safety when she danced with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic +smile of timidity the whole time it lasted—a peculiarity which filled +her features with wrinkles, and reduced her eyes to little straight +lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down opposite him; repeating +in her own person not only his proper movements, but also the minor +flourishes which the richness of the tranter’s imagination led him to +introduce from time to time—an imitation which had about it something +of slavish obedience, not unmixed with fear. + +The ear-rings of the ladies now flung themselves wildly about, turning +violent summersaults, banging this way and that, and then swinging +quietly against the ears sustaining them. Mrs. Crumpler—a heavy woman, +who, for some reason which nobody ever thought worth inquiry, danced in +a clean apron—moved so smoothly through the figure that her feet were +never seen; conveying to imaginative minds the idea that she rolled on +castors. + +Minute after minute glided by, and the party reached the period when +ladies’ back-hair begins to look forgotten and dissipated; when a +perceptible dampness makes itself apparent upon the faces even of +delicate girls—a ghastly dew having for some time rained from the +features of their masculine partners; when skirts begin to be torn out +of their gathers; when elderly people, who have stood up to please +their juniors, begin to feel sundry small tremblings in the region of +the knees, and to wish the interminable dance was at Jericho; when (at +country parties of the thorough sort) waistcoats begin to be +unbuttoned, and when the fiddlers’ chairs have been wriggled, by the +frantic bowing of their occupiers, to a distance of about two feet from +where they originally stood. + +Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shiner. Dick knew that Fancy, by the law of +good manners, was bound to dance as pleasantly with one partner as with +another; yet he could not help suggesting to himself that she need not +have put _quite_ so much spirit into her steps, nor smiled _quite_ so +frequently whilst in the farmer’s hands. + +“I’m afraid you didn’t cast off,” said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, +before the latter man’s watch-chain had done vibrating from a recent +whirl. + +Fancy made a motion of accepting the correction; but her partner took +no notice, and proceeded with the next movement, with an affectionate +bend towards her. + +“That Shiner’s too fond of her,” the young man said to himself as he +watched them. They came to the top again, Fancy smiling warmly towards +her partner, and went to their places. + +“Mr. Shiner, you didn’t cast off,” said Dick, for want of something +else to demolish him with; casting off himself, and being put out at +the farmer’s irregularity. + +“Perhaps I sha’n’t cast off for any man,” said Mr. Shiner. + +“I think you ought to, sir.” + +Dick’s partner, a young lady of the name of Lizzy—called Lizz for +short—tried to mollify. + +“I can’t say that I myself have much feeling for casting off,” she +said. + +“Nor I,” said Mrs. Penny, following up the argument, “especially if a +friend and neighbour is set against it. Not but that ’tis a terrible +tasty thing in good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so say I.” + +“All I meant was,” said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken +correctingly to a guest, “that ’tis in the dance; and a man has hardly +any right to hack and mangle what was ordained by the regular +dance-maker, who, I daresay, got his living by making ’em, and thought +of nothing else all his life.” + +“I don’t like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no +dance-maker that ever lived.” + +Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being really +an effort to present to himself, in an abstract form, how far an +argument with a formidable rival ought to be carried, when that rival +was his mother’s guest. The dead-lock was put an end to by the stamping +arrival up the middle of the tranter, who, despising minutiæ on +principle, started a theme of his own. + +“I assure you, neighbours,” he said, “the heat of my frame no tongue +can tell!” He looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible gaze +of self-sympathy, some faint idea of the truth. + +Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple. + +“Yes,” she said, in an auxiliary tone, “Reuben always was such a hot +man.” + +Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of +affliction required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the same +time. + +“If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt-collar +is as limp as no starch at all,” continued Mrs. Dewy, her countenance +lapsing parenthetically into a housewifely expression of concern at the +reminiscence. + +“Come, come, you women-folk; ’tis hands across—come, come!” said the +tranter; and the conversation ceased for the present. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY + + +Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of +country-dances, opening with six-hands-round. + +“Before we begin,” said the tranter, “my proposal is, that ’twould be a +right and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull off his +jacket, considering the heat.” + +“Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go down +with you when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!” + +“Well, now, look here, my sonnies,” he argued to his wife, whom he +often addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely; +“I don’t see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten +your clothes. Isn’t that nature and reason for gentle and simple? If I +strip by myself and not necessary, ’tis rather pot-housey I own; but if +we stout chaps strip one and all, why, ’tis the native manners of the +country, which no man can gainsay? Hey—what did you say, my sonnies?” + +“Strip we will!” said the three other heavy men who were in the dance; +and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage, +whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close +column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, +a general glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England +or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy’s good opinion, +retained his coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did +the same from superior knowledge. + +And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the +time of night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the +tables and chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming +a distinct halo round the candles; when people’s nostrils, wrinkles, +and crevices in general, seem to be getting gradually plastered up; +when the very fiddlers as well as the dancers get red in the face, the +dancers having advanced further still towards incandescence, and +entered the cadaverous phase; the fiddlers no longer sit down, but kick +back their chairs and saw madly at the strings, with legs firmly spread +and eyes closed, regardless of the visible world. Again and again did +Dick share his Love’s hand with another man, and wheel round; then, +more delightfully, promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his +arm holding her waist more firmly each time, and his elbow getting +further and further behind her back, till the distance reached was +rather noticeable; and, most blissful, swinging to places shoulder to +shoulder, her breath curling round his neck like a summer zephyr that +had strayed from its proper date. Threading the couples one by one they +reached the bottom, when there arose in Dick’s mind a minor misery lest +the tune should end before they could work their way to the top again, +and have anew the same exciting run down through. Dick’s feelings on +actually reaching the top in spite of his doubts were supplemented by a +mortal fear that the fiddling might even stop at this supreme moment; +which prompted him to convey a stealthy whisper to the far-gone +musicians, to the effect that they were not to leave off till he and +his partner had reached the bottom of the dance once more, which remark +was replied to by the nearest of those convulsed and quivering men by a +private nod to the anxious young man between two semiquavers of the +tune, and a simultaneous “All right, ay, ay,” without opening the eyes. +Fancy was now held so closely that Dick and she were practically one +person. The room became to Dick like a picture in a dream; all that he +could remember of it afterwards being the look of the fiddlers going to +sleep, as humming-tops sleep, by increasing their motion and hum, +together with the figures of grandfather James and old Simon Crumpler +sitting by the chimney-corner, talking and nodding in dumb-show, and +beating the air to their emphatic sentences like people near a +threshing machine. + +The dance ended. “Piph-h-h-h!” said tranter Dewy, blowing out his +breath in the very finest stream of vapour that a man’s lips could +form. “A regular tightener, that one, sonnies!” He wiped his forehead, +and went to the cider and ale mugs on the table. + +“Well!” said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, “my heart haven’t been +in such a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on old +Midsummer-eves to see who my husband was going to be.” + +“And that’s getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I’ve +heard you tell,” said the tranter, without lifting his eyes from the +cup he was filling. Being now engaged in the business of handing round +refreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, though +the other heavy men had resumed theirs. + +“And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you’ll believe me, +came to pass then,” continued Mrs. Penny. “Ah, the first spirit ever I +see on a Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a hard +puzzle, so say I!” + +“So I should have fancied,” said Elias Spinks. + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and +talking on in a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a +listener were not a necessity. “Yes; never was I in such a taking as on +that Midsummer-eve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John Wildway +was going to marry me or no. I put the bread-and-cheese and beer quite +ready, as the witch’s book ordered, and I opened the door, and I waited +till the clock struck twelve, my nerves all alive and so strained that +I could feel every one of ’em twitching like bell-wires. Yes, sure! and +when the clock had struck, lo and behold, I could see through the door +a _little small_ man in the lane wi’ a shoemaker’s apron on.” + +Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch. + +“Now, John Wildway,” Mrs. Penny continued, “who courted me at that +time, was a shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, and I +couldn’t believe that any such a little small man had anything to do +wi’ me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the threshold—not +John, but actually the same little small man in the shoemaker’s apron—” + +“You needn’t be so mighty particular about little and small!” said her +husband. + +“In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn’t I flee +upstairs, body and soul hardly hanging together! Well, to cut a long +story short, by-long and by-late, John Wildway and I had a miff and +parted; and lo and behold, the coming man came! Penny asked me if I’d +go snacks with him, and afore I knew what I was about a’most, the thing +was done.” + +“I’ve fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be +mistaken,” said Mr. Penny in a murmur. + +After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her +eyes, she still let them stay idling on the past scenes just related, +which were apparently visible to her in the centre of the room. Mr. +Penny’s remark received no reply. + +During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been observed +standing in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness to each +other, a just perceptible current of intelligence passing from each to +each, which had apparently no relation whatever to the conversation of +their guests, but much to their sustenance. A conclusion of some kind +having at length been drawn, the palpable confederacy of man and wife +was once more obliterated, the tranter marching off into the pantry, +humming a tune that he couldn’t quite recollect, and then breaking into +the words of a song of which he could remember about one line and a +quarter. Mrs. Dewy spoke a few words about preparations for a bit of +supper. + +That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking put +on a look to signify that till this moment they had quite forgotten +that it was customary to expect suppers on these occasions; going even +further than this politeness of feature, and starting irrelevant +subjects, the exceeding flatness and forced tone of which rather +betrayed their object. The younger members said they were quite hungry, +and that supper would be delightful though it was so late. + +Good luck attended Dick’s love-passes during the meal. He sat next +Fancy, and had the thrilling pleasure of using permanently a glass +which had been taken by Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge of +the sole of his boot touch the lower verge of her skirt; and to add to +these delights the cat, which had lain unobserved in her lap for +several minutes, crept across into his own, touching him with fur that +had touched her hand a moment before. There were, besides, some little +pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she didn’t want, and +when it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it across for his own +use, on the plea of waste not, want not. He also, from time to time, +sipped sweet sly glances at her profile; noticing the set of her head, +the curve of her throat, and other artistic properties of the lively +goddess, who the while kept up a rather free, not to say too free, +conversation with Mr. Shiner sitting opposite; which, after some uneasy +criticism, and much shifting of argument backwards and forwards in +Dick’s mind, he decided not to consider of alarming significance. + +“A new music greets our ears now,” said Miss Fancy, alluding, with the +sharpness that her position as village sharpener demanded, to the +contrast between the rattle of knives and forks and the late notes of +the fiddlers. + +“Ay; and I don’t know but what ’tis sweeter in tone when you get above +forty,” said the tranter; “except, in faith, as regards father there. +Never such a mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his soul; don’t +’em, father?” + +The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent to +Reuben’s remark. + +“Spaking of being moved in soul,” said Mr. Penny, “I shall never forget +the first time I heard the ‘Dead March.’ ’Twas at poor Corp’l Nineman’s +funeral at Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair creep and fidget about +like a vlock of sheep—ah, it did, souls! And when they had done, and +the last trump had sounded, and the guns was fired over the dead hero’s +grave, a’ icy-cold drop o’ moist sweat hung upon my forehead, and +another upon my jawbone. Ah, ’tis a very solemn thing!” + +“Well, as to father in the corner there,” the tranter said, pointing to +old William, who was in the act of filling his mouth; “he’d starve to +death for music’s sake now, as much as when he was a boy-chap of +fifteen.” + +“Truly, now,” said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat in +the manner of a man who meant to be convincing; “there’s a friendly tie +of some sort between music and eating.” He lifted the cup to his mouth, +and drank himself gradually backwards from a perpendicular position to +a slanting one, during which time his looks performed a circuit from +the wall opposite him to the ceiling overhead. Then clearing the other +corner of his throat: “Once I was a-setting in the little kitchen of +the Dree Mariners at Casterbridge, having a bit of dinner, and a brass +band struck up in the street. Such a beautiful band as that were! I was +setting eating fried liver and lights, I well can mind—ah, I was! and +to save my life, I couldn’t help chawing to the tune. Band played +six-eight time; six-eight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common; +common time went my teeth among the liver and lights as true as a hair. +Beautiful ’twere! Ah, I shall never forget that there band!” + +“That’s as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of,” said grandfather James, +with the absent gaze which accompanies profound criticism. + +“I don’t like Michael’s tuneful stories then,” said Mrs. Dewy. “They +are quite coarse to a person o’ decent taste.” + +Old Michael’s mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to smile +but didn’t know where to begin, which gradually settled to an +expression that it was not displeasing for a nice woman like the +tranter’s wife to correct him. + +“Well, now,” said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, “that sort o’ +coarse touch that’s so upsetting to Ann’s feelings is to my mind a +recommendation; for it do always prove a story to be true. And for the +same reason, I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all true +stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon’t. If the +story-tellers could ha’ got decency and good morals from true stories, +who’d ha’ troubled to invent parables?” Saying this the tranter arose +to fetch a new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home-made wines. + +Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her +husband’s back, though that the words should reach his ears distinctly +was understood by both): “Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody do know the +trouble I have to keep that man barely respectable. And did you ever +hear too—just now at supper-time—talking about ‘taties’ with Michael in +such a work-folk way. Well, ’tis what I was never brought up to! With +our family ’twas never less than ‘taters,’ and very often ‘pertatoes’ +outright; mother was so particular and nice with us girls there was no +family in the parish that kept them selves up more than we.” + +The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, because +she had engaged a woman to wait up for her. She disappeared temporarily +from the flagging party of dancers, and then came downstairs wrapped up +and looking altogether a different person from whom she had been +hitherto, in fact (to Dick’s sadness and disappointment), a woman +somewhat reserved and of a phlegmatic temperament—nothing left in her +of the romping girl that she had seemed but a short quarter-hour +before, who had not minded the weight of Dick’s hand upon her waist, +nor shirked the purlieus of the mistletoe. + +“What a difference!” thought the young man—hoary cynic _pro tem. “_What +a miserable deceiving difference between the manners of a maid’s life +at dancing times and at others! Look at this lovely Fancy! Through the +whole past evening touchable, squeezeable—even kissable! For whole +half-hours I held her so chose to me that not a sheet of paper could +have been shipped between us; and I could feel her heart only just +outside my own, her life beating on so close to mine, that I was aware +of every breath in it. A flit is made upstairs—a hat and a cloak put +on—and I no more dare to touch her than—” Thought failed him, and he +returned to realities. + +But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. Mr. +Shiner and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive advantage that ardent +bachelors who are going homeward along the same road as a pretty young +woman always do take of that circumstance, came forward to assure +Fancy—with a total disregard of Dick’s emotions, and in tones which +were certainly not frigid—that he (Shiner) was not the man to go to bed +before seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own door—not he, nobody +should say he was that;—and that he would not leave her side an inch +till the thing was done—drown him if he would. The proposal was +assented to by Miss Day, in Dick’s foreboding judgment, with one +degree—or at any rate, an appreciable fraction of a degree—of warmth +beyond that required by a disinterested desire for protection from the +dangers of the night. + +All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, +looking now like a setting from which the gem has been torn. There +stood her glass, and the romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the +bottom that she couldn’t drink by trying ever so hard, in obedience to +the mighty arguments of the tranter (his hand coming down upon her +shoulder the while, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the drinker was there +no longer. There were the nine or ten pretty little crumbs she had left +on her plate; but the eater was no more seen. + +There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between himself +and the members of his family, now that they were left alone again face +to face. His father seemed quite offensive for appearing to be in just +as high spirits as when the guests were there; and as for grandfather +James (who had not yet left), he was quite fiendish in being rather +glad they were gone. + +“Really,” said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, “I’ve had +so little time to attend to myself all the evenen, that I mean to enjoy +a quiet meal now! A slice of this here ham—neither too fat nor too +lean—so; and then a drop of this vinegar and pickles—there, that’s +it—and I shall be as fresh as a lark again! And to tell the truth, my +sonny, my inside has been as dry as a lime-basket all night.” + +“I like a party very well once in a while,” said Mrs. Dewy, leaving off +the adorned tones she had been bound to use throughout the evening, and +returning to the natural marriage voice; “but, Lord, ’tis such a sight +of heavy work next day! What with the dirty plates, and knives and +forks, and dust and smother, and bits kicked off your furniture, and I +don’t know what all, why a body could a’most wish there were no such +things as Christmases . . . Ah-h dear!” she yawned, till the clock in +the corner had ticked several beats. She cast her eyes round upon the +displaced, dust-laden furniture, and sank down overpowered at the +sight. + +“Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for’t!” said +the tranter cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham and bread, without +lifting his eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his knife and +fork as if he were felling trees. “Ann, you may as well go on to bed at +once, and not bide there making such sleepy faces; you look as +long-favoured as a fiddle, upon my life, Ann. There, you must be +wearied out, ’tis true. I’ll do the doors and draw up the clock; and +you go on, or you’ll be as white as a sheet to-morrow.” + +“Ay; I don’t know whether I shan’t or no.” The matron passed her hand +across her eyes to brush away the film of sleep till she got upstairs. + +Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be so +blind to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to wife +that dear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so dreadfully +practical and undemonstrative of the Passion as his father and mother +were. The most extraordinary thing was, that all the fathers and +mothers he knew were just as undemonstrative as his own. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL + + +The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holiday +weeks at home, returned again to Mellstock. + +Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick in +accidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about the +neighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A +handkerchief belonging to her had been providentially found by his +mother in clearing the rooms the day after that of the dance; and by +much contrivance Dick got it handed over to him, to leave with her at +any time he should be near the school after her return. But he delayed +taking the extreme measure of calling with it lest, had she really no +sentiment of interest in him, it might be regarded as a slightly absurd +errand, the reason guessed; and the sense of the ludicrous, which was +rather keen in her, do his dignity considerable injury in her eyes; and +what she thought of him, even apart from the question of her loving, +was all the world to him now. + +But the hour came when the patience of love at twenty-one could endure +no longer. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild air of +indifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object of his +quest at the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade +and gloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself there. + +He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage-windows +opposite by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great hurry of +business, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have done with such +trifling errands. + +This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found it +locked to keep the children, who were playing ‘cross-dadder’ in the +front, from running into her private grounds. + +She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be done, +which was to shout her name. + +“Miss Day!” + +The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the +cottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a +pleasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons in +gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day continued +digging and pulling as before. + +He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage-windows yet more +stoically, and shouted again. Fancy took no notice whatever. + +He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning suddenly +about and retiring a little distance, as if it were by no means for his +own pleasure that he had come. + +This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the school +at the back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door opened, and +three-quarters of the blooming young schoolmistress’s face and figure +stood revealed before him; a slice on her left-hand side being cut off +by the edge of the door. Having surveyed and recognized him, she came +to the gate. + +At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did +it continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a question +meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours—the +meditation, after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that +it was impossible to say. + +“Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with.” He held it out +spasmodically and awkwardly. “Mother found it: under a chair.” + +“O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn’t think +where I had dropped it.” + +Now Dick, not being an experienced lover—indeed, never before having +been engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in a small +schoolboy way—could not take advantage of the situation; and out came +the blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter moments and a +sleepless night:- + +“Good morning, Miss Day.” + +“Good morning, Mr. Dewy.” + +The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside, +unchanged in his condition from what he had been before he called. Of +course the Angel was not to blame—a young woman living alone in a house +could not ask him indoors unless she had known him better—he should +have kept her outside before floundering into that fatal farewell. He +wished that before he called he had realized more fully than he did the +pleasure of being about to call; and turned away. + + + + +PART THE SECOND—SPRING + + + + +CHAPTER I. +PASSING BY THE SCHOOL + + +It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much more +frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was continually +finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the road which +skirted the garden of the school. The first-fruits of his perseverance +were that, on turning the angle on the nineteenth journey by that +track, he saw Miss Fancy’s figure, clothed in a dark-gray dress, +looking from a high open window upon the crown of his hat. The friendly +greeting resulting from this rencounter was considered so valuable an +elixir that Dick passed still oftener; and by the time he had almost +trodden a little path under the fence where never a path was before, he +was rewarded with an actual meeting face to face on the open road +before her gate. This brought another meeting, and another, Fancy +faintly showing by her bearing that it was a pleasure to her of some +kind to see him there; but the sort of pleasure she derived, whether +exultation at the hope her exceeding fairness inspired, or the true +feeling which was alone Dick’s concern, he could not anyhow decide, +although he meditated on her every little movement for hours after it +was made. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +A MEETING OF THE QUIRE + + +It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun appeared as +a nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost in cloudy +masses hanging round it, like wild locks of hair. + +The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group in +front of Mr. Penny’s workshop in the lower village. They were all +brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long as a +steeple; the lowness of the source of light rendering the brims of +their hats of no use at all as a protection to the eyes. + +Mr. Penny’s was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood in +a hollow by the roadside so that cart-wheels and horses’ legs were +about level with the sill of his shop-window. This was low and wide, +and was open from morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself being +invariably seen working inside, like a framed portrait of a shoemaker +by some modern Moroni. He sat facing the road, with a boot on his knees +and the awl in his hand, only looking up for a moment as he stretched +out his arms and bent forward at the pull, when his spectacles flashed +in the passer’s face with a shine of flat whiteness, and then returned +again to the boot as usual. Rows of lasts, small and large, stout and +slender, covered the wall which formed the background, in the extreme +shadow of which a kind of dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an +apprentice with a string tied round his hair (probably to keep it out +of his eyes). He smiled at remarks that floated in from without, but +was never known to answer them in Mr. Penny’s presence. Outside the +window the upper-leather of a Wellington-boot was usually hung, pegged +to a board as if to dry. No sign was over his door; in fact—as with old +banks and mercantile houses—advertising in any shape was scorned, and +it would have been felt as beneath his dignity to paint up, for the +benefit of strangers, the name of an establishment whose trade came +solely by connection based on personal respect. + +His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, sometimes +leaning against the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two backwards and +forwards in front of it. They talked with deliberate gesticulations to +Mr. Penny, enthroned in the shadow of the interior. + +“I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o’ life—o’ +Sundays, anyway—that I do so.” + +“’Tis like all the doings of folk who don’t know what a day’s work is, +that’s what I say.” + +“My belief is the man’s not to blame; ’tis _she—_she’s the bitter +weed!” + +“No, not altogether. He’s a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon +yesterday.” + +“His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he +couldn’t put it into words and speak it. That’s all was the matter wi’ +the sermon. He hadn’t been able to get it past his pen.” + +“Well—ay, the sermon might have been good; for, ’tis true, the sermon +of Old Eccl’iastes himself lay in Eccl’iastes’s ink-bottle afore he got +it out.” + +Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could +afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point. + +“He’s no spouter—that must be said, ’a b’lieve.” + +“’Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go,” +said Spinks. + +“Well, we’ll say nothing about that,” the tranter answered; “for I +don’t believe ’twill make a penneth o’ difference to we poor martels +here or hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies.” + +Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and +looked up and spoke again at the extension of arms. + +“’Tis his goings-on, souls, that’s what it is.” He clenched his +features for an Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and continued, +“The first thing he done when he came here was to be hot and strong +about church business.” + +“True,” said Spinks; “that was the very first thing he done.” + +Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted +it, ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if it +were a pill, and continued: + +“The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, until +he found ’twould be a matter o’ cost and what not, and then not to +think no more about it.” + +“True: that was the next thing he done.” + +“And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not on +no account to put their hats in the christening font during service.” + +“True.” + +“And then ’twas this, and then ’twas that, and now ’tis—” + +Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. Penny +gave a huge pull to signify the concluding word. + +“Now ’tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop,” said the tranter +after an interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining the pause +and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means of keeping +the subject well before the meeting. + +Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like all +good wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to her +husband’s Whiggism, and _vice versâ_, in times of peace, she coalesced +with him heartily enough in time of war. + +“It must be owned he’s not all there,” she replied in a general way to +the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. “Far below poor Mr. +Grinham” (the late vicar). + +“Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he’d +never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of +your work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye.” + +“Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very +well-intending party in that respect, he’s unbearable; for as to +sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, +why, you can’t do it. I assure you I’ve not been able to empt them for +several days, unless I throw ’em up the chimley or out of winder; for +as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming to ask how you are, +and ’tis such a confusing thing to meet a gentleman at the door when ye +are in the mess o’ washing.” + +“’Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman,” said the +tranter. “His meaning’s good enough. Ay, your pa’son comes by fate: +’tis heads or tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; so we must +take en as he is, my sonnies, and thank God he’s no worse, I suppose.” + +“I fancy I’ve seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than +Christianity asked for,” said Mrs. Penny musingly; “but I don’t quite +like to say it.” + +“O no; there’s nothing in that,” said grandfather William. + +“If there’s nothing, we shall see nothing,” Mrs. Penny replied, in the +tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still. + +“Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!” said Bowman. “Why, he never troubled us +wi’ a visit from year’s end to year’s end. You might go anywhere, do +anything: you’d be sure never to see him.” + +“Yes, he was a right sensible pa’son,” said Michael. “He never entered +our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor wife—ay, +poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall!—that as she was such a’ +old aged person, and lived so far from the church, he didn’t at all +expect her to come any more to the service.” + +“And ’a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and +hymns o’ Sundays. ‘Confound ye,’ says he, ‘blare and scrape what ye +will, but don’t bother me!’” + +“And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and +hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring the +babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. There’s +good in a man’s not putting a parish to unnecessary trouble.” + +“And there’s this here man never letting us have a bit o’ peace; but +keeping on about being good and upright till ’tis carried to such a +pitch as I never see the like afore nor since!” + +“No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn’t hold water, +as it hadn’t for years off and on; and when I told him that Mr. Grinham +never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and christen ’em just +as well, ’a said, ‘Good Heavens! Send for a workman immediate. What +place have I come to!’ Which was no compliment to us, come to that.” + +“Still, for my part,” said old William, “though he’s arrayed against +us, I like the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa’son.” + +“You, ready to die for the quire,” said Bowman reproachfully, “to stick +up for the quire’s enemy, William!” + +“Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I,” said the +old man firmly; “that you d’all know. I’ve a-been in the quire man and +boy ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that ’tisn’t in me +to call the man a bad man, because I truly and sincerely believe en to +be a good young feller.” + +Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated +William’s eye as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of aspect +was also imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a Titanic +shadow at least thirty feet in length, stretching away to the east in +outlines of imposing magnitude, his head finally terminating upon the +trunk of a grand old oak-tree. + +“Mayble’s a hearty feller enough,” the tranter replied, “and will spak +to you be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en was in a +drong, and though ’a didn’t know me no more than the dead, ’a passed +the time of day. ‘D’ye do?’ he said, says he, nodding his head. ‘A fine +day.’ Then the second time I met en was full-buff in town street, when +my breeches were tore into a long strent by getting through a copse of +thorns and brimbles for a short cut home-along; and not wanting to +disgrace the man by spaking in that state, I fixed my eye on the +weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. But no: ‘How d’ye do, +Reuben?’ says he, right hearty, and shook my hand. If I’d been dressed +in silver spangles from top to toe, the man couldn’t have been +civiller.” + +At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they +turned and watched him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION + + +“I’m afraid Dick’s a lost man,” said the tranter. + +“What?—no!” said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far +commoner thing for his ears to report what was not said than that his +judgment should be at fault. + +“Ay,” said the tranter, still gazing at Dick’s unconscious advance. “I +don’t at all like what I see! There’s too many o’ them looks out of the +winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; too much +peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; telling about +clever things _she_ did till you be sick of it; and then upon a hint to +that effect a horrible silence about her. I’ve walked the path once in +my life and know the country, neighbours; and Dick’s a lost man!” The +tranter turned a quarter round and smiled a smile of miserable satire +at the setting new moon, which happened to catch his eye. + +The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them to +speak; and they still regarded Dick in the distance. + +“’Twas his mother’s fault,” the tranter continued, “in asking the young +woman to our party last Christmas. When I eyed the blue frock and light +heels o’ the maid, I had my thoughts directly. ‘God bless thee, Dicky +my sonny,’ I said to myself; ‘there’s a delusion for thee!’” + +“They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?” +Mail tentatively observed, as became one who was not a member of the +family. + +“Ay, that’s a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness +belongs to it, queerest things on earth belongs to it! There, ’tmay as +well come early as late s’far as I know. The sooner begun, the sooner +over; for come it will.” + +“The question I ask is,” said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread +the two subjects of discourse, as became a man learned in rhetoric, and +beating with his hand in a way which signified that the manner rather +than the matter of his speech was to be observed, “how did Mr. Maybold +know she could play the organ? You know we had it from her own lips, as +far as lips go, that she has never, first or last, breathed such a +thing to him; much less that she ever would play.” + +In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news which +had caused such a convulsion among the ancient musicians was unfolded +to him. “Well,” he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss Day, “I know +by some words of hers that she has a particular wish not to play, +because she is a friend of ours; and how the alteration comes, I don’t +know.” + +“Now, this is my plan,” said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the +discussion by the infusion of new ideas, as was his custom—“this is my +plan; if you don’t like it, no harm’s done. We all know one another +very well, don’t we, neighbours?” + +That they knew one another very well was received as a statement which, +though familiar, should not be omitted in introductory speeches. + +“Then I say this”—and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his hand +on Mr. Spinks’s shoulder with a momentum of several pounds, upon which +Mr. Spinks tried to look not in the least startled—“I say that we all +move down-along straight as a line to Pa’son Mayble’s when the clock +has gone six to-morrow night. There we one and all stand in the +passage, then one or two of us go in and spak to en, man and man; and +say, ‘Pa’son Mayble, every tradesman d’like to have his own way in his +workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours. Instead of turning us out neck +and crop, let us stay on till Christmas, and we’ll gie way to the young +woman, Mr. Mayble, and make no more ado about it. And we shall always +be quite willing to touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. Mayble, just as +before.’ That sounds very well? Hey?” + +“Proper well, in faith, Reuben Dewy.” + +“And we won’t sit down in his house; ’twould be looking too familiar +when only just reconciled?” + +“No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn round, +and march out—he’ll think all the more of us for it.” + +“I hardly think Leaf had better go wi’ us?” said Michael, turning to +Leaf and taking his measure from top to bottom by the eye. “He’s so +terrible silly that he might ruin the concern.” + +“He don’t want to go much; do ye, Thomas Leaf?” said William. + +“Hee-hee! no; I don’t want to. Only a teeny bit!” + +“I be mortal afeard, Leaf, that you’ll never be able to tell how many +cuts d’take to sharpen a spar,” said Mail. + +“I never had no head, never! that’s how it happened to happen, +hee-hee!” + +They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by +disparaging him after an open confession, but because it was an +accepted thing that Leaf didn’t in the least mind having no head, that +deficiency of his being an unimpassioned matter of parish history. + +“But I can sing my treble!” continued Thomas Leaf, quite delighted at +being called a fool in such a friendly way; “I can sing my treble as +well as any maid, or married woman either, and better! And if Jim had +lived, I should have had a clever brother! To-morrow is poor Jim’s +birthday. He’d ha’ been twenty-six if he’d lived till to-morrow.” + +“You always seem very sorry for Jim,” said old William musingly. + +“Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he’d always ha’ been! She’d never +have had to work in her old age if he had continued strong, poor Jim!” + +“What was his age when ’a died?” + +“Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. ’A was born as might be at +night; and ’a didn’t last as might be till the morning. No, ’a didn’t +last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha’ been his +christening day if he had lived; and she’s always thinking about en. +You see he died so very young.” + +“Well, ’twas rather youthful,” said Michael. + +“Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o’ +children?” said the tranter, his eye sweeping his audience. + +“Ah, well she mid be,” said Leaf. “She had twelve regular one after +another, and they all, except myself, died very young; either before +they was born or just afterwards.” + +“Pore feller, too. I suppose th’st want to come wi’ us?” the tranter +murmured. + +“Well, Leaf, you shall come wi’ us as yours is such a melancholy +family,” said old William rather sadly. + +“I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life,” said +Reuben. “There’s Leaf’s mother, poor woman! Every morning I see her +eyes mooning out through the panes of glass like a pot-sick +winder-flower; and as Leaf sings a very high treble, and we don’t know +what we should do without en for upper G, we’ll let en come as a trate, +poor feller.” + +“Ay, we’ll let en come, ’a b’lieve,” said Mr. Penny, looking up, as the +pull happened to be at that moment. + +“Now,” continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice these +digressions about Leaf; “as to going to see the pa’son, one of us might +call and ask en his meaning, and ’twould be just as well done; but it +will add a bit of flourish to the cause if the quire waits on him as a +body. Then the great thing to mind is, not for any of our fellers to be +nervous; so before starting we’ll one and all come to my house and have +a rasher of bacon; then every man-jack het a pint of cider into his +inside; then we’ll warm up an extra drop wi’ some mead and a bit of +ginger; every one take a thimbleful—just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, +no more, to finish off his inner man—and march off to Pa’son Mayble. +Why, sonnies, a man’s not himself till he is fortified wi’ a bit and a +drop? We shall be able to look any gentleman in the face then without +shrink or shame.” + +Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the +earth in time to give a cordial approval to this line of action, and +the meeting adjourned. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR + + +At six o’clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir emerged +from the tranter’s door, and advanced with a firm step down the lane. +This dignity of march gradually became obliterated as they went on, and +by the time they reached the hill behind the vicarage a faint +resemblance to a flock of sheep might have been discerned in the +venerable party. A word from the tranter, however, set them right +again; and as they descended the hill, the regular tramp, tramp, tramp +of the united feet was clearly audible from the vicarage garden. At the +opening of the gate there was another short interval of irregular +shuffling, caused by a rather peculiar habit the gate had, when swung +open quickly, of striking against the bank and slamming back into the +opener’s face. + +“Now keep step again, will ye?” said the tranter. “It looks better, and +more becomes the high class of arrant which has brought us here.” Thus +they advanced to the door. + +At Reuben’s ring the more modest of the group turned aside, adjusted +their hats, and looked critically at any shrub that happened to lie in +the line of vision; endeavouring thus to give a person who chanced to +look out of the windows the impression that their request, whatever it +was going to be, was rather a casual thought occurring whilst they were +inspecting the vicar’s shrubbery and grass-plot than a predetermined +thing. The tranter, who, coming frequently to the vicarage with +luggage, coals, firewood, etc., had none of the awe for its precincts +that filled the breasts of most of the others, fixed his eyes firmly on +the knocker during this interval of waiting. The knocker having no +characteristic worthy of notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one +of the door-panels, and studied the winding lines of the grain. + +“O, sir, please, here’s Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and young +Richard Dewy, O, and all the quire too, sir, except the boys, a-come to +see you!” said Mr. Maybold’s maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, the pupils of +her eyes dilating like circles in a pond. + +“All the choir?” said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly +described as a good-looking young man with courageous eyes, timid +mouth, and neutral nose), abandoning his writing and looking at his +parlour-maid after speaking, like a man who fancied he had seen her +face before but couldn’t recollect where. + +“And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the +right hand nor to the left, but stares quite straight and solemn with +his mind made up!” + +“O, all the choir,” repeated the vicar to himself, trying by that +simple device to trot out his thoughts on what the choir could come +for. + +“Yes; every man-jack of ’em, as I be alive!” (The parlour-maid was +rather local in manner, having in fact been raised in the same +village.) “Really, sir, ’tis thoughted by many in town and country +that—” + +“Town and country!—Heavens, I had no idea that I was public property in +this way!” said the vicar, his face acquiring a hue somewhere between +that of the rose and the peony. “Well, ‘It is thought in town and +country that—’” + +“It is thought that you be going to get it hot and strong!—excusen my +incivility, sir.” + +The vicar suddenly recalled to his recollection that he had long ago +settled it to be decidedly a mistake to encourage his servant Jane in +giving personal opinions. The servant Jane saw by the vicar’s face that +he recalled this fact to his mind; and removing her forehead from the +edge of the door, and rubbing away the indent that edge had made, +vanished into the passage as Mr. Maybold remarked, “Show them in, +Jane.” + +A few minutes later a shuffling and jostling (reduced to as refined a +form as was compatible with the nature of shuffles and jostles) was +heard in the passage; then an earnest and prolonged wiping of shoes, +conveying the notion that volumes of mud had to be removed; but the +roads being so clean that not a particle of dirt appeared on the +choir’s boots (those of all the elder members being newly oiled, and +Dick’s brightly polished), this wiping might have been set down simply +as a desire to show that respectable men had no wish to take a mean +advantage of clean roads for curtailing proper ceremonies. Next there +came a powerful whisper from the same quarter:- + +“Now stand stock-still there, my sonnies, one and all! And don’t make +no noise; and keep your backs close to the wall, that company may pass +in and out easy if they want to without squeezing through ye: and we +two are enough to go in.” . . . The voice was the tranter’s. + +“I wish I could go in too and see the sight!” said a reedy voice—that +of Leaf. + +“’Tis a pity Leaf is so terrible silly, or else he might,” said +another. + +“I never in my life seed a quire go into a study to have it out about +the playing and singing,” pleaded Leaf; “and I should like to see it +just once!” + +“Very well; we’ll let en come in,” said the tranter. “You’ll be like +chips in porridge, {1} Leaf—neither good nor hurt. All right, my sonny, +come along;” and immediately himself, old William, and Leaf appeared in +the room. + +“We took the liberty to come and see ’ee, sir,” said Reuben, letting +his hat hang in his left hand, and touching with his right the brim of +an imaginary one on his head. “We’ve come to see ’ee, sir, man and man, +and no offence, I hope?” + +“None at all,” said Mr. Maybold. + +“This old aged man standing by my side is father; William Dewy by name, +sir.” + +“Yes; I see it is,” said the vicar, nodding aside to old William, who +smiled. + +“I thought you mightn’t know en without his bass-viol,” the tranter +apologized. “You see, he always wears his best clothes and his +bass-viol a-Sundays, and it do make such a difference in a’ old man’s +look.” + +“And who’s that young man?” the vicar said. + +“Tell the pa’son yer name,” said the tranter, turning to Leaf, who +stood with his elbows nailed back to a bookcase. + +“Please, Thomas Leaf, your holiness!” said Leaf, trembling. + +“I hope you’ll excuse his looks being so very thin,” continued the +tranter deprecatingly, turning to the vicar again. “But ’tisn’t his +fault, poor feller. He’s rather silly by nature, and could never get +fat; though he’s a’ excellent treble, and so we keep him on.” + +“I never had no head, sir,” said Leaf, eagerly grasping at this +opportunity for being forgiven his existence. + +“Ah, poor young man!” said Mr. Maybold. + +“Bless you, he don’t mind it a bit, if you don’t, sir,” said the +tranter assuringly. “Do ye, Leaf?” + +“Not I—not a morsel—hee, hee! I was afeard it mightn’t please your +holiness, sir, that’s all.” + +The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very well through his negative +qualities, was tempted in a fit of generosity to advance him still +higher, by giving him credit for positive ones. “He’s very clever for a +silly chap, good-now, sir. You never knowed a young feller keep his +smock-frocks so clane; very honest too. His ghastly looks is all there +is against en, poor feller; but we can’t help our looks, you know, +sir.” + +“True: we cannot. You live with your mother, I think, Leaf?” + +The tranter looked at Leaf to express that the most friendly assistant +to his tongue could do no more for him now, and that he must be left to +his own resources. + +“Yes, sir: a widder, sir. Ah, if brother Jim had lived she’d have had a +clever son to keep her without work!” + +“Indeed! poor woman. Give her this half-crown. I’ll call and see your +mother.” + +“Say, ‘Thank you, sir,’” the tranter whispered imperatively towards +Leaf. + +“Thank you, sir!” said Leaf. + +“That’s it, then; sit down, Leaf,” said Mr. Maybold. + +“Y-yes, sir!” + +The tranter cleared his throat after this accidental parenthesis about +Leaf, rectified his bodily position, and began his speech. + +“Mr. Mayble,” he said, “I hope you’ll excuse my common way, but I +always like to look things in the face.” + +Reuben made a point of fixing this sentence in the vicar’s mind by +gazing hard at him at the conclusion of it, and then out of the window. + +Mr. Maybold and old William looked in the same direction, apparently +under the impression that the things’ faces alluded to were there +visible. + +“What I have been thinking”—the tranter implied by this use of the past +tense that he was hardly so discourteous as to be positively thinking +it then—“is that the quire ought to be gie’d a little time, and not +done away wi’ till Christmas, as a fair thing between man and man. And, +Mr. Mayble, I hope you’ll excuse my common way?” + +“I will, I will. Till Christmas,” the vicar murmured, stretching the +two words to a great length, as if the distance to Christmas might be +measured in that way. “Well, I want you all to understand that I have +no personal fault to find, and that I don’t wish to change the church +music by forcible means, or in a way which should hurt the feelings of +any parishioners. Why I have at last spoken definitely on the subject +is that a player has been brought under—I may say pressed upon—my +notice several times by one of the churchwardens. And as the organ I +brought with me is here waiting” (pointing to a cabinet-organ standing +in the study), “there is no reason for longer delay.” + +“We made a mistake I suppose then, sir? But we understood the young +woman didn’t want to play particularly?” The tranter arranged his +countenance to signify that he did not want to be inquisitive in the +least. + +“No, nor did she. Nor did I definitely wish her to just yet; for your +playing is very good. But, as I said, one of the churchwardens has been +so anxious for a change, that, as matters stand, I couldn’t +consistently refuse my consent.” + +Now for some reason or other, the vicar at this point seemed to have an +idea that he had prevaricated; and as an honest vicar, it was a thing +he determined not to do. He corrected himself, blushing as he did so, +though why he should blush was not known to Reuben. + +“Understand me rightly,” he said: “the church-warden proposed it to me, +but I had thought myself of getting—Miss Day to play.” + +“Which churchwarden might that be who proposed her, sir?—excusing my +common way.” The tranter intimated by his tone that, so far from being +inquisitive, he did not even wish to ask a single question. + +“Mr. Shiner, I believe.” + +“Clk, my sonny!—beg your pardon, sir, that’s only a form of words of +mine, and slipped out accidental—he nourishes enmity against us for +some reason or another; perhaps because we played rather hard upon en +Christmas night. Anyhow ’tis certain sure that Mr. Shiner’s real love +for music of a particular kind isn’t his reason. He’ve no more ear than +that chair. But let that be.” + +“I don’t think you should conclude that, because Mr. Shiner wants a +different music, he has any ill-feeling for you. I myself, I must own, +prefer organ-music to any other. I consider it most proper, and feel +justified in endeavouring to introduce it; but then, although other +music is better, I don’t say yours is not good.” + +“Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death’s to be, we’ll die like men any day +you name (excusing my common way).” + +Mr. Maybold bowed his head. + +“All we thought was, that for us old ancient singers to be choked off +quiet at no time in particular, as now, in the Sundays after Easter, +would seem rather mean in the eyes of other parishes, sir. But if we +fell glorious with a bit of a flourish at Christmas, we should have a +respectable end, and not dwindle away at some nameless paltry +second-Sunday-after or Sunday-next-before something, that’s got no name +of his own.” + +“Yes, yes, that’s reasonable; I own it’s reasonable.” + +“You see, Mr. Mayble, we’ve got—do I keep you inconvenient long, sir?” + +“No, no.” + +“We’ve got our feelings—father there especially.” + +The tranter, in his earnestness, had advanced his person to within six +inches of the vicar’s. + +“Certainly, certainly!” said Mr. Maybold, retreating a little for +convenience of seeing. “You are all enthusiastic on the subject, and I +am all the more gratified to find you so. A Laodicean lukewarmness is +worse than wrongheadedness itself.” + +“Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble,” Reuben continued, more +impressively, and advancing a little closer still to the vicar, “father +there is a perfect figure o’ wonder, in the way of being fond of +music!” + +The vicar drew back a little further, the tranter suddenly also +standing back a foot or two, to throw open the view of his father, and +pointing to him at the same time. + +Old William moved uneasily in the large chair, and with a minute smile +on the mere edge of his lips, for good-manners, said he was indeed very +fond of tunes. + +“Now, you see exactly how it is,” Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. +Maybold’s sense of justice by looking sideways into his eyes. The vicar +seemed to see how it was so well that the gratified tranter walked up +to him again with even vehement eagerness, so that his +waistcoat-buttons almost rubbed against the vicar’s as he continued: +“As to father, if you or I, or any man or woman of the present +generation, at the time music is a-playing, was to shake your fist in +father’s face, as may be this way, and say, ‘Don’t you be delighted +with that music!’”—the tranter went back to where Leaf was sitting, and +held his fist so close to Leaf’s face that the latter pressed his head +back against the wall: “All right, Leaf, my sonny, I won’t hurt you; +’tis just to show my meaning to Mr. Mayble.—As I was saying, if you or +I, or any man, was to shake your fist in father’s face this way, and +say, ‘William, your life or your music!’ he’d say, ‘My life!’ Now +that’s father’s nature all over; and you see, sir, it must hurt the +feelings of a man of that kind for him and his bass-viol to be done +away wi’ neck and crop.” + +The tranter went back to the vicar’s front and again looked earnestly +at his face. + +“True, true, Dewy,” Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his head +and shoulders without moving his feet; but finding this impracticable, +edging back another inch. These frequent retreats had at last jammed +Mr. Maybold between his easy-chair and the edge of the table. + +And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had +just re-dipped the pen he was using; at their entry, instead of wiping +it, he had laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At the last +retreat his coat-tails came in contact with the pen, and down it +rolled, first against the back of the chair, thence turning a +summersault into the seat, thence falling to the floor with a rattle. + +The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show that, +however great their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was not so +small as to let this affect his social feelings, stooped also. + +“And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?” said Mr. +Maybold from under the table. + +“Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you see our +desire is reason?” said the tranter from under the chair. + +“Quite, quite; and I shouldn’t think of refusing to listen to such a +reasonable request,” the vicar replied. Seeing that Reuben had secured +the pen, he resumed his vertical position, and added, “You know, Dewy, +it is often said how difficult a matter it is to act up to our +convictions and please all parties. It may be said with equal truth, +that it is difficult for a man of any appreciativeness to have +convictions at all. Now in my case, I see right in you, and right in +Shiner. I see that violins are good, and that an organ is good; and +when we introduce the organ, it will not be that fiddles were bad, but +that an organ was better. That you’ll clearly understand, Dewy?” + +“I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h-h! +How the blood do get into my head, to be sure, whenever I quat down +like that!” said Reuben, who having also risen to his feet stuck the +pen vertically in the inkstand and almost through the bottom, that it +might not roll down again under any circumstances whatever. + +Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their curiosity +surging higher and higher as the minutes passed. Dick, not having much +affection for this errand, soon grew tired, and went away in the +direction of the school. Yet their sense of propriety would probably +have restrained them from any attempt to discover what was going on in +the study had not the vicar’s pen fallen to the floor. The conviction +that the movement of chairs, etc., necessitated by the search, could +only have been caused by the catastrophe of a bloody fight beginning, +overpowered all other considerations; and they advanced to the door, +which had only just fallen to. Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes +after the stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in +full-length portraiture, Mail’s face and shoulders above Mr. Penny’s +head, Spinks’s forehead and eyes over Mail’s crown, and a fractional +part of Bowman’s countenance under Spinks’s arm—crescent-shaped +portions of other heads and faces being visible behind these—the whole +dozen and odd eyes bristling with eager inquiry. + +Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable boot-makers and men, seeing +the vicar look at him and hearing no word spoken, thought it incumbent +upon himself to say something of any kind. Nothing suggested itself +till he had looked for about half a minute at the vicar. + +“You’ll excuse my naming of it, sir,” he said, regarding with much +commiseration the mere surface of the vicar’s face; “but perhaps you +don’t know that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut +yourself a-shaving this morning, sir.” + +“Now, that was the stooping, depend upon’t,” the tranter suggested, +also looking with much interest at the vicar’s chin. “Blood always will +bust out again if you hang down the member that’s been bleeding.” + +Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar’s bleeding chin +likewise; and Leaf advanced two or three paces from the bookcase, +absorbed in the contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted lips +and delighted eyes. + +“Dear me, dear me!” said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and +brushing his chin with his hand, then taking out his handkerchief and +wiping the place. + +“That’s it, sir; all right again now, ’a b’lieve—a mere nothing,” said +Mr. Penny. “A little bit of fur off your hat will stop it in a minute +if it should bust out again.” + +“I’ll let ’ee have a bit off mine,” said Reuben, to show his good +feeling; “my hat isn’t so new as yours, sir, and ’twon’t hurt mine a +bit.” + +“No, no; thank you, thank you,” Mr. Maybold again nervously replied. + +“’Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?” said Reuben, feeling these to be +the kindest and best remarks he could make. + +“O, no; not particularly.” + +“Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes a-shaving, and just when it +comes into your head that you may cut yourself, there’s the blood.” + +“I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which we +make the change,” said Mr. Maybold, “and I know you’ll meet me +half-way. I think Christmas-day as much too late for me as the present +time is too early for you. I suggest Michaelmas or thereabout as a +convenient time for both parties; for I think your objection to a +Sunday which has no name is not one of any real weight.” + +“Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn’t expect their own way +entirely; and I express in all our names that we’ll make shift and be +satisfied with what you say.” The tranter touched the brim of his +imaginary hat again, and all the choir did the same. “About Michaelmas, +then, as far as you are concerned, sir, and then we make room for the +next generation.” + +“About Michaelmas,” said the vicar. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +RETURNING HOME WARD + + +“‘A took it very well, then?” said Mail, as they all walked up the +hill. + +“He behaved like a man, ’a did so,” said the tranter. “And I’m glad +we’ve let en know our minds. And though, beyond that, we ha’n’t got +much by going, ’twas worth while. He won’t forget it. Yes, he took it +very well. Supposing this tree here was Pa’son Mayble, and I standing +here, and thik gr’t stone is father sitting in the easy-chair. ‘Dewy,’ +says he, ‘I don’t wish to change the church music in a forcible way.’” + +“That was very nice o’ the man, even though words be wind.” + +“Proper nice—out and out nice. The fact is,” said Reuben +confidentially, “’tis how you take a man. Everybody must be managed. +Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men want managing +almost as much as women, and that’s saying a good deal.” + +“’Tis truly!” murmured the husbands. + +“Pa’son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we’d +been sworn brothers. Ay, the man’s well enough; ’tis what’s put in his +head that spoils him, and that’s why we’ve got to go.” + +“There’s really no believing half you hear about people nowadays.” + +“Bless ye, my sonnies! ’tisn’t the pa’son’s move at all. That gentleman +over there” (the tranter nodded in the direction of Shiner’s farm) “is +at the root of the mischty.” + +“What! Shiner?” + +“Ay; and I see what the pa’son don’t see. Why, Shiner is for putting +forward that young woman that only last night I was saying was our +Dick’s sweet-heart, but I suppose can’t be, and making much of her in +the sight of the congregation, and thinking he’ll win her by showing +her off. Well, perhaps ’a woll.” + +“Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is +second to Shiner, the pa’son is second to the churchwardens, and God +A’mighty is nowhere at all.” + +“That’s true; and you see,” continued Reuben, “at the very beginning it +put me in a stud as to how to quarrel wi’ en. In short, to save my +soul, I couldn’t quarrel wi’ such a civil man without belying my +conscience. Says he to father there, in a voice as quiet as a lamb’s, +‘William, you are a’ old aged man, as all shall be, so sit down in my +easy-chair, and rest yourself.’ And down father zot. I could fain ha’ +laughed at thee, father; for thou’st take it so unconcerned at first, +and then looked so frightened when the chair-bottom sunk in.” + +“You see,” said old William, hastening to explain, “I was scared to +find the bottom gie way—what should I know o’ spring bottoms?—and +thought I had broke it down: and of course as to breaking down a man’s +chair, I didn’t wish any such thing.” + +“And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d’see his +own father sitting in his enemy’s easy-chair, and a poor chap like Leaf +made the best of, as if he almost had brains—why, it knocks all the +wind out of his sail at once: it did out of mine.” + +“If that young figure of fun—Fance Day, I mean,” said Bowman, “hadn’t +been so mighty forward wi’ showing herself off to Shiner and Dick and +the rest, ’tis my belief we should never ha’ left the gallery.” + +“’Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson made +’em,” said Mr. Penny. “My wife sticks to it that he’s in love wi’ her.” + +“That’s a thing we shall never know. I can’t onriddle her, nohow.” + +“Thou’st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she,” the +tranter observed. + +“The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And coming of +such a stock, too, she may well be a twister.” + +“Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never says +anything: not he.” + +“Never.” + +“You might live wi’ that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never +know there was anything in him.” + +“Ay; one o’ these up-country London ink-bottle chaps would call +Geoffrey a fool.” + +“Ye never find out what’s in that man: never,” said Spinks. “Close? ah, +he is close! He can hold his tongue well. That man’s dumbness is +wonderful to listen to.” + +“There’s so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over wi’ +sound understanding.” + +“’A can hold his tongue very clever—very clever truly,” echoed Leaf. +“’A do look at me as if ’a could see my thoughts running round like the +works of a clock.” + +“Well, all will agree that the man can halt well in his talk, be it a +long time or be it a short time. And though we can’t expect his +daughter to inherit his closeness, she may have a few dribblets from +his sense.” + +“And his pocket, perhaps.” + +“Yes; the nine hundred pound that everybody says he’s worth; but I call +it four hundred and fifty; for I never believe more than half I hear.” + +“Well, he’ve made a pound or two, and I suppose the maid will have it, +since there’s nobody else. But ’tis rather sharp upon her, if she’s +been born to fortune, to bring her up as if not born for it, and +letting her work so hard.” + +“’Tis all upon his principle. A long-headed feller!” + +“Ah,” murmured Spinks, “’twould be sharper upon her if she were born +for fortune, and not to it! I suffer from that affliction.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER’S HOUSE + + +A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick’s on +the following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter +holidays, and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the light +spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as they +streamed in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled season shone +on the grass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than +as an accustomed proprietor. His errand was to fetch Fancy, and some +additional household goods, from her father’s house in the neighbouring +parish to her dwelling at Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shaded +with clouds; but the nearer parts of the landscape were whitely +illumined by the visible rays of the sun streaming down across the +heavy gray shade behind. + +The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner’s heart +that had been suggested to him by Shiner’s movements. He preferred to +let such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having taught +him that the uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in other +people, was not a groundwork upon which a single action of his own life +could be founded. + +Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed portion +of one of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day was +head game-keeper, timber-steward, and general overlooker for this +district. The wood was intersected by the highway from Casterbridge to +London at a place not far from the house, and some trees had of late +years been felled between its windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, +to give the solitary cottager a glimpse of the passers-by. + +It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper’s house, even as a +stranger, on a fine spring morning like the present. A curl of +wood-smoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a blue +feather in a lady’s hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the patch of +grass in front, which reflected its brightness through the open doorway +and up the staircase opposite, lighting up each riser with a shiny +green radiance, and leaving the top of each step in shade. + +The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet from +the floor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, as well +as over the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always hung a deep +shade, which was considered objectionable on every ground save one, +namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and water by the caged +canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The window was +set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, formed, especially in the +lower panes, of knotty glass of various shades of green. Nothing was +better known to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which these +circular knots or eyes distorted everything seen through them from the +outside—lifting hats from heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the +spokes of cart-wheels, and bending the straight fir-trunks into +semicircles. The ceiling was carried by a beam traversing its midst, +from the side of which projected a large nail, used solely and +constantly as a peg for Geoffrey’s hat; the nail was arched by a +rainbow-shaped stain, imprinted by the brim of the said hat when it was +hung there dripping wet. + +The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was a +repetition upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced by +Noah, consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort. The +duplicate system of furnishing owed its existence to the forethought of +Fancy’s mother, exercised from the date of Fancy’s birthday onwards. +The arrangement spoke for itself: nobody who knew the tone of the +household could look at the goods without being aware that the second +set was a provision for Fancy, when she should marry and have a house +of her own. The most noticeable instance was a pair of green-faced +eight-day clocks, ticking alternately, which were severally two and +half minutes and three minutes striking the hour of twelve, one +proclaiming, in Italian flourishes, Thomas Wood as the name of its +maker, and the other—arched at the top, and altogether of more cynical +appearance—that of Ezekiel Saunders. They were two departed clockmakers +of Casterbridge, whose desperate rivalry throughout their lives was +nowhere more emphatically perpetuated than here at Geoffrey’s. These +chief specimens of the marriage provision were supported on the right +by a couple of kitchen dressers, each fitted complete with their cups, +dishes, and plates, in their turn followed by two dumb-waiters, two +family Bibles, two warming-pans, and two intermixed sets of chairs. + +But the position last reached—the chimney-corner—was, after all, the +most attractive side of the parallelogram. It was large enough to +admit, in addition to Geoffrey himself, Geoffrey’s wife, her chair, and +her work-table, entirely within the line of the mantel, without danger +or even inconvenience from the heat of the fire; and was spacious +enough overhead to allow of the insertion of wood poles for the hanging +of bacon, which were cloaked with long shreds of soot, floating on the +draught like the tattered banners on the walls of ancient aisles. + +These points were common to most chimney corners of the neighbourhood; +but one feature there was which made Geoffrey’s fireside not only an +object of interest to casual aristocratic visitors—to whom every +cottage fireside was more or less a curiosity—but the admiration of +friends who were accustomed to fireplaces of the ordinary hamlet model. +This peculiarity was a little window in the chimney-back, almost over +the fire, around which the smoke crept caressingly when it left the +perpendicular course. The window-board was curiously stamped with black +circles, burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinking-cups, which +had rested there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the +hearth for the purpose of warming their contents, the result giving to +the ledge the look of an envelope which has passed through innumerable +post-offices. + +Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head inclining +now to the right, now to the left, and singing the tips and ends of +tunes that sprang up in her mind like mushrooms. The footsteps of Mrs. +Day could be heard in the room overhead. Fancy went finally to the +door. + +“Father! Dinner.” + +A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodical +steps, and the keeper entered from the garden. He appeared to be a man +who was always looking down, as if trying to recollect something he +said yesterday. The surface of his face was fissured rather than +wrinkled, and over and under his eyes were folds which seemed as a kind +of exterior eyelids. His nose had been thrown backwards by a blow in a +poaching fray, so that when the sun was low and shining in his face, +people could see far into his head. There was in him a quiet grimness, +which would in his moments of displeasure have become surliness, had it +not been tempered by honesty of soul, and which was often +wrongheadedness because not allied with subtlety. + +Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly +richer than himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to his +trapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means than +nods and shakes of the head. Their long acquaintance with each other’s +ways, and the nature of their labours, rendered words between them +almost superfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the coincidence of +their horizons, and the astonishing equality of their social views, by +startling the keeper from time to time as very damaging to the theory +of master and man, strictly forbade any indulgence in words as +courtesies. + +Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) at +the well-considered chronological distance of three minutes—an interval +of non-appearance on the trapper’s part not arrived at without some +reflection. Four minutes had been found to express indifference to +indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had implied too great an +anxiety about meals. + +“A little earlier than usual, Fancy,” the keeper said, as he sat down +and looked at the clocks. “That Ezekiel Saunders o’ thine is tearing on +afore Thomas Wood again.” + +“I kept in the middle between them,” said Fancy, also looking at the +two clocks. + +“Better stick to Thomas,” said her father. “There’s a healthy beat in +Thomas that would lead a man to swear by en offhand. He is as true as +the town time. How is it your stap-mother isn’t here?” + +As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and +“Weh-hey, Smart!” in Mr. Richard Dewy’s voice rolled into the cottage +from round the corner of the house. + +“Hullo! there’s Dewy’s cart come for thee, Fancy—Dick driving—afore +time, too. Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us.” + +Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing that +he took an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race and +country as himself; and they all sat down. Dick could have wished her +manner had not been so entirely free from all apparent consciousness of +those accidental meetings of theirs: but he let the thought pass. Enoch +sat diagonally at a table afar off, under the corner cupboard, and +drank his cider from a long perpendicular pint cup, having tall +fir-trees done in brown on its sides. He threw occasional remarks into +the general tide of conversation, and with this advantage to himself, +that he participated in the pleasures of a talk (slight as it was) at +meal-times, without saddling himself with the responsibility of +sustaining it. + +“Why don’t your stap-mother come down, Fancy?” said Geoffrey. “You’ll +excuse her, Mister Dick, she’s a little queer sometimes.” + +“O yes,—quite,” said Richard, as if he were in the habit of excusing +people every day. + +“She d’belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: a +rum class rather.” + +“Indeed,” said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something. + +“Yes; and ’tis trying to a female, especially if you’ve been a first +wife, as she hev.” + +“Very trying it must be.” + +“Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too +far; in fact, she used to kick up Bob’s-a-dying at the least thing in +the world. And when I’d married her and found it out, I thought, thinks +I, ‘’Tis too late now to begin to cure ’e;’ and so I let her bide. But +she’s queer,—very queer, at times!” + +“I’m sorry to hear that.” + +“Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o’ society, because though +they be never right, they be never more than half wrong.” + +Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household moralizing, +which might tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that Dick, as maiden +shrewdness told her, had accredited her with. Her dead silence +impressed Geoffrey with the notion that something in his words did not +agree with her educated ideas, and he changed the conversation. + +“Did Fred Shiner send the cask o’ drink, Fancy?” + +“I think he did: O yes, he did.” + +“Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!” said Geoffrey to Dick as he helped +himself to gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate by way of the +potato-dish, to obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a spill. + +Now Geoffrey’s eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous four +or five minutes, and in removing them he had only carried them to the +spoon, which, from its fulness and the distance of its transit, +necessitated a steady watching through the whole of the route. Just as +intently as the keeper’s eyes had been fixed on the spoon, Fancy’s had +been fixed on her father’s, without premeditation or the slightest +phase of furtiveness; but there they were fastened. This was the reason +why: + +Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of the +table opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand lightly +down upon the table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, after +dropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down his +own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy’s with it, and keeping it +there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling her hand from the +trap, settled her eyes on her father’s, to guard against his discovery +of this perilous game of Dick’s. Dick finished his mouthful; Fancy +finished her crumb, and nothing was done beyond watching Geoffrey’s +eyes. Then the hands slid apart; Fancy’s going over six inches of +cloth, Dick’s over one. Geoffrey’s eye had risen. + +“I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller,” he repeated, more +emphatically. + +“He is; yes, he is,” stammered Dick; “but to me he is little more than +a stranger.” + +“O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you know +en very well too, don’t ye, Fancy?” + +Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at present +about one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed literally. + +Dick looked anxious. + +“Will you pass me some bread?” said Fancy in a flurry, the red of her +face becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as a human +being could look about a piece of bread. + +“Ay, that I will,” replied the unconscious Geoffrey. “Ay,” he +continued, returning to the displaced idea, “we are likely to remain +friendly wi’ Mr. Shiner if the wheels d’run smooth.” + +“An excellent thing—a very capital thing, as I should say,” the youth +answered with exceeding relevance, considering that his thoughts, +instead of following Geoffrey’s remark, were nestling at a distance of +about two feet on his left the whole time. + +“A young woman’s face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my +heart if ’twon’t.” Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in +earnest at these words. “Yes; turn the north wind,” added Geoffrey +after an impressive pause. “And though she’s one of my own flesh and +blood . . . ” + +“Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil’ cheese from pantry-shelf?” Fancy +interrupted, as if she were famishing. + +“Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking last +Saturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?” + +Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr. +Shiner,—the better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy’s heart +went not with her father’s—and spoke like a stranger to the affairs of +the neighbourhood. “Yes, there’s a great deal to be said upon the power +of maiden faces in settling your courses,” he ventured, as the keeper +retreated for the cheese. + +“The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that _I_ have +ever done warrants such things being said!” murmured Fancy with +emphasis, just loud enough to reach Dick’s ears. + +“You think to yourself, ’twas to be,” cried Enoch from his distant +corner, by way of filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey’s momentary +absence. “And so you marry her, Master Dewy, and there’s an end o’t.” + +“Pray don’t say such things, Enoch,” came from Fancy severely, upon +which Enoch relapsed into servitude. + +“If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single, +we do,” replied Dick. + +Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips thin +by severely straining them across his gums, and looked out of the +window along the vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. “That’s +not the case with some folk,” he said at length, as if he read the +words on a board at the further end of the vista. + +Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, “No?” + +“There’s that wife o’ mine. It was her doom to be nobody’s wife at all +in the wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, and did +it twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly woman—quite a +chiel in her hands!” + +A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps +descending. The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the second +Mrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as she advanced +towards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence of any other +human being than herself. In short, if the table had been the +personages, and the persons the table, her glance would have been the +most natural imaginable. + +She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman’s face, iron-grey hair, +hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad white +apron-string, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff dress. + +“People will run away with a story now, I suppose,” she began saying, +“that Jane Day’s tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any union +beggar’s!” + +Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear, +and reflecting for a moment, concluded that ‘people’ in step-mother +language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that Mrs. +Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently returned with an armful +of new damask-linen tablecloths, folded square and hard as boards by +long compression. These she flounced down into a chair; then took one, +shook it out from its folds, and spread it on the table by instalments, +transferring the plates and dishes one by one from the old to the new +cloth. + +“And I suppose they’ll say, too, that she ha’n’t a decent knife and +fork in her house!” + +“I shouldn’t say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure—” began Dick. +But Mrs. Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared +distressed. + +“Very strange woman, isn’t she?” said Geoffrey, quietly going on with +his dinner. “But ’tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! ’tis so +growed into her that ’twould kill her to take it out. Ay, she’s very +queer: you’d be amazed to see what valuable goods we’ve got stowed away +upstairs.” + +Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled +knives, silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were wiped +of the preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife and fork +were laid down to each individual with a bang, the carving knife and +fork thrust into the meat dish, and the old ones they had hitherto used +tossed away. + +Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked +Dick if he wanted any more. + +The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and tea, +which was common among frugal countryfolk. “The parishioners about +here,” continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but +snatching up the brown delf tea-things, “are the laziest, gossipest, +poachest, jailest set of any ever I came among. And they’ll talk about +my teapot and tea-things next, I suppose!” She vanished with the +teapot, cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a tea-service in white +china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. This was removed, together +with folds of tissue-paper underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot +appeared. + +“I’ll help to put the things right,” said Fancy soothingly, and rising +from her seat. “I ought to have laid out better things, I suppose. But” +(here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) “I have been away +from home a good deal, and I make shocking blunders in my +housekeeping.” Smiles and suavity were then dispensed all around by +this bright little bird. + +After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her +seat at the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division of +the meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some surprise to +learn that, now her vagary was over, she showed herself to be an +excellent person with much common sense, and even a religious +seriousness of tone on matters pertaining to her afflictions. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL + + +The effect of Geoffrey’s incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to +restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would otherwise +have burst from young Dewy along the drive homeward. And a certain +remark he had hazarded to her, in rather too blunt and eager a manner, +kept the young lady herself even more silent than Dick. On both sides +there was an unwillingness to talk on any but the most trivial +subjects, and their sentences rarely took a larger form than could be +expressed in two or three words. + +Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the +charwoman had given up expecting her; whereupon Dick could do no less +than stay and see her comfortably tided over the disagreeable time of +entering and establishing herself in an empty house after an absence of +a week. The additional furniture and utensils that had been brought (a +canary and cage among the rest) were taken out of the vehicle, and the +horse was unharnessed and put in the plot opposite, where there was +some tender grass. Dick lighted the fire already laid; and activity +began to loosen their tongues a little. + +“There!” said Fancy, “we forgot to bring the fire-irons!” + +She had originally found in her sitting-room, to bear out the +expression ‘nearly furnished’ which the school-manager had used in his +letter to her, a table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of carpet. +This ‘nearly’ had been supplemented hitherto by a kind friend, who had +lent her fire-irons and crockery until she should fetch some from home. + +Dick attended to the young lady’s fire, using his whip-handle for a +poker till it was spoilt, and then flourishing a hurdle stick for the +remainder of the time. + +“The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea,” said Fancy, diving +into the hamper she had brought. + +“Thank you,” said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, +especially in her company. + +“Well, here’s only one cup-and-saucer, as I breathe! Whatever could +mother be thinking about? Do you mind making shift, Mr. Dewy?” + +“Not at all, Miss Day,” said that civil person. + +“—And only having a cup by itself? or a saucer by itself?” + +“Don’t mind in the least.” + +“Which do you mean by that?” + +“I mean the cup, if you like the saucer.” + +“And the saucer, if I like the cup?” + +“Exactly, Miss Day.” + +“Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; +there are no spoons now!” She dived into the hamper again, and at the +end of two or three minutes looked up and said, “I suppose you don’t +mind if I can’t find a spoon?” + +“Not at all,” said the agreeable Richard. + +“The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under the +other things. O yes, here’s one, and only one. You would rather have +one than not, I suppose, Mr. Dewy?” + +“Rather not. I never did care much about spoons.” + +“Then I’ll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your tea +with a knife. Would you mind lifting the kettle off, that it may not +boil dry?” + +Dick leapt to the fireplace, and earnestly removed the kettle. + +“There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We +always use kettle-holders; didn’t you learn housewifery as far as that, +Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. I am going +to rinse mine, too.” + +They went to a basin she had placed in the back room. “This is the only +basin I have,” she said. “Turn up your sleeves, and by that time my +hands will be washed, and you can come.” + +Her hands were in the water now. “O, how vexing!” she exclaimed. +“There’s not a drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and the +well is I don’t know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the +pitcher I used for the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping the +tips of your fingers in the same?” + +“Not at all. And to save time I won’t wait till you have done, if you +have no objection?” + +Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It being +the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under +water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one. + +“Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, they +have got so mixed up together,” she said, withdrawing her own very +suddenly. + +“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Dick, “at least as far as I am +concerned.” + +“There! no towel! Whoever thinks of a towel till the hands are wet?” + +“Nobody.” + +“‘Nobody.’ How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come here, +Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box with your +elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel you will +find under the clean clothes? Be _sure_ don’t touch any of them with +your wet hands, for the things at the top are all Starched and Ironed.” + +Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel from +under a muslin dress without wetting the latter; and for a moment he +ventured to assume a tone of criticism. + +“I fear for that dress,” he said, as they wiped their hands together. + +“What?” said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. +“O, I know what you mean—that the vicar will never let me wear muslin?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as flaunting, +and unfit for common wear for girls who’ve their living to get; but +we’ll see.” + +“In the interest of the church, I hope you don’t speak seriously.” + +“Yes, I do; but we’ll see.” There was a comely determination on her +lip, very pleasant to a beholder who was neither bishop, priest, nor +deacon. “I think I can manage any vicar’s views about me if he’s under +forty.” + +Dick rather wished she had never thought of managing vicars. + +“I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea,” he said +in rather a free way, yet modestly, as became one in a position between +that of visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his lonely saucer. + +“So shall I. Now is there anything else we want, Mr Dewy?” + +“I really think there’s nothing else, Miss Day.” + +She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at Smart’s +enjoyment of the rich grass. “Nobody seems to care about me,” she +murmured, with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond Smart. + +“Perhaps Mr. Shiner does,” said Dick, in the tone of a slightly injured +man. + +“Yes, I forgot—he does, I know.” Dick precipitately regretted that he +had suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable result as +this. + +“I’ll warrant you’ll care for somebody very much indeed another day, +won’t you, Mr. Dewy?” she continued, looking very feelingly into the +mathematical centre of his eyes. + +“Ah, I’ll warrant I shall,” said Dick, feelingly too, and looking back +into her dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside. + +“I meant,” she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was +going to narrate a forcible story about his feelings; “I meant that +nobody comes to see if I have returned—not even the vicar.” + +“If you want to see him, I’ll call at the vicarage directly we have had +some tea.” + +“No, no! Don’t let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am in +such a state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and awkward +when one’s house is in a muddle; walking about, and making impossible +suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh creeps and you +wish them dead. Do you take sugar?” + +Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path. + +“There! That’s he coming! How I wish you were not here!—that is, how +awkward—dear, dear!” she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of blood to her +face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as it seemed. + +“Pray don’t be alarmed on my account, Miss Day—good-afternoon!” said +Dick in a huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room hastily by the +back-door. + +The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start he +saw through the window the vicar, standing upon some books piled in a +chair, and driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure glance, +holding the canary-cage up to him, as if she had never in her life +thought of anything but vicars and canaries. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +DICK MEETS HIS FATHER + + +For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of +reflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that +the road and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of his +mind. Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence that she did +love him and that she did not was so nicely struck, that his opinion +had no stability. She had let him put his hand upon hers; she had +allowed her gaze to drop plumb into the depths of his—his into +hers—three or four times; her manner had been very free with regard to +the basin and towel; she had appeared vexed at the mention of Shiner. +On the other hand, she had driven him about the house like a quiet dog +or cat, said Shiner cared for her, and seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold +should do the same. + +Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting on +the front board of the spring cart—his legs on the outside, and his +whole frame jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time of +Smart’s trotting—who should he see coming down the hill but his father +in the light wagon, quivering up and down on a smaller scale of shakes, +those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were soon crossing +each other’s front. + +“Weh-hey!” said the tranter to Smiler. + +“Weh-hey!” said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice. + +“Th’st hauled her back, I suppose?” Reuben inquired peaceably. + +“Yes,” said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it +seemed he was never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking this +the close of the conversation, prepared to move on. + +“Weh-hey!” said the tranter. “I tell thee what it is, Dick. That there +maid is taking up thy thoughts more than’s good for thee, my sonny. +Thou’rt never happy now unless th’rt making thyself miserable about her +in one way or another.” + +“I don’t know about that, father,” said Dick rather stupidly. + +“But I do—Wey, Smiler!—’Od rot the women, ’tis nothing else wi’ ’em +nowadays but getting young men and leading ’em astray.” + +“Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that’s +all you do.” + +“The world’s a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very +sensible indeed.” + +Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. “I +wish I was as rich as a squire when he’s as poor as a crow,” he +murmured; “I’d soon ask Fancy something.” + +“I wish so too, wi’ all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what +beest about, that’s all.” + +Smart moved on a step or two. “Supposing now, father,—We-hey, Smart!—I +did think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I ha’n’t; don’t +you think she’s a very good sort of—of—one?” + +“Ay, good; she’s good enough. When you’ve made up your mind to marry, +take the first respectable body that comes to hand—she’s as good as any +other; they be all alike in the groundwork; ’tis only in the flourishes +there’s a difference. She’s good enough; but I can’t see what the +nation a young feller like you—wi’ a comfortable house and home, and +father and mother to take care o’ thee, and who sent ’ee to a school so +good that ’twas hardly fair to the other children—should want to go +hollering after a young woman for, when she’s quietly making a husband +in her pocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to make a +poverty-stric’ wife and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor +waistcoat to set ’em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and that’s +the long and the short o’t, my sonny.” + +Dick looked at Smart’s ears, then up the hill; but no reason was +suggested by any object that met his gaze. + +“For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose.” + +“Dang it, my sonny, thou’st got me there!” And the tranter gave vent to +a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not +to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they +were his own. + +“Whether or no,” said Dick, “I asked her a thing going along the road.” + +“Come to that, is it? Turk! won’t thy mother be in a taking! Well, +she’s ready, I don’t doubt?” + +“I didn’t ask her anything about having me; and if you’ll let me speak, +I’ll tell ’ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?” + +“Piph-ph-ph!” + +“And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said +she didn’t know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of +that speech?” The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn’t +care for the ridicule of all the fathers in creation. + +“The meaning of that speech is,” the tranter replied deliberately, +“that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, as +an honest father to thee, I don’t pretend to deny what you d’know well +enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the pocket than +we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be somebody.” + +“But what d’ye think she really did mean?” said the unsatisfied Dick. + +“I’m afeard I am not o’ much account in guessing, especially as I was +not there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only +’ooman I ever cam’ into such close quarters as that with.” + +“And what did mother say to you when you asked her?” said Dick +musingly. + +“I don’t see that that will help ’ee.” + +“The principle is the same.” + +“Well—ay: what did she say? Let’s see. I was oiling my working-day +boots without taking ’em off, and wi’ my head hanging down, when she +just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. ‘Ann,’ I +said, says I, and then,—but, Dick I’m afeard ’twill be no help to thee; +for we were such a rum couple, your mother and I, leastways one half +was, that is myself—and your mother’s charms was more in the manner +than the material.” + +“Never mind! ‘Ann,’ said you.” + +“‘Ann,’ said I, as I was saying . . . ‘Ann,’ I said to her when I was +oiling my working-day boots wi’ my head hanging down, ‘Woot hae me?’ . +. . What came next I can’t quite call up at this distance o’ time. +Perhaps your mother would know,—she’s got a better memory for her +little triumphs than I. However, the long and the short o’ the story is +that we were married somehow, as I found afterwards. ’Twas on White +Tuesday,—Mellstock Club walked the same day, every man two and two, and +a fine day ’twas,—hot as fire,—how the sun did strike down upon my back +going to church! I well can mind what a bath o’ sweating I was in, body +and soul! But Fance will ha’ thee, Dick—she won’t walk with another +chap—no such good luck.” + +“I don’t know about that,” said Dick, whipping at Smart’s flank in a +fanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with +going on. “There’s Pa’son Maybold, too—that’s all against me.” + +“What about he? She’s never been stuffing into thy innocent heart that +he’s in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o’ maidens!” + +“No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at me +in such a way—quite different the ways were,—and as I was coming off, +there was he hanging up her birdcage.” + +“Well, why shouldn’t the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it all, +what’s that got to do wi’ it? Dick, that thou beest a white-lyvered +chap I don’t say, but if thou beestn’t as mad as a cappel-faced bull, +let me smile no more.” + +“O, ay.” + +“And what’s think now, Dick?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Here’s another pretty kettle o’ fish for thee. Who d’ye think’s the +bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell ’ee?” + +“No. Why, Pa’son Maybold, I suppose.” + +“Shiner,—because he’s in love with thy young woman, and d’want to see +her young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her young +fingers rum-strumming upon the keys.” + +A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this +communication from his father. “Shiner’s a fool!—no, that’s not it; I +don’t believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take a +bold step like that, unless she’d been a little made up to, and had +taken it kindly. Pooh!” + +“Who’s to say she didn’t?” + +“I do.” + +“The more fool you.” + +“Why, father of me?” + +“Has she ever done more to thee?” + +“No.” + +“Then she has done as much to he—rot ’em! Now, Dick, this is how a maid +is. She’ll swear she’s dying for thee, and she is dying for thee, and +she will die for thee; but she’ll fling a look over t’other shoulder at +another young feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just the +same.” + +“She’s not dying for me, and so she didn’t fling a look at him.” + +“But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee.” + +“I don’t know what to make of it at all,” said Dick gloomily. + +“All I can make of it is,” the tranter said, raising his whip, +arranging his different joints and muscles, and motioning to the horse +to move on, “that if you can’t read a maid’s mind by her motions, +nature d’seem to say thou’st ought to be a bachelor. Clk, clk! Smiler!” +And the tranter moved on. + +Dick held Smart’s rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, +and man remained rooted in the lane. How long this condition would have +lasted is unknown, had not Dick’s thoughts, after adding up numerous +items of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that as something +must be done, it could not be done by staying there all night. + +Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were +going to be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper and +uncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the +writer’s mind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion +that it obscured the logical sequence of facts and intentions to an +appreciable degree; and it was not at all clear to a reader whether he +there and then left off loving Miss Fancy Day; whether he had never +loved her seriously, and never meant to; whether he had been dying up +to the present moment, and now intended to get well again; or whether +he had hitherto been in good health, and intended to die for her +forthwith. + +He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a stern +handwriting of straight dashes—easy flourishes being rigorously +excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides not +an inch less than three feet long. Reaching her gate he put on a +resolute expression—then put it off again, turned back homeward, tore +up his letter, and sat down. + +That letter was altogether in a wrong tone—that he must own. A +heartless man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. That he +rather wanted her, and rather did not want her—the latter for choice; +but that as a member of society he didn’t mind making a query in jaunty +terms, which could only be answered in the same way: did she mean +anything by her bearing towards him, or did she not? + +This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being put +into the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was to run +with it to the school, he was told in addition not to look behind him +if Dick called after him to bring it back, but to run along with it +just the same. Having taken this precaution against vacillation, Dick +watched his messenger down the road, and turned into the house +whistling an air in such ghastly jerks and starts, that whistling +seemed to be the act the very furthest removed from that which was +instinctive in such a youth. + +The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed—and no +answer. The next. The next. Friday night came. Dick resolved that if no +answer or sign were given by her the next day, on Sunday he would meet +her face to face, and have it all out by word of mouth. + +“Dick,” said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment—in +each hand a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress—“I +think you’d better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. Maybold’s +to-morrow, instead o’ me, and I’ll go wi’ Smiler and the wagon.” + +It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar’s mother, who had just +taken into her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised +under the pretence of its being an economical wish to produce her own +honey), lived near the watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten miles off, +and the business of transporting the hives thither would occupy the +whole day, and to some extent annihilate the vacant time between this +evening and the coming Sunday. The best spring-cart was washed +throughout, the axles oiled, and the bees placed therein for the +journey. + + + + +PART THE THIRD—SUMMER + + + + +CHAPTER I. +DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH + + +An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles of +dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the skirt +of the dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: it was +Fancy! Dick’s heart went round to her with a rush. + +The scene was the corner of Mary Street in Budmouth-Regis, near the +King’s statue, at which point the white angle of the last house in the +row cut perpendicularly an embayed and nearly motionless expanse of +salt water projected from the outer ocean—to-day lit in bright tones of +green and opal. Dick and Smart had just emerged from the street, and +there on the right, against the brilliant sheet of liquid colour, stood +Fancy Day; and she turned and recognized him. + +Dick suspended his thoughts of the letter and wonder at how she came +there by driving close to the chains of the Esplanade—incontinently +displacing two chairmen, who had just come to life for the summer in +new clean shirts and revivified clothes, and being almost displaced in +turn by a rigid boy rattling along with a baker’s cart, and looking +neither to the right nor the left. He asked if she were going to +Mellstock that night. + +“Yes, I’m waiting for the carrier,” she replied, seeming, too, to +suspend thoughts of the letter. + +“Now I can drive you home nicely, and you save half an hour. Will ye +come with me?” + +As Fancy’s power to will anything seemed to have departed in some +mysterious manner at that moment, Dick settled the matter by getting +out and assisting her into the vehicle without another word. + +The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which was +permanent, and at length their eyes met; there was present between them +a certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at such moments when +all the instinctive acts dictated by the position have been performed. +Dick, being engaged with the reins, thought less of this awkwardness +than did Fancy, who had nothing to do but to feel his presence, and to +be more and more conscious of the fact, that by accepting a seat beside +him in this way she succumbed to the tone of his note. Smart jogged +along, and Dick jogged, and the helpless Fancy necessarily jogged, too; +and she felt that she was in a measure captured and made a prisoner. + +“I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day,” he observed, +as they drove past the two semicircular bays of the Old Royal Hotel, +where His Majesty King George the Third had many a time attended the +balls of the burgesses. + +To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of mastery—a +consciousness of which he was perfectly innocent—this remark sounded +like a magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive. + +“I didn’t come for the pleasure of obliging you with my company,” she +said. + +The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must have +been rather surprising to young Dewy. At the same time it may be +observed, that when a young woman returns a rude answer to a young +man’s civil remark, her heart is in a state which argues rather +hopefully for his case than otherwise. + +There was silence between them till they had left the sea-front and +passed about twenty of the trees that ornamented the road leading up +out of the town towards Casterbridge and Mellstock. + +“Though I didn’t come for that purpose either, I would have done it,” +said Dick at the twenty-first tree. + +“Now, Mr. Dewy, no flirtation, because it’s wrong, and I don’t wish +it.” + +Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, arranged +his looks very emphatically, and cleared his throat. + +“Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were just +going to commence,” said the lady intractably. + +“Yes, they would.” + +“Why, you never have, to be sure!” + +This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as a +man who had resolved never to spoil his jollity by loving one of +womankind— + +“Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present time? Gaily, I +don’t doubt for a moment.” + +“I am not gay, Dick; you know that.” + +“Gaily doesn’t mean decked in gay dresses.” + +“I didn’t suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a scholar +you’ve grown!” + +“Lots of things have happened to you this spring, I see.” + +“What have you seen?” + +“O, nothing; I’ve heard, I mean!” + +“What have you heard?” + +“The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a tin +watch-chain, a little mixed up with your own. That’s all.” + +“That’s a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that’s who you mean! +The studs are gold, as you know, and it’s a real silver chain; the ring +I can’t conscientiously defend, and he only wore it once.” + +“He might have worn it a hundred times without showing it half so +much.” + +“Well, he’s nothing to me,” she serenely observed. + +“Not any more than I am?” + +“Now, Mr. Dewy,” said Fancy severely, “certainly he isn’t any more to +me than you are!” + +“Not so much?” + +She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. +“That I can’t exactly answer,” she replied with soft archness. + +As they were going rather slowly, another spring-cart, containing a +farmer, farmer’s wife, and farmer’s man, jogged past them; and the +farmer’s wife and farmer’s man eyed the couple very curiously. The +farmer never looked up from the horse’s tail. + +“Why can’t you exactly answer?” said Dick, quickening Smart a little, +and jogging on just behind the farmer and farmer’s wife and man. + +As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they both +contemplated the picture presented in front, and noticed how the +farmer’s wife sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over each +end of the seat to give her room, till they almost sat upon their +respective wheels; and they looked too at the farmer’s wife’s silk +mantle, inflating itself between her shoulders like a balloon and +sinking flat again, at each jog of the horse. The farmer’s wife, +feeling their eyes sticking into her back, looked over her shoulder. +Dick dropped ten yards further behind. + +“Fancy, why can’t you answer?” he repeated. + +“Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you,” +said she in low tones. + +“Everything,” said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting +emphatic eyes upon the upper curve of her cheek. + +“Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn’t say in what way your +thinking of me affected the question—perhaps inversely, don’t you see? +No touching, sir! Look; goodness me, don’t, Dick!” + +The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over Dick’s +right shoulder of an empty timber-wagon and four journeymen-carpenters +reclining in lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed upwards at +various oblique angles into the surrounding world, the chief object of +their existence being apparently to criticize to the very backbone and +marrow every animate object that came within the compass of their +vision. This difficulty of Dick’s was overcome by trotting on till the +wagon and carpenters were beginning to look rather misty by reason of a +film of dust that accompanied their wagon-wheels, and rose around their +heads like a fog. + +“Say you love me, Fancy.” + +“No, Dick, certainly not; ’tisn’t time to do that yet.” + +“Why, Fancy?” + +“‘Miss Day’ is better at present—don’t mind my saying so; and I ought +not to have called you Dick.” + +“Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your +love. Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can be +done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim.” + +“No, no, I don’t,” she said gently; “but there are things which tell me +I ought not to give way to much thinking about you, even if—” + +“But you want to, don’t you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be +truthful. Whatever they may say about a woman’s right to conceal where +her love lies, and pretend it doesn’t exist, and things like that, it +is not best; I do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in that, as well +as in all her daily concerns, shines most brightly, and is thought most +of in the long-run.” + +“Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little,” she whispered +tenderly; “but I wish you wouldn’t say any more now.” + +“I won’t say any more now, then, if you don’t like it, dear. But you do +love me a little, don’t you?” + +“Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can’t say +any more now, and you must be content with what you have.” + +“I may at any rate call you Fancy? There’s no harm in that.” + +“Yes, you may.” + +“And you’ll not call me Mr. Dewy any more?” + +“Very well.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. +FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD + + +Dick’s spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his +sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart’s neck, +not far behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for some +time, never dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip which, on +this particular journey, had never been extended further than his +flank, tossed his head, and scampered along with exceeding briskness, +which was very pleasant to the young couple behind him till, turning a +bend in the road, they came instantly upon the farmer, farmer’s man, +and farmer’s wife with the flapping mantle, all jogging on just the +same as ever. + +“Bother those people! Here we are upon them again.” + +“Well, of course. They have as much right to the road as we.” + +“Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to +myself. Look what a lumbering affair theirs is!” The wheels of the +farmer’s cart, just at that moment, jogged into a depression running +across the road, giving the cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded to +the left, and on coming out of it all three nodded to the right, and +went on jerking their backs in and out as usual. “We’ll pass them when +the road gets wider.” + +When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this intention +into effect, they heard light flying wheels behind, and on their +quartering there whizzed along past them a brand-new gig, so brightly +polished that the spokes of the wheels sent forth a continual quivering +light at one point in their circle, and all the panels glared like +mirrors in Dick and Fancy’s eyes. The driver, and owner as it appeared, +was really a handsome man; his companion was Shiner. Both turned round +as they passed Dick and Fancy, and stared with bold admiration in her +face till they were obliged to attend to the operation of passing the +farmer. Dick glanced for an instant at Fancy while she was undergoing +their scrutiny; then returned to his driving with rather a sad +countenance. + +“Why are you so silent?” she said, after a while, with real concern. + +“Nothing.” + +“Yes, it is, Dick. I couldn’t help those people passing.” + +“I know that.” + +“You look offended with me. What have I done?” + +“I can’t tell without offending you.” + +“Better out.” + +“Well,” said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of +offending her, “I was thinking how different you in love are from me in +love. Whilst those men were staring, you dismissed me from your +thoughts altogether, and—” + +“You can’t offend me further now; tell all!” + +“And showed upon your face a pleased sense of being attractive to ’em.” + +“Don’t be silly, Dick! You know very well I didn’t.” + +Dick shook his head sceptically, and smiled. + +“Dick, I always believe flattery _if possible—_and it was possible +then. Now there’s an open confession of weakness. But I showed no +consciousness of it.” + +Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, +charitably forbore saying anything that could make her prevaricate. The +sight of Shiner, too, had recalled another branch of the subject to his +mind; that which had been his greatest trouble till her company and +words had obscured its probability. + +“By the way, Fancy, do you know why our quire is to be dismissed?” + +“No: except that it is Mr. Maybold’s wish for me to play the organ.” + +“Do you know how it came to be his wish?” + +“That I don’t.” + +“Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, however, +was willing enough before. Shiner, I know, is crazy to see you playing +every Sunday; I suppose he’ll turn over your music, for the organ will +be close to his pew. But—I know you have never encouraged him?” + +“Never once!” said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest +truth. “I don’t like him indeed, and I never heard of his doing this +before! I have always felt that I should like to play in a church, but +I never wished to turn you and your choir out; and I never even said +that I could play till I was asked. You don’t think for a moment that I +did, surely, do you?” + +“I know you didn’t, dear.” + +“Or that I care the least morsel of a bit for him?” + +“I know you don’t.” + +The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, +and there being a good inn, ‘The Ship,’ four miles out of Budmouth, +with a mast and cross-trees in front, Dick’s custom in driving thither +was to divide the journey into three stages by resting at this inn +going and coming, and not troubling the Budmouth stables at all, +whenever his visit to the town was a mere call and deposit, as to-day. + +Fancy was ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the stables +to see to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant twitches of +feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring men idling +around, Dick endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact that there was +any sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a tranter’s desire to carry +a passenger home. He presently entered the inn and opened the door of +Fancy’s room. + +“Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my +being here alone with you like this. I don’t think you had better come +in with me.” + +“That’s rather unpleasant, dear.” + +“Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself too, +because you must be tired.” + +“Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, if +you recollect, Fancy.” + +“Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I don’t +know what to do.” + +“It shall be as you say, then.” Dick began to retreat with a +dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy +tea-tray. + +“But you don’t see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that,” she +said, with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. “You do +know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I +have a difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, as +his schoolmistress, to indulge in a _tête-à-tête_ anywhere with +anybody.” + +“But I am not _any_ body!” exclaimed Dick. + +“No, no, I mean with a young man;” and she added softly, “unless I were +really engaged to be married to him.” + +“Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we’ll be engaged at once, to +be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a glove!” + +“Ah! but suppose I won’t! And, goodness me, what have I done!” she +faltered, getting very red. “Positively, it seems as if I meant you to +say that!” + +“Let’s do it! I mean get engaged,” said Dick. “Now, Fancy, will you be +my wife?” + +“Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did +coming along the road,” she remarked, as if she had not heard the +latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have noticed +about her breast, as the word ‘wife’ fell from Dick’s lips, a soft +silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between each. + +“What did I say?” + +“About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig.” + +“You couldn’t help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you +do care for me?” + +“Yes.” + +“Very much?” + +“Yes.” + +“And you’ll be my own wife?” + +Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek varying +tones of red to match each varying thought. Dick looked expectantly at +the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what was coming forth. + +“Yes—if father will let me.” + +Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting them +out, as if he were about to whistle the softest melody known. + +“O no!” said Fancy solemnly. + +The modest Dick drew back a little. + +“Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!—here’s somebody coming!” +she whisperingly exclaimed. + +Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy’s lips +had been real cherries probably Dick’s would have appeared deeply +stained. The landlord was standing in the yard. + +“Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!” he laughed, letting the laugh +slip out gently and by degrees that it might make little noise in its +exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. “This will +never do, upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for a feymel +passenger, and then going in and sitting down and having some too, and +biding such a fine long time!” + +“But surely you know?” said Dick, with great apparent surprise. “Yes, +yes! Ha-ha!” smiting the landlord under the ribs in return. + +“Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!” + +“You know, of course!” + +“Yes, of course! But—that is—I don’t.” + +“Why about—between that young lady and me?” nodding to the window of +the room that Fancy occupied. + +“No; not I!” said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles. + +“And you don’t!” + +“Not a word, I’ll take my oath!” + +“But you laughed when I laughed.” + +“Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!” + +“Really, you don’t know? Goodness—not knowing that!” + +“I’ll take my oath I don’t!” + +“O yes,” said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, +“we’re engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after her.” + +“Of course, of course! I didn’t know that, and I hope ye’ll excuse any +little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I was +talking to your father very intimate about family matters only last +Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all +then fell a-talking o’ family matters; but neither one o’ them said a +mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I at your +father’s own wedding. ’Tisn’t what I should have expected from an old +neighbour!” + +“Well, to say the truth, we hadn’t told father of the engagement at +that time; in fact, ’twasn’t settled.” + +“Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday’s the courting day. +Heu-heu!” + +“No, ’twasn’t done Sunday in particular.” + +“After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very proper +good time.” + +“O no, ’twasn’t done then.” + +“Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?” + +“Not at all; I wouldn’t think of getting engaged in a dog-cart.” + +“Dammy—might as well have said at once, the _when_ be blowed! Anyhow, +’tis a fine day, and I hope next time you’ll come as one.” + +Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly +affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the Ridgeway, +and vanished in the direction of Mellstock. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +A CONFESSION + + +It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering +dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias +were laden till eleven o’clock with small drops and dashes of water, +changing the colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air; and +elsewhere hanging on twigs like small silver fruit. The threads of +garden spiders appeared thick and polished. In the dry and sunny +places, dozens of long-legged crane-flies whizzed off the grass at +every step the passer took. + +Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter’s daughter, were in +such a spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. +Three months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together +from Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously +during the whole time. There had been just enough difficulty attending +its development, and just enough finesse required in keeping it +private, to lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness on Fancy’s +part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, Dick’s heart had +been at all times as fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on +Fancy’s horizon now. + +“She is so well off—better than any of us,” Susan Dewy was saying. “Her +father farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor or curate +or anything of that kind if she contrived a little.” + +“I don’t think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all when +he knew I couldn’t go,” replied Fancy uneasily. + +“He didn’t know that you would not be there till it was too late to +refuse the invitation,” said Susan. + +“And what was she like? Tell me.” + +“Well, she was rather pretty, I must own.” + +“Tell straight on about her, can’t you! Come, do, Susan. How many times +did you say he danced with her?” + +“Once.” + +“Twice, I think you said?” + +“Indeed I’m sure I didn’t.” + +“Well, and he wanted to again, I expect.” + +“No; I don’t think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad +enough, I know. Everybody does with Dick, because he’s so handsome and +such a clever courter.” + +“O, I wish!—How did you say she wore her hair?” + +“In long curls,—and her hair is light, and it curls without being put +in paper: that’s how it is she’s so attractive.” + +“She’s trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through keeping +this miserable school I mustn’t wear my hair in curls! But I will; I +don’t care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear my curls! +Look, Susan, do! is her hair as soft and long as this?” Fancy pulled +from its coil under her hat a twine of her own hair, and stretched it +down her shoulder to show its length, looking at Susan to catch her +opinion from her eyes. + +“It is about the same length as that, I think,” said Miss Dewy. + +Fancy paused hopelessly. “I wish mine was lighter, like hers!” she +continued mournfully. “But hers isn’t so soft, is it? Tell me, now.” + +“I don’t know.” + +Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly and +a red-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, and then +became aware that Dick was advancing up the garden. + +“Susan, here’s Dick coming; I suppose that’s because we’ve been talking +about him.” + +“Well, then, I shall go indoors now—you won’t want me;” and Susan +turned practically and walked off. + +Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or +picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving +himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him, +by sighing regretfully at her absence,—who had danced with the rival in +sheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, flat, and +unprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she would not +believe. + +Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. “I +am in great trouble,” said she, taking what was intended to be a +hopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the +tree; yet a critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative +tone as to the effect of the words upon Dick when she uttered them. + +“What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it,” said Dick earnestly. +“Darling, I will share it with ’ee and help ’ee.” + +“No, no: you can’t! Nobody can!” + +“Why not? You don’t deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear.” + +“O, it isn’t what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!” + +“Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can’t be.” + +“’Tis, ’tis!” said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of sorrow. +“I have done wrong, and I don’t like to tell it! Nobody will forgive +me, nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have allowed myself +to—to—fl—” + +“What,—not flirt!” he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a +sudden pressure inward from his surface. “And you said only the day +before yesterday that you hadn’t flirted in your life!” + +“Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love me, +and—” + +“Good G—! Well, I’ll forgive you,—yes, if you couldn’t help it,—yes, I +will!” said the now dismal Dick. “Did you encourage him?” + +“O,—I don’t know,—yes—no. O, I think so!” + +“Who was it?” A pause. “Tell me!” + +“Mr. Shiner.” + +After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a +long-checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real +austerity— + +“Tell it all;—every word!” + +“He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, ‘Will you let me +show you how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?’ And +I—wanted to know very much—I did so long to have a bullfinch! I +couldn’t help that and I said, ‘Yes!’ and then he said, ‘Come here.’ +And I went with him down to the lovely river, and then he said to me, +‘Look and see how I do it, and then you’ll know: I put this birdlime +round this twig, and then I go here,’ he said, ‘and hide away under a +bush; and presently clever Mister Bird comes and perches upon the twig, +and flaps his wings, and you’ve got him before you can say +Jack’—something; O, O, O, I forget what!” + +“Jack Sprat,” mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his +misery. + +“No, not Jack Sprat,” she sobbed. + +“Then ’twas Jack Robinson!” he said, with the emphasis of a man who had +resolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die. + +“Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the bridge +to get across, and—That’s all.” + +“Well, that isn’t much, either,” said Dick critically, and more +cheerfully. “Not that I see what business Shiner has to take upon +himself to teach you anything. But it seems—it do seem there must have +been more than that to set you up in such a dreadful taking?” + +He looked into Fancy’s eyes. Misery of miseries!—guilt was written +there still. + +“Now, Fancy, you’ve not told me all!” said Dick, rather sternly for a +quiet young man. + +“O, don’t speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn’t been +harsh, I was going on to tell all; now I can’t!” + +“Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I’ll forgive; I must,—by heaven and +earth, I must, whether I will or no; I love you so!” + +“Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it—” + +“A scamp!” said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder. + +“And then he looked at me, and at last he said, ‘Are you in love with +Dick Dewy?’ And I said, ‘Perhaps I am!’ and then he said, ‘I wish you +weren’t then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.’” + +“There’s a villain now! Want to marry you!” And Dick quivered with the +bitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering that he +might be reckoning without his host: “Unless, to be sure, you are +willing to have him,—perhaps you are,” he said, with the wretched +indifference of a castaway. + +“No, indeed I am not!” she said, her sobs just beginning to take a +favourable turn towards cure. + +“Well, then,” said Dick, coming a little to his senses, “you’ve been +stretching it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such a +mere nothing. And I know what you’ve done it for,—just because of that +gipsy-party!” He turned away from her and took five paces decisively, +as if he were tired of an ungrateful country, including herself. “You +did it to make me jealous, and I won’t stand it!” He flung the words to +her over his shoulder and then stalked on, apparently very anxious to +walk to the remotest of the Colonies that very minute. + +“O, O, O, Dick—Dick!” she cried, trotting after him like a pet lamb, +and really seriously alarmed at last, “you’ll kill me! My impulses are +bad—miserably wicked,—and I can’t help it; forgive me, Dick! And I love +you always; and those times when you look silly and don’t seem quite +good enough for me,—just the same, I do, Dick! And there is something +more serious, though not concerning that walk with him.” + +“Well, what is it?” said Dick, altering his mind about walking to the +Colonies; in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so rooted +to the road that he was apparently not even going home. + +“Why this,” she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears she +had been going to shed, “this is the serious part. Father has told Mr. +Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could get +me;—that he has his right hearty consent to come courting me!” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +AN ARRANGEMENT + + +“That _is_ serious,” said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken +for a long time. + +The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter’s continued +walks and meetings with Dick. When a hint that there were symptoms of +an attachment between them had first reached Geoffrey’s ears, he stated +so emphatically that he must think the matter over before any such +thing could be allowed that, rather unwisely on Dick’s part, whatever +it might have been on the lady’s, the lovers were careful to be seen +together no more in public; and Geoffrey, forgetting the report, did +not think over the matter at all. So Mr. Shiner resumed his old +position in Geoffrey’s brain by mere flux of time. Even Shiner began to +believe that Dick existed for Fancy no more,—though that remarkably +easy-going man had taken no active steps on his own account as yet. + +“And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that,” continued Fancy, “but +he has written me a letter, to say he should wish me to encourage Mr. +Shiner, if ’twas convenient!” + +“I must start off and see your father at once!” said Dick, taking two +or three vehement steps to the south, recollecting that Mr. Day lived +to the north, and coming back again. + +“I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come +for, or anything of the kind, until he likes you, and so win his brain +through his heart, which is always the way to manage people. I mean in +this way: I am going home on Saturday week to help them in the +honey-taking. You might come there to me, have something to eat and +drink, and let him guess what your coming signifies, without saying it +in so many words.” + +“We’ll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; not +wait for his guessing.” And the lover then stepped close to her, and +attempted to give her one little kiss on the cheek, his lips alighting, +however, on an outlying tract of her back hair by reason of an impulse +that had caused her to turn her head with a jerk. “Yes, and I’ll put on +my second-best suit and a clean shirt and collar, and black my boots as +if ’twas a Sunday. ’Twill have a good appearance, you see, and that’s a +great deal to start with.” + +“You won’t wear that old waistcoat, will you, Dick?” + +“Bless you, no! Why I—” + +“I didn’t mean to be personal, dear Dick,” she said, fearing she had +hurt his feelings. “’Tis a very nice waistcoat, but what I meant was, +that though it is an excellent waistcoat for a settled-down man, it is +not quite one for” (she waited, and a blush expanded over her face, and +then she went on again)—“for going courting in.” + +“No, I’ll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that mother +made. It is a beautiful, handsome waistcoat inside, yes, as ever +anybody saw. In fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to show a +chap that very lining, and he said it was the strongest, handsomest +lining you could wish to see on the king’s waistcoat himself.” + +“_I_ don’t quite know what to wear,” she said, as if her habitual +indifference alone to dress had kept back so important a subject till +now. + +“Why, that blue frock you wore last week.” + +“Doesn’t set well round the neck. I couldn’t wear that.” + +“But I shan’t care.” + +“No, you won’t mind.” + +“Well, then it’s all right. Because you only care how you look to me, +do you, dear? I only dress for you, that’s certain.” + +“Yes, but you see I couldn’t appear in it again very well.” + +“Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the +set of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in love don’t think so much about how +they look to other women.” It is difficult to say whether a tone of +playful banter or of gentle reproach prevailed in the speech. + +“Well then, Dick,” she said, with good-humoured frankness, “I’ll own +it. I shouldn’t like a stranger to see me dressed badly, even though I +am in love. ’Tis our nature, I suppose.” + +“You perfect woman!” + +“Yes; if you lay the stress on ‘woman,’” she murmured, looking at a +group of hollyhocks in flower, round which a crowd of butterflies had +gathered like female idlers round a bonnet-shop. + +“But about the dress. Why not wear the one you wore at our party?” + +“That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives near +our house, has had one made almost like it (only in pattern, though of +miserably cheap stuff), and I couldn’t wear it on that account. Dear +me, I am afraid I can’t go now.” + +“O yes, you must; I know you will!” said Dick, with dismay. “Why not +wear what you’ve got on?” + +“What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one +Saturday, I can make the blue one do for Sunday. Yes, I will. A hat or +a bonnet, which shall it be? Which do I look best in?” + +“Well, I think the bonnet is nicest, more quiet and matronly.” + +“What’s the objection to the hat? Does it make me look old?” + +“O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather too—you +won’t mind me saying it, dear?” + +“Not at all, for I shall wear the bonnet.” + +“—Rather too coquettish and flirty for an engaged young woman.” + +She reflected a minute. “Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would do +best; hats _are_ best, you see. Yes, I must wear the hat, dear Dicky, +because I ought to wear a hat, you know.” + + + + +PART THE FOURTH—AUTUMN + + + + +CHAPTER I. +GOING NUTTING + + +Dick, dressed in his ‘second-best’ suit, burst into Fancy’s +sitting-room with a glow of pleasure on his face. + +It was two o’clock on Friday, the day before her contemplated visit to +her father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the school the +children had been given this Friday afternoon for pastime, in addition +to the usual Saturday. + +“Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with you. +Smart is lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can’t do anything, +I’ve made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you to go nutting +with me!” + +She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying across +her lap and scissors in her hand. + +“Go nutting! Yes. But I’m afraid I can’t go for an hour or so.” + +“Why not? ’Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together for +weeks.” + +“This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;—I +find it fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I told +the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; instead +of that, she did it her own way, and made me look a perfect fright.” + +“How long will you be?” he inquired, looking rather disappointed. + +“Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear.” + +Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the +snipping and sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his +conversation began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe with a +walking-stick he had cut from the hedge as he came along. Fancy talked +and answered him, but sometimes the answers were so negligently given, +that it was evident her thoughts lay for the greater part in her lap +with the blue dress. + +The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the room +with his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then sounded a +few notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the books he could +find, then smoothed Fancy’s head with his hand. Still the snipping and +sewing went on. + +The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; counted +the knots in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies on the +ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, and so +thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was constructed +that he could have delivered a lecture on the subject. Stepping back to +Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he went into her garden +and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and reminded himself that they +seemed to him to wear a decidedly feminine aspect; then pulled up +several weeds, and came in again. The clock struck five, and still the +snipping and sewing went on. + +Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his +walking-stick, then threw the stick into the scullery because it was +spoilt, produced hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally +overturned a vase of flowers, the water from which ran in a rill across +the table and dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake, the shape +of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, he began to modify +considerably with his foot, till it was like a map of England and +Wales. + +“Well, Dick, you needn’t have made quite such a mess.” + +“Well, I needn’t, I suppose.” He walked up to the blue dress, and +looked at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his brain. + +“Fancy.” + +“Yes.” + +“I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day +to-morrow on your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I shall +be with you, and ask your father for you?” + +“So I am.” + +“And the blue one only on Sunday?” + +“And the blue one Sunday.” + +“Well, dear, I sha’n’t be at Yalbury Sunday to see it.” + +“No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with +father, and such lots of people will be looking at me there, you know; +and it did set so badly round the neck.” + +“I never noticed it, and ’tis like nobody else would.” + +“They might.” + +“Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? ’Tis as pretty as +the blue one.” + +“I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn’t so good; it +didn’t cost half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the same +I wore Saturday.” + +“Then wear the striped one, dear.” + +“I might.” + +“Or the dark one.” + +“Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven’t seen.” + +“I see, I see,” said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love were +decidedly inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his thoughts +meanwhile running as follows: “I, the man she loves best in the world, +as she says, am to understand that my poor half-holiday is to be lost, +because she wants to wear on Sunday a gown there is not the slightest +necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, to appear more striking than +usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young men; and I not there, either.” + +“Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither is +good enough for the youths of Longpuddle,” he said. + +“No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do want—to look pretty +to them—there, that’s honest! But I sha’n’t be much longer.” + +“How much?” + +“A quarter of an hour.” + +“Very well; I’ll come in in a quarter of an hour.” + +“Why go away?” + +“I mid as well.” + +He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he +meditated and meditated, and the more he meditated the more decidedly +did he begin to fume, and the more positive was he that his time had +been scandalously trifled with by Miss Fancy Day—that, so far from +being the simple girl who had never had a sweetheart before, as she had +solemnly assured him time after time, she was, if not a flirt, a woman +who had had no end of admirers; a girl most certainly too anxious about +her frocks; a girl, whose feelings, though warm, were not deep; a girl +who cared a great deal too much how she appeared in the eyes of other +men. “What she loves best in the world,” he thought, with an incipient +spice of his father’s grimness, “is her hair and complexion. What she +loves next best, her gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, +perhaps!” + +Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness to +his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel thought +crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the +end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well +deserved. Although the best part of the afternoon had been wasted he +would go nutting as he had intended, and go by himself. + +He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two miles, +till a winding path called Snail-Creep sloped up a hill and entered a +hazel copse by a hole like a rabbit’s burrow. In he plunged, vanished +among the bushes, and in a short time there was no sign of his +existence upon earth, save an occasional rustling of boughs and +snapping of twigs in divers points of Grey’s Wood. + +Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a galley +slave. Half-hour after half-hour passed away, and still he gathered +without ceasing. At last, when the sun had set, and bunches of nuts +could not be distinguished from the leaves which nourished them, he +shouldered his bag, containing quite two pecks of the finest produce of +the wood, about as much use to him as two pecks of stones from the +road, strolled down the woodland track, crossed the highway and entered +the homeward lane, whistling as he went. + +Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. +Dewy’s opinion as on that afternoon. In fact, it is just possible that +a few more blue dresses on the Longpuddle young men’s account would +have clarified Dick’s brain entirely, and made him once more a free +man. + +But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the present. +Cuckoo-Lane, the way he pursued, passed over a ridge which rose keenly +against the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, upon the bright +after-glow about the horizon, was now visible an irregular shape, which +at first he conceived to be a bough standing a little beyond the line +of its neighbours. Then it seemed to move, and, as he advanced still +further, there was no doubt that it was a living being sitting in the +bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy margin entirely prevented his +footsteps from being heard, and it was not till he was close that the +figure recognized him. Up it sprang, and he was face to face with +Fancy. + +“Dick, Dick! O, is it you, Dick!” + +“Yes, Fancy,” said Dick, in a rather repentant tone, and lowering his +nuts. + +She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little head +against his breast, and then there began a narrative, disjointed by +such a hysterical weeping as was never surpassed for intensity in the +whole history of love. + +“O Dick,” she sobbed out, “where have you been away from me? O, I have +suffered agony, and thought you would never come any more! ’Tis cruel, +Dick; no ’tisn’t, it is justice! I’ve been walking miles and miles up +and down Grey’s Wood, trying to find you, till I was wearied and worn +out, and I could walk no further, and had come back this far! O Dick, +directly you were gone, I thought I had offended you and I put down the +dress; ’tisn’t finished now, and I never will finish, it, and I’ll wear +an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, I will, because I don’t care what I wear +when you are not by my side—ha, you think I do, but I don’t!—and I ran +after you, and I saw you go up Snail-Creep and not look back once, and +then you plunged in, and I after you; but I was too far behind. O, I +did wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your +dear shape again! And then I called out to you, and nobody answered, +and I was afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else should hear me. +Then I kept wandering and wandering about, and it was dreadful misery, +Dick. And then I shut my eyes and fell to picturing you looking at some +other woman, very pretty and nice, but with no affection or truth in +her at all, and then imagined you saying to yourself, ‘Ah, she’s as +good as Fancy, for Fancy told me a story, and was a flirt, and cared +for herself more than me, so now I’ll have this one for my sweetheart.’ +O, you won’t, will you, Dick, for I do love you so!” + +It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom there +and then, and kissed her ten times over, and promised that no pretty +woman of the kind alluded to should ever engross his thoughts; in +short, that though he had been vexed with her, all such vexation was +past, and that henceforth and for ever it was simply Fancy or death for +him. And then they set about proceeding homewards, very slowly on +account of Fancy’s weariness, she leaning upon his shoulder, and in +addition receiving support from his arm round her waist; though she had +sufficiently recovered from her desperate condition to sing to him, +‘Why are you wandering here, I pray?’ during the latter part of their +walk. Nor is it necessary to describe in detail how the bag of nuts was +quite forgotten until three days later, when it was found among the +brambles and restored empty to Mrs. Dewy, her initials being marked +thereon in red cotton; and how she puzzled herself till her head ached +upon the question of how on earth her meal-bag could have got into +Cuckoo-Lane. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS + + +Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, +according to the arrangement with Fancy. + +The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything +suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from +sunset to dusk long before Dick’s arrival, and his progress during the +latter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by the +flutter of terrified birds that had been roosting over the path. And in +crossing the glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been formed on the +hills during the day, greeted his cheeks alternately with clouds of +damp night air from the valleys. He reached the keeper-steward’s house, +where the grass-plot and the garden in front appeared light and pale +against the unbroken darkness of the grove from which he had emerged, +and paused at the garden gate. + +He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of procession +advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first of Enoch the +trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in his +hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that she +bore in her arms curious objects about a foot long, in the form of +Latin crosses (made of lath and brown paper dipped in brimstone—called +matches by bee-masters); next came Miss Day, with a shawl thrown over +her head; and behind all, in the gloom, Mr. Frederic Shiner. + +Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss how +to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts. + +“Here I be, Enoch,” said a voice; and the procession advancing farther, +the lantern’s rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, awaiting their +arrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the path. Taking the +spade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside the +hives, the others standing round in a circle, except Mrs. Day, who +deposited her matches in the fork of an apple-tree and returned to the +house. The party remaining were now lit up in front by the lantern in +their midst, their shadows radiating each way upon the garden-plot like +the spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarrassment of Fancy at the +presence of Shiner caused a silence in the assembly, during which the +preliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches fixed, the stake +kindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stopped +round the edges. Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, to +straighten his backbone after the digging. + +“They were a peculiar family,” said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives +reflectively. + +Geoffrey nodded. + +“Those holes will be the grave of thousands!” said Fancy. “I think ’tis +rather a cruel thing to do.” + +Her father shook his head. “No,” he said, tapping the hives to shake +the dead bees from their cells, “if you suffocate ’em this way, they +only die once: if you fumigate ’em in the new way, they come to life +again, and die o’ starvation; so the pangs o’ death be twice upon ’em.” + +“I incline to Fancy’s notion,” said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly. + +“The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved nor +murdered, is a puzzling matter,” said the keeper steadily. + +“I should like never to take it from them,” said Fancy. + +“But ’tis the money,” said Enoch musingly. “For without money man is a +shadder!” + +The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hives +destroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, were now +getting a living as marauders about the doors of other hives. Several +flew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with an +irritated bizz. + +Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a +currant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered away +helter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, unmoved +and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enoch +picking up the lantern. Mr. Shiner still remained invisible. + +“Have the craters stung ye?” said Enoch to Geoffrey. + +“No, not much—on’y a little here and there,” he said with leisurely +solemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another +from among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest +looked on during this proceeding with a complacent sense of being out +of it,—much as a European nation in a state of internal commotion is +watched by its neighbours. + +“Are those all of them, father?” said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulled +away five. + +“Almost all,—though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder +and side. Ah! there’s another just begun again upon my backbone. You +lively young mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can’t +sting me many times more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. +They mid as well stay in me till bedtime now, I suppose.” + +As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it +seemed satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking against +cabbages in a blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. Shiner +was heard from the darkness in that direction. + +“Is all quite safe again?” + +No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that he +might venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. The +hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one being +handed to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by Geoffrey +himself. + +“Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide.” + +Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and +Fancy standing side by side on the garden-plot. + +“Allow me,” said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at the +same time with Fancy. + +“I can carry it,” said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination to +trifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the tearful +explanation of the bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had decided +that it would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle +with men’s eyes and hands any more. Finding that Shiner still retained +his hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, and he, having found her +retaining it, also let go. The lantern fell, and was extinguished. +Fancy moved on. + +“Where is the path?” said Mr. Shiner. + +“Here,” said Fancy. “Your eyes will get used to the dark in a minute or +two.” + +“Till that time will ye lend me your hand?” Fancy gave him the extreme +tips of her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the path. + +“You don’t accept attentions very freely.” + +“It depends upon who offers them.” + +“A fellow like me, for instance.” A dead silence. + +“Well, what do you say, Missie?” + +“It then depends upon how they are offered.” + +“Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not by +chance; not too quick nor yet too slow.” + +“How then?” said Fancy. + +“Coolly and practically,” he said. “How would that kind of love be +taken?” + +“Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor pale; +nor religiously nor yet quite wickedly.” + +“Well, how?” + +“Not at all.” + +Geoffrey Day’s storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with +bunches of dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of thyme +and lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread +large red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early potatoes +for seed next year;—vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying beneath in +heaps. A few empty beehives were clustered around a nail in one corner, +under which stood two or three barrels of new cider of the first crop, +each bubbling and squirting forth from the yet open bunghole. + +Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which +rested against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. +She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink +hand edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act +so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single cell. Then cracking +the piece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forward +movement, she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blue +platter, placed on a bench at her side. + +“Bother these little mortals!” said Geoffrey, who was holding the light +to her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. “I really think I may as +well go indoors and take ’em out, poor things! for they won’t let me +alone. There’s two a stinging wi’ all their might now. I’m sure I +wonder their strength can last so long.” + +“All right, friend; I’ll hold the candle whilst you are gone,” said Mr. +Shiner, leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to depart, +which he did with his usual long paces. + +He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other footsteps +were heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared in +the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy came +in, having been all this time walking up and down the wood, vainly +waiting for Shiner’s departure. + +Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped the +candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should not +imply to Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, +he sang invincibly— + +“‘King Arthur he had three sons.’” + + +“Father here?” said Dick. + +“Indoors, I think,” said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him. + +Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just at +that moment. Shiner went on singing— + +“‘The miller was drown’d in his pond, + The weaver was hung in his yarn, +And the d--- ran away with the little tail-or, + With the broadcloth under his arm.’” + + +“That’s a terrible crippled rhyme, if that’s your rhyme!” said Dick, +with a grain of superciliousness in his tone. + +“It’s no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!” said Mr. Shiner. +“You must go to the man that made it.” + +Fancy by this time had acquired confidence. + +“Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy,” she said, holding up to him a small circular +piece of honeycomb that had been the last in the row of layers, +remaining still on her knees and flinging back her head to look in his +face; “and then I’ll taste a bit too.” + +“And I, if you please,” said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer looked +superior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling from very +importance of station; and after receiving the honeycomb from Fancy, he +turned it over in his hand till the cells began to be crushed, and the +liquid honey ran down from his fingers in a thin string. + +Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her. + +“What’s the matter, dear?” said Dick. + +“It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He was +in one of the cells I was eating!” + +“We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!” said Shiner, +stepping up and kneeling beside her. “Let me see it.” + +“No, no!” + +“Just let _me_ see it,” said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and +after some hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to show +the place. “O, I hope ’twill soon be better! I don’t mind a sting in +ordinary places, but it is so bad upon your lip,” she added with tears +in her eyes, and writhing a little from the pain. + +Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to +Fancy’s, as if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon +which Dick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all. + +“It is swelling,” said Dick to her right aspect. + +“It isn’t swelling,” said Shiner to her left aspect. + +“Is it dangerous on the lip?” cried Fancy. “I know it is dangerous on +the tongue.” + +“O no, not dangerous!” answered Dick. + +“Rather dangerous,” had answered Shiner simultaneously. + +“I must try to bear it!” said Fancy, turning again to the hives. + +“Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day,” said Shiner +with great concern. + +“Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I’ve found to be a good thing to cure stings, +Miss Day,” said Dick with greater concern. + +“We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for me?” +she said. + +Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, the +individuality of the _you_ was so carelessly denoted that both Dick and +Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast to +the door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and continued marching +on, shoulder to shoulder, in the same manner to the dwelling-house. Not +only so, but entering the room, they marched as before straight up to +Mrs. Day’s chair, letting the door in the oak partition slam so +forcibly, that the rows of pewter on the dresser rang like a bell. + +“Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the +hartshorn, please,” said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day’s face. + +“O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, +because she has stung her lip!” said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. +Day’s face. + +“Well, men alive! that’s no reason why you should eat me, I suppose!” +said Mrs. Day, drawing back. + +She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began to +dust the cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, Dick’s +hand and Shiner’s hand waiting side by side. + +“Which is head man?” said Mrs. Day. “Now, don’t come mumbudgeting so +close again. Which is head man?” + +Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, as a +high-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and turned to +go off with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the search in his +linen for concealed bees. + +“O—that you, Master Dewy?” + +Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then determined +upon a bold stroke for the attainment of his end, forgetting that the +worst of bold strokes is the disastrous consequences they involve if +they fail. + +“I’ve come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day,” he +said, with a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, who +was vanishing round the door-post at that moment. + +“Well, I’ve been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake +some bees out o’ me” said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open +door, and standing on the threshold. “The young rascals got into my +shirt and wouldn’t be quiet nohow.” + +Dick followed him to the door. + +“I’ve come to speak a word to you,” he repeated, looking out at the +pale mist creeping up from the gloom of the valley. “You may perhaps +guess what it is about.” + +The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled +his eyes, balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly +downward as if his glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, +collecting together the cracks that lay about his face till they were +all in the neighbourhood of his eyes. + +“Maybe I don’t know,” he replied. + +Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some small +bird that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, whose cry +passed into the silence without mingling with it. + +“I’ve left my hat up in chammer,” said Geoffrey; “wait while I step up +and get en.” + +“I’ll be in the garden,” said Dick. + +He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went +upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to discuss +matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, and to +reserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom which, as is +supposed, originated in the desirability of getting away at such times +from the other members of the family when there was only one room for +living in, though it was now quite as frequently practised by those who +suffered from no such limitation to the size of their domiciles. + +The head-keeper’s form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked +towards him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery that +stood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; and they +both contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving about and +grunting among the straw of the interior. + +“I’ve come to ask for Fancy,” said Dick. + +“I’d as lief you hadn’t.” + +“Why should that be, Mr. Day?” + +“Because it makes me say that you’ve come to ask what ye be’n’t likely +to have. Have ye come for anything else?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Then I’ll just tell ’ee you’ve come on a very foolish errand. D’ye +know what her mother was?” + +“No.” + +“A teacher in a landed family’s nursery, who was foolish enough to +marry the keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper +then, though now I’ve a dozen other irons in the fire as steward here +for my lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly fellings, and +the gravel and sand sales and one thing and ’tother. However, d’ye +think Fancy picked up her good manners, the smooth turn of her tongue, +her musical notes, and her knowledge of books, in a homely hole like +this?” + +“No.” + +“D’ye know where?” + +“No.” + +“Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother’s death, she lived with +her aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married Lawyer +Green—a man as sharp as a needle—and the school was broke up. Did ye +know that then she went to the training-school, and that her name stood +first among the Queen’s scholars of her year?” + +“I’ve heard so.” + +“And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, she +had the highest of the first class?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when I’ve +got enough to do without it, and why I make her work as a +schoolmistress instead of living here?” + +“No.” + +“That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, should +want to marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha’n’t be superior to +her in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be good enough for +her?” + +“No.” + +“Then good-night t’ee, Master Dewy.” + +“Good-night, Mr. Day.” + +Modest Dick’s reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away +wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen +from the beginning to be so superior to him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +FANCY IN THE RAIN + + +The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, and +Fancy Day is discovered walking from her father’s home towards +Mellstock. + +A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small rain +and mist had just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, alternately thick +and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations writhed like +miserable men as the air wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest +portions of their trunks, that had hardly ever been known to move, were +visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, distressing the mind by its +painful unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen to shed tears. +Low-hanging boughs went up and down; high and erect boughs went to and +fro; the blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many +cross-currents, that neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the +skies in independent motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. +Across the open spaces flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, +which, after travelling a long distance from their parent trees, +reached the ground, and lay there with their under-sides upward. + +As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy’s bonnet-ribbons leapt more +and more snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering Mellstock +Lane to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place of shelter. +The nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield’s, in Higher Mellstock, +whose cottage and garden stood not far from the junction of that hamlet +with the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, and in five minutes +entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood of water-drops as she +opened it. + +“Come in, chiel!” a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a +promptness that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs. +Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the use +of her eyes and ears. + +Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her +husband’s supper. + +Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a +bucket of water. + +Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she began +to reconsider an old subject that lay uppermost in her heart. Since the +interview between her father and Dick, the days had been melancholy +days for her. Geoffrey’s firm opposition to the notion of Dick as a +son-in-law was more than she had expected. She had frequently seen her +lover since that time, it is true, and had loved him more for the +opposition than she would have otherwise dreamt of doing—which was a +happiness of a certain kind. Yet, though love is thus an end in itself, +it must be believed to be the means to another end if it is to assume +the rosy hues of an unalloyed pleasure. And such a belief Fancy and +Dick were emphatically denied just now. + +Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its nature +something between distinction and notoriety. It was founded on the +following items of character. She was shrewd and penetrating; her house +stood in a lonely place; she never went to church; she wore a red +cloak; she always retained her bonnet indoors and she had a pointed +chin. Thus far her attributes were distinctly Satanic; and those who +looked no further called her, in plain terms, a witch. But she was not +gaunt, nor ugly in the upper part of her face, nor particularly strange +in manner; so that, when her more intimate acquaintances spoke of her +the term was softened, and she became simply a Deep Body, who was as +long-headed as she was high. It may be stated that Elizabeth belonged +to a class of suspects who were gradually losing their mysterious +characteristics under the administration of the young vicar; though, +during the long reign of Mr. Grinham, the parish of Mellstock had +proved extremely favourable to the growth of witches. + +While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to +herself whether it was worth while to tell her troubles to Elizabeth, +and ask her advice in getting out of them, the witch spoke. + +“You be down—proper down,” she said suddenly, dropping another potato +into the bucket. + +Fancy took no notice. + +“About your young man.” + +Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. Really, +one would almost think she must have the powers people ascribed to her. + +“Father not in the humour for’t, hey?” Another potato was finished and +flung in. “Ah, I know about it. Little birds tell me things that people +don’t dream of my knowing.” + +Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chance—O, such a wicked +chance—of getting help; and what was goodness beside love! + +“I wish you’d tell me how to put him in the humour for it?” she said. + +“That I could soon do,” said the witch quietly. + +“Really? O, do; anyhow—I don’t care—so that it is done! How could I do +it, Mrs. Endorfield?” + +“Nothing so mighty wonderful in it.” + +“Well, but how?” + +“By witchery, of course!” said Elizabeth. + +“No!” said Fancy. + +“’Tis, I assure ye. Didn’t you ever hear I was a witch?” + +“Well,” hesitated Fancy, “I have heard you called so.” + +“And you believed it?” + +“I can’t say that I did exactly believe it, for ’tis very horrible and +wicked; but, O, how I do wish it was possible for you to be one!” + +“So I am. And I’ll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you marry +Dick Dewy.” + +“Will it hurt him, poor thing?” + +“Hurt who?” + +“Father.” + +“No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be +broke by your acting stupidly.” + +Fancy looked rather perplexed, and Elizabeth went on: + +“This fear of Lizz—whatever ’tis— + By great and small; +She makes pretence to common sense, + And that’s all. + + +“You must do it like this.” The witch laid down her knife and potato, +and then poured into Fancy’s ear a long and detailed list of +directions, glancing up from the corner of her eye into Fancy’s face +with an expression of sinister humour. Fancy’s face brightened, +clouded, rose and sank, as the narrative proceeded. “There,” said +Elizabeth at length, stooping for the knife and another potato, “do +that, and you’ll have him by-long and by-late, my dear.” + +“And do it I will!” said Fancy. + +She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The rain +continued as usual, but the wind had abated considerably during the +discourse. Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella erect, +she pulled her hood again over her bonnet, bade the witch good-bye, and +went her way. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE SPELL + + +Mrs. Endorfield’s advice was duly followed. + +“I be proper sorry that your daughter isn’t so well as she might be,” +said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning. + +“But is there anything in it?” said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted +his hat to the right. “I can’t understand the report. She didn’t +complain to me a bit when I saw her.” + +“No appetite at all, they say.” + +Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that afternoon. +Fancy welcomed him as usual, and asked him to stay and take tea with +her. + +“I be’n’t much for tea, this time o’ day,” he said, but stayed. + +During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great consternation +discovered the following unprecedented change in the healthy girl—that +she cut herself only a diaphanous slice of bread-and-butter, and, +laying it on her plate, passed the meal-time in breaking it into +pieces, but eating no more than about one-tenth of the slice. Geoffrey +hoped she would say something about Dick, and finish up by weeping, as +she had done after the decision against him a few days subsequent to +the interview in the garden. But nothing was said, and in due time +Geoffrey departed again for Yalbury Wood. + +“’Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her school,” +said Geoffrey’s man Enoch to Geoffrey the following week, as they were +shovelling up ant-hills in the wood. + +Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his +sleeve, and killed another that was prowling round his ear, then looked +perpendicularly into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to say more. +“Well, why shouldn’t she?” said the keeper at last. + +“The baker told me yesterday,” continued Enoch, shaking out another +emmet that had run merrily up his thigh, “that the bread he’ve left at +that there school-house this last month would starve any mouse in the +three creations; that ’twould so! And afterwards I had a pint o’ small +down at Morrs’s, and there I heard more.” + +“What might that ha’ been?” + +“That she used to have a pound o’ the best rolled butter a week, +regular as clockwork, from Dairyman Viney’s for herself, as well as +just so much salted for the helping girl, and the ’ooman she calls in; +but now the same quantity d’last her three weeks, and then ’tis +thoughted she throws it away sour.” + +“Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag home-along.” The keeper +resumed his gun, tucked it under his arm, and went on without whistling +to the dogs, who however followed, with a bearing meant to imply that +they did not expect any such attentions when their master was +reflecting. + +On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble about +sending her the couple of rabbits, as was intended, because she feared +she should not want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went to +Casterbridge and called upon the butcher who served Fancy with fresh +meat, which was put down to her father’s account. + +“I’ve called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you can +gie me the chiel’s account at the same time.” + +Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of a +heap of joints, altered the expression of his face from meat to money, +went into a little office consisting only of a door and a window, +looked very vigorously into a book which possessed length but no +breadth; and then, seizing a piece of paper and scribbling thereupon, +handed the bill. + +Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial +transactions that the quality of shortness in a butcher’s bill was a +cause of tribulation to the debtor. “Why, this isn’t all she’ve had in +a whole month!” said Geoffrey. + +“Every mossel,” said the butcher—“(now, Dan, take that leg and shoulder +to Mrs. White’s, and this eleven pound here to Mr. Martin’s)—you’ve +been treating her to smaller joints lately, to my thinking, Mr. Day?” + +“Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am alive—I +wish I had!” + +“Well, my wife said to me—(Dan! not too much, not too much on that tray +at a time; better go twice)—my wife said to me as she posted up the +books: she says, ‘Miss Day must have been affronted this summer during +that hot muggy weather that spolit so much for us; for depend upon’t,’ +she says, ‘she’ve been trying John Grimmett unknown to us: see her +account else.’ ’Tis little, of course, at the best of times, being only +for one, but now ’tis next kin to nothing.” + +“I’ll inquire,” said Geoffrey despondingly. + +He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in fulfilment +of a promise. It being Saturday, the children were enjoying a holiday, +and on entering the residence Fancy was nowhere to be seen. Nan, the +charwoman, was sweeping the kitchen. + +“Where’s my da’ter?” said the keeper. + +“Well, you see she was tired with the week’s teaching, and this morning +she said, ‘Nan, I sha’n’t get up till the evening.’ You see, Mr. Day, +if people don’t eat, they can’t work; and as she’ve gie’d up eating, +she must gie up working.” + +“Have ye carried up any dinner to her?” + +“No; she don’t want any. There, we all know that such things don’t come +without good reason—not that I wish to say anything about a broken +heart, or anything of the kind.” + +Geoffrey’s own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went to +the staircase and ascended to his daughter’s door. + +“Fancy!” + +“Come in, father.” + +To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, is +depressing enough; and here was his only child Fancy, not only in bed, +but looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed. + +“Fancy, I didn’t expect to see thee here, chiel,” he said. “What’s the +matter?” + +“I’m not well, father.” + +“How’s that?” + +“Because I think of things.” + +“What things can you have to think o’ so mortal much?” + +“You know, father.” + +“You think I’ve been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless Dick +o’ thine sha’n’t marry thee, I suppose?” + +No answer. + +“Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn’t good enough +for thee. You know that well enough.” Here he again looked at her as +she lay. “Well, Fancy, I can’t let my only chiel die; and if you can’t +live without en, you must ha’ en, I suppose.” + +“O, I don’t want him like that; all against your will, and everything +so disobedient!” sighed the invalid. + +“No, no, ’tisn’t against my will. My wish is, now I d’see how ’tis +hurten thee to live without en, that he shall marry thee as soon as +we’ve considered a little. That’s my wish flat and plain, Fancy. There, +never cry, my little maid! You ought to ha’ cried afore; no need o’ +crying now ’tis all over. Well, howsoever, try to step over and see me +and mother-law to-morrow, and ha’ a bit of dinner wi’ us.” + +“And—Dick too?” + +“Ay, Dick too, ’far’s I know.” + +“And _when_ do you think you’ll have considered, father, and he may +marry me?” she coaxed. + +“Well, there, say next Midsummer; that’s not a day too long to wait.” + +On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter’s. Old William +opened the door. + +“Is your grandson Dick in ’ithin, William?” + +“No, not just now, Mr. Day. Though he’ve been at home a good deal +lately.” + +“O, how’s that?” + +“What wi’ one thing, and what wi’ t’other, he’s all in a mope, as might +be said. Don’t seem the feller he used to. Ay, ’a will sit studding and +thinking as if ’a were going to turn chapel-member, and then do nothing +but traypse and wamble about. Used to be such a chatty boy, too, Dick +did; and now ’a don’t speak at all. But won’t ye step inside? Reuben +will be home soon, ’a b’lieve.” + +“No, thank you, I can’t stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he’ll do me +the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da’ter Fancy, if +she’s well enough? I don’t like her to come by herself, now she’s not +so terrible topping in health.” + +“So I’ve heard. Ay, sure, I’ll tell him without fail.” + + + + +CHAPTER V. +AFTER GAINING HER POINT + + +The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might have +been expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth +experience in a hitherto obstructed love-course. And then came a series +of several happy days, of the same undisturbed serenity. Dick could +court her when he chose; stay away when he chose,—which was never; walk +with her by winding streams and waterfalls and autumn scenery till dews +and twilight sent them home. And thus they drew near the day of the +Harvest Thanksgiving, which was also the time chosen for opening the +organ in Mellstock Church. + +It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from Mellstock. A +young acquaintance had died of consumption at Charmley, a neighbouring +village, on the previous Monday, and Dick, in fulfilment of a +long-standing promise, was to assist in carrying him to the grave. When +on Tuesday, Dick went towards the school to acquaint Fancy with the +fact, it is difficult to say whether his own disappointment at being +denied the sight of her triumphant _début_ as organist, was greater +than his vexation that his pet should on this great occasion be +deprived of the pleasure of his presence. However, the intelligence was +communicated. She bore it as she best could, not without many +expressions of regret, and convictions that her performance would be +nothing to her now. + +Just before eleven o’clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. +The funeral was to be immediately after the morning service, and as +there were four good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it +became necessary to start comparatively early. Half an hour later would +certainly have answered his purpose quite as well, yet at the last +moment nothing would content his ardent mind but that he must go a mile +out of his way in the direction of the school, in the hope of getting a +glimpse of his Love as she started for church. + +Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of +across the ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door as +his goddess emerged. + +If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning +as she floated down those school steps, in the form of a nebulous +collection of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity unparalleled +in the whole history of village-school-mistresses at this date—partly +owing, no doubt, to papa’s respectable accumulation of cash, which +rendered her profession not altogether one of necessity—she had +actually donned a hat and feather, and lowered her hitherto plainly +looped-up hair, which now fell about her shoulders in a profusion of +curls. Poor Dick was astonished: he had never seen her look so +distractingly beautiful before, save on Christmas-eve, when her hair +was in the same luxuriant condition of freedom. But his first burst of +delighted surprise was followed by less comfortable feelings, as soon +as his brain recovered its power to think. + +Fancy had blushed;—was it with confusion? She had also involuntarily +pressed back her curls. She had not expected him. + +“Fancy, you didn’t know me for a moment in my funeral clothes, did +you?” + +“Good-morning, Dick—no, really, I didn’t know you for an instant in +such a sad suit.” + +He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. “You’ve never dressed so +charming before, dearest.” + +“I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick,” she said, smiling +archly. “It is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?” + +“Fie! you know it. Did you remember,—I mean didn’t you remember about +my going away to-day?” + +“Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;—forgive +me.” + +“Yes, darling; yes, of course,—there’s nothing to forgive. No, I was +only thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday +and Friday about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for it, you +said, Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said it would be +no pleasure to you to be the attraction of the church to-day, since I +could not be there.” + +“My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I do +take a little delight in my life, I suppose,” she pouted. + +“Apart from mine?” + +She looked at him with perplexed eyes. “I know you are vexed with me, +Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat and +feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you are away +and won’t be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And you think +that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn’t be here +to-day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. Yes, you +do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!” + +“No, no,” said Dick earnestly and simply, “I didn’t think so badly of +you as that. I only thought that—if _you_ had been going away, I +shouldn’t have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. But +then of course you and I are different, naturally.” + +“Well, perhaps we are.” + +“Whatever will the vicar say, Fancy?” + +“I don’t fear what he says in the least!” she answered proudly. “But he +won’t say anything of the sort you think. No, no.” + +“He can hardly have conscience to, indeed.” + +“Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go,” +she said with sudden gaiety, and skipped backwards into the porch. +“Come here, sir;—say you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me;—you +never have yet when I have worn curls, you know. Yes, just where you +want to so much,—yes, you may!” + +Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not slow +in availing himself of the privilege offered. + +“Now that’s a treat for you, isn’t it?” she continued. “Good-bye, or I +shall be late. Come and see me to-morrow: you’ll be tired to-night.” + +Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ stood on +one side of the chancel, close to and under the immediate eye of the +vicar when he was in the pulpit, and also in full view of the +congregation. Here she sat down, for the first time in such a +conspicuous position, her seat having previously been in a remote spot +in the aisle. + +“Good heavens—disgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!” said the +daughters of the small gentry, who had either only curly hair without a +hat and feather, or a hat and feather without curly hair. “A bonnet for +church always,” said sober matrons. + +That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him during +the sermon; that he was not at all angry at her development of costume; +that he admired her, she perceived. But she did not see that he loved +her during that sermon-time as he had never loved a woman before; that +her proximity was a strange delight to him; and that he gloried in her +musical success that morning in a spirit quite beyond a mere cleric’s +glory at the inauguration of a new order of things. + +The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in the +gallery as heretofore (which was now given up to the school-children +who were not singers, and a pupil-teacher), but were scattered about +with their wives in different parts of the church. Having nothing to do +with conducting the service for almost the first time in their lives, +they all felt awkward, out of place, abashed, and inconvenienced by +their hands. The tranter had proposed that they should stay away to-day +and go nutting, but grandfather William would not hear of such a thing +for a moment. “No,” he replied reproachfully, and quoted a verse: +“Though this has come upon us, let not our hearts be turned back, or +our steps go out of the way.” + +So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back of +the successful rival, and the waving of her feather, as she swayed her +head. After a few timid notes and uncertain touches her playing became +markedly correct, and towards the end full and free. But, whether from +prejudice or unbiassed judgment, the venerable body of musicians could +not help thinking that the simpler notes they had been wont to bring +forth were more in keeping with the simplicity of their old church than +the crowded chords and interludes it was her pleasure to produce. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +INTO TEMPTATION + + +The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About five +o’clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind she +wandered into the schoolroom, for want of something better to do. She +was thinking—of her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of how weary she +was of living alone: how unbearable it would be to return to Yalbury +under the rule of her strange-tempered step-mother; that it was far +better to be married to anybody than do that; that eight or nine long +months had yet to be lived through ere the wedding could take place. + +At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon +either sill of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and using +it as a footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched herself, as +was her custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on a light shawl +and bonnet, opened the window, and looked out at the rain. + +The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the position +from which she used to survey the crown of Dick’s passing hat in the +early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was +now visible anywhere; the rain kept all people indoors who were not +forced abroad by necessity, and necessity was less importunate on +Sundays than during the week. + +Sitting here and thinking again—of her lover, or of the sensation she +had created at church that day?—well, it is unknown—thinking and +thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at +the further end of the Grove—a man without an umbrella. Nearer and +nearer he came, and she perceived that he was in deep mourning, and +then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness and foolishness of his +young heart, after walking four miles, in a drizzling rain without +overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark from his love that he was +not to come because he would be tired, he had made it his business to +wander this mile out of his way again, from sheer wish of spending ten +minutes in her presence. + +“O Dick, how wet you are!” she said, as he drew up under the window. +“Why, your coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat—my +goodness, there’s a streaming hat!” + +“O, I don’t mind, darling!” said Dick cheerfully. “Wet never hurts me, +though I am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it couldn’t be +helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don’t know when I +shall get mine back!” + +“And look, there’s a nasty patch of something just on your shoulder.” + +“Ah, that’s japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack’s coffin +when we lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I don’t care +about that, for ’twas the last deed I could do for him; and ’tis hard +if you can’t afford a coat for an old friend.” + +Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the palm +of that little hand there existed for that half-minute a little yawn. + +“Dick, I don’t like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn’t sit +down. Go home and change your things. Don’t stay another minute.” + +“One kiss after coming so far,” he pleaded. + +“If I can reach, then.” + +He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the door. +She twisted from her seated position and bent herself downwards, but +not even by standing on the plinth was it possible for Dick to get his +lips into contact with hers as she held them. By great exertion she +might have reached a little lower; but then she would have exposed her +head to the rain. + +“Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand,” she said, flinging it down to him. +“Now, good-bye.” + +“Good-bye.” + +He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till he +was out of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost +involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning’s triumph—“I like +Dick, and I love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in the rain, +with no umbrella, and wet through!” + +As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but glancing +in the other direction she saw another form coming along the same +track. It was also that of a man. He, too, was in black from top to +toe; but he carried an umbrella. + +He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant +his umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was +invisible, as she was also to him. He passed in due time directly +beneath her, and in looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella her +feminine eyes perceived it to be of superior silk—less common at that +date than since—and of elegant make. He reached the entrance to the +building, and Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. Instead of pursuing the +roadway as Dick had done he had turned sharply round into her own +porch. + +She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, +smoothed and patted her hair till the curls hung in passable condition, +and listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and still there was no +knock. Then there arose a soft series of raps, no louder than the +tapping of a distant woodpecker, and barely distinct enough to reach +her ears. She composed herself and flung open the door. + +In the porch stood Mr. Maybold. + +There was a warm flush upon his face, and a bright flash in his eyes, +which made him look handsomer than she had ever seen him before. + +“Good-evening, Miss Day.” + +“Good-evening, Mr. Maybold,” she said, in a strange state of mind. She +had noticed, beyond the ardent hue of his face, that his voice had a +singular tremor in it, and that his hand shook like an aspen leaf when +he laid his umbrella in the corner of the porch. Without another word +being spoken by either, he came into the schoolroom, shut the door, and +moved close to her. Once inside, the expression of his face was no more +discernible, by reason of the increasing dusk of evening. + +“I want to speak to you,” he then said; “seriously—on a perhaps +unexpected subject, but one which is all the world to me—I don’t know +what it may be to you, Miss Day.” + +No reply. + +“Fancy, I have come to ask you if you will be my wife?” + +As a person who has been idly amusing himself with rolling a snowball +might start at finding he had set in motion an avalanche, so did Fancy +start at these words from the vicar. And in the dead silence which +followed them, the breathings of the man and of the woman could be +distinctly and separately heard; and there was this difference between +them—his respirations gradually grew quieter and less rapid after the +enunciation, hers, from having been low and regular, increased in +quickness and force, till she almost panted. + +“I cannot, I cannot, Mr. Maybold—I cannot! Don’t ask me!” she said. + +“Don’t answer in a hurry!” he entreated. “And do listen to me. This is +no sudden feeling on my part. I have loved you for more than six +months! Perhaps my late interest in teaching the children here has not +been so single-minded as it seemed. You will understand my motive—like +me better, perhaps, for honestly telling you that I have struggled +against my emotion continually, because I have thought that it was not +well for me to love you! But I resolved to struggle no longer; I have +examined the feeling; and the love I bear you is as genuine as that I +could bear any woman! I see your great charm; I respect your natural +talents, and the refinement they have brought into your nature—they are +quite enough, and more than enough for me! They are equal to anything +ever required of the mistress of a quiet parsonage-house—the place in +which I shall pass my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I +have watched you, criticized you even severely, brought my feelings to +the light of judgment, and still have found them rational, and such as +any man might have expected to be inspired with by a woman like you! So +there is nothing hurried, secret, or untoward in my desire to do this. +Fancy, will you marry me?” + +No answer was returned. + +“Don’t refuse; don’t,” he implored. “It would be foolish of you—I mean +cruel! Of course we would not live here, Fancy. I have had for a long +time the offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in Yorkshire, +but I have hitherto refused on account of my mother. There we would go. +Your musical powers shall be still further developed; you shall have +whatever pianoforte you like; you shall have anything, Fancy, anything +to make you happy—pony-carriage, flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, +you have enough in you for any society, after a few months of travel +with me! Will you, Fancy, marry me?” + +Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against +the window-panes, and then Fancy spoke, in a faint and broken voice. + +“Yes, I will,” she said. + +“God bless you, my own!” He advanced quickly, and put his arm out to +embrace her. She drew back hastily. “No no, not now!” she said in an +agitated whisper. “There are things;—but the temptation is, O, too +strong, and I can’t resist it; I can’t tell you now, but I must tell +you! Don’t, please, don’t come near me now! I want to think, I can +scarcely get myself used to the idea of what I have promised yet.” The +next minute she turned to a desk, buried her face in her hands, and +burst into a hysterical fit of weeping. “O, leave me to myself!” she +sobbed; “leave me! O, leave me!” + +“Don’t be distressed; don’t, dearest!” It was with visible difficulty +that he restrained himself from approaching her. “You shall tell me at +your leisure what it is that grieves you so; I am happy—beyond all +measure happy!—at having your simple promise.” + +“And do go and leave me now!” + +“But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you are +yourself again.” + +“There then,” she said, controlling her emotion, and standing up; “I am +not disturbed now.” + +He reluctantly moved towards the door. “Good-bye!” he murmured +tenderly. “I’ll come to-morrow about this time.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +SECOND THOUGHTS + + +The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was to +write a long and careful letter to his friend in Yorkshire. Then, +eating a little breakfast, he crossed the meadows in the direction of +Casterbridge, bearing his letter in his pocket, that he might post it +at the town office, and obviate the loss of one day in its transmission +that would have resulted had he left it for the foot-post through the +village. + +It was a foggy morning, and the trees shed in noisy water-drops the +moisture they had collected from the thick air, an acorn occasionally +falling from its cup to the ground, in company with the drippings. In +the meads, sheets of spiders’-web, almost opaque with wet, hung in +folds over the fences, and the falling leaves appeared in every variety +of brown, green, and yellow hue. + +A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was approaching, +then the light footsteps of a man going in the same direction as +himself. On reaching the junction of his path with the road, the vicar +beheld Dick Dewy’s open and cheerful face. Dick lifted his hat, and the +vicar came out into the highway that Dick was pursuing. + +“Good-morning, Dewy. How well you are looking!” said Mr. Maybold. + +“Yes, sir, I am well—quite well! I am going to Casterbridge now, to get +Smart’s collar; we left it there Saturday to be repaired.” + +“I am going to Casterbridge, so we’ll walk together,” the vicar said. +Dick gave a hop with one foot to put himself in step with Mr. Maybold, +who proceeded: “I fancy I didn’t see you at church yesterday, Dewy. Or +were you behind the pier?” + +“No; I went to Charmley. Poor John Dunford chose me to be one of his +bearers a long time before he died, and yesterday was the funeral. Of +course I couldn’t refuse, though I should have liked particularly to +have been at home as ’twas the day of the new music.” + +“Yes, you should have been. The musical portion of the service was +successful—very successful indeed; and what is more to the purpose, no +ill-feeling whatever was evinced by any of the members of the old +choir. They joined in the singing with the greatest good-will.” + +“’Twas natural enough that I should want to be there, I suppose,” said +Dick, smiling a private smile; “considering who the organ-player was.” + +At this the vicar reddened a little, and said, “Yes, yes,” though not +at all comprehending Dick’s true meaning, who, as he received no +further reply, continued hesitatingly, and with another smile denoting +his pride as a lover— + +“I suppose you know what I mean, sir? You’ve heard about me and—Miss +Day?” + +The red in Maybold’s countenance went away: he turned and looked Dick +in the face. + +“No,” he said constrainedly, “I’ve heard nothing whatever about you and +Miss Day.” + +“Why, she’s my sweetheart, and we are going to be married next +Midsummer. We are keeping it rather close just at present, because ’tis +a good many months to wait; but it is her father’s wish that we don’t +marry before, and of course we must submit. But the time ’ill soon slip +along.” + +“Yes, the time will soon slip along—Time glides away every day—yes.” + +Maybold said these words, but he had no idea of what they were. He was +conscious of a cold and sickly thrill throughout him; and all he +reasoned was this that the young creature whose graces had intoxicated +him into making the most imprudent resolution of his life, was less an +angel than a woman. + +“You see, sir,” continued the ingenuous Dick, “’twill be better in one +sense. I shall by that time be the regular manager of a branch o’ +father’s business, which has very much increased lately, and business, +which we think of starting elsewhere. It has very much increased +lately, and we expect next year to keep a’ extra couple of horses. +We’ve already our eye on one—brown as a berry, neck like a rainbow, +fifteen hands, and not a gray hair in her—offered us at twenty-five +want a crown. And to kip pace with the times I have had some cards +prented and I beg leave to hand you one, sir.” + +“Certainly,” said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick +offered him. + +“I turn in here by Grey’s Bridge,” said Dick. “I suppose you go +straight on and up town?” + +“Yes.” + +“Good-morning, sir.” + +“Good-morning, Dewy.” + +Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been +put into his hand, and Dick’s footsteps died away towards Durnover +Mill. The vicar’s first voluntary action was to read the card:— + +DEWY AND SON, +TRANTERS AND HAULIERS, +MELLSTOCK. +_NB.—Furniture, Coals, Potatoes, Live and Dead Stock, removed to any +distance on the shortest notice._ + + +Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the +river. He saw—without heeding—how the water came rapidly from beneath +the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself over a pool +in which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among the long green +locks of weed that lay heaving and sinking with their roots towards the +current. At the end of ten minutes spent leaning thus, he drew from his +pocket the letter to his friend, tore it deliberately into such minute +fragments that scarcely two syllables remained in juxtaposition, and +sent the whole handful of shreds fluttering into the water. Here he +watched them eddy, dart, and turn, as they were carried downwards +towards the ocean and gradually disappeared from his view. Finally he +moved off, and pursued his way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock +Vicarage. + +Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his study +and wrote as follows: + + +“Dear Miss Day,—The meaning of your words, ‘the temptation is too +strong,’ of your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me by +an accident. I know to-day what I did not know yesterday—that you are +not a free woman. + +“Why did you not tell me—why didn’t you? Did you suppose I knew? No. +Had I known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have been +reprehensible. + +“But I don’t chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to you—I can’t tell. +Fancy, though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in a way +which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to you holds +good yet. But will you, in justice to an honest man who relies upon +your word to him, consider whether, under the circumstances, you can +honourably forsake him? + + +“Yours ever sincerely, +ARTHUR MAYBOLD.” + + +He rang the bell. “Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this note +to the school at once.” + +The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy was +seen to leave the vicarage gate, with the one under his arm, and the +other in his hand. The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, watching +the lad as he descended Church Lane and entered the waterside path +which intervened between that spot and the school. + +Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and +pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on his +way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight. + +The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in. + +He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he +read the subjoined words: + + +“Dear Mr. Maybold,—I have been thinking seriously and sadly through the +whole of the night of the question you put to me last evening and of my +answer. That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right to give. + +“It is my nature—perhaps all women’s—to love refinement of mind and +manners; but even more than this, to be ever fascinated with the idea +of surroundings more elegant and pleasing than those which have been +customary. And you praised me, and praise is life to me. It was alone +my sensations at these things which prompted my reply. Ambition and +vanity they would be called; perhaps they are so. + +“After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to withdraw +the answer I too hastily gave. + +“And one more request. To keep the meeting of last night, and all that +passed between us there, for ever a secret. Were it to become known, it +would utterly blight the happiness of a trusting and generous man, whom +I love still, and shall love always. + + +“Yours sincerely, +FANCY DAY. + + +The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to +Fancy, was a note containing these words only: + +“Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you.” + + + + +PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION + + + + +CHAPTER I. +‘THE KNOT THERE’S NO UNTYING’ + + +The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in the +development of the seasons when country people go to bed among nearly +naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake next +morning among green ones; when the landscape appears embarrassed with +the sudden weight and brilliancy of its leaves; when the night-jar +comes and strikes up for the summer his tune of one note; when the +apple-trees have bloomed, and the roads and orchard-grass become +spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of the delicate flowers are +darkened, and their heads weighed down, by the throng of honey-bees, +which increase their humming till humming is too mild a term for the +all-pervading sound; and when cuckoos, blackbirds, and sparrows, that +have hitherto been merry and respectful neighbours, become noisy and +persistent intimates. + +The exterior of Geoffrey Day’s house in Yalbury Wood appeared exactly +as was usual at that season, but a frantic barking of the dogs at the +back told of unwonted movements somewhere within. Inside the door the +eyes beheld a gathering, which was a rarity indeed for the dwelling of +the solitary wood-steward and keeper. + +About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled attitudes, +our old acquaintance, grandfathers James and William, the tranter, Mr. +Penny, two or three children, including Jimmy and Charley, besides +three or four country ladies and gentlemen from a greater distance who +do not require any distinction by name. Geoffrey was seen and heard +stamping about the outhouse and among the bushes of the garden, +attending to details of daily routine before the proper time arrived +for their performance, in order that they might be off his hands for +the day. He appeared with his shirt-sleeves rolled up; his best new +nether garments, in which he had arrayed himself that morning, being +temporarily disguised under a weekday apron whilst these proceedings +were in operation. He occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to +see if his wife’s bees were swarming, ultimately rolling down his +shirt-sleeves and going indoors, talking to tranter Dewy whilst +buttoning the wristbands, to save time; next going upstairs for his +best waistcoat, and coming down again to make another remark whilst +buttoning that, during the time looking fixedly in the tranter’s face +as if he were a looking-glass. + +The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every +duplicate piece having been removed, including the clock by Thomas +Wood; Ezekiel Saunders being at last left sole referee in matters of +time. + +Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and +adornments, and answering by short fragments of laughter which had more +fidgetiness than mirth in them, remarks that were made from time to +time by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. Penny, who were assisting her at the toilet, +Mrs. Day having pleaded a queerness in her head as a reason for +shutting herself up in an inner bedroom for the whole morning. Mrs. +Penny appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each side of her temples, +and a back comb stuck upon her crown like a castle on a steep. + +The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the last +publication of which had been on the Sunday previous. + +“And how did they sound?” Fancy subtly inquired. + +“Very beautiful indeed,” said Mrs. Penny. “I never heard any sound +better.” + +“But _how_?” + +_“_O, _so_ natural and elegant, didn’t they, Reuben!” she cried, +through the chinks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs. + +“What’s that?” said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor +above him for an answer. + +“Didn’t Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in church +last Sunday?” came downwards again in Mrs. Penny’s voice. + +“Ay, that they did, my sonnies!—especially the first time. There was a +terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn’t there, +neighbour Penny?” said the tranter, taking up the thread of +conversation on his own account and, in order to be heard in the room +above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance of +three feet from him, or rather less. + +“I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was,” said Mr. +Penny, also loudly, to the room above. “And such sorrowful envy on the +maidens’ faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!” + +Fancy’s lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart +palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. “But perhaps,” she +said, with assumed indifference, “it was only because no religion was +going on just then?” + +“O, no; nothing to do with that. ’Twas because of your high standing in +the parish. It was just as if they had one and all caught Dick kissing +and coling ye to death, wasn’t it, Mrs. Dewy?” + +“Ay; that ’twas.” + +“How people will talk about one’s doings!” Fancy exclaimed. + +“Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can’t blame other +people for singing ’em.” + +“Mercy me! how shall I go through it?” said the young lady again, but +merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind between a +sigh and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face. + +“O, you’ll get through it well enough, child,” said Mrs. Dewy placidly. +“The edge of the performance is took off at the calling home; and when +once you get up to the chancel end o’ the church, you feel as saucy as +you please. I’m sure I felt as brave as a sodger all through the +deed—though of course I dropped my face and looked modest, as was +becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy.” + +“And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I’m sure,” subjoined +Mrs. Penny. “There, you see Penny is such a little small man. But +certainly, I was flurried in the inside o’ me. Well, thinks I, ’tis to +be, and here goes! And do you do the same: say, ‘’Tis to be, and here +goes!’” + +“Is there such wonderful virtue in ‘’Tis to be, and here goes!’” +inquired Fancy. + +“Wonderful! ’Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to +churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough.” + +“Very well, then,” said Fancy, blushing. “’Tis to be, and here goes!” + +“That’s a girl for a husband!” said Mrs. Dewy. + +“I do hope he’ll come in time!” continued the bride-elect, inventing a +new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished. + +“’Twould be a thousand pities if he didn’t come, now you be so brave,” +said Mrs. Penny. + +Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said +downstairs with mischievous loudness— + +“I’ve known some would-be weddings when the men didn’t come.” + +“They’ve happened not to come, before now, certainly,” said Mr. Penny, +cleaning one of the glasses of his spectacles. + +“O, do hear what they are saying downstairs,” whispered Fancy. “Hush, +hush!” + +She listened. + +“They have, haven’t they, Geoffrey?” continued grandfather James, as +Geoffrey entered. + +“Have what?” said Geoffrey. + +“The men have been known not to come.” + +“That they have,” said the keeper. + +“Ay; I’ve knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his +not appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I knowed was +when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker’s Wood, and the +three months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be +published over again.” + +“How horrible!” said Fancy. + +“They only say it on purpose to tease ’ee, my dear,” said Mrs. Dewy. + +“’Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put +to,” came again from downstairs. “Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my +brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty +year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another—’tis quite +heart-rending—enough to make your hair stand on end.” + +“Those things don’t happen very often, I know,” said Fancy, with +smouldering uneasiness. + +“Well, really ’tis time Dick was here,” said the tranter. + +“Don’t keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you +down there!” Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. “I am sure I +shall die, or do something, if you do!” + +“Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!” cried Nat Callcome, +the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through +the chinks of the floor as the others had done. “’Tis all right; Dick’s +coming on like a wild feller; he’ll be here in a minute. The hive o’ +bees his mother gie’d en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was +starting, and he said, ‘I can’t afford to lose a stock o’ bees; no, +that I can’t, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn’t wish it on any +account.’ So he jist stopped to ting to ’em and shake ’em.” + +“A genuine wise man,” said Geoffrey. + +“To be sure, what a day’s work we had yesterday!” Mr. Callcome +continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to +include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a +remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. “To +be sure!” + +“Things so heavy, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, as if reading through the +chimney-window from the far end of the vista. + +“Ay,” said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture +had been removed. “And so awkward to carry, too. ’Twas ath’art and +across Dick’s garden; in and out Dick’s door; up and down Dick’s +stairs; round and round Dick’s chammers till legs were worn to stumps: +and Dick is so particular, too. And the stores of victuals and drink +that lad has laid in: why, ’tis enough for Noah’s ark! I’m sure I never +wish to see a choicer half-dozen of hams than he’s got there in his +chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed;—none +could desire a prettier cider.” + +“They be for the love and the stalled ox both. Ah, the greedy martels!” +said grandfather James. + +“Well, may-be they be. Surely,” says I, “that couple between ’em have +heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they +were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin +wi’ a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to +be sure, a-getting that furniture in order!” + +“I do so wish the room below was ceiled,” said Fancy, as the dressing +went on; “we can hear all they say and do down there.” + +“Hark! Who’s that?” exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also assisted +this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down the stairs, +and peeped round the banister. “O, you should, you should, you should!” +she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again. + +“What?” said Fancy. + +“See the bridesmaids! They’ve just a come! ’Tis wonderful, really! ’tis +wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don’t look a bit +like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o’ theirs that nobody +knew they had!” + +“Make ’em come up to me, make ’em come up!” cried Fancy ecstatically; +and the four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan Dewy, Miss Bessie +Dewy, Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, surged upstairs, and +floated along the passage. + +“I wish Dick would come!” was again the burden of Fancy. + +The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside the +door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, “Ready, +Fancy dearest?” + +“There he is, he is!” cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and +breathing as it were for the first time that morning. + +The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the +direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as +one:—not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see him, +but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers of the +will of that apotheosised being—the Bride. + +“He looks very taking!” said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who +blushed cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons. + +Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining +cloth, primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of +newness, and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, +and hair cut to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion. + +“Now, I’ll run down,” said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder +in the glass, and flitting off. + +“O Dick!” she exclaimed, “I am so glad you are come! I knew you would, +of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn’t!” + +“Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! Why, +what’s possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things +a bit.” + +“Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn’t hoisted my colours and committed myself then!” +said Fancy. + +“’Tis a pity I can’t marry the whole five of ye!” said Dick, surveying +them all round. + +“Heh-heh-heh!” laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately +touched Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to assure +herself that he was there in flesh and blood as her own property. + +“Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?” said Dick, taking off +his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members of the +company. + +The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their +opinion nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was. + +“That my bees should ha’ swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!” +continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net over the +whole auditory. “And ’tis a fine swarm, too: I haven’t seen such a fine +swarm for these ten years.” + +“A’ excellent sign,” said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. +“A’ excellent sign.” + +“I am glad everything seems so right,” said Fancy with a breath of +relief. + +“And so am I,” said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy. + +“Well, bees can’t be put off,” observed the inharmonious grandfather +James. “Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a +swarm o’ bees won’t come for the asking.” + +Dick fanned himself with his hat. “I can’t think,” he said +thoughtfully, “whatever ’twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I like +so much too. He rather took to me when he came first, and used to say +he should like to see me married, and that he’d marry me, whether the +young woman I chose lived in his parish or no. I just hinted to him of +it when I put in the banns, but he didn’t seem to take kindly to the +notion now, and so I said no more. I wonder how it was.” + +“I wonder!” said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful eyes +of hers—too refined and beautiful for a tranter’s wife; but, perhaps, +not too good. + +“Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose,” said the tranter. “Well, +my sonnies, there’ll be a good strong party looking at us to-day as we +go along.” + +“And the body of the church,” said Geoffrey, “will be lined with +females, and a row of young fellers’ heads, as far down as the eyes, +will be noticed just above the sills of the chancel-winders.” + +“Ay, you’ve been through it twice,” said Reuben, “and well mid know.” + +“I can put up with it for once,” said Dick, “or twice either, or a +dozen times.” + +“O Dick!” said Fancy reproachfully. + +“Why, dear, that’s nothing,—only just a bit of a flourish. You be as +nervous as a cat to-day.” + +“And then, of course, when ’tis all over,” continued the tranter, “we +shall march two and two round the parish.” + +“Yes, sure,” said Mr. Penny: “two and two: every man hitched up to his +woman, ’a b’lieve.” + +“I never can make a show of myself in that way!” said Fancy, looking at +Dick to ascertain if he could. + +“I’m agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!” said Mr. +Richard Dewy heartily. + +“Why, we did when we were married, didn’t we, Ann?” said the tranter; +“and so do everybody, my sonnies.” + +“And so did we,” said Fancy’s father. + +“And so did Penny and I,” said Mrs. Penny: “I wore my best Bath clogs, +I remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so tall.” + +“And so did father and mother,” said Miss Mercy Onmey. + +“And I mean to, come next Christmas!” said Nat the groomsman +vigorously, and looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff. + +“Respectable people don’t nowadays,” said Fancy. “Still, since poor +mother did, I will.” + +“Ay,” resumed the tranter, “’twas on a White Tuesday when I committed +it. Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new-married folk went +a-gaying round the parish behind ’em. Everybody used to wear something +white at Whitsuntide in them days. My sonnies, I’ve got the very white +trousers that I wore, at home in box now. Ha’n’t I, Ann?” + +“You had till I cut ’em up for Jimmy,” said Mrs. Dewy. + +“And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round Higher +and Lower Mellstock, and call at Viney’s, and so work our way hither +again across He’th,” said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the matter in +hand. “Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so is Farmer Kex, +and we ought to show ourselves to them.” + +“True,” said the tranter, “we ought to go round Mellstock to do the +thing well. We shall form a very striking object walking along in +rotation, good-now, neighbours?” + +“That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation,” said Mrs. Penny. + +“Hullo!” said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular human +figure standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock of +pillow-case cut and of snowy whiteness. “Why, Leaf! whatever dost thou +do here?” + +“I’ve come to know if so be I can come to the wedding—hee-hee!” said +Leaf in a voice of timidity. + +“Now, Leaf,” said the tranter reproachfully, “you know we don’t want +’ee here to-day: we’ve got no room for ye, Leaf.” + +“Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!” said old William. + +“I know I’ve got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a clane +shirt and smock-frock, I might just call,” said Leaf, turning away +disappointed and trembling. + +“Poor feller!” said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. “Suppose we must +let en come? His looks are rather against en, and he is terrible silly; +but ’a have never been in jail, and ’a won’t do no harm.” + +Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and then +anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in helping +his cause. + +“Ay, let en come,” said Geoffrey decisively. “Leaf, th’rt welcome, ’st +know;” and Leaf accordingly remained. + +They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a +procession in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and Susan +Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy Onmey, and +Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and all appeared in +strict wedding attire. Then came the tranter and Mrs. Dewy, and last of +all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;—the tranter conspicuous by his enormous gloves, +size eleven and three-quarters, which appeared at a distance like +boxing gloves bleached, and sat rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; +this hall-mark of respectability having been set upon himself to-day +(by Fancy’s special request) for the first time in his life. + +“The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together,” suggested +Fancy. + +“What? ’Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my +time!” said Geoffrey, astounded. + +“And in mine!” said the tranter. + +“And in ours!” said Mr. and Mrs. Penny. + +“Never heard o’ such a thing as woman and woman!” said old William; +who, with grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home. + +“Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!” said Dick, who, +being on the point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to +renounce all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure. The +decision was left to Fancy. + +“Well, I think I’d rather have it the way mother had it,” she said, and +the couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid. + +“Ah!” said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, “I +wonder which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!” + +“Well, ’tis their nature,” said grandfather William. “Remember the +words of the prophet Jeremiah: ‘Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a +bride her attire?’” + +Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a +cathedral; now through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild +hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they threaded +their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which dipped at that +point directly into the village of Geoffrey Day’s parish; and in the +space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself to be Mrs. Richard +Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no other than Fancy Day +still. + +On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid much +chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, Dick +discerned a brown spot far up a turnip field. + +“Why, ’tis Enoch!” he said to Fancy. “I thought I missed him at the +house this morning. How is it he’s left you?” + +“He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him in +Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody else for +a day or two, and Enoch hasn’t had anything to do with the woods +since.” + +“We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for once, +considering ’tis our wedding day.” The bridal party was ordered to +halt. + +“Eno-o-o-o-ch!” cried Dick at the top of his voice. + +“Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!” said Enoch from the distance. + +“D’ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?” + +“No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” + +“Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!” + +“O-h-h-h-h-h!” + +“Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!” + +“O-h-h-h-h-h!” + +“This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!” (holding her up to Enoch’s view as +if she had been a nosegay.) + +“O-h-h-h-h-h!” + +“Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!” + +“Ca-a-a-a-a-an’t!” + +“Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?” + +“Don’t work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!” + +“Not nice of Master Enoch,” said Dick, as they resumed their walk. + +“You mustn’t blame en,” said Geoffrey; “the man’s not hisself now; he’s +in his morning frame of mind. When he’s had a gallon o’ cider or ale, +or a pint or two of mead, the man’s well enough, and his manners be as +good as anybody’s in the kingdom.” + + + + +CHAPTER II. +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + +The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day’s +premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous +extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of +birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of +rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; quaint +tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless +families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath and +beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended grass-plot, its purpose +being to supply a healthy exercise-ground for young chickens and +pheasants; the hens, their mothers, being enclosed in coops placed upon +the same green flooring. + +All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced, +the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and the singing +of songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The +propriety of every one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy, +who, as an additional precaution in this direction, had strictly +charged her father and the tranter to carefully avoid saying ‘thee’ and +‘thou’ in their conversation, on the plea that those ancient words +sounded so very humiliating to persons of newer taste; also that they +were never to be seen drawing the back of the hand across the mouth +after drinking—a local English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but +stated by Fancy to be decidedly dying out among the better classes of +society. + +In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough +knowledge of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum +Clangley,—a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants as +performers on instruments of percussion. These important members of the +assembly were relegated to a height of two or three feet from the +ground, upon a temporary erection of planks supported by barrels. +Whilst the dancing progressed the older persons sat in a group under +the trunk of the tree,—the space being allotted to them somewhat +grudgingly by the young ones, who were greedy of pirouetting room,—and +fortified by a table against the heels of the dancers. Here the gaffers +and gammers, whose dancing days were over, told stories of great +impressiveness, and at intervals surveyed the advancing and retiring +couples from the same retreat, as people on shore might be supposed to +survey a naval engagement in the bay beyond; returning again to their +tales when the pause was over. Those of the whirling throng, who, +during the rests between each figure, turned their eyes in the +direction of these seated ones, were only able to discover, on account +of the music and bustle, that a very striking circumstance was in +course of narration—denoted by an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping +of the fingers, close of the lips, and fixed look into the centre of +the listener’s eye for the space of a quarter of a minute, which raised +in that listener such a reciprocating working of face as to sometimes +make the distant dancers half wish to know what such an interesting +tale could refer to. + +Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was +obtainable out of six hours’ experience as a wife, in order that the +contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried young +women present might be duly impressed upon the company: occasionally +stealing glances of admiration at her left hand, but this quite +privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the matter was +intended to show that, though she undoubtedly occupied the most +wondrous position in the eyes of the world that had ever been attained, +she was almost unconscious of the circumstance, and that the somewhat +prominent position in which that wonderfully-emblazoned left hand was +continually found to be placed, when handing cups and saucers, knives, +forks, and glasses, was quite the result of accident. As to wishing to +excite envy in the bosoms of her maiden companions, by the exhibition +of the shining ring, every one was to know it was quite foreign to the +dignity of such an experienced married woman. Dick’s imagination in the +meantime was far less capable of drawing so much wontedness from his +new condition. He had been for two or three hours trying to feel +himself merely a newly-married man, but had been able to get no further +in the attempt than to realize that he was Dick Dewy, the tranter’s +son, at a party given by Lord Wessex’s head man-in-charge, on the +outlying Yalbury estate, dancing and chatting with Fancy Day. + +Five country dances, including ‘Haste to the Wedding,’ two reels, and +three fragments of horn-pipes, brought them to the time for supper, +which, on account of the dampness of the grass from the immaturity of +the summer season, was spread indoors. At the conclusion of the meal +Dick went out to put the horse in; and Fancy, with the elder half of +the four bridesmaids, retired upstairs to dress for the journey to +Dick’s new cottage near Mellstock. + +“How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?” Dick inquired at +the foot of the staircase. Being now a man of business and married, he +was strong on the importance of time, and doubled the emphasis of his +words in conversing, and added vigour to his nods. + +“Only a minute.” + +“How long is that?” + +“Well, dear, five.” + +“Ah, sonnies!” said the tranter, as Dick retired, “’tis a talent of the +female race that low numbers should stand for high, more especially in +matters of waiting, matters of age, and matters of money.” + +“True, true, upon my body,” said Geoffrey. + +“Ye spak with feeling, Geoffrey, seemingly.” + +“Anybody that d’know my experience might guess that.” + +“What’s she doing now, Geoffrey?” + +“Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the +second-best chainey—a thing that’s only done once a year. ‘If there’s +work to be done I must do it,’ says she, ‘wedding or no.’” + +“’Tis my belief she’s a very good woman at bottom.” + +“She’s terrible deep, then.” + +Mrs. Penny turned round. “Well, ’tis humps and hollers with the best of +us; but still and for all that, Dick and Fancy stand as fair a chance +of having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the land.” + +“Ay, there’s no gainsaying it.” + +Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. +“Happy, yes,” she said. “’Tis always so when a couple is so exactly in +tune with one another as Dick and she.” + +“When they be’n’t too poor to have time to sing,” said grandfather +James. + +“I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes,” said the tranter: “when +the oldest daughter’s boots be only a size less than her mother’s, and +the rest o’ the flock close behind her. A sharp time for a man that, my +sonnies; a very sharp time! Chanticleer’s comb is a-cut then, ’a +believe.” + +“That’s about the form o’t,” said Mr. Penny. “That’ll put the stuns +upon a man, when you must measure mother and daughter’s lasts to tell +’em apart.” + +“You’ve no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a close-coming flock,” +said Mrs. Dewy; “for ours was a straggling lot enough, God knows!” + +“I d’know it, I d’know it,” said the tranter. “You be a well-enough +woman, Ann.” + +Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back again +without smiling. + +“And if they come together, they go together,” said Mrs. Penny, whose +family had been the reverse of the tranter’s; “and a little money will +make either fate tolerable. And money can be made by our young couple, +I know.” + +“Yes, that it can!” said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had hitherto +humbly admired the proceedings from a corner. “It can be done—all +that’s wanted is a few pounds to begin with. That’s all! I know a story +about it!” + +“Let’s hear thy story, Leaf,” said the tranter. “I never knew you were +clever enough to tell a story. Silence, all of ye! Mr. Leaf will tell a +story.” + +“Tell your story, Thomas Leaf,” said grandfather William in the tone of +a schoolmaster. + +“Once,” said the delighted Leaf, in an uncertain voice, “there was a +man who lived in a house! Well, this man went thinking and thinking +night and day. At last, he said to himself, as I might, ‘If I had only +ten pound, I’d make a fortune.’ At last by hook or by crook, behold he +got the ten pounds!” + +“Only think of that!” said Nat Callcome satirically. + +“Silence!” said the tranter. + +“Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little time he +made that ten pounds twenty. Then a little time after that he doubled +it, and made it forty. Well, he went on, and a good while after that he +made it eighty, and on to a hundred. Well, by-and-by he made it two +hundred! Well, you’d never believe it, but—he went on and made it four +hundred! He went on, and what did he do? Why, he made it eight hundred! +Yes, he did,” continued Leaf, in the highest pitch of excitement, +bringing down his fist upon his knee with such force that he quivered +with the pain; “yes, and he went on and made it A THOUSAND!” + +“Hear, hear!” said the tranter. “Better than the history of England, my +sonnies!” + +“Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf,” said grandfather William; and +then Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again. + +Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his +bride took their departure, side by side in the excellent new +spring-cart which the young tranter now possessed. The moon was just +over the full, rendering any light from lamps or their own beauties +quite unnecessary to the pair. They drove slowly along Yalbury Bottom, +where the road passed between two copses. Dick was talking to his +companion. + +“Fancy,” he said, “why we are so happy is because there is such full +confidence between us. Ever since that time you confessed to that +little flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no +flirtation at all), I have thought how artless and good you must be to +tell me o’ such a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about it as +you were. It has won me to tell you my every deed and word since then. +We’ll have no secrets from each other, darling, will we ever?—no secret +at all.” + +“None from to-day,” said Fancy. “Hark! what’s that?” + +From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, +musical, and liquid voice— + +“Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki! Come hither, come hither, come hither!” + +“O, ’tis the nightingale,” murmured she, and thought of a secret she +would never tell. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less +questionable. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where + you are located before using this eBook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: + +• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + +• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + +• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ + +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™'s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org. + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact. + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without +widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate. + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate. + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org. + +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + diff --git a/2662-h/2662-h.htm b/2662-h/2662-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf79934 --- /dev/null +++ b/2662-h/2662-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10447 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Under the Greenwood Tree</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Thomas Hardy</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June, 2001 [eBook #2662]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 17, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price, Margaret Rose Price and Dagny</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE ***</div> + +<h1>UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</h1> + +<h3>or<br/> +THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE<br/> +A RURAL PAINTING OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL</h3> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Thomas Hardy</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap00">PREFACE</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part01"><b>PART THE FIRST—WINTER</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. MELLSTOCK-LANE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. THE TRANTER’S</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. GOING THE ROUNDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. THE LISTENERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. CHRISTMAS MORNING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. THE TRANTER’S PARTY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part02"><b>PART THE SECOND—SPRING</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER I. PASSING BY THE SCHOOL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER II. A MEETING OF THE QUIRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER III. A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER V. RETURNING HOME WARD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER VI. YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER’S HOUSE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER VII. DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER VIII. DICK MEETS HIS FATHER</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part03"><b>PART THE THIRD—SUMMER</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER I. DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER II. FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER III. A CONFESSION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER IV. AN ARRANGEMENT</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part04"><b>PART THE FOURTH—AUTUMN</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER I. GOING NUTTING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER II. HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER III. FANCY IN THE RAIN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER IV. THE SPELL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER V. AFTER GAINING HER POINT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER VI. INTO TEMPTATION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER VII. SECOND THOUGHTS</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part05"><b>PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER I. ‘THE KNOT THERE’S NO UNTYING’</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER II. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap00"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p> +This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west-gallery +musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar officials in <i>Two +on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters</i>, and other places, is intended to be a +fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and customs which +were common among such orchestral bodies in the villages of fifty or sixty +years ago. +</p> + +<p> +One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical bandsmen by +an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) or harmonium player; +and despite certain advantages in point of control and accomplishment which +were, no doubt, secured by installing the single artist, the change has tended +to stultify the professed aims of the clergy, its direct result being to +curtail and extinguish the interest of parishioners in church doings. Under the +old plan, from half a dozen to ten full-grown players, in addition to the +numerous more or less grown-up singers, were officially occupied with the +Sunday routine, and concerned in trying their best to make it an artistic +outcome of the combined musical taste of the congregation. With a musical +executive limited, as it mostly is limited now, to the parson’s wife or +daughter and the school-children, or to the school-teacher and the children, an +important union of interests has disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +The zest of these bygone instrumentalists must have been keen and staying to +take them, as it did, on foot every Sunday after a toilsome week, through all +weathers, to the church, which often lay at a distance from their homes. They +usually received so little in payment for their performances that their efforts +were really a labour of love. In the parish I had in my mind when writing the +present tale, the gratuities received yearly by the musicians at Christmas were +somewhat as follows: From the manor-house ten shillings and a supper; from the +vicar ten shillings; from the farmers five shillings each; from each +cottage-household one shilling; amounting altogether to not more than ten +shillings a head annually—just enough, as an old executant told me, to pay for +their fiddle-strings, repairs, rosin, and music-paper (which they mostly ruled +themselves). Their music in those days was all in their own manuscript, copied +in the evenings after work, and their music-books were home-bound. +</p> + +<p> +It was customary to inscribe a few jigs, reels, horn-pipes, and ballads in the +same book, by beginning it at the other end, the insertions being continued +from front and back till sacred and secular met together in the middle, often +with bizarre effect, the words of some of the songs exhibiting that ancient and +broad humour which our grandfathers, and possibly grandmothers, took delight +in, and is in these days unquotable. +</p> + +<p> +The aforesaid fiddle-strings, rosin, and music-paper were supplied by a pedlar, +who travelled exclusively in such wares from parish to parish, coming to each +village about every six months. Tales are told of the consternation once caused +among the church fiddlers when, on the occasion of their producing a new +Christmas anthem, he did not come to time, owing to being snowed up on the +downs, and the straits they were in through having to make shift with whipcord +and twine for strings. He was generally a musician himself, and sometimes a +composer in a small way, bringing his own new tunes, and tempting each choir to +adopt them for a consideration. Some of these compositions which now lie before +me, with their repetitions of lines, half-lines, and half-words, their fugues +and their intermediate symphonies, are good singing still, though they would +hardly be admitted into such hymn-books as are popular in the churches of +fashionable society at the present time. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>August 1896.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>Under the Greenwood Tree</i> was first brought out in the summer of 1872 in +two volumes. The name of the story was originally intended to be, more +appropriately, <i>The Mellstock Quire</i>, and this has been appended as a +sub-title since the early editions, it having been thought unadvisable to +displace for it the title by which the book first became known. +</p> + +<p> +In rereading the narrative after a long interval there occurs the inevitable +reflection that the realities out of which it was spun were material for +another kind of study of this little group of church musicians than is found in +the chapters here penned so lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at +times. But circumstances would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more +essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date of writing; and +the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following pages must remain the +only extant one, except for the few glimpses of that perished band which I have +given in verse elsewhere. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +T. H. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>April</i> 1912. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part01"></a>PART THE FIRST—WINTER</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +MELLSTOCK-LANE</h2> + +<p> +To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its +feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less +distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the +ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise +and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their +leaves, does not destroy its individuality. +</p> + +<p> +On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was passing up a +lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a plantation that whispered +thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of his nature were +those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which succeeded each other +lightly and quickly, and by the liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural +cadence: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + “With the rose and the lily<br/> + And the daffodowndilly,<br/> +The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go.” +</p> + +<p> +The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of Mellstock +parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, casually glancing +upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with their characteristic tufts, +the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced elm, all appeared now as black +and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently +that their flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, +at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. The +copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so densely, +even at this season of the year, that the draught from the north-east flew +along the channel with scarcely an interruption from lateral breezes. +</p> + +<p> +After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white surface of +the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a ribbon jagged at the +edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary accumulations of leaves +extending from the ditch on either side. +</p> + +<p> +The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the place of +several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had its continuity +been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the shape of +“Ho-i-i-i-i-i!” from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on the right of the +singer who had just emerged from the trees. +</p> + +<p> +“Ho-i-i-i-i-i!” he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no idea of +seeing anything more than imagination pictured. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?” came from the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sure, Michael Mail.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why not stop for fellow-craters—going to thy own father’s house too, as +we be, and knowen us so well?” +</p> + +<p> +Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, implying that +the business of his mouth could not be checked at a moment’s notice by the +placid emotion of friendship. +</p> + +<p> +Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the sky, his +profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of a gentleman in +black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped +nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he +consisted of further down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture +him on. +</p> + +<p> +Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard coming +up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade severally five men of +different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of the parish of +Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the daylight, and advanced +against the sky in flat outlines, which suggested some processional design on +Greek or Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock +parish choir. +</p> + +<p> +The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, and +walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the surface of the +road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to Dick. +</p> + +<p> +The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, who, though +rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not come to his own +knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face fixed on the +north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower +waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his figure. His +features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked round, two faint moons +of light gleamed for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that +he wore spectacles of a circular form. +</p> + +<p> +The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and dramatically. The +fourth outline was Joseph Bowman’s, who had now no distinctive appearance +beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak lath-like form, trotting and +stumbling along with one shoulder forward and his head inclined to the left, +his arms dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This +was Thomas Leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Where be the boys?” said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-matched assembly. +</p> + +<p> +The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great depth. +</p> + +<p> +“We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn’t be wanted +yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I have just +been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to warm my feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure father did! To be sure ’a did expect us—to taste the little barrel +beyond compare that he’s going to tap.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!” said Mr. Penny, gleams of +delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick meanwhile singing +parenthetically— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neighbours, there’s time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore bedtime?” +said Mail. +</p> + +<p> +“True, true—time enough to get as drunk as lords!” replied Bowman cheerfully. +</p> + +<p> +This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the varying +hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking their toes +occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering indications of +the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper Mellstock for which they +were bound, whilst the faint sound of church-bells ringing a Christmas peal +could be heard floating over upon the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle +and Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little wicket +admitted them to the garden, and they proceeded up the path to Dick’s house. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +THE TRANTER’S</h2> + +<p> +It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows +breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and +another at each end. The window-shutters were not yet closed, and the fire- and +candle-light within radiated forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus +growing in clumps outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees +hanging about in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as +espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in later years. The +walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though +these were rather beaten back from the doorway—a feature which was worn and +scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old +keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little +way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose of the +erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to shelter unsightly +necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the splintering of wood was +periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a +steady regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, +and horses feeding within it. +</p> + +<p> +The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots any +fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked +around to survey the condition of things. Through the open doorway of a small +inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was +Dick Dewy’s father Reuben, by vocation a “tranter,” or irregular carrier. He +was a stout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up and +down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon +or other distant object during conversations with friends, walking about with a +steady sway, and turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in +bending over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process +of broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the +entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the +expected old comrades. +</p> + +<p> +The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other +evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung the +mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending so low +that it became necessary for a full-grown person to walk round it in passing, +or run the risk of entangling his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the +tranter’s wife, and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and +Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to +that of four years—the eldest of the series being separated from Dick the +firstborn by a nearly equal interval. +</p> + +<p> +Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just previous to +the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a small looking-glass, +holding it before his face to learn how the human countenance appeared when +engaged in crying, which survey led him to pause at the various points in each +wail that were more than ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of +the general effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the +plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original +unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her face bearing an +expression of regret that the brightness had passed away from the visible +portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood +fire—so glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and +then rise and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the +chimney, to reassure herself that they were not being broiled instead of +smoked—a misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at +Christmas-time. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!” said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up +and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. “How the blood do puff up in +anybody’s head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was just going out to gate +to hark for ye.” He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a +brass tap he held in his hand. “This in the cask here is a drop o’ the right +sort” (tapping the cask); “’tis a real drop o’ cordial from the best picked +apples—Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such-like—you d’mind the sort, +Michael?” (Michael nodded.) “And there’s a sprinkling of they that grow down by +the orchard-rails—streaked ones—rail apples we d’call ’em, as ’tis by the rails +they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from ’em is as good +as most people’s best cider is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, and of the same make too,” said Bowman. “‘It rained when we wrung it out, +and the water got into it,’ folk will say. But ’tis on’y an excuse. Watered +cider is too common among us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; too common it is!” said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his eyes +seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather than at the scene +before him. “Such poor liquor do make a man’s throat feel very melancholy—and +is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes,” said Mrs. +Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them upon the door-mat. “I +am glad that you’ve stepped up-along at last; and, Susan, you run down to +Grammer Kaytes’s and see if you can borrow some larger candles than these +fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don’t ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle.” +</p> + +<p> +This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a +human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in his movements, +apparently on account of having grown so very fast that before he had had time +to get used to his height he was higher. +</p> + +<p> +“Hee—hee—ay!” replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for some time +after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained in view as the most +conspicuous members of his body. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Mr. Penny,” resumed Mrs. Dewy, “you sit in this chair. And how’s your +daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair.” He adjusted his spectacles a quarter +of an inch to the right. “But she’ll be worse before she’s better, ’a b’lieve.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed—poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five; they’ve buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a maid yet. +She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. However, ’twas to be, +and none can gainsay it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. “Wonder where your grandfather James is?” she +inquired of one of the children. “He said he’d drop in to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out in fuel-house with grandfather William,” said Jimmy. +</p> + +<p> +“Now let’s see what we can do,” was heard spoken about this time by the tranter +in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again established +himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. +</p> + +<p> +“Reuben, don’t make such a mess o’ tapping that barrel as is mostly made in +this house,” Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. “I’d tap a hundred without +wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and squirting job as ’tis in +your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man indoors.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay; I know you’d tap a hundred beautiful, Ann—I know you would; two +hundred, perhaps. But I can’t promise. This is a’ old cask, and the wood’s +rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawson—that ever I +should call’n such, now he’s dead and gone, poor heart!—took me in completely +upon the feat of buying this cask. ‘Reub,’ says he—’a always used to call me +plain Reub, poor old heart!—‘Reub,’ he said, says he, ‘that there cask, Reub, +is as good as new; yes, good as new. ’Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine +in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten +shillens, Reub,’—’a said, says he—‘he’s worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if +he’s worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will +make en worth thirty shillens of any man’s money, if—’” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore I +paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner enough not +to be cheated. But ’tis like all your family was, so easy to be deceived.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s as true as gospel of this member,” said Reuben. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and refolding +them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little Bessy’s hair; the +tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to conversation, occupying +himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement of some more brown paper for +the broaching operation. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, who can believe sellers!” said old Michael Mail in a carefully-cautious +voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of affairs. +</p> + +<p> +“No one at all,” said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing with +everybody. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as a +rule, though he did now; “I knowed a’ auctioneering feller once—a very friendly +feller ’a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the front street o’ +Casterbridge, jist below the King’s Arms, I passed a’ open winder and see him +inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly +way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. Well, next day, +as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a letter didn’t come wi’ a bill +charging me with a feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. +Taylor’s sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked ’em down to me because I +nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for ’em too. Now, I hold that +that was coming it very close, Reuben?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas close, there’s no denying,” said the general voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Too close, ’twas,” said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. “And as to Sam +Lawson—poor heart! now he’s dead and gone too!—I’ll warrant, that if so be I’ve +spent one hour in making hoops for that barrel, I’ve spent fifty, first and +last. That’s one of my hoops”—touching it with his elbow—“that’s one of mine, +and that, and that, and all these.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Sam was a man,” said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. +</p> + +<p> +“Sam was!” said Bowman. +</p> + +<p> +“Especially for a drap o’ drink,” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“Good, but not religious-good,” suggested Mr. Penny. +</p> + +<p> +The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, “Now +then, Suze, bring a mug,” he said. “Here’s luck to us, my sonnies!” +</p> + +<p> +The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal shower +over Reuben’s hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and neck of +Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure of more +interesting proceedings, was squatting down and blinking near his father. +</p> + +<p> +“There ’tis again!” said Mrs. Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider should be +wasted like this!” exclaimed the tranter. “Your thumb! Lend me your thumb, +Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger tap, my sonnies.” +</p> + +<p> +“Idd it cold inthide te hole?” inquired Charley of Michael, as he continued in +a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. +</p> + +<p> +“What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!” Mrs. Dewy +admiringly exclaimed from the distance. “I lay a wager that he thinks more +about how ’tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts of the world put +together.” +</p> + +<p> +All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the +cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The operation was +then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and stretched his head to the +extremest fraction of height that his body would allow of, to re-straighten his +back and shoulders—thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass +of wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was +then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with +wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the +board upon which the gaze might precipitate itself. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?” said the tranter. +“Never such a man as father for two things—cleaving up old dead apple-tree wood +and playing the bass-viol. ’A’d pass his life between the two, that ’a would.” +He stepped to the door and opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“Father!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay!” rang thinly from round the corner. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!” +</p> + +<p> +A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, now +ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and made +wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family appeared. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE</h2> + +<p> +William Dewy—otherwise grandfather William—was now about seventy; yet an ardent +vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his face, which +reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe ribstone-pippin; though a narrow +strip of forehead, that was protected from the weather by lying above the line +of his hat-brim, seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its +whiteness. His was a humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent +melancholy; and he had a firm religious faith. But to his neighbours he had no +character in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when they had +been bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called long-headed men +who might do anything in the world if they chose, they thought concerning him, +“Ah, there’s that good-hearted man—open as a child!” If they saw him just after +losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting fall a piece of +crockery, they thought, “There’s that poor weak-minded man Dewy again! Ah, he’s +never done much in the world either!” If he passed when fortune neither smiled +nor frowned on them, they merely thought him old William Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, so’s—here you be!—Ah, Michael and Joseph and John—and you too, Leaf! a +merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood fire directly, Reub, to +reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving ’em.” As he spoke he threw +down an armful of logs which fell in the chimney-corner with a rumble, and +looked at them with something of the admiring enmity he would have bestowed on +living people who had been very obstinate in holding their own. “Come in, +grandfather James.” +</p> + +<p> +Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a visitor. He +lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered him a miser; some, +rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward from behind grandfather +William, and his stooping figure formed a well-illuminated picture as he passed +towards the fire-place. Being by trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron +reaching almost to his toes, corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, together +with his boots, graduated in tints of whitish-brown by constant friction +against lime and stone. He also wore a very stiff fustian coat, having folds at +the elbows and shoulders as unvarying in their arrangement as those in a pair +of bellows: the ridges and the projecting parts of the coat collectively +exhibiting a shade different from that of the hollows, which were lined with +small ditch-like accumulations of stone and mortar-dust. The extremely large +side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged out convexly whether empty +or full; and as he was often engaged to work at buildings far away—his +breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a strange chimney-corner, by a garden +wall, on a heap of stones, or walking along the road—he carried in these +pockets a small tin canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a small +canister of tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and +meat, forming the substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in his basket +among the hammers and chisels. If a passer-by looked hard at him when he was +drawing forth any of these, “My buttery,” he said, with a pinched smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?” said +William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a side table. +</p> + +<p> +“Wi’ all my heart,” said the choir generally. +</p> + +<p> +“Number seventy-eight was always a teaser—always. I can mind him ever since I +was growing up a hard boy-chap.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he’s a good tune, and worth a mint o’ practice,” said Michael. +</p> + +<p> +“He is; though I’ve been mad enough wi’ that tune at times to seize en and tear +en all to linnit. Ay, he’s a splendid carrel—there’s no denying that.” +</p> + +<p> +“The first line is well enough,” said Mr. Spinks; “but when you come to ‘O, +thou man,’ you make a mess o’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the martel. +Half-an-hour’s hammering at en will conquer the toughness of en; I’ll warn it.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Od rabbit it all!” said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of his +spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the depths of a large +side-pocket. “If so be I hadn’t been as scatter-brained and thirtingill as a +chiel, I should have called at the schoolhouse wi’ a boot as I cam up along. +Whatever is coming to me I really can’t estimate at all!” +</p> + +<p> +“The brain has its weaknesses,” murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head ominously. +Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once kept a night-school, and +always spoke up to that level. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must call with en the first thing to-morrow. And I’ll empt my pocket +o’ this last too, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Dewy.” He drew forth a last, and +placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of three or four followed it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest the object +had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and warranted the last’s being +taken up again and exhibited; “now, whose foot do ye suppose this last was made +for? It was made for Geoffrey Day’s father, over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many’s +the pair o’ boots he’ve had off the last! Well, when ’a died, I used the last +for Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a little doctoring was wanted to make +it do. Yes, a very queer natured last it is now, ’a b’lieve,” he continued, +turning it over caressingly. “Now, you notice that there” (pointing to a lump +of leather bradded to the toe), “that’s a very bad bunion that he’ve had ever +since ’a was a boy. Now, this remarkable large piece” (pointing to a patch +nailed to the side), “shows a’ accident he received by the tread of a horse, +that squashed his foot a’most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam full-butt on this +point, you see. And so I’ve just been over to Geoffrey’s, to know if he wanted +his bunion altered or made bigger in the new pair I’m making.” +</p> + +<p> +During the latter part of this speech, Mr. Penny’s left hand wandered towards +the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection with the person speaking; and +bringing his sentence to an abrupt close, all but the extreme margin of the +bootmaker’s face was eclipsed by the circular brim of the vessel. +</p> + +<p> +“However, I was going to say,” continued Penny, putting down the cup, “I ought +to have called at the school”—here he went groping again in the depths of his +pocket—“to leave this without fail, though I suppose the first thing to-morrow +will do.” +</p> + +<p> +He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot—small, light, and prettily +shaped—upon the heel of which he had been operating. +</p> + +<p> +“The new schoolmistress’s!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever I see, and +just husband-high.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never Geoffrey’s daughter Fancy?” said Bowman, as all glances present +converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sure,” resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone were his +auditor; “’tis she that’s come here schoolmistress. You knowed his daughter was +in training?” +</p> + +<p> +“Strange, isn’t it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master Penny?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but here she is, ’a b’lieve.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know how she comes here—so I do!” chirruped one of the children. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” Dick inquired, with subtle interest. +</p> + +<p> +“Pa’son Maybold was afraid he couldn’t manage us all to-morrow at the dinner, +and he talked o’ getting her jist to come over and help him hand about the +plates, and see we didn’t make pigs of ourselves; and that’s what she’s come +for!” +</p> + +<p> +“And that’s the boot, then,” continued its mender imaginatively, “that she’ll +walk to church in to-morrow morning. I don’t care to mend boots I don’t make; +but there’s no knowing what it may lead to, and her father always comes to me.” +</p> + +<p> +There, between the cider-mug and the candle, stood this interesting receptacle +of the little unknown’s foot; and a very pretty boot it was. A character, in +fact—the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded localities of the small +nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers now forgotten—all, as repeated +in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with +a delicate feeling that he had no right to do so without having first asked the +owner of the foot’s permission. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it,” the shoemaker went on, “a +man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot and that last, although +that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God’s creatures, and this is one +of as pretty a pair as you’d get for ten-and-sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, +nothing; but ’tis father’s voot and daughter’s voot to me, as plain as houses.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t doubt there’s a likeness, Master Penny—a mild likeness—a fantastical +likeness,” said Spinks. “But <i>I</i> han’t got imagination enough to see it, +perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I’ll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You used to +know Johnson the dairyman, William?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sure; I did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’twasn’t opposite his house, but a little lower down—by his paddock, in +front o’ Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards Bloom’s End, and lo and +behold, there was a man just brought out o’ the Pool, dead; he had un’rayed for +a dip, but not being able to pitch it just there had gone in flop over his +head. Men looked at en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody +knowed en. He was covered wi’ a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just +showing out as they carried en along. ‘I don’t care what name that man went +by,’ I said, in my way, ‘but he’s John Woodward’s brother; I can swear to the +family voot.’ At that very moment up comes John Woodward, weeping and teaving, +‘I’ve lost my brother! I’ve lost my brother!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Only to think of that!” said Mrs. Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot,” said Mr. Spinks. “’Tis +long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, ’tis true—I say no +more; but show <i>me</i> a man’s foot, and I’ll tell you that man’s heart.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral,” said the +tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s nothing for me to speak of,” returned Mr. Spinks. “A man lives +and learns. Maybe I’ve read a leaf or two in my time. I don’t wish to say +anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” said Michael soothingly, “and all the parish knows, that ye’ve +read sommat of everything a’most, and have been a great filler of young folks’ +brains. Learning’s a worthy thing, and ye’ve got it, Master Spinks.” +</p> + +<p> +“I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I know—it +may be from much perusing, but I make no boast—that by the time a man’s head is +finished, ’tis almost time for him to creep underground. I am over forty-five.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Spinks emitted a look to signify that if his head was not finished, +nobody’s head ever could be. +</p> + +<p> +“Talk of knowing people by their feet!” said Reuben. “Rot me, my sonnies, then, +if I can tell what a man is from all his members put together, oftentimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But still, look is a good deal,” observed grandfather William absently, moving +and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather James’s nose was exactly in +a right line with William’s eye and the mouth of a miniature cavern he was +discerning in the fire. “By the way,” he continued in a fresher voice, and +looking up, “that young crater, the schoolmis’ess, must be sung to to-night wi’ +the rest? If her ear is as fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be +up-sides with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about her face?” said young Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as to that,” Mr. Spinks replied, “’tis a face you can hardly gainsay. A +very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only a face, when all is said +and done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she’s a pretty maid, and have done wi’ her,” +said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider-barrel. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +GOING THE ROUNDS</h2> + +<p> +Shortly after ten o’clock the singing-boys arrived at the tranter’s house, +which was invariably the place of meeting, and preparations were made for the +start. The older men and musicians wore thick coats, with stiff perpendicular +collars, and coloured handkerchiefs wound round and round the neck till the end +came to hand, over all which they just showed their ears and noses, like people +looking over a wall. The remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, were dressed +mainly in snow-white smock-frocks, embroidered upon the shoulders and breasts, +in ornamental forms of hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cider-mug was emptied +for the ninth time, the music-books were arranged, and the pieces finally +decided upon. The boys in the meantime put the old horn-lanterns in order, cut +candles into short lengths to fit the lanterns; and, a thin fleece of snow +having fallen since the early part of the evening, those who had no leggings +went to the stable and wound wisps of hay round their ankles to keep the +insidious flakes from the interior of their boots. +</p> + +<p> +Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets composing it lying +at a much greater distance from each other than is ordinarily the case. Hence +several hours were consumed in playing and singing within hearing of every +family, even if but a single air were bestowed on each. There was Lower +Mellstock, the main village; half a mile from this were the church and +vicarage, and a few other houses, the spot being rather lonely now, though in +past centuries it had been the most thickly-populated quarter of the parish. A +mile north-east lay the hamlet of Upper Mellstock, where the tranter lived; and +at other points knots of cottages, besides solitary farmsteads and dairies. +</p> + +<p> +Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his grandson Dick the +treble violin; and Reuben and Michael Mail the tenor and second violins +respectively. The singers consisted of four men and seven boys, upon whom +devolved the task of carrying and attending to the lanterns, and holding the +books open for the players. Directly music was the theme, old William ever and +instinctively came to the front. +</p> + +<p> +“Now mind, neighbours,” he said, as they all went out one by one at the door, +he himself holding it ajar and regarding them with a critical face as they +passed, like a shepherd counting out his sheep. “You two counter-boys, keep +your ears open to Michael’s fingering, and don’t ye go straying into the treble +part along o’ Dick and his set, as ye did last year; and mind this especially +when we be in ‘Arise, and hail.’ Billy Chimlen, don’t you sing quite so raving +mad as you fain would; and, all o’ ye, whatever ye do, keep from making a great +scuffle on the ground when we go in at people’s gates; but go quietly, so as to +strike up all of a sudden, like spirits.” +</p> + +<p> +“Farmer Ledlow’s first?” +</p> + +<p> +“Farmer Ledlow’s first; the rest as usual.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, Voss,” said the tranter terminatively, “you keep house here till about +half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the warmer you’ll find +turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi’ the victuals to church-hatch, as +th’st know.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Just before the clock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and started. The +moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the snowstorm; but the dense +accumulation of snow-cloud weakened her power to a faint twilight, which was +rather pervasive of the landscape than traceable to the sky. The breeze had +gone down, and the rustle of their feet and tones of their speech echoed with +an alert rebound from every post, boundary-stone, and ancient wall they passed, +even where the distance of the echo’s origin was less than a few yards. Beyond +their own slight noises nothing was to be heard, save the occasional bark of +foxes in the direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush of a rabbit among the +grass now and then, as it scampered out of their way. +</p> + +<p> +Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by about two +o’clock; they then passed across the outskirts of a wooded park toward the main +village, nobody being at home at the Manor. Pursuing no recognized track, great +care was necessary in walking lest their faces should come in contact with the +low-hanging boughs of the old lime-trees, which in many spots formed dense +over-growths of interlaced branches. +</p> + +<p> +“Times have changed from the times they used to be,” said Mail, regarding +nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an inward eye, and letting +his outward glance rest on the ground, because it was as convenient a position +as any. “People don’t care much about us now! I’ve been thinking we must be +almost the last left in the county of the old string players? Barrel-organs, +and the things next door to ’em that you blow wi’ your foot, have come in +terribly of late years.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay!” said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, did the +same thing. +</p> + +<p> +“More’s the pity,” replied another. “Time was—long and merry ago now!—when not +one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served some of the quires right. +They should have stuck to strings as we did, and kept out clarinets, and done +away with serpents. If you’d thrive in musical religion, stick to strings, says +I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go,” said Mr. Spinks. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet there’s worse things than serpents,” said Mr. Penny. “Old things pass +away, ’tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note was the +serpent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Clar’nets, however, be bad at all times,” said Michael Mail. “One +Christmas—years agone now, years—I went the rounds wi’ the Weatherbury quire. +’Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar’nets froze—ah, they did +freeze!—so that ’twas like drawing a cork every time a key was opened; and the +players o’ ’em had to go into a hedger-and-ditcher’s chimley-corner, and thaw +their clar’nets every now and then. An icicle o’ spet hung down from the end of +every man’s clar’net a span long; and as to fingers—well, there, if ye’ll +believe me, we had no fingers at all, to our knowing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can well bring back to my mind,” said Mr. Penny, “what I said to poor Joseph +Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for two-and-forty year) +when they thought of having clar’nets there. ‘Joseph,’ I said, says I, ‘depend +upon’t, if so be you have them tooting clar’nets you’ll spoil the whole +set-out. Clar’nets were not made for the service of the Lard; you can see it by +looking at ’em,’ I said. And what came o’t? Why, souls, the parson set up a +barrel-organ on his own account within two years o’ the time I spoke, and the +old quire went to nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“As far as look is concerned,” said the tranter, “I don’t for my part see that +a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar’net. ’Tis further off. There’s +always a rakish, scampish twist about a fiddle’s looks that seems to say the +Wicked One had a hand in making o’en; while angels be supposed to play +clar’nets in heaven, or som’at like ’em, if ye may believe picters.” +</p> + +<p> +“Robert Penny, you was in the right,” broke in the eldest Dewy. “They should +ha’ stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog—well and good; your +reed-man is a dab at stirring ye—well and good; your drum-man is a rare +bowel-shaker—good again. But I don’t care who hears me say it, nothing will +spak to your heart wi’ the sweetness o’ the man of strings!” +</p> + +<p> +“Strings for ever!” said little Jimmy. +</p> + +<p> +“Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new comers in +creation.” (“True, true!” said Bowman.) “But clarinets was death.” (“Death they +was!” said Mr. Penny.) “And harmonions,” William continued in a louder voice, +and getting excited by these signs of approval, “harmonions and barrel-organs” +(“Ah!” and groans from Spinks) “be miserable—what shall I call ’em?—miserable—” +</p> + +<p> +“Sinners,” suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and did not +lag behind like the other little boys. +</p> + +<p> +“Miserable dumbledores!” +</p> + +<p> +“Right, William, and so they be—miserable dumbledores!” said the choir with +unanimity. +</p> + +<p> +By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the school, +which, standing on a slight eminence at the junction of three ways, now rose in +unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. The instruments were retuned, and +all the band entered the school enclosure, enjoined by old William to keep upon +the grass. +</p> + +<p> +“Number seventy-eight,” he softly gave out as they formed round in a +semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer light, and directing +their rays on the books. +</p> + +<p> +Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time-worn hymn, embodying +a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted from father to son through +several generations down to the present characters, who sang them out right +earnestly: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Remember Adam’s fall,<br/> + O thou Man:<br/> +Remember Adam’s fall<br/> + From Heaven to Hell.<br/> +Remember Adam’s fall;<br/> +How he hath condemn’d all<br/> +In Hell perpetual<br/> + There for to dwell.<br/> +<br/> +Remember God’s goodnesse,<br/> + O thou Man:<br/> +Remember God’s goodnesse,<br/> + His promise made.<br/> +Remember God’s goodnesse;<br/> +He sent His Son sinlesse<br/> +Our ails for to redress;<br/> + Be not afraid!<br/> +<br/> +In Bethlehem He was born,<br/> + O thou Man:<br/> +In Bethlehem He was born,<br/> + For mankind’s sake.<br/> +In Bethlehem He was born,<br/> +Christmas-day i’ the morn:<br/> +Our Saviour thought no scorn<br/> + Our faults to take.<br/> +<br/> +Give thanks to God alway,<br/> + O thou Man:<br/> +Give thanks to God alway<br/> + With heart-most joy.<br/> +Give thanks to God alway<br/> +On this our joyful day:<br/> +Let all men sing and say,<br/> + Holy, Holy!” +</p> + +<p> +Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, but found +that no sound issued from the schoolhouse. +</p> + +<p> +“Four breaths, and then, ‘O, what unbounded goodness!’ number fifty-nine,” said +William. +</p> + +<p> +This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be taken of the +performance. +</p> + +<p> +“Good guide us, surely ’tisn’t a’ empty house, as befell us in the year +thirty-nine and forty-three!” said old Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps she’s jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our doings?” the +tranter whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“’Od rabbit her!” said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a corner of the +school chimney, “I don’t quite stomach her, if this is it. Your plain music +well done is as worthy as your other sort done bad, a’ b’lieve, souls; so say +I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Four breaths, and then the last,” said the leader authoritatively. “‘Rejoice, +ye Tenants of the Earth,’ number sixty-four.” +</p> + +<p> +At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud voice, as he +had said in the village at that hour and season for the previous forty years—“A +merry Christmas to ye!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +THE LISTENERS</h2> + +<p> +When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearly died +out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible in one of the windows +of the upper floor. It came so close to the blind that the exact position of +the flame could be perceived from the outside. Remaining steady for an instant, +the blind went upward from before it, revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a +young girl, framed as a picture by the window architrave, and unconsciously +illuminating her countenance to a vivid brightness by a candle she held in her +left hand, close to her face, her right hand being extended to the side of the +window. She was wrapped in a white robe of some kind, whilst down her shoulders +fell a twining profusion of marvellously rich hair, in a wild disorder which +proclaimed it to be only during the invisible hours of the night that such a +condition was discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into the grey world +outside with an uncertain expression, oscillating between courage and shyness, +which, as she recognized the semicircular group of dark forms gathered before +her, transformed itself into pleasant resolution. +</p> + +<p> +Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly—“Thank you, singers, thank +you!” +</p> + +<p> +Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started downward on +its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyes vanished; her little mouth; +her neck and shoulders; all of her. Then the spot of candlelight shone +nebulously as before; then it moved away. +</p> + +<p> +“How pretty!” exclaimed Dick Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“If she’d been rale wexwork she couldn’t ha’ been comelier,” said Michael Mail. +</p> + +<p> +“As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever <i>I</i> wish to see!” said +tranter Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“O, sich I never, never see!” said Leaf fervently. +</p> + +<p> +All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their hats, agreed +that such a sight was worth singing for. +</p> + +<p> +“Now to Farmer Shiner’s, and then replenish our insides, father?” said the +tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“Wi’ all my heart,” said old William, shouldering his bass-viol. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Shiner’s was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of a lane +that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper windows were much wider +than they were high, and this feature, together with a broad bay-window where +the door might have been expected, gave it by day the aspect of a human +countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly and wicked leer. To-night nothing +was visible but the outline of the roof upon the sky. +</p> + +<p> +The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries arranged as +usual. +</p> + +<p> +“Four breaths, and number thirty-two, ‘Behold the Morning Star,’” said old +William. +</p> + +<p> +They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were doing the +up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening chord of the third verse, +when, without a light appearing or any signal being given, a roaring voice +exclaimed— +</p> + +<p> +“Shut up, woll ’ee! Don’t make your blaring row here! A feller wi’ a headache +enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!” +</p> + +<p> +Slam went the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, that’s a’ ugly blow for we!” said the tranter, in a keenly appreciative +voice, and turning to his companions. +</p> + +<p> +“Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!” commanded old William; and +they continued to the end. +</p> + +<p> +“Four breaths, and number nineteen!” said William firmly. “Give it him well; +the quire can’t be insulted in this manner!” +</p> + +<p> +A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer stood +revealed as one in a terrific passion. +</p> + +<p> +“Drown en!—drown en!” the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. “Play +fortissimy, and drown his spaking!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fortissimy!” said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so loud that +it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was saying, or was about to +say; but wildly flinging his arms and body about in the forms of capital Xs and +Ys, he appeared to utter enough invectives to consign the whole parish to +perdition. +</p> + +<p> +“Very onseemly—very!” said old William, as they retired. “Never such a dreadful +scene in the whole round o’ my carrel practice—never! And he a churchwarden!” +</p> + +<p> +“Only a drap o’ drink got into his head,” said the tranter. “Man’s well enough +when he’s in his religious frame. He’s in his worldly frame now. Must ask en to +our bit of a party to-morrow night, I suppose, and so put en in humour again. +We bear no mortal man ill-will.” +</p> + +<p> +They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path beside the +Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with the hot mead and +bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the churchyard. This determined them +to eat and drink before proceeding further, and they entered the church and +ascended to the gallery. The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat round +against the walls on benches and whatever else was available, and made a hearty +meal. In the pauses of conversation there could be heard through the floor +overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, +which never spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the +more meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time. +</p> + +<p> +Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, and once +more the party emerged into the night air. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Dick?” said old Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have been +transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they didn’t know. +</p> + +<p> +“Well now, that’s what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do,” said +Michael Mail. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ve clinked off home-along, depend upon’t,” another suggested, though not +quite believing that he had. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick!” exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth among the +yews. +</p> + +<p> +He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer, and +finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage. +</p> + +<p> +“The treble man too! Now if he’d been a tenor or counter chap, we might ha’ +contrived the rest o’t without en, you see. But for a quire to lose the treble, +why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . ” The tranter paused, unable +to mention an image vast enough for the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +“Your head at once,” suggested Mr. Penny. +</p> + +<p> +The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to complete sentences +when there were more pressing things to be done. +</p> + +<p> +“Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half done and +turning tail like this!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never,” replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man in the +world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of him. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!” said his grandfather. +</p> + +<p> +“O no,” replied tranter Dewy placidly. “Wonder where he’s put that there fiddle +of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and good words besides. +Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that instrument will be unglued and +spoilt in ten minutes—ten! ay, two.” +</p> + +<p> +“What in the name o’ righteousness can have happened?” said old William, more +uneasily. “Perhaps he’s drownded!” +</p> + +<p> +Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced their steps +along the waterside track. “A strapping lad like Dick d’know better than let +anything happen onawares,” Reuben remarked. “There’s sure to be some poor +little scram reason for’t staring us in the face all the while.” He lowered his +voice to a mysterious tone: “Neighbours, have ye noticed any sign of a scornful +woman in his head, or suchlike?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a glimmer of such a body. He’s as clear as water yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Dicky said he should never marry,” cried Jimmy, “but live at home always +along wi’ mother and we!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, ay, my sonny; every lad has said that in his time.” +</p> + +<p> +They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner’s, but hearing nobody in +that direction, one or two went across to the schoolhouse. A light was still +burning in the bedroom, and though the blind was down, the window had been +slightly opened, as if to admit the distant notes of the carollers to the ears +of the occupant of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was the lost man, +his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed upon the illuminated +lattice. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Dick, is that thee? What b’st doing here?” +</p> + +<p> +Dick’s body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his head was seen +to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring to discern some proper +answer to that question; and at last he said in rather feeble accents—“Nothing, +father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Th’st take long enough time about it then, upon my body,” said the tranter, as +they all turned anew towards the vicarage. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you hadn’t done having snap in the gallery,” said Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we’ve been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, and thinking +you’d done fifty deathly things, and here have you been at nothing at all!” +</p> + +<p> +“The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all,” murmured Mr. +Spinks. +</p> + +<p> +The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold, the +lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night’s harmonies. It +was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have been led to open the +window, and an extra carol in quick time was added to draw him forth. But Mr. +Maybold made no stir. +</p> + +<p> +“A bad sign!” said old William, shaking his head. +</p> + +<p> +However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming from inner +depths of bedclothes—“Thanks, villagers!” +</p> + +<p> +“What did he say?” asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. Bowman’s +voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar within. +</p> + +<p> +“I said, ‘Thanks, villagers!’” cried the vicar again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, we didn’t hear ’ee the first time!” cried Bowman. +</p> + +<p> +“Now don’t for heaven’s sake spoil the young man’s temper by answering like +that!” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t do that, my friends!” the vicar shouted. +</p> + +<p> +“Well to be sure, what ears!” said Mr. Penny in a whisper. “Beats any horse or +dog in the parish, and depend upon’t, that’s a sign he’s a proper clever chap.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see that in time,” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively new +inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but renounced his +desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leave well alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Now putting two and two together,” the tranter continued, as they went their +way over the hill, and across to the last remaining houses; “that is, in the +form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and this young tenor-voiced +parson, my belief is she’ll wind en round her finger, and twist the pore young +feller about like the figure of 8—that she will so, my sonnies.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +CHRISTMAS MORNING</h2> + +<p> +The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the parish. +Dick’s slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for rest, were +disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the incidents that had +passed that night in connection with the school-window going on in his brain +every moment of the time. +</p> + +<p> +In the morning, do what he would—go upstairs, downstairs, out of doors, speak +of the wind and weather, or what not—he could not refrain from an unceasing +renewal, in imagination, of that interesting enactment. Tilted on the edge of +one foot he stood beside the fireplace, watching his mother grilling rashers; +but there was nothing in grilling, he thought, unless the Vision grilled. The +limp rasher hung down between the bars of the gridiron like a cat in a child’s +arms; but there was nothing in similes, unless She uttered them. He looked at +the daylight shadows of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in +blue on the whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. +“Perhaps the new young wom—sch—Miss Fancy Day will sing in church with us this +morning,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +The tranter looked a long time before he replied, “I fancy she will; and yet I +fancy she won’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than admired; though +deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a rule, more to do with the +machinery of the tranter’s throat than with the matter enunciated. +</p> + +<p> +They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with extreme +alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was so religious. His +wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his best light boots had features +which elevated it to the rank of an art. Every particle and speck of last +week’s mud was scraped and brushed from toe and heel; new blacking from the +packet was carefully mixed and made use of, regardless of expense. A coat was +laid on and polished; then another coat for increased blackness; and lastly a +third, to give the perfect and mirror-like jet which the hoped-for rencounter +demanded. +</p> + +<p> +It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday particularity. +Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to proceed from a tub in the back +quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming that he was there performing his great +Sunday wash, lasting half-an-hour, to which his washings on working-day +mornings were mere flashes in the pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with a large +brown towel, and the above-named bubblings and snortings being carried on for +about twenty minutes, the tranter would appear round the edge of the door, +smelling like a summer fog, and looking as if he had just narrowly escaped a +watery grave with the loss of much of his clothes, having since been weeping +bitterly till his eyes were red; a crystal drop of water hanging ornamentally +at the bottom of each ear, one at the tip of his nose, and others in the form +of spangles about his hair. +</p> + +<p> +After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet of +father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these preparations, the +bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and the strings examined and +screwed a little above concert-pitch, that they might keep their tone when the +service began, to obviate the awkward contingency of having to retune them at +the back of the gallery during a cough, sneeze, or amen—an inconvenience which +had been known to arise in damp wintry weather. +</p> + +<p> +The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the ewe-lease, +bearing under their arms the instruments in faded green-baize bags, and old +brown music-books in their hands; Dick continually finding himself in advance +of the other two, and the tranter moving on with toes turned outwards to an +enormous angle. +</p> + +<p> +At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north gate, or +‘church hatch,’ as it was called here. Seven agile figures in a clump were +observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers waiting; sitting on an +altar-tomb to pass the time, and letting their heels dangle against it. The +musicians being now in sight, the youthful party scampered off and rattled up +the old wooden stairs of the gallery like a regiment of cavalry; the other boys +of the parish waiting outside and observing birds, cats, and other creatures +till the vicar entered, when they suddenly subsided into sober church-goers, +and passed down the aisle with echoing heels. +</p> + +<p> +The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own. A +stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether differing from that of +the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as an intruder whom +no originality could make interesting, he was received above as a curiosity +that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery, too, looked down upon and +knew the habits of the nave to its remotest peculiarity, and had an extensive +stock of exclusive information about it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the +gallery folk, as gallery folk, beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest +notes. Such topics as that the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the +moment of crying amen; that he had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the +sermon certain young daughters of the village had left off caring to read +anything so mild as the marriage service for some years, and now regularly +studied the one which chronologically follows it; that a pair of lovers touched +fingers through a knot-hole between their pews in the manner ordained by their +great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer’s wife, +counted her money and reckoned her week’s marketing expenses during the first +lesson—all news to those below—were stale subjects here. +</p> + +<p> +Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello between his +knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the left, came the treble +singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the tenors. Farther back was +old Mail with the altos and supernumeraries. +</p> + +<p> +But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were standing in a +circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm or two, Dick cast his eyes +over his grandfather’s shoulder, and saw the vision of the past night enter the +porch-door as methodically as if she had never been a vision at all. A new +atmosphere seemed suddenly to be puffed into the ancient edifice by her +movement, which made Dick’s body and soul tingle with novel sensations. +Directed by Shiner, the churchwarden, she proceeded to the small aisle on the +north side of the chancel, a spot now allotted to a throng of Sunday-school +girls, and distinctly visible from the gallery-front by looking under the curve +of the furthermost arch on that side. +</p> + +<p> +Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty—now it was +thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked around her for a +permanent place in which to deposit herself—finally choosing the remotest +corner—Dick began to breathe more freely the warm new air she had brought with +her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have impressions that there was a tie +between her and himself visible to all the congregation. +</p> + +<p> +Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part of the +service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling occurrences which +took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the duties of that day dividing +themselves by a complete line from the services of other times. The tunes they +that morning essayed remained with him for years, apart from all others; also +the text; also the appearance of the layer of dust upon the capitals of the +piers; that the holly-bough in the chancel archway was hung a little out of the +centre—all the ideas, in short, that creep into the mind when reason is only +exercising its lowest activity through the eye. +</p> + +<p> +By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock Church on that +Christmas morning had towards the end of the service the same instinctive +perception of an interesting presence, in the shape of the same bright maiden, +though his emotion reached a far less developed stage. And there was this +difference, too, that the person in question was surprised at his condition, +and sedulously endeavoured to reduce himself to his normal state of mind. He +was the young vicar, Mr. Maybold. +</p> + +<p> +The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of +church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the heavy +exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and now, in addition to +these constant reasons, there was a dampness in the atmosphere that still +further aggravated the evil. Their strings, from the recent long exposure to +the night air, rose whole semitones, and snapped with a loud twang at the most +silent moment; which necessitated more retiring than ever to the back of the +gallery, and made the gallery throats quite husky with the quantity of coughing +and hemming required for tuning in. The vicar looked cross. +</p> + +<p> +When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be a strong +and shrill reinforcement from some point, ultimately found to be the +school-girls’ aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and more distinct. At the +third time of singing, these intrusive feminine voices were as mighty as those +of the regular singers; in fact, the flood of sound from this quarter assumed +such an individuality, that it had a time, a key, almost a tune of its own, +surging upwards when the gallery plunged downwards, and the reverse. +</p> + +<p> +Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The girls, like +the rest of the congregation, had always been humble and respectful followers +of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if without gallery leaders; never +interfering with the ordinances of these practised artists—having no will, +union, power, or proclivity except it was given them from the established choir +enthroned above them. +</p> + +<p> +A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats and +strings, which continued throughout the musical portion of the service. +Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny’s spectacles put in their +sheath, and the text had been given out, an indignant whispering began. +</p> + +<p> +“Did ye hear that, souls?” Mr. Penny said, in a groaning breath. +</p> + +<p> +“Brazen-faced hussies!” said Bowman. +</p> + +<p> +“True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if not +louder!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fiddles and all!” echoed Bowman bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall anything saucier be found than united ’ooman?” Mr. Spinks murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“What I want to know is,” said the tranter (as if he knew already, but that +civilization required the form of words), “what business people have to tell +maidens to sing like that when they don’t sit in a gallery, and never have +entered one in their lives? That’s the question, my sonnies.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows,” said Mr. Penny. “Why, +souls, what’s the use o’ the ancients spending scores of pounds to build +galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing like that at a +moment’s notice?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, fiddles and +all!” said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a stranger, would have sounded +mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he addressed could understand the +horrible bitterness of irony that lurked under the quiet words ‘useless ones,’ +and the ghastliness of the laughter apparently so natural. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind! Let ’em sing too—’twill make it all the louder—hee, hee!” said +Leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?” said +grandfather William sternly. +</p> + +<p> +The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he had lived nowhere at all. +</p> + +<p> +“When all’s said and done, my sonnies,” Reuben said, “there’d have been no real +harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear ’em, and only jined in now +and then.” +</p> + +<p> +“None at all,” said Mr. Penny. “But though I don’t wish to accuse people +wrongfully, I’d say before my lord judge that I could hear every note o’ that +last psalm come from ’em as much as from us—every note as if ’twas their own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!” Mr. Spinks was heard to observe at +this moment, without reference to his fellow players—shaking his head at some +idea he seemed to see floating before him, and smiling as if he were attending +a funeral at the time. “Ah, do I or don’t I know it!” +</p> + +<p> +No one said “Know what?” because all were aware from experience that what he +knew would declare itself in process of time. +</p> + +<p> +“I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi’ that young man,” +said the tranter, pending the continuance of Spinks’s speech, and looking +towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the pulpit. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> fancy,” said old William, rather severely, “I fancy there’s too much +whispering going on to be of any spiritual use to gentle or simple.” Then +folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the vicar, he implied that +none but the ignorant would speak again; and accordingly there was silence in +the gallery, Mr. Spinks’s telling speech remaining for ever unspoken. +</p> + +<p> +Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of the morning; +for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as her intention to invite the youthful +leader of the culprits to the small party it was customary with them to have on +Christmas night—a piece of knowledge which had given a particular brightness to +Dick’s reflections since he had received it. And in the tranter’s +slightly-cynical nature, party feeling was weaker than in the other members of +the choir, though friendliness and faithful partnership still sustained in him +a hearty earnestness on their account. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +THE TRANTER’S PARTY</h2> + +<p> +During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the precincts +of tranter Dewy’s house. The flagstone floor was swept of dust, and a +sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost stratum of the +adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then were produced large knives +and forks, which had been shrouded in darkness and grease since the last +occasion of the kind, and bearing upon their sides, “Shear-steel, warranted,” +in such emphatic letters of assurance, that the warranter’s name was not +required as further proof, and not given. The key was left in the tap of the +cider-barrel, instead of being carried in a pocket. And finally the tranter had +to stand up in the room and let his wife wheel him round like a turnstile, to +see if anything discreditable was visible in his appearance. +</p> + +<p> +“Stand still till I’ve been for the scissors,” said Mrs. Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +The tranter stood as still as a sentinel at the challenge. +</p> + +<p> +The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers that had +extended beyond the general contour of the mass; a like trimming of a +slightly-frayed edge visible on his shirt-collar; and a final tug at a grey +hair—to all of which operations he submitted in resigned silence, except the +last, which produced a mild “Come, come, Ann,” by way of expostulation. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Reuben, ’tis quite a disgrace to see such a man,” said Mrs. Dewy, with +the severity justifiable in a long-tried companion, giving him another turn +round, and picking several of Smiler’s hairs from the shoulder of his coat. +Reuben’s thoughts seemed engaged elsewhere, and he yawned. “And the collar of +your coat is a shame to behold—so plastered with dirt, or dust, or grease, or +something. Why, wherever could you have got it?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis my warm nater in summer-time, I suppose. I always did get in such a heat +when I bustle about.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarse-skinned family. There’s your brother +Bob just as bad—as fat as a porpoise—wi’ his low, mean, ‘How’st do, Ann?’ +whenever he meets me. I’d ‘How’st do’ him indeed! If the sun only shines out a +minute, there be you all streaming in the face—I never see!” +</p> + +<p> +“If I be hot week-days, I must be hot Sundays.” +</p> + +<p> +“If any of the girls should turn after their father ’twill be a bad look-out +for ’em, poor things! None of my family were sich vulgar sweaters, not one of +’em. But, Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don’t know how ever I cam’ into such a +family!” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“</i>Your woman’s weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That’s how it was I +suppose.” But the tranter appeared to have heard some such words from his wife +before, and hence his answer had not the energy it might have shown if the +inquiry had possessed the charm of novelty. +</p> + +<p> +“You never did look so well in a pair o’ trousers as in them,” she continued in +the same unimpassioned voice, so that the unfriendly criticism of the Dewy +family seemed to have been more normal than spontaneous. “Such a cheap pair as +’twas too. As big as any man could wish to have, and lined inside, and +double-lined in the lower parts, and an extra piece of stiffening at the +bottom. And ’tis a nice high cut that comes up right under your armpits, and +there’s enough turned down inside the seams to make half a pair more, besides a +piece of cloth left that will make an honest waistcoat—all by my contriving in +buying the stuff at a bargain, and having it made up under my eye. It only +shows what may be done by taking a little trouble, and not going straight to +the rascally tailors.” +</p> + +<p> +The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on the scene, +with a face and hands of hideous blackness, and a nose like a guttering candle. +Why, on that particularly cleanly afternoon, he should have discovered that the +chimney-crook and chain from which the hams were suspended should have +possessed more merits and general interest as playthings than any other +articles in the house, is a question for nursing mothers to decide. However, +the humour seemed to lie in the result being, as has been seen, that any given +player with these articles was in the long-run daubed with soot. The last that +was seen of Charley by daylight after this piece of ingenuity was when in the +act of vanishing from his father’s presence round the corner of the +house—looking back over his shoulder with an expression of great sin on his +face, like Cain as the Outcast in Bible pictures. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The guests had all assembled, and the tranter’s party had reached that degree +of development which accords with ten o’clock P.M. in rural assemblies. At that +hour the sound of a fiddle in process of tuning was heard from the inner +pantry. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s Dick,” said the tranter. “That lad’s crazy for a jig.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dick! Now I cannot—really, I cannot have any dancing at all till Christmas-day +is out,” said old William emphatically. “When the clock ha’ done striking +twelve, dance as much as ye like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I must say there’s reason in that, William,” said Mrs. Penny. “If you do +have a party on Christmas-night, ’tis only fair and honourable to the sky-folk +to have it a sit-still party. Jigging parties be all very well on the Devil’s +holidays; but a jigging party looks suspicious now. O yes; stop till the clock +strikes, young folk—so say I.” +</p> + +<p> +It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks’s head about +this time. +</p> + +<p> +“Dancing,” he said, “is a most strengthening, livening, and courting movement, +’specially with a little beverage added! And dancing is good. But why disturb +what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the company zhinerally? Why, I ask, +as far as that do go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then nothing till after twelve,” said William. +</p> + +<p> +Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious questions were +mostly disposed of by the old man, whose firmness on this head quite +counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling of domestic matters. The +hopes of the younger members of the household were therefore relegated to a +distance of one hour and three-quarters—a result that took visible shape in +them by a remote and listless look about the eyes—the singing of songs being +permitted in the interim. +</p> + +<p> +At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the back quarters; +and when at length the clock had whizzed forth the last stroke, Dick appeared +ready primed, and the instruments were boldly handled; old William very readily +taking the bass-viol from its accustomed nail, and touching the strings as +irreligiously as could be desired. +</p> + +<p> +The country-dance called the ‘Triumph, or Follow my Lover,’ was the figure with +which they opened. The tranter took for his partner Mrs. Penny, and Mrs. Dewy +was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much of his limited height by a judicious +carriage of the head, straightening of the back, and important flashes of his +spectacle-glasses, that he seemed almost as tall as the tranter. Mr. Shiner, +age about thirty-five, farmer and church-warden, a character principally +composed of a crimson stare, vigorous breath, and a watch-chain, with a mouth +hanging on a dark smile but never smiling, had come quite willingly to the +party, and showed a wondrous obliviousness of all his antics on the previous +night. But the comely, slender, prettily-dressed prize Fancy Day fell to Dick’s +lot, in spite of some private machinations of the farmer, for the reason that +Mr. Shiner, as a richer man, had shown too much assurance in asking the favour, +whilst Dick had been duly courteous. +</p> + +<p> +We gain a good view of our heroine as she advances to her place in the ladies’ +line. She belonged to the taller division of middle height. Flexibility was her +first characteristic, by which she appeared to enjoy the most easeful rest when +she was in gliding motion. Her dark eyes—arched by brows of so keen, slender, +and soft a curve, that they resembled nothing so much as two slurs in +music—showed primarily a bright sparkle each. This was softened by a frequent +thoughtfulness, yet not so frequent as to do away, for more than a few minutes +at a time, with a certain coquettishness; which in its turn was never so +decided as to banish honesty. Her lips imitated her brows in their clearly-cut +outline and softness of bend; and her nose was well shaped—which is saying a +great deal, when it is remembered that there are a hundred pretty mouths and +eyes for one pretty nose. Add to this, plentiful knots of dark-brown hair, a +gauzy dress of white, with blue facings; and the slightest idea may be gained +of the young maiden who showed, amidst the rest of the dancing-ladies, like a +flower among vegetables. And so the dance proceeded. Mr. Shiner, according to +the interesting rule laid down, deserted his own partner, and made off down the +middle with this fair one of Dick’s—the pair appearing from the top of the room +like two persons tripping down a lane to be married. Dick trotted behind with +what was intended to be a look of composure, but which was, in fact, a rather +silly expression of feature—implying, with too much earnestness, that such an +elopement could not be tolerated. Then they turned and came back, when Dick +grew more rigid around his mouth, and blushed with ingenuous ardour as he +joined hands with the rival and formed the arch over his lady’s head; which +presumably gave the figure its name; relinquishing her again at setting to +partners, when Mr. Shiner’s new chain quivered in every link, and all the loose +flesh upon the tranter—who here came into action again—shook like jelly. Mrs. +Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal safety when she danced +with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic smile of timidity the whole time +it lasted—a peculiarity which filled her features with wrinkles, and reduced +her eyes to little straight lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down +opposite him; repeating in her own person not only his proper movements, but +also the minor flourishes which the richness of the tranter’s imagination led +him to introduce from time to time—an imitation which had about it something of +slavish obedience, not unmixed with fear. +</p> + +<p> +The ear-rings of the ladies now flung themselves wildly about, turning violent +summersaults, banging this way and that, and then swinging quietly against the +ears sustaining them. Mrs. Crumpler—a heavy woman, who, for some reason which +nobody ever thought worth inquiry, danced in a clean apron—moved so smoothly +through the figure that her feet were never seen; conveying to imaginative +minds the idea that she rolled on castors. +</p> + +<p> +Minute after minute glided by, and the party reached the period when ladies’ +back-hair begins to look forgotten and dissipated; when a perceptible dampness +makes itself apparent upon the faces even of delicate girls—a ghastly dew +having for some time rained from the features of their masculine partners; when +skirts begin to be torn out of their gathers; when elderly people, who have +stood up to please their juniors, begin to feel sundry small tremblings in the +region of the knees, and to wish the interminable dance was at Jericho; when +(at country parties of the thorough sort) waistcoats begin to be unbuttoned, +and when the fiddlers’ chairs have been wriggled, by the frantic bowing of +their occupiers, to a distance of about two feet from where they originally +stood. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shiner. Dick knew that Fancy, by the law of good +manners, was bound to dance as pleasantly with one partner as with another; yet +he could not help suggesting to himself that she need not have put <i>quite</i> +so much spirit into her steps, nor smiled <i>quite</i> so frequently whilst in +the farmer’s hands. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you didn’t cast off,” said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, before the +latter man’s watch-chain had done vibrating from a recent whirl. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy made a motion of accepting the correction; but her partner took no +notice, and proceeded with the next movement, with an affectionate bend towards +her. +</p> + +<p> +“That Shiner’s too fond of her,” the young man said to himself as he watched +them. They came to the top again, Fancy smiling warmly towards her partner, and +went to their places. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Shiner, you didn’t cast off,” said Dick, for want of something else to +demolish him with; casting off himself, and being put out at the farmer’s +irregularity. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I sha’n’t cast off for any man,” said Mr. Shiner. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you ought to, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick’s partner, a young lady of the name of Lizzy—called Lizz for short—tried +to mollify. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say that I myself have much feeling for casting off,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I,” said Mrs. Penny, following up the argument, “especially if a friend +and neighbour is set against it. Not but that ’tis a terrible tasty thing in +good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so say I.” +</p> + +<p> +“All I meant was,” said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken correctingly to a +guest, “that ’tis in the dance; and a man has hardly any right to hack and +mangle what was ordained by the regular dance-maker, who, I daresay, got his +living by making ’em, and thought of nothing else all his life.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no dance-maker that +ever lived.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being really an effort +to present to himself, in an abstract form, how far an argument with a +formidable rival ought to be carried, when that rival was his mother’s guest. +The dead-lock was put an end to by the stamping arrival up the middle of the +tranter, who, despising minutiæ on principle, started a theme of his own. +</p> + +<p> +“I assure you, neighbours,” he said, “the heat of my frame no tongue can tell!” +He looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible gaze of self-sympathy, +some faint idea of the truth. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, in an auxiliary tone, “Reuben always was such a hot man.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of affliction +required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the same time. +</p> + +<p> +“If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt-collar is as +limp as no starch at all,” continued Mrs. Dewy, her countenance lapsing +parenthetically into a housewifely expression of concern at the reminiscence. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, you women-folk; ’tis hands across—come, come!” said the tranter; +and the conversation ceased for the present. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY</h2> + +<p> +Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of country-dances, +opening with six-hands-round. +</p> + +<p> +“Before we begin,” said the tranter, “my proposal is, that ’twould be a right +and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull off his jacket, +considering the heat.” +</p> + +<p> +“Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go down with you +when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now, look here, my sonnies,” he argued to his wife, whom he often +addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely; “I don’t see +that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten your clothes. Isn’t +that nature and reason for gentle and simple? If I strip by myself and not +necessary, ’tis rather pot-housey I own; but if we stout chaps strip one and +all, why, ’tis the native manners of the country, which no man can gainsay? +Hey—what did you say, my sonnies?” +</p> + +<p> +“Strip we will!” said the three other heavy men who were in the dance; and +their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage, whence the four +sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close column, with flapping +shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, a general glance of being now +a match for any man or dancer in England or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose +ground in Fancy’s good opinion, retained his coat like the rest of the thinner +men; and Mr. Shiner did the same from superior knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the time of +night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the tables and chairs, +and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming a distinct halo round the +candles; when people’s nostrils, wrinkles, and crevices in general, seem to be +getting gradually plastered up; when the very fiddlers as well as the dancers +get red in the face, the dancers having advanced further still towards +incandescence, and entered the cadaverous phase; the fiddlers no longer sit +down, but kick back their chairs and saw madly at the strings, with legs firmly +spread and eyes closed, regardless of the visible world. Again and again did +Dick share his Love’s hand with another man, and wheel round; then, more +delightfully, promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding +her waist more firmly each time, and his elbow getting further and further +behind her back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, most +blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath curling round his +neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from its proper date. Threading the +couples one by one they reached the bottom, when there arose in Dick’s mind a +minor misery lest the tune should end before they could work their way to the +top again, and have anew the same exciting run down through. Dick’s feelings on +actually reaching the top in spite of his doubts were supplemented by a mortal +fear that the fiddling might even stop at this supreme moment; which prompted +him to convey a stealthy whisper to the far-gone musicians, to the effect that +they were not to leave off till he and his partner had reached the bottom of +the dance once more, which remark was replied to by the nearest of those +convulsed and quivering men by a private nod to the anxious young man between +two semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous “All right, ay, ay,” without +opening the eyes. Fancy was now held so closely that Dick and she were +practically one person. The room became to Dick like a picture in a dream; all +that he could remember of it afterwards being the look of the fiddlers going to +sleep, as humming-tops sleep, by increasing their motion and hum, together with +the figures of grandfather James and old Simon Crumpler sitting by the +chimney-corner, talking and nodding in dumb-show, and beating the air to their +emphatic sentences like people near a threshing machine. +</p> + +<p> +The dance ended. “Piph-h-h-h!” said tranter Dewy, blowing out his breath in the +very finest stream of vapour that a man’s lips could form. “A regular +tightener, that one, sonnies!” He wiped his forehead, and went to the cider and +ale mugs on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, “my heart haven’t been in such +a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on old Midsummer-eves to see +who my husband was going to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that’s getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I’ve heard you +tell,” said the tranter, without lifting his eyes from the cup he was filling. +Being now engaged in the business of handing round refreshments, he was +warranted in keeping his coat off still, though the other heavy men had resumed +theirs. +</p> + +<p> +“And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you’ll believe me, came to +pass then,” continued Mrs. Penny. “Ah, the first spirit ever I see on a +Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a hard puzzle, so say I!” +</p> + +<p> +“So I should have fancied,” said Elias Spinks. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and talking on in +a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a listener were not a +necessity. “Yes; never was I in such a taking as on that Midsummer-eve! I sat +up, quite determined to see if John Wildway was going to marry me or no. I put +the bread-and-cheese and beer quite ready, as the witch’s book ordered, and I +opened the door, and I waited till the clock struck twelve, my nerves all alive +and so strained that I could feel every one of ’em twitching like bell-wires. +Yes, sure! and when the clock had struck, lo and behold, I could see through +the door a <i>little small</i> man in the lane wi’ a shoemaker’s apron on.” +</p> + +<p> +Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, John Wildway,” Mrs. Penny continued, “who courted me at that time, was a +shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, and I couldn’t believe +that any such a little small man had anything to do wi’ me, as anybody might. +But on he came, and crossed the threshold—not John, but actually the same +little small man in the shoemaker’s apron—” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t be so mighty particular about little and small!” said her husband. +</p> + +<p> +“In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn’t I flee upstairs, +body and soul hardly hanging together! Well, to cut a long story short, by-long +and by-late, John Wildway and I had a miff and parted; and lo and behold, the +coming man came! Penny asked me if I’d go snacks with him, and afore I knew +what I was about a’most, the thing was done.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be mistaken,” said +Mr. Penny in a murmur. +</p> + +<p> +After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her eyes, she +still let them stay idling on the past scenes just related, which were +apparently visible to her in the centre of the room. Mr. Penny’s remark +received no reply. +</p> + +<p> +During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been observed +standing in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness to each other, a +just perceptible current of intelligence passing from each to each, which had +apparently no relation whatever to the conversation of their guests, but much +to their sustenance. A conclusion of some kind having at length been drawn, the +palpable confederacy of man and wife was once more obliterated, the tranter +marching off into the pantry, humming a tune that he couldn’t quite recollect, +and then breaking into the words of a song of which he could remember about one +line and a quarter. Mrs. Dewy spoke a few words about preparations for a bit of +supper. +</p> + +<p> +That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking put on a look +to signify that till this moment they had quite forgotten that it was customary +to expect suppers on these occasions; going even further than this politeness +of feature, and starting irrelevant subjects, the exceeding flatness and forced +tone of which rather betrayed their object. The younger members said they were +quite hungry, and that supper would be delightful though it was so late. +</p> + +<p> +Good luck attended Dick’s love-passes during the meal. He sat next Fancy, and +had the thrilling pleasure of using permanently a glass which had been taken by +Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge of the sole of his boot touch the +lower verge of her skirt; and to add to these delights the cat, which had lain +unobserved in her lap for several minutes, crept across into his own, touching +him with fur that had touched her hand a moment before. There were, besides, +some little pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she didn’t want, +and when it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it across for his own use, +on the plea of waste not, want not. He also, from time to time, sipped sweet +sly glances at her profile; noticing the set of her head, the curve of her +throat, and other artistic properties of the lively goddess, who the while kept +up a rather free, not to say too free, conversation with Mr. Shiner sitting +opposite; which, after some uneasy criticism, and much shifting of argument +backwards and forwards in Dick’s mind, he decided not to consider of alarming +significance. +</p> + +<p> +“A new music greets our ears now,” said Miss Fancy, alluding, with the +sharpness that her position as village sharpener demanded, to the contrast +between the rattle of knives and forks and the late notes of the fiddlers. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; and I don’t know but what ’tis sweeter in tone when you get above forty,” +said the tranter; “except, in faith, as regards father there. Never such a +mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his soul; don’t ’em, father?” +</p> + +<p> +The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent to Reuben’s +remark. +</p> + +<p> +“Spaking of being moved in soul,” said Mr. Penny, “I shall never forget the +first time I heard the ‘Dead March.’ ’Twas at poor Corp’l Nineman’s funeral at +Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair creep and fidget about like a vlock of +sheep—ah, it did, souls! And when they had done, and the last trump had +sounded, and the guns was fired over the dead hero’s grave, a’ icy-cold drop o’ +moist sweat hung upon my forehead, and another upon my jawbone. Ah, ’tis a very +solemn thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as to father in the corner there,” the tranter said, pointing to old +William, who was in the act of filling his mouth; “he’d starve to death for +music’s sake now, as much as when he was a boy-chap of fifteen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Truly, now,” said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat in the +manner of a man who meant to be convincing; “there’s a friendly tie of some +sort between music and eating.” He lifted the cup to his mouth, and drank +himself gradually backwards from a perpendicular position to a slanting one, +during which time his looks performed a circuit from the wall opposite him to +the ceiling overhead. Then clearing the other corner of his throat: “Once I was +a-setting in the little kitchen of the Dree Mariners at Casterbridge, having a +bit of dinner, and a brass band struck up in the street. Such a beautiful band +as that were! I was setting eating fried liver and lights, I well can mind—ah, +I was! and to save my life, I couldn’t help chawing to the tune. Band played +six-eight time; six-eight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common; common time +went my teeth among the liver and lights as true as a hair. Beautiful ’twere! +Ah, I shall never forget that there band!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of,” said grandfather James, with +the absent gaze which accompanies profound criticism. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like Michael’s tuneful stories then,” said Mrs. Dewy. “They are quite +coarse to a person o’ decent taste.” +</p> + +<p> +Old Michael’s mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to smile but +didn’t know where to begin, which gradually settled to an expression that it +was not displeasing for a nice woman like the tranter’s wife to correct him. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now,” said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, “that sort o’ coarse touch +that’s so upsetting to Ann’s feelings is to my mind a recommendation; for it do +always prove a story to be true. And for the same reason, I like a story with a +bad moral. My sonnies, all true stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, +depend upon’t. If the story-tellers could ha’ got decency and good morals from +true stories, who’d ha’ troubled to invent parables?” Saying this the tranter +arose to fetch a new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home-made wines. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her husband’s back, +though that the words should reach his ears distinctly was understood by both): +“Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody do know the trouble I have to keep that man +barely respectable. And did you ever hear too—just now at supper-time—talking +about ‘taties’ with Michael in such a work-folk way. Well, ’tis what I was +never brought up to! With our family ’twas never less than ‘taters,’ and very +often ‘pertatoes’ outright; mother was so particular and nice with us girls +there was no family in the parish that kept them selves up more than we.” +</p> + +<p> +The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, because she had +engaged a woman to wait up for her. She disappeared temporarily from the +flagging party of dancers, and then came downstairs wrapped up and looking +altogether a different person from whom she had been hitherto, in fact (to +Dick’s sadness and disappointment), a woman somewhat reserved and of a +phlegmatic temperament—nothing left in her of the romping girl that she had +seemed but a short quarter-hour before, who had not minded the weight of Dick’s +hand upon her waist, nor shirked the purlieus of the mistletoe. +</p> + +<p> +“What a difference!” thought the young man—hoary cynic <i>pro tem. “</i>What a +miserable deceiving difference between the manners of a maid’s life at dancing +times and at others! Look at this lovely Fancy! Through the whole past evening +touchable, squeezeable—even kissable! For whole half-hours I held her so chose +to me that not a sheet of paper could have been shipped between us; and I could +feel her heart only just outside my own, her life beating on so close to mine, +that I was aware of every breath in it. A flit is made upstairs—a hat and a +cloak put on—and I no more dare to touch her than—” Thought failed him, and he +returned to realities. +</p> + +<p> +But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. Mr. Shiner +and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive advantage that ardent bachelors who +are going homeward along the same road as a pretty young woman always do take +of that circumstance, came forward to assure Fancy—with a total disregard of +Dick’s emotions, and in tones which were certainly not frigid—that he (Shiner) +was not the man to go to bed before seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own +door—not he, nobody should say he was that;—and that he would not leave her +side an inch till the thing was done—drown him if he would. The proposal was +assented to by Miss Day, in Dick’s foreboding judgment, with one degree—or at +any rate, an appreciable fraction of a degree—of warmth beyond that required by +a disinterested desire for protection from the dangers of the night. +</p> + +<p> +All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, looking now +like a setting from which the gem has been torn. There stood her glass, and the +romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the bottom that she couldn’t drink by +trying ever so hard, in obedience to the mighty arguments of the tranter (his +hand coming down upon her shoulder the while, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the +drinker was there no longer. There were the nine or ten pretty little crumbs +she had left on her plate; but the eater was no more seen. +</p> + +<p> +There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between himself and the +members of his family, now that they were left alone again face to face. His +father seemed quite offensive for appearing to be in just as high spirits as +when the guests were there; and as for grandfather James (who had not yet +left), he was quite fiendish in being rather glad they were gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Really,” said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, “I’ve had so +little time to attend to myself all the evenen, that I mean to enjoy a quiet +meal now! A slice of this here ham—neither too fat nor too lean—so; and then a +drop of this vinegar and pickles—there, that’s it—and I shall be as fresh as a +lark again! And to tell the truth, my sonny, my inside has been as dry as a +lime-basket all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like a party very well once in a while,” said Mrs. Dewy, leaving off the +adorned tones she had been bound to use throughout the evening, and returning +to the natural marriage voice; “but, Lord, ’tis such a sight of heavy work next +day! What with the dirty plates, and knives and forks, and dust and smother, +and bits kicked off your furniture, and I don’t know what all, why a body could +a’most wish there were no such things as Christmases . . . Ah-h dear!” she +yawned, till the clock in the corner had ticked several beats. She cast her +eyes round upon the displaced, dust-laden furniture, and sank down overpowered +at the sight. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for’t!” said the +tranter cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham and bread, without lifting his +eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his knife and fork as if he were +felling trees. “Ann, you may as well go on to bed at once, and not bide there +making such sleepy faces; you look as long-favoured as a fiddle, upon my life, +Ann. There, you must be wearied out, ’tis true. I’ll do the doors and draw up +the clock; and you go on, or you’ll be as white as a sheet to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; I don’t know whether I shan’t or no.” The matron passed her hand across +her eyes to brush away the film of sleep till she got upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be so blind +to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to wife that dear +impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so dreadfully practical and +undemonstrative of the Passion as his father and mother were. The most +extraordinary thing was, that all the fathers and mothers he knew were just as +undemonstrative as his own. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br/> +DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL</h2> + +<p> +The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holiday weeks +at home, returned again to Mellstock. +</p> + +<p> +Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick in +accidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about the neighbourhood; +but not once did she make herself visible. A handkerchief belonging to her had +been providentially found by his mother in clearing the rooms the day after +that of the dance; and by much contrivance Dick got it handed over to him, to +leave with her at any time he should be near the school after her return. But +he delayed taking the extreme measure of calling with it lest, had she really +no sentiment of interest in him, it might be regarded as a slightly absurd +errand, the reason guessed; and the sense of the ludicrous, which was rather +keen in her, do his dignity considerable injury in her eyes; and what she +thought of him, even apart from the question of her loving, was all the world +to him now. +</p> + +<p> +But the hour came when the patience of love at twenty-one could endure no +longer. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild air of indifference, +and had the satisfaction of seeing the object of his quest at the further end +of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade and gloves, to root a bramble that +had intruded itself there. +</p> + +<p> +He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage-windows opposite +by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great hurry of business, who wished +to leave the handkerchief and have done with such trifling errands. +</p> + +<p> +This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found it locked +to keep the children, who were playing ‘cross-dadder’ in the front, from +running into her private grounds. +</p> + +<p> +She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be done, which was +to shout her name. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Day!” +</p> + +<p> +The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the cottages +opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a pleasant way of +passing his time, without any reference to persons in gardens. The name died +away, and the unconscious Miss Day continued digging and pulling as before. +</p> + +<p> +He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage-windows yet more stoically, and +shouted again. Fancy took no notice whatever. +</p> + +<p> +He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning suddenly about and +retiring a little distance, as if it were by no means for his own pleasure that +he had come. +</p> + +<p> +This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the school at the +back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door opened, and three-quarters +of the blooming young schoolmistress’s face and figure stood revealed before +him; a slice on her left-hand side being cut off by the edge of the door. +Having surveyed and recognized him, she came to the gate. +</p> + +<p> +At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did it +continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a question meditated +several hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours—the meditation, after +wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it was impossible to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with.” He held it out spasmodically and +awkwardly. “Mother found it: under a chair.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn’t think where I had +dropped it.” +</p> + +<p> +Now Dick, not being an experienced lover—indeed, never before having been +engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in a small schoolboy +way—could not take advantage of the situation; and out came the blunder, which +afterwards cost him so many bitter moments and a sleepless night:- +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Miss Day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Mr. Dewy.” +</p> + +<p> +The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside, unchanged in +his condition from what he had been before he called. Of course the Angel was +not to blame—a young woman living alone in a house could not ask him indoors +unless she had known him better—he should have kept her outside before +floundering into that fatal farewell. He wished that before he called he had +realized more fully than he did the pleasure of being about to call; and turned +away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part02"></a>PART THE SECOND—SPRING</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +PASSING BY THE SCHOOL</h2> + +<p> +It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much more +frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was continually finding +that his nearest way to or from home lay by the road which skirted the garden +of the school. The first-fruits of his perseverance were that, on turning the +angle on the nineteenth journey by that track, he saw Miss Fancy’s figure, +clothed in a dark-gray dress, looking from a high open window upon the crown of +his hat. The friendly greeting resulting from this rencounter was considered so +valuable an elixir that Dick passed still oftener; and by the time he had +almost trodden a little path under the fence where never a path was before, he +was rewarded with an actual meeting face to face on the open road before her +gate. This brought another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her +bearing that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there; but the +sort of pleasure she derived, whether exultation at the hope her exceeding +fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone Dick’s concern, he could +not anyhow decide, although he meditated on her every little movement for hours +after it was made. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +A MEETING OF THE QUIRE</h2> + +<p> +It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun appeared as a +nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost in cloudy masses hanging +round it, like wild locks of hair. +</p> + +<p> +The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group in front +of Mr. Penny’s workshop in the lower village. They were all brightly +illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long as a steeple; the +lowness of the source of light rendering the brims of their hats of no use at +all as a protection to the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Penny’s was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood in a +hollow by the roadside so that cart-wheels and horses’ legs were about level +with the sill of his shop-window. This was low and wide, and was open from +morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself being invariably seen working inside, +like a framed portrait of a shoemaker by some modern Moroni. He sat facing the +road, with a boot on his knees and the awl in his hand, only looking up for a +moment as he stretched out his arms and bent forward at the pull, when his +spectacles flashed in the passer’s face with a shine of flat whiteness, and +then returned again to the boot as usual. Rows of lasts, small and large, stout +and slender, covered the wall which formed the background, in the extreme +shadow of which a kind of dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an apprentice +with a string tied round his hair (probably to keep it out of his eyes). He +smiled at remarks that floated in from without, but was never known to answer +them in Mr. Penny’s presence. Outside the window the upper-leather of a +Wellington-boot was usually hung, pegged to a board as if to dry. No sign was +over his door; in fact—as with old banks and mercantile houses—advertising in +any shape was scorned, and it would have been felt as beneath his dignity to +paint up, for the benefit of strangers, the name of an establishment whose +trade came solely by connection based on personal respect. +</p> + +<p> +His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, sometimes leaning +against the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two backwards and forwards in +front of it. They talked with deliberate gesticulations to Mr. Penny, enthroned +in the shadow of the interior. +</p> + +<p> +“I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o’ life—o’ Sundays, +anyway—that I do so.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis like all the doings of folk who don’t know what a day’s work is, that’s +what I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“My belief is the man’s not to blame; ’tis <i>she—</i>she’s the bitter weed!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not altogether. He’s a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon yesterday.” +</p> + +<p> +“His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he couldn’t put +it into words and speak it. That’s all was the matter wi’ the sermon. He hadn’t +been able to get it past his pen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—ay, the sermon might have been good; for, ’tis true, the sermon of Old +Eccl’iastes himself lay in Eccl’iastes’s ink-bottle afore he got it out.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could afford time +to look up and throw in a word at this point. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s no spouter—that must be said, ’a b’lieve.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go,” said +Spinks. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we’ll say nothing about that,” the tranter answered; “for I don’t +believe ’twill make a penneth o’ difference to we poor martels here or +hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and looked up +and spoke again at the extension of arms. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis his goings-on, souls, that’s what it is.” He clenched his features for an +Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and continued, “The first thing he +done when he came here was to be hot and strong about church business.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said Spinks; “that was the very first thing he done.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted it, ceased +stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if it were a pill, and +continued: +</p> + +<p> +“The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, until he found +’twould be a matter o’ cost and what not, and then not to think no more about +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“True: that was the next thing he done.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not on no +account to put their hats in the christening font during service.” +</p> + +<p> +“True.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then ’twas this, and then ’twas that, and now ’tis—” +</p> + +<p> +Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. Penny gave a +huge pull to signify the concluding word. +</p> + +<p> +“Now ’tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop,” said the tranter after an +interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining the pause and pull, which +had been quite understood, but as a means of keeping the subject well before +the meeting. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like all good +wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to her husband’s +Whiggism, and <i>vice versâ</i>, in times of peace, she coalesced with +him heartily enough in time of war. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be owned he’s not all there,” she replied in a general way to the +fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. “Far below poor Mr. Grinham” (the +late vicar). +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he’d never come +mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of your work, and put +you out with his fuss and trouble about ye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well-intending +party in that respect, he’s unbearable; for as to sifting your cinders, +scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can’t do it. I assure +you I’ve not been able to empt them for several days, unless I throw ’em up the +chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, +coming to ask how you are, and ’tis such a confusing thing to meet a gentleman +at the door when ye are in the mess o’ washing.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman,” said the tranter. “His +meaning’s good enough. Ay, your pa’son comes by fate: ’tis heads or tails, like +pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; so we must take en as he is, my sonnies, and +thank God he’s no worse, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“I fancy I’ve seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than +Christianity asked for,” said Mrs. Penny musingly; “but I don’t quite like to +say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no; there’s nothing in that,” said grandfather William. +</p> + +<p> +“If there’s nothing, we shall see nothing,” Mrs. Penny replied, in the tone of +a woman who might possibly have private opinions still. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!” said Bowman. “Why, he never troubled us wi’ a +visit from year’s end to year’s end. You might go anywhere, do anything: you’d +be sure never to see him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he was a right sensible pa’son,” said Michael. “He never entered our door +but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor wife—ay, poor soul, dead and +gone now, as we all shall!—that as she was such a’ old aged person, and lived +so far from the church, he didn’t at all expect her to come any more to the +service.” +</p> + +<p> +“And ’a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and hymns o’ +Sundays. ‘Confound ye,’ says he, ‘blare and scrape what ye will, but don’t +bother me!’” +</p> + +<p> +“And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and hear him +if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring the babies to be +christened if they were inclined to squalling. There’s good in a man’s not +putting a parish to unnecessary trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“And there’s this here man never letting us have a bit o’ peace; but keeping on +about being good and upright till ’tis carried to such a pitch as I never see +the like afore nor since!” +</p> + +<p> +“No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn’t hold water, as it +hadn’t for years off and on; and when I told him that Mr. Grinham never minded +it, but used to spet upon his vinger and christen ’em just as well, ’a said, +‘Good Heavens! Send for a workman immediate. What place have I come to!’ Which +was no compliment to us, come to that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Still, for my part,” said old William, “though he’s arrayed against us, I like +the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa’son.” +</p> + +<p> +“You, ready to die for the quire,” said Bowman reproachfully, “to stick up for +the quire’s enemy, William!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I,” said the old man +firmly; “that you d’all know. I’ve a-been in the quire man and boy ever since I +was a chiel of eleven. But for all that ’tisn’t in me to call the man a bad +man, because I truly and sincerely believe en to be a good young feller.” +</p> + +<p> +Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated William’s eye +as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of aspect was also imparted to +him by the setting sun, which gave him a Titanic shadow at least thirty feet in +length, stretching away to the east in outlines of imposing magnitude, his head +finally terminating upon the trunk of a grand old oak-tree. +</p> + +<p> +“Mayble’s a hearty feller enough,” the tranter replied, “and will spak to you +be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en was in a drong, and +though ’a didn’t know me no more than the dead, ’a passed the time of day. +‘D’ye do?’ he said, says he, nodding his head. ‘A fine day.’ Then the second +time I met en was full-buff in town street, when my breeches were tore into a +long strent by getting through a copse of thorns and brimbles for a short cut +home-along; and not wanting to disgrace the man by spaking in that state, I +fixed my eye on the weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. But no: ‘How +d’ye do, Reuben?’ says he, right hearty, and shook my hand. If I’d been dressed +in silver spangles from top to toe, the man couldn’t have been civiller.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they turned and +watched him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION</h2> + +<p> +“I’m afraid Dick’s a lost man,” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“What?—no!” said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far commoner thing +for his ears to report what was not said than that his judgment should be at +fault. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said the tranter, still gazing at Dick’s unconscious advance. “I don’t at +all like what I see! There’s too many o’ them looks out of the winder without +noticing anything; too much shining of boots; too much peeping round corners; +too much looking at the clock; telling about clever things <i>she</i> did till +you be sick of it; and then upon a hint to that effect a horrible silence about +her. I’ve walked the path once in my life and know the country, neighbours; and +Dick’s a lost man!” The tranter turned a quarter round and smiled a smile of +miserable satire at the setting new moon, which happened to catch his eye. +</p> + +<p> +The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them to speak; +and they still regarded Dick in the distance. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas his mother’s fault,” the tranter continued, “in asking the young woman +to our party last Christmas. When I eyed the blue frock and light heels o’ the +maid, I had my thoughts directly. ‘God bless thee, Dicky my sonny,’ I said to +myself; ‘there’s a delusion for thee!’” +</p> + +<p> +“They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?” Mail +tentatively observed, as became one who was not a member of the family. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that’s a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness belongs to +it, queerest things on earth belongs to it! There, ’tmay as well come early as +late s’far as I know. The sooner begun, the sooner over; for come it will.” +</p> + +<p> +“The question I ask is,” said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread the two +subjects of discourse, as became a man learned in rhetoric, and beating with +his hand in a way which signified that the manner rather than the matter of his +speech was to be observed, “how did Mr. Maybold know she could play the organ? +You know we had it from her own lips, as far as lips go, that she has never, +first or last, breathed such a thing to him; much less that she ever would +play.” +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news which had +caused such a convulsion among the ancient musicians was unfolded to him. +“Well,” he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss Day, “I know by some words of +hers that she has a particular wish not to play, because she is a friend of +ours; and how the alteration comes, I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, this is my plan,” said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the discussion +by the infusion of new ideas, as was his custom—“this is my plan; if you don’t +like it, no harm’s done. We all know one another very well, don’t we, +neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +That they knew one another very well was received as a statement which, though +familiar, should not be omitted in introductory speeches. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I say this”—and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his hand on Mr. +Spinks’s shoulder with a momentum of several pounds, upon which Mr. Spinks +tried to look not in the least startled—“I say that we all move down-along +straight as a line to Pa’son Mayble’s when the clock has gone six to-morrow +night. There we one and all stand in the passage, then one or two of us go in +and spak to en, man and man; and say, ‘Pa’son Mayble, every tradesman d’like to +have his own way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours. Instead of +turning us out neck and crop, let us stay on till Christmas, and we’ll gie way +to the young woman, Mr. Mayble, and make no more ado about it. And we shall +always be quite willing to touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. Mayble, just as +before.’ That sounds very well? Hey?” +</p> + +<p> +“Proper well, in faith, Reuben Dewy.” +</p> + +<p> +“And we won’t sit down in his house; ’twould be looking too familiar when only +just reconciled?” +</p> + +<p> +“No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn round, and +march out—he’ll think all the more of us for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly think Leaf had better go wi’ us?” said Michael, turning to Leaf and +taking his measure from top to bottom by the eye. “He’s so terrible silly that +he might ruin the concern.” +</p> + +<p> +“He don’t want to go much; do ye, Thomas Leaf?” said William. +</p> + +<p> +“Hee-hee! no; I don’t want to. Only a teeny bit!” +</p> + +<p> +“I be mortal afeard, Leaf, that you’ll never be able to tell how many cuts +d’take to sharpen a spar,” said Mail. +</p> + +<p> +“I never had no head, never! that’s how it happened to happen, hee-hee!” +</p> + +<p> +They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by +disparaging him after an open confession, but because it was an accepted thing +that Leaf didn’t in the least mind having no head, that deficiency of his being +an unimpassioned matter of parish history. +</p> + +<p> +“But I can sing my treble!” continued Thomas Leaf, quite delighted at being +called a fool in such a friendly way; “I can sing my treble as well as any +maid, or married woman either, and better! And if Jim had lived, I should have +had a clever brother! To-morrow is poor Jim’s birthday. He’d ha’ been +twenty-six if he’d lived till to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You always seem very sorry for Jim,” said old William musingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he’d always ha’ been! She’d never have had +to work in her old age if he had continued strong, poor Jim!” +</p> + +<p> +“What was his age when ’a died?” +</p> + +<p> +“Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. ’A was born as might be at night; and +’a didn’t last as might be till the morning. No, ’a didn’t last. Mother called +en Jim on the day that would ha’ been his christening day if he had lived; and +she’s always thinking about en. You see he died so very young.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’twas rather youthful,” said Michael. +</p> + +<p> +“Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o’ children?” said +the tranter, his eye sweeping his audience. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well she mid be,” said Leaf. “She had twelve regular one after another, +and they all, except myself, died very young; either before they was born or +just afterwards.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pore feller, too. I suppose th’st want to come wi’ us?” the tranter murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Leaf, you shall come wi’ us as yours is such a melancholy family,” said +old William rather sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life,” said Reuben. +“There’s Leaf’s mother, poor woman! Every morning I see her eyes mooning out +through the panes of glass like a pot-sick winder-flower; and as Leaf sings a +very high treble, and we don’t know what we should do without en for upper G, +we’ll let en come as a trate, poor feller.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, we’ll let en come, ’a b’lieve,” said Mr. Penny, looking up, as the pull +happened to be at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice these +digressions about Leaf; “as to going to see the pa’son, one of us might call +and ask en his meaning, and ’twould be just as well done; but it will add a bit +of flourish to the cause if the quire waits on him as a body. Then the great +thing to mind is, not for any of our fellers to be nervous; so before starting +we’ll one and all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon; then every +man-jack het a pint of cider into his inside; then we’ll warm up an extra drop +wi’ some mead and a bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful—just a glimmer +of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner man—and march off to +Pa’son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man’s not himself till he is fortified wi’ a bit +and a drop? We shall be able to look any gentleman in the face then without +shrink or shame.” +</p> + +<p> +Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the earth in +time to give a cordial approval to this line of action, and the meeting +adjourned. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR</h2> + +<p> +At six o’clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir emerged from +the tranter’s door, and advanced with a firm step down the lane. This dignity +of march gradually became obliterated as they went on, and by the time they +reached the hill behind the vicarage a faint resemblance to a flock of sheep +might have been discerned in the venerable party. A word from the tranter, +however, set them right again; and as they descended the hill, the regular +tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet was clearly audible from the vicarage +garden. At the opening of the gate there was another short interval of +irregular shuffling, caused by a rather peculiar habit the gate had, when swung +open quickly, of striking against the bank and slamming back into the opener’s +face. +</p> + +<p> +“Now keep step again, will ye?” said the tranter. “It looks better, and more +becomes the high class of arrant which has brought us here.” Thus they advanced +to the door. +</p> + +<p> +At Reuben’s ring the more modest of the group turned aside, adjusted their +hats, and looked critically at any shrub that happened to lie in the line of +vision; endeavouring thus to give a person who chanced to look out of the +windows the impression that their request, whatever it was going to be, was +rather a casual thought occurring whilst they were inspecting the vicar’s +shrubbery and grass-plot than a predetermined thing. The tranter, who, coming +frequently to the vicarage with luggage, coals, firewood, etc., had none of the +awe for its precincts that filled the breasts of most of the others, fixed his +eyes firmly on the knocker during this interval of waiting. The knocker having +no characteristic worthy of notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one of the +door-panels, and studied the winding lines of the grain. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“O, sir, please, here’s Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and young Richard +Dewy, O, and all the quire too, sir, except the boys, a-come to see you!” said +Mr. Maybold’s maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, the pupils of her eyes dilating like +circles in a pond. +</p> + +<p> +“All the choir?” said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly described as a +good-looking young man with courageous eyes, timid mouth, and neutral nose), +abandoning his writing and looking at his parlour-maid after speaking, like a +man who fancied he had seen her face before but couldn’t recollect where. +</p> + +<p> +“And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the right hand +nor to the left, but stares quite straight and solemn with his mind made up!” +</p> + +<p> +“O, all the choir,” repeated the vicar to himself, trying by that simple device +to trot out his thoughts on what the choir could come for. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; every man-jack of ’em, as I be alive!” (The parlour-maid was rather local +in manner, having in fact been raised in the same village.) “Really, sir, ’tis +thoughted by many in town and country that—” +</p> + +<p> +“Town and country!—Heavens, I had no idea that I was public property in this +way!” said the vicar, his face acquiring a hue somewhere between that of the +rose and the peony. “Well, ‘It is thought in town and country that—’” +</p> + +<p> +“It is thought that you be going to get it hot and strong!—excusen my +incivility, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The vicar suddenly recalled to his recollection that he had long ago settled it +to be decidedly a mistake to encourage his servant Jane in giving personal +opinions. The servant Jane saw by the vicar’s face that he recalled this fact +to his mind; and removing her forehead from the edge of the door, and rubbing +away the indent that edge had made, vanished into the passage as Mr. Maybold +remarked, “Show them in, Jane.” +</p> + +<p> +A few minutes later a shuffling and jostling (reduced to as refined a form as +was compatible with the nature of shuffles and jostles) was heard in the +passage; then an earnest and prolonged wiping of shoes, conveying the notion +that volumes of mud had to be removed; but the roads being so clean that not a +particle of dirt appeared on the choir’s boots (those of all the elder members +being newly oiled, and Dick’s brightly polished), this wiping might have been +set down simply as a desire to show that respectable men had no wish to take a +mean advantage of clean roads for curtailing proper ceremonies. Next there came +a powerful whisper from the same quarter:- +</p> + +<p> +“Now stand stock-still there, my sonnies, one and all! And don’t make no noise; +and keep your backs close to the wall, that company may pass in and out easy if +they want to without squeezing through ye: and we two are enough to go in.” . . +. The voice was the tranter’s. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could go in too and see the sight!” said a reedy voice—that of Leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a pity Leaf is so terrible silly, or else he might,” said another. +</p> + +<p> +“I never in my life seed a quire go into a study to have it out about the +playing and singing,” pleaded Leaf; “and I should like to see it just once!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; we’ll let en come in,” said the tranter. “You’ll be like chips in +porridge, <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> Leaf—neither +good nor hurt. All right, my sonny, come along;” and immediately himself, old +William, and Leaf appeared in the room. +</p> + +<p> +“We took the liberty to come and see ’ee, sir,” said Reuben, letting his hat +hang in his left hand, and touching with his right the brim of an imaginary one +on his head. “We’ve come to see ’ee, sir, man and man, and no offence, I hope?” +</p> + +<p> +“None at all,” said Mr. Maybold. +</p> + +<p> +“This old aged man standing by my side is father; William Dewy by name, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I see it is,” said the vicar, nodding aside to old William, who smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you mightn’t know en without his bass-viol,” the tranter apologized. +“You see, he always wears his best clothes and his bass-viol a-Sundays, and it +do make such a difference in a’ old man’s look.” +</p> + +<p> +“And who’s that young man?” the vicar said. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell the pa’son yer name,” said the tranter, turning to Leaf, who stood with +his elbows nailed back to a bookcase. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, Thomas Leaf, your holiness!” said Leaf, trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ll excuse his looks being so very thin,” continued the tranter +deprecatingly, turning to the vicar again. “But ’tisn’t his fault, poor feller. +He’s rather silly by nature, and could never get fat; though he’s a’ excellent +treble, and so we keep him on.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never had no head, sir,” said Leaf, eagerly grasping at this opportunity for +being forgiven his existence. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, poor young man!” said Mr. Maybold. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless you, he don’t mind it a bit, if you don’t, sir,” said the tranter +assuringly. “Do ye, Leaf?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not I—not a morsel—hee, hee! I was afeard it mightn’t please your holiness, +sir, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very well through his negative qualities, +was tempted in a fit of generosity to advance him still higher, by giving him +credit for positive ones. “He’s very clever for a silly chap, good-now, sir. +You never knowed a young feller keep his smock-frocks so clane; very honest +too. His ghastly looks is all there is against en, poor feller; but we can’t +help our looks, you know, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“True: we cannot. You live with your mother, I think, Leaf?” +</p> + +<p> +The tranter looked at Leaf to express that the most friendly assistant to his +tongue could do no more for him now, and that he must be left to his own +resources. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir: a widder, sir. Ah, if brother Jim had lived she’d have had a clever +son to keep her without work!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed! poor woman. Give her this half-crown. I’ll call and see your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, ‘Thank you, sir,’” the tranter whispered imperatively towards Leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, sir!” said Leaf. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it, then; sit down, Leaf,” said Mr. Maybold. +</p> + +<p> +“Y-yes, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +The tranter cleared his throat after this accidental parenthesis about Leaf, +rectified his bodily position, and began his speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Mayble,” he said, “I hope you’ll excuse my common way, but I always like +to look things in the face.” +</p> + +<p> +Reuben made a point of fixing this sentence in the vicar’s mind by gazing hard +at him at the conclusion of it, and then out of the window. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Maybold and old William looked in the same direction, apparently under the +impression that the things’ faces alluded to were there visible. +</p> + +<p> +“What I have been thinking”—the tranter implied by this use of the past tense +that he was hardly so discourteous as to be positively thinking it then—“is +that the quire ought to be gie’d a little time, and not done away wi’ till +Christmas, as a fair thing between man and man. And, Mr. Mayble, I hope you’ll +excuse my common way?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will, I will. Till Christmas,” the vicar murmured, stretching the two words +to a great length, as if the distance to Christmas might be measured in that +way. “Well, I want you all to understand that I have no personal fault to find, +and that I don’t wish to change the church music by forcible means, or in a way +which should hurt the feelings of any parishioners. Why I have at last spoken +definitely on the subject is that a player has been brought under—I may say +pressed upon—my notice several times by one of the churchwardens. And as the +organ I brought with me is here waiting” (pointing to a cabinet-organ standing +in the study), “there is no reason for longer delay.” +</p> + +<p> +“We made a mistake I suppose then, sir? But we understood the young woman +didn’t want to play particularly?” The tranter arranged his countenance to +signify that he did not want to be inquisitive in the least. +</p> + +<p> +“No, nor did she. Nor did I definitely wish her to just yet; for your playing +is very good. But, as I said, one of the churchwardens has been so anxious for +a change, that, as matters stand, I couldn’t consistently refuse my consent.” +</p> + +<p> +Now for some reason or other, the vicar at this point seemed to have an idea +that he had prevaricated; and as an honest vicar, it was a thing he determined +not to do. He corrected himself, blushing as he did so, though why he should +blush was not known to Reuben. +</p> + +<p> +“Understand me rightly,” he said: “the church-warden proposed it to me, but I +had thought myself of getting—Miss Day to play.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which churchwarden might that be who proposed her, sir?—excusing my common +way.” The tranter intimated by his tone that, so far from being inquisitive, he +did not even wish to ask a single question. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Shiner, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Clk, my sonny!—beg your pardon, sir, that’s only a form of words of mine, and +slipped out accidental—he nourishes enmity against us for some reason or +another; perhaps because we played rather hard upon en Christmas night. Anyhow +’tis certain sure that Mr. Shiner’s real love for music of a particular kind +isn’t his reason. He’ve no more ear than that chair. But let that be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you should conclude that, because Mr. Shiner wants a different +music, he has any ill-feeling for you. I myself, I must own, prefer organ-music +to any other. I consider it most proper, and feel justified in endeavouring to +introduce it; but then, although other music is better, I don’t say yours is +not good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death’s to be, we’ll die like men any day you +name (excusing my common way).” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Maybold bowed his head. +</p> + +<p> +“All we thought was, that for us old ancient singers to be choked off quiet at +no time in particular, as now, in the Sundays after Easter, would seem rather +mean in the eyes of other parishes, sir. But if we fell glorious with a bit of +a flourish at Christmas, we should have a respectable end, and not dwindle away +at some nameless paltry second-Sunday-after or Sunday-next-before something, +that’s got no name of his own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, that’s reasonable; I own it’s reasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Mr. Mayble, we’ve got—do I keep you inconvenient long, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ve got our feelings—father there especially.” +</p> + +<p> +The tranter, in his earnestness, had advanced his person to within six inches +of the vicar’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly, certainly!” said Mr. Maybold, retreating a little for convenience +of seeing. “You are all enthusiastic on the subject, and I am all the more +gratified to find you so. A Laodicean lukewarmness is worse than +wrongheadedness itself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble,” Reuben continued, more impressively, +and advancing a little closer still to the vicar, “father there is a perfect +figure o’ wonder, in the way of being fond of music!” +</p> + +<p> +The vicar drew back a little further, the tranter suddenly also standing back a +foot or two, to throw open the view of his father, and pointing to him at the +same time. +</p> + +<p> +Old William moved uneasily in the large chair, and with a minute smile on the +mere edge of his lips, for good-manners, said he was indeed very fond of tunes. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, you see exactly how it is,” Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. Maybold’s +sense of justice by looking sideways into his eyes. The vicar seemed to see how +it was so well that the gratified tranter walked up to him again with even +vehement eagerness, so that his waistcoat-buttons almost rubbed against the +vicar’s as he continued: “As to father, if you or I, or any man or woman of the +present generation, at the time music is a-playing, was to shake your fist in +father’s face, as may be this way, and say, ‘Don’t you be delighted with that +music!’”—the tranter went back to where Leaf was sitting, and held his fist so +close to Leaf’s face that the latter pressed his head back against the wall: +“All right, Leaf, my sonny, I won’t hurt you; ’tis just to show my meaning to +Mr. Mayble.—As I was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to shake your fist in +father’s face this way, and say, ‘William, your life or your music!’ he’d say, +‘My life!’ Now that’s father’s nature all over; and you see, sir, it must hurt +the feelings of a man of that kind for him and his bass-viol to be done away +wi’ neck and crop.” +</p> + +<p> +The tranter went back to the vicar’s front and again looked earnestly at his +face. +</p> + +<p> +“True, true, Dewy,” Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his head and +shoulders without moving his feet; but finding this impracticable, edging back +another inch. These frequent retreats had at last jammed Mr. Maybold between +his easy-chair and the edge of the table. +</p> + +<p> +And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had just +re-dipped the pen he was using; at their entry, instead of wiping it, he had +laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At the last retreat his +coat-tails came in contact with the pen, and down it rolled, first against the +back of the chair, thence turning a summersault into the seat, thence falling +to the floor with a rattle. +</p> + +<p> +The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show that, however +great their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was not so small as to let +this affect his social feelings, stooped also. +</p> + +<p> +“And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?” said Mr. Maybold +from under the table. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you see our desire +is reason?” said the tranter from under the chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite, quite; and I shouldn’t think of refusing to listen to such a reasonable +request,” the vicar replied. Seeing that Reuben had secured the pen, he resumed +his vertical position, and added, “You know, Dewy, it is often said how +difficult a matter it is to act up to our convictions and please all parties. +It may be said with equal truth, that it is difficult for a man of any +appreciativeness to have convictions at all. Now in my case, I see right in +you, and right in Shiner. I see that violins are good, and that an organ is +good; and when we introduce the organ, it will not be that fiddles were bad, +but that an organ was better. That you’ll clearly understand, Dewy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h-h! How the +blood do get into my head, to be sure, whenever I quat down like that!” said +Reuben, who having also risen to his feet stuck the pen vertically in the +inkstand and almost through the bottom, that it might not roll down again under +any circumstances whatever. +</p> + +<p> +Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their curiosity surging +higher and higher as the minutes passed. Dick, not having much affection for +this errand, soon grew tired, and went away in the direction of the school. Yet +their sense of propriety would probably have restrained them from any attempt +to discover what was going on in the study had not the vicar’s pen fallen to +the floor. The conviction that the movement of chairs, etc., necessitated by +the search, could only have been caused by the catastrophe of a bloody fight +beginning, overpowered all other considerations; and they advanced to the door, +which had only just fallen to. Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes after the +stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in full-length +portraiture, Mail’s face and shoulders above Mr. Penny’s head, Spinks’s +forehead and eyes over Mail’s crown, and a fractional part of Bowman’s +countenance under Spinks’s arm—crescent-shaped portions of other heads and +faces being visible behind these—the whole dozen and odd eyes bristling with +eager inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable boot-makers and men, seeing the vicar +look at him and hearing no word spoken, thought it incumbent upon himself to +say something of any kind. Nothing suggested itself till he had looked for +about half a minute at the vicar. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll excuse my naming of it, sir,” he said, regarding with much +commiseration the mere surface of the vicar’s face; “but perhaps you don’t know +that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut yourself a-shaving this +morning, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, that was the stooping, depend upon’t,” the tranter suggested, also +looking with much interest at the vicar’s chin. “Blood always will bust out +again if you hang down the member that’s been bleeding.” +</p> + +<p> +Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar’s bleeding chin likewise; and +Leaf advanced two or three paces from the bookcase, absorbed in the +contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted lips and delighted eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me, dear me!” said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and brushing +his chin with his hand, then taking out his handkerchief and wiping the place. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s it, sir; all right again now, ’a b’lieve—a mere nothing,” said Mr. +Penny. “A little bit of fur off your hat will stop it in a minute if it should +bust out again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll let ’ee have a bit off mine,” said Reuben, to show his good feeling; “my +hat isn’t so new as yours, sir, and ’twon’t hurt mine a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no; thank you, thank you,” Mr. Maybold again nervously replied. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?” said Reuben, feeling these to be the +kindest and best remarks he could make. +</p> + +<p> +“O, no; not particularly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes a-shaving, and just when it comes +into your head that you may cut yourself, there’s the blood.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which we make +the change,” said Mr. Maybold, “and I know you’ll meet me half-way. I think +Christmas-day as much too late for me as the present time is too early for you. +I suggest Michaelmas or thereabout as a convenient time for both parties; for I +think your objection to a Sunday which has no name is not one of any real +weight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn’t expect their own way entirely; +and I express in all our names that we’ll make shift and be satisfied with what +you say.” The tranter touched the brim of his imaginary hat again, and all the +choir did the same. “About Michaelmas, then, as far as you are concerned, sir, +and then we make room for the next generation.” +</p> + +<p> +“About Michaelmas,” said the vicar. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +RETURNING HOME WARD</h2> + +<p> +“‘A took it very well, then?” said Mail, as they all walked up the hill. +</p> + +<p> +“He behaved like a man, ’a did so,” said the tranter. “And I’m glad we’ve let +en know our minds. And though, beyond that, we ha’n’t got much by going, ’twas +worth while. He won’t forget it. Yes, he took it very well. Supposing this tree +here was Pa’son Mayble, and I standing here, and thik gr’t stone is father +sitting in the easy-chair. ‘Dewy,’ says he, ‘I don’t wish to change the church +music in a forcible way.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That was very nice o’ the man, even though words be wind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Proper nice—out and out nice. The fact is,” said Reuben confidentially, “’tis +how you take a man. Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed: kings +must be managed; for men want managing almost as much as women, and that’s +saying a good deal.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis truly!” murmured the husbands. +</p> + +<p> +“Pa’son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we’d been sworn +brothers. Ay, the man’s well enough; ’tis what’s put in his head that spoils +him, and that’s why we’ve got to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s really no believing half you hear about people nowadays.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless ye, my sonnies! ’tisn’t the pa’son’s move at all. That gentleman over +there” (the tranter nodded in the direction of Shiner’s farm) “is at the root +of the mischty.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! Shiner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; and I see what the pa’son don’t see. Why, Shiner is for putting forward +that young woman that only last night I was saying was our Dick’s sweet-heart, +but I suppose can’t be, and making much of her in the sight of the +congregation, and thinking he’ll win her by showing her off. Well, perhaps ’a +woll.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is second to +Shiner, the pa’son is second to the churchwardens, and God A’mighty is nowhere +at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s true; and you see,” continued Reuben, “at the very beginning it put me +in a stud as to how to quarrel wi’ en. In short, to save my soul, I couldn’t +quarrel wi’ such a civil man without belying my conscience. Says he to father +there, in a voice as quiet as a lamb’s, ‘William, you are a’ old aged man, as +all shall be, so sit down in my easy-chair, and rest yourself.’ And down father +zot. I could fain ha’ laughed at thee, father; for thou’st take it so +unconcerned at first, and then looked so frightened when the chair-bottom sunk +in.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” said old William, hastening to explain, “I was scared to find the +bottom gie way—what should I know o’ spring bottoms?—and thought I had broke it +down: and of course as to breaking down a man’s chair, I didn’t wish any such +thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d’see his own +father sitting in his enemy’s easy-chair, and a poor chap like Leaf made the +best of, as if he almost had brains—why, it knocks all the wind out of his sail +at once: it did out of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“If that young figure of fun—Fance Day, I mean,” said Bowman, “hadn’t been so +mighty forward wi’ showing herself off to Shiner and Dick and the rest, ’tis my +belief we should never ha’ left the gallery.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson made ’em,” +said Mr. Penny. “My wife sticks to it that he’s in love wi’ her.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a thing we shall never know. I can’t onriddle her, nohow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou’st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she,” the tranter +observed. +</p> + +<p> +“The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And coming of such a +stock, too, she may well be a twister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never says anything: +not he.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never.” +</p> + +<p> +“You might live wi’ that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never know there +was anything in him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; one o’ these up-country London ink-bottle chaps would call Geoffrey a +fool.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye never find out what’s in that man: never,” said Spinks. “Close? ah, he is +close! He can hold his tongue well. That man’s dumbness is wonderful to listen +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over wi’ sound +understanding.” +</p> + +<p> +“’A can hold his tongue very clever—very clever truly,” echoed Leaf. “’A do +look at me as if ’a could see my thoughts running round like the works of a +clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, all will agree that the man can halt well in his talk, be it a long time +or be it a short time. And though we can’t expect his daughter to inherit his +closeness, she may have a few dribblets from his sense.” +</p> + +<p> +“And his pocket, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; the nine hundred pound that everybody says he’s worth; but I call it four +hundred and fifty; for I never believe more than half I hear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’ve made a pound or two, and I suppose the maid will have it, since +there’s nobody else. But ’tis rather sharp upon her, if she’s been born to +fortune, to bring her up as if not born for it, and letting her work so hard.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis all upon his principle. A long-headed feller!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” murmured Spinks, “’twould be sharper upon her if she were born for +fortune, and not to it! I suffer from that affliction.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER’S HOUSE</h2> + +<p> +A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick’s on the +following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter holidays, and he was +journeying along with Smart the mare and the light spring-cart, watching the +damp slopes of the hill-sides as they streamed in the warmth of the sun, which +at this unsettled season shone on the grass with the freshness of an occasional +inspector rather than as an accustomed proprietor. His errand was to fetch +Fancy, and some additional household goods, from her father’s house in the +neighbouring parish to her dwelling at Mellstock. The distant view was darkly +shaded with clouds; but the nearer parts of the landscape were whitely +illumined by the visible rays of the sun streaming down across the heavy gray +shade behind. +</p> + +<p> +The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner’s heart that had +been suggested to him by Shiner’s movements. He preferred to let such delicate +affairs right themselves; experience having taught him that the uncertain +phenomenon of love, as it existed in other people, was not a groundwork upon +which a single action of his own life could be founded. +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed portion of one +of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day was head +game-keeper, timber-steward, and general overlooker for this district. The wood +was intersected by the highway from Casterbridge to London at a place not far +from the house, and some trees had of late years been felled between its +windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to give the solitary cottager a glimpse +of the passers-by. +</p> + +<p> +It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper’s house, even as a stranger, on a +fine spring morning like the present. A curl of wood-smoke came from the +chimney, and drooped over the roof like a blue feather in a lady’s hat; and the +sun shone obliquely upon the patch of grass in front, which reflected its +brightness through the open doorway and up the staircase opposite, lighting up +each riser with a shiny green radiance, and leaving the top of each step in +shade. +</p> + +<p> +The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet from the +floor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, as well as over the +whole surface of the wall beneath, there always hung a deep shade, which was +considered objectionable on every ground save one, namely, that the perpetual +sprinkling of seeds and water by the caged canary above was not noticed as an +eyesore by visitors. The window was set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, +formed, especially in the lower panes, of knotty glass of various shades of +green. Nothing was better known to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which +these circular knots or eyes distorted everything seen through them from the +outside—lifting hats from heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the spokes +of cart-wheels, and bending the straight fir-trunks into semicircles. The +ceiling was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side of which +projected a large nail, used solely and constantly as a peg for Geoffrey’s hat; +the nail was arched by a rainbow-shaped stain, imprinted by the brim of the +said hat when it was hung there dripping wet. +</p> + +<p> +The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was a repetition +upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced by Noah, consisting for +the most part of two articles of every sort. The duplicate system of furnishing +owed its existence to the forethought of Fancy’s mother, exercised from the +date of Fancy’s birthday onwards. The arrangement spoke for itself: nobody who +knew the tone of the household could look at the goods without being aware that +the second set was a provision for Fancy, when she should marry and have a +house of her own. The most noticeable instance was a pair of green-faced +eight-day clocks, ticking alternately, which were severally two and half +minutes and three minutes striking the hour of twelve, one proclaiming, in +Italian flourishes, Thomas Wood as the name of its maker, and the other—arched +at the top, and altogether of more cynical appearance—that of Ezekiel Saunders. +They were two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge, whose desperate rivalry +throughout their lives was nowhere more emphatically perpetuated than here at +Geoffrey’s. These chief specimens of the marriage provision were supported on +the right by a couple of kitchen dressers, each fitted complete with their +cups, dishes, and plates, in their turn followed by two dumb-waiters, two +family Bibles, two warming-pans, and two intermixed sets of chairs. +</p> + +<p> +But the position last reached—the chimney-corner—was, after all, the most +attractive side of the parallelogram. It was large enough to admit, in addition +to Geoffrey himself, Geoffrey’s wife, her chair, and her work-table, entirely +within the line of the mantel, without danger or even inconvenience from the +heat of the fire; and was spacious enough overhead to allow of the insertion of +wood poles for the hanging of bacon, which were cloaked with long shreds of +soot, floating on the draught like the tattered banners on the walls of ancient +aisles. +</p> + +<p> +These points were common to most chimney corners of the neighbourhood; but one +feature there was which made Geoffrey’s fireside not only an object of interest +to casual aristocratic visitors—to whom every cottage fireside was more or less +a curiosity—but the admiration of friends who were accustomed to fireplaces of +the ordinary hamlet model. This peculiarity was a little window in the +chimney-back, almost over the fire, around which the smoke crept caressingly +when it left the perpendicular course. The window-board was curiously stamped +with black circles, burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinking-cups, which +had rested there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the hearth for +the purpose of warming their contents, the result giving to the ledge the look +of an envelope which has passed through innumerable post-offices. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head inclining now to +the right, now to the left, and singing the tips and ends of tunes that sprang +up in her mind like mushrooms. The footsteps of Mrs. Day could be heard in the +room overhead. Fancy went finally to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Father! Dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodical steps, and +the keeper entered from the garden. He appeared to be a man who was always +looking down, as if trying to recollect something he said yesterday. The +surface of his face was fissured rather than wrinkled, and over and under his +eyes were folds which seemed as a kind of exterior eyelids. His nose had been +thrown backwards by a blow in a poaching fray, so that when the sun was low and +shining in his face, people could see far into his head. There was in him a +quiet grimness, which would in his moments of displeasure have become +surliness, had it not been tempered by honesty of soul, and which was often +wrongheadedness because not allied with subtlety. +</p> + +<p> +Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly richer than +himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to his trapper Enoch his +ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means than nods and shakes of the head. +Their long acquaintance with each other’s ways, and the nature of their +labours, rendered words between them almost superfluous as vehicles of thought, +whilst the coincidence of their horizons, and the astonishing equality of their +social views, by startling the keeper from time to time as very damaging to the +theory of master and man, strictly forbade any indulgence in words as +courtesies. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) at the +well-considered chronological distance of three minutes—an interval of +non-appearance on the trapper’s part not arrived at without some reflection. +Four minutes had been found to express indifference to indoor arrangements, and +simultaneousness had implied too great an anxiety about meals. +</p> + +<p> +“A little earlier than usual, Fancy,” the keeper said, as he sat down and +looked at the clocks. “That Ezekiel Saunders o’ thine is tearing on afore +Thomas Wood again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I kept in the middle between them,” said Fancy, also looking at the two +clocks. +</p> + +<p> +“Better stick to Thomas,” said her father. “There’s a healthy beat in Thomas +that would lead a man to swear by en offhand. He is as true as the town time. +How is it your stap-mother isn’t here?” +</p> + +<p> +As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and “Weh-hey, +Smart!” in Mr. Richard Dewy’s voice rolled into the cottage from round the +corner of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! there’s Dewy’s cart come for thee, Fancy—Dick driving—afore time, too. +Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing that he took +an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race and country as himself; +and they all sat down. Dick could have wished her manner had not been so +entirely free from all apparent consciousness of those accidental meetings of +theirs: but he let the thought pass. Enoch sat diagonally at a table afar off, +under the corner cupboard, and drank his cider from a long perpendicular pint +cup, having tall fir-trees done in brown on its sides. He threw occasional +remarks into the general tide of conversation, and with this advantage to +himself, that he participated in the pleasures of a talk (slight as it was) at +meal-times, without saddling himself with the responsibility of sustaining it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t your stap-mother come down, Fancy?” said Geoffrey. “You’ll excuse +her, Mister Dick, she’s a little queer sometimes.” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes,—quite,” said Richard, as if he were in the habit of excusing people +every day. +</p> + +<p> +“She d’belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: a rum class +rather.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed,” said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and ’tis trying to a female, especially if you’ve been a first wife, as +she hev.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very trying it must be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too far; in +fact, she used to kick up Bob’s-a-dying at the least thing in the world. And +when I’d married her and found it out, I thought, thinks I, ‘’Tis too late now +to begin to cure ’e;’ and so I let her bide. But she’s queer,—very queer, at +times!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry to hear that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o’ society, because though they be +never right, they be never more than half wrong.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household moralizing, which +might tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that Dick, as maiden shrewdness told +her, had accredited her with. Her dead silence impressed Geoffrey with the +notion that something in his words did not agree with her educated ideas, and +he changed the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +“Did Fred Shiner send the cask o’ drink, Fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he did: O yes, he did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!” said Geoffrey to Dick as he helped himself to +gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate by way of the potato-dish, to +obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a spill. +</p> + +<p> +Now Geoffrey’s eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous four or five +minutes, and in removing them he had only carried them to the spoon, which, +from its fulness and the distance of its transit, necessitated a steady +watching through the whole of the route. Just as intently as the keeper’s eyes +had been fixed on the spoon, Fancy’s had been fixed on her father’s, without +premeditation or the slightest phase of furtiveness; but there they were +fastened. This was the reason why: +</p> + +<p> +Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of the table +opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand lightly down upon the +table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, after dropping his fork and +brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down his own left hand, overlapping a +third of Fancy’s with it, and keeping it there. So the innocent Fancy, instead +of pulling her hand from the trap, settled her eyes on her father’s, to guard +against his discovery of this perilous game of Dick’s. Dick finished his +mouthful; Fancy finished her crumb, and nothing was done beyond watching +Geoffrey’s eyes. Then the hands slid apart; Fancy’s going over six inches of +cloth, Dick’s over one. Geoffrey’s eye had risen. +</p> + +<p> +“I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller,” he repeated, more emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +“He is; yes, he is,” stammered Dick; “but to me he is little more than a +stranger.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you know en very +well too, don’t ye, Fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at present about +one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed literally. +</p> + +<p> +Dick looked anxious. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you pass me some bread?” said Fancy in a flurry, the red of her face +becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as a human being could +look about a piece of bread. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that I will,” replied the unconscious Geoffrey. “Ay,” he continued, +returning to the displaced idea, “we are likely to remain friendly wi’ Mr. +Shiner if the wheels d’run smooth.” +</p> + +<p> +“An excellent thing—a very capital thing, as I should say,” the youth answered +with exceeding relevance, considering that his thoughts, instead of following +Geoffrey’s remark, were nestling at a distance of about two feet on his left +the whole time. +</p> + +<p> +“A young woman’s face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my heart if +’twon’t.” Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in earnest at these words. +“Yes; turn the north wind,” added Geoffrey after an impressive pause. “And +though she’s one of my own flesh and blood . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil’ cheese from pantry-shelf?” Fancy +interrupted, as if she were famishing. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking last +Saturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr. Shiner,—the +better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy’s heart went not with her +father’s—and spoke like a stranger to the affairs of the neighbourhood. “Yes, +there’s a great deal to be said upon the power of maiden faces in settling your +courses,” he ventured, as the keeper retreated for the cheese. +</p> + +<p> +“The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that <i>I</i> have +ever done warrants such things being said!” murmured Fancy with emphasis, just +loud enough to reach Dick’s ears. +</p> + +<p> +“You think to yourself, ’twas to be,” cried Enoch from his distant corner, by +way of filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey’s momentary absence. “And so +you marry her, Master Dewy, and there’s an end o’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t say such things, Enoch,” came from Fancy severely, upon which Enoch +relapsed into servitude. +</p> + +<p> +“If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single, we do,” +replied Dick. +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips thin by +severely straining them across his gums, and looked out of the window along the +vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. “That’s not the case with some +folk,” he said at length, as if he read the words on a board at the further end +of the vista. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, “No?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s that wife o’ mine. It was her doom to be nobody’s wife at all in the +wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, and did it twice over. +Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly woman—quite a chiel in her hands!” +</p> + +<p> +A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps descending. +The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the second Mrs. Day appeared in +view, looking fixedly at the table as she advanced towards it, with apparent +obliviousness of the presence of any other human being than herself. In short, +if the table had been the personages, and the persons the table, her glance +would have been the most natural imaginable. +</p> + +<p> +She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman’s face, iron-grey hair, hardly +any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad white apron-string, as it +appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff dress. +</p> + +<p> +“People will run away with a story now, I suppose,” she began saying, “that +Jane Day’s tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any union beggar’s!” +</p> + +<p> +Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear, and +reflecting for a moment, concluded that ‘people’ in step-mother language +probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that Mrs. Day had vanished +again upstairs, and presently returned with an armful of new damask-linen +tablecloths, folded square and hard as boards by long compression. These she +flounced down into a chair; then took one, shook it out from its folds, and +spread it on the table by instalments, transferring the plates and dishes one +by one from the old to the new cloth. +</p> + +<p> +“And I suppose they’ll say, too, that she ha’n’t a decent knife and fork in her +house!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure—” began Dick. But Mrs. +Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared distressed. +</p> + +<p> +“Very strange woman, isn’t she?” said Geoffrey, quietly going on with his +dinner. “But ’tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! ’tis so growed into her +that ’twould kill her to take it out. Ay, she’s very queer: you’d be amazed to +see what valuable goods we’ve got stowed away upstairs.” +</p> + +<p> +Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled knives, +silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were wiped of the +preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife and fork were laid down to +each individual with a bang, the carving knife and fork thrust into the meat +dish, and the old ones they had hitherto used tossed away. +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked Dick if he +wanted any more. +</p> + +<p> +The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and tea, which +was common among frugal countryfolk. “The parishioners about here,” continued +Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but snatching up the brown delf +tea-things, “are the laziest, gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I +came among. And they’ll talk about my teapot and tea-things next, I suppose!” +She vanished with the teapot, cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a +tea-service in white china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. This was +removed, together with folds of tissue-paper underneath; and a brilliant silver +teapot appeared. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll help to put the things right,” said Fancy soothingly, and rising from her +seat. “I ought to have laid out better things, I suppose. But” (here she +enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) “I have been away from home a good +deal, and I make shocking blunders in my housekeeping.” Smiles and suavity were +then dispensed all around by this bright little bird. +</p> + +<p> +After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her seat at the +head of the table, and during the latter or tea division of the meal, presided +with much composure. It may cause some surprise to learn that, now her vagary +was over, she showed herself to be an excellent person with much common sense, +and even a religious seriousness of tone on matters pertaining to her +afflictions. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL</h2> + +<p> +The effect of Geoffrey’s incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to restrain a +considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would otherwise have burst from +young Dewy along the drive homeward. And a certain remark he had hazarded to +her, in rather too blunt and eager a manner, kept the young lady herself even +more silent than Dick. On both sides there was an unwillingness to talk on any +but the most trivial subjects, and their sentences rarely took a larger form +than could be expressed in two or three words. +</p> + +<p> +Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the charwoman had +given up expecting her; whereupon Dick could do no less than stay and see her +comfortably tided over the disagreeable time of entering and establishing +herself in an empty house after an absence of a week. The additional furniture +and utensils that had been brought (a canary and cage among the rest) were +taken out of the vehicle, and the horse was unharnessed and put in the plot +opposite, where there was some tender grass. Dick lighted the fire already +laid; and activity began to loosen their tongues a little. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” said Fancy, “we forgot to bring the fire-irons!” +</p> + +<p> +She had originally found in her sitting-room, to bear out the expression +‘nearly furnished’ which the school-manager had used in his letter to her, a +table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of carpet. This ‘nearly’ had been +supplemented hitherto by a kind friend, who had lent her fire-irons and +crockery until she should fetch some from home. +</p> + +<p> +Dick attended to the young lady’s fire, using his whip-handle for a poker till +it was spoilt, and then flourishing a hurdle stick for the remainder of the +time. +</p> + +<p> +“The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea,” said Fancy, diving into +the hamper she had brought. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, especially in +her company. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here’s only one cup-and-saucer, as I breathe! Whatever could mother be +thinking about? Do you mind making shift, Mr. Dewy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, Miss Day,” said that civil person. +</p> + +<p> +“—And only having a cup by itself? or a saucer by itself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t mind in the least.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which do you mean by that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean the cup, if you like the saucer.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the saucer, if I like the cup?” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly, Miss Day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; there are no +spoons now!” She dived into the hamper again, and at the end of two or three +minutes looked up and said, “I suppose you don’t mind if I can’t find a spoon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said the agreeable Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under the other +things. O yes, here’s one, and only one. You would rather have one than not, I +suppose, Mr. Dewy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather not. I never did care much about spoons.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your tea with a +knife. Would you mind lifting the kettle off, that it may not boil dry?” +</p> + +<p> +Dick leapt to the fireplace, and earnestly removed the kettle. +</p> + +<p> +“There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We always use +kettle-holders; didn’t you learn housewifery as far as that, Mr. Dewy? Well, +never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. I am going to rinse mine, too.” +</p> + +<p> +They went to a basin she had placed in the back room. “This is the only basin I +have,” she said. “Turn up your sleeves, and by that time my hands will be +washed, and you can come.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hands were in the water now. “O, how vexing!” she exclaimed. “There’s not a +drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and the well is I don’t know +how many furlongs deep; all that was in the pitcher I used for the kettle and +this basin. Do you mind dipping the tips of your fingers in the same?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. And to save time I won’t wait till you have done, if you have no +objection?” +</p> + +<p> +Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It being the +first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under water, Dick +duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, they have +got so mixed up together,” she said, withdrawing her own very suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Dick, “at least as far as I am concerned.” +</p> + +<p> +“There! no towel! Whoever thinks of a towel till the hands are wet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nobody.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Nobody.’ How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come here, Mr. +Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box with your elbow, and +then, with something or other, take out a towel you will find under the clean +clothes? Be <i>sure</i> don’t touch any of them with your wet hands, for the +things at the top are all Starched and Ironed.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel from under a +muslin dress without wetting the latter; and for a moment he ventured to assume +a tone of criticism. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear for that dress,” he said, as they wiped their hands together. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. “O, I know +what you mean—that the vicar will never let me wear muslin?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as flaunting, and +unfit for common wear for girls who’ve their living to get; but we’ll see.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the interest of the church, I hope you don’t speak seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I do; but we’ll see.” There was a comely determination on her lip, very +pleasant to a beholder who was neither bishop, priest, nor deacon. “I think I +can manage any vicar’s views about me if he’s under forty.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick rather wished she had never thought of managing vicars. +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea,” he said in +rather a free way, yet modestly, as became one in a position between that of +visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his lonely saucer. +</p> + +<p> +“So shall I. Now is there anything else we want, Mr Dewy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I really think there’s nothing else, Miss Day.” +</p> + +<p> +She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at Smart’s +enjoyment of the rich grass. “Nobody seems to care about me,” she murmured, +with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond Smart. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps Mr. Shiner does,” said Dick, in the tone of a slightly injured man. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I forgot—he does, I know.” Dick precipitately regretted that he had +suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable result as this. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll warrant you’ll care for somebody very much indeed another day, won’t you, +Mr. Dewy?” she continued, looking very feelingly into the mathematical centre +of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I’ll warrant I shall,” said Dick, feelingly too, and looking back into her +dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside. +</p> + +<p> +“I meant,” she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was going to +narrate a forcible story about his feelings; “I meant that nobody comes to see +if I have returned—not even the vicar.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you want to see him, I’ll call at the vicarage directly we have had some +tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no! Don’t let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am in such a +state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and awkward when one’s house +is in a muddle; walking about, and making impossible suggestions in quaint +academic phrases till your flesh creeps and you wish them dead. Do you take +sugar?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path. +</p> + +<p> +“There! That’s he coming! How I wish you were not here!—that is, how +awkward—dear, dear!” she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of blood to her face, +and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as it seemed. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t be alarmed on my account, Miss Day—good-afternoon!” said Dick in a +huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room hastily by the back-door. +</p> + +<p> +The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start he saw +through the window the vicar, standing upon some books piled in a chair, and +driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure glance, holding the +canary-cage up to him, as if she had never in her life thought of anything but +vicars and canaries. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br/> +DICK MEETS HIS FATHER</h2> + +<p> +For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of reflection +so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that the road and scenery +were as a thin mist over the real pictures of his mind. Was she a coquette? The +balance between the evidence that she did love him and that she did not was so +nicely struck, that his opinion had no stability. She had let him put his hand +upon hers; she had allowed her gaze to drop plumb into the depths of his—his +into hers—three or four times; her manner had been very free with regard to the +basin and towel; she had appeared vexed at the mention of Shiner. On the other +hand, she had driven him about the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner +cared for her, and seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold should do the same. +</p> + +<p> +Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting on the +front board of the spring cart—his legs on the outside, and his whole frame +jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time of Smart’s trotting—who +should he see coming down the hill but his father in the light wagon, quivering +up and down on a smaller scale of shakes, those merely caused by the stones in +the road. They were soon crossing each other’s front. +</p> + +<p> +“Weh-hey!” said the tranter to Smiler. +</p> + +<p> +“Weh-hey!” said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Th’st hauled her back, I suppose?” Reuben inquired peaceably. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemed he was +never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking this the close of the +conversation, prepared to move on. +</p> + +<p> +“Weh-hey!” said the tranter. “I tell thee what it is, Dick. That there maid is +taking up thy thoughts more than’s good for thee, my sonny. Thou’rt never happy +now unless th’rt making thyself miserable about her in one way or another.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that, father,” said Dick rather stupidly. +</p> + +<p> +“But I do—Wey, Smiler!—’Od rot the women, ’tis nothing else wi’ ’em nowadays +but getting young men and leading ’em astray.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that’s all you +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“The world’s a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very sensible +indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. “I wish I +was as rich as a squire when he’s as poor as a crow,” he murmured; “I’d soon +ask Fancy something.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish so too, wi’ all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what beest +about, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +Smart moved on a step or two. “Supposing now, father,—We-hey, Smart!—I did +think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I ha’n’t; don’t you think +she’s a very good sort of—of—one?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, good; she’s good enough. When you’ve made up your mind to marry, take the +first respectable body that comes to hand—she’s as good as any other; they be +all alike in the groundwork; ’tis only in the flourishes there’s a difference. +She’s good enough; but I can’t see what the nation a young feller like you—wi’ +a comfortable house and home, and father and mother to take care o’ thee, and +who sent ’ee to a school so good that ’twas hardly fair to the other +children—should want to go hollering after a young woman for, when she’s +quietly making a husband in her pocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to +make a poverty-stric’ wife and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor +waistcoat to set ’em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and that’s the long +and the short o’t, my sonny.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick looked at Smart’s ears, then up the hill; but no reason was suggested by +any object that met his gaze. +</p> + +<p> +“For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dang it, my sonny, thou’st got me there!” And the tranter gave vent to a grim +admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to appreciate +artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Whether or no,” said Dick, “I asked her a thing going along the road.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come to that, is it? Turk! won’t thy mother be in a taking! Well, she’s ready, +I don’t doubt?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t ask her anything about having me; and if you’ll let me speak, I’ll +tell ’ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Piph-ph-ph!” +</p> + +<p> +“And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said she +didn’t know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of that speech?” +The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn’t care for the ridicule +of all the fathers in creation. +</p> + +<p> +“The meaning of that speech is,” the tranter replied deliberately, “that the +meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, as an honest father +to thee, I don’t pretend to deny what you d’know well enough; that is, that her +father being rather better in the pocket than we, I should welcome her ready +enough if it must be somebody.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what d’ye think she really did mean?” said the unsatisfied Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afeard I am not o’ much account in guessing, especially as I was not there +when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only ’ooman I ever cam’ +into such close quarters as that with.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what did mother say to you when you asked her?” said Dick musingly. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that that will help ’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +“The principle is the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—ay: what did she say? Let’s see. I was oiling my working-day boots +without taking ’em off, and wi’ my head hanging down, when she just brushed on +by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. ‘Ann,’ I said, says I, and +then,—but, Dick I’m afeard ’twill be no help to thee; for we were such a rum +couple, your mother and I, leastways one half was, that is myself—and your +mother’s charms was more in the manner than the material.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind! ‘Ann,’ said you.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Ann,’ said I, as I was saying . . . ‘Ann,’ I said to her when I was oiling my +working-day boots wi’ my head hanging down, ‘Woot hae me?’ . . . What came next +I can’t quite call up at this distance o’ time. Perhaps your mother would +know,—she’s got a better memory for her little triumphs than I. However, the +long and the short o’ the story is that we were married somehow, as I found +afterwards. ’Twas on White Tuesday,—Mellstock Club walked the same day, every +man two and two, and a fine day ’twas,—hot as fire,—how the sun did strike down +upon my back going to church! I well can mind what a bath o’ sweating I was in, +body and soul! But Fance will ha’ thee, Dick—she won’t walk with another +chap—no such good luck.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that,” said Dick, whipping at Smart’s flank in a fanciful +way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with going on. “There’s +Pa’son Maybold, too—that’s all against me.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about he? She’s never been stuffing into thy innocent heart that he’s in +hove with her? Lord, the vanity o’ maidens!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at me in such +a way—quite different the ways were,—and as I was coming off, there was he +hanging up her birdcage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, why shouldn’t the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it all, what’s +that got to do wi’ it? Dick, that thou beest a white-lyvered chap I don’t say, +but if thou beestn’t as mad as a cappel-faced bull, let me smile no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, ay.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what’s think now, Dick?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s another pretty kettle o’ fish for thee. Who d’ye think’s the bitter +weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell ’ee?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Why, Pa’son Maybold, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shiner,—because he’s in love with thy young woman, and d’want to see her young +figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her young fingers rum-strumming +upon the keys.” +</p> + +<p> +A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this communication +from his father. “Shiner’s a fool!—no, that’s not it; I don’t believe any such +thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take a bold step like that, unless she’d +been a little made up to, and had taken it kindly. Pooh!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s to say she didn’t?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“The more fool you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, father of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Has she ever done more to thee?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then she has done as much to he—rot ’em! Now, Dick, this is how a maid is. +She’ll swear she’s dying for thee, and she is dying for thee, and she will die +for thee; but she’ll fling a look over t’other shoulder at another young +feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not dying for me, and so she didn’t fling a look at him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what to make of it at all,” said Dick gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +“All I can make of it is,” the tranter said, raising his whip, arranging his +different joints and muscles, and motioning to the horse to move on, “that if +you can’t read a maid’s mind by her motions, nature d’seem to say thou’st ought +to be a bachelor. Clk, clk! Smiler!” And the tranter moved on. +</p> + +<p> +Dick held Smart’s rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, and man +remained rooted in the lane. How long this condition would have lasted is +unknown, had not Dick’s thoughts, after adding up numerous items of misery, +gradually wandered round to the fact that as something must be done, it could +not be done by staying there all night. +</p> + +<p> +Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were going to +be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper and uncorking the +ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the writer’s mind was so +powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion that it obscured the logical +sequence of facts and intentions to an appreciable degree; and it was not at +all clear to a reader whether he there and then left off loving Miss Fancy Day; +whether he had never loved her seriously, and never meant to; whether he had +been dying up to the present moment, and now intended to get well again; or +whether he had hitherto been in good health, and intended to die for her +forthwith. +</p> + +<p> +He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a stern +handwriting of straight dashes—easy flourishes being rigorously excluded. He +walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides not an inch less than +three feet long. Reaching her gate he put on a resolute expression—then put it +off again, turned back homeward, tore up his letter, and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +That letter was altogether in a wrong tone—that he must own. A heartless +man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. That he rather wanted +her, and rather did not want her—the latter for choice; but that as a member of +society he didn’t mind making a query in jaunty terms, which could only be +answered in the same way: did she mean anything by her bearing towards him, or +did she not? +</p> + +<p> +This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being put into +the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was to run with it to +the school, he was told in addition not to look behind him if Dick called after +him to bring it back, but to run along with it just the same. Having taken this +precaution against vacillation, Dick watched his messenger down the road, and +turned into the house whistling an air in such ghastly jerks and starts, that +whistling seemed to be the act the very furthest removed from that which was +instinctive in such a youth. +</p> + +<p> +The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed—and no answer. +The next. The next. Friday night came. Dick resolved that if no answer or sign +were given by her the next day, on Sunday he would meet her face to face, and +have it all out by word of mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick,” said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment—in each hand +a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress—“I think you’d better +take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. Maybold’s to-morrow, instead o’ me, and +I’ll go wi’ Smiler and the wagon.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar’s mother, who had just taken into +her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised under the pretence of +its being an economical wish to produce her own honey), lived near the +watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten miles off, and the business of +transporting the hives thither would occupy the whole day, and to some extent +annihilate the vacant time between this evening and the coming Sunday. The best +spring-cart was washed throughout, the axles oiled, and the bees placed therein +for the journey. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part03"></a>PART THE THIRD—SUMMER</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH</h2> + +<p> +An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles of +dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the skirt of the +dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: it was Fancy! Dick’s heart +went round to her with a rush. +</p> + +<p> +The scene was the corner of Mary Street in Budmouth-Regis, near the King’s +statue, at which point the white angle of the last house in the row cut +perpendicularly an embayed and nearly motionless expanse of salt water +projected from the outer ocean—to-day lit in bright tones of green and opal. +Dick and Smart had just emerged from the street, and there on the right, +against the brilliant sheet of liquid colour, stood Fancy Day; and she turned +and recognized him. +</p> + +<p> +Dick suspended his thoughts of the letter and wonder at how she came there by +driving close to the chains of the Esplanade—incontinently displacing two +chairmen, who had just come to life for the summer in new clean shirts and +revivified clothes, and being almost displaced in turn by a rigid boy rattling +along with a baker’s cart, and looking neither to the right nor the left. He +asked if she were going to Mellstock that night. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I’m waiting for the carrier,” she replied, seeming, too, to suspend +thoughts of the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“Now I can drive you home nicely, and you save half an hour. Will ye come with +me?” +</p> + +<p> +As Fancy’s power to will anything seemed to have departed in some mysterious +manner at that moment, Dick settled the matter by getting out and assisting her +into the vehicle without another word. +</p> + +<p> +The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which was +permanent, and at length their eyes met; there was present between them a +certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at such moments when all the +instinctive acts dictated by the position have been performed. Dick, being +engaged with the reins, thought less of this awkwardness than did Fancy, who +had nothing to do but to feel his presence, and to be more and more conscious +of the fact, that by accepting a seat beside him in this way she succumbed to +the tone of his note. Smart jogged along, and Dick jogged, and the helpless +Fancy necessarily jogged, too; and she felt that she was in a measure captured +and made a prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +“I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day,” he observed, as they +drove past the two semicircular bays of the Old Royal Hotel, where His Majesty +King George the Third had many a time attended the balls of the burgesses. +</p> + +<p> +To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of mastery—a +consciousness of which he was perfectly innocent—this remark sounded like a +magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t come for the pleasure of obliging you with my company,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must have been +rather surprising to young Dewy. At the same time it may be observed, that when +a young woman returns a rude answer to a young man’s civil remark, her heart is +in a state which argues rather hopefully for his case than otherwise. +</p> + +<p> +There was silence between them till they had left the sea-front and passed +about twenty of the trees that ornamented the road leading up out of the town +towards Casterbridge and Mellstock. +</p> + +<p> +“Though I didn’t come for that purpose either, I would have done it,” said Dick +at the twenty-first tree. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mr. Dewy, no flirtation, because it’s wrong, and I don’t wish it.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, arranged his +looks very emphatically, and cleared his throat. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were just going to +commence,” said the lady intractably. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you never have, to be sure!” +</p> + +<p> +This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as a man who +had resolved never to spoil his jollity by loving one of womankind— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present time? Gaily, I don’t +doubt for a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not gay, Dick; you know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gaily doesn’t mean decked in gay dresses.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a scholar you’ve +grown!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots of things have happened to you this spring, I see.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you seen?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, nothing; I’ve heard, I mean!” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you heard?” +</p> + +<p> +“The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a tin +watch-chain, a little mixed up with your own. That’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that’s who you mean! The studs +are gold, as you know, and it’s a real silver chain; the ring I can’t +conscientiously defend, and he only wore it once.” +</p> + +<p> +“He might have worn it a hundred times without showing it half so much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’s nothing to me,” she serenely observed. +</p> + +<p> +“Not any more than I am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mr. Dewy,” said Fancy severely, “certainly he isn’t any more to me than +you are!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not so much?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. “That I +can’t exactly answer,” she replied with soft archness. +</p> + +<p> +As they were going rather slowly, another spring-cart, containing a farmer, +farmer’s wife, and farmer’s man, jogged past them; and the farmer’s wife and +farmer’s man eyed the couple very curiously. The farmer never looked up from +the horse’s tail. +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t you exactly answer?” said Dick, quickening Smart a little, and +jogging on just behind the farmer and farmer’s wife and man. +</p> + +<p> +As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they both +contemplated the picture presented in front, and noticed how the farmer’s wife +sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over each end of the seat to give +her room, till they almost sat upon their respective wheels; and they looked +too at the farmer’s wife’s silk mantle, inflating itself between her shoulders +like a balloon and sinking flat again, at each jog of the horse. The farmer’s +wife, feeling their eyes sticking into her back, looked over her shoulder. Dick +dropped ten yards further behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy, why can’t you answer?” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you,” said she in +low tones. +</p> + +<p> +“Everything,” said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting emphatic +eyes upon the upper curve of her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn’t say in what way your thinking of +me affected the question—perhaps inversely, don’t you see? No touching, sir! +Look; goodness me, don’t, Dick!” +</p> + +<p> +The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over Dick’s right +shoulder of an empty timber-wagon and four journeymen-carpenters reclining in +lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed upwards at various oblique angles +into the surrounding world, the chief object of their existence being +apparently to criticize to the very backbone and marrow every animate object +that came within the compass of their vision. This difficulty of Dick’s was +overcome by trotting on till the wagon and carpenters were beginning to look +rather misty by reason of a film of dust that accompanied their wagon-wheels, +and rose around their heads like a fog. +</p> + +<p> +“Say you love me, Fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Dick, certainly not; ’tisn’t time to do that yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Miss Day’ is better at present—don’t mind my saying so; and I ought not to +have called you Dick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your love. Why, +you make any one think that loving is a thing that can be done and undone, and +put on and put off at a mere whim.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I don’t,” she said gently; “but there are things which tell me I ought +not to give way to much thinking about you, even if—” +</p> + +<p> +“But you want to, don’t you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be truthful. +Whatever they may say about a woman’s right to conceal where her love lies, and +pretend it doesn’t exist, and things like that, it is not best; I do know it, +Fancy. And an honest woman in that, as well as in all her daily concerns, +shines most brightly, and is thought most of in the long-run.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little,” she whispered tenderly; +“but I wish you wouldn’t say any more now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t say any more now, then, if you don’t like it, dear. But you do love me +a little, don’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can’t say any more +now, and you must be content with what you have.” +</p> + +<p> +“I may at any rate call you Fancy? There’s no harm in that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you may.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll not call me Mr. Dewy any more?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD</h2> + +<p> +Dick’s spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his +sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart’s neck, not far +behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for some time, never +dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip which, on this particular +journey, had never been extended further than his flank, tossed his head, and +scampered along with exceeding briskness, which was very pleasant to the young +couple behind him till, turning a bend in the road, they came instantly upon +the farmer, farmer’s man, and farmer’s wife with the flapping mantle, all +jogging on just the same as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Bother those people! Here we are upon them again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course. They have as much right to the road as we.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to myself. +Look what a lumbering affair theirs is!” The wheels of the farmer’s cart, just +at that moment, jogged into a depression running across the road, giving the +cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded to the left, and on coming out of it +all three nodded to the right, and went on jerking their backs in and out as +usual. “We’ll pass them when the road gets wider.” +</p> + +<p> +When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this intention into +effect, they heard light flying wheels behind, and on their quartering there +whizzed along past them a brand-new gig, so brightly polished that the spokes +of the wheels sent forth a continual quivering light at one point in their +circle, and all the panels glared like mirrors in Dick and Fancy’s eyes. The +driver, and owner as it appeared, was really a handsome man; his companion was +Shiner. Both turned round as they passed Dick and Fancy, and stared with bold +admiration in her face till they were obliged to attend to the operation of +passing the farmer. Dick glanced for an instant at Fancy while she was +undergoing their scrutiny; then returned to his driving with rather a sad +countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you so silent?” she said, after a while, with real concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is, Dick. I couldn’t help those people passing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look offended with me. What have I done?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t tell without offending you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of offending +her, “I was thinking how different you in love are from me in love. Whilst +those men were staring, you dismissed me from your thoughts altogether, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t offend me further now; tell all!” +</p> + +<p> +“And showed upon your face a pleased sense of being attractive to ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be silly, Dick! You know very well I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick shook his head sceptically, and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick, I always believe flattery <i>if possible—</i>and it was possible then. +Now there’s an open confession of weakness. But I showed no consciousness of +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, charitably +forbore saying anything that could make her prevaricate. The sight of Shiner, +too, had recalled another branch of the subject to his mind; that which had +been his greatest trouble till her company and words had obscured its +probability. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, Fancy, do you know why our quire is to be dismissed?” +</p> + +<p> +“No: except that it is Mr. Maybold’s wish for me to play the organ.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know how it came to be his wish?” +</p> + +<p> +“That I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, however, was +willing enough before. Shiner, I know, is crazy to see you playing every +Sunday; I suppose he’ll turn over your music, for the organ will be close to +his pew. But—I know you have never encouraged him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never once!” said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest truth. “I +don’t like him indeed, and I never heard of his doing this before! I have +always felt that I should like to play in a church, but I never wished to turn +you and your choir out; and I never even said that I could play till I was +asked. You don’t think for a moment that I did, surely, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you didn’t, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or that I care the least morsel of a bit for him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, and there +being a good inn, ‘The Ship,’ four miles out of Budmouth, with a mast and +cross-trees in front, Dick’s custom in driving thither was to divide the +journey into three stages by resting at this inn going and coming, and not +troubling the Budmouth stables at all, whenever his visit to the town was a +mere call and deposit, as to-day. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the stables to see +to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant twitches of feature that +were visible in the ostler and labouring men idling around, Dick endeavoured to +look unconscious of the fact that there was any sentiment between him and Fancy +beyond a tranter’s desire to carry a passenger home. He presently entered the +inn and opened the door of Fancy’s room. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my being here +alone with you like this. I don’t think you had better come in with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s rather unpleasant, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself too, because +you must be tired.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, if you +recollect, Fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I don’t know what +to do.” +</p> + +<p> +“It shall be as you say, then.” Dick began to retreat with a dissatisfied +wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy tea-tray. +</p> + +<p> +“But you don’t see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that,” she said, with +more earnestness than she had ever shown before. “You do know, that even if I +care very much for you, I must remember that I have a difficult position to +maintain. The vicar would not like me, as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a +<i>tête-à-tête</i> anywhere with anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am not <i>any</i> body!” exclaimed Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, I mean with a young man;” and she added softly, “unless I were really +engaged to be married to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we’ll be engaged at once, to be sure +we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a glove!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! but suppose I won’t! And, goodness me, what have I done!” she faltered, +getting very red. “Positively, it seems as if I meant you to say that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s do it! I mean get engaged,” said Dick. “Now, Fancy, will you be my +wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did coming +along the road,” she remarked, as if she had not heard the latter part of his +speech; though an acute observer might have noticed about her breast, as the +word ‘wife’ fell from Dick’s lips, a soft silent escape of breaths, with very +short rests between each. +</p> + +<p> +“What did I say?” +</p> + +<p> +“About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig.” +</p> + +<p> +“You couldn’t help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you do care +for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very much?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you’ll be my own wife?” +</p> + +<p> +Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek varying tones of +red to match each varying thought. Dick looked expectantly at the ripe tint of +her delicate mouth, waiting for what was coming forth. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—if father will let me.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting them out, as +if he were about to whistle the softest melody known. +</p> + +<p> +“O no!” said Fancy solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +The modest Dick drew back a little. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!—here’s somebody coming!” she +whisperingly exclaimed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy’s lips had been +real cherries probably Dick’s would have appeared deeply stained. The landlord +was standing in the yard. +</p> + +<p> +“Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!” he laughed, letting the laugh slip out +gently and by degrees that it might make little noise in its exit, and smiting +Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. “This will never do, upon my life, +Master Dewy! calling for tay for a feymel passenger, and then going in and +sitting down and having some too, and biding such a fine long time!” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely you know?” said Dick, with great apparent surprise. “Yes, yes! +Ha-ha!” smiting the landlord under the ribs in return. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“You know, of course!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course! But—that is—I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why about—between that young lady and me?” nodding to the window of the room +that Fancy occupied. +</p> + +<p> +“No; not I!” said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles. +</p> + +<p> +“And you don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word, I’ll take my oath!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you laughed when I laughed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, you don’t know? Goodness—not knowing that!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll take my oath I don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes,” said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, “we’re +engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, of course! I didn’t know that, and I hope ye’ll excuse any little +freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I was talking to your +father very intimate about family matters only last Friday in the world, and +who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all then fell a-talking o’ family +matters; but neither one o’ them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so +many years, and I at your father’s own wedding. ’Tisn’t what I should have +expected from an old neighbour!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, to say the truth, we hadn’t told father of the engagement at that time; +in fact, ’twasn’t settled.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday’s the courting day. +Heu-heu!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ’twasn’t done Sunday in particular.” +</p> + +<p> +“After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very proper good +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, ’twasn’t done then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all; I wouldn’t think of getting engaged in a dog-cart.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dammy—might as well have said at once, the <i>when</i> be blowed! Anyhow, ’tis +a fine day, and I hope next time you’ll come as one.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly +affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the Ridgeway, and +vanished in the direction of Mellstock. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +A CONFESSION</h2> + +<p> +It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews, when +the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were laden till +eleven o’clock with small drops and dashes of water, changing the colour of +their sparkle at every movement of the air; and elsewhere hanging on twigs like +small silver fruit. The threads of garden spiders appeared thick and polished. +In the dry and sunny places, dozens of long-legged crane-flies whizzed off the +grass at every step the passer took. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter’s daughter, were in such a spot +as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. Three months had elapsed +since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together from Budmouth, and the course of +their love had run on vigorously during the whole time. There had been just +enough difficulty attending its development, and just enough finesse required +in keeping it private, to lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness on +Fancy’s part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, Dick’s heart had +been at all times as fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on Fancy’s +horizon now. +</p> + +<p> +“She is so well off—better than any of us,” Susan Dewy was saying. “Her father +farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor or curate or anything of +that kind if she contrived a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all when he knew +I couldn’t go,” replied Fancy uneasily. +</p> + +<p> +“He didn’t know that you would not be there till it was too late to refuse the +invitation,” said Susan. +</p> + +<p> +“And what was she like? Tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she was rather pretty, I must own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell straight on about her, can’t you! Come, do, Susan. How many times did you +say he danced with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Twice, I think you said?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I’m sure I didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and he wanted to again, I expect.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I don’t think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad enough, I +know. Everybody does with Dick, because he’s so handsome and such a clever +courter.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, I wish!—How did you say she wore her hair?” +</p> + +<p> +“In long curls,—and her hair is light, and it curls without being put in paper: +that’s how it is she’s so attractive.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through keeping this +miserable school I mustn’t wear my hair in curls! But I will; I don’t care if I +leave the school and go home, I will wear my curls! Look, Susan, do! is her +hair as soft and long as this?” Fancy pulled from its coil under her hat a +twine of her own hair, and stretched it down her shoulder to show its length, +looking at Susan to catch her opinion from her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“It is about the same length as that, I think,” said Miss Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy paused hopelessly. “I wish mine was lighter, like hers!” she continued +mournfully. “But hers isn’t so soft, is it? Tell me, now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly and a +red-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, and then became +aware that Dick was advancing up the garden. +</p> + +<p> +“Susan, here’s Dick coming; I suppose that’s because we’ve been talking about +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I shall go indoors now—you won’t want me;” and Susan turned +practically and walked off. +</p> + +<p> +Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or picnic, had +been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving himself of the +innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him, by sighing regretfully +at her absence,—who had danced with the rival in sheer despair of ever being +able to get through that stale, flat, and unprofitable afternoon in any other +way; but this she would not believe. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. “I am in +great trouble,” said she, taking what was intended to be a hopelessly +melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the tree; yet a critical +ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative tone as to the effect of the +words upon Dick when she uttered them. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it,” said Dick earnestly. “Darling, +I will share it with ’ee and help ’ee.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no: you can’t! Nobody can!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? You don’t deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, it isn’t what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!” +</p> + +<p> +“Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can’t be.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis, ’tis!” said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of sorrow. “I have +done wrong, and I don’t like to tell it! Nobody will forgive me, nobody! and +you above all will not! . . . I have allowed myself to—to—fl—” +</p> + +<p> +“What,—not flirt!” he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a sudden +pressure inward from his surface. “And you said only the day before yesterday +that you hadn’t flirted in your life!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love me, and—” +</p> + +<p> +“Good G—! Well, I’ll forgive you,—yes, if you couldn’t help it,—yes, I will!” +said the now dismal Dick. “Did you encourage him?” +</p> + +<p> +“O,—I don’t know,—yes—no. O, I think so!” +</p> + +<p> +“Who was it?” A pause. “Tell me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Shiner.” +</p> + +<p> +After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a long-checked +sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real austerity— +</p> + +<p> +“Tell it all;—every word!” +</p> + +<p> +“He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, ‘Will you let me show you +how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?’ And I—wanted to know very +much—I did so long to have a bullfinch! I couldn’t help that and I said, ‘Yes!’ +and then he said, ‘Come here.’ And I went with him down to the lovely river, +and then he said to me, ‘Look and see how I do it, and then you’ll know: I put +this birdlime round this twig, and then I go here,’ he said, ‘and hide away +under a bush; and presently clever Mister Bird comes and perches upon the twig, +and flaps his wings, and you’ve got him before you can say Jack’—something; O, +O, O, I forget what!” +</p> + +<p> +“Jack Sprat,” mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his misery. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not Jack Sprat,” she sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Then ’twas Jack Robinson!” he said, with the emphasis of a man who had +resolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the bridge to get +across, and—That’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that isn’t much, either,” said Dick critically, and more cheerfully. +“Not that I see what business Shiner has to take upon himself to teach you +anything. But it seems—it do seem there must have been more than that to set +you up in such a dreadful taking?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked into Fancy’s eyes. Misery of miseries!—guilt was written there still. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Fancy, you’ve not told me all!” said Dick, rather sternly for a quiet +young man. +</p> + +<p> +“O, don’t speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn’t been harsh, +I was going on to tell all; now I can’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I’ll forgive; I must,—by heaven and earth, I +must, whether I will or no; I love you so!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it—” +</p> + +<p> +“A scamp!” said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder. +</p> + +<p> +“And then he looked at me, and at last he said, ‘Are you in love with Dick +Dewy?’ And I said, ‘Perhaps I am!’ and then he said, ‘I wish you weren’t then, +for I want to marry you, with all my soul.’” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a villain now! Want to marry you!” And Dick quivered with the +bitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering that he might be +reckoning without his host: “Unless, to be sure, you are willing to have +him,—perhaps you are,” he said, with the wretched indifference of a castaway. +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed I am not!” she said, her sobs just beginning to take a favourable +turn towards cure. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then,” said Dick, coming a little to his senses, “you’ve been stretching +it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such a mere nothing. And I +know what you’ve done it for,—just because of that gipsy-party!” He turned away +from her and took five paces decisively, as if he were tired of an ungrateful +country, including herself. “You did it to make me jealous, and I won’t stand +it!” He flung the words to her over his shoulder and then stalked on, +apparently very anxious to walk to the remotest of the Colonies that very +minute. +</p> + +<p> +“O, O, O, Dick—Dick!” she cried, trotting after him like a pet lamb, and really +seriously alarmed at last, “you’ll kill me! My impulses are bad—miserably +wicked,—and I can’t help it; forgive me, Dick! And I love you always; and those +times when you look silly and don’t seem quite good enough for me,—just the +same, I do, Dick! And there is something more serious, though not concerning +that walk with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what is it?” said Dick, altering his mind about walking to the Colonies; +in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so rooted to the road that +he was apparently not even going home. +</p> + +<p> +“Why this,” she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears she had been +going to shed, “this is the serious part. Father has told Mr. Shiner that he +would like him for a son-in-law, if he could get me;—that he has his right +hearty consent to come courting me!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +AN ARRANGEMENT</h2> + +<p> +“That <i>is</i> serious,” said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken for +a long time. +</p> + +<p> +The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter’s continued walks +and meetings with Dick. When a hint that there were symptoms of an attachment +between them had first reached Geoffrey’s ears, he stated so emphatically that +he must think the matter over before any such thing could be allowed that, +rather unwisely on Dick’s part, whatever it might have been on the lady’s, the +lovers were careful to be seen together no more in public; and Geoffrey, +forgetting the report, did not think over the matter at all. So Mr. Shiner +resumed his old position in Geoffrey’s brain by mere flux of time. Even Shiner +began to believe that Dick existed for Fancy no more,—though that remarkably +easy-going man had taken no active steps on his own account as yet. +</p> + +<p> +“And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that,” continued Fancy, “but he has +written me a letter, to say he should wish me to encourage Mr. Shiner, if ’twas +convenient!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must start off and see your father at once!” said Dick, taking two or three +vehement steps to the south, recollecting that Mr. Day lived to the north, and +coming back again. +</p> + +<p> +“I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come for, or +anything of the kind, until he likes you, and so win his brain through his +heart, which is always the way to manage people. I mean in this way: I am going +home on Saturday week to help them in the honey-taking. You might come there to +me, have something to eat and drink, and let him guess what your coming +signifies, without saying it in so many words.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; not wait +for his guessing.” And the lover then stepped close to her, and attempted to +give her one little kiss on the cheek, his lips alighting, however, on an +outlying tract of her back hair by reason of an impulse that had caused her to +turn her head with a jerk. “Yes, and I’ll put on my second-best suit and a +clean shirt and collar, and black my boots as if ’twas a Sunday. ’Twill have a +good appearance, you see, and that’s a great deal to start with.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t wear that old waistcoat, will you, Dick?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless you, no! Why I—” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t mean to be personal, dear Dick,” she said, fearing she had hurt his +feelings. “’Tis a very nice waistcoat, but what I meant was, that though it is +an excellent waistcoat for a settled-down man, it is not quite one for” (she +waited, and a blush expanded over her face, and then she went on again)—“for +going courting in.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’ll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that mother made. +It is a beautiful, handsome waistcoat inside, yes, as ever anybody saw. In +fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to show a chap that very lining, and +he said it was the strongest, handsomest lining you could wish to see on the +king’s waistcoat himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>I</i> don’t quite know what to wear,” she said, as if her habitual +indifference alone to dress had kept back so important a subject till now. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, that blue frock you wore last week.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t set well round the neck. I couldn’t wear that.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I shan’t care.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you won’t mind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then it’s all right. Because you only care how you look to me, do you, +dear? I only dress for you, that’s certain.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but you see I couldn’t appear in it again very well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the set of it, +I suppose. Fancy, men in love don’t think so much about how they look to other +women.” It is difficult to say whether a tone of playful banter or of gentle +reproach prevailed in the speech. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, Dick,” she said, with good-humoured frankness, “I’ll own it. I +shouldn’t like a stranger to see me dressed badly, even though I am in love. +’Tis our nature, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“You perfect woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; if you lay the stress on ‘woman,’” she murmured, looking at a group of +hollyhocks in flower, round which a crowd of butterflies had gathered like +female idlers round a bonnet-shop. +</p> + +<p> +“But about the dress. Why not wear the one you wore at our party?” +</p> + +<p> +“That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives near our +house, has had one made almost like it (only in pattern, though of miserably +cheap stuff), and I couldn’t wear it on that account. Dear me, I am afraid I +can’t go now.” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes, you must; I know you will!” said Dick, with dismay. “Why not wear what +you’ve got on?” +</p> + +<p> +“What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one Saturday, I +can make the blue one do for Sunday. Yes, I will. A hat or a bonnet, which +shall it be? Which do I look best in?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think the bonnet is nicest, more quiet and matronly.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the objection to the hat? Does it make me look old?” +</p> + +<p> +“O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather too—you won’t mind +me saying it, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, for I shall wear the bonnet.” +</p> + +<p> +“—Rather too coquettish and flirty for an engaged young woman.” +</p> + +<p> +She reflected a minute. “Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would do best; +hats <i>are</i> best, you see. Yes, I must wear the hat, dear Dicky, because I +ought to wear a hat, you know.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part04"></a>PART THE FOURTH—AUTUMN</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +GOING NUTTING</h2> + +<p> +Dick, dressed in his ‘second-best’ suit, burst into Fancy’s sitting-room with a +glow of pleasure on his face. +</p> + +<p> +It was two o’clock on Friday, the day before her contemplated visit to her +father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the school the children had +been given this Friday afternoon for pastime, in addition to the usual +Saturday. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with you. Smart is +lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can’t do anything, I’ve made a +holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you to go nutting with me!” +</p> + +<p> +She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying across her lap +and scissors in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Go nutting! Yes. But I’m afraid I can’t go for an hour or so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not? ’Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together for weeks.” +</p> + +<p> +“This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;—I find it +fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I told the dressmaker +to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; instead of that, she did it her +own way, and made me look a perfect fright.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long will you be?” he inquired, looking rather disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +“Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the snipping and +sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his conversation began to be +varied by a slight tapping upon his toe with a walking-stick he had cut from +the hedge as he came along. Fancy talked and answered him, but sometimes the +answers were so negligently given, that it was evident her thoughts lay for the +greater part in her lap with the blue dress. +</p> + +<p> +The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the room with +his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then sounded a few notes on +the harmonium, then looked inside all the books he could find, then smoothed +Fancy’s head with his hand. Still the snipping and sewing went on. +</p> + +<p> +The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; counted the knots +in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies on the ceiling, yawned +horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, and so thoroughly studied the +principle upon which the pump was constructed that he could have delivered a +lecture on the subject. Stepping back to Fancy, and finding still that she had +not done, he went into her garden and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and +reminded himself that they seemed to him to wear a decidedly feminine aspect; +then pulled up several weeds, and came in again. The clock struck five, and +still the snipping and sewing went on. +</p> + +<p> +Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking-stick, then +threw the stick into the scullery because it was spoilt, produced hideous +discords from the harmonium, and accidentally overturned a vase of flowers, the +water from which ran in a rill across the table and dribbled to the floor, +where it formed a lake, the shape of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, +he began to modify considerably with his foot, till it was like a map of +England and Wales. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Dick, you needn’t have made quite such a mess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I needn’t, I suppose.” He walked up to the blue dress, and looked at it +with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his brain. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day to-morrow on +your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I shall be with you, and ask +your father for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“So I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the blue one only on Sunday?” +</p> + +<p> +“And the blue one Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dear, I sha’n’t be at Yalbury Sunday to see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with father, and +such lots of people will be looking at me there, you know; and it did set so +badly round the neck.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never noticed it, and ’tis like nobody else would.” +</p> + +<p> +“They might.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? ’Tis as pretty as the blue +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn’t so good; it didn’t cost +half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the same I wore Saturday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then wear the striped one, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“I might.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or the dark one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven’t seen.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see, I see,” said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love were decidedly +inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his thoughts meanwhile running as +follows: “I, the man she loves best in the world, as she says, am to understand +that my poor half-holiday is to be lost, because she wants to wear on Sunday a +gown there is not the slightest necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, to +appear more striking than usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young men; and I not +there, either.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither is good +enough for the youths of Longpuddle,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do want—to look pretty to +them—there, that’s honest! But I sha’n’t be much longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” +</p> + +<p> +“A quarter of an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well; I’ll come in in a quarter of an hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why go away?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mid as well.” +</p> + +<p> +He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he meditated and +meditated, and the more he meditated the more decidedly did he begin to fume, +and the more positive was he that his time had been scandalously trifled with +by Miss Fancy Day—that, so far from being the simple girl who had never had a +sweetheart before, as she had solemnly assured him time after time, she was, if +not a flirt, a woman who had had no end of admirers; a girl most certainly too +anxious about her frocks; a girl, whose feelings, though warm, were not deep; a +girl who cared a great deal too much how she appeared in the eyes of other men. +“What she loves best in the world,” he thought, with an incipient spice of his +father’s grimness, “is her hair and complexion. What she loves next best, her +gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, perhaps!” +</p> + +<p> +Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness to his +darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel thought crossed his +mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the end of a quarter of +an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well deserved. Although the best +part of the afternoon had been wasted he would go nutting as he had intended, +and go by himself. +</p> + +<p> +He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two miles, till a +winding path called Snail-Creep sloped up a hill and entered a hazel copse by a +hole like a rabbit’s burrow. In he plunged, vanished among the bushes, and in a +short time there was no sign of his existence upon earth, save an occasional +rustling of boughs and snapping of twigs in divers points of Grey’s Wood. +</p> + +<p> +Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a galley slave. +Half-hour after half-hour passed away, and still he gathered without ceasing. +At last, when the sun had set, and bunches of nuts could not be distinguished +from the leaves which nourished them, he shouldered his bag, containing quite +two pecks of the finest produce of the wood, about as much use to him as two +pecks of stones from the road, strolled down the woodland track, crossed the +highway and entered the homeward lane, whistling as he went. +</p> + +<p> +Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. Dewy’s +opinion as on that afternoon. In fact, it is just possible that a few more blue +dresses on the Longpuddle young men’s account would have clarified Dick’s brain +entirely, and made him once more a free man. +</p> + +<p> +But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the present. +Cuckoo-Lane, the way he pursued, passed over a ridge which rose keenly against +the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, upon the bright after-glow about +the horizon, was now visible an irregular shape, which at first he conceived to +be a bough standing a little beyond the line of its neighbours. Then it seemed +to move, and, as he advanced still further, there was no doubt that it was a +living being sitting in the bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy margin +entirely prevented his footsteps from being heard, and it was not till he was +close that the figure recognized him. Up it sprang, and he was face to face +with Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick, Dick! O, is it you, Dick!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Fancy,” said Dick, in a rather repentant tone, and lowering his nuts. +</p> + +<p> +She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little head against +his breast, and then there began a narrative, disjointed by such a hysterical +weeping as was never surpassed for intensity in the whole history of love. +</p> + +<p> +“O Dick,” she sobbed out, “where have you been away from me? O, I have suffered +agony, and thought you would never come any more! ’Tis cruel, Dick; no ’tisn’t, +it is justice! I’ve been walking miles and miles up and down Grey’s Wood, +trying to find you, till I was wearied and worn out, and I could walk no +further, and had come back this far! O Dick, directly you were gone, I thought +I had offended you and I put down the dress; ’tisn’t finished now, and I never +will finish, it, and I’ll wear an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, I will, because I +don’t care what I wear when you are not by my side—ha, you think I do, but I +don’t!—and I ran after you, and I saw you go up Snail-Creep and not look back +once, and then you plunged in, and I after you; but I was too far behind. O, I +did wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your dear +shape again! And then I called out to you, and nobody answered, and I was +afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else should hear me. Then I kept +wandering and wandering about, and it was dreadful misery, Dick. And then I +shut my eyes and fell to picturing you looking at some other woman, very pretty +and nice, but with no affection or truth in her at all, and then imagined you +saying to yourself, ‘Ah, she’s as good as Fancy, for Fancy told me a story, and +was a flirt, and cared for herself more than me, so now I’ll have this one for +my sweetheart.’ O, you won’t, will you, Dick, for I do love you so!” +</p> + +<p> +It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom there and then, +and kissed her ten times over, and promised that no pretty woman of the kind +alluded to should ever engross his thoughts; in short, that though he had been +vexed with her, all such vexation was past, and that henceforth and for ever it +was simply Fancy or death for him. And then they set about proceeding +homewards, very slowly on account of Fancy’s weariness, she leaning upon his +shoulder, and in addition receiving support from his arm round her waist; +though she had sufficiently recovered from her desperate condition to sing to +him, ‘Why are you wandering here, I pray?’ during the latter part of their +walk. Nor is it necessary to describe in detail how the bag of nuts was quite +forgotten until three days later, when it was found among the brambles and +restored empty to Mrs. Dewy, her initials being marked thereon in red cotton; +and how she puzzled herself till her head ached upon the question of how on +earth her meal-bag could have got into Cuckoo-Lane. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS</h2> + +<p> +Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, according to +the arrangement with Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything suddenly +assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from sunset to dusk long +before Dick’s arrival, and his progress during the latter portion of his walk +through the trees was indicated by the flutter of terrified birds that had been +roosting over the path. And in crossing the glades, masses of hot dry air, that +had been formed on the hills during the day, greeted his cheeks alternately +with clouds of damp night air from the valleys. He reached the keeper-steward’s +house, where the grass-plot and the garden in front appeared light and pale +against the unbroken darkness of the grove from which he had emerged, and +paused at the garden gate. +</p> + +<p> +He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of procession +advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first of Enoch the trapper, +carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in his hand; then came +Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that she bore in her arms curious +objects about a foot long, in the form of Latin crosses (made of lath and brown +paper dipped in brimstone—called matches by bee-masters); next came Miss Day, +with a shawl thrown over her head; and behind all, in the gloom, Mr. Frederic +Shiner. +</p> + +<p> +Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss how to +proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“Here I be, Enoch,” said a voice; and the procession advancing farther, the +lantern’s rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, awaiting their arrival +beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the path. Taking the spade from Enoch, +he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside the hives, the others +standing round in a circle, except Mrs. Day, who deposited her matches in the +fork of an apple-tree and returned to the house. The party remaining were now +lit up in front by the lantern in their midst, their shadows radiating each way +upon the garden-plot like the spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarrassment of +Fancy at the presence of Shiner caused a silence in the assembly, during which +the preliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches fixed, the stake +kindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stopped round +the edges. Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, to straighten his +backbone after the digging. +</p> + +<p> +“They were a peculiar family,” said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives +reflectively. +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Those holes will be the grave of thousands!” said Fancy. “I think ’tis rather +a cruel thing to do.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father shook his head. “No,” he said, tapping the hives to shake the dead +bees from their cells, “if you suffocate ’em this way, they only die once: if +you fumigate ’em in the new way, they come to life again, and die o’ +starvation; so the pangs o’ death be twice upon ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“I incline to Fancy’s notion,” said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly. +</p> + +<p> +“The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved nor +murdered, is a puzzling matter,” said the keeper steadily. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like never to take it from them,” said Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“But ’tis the money,” said Enoch musingly. “For without money man is a +shadder!” +</p> + +<p> +The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hives destroyed +some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, were now getting a living as +marauders about the doors of other hives. Several flew round the head and neck +of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with an irritated bizz. +</p> + +<p> +Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a currant +bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered away helter-skelter +among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, unmoved and firm as a rock. +Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enoch picking up the lantern. Mr. +Shiner still remained invisible. +</p> + +<p> +“Have the craters stung ye?” said Enoch to Geoffrey. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not much—on’y a little here and there,” he said with leisurely solemnity, +shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another from among his hair, +and two or three more from his neck. The rest looked on during this proceeding +with a complacent sense of being out of it,—much as a European nation in a +state of internal commotion is watched by its neighbours. +</p> + +<p> +“Are those all of them, father?” said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulled away +five. +</p> + +<p> +“Almost all,—though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder and side. +Ah! there’s another just begun again upon my backbone. You lively young +mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can’t sting me many times +more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. They mid as well stay in me +till bedtime now, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it seemed +satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking against cabbages in a +blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. Shiner was heard from the +darkness in that direction. +</p> + +<p> +“Is all quite safe again?” +</p> + +<p> +No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that he might +venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. The hives were now +removed from their position over the holes, one being handed to Enoch to carry +indoors, and one being taken by Geoffrey himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide.” +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and Fancy +standing side by side on the garden-plot. +</p> + +<p> +“Allow me,” said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at the same +time with Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“I can carry it,” said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination to trifle. +She had thoroughly considered that subject after the tearful explanation of the +bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had decided that it would be dishonest in +her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle with men’s eyes and hands any more. +Finding that Shiner still retained his hold of the lantern, she relinquished +it, and he, having found her retaining it, also let go. The lantern fell, and +was extinguished. Fancy moved on. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the path?” said Mr. Shiner. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” said Fancy. “Your eyes will get used to the dark in a minute or two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Till that time will ye lend me your hand?” Fancy gave him the extreme tips of +her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the path. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t accept attentions very freely.” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends upon who offers them.” +</p> + +<p> +“A fellow like me, for instance.” A dead silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what do you say, Missie?” +</p> + +<p> +“It then depends upon how they are offered.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not by chance; +not too quick nor yet too slow.” +</p> + +<p> +“How then?” said Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Coolly and practically,” he said. “How would that kind of love be taken?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor pale; nor +religiously nor yet quite wickedly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Geoffrey Day’s storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with bunches of +dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of thyme and lavender; and +long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread large red and yellow apples, +and choice selections of early potatoes for seed next year;—vulgar crowds of +commoner kind lying beneath in heaps. A few empty beehives were clustered +around a nail in one corner, under which stood two or three barrels of new +cider of the first crop, each bubbling and squirting forth from the yet open +bunghole. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which rested +against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. She thrust her +sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink hand edgewise between +each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act so adroitly and gently as not +to unseal a single cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive +by a slight backward and forward movement, she lifted each portion as it was +loosened into a large blue platter, placed on a bench at her side. +</p> + +<p> +“Bother these little mortals!” said Geoffrey, who was holding the light to her, +and giving his back an uneasy twist. “I really think I may as well go indoors +and take ’em out, poor things! for they won’t let me alone. There’s two a +stinging wi’ all their might now. I’m sure I wonder their strength can last so +long.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right, friend; I’ll hold the candle whilst you are gone,” said Mr. Shiner, +leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to depart, which he did with +his usual long paces. +</p> + +<p> +He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other footsteps were +heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared in the hole +through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy came in, having been all +this time walking up and down the wood, vainly waiting for Shiner’s departure. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped the +candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should not imply to +Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, he sang +invincibly— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘King Arthur he had three sons.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Father here?” said Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“Indoors, I think,” said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him. +</p> + +<p> +Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just at that +moment. Shiner went on singing— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘The miller was drown’d in his pond,<br/> + The weaver was hung in his yarn,<br/> +And the d--- ran away with the little tail-or,<br/> + With the broadcloth under his arm.’” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a terrible crippled rhyme, if that’s your rhyme!” said Dick, with a +grain of superciliousness in his tone. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!” said Mr. Shiner. “You +must go to the man that made it.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy by this time had acquired confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy,” she said, holding up to him a small circular piece of +honeycomb that had been the last in the row of layers, remaining still on her +knees and flinging back her head to look in his face; “and then I’ll taste a +bit too.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I, if you please,” said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer looked +superior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling from very importance +of station; and after receiving the honeycomb from Fancy, he turned it over in +his hand till the cells began to be crushed, and the liquid honey ran down from +his fingers in a thin string. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s the matter, dear?” said Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He was in one of +the cells I was eating!” +</p> + +<p> +“We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!” said Shiner, stepping +up and kneeling beside her. “Let me see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” +</p> + +<p> +“Just let <i>me</i> see it,” said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and after +some hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to show the place. “O, +I hope ’twill soon be better! I don’t mind a sting in ordinary places, but it +is so bad upon your lip,” she added with tears in her eyes, and writhing a +little from the pain. +</p> + +<p> +Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to Fancy’s, as +if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon which Dick pushed +closer, as if Shiner were not there at all. +</p> + +<p> +“It is swelling,” said Dick to her right aspect. +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t swelling,” said Shiner to her left aspect. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it dangerous on the lip?” cried Fancy. “I know it is dangerous on the +tongue.” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, not dangerous!” answered Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather dangerous,” had answered Shiner simultaneously. +</p> + +<p> +“I must try to bear it!” said Fancy, turning again to the hives. +</p> + +<p> +“Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day,” said Shiner with +great concern. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I’ve found to be a good thing to cure stings, Miss +Day,” said Dick with greater concern. +</p> + +<p> +“We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for me?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, the +individuality of the <i>you</i> was so carelessly denoted that both Dick and +Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast to the +door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and continued marching on, shoulder +to shoulder, in the same manner to the dwelling-house. Not only so, but +entering the room, they marched as before straight up to Mrs. Day’s chair, +letting the door in the oak partition slam so forcibly, that the rows of pewter +on the dresser rang like a bell. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the hartshorn, +please,” said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, because +she has stung her lip!” said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. Day’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, men alive! that’s no reason why you should eat me, I suppose!” said Mrs. +Day, drawing back. +</p> + +<p> +She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began to dust the +cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, Dick’s hand and Shiner’s +hand waiting side by side. +</p> + +<p> +“Which is head man?” said Mrs. Day. “Now, don’t come mumbudgeting so close +again. Which is head man?” +</p> + +<p> +Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, as a +high-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and turned to go off +with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the search in his linen for concealed +bees. +</p> + +<p> +“O—that you, Master Dewy?” +</p> + +<p> +Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then determined upon a +bold stroke for the attainment of his end, forgetting that the worst of bold +strokes is the disastrous consequences they involve if they fail. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day,” he said, with +a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, who was vanishing +round the door-post at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ve been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake some bees +out o’ me” said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open door, and standing on +the threshold. “The young rascals got into my shirt and wouldn’t be quiet +nohow.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick followed him to the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come to speak a word to you,” he repeated, looking out at the pale mist +creeping up from the gloom of the valley. “You may perhaps guess what it is +about.” +</p> + +<p> +The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled his eyes, +balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly downward as if his +glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, collecting together the cracks +that lay about his face till they were all in the neighbourhood of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe I don’t know,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some small bird that +was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, whose cry passed into the +silence without mingling with it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve left my hat up in chammer,” said Geoffrey; “wait while I step up and get +en.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be in the garden,” said Dick. +</p> + +<p> +He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went upstairs. It +was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to discuss matters of pleasure and +ordinary business inside the house, and to reserve the garden for very +important affairs: a custom which, as is supposed, originated in the +desirability of getting away at such times from the other members of the family +when there was only one room for living in, though it was now quite as +frequently practised by those who suffered from no such limitation to the size +of their domiciles. +</p> + +<p> +The head-keeper’s form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked towards +him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery that stood on the +left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; and they both contemplated a +whitish shadowy shape that was moving about and grunting among the straw of the +interior. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come to ask for Fancy,” said Dick. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d as lief you hadn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should that be, Mr. Day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because it makes me say that you’ve come to ask what ye be’n’t likely to have. +Have ye come for anything else?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll just tell ’ee you’ve come on a very foolish errand. D’ye know what +her mother was?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“A teacher in a landed family’s nursery, who was foolish enough to marry the +keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper then, though now I’ve +a dozen other irons in the fire as steward here for my lord, what with the +timber sales and the yearly fellings, and the gravel and sand sales and one +thing and ’tother. However, d’ye think Fancy picked up her good manners, the +smooth turn of her tongue, her musical notes, and her knowledge of books, in a +homely hole like this?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye know where?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother’s death, she lived with her +aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married Lawyer Green—a man as +sharp as a needle—and the school was broke up. Did ye know that then she went +to the training-school, and that her name stood first among the Queen’s +scholars of her year?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve heard so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, she had the +highest of the first class?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when I’ve got +enough to do without it, and why I make her work as a schoolmistress instead of +living here?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, should want to +marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha’n’t be superior to her in pocket. +Now do ye think after this that you be good enough for her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then good-night t’ee, Master Dewy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, Mr. Day.” +</p> + +<p> +Modest Dick’s reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away wondering +at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen from the beginning to +be so superior to him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER III.<br/> +FANCY IN THE RAIN</h2> + +<p> +The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, and Fancy Day +is discovered walking from her father’s home towards Mellstock. +</p> + +<p> +A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small rain and +mist had just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, alternately thick and thin. +The trees of the fields and plantations writhed like miserable men as the air +wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest portions of their trunks, that had +hardly ever been known to move, were visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, +distressing the mind by its painful unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen +to shed tears. Low-hanging boughs went up and down; high and erect boughs went +to and fro; the blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many +cross-currents, that neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in +independent motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. Across the open +spaces flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, which, after travelling a +long distance from their parent trees, reached the ground, and lay there with +their under-sides upward. +</p> + +<p> +As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy’s bonnet-ribbons leapt more and more +snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering Mellstock Lane to consider +her latitude, and the distance to a place of shelter. The nearest house was +Elizabeth Endorfield’s, in Higher Mellstock, whose cottage and garden stood not +far from the junction of that hamlet with the road she followed. Fancy hastened +onward, and in five minutes entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood of +water-drops as she opened it. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, chiel!” a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a promptness +that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs. Endorfield was an +exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the use of her eyes and ears. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her husband’s +supper. +</p> + +<p> +Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a bucket of +water. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she began to +reconsider an old subject that lay uppermost in her heart. Since the interview +between her father and Dick, the days had been melancholy days for her. +Geoffrey’s firm opposition to the notion of Dick as a son-in-law was more than +she had expected. She had frequently seen her lover since that time, it is +true, and had loved him more for the opposition than she would have otherwise +dreamt of doing—which was a happiness of a certain kind. Yet, though love is +thus an end in itself, it must be believed to be the means to another end if it +is to assume the rosy hues of an unalloyed pleasure. And such a belief Fancy +and Dick were emphatically denied just now. +</p> + +<p> +Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its nature something +between distinction and notoriety. It was founded on the following items of +character. She was shrewd and penetrating; her house stood in a lonely place; +she never went to church; she wore a red cloak; she always retained her bonnet +indoors and she had a pointed chin. Thus far her attributes were distinctly +Satanic; and those who looked no further called her, in plain terms, a witch. +But she was not gaunt, nor ugly in the upper part of her face, nor particularly +strange in manner; so that, when her more intimate acquaintances spoke of her +the term was softened, and she became simply a Deep Body, who was as +long-headed as she was high. It may be stated that Elizabeth belonged to a +class of suspects who were gradually losing their mysterious characteristics +under the administration of the young vicar; though, during the long reign of +Mr. Grinham, the parish of Mellstock had proved extremely favourable to the +growth of witches. +</p> + +<p> +While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to herself +whether it was worth while to tell her troubles to Elizabeth, and ask her +advice in getting out of them, the witch spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“You be down—proper down,” she said suddenly, dropping another potato into the +bucket. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy took no notice. +</p> + +<p> +“About your young man.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. Really, one would +almost think she must have the powers people ascribed to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Father not in the humour for’t, hey?” Another potato was finished and flung +in. “Ah, I know about it. Little birds tell me things that people don’t dream +of my knowing.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chance—O, such a wicked +chance—of getting help; and what was goodness beside love! +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you’d tell me how to put him in the humour for it?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“That I could soon do,” said the witch quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“Really? O, do; anyhow—I don’t care—so that it is done! How could I do it, Mrs. +Endorfield?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing so mighty wonderful in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but how?” +</p> + +<p> +“By witchery, of course!” said Elizabeth. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” said Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis, I assure ye. Didn’t you ever hear I was a witch?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” hesitated Fancy, “I have heard you called so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you believed it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say that I did exactly believe it, for ’tis very horrible and wicked; +but, O, how I do wish it was possible for you to be one!” +</p> + +<p> +“So I am. And I’ll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you marry Dick +Dewy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will it hurt him, poor thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hurt who?” +</p> + +<p> +“Father.” +</p> + +<p> +“No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be broke by +your acting stupidly.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy looked rather perplexed, and Elizabeth went on: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“This fear of Lizz—whatever ’tis—<br/> + By great and small;<br/> +She makes pretence to common sense,<br/> + And that’s all. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“You must do it like this.” The witch laid down her knife and potato, and then +poured into Fancy’s ear a long and detailed list of directions, glancing up +from the corner of her eye into Fancy’s face with an expression of sinister +humour. Fancy’s face brightened, clouded, rose and sank, as the narrative +proceeded. “There,” said Elizabeth at length, stooping for the knife and +another potato, “do that, and you’ll have him by-long and by-late, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do it I will!” said Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The rain +continued as usual, but the wind had abated considerably during the discourse. +Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella erect, she pulled her hood +again over her bonnet, bade the witch good-bye, and went her way. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br/> +THE SPELL</h2> + +<p> +Mrs. Endorfield’s advice was duly followed. +</p> + +<p> +“I be proper sorry that your daughter isn’t so well as she might be,” said a +Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning. +</p> + +<p> +“But is there anything in it?” said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted his hat to +the right. “I can’t understand the report. She didn’t complain to me a bit when +I saw her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No appetite at all, they say.” +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that afternoon. Fancy +welcomed him as usual, and asked him to stay and take tea with her. +</p> + +<p> +“I be’n’t much for tea, this time o’ day,” he said, but stayed. +</p> + +<p> +During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great consternation +discovered the following unprecedented change in the healthy girl—that she cut +herself only a diaphanous slice of bread-and-butter, and, laying it on her +plate, passed the meal-time in breaking it into pieces, but eating no more than +about one-tenth of the slice. Geoffrey hoped she would say something about +Dick, and finish up by weeping, as she had done after the decision against him +a few days subsequent to the interview in the garden. But nothing was said, and +in due time Geoffrey departed again for Yalbury Wood. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her school,” said +Geoffrey’s man Enoch to Geoffrey the following week, as they were shovelling up +ant-hills in the wood. +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his sleeve, and +killed another that was prowling round his ear, then looked perpendicularly +into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to say more. “Well, why shouldn’t +she?” said the keeper at last. +</p> + +<p> +“The baker told me yesterday,” continued Enoch, shaking out another emmet that +had run merrily up his thigh, “that the bread he’ve left at that there +school-house this last month would starve any mouse in the three creations; +that ’twould so! And afterwards I had a pint o’ small down at Morrs’s, and +there I heard more.” +</p> + +<p> +“What might that ha’ been?” +</p> + +<p> +“That she used to have a pound o’ the best rolled butter a week, regular as +clockwork, from Dairyman Viney’s for herself, as well as just so much salted +for the helping girl, and the ’ooman she calls in; but now the same quantity +d’last her three weeks, and then ’tis thoughted she throws it away sour.” +</p> + +<p> +“Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag home-along.” The keeper resumed his +gun, tucked it under his arm, and went on without whistling to the dogs, who +however followed, with a bearing meant to imply that they did not expect any +such attentions when their master was reflecting. +</p> + +<p> +On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble about sending +her the couple of rabbits, as was intended, because she feared she should not +want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went to Casterbridge and called upon the +butcher who served Fancy with fresh meat, which was put down to her father’s +account. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you can gie me +the chiel’s account at the same time.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of a heap of +joints, altered the expression of his face from meat to money, went into a +little office consisting only of a door and a window, looked very vigorously +into a book which possessed length but no breadth; and then, seizing a piece of +paper and scribbling thereupon, handed the bill. +</p> + +<p> +Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial transactions that +the quality of shortness in a butcher’s bill was a cause of tribulation to the +debtor. “Why, this isn’t all she’ve had in a whole month!” said Geoffrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Every mossel,” said the butcher—“(now, Dan, take that leg and shoulder to Mrs. +White’s, and this eleven pound here to Mr. Martin’s)—you’ve been treating her +to smaller joints lately, to my thinking, Mr. Day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am alive—I wish I +had!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my wife said to me—(Dan! not too much, not too much on that tray at a +time; better go twice)—my wife said to me as she posted up the books: she says, +‘Miss Day must have been affronted this summer during that hot muggy weather +that spolit so much for us; for depend upon’t,’ she says, ‘she’ve been trying +John Grimmett unknown to us: see her account else.’ ’Tis little, of course, at +the best of times, being only for one, but now ’tis next kin to nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll inquire,” said Geoffrey despondingly. +</p> + +<p> +He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in fulfilment of a +promise. It being Saturday, the children were enjoying a holiday, and on +entering the residence Fancy was nowhere to be seen. Nan, the charwoman, was +sweeping the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s my da’ter?” said the keeper. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you see she was tired with the week’s teaching, and this morning she +said, ‘Nan, I sha’n’t get up till the evening.’ You see, Mr. Day, if people +don’t eat, they can’t work; and as she’ve gie’d up eating, she must gie up +working.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have ye carried up any dinner to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; she don’t want any. There, we all know that such things don’t come without +good reason—not that I wish to say anything about a broken heart, or anything +of the kind.” +</p> + +<p> +Geoffrey’s own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went to the +staircase and ascended to his daughter’s door. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, father.” +</p> + +<p> +To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, is +depressing enough; and here was his only child Fancy, not only in bed, but +looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy, I didn’t expect to see thee here, chiel,” he said. “What’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not well, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“How’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I think of things.” +</p> + +<p> +“What things can you have to think o’ so mortal much?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know, father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think I’ve been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless Dick o’ thine +sha’n’t marry thee, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +No answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn’t good enough for +thee. You know that well enough.” Here he again looked at her as she lay. +“Well, Fancy, I can’t let my only chiel die; and if you can’t live without en, +you must ha’ en, I suppose.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, I don’t want him like that; all against your will, and everything so +disobedient!” sighed the invalid. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, ’tisn’t against my will. My wish is, now I d’see how ’tis hurten thee +to live without en, that he shall marry thee as soon as we’ve considered a +little. That’s my wish flat and plain, Fancy. There, never cry, my little maid! +You ought to ha’ cried afore; no need o’ crying now ’tis all over. Well, +howsoever, try to step over and see me and mother-law to-morrow, and ha’ a bit +of dinner wi’ us.” +</p> + +<p> +“And—Dick too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, Dick too, ’far’s I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And <i>when</i> do you think you’ll have considered, father, and he may marry +me?” she coaxed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there, say next Midsummer; that’s not a day too long to wait.” +</p> + +<p> +On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter’s. Old William opened the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“Is your grandson Dick in ’ithin, William?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not just now, Mr. Day. Though he’ve been at home a good deal lately.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, how’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“What wi’ one thing, and what wi’ t’other, he’s all in a mope, as might be +said. Don’t seem the feller he used to. Ay, ’a will sit studding and thinking +as if ’a were going to turn chapel-member, and then do nothing but traypse and +wamble about. Used to be such a chatty boy, too, Dick did; and now ’a don’t +speak at all. But won’t ye step inside? Reuben will be home soon, ’a b’lieve.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you, I can’t stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he’ll do me the +kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da’ter Fancy, if she’s well +enough? I don’t like her to come by herself, now she’s not so terrible topping +in health.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I’ve heard. Ay, sure, I’ll tell him without fail.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER V.<br/> +AFTER GAINING HER POINT</h2> + +<p> +The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might have been +expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth experience in a +hitherto obstructed love-course. And then came a series of several happy days, +of the same undisturbed serenity. Dick could court her when he chose; stay away +when he chose,—which was never; walk with her by winding streams and waterfalls +and autumn scenery till dews and twilight sent them home. And thus they drew +near the day of the Harvest Thanksgiving, which was also the time chosen for +opening the organ in Mellstock Church. +</p> + +<p> +It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from Mellstock. A young +acquaintance had died of consumption at Charmley, a neighbouring village, on +the previous Monday, and Dick, in fulfilment of a long-standing promise, was to +assist in carrying him to the grave. When on Tuesday, Dick went towards the +school to acquaint Fancy with the fact, it is difficult to say whether his own +disappointment at being denied the sight of her triumphant <i>début</i> +as organist, was greater than his vexation that his pet should on this great +occasion be deprived of the pleasure of his presence. However, the intelligence +was communicated. She bore it as she best could, not without many expressions +of regret, and convictions that her performance would be nothing to her now. +</p> + +<p> +Just before eleven o’clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. The +funeral was to be immediately after the morning service, and as there were four +good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it became necessary to start +comparatively early. Half an hour later would certainly have answered his +purpose quite as well, yet at the last moment nothing would content his ardent +mind but that he must go a mile out of his way in the direction of the school, +in the hope of getting a glimpse of his Love as she started for church. +</p> + +<p> +Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of across the +ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door as his goddess +emerged. +</p> + +<p> +If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning as she +floated down those school steps, in the form of a nebulous collection of +colours inclining to blue. With an audacity unparalleled in the whole history +of village-school-mistresses at this date—partly owing, no doubt, to papa’s +respectable accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether +one of necessity—she had actually donned a hat and feather, and lowered her +hitherto plainly looped-up hair, which now fell about her shoulders in a +profusion of curls. Poor Dick was astonished: he had never seen her look so +distractingly beautiful before, save on Christmas-eve, when her hair was in the +same luxuriant condition of freedom. But his first burst of delighted surprise +was followed by less comfortable feelings, as soon as his brain recovered its +power to think. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy had blushed;—was it with confusion? She had also involuntarily pressed +back her curls. She had not expected him. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy, you didn’t know me for a moment in my funeral clothes, did you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, Dick—no, really, I didn’t know you for an instant in such a sad +suit.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. “You’ve never dressed so charming +before, dearest.” +</p> + +<p> +“I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick,” she said, smiling archly. “It +is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fie! you know it. Did you remember,—I mean didn’t you remember about my going +away to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;—forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, darling; yes, of course,—there’s nothing to forgive. No, I was only +thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday +about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for it, you said, Fancy, so were +you sorry, and almost cried, and said it would be no pleasure to you to be the +attraction of the church to-day, since I could not be there.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I do take a +little delight in my life, I suppose,” she pouted. +</p> + +<p> +“Apart from mine?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with perplexed eyes. “I know you are vexed with me, Dick, and +it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat and feather since I have +been here happens to be the very day you are away and won’t be with me. Yes, +say it is, for that is it! And you think that all this week I ought to have +remembered you wouldn’t be here to-day, and not have cared to be better dressed +than usual. Yes, you do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” said Dick earnestly and simply, “I didn’t think so badly of you as +that. I only thought that—if <i>you</i> had been going away, I shouldn’t have +tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. But then of course you and +I are different, naturally.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps we are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever will the vicar say, Fancy?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t fear what he says in the least!” she answered proudly. “But he won’t +say anything of the sort you think. No, no.” +</p> + +<p> +“He can hardly have conscience to, indeed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go,” she said +with sudden gaiety, and skipped backwards into the porch. “Come here, sir;—say +you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me;—you never have yet when I have worn +curls, you know. Yes, just where you want to so much,—yes, you may!” +</p> + +<p> +Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not slow in +availing himself of the privilege offered. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that’s a treat for you, isn’t it?” she continued. “Good-bye, or I shall be +late. Come and see me to-morrow: you’ll be tired to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ stood on one +side of the chancel, close to and under the immediate eye of the vicar when he +was in the pulpit, and also in full view of the congregation. Here she sat +down, for the first time in such a conspicuous position, her seat having +previously been in a remote spot in the aisle. +</p> + +<p> +“Good heavens—disgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!” said the daughters of +the small gentry, who had either only curly hair without a hat and feather, or +a hat and feather without curly hair. “A bonnet for church always,” said sober +matrons. +</p> + +<p> +That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him during the +sermon; that he was not at all angry at her development of costume; that he +admired her, she perceived. But she did not see that he loved her during that +sermon-time as he had never loved a woman before; that her proximity was a +strange delight to him; and that he gloried in her musical success that morning +in a spirit quite beyond a mere cleric’s glory at the inauguration of a new +order of things. +</p> + +<p> +The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in the gallery +as heretofore (which was now given up to the school-children who were not +singers, and a pupil-teacher), but were scattered about with their wives in +different parts of the church. Having nothing to do with conducting the service +for almost the first time in their lives, they all felt awkward, out of place, +abashed, and inconvenienced by their hands. The tranter had proposed that they +should stay away to-day and go nutting, but grandfather William would not hear +of such a thing for a moment. “No,” he replied reproachfully, and quoted a +verse: “Though this has come upon us, let not our hearts be turned back, or our +steps go out of the way.” +</p> + +<p> +So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back of the +successful rival, and the waving of her feather, as she swayed her head. After +a few timid notes and uncertain touches her playing became markedly correct, +and towards the end full and free. But, whether from prejudice or unbiassed +judgment, the venerable body of musicians could not help thinking that the +simpler notes they had been wont to bring forth were more in keeping with the +simplicity of their old church than the crowded chords and interludes it was +her pleasure to produce. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br/> +INTO TEMPTATION</h2> + +<p> +The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About five o’clock +it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind she wandered into the +schoolroom, for want of something better to do. She was thinking—of her lover +Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of how weary she was of living alone: how unbearable +it would be to return to Yalbury under the rule of her strange-tempered +step-mother; that it was far better to be married to anybody than do that; that +eight or nine long months had yet to be lived through ere the wedding could +take place. +</p> + +<p> +At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon either sill +of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and using it as a footstool. As +the evening advanced here she perched herself, as was her custom on such wet +and gloomy occasions, put on a light shawl and bonnet, opened the window, and +looked out at the rain. +</p> + +<p> +The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the position from +which she used to survey the crown of Dick’s passing hat in the early days of +their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was now visible anywhere; +the rain kept all people indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and +necessity was less importunate on Sundays than during the week. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting here and thinking again—of her lover, or of the sensation she had +created at church that day?—well, it is unknown—thinking and thinking she saw a +dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at the further end of the +Grove—a man without an umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived +that he was in deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness +and foolishness of his young heart, after walking four miles, in a drizzling +rain without overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark from his love that +he was not to come because he would be tired, he had made it his business to +wander this mile out of his way again, from sheer wish of spending ten minutes +in her presence. +</p> + +<p> +“O Dick, how wet you are!” she said, as he drew up under the window. “Why, your +coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat—my goodness, there’s a +streaming hat!” +</p> + +<p> +“O, I don’t mind, darling!” said Dick cheerfully. “Wet never hurts me, though I +am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it couldn’t be helped; we lent +all the umbrellas to the women. I don’t know when I shall get mine back!” +</p> + +<p> +“And look, there’s a nasty patch of something just on your shoulder.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that’s japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack’s coffin when we +lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I don’t care about that, for +’twas the last deed I could do for him; and ’tis hard if you can’t afford a +coat for an old friend.” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the palm of that +little hand there existed for that half-minute a little yawn. +</p> + +<p> +“Dick, I don’t like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn’t sit down. Go +home and change your things. Don’t stay another minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“One kiss after coming so far,” he pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“If I can reach, then.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the door. She +twisted from her seated position and bent herself downwards, but not even by +standing on the plinth was it possible for Dick to get his lips into contact +with hers as she held them. By great exertion she might have reached a little +lower; but then she would have exposed her head to the rain. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand,” she said, flinging it down to him. “Now, +good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till he was out +of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost involuntarily, and +still conscious of that morning’s triumph—“I like Dick, and I love him; but how +plain and sorry a man looks in the rain, with no umbrella, and wet through!” +</p> + +<p> +As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but glancing in the +other direction she saw another form coming along the same track. It was also +that of a man. He, too, was in black from top to toe; but he carried an +umbrella. +</p> + +<p> +He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant his +umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was invisible, as she +was also to him. He passed in due time directly beneath her, and in looking +down upon the exterior of his umbrella her feminine eyes perceived it to be of +superior silk—less common at that date than since—and of elegant make. He +reached the entrance to the building, and Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. +Instead of pursuing the roadway as Dick had done he had turned sharply round +into her own porch. +</p> + +<p> +She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, smoothed and +patted her hair till the curls hung in passable condition, and listened. No +knock. Nearly a minute passed, and still there was no knock. Then there arose a +soft series of raps, no louder than the tapping of a distant woodpecker, and +barely distinct enough to reach her ears. She composed herself and flung open +the door. +</p> + +<p> +In the porch stood Mr. Maybold. +</p> + +<p> +There was a warm flush upon his face, and a bright flash in his eyes, which +made him look handsomer than she had ever seen him before. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, Miss Day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-evening, Mr. Maybold,” she said, in a strange state of mind. She had +noticed, beyond the ardent hue of his face, that his voice had a singular +tremor in it, and that his hand shook like an aspen leaf when he laid his +umbrella in the corner of the porch. Without another word being spoken by +either, he came into the schoolroom, shut the door, and moved close to her. +Once inside, the expression of his face was no more discernible, by reason of +the increasing dusk of evening. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to speak to you,” he then said; “seriously—on a perhaps unexpected +subject, but one which is all the world to me—I don’t know what it may be to +you, Miss Day.” +</p> + +<p> +No reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy, I have come to ask you if you will be my wife?” +</p> + +<p> +As a person who has been idly amusing himself with rolling a snowball might +start at finding he had set in motion an avalanche, so did Fancy start at these +words from the vicar. And in the dead silence which followed them, the +breathings of the man and of the woman could be distinctly and separately +heard; and there was this difference between them—his respirations gradually +grew quieter and less rapid after the enunciation, hers, from having been low +and regular, increased in quickness and force, till she almost panted. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot, I cannot, Mr. Maybold—I cannot! Don’t ask me!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t answer in a hurry!” he entreated. “And do listen to me. This is no +sudden feeling on my part. I have loved you for more than six months! Perhaps +my late interest in teaching the children here has not been so single-minded as +it seemed. You will understand my motive—like me better, perhaps, for honestly +telling you that I have struggled against my emotion continually, because I +have thought that it was not well for me to love you! But I resolved to +struggle no longer; I have examined the feeling; and the love I bear you is as +genuine as that I could bear any woman! I see your great charm; I respect your +natural talents, and the refinement they have brought into your nature—they are +quite enough, and more than enough for me! They are equal to anything ever +required of the mistress of a quiet parsonage-house—the place in which I shall +pass my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I have watched you, +criticized you even severely, brought my feelings to the light of judgment, and +still have found them rational, and such as any man might have expected to be +inspired with by a woman like you! So there is nothing hurried, secret, or +untoward in my desire to do this. Fancy, will you marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +No answer was returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t refuse; don’t,” he implored. “It would be foolish of you—I mean cruel! +Of course we would not live here, Fancy. I have had for a long time the offer +of an exchange of livings with a friend in Yorkshire, but I have hitherto +refused on account of my mother. There we would go. Your musical powers shall +be still further developed; you shall have whatever pianoforte you like; you +shall have anything, Fancy, anything to make you happy—pony-carriage, flowers, +birds, pleasant society; yes, you have enough in you for any society, after a +few months of travel with me! Will you, Fancy, marry me?” +</p> + +<p> +Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against the +window-panes, and then Fancy spoke, in a faint and broken voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless you, my own!” He advanced quickly, and put his arm out to embrace +her. She drew back hastily. “No no, not now!” she said in an agitated whisper. +“There are things;—but the temptation is, O, too strong, and I can’t resist it; +I can’t tell you now, but I must tell you! Don’t, please, don’t come near me +now! I want to think, I can scarcely get myself used to the idea of what I have +promised yet.” The next minute she turned to a desk, buried her face in her +hands, and burst into a hysterical fit of weeping. “O, leave me to myself!” she +sobbed; “leave me! O, leave me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be distressed; don’t, dearest!” It was with visible difficulty that he +restrained himself from approaching her. “You shall tell me at your leisure +what it is that grieves you so; I am happy—beyond all measure happy!—at having +your simple promise.” +</p> + +<p> +“And do go and leave me now!” +</p> + +<p> +“But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you are yourself +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“There then,” she said, controlling her emotion, and standing up; “I am not +disturbed now.” +</p> + +<p> +He reluctantly moved towards the door. “Good-bye!” he murmured tenderly. “I’ll +come to-morrow about this time.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br/> +SECOND THOUGHTS</h2> + +<p> +The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was to write a +long and careful letter to his friend in Yorkshire. Then, eating a little +breakfast, he crossed the meadows in the direction of Casterbridge, bearing his +letter in his pocket, that he might post it at the town office, and obviate the +loss of one day in its transmission that would have resulted had he left it for +the foot-post through the village. +</p> + +<p> +It was a foggy morning, and the trees shed in noisy water-drops the moisture +they had collected from the thick air, an acorn occasionally falling from its +cup to the ground, in company with the drippings. In the meads, sheets of +spiders’-web, almost opaque with wet, hung in folds over the fences, and the +falling leaves appeared in every variety of brown, green, and yellow hue. +</p> + +<p> +A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was approaching, then the +light footsteps of a man going in the same direction as himself. On reaching +the junction of his path with the road, the vicar beheld Dick Dewy’s open and +cheerful face. Dick lifted his hat, and the vicar came out into the highway +that Dick was pursuing. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, Dewy. How well you are looking!” said Mr. Maybold. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, I am well—quite well! I am going to Casterbridge now, to get Smart’s +collar; we left it there Saturday to be repaired.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to Casterbridge, so we’ll walk together,” the vicar said. Dick gave +a hop with one foot to put himself in step with Mr. Maybold, who proceeded: “I +fancy I didn’t see you at church yesterday, Dewy. Or were you behind the pier?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; I went to Charmley. Poor John Dunford chose me to be one of his bearers a +long time before he died, and yesterday was the funeral. Of course I couldn’t +refuse, though I should have liked particularly to have been at home as ’twas +the day of the new music.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you should have been. The musical portion of the service was +successful—very successful indeed; and what is more to the purpose, no +ill-feeling whatever was evinced by any of the members of the old choir. They +joined in the singing with the greatest good-will.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Twas natural enough that I should want to be there, I suppose,” said Dick, +smiling a private smile; “considering who the organ-player was.” +</p> + +<p> +At this the vicar reddened a little, and said, “Yes, yes,” though not at all +comprehending Dick’s true meaning, who, as he received no further reply, +continued hesitatingly, and with another smile denoting his pride as a lover— +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you know what I mean, sir? You’ve heard about me and—Miss Day?” +</p> + +<p> +The red in Maybold’s countenance went away: he turned and looked Dick in the +face. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said constrainedly, “I’ve heard nothing whatever about you and Miss +Day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, she’s my sweetheart, and we are going to be married next Midsummer. We +are keeping it rather close just at present, because ’tis a good many months to +wait; but it is her father’s wish that we don’t marry before, and of course we +must submit. But the time ’ill soon slip along.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, the time will soon slip along—Time glides away every day—yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Maybold said these words, but he had no idea of what they were. He was +conscious of a cold and sickly thrill throughout him; and all he reasoned was +this that the young creature whose graces had intoxicated him into making the +most imprudent resolution of his life, was less an angel than a woman. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, sir,” continued the ingenuous Dick, “’twill be better in one sense. I +shall by that time be the regular manager of a branch o’ father’s business, +which has very much increased lately, and business, which we think of starting +elsewhere. It has very much increased lately, and we expect next year to keep +a’ extra couple of horses. We’ve already our eye on one—brown as a berry, neck +like a rainbow, fifteen hands, and not a gray hair in her—offered us at +twenty-five want a crown. And to kip pace with the times I have had some cards +prented and I beg leave to hand you one, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick offered +him. +</p> + +<p> +“I turn in here by Grey’s Bridge,” said Dick. “I suppose you go straight on and +up town?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-morning, Dewy.” +</p> + +<p> +Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been put into +his hand, and Dick’s footsteps died away towards Durnover Mill. The vicar’s +first voluntary action was to read the card:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +DEWY AND SON,<br/> +TRANTERS AND HAULIERS,<br/> +MELLSTOCK.<br/> +<i>NB.—Furniture, Coals, Potatoes, Live and Dead Stock, removed to any distance on +the shortest notice.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the river. He +saw—without heeding—how the water came rapidly from beneath the arches, glided +down a little steep, then spread itself over a pool in which dace, trout, and +minnows sported at ease among the long green locks of weed that lay heaving and +sinking with their roots towards the current. At the end of ten minutes spent +leaning thus, he drew from his pocket the letter to his friend, tore it +deliberately into such minute fragments that scarcely two syllables remained in +juxtaposition, and sent the whole handful of shreds fluttering into the water. +Here he watched them eddy, dart, and turn, as they were carried downwards +towards the ocean and gradually disappeared from his view. Finally he moved +off, and pursued his way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock Vicarage. +</p> + +<p> +Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his study and +wrote as follows: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“Dear Miss Day,—The meaning of your words, ‘the temptation is too strong,’ of +your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me by an accident. I know +to-day what I did not know yesterday—that you are not a free woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you not tell me—why didn’t you? Did you suppose I knew? No. Had I +known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have been reprehensible. +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to you—I can’t tell. Fancy, +though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in a way which cannot be +expressed, I love you still, and my word to you holds good yet. But will you, +in justice to an honest man who relies upon your word to him, consider whether, +under the circumstances, you can honourably forsake him? +</p> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours ever sincerely, <br/> +A<small>RTHUR</small> M<small>AYBOLD</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +He rang the bell. “Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this note to the +school at once.” +</p> + +<p> +The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy was seen to +leave the vicarage gate, with the one under his arm, and the other in his hand. +The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, watching the lad as he descended +Church Lane and entered the waterside path which intervened between that spot +and the school. +</p> + +<p> +Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and pugilistic +frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on his way to the +vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in. +</p> + +<p> +He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he read the +subjoined words: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p> +“Dear Mr. Maybold,—I have been thinking seriously and sadly through the whole +of the night of the question you put to me last evening and of my answer. That +answer, as an honest woman, I had no right to give. +</p> + +<p> +“It is my nature—perhaps all women’s—to love refinement of mind and manners; +but even more than this, to be ever fascinated with the idea of surroundings +more elegant and pleasing than those which have been customary. And you praised +me, and praise is life to me. It was alone my sensations at these things which +prompted my reply. Ambition and vanity they would be called; perhaps they are +so. +</p> + +<p> +“After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to withdraw the +answer I too hastily gave. +</p> + +<p> +“And one more request. To keep the meeting of last night, and all that passed +between us there, for ever a secret. Were it to become known, it would utterly +blight the happiness of a trusting and generous man, whom I love still, and +shall love always. +</p> +</div> + +<p class="right"> +“Yours sincerely, <br/> +F<small>ANCY</small> D<small>AY</small>. +</p> + +<p> +The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to Fancy, was a +note containing these words only: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part05"></a>PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>CHAPTER I.<br/> +‘THE KNOT THERE’S NO UNTYING’</h2> + +<p> +The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in the +development of the seasons when country people go to bed among nearly naked +trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake next morning among +green ones; when the landscape appears embarrassed with the sudden weight and +brilliancy of its leaves; when the night-jar comes and strikes up for the +summer his tune of one note; when the apple-trees have bloomed, and the roads +and orchard-grass become spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of the +delicate flowers are darkened, and their heads weighed down, by the throng of +honey-bees, which increase their humming till humming is too mild a term for +the all-pervading sound; and when cuckoos, blackbirds, and sparrows, that have +hitherto been merry and respectful neighbours, become noisy and persistent +intimates. +</p> + +<p> +The exterior of Geoffrey Day’s house in Yalbury Wood appeared exactly as was +usual at that season, but a frantic barking of the dogs at the back told of +unwonted movements somewhere within. Inside the door the eyes beheld a +gathering, which was a rarity indeed for the dwelling of the solitary +wood-steward and keeper. +</p> + +<p> +About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled attitudes, our old +acquaintance, grandfathers James and William, the tranter, Mr. Penny, two or +three children, including Jimmy and Charley, besides three or four country +ladies and gentlemen from a greater distance who do not require any distinction +by name. Geoffrey was seen and heard stamping about the outhouse and among the +bushes of the garden, attending to details of daily routine before the proper +time arrived for their performance, in order that they might be off his hands +for the day. He appeared with his shirt-sleeves rolled up; his best new nether +garments, in which he had arrayed himself that morning, being temporarily +disguised under a weekday apron whilst these proceedings were in operation. He +occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to see if his wife’s bees were +swarming, ultimately rolling down his shirt-sleeves and going indoors, talking +to tranter Dewy whilst buttoning the wristbands, to save time; next going +upstairs for his best waistcoat, and coming down again to make another remark +whilst buttoning that, during the time looking fixedly in the tranter’s face as +if he were a looking-glass. +</p> + +<p> +The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every duplicate +piece having been removed, including the clock by Thomas Wood; Ezekiel Saunders +being at last left sole referee in matters of time. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and adornments, +and answering by short fragments of laughter which had more fidgetiness than +mirth in them, remarks that were made from time to time by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. +Penny, who were assisting her at the toilet, Mrs. Day having pleaded a +queerness in her head as a reason for shutting herself up in an inner bedroom +for the whole morning. Mrs. Penny appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each +side of her temples, and a back comb stuck upon her crown like a castle on a +steep. +</p> + +<p> +The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the last +publication of which had been on the Sunday previous. +</p> + +<p> +“And how did they sound?” Fancy subtly inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Very beautiful indeed,” said Mrs. Penny. “I never heard any sound better.” +</p> + +<p> +“But <i>how</i>?” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“</i>O, <i>so</i> natural and elegant, didn’t they, Reuben!” she cried, +through the chinks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s that?” said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor above him +for an answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in church last +Sunday?” came downwards again in Mrs. Penny’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that they did, my sonnies!—especially the first time. There was a terrible +whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn’t there, neighbour Penny?” +said the tranter, taking up the thread of conversation on his own account and, +in order to be heard in the room above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who +sat at the distance of three feet from him, or rather less. +</p> + +<p> +“I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was,” said Mr. Penny, also +loudly, to the room above. “And such sorrowful envy on the maidens’ faces; +really, I never did see such envy as there was!” +</p> + +<p> +Fancy’s lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart +palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. “But perhaps,” she said, +with assumed indifference, “it was only because no religion was going on just +then?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, no; nothing to do with that. ’Twas because of your high standing in the +parish. It was just as if they had one and all caught Dick kissing and coling +ye to death, wasn’t it, Mrs. Dewy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; that ’twas.” +</p> + +<p> +“How people will talk about one’s doings!” Fancy exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can’t blame other people +for singing ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy me! how shall I go through it?” said the young lady again, but merely to +those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind between a sigh and a pant, +round shining eyes, and warm face. +</p> + +<p> +“O, you’ll get through it well enough, child,” said Mrs. Dewy placidly. “The +edge of the performance is took off at the calling home; and when once you get +up to the chancel end o’ the church, you feel as saucy as you please. I’m sure +I felt as brave as a sodger all through the deed—though of course I dropped my +face and looked modest, as was becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I’m sure,” subjoined Mrs. +Penny. “There, you see Penny is such a little small man. But certainly, I was +flurried in the inside o’ me. Well, thinks I, ’tis to be, and here goes! And do +you do the same: say, ‘’Tis to be, and here goes!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there such wonderful virtue in ‘’Tis to be, and here goes!’” inquired +Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful! ’Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to churching, if +you only let it out with spirit enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,” said Fancy, blushing. “’Tis to be, and here goes!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a girl for a husband!” said Mrs. Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“I do hope he’ll come in time!” continued the bride-elect, inventing a new +cause of affright, now that the other was demolished. +</p> + +<p> +“’Twould be a thousand pities if he didn’t come, now you be so brave,” said +Mrs. Penny. +</p> + +<p> +Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said downstairs with +mischievous loudness— +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve known some would-be weddings when the men didn’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve happened not to come, before now, certainly,” said Mr. Penny, cleaning +one of the glasses of his spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +“O, do hear what they are saying downstairs,” whispered Fancy. “Hush, hush!” +</p> + +<p> +She listened. +</p> + +<p> +“They have, haven’t they, Geoffrey?” continued grandfather James, as Geoffrey +entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Have what?” said Geoffrey. +</p> + +<p> +“The men have been known not to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“That they have,” said the keeper. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; I’ve knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not +appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I knowed was when the man +was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker’s Wood, and the three months had run +out before he got well, and the banns had to be published over again.” +</p> + +<p> +“How horrible!” said Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“They only say it on purpose to tease ’ee, my dear,” said Mrs. Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put to,” +came again from downstairs. “Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my brother-law, tell +his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty year: sometimes one +thing, sometimes another—’tis quite heart-rending—enough to make your hair +stand on end.” +</p> + +<p> +“Those things don’t happen very often, I know,” said Fancy, with smouldering +uneasiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really ’tis time Dick was here,” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down +there!” Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. “I am sure I shall die, +or do something, if you do!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!” cried Nat Callcome, the best +man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the chinks of the +floor as the others had done. “’Tis all right; Dick’s coming on like a wild +feller; he’ll be here in a minute. The hive o’ bees his mother gie’d en for his +new garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, ‘I can’t afford to +lose a stock o’ bees; no, that I can’t, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn’t +wish it on any account.’ So he jist stopped to ting to ’em and shake ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“A genuine wise man,” said Geoffrey. +</p> + +<p> +“To be sure, what a day’s work we had yesterday!” Mr. Callcome continued, +lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include those in +the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner of his best +clean handkerchief for wiping his face. “To be sure!” +</p> + +<p> +“Things so heavy, I suppose,” said Geoffrey, as if reading through the +chimney-window from the far end of the vista. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had been +removed. “And so awkward to carry, too. ’Twas ath’art and across Dick’s garden; +in and out Dick’s door; up and down Dick’s stairs; round and round Dick’s +chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and Dick is so particular, too. And the +stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, ’tis enough for Noah’s +ark! I’m sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of hams than he’s got +there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, +indeed;—none could desire a prettier cider.” +</p> + +<p> +“They be for the love and the stalled ox both. Ah, the greedy martels!” said +grandfather James. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, may-be they be. Surely,” says I, “that couple between ’em have heaped up +so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they were going to +take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi’ a grown-up family. +Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be sure, a-getting that +furniture in order!” +</p> + +<p> +“I do so wish the room below was ceiled,” said Fancy, as the dressing went on; +“we can hear all they say and do down there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hark! Who’s that?” exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also assisted this +morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down the stairs, and peeped +round the banister. “O, you should, you should, you should!” she exclaimed, +scrambling up to the room again. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” said Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“See the bridesmaids! They’ve just a come! ’Tis wonderful, really! ’tis +wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don’t look a bit like +themselves, but like some very rich sisters o’ theirs that nobody knew they +had!” +</p> + +<p> +“Make ’em come up to me, make ’em come up!” cried Fancy ecstatically; and the +four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy, Miss Vashti +Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, surged upstairs, and floated along the passage. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish Dick would come!” was again the burden of Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside the door flew +in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, “Ready, Fancy dearest?” +</p> + +<p> +“There he is, he is!” cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and breathing as it +were for the first time that morning. +</p> + +<p> +The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the direction +pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as one:—not looking at +Dick because they particularly wanted to see him, but with an important sense +of their duty as obedient ministers of the will of that apotheosised being—the +Bride. +</p> + +<p> +“He looks very taking!” said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who blushed +cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining cloth, +primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of newness, and with +an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, and hair cut to an unwonted +shortness in honour of the occasion. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I’ll run down,” said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder in the +glass, and flitting off. +</p> + +<p> +“O Dick!” she exclaimed, “I am so glad you are come! I knew you would, of +course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! Why, what’s +possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn’t hoisted my colours and committed myself then!” said +Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis a pity I can’t marry the whole five of ye!” said Dick, surveying them all +round. +</p> + +<p> +“Heh-heh-heh!” laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately touched Dick +and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to assure herself that he was +there in flesh and blood as her own property. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?” said Dick, taking off his hat, +sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members of the company. +</p> + +<p> +The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their opinion nobody +could have thought such a thing, whatever it was. +</p> + +<p> +“That my bees should ha’ swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!” +continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net over the whole +auditory. “And ’tis a fine swarm, too: I haven’t seen such a fine swarm for +these ten years.” +</p> + +<p> +“A’ excellent sign,” said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. “A’ +excellent sign.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad everything seems so right,” said Fancy with a breath of relief. +</p> + +<p> +“And so am I,” said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, bees can’t be put off,” observed the inharmonious grandfather James. +“Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a swarm o’ bees +won’t come for the asking.” +</p> + +<p> +Dick fanned himself with his hat. “I can’t think,” he said thoughtfully, +“whatever ’twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I like so much too. He +rather took to me when he came first, and used to say he should like to see me +married, and that he’d marry me, whether the young woman I chose lived in his +parish or no. I just hinted to him of it when I put in the banns, but he didn’t +seem to take kindly to the notion now, and so I said no more. I wonder how it +was.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder!” said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful eyes of +hers—too refined and beautiful for a tranter’s wife; but, perhaps, not too +good. +</p> + +<p> +“Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose,” said the tranter. “Well, my +sonnies, there’ll be a good strong party looking at us to-day as we go along.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the body of the church,” said Geoffrey, “will be lined with females, and a +row of young fellers’ heads, as far down as the eyes, will be noticed just +above the sills of the chancel-winders.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, you’ve been through it twice,” said Reuben, “and well mid know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can put up with it for once,” said Dick, “or twice either, or a dozen +times.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Dick!” said Fancy reproachfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, dear, that’s nothing,—only just a bit of a flourish. You be as nervous as +a cat to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then, of course, when ’tis all over,” continued the tranter, “we shall +march two and two round the parish.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sure,” said Mr. Penny: “two and two: every man hitched up to his woman, +’a b’lieve.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never can make a show of myself in that way!” said Fancy, looking at Dick to +ascertain if he could. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!” said Mr. Richard +Dewy heartily. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we did when we were married, didn’t we, Ann?” said the tranter; “and so +do everybody, my sonnies.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so did we,” said Fancy’s father. +</p> + +<p> +“And so did Penny and I,” said Mrs. Penny: “I wore my best Bath clogs, I +remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so tall.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so did father and mother,” said Miss Mercy Onmey. +</p> + +<p> +“And I mean to, come next Christmas!” said Nat the groomsman vigorously, and +looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff. +</p> + +<p> +“Respectable people don’t nowadays,” said Fancy. “Still, since poor mother did, +I will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” resumed the tranter, “’twas on a White Tuesday when I committed it. +Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new-married folk went a-gaying round +the parish behind ’em. Everybody used to wear something white at Whitsuntide in +them days. My sonnies, I’ve got the very white trousers that I wore, at home in +box now. Ha’n’t I, Ann?” +</p> + +<p> +“You had till I cut ’em up for Jimmy,” said Mrs. Dewy. +</p> + +<p> +“And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round Higher and Lower +Mellstock, and call at Viney’s, and so work our way hither again across He’th,” +said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the matter in hand. “Dairyman Viney is a +very respectable man, and so is Farmer Kex, and we ought to show ourselves to +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said the tranter, “we ought to go round Mellstock to do the thing well. +We shall form a very striking object walking along in rotation, good-now, +neighbours?” +</p> + +<p> +“That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation,” said Mrs. Penny. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular human figure +standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock of pillow-case cut and +of snowy whiteness. “Why, Leaf! whatever dost thou do here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come to know if so be I can come to the wedding—hee-hee!” said Leaf in a +voice of timidity. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Leaf,” said the tranter reproachfully, “you know we don’t want ’ee here +to-day: we’ve got no room for ye, Leaf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!” said old William. +</p> + +<p> +“I know I’ve got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a clane shirt +and smock-frock, I might just call,” said Leaf, turning away disappointed and +trembling. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor feller!” said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. “Suppose we must let en +come? His looks are rather against en, and he is terrible silly; but ’a have +never been in jail, and ’a won’t do no harm.” +</p> + +<p> +Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and then anxiously +at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in helping his cause. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, let en come,” said Geoffrey decisively. “Leaf, th’rt welcome, ’st know;” +and Leaf accordingly remained. +</p> + +<p> +They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a procession +in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and Susan Dewy, Nat Callcome +and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy Onmey, and Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These +formed the executive, and all appeared in strict wedding attire. Then came the +tranter and Mrs. Dewy, and last of all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;—the tranter +conspicuous by his enormous gloves, size eleven and three-quarters, which +appeared at a distance like boxing gloves bleached, and sat rather awkwardly +upon his brown hands; this hall-mark of respectability having been set upon +himself to-day (by Fancy’s special request) for the first time in his life. +</p> + +<p> +“The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together,” suggested Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“What? ’Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my time!” said +Geoffrey, astounded. +</p> + +<p> +“And in mine!” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“And in ours!” said Mr. and Mrs. Penny. +</p> + +<p> +“Never heard o’ such a thing as woman and woman!” said old William; who, with +grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home. +</p> + +<p> +“Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!” said Dick, who, being on the +point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to renounce all other +rights in the world with the greatest pleasure. The decision was left to Fancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I think I’d rather have it the way mother had it,” she said, and the +couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, “I wonder +which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ’tis their nature,” said grandfather William. “Remember the words of the +prophet Jeremiah: ‘Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?’” +</p> + +<p> +Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a cathedral; now +through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild hyacinths; now under +broad beeches in bright young leaves they threaded their way into the high road +over Yalbury Hill, which dipped at that point directly into the village of +Geoffrey Day’s parish; and in the space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found +herself to be Mrs. Richard Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no other +than Fancy Day still. +</p> + +<p> +On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid much +chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, Dick discerned a +brown spot far up a turnip field. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, ’tis Enoch!” he said to Fancy. “I thought I missed him at the house this +morning. How is it he’s left you?” +</p> + +<p> +“He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him in +Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody else for a day or +two, and Enoch hasn’t had anything to do with the woods since.” +</p> + +<p> +“We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for once, +considering ’tis our wedding day.” The bridal party was ordered to halt. +</p> + +<p> +“Eno-o-o-o-ch!” cried Dick at the top of his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!” said Enoch from the distance. +</p> + +<p> +“D’ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?” +</p> + +<p> +“No-o-o-o-o-o-o!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!” +</p> + +<p> +“O-h-h-h-h-h!” +</p> + +<p> +“Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!” +</p> + +<p> +“O-h-h-h-h-h!” +</p> + +<p> +“This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!” (holding her up to Enoch’s view as if she +had been a nosegay.) +</p> + +<p> +“O-h-h-h-h-h!” +</p> + +<p> +“Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ca-a-a-a-a-an’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not nice of Master Enoch,” said Dick, as they resumed their walk. +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t blame en,” said Geoffrey; “the man’s not hisself now; he’s in his +morning frame of mind. When he’s had a gallon o’ cider or ale, or a pint or two +of mead, the man’s well enough, and his manners be as good as anybody’s in the +kingdom.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>CHAPTER II.<br/> +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</h2> + +<p> +The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day’s premises +was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous extent, though having +no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of birds had been born amidst the +boughs of this single tree; tribes of rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark +from year to year; quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its +forks; and countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its +roots. Beneath and beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended grass-plot, its +purpose being to supply a healthy exercise-ground for young chickens and +pheasants; the hens, their mothers, being enclosed in coops placed upon the +same green flooring. +</p> + +<p> +All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced, the +guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and the singing of songs +went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The propriety of every +one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy, who, as an additional +precaution in this direction, had strictly charged her father and the tranter +to carefully avoid saying ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ in their conversation, on the plea +that those ancient words sounded so very humiliating to persons of newer taste; +also that they were never to be seen drawing the back of the hand across the +mouth after drinking—a local English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but +stated by Fancy to be decidedly dying out among the better classes of society. +</p> + +<p> +In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough knowledge +of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum Clangley,—a place +long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants as performers on instruments +of percussion. These important members of the assembly were relegated to a +height of two or three feet from the ground, upon a temporary erection of +planks supported by barrels. Whilst the dancing progressed the older persons +sat in a group under the trunk of the tree,—the space being allotted to them +somewhat grudgingly by the young ones, who were greedy of pirouetting room,—and +fortified by a table against the heels of the dancers. Here the gaffers and +gammers, whose dancing days were over, told stories of great impressiveness, +and at intervals surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same +retreat, as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval engagement in +the bay beyond; returning again to their tales when the pause was over. Those +of the whirling throng, who, during the rests between each figure, turned their +eyes in the direction of these seated ones, were only able to discover, on +account of the music and bustle, that a very striking circumstance was in +course of narration—denoted by an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping of the +fingers, close of the lips, and fixed look into the centre of the listener’s +eye for the space of a quarter of a minute, which raised in that listener such +a reciprocating working of face as to sometimes make the distant dancers half +wish to know what such an interesting tale could refer to. +</p> + +<p> +Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was obtainable +out of six hours’ experience as a wife, in order that the contrast between her +own state of life and that of the unmarried young women present might be duly +impressed upon the company: occasionally stealing glances of admiration at her +left hand, but this quite privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the +matter was intended to show that, though she undoubtedly occupied the most +wondrous position in the eyes of the world that had ever been attained, she was +almost unconscious of the circumstance, and that the somewhat prominent +position in which that wonderfully-emblazoned left hand was continually found +to be placed, when handing cups and saucers, knives, forks, and glasses, was +quite the result of accident. As to wishing to excite envy in the bosoms of her +maiden companions, by the exhibition of the shining ring, every one was to know +it was quite foreign to the dignity of such an experienced married woman. +Dick’s imagination in the meantime was far less capable of drawing so much +wontedness from his new condition. He had been for two or three hours trying to +feel himself merely a newly-married man, but had been able to get no further in +the attempt than to realize that he was Dick Dewy, the tranter’s son, at a +party given by Lord Wessex’s head man-in-charge, on the outlying Yalbury +estate, dancing and chatting with Fancy Day. +</p> + +<p> +Five country dances, including ‘Haste to the Wedding,’ two reels, and three +fragments of horn-pipes, brought them to the time for supper, which, on account +of the dampness of the grass from the immaturity of the summer season, was +spread indoors. At the conclusion of the meal Dick went out to put the horse +in; and Fancy, with the elder half of the four bridesmaids, retired upstairs to +dress for the journey to Dick’s new cottage near Mellstock. +</p> + +<p> +“How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?” Dick inquired at the foot +of the staircase. Being now a man of business and married, he was strong on the +importance of time, and doubled the emphasis of his words in conversing, and +added vigour to his nods. +</p> + +<p> +“Only a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dear, five.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, sonnies!” said the tranter, as Dick retired, “’tis a talent of the female +race that low numbers should stand for high, more especially in matters of +waiting, matters of age, and matters of money.” +</p> + +<p> +“True, true, upon my body,” said Geoffrey. +</p> + +<p> +“Ye spak with feeling, Geoffrey, seemingly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anybody that d’know my experience might guess that.” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s she doing now, Geoffrey?” +</p> + +<p> +“Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the +second-best chainey—a thing that’s only done once a year. ‘If there’s work to +be done I must do it,’ says she, ‘wedding or no.’” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tis my belief she’s a very good woman at bottom.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s terrible deep, then.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Penny turned round. “Well, ’tis humps and hollers with the best of us; but +still and for all that, Dick and Fancy stand as fair a chance of having a bit +of sunsheen as any married pair in the land.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, there’s no gainsaying it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. “Happy, yes,” +she said. “’Tis always so when a couple is so exactly in tune with one another +as Dick and she.” +</p> + +<p> +“When they be’n’t too poor to have time to sing,” said grandfather James. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes,” said the tranter: “when the +oldest daughter’s boots be only a size less than her mother’s, and the rest o’ +the flock close behind her. A sharp time for a man that, my sonnies; a very +sharp time! Chanticleer’s comb is a-cut then, ’a believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s about the form o’t,” said Mr. Penny. “That’ll put the stuns upon a man, +when you must measure mother and daughter’s lasts to tell ’em apart.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a close-coming flock,” said Mrs. +Dewy; “for ours was a straggling lot enough, God knows!” +</p> + +<p> +“I d’know it, I d’know it,” said the tranter. “You be a well-enough woman, +Ann.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back again without +smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“And if they come together, they go together,” said Mrs. Penny, whose family +had been the reverse of the tranter’s; “and a little money will make either +fate tolerable. And money can be made by our young couple, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that it can!” said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had hitherto humbly +admired the proceedings from a corner. “It can be done—all that’s wanted is a +few pounds to begin with. That’s all! I know a story about it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s hear thy story, Leaf,” said the tranter. “I never knew you were clever +enough to tell a story. Silence, all of ye! Mr. Leaf will tell a story.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell your story, Thomas Leaf,” said grandfather William in the tone of a +schoolmaster. +</p> + +<p> +“Once,” said the delighted Leaf, in an uncertain voice, “there was a man who +lived in a house! Well, this man went thinking and thinking night and day. At +last, he said to himself, as I might, ‘If I had only ten pound, I’d make a +fortune.’ At last by hook or by crook, behold he got the ten pounds!” +</p> + +<p> +“Only think of that!” said Nat Callcome satirically. +</p> + +<p> +“Silence!” said the tranter. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little time he made +that ten pounds twenty. Then a little time after that he doubled it, and made +it forty. Well, he went on, and a good while after that he made it eighty, and +on to a hundred. Well, by-and-by he made it two hundred! Well, you’d never +believe it, but—he went on and made it four hundred! He went on, and what did +he do? Why, he made it eight hundred! Yes, he did,” continued Leaf, in the +highest pitch of excitement, bringing down his fist upon his knee with such +force that he quivered with the pain; “yes, and he went on and made it A +THOUSAND!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hear, hear!” said the tranter. “Better than the history of England, my +sonnies!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf,” said grandfather William; and then +Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his bride took +their departure, side by side in the excellent new spring-cart which the young +tranter now possessed. The moon was just over the full, rendering any light +from lamps or their own beauties quite unnecessary to the pair. They drove +slowly along Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed between two copses. Dick was +talking to his companion. +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy,” he said, “why we are so happy is because there is such full confidence +between us. Ever since that time you confessed to that little flirtation with +Shiner by the river (which was really no flirtation at all), I have thought how +artless and good you must be to tell me o’ such a trifling thing, and to be so +frightened about it as you were. It has won me to tell you my every deed and +word since then. We’ll have no secrets from each other, darling, will we +ever?—no secret at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“None from to-day,” said Fancy. “Hark! what’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, musical, and +liquid voice— +</p> + +<p> +“Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki! Come hither, come hither, come hither!” +</p> + +<p> +“O, ’tis the nightingale,” murmured she, and thought of a secret she would +never tell. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> + +<p> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> This, a local expression, +must be a corruption of something less questionable. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> +<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> +<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> +</html>
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2cc6f54 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #2662 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2662) diff --git a/old/2662.txt b/old/2662.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a52fb60 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2662.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7397 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Under the Greenwood Tree, by Thomas Hardy + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Under the Greenwood Tree + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: October 28, 2004 [eBook #2662] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE*** + + + + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk from the 1912 +Macmillan and Co. edition. Proofed by Margaret Rose Price, Dagny and +David Price. + + + + + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE +or +THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE +A RURAL PAINTING OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL +by Thomas Hardy + + +PREFACE + + +This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west-gallery +musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar officials in +Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters, and other places, is intended +to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and +customs which were common among such orchestral bodies in the villages of +fifty or sixty years ago. + +One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical +bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) or +harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of control and +accomplishment which were, no doubt, secured by installing the single +artist, the change has tended to stultify the professed aims of the +clergy, its direct result being to curtail and extinguish the interest of +parishioners in church doings. Under the old plan, from half a dozen to +ten full-grown players, in addition to the numerous more or less grown-up +singers, were officially occupied with the Sunday routine, and concerned +in trying their best to make it an artistic outcome of the combined +musical taste of the congregation. With a musical executive limited, as +it mostly is limited now, to the parson's wife or daughter and the school- +children, or to the school-teacher and the children, an important union +of interests has disappeared. + +The zest of these bygone instrumentalists must have been keen and staying +to take them, as it did, on foot every Sunday after a toilsome week, +through all weathers, to the church, which often lay at a distance from +their homes. They usually received so little in payment for their +performances that their efforts were really a labour of love. In the +parish I had in my mind when writing the present tale, the gratuities +received yearly by the musicians at Christmas were somewhat as follows: +From the manor-house ten shillings and a supper; from the vicar ten +shillings; from the farmers five shillings each; from each +cottage-household one shilling; amounting altogether to not more than ten +shillings a head annually--just enough, as an old executant told me, to +pay for their fiddle-strings, repairs, rosin, and music-paper (which they +mostly ruled themselves). Their music in those days was all in their own +manuscript, copied in the evenings after work, and their music-books were +home-bound. + +It was customary to inscribe a few jigs, reels, horn-pipes, and ballads +in the same book, by beginning it at the other end, the insertions being +continued from front and back till sacred and secular met together in the +middle, often with bizarre effect, the words of some of the songs +exhibiting that ancient and broad humour which our grandfathers, and +possibly grandmothers, took delight in, and is in these days unquotable. + +The aforesaid fiddle-strings, rosin, and music-paper were supplied by a +pedlar, who travelled exclusively in such wares from parish to parish, +coming to each village about every six months. Tales are told of the +consternation once caused among the church fiddlers when, on the occasion +of their producing a new Christmas anthem, he did not come to time, owing +to being snowed up on the downs, and the straits they were in through +having to make shift with whipcord and twine for strings. He was +generally a musician himself, and sometimes a composer in a small way, +bringing his own new tunes, and tempting each choir to adopt them for a +consideration. Some of these compositions which now lie before me, with +their repetitions of lines, half-lines, and half-words, their fugues and +their intermediate symphonies, are good singing still, though they would +hardly be admitted into such hymn-books as are popular in the churches of +fashionable society at the present time. + +August 1896. + +Under the Greenwood Tree was first brought out in the summer of 1872 in +two volumes. The name of the story was originally intended to be, more +appropriately, The Mellstock Quire, and this has been appended as a sub- +title since the early editions, it having been thought unadvisable to +displace for it the title by which the book first became known. + +In rereading the narrative after a long interval there occurs the +inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun were +material for another kind of study of this little group of church +musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so lightly, even so +farcically and flippantly at times. But circumstances would have +rendered any aim at a deeper, more essential, more transcendent handling +unadvisable at the date of writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock +Quire in the following pages must remain the only extant one, except for +the few glimpses of that perished band which I have given in verse +elsewhere. + +T. H. +April 1912. + + + + +PART THE FIRST--WINTER + + +CHAPTER I: MELLSTOCK-LANE + + +To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well +as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan +no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with +itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its +flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such +trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality. + +On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was passing +up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a plantation that +whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of +his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which +succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and by the liveliness of his +voice as he sang in a rural cadence: + + "With the rose and the lily + And the daffodowndilly, + The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." + +The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of +Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, +casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with their +characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark-creviced +elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the sky, wherein +the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like +the flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at a level anything lower +than the horizon, all was dark as the grave. The copse-wood forming the +sides of the bower interlaced its branches so densely, even at this +season of the year, that the draught from the north-east flew along the +channel with scarcely an interruption from lateral breezes. + +After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white +surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like a +ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary +accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either side. + +The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the +place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached had +its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the +shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on +the right of the singer who had just emerged from the trees. + +"Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no +idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured. + +"Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?" came from the darkness. + +"Ay, sure, Michael Mail." + +"Then why not stop for fellow-craters--going to thy own father's house +too, as we be, and knowen us so well?" + +Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, +implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a +moment's notice by the placid emotion of friendship. + +Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the +sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the portrait of a +gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a low-crowned hat, +an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and ordinary +shoulders. What he consisted of further down was invisible from lack of +sky low enough to picture him on. + +Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard +coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade severally +five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of +the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the +daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat outlines, which suggested +some processional design on Greek or Etruscan pottery. They represented +the chief portion of Mellstock parish choir. + +The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, +and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected with the +surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had hallooed to +Dick. + +The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, who, +though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not come to +his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face fixed +on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower +waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the remainder of his figure. His +features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked round, two faint +moons of light gleamed for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, +denoting that he wore spectacles of a circular form. + +The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and dramatically. +The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman's, who had now no distinctive +appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak lath-like +form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder forward and his head +inclined to the left, his arms dangling nervelessly in the wind as if +they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf. + +"Where be the boys?" said Dick to this somewhat indifferently-matched +assembly. + +The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a great +depth. + +"We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't be +wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on." + +"Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I have +just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to warm my +feet." + +"To be sure father did! To be sure 'a did expect us--to taste the little +barrel beyond compare that he's going to tap." + +"'Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!" said Mr. Penny, gleams of +delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick meanwhile singing +parenthetically-- + + "The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." + +"Neighbours, there's time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore +bedtime?" said Mail. + +"True, true--time enough to get as drunk as lords!" replied Bowman +cheerfully. + +This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the +varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking their +toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering +indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper +Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound of church- +bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon the +breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and Weatherbury parishes on the +other side of the hills. A little wicket admitted them to the garden, +and they proceeded up the path to Dick's house. + + + +CHAPTER II: THE TRANTER'S + + +It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer +windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the middle of +the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters were not yet +closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated forth upon the +thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps outside, and upon +the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging about in various +distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined with +careless climbing into their boughs in later years. The walls of the +dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though these were +rather beaten back from the doorway--a feature which was worn and +scratched by much passing in and out, giving it by day the appearance of +an old keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of +outbuildings a little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a +fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to veil bright +attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle +and wedges and the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this +direction; and at some little distance further a steady regular munching +and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding +within it. + +The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their boots +any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered the house +and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the open +doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between +pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy's father Reuben, by vocation a +"tranter," or irregular carrier. He was a stout florid man about forty +years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their +acquaintance, and generally smiled at the horizon or other distant object +during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady sway, and +turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in bending +over a hogshead, that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of +broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the +entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the +expected old comrades. + +The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other +evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the ceiling hung +the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending +so low that it became necessary for a full-grown person to walk round it +in passing, or run the risk of entangling his hair. This apartment +contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter's wife, and the four remaining children, +Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide +stages from the age of sixteen to that of four years--the eldest of the +series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal +interval. + +Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just +previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a +small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the human +countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to +pause at the various points in each wail that were more than ordinarily +striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general effect. Bessy was +leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist of +the plaid frock she wore, to notice the original unfaded pattern of the +material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of regret +that the brightness had passed away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy +sat in a brown settle by the side of the glowing wood fire--so glowing +that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and then rise +and put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, +to reassure herself that they were not being broiled instead of smoked--a +misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas-time. + +"Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!" said Reuben Dewy at length, +standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. "How the blood +do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, a-stooping like that! I was +just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then carefully began to wind +a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he held in his hand. "This in +the cask here is a drop o' the right sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a +real drop o' cordial from the best picked apples--Sansoms, Stubbards, +Five-corners, and such-like--you d'mind the sort, Michael?" (Michael +nodded.) "And there's a sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard- +rails--streaked ones--rail apples we d'call 'em, as 'tis by the rails +they grow, and not knowing the right name. The water-cider from 'em is +as good as most people's best cider is." + +"Ay, and of the same make too," said Bowman. "'It rained when we wrung +it out, and the water got into it,' folk will say. But 'tis on'y an +excuse. Watered cider is too common among us." + +"Yes, yes; too common it is!" said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his +eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form rather than at +the scene before him. "Such poor liquor do make a man's throat feel very +melancholy--and is a disgrace to the name of stimmilent." + +"Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes," said +Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them upon the +door-mat. "I am glad that you've stepped up-along at last; and, Susan, +you run down to Grammer Kaytes's and see if you can borrow some larger +candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don't ye be afeard! Come and +sit here in the settle." + +This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly +of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward in his +movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast that before +he had had time to get used to his height he was higher. + +"Hee--hee--ay!" replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for +some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth remained in +view as the most conspicuous members of his body. + +"Here, Mr. Penny," resumed Mrs. Dewy, "you sit in this chair. And how's +your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?" + +"Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair." He adjusted his spectacles a +quarter of an inch to the right. "But she'll be worse before she's +better, 'a b'lieve." + +"Indeed--poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or five?" + +"Five; they've buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a +maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. +However, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it." + +Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. "Wonder where your grandfather James is?" +she inquired of one of the children. "He said he'd drop in to-night." + +"Out in fuel-house with grandfather William," said Jimmy. + +"Now let's see what we can do," was heard spoken about this time by the +tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had again +established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. + +"Reuben, don't make such a mess o' tapping that barrel as is mostly made +in this house," Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. "I'd tap a hundred +without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and squirting +job as 'tis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man +indoors." + +"Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred beautiful, Ann--I know you would; two +hundred, perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a' old cask, and the +wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam +Lawson--that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead and gone, poor +heart!--took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. 'Reub,' +says he--'a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!--'Reub,' +he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as +new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth have +been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, +Reub,'--'a said, says he--'he's worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if +he's worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones +will make en worth thirty shillens of any man's money, if--'" + +"I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore +I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is sinner +enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, so easy to +be deceived." + +"That's as true as gospel of this member," said Reuben. + +Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and +refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing little +Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to +conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement +of some more brown paper for the broaching operation. + +"Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a +carefully-cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of +affairs. + +"No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing +with everybody. + +"Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as +a rule, though he did now; "I knowed a' auctioneering feller once--a very +friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking down the +front street o' Casterbridge, jist below the King's Arms, I passed a' +open winder and see him inside, stuck upon his perch, a-selling off. I +jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and +thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by +fuel-house door, if a letter didn't come wi' a bill charging me with a +feather-bed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's +sale. The slim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded +to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, I hold that +that was coming it very close, Reuben?" + +"'Twas close, there's no denying," said the general voice. + +"Too close, 'twas," said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. "And as to Sam +Lawson--poor heart! now he's dead and gone too!--I'll warrant, that if so +be I've spent one hour in making hoops for that barrel, I've spent fifty, +first and last. That's one of my hoops"--touching it with his +elbow--"that's one of mine, and that, and that, and all these." + +"Ah, Sam was a man," said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. + +"Sam was!" said Bowman. + +"Especially for a drap o' drink," said the tranter. + +"Good, but not religious-good," suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, +"Now then, Suze, bring a mug," he said. "Here's luck to us, my sonnies!" + +The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal +shower over Reuben's hands, knees, and leggings, and into the eyes and +neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure +of more interesting proceedings, was squatting down and blinking near his +father. + +"There 'tis again!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider +should be wasted like this!" exclaimed the tranter. "Your thumb! Lend +me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger +tap, my sonnies." + +"Idd it cold inthide te hole?" inquired Charley of Michael, as he +continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. + +"What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!" +Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. "I lay a wager that he +thinks more about how 'tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts +of the world put together." + +All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the +cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. The +operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and +stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body +would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders--thrusting out +his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the +relief aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to +table, at which all the new arrivals reseated themselves with wide-spread +knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the board +upon which the gaze might precipitate itself. + +"Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?" said the +tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things--cleaving up old +dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass his life +between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door and opened it. + +"Father!" + +"Ay!" rang thinly from round the corner. + +"Here's the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!" + +A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, +now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the window and +made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family +appeared. + + + +CHAPTER III: THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE + + +William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; yet +an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his +face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe +ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected +from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, seemed to +belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was a +humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent melancholy; and +he had a firm religious faith. But to his neighbours he had no character +in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when they had been +bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called long-headed men +who might do anything in the world if they chose, they thought concerning +him, "Ah, there's that good-hearted man--open as a child!" If they saw +him just after losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting +fall a piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded +man Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he +passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely +thought him old William Dewy. + +"Ah, so's--here you be!--Ah, Michael and Joseph and John--and you too, +Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood fire +directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving +'em." As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which fell in the +chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with something of the +admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living people who had been very +obstinate in holding their own. "Come in, grandfather James." + +Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a +visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people considered +him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward +from behind grandfather William, and his stooping figure formed a well- +illuminated picture as he passed towards the fire-place. Being by trade +a mason, he wore a long linen apron reaching almost to his toes, corduroy +breeches and gaiters, which, together with his boots, graduated in tints +of whitish-brown by constant friction against lime and stone. He also +wore a very stiff fustian coat, having folds at the elbows and shoulders +as unvarying in their arrangement as those in a pair of bellows: the +ridges and the projecting parts of the coat collectively exhibiting a +shade different from that of the hollows, which were lined with small +ditch-like accumulations of stone and mortar-dust. The extremely large +side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged out convexly whether +empty or full; and as he was often engaged to work at buildings far +away--his breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a strange chimney-corner, +by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or walking along the road--he +carried in these pockets a small tin canister of butter, a small canister +of sugar, a small canister of tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of +pepper; the bread, cheese, and meat, forming the substance of his meals, +hanging up behind him in his basket among the hammers and chisels. If a +passer-by looked hard at him when he was drawing forth any of these, "My +buttery," he said, with a pinched smile. + +"Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?" said +William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a side table. + +"Wi' all my heart," said the choir generally. + +"Number seventy-eight was always a teaser--always. I can mind him ever +since I was growing up a hard boy-chap." + +"But he's a good tune, and worth a mint o' practice," said Michael. + +"He is; though I've been mad enough wi' that tune at times to seize en +and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he's a splendid carrel--there's no +denying that." + +"The first line is well enough," said Mr. Spinks; "but when you come to +'O, thou man,' you make a mess o't." + +"We'll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the martel. +Half-an-hour's hammering at en will conquer the toughness of en; I'll +warn it." + +"'Od rabbit it all!" said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of his +spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the depths of a +large side-pocket. "If so be I hadn't been as scatter-brained and +thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at the schoolhouse wi' a +boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me I really can't estimate +at all!" + +"The brain has its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head +ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once kept a +night-school, and always spoke up to that level. + +"Well, I must call with en the first thing to-morrow. And I'll empt my +pocket o' this last too, if you don't mind, Mrs. Dewy." He drew forth a +last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of three or four +followed it. + +"Well," said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest the +object had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and warranted the +last's being taken up again and exhibited; "now, whose foot do ye suppose +this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey Day's father, over at +Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o' boots he've had off the last! Well, +when 'a died, I used the last for Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a +little doctoring was wanted to make it do. Yes, a very queer natured +last it is now, 'a b'lieve," he continued, turning it over caressingly. +"Now, you notice that there" (pointing to a lump of leather bradded to +the toe), "that's a very bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was a +boy. Now, this remarkable large piece" (pointing to a patch nailed to +the side), "shows a' accident he received by the tread of a horse, that +squashed his foot a'most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam full-butt on +this point, you see. And so I've just been over to Geoffrey's, to know +if he wanted his bunion altered or made bigger in the new pair I'm +making." + +During the latter part of this speech, Mr. Penny's left hand wandered +towards the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection with the person +speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt close, all but the +extreme margin of the bootmaker's face was eclipsed by the circular brim +of the vessel. + +"However, I was going to say," continued Penny, putting down the cup, "I +ought to have called at the school"--here he went groping again in the +depths of his pocket--"to leave this without fail, though I suppose the +first thing to-morrow will do." + +He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot--small, light, and +prettily shaped--upon the heel of which he had been operating. + +"The new schoolmistress's!" + +"Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever I +see, and just husband-high." + +"Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances present +converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of them. + +"Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone were +his auditor; "'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. You knowed his +daughter was in training?" + +"Strange, isn't it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master Penny?" + +"Yes; but here she is, 'a b'lieve." + +"I know how she comes here--so I do!" chirruped one of the children. + +"Why?" Dick inquired, with subtle interest. + +"Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all to-morrow at the +dinner, and he talked o' getting her jist to come over and help him hand +about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; and that's +what she's come for!" + +"And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, "that +she'll walk to church in to-morrow morning. I don't care to mend boots I +don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, and her father +always comes to me." + +There, between the cider-mug and the candle, stood this interesting +receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it was. A +character, in fact--the flexible bend at the instep, the rounded +localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers +now forgotten--all, as repeated in the tell-tale leather, evidencing a +nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling that he had +no right to do so without having first asked the owner of the foot's +permission. + +"Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker went +on, "a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot and that +last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God's +creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get for ten-and- +sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but 'tis father's voot and +daughter's voot to me, as plain as houses." + +"I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Penny--a mild likeness--a +fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But I han't got imagination enough +to see it, perhaps." + +Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. + +"Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You used +to know Johnson the dairyman, William?" + +"Ay, sure; I did." + +"Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower down--by his +paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards +Bloom's End, and lo and behold, there was a man just brought out o' the +Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to pitch it +just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at en; women +looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He was covered +wi' a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just showing out as they +carried en along. 'I don't care what name that man went by,' I said, in +my way, 'but he's John Woodward's brother; I can swear to the family +voot.' At that very moment up comes John Woodward, weeping and teaving, +'I've lost my brother! I've lost my brother!'" + +"Only to think of that!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"'Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot," said Mr. Spinks. +"'Tis long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, 'tis +true--I say no more; but show me a man's foot, and I'll tell you that +man's heart." + +"You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral," said the +tranter. + +"Well, that's nothing for me to speak of," returned Mr. Spinks. "A man +lives and learns. Maybe I've read a leaf or two in my time. I don't +wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe I have." + +"Yes, I know," said Michael soothingly, "and all the parish knows, that +ye've read sommat of everything a'most, and have been a great filler of +young folks' brains. Learning's a worthy thing, and ye've got it, Master +Spinks." + +"I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I +know--it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast--that by the time +a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep underground. +I am over forty-five." + +Mr. Spinks emitted a look to signify that if his head was not finished, +nobody's head ever could be. + +"Talk of knowing people by their feet!" said Reuben. "Rot me, my +sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is from all his members put +together, oftentimes." + +"But still, look is a good deal," observed grandfather William absently, +moving and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather James's nose +was exactly in a right line with William's eye and the mouth of a +miniature cavern he was discerning in the fire. "By the way," he +continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, "that young crater, the +schoolmis'ess, must be sung to to-night wi' the rest? If her ear is as +fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be up-sides with her." + +"What about her face?" said young Dewy. + +"Well, as to that," Mr. Spinks replied, "'tis a face you can hardly +gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only a +face, when all is said and done." + +"Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a pretty maid, and have done wi' +her," said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider-barrel. + + + +CHAPTER IV: GOING THE ROUNDS + + +Shortly after ten o'clock the singing-boys arrived at the tranter's +house, which was invariably the place of meeting, and preparations were +made for the start. The older men and musicians wore thick coats, with +stiff perpendicular collars, and coloured handkerchiefs wound round and +round the neck till the end came to hand, over all which they just showed +their ears and noses, like people looking over a wall. The remainder, +stalwart ruddy men and boys, were dressed mainly in snow-white +smock-frocks, embroidered upon the shoulders and breasts, in ornamental +forms of hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cider-mug was emptied for +the ninth time, the music-books were arranged, and the pieces finally +decided upon. The boys in the meantime put the old horn-lanterns in +order, cut candles into short lengths to fit the lanterns; and, a thin +fleece of snow having fallen since the early part of the evening, those +who had no leggings went to the stable and wound wisps of hay round their +ankles to keep the insidious flakes from the interior of their boots. + +Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets composing it +lying at a much greater distance from each other than is ordinarily the +case. Hence several hours were consumed in playing and singing within +hearing of every family, even if but a single air were bestowed on each. +There was Lower Mellstock, the main village; half a mile from this were +the church and vicarage, and a few other houses, the spot being rather +lonely now, though in past centuries it had been the most +thickly-populated quarter of the parish. A mile north-east lay the +hamlet of Upper Mellstock, where the tranter lived; and at other points +knots of cottages, besides solitary farmsteads and dairies. + +Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his grandson +Dick the treble violin; and Reuben and Michael Mail the tenor and second +violins respectively. The singers consisted of four men and seven boys, +upon whom devolved the task of carrying and attending to the lanterns, +and holding the books open for the players. Directly music was the +theme, old William ever and instinctively came to the front. + +"Now mind, neighbours," he said, as they all went out one by one at the +door, he himself holding it ajar and regarding them with a critical face +as they passed, like a shepherd counting out his sheep. "You two counter- +boys, keep your ears open to Michael's fingering, and don't ye go +straying into the treble part along o' Dick and his set, as ye did last +year; and mind this especially when we be in 'Arise, and hail.' Billy +Chimlen, don't you sing quite so raving mad as you fain would; and, all +o' ye, whatever ye do, keep from making a great scuffle on the ground +when we go in at people's gates; but go quietly, so as to strike up all +of a sudden, like spirits." + +"Farmer Ledlow's first?" + +"Farmer Ledlow's first; the rest as usual." + +"And, Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house here till +about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the warmer +you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi' the victuals to +church-hatch, as th'st know." + +* * * * * + +Just before the clock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and +started. The moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the snowstorm; +but the dense accumulation of snow-cloud weakened her power to a faint +twilight, which was rather pervasive of the landscape than traceable to +the sky. The breeze had gone down, and the rustle of their feet and +tones of their speech echoed with an alert rebound from every post, +boundary-stone, and ancient wall they passed, even where the distance of +the echo's origin was less than a few yards. Beyond their own slight +noises nothing was to be heard, save the occasional bark of foxes in the +direction of Yalbury Wood, or the brush of a rabbit among the grass now +and then, as it scampered out of their way. + +Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by about two +o'clock; they then passed across the outskirts of a wooded park toward +the main village, nobody being at home at the Manor. Pursuing no +recognized track, great care was necessary in walking lest their faces +should come in contact with the low-hanging boughs of the old lime-trees, +which in many spots formed dense over-growths of interlaced branches. + +"Times have changed from the times they used to be," said Mail, regarding +nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an inward eye, and +letting his outward glance rest on the ground, because it was as +convenient a position as any. "People don't care much about us now! I've +been thinking we must be almost the last left in the county of the old +string players? Barrel-organs, and the things next door to 'em that you +blow wi' your foot, have come in terribly of late years." + +"Ay!" said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, did +the same thing. + +"More's the pity," replied another. "Time was--long and merry ago +now!--when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served some +of the quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we did, and +kept out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd thrive in +musical religion, stick to strings, says I." + +"Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go," said Mr. Spinks. + +"Yet there's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny. "Old things +pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note +was the serpent." + +"Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said Michael Mail. "One +Christmas--years agone now, years--I went the rounds wi' the Weatherbury +quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar'nets +froze--ah, they did freeze!--so that 'twas like drawing a cork every time +a key was opened; and the players o' 'em had to go into a +hedger-and-ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw their clar'nets every now +and then. An icicle o' spet hung down from the end of every man's +clar'net a span long; and as to fingers--well, there, if ye'll believe +me, we had no fingers at all, to our knowing." + +"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what I said to poor +Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church for two-and- +forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. 'Joseph,' I +said, says I, 'depend upon't, if so be you have them tooting clar'nets +you'll spoil the whole set-out. Clar'nets were not made for the service +of the Lard; you can see it by looking at 'em,' I said. And what came +o't? Why, souls, the parson set up a barrel-organ on his own account +within two years o' the time I spoke, and the old quire went to nothing." + +"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my part see +that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net. 'Tis further off. +There's always a rakish, scampish twist about a fiddle's looks that seems +to say the Wicked One had a hand in making o'en; while angels be supposed +to play clar'nets in heaven, or som'at like 'em, if ye may believe +picters." + +"Robert Penny, you was in the right," broke in the eldest Dewy. "They +should ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog--well and +good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye--well and good; your drum-man +is a rare bowel-shaker--good again. But I don't care who hears me say +it, nothing will spak to your heart wi' the sweetness o' the man of +strings!" + +"Strings for ever!" said little Jimmy. + +"Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new comers in +creation." ("True, true!" said Bowman.) "But clarinets was death." +("Death they was!" said Mr. Penny.) "And harmonions," William continued +in a louder voice, and getting excited by these signs of approval, +"harmonions and barrel-organs" ("Ah!" and groans from Spinks) "be +miserable--what shall I call 'em?--miserable--" + +"Sinners," suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and did +not lag behind like the other little boys. + +"Miserable dumbledores!" + +"Right, William, and so they be--miserable dumbledores!" said the choir +with unanimity. + +By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the school, +which, standing on a slight eminence at the junction of three ways, now +rose in unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. The instruments +were retuned, and all the band entered the school enclosure, enjoined by +old William to keep upon the grass. + +"Number seventy-eight," he softly gave out as they formed round in a +semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer light, and +directing their rays on the books. + +Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time-worn hymn, +embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted from father +to son through several generations down to the present characters, who +sang them out right earnestly: + + "Remember Adam's fall, + O thou Man: + Remember Adam's fall + From Heaven to Hell. + Remember Adam's fall; + How he hath condemn'd all + In Hell perpetual + There for to dwell. + + Remember God's goodnesse, + O thou Man: + Remember God's goodnesse, + His promise made. + Remember God's goodnesse; + He sent His Son sinlesse + Our ails for to redress; + Be not afraid! + + In Bethlehem He was born, + O thou Man: + In Bethlehem He was born, + For mankind's sake. + In Bethlehem He was born, + Christmas-day i' the morn: + Our Saviour thought no scorn + Our faults to take. + + Give thanks to God alway, + O thou Man: + Give thanks to God alway + With heart-most joy. + Give thanks to God alway + On this our joyful day: + Let all men sing and say, + Holy, Holy!" + +Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, but +found that no sound issued from the schoolhouse. + +"Four breaths, and then, 'O, what unbounded goodness!' number +fifty-nine," said William. + +This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be taken of +the performance. + +"Good guide us, surely 'tisn't a' empty house, as befell us in the year +thirty-nine and forty-three!" said old Dewy. + +"Perhaps she's jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our +doings?" the tranter whispered. + +"'Od rabbit her!" said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a corner +of the school chimney, "I don't quite stomach her, if this is it. Your +plain music well done is as worthy as your other sort done bad, a' +b'lieve, souls; so say I." + +"Four breaths, and then the last," said the leader authoritatively. +"'Rejoice, ye Tenants of the Earth,' number sixty-four." + +At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud voice, +as he had said in the village at that hour and season for the previous +forty years--"A merry Christmas to ye!" + + + +CHAPTER V: THE LISTENERS + + +When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearly +died out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible in one of +the windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the blind that the +exact position of the flame could be perceived from the outside. +Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went upward from before it, +revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, framed as a picture +by the window architrave, and unconsciously illuminating her countenance +to a vivid brightness by a candle she held in her left hand, close to her +face, her right hand being extended to the side of the window. She was +wrapped in a white robe of some kind, whilst down her shoulders fell a +twining profusion of marvellously rich hair, in a wild disorder which +proclaimed it to be only during the invisible hours of the night that +such a condition was discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into the +grey world outside with an uncertain expression, oscillating between +courage and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group of +dark forms gathered before her, transformed itself into pleasant +resolution. + +Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly--"Thank you, singers, +thank you!" + +Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started +downward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyes +vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. Then the +spot of candlelight shone nebulously as before; then it moved away. + +"How pretty!" exclaimed Dick Dewy. + +"If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't ha' been comelier," said Michael +Mail. + +"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see!" said +tranter Dewy. + +"O, sich I never, never see!" said Leaf fervently. + +All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their hats, +agreed that such a sight was worth singing for. + +"Now to Farmer Shiner's, and then replenish our insides, father?" said +the tranter. + +"Wi' all my heart," said old William, shouldering his bass-viol. + +Farmer Shiner's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of a +lane that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper windows were +much wider than they were high, and this feature, together with a broad +bay-window where the door might have been expected, gave it by day the +aspect of a human countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly and +wicked leer. To-night nothing was visible but the outline of the roof +upon the sky. + +The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries arranged as +usual. + +"Four breaths, and number thirty-two, 'Behold the Morning Star,'" said +old William. + +They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were doing +the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening chord of the +third verse, when, without a light appearing or any signal being given, a +roaring voice exclaimed-- + +"Shut up, woll 'ee! Don't make your blaring row here! A feller wi' a +headache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!" + +Slam went the window. + +"Hullo, that's a' ugly blow for we!" said the tranter, in a keenly +appreciative voice, and turning to his companions. + +"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!" commanded old +William; and they continued to the end. + +"Four breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it him +well; the quire can't be insulted in this manner!" + +A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer +stood revealed as one in a terrific passion. + +"Drown en!--drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. "Play +fortissimy, and drown his spaking!" + +"Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so loud +that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was saying, or +was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body about in the +forms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough invectives to +consign the whole parish to perdition. + +"Very onseemly--very!" said old William, as they retired. "Never such a +dreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel practice--never! And he a +churchwarden!" + +"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. "Man's well +enough when he's in his religious frame. He's in his worldly frame now. +Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrow night, I suppose, and so put +en in humour again. We bear no mortal man ill-will." + +They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path +beside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with the +hot mead and bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the churchyard. +This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding further, and they +entered the church and ascended to the gallery. The lanterns were +opened, and the whole body sat round against the walls on benches and +whatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of +conversation there could be heard through the floor overhead a little +world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never +spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more +meditative minds a fancy that here lay the direct pathway of Time. + +Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, and +once more the party emerged into the night air. + +"Where's Dick?" said old Dewy. + +Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have been +transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they didn't know. + +"Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do," +said Michael Mail. + +"He've clinked off home-along, depend upon't," another suggested, though +not quite believing that he had. + +"Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth +among the yews. + +He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer, +and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage. + +"The treble man too! Now if he'd been a tenor or counter chap, we might +ha' contrived the rest o't without en, you see. But for a quire to lose +the treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . " The +tranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough for the occasion. + +"Your head at once," suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to complete +sentences when there were more pressing things to be done. + +"Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half done +and turning tail like this!" + +"Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man in +the world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of him. + +"I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!" said his grandfather. + +"O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he's put that there +fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and good words +besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that instrument will be +unglued and spoilt in ten minutes--ten! ay, two." + +"What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old William, +more uneasily. "Perhaps he's drownded!" + +Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced their +steps along the waterside track. "A strapping lad like Dick d'know +better than let anything happen onawares," Reuben remarked. "There's +sure to be some poor little scram reason for't staring us in the face all +the while." He lowered his voice to a mysterious tone: "Neighbours, have +ye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in his head, or suchlike?" + +"Not a glimmer of such a body. He's as clear as water yet." + +"And Dicky said he should never marry," cried Jimmy, "but live at home +always along wi' mother and we!" + +"Ay, ay, my sonny; every lad has said that in his time." + +They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner's, but hearing +nobody in that direction, one or two went across to the schoolhouse. A +light was still burning in the bedroom, and though the blind was down, +the window had been slightly opened, as if to admit the distant notes of +the carollers to the ears of the occupant of the room. + +Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was the +lost man, his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed upon the +illuminated lattice. + +"Why, Dick, is that thee? What b'st doing here?" + +Dick's body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his head +was seen to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring to +discern some proper answer to that question; and at last he said in +rather feeble accents--"Nothing, father." + +"Th'st take long enough time about it then, upon my body," said the +tranter, as they all turned anew towards the vicarage. + +"I thought you hadn't done having snap in the gallery," said Dick. + +"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, and +thinking you'd done fifty deathly things, and here have you been at +nothing at all!" + +"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," murmured +Mr. Spinks. + +The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold, +the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of the night's +harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have +been led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was added +to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold made no stir. + +"A bad sign!" said old William, shaking his head. + +However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming from +inner depths of bedclothes--"Thanks, villagers!" + +"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. Bowman's +voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar within. + +"I said, 'Thanks, villagers!'" cried the vicar again. + +"Oh, we didn't hear 'ee the first time!" cried Bowman. + +"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by answering +like that!" said the tranter. + +"You won't do that, my friends!" the vicar shouted. + +"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats any +horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign he's a +proper clever chap." + +"We shall see that in time," said the tranter. + +Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively new +inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but renounced +his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leave +well alone. + +"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they went +their way over the hill, and across to the last remaining houses; "that +is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and this +young tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she'll wind en round her finger, +and twist the pore young feller about like the figure of 8--that she will +so, my sonnies." + + + +CHAPTER VI: CHRISTMAS MORNING + + +The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the +parish. Dick's slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining for +rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the +incidents that had passed that night in connection with the school-window +going on in his brain every moment of the time. + +In the morning, do what he would--go upstairs, downstairs, out of doors, +speak of the wind and weather, or what not--he could not refrain from an +unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that interesting enactment. Tilted +on the edge of one foot he stood beside the fireplace, watching his +mother grilling rashers; but there was nothing in grilling, he thought, +unless the Vision grilled. The limp rasher hung down between the bars of +the gridiron like a cat in a child's arms; but there was nothing in +similes, unless She uttered them. He looked at the daylight shadows of a +yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the whitewashed +chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. "Perhaps the new young +wom--sch--Miss Fancy Day will sing in church with us this morning," he +said. + +The tranter looked a long time before he replied, "I fancy she will; and +yet I fancy she won't." + +Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than admired; +though deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a rule, more to do +with the machinery of the tranter's throat than with the matter +enunciated. + +They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with extreme +alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was so +religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his best light +boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an art. Every +particle and speck of last week's mud was scraped and brushed from toe +and heel; new blacking from the packet was carefully mixed and made use +of, regardless of expense. A coat was laid on and polished; then another +coat for increased blackness; and lastly a third, to give the perfect and +mirror-like jet which the hoped-for rencounter demanded. + +It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday +particularity. Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to proceed +from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming that he was +there performing his great Sunday wash, lasting half-an-hour, to which +his washings on working-day mornings were mere flashes in the pan. +Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown towel, and the above-named +bubblings and snortings being carried on for about twenty minutes, the +tranter would appear round the edge of the door, smelling like a summer +fog, and looking as if he had just narrowly escaped a watery grave with +the loss of much of his clothes, having since been weeping bitterly till +his eyes were red; a crystal drop of water hanging ornamentally at the +bottom of each ear, one at the tip of his nose, and others in the form of +spangles about his hair. + +After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet +of father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these +preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and +the strings examined and screwed a little above concert-pitch, that they +might keep their tone when the service began, to obviate the awkward +contingency of having to retune them at the back of the gallery during a +cough, sneeze, or amen--an inconvenience which had been known to arise in +damp wintry weather. + +The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the ewe- +lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded green-baize +bags, and old brown music-books in their hands; Dick continually finding +himself in advance of the other two, and the tranter moving on with toes +turned outwards to an enormous angle. + +At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north +gate, or 'church hatch,' as it was called here. Seven agile figures in a +clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers waiting; +sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and letting their heels dangle +against it. The musicians being now in sight, the youthful party +scampered off and rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gallery like a +regiment of cavalry; the other boys of the parish waiting outside and +observing birds, cats, and other creatures till the vicar entered, when +they suddenly subsided into sober church-goers, and passed down the aisle +with echoing heels. + +The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own. A +stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether differing from that +of the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as an +intruder whom no originality could make interesting, he was received +above as a curiosity that no unfitness could render dull. The gallery, +too, looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest +peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about +it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk, +beyond their loud-sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that +the clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying amen; +that he had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon certain young +daughters of the village had left off caring to read anything so mild as +the marriage service for some years, and now regularly studied the one +which chronologically follows it; that a pair of lovers touched fingers +through a knot-hole between their pews in the manner ordained by their +great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer's wife, +counted her money and reckoned her week's marketing expenses during the +first lesson--all news to those below--were stale subjects here. + +Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello between +his knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the left, came +the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the tenors. +Farther back was old Mail with the altos and supernumeraries. + +But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were standing in +a circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm or two, Dick cast +his eyes over his grandfather's shoulder, and saw the vision of the past +night enter the porch-door as methodically as if she had never been a +vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed suddenly to be puffed into the +ancient edifice by her movement, which made Dick's body and soul tingle +with novel sensations. Directed by Shiner, the churchwarden, she +proceeded to the small aisle on the north side of the chancel, a spot now +allotted to a throng of Sunday-school girls, and distinctly visible from +the gallery-front by looking under the curve of the furthermost arch on +that side. + +Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty--now it was +thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked around her for +a permanent place in which to deposit herself--finally choosing the +remotest corner--Dick began to breathe more freely the warm new air she +had brought with her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have impressions +that there was a tie between her and himself visible to all the +congregation. + +Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part of +the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling +occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the duties +of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the services of +other times. The tunes they that morning essayed remained with him for +years, apart from all others; also the text; also the appearance of the +layer of dust upon the capitals of the piers; that the holly-bough in the +chancel archway was hung a little out of the centre--all the ideas, in +short, that creep into the mind when reason is only exercising its lowest +activity through the eye. + +By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock Church on +that Christmas morning had towards the end of the service the same +instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the shape of the +same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far less developed +stage. And there was this difference, too, that the person in question +was surprised at his condition, and sedulously endeavoured to reduce +himself to his normal state of mind. He was the young vicar, Mr. +Maybold. + +The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of +church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the heavy +exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and now, in +addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in the +atmosphere that still further aggravated the evil. Their strings, from +the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole semitones, and +snapped with a loud twang at the most silent moment; which necessitated +more retiring than ever to the back of the gallery, and made the gallery +throats quite husky with the quantity of coughing and hemming required +for tuning in. The vicar looked cross. + +When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be a +strong and shrill reinforcement from some point, ultimately found to be +the school-girls' aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and more +distinct. At the third time of singing, these intrusive feminine voices +were as mighty as those of the regular singers; in fact, the flood of +sound from this quarter assumed such an individuality, that it had a +time, a key, almost a tune of its own, surging upwards when the gallery +plunged downwards, and the reverse. + +Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The girls, +like the rest of the congregation, had always been humble and respectful +followers of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if without gallery +leaders; never interfering with the ordinances of these practised +artists--having no will, union, power, or proclivity except it was given +them from the established choir enthroned above them. + +A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats and +strings, which continued throughout the musical portion of the service. +Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny's spectacles put in their +sheath, and the text had been given out, an indignant whispering began. + +"Did ye hear that, souls?" Mr. Penny said, in a groaning breath. + +"Brazen-faced hussies!" said Bowman. + +"True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if not +louder!" + +"Fiddles and all!" echoed Bowman bitterly. + +"Shall anything saucier be found than united 'ooman?" Mr. Spinks +murmured. + +"What I want to know is," said the tranter (as if he knew already, but +that civilization required the form of words), "what business people have +to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in a gallery, and +never have entered one in their lives? That's the question, my sonnies." + +"'Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows," said Mr. Penny. +"Why, souls, what's the use o' the ancients spending scores of pounds to +build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing +like that at a moment's notice?" + +"Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, fiddles +and all!" said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a stranger, would have +sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he addressed could +understand the horrible bitterness of irony that lurked under the quiet +words 'useless ones,' and the ghastliness of the laughter apparently so +natural. + +"Never mind! Let 'em sing too--'twill make it all the louder--hee, hee!" +said Leaf. + +"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?" said +grandfather William sternly. + +The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he had lived nowhere at all. + +"When all's said and done, my sonnies," Reuben said, "there'd have been +no real harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear 'em, and only +jined in now and then." + +"None at all," said Mr. Penny. "But though I don't wish to accuse people +wrongfully, I'd say before my lord judge that I could hear every note o' +that last psalm come from 'em as much as from us--every note as if 'twas +their own." + +"Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!" Mr. Spinks was heard to +observe at this moment, without reference to his fellow players--shaking +his head at some idea he seemed to see floating before him, and smiling +as if he were attending a funeral at the time. "Ah, do I or don't I know +it!" + +No one said "Know what?" because all were aware from experience that what +he knew would declare itself in process of time. + +"I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi' that young +man," said the tranter, pending the continuance of Spinks's speech, and +looking towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the pulpit. + +"I fancy," said old William, rather severely, "I fancy there's too much +whispering going on to be of any spiritual use to gentle or simple." Then +folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the vicar, he implied +that none but the ignorant would speak again; and accordingly there was +silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks's telling speech remaining for ever +unspoken. + +Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of the +morning; for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as her intention to +invite the youthful leader of the culprits to the small party it was +customary with them to have on Christmas night--a piece of knowledge +which had given a particular brightness to Dick's reflections since he +had received it. And in the tranter's slightly-cynical nature, party +feeling was weaker than in the other members of the choir, though +friendliness and faithful partnership still sustained in him a hearty +earnestness on their account. + + + +CHAPTER VII: THE TRANTER'S PARTY + + +During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the +precincts of tranter Dewy's house. The flagstone floor was swept of +dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost +stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then were +produced large knives and forks, which had been shrouded in darkness and +grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing upon their sides, +"Shear-steel, warranted," in such emphatic letters of assurance, that the +warranter's name was not required as further proof, and not given. The +key was left in the tap of the cider-barrel, instead of being carried in +a pocket. And finally the tranter had to stand up in the room and let +his wife wheel him round like a turnstile, to see if anything +discreditable was visible in his appearance. + +"Stand still till I've been for the scissors," said Mrs. Dewy. + +The tranter stood as still as a sentinel at the challenge. + +The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers that +had extended beyond the general contour of the mass; a like trimming of a +slightly-frayed edge visible on his shirt-collar; and a final tug at a +grey hair--to all of which operations he submitted in resigned silence, +except the last, which produced a mild "Come, come, Ann," by way of +expostulation. + +"Really, Reuben, 'tis quite a disgrace to see such a man," said Mrs. +Dewy, with the severity justifiable in a long-tried companion, giving him +another turn round, and picking several of Smiler's hairs from the +shoulder of his coat. Reuben's thoughts seemed engaged elsewhere, and he +yawned. "And the collar of your coat is a shame to behold--so plastered +with dirt, or dust, or grease, or something. Why, wherever could you +have got it?" + +"'Tis my warm nater in summer-time, I suppose. I always did get in such +a heat when I bustle about." + +"Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarse-skinned family. There's your +brother Bob just as bad--as fat as a porpoise--wi' his low, mean, 'How'st +do, Ann?' whenever he meets me. I'd 'How'st do' him indeed! If the sun +only shines out a minute, there be you all streaming in the face--I never +see!" + +"If I be hot week-days, I must be hot Sundays." + +"If any of the girls should turn after their father 'twill be a bad look- +out for 'em, poor things! None of my family were sich vulgar sweaters, +not one of 'em. But, Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don't know how ever I +cam' into such a family!" + +"Your woman's weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That's how it was I +suppose." But the tranter appeared to have heard some such words from +his wife before, and hence his answer had not the energy it might have +shown if the inquiry had possessed the charm of novelty. + +"You never did look so well in a pair o' trousers as in them," she +continued in the same unimpassioned voice, so that the unfriendly +criticism of the Dewy family seemed to have been more normal than +spontaneous. "Such a cheap pair as 'twas too. As big as any man could +wish to have, and lined inside, and double-lined in the lower parts, and +an extra piece of stiffening at the bottom. And 'tis a nice high cut +that comes up right under your armpits, and there's enough turned down +inside the seams to make half a pair more, besides a piece of cloth left +that will make an honest waistcoat--all by my contriving in buying the +stuff at a bargain, and having it made up under my eye. It only shows +what may be done by taking a little trouble, and not going straight to +the rascally tailors." + +The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on the +scene, with a face and hands of hideous blackness, and a nose like a +guttering candle. Why, on that particularly cleanly afternoon, he should +have discovered that the chimney-crook and chain from which the hams were +suspended should have possessed more merits and general interest as +playthings than any other articles in the house, is a question for +nursing mothers to decide. However, the humour seemed to lie in the +result being, as has been seen, that any given player with these articles +was in the long-run daubed with soot. The last that was seen of Charley +by daylight after this piece of ingenuity was when in the act of +vanishing from his father's presence round the corner of the +house--looking back over his shoulder with an expression of great sin on +his face, like Cain as the Outcast in Bible pictures. + +* * * * * + +The guests had all assembled, and the tranter's party had reached that +degree of development which accords with ten o'clock P.M. in rural +assemblies. At that hour the sound of a fiddle in process of tuning was +heard from the inner pantry. + +"That's Dick," said the tranter. "That lad's crazy for a jig." + +"Dick! Now I cannot--really, I cannot have any dancing at all till +Christmas-day is out," said old William emphatically. "When the clock +ha' done striking twelve, dance as much as ye like." + +"Well, I must say there's reason in that, William," said Mrs. Penny. "If +you do have a party on Christmas-night, 'tis only fair and honourable to +the sky-folk to have it a sit-still party. Jigging parties be all very +well on the Devil's holidays; but a jigging party looks suspicious now. O +yes; stop till the clock strikes, young folk--so say I." + +It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks's head +about this time. + +"Dancing," he said, "is a most strengthening, livening, and courting +movement, 'specially with a little beverage added! And dancing is good. +But why disturb what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the company +zhinerally? Why, I ask, as far as that do go?" + +"Then nothing till after twelve," said William. + +Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious questions +were mostly disposed of by the old man, whose firmness on this head quite +counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling of domestic matters. +The hopes of the younger members of the household were therefore +relegated to a distance of one hour and three-quarters--a result that +took visible shape in them by a remote and listless look about the +eyes--the singing of songs being permitted in the interim. + +At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the back +quarters; and when at length the clock had whizzed forth the last stroke, +Dick appeared ready primed, and the instruments were boldly handled; old +William very readily taking the bass-viol from its accustomed nail, and +touching the strings as irreligiously as could be desired. + +The country-dance called the 'Triumph, or Follow my Lover,' was the +figure with which they opened. The tranter took for his partner Mrs. +Penny, and Mrs. Dewy was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much of his +limited height by a judicious carriage of the head, straightening of the +back, and important flashes of his spectacle-glasses, that he seemed +almost as tall as the tranter. Mr. Shiner, age about thirty-five, farmer +and church-warden, a character principally composed of a crimson stare, +vigorous breath, and a watch-chain, with a mouth hanging on a dark smile +but never smiling, had come quite willingly to the party, and showed a +wondrous obliviousness of all his antics on the previous night. But the +comely, slender, prettily-dressed prize Fancy Day fell to Dick's lot, in +spite of some private machinations of the farmer, for the reason that Mr. +Shiner, as a richer man, had shown too much assurance in asking the +favour, whilst Dick had been duly courteous. + +We gain a good view of our heroine as she advances to her place in the +ladies' line. She belonged to the taller division of middle height. +Flexibility was her first characteristic, by which she appeared to enjoy +the most easeful rest when she was in gliding motion. Her dark +eyes--arched by brows of so keen, slender, and soft a curve, that they +resembled nothing so much as two slurs in music--showed primarily a +bright sparkle each. This was softened by a frequent thoughtfulness, yet +not so frequent as to do away, for more than a few minutes at a time, +with a certain coquettishness; which in its turn was never so decided as +to banish honesty. Her lips imitated her brows in their clearly-cut +outline and softness of bend; and her nose was well shaped--which is +saying a great deal, when it is remembered that there are a hundred +pretty mouths and eyes for one pretty nose. Add to this, plentiful knots +of dark-brown hair, a gauzy dress of white, with blue facings; and the +slightest idea may be gained of the young maiden who showed, amidst the +rest of the dancing-ladies, like a flower among vegetables. And so the +dance proceeded. Mr. Shiner, according to the interesting rule laid +down, deserted his own partner, and made off down the middle with this +fair one of Dick's--the pair appearing from the top of the room like two +persons tripping down a lane to be married. Dick trotted behind with +what was intended to be a look of composure, but which was, in fact, a +rather silly expression of feature--implying, with too much earnestness, +that such an elopement could not be tolerated. Then they turned and came +back, when Dick grew more rigid around his mouth, and blushed with +ingenuous ardour as he joined hands with the rival and formed the arch +over his lady's head; which presumably gave the figure its name; +relinquishing her again at setting to partners, when Mr. Shiner's new +chain quivered in every link, and all the loose flesh upon the +tranter--who here came into action again--shook like jelly. Mrs. Penny, +being always rather concerned for her personal safety when she danced +with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic smile of timidity the whole +time it lasted--a peculiarity which filled her features with wrinkles, +and reduced her eyes to little straight lines like hyphens, as she jigged +up and down opposite him; repeating in her own person not only his proper +movements, but also the minor flourishes which the richness of the +tranter's imagination led him to introduce from time to time--an +imitation which had about it something of slavish obedience, not unmixed +with fear. + +The ear-rings of the ladies now flung themselves wildly about, turning +violent summersaults, banging this way and that, and then swinging +quietly against the ears sustaining them. Mrs. Crumpler--a heavy woman, +who, for some reason which nobody ever thought worth inquiry, danced in a +clean apron--moved so smoothly through the figure that her feet were +never seen; conveying to imaginative minds the idea that she rolled on +castors. + +Minute after minute glided by, and the party reached the period when +ladies' back-hair begins to look forgotten and dissipated; when a +perceptible dampness makes itself apparent upon the faces even of +delicate girls--a ghastly dew having for some time rained from the +features of their masculine partners; when skirts begin to be torn out of +their gathers; when elderly people, who have stood up to please their +juniors, begin to feel sundry small tremblings in the region of the +knees, and to wish the interminable dance was at Jericho; when (at +country parties of the thorough sort) waistcoats begin to be unbuttoned, +and when the fiddlers' chairs have been wriggled, by the frantic bowing +of their occupiers, to a distance of about two feet from where they +originally stood. + +Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shiner. Dick knew that Fancy, by the law of +good manners, was bound to dance as pleasantly with one partner as with +another; yet he could not help suggesting to himself that she need not +have put quite so much spirit into her steps, nor smiled quite so +frequently whilst in the farmer's hands. + +"I'm afraid you didn't cast off," said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, before +the latter man's watch-chain had done vibrating from a recent whirl. + +Fancy made a motion of accepting the correction; but her partner took no +notice, and proceeded with the next movement, with an affectionate bend +towards her. + +"That Shiner's too fond of her," the young man said to himself as he +watched them. They came to the top again, Fancy smiling warmly towards +her partner, and went to their places. + +"Mr. Shiner, you didn't cast off," said Dick, for want of something else +to demolish him with; casting off himself, and being put out at the +farmer's irregularity. + +"Perhaps I sha'n't cast off for any man," said Mr. Shiner. + +"I think you ought to, sir." + +Dick's partner, a young lady of the name of Lizzy--called Lizz for +short--tried to mollify. + +"I can't say that I myself have much feeling for casting off," she said. + +"Nor I," said Mrs. Penny, following up the argument, "especially if a +friend and neighbour is set against it. Not but that 'tis a terrible +tasty thing in good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so say I." + +"All I meant was," said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken +correctingly to a guest, "that 'tis in the dance; and a man has hardly +any right to hack and mangle what was ordained by the regular +dance-maker, who, I daresay, got his living by making 'em, and thought of +nothing else all his life." + +"I don't like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no dance-maker +that ever lived." + +Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being really an +effort to present to himself, in an abstract form, how far an argument +with a formidable rival ought to be carried, when that rival was his +mother's guest. The dead-lock was put an end to by the stamping arrival +up the middle of the tranter, who, despising minutiae on principle, +started a theme of his own. + +"I assure you, neighbours," he said, "the heat of my frame no tongue can +tell!" He looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible gaze of +self-sympathy, some faint idea of the truth. + +Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple. + +"Yes," she said, in an auxiliary tone, "Reuben always was such a hot +man." + +Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of +affliction required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the same +time. + +"If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt-collar +is as limp as no starch at all," continued Mrs. Dewy, her countenance +lapsing parenthetically into a housewifely expression of concern at the +reminiscence. + +"Come, come, you women-folk; 'tis hands across--come, come!" said the +tranter; and the conversation ceased for the present. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY + + +Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of +country-dances, opening with six-hands-round. + +"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould be a +right and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull off his +jacket, considering the heat." + +"Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go down +with you when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!" + +"Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he often +addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet merely; "I don't +see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten your +clothes. Isn't that nature and reason for gentle and simple? If I strip +by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather pot-housey I own; but if we +stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of the +country, which no man can gainsay? Hey--what did you say, my sonnies?" + +"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the dance; +and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the passage, +whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close +column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, as common to them all, a +general glance of being now a match for any man or dancer in England or +Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained +his coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the same +from superior knowledge. + +And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the time +of night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the tables and +chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming a distinct +halo round the candles; when people's nostrils, wrinkles, and crevices in +general, seem to be getting gradually plastered up; when the very +fiddlers as well as the dancers get red in the face, the dancers having +advanced further still towards incandescence, and entered the cadaverous +phase; the fiddlers no longer sit down, but kick back their chairs and +saw madly at the strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes closed, +regardless of the visible world. Again and again did Dick share his +Love's hand with another man, and wheel round; then, more delightfully, +promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waist +more firmly each time, and his elbow getting further and further behind +her back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, most +blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath curling +round his neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from its proper +date. Threading the couples one by one they reached the bottom, when +there arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune should end before +they could work their way to the top again, and have anew the same +exciting run down through. Dick's feelings on actually reaching the top +in spite of his doubts were supplemented by a mortal fear that the +fiddling might even stop at this supreme moment; which prompted him to +convey a stealthy whisper to the far-gone musicians, to the effect that +they were not to leave off till he and his partner had reached the bottom +of the dance once more, which remark was replied to by the nearest of +those convulsed and quivering men by a private nod to the anxious young +man between two semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous "All right, +ay, ay," without opening the eyes. Fancy was now held so closely that +Dick and she were practically one person. The room became to Dick like a +picture in a dream; all that he could remember of it afterwards being the +look of the fiddlers going to sleep, as humming-tops sleep, by increasing +their motion and hum, together with the figures of grandfather James and +old Simon Crumpler sitting by the chimney-corner, talking and nodding in +dumb-show, and beating the air to their emphatic sentences like people +near a threshing machine. + +The dance ended. "Piph-h-h-h!" said tranter Dewy, blowing out his breath +in the very finest stream of vapour that a man's lips could form. "A +regular tightener, that one, sonnies!" He wiped his forehead, and went +to the cider and ale mugs on the table. + +"Well!" said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't been in +such a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on old Midsummer- +eves to see who my husband was going to be." + +"And that's getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I've heard +you tell," said the tranter, without lifting his eyes from the cup he was +filling. Being now engaged in the business of handing round +refreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, though the +other heavy men had resumed theirs. + +"And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you'll believe me, +came to pass then," continued Mrs. Penny. "Ah, the first spirit ever I +see on a Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a hard +puzzle, so say I!" + +"So I should have fancied," said Elias Spinks. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and talking +on in a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a listener were not +a necessity. "Yes; never was I in such a taking as on that Midsummer- +eve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John Wildway was going to +marry me or no. I put the bread-and-cheese and beer quite ready, as the +witch's book ordered, and I opened the door, and I waited till the clock +struck twelve, my nerves all alive and so strained that I could feel +every one of 'em twitching like bell-wires. Yes, sure! and when the +clock had struck, lo and behold, I could see through the door a little +small man in the lane wi' a shoemaker's apron on." + +Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch. + +"Now, John Wildway," Mrs. Penny continued, "who courted me at that time, +was a shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, and I +couldn't believe that any such a little small man had anything to do wi' +me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the threshold--not +John, but actually the same little small man in the shoemaker's apron--" + +"You needn't be so mighty particular about little and small!" said her +husband. + +"In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn't I flee +upstairs, body and soul hardly hanging together! Well, to cut a long +story short, by-long and by-late, John Wildway and I had a miff and +parted; and lo and behold, the coming man came! Penny asked me if I'd go +snacks with him, and afore I knew what I was about a'most, the thing was +done." + +"I've fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be mistaken," +said Mr. Penny in a murmur. + +After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her eyes, +she still let them stay idling on the past scenes just related, which +were apparently visible to her in the centre of the room. Mr. Penny's +remark received no reply. + +During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been observed +standing in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness to each other, +a just perceptible current of intelligence passing from each to each, +which had apparently no relation whatever to the conversation of their +guests, but much to their sustenance. A conclusion of some kind having +at length been drawn, the palpable confederacy of man and wife was once +more obliterated, the tranter marching off into the pantry, humming a +tune that he couldn't quite recollect, and then breaking into the words +of a song of which he could remember about one line and a quarter. Mrs. +Dewy spoke a few words about preparations for a bit of supper. + +That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking put on +a look to signify that till this moment they had quite forgotten that it +was customary to expect suppers on these occasions; going even further +than this politeness of feature, and starting irrelevant subjects, the +exceeding flatness and forced tone of which rather betrayed their object. +The younger members said they were quite hungry, and that supper would be +delightful though it was so late. + +Good luck attended Dick's love-passes during the meal. He sat next +Fancy, and had the thrilling pleasure of using permanently a glass which +had been taken by Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge of the sole +of his boot touch the lower verge of her skirt; and to add to these +delights the cat, which had lain unobserved in her lap for several +minutes, crept across into his own, touching him with fur that had +touched her hand a moment before. There were, besides, some little +pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she didn't want, and +when it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it across for his own +use, on the plea of waste not, want not. He also, from time to time, +sipped sweet sly glances at her profile; noticing the set of her head, +the curve of her throat, and other artistic properties of the lively +goddess, who the while kept up a rather free, not to say too free, +conversation with Mr. Shiner sitting opposite; which, after some uneasy +criticism, and much shifting of argument backwards and forwards in Dick's +mind, he decided not to consider of alarming significance. + +"A new music greets our ears now," said Miss Fancy, alluding, with the +sharpness that her position as village sharpener demanded, to the +contrast between the rattle of knives and forks and the late notes of the +fiddlers. + +"Ay; and I don't know but what 'tis sweeter in tone when you get above +forty," said the tranter; "except, in faith, as regards father there. +Never such a mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his soul; don't +'em, father?" + +The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent to +Reuben's remark. + +"Spaking of being moved in soul," said Mr. Penny, "I shall never forget +the first time I heard the 'Dead March.' 'Twas at poor Corp'l Nineman's +funeral at Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair creep and fidget about +like a vlock of sheep--ah, it did, souls! And when they had done, and +the last trump had sounded, and the guns was fired over the dead hero's +grave, a' icy-cold drop o' moist sweat hung upon my forehead, and another +upon my jawbone. Ah, 'tis a very solemn thing!" + +"Well, as to father in the corner there," the tranter said, pointing to +old William, who was in the act of filling his mouth; "he'd starve to +death for music's sake now, as much as when he was a boy-chap of +fifteen." + +"Truly, now," said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat in the +manner of a man who meant to be convincing; "there's a friendly tie of +some sort between music and eating." He lifted the cup to his mouth, and +drank himself gradually backwards from a perpendicular position to a +slanting one, during which time his looks performed a circuit from the +wall opposite him to the ceiling overhead. Then clearing the other +corner of his throat: "Once I was a-setting in the little kitchen of the +Dree Mariners at Casterbridge, having a bit of dinner, and a brass band +struck up in the street. Such a beautiful band as that were! I was +setting eating fried liver and lights, I well can mind--ah, I was! and to +save my life, I couldn't help chawing to the tune. Band played six-eight +time; six-eight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common; common time went +my teeth among the liver and lights as true as a hair. Beautiful 'twere! +Ah, I shall never forget that there band!" + +"That's as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of," said grandfather James, +with the absent gaze which accompanies profound criticism. + +"I don't like Michael's tuneful stories then," said Mrs. Dewy. "They are +quite coarse to a person o' decent taste." + +Old Michael's mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to smile but +didn't know where to begin, which gradually settled to an expression that +it was not displeasing for a nice woman like the tranter's wife to +correct him. + +"Well, now," said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, "that sort o' coarse +touch that's so upsetting to Ann's feelings is to my mind a +recommendation; for it do always prove a story to be true. And for the +same reason, I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all true +stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon't. If the story- +tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd +ha' troubled to invent parables?" Saying this the tranter arose to fetch +a new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home-made wines. + +Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her husband's +back, though that the words should reach his ears distinctly was +understood by both): "Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody do know the trouble +I have to keep that man barely respectable. And did you ever hear +too--just now at supper-time--talking about 'taties' with Michael in such +a work-folk way. Well, 'tis what I was never brought up to! With our +family 'twas never less than 'taters,' and very often 'pertatoes' +outright; mother was so particular and nice with us girls there was no +family in the parish that kept them selves up more than we." + +The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, because +she had engaged a woman to wait up for her. She disappeared temporarily +from the flagging party of dancers, and then came downstairs wrapped up +and looking altogether a different person from whom she had been +hitherto, in fact (to Dick's sadness and disappointment), a woman +somewhat reserved and of a phlegmatic temperament--nothing left in her of +the romping girl that she had seemed but a short quarter-hour before, who +had not minded the weight of Dick's hand upon her waist, nor shirked the +purlieus of the mistletoe. + +"What a difference!" thought the young man--hoary cynic pro tem. "What a +miserable deceiving difference between the manners of a maid's life at +dancing times and at others! Look at this lovely Fancy! Through the +whole past evening touchable, squeezeable--even kissable! For whole half- +hours I held her so chose to me that not a sheet of paper could have been +shipped between us; and I could feel her heart only just outside my own, +her life beating on so close to mine, that I was aware of every breath in +it. A flit is made upstairs--a hat and a cloak put on--and I no more +dare to touch her than--" Thought failed him, and he returned to +realities. + +But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. Mr. +Shiner and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive advantage that ardent +bachelors who are going homeward along the same road as a pretty young +woman always do take of that circumstance, came forward to assure +Fancy--with a total disregard of Dick's emotions, and in tones which were +certainly not frigid--that he (Shiner) was not the man to go to bed +before seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own door--not he, nobody +should say he was that;--and that he would not leave her side an inch +till the thing was done--drown him if he would. The proposal was +assented to by Miss Day, in Dick's foreboding judgment, with one +degree--or at any rate, an appreciable fraction of a degree--of warmth +beyond that required by a disinterested desire for protection from the +dangers of the night. + +All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, looking +now like a setting from which the gem has been torn. There stood her +glass, and the romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the bottom that she +couldn't drink by trying ever so hard, in obedience to the mighty +arguments of the tranter (his hand coming down upon her shoulder the +while, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the drinker was there no longer. There +were the nine or ten pretty little crumbs she had left on her plate; but +the eater was no more seen. + +There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between himself and +the members of his family, now that they were left alone again face to +face. His father seemed quite offensive for appearing to be in just as +high spirits as when the guests were there; and as for grandfather James +(who had not yet left), he was quite fiendish in being rather glad they +were gone. + +"Really," said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, "I've had +so little time to attend to myself all the evenen, that I mean to enjoy a +quiet meal now! A slice of this here ham--neither too fat nor too +lean--so; and then a drop of this vinegar and pickles--there, that's +it--and I shall be as fresh as a lark again! And to tell the truth, my +sonny, my inside has been as dry as a lime-basket all night." + +"I like a party very well once in a while," said Mrs. Dewy, leaving off +the adorned tones she had been bound to use throughout the evening, and +returning to the natural marriage voice; "but, Lord, 'tis such a sight of +heavy work next day! What with the dirty plates, and knives and forks, +and dust and smother, and bits kicked off your furniture, and I don't +know what all, why a body could a'most wish there were no such things as +Christmases . . . Ah-h dear!" she yawned, till the clock in the corner +had ticked several beats. She cast her eyes round upon the displaced, +dust-laden furniture, and sank down overpowered at the sight. + +"Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for't!" said the +tranter cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham and bread, without +lifting his eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his knife and +fork as if he were felling trees. "Ann, you may as well go on to bed at +once, and not bide there making such sleepy faces; you look as +long-favoured as a fiddle, upon my life, Ann. There, you must be wearied +out, 'tis true. I'll do the doors and draw up the clock; and you go on, +or you'll be as white as a sheet to-morrow." + +"Ay; I don't know whether I shan't or no." The matron passed her hand +across her eyes to brush away the film of sleep till she got upstairs. + +Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be so +blind to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to wife that +dear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so dreadfully practical +and undemonstrative of the Passion as his father and mother were. The +most extraordinary thing was, that all the fathers and mothers he knew +were just as undemonstrative as his own. + + + +CHAPTER IX: DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL + + +The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holiday +weeks at home, returned again to Mellstock. + +Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick in +accidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about the +neighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A handkerchief +belonging to her had been providentially found by his mother in clearing +the rooms the day after that of the dance; and by much contrivance Dick +got it handed over to him, to leave with her at any time he should be +near the school after her return. But he delayed taking the extreme +measure of calling with it lest, had she really no sentiment of interest +in him, it might be regarded as a slightly absurd errand, the reason +guessed; and the sense of the ludicrous, which was rather keen in her, do +his dignity considerable injury in her eyes; and what she thought of him, +even apart from the question of her loving, was all the world to him now. + +But the hour came when the patience of love at twenty-one could endure no +longer. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild air of +indifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object of his quest +at the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade and +gloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself there. + +He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage-windows +opposite by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great hurry of +business, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have done with such +trifling errands. + +This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found it +locked to keep the children, who were playing 'cross-dadder' in the +front, from running into her private grounds. + +She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be done, +which was to shout her name. + +"Miss Day!" + +The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the +cottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a +pleasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons in +gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day continued +digging and pulling as before. + +He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage-windows yet more stoically, +and shouted again. Fancy took no notice whatever. + +He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning suddenly +about and retiring a little distance, as if it were by no means for his +own pleasure that he had come. + +This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the school at +the back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door opened, and +three-quarters of the blooming young schoolmistress's face and figure +stood revealed before him; a slice on her left-hand side being cut off by +the edge of the door. Having surveyed and recognized him, she came to +the gate. + +At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did it +continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a question meditated +several hundreds of times by her visitor in after-hours--the meditation, +after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it was +impossible to say. + +"Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with." He held it out +spasmodically and awkwardly. "Mother found it: under a chair." + +"O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't think +where I had dropped it." + +Now Dick, not being an experienced lover--indeed, never before having +been engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in a small +schoolboy way--could not take advantage of the situation; and out came +the blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter moments and a +sleepless night:- + +"Good morning, Miss Day." + +"Good morning, Mr. Dewy." + +The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside, +unchanged in his condition from what he had been before he called. Of +course the Angel was not to blame--a young woman living alone in a house +could not ask him indoors unless she had known him better--he should have +kept her outside before floundering into that fatal farewell. He wished +that before he called he had realized more fully than he did the pleasure +of being about to call; and turned away. + + + + +PART THE SECOND--SPRING + + +CHAPTER I: PASSING BY THE SCHOOL + + +It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much more +frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was continually +finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the road which +skirted the garden of the school. The first-fruits of his perseverance +were that, on turning the angle on the nineteenth journey by that track, +he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in a dark-gray dress, looking from a +high open window upon the crown of his hat. The friendly greeting +resulting from this rencounter was considered so valuable an elixir that +Dick passed still oftener; and by the time he had almost trodden a little +path under the fence where never a path was before, he was rewarded with +an actual meeting face to face on the open road before her gate. This +brought another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her +bearing that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there; but +the sort of pleasure she derived, whether exultation at the hope her +exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone Dick's +concern, he could not anyhow decide, although he meditated on her every +little movement for hours after it was made. + + + +CHAPTER II: A MEETING OF THE QUIRE + + +It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun appeared as +a nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost in cloudy masses +hanging round it, like wild locks of hair. + +The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group in +front of Mr. Penny's workshop in the lower village. They were all +brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long as a +steeple; the lowness of the source of light rendering the brims of their +hats of no use at all as a protection to the eyes. + +Mr. Penny's was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood in a +hollow by the roadside so that cart-wheels and horses' legs were about +level with the sill of his shop-window. This was low and wide, and was +open from morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself being invariably seen +working inside, like a framed portrait of a shoemaker by some modern +Moroni. He sat facing the road, with a boot on his knees and the awl in +his hand, only looking up for a moment as he stretched out his arms and +bent forward at the pull, when his spectacles flashed in the passer's +face with a shine of flat whiteness, and then returned again to the boot +as usual. Rows of lasts, small and large, stout and slender, covered the +wall which formed the background, in the extreme shadow of which a kind +of dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an apprentice with a string +tied round his hair (probably to keep it out of his eyes). He smiled at +remarks that floated in from without, but was never known to answer them +in Mr. Penny's presence. Outside the window the upper-leather of a +Wellington-boot was usually hung, pegged to a board as if to dry. No +sign was over his door; in fact--as with old banks and mercantile +houses--advertising in any shape was scorned, and it would have been felt +as beneath his dignity to paint up, for the benefit of strangers, the +name of an establishment whose trade came solely by connection based on +personal respect. + +His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, sometimes +leaning against the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two backwards and +forwards in front of it. They talked with deliberate gesticulations to +Mr. Penny, enthroned in the shadow of the interior. + +"I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o' life--o' +Sundays, anyway--that I do so." + +"'Tis like all the doings of folk who don't know what a day's work is, +that's what I say." + +"My belief is the man's not to blame; 'tis she--she's the bitter weed!" + +"No, not altogether. He's a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon +yesterday." + +"His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he +couldn't put it into words and speak it. That's all was the matter wi' +the sermon. He hadn't been able to get it past his pen." + +"Well--ay, the sermon might have been good; for, 'tis true, the sermon of +Old Eccl'iastes himself lay in Eccl'iastes's ink-bottle afore he got it +out." + +Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could +afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point. + +"He's no spouter--that must be said, 'a b'lieve." + +"'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go," +said Spinks. + +"Well, we'll say nothing about that," the tranter answered; "for I don't +believe 'twill make a penneth o' difference to we poor martels here or +hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies." + +Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and +looked up and spoke again at the extension of arms. + +"'Tis his goings-on, souls, that's what it is." He clenched his features +for an Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and continued, "The first +thing he done when he came here was to be hot and strong about church +business." + +"True," said Spinks; "that was the very first thing he done." + +Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted it, +ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if it were +a pill, and continued: + +"The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, until he +found 'twould be a matter o' cost and what not, and then not to think no +more about it." + +"True: that was the next thing he done." + +"And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not on no +account to put their hats in the christening font during service." + +"True." + +"And then 'twas this, and then 'twas that, and now 'tis--" + +Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. Penny +gave a huge pull to signify the concluding word. + +"Now 'tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop," said the tranter +after an interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining the pause +and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means of keeping the +subject well before the meeting. + +Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like all +good wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to her +husband's Whiggism, and vice versa, in times of peace, she coalesced with +him heartily enough in time of war. + +"It must be owned he's not all there," she replied in a general way to +the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. "Far below poor Mr. +Grinham" (the late vicar). + +"Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he'd +never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of your +work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye." + +"Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very well- +intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to sifting your +cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can't do +it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them for several days, +unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of winder; for as sure as the +sun you meet him at the door, coming to ask how you are, and 'tis such a +confusing thing to meet a gentleman at the door when ye are in the mess +o' washing." + +"'Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman," said the tranter. +"His meaning's good enough. Ay, your pa'son comes by fate: 'tis heads or +tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; so we must take en as he +is, my sonnies, and thank God he's no worse, I suppose." + +"I fancy I've seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than +Christianity asked for," said Mrs. Penny musingly; "but I don't quite +like to say it." + +"O no; there's nothing in that," said grandfather William. + +"If there's nothing, we shall see nothing," Mrs. Penny replied, in the +tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still. + +"Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!" said Bowman. "Why, he never troubled us +wi' a visit from year's end to year's end. You might go anywhere, do +anything: you'd be sure never to see him." + +"Yes, he was a right sensible pa'son," said Michael. "He never entered +our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor wife--ay, +poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall!--that as she was such a' +old aged person, and lived so far from the church, he didn't at all +expect her to come any more to the service." + +"And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and hymns +o' Sundays. 'Confound ye,' says he, 'blare and scrape what ye will, but +don't bother me!'" + +"And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and +hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring the +babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. There's good +in a man's not putting a parish to unnecessary trouble." + +"And there's this here man never letting us have a bit o' peace; but +keeping on about being good and upright till 'tis carried to such a pitch +as I never see the like afore nor since!" + +"No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn't hold water, as +it hadn't for years off and on; and when I told him that Mr. Grinham +never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and christen 'em just +as well, 'a said, 'Good Heavens! Send for a workman immediate. What +place have I come to!' Which was no compliment to us, come to that." + +"Still, for my part," said old William, "though he's arrayed against us, +I like the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa'son." + +"You, ready to die for the quire," said Bowman reproachfully, "to stick +up for the quire's enemy, William!" + +"Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I," said the old +man firmly; "that you d'all know. I've a-been in the quire man and boy +ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that 'tisn't in me to +call the man a bad man, because I truly and sincerely believe en to be a +good young feller." + +Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated William's +eye as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of aspect was also +imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a Titanic shadow at +least thirty feet in length, stretching away to the east in outlines of +imposing magnitude, his head finally terminating upon the trunk of a +grand old oak-tree. + +"Mayble's a hearty feller enough," the tranter replied, "and will spak to +you be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en was in a +drong, and though 'a didn't know me no more than the dead, 'a passed the +time of day. 'D'ye do?' he said, says he, nodding his head. 'A fine +day.' Then the second time I met en was full-buff in town street, when +my breeches were tore into a long strent by getting through a copse of +thorns and brimbles for a short cut home-along; and not wanting to +disgrace the man by spaking in that state, I fixed my eye on the +weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. But no: 'How d'ye do, +Reuben?' says he, right hearty, and shook my hand. If I'd been dressed +in silver spangles from top to toe, the man couldn't have been civiller." + +At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they +turned and watched him. + + + +CHAPTER III: A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION + + +"I'm afraid Dick's a lost man," said the tranter. + +"What?--no!" said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far commoner +thing for his ears to report what was not said than that his judgment +should be at fault. + +"Ay," said the tranter, still gazing at Dick's unconscious advance. "I +don't at all like what I see! There's too many o' them looks out of the +winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; too much +peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; telling about +clever things she did till you be sick of it; and then upon a hint to +that effect a horrible silence about her. I've walked the path once in +my life and know the country, neighbours; and Dick's a lost man!" The +tranter turned a quarter round and smiled a smile of miserable satire at +the setting new moon, which happened to catch his eye. + +The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them to +speak; and they still regarded Dick in the distance. + +"'Twas his mother's fault," the tranter continued, "in asking the young +woman to our party last Christmas. When I eyed the blue frock and light +heels o' the maid, I had my thoughts directly. 'God bless thee, Dicky my +sonny,' I said to myself; 'there's a delusion for thee!'" + +"They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?" Mail +tentatively observed, as became one who was not a member of the family. + +"Ay, that's a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness +belongs to it, queerest things on earth belongs to it! There, 'tmay as +well come early as late s'far as I know. The sooner begun, the sooner +over; for come it will." + +"The question I ask is," said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread the +two subjects of discourse, as became a man learned in rhetoric, and +beating with his hand in a way which signified that the manner rather +than the matter of his speech was to be observed, "how did Mr. Maybold +know she could play the organ? You know we had it from her own lips, as +far as lips go, that she has never, first or last, breathed such a thing +to him; much less that she ever would play." + +In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news which had +caused such a convulsion among the ancient musicians was unfolded to him. +"Well," he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss Day, "I know by some +words of hers that she has a particular wish not to play, because she is +a friend of ours; and how the alteration comes, I don't know." + +"Now, this is my plan," said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the +discussion by the infusion of new ideas, as was his custom--"this is my +plan; if you don't like it, no harm's done. We all know one another very +well, don't we, neighbours?" + +That they knew one another very well was received as a statement which, +though familiar, should not be omitted in introductory speeches. + +"Then I say this"--and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his hand +on Mr. Spinks's shoulder with a momentum of several pounds, upon which +Mr. Spinks tried to look not in the least startled--"I say that we all +move down-along straight as a line to Pa'son Mayble's when the clock has +gone six to-morrow night. There we one and all stand in the passage, +then one or two of us go in and spak to en, man and man; and say, 'Pa'son +Mayble, every tradesman d'like to have his own way in his workshop, and +Mellstock Church is yours. Instead of turning us out neck and crop, let +us stay on till Christmas, and we'll gie way to the young woman, Mr. +Mayble, and make no more ado about it. And we shall always be quite +willing to touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. Mayble, just as before.' +That sounds very well? Hey?" + +"Proper well, in faith, Reuben Dewy." + +"And we won't sit down in his house; 'twould be looking too familiar when +only just reconciled?" + +"No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn round, +and march out--he'll think all the more of us for it." + +"I hardly think Leaf had better go wi' us?" said Michael, turning to Leaf +and taking his measure from top to bottom by the eye. "He's so terrible +silly that he might ruin the concern." + +"He don't want to go much; do ye, Thomas Leaf?" said William. + +"Hee-hee! no; I don't want to. Only a teeny bit!" + +"I be mortal afeard, Leaf, that you'll never be able to tell how many +cuts d'take to sharpen a spar," said Mail. + +"I never had no head, never! that's how it happened to happen, hee-hee!" + +They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by +disparaging him after an open confession, but because it was an accepted +thing that Leaf didn't in the least mind having no head, that deficiency +of his being an unimpassioned matter of parish history. + +"But I can sing my treble!" continued Thomas Leaf, quite delighted at +being called a fool in such a friendly way; "I can sing my treble as well +as any maid, or married woman either, and better! And if Jim had lived, +I should have had a clever brother! To-morrow is poor Jim's birthday. +He'd ha' been twenty-six if he'd lived till to-morrow." + +"You always seem very sorry for Jim," said old William musingly. + +"Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he'd always ha' been! She'd never +have had to work in her old age if he had continued strong, poor Jim!" + +"What was his age when 'a died?" + +"Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. 'A was born as might be at +night; and 'a didn't last as might be till the morning. No, 'a didn't +last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha' been his +christening day if he had lived; and she's always thinking about en. You +see he died so very young." + +"Well, 'twas rather youthful," said Michael. + +"Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o' children?" +said the tranter, his eye sweeping his audience. + +"Ah, well she mid be," said Leaf. "She had twelve regular one after +another, and they all, except myself, died very young; either before they +was born or just afterwards." + +"Pore feller, too. I suppose th'st want to come wi' us?" the tranter +murmured. + +"Well, Leaf, you shall come wi' us as yours is such a melancholy family," +said old William rather sadly. + +"I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life," said +Reuben. "There's Leaf's mother, poor woman! Every morning I see her +eyes mooning out through the panes of glass like a pot-sick +winder-flower; and as Leaf sings a very high treble, and we don't know +what we should do without en for upper G, we'll let en come as a trate, +poor feller." + +"Ay, we'll let en come, 'a b'lieve," said Mr. Penny, looking up, as the +pull happened to be at that moment. + +"Now," continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice these +digressions about Leaf; "as to going to see the pa'son, one of us might +call and ask en his meaning, and 'twould be just as well done; but it +will add a bit of flourish to the cause if the quire waits on him as a +body. Then the great thing to mind is, not for any of our fellers to be +nervous; so before starting we'll one and all come to my house and have a +rasher of bacon; then every man-jack het a pint of cider into his inside; +then we'll warm up an extra drop wi' some mead and a bit of ginger; every +one take a thimbleful--just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to +finish off his inner man--and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, +a man's not himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a drop? We shall +be able to look any gentleman in the face then without shrink or shame." + +Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the earth +in time to give a cordial approval to this line of action, and the +meeting adjourned. + + + +CHAPTER IV: THE INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR + + +At six o'clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir emerged +from the tranter's door, and advanced with a firm step down the lane. +This dignity of march gradually became obliterated as they went on, and +by the time they reached the hill behind the vicarage a faint resemblance +to a flock of sheep might have been discerned in the venerable party. A +word from the tranter, however, set them right again; and as they +descended the hill, the regular tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet +was clearly audible from the vicarage garden. At the opening of the gate +there was another short interval of irregular shuffling, caused by a +rather peculiar habit the gate had, when swung open quickly, of striking +against the bank and slamming back into the opener's face. + +"Now keep step again, will ye?" said the tranter. "It looks better, and +more becomes the high class of arrant which has brought us here." Thus +they advanced to the door. + +At Reuben's ring the more modest of the group turned aside, adjusted +their hats, and looked critically at any shrub that happened to lie in +the line of vision; endeavouring thus to give a person who chanced to +look out of the windows the impression that their request, whatever it +was going to be, was rather a casual thought occurring whilst they were +inspecting the vicar's shrubbery and grass-plot than a predetermined +thing. The tranter, who, coming frequently to the vicarage with luggage, +coals, firewood, etc., had none of the awe for its precincts that filled +the breasts of most of the others, fixed his eyes firmly on the knocker +during this interval of waiting. The knocker having no characteristic +worthy of notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one of the +door-panels, and studied the winding lines of the grain. + +"O, sir, please, here's Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and young +Richard Dewy, O, and all the quire too, sir, except the boys, a-come to +see you!" said Mr. Maybold's maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, the pupils of +her eyes dilating like circles in a pond. + +"All the choir?" said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly described +as a good-looking young man with courageous eyes, timid mouth, and +neutral nose), abandoning his writing and looking at his parlour-maid +after speaking, like a man who fancied he had seen her face before but +couldn't recollect where. + +"And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the right +hand nor to the left, but stares quite straight and solemn with his mind +made up!" + +"O, all the choir," repeated the vicar to himself, trying by that simple +device to trot out his thoughts on what the choir could come for. + +"Yes; every man-jack of 'em, as I be alive!" (The parlour-maid was +rather local in manner, having in fact been raised in the same village.) +"Really, sir, 'tis thoughted by many in town and country that--" + +"Town and country!--Heavens, I had no idea that I was public property in +this way!" said the vicar, his face acquiring a hue somewhere between +that of the rose and the peony. "Well, 'It is thought in town and +country that--'" + +"It is thought that you be going to get it hot and strong!--excusen my +incivility, sir." + +The vicar suddenly recalled to his recollection that he had long ago +settled it to be decidedly a mistake to encourage his servant Jane in +giving personal opinions. The servant Jane saw by the vicar's face that +he recalled this fact to his mind; and removing her forehead from the +edge of the door, and rubbing away the indent that edge had made, +vanished into the passage as Mr. Maybold remarked, "Show them in, Jane." + +A few minutes later a shuffling and jostling (reduced to as refined a +form as was compatible with the nature of shuffles and jostles) was heard +in the passage; then an earnest and prolonged wiping of shoes, conveying +the notion that volumes of mud had to be removed; but the roads being so +clean that not a particle of dirt appeared on the choir's boots (those of +all the elder members being newly oiled, and Dick's brightly polished), +this wiping might have been set down simply as a desire to show that +respectable men had no wish to take a mean advantage of clean roads for +curtailing proper ceremonies. Next there came a powerful whisper from +the same quarter:- + +"Now stand stock-still there, my sonnies, one and all! And don't make no +noise; and keep your backs close to the wall, that company may pass in +and out easy if they want to without squeezing through ye: and we two are +enough to go in." . . . The voice was the tranter's. + +"I wish I could go in too and see the sight!" said a reedy voice--that of +Leaf. + +"'Tis a pity Leaf is so terrible silly, or else he might," said another. + +"I never in my life seed a quire go into a study to have it out about the +playing and singing," pleaded Leaf; "and I should like to see it just +once!" + +"Very well; we'll let en come in," said the tranter. "You'll be like +chips in porridge, {1} Leaf--neither good nor hurt. All right, my sonny, +come along;" and immediately himself, old William, and Leaf appeared in +the room. + +"We took the liberty to come and see 'ee, sir," said Reuben, letting his +hat hang in his left hand, and touching with his right the brim of an +imaginary one on his head. "We've come to see 'ee, sir, man and man, and +no offence, I hope?" + +"None at all," said Mr. Maybold. + +"This old aged man standing by my side is father; William Dewy by name, +sir." + +"Yes; I see it is," said the vicar, nodding aside to old William, who +smiled. + +"I thought you mightn't know en without his bass-viol," the tranter +apologized. "You see, he always wears his best clothes and his bass-viol +a-Sundays, and it do make such a difference in a' old man's look." + +"And who's that young man?" the vicar said. + +"Tell the pa'son yer name," said the tranter, turning to Leaf, who stood +with his elbows nailed back to a bookcase. + +"Please, Thomas Leaf, your holiness!" said Leaf, trembling. + +"I hope you'll excuse his looks being so very thin," continued the +tranter deprecatingly, turning to the vicar again. "But 'tisn't his +fault, poor feller. He's rather silly by nature, and could never get +fat; though he's a' excellent treble, and so we keep him on." + +"I never had no head, sir," said Leaf, eagerly grasping at this +opportunity for being forgiven his existence. + +"Ah, poor young man!" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Bless you, he don't mind it a bit, if you don't, sir," said the tranter +assuringly. "Do ye, Leaf?" + +"Not I--not a morsel--hee, hee! I was afeard it mightn't please your +holiness, sir, that's all." + +The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very well through his negative +qualities, was tempted in a fit of generosity to advance him still +higher, by giving him credit for positive ones. "He's very clever for a +silly chap, good-now, sir. You never knowed a young feller keep his +smock-frocks so clane; very honest too. His ghastly looks is all there +is against en, poor feller; but we can't help our looks, you know, sir." + +"True: we cannot. You live with your mother, I think, Leaf?" + +The tranter looked at Leaf to express that the most friendly assistant to +his tongue could do no more for him now, and that he must be left to his +own resources. + +"Yes, sir: a widder, sir. Ah, if brother Jim had lived she'd have had a +clever son to keep her without work!" + +"Indeed! poor woman. Give her this half-crown. I'll call and see your +mother." + +"Say, 'Thank you, sir,'" the tranter whispered imperatively towards Leaf. + +"Thank you, sir!" said Leaf. + +"That's it, then; sit down, Leaf," said Mr. Maybold. + +"Y-yes, sir!" + +The tranter cleared his throat after this accidental parenthesis about +Leaf, rectified his bodily position, and began his speech. + +"Mr. Mayble," he said, "I hope you'll excuse my common way, but I always +like to look things in the face." + +Reuben made a point of fixing this sentence in the vicar's mind by gazing +hard at him at the conclusion of it, and then out of the window. + +Mr. Maybold and old William looked in the same direction, apparently +under the impression that the things' faces alluded to were there +visible. + +"What I have been thinking"--the tranter implied by this use of the past +tense that he was hardly so discourteous as to be positively thinking it +then--"is that the quire ought to be gie'd a little time, and not done +away wi' till Christmas, as a fair thing between man and man. And, Mr. +Mayble, I hope you'll excuse my common way?" + +"I will, I will. Till Christmas," the vicar murmured, stretching the two +words to a great length, as if the distance to Christmas might be +measured in that way. "Well, I want you all to understand that I have no +personal fault to find, and that I don't wish to change the church music +by forcible means, or in a way which should hurt the feelings of any +parishioners. Why I have at last spoken definitely on the subject is +that a player has been brought under--I may say pressed upon--my notice +several times by one of the churchwardens. And as the organ I brought +with me is here waiting" (pointing to a cabinet-organ standing in the +study), "there is no reason for longer delay." + +"We made a mistake I suppose then, sir? But we understood the young +woman didn't want to play particularly?" The tranter arranged his +countenance to signify that he did not want to be inquisitive in the +least. + +"No, nor did she. Nor did I definitely wish her to just yet; for your +playing is very good. But, as I said, one of the churchwardens has been +so anxious for a change, that, as matters stand, I couldn't consistently +refuse my consent." + +Now for some reason or other, the vicar at this point seemed to have an +idea that he had prevaricated; and as an honest vicar, it was a thing he +determined not to do. He corrected himself, blushing as he did so, +though why he should blush was not known to Reuben. + +"Understand me rightly," he said: "the church-warden proposed it to me, +but I had thought myself of getting--Miss Day to play." + +"Which churchwarden might that be who proposed her, sir?--excusing my +common way." The tranter intimated by his tone that, so far from being +inquisitive, he did not even wish to ask a single question. + +"Mr. Shiner, I believe." + +"Clk, my sonny!--beg your pardon, sir, that's only a form of words of +mine, and slipped out accidental--he nourishes enmity against us for some +reason or another; perhaps because we played rather hard upon en +Christmas night. Anyhow 'tis certain sure that Mr. Shiner's real love +for music of a particular kind isn't his reason. He've no more ear than +that chair. But let that be." + +"I don't think you should conclude that, because Mr. Shiner wants a +different music, he has any ill-feeling for you. I myself, I must own, +prefer organ-music to any other. I consider it most proper, and feel +justified in endeavouring to introduce it; but then, although other music +is better, I don't say yours is not good." + +"Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death's to be, we'll die like men any day +you name (excusing my common way)." + +Mr. Maybold bowed his head. + +"All we thought was, that for us old ancient singers to be choked off +quiet at no time in particular, as now, in the Sundays after Easter, +would seem rather mean in the eyes of other parishes, sir. But if we +fell glorious with a bit of a flourish at Christmas, we should have a +respectable end, and not dwindle away at some nameless paltry +second-Sunday-after or Sunday-next-before something, that's got no name +of his own." + +"Yes, yes, that's reasonable; I own it's reasonable." + +"You see, Mr. Mayble, we've got--do I keep you inconvenient long, sir?" + +"No, no." + +"We've got our feelings--father there especially." + +The tranter, in his earnestness, had advanced his person to within six +inches of the vicar's. + +"Certainly, certainly!" said Mr. Maybold, retreating a little for +convenience of seeing. "You are all enthusiastic on the subject, and I +am all the more gratified to find you so. A Laodicean lukewarmness is +worse than wrongheadedness itself." + +"Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble," Reuben continued, more +impressively, and advancing a little closer still to the vicar, "father +there is a perfect figure o' wonder, in the way of being fond of music!" + +The vicar drew back a little further, the tranter suddenly also standing +back a foot or two, to throw open the view of his father, and pointing to +him at the same time. + +Old William moved uneasily in the large chair, and with a minute smile on +the mere edge of his lips, for good-manners, said he was indeed very fond +of tunes. + +"Now, you see exactly how it is," Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. +Maybold's sense of justice by looking sideways into his eyes. The vicar +seemed to see how it was so well that the gratified tranter walked up to +him again with even vehement eagerness, so that his waistcoat-buttons +almost rubbed against the vicar's as he continued: "As to father, if you +or I, or any man or woman of the present generation, at the time music is +a-playing, was to shake your fist in father's face, as may be this way, +and say, 'Don't you be delighted with that music!'"--the tranter went +back to where Leaf was sitting, and held his fist so close to Leaf's face +that the latter pressed his head back against the wall: "All right, Leaf, +my sonny, I won't hurt you; 'tis just to show my meaning to Mr. +Mayble.--As I was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to shake your fist +in father's face this way, and say, 'William, your life or your music!' +he'd say, 'My life!' Now that's father's nature all over; and you see, +sir, it must hurt the feelings of a man of that kind for him and his bass- +viol to be done away wi' neck and crop." + +The tranter went back to the vicar's front and again looked earnestly at +his face. + +"True, true, Dewy," Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his head and +shoulders without moving his feet; but finding this impracticable, edging +back another inch. These frequent retreats had at last jammed Mr. +Maybold between his easy-chair and the edge of the table. + +And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had just +re-dipped the pen he was using; at their entry, instead of wiping it, he +had laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At the last retreat +his coat-tails came in contact with the pen, and down it rolled, first +against the back of the chair, thence turning a summersault into the +seat, thence falling to the floor with a rattle. + +The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show that, +however great their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was not so small +as to let this affect his social feelings, stooped also. + +"And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?" said Mr. +Maybold from under the table. + +"Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you see our +desire is reason?" said the tranter from under the chair. + +"Quite, quite; and I shouldn't think of refusing to listen to such a +reasonable request," the vicar replied. Seeing that Reuben had secured +the pen, he resumed his vertical position, and added, "You know, Dewy, it +is often said how difficult a matter it is to act up to our convictions +and please all parties. It may be said with equal truth, that it is +difficult for a man of any appreciativeness to have convictions at all. +Now in my case, I see right in you, and right in Shiner. I see that +violins are good, and that an organ is good; and when we introduce the +organ, it will not be that fiddles were bad, but that an organ was +better. That you'll clearly understand, Dewy?" + +"I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h-h! How +the blood do get into my head, to be sure, whenever I quat down like +that!" said Reuben, who having also risen to his feet stuck the pen +vertically in the inkstand and almost through the bottom, that it might +not roll down again under any circumstances whatever. + +Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their curiosity +surging higher and higher as the minutes passed. Dick, not having much +affection for this errand, soon grew tired, and went away in the +direction of the school. Yet their sense of propriety would probably +have restrained them from any attempt to discover what was going on in +the study had not the vicar's pen fallen to the floor. The conviction +that the movement of chairs, etc., necessitated by the search, could only +have been caused by the catastrophe of a bloody fight beginning, +overpowered all other considerations; and they advanced to the door, +which had only just fallen to. Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes +after the stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in full- +length portraiture, Mail's face and shoulders above Mr. Penny's head, +Spinks's forehead and eyes over Mail's crown, and a fractional part of +Bowman's countenance under Spinks's arm--crescent-shaped portions of +other heads and faces being visible behind these--the whole dozen and odd +eyes bristling with eager inquiry. + +Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable boot-makers and men, seeing the +vicar look at him and hearing no word spoken, thought it incumbent upon +himself to say something of any kind. Nothing suggested itself till he +had looked for about half a minute at the vicar. + +"You'll excuse my naming of it, sir," he said, regarding with much +commiseration the mere surface of the vicar's face; "but perhaps you +don't know that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut yourself +a-shaving this morning, sir." + +"Now, that was the stooping, depend upon't," the tranter suggested, also +looking with much interest at the vicar's chin. "Blood always will bust +out again if you hang down the member that's been bleeding." + +Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar's bleeding chin +likewise; and Leaf advanced two or three paces from the bookcase, +absorbed in the contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted lips +and delighted eyes. + +"Dear me, dear me!" said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and +brushing his chin with his hand, then taking out his handkerchief and +wiping the place. + +"That's it, sir; all right again now, 'a b'lieve--a mere nothing," said +Mr. Penny. "A little bit of fur off your hat will stop it in a minute if +it should bust out again." + +"I'll let 'ee have a bit off mine," said Reuben, to show his good +feeling; "my hat isn't so new as yours, sir, and 'twon't hurt mine a +bit." + +"No, no; thank you, thank you," Mr. Maybold again nervously replied. + +"'Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?" said Reuben, feeling these to be the +kindest and best remarks he could make. + +"O, no; not particularly." + +"Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes a-shaving, and just when it +comes into your head that you may cut yourself, there's the blood." + +"I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which we +make the change," said Mr. Maybold, "and I know you'll meet me half-way. +I think Christmas-day as much too late for me as the present time is too +early for you. I suggest Michaelmas or thereabout as a convenient time +for both parties; for I think your objection to a Sunday which has no +name is not one of any real weight." + +"Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn't expect their own way +entirely; and I express in all our names that we'll make shift and be +satisfied with what you say." The tranter touched the brim of his +imaginary hat again, and all the choir did the same. "About Michaelmas, +then, as far as you are concerned, sir, and then we make room for the +next generation." + +"About Michaelmas," said the vicar. + + + +CHAPTER V: RETURNING HOME WARD + + +"'A took it very well, then?" said Mail, as they all walked up the hill. + +"He behaved like a man, 'a did so," said the tranter. "And I'm glad +we've let en know our minds. And though, beyond that, we ha'n't got much +by going, 'twas worth while. He won't forget it. Yes, he took it very +well. Supposing this tree here was Pa'son Mayble, and I standing here, +and thik gr't stone is father sitting in the easy-chair. 'Dewy,' says +he, 'I don't wish to change the church music in a forcible way.'" + +"That was very nice o' the man, even though words be wind." + +"Proper nice--out and out nice. The fact is," said Reuben +confidentially, "'tis how you take a man. Everybody must be managed. +Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men want managing +almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal." + +"'Tis truly!" murmured the husbands. + +"Pa'son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we'd been +sworn brothers. Ay, the man's well enough; 'tis what's put in his head +that spoils him, and that's why we've got to go." + +"There's really no believing half you hear about people nowadays." + +"Bless ye, my sonnies! 'tisn't the pa'son's move at all. That gentleman +over there" (the tranter nodded in the direction of Shiner's farm) "is at +the root of the mischty." + +"What! Shiner?" + +"Ay; and I see what the pa'son don't see. Why, Shiner is for putting +forward that young woman that only last night I was saying was our Dick's +sweet-heart, but I suppose can't be, and making much of her in the sight +of the congregation, and thinking he'll win her by showing her off. Well, +perhaps 'a woll." + +"Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is second +to Shiner, the pa'son is second to the churchwardens, and God A'mighty is +nowhere at all." + +"That's true; and you see," continued Reuben, "at the very beginning it +put me in a stud as to how to quarrel wi' en. In short, to save my soul, +I couldn't quarrel wi' such a civil man without belying my conscience. +Says he to father there, in a voice as quiet as a lamb's, 'William, you +are a' old aged man, as all shall be, so sit down in my easy-chair, and +rest yourself.' And down father zot. I could fain ha' laughed at thee, +father; for thou'st take it so unconcerned at first, and then looked so +frightened when the chair-bottom sunk in." + +"You see," said old William, hastening to explain, "I was scared to find +the bottom gie way--what should I know o' spring bottoms?--and thought I +had broke it down: and of course as to breaking down a man's chair, I +didn't wish any such thing." + +"And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d'see his +own father sitting in his enemy's easy-chair, and a poor chap like Leaf +made the best of, as if he almost had brains--why, it knocks all the wind +out of his sail at once: it did out of mine." + +"If that young figure of fun--Fance Day, I mean," said Bowman, "hadn't +been so mighty forward wi' showing herself off to Shiner and Dick and the +rest, 'tis my belief we should never ha' left the gallery." + +"'Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson made +'em," said Mr. Penny. "My wife sticks to it that he's in love wi' her." + +"That's a thing we shall never know. I can't onriddle her, nohow." + +"Thou'st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she," the +tranter observed. + +"The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And coming of +such a stock, too, she may well be a twister." + +"Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never says +anything: not he." + +"Never." + +"You might live wi' that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never know +there was anything in him." + +"Ay; one o' these up-country London ink-bottle chaps would call Geoffrey +a fool." + +"Ye never find out what's in that man: never," said Spinks. "Close? ah, +he is close! He can hold his tongue well. That man's dumbness is +wonderful to listen to." + +"There's so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over wi' +sound understanding." + +"'A can hold his tongue very clever--very clever truly," echoed Leaf. "'A +do look at me as if 'a could see my thoughts running round like the works +of a clock." + +"Well, all will agree that the man can halt well in his talk, be it a +long time or be it a short time. And though we can't expect his daughter +to inherit his closeness, she may have a few dribblets from his sense." + +"And his pocket, perhaps." + +"Yes; the nine hundred pound that everybody says he's worth; but I call +it four hundred and fifty; for I never believe more than half I hear." + +"Well, he've made a pound or two, and I suppose the maid will have it, +since there's nobody else. But 'tis rather sharp upon her, if she's been +born to fortune, to bring her up as if not born for it, and letting her +work so hard." + +"'Tis all upon his principle. A long-headed feller!" + +"Ah," murmured Spinks, "'twould be sharper upon her if she were born for +fortune, and not to it! I suffer from that affliction." + + + +CHAPTER VI: YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER'S HOUSE + + +A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick's on +the following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter holidays, +and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the light +spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as they streamed +in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled season shone on the +grass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than as an +accustomed proprietor. His errand was to fetch Fancy, and some +additional household goods, from her father's house in the neighbouring +parish to her dwelling at Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shaded +with clouds; but the nearer parts of the landscape were whitely illumined +by the visible rays of the sun streaming down across the heavy gray shade +behind. + +The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner's heart that +had been suggested to him by Shiner's movements. He preferred to let +such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having taught him that +the uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in other people, was not +a groundwork upon which a single action of his own life could be founded. + +Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed portion of +one of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day was head +game-keeper, timber-steward, and general overlooker for this district. +The wood was intersected by the highway from Casterbridge to London at a +place not far from the house, and some trees had of late years been +felled between its windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to give the +solitary cottager a glimpse of the passers-by. + +It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper's house, even as a +stranger, on a fine spring morning like the present. A curl of +wood-smoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a blue +feather in a lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the patch of +grass in front, which reflected its brightness through the open doorway +and up the staircase opposite, lighting up each riser with a shiny green +radiance, and leaving the top of each step in shade. + +The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet from the +floor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, as well as +over the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always hung a deep +shade, which was considered objectionable on every ground save one, +namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and water by the caged +canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The window was +set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, formed, especially in the lower +panes, of knotty glass of various shades of green. Nothing was better +known to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which these circular knots +or eyes distorted everything seen through them from the outside--lifting +hats from heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the spokes of cart- +wheels, and bending the straight fir-trunks into semicircles. The +ceiling was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side of +which projected a large nail, used solely and constantly as a peg for +Geoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a rainbow-shaped stain, imprinted +by the brim of the said hat when it was hung there dripping wet. + +The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was a +repetition upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced by +Noah, consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort. The +duplicate system of furnishing owed its existence to the forethought of +Fancy's mother, exercised from the date of Fancy's birthday onwards. The +arrangement spoke for itself: nobody who knew the tone of the household +could look at the goods without being aware that the second set was a +provision for Fancy, when she should marry and have a house of her own. +The most noticeable instance was a pair of green-faced eight-day clocks, +ticking alternately, which were severally two and half minutes and three +minutes striking the hour of twelve, one proclaiming, in Italian +flourishes, Thomas Wood as the name of its maker, and the other--arched +at the top, and altogether of more cynical appearance--that of Ezekiel +Saunders. They were two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge, whose +desperate rivalry throughout their lives was nowhere more emphatically +perpetuated than here at Geoffrey's. These chief specimens of the +marriage provision were supported on the right by a couple of kitchen +dressers, each fitted complete with their cups, dishes, and plates, in +their turn followed by two dumb-waiters, two family Bibles, two warming- +pans, and two intermixed sets of chairs. + +But the position last reached--the chimney-corner--was, after all, the +most attractive side of the parallelogram. It was large enough to admit, +in addition to Geoffrey himself, Geoffrey's wife, her chair, and her work- +table, entirely within the line of the mantel, without danger or even +inconvenience from the heat of the fire; and was spacious enough overhead +to allow of the insertion of wood poles for the hanging of bacon, which +were cloaked with long shreds of soot, floating on the draught like the +tattered banners on the walls of ancient aisles. + +These points were common to most chimney corners of the neighbourhood; +but one feature there was which made Geoffrey's fireside not only an +object of interest to casual aristocratic visitors--to whom every cottage +fireside was more or less a curiosity--but the admiration of friends who +were accustomed to fireplaces of the ordinary hamlet model. This +peculiarity was a little window in the chimney-back, almost over the +fire, around which the smoke crept caressingly when it left the +perpendicular course. The window-board was curiously stamped with black +circles, burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinking-cups, which had +rested there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the hearth for +the purpose of warming their contents, the result giving to the ledge the +look of an envelope which has passed through innumerable post-offices. + +Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head inclining now +to the right, now to the left, and singing the tips and ends of tunes +that sprang up in her mind like mushrooms. The footsteps of Mrs. Day +could be heard in the room overhead. Fancy went finally to the door. + +"Father! Dinner." + +A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodical +steps, and the keeper entered from the garden. He appeared to be a man +who was always looking down, as if trying to recollect something he said +yesterday. The surface of his face was fissured rather than wrinkled, +and over and under his eyes were folds which seemed as a kind of exterior +eyelids. His nose had been thrown backwards by a blow in a poaching +fray, so that when the sun was low and shining in his face, people could +see far into his head. There was in him a quiet grimness, which would in +his moments of displeasure have become surliness, had it not been +tempered by honesty of soul, and which was often wrongheadedness because +not allied with subtlety. + +Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly +richer than himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to his +trapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means than nods +and shakes of the head. Their long acquaintance with each other's ways, +and the nature of their labours, rendered words between them almost +superfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the coincidence of their +horizons, and the astonishing equality of their social views, by +startling the keeper from time to time as very damaging to the theory of +master and man, strictly forbade any indulgence in words as courtesies. + +Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) at +the well-considered chronological distance of three minutes--an interval +of non-appearance on the trapper's part not arrived at without some +reflection. Four minutes had been found to express indifference to +indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had implied too great an +anxiety about meals. + +"A little earlier than usual, Fancy," the keeper said, as he sat down and +looked at the clocks. "That Ezekiel Saunders o' thine is tearing on +afore Thomas Wood again." + +"I kept in the middle between them," said Fancy, also looking at the two +clocks. + +"Better stick to Thomas," said her father. "There's a healthy beat in +Thomas that would lead a man to swear by en offhand. He is as true as +the town time. How is it your stap-mother isn't here?" + +As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and "Weh- +hey, Smart!" in Mr. Richard Dewy's voice rolled into the cottage from +round the corner of the house. + +"Hullo! there's Dewy's cart come for thee, Fancy--Dick driving--afore +time, too. Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us." + +Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing that he +took an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race and country +as himself; and they all sat down. Dick could have wished her manner had +not been so entirely free from all apparent consciousness of those +accidental meetings of theirs: but he let the thought pass. Enoch sat +diagonally at a table afar off, under the corner cupboard, and drank his +cider from a long perpendicular pint cup, having tall fir-trees done in +brown on its sides. He threw occasional remarks into the general tide of +conversation, and with this advantage to himself, that he participated in +the pleasures of a talk (slight as it was) at meal-times, without +saddling himself with the responsibility of sustaining it. + +"Why don't your stap-mother come down, Fancy?" said Geoffrey. "You'll +excuse her, Mister Dick, she's a little queer sometimes." + +"O yes,--quite," said Richard, as if he were in the habit of excusing +people every day. + +"She d'belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: a rum +class rather." + +"Indeed," said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something. + +"Yes; and 'tis trying to a female, especially if you've been a first +wife, as she hev." + +"Very trying it must be." + +"Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too far; +in fact, she used to kick up Bob's-a-dying at the least thing in the +world. And when I'd married her and found it out, I thought, thinks I, +''Tis too late now to begin to cure 'e;' and so I let her bide. But +she's queer,--very queer, at times!" + +"I'm sorry to hear that." + +"Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o' society, because though +they be never right, they be never more than half wrong." + +Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household moralizing, +which might tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that Dick, as maiden +shrewdness told her, had accredited her with. Her dead silence impressed +Geoffrey with the notion that something in his words did not agree with +her educated ideas, and he changed the conversation. + +"Did Fred Shiner send the cask o' drink, Fancy?" + +"I think he did: O yes, he did." + +"Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!" said Geoffrey to Dick as he helped +himself to gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate by way of the +potato-dish, to obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a spill. + +Now Geoffrey's eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous four +or five minutes, and in removing them he had only carried them to the +spoon, which, from its fulness and the distance of its transit, +necessitated a steady watching through the whole of the route. Just as +intently as the keeper's eyes had been fixed on the spoon, Fancy's had +been fixed on her father's, without premeditation or the slightest phase +of furtiveness; but there they were fastened. This was the reason why: + +Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of the +table opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand lightly down +upon the table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, after +dropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down his +own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with it, and keeping it +there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling her hand from the trap, +settled her eyes on her father's, to guard against his discovery of this +perilous game of Dick's. Dick finished his mouthful; Fancy finished her +crumb, and nothing was done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then the +hands slid apart; Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's over +one. Geoffrey's eye had risen. + +"I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller," he repeated, more +emphatically. + +"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more than a +stranger." + +"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you know +en very well too, don't ye, Fancy?" + +Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at present +about one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed literally. + +Dick looked anxious. + +"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of her +face becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as a human +being could look about a piece of bread. + +"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he continued, +returning to the displaced idea, "we are likely to remain friendly wi' +Mr. Shiner if the wheels d'run smooth." + +"An excellent thing--a very capital thing, as I should say," the youth +answered with exceeding relevance, considering that his thoughts, instead +of following Geoffrey's remark, were nestling at a distance of about two +feet on his left the whole time. + +"A young woman's face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my heart +if 'twon't." Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in earnest at +these words. "Yes; turn the north wind," added Geoffrey after an +impressive pause. "And though she's one of my own flesh and blood . . . +" + +"Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil' cheese from pantry-shelf?" Fancy +interrupted, as if she were famishing. + +"Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking last +Saturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?" + +Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr. +Shiner,--the better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy's heart +went not with her father's--and spoke like a stranger to the affairs of +the neighbourhood. "Yes, there's a great deal to be said upon the power +of maiden faces in settling your courses," he ventured, as the keeper +retreated for the cheese. + +"The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that I have ever +done warrants such things being said!" murmured Fancy with emphasis, just +loud enough to reach Dick's ears. + +"You think to yourself, 'twas to be," cried Enoch from his distant +corner, by way of filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey's momentary +absence. "And so you marry her, Master Dewy, and there's an end o't." + +"Pray don't say such things, Enoch," came from Fancy severely, upon which +Enoch relapsed into servitude. + +"If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single, we +do," replied Dick. + +Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips thin +by severely straining them across his gums, and looked out of the window +along the vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. "That's not the +case with some folk," he said at length, as if he read the words on a +board at the further end of the vista. + +Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, "No?" + +"There's that wife o' mine. It was her doom to be nobody's wife at all +in the wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, and did +it twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly woman--quite a +chiel in her hands!" + +A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps +descending. The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the second +Mrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as she advanced +towards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence of any other +human being than herself. In short, if the table had been the +personages, and the persons the table, her glance would have been the +most natural imaginable. + +She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman's face, iron-grey hair, +hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad white apron- +string, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff dress. + +"People will run away with a story now, I suppose," she began saying, +"that Jane Day's tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any union +beggar's!" + +Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear, +and reflecting for a moment, concluded that 'people' in step-mother +language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that Mrs. +Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently returned with an armful of +new damask-linen tablecloths, folded square and hard as boards by long +compression. These she flounced down into a chair; then took one, shook +it out from its folds, and spread it on the table by instalments, +transferring the plates and dishes one by one from the old to the new +cloth. + +"And I suppose they'll say, too, that she ha'n't a decent knife and fork +in her house!" + +"I shouldn't say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure--" began Dick. But +Mrs. Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared distressed. + +"Very strange woman, isn't she?" said Geoffrey, quietly going on with his +dinner. "But 'tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! 'tis so growed +into her that 'twould kill her to take it out. Ay, she's very queer: +you'd be amazed to see what valuable goods we've got stowed away +upstairs." + +Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled knives, +silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were wiped of the +preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife and fork were laid +down to each individual with a bang, the carving knife and fork thrust +into the meat dish, and the old ones they had hitherto used tossed away. + +Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked Dick +if he wanted any more. + +The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and tea, +which was common among frugal countryfolk. "The parishioners about +here," continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but snatching +up the brown delf tea-things, "are the laziest, gossipest, poachest, +jailest set of any ever I came among. And they'll talk about my teapot +and tea-things next, I suppose!" She vanished with the teapot, cups, and +saucers, and reappeared with a tea-service in white china, and a packet +wrapped in brown paper. This was removed, together with folds of tissue- +paper underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot appeared. + +"I'll help to put the things right," said Fancy soothingly, and rising +from her seat. "I ought to have laid out better things, I suppose. But" +(here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) "I have been away +from home a good deal, and I make shocking blunders in my housekeeping." +Smiles and suavity were then dispensed all around by this bright little +bird. + +After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her seat +at the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division of the +meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some surprise to learn +that, now her vagary was over, she showed herself to be an excellent +person with much common sense, and even a religious seriousness of tone +on matters pertaining to her afflictions. + + + +CHAPTER VII: DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL + + +The effect of Geoffrey's incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to +restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would otherwise +have burst from young Dewy along the drive homeward. And a certain +remark he had hazarded to her, in rather too blunt and eager a manner, +kept the young lady herself even more silent than Dick. On both sides +there was an unwillingness to talk on any but the most trivial subjects, +and their sentences rarely took a larger form than could be expressed in +two or three words. + +Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the +charwoman had given up expecting her; whereupon Dick could do no less +than stay and see her comfortably tided over the disagreeable time of +entering and establishing herself in an empty house after an absence of a +week. The additional furniture and utensils that had been brought (a +canary and cage among the rest) were taken out of the vehicle, and the +horse was unharnessed and put in the plot opposite, where there was some +tender grass. Dick lighted the fire already laid; and activity began to +loosen their tongues a little. + +"There!" said Fancy, "we forgot to bring the fire-irons!" + +She had originally found in her sitting-room, to bear out the expression +'nearly furnished' which the school-manager had used in his letter to +her, a table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of carpet. This +'nearly' had been supplemented hitherto by a kind friend, who had lent +her fire-irons and crockery until she should fetch some from home. + +Dick attended to the young lady's fire, using his whip-handle for a poker +till it was spoilt, and then flourishing a hurdle stick for the remainder +of the time. + +"The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea," said Fancy, diving +into the hamper she had brought. + +"Thank you," said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, +especially in her company. + +"Well, here's only one cup-and-saucer, as I breathe! Whatever could +mother be thinking about? Do you mind making shift, Mr. Dewy?" + +"Not at all, Miss Day," said that civil person. + +"--And only having a cup by itself? or a saucer by itself?" + +"Don't mind in the least." + +"Which do you mean by that?" + +"I mean the cup, if you like the saucer." + +"And the saucer, if I like the cup?" + +"Exactly, Miss Day." + +"Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; there +are no spoons now!" She dived into the hamper again, and at the end of +two or three minutes looked up and said, "I suppose you don't mind if I +can't find a spoon?" + +"Not at all," said the agreeable Richard. + +"The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under the +other things. O yes, here's one, and only one. You would rather have +one than not, I suppose, Mr. Dewy?" + +"Rather not. I never did care much about spoons." + +"Then I'll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your tea +with a knife. Would you mind lifting the kettle off, that it may not +boil dry?" + +Dick leapt to the fireplace, and earnestly removed the kettle. + +"There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We +always use kettle-holders; didn't you learn housewifery as far as that, +Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. I am +going to rinse mine, too." + +They went to a basin she had placed in the back room. "This is the only +basin I have," she said. "Turn up your sleeves, and by that time my +hands will be washed, and you can come." + +Her hands were in the water now. "O, how vexing!" she exclaimed. +"There's not a drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and the +well is I don't know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the pitcher +I used for the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping the tips of +your fingers in the same?" + +"Not at all. And to save time I won't wait till you have done, if you +have no objection?" + +Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It being +the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers under +water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one. + +"Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, they +have got so mixed up together," she said, withdrawing her own very +suddenly. + +"It doesn't matter at all," said Dick, "at least as far as I am +concerned." + +"There! no towel! Whoever thinks of a towel till the hands are wet?" + +"Nobody." + +"'Nobody.' How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come here, +Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box with your +elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel you will find +under the clean clothes? Be sure don't touch any of them with your wet +hands, for the things at the top are all Starched and Ironed." + +Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel from +under a muslin dress without wetting the latter; and for a moment he +ventured to assume a tone of criticism. + +"I fear for that dress," he said, as they wiped their hands together. + +"What?" said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. "O, +I know what you mean--that the vicar will never let me wear muslin?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as flaunting, +and unfit for common wear for girls who've their living to get; but we'll +see." + +"In the interest of the church, I hope you don't speak seriously." + +"Yes, I do; but we'll see." There was a comely determination on her lip, +very pleasant to a beholder who was neither bishop, priest, nor deacon. +"I think I can manage any vicar's views about me if he's under forty." + +Dick rather wished she had never thought of managing vicars. + +"I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea," he said in +rather a free way, yet modestly, as became one in a position between that +of visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his lonely saucer. + +"So shall I. Now is there anything else we want, Mr Dewy?" + +"I really think there's nothing else, Miss Day." + +She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at Smart's +enjoyment of the rich grass. "Nobody seems to care about me," she +murmured, with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond Smart. + +"Perhaps Mr. Shiner does," said Dick, in the tone of a slightly injured +man. + +"Yes, I forgot--he does, I know." Dick precipitately regretted that he +had suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable result as +this. + +"I'll warrant you'll care for somebody very much indeed another day, +won't you, Mr. Dewy?" she continued, looking very feelingly into the +mathematical centre of his eyes. + +"Ah, I'll warrant I shall," said Dick, feelingly too, and looking back +into her dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside. + +"I meant," she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was going +to narrate a forcible story about his feelings; "I meant that nobody +comes to see if I have returned--not even the vicar." + +"If you want to see him, I'll call at the vicarage directly we have had +some tea." + +"No, no! Don't let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am in +such a state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and awkward +when one's house is in a muddle; walking about, and making impossible +suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh creeps and you +wish them dead. Do you take sugar?" + +Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path. + +"There! That's he coming! How I wish you were not here!--that is, how +awkward--dear, dear!" she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of blood to her +face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as it seemed. + +"Pray don't be alarmed on my account, Miss Day--good-afternoon!" said +Dick in a huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room hastily by the +back-door. + +The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start he +saw through the window the vicar, standing upon some books piled in a +chair, and driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure glance, +holding the canary-cage up to him, as if she had never in her life +thought of anything but vicars and canaries. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: DICK MEETS HIS FATHER + + +For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of +reflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that the +road and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of his mind. +Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence that she did love +him and that she did not was so nicely struck, that his opinion had no +stability. She had let him put his hand upon hers; she had allowed her +gaze to drop plumb into the depths of his--his into hers--three or four +times; her manner had been very free with regard to the basin and towel; +she had appeared vexed at the mention of Shiner. On the other hand, she +had driven him about the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner cared +for her, and seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold should do the same. + +Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting on +the front board of the spring cart--his legs on the outside, and his +whole frame jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time of +Smart's trotting--who should he see coming down the hill but his father +in the light wagon, quivering up and down on a smaller scale of shakes, +those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were soon crossing +each other's front. + +"Weh-hey!" said the tranter to Smiler. + +"Weh-hey!" said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice. + +"Th'st hauled her back, I suppose?" Reuben inquired peaceably. + +"Yes," said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemed +he was never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking this the close +of the conversation, prepared to move on. + +"Weh-hey!" said the tranter. "I tell thee what it is, Dick. That there +maid is taking up thy thoughts more than's good for thee, my sonny. +Thou'rt never happy now unless th'rt making thyself miserable about her +in one way or another." + +"I don't know about that, father," said Dick rather stupidly. + +"But I do--Wey, Smiler!--'Od rot the women, 'tis nothing else wi' 'em +nowadays but getting young men and leading 'em astray." + +"Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that's all +you do." + +"The world's a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very +sensible indeed." + +Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. "I +wish I was as rich as a squire when he's as poor as a crow," he murmured; +"I'd soon ask Fancy something." + +"I wish so too, wi' all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what +beest about, that's all." + +Smart moved on a step or two. "Supposing now, father,--We-hey, Smart!--I +did think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I ha'n't; don't +you think she's a very good sort of--of--one?" + +"Ay, good; she's good enough. When you've made up your mind to marry, +take the first respectable body that comes to hand--she's as good as any +other; they be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in the flourishes +there's a difference. She's good enough; but I can't see what the nation +a young feller like you--wi' a comfortable house and home, and father and +mother to take care o' thee, and who sent 'ee to a school so good that +'twas hardly fair to the other children--should want to go hollering +after a young woman for, when she's quietly making a husband in her +pocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to make a poverty-stric' +wife and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set +'em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and that's the long and the +short o't, my sonny." + +Dick looked at Smart's ears, then up the hill; but no reason was +suggested by any object that met his gaze. + +"For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose." + +"Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave vent to +a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to +appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were +his own. + +"Whether or no," said Dick, "I asked her a thing going along the road." + +"Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well, +she's ready, I don't doubt?" + +"I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me speak, +I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care about me?" + +"Piph-ph-ph!" + +"And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said she +didn't know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the meaning of that +speech?" The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn't care +for the ridicule of all the fathers in creation. + +"The meaning of that speech is," the tranter replied deliberately, "that +the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, as an +honest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know well +enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the pocket than +we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be somebody." + +"But what d'ye think she really did mean?" said the unsatisfied Dick. + +"I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I was not +there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the only 'ooman I +ever cam' into such close quarters as that with." + +"And what did mother say to you when you asked her?" said Dick musingly. + +"I don't see that that will help 'ee." + +"The principle is the same." + +"Well--ay: what did she say? Let's see. I was oiling my working-day +boots without taking 'em off, and wi' my head hanging down, when she just +brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. 'Ann,' I said, +says I, and then,--but, Dick I'm afeard 'twill be no help to thee; for we +were such a rum couple, your mother and I, leastways one half was, that +is myself--and your mother's charms was more in the manner than the +material." + +"Never mind! 'Ann,' said you." + +"'Ann,' said I, as I was saying . . . 'Ann,' I said to her when I was +oiling my working-day boots wi' my head hanging down, 'Woot hae me?' . . +. What came next I can't quite call up at this distance o' time. Perhaps +your mother would know,--she's got a better memory for her little +triumphs than I. However, the long and the short o' the story is that we +were married somehow, as I found afterwards. 'Twas on White +Tuesday,--Mellstock Club walked the same day, every man two and two, and +a fine day 'twas,--hot as fire,--how the sun did strike down upon my back +going to church! I well can mind what a bath o' sweating I was in, body +and soul! But Fance will ha' thee, Dick--she won't walk with another +chap--no such good luck." + +"I don't know about that," said Dick, whipping at Smart's flank in a +fanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with +going on. "There's Pa'son Maybold, too--that's all against me." + +"What about he? She's never been stuffing into thy innocent heart that +he's in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o' maidens!" + +"No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at me +in such a way--quite different the ways were,--and as I was coming off, +there was he hanging up her birdcage." + +"Well, why shouldn't the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it all, +what's that got to do wi' it? Dick, that thou beest a white-lyvered chap +I don't say, but if thou beestn't as mad as a cappel-faced bull, let me +smile no more." + +"O, ay." + +"And what's think now, Dick?" + +"I don't know." + +"Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's the +bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell 'ee?" + +"No. Why, Pa'son Maybold, I suppose." + +"Shiner,--because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to see +her young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her young +fingers rum-strumming upon the keys." + +A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this +communication from his father. "Shiner's a fool!--no, that's not it; I +don't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take a +bold step like that, unless she'd been a little made up to, and had taken +it kindly. Pooh!" + +"Who's to say she didn't?" + +"I do." + +"The more fool you." + +"Why, father of me?" + +"Has she ever done more to thee?" + +"No." + +"Then she has done as much to he--rot 'em! Now, Dick, this is how a maid +is. She'll swear she's dying for thee, and she is dying for thee, and +she will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over t'other shoulder at +another young feller, though never leaving off dying for thee just the +same." + +"She's not dying for me, and so she didn't fling a look at him." + +"But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee." + +"I don't know what to make of it at all," said Dick gloomily. + +"All I can make of it is," the tranter said, raising his whip, arranging +his different joints and muscles, and motioning to the horse to move on, +"that if you can't read a maid's mind by her motions, nature d'seem to +say thou'st ought to be a bachelor. Clk, clk! Smiler!" And the tranter +moved on. + +Dick held Smart's rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, and +man remained rooted in the lane. How long this condition would have +lasted is unknown, had not Dick's thoughts, after adding up numerous +items of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that as something +must be done, it could not be done by staying there all night. + +Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were +going to be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper and +uncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the writer's +mind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion that it +obscured the logical sequence of facts and intentions to an appreciable +degree; and it was not at all clear to a reader whether he there and then +left off loving Miss Fancy Day; whether he had never loved her seriously, +and never meant to; whether he had been dying up to the present moment, +and now intended to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been in +good health, and intended to die for her forthwith. + +He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a stern +handwriting of straight dashes--easy flourishes being rigorously +excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides not +an inch less than three feet long. Reaching her gate he put on a +resolute expression--then put it off again, turned back homeward, tore up +his letter, and sat down. + +That letter was altogether in a wrong tone--that he must own. A +heartless man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. That he +rather wanted her, and rather did not want her--the latter for choice; +but that as a member of society he didn't mind making a query in jaunty +terms, which could only be answered in the same way: did she mean +anything by her bearing towards him, or did she not? + +This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being put +into the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was to run +with it to the school, he was told in addition not to look behind him if +Dick called after him to bring it back, but to run along with it just the +same. Having taken this precaution against vacillation, Dick watched his +messenger down the road, and turned into the house whistling an air in +such ghastly jerks and starts, that whistling seemed to be the act the +very furthest removed from that which was instinctive in such a youth. + +The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed--and no +answer. The next. The next. Friday night came. Dick resolved that if +no answer or sign were given by her the next day, on Sunday he would meet +her face to face, and have it all out by word of mouth. + +"Dick," said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment--in +each hand a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress--"I +think you'd better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. Maybold's to- +morrow, instead o' me, and I'll go wi' Smiler and the wagon." + +It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar's mother, who had just taken +into her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised under the +pretence of its being an economical wish to produce her own honey), lived +near the watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten miles off, and the +business of transporting the hives thither would occupy the whole day, +and to some extent annihilate the vacant time between this evening and +the coming Sunday. The best spring-cart was washed throughout, the axles +oiled, and the bees placed therein for the journey. + + + + +PART THE THIRD--SUMMER + + +CHAPTER I: DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH + + +An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles of +dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the skirt +of the dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: it was Fancy! +Dick's heart went round to her with a rush. + +The scene was the corner of Mary Street in Budmouth-Regis, near the +King's statue, at which point the white angle of the last house in the +row cut perpendicularly an embayed and nearly motionless expanse of salt +water projected from the outer ocean--to-day lit in bright tones of green +and opal. Dick and Smart had just emerged from the street, and there on +the right, against the brilliant sheet of liquid colour, stood Fancy Day; +and she turned and recognized him. + +Dick suspended his thoughts of the letter and wonder at how she came +there by driving close to the chains of the Esplanade--incontinently +displacing two chairmen, who had just come to life for the summer in new +clean shirts and revivified clothes, and being almost displaced in turn +by a rigid boy rattling along with a baker's cart, and looking neither to +the right nor the left. He asked if she were going to Mellstock that +night. + +"Yes, I'm waiting for the carrier," she replied, seeming, too, to suspend +thoughts of the letter. + +"Now I can drive you home nicely, and you save half an hour. Will ye +come with me?" + +As Fancy's power to will anything seemed to have departed in some +mysterious manner at that moment, Dick settled the matter by getting out +and assisting her into the vehicle without another word. + +The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which was +permanent, and at length their eyes met; there was present between them a +certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at such moments when all +the instinctive acts dictated by the position have been performed. Dick, +being engaged with the reins, thought less of this awkwardness than did +Fancy, who had nothing to do but to feel his presence, and to be more and +more conscious of the fact, that by accepting a seat beside him in this +way she succumbed to the tone of his note. Smart jogged along, and Dick +jogged, and the helpless Fancy necessarily jogged, too; and she felt that +she was in a measure captured and made a prisoner. + +"I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day," he observed, as +they drove past the two semicircular bays of the Old Royal Hotel, where +His Majesty King George the Third had many a time attended the balls of +the burgesses. + +To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of mastery--a +consciousness of which he was perfectly innocent--this remark sounded +like a magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive. + +"I didn't come for the pleasure of obliging you with my company," she +said. + +The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must have +been rather surprising to young Dewy. At the same time it may be +observed, that when a young woman returns a rude answer to a young man's +civil remark, her heart is in a state which argues rather hopefully for +his case than otherwise. + +There was silence between them till they had left the sea-front and +passed about twenty of the trees that ornamented the road leading up out +of the town towards Casterbridge and Mellstock. + +"Though I didn't come for that purpose either, I would have done it," +said Dick at the twenty-first tree. + +"Now, Mr. Dewy, no flirtation, because it's wrong, and I don't wish it." + +Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, arranged +his looks very emphatically, and cleared his throat. + +"Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were just +going to commence," said the lady intractably. + +"Yes, they would." + +"Why, you never have, to be sure!" + +This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as a +man who had resolved never to spoil his jollity by loving one of +womankind-- + +"Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present time? Gaily, I +don't doubt for a moment." + +"I am not gay, Dick; you know that." + +"Gaily doesn't mean decked in gay dresses." + +"I didn't suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a scholar +you've grown!" + +"Lots of things have happened to you this spring, I see." + +"What have you seen?" + +"O, nothing; I've heard, I mean!" + +"What have you heard?" + +"The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a tin +watch-chain, a little mixed up with your own. That's all." + +"That's a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that's who you mean! The +studs are gold, as you know, and it's a real silver chain; the ring I +can't conscientiously defend, and he only wore it once." + +"He might have worn it a hundred times without showing it half so much." + +"Well, he's nothing to me," she serenely observed. + +"Not any more than I am?" + +"Now, Mr. Dewy," said Fancy severely, "certainly he isn't any more to me +than you are!" + +"Not so much?" + +She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. "That +I can't exactly answer," she replied with soft archness. + +As they were going rather slowly, another spring-cart, containing a +farmer, farmer's wife, and farmer's man, jogged past them; and the +farmer's wife and farmer's man eyed the couple very curiously. The +farmer never looked up from the horse's tail. + +"Why can't you exactly answer?" said Dick, quickening Smart a little, and +jogging on just behind the farmer and farmer's wife and man. + +As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they both +contemplated the picture presented in front, and noticed how the farmer's +wife sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over each end of the +seat to give her room, till they almost sat upon their respective wheels; +and they looked too at the farmer's wife's silk mantle, inflating itself +between her shoulders like a balloon and sinking flat again, at each jog +of the horse. The farmer's wife, feeling their eyes sticking into her +back, looked over her shoulder. Dick dropped ten yards further behind. + +"Fancy, why can't you answer?" he repeated. + +"Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you," said +she in low tones. + +"Everything," said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting +emphatic eyes upon the upper curve of her cheek. + +"Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn't say in what way your +thinking of me affected the question--perhaps inversely, don't you see? +No touching, sir! Look; goodness me, don't, Dick!" + +The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over Dick's +right shoulder of an empty timber-wagon and four journeymen-carpenters +reclining in lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed upwards at +various oblique angles into the surrounding world, the chief object of +their existence being apparently to criticize to the very backbone and +marrow every animate object that came within the compass of their vision. +This difficulty of Dick's was overcome by trotting on till the wagon and +carpenters were beginning to look rather misty by reason of a film of +dust that accompanied their wagon-wheels, and rose around their heads +like a fog. + +"Say you love me, Fancy." + +"No, Dick, certainly not; 'tisn't time to do that yet." + +"Why, Fancy?" + +"'Miss Day' is better at present--don't mind my saying so; and I ought +not to have called you Dick." + +"Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your love. +Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can be done and +undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim." + +"No, no, I don't," she said gently; "but there are things which tell me I +ought not to give way to much thinking about you, even if--" + +"But you want to, don't you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be truthful. +Whatever they may say about a woman's right to conceal where her love +lies, and pretend it doesn't exist, and things like that, it is not best; +I do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in that, as well as in all her +daily concerns, shines most brightly, and is thought most of in the long- +run." + +"Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little," she whispered +tenderly; "but I wish you wouldn't say any more now." + +"I won't say any more now, then, if you don't like it, dear. But you do +love me a little, don't you?" + +"Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can't say +any more now, and you must be content with what you have." + +"I may at any rate call you Fancy? There's no harm in that." + +"Yes, you may." + +"And you'll not call me Mr. Dewy any more?" + +"Very well." + + + +CHAPTER II: FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD + + +Dick's spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his +sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart's neck, not +far behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for some time, +never dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip which, on this +particular journey, had never been extended further than his flank, +tossed his head, and scampered along with exceeding briskness, which was +very pleasant to the young couple behind him till, turning a bend in the +road, they came instantly upon the farmer, farmer's man, and farmer's +wife with the flapping mantle, all jogging on just the same as ever. + +"Bother those people! Here we are upon them again." + +"Well, of course. They have as much right to the road as we." + +"Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to +myself. Look what a lumbering affair theirs is!" The wheels of the +farmer's cart, just at that moment, jogged into a depression running +across the road, giving the cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded to +the left, and on coming out of it all three nodded to the right, and went +on jerking their backs in and out as usual. "We'll pass them when the +road gets wider." + +When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this intention +into effect, they heard light flying wheels behind, and on their +quartering there whizzed along past them a brand-new gig, so brightly +polished that the spokes of the wheels sent forth a continual quivering +light at one point in their circle, and all the panels glared like +mirrors in Dick and Fancy's eyes. The driver, and owner as it appeared, +was really a handsome man; his companion was Shiner. Both turned round +as they passed Dick and Fancy, and stared with bold admiration in her +face till they were obliged to attend to the operation of passing the +farmer. Dick glanced for an instant at Fancy while she was undergoing +their scrutiny; then returned to his driving with rather a sad +countenance. + +"Why are you so silent?" she said, after a while, with real concern. + +"Nothing." + +"Yes, it is, Dick. I couldn't help those people passing." + +"I know that." + +"You look offended with me. What have I done?" + +"I can't tell without offending you." + +"Better out." + +"Well," said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of +offending her, "I was thinking how different you in love are from me in +love. Whilst those men were staring, you dismissed me from your thoughts +altogether, and--" + +"You can't offend me further now; tell all!" + +"And showed upon your face a pleased sense of being attractive to 'em." + +"Don't be silly, Dick! You know very well I didn't." + +Dick shook his head sceptically, and smiled. + +"Dick, I always believe flattery if possible--and it was possible then. +Now there's an open confession of weakness. But I showed no +consciousness of it." + +Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, +charitably forbore saying anything that could make her prevaricate. The +sight of Shiner, too, had recalled another branch of the subject to his +mind; that which had been his greatest trouble till her company and words +had obscured its probability. + +"By the way, Fancy, do you know why our quire is to be dismissed?" + +"No: except that it is Mr. Maybold's wish for me to play the organ." + +"Do you know how it came to be his wish?" + +"That I don't." + +"Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, however, +was willing enough before. Shiner, I know, is crazy to see you playing +every Sunday; I suppose he'll turn over your music, for the organ will be +close to his pew. But--I know you have never encouraged him?" + +"Never once!" said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest +truth. "I don't like him indeed, and I never heard of his doing this +before! I have always felt that I should like to play in a church, but I +never wished to turn you and your choir out; and I never even said that I +could play till I was asked. You don't think for a moment that I did, +surely, do you?" + +"I know you didn't, dear." + +"Or that I care the least morsel of a bit for him?" + +"I know you don't." + +The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, and +there being a good inn, 'The Ship,' four miles out of Budmouth, with a +mast and cross-trees in front, Dick's custom in driving thither was to +divide the journey into three stages by resting at this inn going and +coming, and not troubling the Budmouth stables at all, whenever his visit +to the town was a mere call and deposit, as to-day. + +Fancy was ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the stables to +see to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant twitches of +feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring men idling around, +Dick endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact that there was any +sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a tranter's desire to carry a +passenger home. He presently entered the inn and opened the door of +Fancy's room. + +"Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my being +here alone with you like this. I don't think you had better come in with +me." + +"That's rather unpleasant, dear." + +"Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself too, +because you must be tired." + +"Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, if you +recollect, Fancy." + +"Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I don't +know what to do." + +"It shall be as you say, then." Dick began to retreat with a +dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy tea- +tray. + +"But you don't see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that," she said, +with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. "You do know, that +even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I have a difficult +position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, as his +schoolmistress, to indulge in a tete-a-tete anywhere with anybody." + +"But I am not any body!" exclaimed Dick. + +"No, no, I mean with a young man;" and she added softly, "unless I were +really engaged to be married to him." + +"Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we'll be engaged at once, to +be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a glove!" + +"Ah! but suppose I won't! And, goodness me, what have I done!" she +faltered, getting very red. "Positively, it seems as if I meant you to +say that!" + +"Let's do it! I mean get engaged," said Dick. "Now, Fancy, will you be +my wife?" + +"Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did +coming along the road," she remarked, as if she had not heard the latter +part of his speech; though an acute observer might have noticed about her +breast, as the word 'wife' fell from Dick's lips, a soft silent escape of +breaths, with very short rests between each. + +"What did I say?" + +"About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig." + +"You couldn't help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you +do care for me?" + +"Yes." + +"Very much?" + +"Yes." + +"And you'll be my own wife?" + +Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek varying +tones of red to match each varying thought. Dick looked expectantly at +the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what was coming forth. + +"Yes--if father will let me." + +Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting them +out, as if he were about to whistle the softest melody known. + +"O no!" said Fancy solemnly. + +The modest Dick drew back a little. + +"Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!--here's somebody coming!" +she whisperingly exclaimed. + +* * * + +Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's lips +had been real cherries probably Dick's would have appeared deeply +stained. The landlord was standing in the yard. + +"Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!" he laughed, letting the laugh +slip out gently and by degrees that it might make little noise in its +exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. "This will +never do, upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for a feymel +passenger, and then going in and sitting down and having some too, and +biding such a fine long time!" + +"But surely you know?" said Dick, with great apparent surprise. "Yes, +yes! Ha-ha!" smiting the landlord under the ribs in return. + +"Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!" + +"You know, of course!" + +"Yes, of course! But--that is--I don't." + +"Why about--between that young lady and me?" nodding to the window of the +room that Fancy occupied. + +"No; not I!" said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles. + +"And you don't!" + +"Not a word, I'll take my oath!" + +"But you laughed when I laughed." + +"Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!" + +"Really, you don't know? Goodness--not knowing that!" + +"I'll take my oath I don't!" + +"O yes," said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, "we're +engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after her." + +"Of course, of course! I didn't know that, and I hope ye'll excuse any +little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I was +talking to your father very intimate about family matters only last +Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all +then fell a-talking o' family matters; but neither one o' them said a +mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I at your father's +own wedding. 'Tisn't what I should have expected from an old neighbour!" + +"Well, to say the truth, we hadn't told father of the engagement at that +time; in fact, 'twasn't settled." + +"Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday's the courting day. +Heu-heu!" + +"No, 'twasn't done Sunday in particular." + +"After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very proper +good time." + +"O no, 'twasn't done then." + +"Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?" + +"Not at all; I wouldn't think of getting engaged in a dog-cart." + +"Dammy--might as well have said at once, the when be blowed! Anyhow, +'tis a fine day, and I hope next time you'll come as one." + +Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly +affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the Ridgeway, and +vanished in the direction of Mellstock. + + + +CHAPTER III: A CONFESSION + + +It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering dews, +when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were +laden till eleven o'clock with small drops and dashes of water, changing +the colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air; and elsewhere +hanging on twigs like small silver fruit. The threads of garden spiders +appeared thick and polished. In the dry and sunny places, dozens of long- +legged crane-flies whizzed off the grass at every step the passer took. + +Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter's daughter, were in such +a spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. Three +months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together from +Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously during the +whole time. There had been just enough difficulty attending its +development, and just enough finesse required in keeping it private, to +lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness on Fancy's part, whilst, +whether from these accessories or not, Dick's heart had been at all times +as fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on Fancy's horizon +now. + +"She is so well off--better than any of us," Susan Dewy was saying. "Her +father farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor or curate +or anything of that kind if she contrived a little." + +"I don't think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all when he +knew I couldn't go," replied Fancy uneasily. + +"He didn't know that you would not be there till it was too late to +refuse the invitation," said Susan. + +"And what was she like? Tell me." + +"Well, she was rather pretty, I must own." + +"Tell straight on about her, can't you! Come, do, Susan. How many times +did you say he danced with her?" + +"Once." + +"Twice, I think you said?" + +"Indeed I'm sure I didn't." + +"Well, and he wanted to again, I expect." + +"No; I don't think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad +enough, I know. Everybody does with Dick, because he's so handsome and +such a clever courter." + +"O, I wish!--How did you say she wore her hair?" + +"In long curls,--and her hair is light, and it curls without being put in +paper: that's how it is she's so attractive." + +"She's trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through keeping +this miserable school I mustn't wear my hair in curls! But I will; I +don't care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear my curls! Look, +Susan, do! is her hair as soft and long as this?" Fancy pulled from its +coil under her hat a twine of her own hair, and stretched it down her +shoulder to show its length, looking at Susan to catch her opinion from +her eyes. + +"It is about the same length as that, I think," said Miss Dewy. + +Fancy paused hopelessly. "I wish mine was lighter, like hers!" she +continued mournfully. "But hers isn't so soft, is it? Tell me, now." + +"I don't know." + +Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly and a +red-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, and then +became aware that Dick was advancing up the garden. + +"Susan, here's Dick coming; I suppose that's because we've been talking +about him." + +"Well, then, I shall go indoors now--you won't want me;" and Susan turned +practically and walked off. + +Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or +picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving +himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him, +by sighing regretfully at her absence,--who had danced with the rival in +sheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, flat, and +unprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she would not believe. + +Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. "I +am in great trouble," said she, taking what was intended to be a +hopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the tree; +yet a critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative tone as to +the effect of the words upon Dick when she uttered them. + +"What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it," said Dick earnestly. +"Darling, I will share it with 'ee and help 'ee." + +"No, no: you can't! Nobody can!" + +"Why not? You don't deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear." + +"O, it isn't what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!" + +"Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can't be." + +"'Tis, 'tis!" said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of sorrow. +"I have done wrong, and I don't like to tell it! Nobody will forgive me, +nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have allowed myself +to--to--fl--" + +"What,--not flirt!" he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a +sudden pressure inward from his surface. "And you said only the day +before yesterday that you hadn't flirted in your life!" + +"Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love me, +and--" + +"Good G--! Well, I'll forgive you,--yes, if you couldn't help it,--yes, +I will!" said the now dismal Dick. "Did you encourage him?" + +"O,--I don't know,--yes--no. O, I think so!" + +"Who was it?" A pause. "Tell me!" + +"Mr. Shiner." + +After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a long- +checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real +austerity-- + +"Tell it all;--every word!" + +"He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, 'Will you let me show +you how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?' And I--wanted to +know very much--I did so long to have a bullfinch! I couldn't help that +and I said, 'Yes!' and then he said, 'Come here.' And I went with him +down to the lovely river, and then he said to me, 'Look and see how I do +it, and then you'll know: I put this birdlime round this twig, and then I +go here,' he said, 'and hide away under a bush; and presently clever +Mister Bird comes and perches upon the twig, and flaps his wings, and +you've got him before you can say Jack'--something; O, O, O, I forget +what!" + +"Jack Sprat," mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his misery. + +"No, not Jack Sprat," she sobbed. + +"Then 'twas Jack Robinson!" he said, with the emphasis of a man who had +resolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die. + +"Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the bridge to +get across, and--That's all." + +"Well, that isn't much, either," said Dick critically, and more +cheerfully. "Not that I see what business Shiner has to take upon +himself to teach you anything. But it seems--it do seem there must have +been more than that to set you up in such a dreadful taking?" + +He looked into Fancy's eyes. Misery of miseries!--guilt was written +there still. + +"Now, Fancy, you've not told me all!" said Dick, rather sternly for a +quiet young man. + +"O, don't speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn't been +harsh, I was going on to tell all; now I can't!" + +"Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I'll forgive; I must,--by heaven and +earth, I must, whether I will or no; I love you so!" + +"Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it--" + +"A scamp!" said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder. + +"And then he looked at me, and at last he said, 'Are you in love with +Dick Dewy?' And I said, 'Perhaps I am!' and then he said, 'I wish you +weren't then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.'" + +"There's a villain now! Want to marry you!" And Dick quivered with the +bitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering that he +might be reckoning without his host: "Unless, to be sure, you are willing +to have him,--perhaps you are," he said, with the wretched indifference +of a castaway. + +"No, indeed I am not!" she said, her sobs just beginning to take a +favourable turn towards cure. + +"Well, then," said Dick, coming a little to his senses, "you've been +stretching it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such a +mere nothing. And I know what you've done it for,--just because of that +gipsy-party!" He turned away from her and took five paces decisively, as +if he were tired of an ungrateful country, including herself. "You did +it to make me jealous, and I won't stand it!" He flung the words to her +over his shoulder and then stalked on, apparently very anxious to walk to +the remotest of the Colonies that very minute. + +"O, O, O, Dick--Dick!" she cried, trotting after him like a pet lamb, and +really seriously alarmed at last, "you'll kill me! My impulses are +bad--miserably wicked,--and I can't help it; forgive me, Dick! And I +love you always; and those times when you look silly and don't seem quite +good enough for me,--just the same, I do, Dick! And there is something +more serious, though not concerning that walk with him." + +"Well, what is it?" said Dick, altering his mind about walking to the +Colonies; in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so rooted +to the road that he was apparently not even going home. + +"Why this," she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears she +had been going to shed, "this is the serious part. Father has told Mr. +Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could get me;--that +he has his right hearty consent to come courting me!" + + + +CHAPTER IV: AN ARRANGEMENT + + +"That is serious," said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken for +a long time. + +The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter's continued +walks and meetings with Dick. When a hint that there were symptoms of an +attachment between them had first reached Geoffrey's ears, he stated so +emphatically that he must think the matter over before any such thing +could be allowed that, rather unwisely on Dick's part, whatever it might +have been on the lady's, the lovers were careful to be seen together no +more in public; and Geoffrey, forgetting the report, did not think over +the matter at all. So Mr. Shiner resumed his old position in Geoffrey's +brain by mere flux of time. Even Shiner began to believe that Dick +existed for Fancy no more,--though that remarkably easy-going man had +taken no active steps on his own account as yet. + +"And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that," continued Fancy, "but he +has written me a letter, to say he should wish me to encourage Mr. +Shiner, if 'twas convenient!" + +"I must start off and see your father at once!" said Dick, taking two or +three vehement steps to the south, recollecting that Mr. Day lived to the +north, and coming back again. + +"I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come for, +or anything of the kind, until he likes you, and so win his brain through +his heart, which is always the way to manage people. I mean in this way: +I am going home on Saturday week to help them in the honey-taking. You +might come there to me, have something to eat and drink, and let him +guess what your coming signifies, without saying it in so many words." + +"We'll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; not +wait for his guessing." And the lover then stepped close to her, and +attempted to give her one little kiss on the cheek, his lips alighting, +however, on an outlying tract of her back hair by reason of an impulse +that had caused her to turn her head with a jerk. "Yes, and I'll put on +my second-best suit and a clean shirt and collar, and black my boots as +if 'twas a Sunday. 'Twill have a good appearance, you see, and that's a +great deal to start with." + +"You won't wear that old waistcoat, will you, Dick?" + +"Bless you, no! Why I--" + +"I didn't mean to be personal, dear Dick," she said, fearing she had hurt +his feelings. "'Tis a very nice waistcoat, but what I meant was, that +though it is an excellent waistcoat for a settled-down man, it is not +quite one for" (she waited, and a blush expanded over her face, and then +she went on again)--"for going courting in." + +"No, I'll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that mother +made. It is a beautiful, handsome waistcoat inside, yes, as ever anybody +saw. In fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to show a chap that +very lining, and he said it was the strongest, handsomest lining you +could wish to see on the king's waistcoat himself." + +"I don't quite know what to wear," she said, as if her habitual +indifference alone to dress had kept back so important a subject till +now. + +"Why, that blue frock you wore last week." + +"Doesn't set well round the neck. I couldn't wear that." + +"But I shan't care." + +"No, you won't mind." + +"Well, then it's all right. Because you only care how you look to me, do +you, dear? I only dress for you, that's certain." + +"Yes, but you see I couldn't appear in it again very well." + +"Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the set +of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in love don't think so much about how they +look to other women." It is difficult to say whether a tone of playful +banter or of gentle reproach prevailed in the speech. + +"Well then, Dick," she said, with good-humoured frankness, "I'll own it. +I shouldn't like a stranger to see me dressed badly, even though I am in +love. 'Tis our nature, I suppose." + +"You perfect woman!" + +"Yes; if you lay the stress on 'woman,'" she murmured, looking at a group +of hollyhocks in flower, round which a crowd of butterflies had gathered +like female idlers round a bonnet-shop. + +"But about the dress. Why not wear the one you wore at our party?" + +"That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives near our +house, has had one made almost like it (only in pattern, though of +miserably cheap stuff), and I couldn't wear it on that account. Dear me, +I am afraid I can't go now." + +"O yes, you must; I know you will!" said Dick, with dismay. "Why not +wear what you've got on?" + +"What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one +Saturday, I can make the blue one do for Sunday. Yes, I will. A hat or +a bonnet, which shall it be? Which do I look best in?" + +"Well, I think the bonnet is nicest, more quiet and matronly." + +"What's the objection to the hat? Does it make me look old?" + +"O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather too--you +won't mind me saying it, dear?" + +"Not at all, for I shall wear the bonnet." + +"--Rather too coquettish and flirty for an engaged young woman." + +She reflected a minute. "Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would do +best; hats are best, you see. Yes, I must wear the hat, dear Dicky, +because I ought to wear a hat, you know." + + + + +PART THE FOURTH--AUTUMN + + +CHAPTER I: GOING NUTTING + + +Dick, dressed in his 'second-best' suit, burst into Fancy's sitting-room +with a glow of pleasure on his face. + +It was two o'clock on Friday, the day before her contemplated visit to +her father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the school the +children had been given this Friday afternoon for pastime, in addition to +the usual Saturday. + +"Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with you. +Smart is lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can't do anything, +I've made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you to go nutting +with me!" + +She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying across her +lap and scissors in her hand. + +"Go nutting! Yes. But I'm afraid I can't go for an hour or so." + +"Why not? 'Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together for +weeks." + +"This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;--I +find it fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I told +the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; instead of +that, she did it her own way, and made me look a perfect fright." + +"How long will you be?" he inquired, looking rather disappointed. + +"Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear." + +Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the snipping +and sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his conversation +began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe with a walking-stick +he had cut from the hedge as he came along. Fancy talked and answered +him, but sometimes the answers were so negligently given, that it was +evident her thoughts lay for the greater part in her lap with the blue +dress. + +The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the room +with his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then sounded a few +notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the books he could find, +then smoothed Fancy's head with his hand. Still the snipping and sewing +went on. + +The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; counted +the knots in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies on the +ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, and so +thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was constructed that +he could have delivered a lecture on the subject. Stepping back to +Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he went into her garden +and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and reminded himself that they +seemed to him to wear a decidedly feminine aspect; then pulled up several +weeds, and came in again. The clock struck five, and still the snipping +and sewing went on. + +Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking-stick, +then threw the stick into the scullery because it was spoilt, produced +hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally overturned a vase +of flowers, the water from which ran in a rill across the table and +dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake, the shape of which, after +the lapse of a few minutes, he began to modify considerably with his +foot, till it was like a map of England and Wales. + +"Well, Dick, you needn't have made quite such a mess." + +"Well, I needn't, I suppose." He walked up to the blue dress, and looked +at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his brain. + +"Fancy." + +"Yes." + +"I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day +to-morrow on your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I shall +be with you, and ask your father for you?" + +"So I am." + +"And the blue one only on Sunday?" + +"And the blue one Sunday." + +"Well, dear, I sha'n't be at Yalbury Sunday to see it." + +"No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with father, +and such lots of people will be looking at me there, you know; and it did +set so badly round the neck." + +"I never noticed it, and 'tis like nobody else would." + +"They might." + +"Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? 'Tis as pretty as the +blue one." + +"I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn't so good; it +didn't cost half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the same I +wore Saturday." + +"Then wear the striped one, dear." + +"I might." + +"Or the dark one." + +"Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven't seen." + +"I see, I see," said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love were +decidedly inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his thoughts +meanwhile running as follows: "I, the man she loves best in the world, as +she says, am to understand that my poor half-holiday is to be lost, +because she wants to wear on Sunday a gown there is not the slightest +necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, to appear more striking than +usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young men; and I not there, either." + +"Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither is +good enough for the youths of Longpuddle," he said. + +"No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do want--to look pretty +to them--there, that's honest! But I sha'n't be much longer." + +"How much?" + +"A quarter of an hour." + +"Very well; I'll come in in a quarter of an hour." + +"Why go away?" + +"I mid as well." + +He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he +meditated and meditated, and the more he meditated the more decidedly did +he begin to fume, and the more positive was he that his time had been +scandalously trifled with by Miss Fancy Day--that, so far from being the +simple girl who had never had a sweetheart before, as she had solemnly +assured him time after time, she was, if not a flirt, a woman who had had +no end of admirers; a girl most certainly too anxious about her frocks; a +girl, whose feelings, though warm, were not deep; a girl who cared a +great deal too much how she appeared in the eyes of other men. "What she +loves best in the world," he thought, with an incipient spice of his +father's grimness, "is her hair and complexion. What she loves next +best, her gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, perhaps!" + +Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness to +his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel thought +crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the +end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well +deserved. Although the best part of the afternoon had been wasted he +would go nutting as he had intended, and go by himself. + +He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two miles, +till a winding path called Snail-Creep sloped up a hill and entered a +hazel copse by a hole like a rabbit's burrow. In he plunged, vanished +among the bushes, and in a short time there was no sign of his existence +upon earth, save an occasional rustling of boughs and snapping of twigs +in divers points of Grey's Wood. + +Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a galley +slave. Half-hour after half-hour passed away, and still he gathered +without ceasing. At last, when the sun had set, and bunches of nuts +could not be distinguished from the leaves which nourished them, he +shouldered his bag, containing quite two pecks of the finest produce of +the wood, about as much use to him as two pecks of stones from the road, +strolled down the woodland track, crossed the highway and entered the +homeward lane, whistling as he went. + +Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. Dewy's +opinion as on that afternoon. In fact, it is just possible that a few +more blue dresses on the Longpuddle young men's account would have +clarified Dick's brain entirely, and made him once more a free man. + +But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the present. +Cuckoo-Lane, the way he pursued, passed over a ridge which rose keenly +against the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, upon the bright +after-glow about the horizon, was now visible an irregular shape, which +at first he conceived to be a bough standing a little beyond the line of +its neighbours. Then it seemed to move, and, as he advanced still +further, there was no doubt that it was a living being sitting in the +bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy margin entirely prevented his +footsteps from being heard, and it was not till he was close that the +figure recognized him. Up it sprang, and he was face to face with Fancy. + +"Dick, Dick! O, is it you, Dick!" + +"Yes, Fancy," said Dick, in a rather repentant tone, and lowering his +nuts. + +She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little head +against his breast, and then there began a narrative, disjointed by such +a hysterical weeping as was never surpassed for intensity in the whole +history of love. + +"O Dick," she sobbed out, "where have you been away from me? O, I have +suffered agony, and thought you would never come any more! 'Tis cruel, +Dick; no 'tisn't, it is justice! I've been walking miles and miles up +and down Grey's Wood, trying to find you, till I was wearied and worn +out, and I could walk no further, and had come back this far! O Dick, +directly you were gone, I thought I had offended you and I put down the +dress; 'tisn't finished now, and I never will finish, it, and I'll wear +an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, I will, because I don't care what I wear +when you are not by my side--ha, you think I do, but I don't!--and I ran +after you, and I saw you go up Snail-Creep and not look back once, and +then you plunged in, and I after you; but I was too far behind. O, I did +wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your dear +shape again! And then I called out to you, and nobody answered, and I +was afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else should hear me. Then I +kept wandering and wandering about, and it was dreadful misery, Dick. And +then I shut my eyes and fell to picturing you looking at some other +woman, very pretty and nice, but with no affection or truth in her at +all, and then imagined you saying to yourself, 'Ah, she's as good as +Fancy, for Fancy told me a story, and was a flirt, and cared for herself +more than me, so now I'll have this one for my sweetheart.' O, you +won't, will you, Dick, for I do love you so!" + +It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom there and +then, and kissed her ten times over, and promised that no pretty woman of +the kind alluded to should ever engross his thoughts; in short, that +though he had been vexed with her, all such vexation was past, and that +henceforth and for ever it was simply Fancy or death for him. And then +they set about proceeding homewards, very slowly on account of Fancy's +weariness, she leaning upon his shoulder, and in addition receiving +support from his arm round her waist; though she had sufficiently +recovered from her desperate condition to sing to him, 'Why are you +wandering here, I pray?' during the latter part of their walk. Nor is it +necessary to describe in detail how the bag of nuts was quite forgotten +until three days later, when it was found among the brambles and restored +empty to Mrs. Dewy, her initials being marked thereon in red cotton; and +how she puzzled herself till her head ached upon the question of how on +earth her meal-bag could have got into Cuckoo-Lane. + + + +CHAPTER II: HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS + + +Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, +according to the arrangement with Fancy. + +The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything +suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from +sunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during the +latter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by the flutter +of terrified birds that had been roosting over the path. And in crossing +the glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been formed on the hills +during the day, greeted his cheeks alternately with clouds of damp night +air from the valleys. He reached the keeper-steward's house, where the +grass-plot and the garden in front appeared light and pale against the +unbroken darkness of the grove from which he had emerged, and paused at +the garden gate. + +He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of procession +advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first of Enoch the +trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in his +hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that she +bore in her arms curious objects about a foot long, in the form of Latin +crosses (made of lath and brown paper dipped in brimstone--called matches +by bee-masters); next came Miss Day, with a shawl thrown over her head; +and behind all, in the gloom, Mr. Frederic Shiner. + +Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss how +to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts. + +"Here I be, Enoch," said a voice; and the procession advancing farther, +the lantern's rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, awaiting their +arrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the path. Taking the +spade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside the +hives, the others standing round in a circle, except Mrs. Day, who +deposited her matches in the fork of an apple-tree and returned to the +house. The party remaining were now lit up in front by the lantern in +their midst, their shadows radiating each way upon the garden-plot like +the spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarrassment of Fancy at the +presence of Shiner caused a silence in the assembly, during which the +preliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches fixed, the stake +kindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stopped +round the edges. Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, to +straighten his backbone after the digging. + +"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives +reflectively. + +Geoffrey nodded. + +"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think 'tis +rather a cruel thing to do." + +Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to shake the +dead bees from their cells, "if you suffocate 'em this way, they only die +once: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they come to life again, and +die o' starvation; so the pangs o' death be twice upon 'em." + +"I incline to Fancy's notion," said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly. + +"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved nor +murdered, is a puzzling matter," said the keeper steadily. + +"I should like never to take it from them," said Fancy. + +"But 'tis the money," said Enoch musingly. "For without money man is a +shadder!" + +The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hives +destroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, were now +getting a living as marauders about the doors of other hives. Several +flew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with an +irritated bizz. + +Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a +currant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered away +helter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, unmoved +and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enoch +picking up the lantern. Mr. Shiner still remained invisible. + +"Have the craters stung ye?" said Enoch to Geoffrey. + +"No, not much--on'y a little here and there," he said with leisurely +solemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another from +among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest looked on +during this proceeding with a complacent sense of being out of it,--much +as a European nation in a state of internal commotion is watched by its +neighbours. + +"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulled +away five. + +"Almost all,--though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder and +side. Ah! there's another just begun again upon my backbone. You lively +young mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can't sting +me many times more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. They mid +as well stay in me till bedtime now, I suppose." + +As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it seemed +satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking against cabbages +in a blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. Shiner was heard +from the darkness in that direction. + +"Is all quite safe again?" + +No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that he +might venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. The +hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one being +handed to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by Geoffrey +himself. + +"Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide." + +Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and Fancy +standing side by side on the garden-plot. + +"Allow me," said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at the +same time with Fancy. + +"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination to +trifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the tearful +explanation of the bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had decided that +it would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle with +men's eyes and hands any more. Finding that Shiner still retained his +hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, and he, having found her +retaining it, also let go. The lantern fell, and was extinguished. Fancy +moved on. + +"Where is the path?" said Mr. Shiner. + +"Here," said Fancy. "Your eyes will get used to the dark in a minute or +two." + +"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the extreme +tips of her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the path. + +"You don't accept attentions very freely." + +"It depends upon who offers them." + +"A fellow like me, for instance." A dead silence. + +"Well, what do you say, Missie?" + +"It then depends upon how they are offered." + +"Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not by +chance; not too quick nor yet too slow." + +"How then?" said Fancy. + +"Coolly and practically," he said. "How would that kind of love be +taken?" + +"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor pale; nor +religiously nor yet quite wickedly." + +"Well, how?" + +"Not at all." + +* * * * * + +Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with +bunches of dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of thyme and +lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread large +red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early potatoes for seed +next year;--vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying beneath in heaps. A few +empty beehives were clustered around a nail in one corner, under which +stood two or three barrels of new cider of the first crop, each bubbling +and squirting forth from the yet open bunghole. + +Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which rested +against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the contents. She +thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink hand +edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act so +adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single cell. Then cracking the +piece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forward +movement, she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blue +platter, placed on a bench at her side. + +"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the light +to her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. "I really think I may as +well go indoors and take 'em out, poor things! for they won't let me +alone. There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. I'm sure I +wonder their strength can last so long." + +"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said Mr. +Shiner, leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to depart, +which he did with his usual long paces. + +He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other footsteps +were heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared in +the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy came in, +having been all this time walking up and down the wood, vainly waiting +for Shiner's departure. + +Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped the +candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should not imply +to Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, he sang +invincibly-- + + "'King Arthur he had three sons.'" + +"Father here?" said Dick. + +"Indoors, I think," said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him. + +Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just at +that moment. Shiner went on singing-- + + "'The miller was drown'd in his pond, + The weaver was hung in his yarn, + And the d--- ran away with the little tail-or, + With the broadcloth under his arm.'" + +"That's a terrible crippled rhyme, if that's your rhyme!" said Dick, with +a grain of superciliousness in his tone. + +"It's no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!" said Mr. Shiner. +"You must go to the man that made it." + +Fancy by this time had acquired confidence. + +"Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy," she said, holding up to him a small circular +piece of honeycomb that had been the last in the row of layers, remaining +still on her knees and flinging back her head to look in his face; "and +then I'll taste a bit too." + +"And I, if you please," said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer looked +superior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling from very +importance of station; and after receiving the honeycomb from Fancy, he +turned it over in his hand till the cells began to be crushed, and the +liquid honey ran down from his fingers in a thin string. + +Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her. + +"What's the matter, dear?" said Dick. + +"It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He was in +one of the cells I was eating!" + +"We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!" said Shiner, +stepping up and kneeling beside her. "Let me see it." + +"No, no!" + +"Just let me see it," said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and after +some hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to show the +place. "O, I hope 'twill soon be better! I don't mind a sting in +ordinary places, but it is so bad upon your lip," she added with tears in +her eyes, and writhing a little from the pain. + +Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to +Fancy's, as if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon which +Dick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all. + +"It is swelling," said Dick to her right aspect. + +"It isn't swelling," said Shiner to her left aspect. + +"Is it dangerous on the lip?" cried Fancy. "I know it is dangerous on +the tongue." + +"O no, not dangerous!" answered Dick. + +"Rather dangerous," had answered Shiner simultaneously. + +"I must try to bear it!" said Fancy, turning again to the hives. + +"Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day," said Shiner +with great concern. + +"Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I've found to be a good thing to cure stings, +Miss Day," said Dick with greater concern. + +"We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for me?" she +said. + +Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, the +individuality of the you was so carelessly denoted that both Dick and +Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast to +the door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and continued marching on, +shoulder to shoulder, in the same manner to the dwelling-house. Not only +so, but entering the room, they marched as before straight up to Mrs. +Day's chair, letting the door in the oak partition slam so forcibly, that +the rows of pewter on the dresser rang like a bell. + +"Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the +hartshorn, please," said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day's face. + +"O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, +because she has stung her lip!" said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. Day's +face. + +"Well, men alive! that's no reason why you should eat me, I suppose!" +said Mrs. Day, drawing back. + +She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began to +dust the cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, Dick's hand +and Shiner's hand waiting side by side. + +"Which is head man?" said Mrs. Day. "Now, don't come mumbudgeting so +close again. Which is head man?" + +Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, as a +high-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and turned to go +off with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the search in his linen for +concealed bees. + +"O--that you, Master Dewy?" + +Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then determined +upon a bold stroke for the attainment of his end, forgetting that the +worst of bold strokes is the disastrous consequences they involve if they +fail. + +"I've come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day," he said, +with a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, who was +vanishing round the door-post at that moment. + +"Well, I've been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake some +bees out o' me" said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open door, and +standing on the threshold. "The young rascals got into my shirt and +wouldn't be quiet nohow." + +Dick followed him to the door. + +"I've come to speak a word to you," he repeated, looking out at the pale +mist creeping up from the gloom of the valley. "You may perhaps guess +what it is about." + +The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled his +eyes, balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly downward as +if his glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, collecting together +the cracks that lay about his face till they were all in the +neighbourhood of his eyes. + +"Maybe I don't know," he replied. + +Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some small +bird that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, whose cry +passed into the silence without mingling with it. + +"I've left my hat up in chammer," said Geoffrey; "wait while I step up +and get en." + +"I'll be in the garden," said Dick. + +He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went +upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to discuss +matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, and to +reserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom which, as is +supposed, originated in the desirability of getting away at such times +from the other members of the family when there was only one room for +living in, though it was now quite as frequently practised by those who +suffered from no such limitation to the size of their domiciles. + +The head-keeper's form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked +towards him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery that +stood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; and they +both contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving about and +grunting among the straw of the interior. + +"I've come to ask for Fancy," said Dick. + +"I'd as lief you hadn't." + +"Why should that be, Mr. Day?" + +"Because it makes me say that you've come to ask what ye be'n't likely to +have. Have ye come for anything else?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then I'll just tell 'ee you've come on a very foolish errand. D'ye know +what her mother was?" + +"No." + +"A teacher in a landed family's nursery, who was foolish enough to marry +the keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper then, +though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire as steward here for my +lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly fellings, and the gravel +and sand sales and one thing and 'tother. However, d'ye think Fancy +picked up her good manners, the smooth turn of her tongue, her musical +notes, and her knowledge of books, in a homely hole like this?" + +"No." + +"D'ye know where?" + +"No." + +"Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother's death, she lived with +her aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married Lawyer +Green--a man as sharp as a needle--and the school was broke up. Did ye +know that then she went to the training-school, and that her name stood +first among the Queen's scholars of her year?" + +"I've heard so." + +"And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, she had +the highest of the first class?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when I've got +enough to do without it, and why I make her work as a schoolmistress +instead of living here?" + +"No." + +"That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, should +want to marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha'n't be superior to +her in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be good enough for +her?" + +"No." + +"Then good-night t'ee, Master Dewy." + +"Good-night, Mr. Day." + +Modest Dick's reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away +wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen from +the beginning to be so superior to him. + + + +CHAPTER III: FANCY IN THE RAIN + + +The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, and +Fancy Day is discovered walking from her father's home towards Mellstock. + +A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small rain +and mist had just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, alternately thick +and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations writhed like miserable +men as the air wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest portions of +their trunks, that had hardly ever been known to move, were visibly +rocked by the fiercer gusts, distressing the mind by its painful +unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen to shed tears. Low-hanging +boughs went up and down; high and erect boughs went to and fro; the +blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many cross-currents, that +neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in independent +motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. Across the open spaces +flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, which, after travelling a long +distance from their parent trees, reached the ground, and lay there with +their under-sides upward. + +As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy's bonnet-ribbons leapt more and +more snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering Mellstock Lane +to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place of shelter. The +nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield's, in Higher Mellstock, whose +cottage and garden stood not far from the junction of that hamlet with +the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, and in five minutes +entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood of water-drops as she +opened it. + +"Come in, chiel!" a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a +promptness that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs. +Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the use of +her eyes and ears. + +Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her +husband's supper. + +Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a +bucket of water. + +Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she began +to reconsider an old subject that lay uppermost in her heart. Since the +interview between her father and Dick, the days had been melancholy days +for her. Geoffrey's firm opposition to the notion of Dick as a son-in- +law was more than she had expected. She had frequently seen her lover +since that time, it is true, and had loved him more for the opposition +than she would have otherwise dreamt of doing--which was a happiness of a +certain kind. Yet, though love is thus an end in itself, it must be +believed to be the means to another end if it is to assume the rosy hues +of an unalloyed pleasure. And such a belief Fancy and Dick were +emphatically denied just now. + +Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its nature +something between distinction and notoriety. It was founded on the +following items of character. She was shrewd and penetrating; her house +stood in a lonely place; she never went to church; she wore a red cloak; +she always retained her bonnet indoors and she had a pointed chin. Thus +far her attributes were distinctly Satanic; and those who looked no +further called her, in plain terms, a witch. But she was not gaunt, nor +ugly in the upper part of her face, nor particularly strange in manner; +so that, when her more intimate acquaintances spoke of her the term was +softened, and she became simply a Deep Body, who was as long-headed as +she was high. It may be stated that Elizabeth belonged to a class of +suspects who were gradually losing their mysterious characteristics under +the administration of the young vicar; though, during the long reign of +Mr. Grinham, the parish of Mellstock had proved extremely favourable to +the growth of witches. + +While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to herself +whether it was worth while to tell her troubles to Elizabeth, and ask her +advice in getting out of them, the witch spoke. + +"You be down--proper down," she said suddenly, dropping another potato +into the bucket. + +Fancy took no notice. + +"About your young man." + +Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. Really, +one would almost think she must have the powers people ascribed to her. + +"Father not in the humour for't, hey?" Another potato was finished and +flung in. "Ah, I know about it. Little birds tell me things that people +don't dream of my knowing." + +Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chance--O, such a wicked +chance--of getting help; and what was goodness beside love! + +"I wish you'd tell me how to put him in the humour for it?" she said. + +"That I could soon do," said the witch quietly. + +"Really? O, do; anyhow--I don't care--so that it is done! How could I +do it, Mrs. Endorfield?" + +"Nothing so mighty wonderful in it." + +"Well, but how?" + +"By witchery, of course!" said Elizabeth. + +"No!" said Fancy. + +"'Tis, I assure ye. Didn't you ever hear I was a witch?" + +"Well," hesitated Fancy, "I have heard you called so." + +"And you believed it?" + +"I can't say that I did exactly believe it, for 'tis very horrible and +wicked; but, O, how I do wish it was possible for you to be one!" + +"So I am. And I'll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you marry +Dick Dewy." + +"Will it hurt him, poor thing?" + +"Hurt who?" + +"Father." + +"No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be broke +by your acting stupidly." + +Fancy looked rather perplexed, and Elizabeth went on: + + "This fear of Lizz--whatever 'tis-- + By great and small; + She makes pretence to common sense, + And that's all. + +"You must do it like this." The witch laid down her knife and potato, +and then poured into Fancy's ear a long and detailed list of directions, +glancing up from the corner of her eye into Fancy's face with an +expression of sinister humour. Fancy's face brightened, clouded, rose +and sank, as the narrative proceeded. "There," said Elizabeth at length, +stooping for the knife and another potato, "do that, and you'll have him +by-long and by-late, my dear." + +"And do it I will!" said Fancy. + +She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The rain +continued as usual, but the wind had abated considerably during the +discourse. Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella erect, +she pulled her hood again over her bonnet, bade the witch good-bye, and +went her way. + + + +CHAPTER IV: THE SPELL + + +Mrs. Endorfield's advice was duly followed. + +"I be proper sorry that your daughter isn't so well as she might be," +said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning. + +"But is there anything in it?" said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted his +hat to the right. "I can't understand the report. She didn't complain +to me a bit when I saw her." + +"No appetite at all, they say." + +Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that afternoon. +Fancy welcomed him as usual, and asked him to stay and take tea with her. + +"I be'n't much for tea, this time o' day," he said, but stayed. + +During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great consternation +discovered the following unprecedented change in the healthy girl--that +she cut herself only a diaphanous slice of bread-and-butter, and, laying +it on her plate, passed the meal-time in breaking it into pieces, but +eating no more than about one-tenth of the slice. Geoffrey hoped she +would say something about Dick, and finish up by weeping, as she had done +after the decision against him a few days subsequent to the interview in +the garden. But nothing was said, and in due time Geoffrey departed +again for Yalbury Wood. + +"'Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her school," +said Geoffrey's man Enoch to Geoffrey the following week, as they were +shovelling up ant-hills in the wood. + +Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his sleeve, +and killed another that was prowling round his ear, then looked +perpendicularly into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to say more. +"Well, why shouldn't she?" said the keeper at last. + +"The baker told me yesterday," continued Enoch, shaking out another emmet +that had run merrily up his thigh, "that the bread he've left at that +there school-house this last month would starve any mouse in the three +creations; that 'twould so! And afterwards I had a pint o' small down at +Morrs's, and there I heard more." + +"What might that ha' been?" + +"That she used to have a pound o' the best rolled butter a week, regular +as clockwork, from Dairyman Viney's for herself, as well as just so much +salted for the helping girl, and the 'ooman she calls in; but now the +same quantity d'last her three weeks, and then 'tis thoughted she throws +it away sour." + +"Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag home-along." The keeper +resumed his gun, tucked it under his arm, and went on without whistling +to the dogs, who however followed, with a bearing meant to imply that +they did not expect any such attentions when their master was reflecting. + +On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble about +sending her the couple of rabbits, as was intended, because she feared +she should not want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went to Casterbridge +and called upon the butcher who served Fancy with fresh meat, which was +put down to her father's account. + +"I've called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you can +gie me the chiel's account at the same time." + +Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of a +heap of joints, altered the expression of his face from meat to money, +went into a little office consisting only of a door and a window, looked +very vigorously into a book which possessed length but no breadth; and +then, seizing a piece of paper and scribbling thereupon, handed the bill. + +Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial transactions +that the quality of shortness in a butcher's bill was a cause of +tribulation to the debtor. "Why, this isn't all she've had in a whole +month!" said Geoffrey. + +"Every mossel," said the butcher--"(now, Dan, take that leg and shoulder +to Mrs. White's, and this eleven pound here to Mr. Martin's)--you've been +treating her to smaller joints lately, to my thinking, Mr. Day?" + +"Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am alive--I +wish I had!" + +"Well, my wife said to me--(Dan! not too much, not too much on that tray +at a time; better go twice)--my wife said to me as she posted up the +books: she says, 'Miss Day must have been affronted this summer during +that hot muggy weather that spolit so much for us; for depend upon't,' +she says, 'she've been trying John Grimmett unknown to us: see her +account else.' 'Tis little, of course, at the best of times, being only +for one, but now 'tis next kin to nothing." + +"I'll inquire," said Geoffrey despondingly. + +He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in fulfilment of +a promise. It being Saturday, the children were enjoying a holiday, and +on entering the residence Fancy was nowhere to be seen. Nan, the +charwoman, was sweeping the kitchen. + +"Where's my da'ter?" said the keeper. + +"Well, you see she was tired with the week's teaching, and this morning +she said, 'Nan, I sha'n't get up till the evening.' You see, Mr. Day, if +people don't eat, they can't work; and as she've gie'd up eating, she +must gie up working." + +"Have ye carried up any dinner to her?" + +"No; she don't want any. There, we all know that such things don't come +without good reason--not that I wish to say anything about a broken +heart, or anything of the kind." + +Geoffrey's own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went to the +staircase and ascended to his daughter's door. + +"Fancy!" + +"Come in, father." + +To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, is +depressing enough; and here was his only child Fancy, not only in bed, +but looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed. + +"Fancy, I didn't expect to see thee here, chiel," he said. "What's the +matter?" + +"I'm not well, father." + +"How's that?" + +"Because I think of things." + +"What things can you have to think o' so mortal much?" + +"You know, father." + +"You think I've been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless Dick o' +thine sha'n't marry thee, I suppose?" + +No answer. + +"Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn't good enough +for thee. You know that well enough." Here he again looked at her as +she lay. "Well, Fancy, I can't let my only chiel die; and if you can't +live without en, you must ha' en, I suppose." + +"O, I don't want him like that; all against your will, and everything so +disobedient!" sighed the invalid. + +"No, no, 'tisn't against my will. My wish is, now I d'see how 'tis +hurten thee to live without en, that he shall marry thee as soon as we've +considered a little. That's my wish flat and plain, Fancy. There, never +cry, my little maid! You ought to ha' cried afore; no need o' crying now +'tis all over. Well, howsoever, try to step over and see me and mother- +law to-morrow, and ha' a bit of dinner wi' us." + +"And--Dick too?" + +"Ay, Dick too, 'far's I know." + +"And when do you think you'll have considered, father, and he may marry +me?" she coaxed. + +"Well, there, say next Midsummer; that's not a day too long to wait." + +On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter's. Old William opened +the door. + +"Is your grandson Dick in 'ithin, William?" + +"No, not just now, Mr. Day. Though he've been at home a good deal +lately." + +"O, how's that?" + +"What wi' one thing, and what wi' t'other, he's all in a mope, as might +be said. Don't seem the feller he used to. Ay, 'a will sit studding and +thinking as if 'a were going to turn chapel-member, and then do nothing +but traypse and wamble about. Used to be such a chatty boy, too, Dick +did; and now 'a don't speak at all. But won't ye step inside? Reuben +will be home soon, 'a b'lieve." + +"No, thank you, I can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do me +the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da'ter Fancy, if +she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, now she's not so +terrible topping in health." + +"So I've heard. Ay, sure, I'll tell him without fail." + + + +CHAPTER V: AFTER GAINING HER POINT + + +The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might have +been expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth experience +in a hitherto obstructed love-course. And then came a series of several +happy days, of the same undisturbed serenity. Dick could court her when +he chose; stay away when he chose,--which was never; walk with her by +winding streams and waterfalls and autumn scenery till dews and twilight +sent them home. And thus they drew near the day of the Harvest +Thanksgiving, which was also the time chosen for opening the organ in +Mellstock Church. + +It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from Mellstock. A +young acquaintance had died of consumption at Charmley, a neighbouring +village, on the previous Monday, and Dick, in fulfilment of a +long-standing promise, was to assist in carrying him to the grave. When +on Tuesday, Dick went towards the school to acquaint Fancy with the fact, +it is difficult to say whether his own disappointment at being denied the +sight of her triumphant debut as organist, was greater than his vexation +that his pet should on this great occasion be deprived of the pleasure of +his presence. However, the intelligence was communicated. She bore it +as she best could, not without many expressions of regret, and +convictions that her performance would be nothing to her now. + +Just before eleven o'clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. The +funeral was to be immediately after the morning service, and as there +were four good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it became +necessary to start comparatively early. Half an hour later would +certainly have answered his purpose quite as well, yet at the last moment +nothing would content his ardent mind but that he must go a mile out of +his way in the direction of the school, in the hope of getting a glimpse +of his Love as she started for church. + +Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of across +the ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door as his +goddess emerged. + +If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning as +she floated down those school steps, in the form of a nebulous collection +of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity unparalleled in the whole +history of village-school-mistresses at this date--partly owing, no +doubt, to papa's respectable accumulation of cash, which rendered her +profession not altogether one of necessity--she had actually donned a hat +and feather, and lowered her hitherto plainly looped-up hair, which now +fell about her shoulders in a profusion of curls. Poor Dick was +astonished: he had never seen her look so distractingly beautiful before, +save on Christmas-eve, when her hair was in the same luxuriant condition +of freedom. But his first burst of delighted surprise was followed by +less comfortable feelings, as soon as his brain recovered its power to +think. + +Fancy had blushed;--was it with confusion? She had also involuntarily +pressed back her curls. She had not expected him. + +"Fancy, you didn't know me for a moment in my funeral clothes, did you?" + +"Good-morning, Dick--no, really, I didn't know you for an instant in such +a sad suit." + +He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. "You've never dressed so +charming before, dearest." + +"I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick," she said, smiling +archly. "It is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?" + +"Fie! you know it. Did you remember,--I mean didn't you remember about +my going away to-day?" + +"Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;--forgive +me." + +"Yes, darling; yes, of course,--there's nothing to forgive. No, I was +only thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday +and Friday about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for it, you said, +Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said it would be no +pleasure to you to be the attraction of the church to-day, since I could +not be there." + +"My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I do +take a little delight in my life, I suppose," she pouted. + +"Apart from mine?" + +She looked at him with perplexed eyes. "I know you are vexed with me, +Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat and +feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you are away +and won't be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And you think +that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn't be here to- +day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. Yes, you do, +Dick, and it is rather unkind!" + +"No, no," said Dick earnestly and simply, "I didn't think so badly of you +as that. I only thought that--if you had been going away, I shouldn't +have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. But then of +course you and I are different, naturally." + +"Well, perhaps we are." + +"Whatever will the vicar say, Fancy?" + +"I don't fear what he says in the least!" she answered proudly. "But he +won't say anything of the sort you think. No, no." + +"He can hardly have conscience to, indeed." + +"Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go," she +said with sudden gaiety, and skipped backwards into the porch. "Come +here, sir;--say you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me;--you never +have yet when I have worn curls, you know. Yes, just where you want to +so much,--yes, you may!" + +Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not slow +in availing himself of the privilege offered. + +"Now that's a treat for you, isn't it?" she continued. "Good-bye, or I +shall be late. Come and see me to-morrow: you'll be tired to-night." + +Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ stood on +one side of the chancel, close to and under the immediate eye of the +vicar when he was in the pulpit, and also in full view of the +congregation. Here she sat down, for the first time in such a +conspicuous position, her seat having previously been in a remote spot in +the aisle. + +"Good heavens--disgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!" said the +daughters of the small gentry, who had either only curly hair without a +hat and feather, or a hat and feather without curly hair. "A bonnet for +church always," said sober matrons. + +That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him during +the sermon; that he was not at all angry at her development of costume; +that he admired her, she perceived. But she did not see that he loved +her during that sermon-time as he had never loved a woman before; that +her proximity was a strange delight to him; and that he gloried in her +musical success that morning in a spirit quite beyond a mere cleric's +glory at the inauguration of a new order of things. + +The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in the +gallery as heretofore (which was now given up to the school-children who +were not singers, and a pupil-teacher), but were scattered about with +their wives in different parts of the church. Having nothing to do with +conducting the service for almost the first time in their lives, they all +felt awkward, out of place, abashed, and inconvenienced by their hands. +The tranter had proposed that they should stay away to-day and go +nutting, but grandfather William would not hear of such a thing for a +moment. "No," he replied reproachfully, and quoted a verse: "Though this +has come upon us, let not our hearts be turned back, or our steps go out +of the way." + +So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back of the +successful rival, and the waving of her feather, as she swayed her head. +After a few timid notes and uncertain touches her playing became markedly +correct, and towards the end full and free. But, whether from prejudice +or unbiassed judgment, the venerable body of musicians could not help +thinking that the simpler notes they had been wont to bring forth were +more in keeping with the simplicity of their old church than the crowded +chords and interludes it was her pleasure to produce. + + + +CHAPTER VI: INTO TEMPTATION + + +The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About five +o'clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind she wandered +into the schoolroom, for want of something better to do. She was +thinking--of her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of how weary she was +of living alone: how unbearable it would be to return to Yalbury under +the rule of her strange-tempered step-mother; that it was far better to +be married to anybody than do that; that eight or nine long months had +yet to be lived through ere the wedding could take place. + +At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon either +sill of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and using it as a +footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched herself, as was her +custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on a light shawl and bonnet, +opened the window, and looked out at the rain. + +The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the position +from which she used to survey the crown of Dick's passing hat in the +early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was now +visible anywhere; the rain kept all people indoors who were not forced +abroad by necessity, and necessity was less importunate on Sundays than +during the week. + +Sitting here and thinking again--of her lover, or of the sensation she +had created at church that day?--well, it is unknown--thinking and +thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at the +further end of the Grove--a man without an umbrella. Nearer and nearer +he came, and she perceived that he was in deep mourning, and then that it +was Dick. Yes, in the fondness and foolishness of his young heart, after +walking four miles, in a drizzling rain without overcoat or umbrella, and +in face of a remark from his love that he was not to come because he +would be tired, he had made it his business to wander this mile out of +his way again, from sheer wish of spending ten minutes in her presence. + +"O Dick, how wet you are!" she said, as he drew up under the window. +"Why, your coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat--my +goodness, there's a streaming hat!" + +"O, I don't mind, darling!" said Dick cheerfully. "Wet never hurts me, +though I am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it couldn't be +helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don't know when I +shall get mine back!" + +"And look, there's a nasty patch of something just on your shoulder." + +"Ah, that's japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack's coffin +when we lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I don't care about +that, for 'twas the last deed I could do for him; and 'tis hard if you +can't afford a coat for an old friend." + +Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the palm +of that little hand there existed for that half-minute a little yawn. + +"Dick, I don't like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn't sit +down. Go home and change your things. Don't stay another minute." + +"One kiss after coming so far," he pleaded. + +"If I can reach, then." + +He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the door. She +twisted from her seated position and bent herself downwards, but not even +by standing on the plinth was it possible for Dick to get his lips into +contact with hers as she held them. By great exertion she might have +reached a little lower; but then she would have exposed her head to the +rain. + +"Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand," she said, flinging it down to him. +"Now, good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till he +was out of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost +involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning's triumph--"I like +Dick, and I love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in the rain, +with no umbrella, and wet through!" + +As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but glancing in +the other direction she saw another form coming along the same track. It +was also that of a man. He, too, was in black from top to toe; but he +carried an umbrella. + +He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant his +umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was invisible, as +she was also to him. He passed in due time directly beneath her, and in +looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella her feminine eyes +perceived it to be of superior silk--less common at that date than +since--and of elegant make. He reached the entrance to the building, and +Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. Instead of pursuing the roadway as +Dick had done he had turned sharply round into her own porch. + +She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, smoothed +and patted her hair till the curls hung in passable condition, and +listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and still there was no +knock. Then there arose a soft series of raps, no louder than the +tapping of a distant woodpecker, and barely distinct enough to reach her +ears. She composed herself and flung open the door. + +In the porch stood Mr. Maybold. + +There was a warm flush upon his face, and a bright flash in his eyes, +which made him look handsomer than she had ever seen him before. + +"Good-evening, Miss Day." + +"Good-evening, Mr. Maybold," she said, in a strange state of mind. She +had noticed, beyond the ardent hue of his face, that his voice had a +singular tremor in it, and that his hand shook like an aspen leaf when he +laid his umbrella in the corner of the porch. Without another word being +spoken by either, he came into the schoolroom, shut the door, and moved +close to her. Once inside, the expression of his face was no more +discernible, by reason of the increasing dusk of evening. + +"I want to speak to you," he then said; "seriously--on a perhaps +unexpected subject, but one which is all the world to me--I don't know +what it may be to you, Miss Day." + +No reply. + +"Fancy, I have come to ask you if you will be my wife?" + +As a person who has been idly amusing himself with rolling a snowball +might start at finding he had set in motion an avalanche, so did Fancy +start at these words from the vicar. And in the dead silence which +followed them, the breathings of the man and of the woman could be +distinctly and separately heard; and there was this difference between +them--his respirations gradually grew quieter and less rapid after the +enunciation, hers, from having been low and regular, increased in +quickness and force, till she almost panted. + +"I cannot, I cannot, Mr. Maybold--I cannot! Don't ask me!" she said. + +"Don't answer in a hurry!" he entreated. "And do listen to me. This is +no sudden feeling on my part. I have loved you for more than six months! +Perhaps my late interest in teaching the children here has not been so +single-minded as it seemed. You will understand my motive--like me +better, perhaps, for honestly telling you that I have struggled against +my emotion continually, because I have thought that it was not well for +me to love you! But I resolved to struggle no longer; I have examined +the feeling; and the love I bear you is as genuine as that I could bear +any woman! I see your great charm; I respect your natural talents, and +the refinement they have brought into your nature--they are quite enough, +and more than enough for me! They are equal to anything ever required of +the mistress of a quiet parsonage-house--the place in which I shall pass +my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I have watched you, +criticized you even severely, brought my feelings to the light of +judgment, and still have found them rational, and such as any man might +have expected to be inspired with by a woman like you! So there is +nothing hurried, secret, or untoward in my desire to do this. Fancy, +will you marry me?" + +No answer was returned. + +"Don't refuse; don't," he implored. "It would be foolish of you--I mean +cruel! Of course we would not live here, Fancy. I have had for a long +time the offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in Yorkshire, but +I have hitherto refused on account of my mother. There we would go. Your +musical powers shall be still further developed; you shall have whatever +pianoforte you like; you shall have anything, Fancy, anything to make you +happy--pony-carriage, flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, you have +enough in you for any society, after a few months of travel with me! Will +you, Fancy, marry me?" + +Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against the +window-panes, and then Fancy spoke, in a faint and broken voice. + +"Yes, I will," she said. + +"God bless you, my own!" He advanced quickly, and put his arm out to +embrace her. She drew back hastily. "No no, not now!" she said in an +agitated whisper. "There are things;--but the temptation is, O, too +strong, and I can't resist it; I can't tell you now, but I must tell you! +Don't, please, don't come near me now! I want to think, I can scarcely +get myself used to the idea of what I have promised yet." The next +minute she turned to a desk, buried her face in her hands, and burst into +a hysterical fit of weeping. "O, leave me to myself!" she sobbed; "leave +me! O, leave me!" + +"Don't be distressed; don't, dearest!" It was with visible difficulty +that he restrained himself from approaching her. "You shall tell me at +your leisure what it is that grieves you so; I am happy--beyond all +measure happy!--at having your simple promise." + +"And do go and leave me now!" + +"But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you are +yourself again." + +"There then," she said, controlling her emotion, and standing up; "I am +not disturbed now." + +He reluctantly moved towards the door. "Good-bye!" he murmured tenderly. +"I'll come to-morrow about this time." + + + +CHAPTER VII: SECOND THOUGHTS + + +The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was to +write a long and careful letter to his friend in Yorkshire. Then, eating +a little breakfast, he crossed the meadows in the direction of +Casterbridge, bearing his letter in his pocket, that he might post it at +the town office, and obviate the loss of one day in its transmission that +would have resulted had he left it for the foot-post through the village. + +It was a foggy morning, and the trees shed in noisy water-drops the +moisture they had collected from the thick air, an acorn occasionally +falling from its cup to the ground, in company with the drippings. In +the meads, sheets of spiders'-web, almost opaque with wet, hung in folds +over the fences, and the falling leaves appeared in every variety of +brown, green, and yellow hue. + +A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was approaching, +then the light footsteps of a man going in the same direction as himself. +On reaching the junction of his path with the road, the vicar beheld Dick +Dewy's open and cheerful face. Dick lifted his hat, and the vicar came +out into the highway that Dick was pursuing. + +"Good-morning, Dewy. How well you are looking!" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Yes, sir, I am well--quite well! I am going to Casterbridge now, to get +Smart's collar; we left it there Saturday to be repaired." + +"I am going to Casterbridge, so we'll walk together," the vicar said. +Dick gave a hop with one foot to put himself in step with Mr. Maybold, +who proceeded: "I fancy I didn't see you at church yesterday, Dewy. Or +were you behind the pier?" + +"No; I went to Charmley. Poor John Dunford chose me to be one of his +bearers a long time before he died, and yesterday was the funeral. Of +course I couldn't refuse, though I should have liked particularly to have +been at home as 'twas the day of the new music." + +"Yes, you should have been. The musical portion of the service was +successful--very successful indeed; and what is more to the purpose, no +ill-feeling whatever was evinced by any of the members of the old choir. +They joined in the singing with the greatest good-will." + +"'Twas natural enough that I should want to be there, I suppose," said +Dick, smiling a private smile; "considering who the organ-player was." + +At this the vicar reddened a little, and said, "Yes, yes," though not at +all comprehending Dick's true meaning, who, as he received no further +reply, continued hesitatingly, and with another smile denoting his pride +as a lover-- + +"I suppose you know what I mean, sir? You've heard about me and--Miss +Day?" + +The red in Maybold's countenance went away: he turned and looked Dick in +the face. + +"No," he said constrainedly, "I've heard nothing whatever about you and +Miss Day." + +"Why, she's my sweetheart, and we are going to be married next Midsummer. +We are keeping it rather close just at present, because 'tis a good many +months to wait; but it is her father's wish that we don't marry before, +and of course we must submit. But the time 'ill soon slip along." + +"Yes, the time will soon slip along--Time glides away every day--yes." + +Maybold said these words, but he had no idea of what they were. He was +conscious of a cold and sickly thrill throughout him; and all he reasoned +was this that the young creature whose graces had intoxicated him into +making the most imprudent resolution of his life, was less an angel than +a woman. + +"You see, sir," continued the ingenuous Dick, "'twill be better in one +sense. I shall by that time be the regular manager of a branch o' +father's business, which has very much increased lately, and business, +which we think of starting elsewhere. It has very much increased lately, +and we expect next year to keep a' extra couple of horses. We've already +our eye on one--brown as a berry, neck like a rainbow, fifteen hands, and +not a gray hair in her--offered us at twenty-five want a crown. And to +kip pace with the times I have had some cards prented and I beg leave to +hand you one, sir." + +"Certainly," said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick +offered him. + +"I turn in here by Grey's Bridge," said Dick. "I suppose you go straight +on and up town?" + +"Yes." + +"Good-morning, sir." + +"Good-morning, Dewy." + +Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been put +into his hand, and Dick's footsteps died away towards Durnover Mill. The +vicar's first voluntary action was to read the card:-- + + DEWY AND SON, + TRANTERS AND HAULIERS, + MELLSTOCK. + NB.--Furniture, Coals, Potatoes, Live and Dead Stock, removed to any + distance on the shortest notice. + +Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the +river. He saw--without heeding--how the water came rapidly from beneath +the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself over a pool in +which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among the long green locks +of weed that lay heaving and sinking with their roots towards the +current. At the end of ten minutes spent leaning thus, he drew from his +pocket the letter to his friend, tore it deliberately into such minute +fragments that scarcely two syllables remained in juxtaposition, and sent +the whole handful of shreds fluttering into the water. Here he watched +them eddy, dart, and turn, as they were carried downwards towards the +ocean and gradually disappeared from his view. Finally he moved off, and +pursued his way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock Vicarage. + +Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his study +and wrote as follows: + + "DEAR MISS DAY,--The meaning of your words, 'the temptation is too + strong,' of your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me + by an accident. I know to-day what I did not know yesterday--that you + are not a free woman. + + "Why did you not tell me--why didn't you? Did you suppose I knew? No. + Had I known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have been + reprehensible. + + "But I don't chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to you--I can't + tell. Fancy, though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in a + way which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to you + holds good yet. But will you, in justice to an honest man who relies + upon your word to him, consider whether, under the circumstances, you + can honourably forsake him?--Yours ever sincerely, + + "ARTHUR MAYBOLD." + +He rang the bell. "Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this note to +the school at once." + +The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy was +seen to leave the vicarage gate, with the one under his arm, and the +other in his hand. The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, watching the +lad as he descended Church Lane and entered the waterside path which +intervened between that spot and the school. + +Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and +pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on his +way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight. + +The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in. + +He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he read +the subjoined words: + + "DEAR MR. MAYBOLD,--I have been thinking seriously and sadly through + the whole of the night of the question you put to me last evening and + of my answer. That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right to + give. + + "It is my nature--perhaps all women's--to love refinement of mind and + manners; but even more than this, to be ever fascinated with the idea + of surroundings more elegant and pleasing than those which have been + customary. And you praised me, and praise is life to me. It was + alone my sensations at these things which prompted my reply. Ambition + and vanity they would be called; perhaps they are so. + + "After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to + withdraw the answer I too hastily gave. + + "And one more request. To keep the meeting of last night, and all + that passed between us there, for ever a secret. Were it to become + known, it would utterly blight the happiness of a trusting and + generous man, whom I love still, and shall love always.--Yours + sincerely, + + "FANCY DAY. + +The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to Fancy, +was a note containing these words only: + + "Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you." + + + + +PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION + + +CHAPTER I: 'THE KNOT THERE'S NO UNTYING' + + +The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in the +development of the seasons when country people go to bed among nearly +naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake next +morning among green ones; when the landscape appears embarrassed with the +sudden weight and brilliancy of its leaves; when the night-jar comes and +strikes up for the summer his tune of one note; when the apple-trees have +bloomed, and the roads and orchard-grass become spotted with fallen +petals; when the faces of the delicate flowers are darkened, and their +heads weighed down, by the throng of honey-bees, which increase their +humming till humming is too mild a term for the all-pervading sound; and +when cuckoos, blackbirds, and sparrows, that have hitherto been merry and +respectful neighbours, become noisy and persistent intimates. + +The exterior of Geoffrey Day's house in Yalbury Wood appeared exactly as +was usual at that season, but a frantic barking of the dogs at the back +told of unwonted movements somewhere within. Inside the door the eyes +beheld a gathering, which was a rarity indeed for the dwelling of the +solitary wood-steward and keeper. + +About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled attitudes, +our old acquaintance, grandfathers James and William, the tranter, Mr. +Penny, two or three children, including Jimmy and Charley, besides three +or four country ladies and gentlemen from a greater distance who do not +require any distinction by name. Geoffrey was seen and heard stamping +about the outhouse and among the bushes of the garden, attending to +details of daily routine before the proper time arrived for their +performance, in order that they might be off his hands for the day. He +appeared with his shirt-sleeves rolled up; his best new nether garments, +in which he had arrayed himself that morning, being temporarily disguised +under a weekday apron whilst these proceedings were in operation. He +occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to see if his wife's bees +were swarming, ultimately rolling down his shirt-sleeves and going +indoors, talking to tranter Dewy whilst buttoning the wristbands, to save +time; next going upstairs for his best waistcoat, and coming down again +to make another remark whilst buttoning that, during the time looking +fixedly in the tranter's face as if he were a looking-glass. + +The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every +duplicate piece having been removed, including the clock by Thomas Wood; +Ezekiel Saunders being at last left sole referee in matters of time. + +Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and +adornments, and answering by short fragments of laughter which had more +fidgetiness than mirth in them, remarks that were made from time to time +by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. Penny, who were assisting her at the toilet, Mrs. +Day having pleaded a queerness in her head as a reason for shutting +herself up in an inner bedroom for the whole morning. Mrs. Penny +appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each side of her temples, and a +back comb stuck upon her crown like a castle on a steep. + +The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the last +publication of which had been on the Sunday previous. + +"And how did they sound?" Fancy subtly inquired. + +"Very beautiful indeed," said Mrs. Penny. "I never heard any sound +better." + +"But how?" + +"O, so natural and elegant, didn't they, Reuben!" she cried, through the +chinks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs. + +"What's that?" said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor +above him for an answer. + +"Didn't Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in church +last Sunday?" came downwards again in Mrs. Penny's voice. + +"Ay, that they did, my sonnies!--especially the first time. There was a +terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn't there, +neighbour Penny?" said the tranter, taking up the thread of conversation +on his own account and, in order to be heard in the room above, speaking +very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance of three feet from him, +or rather less. + +"I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was," said Mr. Penny, +also loudly, to the room above. "And such sorrowful envy on the maidens' +faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!" + +Fancy's lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart +palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. "But perhaps," she +said, with assumed indifference, "it was only because no religion was +going on just then?" + +"O, no; nothing to do with that. 'Twas because of your high standing in +the parish. It was just as if they had one and all caught Dick kissing +and coling ye to death, wasn't it, Mrs. Dewy?" + +"Ay; that 'twas." + +"How people will talk about one's doings!" Fancy exclaimed. + +"Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can't blame other +people for singing 'em." + +"Mercy me! how shall I go through it?" said the young lady again, but +merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind between a sigh +and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face. + +"O, you'll get through it well enough, child," said Mrs. Dewy placidly. +"The edge of the performance is took off at the calling home; and when +once you get up to the chancel end o' the church, you feel as saucy as +you please. I'm sure I felt as brave as a sodger all through the +deed--though of course I dropped my face and looked modest, as was +becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy." + +"And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I'm sure," subjoined +Mrs. Penny. "There, you see Penny is such a little small man. But +certainly, I was flurried in the inside o' me. Well, thinks I, 'tis to +be, and here goes! And do you do the same: say, ''Tis to be, and here +goes!'" + +"Is there such wonderful virtue in ''Tis to be, and here goes!'" inquired +Fancy. + +"Wonderful! 'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to +churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough." + +"Very well, then," said Fancy, blushing. "'Tis to be, and here goes!" + +"That's a girl for a husband!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"I do hope he'll come in time!" continued the bride-elect, inventing a +new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished. + +"'Twould be a thousand pities if he didn't come, now you be so brave," +said Mrs. Penny. + +Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said +downstairs with mischievous loudness-- + +"I've known some would-be weddings when the men didn't come." + +"They've happened not to come, before now, certainly," said Mr. Penny, +cleaning one of the glasses of his spectacles. + +"O, do hear what they are saying downstairs," whispered Fancy. "Hush, +hush!" + +She listened. + +"They have, haven't they, Geoffrey?" continued grandfather James, as +Geoffrey entered. + +"Have what?" said Geoffrey. + +"The men have been known not to come." + +"That they have," said the keeper. + +"Ay; I've knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not +appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I knowed was when +the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker's Wood, and the three +months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be published +over again." + +"How horrible!" said Fancy. + +"They only say it on purpose to tease 'ee, my dear," said Mrs. Dewy. + +"'Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put +to," came again from downstairs. "Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, my +brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty +year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another--'tis quite +heart-rending--enough to make your hair stand on end." + +"Those things don't happen very often, I know," said Fancy, with +smouldering uneasiness. + +"Well, really 'tis time Dick was here," said the tranter. + +"Don't keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down +there!" Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. "I am sure I shall +die, or do something, if you do!" + +"Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!" cried Nat Callcome, the +best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice upward through the +chinks of the floor as the others had done. "'Tis all right; Dick's +coming on like a wild feller; he'll be here in a minute. The hive o' +bees his mother gie'd en for his new garden swarmed jist as he was +starting, and he said, 'I can't afford to lose a stock o' bees; no, that +I can't, though I fain would; and Fancy wouldn't wish it on any account.' +So he jist stopped to ting to 'em and shake 'em." + +"A genuine wise man," said Geoffrey. + +"To be sure, what a day's work we had yesterday!" Mr. Callcome continued, +lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer to include +those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote corner +of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. "To be sure!" + +"Things so heavy, I suppose," said Geoffrey, as if reading through the +chimney-window from the far end of the vista. + +"Ay," said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had +been removed. "And so awkward to carry, too. 'Twas ath'art and across +Dick's garden; in and out Dick's door; up and down Dick's stairs; round +and round Dick's chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and Dick is so +particular, too. And the stores of victuals and drink that lad has laid +in: why, 'tis enough for Noah's ark! I'm sure I never wish to see a +choicer half-dozen of hams than he's got there in his chimley; and the +cider I tasted was a very pretty drop, indeed;--none could desire a +prettier cider." + +"They be for the love and the stalled ox both. Ah, the greedy martels!" +said grandfather James. + +"Well, may-be they be. Surely," says I, "that couple between 'em have +heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would think they +were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi' +a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be +sure, a-getting that furniture in order!" + +"I do so wish the room below was ceiled," said Fancy, as the dressing +went on; "we can hear all they say and do down there." + +"Hark! Who's that?" exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also assisted +this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down the stairs, +and peeped round the banister. "O, you should, you should, you should!" +she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again. + +"What?" said Fancy. + +"See the bridesmaids! They've just a come! 'Tis wonderful, really! 'tis +wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don't look a bit +like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o' theirs that nobody +knew they had!" + +"Make 'em come up to me, make 'em come up!" cried Fancy ecstatically; and +the four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy, +Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, surged upstairs, and floated +along the passage. + +"I wish Dick would come!" was again the burden of Fancy. + +The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside the +door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, "Ready, +Fancy dearest?" + +"There he is, he is!" cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and breathing +as it were for the first time that morning. + +The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the +direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as +one:--not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see him, +but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers of the +will of that apotheosised being--the Bride. + +"He looks very taking!" said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who blushed +cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons. + +Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining cloth, +primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of newness, +and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, and hair cut +to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion. + +"Now, I'll run down," said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder in +the glass, and flitting off. + +"O Dick!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you are come! I knew you would, +of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn't!" + +"Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! Why, +what's possessing your little soul? You never used to mind such things a +bit." + +"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself then!" +said Fancy. + +"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, surveying +them all round. + +"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately touched +Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to assure herself +that he was there in flesh and blood as her own property. + +"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking off +his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members of the +company. + +The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their opinion +nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was. + +"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!" +continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net over the whole +auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't seen such a fine swarm +for these ten years." + +"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. "A' +excellent sign." + +"I am glad everything seems so right," said Fancy with a breath of +relief. + +"And so am I," said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy. + +"Well, bees can't be put off," observed the inharmonious grandfather +James. "Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a +swarm o' bees won't come for the asking." + +Dick fanned himself with his hat. "I can't think," he said thoughtfully, +"whatever 'twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I like so much too. He +rather took to me when he came first, and used to say he should like to +see me married, and that he'd marry me, whether the young woman I chose +lived in his parish or no. I just hinted to him of it when I put in the +banns, but he didn't seem to take kindly to the notion now, and so I said +no more. I wonder how it was." + +"I wonder!" said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful eyes of +hers--too refined and beautiful for a tranter's wife; but, perhaps, not +too good. + +"Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose," said the tranter. "Well, +my sonnies, there'll be a good strong party looking at us to-day as we go +along." + +"And the body of the church," said Geoffrey, "will be lined with females, +and a row of young fellers' heads, as far down as the eyes, will be +noticed just above the sills of the chancel-winders." + +"Ay, you've been through it twice," said Reuben, "and well mid know." + +"I can put up with it for once," said Dick, "or twice either, or a dozen +times." + +"O Dick!" said Fancy reproachfully. + +"Why, dear, that's nothing,--only just a bit of a flourish. You be as +nervous as a cat to-day." + +"And then, of course, when 'tis all over," continued the tranter, "we +shall march two and two round the parish." + +"Yes, sure," said Mr. Penny: "two and two: every man hitched up to his +woman, 'a b'lieve." + +"I never can make a show of myself in that way!" said Fancy, looking at +Dick to ascertain if he could. + +"I'm agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!" said Mr. +Richard Dewy heartily. + +"Why, we did when we were married, didn't we, Ann?" said the tranter; +"and so do everybody, my sonnies." + +"And so did we," said Fancy's father. + +"And so did Penny and I," said Mrs. Penny: "I wore my best Bath clogs, I +remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so tall." + +"And so did father and mother," said Miss Mercy Onmey. + +"And I mean to, come next Christmas!" said Nat the groomsman vigorously, +and looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff. + +"Respectable people don't nowadays," said Fancy. "Still, since poor +mother did, I will." + +"Ay," resumed the tranter, "'twas on a White Tuesday when I committed it. +Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new-married folk went a-gaying +round the parish behind 'em. Everybody used to wear something white at +Whitsuntide in them days. My sonnies, I've got the very white trousers +that I wore, at home in box now. Ha'n't I, Ann?" + +"You had till I cut 'em up for Jimmy," said Mrs. Dewy. + +"And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round Higher and +Lower Mellstock, and call at Viney's, and so work our way hither again +across He'th," said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the matter in hand. +"Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so is Farmer Kex, and we +ought to show ourselves to them." + +"True," said the tranter, "we ought to go round Mellstock to do the thing +well. We shall form a very striking object walking along in rotation, +good-now, neighbours?" + +"That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation," said Mrs. Penny. + +"Hullo!" said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular human +figure standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock of pillow- +case cut and of snowy whiteness. "Why, Leaf! whatever dost thou do +here?" + +"I've come to know if so be I can come to the wedding--hee-hee!" said +Leaf in a voice of timidity. + +"Now, Leaf," said the tranter reproachfully, "you know we don't want 'ee +here to-day: we've got no room for ye, Leaf." + +"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!" said old William. + +"I know I've got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a clane +shirt and smock-frock, I might just call," said Leaf, turning away +disappointed and trembling. + +"Poor feller!" said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. "Suppose we must +let en come? His looks are rather against en, and he is terrible silly; +but 'a have never been in jail, and 'a won't do no harm." + +Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and then +anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in helping his +cause. + +"Ay, let en come," said Geoffrey decisively. "Leaf, th'rt welcome, 'st +know;" and Leaf accordingly remained. + +They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a +procession in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and Susan +Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy Onmey, and +Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and all appeared in +strict wedding attire. Then came the tranter and Mrs. Dewy, and last of +all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;--the tranter conspicuous by his enormous gloves, +size eleven and three-quarters, which appeared at a distance like boxing +gloves bleached, and sat rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; this hall- +mark of respectability having been set upon himself to-day (by Fancy's +special request) for the first time in his life. + +"The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together," suggested +Fancy. + +"What? 'Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my +time!" said Geoffrey, astounded. + +"And in mine!" said the tranter. + +"And in ours!" said Mr. and Mrs. Penny. + +"Never heard o' such a thing as woman and woman!" said old William; who, +with grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home. + +"Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!" said Dick, who, being +on the point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to renounce +all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure. The decision +was left to Fancy. + +"Well, I think I'd rather have it the way mother had it," she said, and +the couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid. + +"Ah!" said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, "I +wonder which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!" + +"Well, 'tis their nature," said grandfather William. "Remember the words +of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her +attire?'" + +Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a +cathedral; now through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild +hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they threaded +their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which dipped at that +point directly into the village of Geoffrey Day's parish; and in the +space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself to be Mrs. Richard +Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no other than Fancy Day +still. + +On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid much +chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, Dick +discerned a brown spot far up a turnip field. + +"Why, 'tis Enoch!" he said to Fancy. "I thought I missed him at the +house this morning. How is it he's left you?" + +"He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him in +Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody else for a +day or two, and Enoch hasn't had anything to do with the woods since." + +"We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for once, +considering 'tis our wedding day." The bridal party was ordered to halt. + +"Eno-o-o-o-ch!" cried Dick at the top of his voice. + +"Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!" said Enoch from the distance. + +"D'ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?" + +"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!" + +"Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!" + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!" + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view as if +she had been a nosegay.) + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!" + +"Ca-a-a-a-a-an't!" + +"Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?" + +"Don't work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!" + +"Not nice of Master Enoch," said Dick, as they resumed their walk. + +"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; he's +in his morning frame of mind. When he's had a gallon o' cider or ale, or +a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his manners be as good +as anybody's in the kingdom." + + + +CHAPTER II: UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + +The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's +premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous +extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of +birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of +rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; quaint tufts +of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless +families of moles and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath and +beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended grass-plot, its purpose being +to supply a healthy exercise-ground for young chickens and pheasants; the +hens, their mothers, being enclosed in coops placed upon the same green +flooring. + +All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced, +the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and the singing of +songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The +propriety of every one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy, +who, as an additional precaution in this direction, had strictly charged +her father and the tranter to carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in +their conversation, on the plea that those ancient words sounded so very +humiliating to persons of newer taste; also that they were never to be +seen drawing the back of the hand across the mouth after drinking--a +local English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to +be decidedly dying out among the better classes of society. + +In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough +knowledge of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum +Clangley,--a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants as +performers on instruments of percussion. These important members of the +assembly were relegated to a height of two or three feet from the ground, +upon a temporary erection of planks supported by barrels. Whilst the +dancing progressed the older persons sat in a group under the trunk of +the tree,--the space being allotted to them somewhat grudgingly by the +young ones, who were greedy of pirouetting room,--and fortified by a +table against the heels of the dancers. Here the gaffers and gammers, +whose dancing days were over, told stories of great impressiveness, and +at intervals surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same +retreat, as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval +engagement in the bay beyond; returning again to their tales when the +pause was over. Those of the whirling throng, who, during the rests +between each figure, turned their eyes in the direction of these seated +ones, were only able to discover, on account of the music and bustle, +that a very striking circumstance was in course of narration--denoted by +an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping of the fingers, close of the +lips, and fixed look into the centre of the listener's eye for the space +of a quarter of a minute, which raised in that listener such a +reciprocating working of face as to sometimes make the distant dancers +half wish to know what such an interesting tale could refer to. + +Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was +obtainable out of six hours' experience as a wife, in order that the +contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried young +women present might be duly impressed upon the company: occasionally +stealing glances of admiration at her left hand, but this quite +privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the matter was intended +to show that, though she undoubtedly occupied the most wondrous position +in the eyes of the world that had ever been attained, she was almost +unconscious of the circumstance, and that the somewhat prominent position +in which that wonderfully-emblazoned left hand was continually found to +be placed, when handing cups and saucers, knives, forks, and glasses, was +quite the result of accident. As to wishing to excite envy in the bosoms +of her maiden companions, by the exhibition of the shining ring, every +one was to know it was quite foreign to the dignity of such an +experienced married woman. Dick's imagination in the meantime was far +less capable of drawing so much wontedness from his new condition. He +had been for two or three hours trying to feel himself merely a newly- +married man, but had been able to get no further in the attempt than to +realize that he was Dick Dewy, the tranter's son, at a party given by +Lord Wessex's head man-in-charge, on the outlying Yalbury estate, dancing +and chatting with Fancy Day. + +Five country dances, including 'Haste to the Wedding,' two reels, and +three fragments of horn-pipes, brought them to the time for supper, +which, on account of the dampness of the grass from the immaturity of the +summer season, was spread indoors. At the conclusion of the meal Dick +went out to put the horse in; and Fancy, with the elder half of the four +bridesmaids, retired upstairs to dress for the journey to Dick's new +cottage near Mellstock. + +"How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?" Dick inquired at +the foot of the staircase. Being now a man of business and married, he +was strong on the importance of time, and doubled the emphasis of his +words in conversing, and added vigour to his nods. + +"Only a minute." + +"How long is that?" + +"Well, dear, five." + +"Ah, sonnies!" said the tranter, as Dick retired, "'tis a talent of the +female race that low numbers should stand for high, more especially in +matters of waiting, matters of age, and matters of money." + +"True, true, upon my body," said Geoffrey. + +"Ye spak with feeling, Geoffrey, seemingly." + +"Anybody that d'know my experience might guess that." + +"What's she doing now, Geoffrey?" + +"Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the +second-best chainey--a thing that's only done once a year. 'If there's +work to be done I must do it,' says she, 'wedding or no.'" + +"'Tis my belief she's a very good woman at bottom." + +"She's terrible deep, then." + +Mrs. Penny turned round. "Well, 'tis humps and hollers with the best of +us; but still and for all that, Dick and Fancy stand as fair a chance of +having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the land." + +"Ay, there's no gainsaying it." + +Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. "Happy, +yes," she said. "'Tis always so when a couple is so exactly in tune with +one another as Dick and she." + +"When they be'n't too poor to have time to sing," said grandfather James. + +"I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes," said the tranter: "when +the oldest daughter's boots be only a size less than her mother's, and +the rest o' the flock close behind her. A sharp time for a man that, my +sonnies; a very sharp time! Chanticleer's comb is a-cut then, 'a +believe." + +"That's about the form o't," said Mr. Penny. "That'll put the stuns upon +a man, when you must measure mother and daughter's lasts to tell 'em +apart." + +"You've no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a close-coming flock," said +Mrs. Dewy; "for ours was a straggling lot enough, God knows!" + +"I d'know it, I d'know it," said the tranter. "You be a well-enough +woman, Ann." + +Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back again +without smiling. + +"And if they come together, they go together," said Mrs. Penny, whose +family had been the reverse of the tranter's; "and a little money will +make either fate tolerable. And money can be made by our young couple, I +know." + +"Yes, that it can!" said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had hitherto +humbly admired the proceedings from a corner. "It can be done--all +that's wanted is a few pounds to begin with. That's all! I know a story +about it!" + +"Let's hear thy story, Leaf," said the tranter. "I never knew you were +clever enough to tell a story. Silence, all of ye! Mr. Leaf will tell a +story." + +"Tell your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William in the tone of a +schoolmaster. + +"Once," said the delighted Leaf, in an uncertain voice, "there was a man +who lived in a house! Well, this man went thinking and thinking night +and day. At last, he said to himself, as I might, 'If I had only ten +pound, I'd make a fortune.' At last by hook or by crook, behold he got +the ten pounds!" + +"Only think of that!" said Nat Callcome satirically. + +"Silence!" said the tranter. + +"Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little time he +made that ten pounds twenty. Then a little time after that he doubled +it, and made it forty. Well, he went on, and a good while after that he +made it eighty, and on to a hundred. Well, by-and-by he made it two +hundred! Well, you'd never believe it, but--he went on and made it four +hundred! He went on, and what did he do? Why, he made it eight hundred! +Yes, he did," continued Leaf, in the highest pitch of excitement, +bringing down his fist upon his knee with such force that he quivered +with the pain; "yes, and he went on and made it A THOUSAND!" + +"Hear, hear!" said the tranter. "Better than the history of England, my +sonnies!" + +"Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William; and +then Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again. + +Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his bride +took their departure, side by side in the excellent new spring-cart which +the young tranter now possessed. The moon was just over the full, +rendering any light from lamps or their own beauties quite unnecessary to +the pair. They drove slowly along Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed +between two copses. Dick was talking to his companion. + +"Fancy," he said, "why we are so happy is because there is such full +confidence between us. Ever since that time you confessed to that little +flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no flirtation at +all), I have thought how artless and good you must be to tell me o' such +a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about it as you were. It has +won me to tell you my every deed and word since then. We'll have no +secrets from each other, darling, will we ever?--no secret at all." + +"None from to-day," said Fancy. "Hark! what's that?" + +From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, +musical, and liquid voice-- + +"Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki! Come hither, come hither, come hither!" + +"O, 'tis the nightingale," murmured she, and thought of a secret she +would never tell. + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less +questionable. + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE*** + + +******* This file should be named 2662.txt or 2662.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/6/6/2662 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/2662.zip b/old/2662.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6634ce8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2662.zip diff --git a/old/ungwt10.txt b/old/ungwt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60462e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ungwt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7684 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext Under the Greenwood Tree, by Hardy +#8 in our series by Thomas Hardy + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Title: Under the Greenwood Tree + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +June, 2001 [Etext #2662] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext Under the Greenwood Tree, by Hardy +*****This file should be named ungwt10.txt or ungwt10.zip***** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ungwt11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ungwt10a.txt + + +This etext was scanned by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1912 Macmillan and Co. ("Wessex") edition. Proofing by +Margaret Price. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text +files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly +from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an +assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few +more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we +don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +We would prefer to send you this information by email. + +****** + +To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser +to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by +author and by title, and includes information about how +to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also +download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This +is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, +for a more complete list of our various sites. + +To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any +Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror +sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed +at http://promo.net/pg). + +Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. + +Example FTP session: + +ftp metalab.unc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext01, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., +GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + +*** + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** + +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure +in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand. + + + + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was scanned by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1912 Macmillan and Co. ("Wessex") edition. Proofing by +Margaret Price. + + + + + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE +or +THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE +A RURAL PAINTING OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL + + + + +PREFACE + + + +This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west- +gallery musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar +officials in Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters, and other +places, is intended to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of +the personages, ways, and customs which were common among such +orchestral bodies in the villages of fifty or sixty years ago. + +One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical +bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) +or harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of +control and accomplishment which were, no doubt, secured by +installing the single artist, the change has tended to stultify the +professed aims of the clergy, its direct result being to curtail and +extinguish the interest of parishioners in church doings. Under the +old plan, from half a dozen to ten full-grown players, in addition +to the numerous more or less grown-up singers, were officially +occupied with the Sunday routine, and concerned in trying their best +to make it an artistic outcome of the combined musical taste of the +congregation. With a musical executive limited, as it mostly is +limited now, to the parson's wife or daughter and the school- +children, or to the school-teacher and the children, an important +union of interests has disappeared. + +The zest of these bygone instrumentalists must have been keen and +staying to take them, as it did, on foot every Sunday after a +toilsome week, through all weathers, to the church, which often lay +at a distance from their homes. They usually received so little in +payment for their performances that their efforts were really a +labour of love. In the parish I had in my mind when writing the +present tale, the gratuities received yearly by the musicians at +Christmas were somewhat as follows: From the manor-house ten +shillings and a supper; from the vicar ten shillings; from the +farmers five shillings each; from each cottage-household one +shilling; amounting altogether to not more than ten shillings a head +annually--just enough, as an old executant told me, to pay for their +fiddle-strings, repairs, rosin, and music-paper (which they mostly +ruled themselves). Their music in those days was all in their own +manuscript, copied in the evenings after work, and their music-books +were home-bound. + +It was customary to inscribe a few jigs, reels, horn-pipes, and +ballads in the same book, by beginning it at the other end, the +insertions being continued from front and back till sacred and +secular met together in the middle, often with bizarre effect, the +words of some of the songs exhibiting that ancient and broad humour +which our grandfathers, and possibly grandmothers, took delight in, +and is in these days unquotable. + +The aforesaid fiddle-strings, rosin, and music-paper were supplied +by a pedlar, who travelled exclusively in such wares from parish to +parish, coming to each village about every six months. Tales are +told of the consternation once caused among the church fiddlers +when, on the occasion of their producing a new Christmas anthem, he +did not come to time, owing to being snowed up on the downs, and the +straits they were in through having to make shift with whipcord and +twine for strings. He was generally a musician himself, and +sometimes a composer in a small way, bringing his own new tunes, and +tempting each choir to adopt them for a consideration. Some of +these compositions which now lie before me, with their repetitions +of lines, half-lines, and half-words, their fugues and their +intermediate symphonies, are good singing still, though they would +hardly be admitted into such hymn-books as are popular in the +churches of fashionable society at the present time. + +August 1896. + +Under the Greenwood Tree was first brought out in the summer of 1872 +in two volumes. The name of the story was originally intended to +be, more appropriately, The Mellstock Quire, and this has been +appended as a sub-title since the early editions, it having been +thought unadvisable to displace for it the title by which the book +first became known. + +In rereading the narrative after a long interval there occurs the +inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun +were material for another kind of study of this little group of +church musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so +lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at times. But +circumstances would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more +essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date of +writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following +pages must remain the only extant one, except for the few glimpses +of that perished band which I have given in verse elsewhere. + +T. H. + +April 1912. + + + + +PART THE FIRST--WINTER + + + + +CHAPTER I: MELLSTOCK-LANE + + + +To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as +well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob +and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it +battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech +rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which +modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not +destroy its individuality. + +On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was +passing up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a +plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. +All the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit of +his footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and +by the liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural cadence: + + +"With the rose and the lily +And the daffodowndilly, +The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." + + +The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of +Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, +casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with +their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark- +creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the +sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their +flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody +pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as +the grave. The copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced +its branches so densely, even at this season of the year, that the +draught from the north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an +interruption from lateral breezes. + +After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white +surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like +a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by +temporary accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either +side. + +The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the +place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached +had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable +check, in the shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to +Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had just emerged +from the trees. + +"Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with +no idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured. + +"Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?" came from the darkness. + +"Ay, sure, Michael Mail." + +"Then why not stop for fellow-craters--going to thy own father's +house too, as we be, and knowen us so well?" + +Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, +implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a +moment's notice by the placid emotion of friendship. + +Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against +the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the +portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of +a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an +ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further +down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture him on. + +Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now +heard coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade +severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working +villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their +rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat +outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or +Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock +parish choir. + +The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his +arm, and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected +with the surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had +hallooed to Dick. + +The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, +who, though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not +come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and +his face fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, +so that his lower waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the +remainder of his figure. His features were invisible; yet when he +occasionally looked round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an +instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore +spectacles of a circular form. + +The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and +dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman's, who had now +no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally +came a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one +shoulder forward and his bead inclined to the left, his arms +dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. +This was Thomas Leaf. + +"Where be the boys?" said Dick to this somewhat indifferently- +matched assembly. + +The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a +great depth. + +"We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't +be wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on." + +"Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I +have just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to +warm my feet." + +"To be sure father did! To be sure 'a did expect us--to taste the +little barrel beyond compare that he's going to tap." + +"'Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!" said Mr. Penny, +gleams of delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick +meanwhile singing parenthetically--"The lads and the lasses a-sheep- +shearing go." + +"Neighbours, there's time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore +bedtime?" said Mail. + +"True, true--time enough to get as drunk as lords!" replied Bowman +cheerfully. + +This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the +varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking +their toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared +glimmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet +of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound +of church-bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating +over upon the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and +Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little +wicket admitted them to the garden, and they proceeded up the path +to Dick's house. + + + +CHAPTER II: THE TRANTER'S + + + +It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having +dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the +middle of the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters +were not yet closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated +forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps +outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging +about in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as +espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in later +years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered +with creepers, though these were rather beaten back from the +doorway--a feature which was worn and scratched by much passing in +and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Light +streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way +from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose +of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to +shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and +the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; +and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and +the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses +feeding within it. + +The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their +boots any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered +the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. +Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of +a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy's father +Reuben, by vocation a "tranter," or irregular carrier. He was a +stout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up +and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled +at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with +friends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes +very considerably. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, +that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching, +he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry +of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the +expected old comrades. + +The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and +other evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the +ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the +room, and extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown +person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling +his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter's wife, +and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, +graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen +to that of four years--the eldest of the series being separated from +Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval. + +Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just +previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a +small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the +human countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led +him to pause at the various points in each wail that were more than +ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general +effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the +plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the +original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her +face bearing an expression of regret that the brightness had passed +away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by +the side of the glowing wood fire--so glowing that with a heedful +compression of the lips she would now and then rise and put her hand +upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, to reassure +herself that they were not being broiled instead of smoked--a +misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas- +time. + +"Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!" said Reuben Dewy at length, +standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. "How the +blood do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, a-stooping like +that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then +carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he +held in his hand. "This in the cask here is a drop o' the right +sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a real drop o' cordial from the best +picked apples--Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such--like--you +d'mind the sort, Michael?" (Michael nodded.) "And there's a +sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard-rails--streaked +ones--rail apples we d'call 'em, as 'tis by the rails they grow, and +not knowing the right name. The water-cider from 'em is as good as +most people's best cider is." + +"Ay, and of the same make too," said Bowman. "'It rained when we +wrung it out, and the water got into it,' folk will say. But 'tis +on'y an excuse. Watered cider is too common among us." + +"Yes, yes; too common it is!" said Spinks with an inward sigh, +whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form +rather than at the scene before him. "Such poor liquor do make a +man's throat feel very melancholy--and is a disgrace to the name of +stimmilent." + +"Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes," +said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them +upon the door-mat. "I am glad that you've stepped up-along at last; +and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes's and see if you can +borrow some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don't +ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle." + +This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting +chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward +in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast +that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher. + +"Hee--hee--ay!" replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile +for some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth +remained in view as the most conspicuous members of his body. + +"Here, Mr. Penny," resumed Mrs. Dewy, "you sit in this chair. And +how's your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?" + +"Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair." He adjusted his +spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. "But she'll be worse +before she's better, 'a b'lieve." + +"Indeed--poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or +five?" + +"Five; they've buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than +a maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. +However, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it." + +Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. "Wonder where your grandfather James +is?" she inquired of one of the children. "He said he'd drop in to- +night." + +"Out in fuel-house with grandfather William," said Jimmy. + +"Now let's see what we can do," was heard spoken about this time by +the tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had +again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. + +"Reuben, don't make such a mess o' tapping that barrel as is mostly +made in this house," Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. "I'd tap a +hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling- +-and squirting job as 'tis in your hands! There, he always was such +a clumsy man indoors." + +"Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred beautiful, Ann--I know you +would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a' old +cask, and the wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of +a feller Sam Lawson--that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead +and gone, poor heart!--took me in completely upon the feat of buying +this cask. 'Reub,' says he--'a always used to call me plain Reub, +poor old heart!--'Reub,' he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, +is as good as new; yes, good as new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best +port-wine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you +shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,'--'a said, says he--'he's +worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if he's worth one; and an iron +hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth +thirty shillens of any man's money, if--'" + +"I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use +afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is +sinner enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, +so easy to be deceived." + +"That's as true as gospel of this member," said Reuben. + +Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and +refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing +little Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become +oblivious to conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting +and arrangement of some more brown paper for the broaching +operation. + +"Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a carefully- +cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of +affairs. + +"No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully +agreeing with everybody. + +"Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with +everybody as a rule, though he did now; "I knowed a' auctioneering +feller once--a very friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day +as I was walking down the front street o' Casterbridge, jist below +the King's Arms, I passed a' open winder and see him inside, stuck +upon his perch, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly +way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. +Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a +letter didn't come wi' a bill charging me with a feather--bed, +bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's sale. The +shim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded to en +in my friendly way; and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, I hold that +that was coming it very close, Reuben?" + +"'Twas close, there's no denying," said the general voice. + +"Too close, 'twas," said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. "And as +to Sam Lawson--poor heart! now he's dead and gone too!--I'll +warrant, that if so be I've spent one hour in making hoops for that +barrel, I've spent fifty, first and last. That's one of my hoops'-- +touching it with his elbow--'that's one of mine, and that, and that, +and all these." + +"Ah, Sam was a man," said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. + +"Sam was!" said Bowman. + +"Especially for a drap o' drink," said the tranter. + +"Good, but not religious--good," suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite +ready, "Now then, Suze, bring a mug," he said. "Here's luck to us, +my sonnies!" + +The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a +horizontal shower over Reuben's hands, knees, and leggings, and into +the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his +grief under pressure of more interesting proceedings, was squatting +down and blinking near his father. + +"There 'tis again!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider +should be wasted like this!" exclaimed the tranter. "Your thumb! +Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a +bigger tap, my sonnies." + +"Idd it cold inthide te hole?" inquired Charley of Michael, as he +continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. + +"What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be +sure!" Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. "I lay a +wager that he thinks more about how 'tis inside that barrel than in +all the other parts of the world put together." + +All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for +the cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. +The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose +and stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his +body would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders-- +thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of +wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the +beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals +reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively +seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon which the gaze might +precipitate itself. + +"Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?" said +the tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things--cleaving +up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass +his life between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door +and opened it. + +"Father!" + +"Ay!" rang thinly from round the corner. + +"Here's the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!" + +A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time +past, now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the +window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of +the Dewy family appeared. + + + +CHAPTER III: THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE + + + +William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; +yet an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom +upon his face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe +ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was +protected from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, +seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. +His was a humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent +melancholy; and he had a firm religious faith. But to his +neighbours he had no character in particular. If they saw him pass +by their windows when they had been bottling off old mead, or when +they had just been called long-headed men who might do anything in +the world if they chose, they thought concerning him, "Ah, there's +that good-hearted man--open as a child!" If they saw him just after +losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting fall a +piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded man +Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he +passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely +thought him old William Dewy. + +"Ah, so's--here you be!--Ah, Michael and Joseph and John--and you +too, Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood +fire directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in +cleaving 'em." As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which +fell in the chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with +something of the admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living +people who had been very obstinate in holding their own. "Come in, +grandfather James." + +Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a +visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people +considered him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now +came forward from behind grandfather William, and his stooping +figure formed a well-illuminated picture as he passed towards the +fire-place. Being by trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron +reaching almost to his toes, corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, +together with his boots, graduated in tints of whitish-brown by +constant friction against lime and stone. He also wore a very stiff +fustian coat, having folds at the elbows and shoulders as unvarying +in their arrangement as those in a pair of bellows: the ridges and +the projecting parts of the coat collectively exhibiting a shade +different from that of the hollows, which were lined with small +ditch-like accumulations of stone and mortar-dust. The extremely +large side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged out +convexly whether empty or full; and as he was often engaged to work +at buildings far away--his breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a +strange chimney-corner, by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or +walking along the road--he carried in these pockets a small tin +canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a small canister of +tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and +meat, forming the substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in +his basket among the hammers and chisels. If a passer-by looked +hard at him when he was drawing forth any of these, "My buttery," he +said, with a pinched smile. + +"Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?" +said William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a +side table. + +"Wi' all my heart," said the choir generally. + +"Number seventy-eight was always a teaser--always. I can mind him +ever since I was growing up a hard boy-chap." + +"But he's a good tune, and worth a mint o' practice," said Michael. + +"He is; though I've been mad enough wi' that tune at times to seize +en and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he's a splendid carrel--there's +no denying that." + +"The first line is well enough," said Mr. Spinks; "but when you come +to 'O, thou man,' you make a mess o't." + +"We'll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the +martel. Half-an-hour's hammering at en will conquer the toughness +of en; I'll warn it." + +"'Od rabbit it all!" said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of +his spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the +depths of a large side-pocket. "If so be I hadn't been as scatter- +brained and thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at the +schoolhouse wi' a boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me +I really can't estimate at all!" + +"The brain has its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head +ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once +kept a night-school, and always spoke up to that level. + +"Well, I must call with en the first thing tomorrow. And I'll empt +my pocket o' this last too, if you don't mind, Mrs. Dewy." He drew +forth a last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of +three or four followed it. + +"Well," said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest +the object had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and +warranted the last's being taken up again and exhibited; "now, whose +foot do ye suppose this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey +Day's father, over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o' boots +he've had off the last! Well, when 'a died, I used the last for +Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a little doctoring was wanted +to make it do. Yes, a very queer natured last it is now, 'a +b'lieve," he continued, turning it over caressingly. "Now, you +notice that there" (pointing to a lump of leather bradded to the +toe), "that's a very bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was a +boy. Now, this remarkable large piece" (pointing to a patch nailed +to the side), "shows a' accident he received by the tread of a +horse, that squashed his foot a'most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam +full-butt on this point, you see. And so I've just been over to +Geoffrey's, to know if he wanted his bunion altered or made bigger +in the new pair I'm making." + +During the hatter part of this speech, Mr. Penny's left hand +wandered towards the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection +with the person speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt +chose, all but the extreme margin of the bootmaker's face was +eclipsed by the circular brim of the vessel. + +"However, I was going to say," continued Penny, putting down the +cup, "I ought to have called at the school'--here he went groping +again in the depths of his pocket--'to leave this without fail, +though I suppose the first thing to-morrow will do." + +He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot--small, light, +and prettily shaped--upon the heel of which he had been operating. + +"The new schoolmistress's!" + +"Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever +I see, and just husband-high." + +"Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances +present converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of +them. + +"Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone +were his auditor; "'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. You +knowed his daughter was in training?" + +"Strange, isn't it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master +Penny?" + +"Yes; but here she is, 'a b'lieve." + +"I know how she comes here--so I do!" chirruped one of the children. + +"Why?" Dick inquired, with subtle interest. + +"Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all to-morrow at +the dinner, and he talked o' getting her jist to come over and help +him hand about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; +and that's what she's come for!" + +"And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, +"that she'll walk to church in tomorrow morning. I don't care to +mend boots I don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, +and her father always comes to me." + +There, between the cider--mug and the candle, stood this interesting +receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it +was. A character, in fact--the flexible bend at the instep, the +rounded localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from +careless scampers now forgotten--all, as repeated in the tell-tale +leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a +delicate feeling that he had no right to do so without having first +asked the owner of the foot's permission. + +"Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker, +went on, "a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot +and that last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one +of God's creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get +for ten-and-sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but 'tis +father's voot and daughter's voot to me, as plain as houses." + +"I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Penny--a mild likeness--a +fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But _I_ han't got imagination +enough to see it, perhaps." + +Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. + +"Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You +used to know Johnson the dairyman, William?" + +"Ay, sure; I did." + +"Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower down--by his +paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards +Bloom's End,--and ho and behold, there was a man just brought out o' +the Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to +pitch it just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at +en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He +was covered wi' a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just +showing out as they carried en along. 'I don't care what name that +man went by,' I said, in my way, 'but he's John Woodward's brother; +I can swear to the family voot.' At that very moment up comes John +Woodward, weeping and teaving, 'I've lost my brother! I've lost my +brother!'" + +"Only to think of that!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"'Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot," said Mr. Spinks. +"'Tis long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, +'tis true--I say no more; but show ME a man's foot, and I'll tell +you that man's heart." + +"You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral," said +the tranter. + +"Well, that's nothing for me to speak of," returned Mr. Spinks. "A +man hives and learns. Maybe I've read a leaf or two in my time. I +don't wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe +I have." + +"Yes, I know," said Michael soothingly, "and all the parish knows, +that ye've read sommat of everything a'most, and have been a great +filler of young folks' brains. Learning's a worthy thing, and ye've +got it, Master Spinks." + +"I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I +know--it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast--that by the +time a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep +underground. I am over forty-five." + +Mr. Spinks emitted a hook to signify that if his head was not +finished, nobody's head ever could be. + +"Talk of knowing people by their feet!" said Reuben. "Rot me, my +sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is from all his members put +together, oftentimes." + +"But still, look is a good deal," observed grandfather William +absently, moving and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather +James's nose was exactly in a right line with William's eye and the +mouth of a miniature cavern he was discerning in the fire. "By the +way," he continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, "that young +crater, the schoolmis'ess, must be sung to to-night wi' the rest? +If her ear is as fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be +up-sides with her." + +"What about her face?" said young Dewy. + +"Well, as to that," Mr. Spinks replied, "'tis a face you can hardly +gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only +a face, when all is said and done." + +"Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a pretty maid, and have done +wi' her," said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider- +barrel. + + + +CHAPTER IV: GOING THE ROUNDS + + + +Shortly after ten o'clock the singing-boys arrived at the tranter's +house, which was invariably the place of meeting, and preparations +were made for the start. The older men and musicians wore thick +coats, with stiff perpendicular collars, and coloured handkerchiefs +wound round and round the neck till the end came to hand, over all +which they just showed their ears and noses, like people looking +over a wall. The remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, were +dressed mainly in snow-white smock-frocks, embroidered upon the +shoulders and breasts, in ornamental forms of hearts, diamonds, and +zigzags. The cider-mug was emptied for the ninth time, the music- +books were arranged, and the pieces finally decided upon. The boys +in the meantime put the old horn-lanterns in order, cut candles into +short lengths to fit the lanterns; and, a thin fleece of snow having +fallen since the early part of the evening, those who had no +leggings went to the stable and wound wisps of hay round their +ankles to keep the insidious flakes from the interior of their +boots. + +Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets +composing it lying at a much greater distance from each other than +is ordinarily the case. Hence several hours were consumed in +playing and singing within hearing of every family, even if but a +single air were bestowed on each. There was Lower Mellstock, the +main village; half a mile from this were the church and vicarage, +and a few other houses, the spot being rather lonely now, though in +past centuries it had been the most thickly-populated quarter of the +parish. A mile north-east hay the hamlet of Upper Mellstock, where +the tranter lived; and at other points knots of cottages, besides +solitary farmsteads and dairies. + +Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his +grandson Dick the treble violin; and Reuben and Michael Mail the +tenor and second violins respectively. The singers consisted of +four men and seven boys, upon whom devolved the task of carrying and +attending to the lanterns, and holding the books open for the +players. Directly music was the theme, old William ever and +instinctively came to the front. + +"Now mind, neighbours," he said, as they all went out one by one at +the door, he himself holding it ajar and regarding them with a +critical face as they passed, like a shepherd counting out his +sheep. "You two counter-boys, keep your ears open to Michael's +fingering, and don't ye go straying into the treble part along o' +Dick and his set, as ye did last year; and mind this especially when +we be in "Arise, and hail." Billy Chimlen, don't you sing quite so +raving mad as you fain would; and, all o' ye, whatever ye do, keep +from making a great scuffle on the ground when we go in at people's +gates; but go quietly, so as to strike up all of a sudden, like +spirits." + +"Farmer Ledlow's first?" + +"Farmer Ledlow's first; the rest as usual." + +"And, Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house here +till about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the +warmer you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi' the +victuals to church-hatch, as th'st know." + + +Just before the chock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and +started. The moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the +snowstorm; but the dense accumulation of snow-cloud weakened her +power to a faint twilight, which was rather pervasive of the +landscape than traceable to the sky. The breeze had gone down, and +the rustle of their feet and tones of their speech echoed with an +alert rebound from every post, boundary-stone, and ancient wall they +passed, even where the distance of the echo's origin was less than a +few yards. Beyond their own slight noises nothing was to be heard, +save the occasional bark of foxes in the direction of Yalbury Wood, +or the brush of a rabbit among the grass now and then, as it +scampered out of their way. + +Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by +about two o'clock; they then passed across the outskirts of a wooded +park toward the main village, nobody being at home at the Manor. +Pursuing no recognized track, great care was necessary in walking +lest their faces should come in contact with the low-hanging boughs +of the old lime-trees, which in many spots formed dense over-growths +of interlaced branches. + +"Times have changed from the times they used to be," said Mail, +regarding nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an +inward eye, and letting his outward glance rest on the ground, +because it was as convenient a position as any. "People don't care +much about us now! I've been thinking we must be almost the last +left in the county of the old string players? Barrel-organs, and +the things next door to 'em that you blow wi' your foot, have come +in terribly of late years." + +"Ay!" said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, +did the same thing. + +"More's the pity," replied another. "Time was--long and merry ago +now!--when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served +some of the quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we +did, and kept out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd +thrive in musical religion, stick to strings, says I." + +"Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go," said Mr. +Spinks. + +"Yet there's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny. "Old +things pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a +deep rich note was the serpent." + +"Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said Michael Mail. "One +Christmas--years agone now, years--I went the rounds wi' the +Weatherbury quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all +the clar'nets froze--ah, they did freeze!--so that 'twas like +drawing a cork every time a key was opened; and the players o' 'em +had to go into a hedger-and-ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw their +clar'nets every now and then. An icicle o' spet hung down from the +end of every man's clar'net a span long; and as to fingers--well, +there, if ye'll believe me, we bad no fingers at all, to our +knowing." + +"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what I said to +poor Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church +for two-and-forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. +"Joseph," I said, says I, "depend upon't, if so be you have them +tooting clar'nets you'll spoil the whole set-out. Clar'nets were +not made for the service of the Lard; you can see it by looking at +'em," I said. And what came o't? Why, souls, the parson set up a +barrel-organ on his own account within two years o' the time I +spoke, and the old quire went to nothing." + +"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my +part see that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net. 'Tis +further off. There's always a rakish, scampish twist about a +fiddle's looks that seems to say the Wicked One had a hand in making +o'en; while angels be supposed to play clar'nets in heaven, or +som'at like 'em, if ye may believe picters." + +"Robert Penny, you was in the right," broke in the eldest Dewy. +"They should ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog- +-well and good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye--well and +good; your drum-man is a rare bowel-shaker--good again. But I don't +care who hears me say it, nothing will spak to your heart wi' the +sweetness o' the man of strings!" + +"Strings for ever!" said little Jimmy. + +"Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new +comers in creation." ("True, true!" said Bowman.) "But clarinets +was death." ("Death they was!" said Mr. Penny.) "And harmonions," +William continued in a louder voice, and getting excited by these +signs of approval, "harmonions and barrel-organs" ("Ah!" and groans +from Spinks) "be miserable--what shall I call 'em?--miserable--" + +"Sinners," suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and +did not lag behind like the other little boys. + +"Miserable dumbledores!" + +"Right, William, and so they be--miserable dumbledores!" said the +choir with unanimity. + +By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the +school, which, standing on a slight eminence at the junction of +three ways, now rose in unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. +The instruments were retuned, and all the band entered the school +enclosure, enjoined by old William to keep upon the grass. + +"Number seventy-eight," he softly gave out as they formed round in a +semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer light, +and directing their rays on the books. + +Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time-worn +hymn, embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted +from father to son through several generations down to the present +characters, who sang them out right earnestly: + + +"Remember Adam's fall, +O thou Man: +Remember Adam's fall +From Heaven to Hell. +Remember Adam's fall +How he hath condemn'd all +In Hell perpetual +There for to dwell. + +Remember God's goodnesse, +O thou Man: +Remember God's goodnesse, +His promise made. +Remember God's goodnesse; +He sent His Son sinlesse +Our ails for to redress; +Be not afraid + +In Bethlehem He was born, +O thou Man: +In Bethlehem He was born, +For mankind's sake. + +In Bethlehem He was born, +Christmas-day i' the morn: +Our Saviour thought no scorn +Our faults to take. + +Give thanks to God alway, +O thou Man: +Give thanks to God alway +With heart-most joy. +Give thanks to God alway +On this our joyful day: +Let all men sing and say, +Holy, Holy!" + + +Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, +but found that no sound issued from the schoolhouse. + +"Four breaths, and then, "O, what unbounded goodness!" number fifty- +nine," said William. + +This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be +taken of the performance. + +"Good guide us, surely 'tisn't a' empty house, as befell us in the +year thirty-nine and forty-three!" said old Dewy. + +"Perhaps she's jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our +doings?" the tranter whispered. + +"'Od rabbit her!" said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a +corner of the school chimney, "I don't quite stomach her, if this is +it. Your plain music well done is as worthy as your other sort done +bad, a' b'lieve, souls; so say I." + +"Four breaths, and then the last," said the leader authoritatively. +"'Rejoice, ye Tenants of the Earth,' number sixty-four." + +At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud +voice, as he had said in the village at that hour and season for the +previous forty years--"A merry Christmas to ye!" + + + +CHAPTER V: THE LISTENERS + + + +When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had +nearly died out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible +in one of the windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the +blind that the exact position of the flame could be perceived from +the outside. Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went upward +from before it, revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, +framed as a picture by the window architrave, and unconsciously +illuminating her countenance to a vivid brightness by a candle she +held in her left hand, close to her face, her right hand being +extended to the side of the window. She was wrapped in a white robe +of some kind, whilst down her shoulders fell a twining profusion of +marvellously rich hair, in a wild disorder which proclaimed it to be +only during the invisible hours of the night that such a condition +was discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into the grey world +outside with an uncertain expression, oscillating between courage +and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group of dark +forms gathered before her, transformed itself into pheasant +resolution. + +Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly--"Thank you, +singers, thank you!" + +Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started +downward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyes +vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. +Then the spot of candlelight shone nebulously as before; then it +moved away. + +"How pretty!" exclaimed Dick Dewy. + +"If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't ha' been comelier," said +Michael Mail. + +"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see!" said +tranter Dewy. + +"O, sich I never, never see!" said Leaf fervently. + +All the rest, after clearing their threats and adjusting their hats, +agreed that such a sight was worth singing for. + +"Now to Farmer Shiner's, and then replenish our insides, father?" +said the tranter. + +"Wi' all my heart," said old William, shouldering his bass-viol. + +Farmer Shiner's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner +of a lane that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper +windows were much wider than they were high, and this feature, +together with a broad bay-window where the door might have been +expected, gave it by day the aspect of a human countenance turned +askance, and wearing a sly and wicked leer. To-night nothing was +visible but the outline of the roof upon the sky. + +The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries +arranged as usual. + +"Four breaths, and number thirty-two, 'Behold the Morning Star,'" +said old William. + +They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were +doing the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening +chord of the third verse, when, without a light appearing or any +signal being given, a roaring voice exclaimed - + +"Shut up, woll 'ee! Don't make your blaring row here! A feller wi' +a headache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!" + +Slam went the window. + +"Hullo, that's a' ugly blow for we!" said the tranter, in a keenly +appreciative voice, and turning to his companions. + +"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!" commanded old +William; and they continued to the end. + +"Four breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it +him well; the quire can't be insulted in this manner!" + +A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the +farmer stood revealed as one in a terrific passion. + +"Drown en!--drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. +"Play fortissimy, and drown his spaking!" + +"Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so +loud that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was +saying, or was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body +about in the forms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough +invectives to consign the whole parish to perdition. + +"Very onseemly--very!" said old William, as they retired. "Never +such a dreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel practice-- +never! And he a churchwarden!" + +"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. "Man's +well enough when he's in his religious frame. He's in his worldly +frame now. Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrow night, I +suppose, and so put en in humour again. We bear no mortal man ill- +will." + +They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path +beside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with +the hot mead and bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the +churchyard. This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding +further, and they entered the church and ascended to the gallery. +The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat round against the +walls on benches and whatever else was available, and made a hearty +meal. In the pauses of conversation there could be heard through +the floor overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the +halting clockwork, which never spread further than the tower they +were born in, and raised in the more meditative minds a fancy that +here hay the direct pathway of Time. + +Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, +and once more the party emerged into the night air. + +"Where's Dick?" said old Dewy. + +Every man hooked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have +been transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they +didn't know. + +"Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I +do," said Michael Mail. + +"He've clinked off home-along, depend upon't," another suggested, +though not quite believing that he had. + +"Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth +among the yews. + +He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an +answer, and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage. + +"The treble man too! Now if he'd been a tenor or counter chap, we +might ha' contrived the rest o't without en, you see. But for a +quire to lose the treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your +. . . " The tranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough +for the occasion. + +"Your head at once," suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to +complete sentences when there were more pressing things to be done. + +"Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half +done and turning tail like this!" + +"Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last +man in the world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of +him. + +"I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the had!" said his +grandfather. + +"O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he's put that +there fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and +good words besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that +instrument will be unglued and spoilt in ten minutes--ten! ay, two." + +"What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old +William, more uneasily. "Perhaps he's drownded!" + +"Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced +their steps along the waterside track. "A strapping lad like Dick +d'know better than let anything happen onawares," Reuben remarked. +"There's sure to be some poor little scram reason for't staring us +in the face all the while." He lowered his voice to a mysterious +tone: 'Neighbours, have ye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in +his head, or suchlike?" + +"Not a glimmer of such a body. He's as clear as water yet." + +"And Dicky said he should never marry," cried Jimmy, "but live at +home always along wi' mother and we!" + +"Ay, ay, my sonny; every had has said that in his time." + +They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner's, but +hearing nobody in that direction, one or two went across to the +schoolhouse. A light was still burning in the bedroom, and though +the blind was down, the window had been slightly opened, as if to +admit the distant notes of the carollers to the ears of the occupant +of the room. + +Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was +the lost man, his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed +upon the illuminated lattice. + +"Why, Dick, is that thee? What b'st doing here?" + +Dick's body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his +head was seen to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring +to discern some proper answer to that question; and at last he said +in rather feeble accents--"Nothing, father." + +"Th'st take long enough time about it then, upon my body," said the +tranter, as they all turned anew towards the vicarage. + +"I thought you hadn't done having snap in the gallery," said Dick. + +"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, +and thinking you'd done fifty deathly things, and here have you been +at nothing at all!" + +"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," +murmured Mr. Spinks. + +The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. +Maybold, the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of +the night's harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his +profession he would have been led to open the window, and an extra +carol in quick time was added to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold +made no stir. + +"A bad sign!" said old William, shaking his head. + +However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming +from inner depths of bedclothes--"Thanks, villagers!" + +"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. +Bowman's voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar +within. + +"I said, 'Thanks, villagers!'" cried the vicar again. + +"Oh, we didn't hear 'ee the first time!" cried Bowman. + +"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by +answering like that!" said the tranter. + +"You won't do that, my friends!" the vicar shouted. + +"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats +any horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign +he's a proper clever chap." + +"We shall see that in time," said the tranter. + +Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively +new inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but +renounced his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be +best to leave well alone. + +"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they +went their way over the hill, and across to the last remaining +houses; "that is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed +just now, and this young tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she'll +wind en round her finger, and twist the pore young feller about like +the figure of 8--that she will so, my sonnies." + + + +CHAPTER VI: CHRISTMAS MORNING + + + +The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the +parish. Dick's slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining +for rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon +the incidents that had passed that night in connection with the +school-window going on in his brain every moment of the time. + +In the morning, do what he would--go upstairs, downstairs, out of +doors, speak of the wind and weather, or what not--he could not +refrain from an unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that +interesting enactment. Tilted on the edge of one foot he stood +beside the fireplace, watching his mother grilling rashers; but +there was nothing in grilling, he thought, unless the Vision +grilled. The limp rasher hung down between the bars of the gridiron +like a cat in a child's arms; but there was nothing in similes, +unless She uttered them. He looked at the daylight shadows of a +yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the +whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. +"Perhaps the new young wom--sch--Miss Fancy Day will sing in church +with us this morning," he said. + +The tranter looked a long time before he replied, "I fancy she will; +and yet I fancy she won't." + +Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than +admired; though deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a +rule, more to do with the machinery of the tranter's throat than +with the matter enunciated. + +They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with +extreme alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was +so religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his +best light boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an +art. Every particle and speck of last week's mud was scraped and +brushed from toe and heel; new blacking from the packet was +carefully mixed and made use of, regardless of expense. A coat was +laid on and polished; then another coat for increased blackness; and +lastly a third, to give the perfect and mirror-like jet which the +hoped-for rencounter demanded. + +It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday +particularity. Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to +proceed from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming +that he was there performing his great Sunday wash, lasting half-an- +hour, to which his washings on working-day mornings were mere +flashes in the pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown +towel, and the above-named bubblings and snortings being carried on +for about twenty minutes, the tranter would appear round the edge of +the door, smelling like a summer fog, and looking as if he had just +narrowly escaped a watery grave with the loss of much of his +clothes, having since been weeping bitterly till his eyes were red; +a crystal drop of water hanging ornamentally at the bottom of each +ear, one at the tip of his nose, and others in the form of spangles +about his hair. + +After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the +feet of father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these +preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, +and the strings examined and screwed a little above concert-pitch, +that they might keep their tone when the service began, to obviate +the awkward contingency of having to retune them at the back of the +gallery during a cough, sneeze, or amen--an inconvenience which had +been known to arise in damp wintry weather. + +The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the +ewe-lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded green- +baize bags, and old brown music-books in their hands; Dick +continually finding himself in advance of the other two, and the +tranter moving on with toes turned outwards to an enormous angle. + +At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the +north gate, or 'church hatch,' as it was called here. Seven agile +figures in a clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the +choristers waiting; sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and +letting their heels dangle against it. The musicians being now in +sight, the youthful party scampered off and rattled up the old +wooden stairs of the gallery like a regiment of cavalry; the other +boys of the parish waiting outside and observing birds, cats, and +other creatures till the vicar entered, when they suddenly subsided +into sober church-goers, and passed down the aisle with echoing +heels. + +The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its +own. A stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether +differing from that of the congregation below towards him. Banished +from the nave as an intruder whom no originality could make +interesting, he was received above as a curiosity that no unfitness +could render dull. The gallery, too, looked down upon and knew the +habits of the nave to its remotest peculiarity, and had an extensive +stock of exclusive information about it; whilst the nave knew +nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk, beyond their loud- +sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that the clerk was +always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying amen; that he +had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon certain young +daughters of the village had left off caring to read anything so +mild as the marriage service for some years, and now regularly +studied the one which chronologically follows it; that a pair of +lovers touched fingers through a knot-hole between their pews in the +manner ordained by their great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that +Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer's wife, counted her money and reckoned her +week's marketing expenses during the first lesson--all news to those +below--were stale subjects here. + +Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello +between his knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the +left, came the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter +and the tenors. Farther back was old Mail with the altos and +supernumeraries. + +But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were +standing in a circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm +or two, Dick cast his eyes over his grandfather's shoulder, and saw +the vision of the past night enter the porch-door as methodically as +if she had never been a vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed +suddenly to be puffed into the ancient edifice by her movement, +which made Dick's body and soul tingle with novel sensations. +Directed by Shiner, the churchwarden, she proceeded to the small +aisle on the north side of the chancel, a spot now allotted to a +throng of Sunday-school girls, and distinctly visible from the +gallery-front by looking under the curve of the furthermost arch on +that side. + +Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty--now it +was thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked +around her for a permanent place in which to deposit herself-- +finally choosing the remotest corner--Dick began to breathe more +freely the warm new air she had brought with her; to feel rushings +of blood, and to have impressions that there was a tie between her +and himself visible to all the congregation. + +Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part +of the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling +occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the +duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the +services of other times. The tunes they that morning essayed +remained with him for years, apart from all others; also the text; +also the appearance of the layer of dust upon the capitals of the +piers; that the holly-bough in the chancel archway was hung a little +out of the centre--all the ideas, in short, that creep into the mind +when reason is only exercising its lowest activity through the eye. + +By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock +Church on that Christmas morning had towards the end of the service +the same instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the +shape of the same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far +less developed stage. And there was this difference, too, that the +person in question was surprised at his condition, and sedulously +endeavoured to reduce himself to his normal state of mind. He was +the young vicar, Mr. Maybold. + +The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of +church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the +heavy exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and +now, in addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in +the atmosphere that still further aggravated the evil. Their +strings, from the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole +semitones, and snapped with a loud twang at the most silent moment; +which necessitated more retiring than ever to the back of the +gallery, and made the gallery throats quite husky with the quantity +of coughing and hemming required for tuning in. The vicar looked +cross. + +When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be +a strong and shrill reinforcement from some point, ultimately found +to be the school-girls' aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and +more distinct. At the third time of singing, these intrusive +feminine voices were as mighty as those of the regular singers; in +fact, the flood of sound from this quarter assumed such an +individuality, that it had a time, a key, almost a tune of its own, +surging upwards when the gallery plunged downwards, and the reverse. + +Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The +girls, like the rest of the congregation, had always been humble and +respectful followers of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if +without gallery leaders; never interfering with the ordinances of +these practised artists--having no will, union, power, or proclivity +except it was given them from the established choir enthroned above +them. + +A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats +and strings, which continued throughout the musical portion of the +service. Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny's +spectacles put in their sheath, and the text had been given out, an +indignant whispering began. + +"Did ye hear that, souls?" Mr. Penny said, in a groaning breath. + +"Brazen-faced hussies!" said Bowman. + +"True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if +not louder!" + +"Fiddles and all!" echoed Bowman bitterly. + +"Shall anything saucier be found than united 'ooman?" Mr. Spinks +murmured. + +"What I want to know is," said the tranter (as if he knew already, +but that civilization required the form of words), "what business +people have to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in +a gallery, and never have entered one in their lives? That's the +question, my sonnies." + +"'Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows," said Mr. +Penny. "Why, souls, what's the use o' the ancients spending scores +of pounds to build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of +the church sing like that at a moment's notice?" + +"Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, +fiddles and all!" said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a +stranger, would have sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body +of men he addressed could understand the horrible bitterness of +irony that lurked under the quiet words 'useless ones,' and the +ghastliness of the laughter apparently so natural. + +"Never mind! Let 'em sing too--'twill make it all the louder--hee, +hee!" said Leaf. + +"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?" +said grandfather William sternly. + +The quailing Leaf tried to leek as if he had lived nowhere at all. + +"When all's said and done, my sonnies," Reuben said, "there'd have +been no real harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear 'em, +and only jined in now and then." + +"None at all," said Mr. Penny. "But though I don't wish to accuse +people wrongfully, I'd say before my lord judge that I could hear +every note o' that last psalm come from 'em as much as from us-- +every note as if 'twas their own." + +"Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!" Mr. Spinks was heard +to observe at this moment, without reference to his fellow players-- +shaking his head at some idea he seemed to see floating before him, +and smiling as if he were attending a funeral at the time. "Ah, do +I or don't I know it!" + +No one said "Know what?" because all were aware from experience that +what he knew would declare itself in process of time. + +"I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi' that +young man," said the tranter, pending the continuance of Spinks's +speech, and looking towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the +pulpit. + +"_I_ fancy," said old William, rather severely, "I fancy there's too +much whispering going on to be of any spiritual use to gentle or +simple." Then folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the +vicar, he implied that none but the ignorant would speak again; and +accordingly there was silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks's telling +speech remaining for ever unspoken. + +Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of +the morning; for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as her +intention to invite the youthful leader of the culprits to the small +party it was customary with them to have on Christmas night--a piece +of knowledge which had given a particular brightness to Dick's +reflections since he had received it. And in the tranter's +slightly-cynical nature, party feeling was weaker than in the other +members of the choir, though friendliness and faithful partnership +still sustained in him a hearty earnestness on their account. + + + +CHAPTER VII: THE TRANTER'S PARTY + + + +During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the +precincts of tranter Dewy's house. The flagstone floor was swept of +dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost +stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then +were produced large knives and forks, which had been shrouded in +darkness and grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing +upon their sides, "Shear-steel, warranted," in such emphatic letters +of assurance, that the warranter's name was not required as further +proof, and not given. The key was left in the tap of the cider- +barrel, instead of being carried in a pocket. And finally the +tranter had to stand up in the room and let his wife wheel him round +like a turnstile, to see if anything discreditable was visible in +his appearance. + +"Stand still till I've been for the scissors," said Mrs. Dewy. + +The tranter stood as still as a sentinel at the challenge. + +The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers +that had extended beyond the general contour of the mass; a like +trimming of a slightly-frayed edge visible on his shirt-collar; and +a final tug at a grey hair--to all of which operations he submitted +in resigned silence, except the last, which produced a mild "Come, +come, Ann," by way of expostulation. + +"Really, Reuben, 'tis quite a disgrace to see such a man," said Mrs. +Dewy, with the severity justifiable in a long-tried companion, +giving him another turn round, and picking several of Smiler's hairs +from the shoulder of his coat. Reuben's thoughts seemed engaged +elsewhere, and he yawned. "And the cellar of your coat is a shame +to behold--so plastered with dirt, or dust, or grease, or something. +Why, wherever could you have got it?" + +"'Tis my warm nater in summer-time, I suppose. I always did get in +such a heat when I bustle about." + +"Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarse-skinned family. There's +your brother Bob just as bad--as fat as a porpoise--wi' his how, +mean, "How'st do, Ann?" whenever he meets me. I'd "How'st do" him +indeed! If the sun only shines out a minute, there be you all +streaming in the face--I never see!" + +"If I be hot week-days, I must be hot Sundays." + +"If any of the girls should turn after their father 'twill be a bad +look-out for 'em, poor things! None of my family were sich vulgar +sweaters, not one of 'em. But, Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don't +know how ever I cam' into such a family!" + +"Your woman's weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That's how it +was I suppose." But the tranter appeared to have heard some such +words from his wife before, and hence his answer had not the energy +it might have shown if the inquiry had possessed the charm of +novelty. + +"You never did hook so well in a pair o' trousers as in them," she +continued in the same unimpassioned voice, so that the unfriendly +criticism of the Dewy family seemed to have been mere normal than +spontaneous. "Such a cheap pair as 'twas too. As big as any man +could wish to have, and lined inside, and double-lined in the lower +parts, and an extra piece of stiffening at the bottom. And 'tis a +nice high cut that comes up right under your armpits, and there's +enough turned down inside the seams to make half a pair more, +besides a piece of cloth heft that will make an honest waistcoat-- +all by my contriving in buying the stuff at a bargain, and having it +made up under my eye. It only shows what may be done by taking a +little trouble, and not going straight to the rascally tailors." + +The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on +the scene, with a face and hands of hideous blackness, and a nose +like a guttering candle. Why, on that particularly cleanly +afternoon, he should have discovered that the chimney-crook and +chain from which the hams were suspended should have possessed more +merits and general interest as playthings than any other articles in +the house, is a question for nursing mothers to decide. However, +the humour seemed to lie in the result being, as has been seen, that +any given player with these articles was in the long-run daubed with +soot. The last that was seen of Charley by daylight after this +piece of ingenuity was when in the act of vanishing from his +father's presence round the corner of the house--looking back over +his shoulder with an expression of great sin on his face, like Cain +as the Outcast in Bible pictures. + + +The guests had all assembled, and the tranter's party had reached +that degree of development which accords with ten o'clock P.M. in +rural assemblies. At that hour the sound of a fiddle in process of +tuning was heard from the inner pantry. + +"That's Dick," said the tranter. "That lad's crazy for a jig." + +"Dick! Now I cannot--really, I cannot have any dancing at all till +Christmas-day is out," said old William emphatically. "When the +clock ha' done striking twelve, dance as much as ye like." + +"Well, I must say there's reason in that, William," said Mrs. Penny. +"If you do have a party on Christmas-night, 'tis only fair and +honourable to the sky-folk to have it a sit-still party. Jigging +parties be all very well on the Devil's holidays; but a jigging +party looks suspicious now. O yes; stop till the chock strikes, +young folk--so say I." + +It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks's +head about this time. + +"Dancing," he said, "is a most strengthening, livening, and courting +movement, 'specially with a little beverage added! And dancing is +good. But why disturb what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the +company zhinerally? Why, I ask, as far as that do go?" + +"Then nothing till after twelve," said William. + +Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious +questions were mostly disposed of by the old man, whose firmness on +this head quite counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling +of domestic matters. The hopes of the younger members of the +household were therefore relegated to a distance of one hour and +three-quarters--a result that took visible shape in them by a remote +and listless look about the eyes--the singing of songs being +permitted in the interim. + +At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the +back quarters; and when at length the clock had whizzed forth the +last stroke, Dick appeared ready primed, and the instruments were +boldly handled; old William very readily taking the bass-viol from +its accustomed nail, and touching the strings as irreligiously as +could be desired. + +The country-dance called the 'Triumph, or Follow my Lover,' was the +figure with which they opened. The tranter took for his partner +Mrs. Penny, and Mrs. Dewy was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much +of his limited height by a judicious carriage of the head, +straightening of the back, and important flashes of his spectacle- +glasses, that he seemed almost as tall as the tranter. Mr. Shiner, +age about thirty-five, farmer and church-warden, a character +principally composed of a crimson stare, vigorous breath, and a +watch-chain, with a mouth hanging on a dark smile but never smiling, +had come quite willingly to the party, and showed a wondrous +obliviousness of all his antics on the previous night. But the +comely, slender, prettily-dressed prize Fancy Day fell to Dick's +hot, in spite of some private machinations of the farmer, for the +reason that Mr. Shiner, as a richer man, had shown too much +assurance in asking the favour, whilst Dick had been duly courteous. + +We gain a good view of our heroine as she advances to her place in +the ladies' line. She belonged to the taller division of middle +height. Flexibility was her first characteristic, by which she +appeared to enjoy the most easeful rest when she was in gliding +motion. Her dark eyes--arched by brows of so keen, slender, and +soft a curve, that they resembled nothing so much as two slurs in +music--showed primarily a bright sparkle each. This was softened by +a frequent thoughtfulness, yet not so frequent as to do away, for +more than a few minutes at a time, with a certain coquettishness; +which in its turn was never so decided as to banish honesty. Her +lips imitated her brows in their clearly-cut outline and softness of +bend; and her nose was well shaped--which is saying a great deal, +when it is remembered that there are a hundred pretty mouths and +eyes for one pretty nose. Add to this, plentiful knots of dark- +brown hair, a gauzy dress of white, with blue facings; and the +slightest idea may be gained of the young maiden who showed, amidst +the rest of the dancing-ladies, like a flower among vegetables. And +so the dance proceeded. Mr. Shiner, according to the interesting +rule laid down, deserted his own partner, and made off down the +middle with this fair one of Dick's--the pair appearing from the top +of the room like two persons tripping down a lane to be married. +Dick trotted behind with what was intended to be a look of +composure, but which was, in fact, a rather silly expression of +feature--implying, with too much earnestness, that such an elopement +could not be tolerated. Then they turned and came back, when Dick +grew more rigid around his mouth, and blushed with ingenuous ardour +as he joined hands with the rival and formed the arch over his +lady's head; which presumably gave the figure its name; +relinquishing her again at setting to partners, when Mr. Shiner's +new chain quivered in every link, and all the loose flesh upon the +tranter--who here came into action again--shook like jelly. Mrs. +Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal safety when +she danced with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic smile of +timidity the whole time it hasted--a peculiarity which filled her +features with wrinkles, and reduced her eyes to little straight +lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down opposite him; +repeating in her own person not only his proper movements, but also +the minor flourishes which the richness of the tranter's imagination +led him to introduce from time to time--an imitation which had about +it something of slavish obedience, not unmixed with fear. + +The ear-rings of the ladies now flung themselves wildly about, +turning violent summersaults, banging this way and that, and then +swinging quietly against the ears sustaining them. Mrs. Crumpler--a +heavy woman, who, for some reason which nobody ever thought worth +inquiry, danced in a clean apron--moved so smoothly through the +figure that her feet were never seen; conveying to imaginative minds +the idea that she rolled on castors. + +Minute after minute glided by, and the party reached the period when +ladies' back-hair begins to look forgotten and dissipated; when a +perceptible dampness makes itself apparent upon the faces even of +delicate girls--a ghastly dew having for some time rained from the +features of their masculine partners; when skirts begin to be torn +out of their gathers; when elderly people, who have stood up to +please their juniors, begin to feel sundry small tremblings in the +region of the knees, and to wish the interminable dance was at +Jericho; when (at country parties of the thorough sort)waistcoats +begin to be unbuttoned, and when the fiddlers' chairs have been +wriggled, by the frantic bowing of their occupiers, to a distance of +about two feet from where they originally stood. + +Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shiner. Dick knew that Fancy, by the law +of good manners, was bound to dance as pleasantly with one partner +as with another; yet he could not help suggesting to himself that +she need not have put QUITE so much spirit into her steps, nor +smiled QUITE so frequently whilst in the farmer's hands. + +"I'm afraid you didn't cast off," said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, +before the latter man's watch-chain had done vibrating from a recent +whirl. + +Fancy made a motion of accepting the correction; but her partner +took no notice, and proceeded with the next movement, with an +affectionate bend towards her. + +"That Shiner's too fond of her," the young man said to himself as he +watched them. They came to the top again, Fancy smiling warmly +towards her partner, and went to their places. + +"Mr. Shiner, you didn't cast off," said Dick, for want of something +else to demolish him with; casting off himself, and being put out at +the farmer's irregularity. + +"Perhaps I sha'n't cast off for any man," said Mr. Shiner. + +"I think you ought to, sir." + +Dick's partner, a young lady of the name of Lizzy--called Lizz for +short--tried to mollify. + +"I can't say that I myself have much feeling for casting off," she +said. + +"Nor I," said Mrs. Penny, following up the argument, "especially if +a friend and neighbour is set against it. Not but that 'tis a +terrible tasty thing in good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so +say I." + +"All I meant was," said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken +correctingly to a guest, "that 'tis in the dance; and a man has +hardly any right to hack and mangle what was ordained by the regular +dance-maker, who, I daresay, got his living by making 'em, and +thought of nothing else all his life." + +"I don't like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no dance- +maker that ever lived." + +Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being +really an effort to present to himself, in an abstract form, how far +an argument with a formidable rival ought to be carried, when that +rival was his mother's guest. The dead-lock was put an end to by +the stamping arrival up the middle of the tranter, who, despising +minutiae on principle, started a theme of his own. + +"I assure you, neighbours," he said, "the heat of my frame no tongue +can tell!" He looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible +gaze of self-sympathy, some faint idea of the truth. + +Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple. + +"Yes," she said, in an auxiliary tone, "Reuben always was such a hot +man." + +Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of +affliction required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the +same time. + +"If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt- +collar is as limp as no starch at all," continued Mrs. Dewy, her +countenance lapsing parenthetically into a housewifely expression of +concern at the reminiscence. + +"Come, come, you women-folk; 'tis hands across--come, come!" said +the tranter; and the conversation ceased for the present. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY + + + +Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of +country-dances, opening with six-hands-round. + +"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould +be a right and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull +off his jacket, considering the heat." + +"Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go +down with you when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!" + +"Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he +often addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet +merely; "I don't see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore +you lighten your clothes. Isn't that nature and reason for gentle +and simple? If I strip by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather +pot-housey I own; but if we stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis +the native manners of the country, which no man can gainsay? Hey-- +what did you say, my sonnies?" + +"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the +dance; and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the +passage, whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, +marching in close column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, +as common to them all, a general glance of being now a match for any +man or dancer in England or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground +in Fancy's good opinion, retained his coat like the rest of the +thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the same from superior knowledge. + +And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the +time of night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the +tables and chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, +becoming a distinct halo round the candles; when people's nostrils, +wrinkles, and crevices in general, seem to be getting gradually +plastered up; when the very fiddlers as well as the dancers get red +in the face, the dancers having advanced further still towards +incandescence, and entered the cadaverous phase; the fiddlers no +longer sit down, but kick back their chairs and saw madly at the +strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes closed, regardless of the +visible world. Again and again did Dick share his Love's hand with +another man, and wheel round; then, more delightfully, promenade in +a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waist more +firmly each time, and his elbow getting further and further behind +her back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, most +blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath +curling round his neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from +its proper date. Threading the couples one by one they reached the +bottom, when there arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune +should end before they could work their way to the top again, and +have anew the same exciting run down through. Dick's feelings on +actually reaching the top in spite of his doubts were supplemented +by a mortal fear that the fiddling might even stop at this supreme +moment; which prompted him to convey a stealthy whisper to the far- +gone musicians, to the effect that they were not to leave off till +he and his partner had reached the bottom of the dance once more, +which remark was replied to by the nearest of those convulsed and +quivering men by a private nod to the anxious young man between two +semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous "All right, ay, ay," +without opening the eyes. Fancy was now held so closely that Dick +and she were practically one person. The room became to Dick like a +picture in a dream; all that he could remember of it afterwards +being the look of the fiddlers going to sleep, as humming-tops +sleep, by increasing their motion and hum, together with the figures +of grandfather James and old Simon Crumpler sitting by the chimney- +corner, talking and nodding in dumb-show, and beating the air to +their emphatic sentences like people near a threshing machine. + +The dance ended. "Piph-h-h-h!" said tranter Dewy, blowing out his +breath in the very finest stream of vapour that a man's lips could +form. "A regular tightener, that one, sonnies!" He wiped his +forehead, and went to the cider and ale mugs on the table. + +"Well!" said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't +been in such a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on +old Midsummer-eves to see who my husband was going to be." + +"And that's getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I've +heard you tell," said the tranter, without lifting his eyes from the +cup he was filling. Being now engaged in the business of handing +round refreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, +though the other heavy men had resumed theirs. + +"And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you'll believe +me, came to pass then," continued Mrs. Penny. "Ah, the first spirit +ever I see on a Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a +hard puzzle, so say I!" + +"So I should have fancied," said Elias Spinks. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and +talking on in a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a +listener were not a necessity. "Yes; never was I in such a taking +as on that Midsummer-eve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John +Wildway was going to marry me or no. I put the bread-and-cheese and +beer quite ready, as the witch's book ordered, and I opened the +door, and I waited till the clock struck twelve, my nerves all alive +and so strained that I could feel every one of 'em twitching like +bell-wires. Yes, sure! and when the clock had struck, ho and +behold, I could see through the door a LITTLE SMALL man in the lane +wi' a shoemaker's apron on." + +Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch. + +"Now, John Wildway," Mrs. Penny continued, "who courted me at that +time, was a shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, +and I couldn't believe that any such a little small man had anything +to do wi' me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the +threshold--not John, but actually the same little small man in the +shoemaker's apron--" + +"You needn't be so mighty particular about little and small!" said +her husband. + +"In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn't I flee +upstairs, body and soul hardly hanging together! Well, to cut a +long story short, by-long and by-late. John Wildway and I had a +miff and parted; and lo and behold, the coming man came! Penny +asked me if I'd go snacks with him, and afore I knew what I was +about a'most, the thing was done." + +"I've fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be +mistaken," said Mr. Penny in a murmur. + +After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her +eyes, she still let them stay idling on the past scenes just +related, which were apparently visible to her in the centre of the +room Mr. Penny's remark received no reply. + +During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been +observed standing in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness +to each other, a just perceptible current of intelligence passing +from each to each, which had apparently no relation whatever to the +conversation of their guests, but much to their sustenance. A +conclusion of some kind having at length been drawn, the palpable +confederacy of man and wife was once more obliterated, the tranter +marching off into the pantry, humming a tune that he couldn't quite +recollect, and then breaking into the words of a song of which he +could remember about one line and a quarter. Mrs. Dewy spoke a few +words about preparations for a bit of supper. + +That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking +put on a look to signify that till this moment they had quite +forgotten that it was customary to expect suppers on these +occasions; going even further than this politeness of feature, and +starting irrelevant subjects, the exceeding flatness and forced tone +of which rather betrayed their object. The younger members said +they were quite hungry, and that supper would be delightful though +it was so late. + +Good luck attended Dick's love-passes during the meal. He sat next +Fancy, and had the thrilling pleasure of using permanently a glass +which had been taken by Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge +of the sole of his boot touch the lower verge of her skirt; and to +add to these delights the cat, which had lain unobserved in her hap +for several minutes, crept across into his own, touching him with +fur that had touched her hand a moment before. There were, besides, +some little pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she +didn't want, and when it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it +across for his own use, on the plea of waste not, want not. He +also, from time to time, sipped sweet sly glances at her profile; +noticing the set of her head, the curve of her throat, and other +artistic properties of the lively goddess, who the while kept up a +rather free, not to say too free, conversation with Mr. Shiner +sitting opposite; which, after some uneasy criticism, and much +shifting of argument backwards and forwards in Dick's mind, he +decided not to consider of alarming significance. + +"A new music greets our ears now," said Miss Fancy, alluding, with +the sharpness that her position as village sharpener demanded, to +the contrast between the rattle of knives and forks and the late +notes of the fiddlers. + +"Ay; and I don't know but what 'tis sweeter in tone when you get +above forty," said the tranter; "except, in faith, as regards father +there. Never such a mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his +soul; don't 'em, father?" + +The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent to +Reuben's remark. + +"Spaking of being moved in soul," said Mr. Penny, "I shall never +forget the first time I heard the "Dead March." 'Twas at poor +Corp'l Nineman's funeral at Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair +creep and fidget about like a vlock of sheep--ah, it did, souls! +And when they had done, and the last trump had sounded, and the guns +was fired over the dead hero's grave, a' icy-cold drop o' moist +sweat hung upon my forehead, and another upon my jawbone. Ah, 'tis +a very solemn thing!" + +"Well, as to father in the corner there," the tranter said, pointing +to old William, who was in the act of filling his mouth; "he'd +starve to death for music's sake now, as much as when he was a boy- +chap of fifteen." + +"Truly, now," said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat +in the manner of a man who meant to be convincing; 'there's a +friendly tie of some sort between music and eating." He lifted the +cup to his mouth, and drank himself gradually backwards from a +perpendicular position to a slanting one, during which time his +looks performed a circuit from the wall opposite him to the ceiling +overhead. Then clearing the other corner of his throat: 'Once I +was a-setting in the little kitchen of the Dree Mariners at +Casterbridge, having a bit of dinner, and a brass band struck up in +the street. Such a beautiful band as that were! I was setting +eating fried liver and lights, I well can mind--ah, I was! and to +save my life, I couldn't help chawing to the tune. Band played six- +eight time; six-eight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common; +common time went my teeth among the liver and lights as true as a +hair. Beautiful 'twere! Ah, I shall never forget that there band!" + +"That's as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of," said grandfather +James, with the absent gaze which accompanies profound criticism. + +"I don't like Michael's tuneful stories then," said Mrs. Dewy. +"They are quite coarse to a person o' decent taste." + +Old Michael's mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to +smile but didn't know where to begin, which gradually settled to an +expression that it was not displeasing for a nice woman like the +tranter's wife to correct him. + +"Well, now," said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, "that sort o' +coarse touch that's so upsetting to Ann's feelings is to my mind a +recommendation; for it do always prove a story to be true. And for +the same reason, I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all +true stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon't. If +the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true +stories, who'd ha' troubled to invent parables?" Saying this the +tranter arose to fetch a new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home- +made wines. + +Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her +husband's back, though that the words should reach his ears +distinctly was understood by both): "Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody +do know the trouble I have to keep that man barely respectable. And +did you ever hear too--just now at supper-time--talking about +"taties" with Michael in such a work-folk way. Well, 'tis what I +was never brought up to! With our family 'twas never less than +"taters," and very often "pertatoes" outright; mother was so +particular and nice with us girls there was no family in the parish +that kept them selves up more than we." + +The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, +because she had engaged a woman to wait up for her. She disappeared +temporarily from the flagging party of dancers, and then came +downstairs wrapped up and looking altogether a different person from +whom she had been hitherto, in fact (to Dick's sadness and +disappointment), a woman somewhat reserved and of a phlegmatic +temperament--nothing left in her of the romping girl that she had +seemed but a short quarter-hour before, who had not minded the +weight of Dick's hand upon her waist, nor shirked the purlieus of +the mistletoe. + +"What a difference!" thought the young man--hoary cynic pro tem. +"What a miserable deceiving difference between the manners of a +maid's life at dancing times and at others! Look at this lovely +Fancy! Through the whole past evening touchable, squeezeable--even +kissable! For whole half-hours I held her so chose to me that not a +sheet of paper could have been shipped between us; and I could feel +her heart only just outside my own, her life beating on so close to +mine, that I was aware of every breath in it. A flit is made +upstairs--a hat and a cloak put on--and I no more dare to touch her +than--" Thought failed him, and he returned to realities. + +But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. +Mr. Shiner and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive advantage that +ardent bachelors who are going homeward along the same road as a +pretty young woman always do take of that circumstance, came forward +to assure Fancy--with a total disregard of Dick's emotions, and in +tones which were certainly not frigid--that he (Shiner) was not the +man to go to bed before seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own +door--not he, nobody should say he was that;--and that he would not +leave her side an inch till the thing was done--drown him if he +would. The proposal was assented to by Miss Day, in Dick's +foreboding judgment, with one degree--or at any rate, an appreciable +fraction of a degree--of warmth beyond that required by a +disinterested desire for protection from the dangers of the night. + +All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, +looking now like a setting from which the gem has been torn. There +stood her glass, and the romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the +bottom that she couldn't drink by trying ever so hard, in obedience +to the mighty arguments of the tranter (his hand coming down upon +her shoulder the while, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the drinker was +there no longer. There were the nine or ten pretty little crumbs +she had left on her plate; but the eater was no more seen. + +There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between +himself and the members of his family, now that they were left alone +again face to face. His father seemed quite offensive for appearing +to be in just as high spirits as when the guests were there; and as +for grandfather James (who had not yet left), he was quite fiendish +in being rather glad they were gone. + +"Really," said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, "I've +had so little time to attend to myself all the evenen, that I mean +to enjoy a quiet meal now! A slice of this here ham--neither too +fat nor too lean--so; and then a drop of this vinegar and pickles-- +there, that's it--and I shall be as fresh as a lark again! And to +tell the truth, my sonny, my inside has been as dry as a lime-basket +all night." + +"I like a party very well once in a while," said Mrs. Dewy, leaving +off the adorned tones she had been bound to use throughout the +evening, and returning to the natural marriage voice; "but, Lord, +'tis such a sight of heavy work next day! What with the dirty +plates, and knives and forks, and dust and smother, and bits kicked +off your furniture, and I don't know what all, why a body could +a'most wish there were no such things as Christmases . . . Ah-h +dear!" she yawned, till the chock in the corner had ticked several +beats. She cast her eyes round upon the displaced, dust-laden +furniture, and sank down overpowered at the sight. + +"Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for't!" +said the tranter cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham and bread, +without lifting his eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his +knife and fork as if he were felling trees. "Ann, you may as well +go on to bed at once, and not bide there making such sleepy faces; +you look as long-favoured as a fiddle, upon my life, Ann. There, +you must be wearied out, 'tis true. I'll do the doors and draw up +the clock; and you go on, or you'll be as white as a sheet to- +morrow." + +"Ay; I don't know whether I shan't or no." The matron passed her +hand across her eyes to brush away the film of sheep till she got +upstairs. + +Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be +so blind to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to +wife that dear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so +dreadfully practical and undemonstrative of the Passion as his +father and mother were. The most extraordinary thing was, that all +the fathers and mothers he knew were just as undemonstrative as his +own. + + + +CHAPTER IX: DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL + + + +The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the +holiday weeks at borne, returned again to Mellstock. + +Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick +in accidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about the +neighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A +handkerchief belonging to her had been providentially found by his +mother in clearing the rooms the day after that of the dance; and by +much contrivance Dick got it handed over to him, to leave with her +at any time he should be near the school after her return. But he +delayed taking the extreme measure of calling with it lest, had she +really no sentiment of interest in him, it might be regarded as a +slightly absurd errand, the reason guessed; and the sense of the +ludicrous, which was rather keen in her, do his dignity considerable +injury in her eyes; and what she thought of him, even apart from the +question of her loving, was all the world to him now. + +But the hour came when the patience of love at twenty-one could +endure no longer. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild +air of indifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object +of his quest at the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of +a spade and gloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself +there. + +He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage- +windows opposite by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great +hurry of business, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have +done with such trifling errands. + +This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found +it locked to keep the children, who were playing 'cross-dadder' in +the front, from running into her private grounds. + +She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be +done, which was to shout her name. + +"Miss Day!" + +The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the +cottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a +pheasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons +in gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day +continued digging and pulling as before. + +He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage-windows yet more +stoically, and shouted again. Fancy took no notice whatever. + +He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning +suddenly about and retiring a little distance, as if it were by no +means for his own pleasure that he had come. + +This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the +school at the back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door +opened, and three-quarters of the blooming young schoolmistress's +face and figure stood revealed before him; a slice on her left-hand +side being cut off by the edge of the door. Having surveyed and +recognized him, she came to the gate. + +At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or +did it continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a +question meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in +after-hours--the meditation, after wearying involutions, always +ending in one way, that it was impossible to say. + +"Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with." He held it out +spasmodically and awkwardly. "Mother found it: under a chair." + +"O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't think +where I had dropped it." + +Now Dick, not being an experienced lover--indeed, never before +having been engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in +a small schoolboy way--could not take advantage of the situation; +and out came the blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter +moments and a sleepless night:- + +"Good morning, Miss Day." + +"Good morning, Mr. Dewy." + +The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside, +unchanged in his condition from what he had been before he called. +Of course the Angel was not to blame--a young woman living alone in +a house could not ask him indoors unless she had known him better-- +he should have kept her outside before floundering into that fatal +farewell. He wished that before he called he had realized more +fully than he did the pleasure of being about to call; and turned +away. + + + + +PART THE SECOND--SPRING + + + + +CHAPTER I: PASSING BY THE SCHOOL + + + +It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much +more frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was +continually finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the +road which skirted the garden of the school. The first-fruits of +his perseverance were that, on turning the angle on the nineteenth +journey by that track, he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in a +dark-gray dress, looking from a high open window upon the crown of +his hat. The friendly greeting resulting from this rencounter was +considered so valuable an elixir that Dick passed still oftener; and +by the time he had almost trodden a little path under the fence +where never a path was before, he was rewarded with an actual +meeting face to face on the open road before her gate. This brought +another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her bearing +that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there but the +sort of pleasure she derived, whether exultation at the hope her +exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone +Dick's concern, he could not anyhow decide, although he meditated on +her every little movement for hours after it was made. + + + +CHAPTER II: A MEETING OF THE QUIRE + + + +It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun +appeared as a nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost +in cloudy masses hanging round it, like wild locks of hair. + +The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group +in front of Mr. Penny's workshop in the lower village. They were +all brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long +as a steeple the lowness of the source of light rendering the brims +of their hats of no use at all as a protection to the eyes. + +Mr. Penny's was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood +in a hollow by the roadside so that cart-wheels and horses' legs +were about level with the sill of his shop-window. This was low and +wide, and was open from morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself +being invariably seen working inside, like a framed portrait of a +shoemaker by some modern Moroni. He sat facing the road, with a +boot on his knees and the awl in his hand, only looking up for a +moment as he stretched out his arms and bent forward at the pull, +when his spectacles flashed in the passer's face with a shine of +flat whiteness, and then returned again to the boot as usual. Rows +of lasts, small and large, stout and slender, covered the wall which +formed the background, in the extreme shadow of which a kind of +dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an apprentice with a string +tied round his hair (probably to keep it out of his eyes). He +smiled at remarks that floated in from without, but was never known +to answer them in Mr. Penny's presence. Outside the window the +upper-leather of a Wellington-boot was usually hung, pegged to a +board as if to dry. No sign was over his door; in fact--as with old +banks and mercantile houses--advertising in any shape was scorned, +and it would have been felt as beneath his dignity to paint up, for +the benefit of strangers, the name of an establishment whose trade +came solely by connection based on personal respect. + +His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, +sometimes leaning against the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two +backwards and forwards in front of it. They talked with deliberate +gesticulations to Mr. Penny, enthroned in the shadow of the +interior. + +"I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o' life--o' +Sundays, anyway--that I do so." + +"'Tis like all the doings of folk who don't know what a day's work +is, that's what I say." + +"My belief is the man's not to blame; 'tis SHE--she's the bitter +weed!" + +"No, not altogether. He's a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon +yesterday." + +"His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he +couldn't put it into words and speak it. That's all was the matter +wi' the sermon. He hadn't been able to get it past his pen." + +"Well--ay, the sermon might have been good; for, 'tis true, the +sermon of Old Eccl'iastes himself lay in Eccl'iastes's ink-bottle +afore he got it out." + +Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could +afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point. + +"He's no spouter--that must be said, 'a b'lieve." + +"'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do +go," said Spinks. + +"Well, we'll say nothing about that," the tranter answered; "for I +don't believe 'twill make a penneth o' difference to we poor martels +here or hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies." + +Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and +looked up and spoke again at the extension of arms. + +"'Tis his goings-on, souls, that's what it is." He clenched his +features for an Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and +continued, "The first thing he done when he came here was to be hot +and strong about church business." + +"True," said Spinks; "that was the very first thing he done." + +Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted +it, ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if +it were a pill, and continued: + +"The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, +until he found 'twould be a matter o' cost and what not, and then +not to think no more about it." + +"True: that was the next thing he done." + +"And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not +on no account to put their hats in the christening font during +service." + +"True." + +"And then 'twas this, and then 'twas that, and now 'tis--" + +Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. +Penny gave a huge pull to signify the concluding word. + +"Now 'tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop," said the +tranter after an interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining +the pause and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means +of keeping the subject well before the meeting. + +Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like +all good wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to +her husband's Whiggism, and vice versa, in times of peace, she +coalesced with him heartily enough in time of war. + +"It must be owned he's not all there," she replied in a general way +to the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. "Far below +poor Mr. Grinham" (the late vicar). + +"Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he'd +never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of +your work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye." + +"Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very +well-intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to +sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, +why, you can't do it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them +for several days, unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of +winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming to +ask how you are, and 'tis such a confusing thing to meet a gentleman +at the door when ye are in the mess o' washing." + +"'Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman," said the +tranter. "His meaning's good enough. Ay, your pa'son comes by +fate: 'tis heads or tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; +so we must take en as he is, my sonnies, and thank God he's no +worse, I suppose." + +"I fancy I've seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than +Christianity asked for," said Mrs. Penny musingly; "but I don't +quite like to say it." + +"O no; there's nothing in that," said grandfather William. + +"If there's nothing, we shall see nothing," Mrs. Penny replied, in +the tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still. + +"Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!" said Bowman. "Why, he never troubled +us wi' a visit from year's end to year's end. You might go +anywhere, do anything: you'd be sure never to see him." + +"Yes, he was a right sensible pa'son," said Michael. "He never +entered our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor +wife--ay, poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall I--that as +she was such a' old aged person, and lived so far from the church, +he didn't at all expect her to come any more to the service." + +"And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and +hymns o' Sundays. 'Confound ye,' says he, 'blare and scrape what ye +will, but don't bother me!'" + +"And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come +and hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring +the babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. +There's good in a man's not putting a parish to unnecessary +trouble." + +"And there's this here man never letting us have a bit o' peace; but +keeping on about being good and upright till 'tis carried to such a +pitch as I never see the like afore nor since!" + +"No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn't hold +water, as it hadn't for years off and on; and when I told him that +Mr. Grinham never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and +christen 'em just as well, 'a said, 'Good Heavens! Send for a +workman immediate. What place have I come to!' Which was no +compliment to us, come to that." + +"Still, for my part," said old William, "though he's arrayed against +us, I like the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa'son." + +"You, ready to die for the quire," said Bowman reproachfully, "to +stick up for the quire's enemy, William!" + +"Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I," said +the old man firmly; "that you d'all know. I've a-been in the quire +man and boy ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that +'tisn't in me to call the man a bad man, because I truly and +sincerely believe en to be a good young feller." + +Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated +William's eye as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of +aspect was also imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a +Titanic shadow at least thirty feet in length, stretching away to +the east in outlines of imposing magnitude, his head finally +terminating upon the trunk of a grand old oak-tree. + +"Mayble's a hearty feller enough," the tranter replied, "and will +spak to you be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en +was in a drong, and though 'a didn't know me no more than the dead, +'a passed the time of day. 'D'ye do?' he said, says he, nodding his +head. 'A fine day.' Then the second time I met en was full-buff in +town street, when my breeches were tore into a long strent by +getting through a copse of thorns and brimbles for a short cut home- +along; and not wanting to disgrace the man by spaking in that state, +I fixed my eye on the weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. +But no: 'How d'ye do, Reuben?' says he, right hearty, and shook my +hand. If I'd been dressed in silver spangles from top to toe, the +man couldn't have been civiller." + +At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they +turned and watched him. + + + +CHAPTER III: A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION + + + +"I'm afraid Dick's a lost man," said the tranter. + +"What?--no!" said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far +commoner thing for his ears to report what was not said than that +his judgment should be at fault. + +"Ay," said the tranter, still gazing at Dick's unconscious advance. +"I don't at all like what I see! There's too many o' them looks out +of the winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; +too much peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; +telling about clever things SHE did till you be sick of it; and then +upon a hint to that effect a horrible silence about her. I've +walked the path once in my life and know the country, neighbours; +and Dick's a lost man!" The tranter turned a quarter round and +smiled a smile of miserable satire at the setting new moon, which +happened to catch his eye. + +The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them +to speak; and they still regarded Dick in the distance. + +"'Twas his mother's fault," the tranter continued, "in asking the +young woman to our party last Christmas. When I eyed the blue frock +and light heels o' the maid, I had my thoughts directly. 'God bless +thee, Dicky my sonny,' I said to myself; 'there's a delusion for +thee!'" + +"They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?" +Mail tentatively observed, as became one who was not a member of the +family. + +"Ay, that's a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness +belongs to it, queerest things on earth belongs to it! There, 'tmay +as well come early as late s'far as I know. The sooner begun, the +sooner over; for come it will." + +"The question I ask is," said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread +the two subjects of discourse, as became a man learned in rhetoric, +and beating with his hand in a way which signified that the manner +rather than the matter of his speech was to be observed, "how did +Mr. Maybold know she could play the organ? You know we had it from +her own lips, as far as hips go, that she has never, first or last, +breathed such a thing to him; much less that she ever would play." + +In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news +which had caused such a convulsion among the ancient musicians was +unfolded to him. "Well," he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss +Day, "I know by some words of hers that she has a particular wish +not to play, because she is a friend of ours; and how the alteration +comes, I don't know." + +"Now, this is my plan," said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the +discussion by the infusion of new ideas, as was his custom--"this is +my plan; if you don't like it, no harm's done. We all know one +another very well, don't we, neighbours?" + +That they knew one another very well was received as a statement +which, though familiar, should not be omitted in introductory +speeches. + +"Then I say this"--and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his +hand on Mr. Spinks's shoulder with a momentum of several pounds, +upon which Mr. Spinks tried to look not in the least startled--"I +say that we all move down-along straight as a line to Pa'son +Mayble's when the clock has gone six to-morrow night. There we one +and all stand in the passage, then one or two of us go in and spak +to en, man and man; and say, 'Pa'son Mayble, every tradesman d'like +to have his own way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours. +Instead of turning us out neck and crop, let us stay on till +Christmas, and we'll gie way to the young woman, Mr. Mayble, and +make no more ado about it. And we shall always be quite willing to +touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. Mayble, just as before.' That +sounds very well? Hey?" + +"Proper well, in faith, Reuben Dewy." + +"And we won't sit down in his house; 'twould be looking too familiar +when only just reconciled?" + +"No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn +round, and march out--he'll think all the more of us for it." + +"I hardly think Leaf had better go wi' us?" said Michael, turning to +Leaf and taking his measure from top to bottom by the eye. "He's so +terrible silly that he might ruin the concern." + +"He don't want to go much; do ye, Thomas Leaf?" said William. + +"Hee-hee! no; I don't want to. Only a teeny bit!" + +"I be mortal afeard, Leaf; that you'll never be able to tell how +many cuts d'take to sharpen a spar," said Mail. + +"I never had no head, never! that's how it happened to happen, hee- +hee!" + +They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by +disparaging him after an open confession, but because it was an +accepted thing that Leaf didn't in the least mind having no head, +that deficiency of his being an unimpassioned matter of parish +history. + +"But I can sing my treble!" continued Thomas Leaf; quite delighted +at being called a fool in such a friendly way; "I can sing my treble +as well as any maid, or married woman either, and better! And if +Jim had lived, I should have had a clever brother! To-morrow is +poor Jim's birthday. He'd ha' been twenty-six if he'd lived till +to-morrow." + +"You always seem very sorry for Jim," said old William musingly. + +"Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he'd always ha' been! She'd +never have had to work in her old age if he had continued strong, +poor Jim!" + +"What was his age when 'a died?" + +"Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. 'A was born as might be +at night; and 'a didn't last as might be till the morning. No, 'a +didn't last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha' been +his christening day if he had lived; and she's always thinking about +en. You see he died so very young." + +"Well, 'twas rather youthful," said Michael. + +"Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o' +children?" said the tranter, his eye sweeping his audience. + +"Ah, well she mid be," said Leaf. "She had twelve regular one after +another, and they all, except myself; died very young; either before +they was born or just afterwards." + +"Pore feller, too. I suppose th'st want to come wi' us?" the +tranter murmured. + +"Well, Leaf; you shall come wi' us as yours is such a melancholy +family," said old William rather sadly. + +"I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life," +said Reuben. "There's Leaf's mother, poor woman! Every morning I +see her eyes mooning out through the panes of glass like a pot-sick +winder-flower; and as Leaf sings a very high treble, and we don't +know what we should do without en for upper G, we'll let en come as +a trate, poor feller." + +"Ay, we'll let en come, 'a b'lieve," said Mr. Penny, looking up, as +the pull happened to be at that moment. + +"Now," continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice +these digressions about Leaf; "as to going to see the pa'son, one of +us might call and ask en his meaning, and 'twould be just as well +done; but it will add a bit of flourish to the cause if the quire +waits on him as a body. Then the great thing to mind is, not for +any of our fellers to be nervous; so before starting we'll one and +all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon; then every man-jack +het a pint of cider into his inside; then we'll warm up an extra +drop wi' some mead and a bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful- +-just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner +man--and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man's not +himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a drop? We shall be able +to look any gentleman in the face then without shrink or shame." + +Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the +earth in time to give a cordial approval to this line of action, and +the meeting adjourned. + + + +CHAPTER IV: INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR + + + +At six o'clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir +emerged from the tranter's door, and advanced with a firm step down +the lane. This dignity of march gradually became obliterated as +they went on, and by the time they reached the hill behind the +vicarage a faint resemblance to a flock of sheep might have been +discerned in the venerable party. A word from the tranter, however, +set them right again; and as they descended the hill, the regular +tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet was clearly audible from the +vicarage garden. At the opening of the gate there was another short +interval of irregular shuffling, caused by a rather peculiar habit +the gate had, when swung open quickly, of striking against the bank +and slamming back into the opener's face. + +"Now keep step again, will ye?" said the tranter. "It looks better, +and more becomes the high class of arrant which has brought us +here." Thus they advanced to the door. + +At Reuben's ring the more modest of the group turned aside, adjusted +their hats, and looked critically at any shrub that happened to lie +in the line of vision; endeavouring thus to give a person who +chanced to look out of the windows the impression that their +request, whatever it was going to be, was rather a casual thought +occurring whilst they were inspecting the vicar's shrubbery and +grass-plot than a predetermined thing. The tranter, who, coming +frequently to the vicarage with luggage, coals, firewood, etc., had +none of the awe for its precincts that filled the breasts of most of +the others, fixed his eyes firmly on the knocker during this +interval of waiting. The knocker having no characteristic worthy of +notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one of the door-panels, and +studied the winding lines of the grain. + +"O, sir, please, here's Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and +young Richard Dewy, O, and all the quire too, sir, except the boys, +a-come to see you!" said Mr. Maybold's maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, +the pupils of her eyes dilating like circles in a pond. + +"All the choir?" said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly +described as a good-looking young man with courageous eyes, timid +mouth, and neutral nose), abandoning his writing and looking at his +parlour-maid after speaking, like a man who fancied he had seen her +face before but couldn't recollect where. + +"And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the +right hand nor to the left, but stares quite straight and solemn +with his mind made up!" + +"O, all the choir," repeated the vicar to himself; trying by that +simple device to trot out his thoughts on what the choir could come +for. + +"Yes; every man-jack of 'em, as I be alive!" (The parlour-maid was +rather local in manner, having in fact been raised in the same +village.) "Really, sir, 'tis thoughted by many in town and country +that--" + +"Town and country!--Heavens, I had no idea that I was public +property in this way!" said the vicar, his face acquiring a hue +somewhere between that of the rose and the peony. "Well, 'It is +thought in town and country that--'" + +"It is thought that you be going to get it hot and strong--excusen +my incivility, sir." + +The vicar suddenly recalled to his recollection that he had long ago +settled it to be decidedly a mistake to encourage his servant Jane +in giving personal opinions. The servant Jane saw by the vicar's +face that he recalled this fact to his mind; and removing her +forehead from the edge of the door, and rubbing away the indent that +edge had made, vanished into the passage as Mr. Maybold remarked, +"Show them in, Jane." + +A few minutes later a shuffling and jostling (reduced to as refined +a form as was compatible with the nature of shuffles and jostles) +was heard in the passage; then an earnest and prolonged wiping of +shoes, conveying the notion that volumes of mud had to be removed; +but the roads being so clean that not a particle of dirt appeared on +the choir's boots (those of all the elder members being newly oiled, +and Dick's brightly polished), this wiping might have been set down +simply as a desire to show that respectable men had no wish to take +a mean advantage of clean roads for curtailing proper ceremonies. +Next there came a powerful whisper from the same quarter:- + +"Now stand stock-still there, my sonnies, one and all! And don't +make no noise; and keep your backs close to the wall, that company +may pass in and out easy if they want to without squeezing through +ye: and we two are enough to go in." . . . The voice was the +tranter's. + +"I wish I could go in too and see the sight!" said a reedy voice-- +that of Leaf. + +"'Tis a pity Leaf is so terrible silly, or else he might," said +another. + +"I never in my life seed a quire go into a study to have it out +about the playing and singing," pleaded Leaf; "and I should like to +see it just once!" + +"Very well; we'll let en come in," said the tranter. "You'll be +like chips in porridge, {1} Leaf--neither good nor hurt. All right, +my sonny, come along;" and immediately himself, old William, and +Leaf appeared in the room. + +"We took the liberty to come and see 'ee, sir," said Reuben, letting +his hat hang in his left hand, and touching with his right the brim +of an imaginary one on his head. "We've come to see 'ee, sir, man +and man, and no offence, I hope?" + +"None at all," said Mr. Maybold. + +"This old aged man standing by my side is father; William Dewy by +name, sir." + +"Yes; I see it is," said the vicar, nodding aside to old William, +who smiled. + +"I thought you mightn't know en without his bass-viol," the tranter +apologized. "You see, he always wears his best clothes and his +bass-viol a-Sundays, and it do make such a difference in a' old +man's look." + +"And who's that young man?" the vicar said. + +"Tell the pa'son yer name," said the tranter, turning to Leaf; who +stood with his elbows nailed back to a bookcase. + +"Please, Thomas Leaf, your holiness!" said Leaf; trembling. + +"I hope you'll excuse his looks being so very thin," continued the +tranter deprecatingly, turning to the vicar again. "But 'tisn't his +fault, poor feller. He's rather silly by nature, and could never +get fat; though he's a' excellent treble, and so we keep him on." + +"I never had no head, sir," said Leaf; eagerly grasping at this +opportunity for being forgiven his existence. + +"Ah, poor young man!" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Bless you, he don't mind it a bit, if you don't, sir," said the +tranter assuringly. "Do ye, Leaf?" + +"Not I--not a morsel--hee, hee! I was afeard it mightn't please +your holiness, sir, that's all." + +The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very well through his negative +qualities, was tempted in a fit of generosity to advance him still +higher, by giving him credit for positive ones. "He's very clever +for a silly chap, good-now, sir. You never knowed a young feller +keep his smock-frocks so clane; very honest too. His ghastly looks +is all there is against en, poor feller; but we can't help our +looks, you know, sir." + +"True: we cannot. You live with your mother, I think, Leaf?" + +The tranter looked at Leaf to express that the most friendly +assistant to his tongue could do no more for him now, and that he +must be left to his own resources. + +"Yes, sir: a widder, sir. Ah, if brother Jim had lived she'd have +had a clever son to keep her without work!" + +"Indeed! poor woman. Give her this half-crown. I'll call and see +your mother." + +"Say, 'Thank you, sir,'" the tranter whispered imperatively towards +Leaf. + +"Thank you, sir!" said Leaf. + +"That's it, then; sit down, Leaf;" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Y-yes, sir!" + +The tranter cleared his throat after this accidental parenthesis +about Leaf; rectified his bodily position, and began his speech. + +"Mr. Mayble," he said, "I hope you'll excuse my common way, but I +always like to look things in the face." + +Reuben made a point of fixing this sentence in the vicar's mind by +gazing hard at him at the conclusion of it, and then out of the +window. + +Mr. Maybold and old William looked in the same direction, apparently +under the impression that the things' faces alluded to were there +visible. + +"What I have been thinking"--the tranter implied by this use of the +past tense that he was hardly so discourteous as to be positively +thinking it then--"is that the quire ought to be gie'd a little +time, and not done away wi' till Christmas, as a fair thing between +man and man. And, Mr. Mayble, I hope you'll excuse my common way?" + +"I will, I will. Till Christmas," the vicar murmured, stretching +the two words to a great length, as if the distance to Christmas +might be measured in that way. "Well, I want you all to understand +that I have no personal fault to find, and that I don't wish to +change the church music by forcible means, or in a way which should +hurt the feelings of any parishioners. Why I have at last spoken +definitely on the subject is that a player has been brought under--I +may say pressed upon--my notice several times by one of the +churchwardens. And as the organ I brought with me is here waiting" +(pointing to a cabinet-organ standing in the study), "there is no +reason for longer delay." + +"We made a mistake I suppose then, sir? But we understood the young +woman didn't want to play particularly?" The tranter arranged his +countenance to signify that he did not want to be inquisitive in the +least. + +"No, nor did she. Nor did I definitely wish her to just yet; for +your playing is very good. But, as I said, one of the churchwardens +has been so anxious for a change, that, as matters stand, I couldn't +consistently refuse my consent." + +Now for some reason or other, the vicar at this point seemed to have +an idea that he had prevaricated; and as an honest vicar, it was a +thing he determined not to do. He corrected himself; blushing as he +did so, though why he should blush was not known to Reuben. + +"Understand me rightly," he said: "the church-warden proposed it to +me, but I had thought myself of getting--Miss Day to play." + +"Which churchwarden might that be who proposed her, sir?--excusing +my common way." The tranter intimated by his tone that, so far from +being inquisitive, he did not even wish to ask a single question. + +"Mr. Shiner, I believe." + +"Clk, my sonny!--beg your pardon, sir, that's only a form of words +of mine, and slipped out accidental--he nourishes enmity against us +for some reason or another; perhaps because we played rather hard +upon en Christmas night. Anyhow 'tis certain sure that Mr. Shiner's +real love for music of a particular kind isn't his reason. He've no +more ear than that chair. But let that be." + +"I don't think you should conclude that, because Mr. Shiner wants a +different music, he has any ill-feeling for you. I myself; I must +own, prefer organ-music to any other. I consider it most proper, +and feel justified in endeavouring to introduce it; but then, +although other music is better, I don't say yours is not good." + +"Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death's to be, we'll die like men any +day you name (excusing my common way)." + +Mr. Maybold bowed his head. + +"All we thought was, that for us old ancient singers to be choked +off quiet at no time in particular, as now, in the Sundays after +Easter, would seem rather mean in the eyes of other parishes, sir. +But if we fell glorious with a bit of a flourish at Christmas, we +should have a respectable end, and not dwindle away at some nameless +paltry second-Sunday-after or Sunday-next-before something, that's +got no name of his own." + +"Yes, yes, that's reasonable; I own it's reasonable." + +"You see, Mr. Mayble, we've got--do I keep you inconvenient long, +sir?" + +"No, no." + +"We've got our feelings--father there especially." + +The tranter, in his earnestness, had advanced his person to within +six inches of the vicar's. + +"Certainly, certainly!" said Mr. Maybold, retreating a little for +convenience of seeing. "You are all enthusiastic on the subject, +and I am all the more gratified to find you so. A Laodicean +lukewarmness is worse than wrongheadedness itself." + +"Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble," Reuben continued, more +impressively, and advancing a little closer still to the vicar, +"father there is a perfect figure o' wonder, in the way of being +fond of music!" + +The vicar drew back a little further, the tranter suddenly also +standing back a foot or two, to throw open the view of his father, +and pointing to him at the same time. + +Old William moved uneasily in the large chair, and with a minute +smile on the mere edge of his lips, for good-manners, said he was +indeed very fond of tunes. + +"Now, you see exactly how it is," Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. +Maybold's sense of justice by looking sideways into his eyes. The +vicar seemed to see how it was so well that the gratified tranter +walked up to him again with even vehement eagerness, so that his +waistcoat-buttons almost rubbed against the vicar's as he continued: +"As to father, if you or I, or any man or woman of the present +generation, at the time music is a-playing, was to shake your fist +in father's face, as may be this way, and say, "Don't you be +delighted with that music!--the tranter went back to where Leaf was +sitting, and held his fist so close to Leaf's face that the latter +pressed his head back against the wall: "All right, Leaf; my sonny, +I won't hurt you; 'tis just to show my meaning to Mr. Mayble.--As I +was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to shake your fist in +father's face this way, and say, "William, your life or your music!" +he'd say, "My life!" Now that's father's nature all over; and you +see, sir, it must hurt the feelings of a man of that kind for him +and his bass-viol to be done away wi' neck and crop." + +The tranter went back to the vicar's front and again looked +earnestly at his face. + +"True, true, Dewy," Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his +head and shoulders without moving his feet; but finding this +impracticable, edging back another inch. These frequent retreats +had at last jammed Mr. Maybold between his easy-chair and the edge +of the table. + +And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had +just re-dipped the pen he was using; at their entry, instead of +wiping it, he had laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At +the last retreat his coat-tails came in contact with the pen, and +down it rolled, first against the back of the chair, thence turning +a summersault into the seat, thence falling to the floor with a +rattle. + +The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show +that, however great their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was +not so small as to let this affect his social feelings, stooped +also. + +"And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?" said +Mr. Maybold from under the table. + +"Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you +see our desire is reason?" said the tranter from under the chair. + +"Quite, quite; and I shouldn't think of refusing to listen to such a +reasonable request," the vicar replied. Seeing that Reuben had +secured the pen, he resumed his vertical position, and added, "You +know, Dewy, it is often said how difficult a matter it is to act up +to our convictions and please all parties. It may be said with +equal truth, that it is difficult for a man of any appreciativeness +to have convictions at all. Now in my case, I see right in you, and +right in Shiner. I see that violins are good, and that an organ is +good; and when we introduce the organ, it will not be that fiddles +were bad, but that an organ was better. That you'll clearly +understand, Dewy?" + +"I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h- +h! How the blood do get into my head, to be sure, whenever I quat +down like that!" said Reuben, who having also risen to his feet +stuck the pen vertically in the inkstand and almost through the +bottom, that it might not roll down again under any circumstances +whatever. + +Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their +curiosity surging higher and higher as the minutes passed. Dick, +not having much affection for this errand, soon grew tired, and went +away in the direction of the school. Yet their sense of propriety +would probably have restrained them from any attempt to discover +what was going on in the study had not the vicar's pen fallen to the +floor. The conviction that the movement of chairs, etc., +necessitated by the search, could only have been caused by the +catastrophe of a bloody fight beginning, overpowered all other +considerations; and they advanced to the door, which had only just +fallen to. Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes after the +stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in full-length +portraiture, Mail's face and shoulders above Mr. Penny's head, +Spinks's forehead and eyes over Mail's crown, and a fractional part +of Bowman's countenance under Spinks's arm--crescent shaped portions +of other heads and faces being visible behind these--the whole dozen +and odd eyes bristling with eager inquiry. + +Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable boot-makers and men, seeing +the vicar look at him and hearing no word spoken, thought it +incumbent upon himself to say something of any kind. Nothing +suggested itself till he had looked for about half a minute at the +vicar. + +"You'll excuse my naming of it, sir," he said, regarding with much +commiseration the mere surface of the vicar's face; "but perhaps you +don't know that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut +yourself a-shaving this morning, sir." + +"Now, that was the stooping, depend upon't," the tranter suggested, +also looking with much interest at the vicar's chin. "Blood always +will bust out again if you hang down the member that's been +bleeding." + +Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar's bleeding chin +likewise; and Leaf advanced two or three paces from the bookcase, +absorbed in the contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted +lips and delighted eyes. + +"Dear me, dear me!" said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and +brushing his chin with his hand, then taking out his handkerchief +and wiping the place. + +"That's it, sir; all right again now, 'a b'lieve--a mere nothing," +said Mr. Penny. "A little bit of fur off your hat will stop it in a +minute if it should bust out again." + +"I'll let 'ee have a bit off mine," said Reuben, to show his good +feeling; "my hat isn't so new as yours, sir, and 'twon't hurt mine a +bit." + +"No, no; thank you, thank you," Mr. Maybold again nervously replied. + +"'Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?" said Reuben, feeling these to +be the kindest and best remarks he could make. + +"O, no; not particularly." + +"Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes a-shaving, and just when +it comes into your head that you may cut yourself; there's the +blood." + +"I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which +we make the change," said Mr. Maybold, "and I know you'll meet me +half-way. I think Christmas-day as much too late for me as the +present time is too early for you. I suggest Michaelmas or +thereabout as a convenient time for both parties; for I think your +objection to a Sunday which has no name is not one of any real +weight." + +"Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn't expect their own way +entirely; and I express in all our names that we'll make shift and +be satisfied with what you say." The tranter touched the brim of +his imaginary hat again, and all the choir did the same. "About +Michaelmas, then, as far as you are concerned, sir, and then we make +room for the next generation." + +"About Michaelmas," said the vicar. + + + +CHAPTER V: RETURNING HOME WARD + + + +"'A took it very well, then?" said Mail, as they all walked up the +hill. + +"He behaved like a man, 'a did so," said the tranter. "And I'm glad +we've let en know our minds. And though, beyond that, we ha'n't got +much by going, 'twas worth while. He won't forget it. Yes, he took +it very well. Supposing this tree here was Pa'son Mayble, and I +standing here, and thik gr't stone is father sitting in the easy- +chair. 'Dewy,' says he, 'I don't wish to change the church music in +a forcible way.'" + +"That was very nice o' the man, even though words be wind." + +"Proper nice--out and out nice. The fact is," said Reuben +confidentially, "'tis how you take a man. Everybody must be +managed. Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men +want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good +deal." + +"'Tis truly!" murmured the husbands. + +"Pa'son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we'd +been sworn brothers. Ay, the man's well enough; 'tis what's put in +his head that spoils him, and that's why we've got to go." + +"There's really no believing half you hear about people nowadays." + +"Bless ye, my sonnies! 'tisn't the pa'son's move at all. That +gentleman over there" (the tranter nodded in the direction of +Shiner's farm) "is at the root of the mischty." + +"What! Shiner?" + +"Ay; and I see what the pa'son don't see. Why, Shiner is for +putting forward that young woman that only last night I was saying +was our Dick's sweet-heart, but I suppose can't be, and making much +of her in the sight of the congregation, and thinking he'll win her +by showing her off. Well, perhaps 'a woll." + +"Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is +second to Shiner, the pa'son is second to the churchwardens, and God +A'mighty is nowhere at all." + +"That's true; and you see," continued Reuben, "at the very beginning +it put me in a stud as to how to quarrel wi' en. In short, to save +my soul, I couldn't quarrel wi' such a civil man without belying my +conscience. Says he to father there, in a voice as quiet as a +lamb's, "William, you are a' old aged man, as all shall be, so sit +down in my easy-chair, and rest yourself." And down father zot. I +could fain ha' laughed at thee, father; for thou'st take it so +unconcerned at first, and then looked so frightened when the chair- +bottom sunk in." + +"You see," said old William, hastening to explain, "I was scared to +find the bottom gie way--what should I know o' spring bottoms?--and +thought I had broke it down: and of course as to breaking down a +man's chair, I didn't wish any such thing." + +"And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d'see +his own father sitting in his enemy's easy-chair, and a poor chap +like Leaf made the best of; as if he almost had brains--why, it +knocks all the wind out of his sail at once: it did out of mine." + +"If that young figure of fun--Fance Day, I mean," said Bowman, +"hadn't been so mighty forward wi' showing herself off to Shiner and +Dick and the rest, 'tis my belief we should never ha' left the +gallery." + +"'Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson +made 'em," said Mr. Penny. "My wife sticks to it that he's in love +wi' her." + +"That's a thing we shall never know. I can't onriddle her, nohow." + +"Thou'st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she," +the tranter observed. + +"The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And +coming of such a stock, too, she may well be a twister." + +"Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never +says anything: not he." + +"Never." + +"You might live wi' that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never +know there was anything in him." + +"Ay; one o' these up-country London ink-bottle chaps would call +Geoffrey a fool." + +"Ye never find out what's in that man: never," said Spinks. +"Close? ah, he is close! He can hold his tongue well. That man's +dumbness is wonderful to listen to." + +"There's so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over +wi' sound understanding." + +"'A can hold his tongue very clever--very clever truly," echoed +Leaf. "A do look at me as if 'a could see my thoughts running round +like the works of a clock." + +"Well, all will agree that the man can halt well in his talk, be it +a long time or be it a short time. And though we can't expect his +daughter to inherit his closeness, she may have a few dribblets from +his sense." + +"And his pocket, perhaps." + +"Yes; the nine hundred pound that everybody says he's worth; but I +call it four hundred and fifty; for I never believe more than half I +hear." + +"Well, he've made a pound or two, and I suppose the maid will have +it, since there's nobody else. But 'tis rather sharp upon her, if +she's been born to fortune, to bring her up as if not born for it, +and letting her work so hard." + +"'Tis all upon his principle. A long--headed feller!" + +"Ah," murmured Spinks, "'twould be sharper upon her if she were born +for fortune, and not to it! I suffer from that affliction." + + + +CHAPTER VI: YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER'S HOUSE + + + +A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick's +on the following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter +holidays, and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the +light spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as +they streamed in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled +season shone on the grass with the freshness of an occasional +inspector rather than as an accustomed proprietor. His errand was +to fetch Fancy, and some additional household goods, from her +father's house in the neighbouring parish to her dwelling at +Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shaded with clouds; but the +nearer parts of the landscape were whitely illumined by the visible +rays of the sun streaming down across the heavy gray shade behind. + +The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner's heart +that had been suggested to him by Shiner's movements. He preferred +to let such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having +taught him that the uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in +other people, was not a groundwork upon which a single action of his +own life could be founded. + +Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed +portion of one of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to +whom Day was head game-keeper, timber-steward, and general +overlooker for this district. The wood was intersected by the +highway from Casterbridge to London at a place not far from the +house, and some trees had of late years been felled between its +windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to give the solitary +cottager a glimpse of the passers-by. + +It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper's house, even as a +stranger, on a fine spring morning like the present. A curl of +wood-smoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a +blue feather in a lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the +patch of grass in front, which reflected its brightness through the +open doorway and up the staircase opposite, lighting up each riser +with a shiny green radiance, and leaving the top of each step in +shade. + +The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet +from the floor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, +as well as over the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always +hung a deep shade, which was considered objectionable on every +ground save one, namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and +water by the caged canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by +visitors. The window was set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, +formed, especially in the lower panes, of knotty glass of various +shades of green. Nothing was better known to Fancy than the +extravagant manner in which these circular knots or eyes distorted +everything seen through them from the outside--lifting hats from +heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the spokes of cart-wheels, +and bending the straight fir-trunks into semicircles. The ceiling +was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side of which +projected a large nail, used solely and constantly as a peg for +Geoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a rainbow--shaped stain, +imprinted by the brim of the said hat when it was hung there +dripping wet. + +The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was +a repetition upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced +by Noah, consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort. +The duplicate system of furnishing owed its existence to the +forethought of Fancy's mother, exercised from the date of Fancy's +birthday onwards. The arrangement spoke for itself: nobody who +knew the tone of the household could look at the goods without being +aware that the second set was a provision for Fancy, when she should +marry and have a house of her own. The most noticeable instance was +a pair of green-faced eight-day clocks, ticking alternately, which +were severally two and half minutes and three minutes striking the +hour of twelve, one proclaiming, in Italian flourishes, Thomas Wood +as the name of its maker, and the other--arched at the top, and +altogether of more cynical appearance--that of Ezekiel Saunders. +They were two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge, whose desperate +rivalry throughout their lives was nowhere more emphatically +perpetuated than here at Geoffrey's. These chief specimens of the +marriage provision were supported on the right by a couple of +kitchen dressers, each fitted complete with their cups, dishes, and +plates, in their turn followed by two dumb-waiters, two family +Bibles, two warming-pans, and two intermixed sets of chairs. + +But the position last reached--the chimney-corner--was, after all, +the most attractive side of the parallelogram. It was large enough +to admit, in addition to Geoffrey himself; Geoffrey's wife, her +chair, and her work-table, entirely within the line of the mantel, +without danger or even inconvenience from the heat of the fire; and +was spacious enough overhead to allow of the insertion of wood poles +for the hanging of bacon, which were cloaked with long shreds of +soot, floating on the draught like the tattered banners on the walls +of ancient aisles. + +These points were common to most chimney corners of the +neighbourhood; but one feature there was which made Geoffrey's +fireside not only an object of interest to casual aristocratic +visitors--to whom every cottage fireside was more or less a +curiosity--but the admiration of friends who were accustomed to +fireplaces of the ordinary hamlet model. This peculiarity was a +little window in the chimney-back, almost over the fire, around +which the smoke crept caressingly when it left the perpendicular +course. The window-board was curiously stamped with black circles, +burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinking-cups, which had +rested there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the +hearth for the purpose of warming their contents, the result giving +to the ledge the look of an envelope which has passed through +innumerable post-offices. + +Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head +inclining now to the right, now to the left, and singing the tips +and ends of tunes that sprang up in her mind like mushrooms. The +footsteps of Mrs. Day could be heard in the room overhead. Fancy +went finally to the door. + +"Father! Dinner." + +A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodical +steps, and the keeper entered from the garden. He appeared to be a +man who was always looking down, as if trying to recollect something +he said yesterday. The surface of his face was fissured rather than +wrinkled, and over and under his eyes were folds which seemed as a +kind of exterior eyelids. His nose had been thrown backwards by a +blow in a poaching fray, so that when the sun was low and shining in +his face, people could see far into his head. There was in him a +quiet grimness, which would in his moments of displeasure have +become surliness, had it not been tempered by honesty of soul, and +which was often wrongheadedness because not allied with subtlety. + +Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly +richer than himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to +his trapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means +than nods and shakes of the head. Their long acquaintance with each +other's ways, and the nature of their labours, rendered words +between them almost superfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the +coincidence of their horizons, and the astonishing equality of their +social views, by startling the keeper from time to time as very +damaging to the theory of master and man, strictly forbade any +indulgence in words as courtesies. + +Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) +at the well-considered chronological distance of three minutes--an +interval of non-appearance on the trapper's part not arrived at +without some reflection. Four minutes had been found to express +indifference to indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had +implied too great an anxiety about meals. + +"A little earlier than usual, Fancy," the keeper said, as he sat +down and looked at the clocks. "That Ezekiel Saunders o' thine is +tearing on afore Thomas Wood again." + +"I kept in the middle between them," said Fancy, also looking at the +two clocks. + +"Better stick to Thomas," said her father. "There's a healthy beat +in Thomas that would lead a man to swear by en offhand. He is as +true as the town time. How is it your stap-mother isn't here?" + +As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and +"Weh-hey, Smart!" in Mr. Richard Dewy's voice rolled into the +cottage from round the corner of the house. + +"Hullo! there's Dewy's cart come for thee, Fancy--Dick driving-- +afore time, too. Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us." + +Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing +that he took an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race +and country as himself; and they all sat down. Dick could have +wished her manner had not been so entirely free from all apparent +consciousness of those accidental meetings of theirs: but he let +the thought pass. Enoch sat diagonally at a table afar off; under +the corner cupboard, and drank his cider from a long perpendicular +pint cup, having tall fir-trees done in brown on its sides, He threw +occasional remarks into the general tide of conversation, and with +this advantage to himself; that he participated in the pleasures of +a talk (slight as it was) at meal-times, without saddling himself +with the responsibility of sustaining it. + +"Why don't your stap-mother come down, Fancy?" said Geoffrey. +"You'll excuse her, Mister Dick, she's a little queer sometimes." + +"O yes,--quite," said Richard, as if he were in the habit of +excusing people every day. + +"She d'belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: +a rum class rather." + +"Indeed," said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something. + +"Yes; and 'tis trying to a female, especially if you've been a first +wife, as she hey." + +"Very trying it must be." + +"Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too +far; in fact, she used to kick up Bob's-a-dying at the least thing +in the world. And when I'd married her and found it out, I thought, +thinks I, "'Tis too late now to begin to cure 'e;" and so I let her +bide. But she's queer,--very queer, at times!" + +"I'm sorry to hear that." + +"Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o' society, because +though they be never right, they be never more than half wrong." + +Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household +moralizing, which might tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that +Dick, as maiden shrewdness told her, had accredited her with. Her +dead silence impressed Geoffrey with the notion that something in +his words did not agree with her educated ideas, and he changed the +conversation. + +"Did Fred Shiner send the cask o' drink, Fancy?" + +"I think he did: O yes, he did." + +"Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!" said Geoffrey to Dick as he helped +himself to gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate by way of +the potato-dish, to obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a +spill. + +Now Geoffrey's eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous +four or five minutes, and in removing them he had only carried them +to the spoon, which, from its fulness and the distance of its +transit, necessitated a steady watching through the whole of the +route. Just as intently as the keeper's eyes had been fixed on the +spoon, Fancy's had been fixed on her father's, without premeditation +or the slightest phase of furtiveness; but there they were fastened. +This was the reason why: + +Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of +the table opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand +lightly down upon the table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm +Dick, after dropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, +flung down his own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with +it, and keeping it there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling +her hand from the trap, settled her eyes on her father's, to guard +against his discovery of this perilous game of Dick's. Dick +finished his mouthful; Fancy finished, her crumb, and nothing was +done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then the hands slid apart; +Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's over one. Geoffrey's +eye had risen. + +"I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller," he repeated, more +emphatically. + +"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more +than a stranger." + +"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you +know en very well too, don't ye, Fancy?" + +Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at +present about one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed +literally. + +Dick looked anxious. + +"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of +her face becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as +a human being could look about a piece of bread. + +"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he +continued, returning to the displaced idea, "we are likely to remain +friendly wi' Mr. Shiner if the wheels d'run smooth." + +"An excellent thing--a very capital thing, as I should say," the +youth answered with exceeding relevance, considering that his +thoughts, instead of following Geoffrey's remark, were nestling at a +distance of about two feet on his left the whole time. + +"A young woman's face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my +heart if 'twon't." Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in +earnest at these words. "Yes; turn the north wind," added Geoffrey +after an impressive pause. "And though she's one of my own flesh +and blood . . . " + +"Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil' cheese from pantry-shelf?" +Fancy interrupted, as if she were famishing. + +"Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking +last Saturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?" + +Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr. +Shiner,--the better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy's +heart went not with her father's--and spoke like a stranger to the +affairs of the neighbourhood. "Yes, there's a great deal to be said +upon the power of maiden faces in settling your courses," he +ventured, as the keeper retreated for the cheese. + +"The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that _I_ +have ever done warrants such things being said!" murmured Fancy with +emphasis, just loud enough to reach Dick's ears. + +"You think to yourself; 'twas to be," cried Enoch from his distant +corner, by way of filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey's +momentary absence. "And so you marry her, Master Dewy, and there's +an end o't." + +"Pray don't say such things, Enoch," came from Fancy severely, upon +which Enoch relapsed into servitude. + +"If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain +single, we do," replied Dick. + +Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips +thin by severely straining them across his gums, and looked out of +the window along the vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. +"That's not the case with some folk," he said at length, as if he +read the words on a board at the further end of the vista. + +Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, "No?" + +"There's that wife o' mine. It was her doom to be nobody's wife at +all in the wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, +and did it twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly +woman--quite a chiel in her hands!" + +A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps +descending. The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the +second Mrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as +she advanced towards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence +of any other human being than herself. In short, if the table had +been the personages, and the persons the table, her glance would +have been the most natural imaginable. + +She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman's face, iron-grey +hair, hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad +white apron-string, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff +dress. + +"People will run away with a story now, I suppose," she began +saying, "that Jane Day's tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any +union beggar's!" + +Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for +wear, and reflecting for a moment, concluded that 'people' in step- +mother language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he +found that Mrs. Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently +returned with an armful of new damask-linen tablecloths, folded +square and hard as boards by long compression. These she flounced +down into a chair; then took one, shook it out from its folds, and +spread it on the table by instalments, transferring the plates and +dishes one by one from the old to the new cloth. + +"And I suppose they'll say, too, that she ha'n't a decent knife and +fork in her house!" + +"I shouldn't say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure--" began +Dick. But Mrs. Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared +distressed. + +"Very strange woman, isn't she?" said Geoffrey, quietly going on +with his dinner. "But 'tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! +'tis so growed into her that 'twould kill her to take it out. Ay, +she's very queer: you'd be amazed to see what valuable goods we've +got stowed away upstairs." + +Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled +knives, silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were +wiped of the preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife +and fork were laid down to each individual with a bang, the carving +knife and fork thrust into the meat dish, and the old ones they had +hitherto used tossed away. + +Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked +Dick if he wanted any more. + +The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and +tea, which was common among frugal countryfolk. "The parishioners +about here," continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, +but snatching up the brown delf tea-things, "are the laziest, +gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I came among. And +they'll talk about my teapot and tea-things next, I suppose!" She +vanished with the teapot, cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a +tea-service in white china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. +This was removed, together with folds of tissue-paper underneath; +and a brilliant silver teapot appeared. + +"I'll help to put the things right," said Fancy soothingly, and +rising from her seat. "I ought to have laid out better things, I +suppose. But" (here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) +"I have been away from home a good deal, and I make shocking +blunders in my housekeeping." Smiles and suavity were then +dispensed all around by this bright little bird. + +After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her +seat at the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division +of the meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some +surprise to learn that, now her vagary was over, she showed herself +to be an excellent person with much common sense, and even a +religious seriousness of tone on matters pertaining to her +afflictions. + + + +CHAPTER VII: DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL + + + +The effect of Geoffrey's incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to +restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would +otherwise have burst from young Dewy along the drive homeward. And +a certain remark he had hazarded to her, in rather too blunt and +eager a manner, kept the young lady herself even more silent than +Dick. On both sides there was an unwillingness to talk on any but +the most trivial subjects, and their sentences rarely took a larger +form than could be expressed in two or three words. + +Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the +charwoman had given up expecting her; whereupon Dick could do no +less than stay and see her comfortably tided over the disagreeable +time of entering and establishing herself in an empty house after an +absence of a week. The additional furniture and utensils that had +been brought (a canary and cage among the rest) were taken out of +the vehicle, and the horse was unharnessed and put in the plot +opposite, where there was some tender grass. Dick lighted the fire +already laid; and activity began to loosen their tongues a little. + +"There!" said Fancy, "we forgot to bring the fire-irons!" + +She had originally found in her sitting-room, to bear out the +expression 'nearly furnished' which the school-manager had used in +his letter to her, a table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of +carpet. This 'nearly' had been supplemented hitherto by a kind +friend, who had lent her fire-irons and crockery until she should +fetch some from home. + +Dick attended to the young lady's fire, using his whip-handle for a +poker till it was spoilt, and then flourishing a hurdle stick for +the remainder of the time. + +"The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea," said Fancy, +diving into the hamper she had brought. + +"Thank you," said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, +especially in her company. + +"Well, here's only one cup-and-saucer, as I breathe! Whatever could +mother be thinking about? Do you mind making shift, Mr. Dewy?" + +"Not at all, Miss Day," said that civil person. + +"--And only having a cup by itself? or a saucer by itself?" + +"Don't mind in the least." + +"Which do you mean by that?" + +"I mean the cup, if you like the saucer." + +"And the saucer, if I like the cup?" + +"Exactly, Miss Day." + +"Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; +there are no spoons now!" She dived into the hamper again, and at +the end of two or three minutes looked up and said, "I suppose you +don't mind if I can't find a spoon?" + +"Not at all," said the agreeable Richard. + +"The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under +the other things. O yes, here's one, and only one. You would +rather have one than not, I suppose, Mr. Dewy?" + +"Rather not. I never did care much about spoons." + +"Then I'll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your +tea with a knife. Would you mind lifting the kettle off, that it +may not boil dry?" + +Dick leapt to the fireplace, and earnestly removed the kettle. + +"There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We +always use kettle-holders; didn't you learn housewifery as far as +that, Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. +I am going to rinse mine, too." + +They went' to a basin she had placed in the back room. "This is the +only basin I have," she said. "Turn up your sleeves, and by that +time my hands will be washed, and you can come." + +Her hands were in the water now. "O, how vexing!" she exclaimed. +"There's not a drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and +the well is I don't know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the +pitcher I used for the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping +the tips of your fingers in the same?" + +"Not at all. And to save time I won't wait till you have done, if +you have no objection?" + +Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It +being the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers +under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice +one. + +"Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, +they have got so mixed up together," she said, withdrawing her own +very suddenly. + +"It doesn't matter at all," said Dick, "at least as far as I am +concerned." + +"There! no towel! Whoever thinks of a towel till the hands are +wet?" + +"Nobody." + +"'Nobody.' How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come +here, Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box +with your elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel +you will find under the clean clothes? Be SURE don't touch any of +them with your wet hands, for the things at the top are all Starched +and Ironed." + +Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel +from under a muslin dress without wetting the latter; and for a +moment he ventured to assume a tone of criticism. + +"I fear for that dress," he said, as they wiped their hands +together. + +"What?" said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. +"O, I know what you mean--that the vicar will never let me wear +muslin?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as +flaunting, and unfit for common wear for girls who've their living +to get; hut we'll see." + +"In the interest of the church, I hope you don't speak seriously." + +"Yes, I do; but we'll see." There was a comely determination on her +lip, very pleasant to a beholder who was neither bishop, priest, nor +deacon. "I think I can manage any vicar's views about me if he's +under forty." + +Dick rather wished she had never thought of managing vicars. + +"I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea," he +said in rather a free way, yet modestly, as became one in a position +between that of visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his +lonely saucer. + +"So shall I. Now is there anything else we want, Mr Dewy?" + +"I really think there's nothing else, Miss Day." + +She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at +Smart's enjoyment of the rich grass. "Nobody seems to care about +me," she murmured, with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond +Smart. + +"Perhaps Mr. Shiner does," said Dick, in the tone of a slightly +injured man. + +"Yes, I forgot--he does, I know." Dick precipitately regretted that +he had suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable +result as this. + +"I'll warrant you'll care for somebody very much indeed another day, +won't you, Mr. Dewy?" she continued, looking very feelingly into the +mathematical centre of his eyes. + +"Ah, I'll warrant I shall," said Dick, feelingly too, and looking +back into her dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside. + +"I meant," she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was +going to narrate a forcible story about his feelings; "I meant that +nobody comes to see if I have returned--not even the vicar." + +"If you want to see him, I'll call at the vicarage directly we have +had some tea." + +"No, no! Don't let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am +in such a state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and +awkward when one's house is in a muddle; walking about, and making +impossible suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh +creeps and you wish them dead. Do you take sugar?" + +Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path. + +"There! That's he coming! How I wish you were not here I--that is, +how awkward--dear, dear!" she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of +blood to her face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as +it seemed. + +"Pray don't be alarmed on my account, Miss Day--good-afternoon!" +said Dick in a huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room +hastily by the back-door. + +The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start +he saw through the window the vicar, standing upon some books piled +in a chair, and driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure +glance, holding the canary-cage up to him, as if she had never in +her life thought of anything but vicars and canaries. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: DICK MEETS HIS FATHER + + + +For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of +reflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that +the road and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of +his mind. Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence +that she did love him and that she did not was so nicely struck, +that his opinion had no stability. She had let him put his hand +upon hers; she had allowed her gaze to drop plumb into the depths of +his--his into hers--three or four times; her manner had been very +free with regard to the basin and towel; she had appeared vexed at +the mention of Shiner. On the other hand, she had driven him about +the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner cared for her, and +seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold should do the same. + +Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting +on the front board of the spring cart--his legs on the outside, and +his whole frame jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time +of Smart's trotting--who should he see coming down the hill but his +father in the light wagon, quivering up and down on a smaller scale +of shakes, those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were +soon crossing each other's front. + +"Weh-hey!" said the tranter to Smiler. + +"Weh-hey!" said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice. + +"Th'st hauled her back, I suppose?" Reuben inquired peaceably. + +"Yes," said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it +seemed he was never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking +this the close of the conversation, prepared to move on. + +"Weh-hey!" said the tranter. "I tell thee what it is, Dick. That +there maid is taking up thy thoughts more than's good for thee, my +sonny. Thou'rt never happy now unless th'rt making thyself +miserable about her in one way or another." + +"I don't know about that, father," said Dick rather stupidly. + +"But I do--Wey, Smiler!--'Od rot the women, 'tis nothing else wi' +'em nowadays but getting young men and leading 'em astray." + +"Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; +that's all you do." + +"The world's a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very +sensible indeed." + +Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. +"I wish I was as rich as a squire when he's as poor as a crow," he +murmured; "I'd soon ask Fancy something." + +"I wish so too, wi' all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what +beest about, that's all." + +Smart moved on a step or two. "Supposing now, father,--We-hey, +Smart!--I did think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I +ha'n't; don't you think she's a very good sort of--of--one?" + +"Ay, good; she's good enough. When you've made up your mind to +marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand--she's as +good as any other; they be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in +the flourishes there's a difference. She's good enough; but I can't +see what the nation a young feller like you--wi a comfortable house +and home, and father and mother to take care o' thee, and who sent +'ee to a school so good that 'twas hardly fair to the other +children--should want to go hollering after a young woman for, when +she's quietly making a husband in her pocket, and not troubled by +chick nor chiel, to make a poverty-stric' wife and family of her, +and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set 'em up with: be +drowned if I can see it, and that's the long and the short o't, my +sonny." + +Dick looked at Smart's ears, then up the hill; but no reason was +suggested by any object that met his gaze. + +"For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose." + +"Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave +vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too +magnanimous not to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the +knuckles, even if they were his own. + +"Whether or no," said Dick, "I asked her a thing going along the +road." + +"Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well, +she's ready, I don't doubt?" + +"I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me +speak, I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care +about me?" + +"Piph-ph-ph!" + +"And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she +said she didn't know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the +meaning of that speech?" The latter words were spoken resolutely, +as if he didn't care for the ridicule of all the fathers in +creation. + +"The meaning of that speech is," the tranter replied deliberately, +"that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, +as an honest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know +well enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the +pocket than we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be +somebody." + +"But what d'ye think she really did mean?" said the unsatisfied +Dick. + +"I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I +was not there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the +only 'ooman I ever cam' into such close quarters as that with." + +"And what did mother say to you when you asked her?" said Dick +musingly. + +"I don't see that that will help 'ee." + +"The principle is the same." + +"Well--ay: what did she say? Let's see. I was oiling my working- +day boots without taking 'em off, and wi' my head hanging down, when +she just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. +"Ann," I said, says I, and then,--but, Dick I'm afeard 'twill be no +help to thee; for we were such a rum couple, your mother and I, +leastways one half was, that is myself--and your mother's charms was +more in the manner than the material." + +"Never mind! "Ann," said you." + +"'Ann,' said I, as I was saying . . . 'Ann,' I said to her when I +was oiling my working-day boots wi' my head hanging down, 'Woot hae +me?' . . . What came next I can't quite call up at this distance o' +time. Perhaps your mother would know,--she's got a better memory +for her little triumphs than I. However, the long and the short o' +the story is that we were married somehow, as I found afterwards. +'Twas on White Tuesday,--Mellstock Club walked the same day, every +man two and two, and a fine day 'twas,--hot as fire,--how the sun +did strike down upon my back going to church! I well can mind what +a bath o' sweating I was in, body and soul! But Fance will ha' +thee, Dick--she won't walk with another chap--no such good luck." + +"I don't know about that," said Dick, whipping at Smart's flank in a +fanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with +going on. "There's Pa'son Maybold, too--that's all against me." + +"What about he? She's never been stuffing into thy innocent heart +that he's in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o' maidens!" + +"No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at +me in such a way--quite different the ways were,--and as I was +coming off, there was he hanging up her birdcage." + +"Well, why shouldn't the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it +all, what's that got to do wi' it? Dick, that thou beest a white- +lyvered chap I don't say, but if thou beestn't as mad as a cappel- +faced bull, let me smile no more." + +"O, ay." + +"And what's think now, Dick?" + +"I don't know." + +"Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's +the bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell 'ee?" + +"No. Why, Pa'son Maybold, I suppose." + +"Shiner,--because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to +see her young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her +young fingers rum-strumming upon the keys." + +A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this +communication from his father. "Shiner's a fool!--no, that's not +it; I don't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never +take a bold step like that, unless she'd been a little made up to, +and had taken it kindly. Pooh!" + +"Who's to say she didn't?" + +"I do." + +"The more fool you." + +"Why, father of me?" + +"Has she ever done more to thee?" + +"No." + +"Then she has done as much to he--rot 'em! Now, Dick, this is how a +maid is. She'll swear she's dying for thee, and she is dying for +thee, and she will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over +t'other shoulder at another young feller, though never leaving off +dying for thee just the same." + +"She's not dying for me, and so she didn't fling a look at him." + +"But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee." + +"I don't know what to make of it at all," said Dick gloomily. + +"All I can make of it is," the tranter said, raising his whip, +arranging his different joints and muscles, and motioning to the +horse to move on, "that if you can't read a maid's mind by her +motions, nature d'seem to say thou'st ought to be a bachelor. Clk, +clk! Smiler!" And the tranter moved on. + +Dick held Smart's rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, +and man remained rooted in the lane. Hew long this condition would +have lasted is unknown, had not Dick's thoughts, after adding up +numerous items of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that +as something must be done, it could not be done by staying there all +night. + +Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were +going to be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper +and uncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the +writer's mind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this +effusion that it obscured the logical sequence of facts and +intentions to an appreciable degree; and it was not at all clear to +a reader whether he there and then left off loving Miss Fancy Day; +whether he had never loved her seriously, and never meant to; +whether he had been dying up to the present moment, and now intended +to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been in good health, +and intended to die for her forthwith. + +He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a +stern handwriting of straight dashes--easy flourishes being +rigorously excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane +in strides not an inch less than three feet long. Reaching her gate +he put on a resolute expression--then put it off again, turned back +homeward, tore up his letter, and sat down. + +That letter was altogether in a wrong tone--that he must own. A +heartless man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. +That he rather wanted her, and rather did not want her--the latter +for choice; hut that as a member of society he didn't mind making a +query in jaunty terms, which could only be answered in the same way: +did she mean anything by her bearing towards him, or did she not? + +This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being +put into the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was +to run with it to the school, he was told in addition not to look +behind him if Dick called after him to bring it hack, but to run +along with it just the same. Having taken this precaution against +vacillation, Dick watched his messenger down the road, and turned +into the house whistling an air in such ghastly jerks and starts, +that whistling seemed to be the act the very furthest removed from +that which was instinctive in such a youth. + +The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed-- +and no answer. The next. The next. Friday night came. Dick +resolved that if no answer or sign were given by her the next day, +on Sunday he would meet her face to face, and have it all out by +word of mouth. + +"Dick," said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment-- +in each hand a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress- +-"I think you'd better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. +Maybold's to-morrow, instead o' me, and I'll go wi' Smiler and the +wagon." + +It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar's mother, who had just +taken into her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised +under the pretence of its being an economical wish to produce her +own honey), lived near the watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten +miles off, and the business of transporting the hives thither would +occupy the whole day, and to some extent annihilate the vacant time +between this evening and the coming Sunday. The best spring-cart +was washed throughout, the axles oiled, and the bees placed therein +for the journey. + + + + +PART THE THIRD--SUMMER + + + + +CHAPTER I: DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH + + + +An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles +of dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the +skirt of the dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: +it was Fancy! Dick's heart went round to her with a rush. + +The scene was the corner of Mary Street in Budmouth-Regis, near the +King's statue, at which point the white angle of the last house in +the row cut perpendicularly an embayed and nearly motionless expanse +of salt water projected from the outer ocean--to-day lit in bright +tones of green and opal. Dick and Smart had just emerged from the +street, and there on the right, against the brilliant sheet of +liquid colour, stood Fancy Day; and she turned and recognized him. + +Dick suspended his thoughts of the letter and wonder at how she came +there by driving close to the chains of the Esplanade--incontinently +displacing two chairmen, who had just come to life for the summer in +new clean shirts and revivified clothes, and being almost displaced +in turn by a rigid boy rattling along with a baker's cart, and +looking neither to the right nor the left. He asked if she were +going to Mellstock that night. + +"Yes, I'm waiting for the carrier," she replied, seeming, too, to +suspend thoughts of the letter. + +"Now I can drive you home nicely, and you save half an hour. Will +ye come with me?" + +As Fancy's power to will anything seemed to have departed in some +mysterious manner at that moment, Dick settled the matter by getting +out and assisting her into the vehicle without another word. + +The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which +was permanent, and at length their eyes met; there was present +between them a certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at +such moments when all the instinctive acts dictated by the position +have been performed. Dick, being engaged with the reins, thought +less of this awkwardness than did Fancy, who had nothing to do but +to feel his presence, and to be more and more conscious of the fact, +that by accepting a seat beside him in this way she succumbed to the +tone of his note. Smart jogged along, and Dick jogged, and the +helpless Fancy necessarily jogged, too; and she felt that she was in +a measure capture I and made a prisoner. + +"I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day," he +observed, as they drove past the two semicircular bays of the Old +Royal Hotel, where His Majesty King George the Third had many a time +attended the balls of the burgesses. + +To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of mastery--a +consciousness of which he was perfectly innocent--this remark +sounded like a magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive. + +"I didn't come for the pleasure of obliging you with my company," +she said. + +The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must +have been rather surprising to young Dewy. At the same time it may +be observed, that when a young woman returns a rude answer to a +young man's civil remark, her heart is in a state which argues +rather hopefully for his case than otherwise. + +There was silence between them till they had left the sea-front and +passed about twenty of the trees that ornamented the road leading up +out of the town towards Casterbridge and Mellstock. + +"Though I didn't come for that purpose either, I would have done +it," said Dick at the twenty-first tree. + +"Now, Mr. Dewy, no flirtation, because it's wrong, and I don't wish +it." + +Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, +arranged his looks very emphatically, and cleared his throat. + +"Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were +just going to commence," said the lady intractably. + +"Yes, they would." + +"Why, you never have, to be sure!" + +This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as +a man who had resolved never to spoil his jollity by loving one of +womankind--"Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present +time? Gaily, I don't doubt for a moment." + +"I am not gay, Dick; you know that." + +"Gaily doesn't mean decked in gay dresses." + +"I didn't suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a +scholar you've grown!" + +"Lots of things have happened to you this spring, I see." + +"What have you seen?" + +"O, nothing; I've heard, I mean!" + +"What have you heard?" + +"The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a +tin watch-chain, a little mixed up with your own. That's all." + +"That's a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that's who you +mean! The studs are gold, as you know, and it's a real silver +chain; the ring I can't conscientiously defend, and he only wore it +once." + +"He might have worn it a hundred times without showing it half so +much." + +"Well, he's nothing to me," she serenely observed. + +"Not any more than I am?" + +"Now, Mr. Dewy," said Fancy severely, "certainly he isn't any more +to me than you are!" + +"Not so much?" + +She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. +"That I can't exactly answer," she replied with soft archness. + +As they were going rather slowly, another spring-cart, containing a +farmer, farmer's wife, and farmer's man, jogged past them; and the +farmer's wife and farmer's man eyed the couple very curiously. The +farmer never looked up from the horse's tail. + +"Why can't you exactly answer?" said Dick, quickening Smart a +little, and jogging on just behind the farmer and farmer's wife and +man. + +As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they +both contemplated the picture presented in front, and noticed how +the farmer's wife sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over +each end of the seat to give her room, till they almost sat upon +their respective wheels; and they looked too at the farmer's wife's +silk mantle, inflating itself between her shoulders like a balloon +and sinking flat again, at each jog of the horse. The farmer's +wife, feeling their eyes sticking into her back, looked over her +shoulder. Dick dropped ten yards further behind. + +"Fancy, why can't you answer?" he repeated. + +"Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you," +said she in low tones. + +"Everything," said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting +emphatic eyes upon the upper curve of her cheek. + +"Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn't say in what way your +thinking of me affected the question--perhaps inversely, don't you +see? No touching, sir! Look; goodness me, don't, Dick!" + +The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over +Dick's right shoulder of an empty timber-wagon and four journeymen- +carpenters reclining in lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed +upwards at various oblique angles into the surrounding world, the +chief object of their existence being apparently to criticize to the +very backbone and marrow every animate object that came within the +compass of their vision. This difficulty of Dick's was overcome by +trotting on till the wagon and carpenters were beginning to look +rather misty by reason of a film of dust that accompanied their +wagon-wheels, and rose around their heads like a fog. + +"Say you love me, Fancy." + +"No, Dick, certainly not; 'tisn't time to do that yet." + +"Why, Fancy?" + +"'Miss Day' is better at present--don't mind my saying so; and I +ought not to have called you Dick." + +"Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your +love. Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can +be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim." + +"No, no, I don't," she said gently; "but there are things which tell +me I ought not to give way to much thinking about you, even if--" + +"But you want to, don't you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be +truthful. Whatever they may say about a woman's right to conceal +where her love lies, and pretend it doesn't exist, and things like +that, it is not best; I do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in +that, as well as in all her daily concerns, shines most brightly, +and is thought most of in the long-run." + +"Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little," she whispered +tenderly; "but I wish you wouldn't say any more now." + +"I won't say any more now, then, if you don't like it, dear. But +you do love me a little, don't you?" + +"Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can't +say any more now, and you must be content with what you have." + +"I may at any rate call you Fancy? There's no harm in that." + +"Yes, you may." + +"And you'll not call me Mr. Dewy any more?" + +"Very well." + + + +CHAPTER II: FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD + + + +Dick's spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his +sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart's neck, +not far behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for +some time, never dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip +which, on this particular journey, had never been extended further +than his flank, tossed his head, and scampered along with exceeding +briskness, which was very pleasant to the young couple behind him +till, turning a bend in the road, they came instantly upon the +farmer, farmer's man, and farmer's wife with the flapping mantle, +all jogging on just the same as ever. + +"Bother those people! Here we are upon them again." + +"Well, of course. They have as much right to the road as we." + +"Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to +myself. Look what a lumbering affair theirs is!" The wheels of the +farmer's cart, just at that moment, jogged into a depression running +across the road, giving the cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded +to the left, and on coming out of it all three nodded to the right, +and went on jerking their backs in and out as usual. "We'll pass +them when the road gets wider." + +When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this +intention into effect, they heard light flying wheels behind, and on +their quartering there whizzed along past them a brand-new gig, so +brightly polished that the spokes of the wheels sent forth a +continual quivering light at one point in their circle, and all the +panels glared like mirrors in Dick and Fancy's eyes. The driver, +and owner as it appeared, was really a handsome man; his companion +was Shiner. Both turned round as they passed Dick and Fancy, and +stared with bold admiration in her face till they were obliged to +attend to the operation of passing the farmer. Dick glanced for an +instant at Fancy while she was undergoing their scrutiny; then +returned to his driving with rather a sad countenance. + +"Why are you so silent?" she said, after a while, with real concern. + +"Nothing." + +"Yes, it is, Dick. I couldn't help those people passing." + +"I know that." + +"You look offended with me. What have I done?" + +"I can't tell without offending you." + +"Better out." + +"Well," said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of +offending her, "I was thinking how different you in love are from me +in love. Whilst those men were staring, you dismissed me from your +thoughts altogether, and--" + +"You can't offend me further now; tell all!" + +"And showed upon your face a pleased sense of being attractive to +'em." + +"Don't be silly, Dick! You know very well I didn't." + +Dick shook his head sceptically, and smiled. + +"Dick, I always believe flattery IF POSSIBLE--and it was possible +then. Now there's an open confession of weakness. But I showed no +consciousness of it." + +Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, +charitably forbore saying anything that could make her prevaricate. +The sight of Shiner, too, had recalled another branch of the subject +to his mind; that which had been his greatest trouble till her +company and words had obscured its probability. + +"By the way, Fancy, do you know why our quire is to be dismissed?" + +"No: except that it is Mr. Maybold's wish for me to play the +organ." + +"Do you know how it came to be his wish?" + +"That I don't." + +"Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, +however, was willing enough before. Shiner, I know, is crazy to see +you playing every Sunday; I suppose he'll turn over your music, for +the organ will be close to his pew. But--I know you have never +encouraged him?" + +"Never once!" said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest +truth. "I don't like him indeed, and I never heard of his doing +this before! I have always felt that I should like to play in a +church, but I never wished to turn you and your choir out; and I +never even said that I could play till I was asked. You don't think +for a moment that I did, surely, do you?" + +"I know you didn't, dear." + +"Or that I care the least morsel of a bit for him?" + +"I know you don't." + +The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, +and there being a good inn, "The Ship," four miles out of Budmouth, +with a mast and cross-trees in front, Dick's custom in driving +thither was to divide the journey into three stages by resting at +this inn going and coming, and not troubling the Budmouth stables at +all, whenever his visit to the town was a mere call and deposit, as +to-day. + +Fancy was ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the +stables to see to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant +twitches of feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring +men idling around, Dick endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact +that there was any sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a +tranter's desire to carry a passenger home. He presently entered +the inn and opened the door of Fancy's room. + +"Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my +being here alone with you like this. I don't think you had better +come in with me." + +"That's rather unpleasant, dear." + +"Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself +too, because you must be tired." + +"Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, +if you recollect, Fancy." + +"Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I +don't know what to do." + +"It shall be as you say, then." Dick began to retreat with a +dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy +tea-tray. + +"But you don't see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that," she +said, with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. "You do +know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I +have a difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, +as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a tete-a-tete anywhere with +anybody." + +"But I am not ANY body!" exclaimed Dick. + +"No, no, I mean with a young man;" and she added softly, "unless I +were really engaged to be married to him." + +"Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we'll be engaged at once, +to be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a +glove!" + +"Ah! but suppose I won't! And, goodness me, what have I done!" she +faltered, getting very red. "Positively, it seems as if I meant you +to say that!" + +"Let's do it! I mean get engaged," said Dick. "Now, Fancy, will +you be my wife?" + +"Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did +coming along the road," she remarked, as if she had not heard the +latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have +noticed about her breast, as the word 'wife' fell from Dick's lips, +a soft silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between each. + +"What did I say?" + +"About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig." + +"You couldn't help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, +you do care for me?" + +"Yes." + +"Very much?" + +"Yes." + +"And you'll be my own wife?" + +Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek +varying tones of red to match each varying thought. Dick looked +expectantly at the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what +was coming forth. + +"Yes--if father will let me." + +Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting +them out, as if he were about to whistle the softest melody known. + +"O no!" said Fancy solemnly. + +The modest Dick drew back a little. + +"Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!--here's somebody +coming!" she whisperingly exclaimed. + +* * * + +Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's +lips had been real cherries probably Dick's would have appeared +deeply stained. The landlord was standing in the yard. + +"Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!" he laughed, letting the +laugh slip out gently and by degrees that it might make little noise +in its exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. +"This will never do, upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for +a feymel passenger, and then going in and sitting down and having +some too, and biding such a fine long time!" + +"But surely you know?" said Dick, with great apparent surprise. +"Yes, yes! Ha-ha!" smiting the landlord under the ribs in return. + +"Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!" + +"You know, of course!" + +"Yes, of course! But--that is--I don't." + +"Why about--between that young lady and me?" nodding to the window +of the room that Fancy occupied. + +"No; not I!" said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles. + +"And you don't!" + +"Not a word, I'll take my oath!" + +"But you laughed when I laughed." + +"Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!" + +"Really, you don't know? Goodness--not knowing that!" + +"I'll take my oath I don't!" + +"O yes," said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, +"we're engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after +her." + +"Of course, of course! I didn't know that, and I hope ye'll excuse +any little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I +was talking to your father very intimate about family matters only +last Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and +we all then fell a-talking o' family matters; but neither one o' +them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I +at your father's own wedding. 'Tisn't what I should have expected +from an old neighbour!" + +"Well, to say the truth, we hadn't told father of the engagement at +that time; in fact, 'twasn't settled." + +"Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday's the courting +day. Heu-heu!" + +"No, 'twasn't done Sunday in particular." + +"After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very +proper good time." + +"O no, 'twasn't done then." + +"Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?" + +"Not at all; I wouldn't think of getting engaged in a dog-cart." + +"Dammy--might as well have said at once, the WHEN be blowed! +Anyhow, 'tis a fine day, and I hope next time you'll come as one." + +Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the +newly affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the +Ridgeway, and vanished in the direction of Mellstock. + + + +CHAPTER III: A CONFESSION + + + +It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering +dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and +dahlias were laden till eleven o'clock with small drops and dashes +of water, changing the colour of their sparkle at every movement of +the air; and elsewhere hanging on twigs like small silver fruit. +The threads of garden spiders appeared thick and polished. In the +dry and sunny places, dozens of long-legged crane-flies whizzed off +the grass at every step the passer took. + +Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter's daughter, were in +such a spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. +Three months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together +from Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously +during the whole time. There had been just enough difficulty +attending its development, and just enough finesse required in +keeping it private, to lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness +on Fancy's part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, +Dick's heart had been at all times as fond as could be desired. But +there was a cloud on Fancy's horizon now. + +"She is so well off--better than any of us," Susan Dewy was saying. +"Her father farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor +or curate or anything of that kind if she contrived a little." + +"I don't think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all +when he knew I couldn't go," replied Fancy uneasily. + +"He didn't know that you would not be there till it was too late to +refuse the invitation," said Susan. + +"And what was she like? Tell me." + +"Well, she was rather pretty, I must own." + +"Tell straight on about her, can't you! Come, do, Susan. How many +times did you say he danced with her?" + +"Once." + +"Twice, I think you said?" + +"Indeed I'm sure I didn't." + +"Well, and he wanted to again, I expect." + +"No; I don't think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad +enough, I know. Everybody does with Dick, because he's so handsome +and such a clever courter." + +"O, I wish!--How did you say she wore her hair?" + +"In long curls,--and her hair is light, and it curls without being +put in paper: that's how it is she's so attractive." + +"She's trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through +keeping this miserable school I mustn't wear my hair in curls! But +I will; I don't care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear +my curls! Look, Susan, do! is her hair as soft and long as this?" +Fancy pulled from its coil under her hat a twine of her own hair, +and stretched it down her shoulder to show its length, looking at +Susan to catch her opinion from her eyes. + +"It is about the same length as that, I think," said Miss Dewy. + +Fancy paused hopelessly. "I wish mine was lighter, like hers!" she +continued mournfully. "But hers isn't so soft, is it? Tell me, +now." + +"I don't know." + +Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly +and a red-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, +and then became aware that Dick was advancing up the garden. + +"Susan, here's Dick coming; I suppose that's because we've been +talking about him." + +"Well, then, I shall go indoors now--you won't want me;" and Susan +turned practically and walked off. + +Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or +picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving +himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded +him, by sighing regretfully at her absence,--who had danced with the +rival in sheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, +flat, and unprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she +would not believe. + +Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. +"I am in great trouble," said she, taking what was intended to be a +hopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the +tree; yet a critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative +tone as to the effect of the words upon Dick when she uttered them. + +"What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it," said Dick +earnestly. "Darling, I will share it with 'ee and help 'ee." + +"No, no: you can't! Nobody can!" + +"Why not? You don't deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear." + +"O, it isn't what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!" + +"Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can't be." + +"'Tis, 'tis!" said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of +sorrow. "I have done wrong, and I don't like to tell it! Nobody +will forgive me, nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have +allowed myself to--to--fl--" + +"What,--not flirt!" he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a +sudden pressure inward from his surface. "And you said only the day +before yesterday that you hadn't flirted in your life!" + +"Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love +me, and--" + +"Good G--! Well, I'll forgive you,--yes, if you couldn't help it,-- +yes, I will!" said the now dismal Dick. "Did you encourage him?" + +"O,--I don't know,--yes--no. O, I think so!" + +"Who was it?" A pause. "Tell me!" + +"Mr. Shiner." + +After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a +long-checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real +austerity - + +"Tell it all;--every word!" + +"He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, "Will you let me +show you how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?" And I-- +wanted to know very much--I did so long to have a bullfinch! I +couldn't help that and I said, "Yes!" and then he said, "Come here." +And I went with him down to the lovely river, and then he said to +me, "Look and see how I do it, and then you'll know: I put this +birdlime round this twig, and then I go here," he said, "and hide +away under a hush; and presently clever Mister Bird comes and +perches upon the twig, and flaps his wings, and you've got him +before you can say Jack"--something; O, O, O, I forget what!" + +"Jack Sprat," mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his +misery. + +"No, not Jack Sprat," she sobbed. + +"Then 'twas Jack Robinson!" he said, with the emphasis of a man who +had resolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die. + +"Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the +bridge to get across, and--That's all." + +"Well, that isn't much, either," said Dick critically, and more +cheerfully. "Not that I see what business Shiner has to take upon +himself to teach you anything. But it seems--it do seem there must +have been more than that to set you up in such a dreadful taking?" + +He looked into Fancy's eyes. Misery of miseries!--guilt was written +there still. + +"Now, Fancy, you've not told me all!" said Dick, rather sternly for +a quiet young man. + +"O, don't speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn't +been harsh, I was going on to tell all; now I can't!" + +"Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I'll forgive; I must,--by heaven +and earth, I must, whether I will or no; I love you so!" + +"Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it--" + +"A scamp!" said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder. + +"And then he looked at me, and at last he said, 'Are you in love +with Dick Dewy?' And I said, 'Perhaps I am!' and then he said, 'I +wish you weren't then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.'" + +"There's a villain now! Want to marry you!" And Dick quivered with +the bitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering +that he might be reckoning without his host: "Unless, to he sure, +you are willing to have him,--perhaps you are," he said, with the +wretched indifference of a castaway. + +"No, indeed I am not!" she said, her sobs just beginning to take a +favourable turn towards cure. + +"Well, then," said Dick, coming a little to his senses, "you've been +stretching it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such +a mere nothing. And I know what you've done it for,--just because +of that gipsy-party!" He turned away from her and took five paces +decisively, as if he were tired of an ungrateful country, including +herself "You did it to make me jealous, and I won't stand it!" He +flung the words to her over his shoulder and then stalked on, +apparently very anxious to walk to the remotest of the Colonies that +very minute. + +"O, O, O, Dick--Dick!" she cried, trotting after him like a pet +lamb, and really seriously alarmed at last, "you'll kill me! My +impulses are bad--miserably wicked,--and I can't help it; forgive +me, Dick! And I love you always; and those times when you look +silly and don't seem quite good enough for me,--just the same, I do, +Dick! And there is something more serious, though not concerning +that walk with him." + +"Well, what is it?" said Dick, altering his mind about walking to +the Colonies in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so +rooted to the road that he was apparently not even going home. + +"Why this," she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears +she had been going to shed, "this is the serious part. Father has +told Mr. Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could +get me;--that he has his right hearty consent to come courting me!" + + + +CHAPTER IV: AN ARRANGEMENT + + + +"That IS serious," said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken +for a long time. + +The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter's +continued walks and meetings with Dick. When a hint that there were +symptoms of an attachment between them had first reached Geoffrey's +ears, he stated so emphatically that he must think the matter over +before any such thing could be allowed that, rather unwisely on +Dick's part, whatever it might have been on the lady's, the lovers +were careful to be seen together no more in public; and Geoffrey, +forgetting the report, did not think over the matter at all. So Mr. +Shiner resumed his old position in Geoffrey's brain by mere flux of +time. Even Shiner began to believe that Dick existed for Fancy no +more,--though that remarkably easy-going man had taken no active +steps on his own account as yet. + +"And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that," continued Fancy, +"but he has written me a letter, to say he should wish me to +encourage Mr. Shiner, if 'twas convenient!" + +"I must start off and see your father at once!" said Dick, taking +two or three vehement steps to the south, recollecting that Mr. Day +lived to the north, and coming back again. + +"I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come +for, or anything of the kind, until he likes you, and so win his +brain through his heart, which is always the way to manage people. +I mean in this way: I am going home on Saturday week to help them +in the honey-taking. You might come there to me, have something to +eat and drink, and let him guess what your coming signifies, without +saying it in so many words." + +"We'll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; +not wait for his guessing." And the lover then stepped close to +her, and attempted to give her one little kiss on the cheek, his +lips alighting however, on an outlying tract of her back hair by +reason of an impulse that had caused her to turn her head with a +jerk. "Yes, and I'll put on my second-best suit and a clean shirt +and collar, and black my boots as if 'twas a Sunday. 'Twill have a +good appearance, you see, and that's a great deal to start with." + +"You won't wear that old waistcoat, will you, Dick?" + +"Bless you, no! Why I--" + +"I didn't mean to be personal, dear Dick," she said, fearing she had +hurt his feelings. "'Tis a very nice waistcoat, but what I meant +was, that though it is an excellent waistcoat for a settled-down +man, it is not quite one for" (she waited, and a blush expanded over +her face, and then she went on again)--"for going courting in." + +"No, I'll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that +mother made. It is a beautiful, handsome waistcoat inside, yes, as +ever anybody saw. In fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to +show a chap that very lining, and he said it was the strongest, +handsomest lining you could wish to see on the king's waistcoat +himself." + +"_I_ don't quite know what to wear," she said, as if her habitual +indifference alone to dress had kept back so important a subject +till now. + +"Why, that blue frock you wore last week." + +"Doesn't set well round the neck. I couldn't wear that." + +"But I shan't care." + +"No, you won't mind." + +"Well, then it's all right. Because you only care how you look to +me, do you, dear? I only dress for you, that's certain." + +"Yes, but you see I couldn't appear in it again very well." + +"Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the +set of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in love don't think so much about +how they look to other women." It is difficult to say whether a +tone of playful banter or of gentle reproach prevailed in the +speech. + +"Well then, Dick," she said, with good-humoured frankness, "I'll own +it. I shouldn't like a stranger to see me dressed badly, even +though I am in love. 'Tis our nature, I suppose." + +"You perfect woman!" + +"Yes; if you lay the stress on 'woman,'" she murmured, looking at a +group of hollyhocks in flower, round which a crowd of butterflies +had gathered like female idlers round a bonnet-shop. + +"But about the dress. Why not wear the one you wore at our party?" + +"That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives +near our house, has had one made almost like it (only in pattern, +though of miserably cheap stuff), and I couldn't wear it on that +account. Dear me, I am afraid I can't go now." + +"O yes, you must; I know you will!" said Dick, with dismay. "Why +not wear what you've got on?" + +"What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one +Saturday, I can make the blue one do for Sunday. Yes, I will. A +hat or a bonnet, which shall it be? Which do I look best in?" + +"Well, I think the bonnet is nicest, more quiet and matronly." + +"What's the objection to the hat? Does it make me look old?" + +"O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather too--you +won't mind me saying it, dear?" + +"Not at all, for I shall wear the bonnet." + +"--Rather too coquettish and flirty for an engaged young woman." + +She reflected a minute. "Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would +do best; hats ARE best, you see. Yes, I must wear the hat, dear +Dicky, because I ought to wear a hat, you know." + + + + +PART THE FORTH--AUTUMN + + + + +CHAPTER I: GOING NUTTING + + +Dick, dressed in his 'second-best' suit, burst into Fancy's sitting- +room with a glow of pleasure on his face. + +It was two o'clock on Friday, the day be fore her contemplated visit +to her father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the +school the children had been given this Friday afternoon for +pastime, in addition to the usual Saturday. + +"Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with +you. Smart is lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can't do +anything, I've made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you +to go nutting with me!" + +She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying +across her lap and scissors in her hand. + +"Go nutting! Yes. But I'm afraid I can't go for an hour or so." + +"Why not? 'Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together +for weeks." + +"This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;-- +I find it fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I +told the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; +instead of that, she did it her own way, and made me look a perfect +fright." + +"How long will you be?" he inquired, looking rather disappointed. + +"Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear." + +Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the +snipping and sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his +conversation began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe +with a walking-stick he had cut from the hedge as he came along. +Fancy talked and answered him, but sometimes the answers were so +negligently given, that it was evident her thoughts lay for the +greater part in her lap with the blue dress. + +The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the +room with his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then +sounded a few notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the +books he could find, then smoothed Fancy's head with his hand. +Still the snipping and sewing went on. + +The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; +counted the knots in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies +on the ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, +and so thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was +constructed that he could have delivered a lecture on the subject. +Stepping back to Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he +went into her garden and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and +reminded himself that they seemed to him to wear a decidedly +feminine aspect; then pulled up several weeds, and came in again. +The clock struck five, and still the snipping and sewing went on. + +Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking- +stick, then threw the stick into the scullery because it was spoilt, +produced hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally +overturned a vase of flowers, the water from which ran in a rill +across the table and dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake, +the shape of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, he began to +modify considerably with his foot, till it was like a map of England +and Wales. + +"Well, Dick, you needn't have made quite such a mess." + +"Well, I needn't, I suppose." He walked up to the blue dress, and +looked at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his +brain. + +"Fancy." + +"Yes." + +"I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day +to-morrow on your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I +shall be with you, and ask your father for you?" + +"So I am." + +"And the blue one only on Sunday?" + +"And the blue one Sunday." + +"Well, dear, I sha'n't be at Yalbury Sunday to see it." + +"No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with +father, and such lots of people will be looking at me there, you +know; and it did set so badly round the neck." + +"I never noticed it, and 'tis like nobody else would." + +"They might." + +"Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? 'Tis as pretty +as the blue one." + +"I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn't so good; it +didn't cost half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the +same I wore Saturday." + +"Then wear the striped one, dear." + +"I might." + +"Or the dark one." + +"Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven't seen." + +"I see, I see," said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love +were decidedly inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his +thoughts meanwhile running as follows: "I, the man she loves best +in the world, as she says, am to understand that my poor half- +holiday is to be lost, because she wants to wear on Sunday a gown +there is not the slightest necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, +to appear more striking than usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young +men; and I not there, either." + +"Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither +is good enough for the youths of Longpuddle," he said. + +"No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do want--to look +pretty to them--there, that's honest! But I sha'n't be much +longer." + +"How much?" + +"A quarter of an hour." + +"Very well; I'll come in in a quarter of an hour." + +"Why go away?" + +"I mid as well." + +He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he +meditated and meditated, and the more he meditated the more +decidedly did he begin to fume, and the more positive was he that +his time had been scandalously trifled with by Miss Fancy Day--that, +so far from being the simple girl who had never had a sweetheart +before, as she had solemnly assured him time after time, she was, if +not a flirt, a woman who had had no end of admirers; a girl most +certainly too anxious about her frocks; a girl, whose feelings, +though warm, were not deep; a girl who cared a great deal too much +how she appeared in the eyes of other men. "What she loves best in +the world," he thought, with an incipient spice of his father's +grimness, "is her hair and complexion. What she loves next best, +her gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, perhaps!" + +Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness +to his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel +thought crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had +promised, at the end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a +punishment she well deserved. Although the best part of the +afternoon had been wasted he would go nutting as he had intended, +and go by himself. + +He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two +miles, till a winding path called Snail-Creep sloped up a hill and +entered a hazel copse by a hole hike a rabbit's burrow. In he +plunged, vanished among the bushes, and in a short time there was no +sign of his existence upon earth, save an occasional rustling of +boughs and snapping of twigs in divers points of Grey's Wood. + +Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a +galley slave. Half-hour after half-hour passed away, and still he +gathered without ceasing. At last, when the sun had set, and +bunches of nuts could not be distinguished from the leaves which +nourished them, he shouldered his bag, containing quite two pecks of +the finest produce of the wood, about as much use to him as two +pecks of stones from the road, strolled down the woodland track, +crossed the highway and entered the homeward lane, whistling as be +went. + +Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. +Dewy's opinion as on that afternoon. In fact, it is just possible +that a few more blue dresses on the Longpuddle young men's account +would have clarified Dick's brain entirely, and made him once more a +free man. + +But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the +present. Cuckoo-Lane, the way he pursued, passed over a ridge which +rose keenly against the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, +upon the bright after-glow about the horizon, was now visible an +irregular shape, which at first he conceived to be a bough standing +a little beyond the line of its neighbours. Then it seemed to move, +and, as he advanced still further, there was no doubt that it was a +living being sitting in the bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy +margin entirely prevented his footsteps from being heard, and it was +not till he was close that the figure recognized him. Up it sprang, +and he was face to face with Fancy. + +"Dick, Dick! O, is it you, Dick!" + +"Yes, Fancy," said Dick, in a rather repentant tone, and lowering +his nuts. + +She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little +head against his breast, and then there began a narrative, +disjointed by such a hysterical weeping as was never surpassed for +intensity in the whole history of love. + +"O Dick," she sobbed out, "where have you been away from me? O, I +have suffered agony, and thought you would never come any more! +'Tis cruel, Dick; no 'tisn't, it is justice! I've been walking +miles and miles up and down Grey's Wood, trying to find you, till I +was wearied and worn out, and I could walk no further, and had come +back this far! O Dick, directly you were gone, I thought I had +offended you and I put down the dress; 'tisn't finished now, and I +never will finish, it, and I'll wear an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, +I will, because I don't care what I wear when you are not by my +side--ha, you think I do, but I don't!--and I ran after you, and I +saw you go up Snail-Creep and not look back once, and then you +plunged in, and I after you; but I was too far behind. O, I did +wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your +dear shape again! And then I called out to you, and nobody +answered, and I was afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else +should hear me. Then I kept wandering and wandering about, and it +was dreadful misery, Dick. And then I shut my eyes and fell to +picturing you looking at some other woman, very pretty and nice, but +with no affection or truth in her at all, and then imagined you +saying to yourself, "Ah, she's as good as Fancy, for Fancy told me a +story, and was a flirt, and cared for herself more than me, so now +I'll have this one for my sweetheart." O, you won't, will you, +Dick, for I do love you so!" + +It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom +there and then, and kissed her ten times over, and promised that no +pretty woman of the kind alluded to should ever engross his +thoughts; in short, that though he had been vexed with her, all such +vexation was past, and that henceforth and for ever it was simply +Fancy or death for him. And then they set about proceeding +homewards, very slowly on account of Fancy's weariness, she leaning +upon his shoulder, and in addition receiving support from his arm +round her waist; though she had sufficiently recovered from her +desperate condition to sing to him, "Why are you wandering here, I +pray?" during the latter part of their walk. Nor is it necessary to +describe in detail how the bag of nuts was quite forgotten until +three days later, when it was found among the brambles and restored +empty to Mrs. Dewy, her initials being marked thereon in red cotton; +and how she puzzled herself till her head ached upon the question of +how on earth her meal-bag could have got into Cuckoo-Lane. + + + +CHAPTER II: HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS + + + +Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, +according to the arrangement with Fancy. + +The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything +suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from +sunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during +the latter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by +the flutter of terrified birds that had been roosting over the path. +And in crossing the glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been +formed on the hills during the day, greeted his cheeks alternately +with clouds of damp night air from the valleys. He reached the +keeper-steward's house, where the grass-plot and the garden in front +appeared light and pale against the unbroken darkness of the grove +from which he had emerged, and paused at the garden gate. + +He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of +procession advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first +of Enoch the trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern +dangling in his hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern +revealing that she bore in her arms curious objects about a foot +long, in the form of Latin crosses (made of lath and brown paper +dipped in brimstone--called matches by bee-masters); next came Miss +Day, with a shawl thrown over her head; and behind all, in the +gloom, Mr. Frederic Shiner. + +Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss +how to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts. + +"Here I be, Enoch," said a voice; and the procession advancing +farther, the lantern's rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, +awaiting their arrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the +path. Taking the spade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in +the earth beside the hives, the others standing round in a circle, +except Mrs. Day, who deposited her matches in the fork of an apple- +tree and returned to the house. The party remaining were now lit up +in front by the lantern in their midst, their shadows radiating each +way upon the garden-plot like the spokes of a wheel. An apparent +embarrassment of Fancy at the presence of Shiner caused a silence in +the assembly, during which the preliminaries of execution were +arranged, the matches fixed, the stake kindled, the two hives placed +over the two holes, and the earth stopped round the edges. Geoffrey +then stood erect, and rather more, to straighten his backbone after +the digging. + +"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives +reflectively. + +Geoffrey nodded. + +"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think +'tis rather a cruel thing to do." + +Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to +shake the dead bees from their cells, "if you suffocate 'em this +way, they only die once: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they +come to life again, and die o' starvation; so the pangs o' death be +twice upon 'em." + +"I incline to Fancy's notion," said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly. + +"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved +nor murdered, is a puzzling matter," said the keeper steadily. + +"I should like never to take it from them," said Fancy. + +"But 'tis the money," said Enoch musingly. "For without money man +is a shadder!" + +The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from +hives destroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, +were now getting a living as marauders about the doors of other +hives. Several flew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then +darted upon him with an irritated bizz. + +Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a +currant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered +away helter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, +unmoved and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed +by Enoch picking up the lantern. Mr. Shiner still remained +invisible. + +"Have the craters stung ye?" said Enoch to Geoffrey. + +"No, not much--on'y a little here and there," he said with leisurely +solemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another +from among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest +looked on during this proceeding with a complacent sense of being +out of it,--much as a European nation in a state of internal +commotion is watched by its neighbours. + +"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had +pulled away five. + +"Almost all,--though I feel one or two more sticking into my +shoulder and side. Ah! there's another just begun again upon my +backbone. You lively young mortals, how did you get inside there? +However, they can't sting me many times more, poor things, for they +must be getting weak. They mid as well stay in me till bedtime now, +I suppose." + +As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it +seemed satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking +against cabbages in a blundering progress among them, the voice of +Mr. Shiner was heard from the darkness in that direction. + +"Is all quite safe again?" + +No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that +he might venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. +The hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one +being handed to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by +Geoffrey himself. + +"Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide." + +Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and +Fancy standing side by side on the garden-plot. + +"Allow me," said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at +the same time with Fancy. + +"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination +to trifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the +tearful explanation of the bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had +decided that it would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young +woman, to trifle with men's eyes and hands any more. Finding that +Shiner still retained his hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, +and he, having found her retaining it, also let go. The lantern +fell, and was extinguished. Fancy moved on. + +"Where is the path?" said Mr. Shiner. + +"Here," said Fancy. "Your eyes will get used to the dark in a +minute or two." + +"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the +extreme tips of her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the +path. + +"You don't accept attentions very freely." + +"It depends upon who offers them." + +"A fellow like me, for instance." A dead silence. + +"Well, what do you say, Missie?" + +"It then depends upon how they are offered." + +"Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not +by chance; not too quick nor yet too slow." + +"How then?" said Fancy. + +"Coolly and practically," he said. "How would that kind of love be +taken?" + +"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor +pale; nor religiously nor yet quite wickedly." + +"Not at all." + +Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with +bunches of dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of +thyme and lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were +spread large red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early +potatoes for seed next year;--vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying +beneath in heaps. A few empty beehives were clustered around a nail +in one corner, under which stood two or three barrels of new cider +of the first crop, each bubbling and squirting forth from the yet +open bunghole. + +Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which +rested against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the +contents. She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her +small pink hand edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, +performing the act so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single +cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive by a +slight backward and forward movement, she lifted each portion as it +was loosened into a large blue platter, placed on a bench at her +side. + +"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the +light to her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. "I really think +I may as well go indoors and take 'em out, poor things! for they +won't let me alone. There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. +I'm sure I wonder their strength can last so long." + +"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said +Mr. Shiner, leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to +depart, which he did with his usual long paces. + +He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other +footsteps were heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a +finger appeared in the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, +and Dick Dewy came in, having been all this time walking up and down +the wood, vainly waiting for Shiner's departure. + +Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped +the candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should +not imply to Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home +and cool, he sang invincibly - + + +"'King Arthur he had three sons.'" + + +"Father here?" said Dick. + +"Indoors, I think," said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him. + +Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just +at that moment. Shiner went on singing + + +"'The miller was drown'd in his pond, +The weaver was hung in his yarn, +And the d- ran away with the little tail-or, +With the broadcloth under his arm.'" + + +"That's a terrible crippled rhyme, if that's your rhyme!" said Dick, +with a grain of superciliousness in his tone. + +"It's no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!" said Mr. +Shiner. "You must go to the man that made it." + +Fancy by this time had acquired confidence. + +"Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy," she said, holding up to him a small +circular piece of honeycomb that had been the last in the row of +layers, remaining still on her knees and flinging back her head to +look in his face; "and then I'll taste a bit too." + +"And I, if you please," said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer +looked superior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling +from very importance of station; and after receiving the honeycomb +from Fancy, he turned it over in his hand till the cells began to be +crushed, and the liquid honey ran down from his fingers in a thin +string. + +Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her. + +"What's the matter, dear?" said Dick. + +"It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He +was in one of the cells I was eating!" + +"We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!" said Shiner, +stepping up and kneeling beside her. "Let me see it." + +"No, no!" + +"Just let ME see it," said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and +after some hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to +show the place. "O, I hope 'twill soon he better! I don't mind a +sting in ordinary places, hut it is so bad upon your lip," she added +with tears in her eyes, and writhing a little from the pain. + +Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to +Fancy's, as if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon +which Dick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all. + +"It is swelling," said Dick to her right aspect. + +"It isn't swelling," said Shiner to her left aspect. + +"Is it dangerous on the lip?" cried Fancy. "I know it is dangerous +on the tongue." + +"O no, not dangerous!" answered Dick. + +"Rather dangerous," had answered Shiner simultaneously. + +"I must try to bear it!" said Fancy, turning again to the hives. + +"Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day," said +Shiner with great concern. + +"Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I've found to be a good thing to cure +stings, Miss Day," said Dick with greater concern. + +"We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for +me?" she said. + +Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, +the individuality of the YOU was so carelessly denoted that both +Dick and Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched +abreast to the door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and +continued marching on, shoulder to shoulder, in the same manner to +the dwelling-house. Not only so, but entering the room, they +marched as before straight up to Mrs. Day's chair, letting the door +in the oak partition slam so forcibly, that the rows of pewter on +the dresser rang like a bell. + +"Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the +hartshorn, please," said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day's face. + +"O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, +because she has stung her lip!" said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. +Day's face. + +"Well, men alive! that's no reason why you should eat me, I +suppose!" said Mrs. Day, drawing back. + +She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began +to dust the cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, +Dick's hand and Shiner's hand waiting side by side. + +"Which is head man?" said Mrs. Day. "Now, don't come mumbudgeting +so close again. Which is head man?" + +Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, +as a high-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and +turned to go off with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the +search in his linen for concealed bees. + +"O--that you, Master Dewy?" + +Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then +determined upon a bold stroke for the attainment of his end, +forgetting that the worst of bold strokes is the disastrous +consequences they involve if they fail. + +"I've come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day," he +said, with a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, +who was vanishing round the door-post at that moment. + +"Well, I've been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake +some bees out o' me" said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open +door, and standing on the threshold. "The young rascals got into my +shirt and wouldn't be quiet nohow." + +Dick followed him to the door. + +"I've come to speak a word to you," he repeated, looking out at the +pale mist creeping up from the gloom of the valley. "You may +perhaps guess what it is about." + +The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled +his eyes, balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly +downward as if his glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, +collecting together the cracks that lay about his face till they +were all in the neighbourhood of his eyes. + +"Maybe I don't know," he replied. + +Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some +small bird that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, +whose cry passed into the silence without mingling with it. + +"I've left my hat up in chammer," said Geoffrey; "wait while I step +up and get en." + +"I'll be in the garden," said Dick. + +He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went +upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to +discuss matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, +and to reserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom +which, as is supposed, originated in the desirability of getting +away at such times from the other members of the family when there +was only one room for living in, though it was now quite as +frequently practised by those who suffered from no such limitation +to the size of their domiciles. + +The head-keeper's form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked +towards him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery +that stood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; +and they both contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving +about and grunting among the straw of the interior. + +"I've come to ask for Fancy," said Dick. + +"I'd as lief you hadn't." + +"Why should that be, Mr. Day?" + +"Because it makes me say that you've come to ask what ye be'n't +likely to have. Have ye come for anything else?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then I'll just tell 'ee you've come on a very foolish errand. D'ye +know what her mother was?" + +"No." + +"A teacher in a landed family's nursery, who was foolish enough to +marry the keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper +then, though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire as steward +here for my lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly +fellings, and the gravel and sand sales and one thing and 'tother. +However, d'ye think Fancy picked up her good manners, the smooth +turn of her tongue, her musical notes, and her knowledge of books, +in a homely hole like this?" + +"No." + +"D'ye know where?" + +"No." + +"Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother's death, she lived +with her aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married +Lawyer Green--a man as sharp as a needle--and the school was broke +up. Did ye know that then she went to the training-school, and that +her name stood first among the Queen's scholars of her year?" + +"I've heard so." + +"And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, +she had the highest of the first class?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when +I've got enough to do without it, and why I make her work as a +schoolmistress instead of living here?" + +"No." + +"That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, +should want to marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha'n't be +superior to her in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be +good enough for her?" + +"No." + +"Then good-night t'ee, Master Dewy." + +"Good-night, Mr. Day." + +Modest Dick's reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away +wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen +from the beginning to be so superior to him. + + + +CHAPTER III: FANCY IN THE RAIN + + + +The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, +and Fancy Day is discovered walking from her father's home towards +Mellstock. + +A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small +rain and mist had just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, +alternately thick and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations +writhed like miserable men as the air wound its way swiftly among +them: the lowest portions of their trunks, that had hardly ever +been known to move, were visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, +distressing the mind by its painful unwontedness, as when a strong +man is seen to shed tears. Low-hanging boughs went up and down; +high and erect boughs went to and fro; the blasts being so +irregular, and divided into so many cross--currents, that +neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in +independent motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. +Across the open spaces flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, +which, after travelling a long distance from their parent trees, +reached the ground, and lay there with their under--sides upward. + +As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy's bonnet--ribbons leapt +more and more snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering +Mellstock Lane to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place +of shelter. The nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield's, in Higher +Mellstock, whose cottage and garden stood not far from the junction +of that hamlet with the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, +and in five minutes entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood +of water-drops as she opened it. + +"Come in, chiel!" a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a +promptness that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs. +Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the +use of her eyes and ears. + +Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her +husband's supper. + +Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a +bucket of water. + +Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she +began to reconsider an old subject that hay uppermost in her heart. +Since the interview between her father and Dick, the days had been +melancholy days for her. Geoffrey's firm opposition to the notion +of Dick as a son-in-law was more than she had expected. She had +frequently seen her lover since that time, it is true, and had loved +him more for the opposition than she would have otherwise dreamt of +doing--which was a happiness of a certain kind. Yet, though love is +thus an end in itself, it must be believed to be the means to +another end if it is to assume the rosy hues of an unalloyed +pleasure. And such a belief Fancy and Dick were emphatically denied +just now. + +Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its +nature something between distinction and notoriety. It was founded +on the following items of character. She was shrewd and +penetrating; her house stood in a lonely place; she never went to +church; she wore a red cloak; she always retained her bonnet indoors +and she had a pointed chin. Thus far her attributes were distinctly +Satanic; and those who looked no further called her, in plain terms +a witch. But she was not gaunt, nor ugly in the upper part of her +face, nor particularly strange in manner; so that, when her more +intimate acquaintances spoke of her the term was softened, and she +became simply a Deep Body, who was as long-headed as she was high. +It may be stated that Elizabeth, belonged to a class of suspects who +were gradually losing their mysterious characteristics under the +administration of the young vicar; though, during the long reign of +Mr. Grinham, the parish of Mellstock had proved extremely favourable +to the growth of witches. + +While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to +herself whether it was worth while to tell her troubles to +Elizabeth, and ask her advice in getting out of them, the witch +spoke. + +"You be down--proper down," she said suddenly, dropping another +potato into the bucket. + +Fancy took no notice. + +"About your young man." + +Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. +Really, one would almost think she must have the powers people +ascribed to her. + +"Father not in the humour for't, hey?" Another potato was finished +and flung in. "Ah, I know about it. Little birds tell me things +that people don't dream of my knowing." + +Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chance--O, such a +wicked chance--of getting help; and what was goodness beside love! + +"I wish you'd tell me how to put him in the humour for it?" she +said. + +"That I could soon do," said the witch quietly. + +"Really? O, do; anyhow--I don't care--so that it is done! How +could I do it, Mrs. Endorfield?" + +"Nothing so mighty wonderful in it." + +"Well, but how?" + +"By witchery, of course!" said Elizabeth. + +"No!" said Fancy. + +"'Tis, I assure ye. Didn't you ever hear I was a witch?" + +"Well," hesitated Fancy, "I have heard you called so." + +"And you believed it?" + +"I can't say that I did exactly believe it, for 'tis very horrible +and wicked; but, O, how I do wish it was possible for you to be +one!" + +"So I am. And I'll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you +marry Dick Dewy." + +"Will it hurt him, poor thing?" + +"Hurt who?" + +"Father." + +"No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be +broke by your acting stupidly." + +Fancy looked rather perplexed, and Elizabeth went on: + + +"This fear of Lizz--whatever 'tis - +By great and small; +She makes pretence to common sense, +And that's all. + + +"You must do it like this." The witch laid down her knife and +potato, and then poured into Fancy's ear a long and detailed list of +directions, glancing up from the corner of her eye into Fancy's face +with an expression of sinister humour. Fancy's face brightened, +clouded, rose and sank, as the narrative proceeded. "There," said +Elizabeth at length, stooping for the knife and another potato, "do +that, and you'll have him by-long and by-late, my dear." + +"And do it I will!" said Fancy. + +She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The +rain continued as usual, but the wind had abated considerably during +the discourse. Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella +erect, she pulled her hood again over her bonnet, bade the witch +good-bye, and went her way. + + + +CHAPTER IV: THE SPELL + + + +Mrs. Endorfield's advice was duly followed. + +"I be proper sorry that your daughter isn't so well as she might +be," said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning. + +"But is there anything in it?" said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted +his hat to the right. "I can't understand the report. She didn't +complain to me a bit when I saw her." + +"No appetite at all, they say." + +Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that +afternoon. Fancy welcomed him as usual, and asked him to stay and +take tea with her. + +"I be'n't much for tea, this time o' day," he said, but stayed. + +During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great +consternation discovered the following unprecedented change in the +healthy girl--that she cut herself only a diaphanous slice of bread- +and-butter, and, laying it on her plate, passed the meal-time in +breaking it into pieces, but eating no more than about one-tenth of +the slice. Geoffrey hoped she would say something about Dick, and +finish up by weeping, as she had done after the decision against him +a few days subsequent to the interview in the garden. But nothing +was said, and in due time Geoffrey departed again for Yalbury Wood. + +"'Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her +school," said Geoffrey's man Enoch to Geoffrey the following week, +as they were shovelling up ant-hills in the wood. + +Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his +sleeve, and killed another that was prowling round his ear, then +looked perpendicularly into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to +say more. "Well, why shouldn't she?" said the keeper at last. + +"The baker told me yesterday," continued Enoch, shaking out another +emmet that had run merrily up his thigh, "that the bread he've left +at that there school-house this last month would starve any mouse in +the three creations; that 'twould so! And afterwards I had a pint +o' small down at Morrs's, and there I heard more." + +"What might that ha' been?" + +"That she used to have a pound o' the best rolled butter a week, +regular as clockwork, from Dairyman Viney's for herself, as well as +just so much salted for the helping girl, and the 'ooman she calls +in; but now the same quantity d'last her three weeks, and then 'tis +thoughted she throws it away sour." + +"Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag home-along." The keeper +resumed his gun, tucked it under his arm, and went on without +whistling to the dogs, who however followed, with a bearing meant to +imply that they did not expect any such attentions when their master +was reflecting. + +On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble +about sending her the couple of rabbits, as was intended, because +she feared she should not want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went +to Casterbridge and called upon the butcher who served Fancy with +fresh meat, which was put down to her father's account. + +"I've called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you +can gie me the chiel's account at the same time." + +Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of +a heap of joints, altered the expression of his face from meat to +money, went into a little office consisting only of a door and a +window, looked very vigorously into a book which possessed length +but no breadth; and then, seizing a piece of paper and scribbling +thereupon, handed the bill. + +Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial +transactions that the quality of shortness in a butcher's bill was a +cause of tribulation to the debtor. "Why, this isn't all she've had +in a whole month!" said Geoffrey. + +"Every mossel," said the butcher--"(now, Dan, take that leg and +shoulder to Mrs. White's, and this eleven pound here to Mr. +Martin's)--you've been treating her to smaller joints lately, to my +thinking, Mr. Day?" + +"Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am +alive--I wish I had!" + +"Well, my wife said to me--(Dan! not too much, not too much on that +tray at a time; better go twice)--my wife said to me as she posted +up the books: she says, "Miss Day must have been summer during that +hot muggy weather much for us; for depend upon't," she says, "she've +been trying John Grimmett unknown to us: see her account else." +'Tis little, of course, at the best of times, being only for one, +but now 'tis next kin to nothing." + +"I'll inquire," said Geoffrey despondingly. + +He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in +fulfilment of a promise. It being Saturday, the children were +enjoying a holiday, and on entering the residence Fancy was nowhere +to be seen. Nan, the charwoman, was sweeping the kitchen. + +"Where's my da'ter?" said the keeper. + +"Well, you see she was tired with the week's teaching, and this +morning she said, "Nan, I sha'n't get up till the evening." You +see, Mr. Day, if people don't eat, they can't work; and as she've +gie'd up eating, she must gie up working." + +"Have ye carried up any dinner to her?" + +"No; she don't want any. There, we all know that such things don't +come without good reason--not that I wish to say anything about a +broken heart, or anything of the kind." + +Geoffrey's own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went +to the staircase and ascended to his daughter's door. + +"Fancy!" + +"Come in, father." + +To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, +is depressing enough; and here was his only child Fancy, not only in +bed, but looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed. + +"Fancy, I didn't expect to see thee here, chiel," he said. "What's +the matter?" + +"I'm not well, father." + +"How's that?" + +"Because I think of things." + +"What things can you have to think o' so mortal much?" + +"You know, father." + +"You think I've been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless +Dick o' thine sha'n't marry thee, I suppose?" + +No answer. + +"Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn't good +enough for thee. You know that well enough." Here he again looked +at her as she lay. "Well, Fancy, I can't let my only chiel die; and +if you can't live without en, you must ha' en, I suppose." + +"O, I don't want him like that; all against your will, and +everything so disobedient!" sighed the invalid. + +"No, no, 'tisn't against my will. My wish is, now I d'see how 'tis +hurten thee to live without en, that he shall marry thee as soon as +we've considered a little. That's my wish flat and plain, Fancy. +There, never cry, my little maid! You ought to ha' cried afore; no +need o' crying now 'tis all over. Well, howsoever, try to step over +and see me and mother-law to-morrow, and ha' a bit of dinner wi' +us." + +"And--Dick too?" + +"Ay, Dick too, 'far's I know." + +"And WHEN do you think you'll have considered, father, and he may +marry me?" she coaxed. + +"Well, there, say next Midsummer; that's not a day too long to +wait." + +On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter's. Old William +opened the door. + +"Is your grandson Dick in 'ithin, William?" + +"No, not just now, Mr. Day. Though he've been at home a good deal +lately." + +"O, how's that?" + +"What wi' one thing, and what wi' t'other, he's all in a mope, as +might be said. Don't seem the feller he used to. Ay, 'a will sit +studding and thinking as if 'a were going to turn chapel-member, and +then do nothing but traypse and wamble about. Used to be such a +chatty boy, too, Dick did; and now 'a don't speak at all. But won't +ye step inside? Reuben will be home soon, 'a b'lieve." + +"No, thank you, I can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do +me the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da'ter +Fancy, if she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, +now she's not so terrible topping in health." + +"So I've heard. Ay, sure, I'll tell him without fail." + + + +CHAPTER V: AFTER GAINING HER POINT + + + +The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might +have been expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth +experience in a hitherto obstructed love-course. And then came a +series of several happy days, of the same undisturbed serenity. +Dick could court her when he chose; stay away when he chose,--which +was never; walk with her by winding streams and waterfalls and +autumn scenery till dews arid twilight sent them home. And thus +they drew near the day of the Harvest Thanksgiving, which was also +the time chosen for opening the organ in Mellstock Church. + +It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from +Mellstock. A young acquaintance had died of consumption at +Charmley, a neighbouring village, on the previous Monday, and Dick, +in fulfilment of a long-standing promise, was to assist in carrying +him to the grave. When on Tuesday, Dick went towards the school to +acquaint Fancy with the fact, it is difficult to say whether his own +disappointment at being denied the sight of her triumphant debut as +organist, was greater than his vexation that his pet should on this +great occasion be deprived of the pleasure of his presence. +However, the intelligence was communicated. She bore it as she best +could, not without many expressions of regret, and convictions that +her performance would be nothing to her now. + +Just before eleven o'clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. +The funeral was to be immediately after the morning service, and as +there were four good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it +became necessary to start comparatively early. Half an hour later +would certainly have answered his purpose quite as well, yet at the +last moment nothing would content his ardent mind but that he must +go a mile out of his way in the direction of the school, in the hope +of getting a glimpse of his Love as she started for church. + +Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of +across the ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door +as his goddess emerged. + +If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that +morning as she floated down those school steps, in the form of a +nebulous collection of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity +unparalleled in the whole history of village-school-mistresses at +this date--partly owing, no doubt, to papa's respectable +accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether +one of necessity--she had actually donned a hat and feather, and +lowered her hitherto plainly looped-up hair, which now fell about +her shoulders in a profusion of curls. Poor Dick was astonished: +he had never seen her look so distractingly beautiful before, save +on Christmas-eve, when her hair was in the same luxuriant condition +of freedom. But his first burst of delighted surprise was followed +by less comfortable feelings, as soon as his brain recovered its +power to think. + +Fancy had blushed;--was it with confusion? She had also +involuntarily pressed back her curls. She had not expected him. + +"Fancy, you didn't know me for a moment in my funeral clothes, did +you?" + +"Good-morning, Dick--no, really, I didn't know you for an instant in +such a sad suit." + +He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. "You've never dressed +so charming before, dearest." + +"I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick," she said, smiling +archly. "It is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?" + +"Fie! you know it. Did you remember,--I mean didn't you remember +about my going away to-day?" + +"Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;-- +forgive me." + +"Yes, darling; yes, of course,--there's nothing to forgive. No, I +was only thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and +Thursday and Friday about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for +it, you said, Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said +it would be no pleasure to you to be the attraction of the church +to-day, since I could not be there." + +"My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I +do take a little delight in my life, I suppose," she pouted. + +"Apart from mine?" + +She looked at him with perplexed eyes. "I know you are vexed with +me, Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat +and feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you +are away and won't be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And +you think that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn't +be here to-day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. +Yes, you do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!" + +"No, no," said Dick earnestly and simply, "I didn't think so badly +of you as that. I only thought that--if YOU had been going away, I +shouldn't have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. +But then of course you and I are different, naturally." + +"Well, perhaps we are." + +"Whatever will the vicar say, Fancy?" + +"I don't fear what he says in the least!" she answered proudly. +"But he won't say anything of the sort you think. No, no." + +"He can hardly have conscience to, indeed." + +"Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go," +she said with sudden gaiety, and skipped backwards into the porch. +"Come here, sir;--say you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me;-- +you never have yet when I have worn curls, you know. Yes, just +where you want to so much,--yes, you may!" + +Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not +slow in availing himself of the privilege offered. + +"Now that's a treat for you, isn't it?" she continued. "Good-bye, +or I shall be late. Come and see me to-morrow: you'll be tired to +night." + +Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ +stood on one side of the chancel, close to and under the immediate +eye of the vicar when he was in the pulpit, and also in full view of +the congregation. Here she sat down, for the first time in such a +conspicuous position, her seat having previously been in a remote +spot in the aisle. + +"Good heavens--disgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!" said the +daughters of the small gentry, who had either only curly hair +without a hat and feather, or a hat and feather without curly hair. +"A bonnet for church always," said sober matrons. + +That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him +during the sermon; that he was not at all angry at her development +of costume; that he admired her, she perceived. But she did not see +that he loved her during that sermon-time as he had never loved a +woman before; that her proximity was a strange delight to him; and +that he gloried in her musical success that morning in a spirit +quite beyond a mere cleric's glory at the inauguration of a new +order of things. + +The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in +the gallery as heretofore (which was now given up to the school- +children who were not singers, and a pupil-teacher), but were +scattered about with their wives in different parts of the church. +Having nothing to do with conducting the service for almost the +first time in their lives, they all felt awkward, out of place, +abashed, and inconvenienced by their hands. The tranter had +proposed that they should stay away to-day and go nutting, but +grandfather William would not hear of such a thing for a moment. +"No," he replied reproachfully, and quoted a verse "Though this has +come upon us, let not our hearts be turned back, or our steps go out +of the way." + +So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back +of the successful rival, and the waving of her feather, as she +swayed her head. After a few timid notes and uncertain touches her +playing became markedly correct, and towards the end full and free. +But, whether from prejudice or unbiassed judgment, the venerable +body of musicians could not help thinking that the simpler notes +they had been wont to bring forth were more in keeping with the +simplicity of their old church than the crowded chords and +interludes it was her pleasure to produce. + + + +CHAPTER VI: INTO TEMPTATION + + + +The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About +five o'clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind +she wandered into the schoolroom, for want of something better to +do. She was thinking--of her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of +how weary she was of living alone: how unbearable it would be to +return to Yalbury under the rule of her strange-tempered step- +mother; that it was far better to be married to anybody than do +that; that eight or nine long months had yet to be lived through ere +the wedding could take place. + +At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon +either sill of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and +using it as a footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched +herself, as was her custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on +a light shawl and bonnet, opened the window, and looked out at the +rain. + +The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the +position from which she used to survey the crown of Dick's passing +hat in the early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a +living soul was now visible anywhere; the rain kept all people +indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and necessity was +less importunate on Sundays than during the week. + +Sitting here and thinking again--of her lover, or of the sensation +she had created at church that day?--well, it is unknown--thinking +and thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into +distinctness at the further end of the Grove--a man without an +umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived that he was +in deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness +and foolishness of his young heart, after walking four miles, in a +drizzling rain without overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark +from his love that he was not to come because he would be tired, he +had made it his business to wander this mile out of his way again, +from sheer wish of spending ten minutes in her presence. + +"O Dick, how wet you are!" she said, as he drew up under the window. +"Why, your coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat--my +goodness, there's a streaming hat!" + +"O, I don't mind, darling!" said Dick cheerfully. "Wet never hurts +me, though I am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it +couldn't be helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don't +know when I shall get mine back!" + +"And look, there's a nasty patch of something just on your +shoulder." + +"Ah, that's japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack's +coffin when we lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I +don't care about that, for 'twas the last deed I could do for him; +and 'tis hard if you can't afford a coat for an old friend." + +Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the +palm of that little hand there existed for that half-minute a little +yawn. + +"Dick, I don't like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn't +sit down. Go home and change your things. Don't stay another +minute." + +"One kiss after coming so far," he pleaded. + +"If I can reach, then." + +He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the +door. She twisted from her seated position and bent herself +downwards, but not even by standing on the plinth was it possible +for Dick to get his lips into contact with hers as she held them. +By great exertion she might have reached a little lower; but then +she would have exposed her head to the rain. + +"Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand," she said, flinging it down to him. +"Now, good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till +he was out of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost +involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning's triumph--"I +like Dick, and I love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in +the rain, with no umbrella, and wet through!" + +As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but +glancing in the other direction she saw another form coming along +the same track. It was also that of a man. He, too, was in black +from top to toe; but he carried an umbrella. + +He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant +his umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was +invisible, as she was also to him. He passed in due time directly +beneath her, and in looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella +her feminine eyes perceived it to be of superior silk--less common +at that date than since--and of elegant make. He reached the +entrance to the building, and Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. +Instead of pursuing the roadway as Dick had done he had turned +sharply round into her own porch. + +She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, +smoothed and patted her hair till the curls hung in passable +condition, and listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and +still there was no knock. Then there arose a soft series of raps, +no louder than the tapping of a distant woodpecker, and barely +distinct enough to reach her ears. She composed herself and flung +open the door. + +In the porch stood Mr. Maybold. + +There was a warm flush upon his face, and a bright flash in his +eyes, which made him look handsomer than she had ever seen him +before. + +"Good-evening, Miss Day." + +"Good-evening, Mr. Maybold," she said, in a strange state of mind. +She had noticed, beyond the ardent hue of his face, that his voice +had a singular tremor in it, and that his hand shook like an aspen +leaf when he laid his umbrella in the corner of the porch. Without +another word being spoken by either, he came into the schoolroom, +shut the door, and moved close to her. Once inside, the expression +of his face was no more discernible, by reason of the increasing +dusk of evening. + +"I want to speak to you," he then said; "seriously--on a perhaps +unexpected subject, but one which is all the world to me--I don't +know what it may be to you, Miss Day." + +No reply. + +"Fancy, I have come to ask you if you will be my wife?" + +As a person who has been idly amusing himself with rolling a +snowball might start at finding he had set in motion an avalanche, +so did Fancy start at these words from the vicar. And in the dead +silence which followed them, the breathings of the man and of the +woman could be distinctly and separately heard; and there was this +difference between them--his respirations gradually grew quieter and +less rapid after the enunciation hers, from having been low and +regular, increased in quickness and force, till she almost panted. + +"I cannot, I cannot, Mr. Maybold--I cannot! Don't ask me!" she +said. + +"Don't answer in a hurry!" he entreated. "And do listen to me. +This is no sudden feeling on my part. I have loved you for more +than six months! Perhaps my late interest in teaching the children +here has not been so single-minded as it seemed. You will +understand my motive--like me better, perhaps, for honestly telling +you that I have struggled against my emotion continually, because I +have thought that it was not well for me to love you! But I +resolved to struggle no longer; I have examined the feeling; and the +love I bear you is as genuine as that I could bear any woman! I see +your great charm; I respect your natural talents, and the refinement +they have brought into your nature--they are quite enough, and more +than enough for me! They are equal to anything ever required of the +mistress of a quiet parsonage-house--the place in which I shall pass +my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I have watched you, +criticized you even severely, brought my feelings to the light of +judgment, and still have found them rational, and such as any man +might have expected to be inspired with by a woman like you! So +there is nothing hurried, secret, or untoward in my desire to do +this. Fancy, will you marry me?" + +No answer was returned. + +"Don't refuse; don't," he implored. "It would be foolish of you--I +mean cruel! Of course we would not live here, Fancy. I have had +for a long time the offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in +Yorkshire, but I have hitherto refused on account of my mother. +There we would go. Your musical powers shall be still further +developed; you shall have whatever pianoforte you like; you shall +have anything, Fancy, anything to make you happy--pony-carriage, +flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, you have enough in you for +any society, after a few months of travel with me! Will you, Fancy, +marry me?" + +Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against +the window--panes, and then Fancy spoke, in a faint and broken +voice. + +"Yes, I will," she said. + +"God bless you, my own!" He advanced quickly, and put his arm out +to embrace her. She drew back hastily. "No no, not now!" she said +in an agitated whisper. "There are things;--but the temptation is, +O, too strong, and I can't resist it I can't tell you now, but I +must tell you! Don't, please, don't come near me now! I want to +think, I can scarcely get myself used to the idea of what I have +promised yet." The next minute she turned to a desk, buried her +face in her hands, and burst into a hysterical fit of weeping. "O, +leave me to myself!" she sobbed; "leave me! O, leave me!" + +"Don't be distressed; don't, dearest!" It was with visible +difficulty that he restrained himself from approaching her. "You +shall tell me at your leisure what it is that grieves you so; I am +happy--beyond all measure happy!--at having your simple promise." + +"And do go and leave me now!" + +"But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you +are yourself again." + +"There then," she said, controlling her emotion, and standing up; "I +am not disturbed now." + +He reluctantly moved towards the door. "Good-bye!" he murmured +tenderly. "I'll come to-morrow about this time." + + + +CHAPTER VII: SECOND THOUGHTS + + + +The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was +to write a long and careful letter to his friend in Yorkshire. +Then, eating a little breakfast, he crossed the meadows in the +direction of Casterbridge, bearing his letter in his pocket, that he +might post it at the town office, and obviate the loss of one day in +its transmission that would have resulted had he left it for the +foot-post through the village. + +It was a foggy morning, and the trees shed in noisy water-drops the +moisture they had collected from the thick air, an acorn +occasionally falling from its cup to the ground, in company with the +drippings. In the meads, sheets of spiders'-web, almost opaque with +wet, hung in folds over the fences, and the falling leaves appeared +in every variety of brown, green, and yellow hue. + +A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was +approaching, then the light footsteps of a man going in the same +direction as himself. On reaching the junction of his path with the +road, the vicar beheld Dick Dewy's open and cheerful face. Dick +lifted his hat, and the vicar came out into the highway that Dick +was pursuing. + +"Good-morning, Dewy. How well you are looking!" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Yes, sir, I am well--quite well! I am going to Casterbridge now, +to get Smart's collar; we left it there Saturday to be repaired." + +"I am going to Casterbridge, so we'll walk together," the vicar +said. Dick gave a hop with one foot to put himself in step with Mr. +Maybold, who proceeded: "I fancy I didn't see you at church +yesterday, Dewy. Or were you behind the pier?" + +"No; I went to Charmley. Poor John Dunford chose me to be one of +his bearers a long time before he died, and yesterday was the +funeral. Of course I couldn't refuse, though I should have liked +particularly to have been at home as 'twas the day of the new +music." + +"Yes, you should have been. The musical portion of the service was +successful--very successful indeed; and what is more to the purpose, +no ill-feeling whatever was evinced by any of the members of the old +choir. They joined in the singing with the greatest good-will." + +"'Twas natural enough that I should want to be there, I suppose," +said Dick, smiling a private smile; "considering who the organ-- +player was." + +At this the vicar reddened a little, and said, "Yes, yes," though +not at all comprehending Dick's true meaning, who, as he received no +further reply, continued hesitatingly, and with another smile +denoting his pride as a lover - + + "I suppose you know what I mean, sir? You've heard about me and-- +Miss Day?" + +The red in Maybold's countenance went away: he turned and looked +Dick in the face. + +"No," he said constrainedly, "I've heard nothing whatever about you +and Miss Day." + +"Why, she's my sweetheart, and we are going to be married next +Midsummer. We are keeping it rather close just at present, because +'tis a good many months to wait; but it is her father's wish that we +don't marry before, and of course we must submit. But the time 'ill +soon slip along." + +"Yes, the time will soon slip along--Time glides away every day-- +yes." + +Maybold said these words, but he had no idea of what they were. He +was conscious of a cold and sickly thrill throughout him; and all he +reasoned was this that the young creature whose graces had +intoxicated him into making the most imprudent resolution of his +life, was less an angel than a woman. + +"You see, sir," continued the ingenuous Dick, "'twill be better in +one sense. I shall by that time be the regular manager of a branch +o' father's business, which has very much increased lately, and +business, which we think of starting elsewhere. It has very much +increased lately, and we expect next year to keep a' extra couple of +horses. We've already our eye on one--brown as a berry, neck like a +rainbow, fifteen hands, and not a gray hair in her--offered us at +twenty-five want a crown. And to kip pace with the times I have had +some cards prented and I beg leave to hand you one, sir." + +"Certainly," said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick +offered him. + +"I turn in here by Grey's Bridge," said Dick. "I suppose you go +straight on and up town?" + +"Yes." + +"Good-morning, sir." + +"Good-morning, Dewy." + +Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been +put into his hand, and Dick's footsteps died away towards Durnover +Mill. The vicar's first voluntary action was to read the card + + +DEWY AND SON, +TRANTERS AND HAULIERS, +MELLSTOCK. + +NB.--FURNITURE, COALS, POTATOES, LIVE AND DEAD STOCK, REMOVED TO ANY +DISTANCE ON THE SHORTEST NOTICE. + + +Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the +river. He saw--without heeding--how the water came rapidly from +beneath the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself +over a pool in which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among +the long green locks of weed that lay heaving and sinking with their +roots towards the current. At the end of ten minutes spent leaning +thus, he drew from his pocket the letter to his friend, tore it +deliberately into such minute fragments that scarcely two syllables +remained in juxtaposition, and sent the whole handful of shreds +fluttering into the water. Here he watched them eddy, dart, and +turn, as they were carried downwards towards the ocean and gradually +disappeared from his view. Finally he moved off, and pursued his +way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock Vicarage. + +Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his +study and wrote as follows: + + +"DEAR MISS DAY,--The meaning of your words, 'the temptation is too +strong,' of your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me +by an accident. I know to-day what I did not know yesterday--that +you are not a free woman. + +"Why did you not tell me--why didn't you? Did you suppose I knew? +No. Had I known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have +been reprehensible. + +"But I don't chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to you--I can't +tell. Fancy, though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in +a way which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to +you holds good yet. But will you, in justice to an honest man who +relies upon your word to him, consider whether, under the +circumstances, you can honourably forsake him?--Yours ever +sincerely, + +"ARTHUR MAYBOLD." + + +He rang the bell. "Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this +note to the school at once." + +The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy +was seen to leave the vicarage gate, with the one under his arm, and +the other in his hand. The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, +watching the lad as he descended Church Lane and entered the +waterside path which intervened between that spot and the school. + +Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and +pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on +his way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight. + +The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in. + +He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he +read the subjoined words: + + +"DEAR MR. MAYBOLD,--I have been thinking seriously and sadly through +the whole of the night of the question you put to me last evening +and of my answer. That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right +to give. + +"It is my nature--perhaps all women's--to love refinement of mind +and manners; but even more than this, to be ever fascinated with the +idea of surroundings more elegant and pleasing than those which have +been customary. And you praised me, and praise is life to me. It +was alone my sensations at these things which prompted my reply. +Ambition and vanity they would be called; perhaps they are so. + +"After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to +withdraw the answer I too hastily gave. + +"And one more request. To keep the meeting of last night, and all +that passed between us there, for ever a secret. Were it to become +known, it would utterly blight the happiness of a trusting and +generous man, whom I love still, and shall love always.--Yours +sincerely, + +"FANCY DAY. + + +The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to +Fancy, was a note containing these words only: + +"Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you." + + + + +PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION + + + + +CHAPTER I: 'THE KNOT THERE'S NO UNTYING' + + + +The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in +the development of the seasons when country people go to bed among +nearly naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake +next morning among green ones; when the landscape appears +embarrassed with the sudden weight and brilliancy of its leaves; +when the night-jar comes and strikes up for the summer his tune of +one note; when the apple-trees have bloomed, and the roads and +orchard-grass become spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of +the delicate flowers are darkened, and their heads weighed down, by +the throng of honey-bees, which increase their humming till humming +is too mild a term for the all-pervading sound; and when cuckoos, +blackbirds, and sparrows, that have hitherto been merry and +respectful neighbours, become noisy and persistent intimates. + +The exterior of Geoffrey Day's house in Yalbury Wood appeared +exactly as was usual at that season, but a frantic barking of the +dogs at the back told of unwonted movements somewhere within. +Inside the door the eyes beheld a gathering, which was a rarity +indeed for the dwelling of the solitary wood-steward and keeper. + +About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled +attitudes, our old acquaintance, grandfathers James and William, the +tranter, Mr. Penny, two or three children, including Jimmy and +Charley, besides three or four country ladies and gentlemen from a +greater distance who do not require any distinction by name. +Geoffrey was seen and heard stamping about the outhouse and among +the bushes of the garden, attending to details of daily routine +before the proper time arrived for their performance, in order that +they might be off his hands for the day. He appeared with his +shirt-sleeves rolled up; his best new nether garments, in which he +had arrayed himself that morning, being temporarily disguised under +a weekday apron whilst these proceedings were in operation. He +occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to see if his wife's +bees were swarming, ultimately rolling down his shirt-sleeves and +going indoors, talking to tranter Dewy whilst buttoning the +wristbands, to save time; next going upstairs for his best +waistcoat, and coming down again to make another remark whilst +buttoning that, during the time looking fixedly in the tranter's +face as if he were a looking-glass. + +The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every +duplicate piece having been removed, including the clock by Thomas +Wood; Ezekiel Saunders being at last left sole referee in matters of +time. + +Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and +adornments, and answering by short fragments of laughter which had +more fidgetiness than mirth in them, remarks that were made from +time to time by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. Penny, who were assisting her at +the toilet, Mrs. Day having pleaded a queerness in her head as a +reason for shutting herself up in an inner bedroom for the whole +morning. Mrs. Penny appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each side +of her temples, and a back comb stuck upon her crown like a castle +on a steep. + +The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the +last publication of which had been on the Sunday previous. + +"And how did they sound?" Fancy subtly inquired. + +"Very beautiful indeed," said Mrs. Penny. "I never heard any sound +better." + +"But HOW?" + +"O, SO natural and elegant, didn't they, Reuben!" she cried, through +the chinks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs. + +"What's that?" said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor +above him for an answer. + +"Didn't Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in +church last Sunday?" came downwards again in Mrs. Penny's voice. + +"Ay, that they did, my sonnies!--especially the first time. There +was a terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn't +there, neighbour Penny?" said the tranter, taking up the thread of +conversation on his own account and, in order to be heard in the +room above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance +of three feet from him, or rather less. + +"I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was," said Mr. +Penny, also loudly, to the room above. "And such sorrowful envy on +the maidens' faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!" + +Fancy's lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her +heart palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. "But +perhaps," she said, with assumed indifference, "it was only because +no religion was going on just then?" + +"O, no; nothing to do with that. 'Twas because of your high +standing in the parish. It was just as if they had one and all +caught Dick kissing and coling ye to death, wasn't it, Mrs. Dewy?" + +"Ay; that 'twas." + +"How people will talk about one's doings!" Fancy exclaimed. + +"Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can't blame +other people for singing 'em." + +"Mercy me! how shall I go through it?" said the young lady again, +but merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind +between a sigh and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face. + +"O, you'll get through it well enough, child," said Mrs. Dewy +placidly. "The edge of the performance is took off at the calling +home; and when once you get up to the chancel end o' the church, you +feel as saucy as you please. I'm sure I felt as brave as a sodger +all through the deed--though of course I dropped my face and looked +modest, as was becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy." + +"And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I'm sure," +subjoined Mrs. Penny. "There, you see Penny is such a little small +man, But certainly, I was flurried in the inside o' me. Well, +thinks I, 'tis to be, and here goes! And do you do the same: say, +''Tis to be, and here goes!'" + +"Is there such wonderful virtue in ''Tis to be, and here goes!'" +inquired Fancy. + +"Wonderful! 'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to +churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough." + +"Very well, then," said Fancy, blushing. "'Tis to be, and here +goes!" + +"That's a girl for a husband!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"I do hope he'll come in time!" continued the bride-elect, inventing +a new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished. + +"'Twould be a thousand pities if he didn't come, now you he so +brave," said Mrs. Penny. + +Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said +downstairs with mischievous loudness--"I've known some would-be +weddings when the men didn't come." + +"They've happened not to come, before now, certainly," said Mr. +Penny, cleaning one of the glasses of his spectacles. + +"O, do hear what they are saying downstairs," whispered Fancy. +"Hush, hush!" + +She listened. + +"They have, haven't they, Geoffrey?" continued grandfather James, as +Geoffrey entered. + +"Have what?" said Geoffrey. + +"The men have been known not to come." + +"That they have," said the keeper. + +"Ay; I've knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through +his not appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I +knowed was when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker's +Wood, and the three months had run out before he got well, and the +banns had to be published over again." + +"How horrible!" said Fancy. + +"They only say it on purpose to tease 'ee, my dear," said Mrs. Dewy. + +"'Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been +put to," came again from downstairs. "Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, +my brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last +thirty year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another--'tis quite +heart-rending--enough to make your hair stand on end." + +"Those things don't happen very often, I know," said Fancy, with +smouldering uneasiness. + +"Well, really 'tis time Dick was here," said the tranter. + +"Don't keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you +down there!" Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. "I am +sure I shall die, or do something, if you do!" + +"Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!" cried Nat +Callcome, the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice +upward through the chinks of the floor as the others had done. +"'Tis all right; Dick's coming on like a wild feller; he'll be here +in a minute. The hive o' bees his mother gie'd en for his new +garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, "I can't afford +to lose a stock o' bees; no, that I can't, though I fain would; and +Fancy wouldn't wish it on any account." So he jist stopped to ting +to 'em and shake 'em." + +"A genuine wise man," said Geoffrey. + +"To be sure, what a day's work we had yesterday!" Mr. Callcome +continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer +to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting +a remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. +"To be sure!" + +"Things so heavy, I suppose," said Geoffrey, as if reading through +the chimney-window from the far end of the vista. + +"Ay," said Nat, looking round the room at points from which +furniture had been removed. "And so awkward to carry, too. 'Twas +ath'art and across Dick's garden; in and out Dick's door; up and +down Dick's stairs; round and round Dick's chammers till legs were +worn to stumps: and Dick is so particular, too. And the stores of +victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, 'tis enough for +Noah's ark! I'm sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of +hams than he's got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was +a very pretty drop, indeed;--none could desire a prettier cider." + +"They be for the love and the stalled ox both, Ah, the greedy +martels!" said grandfather James. + +"Well, may-be they be. Surely," says I, "that couple between 'em +have heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would +think they were going to take hold the big end of married life +first, and begin wi' a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we +two chaps were in, to be sure, a-getting that furniture in order!" + +"I do so wish the room below was ceiled," said Fancy, as the +dressing went on; "we can hear all they say and do down there." + +"Hark! Who's that?" exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also +assisted this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down +the stairs, and peeped round the banister. "O, you should, you +should, you should!" she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again. + +"What?" said Fancy. + +"See the bridesmaids! They've just a come! 'Tis wonderful, really! +'tis wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don't +look a bit like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o' +theirs that nobody knew they had!" + +"Make 'em come up to me, make 'em come up!" cried Fancy +ecstatically; and the four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan +Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy, Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, +surged upstairs, and floated along the passage. + +"I wish Dick would come!" was again the burden of Fancy. + +The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside +the door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, +"Ready, Fancy dearest?" + +"There he is, he is!" cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and +breathing as it were for the first time that morning. + +The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the +direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as +one: --not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see +him, but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers +of the will of that apotheosised being--the Bride. + +"He looks very taking!" said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who +blushed cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons. + +Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining +cloth, primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of +newness, and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, +and hair cut to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion. + +"Now, I'll run down," said Fancy, looking at herself over her +shoulder in the glass, and flitting off. + +"O Dick!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you are come! I knew you +would, of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn't!" + +"Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! +Why, what's possessing your little soul? You never used to mind +such things a bit." + +"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself +then!" said Fancy. + +"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, +surveying them all round. + +"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately +touched Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to +assure herself that he was there in flesh and blood as her own +property. + +"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking +off his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members +of the company. + +The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their +opinion nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was. + +"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and +seasons!" continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net +over the whole auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't +seen such a fine swarm for these ten years." + +"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. +"A' excellent sign." + +"I am glad everything seems so right," said Fancy with a breath of +relief. + +"And so am I," said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy. + +"Well, bees can't be put off," observed the inharmonious grandfather +James. "Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a +swarm o' bees won't come for the asking." + +Dick fanned himself with his hat. "I can't think," he said +thoughtfully, "whatever 'twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I +like so much too. He rather took to me when he came first, and used +to say he should like to see me married, and that he'd marry me, +whether the young woman I chose lived in his parish or no. I just +hinted to him of it when I put in the banns, but he didn't seem to +take kindly to the notion now, and so I said no more. I wonder how +it was." + +"I wonder!" said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful +eyes of hers--too refined and beautiful for a tranter's wife; but, +perhaps, not too good. + +"Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose," said the tranter. +"Well, my sonnies, there'll he a good strong party looking at us to- +day as we go along." + +"And the body of the church," said Geoffrey, "will be lined with +females, and a row of young fellers' heads, as far down as the eyes, +will be noticed just above the sills of the chancel-winders." + +"Ay, you've been through it twice," said Reuben, "and well mid +know." + +"I can put up with it for once," said Dick, "or twice either, or a +dozen times." + +"O Dick!" said Fancy reproachfully. + +"Why, dear, that's nothing,--only just a bit of a flourish. You be +as nervous as a cat to-day." + +"And then, of course, when 'tis all over," continued the tranter, +"we shall march two and two round the parish." + +"Yes, sure," said Mr. Penny: "two and two: every man hitched up to +his woman, 'a b'lieve." + +"I never can make a show of myself in that way!" said Fancy, looking +at Dick to ascertain if he could. + +"I'm agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!" said Mr. +Richard Dewy heartily. + +"Why, we did when we were married, didn't we, Ann?" said the +tranter; "and so do everybody, my sonnies." + +"And so did we," said Fancy's father. + +"And so did Penny and I," said Mrs. Penny: "I wore my best Bath +clogs, I remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so +tall." + +"And so did father and mother," said Miss Mercy Onmey. + +"And I mean to, come next Christmas!" said Nat the groomsman +vigorously, and looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff. + +"Respectable people don't nowadays," said Fancy. "Still, since poor +mother did, I will." + +"Ay," resumed the tranter, "'twas on a White Tuesday when I +committed it. Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new- +married folk went a-gaying round the parish behind 'em. Everybody +used to wear something white at Whitsuntide in them days. My +sonnies, I've got the very white trousers that I wore, at home in +box now, Ha'n't I, Ann?" + +"You had till I cut 'em up for Jimmy," said Mrs. Dewy. + +"And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round +Higher and Lower Mellstock, and call at Viney's, and so work our way +hither again across He'th," said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the +matter in hand. "Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so +is Farmer Kex, and we ought to show ourselves to them." + +"True," said the tranter, "we ought to go round Mellstock to do the +thing well. We shall form a very striking object walking along in +rotation, good-now, neighbours?" + +"That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation," said Mrs. +Penny. + +"Hullo!" said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular +human figure standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock +of pillow-case cut and of snowy whiteness. "Why, Leaf! whatever +dost thou do here?" + +"I've come to know if so be I can come to the wedding--hee-hee!" +said Leaf in a voice of timidity. + +"Now, Leaf," said the tranter reproachfully, "you know we don't want +'ee here to-day: we've got no room for ye, Leaf." + +"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!" said old +William. + +"I know I've got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a +clane shirt and smock-frock, I might just call," said Leaf; turning +away disappointed and trembling. + +"Poor feller!" said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. "Suppose we +must let en come? His looks are rather against en, and he is +terrible silly; but 'a have never been in jail, and 'a won't do no +harm." + +Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and +then anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in +helping his cause. + +"Ay, let en come," said Geoffrey decisively. "Leaf, th'rt welcome, +'st know;" and Leaf accordingly remained. + +They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a +procession in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and +Susan Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy +Onmey, and Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and +all appeared in strict wedding attire. Then came the tranter and +Mrs. Dewy, and last of all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;--the tranter +conspicuous by his enormous gloves, size eleven and three-quarters, +which appeared at a distance like boxing gloves bleached, and sat +rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; this hall-mark of +respectability having been set upon himself to-day (by Fancy's +special request) for the first time in his life. + +"The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together," suggested +Fancy. + +"What? 'Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my +time!" said Geoffrey, astounded. + +"And in mine!" said the tranter. + +"And in ours!" said Mr. and Mrs. Penny. + +"Never heard o' such a thing as woman and woman!" said old William; +who, with grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home. + +"Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!" said Dick, who, +being on the point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to +renounce all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure +The decision was left to Fancy. + +"Well, I think I'd rather have it the way mother had it," she said, +and the couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid. + +"Ah!" said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, +"I wonder which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!" + +"Well, 'tis their nature," said grandfather William. "Remember the +words of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or +a bride her attire?'" + +Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a +cathedral; now through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild +hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they +threaded their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which +dipped at that point directly into the village of Geoffrey Day's +parish; and in the space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself +to be Mrs. Richard Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no +other than Fancy Day still. + +On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid +much chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, +Dick discerned a brown spot far up a turnip field. + +"Why, 'tis Enoch!" he said to Fancy. "I thought I missed him at the +house this morning. How is it he's left you?" + +"He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him +in Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody +else for a day or two, and Enoch hasn't had anything to do with the +woods since." + +"We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for +once, considering 'tis our wedding day." The bridal party was +ordered to halt. + +"Eno-o-o-o-ch!" cried Dick at the top of his voice. + +"Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!" said Enoch from the distance. + +"D'ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?" + +"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!" + +"Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!" + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!" + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view +as if she had been a nosegay.) + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!" + +"Ca-a-a-a-a-an't!" + +"Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?" + +"Don't work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!" + +"Not nice of Master Enoch," said Dick, as they resumed their walk. + +"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; +he's in his morning frame of mind. When he's had a gallon o' cider +or ale, or a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his +manners be as good as anybody's in the kingdom." + + + +CHAPTER II: UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + + +The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's +premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous +extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds +of birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes +of rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; +quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and +countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its +roots. Beneath and beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended +grass-plot, its purpose being to supply a healthy exercise-ground +for young chickens and pheasants; the hens, their mothers, being +enclosed in coops placed upon the same green flooring. + +All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon +advanced, the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and +the singing of songs went forward with great spirit throughout the +evening. The propriety of every one was intense by reason of the +influence of Fancy, who, as an additional precaution in this +direction, had strictly charged her father and the tranter to +carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in their conversation, on +the plea that those ancient words sounded so very humiliating to +persons of newer taste; also that they were never to be seen drawing +the back of the hand across the mouth after drinking--a local +English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to be +decidedly dying out among the better classes of society. + +In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough +knowledge of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum +Clangley,--a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants +as performers on instruments of percussion. These important members +of the assembly were relegated to a height of two or three feet from +the ground, upon a temporary erection of planks supported by +barrels. Whilst the dancing progressed the older persons sat in a +group under the trunk of the tree,--the space being allotted to them +somewhat grudgingly by the young ones, who were greedy of +pirouetting room,--and fortified by a table against the heels of the +dancers. Here the gaffers and gammers, whose dancing days were +over, told stories of great impressiveness, and at intervals +surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same retreat, +as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval engagement in +the bay beyond; returning again to their tales when the pause was +over. Those of the whirling throng, who, during the rests between +each figure, turned their eyes in the direction of these seated +ones, were only able to discover, on account of the music and +bustle, that a very striking circumstance was in course of +narration--denoted by an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping of the +fingers, close of the lips, and fixed look into the centre of the +listener's eye for the space of a quarter of a minute, which raised +in that listener such a reciprocating working of face as to +sometimes make the distant dancers half wish to know what such an +interesting tale could refer to. + +Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was +obtainable out of six hours' experience as a wife, in order that the +contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried +young women present might be duly impressed upon the company: +occasionally stealing glances of admiration at her left hand, but +this quite privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the +matter was intended to show that, though she undoubtedly occupied +the most wondrous position in the eyes of the world that had ever +been attained, she was almost unconscious of the circumstance, and +that the somewhat prominent position in which that wonderfully- +emblazoned left hand was continually found to be placed, when +handing cups and saucers, knives, forks, and glasses, was quite the +result of accident. As to wishing to excite envy in the bosoms of +her maiden companions, by the exhibition of the shining ring, every +one was to know it was quite foreign to the dignity of such an +experienced married woman. Dick's imagination in the meantime was +far less capable of drawing so much wontedness from his new +condition. He had been for two or three hours trying to feel +himself merely a newly-married man, but had been able to get no +further in the attempt than to realize that he was Dick Dewy, the +tranter's son, at a party given by Lord Wessex's head man-in-charge, +on the outlying Yalbury estate, dancing and chatting with Fancy Day. + +Five country dances, including 'Haste to the Wedding,' two reels, +and three fragments of horn-pipes, brought them to the time for +supper, which, on account of the dampness of the grass from the +immaturity of the summer season, was spread indoors. At the +conclusion of the meal Dick went out to put the horse in; and Fancy, +with the elder half of the four bridesmaids, retired upstairs to +dress for the journey to Dick's new cottage near Mellstock. + +"How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?" Dick inquired +at the foot of the staircase. Being now a man of business and +married, he was strong on the importance of time, and doubled the +emphasis of his words in conversing, and added vigour to his nods. + +"Only a minute." + +"How long is that?" + +"Well, dear, five." + +"Ah, sonnies!" said the tranter, as Dick retired, "'tis a talent of +the female race that low numbers should stand for high, more +especially in matters of waiting, matters of age, and matters of +money." + +"True, true, upon my body," said Geoffrey. + +"Ye spak with feeling, Geoffrey, seemingly." + +"Anybody that d'know my experience might guess that." + +"What's she doing now, Geoffrey?" + +"Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the +second-best chainey--a thing that's only done once a year. 'If +there's work to be done I must do it,' says she, 'wedding or no.'" + +"'Tis my belief she's a very good woman at bottom." + +"She's terrible deep, then." + +Mrs. Penny turned round. "Well, 'tis humps and hollers with the +best of us; but still and for all that, Dick and Fancy stand as fair +a chance of having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the +land." + +"Ay, there's no gainsaying it." + +Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. +"Happy, yes," she said. "'Tis always so when a couple is so exactly +in tune with one another as Dick and she." + +"When they be'n't too poor to have time to sing," said grandfather +James. + +"I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes," said the tranter: +"when the oldest daughter's boots be only a size less than her +mother's, and the rest o' the flock close behind her. A sharp time +for a man that, my sonnies; a very sharp time! Chanticleer's comb +is a-cut then, 'a believe." + +"That's about the form o't," said Mr. Penny. "That'll put the stuns +upon a man, when you must measure mother and daughter's lasts to +tell 'em apart." + +"You've no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a close-coming flock," +said Mrs. Dewy; "for ours was a straggling lot enough, God knows!" + +"I d'know it, I d'know it," said the tranter. "You be a well-enough +woman, Ann." + +Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back +again without smiling. + +"And if they come together, they go together," said Mrs. Penny, +whose family had been the reverse of the tranter's; "and a little +money will make either fate tolerable. And money can be made by our +young couple, I know." + +"Yes, that it can!" said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had +hitherto humbly admired the proceedings from a corner. "It can be +done--all that's wanted is a few pounds to begin with. That's all! +I know a story about it!" + +"Let's hear thy story, Leaf;" said the tranter. "I never knew you +were clever enough to tell a story. Silence, all of ye! Mr. Leaf +will tell a story." + +"Tell your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William in the tone +of a schoolmaster. + +"Once," said the delighted Leaf; in an uncertain voice, "there was a +man who lived in a house! Well, this man went thinking and thinking +night and day. At last, he said to himself; as I might, 'If I had +only ten pound, I'd make a fortune.' At last by hook or by crook, +behold he got the ten pounds!" + +"Only think of that!" said Nat Callcome satirically. + +"Silence!" said the tranter. + +"Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little +time he made that ten pounds twenty. Then a little time after that +he doubled it, and made it forty. Well, he went on, and a good +while after that he made it eighty, and on to a hundred. Well, by- +and-by he made it two hundred! Well, you'd never believe it, but-- +he went on and made it four hundred! He went on, and what did he +do? Why, he made it eight hundred! Yes, he did," continued Leaf; +in the highest pitch of excitement, bringing down his fist upon his +knee with such force that he quivered with the pain; "yes, and he +went on and made it A THOUSAND!" + +"Hear, hear!" said the tranter. "Better than the history of +England, my sonnies!" + +"Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William; +and then Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again. + +Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his +bride took their departure, side by side in the excellent new +spring-cart which the young tranter now possessed. The moon was +just over the full, rendering any light from lamps or their own +beauties quite unnecessary to the pair. They drove slowly along +Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed between two copses. Dick was +talking to his companion. + +"Fancy," he said, "why we are so happy is because there is such full +confidence between us. Ever since that time you confessed to that +little flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no +flirtation at all), I have thought how artless and good you must be +to tell me o' such a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about +it as you were. It has won me to tell you my every deed and word +since then. We'll have no secrets from each other, darling, will we +ever?--no secret at all." + +"None from to-day," said Fancy. "Hark! what's that?" + +From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, +musical, and liquid voice - + +"Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki! Come hither, come hither, come +hither!" + +"O, 'tis the nightingale," murmured she, and thought of a secret she +would never tell. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less +questionable. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext Under the Greenwood Tree, by Hardy + diff --git a/old/ungwt10.zip b/old/ungwt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4fc25db --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ungwt10.zip diff --git a/old/ungwt11.txt b/old/ungwt11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..425dfd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ungwt11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7755 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Under the Greenwood Tree, by Hardy +#8 in our series by Thomas Hardy + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words +are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they +need about what they can legally do with the texts. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + +As of 12/12/00 contributions are only being solicited from people in: +Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, +Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, +Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming. + +As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising +will begin in the additional states. Please feel +free to ask to check the status of your state. + +International donations are accepted, +but we don't know ANYTHING about how +to make them tax-deductible, or +even if they CAN be made deductible, +and don't have the staff to handle it +even if there are ways. + +These donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + + +Title: Under the Greenwood Tree + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Official Release Date: June, 2001 [Etext #2662] +[The actual date this file first posted = 05/15/01] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Under the Greenwood Tree, by Hardy +*******This file should be named ungwt11.txt or ungwt11.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ungwt12.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ungwt10a.txt + +This etext was scanned by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, +from the 1912 Macmillan and Co. ("Wessex") edition. Proofing by +Margaret Price. Additional proofing by Dagny. + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after +the official publication date. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +http://gutenberg.net +http://promo.net/pg + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext02 +or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02 + +Or /etext01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in: +Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, +Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Montana, +Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming. + +As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising +will begin in the additional states. + +These donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, +EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541, +has been approved as a 501(c)(3) organization by the US Internal +Revenue Service (IRS). Donations are tax-deductible to the extent +permitted by law. As the requirements for other states are met, +additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the +additional states. + +All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation. Mail to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Avenue +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 [USA] + + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +*** + + +Example command-line FTP session: + +ftp ftp.ibiblio.org +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext02, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +**END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.08.01*END** +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE +or +THE MELLSTOCK QUIRE +A RURAL PAINTING OF THE DUTCH SCHOOL + + + + +PREFACE + + + +This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west- +gallery musicians, with some supplementary descriptions of similar +officials in Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters, and other +places, is intended to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of +the personages, ways, and customs which were common among such +orchestral bodies in the villages of fifty or sixty years ago. + +One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical +bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at first a barrel-organist) +or harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of +control and accomplishment which were, no doubt, secured by +installing the single artist, the change has tended to stultify the +professed aims of the clergy, its direct result being to curtail and +extinguish the interest of parishioners in church doings. Under the +old plan, from half a dozen to ten full-grown players, in addition +to the numerous more or less grown-up singers, were officially +occupied with the Sunday routine, and concerned in trying their best +to make it an artistic outcome of the combined musical taste of the +congregation. With a musical executive limited, as it mostly is +limited now, to the parson's wife or daughter and the school- +children, or to the school-teacher and the children, an important +union of interests has disappeared. + +The zest of these bygone instrumentalists must have been keen and +staying to take them, as it did, on foot every Sunday after a +toilsome week, through all weathers, to the church, which often lay +at a distance from their homes. They usually received so little in +payment for their performances that their efforts were really a +labour of love. In the parish I had in my mind when writing the +present tale, the gratuities received yearly by the musicians at +Christmas were somewhat as follows: From the manor-house ten +shillings and a supper; from the vicar ten shillings; from the +farmers five shillings each; from each cottage-household one +shilling; amounting altogether to not more than ten shillings a head +annually--just enough, as an old executant told me, to pay for their +fiddle-strings, repairs, rosin, and music-paper (which they mostly +ruled themselves). Their music in those days was all in their own +manuscript, copied in the evenings after work, and their music-books +were home-bound. + +It was customary to inscribe a few jigs, reels, horn-pipes, and +ballads in the same book, by beginning it at the other end, the +insertions being continued from front and back till sacred and +secular met together in the middle, often with bizarre effect, the +words of some of the songs exhibiting that ancient and broad humour +which our grandfathers, and possibly grandmothers, took delight in, +and is in these days unquotable. + +The aforesaid fiddle-strings, rosin, and music-paper were supplied +by a pedlar, who travelled exclusively in such wares from parish to +parish, coming to each village about every six months. Tales are +told of the consternation once caused among the church fiddlers +when, on the occasion of their producing a new Christmas anthem, he +did not come to time, owing to being snowed up on the downs, and the +straits they were in through having to make shift with whipcord and +twine for strings. He was generally a musician himself, and +sometimes a composer in a small way, bringing his own new tunes, and +tempting each choir to adopt them for a consideration. Some of +these compositions which now lie before me, with their repetitions +of lines, half-lines, and half-words, their fugues and their +intermediate symphonies, are good singing still, though they would +hardly be admitted into such hymn-books as are popular in the +churches of fashionable society at the present time. + +August 1896. + +Under the Greenwood Tree was first brought out in the summer of 1872 +in two volumes. The name of the story was originally intended to +be, more appropriately, The Mellstock Quire, and this has been +appended as a sub-title since the early editions, it having been +thought unadvisable to displace for it the title by which the book +first became known. + +In rereading the narrative after a long interval there occurs the +inevitable reflection that the realities out of which it was spun +were material for another kind of study of this little group of +church musicians than is found in the chapters here penned so +lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at times. But +circumstances would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more +essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date of +writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following +pages must remain the only extant one, except for the few glimpses +of that perished band which I have given in verse elsewhere. + +T. H. + +April 1912. + + + + +PART THE FIRST--WINTER + + + + +CHAPTER I: MELLSTOCK-LANE + + + +To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as +well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob +and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it +battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech +rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which +modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not +destroy its individuality. + +On a cold and starry Christmas-eve within living memory a man was +passing up a lane towards Mellstock Cross in the darkness of a +plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. +All the evidences of his nature were those afforded by the spirit of +his footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly, and +by the liveliness of his voice as he sang in a rural cadence: + + +"With the rose and the lily +And the daffodowndilly, +The lads and the lasses a-sheep-shearing go." + + +The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of +Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and Lewgate, and to his eyes, +casually glancing upward, the silver and black-stemmed birches with +their characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark- +creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat outlines upon the +sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their +flickering seemed like the flapping of wings. Within the woody +pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as +the grave. The copse-wood forming the sides of the bower interlaced +its branches so densely, even at this season of the year, that the +draught from the north-east flew along the channel with scarcely an +interruption from lateral breezes. + +After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white +surface of the lane revealed itself between the dark hedgerows like +a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by +temporary accumulations of leaves extending from the ditch on either +side. + +The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the +place of several bars, and resumed at a point it would have reached +had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable +check, in the shape of "Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" from the crossing lane to +Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had just emerged +from the trees. + +"Ho-i-i-i-i-i!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with +no idea of seeing anything more than imagination pictured. + +"Is that thee, young Dick Dewy?" came from the darkness. + +"Ay, sure, Michael Mail." + +"Then why not stop for fellow-craters--going to thy own father's +house too, as we be, and knowen us so well?" + +Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an under-whistle, +implying that the business of his mouth could not be checked at a +moment's notice by the placid emotion of friendship. + +Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against +the sky, his profile appearing on the light background like the +portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of +a low-crowned hat, an ordinary-shaped nose, an ordinary chin, an +ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted of further +down was invisible from lack of sky low enough to picture him on. + +Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now +heard coming up the hill, and presently there emerged from the shade +severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working +villagers of the parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their +rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat +outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or +Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief portion of Mellstock +parish choir. + +The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his +arm, and walked as if engaged in studying some subject connected +with the surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had +hallooed to Dick. + +The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot- and shoemaker; a little man, +who, though rather round-shouldered, walked as if that fact had not +come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and +his face fixed on the north-east quarter of the heavens before him, +so that his lower waist-coat-buttons came first, and then the +remainder of his figure. His features were invisible; yet when he +occasionally looked round, two faint moons of light gleamed for an +instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore +spectacles of a circular form. + +The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and +dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph Bowman's, who had now +no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally +came a weak lath-like form, trotting and stumbling along with one +shoulder forward and his head inclined to the left, his arms +dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. +This was Thomas Leaf. + +"Where be the boys?" said Dick to this somewhat indifferently- +matched assembly. + +The eldest of the group, Michael Mail, cleared his throat from a +great depth. + +"We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't +be wanted yet awhile; and we could choose the tuens, and so on." + +"Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I +have just been for a run round by Ewelease Stile and Hollow Hill to +warm my feet." + +"To be sure father did! To be sure 'a did expect us--to taste the +little barrel beyond compare that he's going to tap." + +"'Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!" said Mr. Penny, +gleams of delight appearing upon his spectacle-glasses, Dick +meanwhile singing parenthetically--"The lads and the lasses a-sheep- +shearing go." + +"Neighbours, there's time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore +bedtime?" said Mail. + +"True, true--time enough to get as drunk as lords!" replied Bowman +cheerfully. + +This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the +varying hedges and the trees dotting them here and there, kicking +their toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared +glimmering indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet +of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound, whilst the faint sound +of church-bells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating +over upon the breeze from the direction of Longpuddle and +Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little +wicket admitted them to the garden, and they proceeded up the path +to Dick's house. + + + +CHAPTER II: THE TRANTER'S + + + +It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having +dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a chimney standing in the +middle of the ridge and another at each end. The window-shutters +were not yet closed, and the fire- and candle-light within radiated +forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus growing in clumps +outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlin-trees hanging +about in various distorted shapes, the result of early training as +espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in later +years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered +with creepers, though these were rather beaten back from the +doorway--a feature which was worn and scratched by much passing in +and out, giving it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Light +streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a little way +from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose +of the erection must be rather to veil bright attractions than to +shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and +the splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; +and at some little distance further a steady regular munching and +the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses +feeding within it. + +The choir stamped severally on the door-stone to shake from their +boots any fragment of earth or leaf adhering thereto, then entered +the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. +Through the open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of +a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick Dewy's father +Reuben, by vocation a "tranter," or irregular carrier. He was a +stout florid man about forty years of age, who surveyed people up +and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled +at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with +friends, walking about with a steady sway, and turning out his toes +very considerably. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, +that stood in the pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching, +he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the entry +of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the +expected old comrades. + +The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and +other evergreens, and from the middle of the beam bisecting the +ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the +room, and extending so low that it became necessary for a full-grown +person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling +his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter's wife, +and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, +graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen +to that of four years--the eldest of the series being separated from +Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval. + +Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just +previous to the entry of the choir, and he had absently taken down a +small looking-glass, holding it before his face to learn how the +human countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led +him to pause at the various points in each wail that were more than +ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general +effect. Bessy was leaning against a chair, and glancing under the +plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the +original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her +face bearing an expression of regret that the brightness had passed +away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by +the side of the glowing wood fire--so glowing that with a heedful +compression of the lips she would now and then rise and put her hand +upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, to reassure +herself that they were not being broiled instead of smoked--a +misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas- +time. + +"Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!" said Reuben Dewy at length, +standing up and blowing forth a vehement gust of breath. "How the +blood do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, a-stooping like +that! I was just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then +carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap he +held in his hand. "This in the cask here is a drop o' the right +sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a real drop o' cordial from the best +picked apples--Sansoms, Stubbards, Five-corners, and such--like--you +d'mind the sort, Michael?" (Michael nodded.) "And there's a +sprinkling of they that grow down by the orchard-rails--streaked +ones--rail apples we d'call 'em, as 'tis by the rails they grow, and +not knowing the right name. The water-cider from 'em is as good as +most people's best cider is." + +"Ay, and of the same make too," said Bowman. "'It rained when we +wrung it out, and the water got into it,' folk will say. But 'tis +on'y an excuse. Watered cider is too common among us." + +"Yes, yes; too common it is!" said Spinks with an inward sigh, +whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the case in an abstract form +rather than at the scene before him. "Such poor liquor do make a +man's throat feel very melancholy--and is a disgrace to the name of +stimmilent." + +"Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes," +said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except Dick had paused to wipe them +upon the door-mat. "I am glad that you've stepped up-along at last; +and, Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes's and see if you can +borrow some larger candles than these fourteens. Tommy Leaf, don't +ye be afeard! Come and sit here in the settle." + +This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting +chiefly of a human skeleton and a smock-frock, who was very awkward +in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast +that before he had had time to get used to his height he was higher. + +"Hee--hee--ay!" replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile +for some time after his mind had done smiling, so that his teeth +remained in view as the most conspicuous members of his body. + +"Here, Mr. Penny," resumed Mrs. Dewy, "you sit in this chair. And +how's your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?" + +"Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair." He adjusted his +spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. "But she'll be worse +before she's better, 'a b'lieve." + +"Indeed--poor soul! And how many will that make in all, four or +five?" + +"Five; they've buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than +a maid yet. She do know the multiplication table onmistakable well. +However, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it." + +Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. "Wonder where your grandfather James +is?" she inquired of one of the children. "He said he'd drop in to- +night." + +"Out in fuel-house with grandfather William," said Jimmy. + +"Now let's see what we can do," was heard spoken about this time by +the tranter in a private voice to the barrel, beside which he had +again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork. + +"Reuben, don't make such a mess o' tapping that barrel as is mostly +made in this house," Mrs. Dewy cried from the fireplace. "I'd tap a +hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling- +-and squirting job as 'tis in your hands! There, he always was such +a clumsy man indoors." + +"Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred beautiful, Ann--I know you +would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a' old +cask, and the wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of +a feller Sam Lawson--that ever I should call'n such, now he's dead +and gone, poor heart!--took me in completely upon the feat of buying +this cask. 'Reub,' says he--'a always used to call me plain Reub, +poor old heart!--'Reub,' he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, +is as good as new; yes, good as new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best +port-wine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you +shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,'--'a said, says he--'he's +worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if he's worth one; and an iron +hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth +thirty shillens of any man's money, if--'" + +"I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use +afore I paid any ten shillens for a jimcrack wine-barrel; a saint is +sinner enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, +so easy to be deceived." + +"That's as true as gospel of this member," said Reuben. + +Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and +refolding them so that it was not a smile, commenced smoothing +little Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become +oblivious to conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting +and arrangement of some more brown paper for the broaching +operation. + +"Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a carefully- +cautious voice, by way of tiding-over this critical point of +affairs. + +"No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully +agreeing with everybody. + +"Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with +everybody as a rule, though he did now; "I knowed a' auctioneering +feller once--a very friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day +as I was walking down the front street o' Casterbridge, jist below +the King's Arms, I passed a' open winder and see him inside, stuck +upon his perch, a-selling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly +way as I passed, and went my way, and thought no more about it. +Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuel-house door, if a +letter didn't come wi' a bill charging me with a feather--bed, +bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's sale. The +shim-faced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded to en +in my friendly way; and I had to pay for 'em too. Now, I hold that +that was coming it very close, Reuben?" + +"'Twas close, there's no denying," said the general voice. + +"Too close, 'twas," said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. "And as +to Sam Lawson--poor heart! now he's dead and gone too!--I'll +warrant, that if so be I've spent one hour in making hoops for that +barrel, I've spent fifty, first and last. That's one of my hoops'-- +touching it with his elbow--'that's one of mine, and that, and that, +and all these." + +"Ah, Sam was a man," said Mr. Penny, contemplatively. + +"Sam was!" said Bowman. + +"Especially for a drap o' drink," said the tranter. + +"Good, but not religious--good," suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite +ready, "Now then, Suze, bring a mug," he said. "Here's luck to us, +my sonnies!" + +The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a +horizontal shower over Reuben's hands, knees, and leggings, and into +the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his +grief under pressure of more interesting proceedings, was squatting +down and blinking near his father. + +"There 'tis again!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider +should be wasted like this!" exclaimed the tranter. "Your thumb! +Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a +bigger tap, my sonnies." + +"Idd it cold inthide te hole?" inquired Charley of Michael, as he +continued in a stooping posture with his thumb in the cork-hole. + +"What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be +sure!" Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from the distance. "I lay a +wager that he thinks more about how 'tis inside that barrel than in +all the other parts of the world put together." + +All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for +the cleverness alluded to, in the midst of which Reuben returned. +The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose +and stretched his head to the extremest fraction of height that his +body would allow of, to re-straighten his back and shoulders-- +thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of +wrinkles to emphasize the relief aquired. A quart or two of the +beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals +reseated themselves with wide-spread knees, their eyes meditatively +seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon which the gaze might +precipitate itself. + +"Whatever is father a-biding out in fuel-house so long for?" said +the tranter. "Never such a man as father for two things--cleaving +up old dead apple-tree wood and playing the bass-viol. 'A'd pass +his life between the two, that 'a would." He stepped to the door +and opened it. + +"Father!" + +"Ay!" rang thinly from round the corner. + +"Here's the barrel tapped, and we all a-waiting!" + +A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time +past, now ceased; and after the light of a lantern had passed the +window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of +the Dewy family appeared. + + + +CHAPTER III: THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE + + + +William Dewy--otherwise grandfather William--was now about seventy; +yet an ardent vitality still preserved a warm and roughened bloom +upon his face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe +ribstone-pippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was +protected from the weather by lying above the line of his hat-brim, +seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. +His was a humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent +melancholy; and he had a firm religious faith. But to his +neighbours he had no character in particular. If they saw him pass +by their windows when they had been bottling off old mead, or when +they had just been called long-headed men who might do anything in +the world if they chose, they thought concerning him, "Ah, there's +that good-hearted man--open as a child!" If they saw him just after +losing a shilling or half-a-crown, or accidentally letting fall a +piece of crockery, they thought, "There's that poor weak-minded man +Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If he +passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely +thought him old William Dewy. + +"Ah, so's--here you be!--Ah, Michael and Joseph and John--and you +too, Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We shall have a rare log-wood +fire directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in +cleaving 'em." As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which +fell in the chimney-corner with a rumble, and looked at them with +something of the admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living +people who had been very obstinate in holding their own. "Come in, +grandfather James." + +Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a +visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself, and many people +considered him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now +came forward from behind grandfather William, and his stooping +figure formed a well-illuminated picture as he passed towards the +fire-place. Being by trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron +reaching almost to his toes, corduroy breeches and gaiters, which, +together with his boots, graduated in tints of whitish-brown by +constant friction against lime and stone. He also wore a very stiff +fustian coat, having folds at the elbows and shoulders as unvarying +in their arrangement as those in a pair of bellows: the ridges and +the projecting parts of the coat collectively exhibiting a shade +different from that of the hollows, which were lined with small +ditch-like accumulations of stone and mortar-dust. The extremely +large side-pockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps, bulged out +convexly whether empty or full; and as he was often engaged to work +at buildings far away--his breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a +strange chimney-corner, by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or +walking along the road--he carried in these pockets a small tin +canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a small canister of +tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and +meat, forming the substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in +his basket among the hammers and chisels. If a passer-by looked +hard at him when he was drawing forth any of these, "My buttery," he +said, with a pinched smile. + +"Better try over number seventy-eight before we start, I suppose?" +said William, pointing to a heap of old Christmas-carol books on a +side table. + +"Wi' all my heart," said the choir generally. + +"Number seventy-eight was always a teaser--always. I can mind him +ever since I was growing up a hard boy-chap." + +"But he's a good tune, and worth a mint o' practice," said Michael. + +"He is; though I've been mad enough wi' that tune at times to seize +en and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he's a splendid carrel--there's +no denying that." + +"The first line is well enough," said Mr. Spinks; "but when you come +to 'O, thou man,' you make a mess o't." + +"We'll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the +martel. Half-an-hour's hammering at en will conquer the toughness +of en; I'll warn it." + +"'Od rabbit it all!" said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of +his spectacles, and at the same time clawing at something in the +depths of a large side-pocket. "If so be I hadn't been as scatter- +brained and thirtingill as a chiel, I should have called at the +schoolhouse wi' a boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me +I really can't estimate at all!" + +"The brain has its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head +ominously. Mr. Spinks was considered to be a scholar, having once +kept a night-school, and always spoke up to that level. + +"Well, I must call with en the first thing tomorrow. And I'll empt +my pocket o' this last too, if you don't mind, Mrs. Dewy." He drew +forth a last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of +three or four followed it. + +"Well," said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest +the object had excited was greater than he had anticipated, and +warranted the last's being taken up again and exhibited; "now, whose +foot do ye suppose this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey +Day's father, over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o' boots +he've had off the last! Well, when 'a died, I used the last for +Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a little doctoring was wanted +to make it do. Yes, a very queer natured last it is now, 'a +b'lieve," he continued, turning it over caressingly. "Now, you +notice that there" (pointing to a lump of leather bradded to the +toe), "that's a very bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was a +boy. Now, this remarkable large piece" (pointing to a patch nailed +to the side), "shows a' accident he received by the tread of a +horse, that squashed his foot a'most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam +full-butt on this point, you see. And so I've just been over to +Geoffrey's, to know if he wanted his bunion altered or made bigger +in the new pair I'm making." + +During the hatter part of this speech, Mr. Penny's left hand +wandered towards the cider-cup, as if the hand had no connection +with the person speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt +chose, all but the extreme margin of the bootmaker's face was +eclipsed by the circular brim of the vessel. + +"However, I was going to say," continued Penny, putting down the +cup, "I ought to have called at the school'--here he went groping +again in the depths of his pocket--'to leave this without fail, +though I suppose the first thing to-morrow will do." + +He now drew forth and placed upon the table a boot--small, light, +and prettily shaped--upon the heel of which he had been operating. + +"The new schoolmistress's!" + +"Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever +I see, and just husband-high." + +"Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances +present converged like wheel-spokes upon the boot in the centre of +them. + +"Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone +were his auditor; "'tis she that's come here schoolmistress. You +knowed his daughter was in training?" + +"Strange, isn't it, for her to be here Christmas night, Master +Penny?" + +"Yes; but here she is, 'a b'lieve." + +"I know how she comes here--so I do!" chirruped one of the children. + +"Why?" Dick inquired, with subtle interest. + +"Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all to-morrow at +the dinner, and he talked o' getting her jist to come over and help +him hand about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; +and that's what she's come for!" + +"And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, +"that she'll walk to church in tomorrow morning. I don't care to +mend boots I don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, +and her father always comes to me." + +There, between the cider--mug and the candle, stood this interesting +receptacle of the little unknown's foot; and a very pretty boot it +was. A character, in fact--the flexible bend at the instep, the +rounded localities of the small nestling toes, scratches from +careless scampers now forgotten--all, as repeated in the tell-tale +leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a +delicate feeling that he had no right to do so without having first +asked the owner of the foot's permission. + +"Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker, +went on, "a man in the trade can see the likeness between this boot +and that last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one +of God's creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get +for ten-and-sixpence in Casterbridge. To you, nothing; but 'tis +father's voot and daughter's voot to me, as plain as houses." + +"I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Penny--a mild likeness--a +fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But _I_ han't got imagination +enough to see it, perhaps." + +Mr. Penny adjusted his spectacles. + +"Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You +used to know Johnson the dairyman, William?" + +"Ay, sure; I did." + +"Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower down--by his +paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards +Bloom's End,--and ho and behold, there was a man just brought out o' +the Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to +pitch it just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at +en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He +was covered wi' a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just +showing out as they carried en along. 'I don't care what name that +man went by,' I said, in my way, 'but he's John Woodward's brother; +I can swear to the family voot.' At that very moment up comes John +Woodward, weeping and teaving, 'I've lost my brother! I've lost my +brother!'" + +"Only to think of that!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"'Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot," said Mr. Spinks. +"'Tis long-headed, in fact, as far as feet do go. I know little, +'tis true--I say no more; but show ME a man's foot, and I'll tell +you that man's heart." + +"You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral," said +the tranter. + +"Well, that's nothing for me to speak of," returned Mr. Spinks. "A +man hives and learns. Maybe I've read a leaf or two in my time. I +don't wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe +I have." + +"Yes, I know," said Michael soothingly, "and all the parish knows, +that ye've read sommat of everything a'most, and have been a great +filler of young folks' brains. Learning's a worthy thing, and ye've +got it, Master Spinks." + +"I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I +know--it may be from much perusing, but I make no boast--that by the +time a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep +underground. I am over forty-five." + +Mr. Spinks emitted a hook to signify that if his head was not +finished, nobody's head ever could be. + +"Talk of knowing people by their feet!" said Reuben. "Rot me, my +sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is from all his members put +together, oftentimes." + +"But still, look is a good deal," observed grandfather William +absently, moving and balancing his head till the tip of grandfather +James's nose was exactly in a right line with William's eye and the +mouth of a miniature cavern he was discerning in the fire. "By the +way," he continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, "that young +crater, the schoolmis'ess, must be sung to to-night wi' the rest? +If her ear is as fine as her face, we shall have enough to do to be +up-sides with her." + +"What about her face?" said young Dewy. + +"Well, as to that," Mr. Spinks replied, "'tis a face you can hardly +gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only +a face, when all is said and done." + +"Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a pretty maid, and have done +wi' her," said the tranter, again preparing to visit the cider- +barrel. + + + +CHAPTER IV: GOING THE ROUNDS + + + +Shortly after ten o'clock the singing-boys arrived at the tranter's +house, which was invariably the place of meeting, and preparations +were made for the start. The older men and musicians wore thick +coats, with stiff perpendicular collars, and coloured handkerchiefs +wound round and round the neck till the end came to hand, over all +which they just showed their ears and noses, like people looking +over a wall. The remainder, stalwart ruddy men and boys, were +dressed mainly in snow-white smock-frocks, embroidered upon the +shoulders and breasts, in ornamental forms of hearts, diamonds, and +zigzags. The cider-mug was emptied for the ninth time, the music- +books were arranged, and the pieces finally decided upon. The boys +in the meantime put the old horn-lanterns in order, cut candles into +short lengths to fit the lanterns; and, a thin fleece of snow having +fallen since the early part of the evening, those who had no +leggings went to the stable and wound wisps of hay round their +ankles to keep the insidious flakes from the interior of their +boots. + +Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets +composing it lying at a much greater distance from each other than +is ordinarily the case. Hence several hours were consumed in +playing and singing within hearing of every family, even if but a +single air were bestowed on each. There was Lower Mellstock, the +main village; half a mile from this were the church and vicarage, +and a few other houses, the spot being rather lonely now, though in +past centuries it had been the most thickly-populated quarter of the +parish. A mile north-east lay the hamlet of Upper Mellstock, where +the tranter lived; and at other points knots of cottages, besides +solitary farmsteads and dairies. + +Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his +grandson Dick the treble violin; and Reuben and Michael Mail the +tenor and second violins respectively. The singers consisted of +four men and seven boys, upon whom devolved the task of carrying and +attending to the lanterns, and holding the books open for the +players. Directly music was the theme, old William ever and +instinctively came to the front. + +"Now mind, neighbours," he said, as they all went out one by one at +the door, he himself holding it ajar and regarding them with a +critical face as they passed, like a shepherd counting out his +sheep. "You two counter-boys, keep your ears open to Michael's +fingering, and don't ye go straying into the treble part along o' +Dick and his set, as ye did last year; and mind this especially when +we be in "Arise, and hail." Billy Chimlen, don't you sing quite so +raving mad as you fain would; and, all o' ye, whatever ye do, keep +from making a great scuffle on the ground when we go in at people's +gates; but go quietly, so as to strike up all of a sudden, like +spirits." + +"Farmer Ledlow's first?" + +"Farmer Ledlow's first; the rest as usual." + +"And, Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house here +till about half-past two; then heat the metheglin and cider in the +warmer you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi' the +victuals to church-hatch, as th'st know." + + +Just before the clock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and +started. The moon, in her third quarter, had risen since the +snowstorm; but the dense accumulation of snow-cloud weakened her +power to a faint twilight, which was rather pervasive of the +landscape than traceable to the sky. The breeze had gone down, and +the rustle of their feet and tones of their speech echoed with an +alert rebound from every post, boundary-stone, and ancient wall they +passed, even where the distance of the echo's origin was less than a +few yards. Beyond their own slight noises nothing was to be heard, +save the occasional bark of foxes in the direction of Yalbury Wood, +or the brush of a rabbit among the grass now and then, as it +scampered out of their way. + +Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by +about two o'clock; they then passed across the outskirts of a wooded +park toward the main village, nobody being at home at the Manor. +Pursuing no recognized track, great care was necessary in walking +lest their faces should come in contact with the low-hanging boughs +of the old lime-trees, which in many spots formed dense over-growths +of interlaced branches. + +"Times have changed from the times they used to be," said Mail, +regarding nobody can tell what interesting old panoramas with an +inward eye, and letting his outward glance rest on the ground, +because it was as convenient a position as any. "People don't care +much about us now! I've been thinking we must be almost the last +left in the county of the old string players? Barrel-organs, and +the things next door to 'em that you blow wi' your foot, have come +in terribly of late years." + +"Ay!" said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, +did the same thing. + +"More's the pity," replied another. "Time was--long and merry ago +now!--when not one of the varmits was to be heard of; but it served +some of the quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we +did, and kept out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd +thrive in musical religion, stick to strings, says I." + +"Strings be safe soul-lifters, as far as that do go," said Mr. +Spinks. + +"Yet there's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny. "Old +things pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a +deep rich note was the serpent." + +"Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said Michael Mail. "One +Christmas--years agone now, years--I went the rounds wi' the +Weatherbury quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all +the clar'nets froze--ah, they did freeze!--so that 'twas like +drawing a cork every time a key was opened; and the players o' 'em +had to go into a hedger-and-ditcher's chimley-corner, and thaw their +clar'nets every now and then. An icicle o' spet hung down from the +end of every man's clar'net a span long; and as to fingers--well, +there, if ye'll believe me, we had no fingers at all, to our +knowing." + +"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what I said to +poor Joseph Ryme (who took the treble part in Chalk-Newton Church +for two-and-forty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. +"Joseph," I said, says I, "depend upon't, if so be you have them +tooting clar'nets you'll spoil the whole set-out. Clar'nets were +not made for the service of the Lard; you can see it by looking at +'em," I said. And what came o't? Why, souls, the parson set up a +barrel-organ on his own account within two years o' the time I +spoke, and the old quire went to nothing." + +"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my +part see that a fiddle is much nearer heaven than a clar'net. 'Tis +further off. There's always a rakish, scampish twist about a +fiddle's looks that seems to say the Wicked One had a hand in making +o'en; while angels be supposed to play clar'nets in heaven, or +som'at like 'em, if ye may believe picters." + +"Robert Penny, you was in the right," broke in the eldest Dewy. +"They should ha' stuck to strings. Your brass-man is a rafting dog- +-well and good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring ye--well and +good; your drum-man is a rare bowel-shaker--good again. But I don't +care who hears me say it, nothing will spak to your heart wi' the +sweetness o' the man of strings!" + +"Strings for ever!" said little Jimmy. + +"Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new +comers in creation." ("True, true!" said Bowman.) "But clarinets +was death." ("Death they was!" said Mr. Penny.) "And harmonions," +William continued in a louder voice, and getting excited by these +signs of approval, "harmonions and barrel-organs" ("Ah!" and groans +from Spinks) "be miserable--what shall I call 'em?--miserable--" + +"Sinners," suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and +did not lag behind like the other little boys. + +"Miserable dumbledores!" + +"Right, William, and so they be--miserable dumbledores!" said the +choir with unanimity. + +By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the +school, which, standing on a slight eminence at the junction of +three ways, now rose in unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. +The instruments were retuned, and all the band entered the school +enclosure, enjoined by old William to keep upon the grass. + +"Number seventy-eight," he softly gave out as they formed round in a +semicircle, the boys opening the lanterns to get a clearer light, +and directing their rays on the books. + +Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time-worn +hymn, embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted +from father to son through several generations down to the present +characters, who sang them out right earnestly: + + +"Remember Adam's fall, +O thou Man: +Remember Adam's fall +From Heaven to Hell. +Remember Adam's fall +How he hath condemn'd all +In Hell perpetual +There for to dwell. + +Remember God's goodnesse, +O thou Man: +Remember God's goodnesse, +His promise made. +Remember God's goodnesse; +He sent His Son sinlesse +Our ails for to redress; +Be not afraid + +In Bethlehem He was born, +O thou Man: +In Bethlehem He was born, +For mankind's sake. + +In Bethlehem He was born, +Christmas-day i' the morn: +Our Saviour thought no scorn +Our faults to take. + +Give thanks to God alway, +O thou Man: +Give thanks to God alway +With heart-most joy. +Give thanks to God alway +On this our joyful day: +Let all men sing and say, +Holy, Holy!" + + +Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, +but found that no sound issued from the schoolhouse. + +"Four breaths, and then, "O, what unbounded goodness!" number fifty- +nine," said William. + +This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be +taken of the performance. + +"Good guide us, surely 'tisn't a' empty house, as befell us in the +year thirty-nine and forty-three!" said old Dewy. + +"Perhaps she's jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our +doings?" the tranter whispered. + +"'Od rabbit her!" said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a +corner of the school chimney, "I don't quite stomach her, if this is +it. Your plain music well done is as worthy as your other sort done +bad, a' b'lieve, souls; so say I." + +"Four breaths, and then the last," said the leader authoritatively. +"'Rejoice, ye Tenants of the Earth,' number sixty-four." + +At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud +voice, as he had said in the village at that hour and season for the +previous forty years--"A merry Christmas to ye!" + + + +CHAPTER V: THE LISTENERS + + + +When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had +nearly died out of them all, an increasing light made itself visible +in one of the windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the +blind that the exact position of the flame could be perceived from +the outside. Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went upward +from before it, revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, +framed as a picture by the window architrave, and unconsciously +illuminating her countenance to a vivid brightness by a candle she +held in her left hand, close to her face, her right hand being +extended to the side of the window. She was wrapped in a white robe +of some kind, whilst down her shoulders fell a twining profusion of +marvellously rich hair, in a wild disorder which proclaimed it to be +only during the invisible hours of the night that such a condition +was discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into the grey world +outside with an uncertain expression, oscillating between courage +and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group of dark +forms gathered before her, transformed itself into pleasant +resolution. + +Opening the window, she said lightly and warmly--"Thank you, +singers, thank you!" + +Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started +downward on its return to its place. Her fair forehead and eyes +vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. +Then the spot of candlelight shone nebulously as before; then it +moved away. + +"How pretty!" exclaimed Dick Dewy. + +"If she'd been rale wexwork she couldn't ha' been comelier," said +Michael Mail. + +"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see!" said +tranter Dewy. + +"O, sich I never, never see!" said Leaf fervently. + +All the rest, after clearing their throats and adjusting their hats, +agreed that such a sight was worth singing for. + +"Now to Farmer Shiner's, and then replenish our insides, father?" +said the tranter. + +"Wi' all my heart," said old William, shouldering his bass-viol. + +Farmer Shiner's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner +of a lane that ran into the principal thoroughfare. The upper +windows were much wider than they were high, and this feature, +together with a broad bay-window where the door might have been +expected, gave it by day the aspect of a human countenance turned +askance, and wearing a sly and wicked leer. To-night nothing was +visible but the outline of the roof upon the sky. + +The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries +arranged as usual. + +"Four breaths, and number thirty-two, 'Behold the Morning Star,'" +said old William. + +They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were +doing the up bow-stroke previously to pouring forth the opening +chord of the third verse, when, without a light appearing or any +signal being given, a roaring voice exclaimed - + +"Shut up, woll 'ee! Don't make your blaring row here! A feller wi' +a headache enough to split his skull likes a quiet night!" + +Slam went the window. + +"Hullo, that's a' ugly blow for we!" said the tranter, in a keenly +appreciative voice, and turning to his companions. + +"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!" commanded old +William; and they continued to the end. + +"Four breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it +him well; the quire can't be insulted in this manner!" + +A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the +farmer stood revealed as one in a terrific passion. + +"Drown en!--drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. +"Play fortissimy, and drown his spaking!" + +"Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so +loud that it was impossible to know what Mr. Shiner had said, was +saying, or was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body +about in the forms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough +invectives to consign the whole parish to perdition. + +"Very onseemly--very!" said old William, as they retired. "Never +such a dreadful scene in the whole round o' my carrel practice-- +never! And he a churchwarden!" + +"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. "Man's +well enough when he's in his religious frame. He's in his worldly +frame now. Must ask en to our bit of a party to-morrow night, I +suppose, and so put en in humour again. We bear no mortal man ill- +will." + +They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path +beside the Froom towards the church and vicarage, meeting Voss with +the hot mead and bread-and-cheese as they were approaching the +churchyard. This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding +further, and they entered the church and ascended to the gallery. +The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat round against the +walls on benches and whatever else was available, and made a hearty +meal. In the pauses of conversation there could be heard through +the floor overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the +halting clockwork, which never spread further than the tower they +were born in, and raised in the more meditative minds a fancy that +here lay the direct pathway of Time. + +Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, +and once more the party emerged into the night air. + +"Where's Dick?" said old Dewy. + +Every man looked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have +been transmuted into one or the other; and then they said they +didn't know. + +"Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I +do," said Michael Mail. + +"He've clinked off home-along, depend upon't," another suggested, +though not quite believing that he had. + +"Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth +among the yews. + +He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an +answer, and finding he listened in vain, turned to the assemblage. + +"The treble man too! Now if he'd been a tenor or counter chap, we +might ha' contrived the rest o't without en, you see. But for a +quire to lose the treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your +. . . " The tranter paused, unable to mention an image vast enough +for the occasion. + +"Your head at once," suggested Mr. Penny. + +The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to +complete sentences when there were more pressing things to be done. + +"Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half +done and turning tail like this!" + +"Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last +man in the world to wish to withhold the formal finish required of +him. + +"I hope no fatal tragedy has overtook the lad!" said his +grandfather. + +"O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he's put that +there fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost thirty shillings, and +good words besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that +instrument will be unglued and spoilt in ten minutes--ten! ay, two." + +"What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old +William, more uneasily. "Perhaps he's drownded!" + +"Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced +their steps along the waterside track. "A strapping lad like Dick +d'know better than let anything happen onawares," Reuben remarked. +"There's sure to be some poor little scram reason for't staring us +in the face all the while." He lowered his voice to a mysterious +tone: 'Neighbours, have ye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in +his head, or suchlike?" + +"Not a glimmer of such a body. He's as clear as water yet." + +"And Dicky said he should never marry," cried Jimmy, "but live at +home always along wi' mother and we!" + +"Ay, ay, my sonny; every lad has said that in his time." + +They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner's, but +hearing nobody in that direction, one or two went across to the +schoolhouse. A light was still burning in the bedroom, and though +the blind was down, the window had been slightly opened, as if to +admit the distant notes of the carollers to the ears of the occupant +of the room. + +Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was +the lost man, his arms folded, his head thrown back, his eyes fixed +upon the illuminated lattice. + +"Why, Dick, is that thee? What b'st doing here?" + +Dick's body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his +head was seen to turn east and west in the gloom, as if endeavouring +to discern some proper answer to that question; and at last he said +in rather feeble accents--"Nothing, father." + +"Th'st take long enough time about it then, upon my body," said the +tranter, as they all turned anew towards the vicarage. + +"I thought you hadn't done having snap in the gallery," said Dick. + +"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, +and thinking you'd done fifty deathly things, and here have you been +at nothing at all!" + +"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," +murmured Mr. Spinks. + +The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. +Maybold, the lately-arrived incumbent, duly received his share of +the night's harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his +profession he would have been led to open the window, and an extra +carol in quick time was added to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold +made no stir. + +"A bad sign!" said old William, shaking his head. + +However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming +from inner depths of bedclothes--"Thanks, villagers!" + +"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. +Bowman's voice, being therefore loud, had been heard by the vicar +within. + +"I said, 'Thanks, villagers!'" cried the vicar again. + +"Oh, we didn't hear 'ee the first time!" cried Bowman. + +"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by +answering like that!" said the tranter. + +"You won't do that, my friends!" the vicar shouted. + +"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats +any horse or dog in the parish, and depend upon't, that's a sign +he's a proper clever chap." + +"We shall see that in time," said the tranter. + +Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively +new inhabitant, was anxious to play all the tunes over again; but +renounced his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be +best to leave well alone. + +"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they +went their way over the hill, and across to the last remaining +houses; "that is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed +just now, and this young tenor-voiced parson, my belief is she'll +wind en round her finger, and twist the pore young feller about like +the figure of 8--that she will so, my sonnies." + + + +CHAPTER VI: CHRISTMAS MORNING + + + +The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the +parish. Dick's slumbers, through the three or four hours remaining +for rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon +the incidents that had passed that night in connection with the +school-window going on in his brain every moment of the time. + +In the morning, do what he would--go upstairs, downstairs, out of +doors, speak of the wind and weather, or what not--he could not +refrain from an unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that +interesting enactment. Tilted on the edge of one foot he stood +beside the fireplace, watching his mother grilling rashers; but +there was nothing in grilling, he thought, unless the Vision +grilled. The limp rasher hung down between the bars of the gridiron +like a cat in a child's arms; but there was nothing in similes, +unless She uttered them. He looked at the daylight shadows of a +yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the +whitewashed chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. +"Perhaps the new young wom--sch--Miss Fancy Day will sing in church +with us this morning," he said. + +The tranter looked a long time before he replied, "I fancy she will; +and yet I fancy she won't." + +Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than +admired; though deliberateness in speech was known to have, as a +rule, more to do with the machinery of the tranter's throat than +with the matter enunciated. + +They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with +extreme alacrity, though he would not definitely consider why he was +so religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his +best light boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an +art. Every particle and speck of last week's mud was scraped and +brushed from toe and heel; new blacking from the packet was +carefully mixed and made use of, regardless of expense. A coat was +laid on and polished; then another coat for increased blackness; and +lastly a third, to give the perfect and mirror-like jet which the +hoped-for rencounter demanded. + +It being Christmas-day, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday +particularity. Loud sousing and snorting noises were heard to +proceed from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming +that he was there performing his great Sunday wash, lasting half-an- +hour, to which his washings on working-day mornings were mere +flashes in the pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown +towel, and the above-named bubblings and snortings being carried on +for about twenty minutes, the tranter would appear round the edge of +the door, smelling like a summer fog, and looking as if he had just +narrowly escaped a watery grave with the loss of much of his +clothes, having since been weeping bitterly till his eyes were red; +a crystal drop of water hanging ornamentally at the bottom of each +ear, one at the tip of his nose, and others in the form of spangles +about his hair. + +After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the +feet of father, son, and grandson as they moved to and fro in these +preparations, the bass-viol and fiddles were taken from their nook, +and the strings examined and screwed a little above concert-pitch, +that they might keep their tone when the service began, to obviate +the awkward contingency of having to retune them at the back of the +gallery during a cough, sneeze, or amen--an inconvenience which had +been known to arise in damp wintry weather. + +The three left the door and paced down Mellstock-lane and across the +ewe-lease, bearing under their arms the instruments in faded green- +baize bags, and old brown music-books in their hands; Dick +continually finding himself in advance of the other two, and the +tranter moving on with toes turned outwards to an enormous angle. + +At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the +north gate, or 'church hatch,' as it was called here. Seven agile +figures in a clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the +choristers waiting; sitting on an altar-tomb to pass the time, and +letting their heels dangle against it. The musicians being now in +sight, the youthful party scampered off and rattled up the old +wooden stairs of the gallery like a regiment of cavalry; the other +boys of the parish waiting outside and observing birds, cats, and +other creatures till the vicar entered, when they suddenly subsided +into sober church-goers, and passed down the aisle with echoing +heels. + +The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its +own. A stranger there was regarded with a feeling altogether +differing from that of the congregation below towards him. Banished +from the nave as an intruder whom no originality could make +interesting, he was received above as a curiosity that no unfitness +could render dull. The gallery, too, looked down upon and knew the +habits of the nave to its remotest peculiarity, and had an extensive +stock of exclusive information about it; whilst the nave knew +nothing of the gallery folk, as gallery folk, beyond their loud- +sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that the clerk was +always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying amen; that he +had a dust-hole in his pew; that during the sermon certain young +daughters of the village had left off caring to read anything so +mild as the marriage service for some years, and now regularly +studied the one which chronologically follows it; that a pair of +lovers touched fingers through a knot-hole between their pews in the +manner ordained by their great exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that +Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer's wife, counted her money and reckoned her +week's marketing expenses during the first lesson--all news to those +below--were stale subjects here. + +Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello +between his knees and two singers on each hand. Behind him, on the +left, came the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter +and the tenors. Farther back was old Mail with the altos and +supernumeraries. + +But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were +standing in a circle at the back of the gallery practising a psalm +or two, Dick cast his eyes over his grandfather's shoulder, and saw +the vision of the past night enter the porch-door as methodically as +if she had never been a vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed +suddenly to be puffed into the ancient edifice by her movement, +which made Dick's body and soul tingle with novel sensations. +Directed by Shiner, the churchwarden, she proceeded to the small +aisle on the north side of the chancel, a spot now allotted to a +throng of Sunday-school girls, and distinctly visible from the +gallery-front by looking under the curve of the furthermost arch on +that side. + +Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively empty--now it +was thronged; and as Miss Fancy rose from her knees and looked +around her for a permanent place in which to deposit herself-- +finally choosing the remotest corner--Dick began to breathe more +freely the warm new air she had brought with her; to feel rushings +of blood, and to have impressions that there was a tie between her +and himself visible to all the congregation. + +Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part +of the service of that bright Christmas morning, and the trifling +occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the +duties of that day dividing themselves by a complete line from the +services of other times. The tunes they that morning essayed +remained with him for years, apart from all others; also the text; +also the appearance of the layer of dust upon the capitals of the +piers; that the holly-bough in the chancel archway was hung a little +out of the centre--all the ideas, in short, that creep into the mind +when reason is only exercising its lowest activity through the eye. + +By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock +Church on that Christmas morning had towards the end of the service +the same instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the +shape of the same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far +less developed stage. And there was this difference, too, that the +person in question was surprised at his condition, and sedulously +endeavoured to reduce himself to his normal state of mind. He was +the young vicar, Mr. Maybold. + +The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of +church-performances at other times. The boys were sleepy from the +heavy exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and +now, in addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in +the atmosphere that still further aggravated the evil. Their +strings, from the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole +semitones, and snapped with a loud twang at the most silent moment; +which necessitated more retiring than ever to the back of the +gallery, and made the gallery throats quite husky with the quantity +of coughing and hemming required for tuning in. The vicar looked +cross. + +When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be +a strong and shrill reinforcement from some point, ultimately found +to be the school-girls' aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and +more distinct. At the third time of singing, these intrusive +feminine voices were as mighty as those of the regular singers; in +fact, the flood of sound from this quarter assumed such an +individuality, that it had a time, a key, almost a tune of its own, +surging upwards when the gallery plunged downwards, and the reverse. + +Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The +girls, like the rest of the congregation, had always been humble and +respectful followers of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if +without gallery leaders; never interfering with the ordinances of +these practised artists--having no will, union, power, or proclivity +except it was given them from the established choir enthroned above +them. + +A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats +and strings, which continued throughout the musical portion of the +service. Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny's +spectacles put in their sheath, and the text had been given out, an +indignant whispering began. + +"Did ye hear that, souls?" Mr. Penny said, in a groaning breath. + +"Brazen-faced hussies!" said Bowman. + +"True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if +not louder!" + +"Fiddles and all!" echoed Bowman bitterly. + +"Shall anything saucier be found than united 'ooman?" Mr. Spinks +murmured. + +"What I want to know is," said the tranter (as if he knew already, +but that civilization required the form of words), "what business +people have to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in +a gallery, and never have entered one in their lives? That's the +question, my sonnies." + +"'Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows," said Mr. +Penny. "Why, souls, what's the use o' the ancients spending scores +of pounds to build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of +the church sing like that at a moment's notice?" + +"Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, +fiddles and all!" said Mr. Spinks, with a laugh which, to a +stranger, would have sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body +of men he addressed could understand the horrible bitterness of +irony that lurked under the quiet words 'useless ones,' and the +ghastliness of the laughter apparently so natural. + +"Never mind! Let 'em sing too--'twill make it all the louder--hee, +hee!" said Leaf. + +"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?" +said grandfather William sternly. + +The quailing Leaf tried to look as if he had lived nowhere at all. + +"When all's said and done, my sonnies," Reuben said, "there'd have +been no real harm in their singing if they had let nobody hear 'em, +and only jined in now and then." + +"None at all," said Mr. Penny. "But though I don't wish to accuse +people wrongfully, I'd say before my lord judge that I could hear +every note o' that last psalm come from 'em as much as from us-- +every note as if 'twas their own." + +"Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!" Mr. Spinks was heard +to observe at this moment, without reference to his fellow players-- +shaking his head at some idea he seemed to see floating before him, +and smiling as if he were attending a funeral at the time. "Ah, do +I or don't I know it!" + +No one said "Know what?" because all were aware from experience that +what he knew would declare itself in process of time. + +"I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi' that +young man," said the tranter, pending the continuance of Spinks's +speech, and looking towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the +pulpit. + +"_I_ fancy," said old William, rather severely, "I fancy there's too +much whispering going on to be of any spiritual use to gentle or +simple." Then folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the +vicar, he implied that none but the ignorant would speak again; and +accordingly there was silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks's telling +speech remaining for ever unspoken. + +Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of +the morning; for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast expressed it as her +intention to invite the youthful leader of the culprits to the small +party it was customary with them to have on Christmas night--a piece +of knowledge which had given a particular brightness to Dick's +reflections since he had received it. And in the tranter's +slightly-cynical nature, party feeling was weaker than in the other +members of the choir, though friendliness and faithful partnership +still sustained in him a hearty earnestness on their account. + + + +CHAPTER VII: THE TRANTER'S PARTY + + + +During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the +precincts of tranter Dewy's house. The flagstone floor was swept of +dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost +stratum of the adjoining sand-pit lightly scattered thereupon. Then +were produced large knives and forks, which had been shrouded in +darkness and grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing +upon their sides, "Shear-steel, warranted," in such emphatic letters +of assurance, that the warranter's name was not required as further +proof, and not given. The key was left in the tap of the cider- +barrel, instead of being carried in a pocket. And finally the +tranter had to stand up in the room and let his wife wheel him round +like a turnstile, to see if anything discreditable was visible in +his appearance. + +"Stand still till I've been for the scissors," said Mrs. Dewy. + +The tranter stood as still as a sentinel at the challenge. + +The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers +that had extended beyond the general contour of the mass; a like +trimming of a slightly-frayed edge visible on his shirt-collar; and +a final tug at a grey hair--to all of which operations he submitted +in resigned silence, except the last, which produced a mild "Come, +come, Ann," by way of expostulation. + +"Really, Reuben, 'tis quite a disgrace to see such a man," said Mrs. +Dewy, with the severity justifiable in a long-tried companion, +giving him another turn round, and picking several of Smiler's hairs +from the shoulder of his coat. Reuben's thoughts seemed engaged +elsewhere, and he yawned. "And the collar of your coat is a shame +to behold--so plastered with dirt, or dust, or grease, or something. +Why, wherever could you have got it?" + +"'Tis my warm nater in summer-time, I suppose. I always did get in +such a heat when I bustle about." + +"Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarse-skinned family. There's +your brother Bob just as bad--as fat as a porpoise--wi' his how, +mean, "How'st do, Ann?" whenever he meets me. I'd "How'st do" him +indeed! If the sun only shines out a minute, there be you all +streaming in the face--I never see!" + +"If I be hot week-days, I must be hot Sundays." + +"If any of the girls should turn after their father 'twill be a bad +look-out for 'em, poor things! None of my family were sich vulgar +sweaters, not one of 'em. But, Lord-a-mercy, the Dewys! I don't +know how ever I cam' into such a family!" + +"Your woman's weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That's how it +was I suppose." But the tranter appeared to have heard some such +words from his wife before, and hence his answer had not the energy +it might have shown if the inquiry had possessed the charm of +novelty. + +"You never did look so well in a pair o' trousers as in them," she +continued in the same unimpassioned voice, so that the unfriendly +criticism of the Dewy family seemed to have been more normal than +spontaneous. "Such a cheap pair as 'twas too. As big as any man +could wish to have, and lined inside, and double-lined in the lower +parts, and an extra piece of stiffening at the bottom. And 'tis a +nice high cut that comes up right under your armpits, and there's +enough turned down inside the seams to make half a pair more, +besides a piece of cloth left that will make an honest waistcoat-- +all by my contriving in buying the stuff at a bargain, and having it +made up under my eye. It only shows what may be done by taking a +little trouble, and not going straight to the rascally tailors." + +The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on +the scene, with a face and hands of hideous blackness, and a nose +like a guttering candle. Why, on that particularly cleanly +afternoon, he should have discovered that the chimney-crook and +chain from which the hams were suspended should have possessed more +merits and general interest as playthings than any other articles in +the house, is a question for nursing mothers to decide. However, +the humour seemed to lie in the result being, as has been seen, that +any given player with these articles was in the long-run daubed with +soot. The last that was seen of Charley by daylight after this +piece of ingenuity was when in the act of vanishing from his +father's presence round the corner of the house--looking back over +his shoulder with an expression of great sin on his face, like Cain +as the Outcast in Bible pictures. + + +The guests had all assembled, and the tranter's party had reached +that degree of development which accords with ten o'clock P.M. in +rural assemblies. At that hour the sound of a fiddle in process of +tuning was heard from the inner pantry. + +"That's Dick," said the tranter. "That lad's crazy for a jig." + +"Dick! Now I cannot--really, I cannot have any dancing at all till +Christmas-day is out," said old William emphatically. "When the +clock ha' done striking twelve, dance as much as ye like." + +"Well, I must say there's reason in that, William," said Mrs. Penny. +"If you do have a party on Christmas-night, 'tis only fair and +honourable to the sky-folk to have it a sit-still party. Jigging +parties be all very well on the Devil's holidays; but a jigging +party looks suspicious now. O yes; stop till the clock strikes, +young folk--so say I." + +It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks's +head about this time. + +"Dancing," he said, "is a most strengthening, livening, and courting +movement, 'specially with a little beverage added! And dancing is +good. But why disturb what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the +company zhinerally? Why, I ask, as far as that do go?" + +"Then nothing till after twelve," said William. + +Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious +questions were mostly disposed of by the old man, whose firmness on +this head quite counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling +of domestic matters. The hopes of the younger members of the +household were therefore relegated to a distance of one hour and +three-quarters--a result that took visible shape in them by a remote +and listless look about the eyes--the singing of songs being +permitted in the interim. + +At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the +back quarters; and when at length the clock had whizzed forth the +last stroke, Dick appeared ready primed, and the instruments were +boldly handled; old William very readily taking the bass-viol from +its accustomed nail, and touching the strings as irreligiously as +could be desired. + +The country-dance called the 'Triumph, or Follow my Lover,' was the +figure with which they opened. The tranter took for his partner +Mrs. Penny, and Mrs. Dewy was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much +of his limited height by a judicious carriage of the head, +straightening of the back, and important flashes of his spectacle- +glasses, that he seemed almost as tall as the tranter. Mr. Shiner, +age about thirty-five, farmer and church-warden, a character +principally composed of a crimson stare, vigorous breath, and a +watch-chain, with a mouth hanging on a dark smile but never smiling, +had come quite willingly to the party, and showed a wondrous +obliviousness of all his antics on the previous night. But the +comely, slender, prettily-dressed prize Fancy Day fell to Dick's +lot, in spite of some private machinations of the farmer, for the +reason that Mr. Shiner, as a richer man, had shown too much +assurance in asking the favour, whilst Dick had been duly courteous. + +We gain a good view of our heroine as she advances to her place in +the ladies' line. She belonged to the taller division of middle +height. Flexibility was her first characteristic, by which she +appeared to enjoy the most easeful rest when she was in gliding +motion. Her dark eyes--arched by brows of so keen, slender, and +soft a curve, that they resembled nothing so much as two slurs in +music--showed primarily a bright sparkle each. This was softened by +a frequent thoughtfulness, yet not so frequent as to do away, for +more than a few minutes at a time, with a certain coquettishness; +which in its turn was never so decided as to banish honesty. Her +lips imitated her brows in their clearly-cut outline and softness of +bend; and her nose was well shaped--which is saying a great deal, +when it is remembered that there are a hundred pretty mouths and +eyes for one pretty nose. Add to this, plentiful knots of dark- +brown hair, a gauzy dress of white, with blue facings; and the +slightest idea may be gained of the young maiden who showed, amidst +the rest of the dancing-ladies, like a flower among vegetables. And +so the dance proceeded. Mr. Shiner, according to the interesting +rule laid down, deserted his own partner, and made off down the +middle with this fair one of Dick's--the pair appearing from the top +of the room like two persons tripping down a lane to be married. +Dick trotted behind with what was intended to be a look of +composure, but which was, in fact, a rather silly expression of +feature--implying, with too much earnestness, that such an elopement +could not be tolerated. Then they turned and came back, when Dick +grew more rigid around his mouth, and blushed with ingenuous ardour +as he joined hands with the rival and formed the arch over his +lady's head; which presumably gave the figure its name; +relinquishing her again at setting to partners, when Mr. Shiner's +new chain quivered in every link, and all the loose flesh upon the +tranter--who here came into action again--shook like jelly. Mrs. +Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal safety when +she danced with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic smile of +timidity the whole time it lasted--a peculiarity which filled her +features with wrinkles, and reduced her eyes to little straight +lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down opposite him; +repeating in her own person not only his proper movements, but also +the minor flourishes which the richness of the tranter's imagination +led him to introduce from time to time--an imitation which had about +it something of slavish obedience, not unmixed with fear. + +The ear-rings of the ladies now flung themselves wildly about, +turning violent summersaults, banging this way and that, and then +swinging quietly against the ears sustaining them. Mrs. Crumpler--a +heavy woman, who, for some reason which nobody ever thought worth +inquiry, danced in a clean apron--moved so smoothly through the +figure that her feet were never seen; conveying to imaginative minds +the idea that she rolled on castors. + +Minute after minute glided by, and the party reached the period when +ladies' back-hair begins to look forgotten and dissipated; when a +perceptible dampness makes itself apparent upon the faces even of +delicate girls--a ghastly dew having for some time rained from the +features of their masculine partners; when skirts begin to be torn +out of their gathers; when elderly people, who have stood up to +please their juniors, begin to feel sundry small tremblings in the +region of the knees, and to wish the interminable dance was at +Jericho; when (at country parties of the thorough sort)waistcoats +begin to be unbuttoned, and when the fiddlers' chairs have been +wriggled, by the frantic bowing of their occupiers, to a distance of +about two feet from where they originally stood. + +Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shiner. Dick knew that Fancy, by the law +of good manners, was bound to dance as pleasantly with one partner +as with another; yet he could not help suggesting to himself that +she need not have put QUITE so much spirit into her steps, nor +smiled QUITE so frequently whilst in the farmer's hands. + +"I'm afraid you didn't cast off," said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, +before the latter man's watch-chain had done vibrating from a recent +whirl. + +Fancy made a motion of accepting the correction; but her partner +took no notice, and proceeded with the next movement, with an +affectionate bend towards her. + +"That Shiner's too fond of her," the young man said to himself as he +watched them. They came to the top again, Fancy smiling warmly +towards her partner, and went to their places. + +"Mr. Shiner, you didn't cast off," said Dick, for want of something +else to demolish him with; casting off himself, and being put out at +the farmer's irregularity. + +"Perhaps I sha'n't cast off for any man," said Mr. Shiner. + +"I think you ought to, sir." + +Dick's partner, a young lady of the name of Lizzy--called Lizz for +short--tried to mollify. + +"I can't say that I myself have much feeling for casting off," she +said. + +"Nor I," said Mrs. Penny, following up the argument, "especially if +a friend and neighbour is set against it. Not but that 'tis a +terrible tasty thing in good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so +say I." + +"All I meant was," said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken +correctingly to a guest, "that 'tis in the dance; and a man has +hardly any right to hack and mangle what was ordained by the regular +dance-maker, who, I daresay, got his living by making 'em, and +thought of nothing else all his life." + +"I don't like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no dance- +maker that ever lived." + +Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being +really an effort to present to himself, in an abstract form, how far +an argument with a formidable rival ought to be carried, when that +rival was his mother's guest. The dead-lock was put an end to by +the stamping arrival up the middle of the tranter, who, despising +minutiae on principle, started a theme of his own. + +"I assure you, neighbours," he said, "the heat of my frame no tongue +can tell!" He looked around and endeavoured to give, by a forcible +gaze of self-sympathy, some faint idea of the truth. + +Mrs. Dewy formed one of the next couple. + +"Yes," she said, in an auxiliary tone, "Reuben always was such a hot +man." + +Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of +affliction required, by trying to smile and to look grieved at the +same time. + +"If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt- +collar is as limp as no starch at all," continued Mrs. Dewy, her +countenance lapsing parenthetically into a housewifely expression of +concern at the reminiscence. + +"Come, come, you women-folk; 'tis hands across--come, come!" said +the tranter; and the conversation ceased for the present. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY + + + +Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of +country-dances, opening with six-hands-round. + +"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould +be a right and proper plan for every mortal man in the dance to pull +off his jacket, considering the heat." + +"Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go +down with you when you are a-dancing. Such a hot man as he is!" + +"Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he +often addressed in the plural masculine for economy of epithet +merely; "I don't see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore +you lighten your clothes. Isn't that nature and reason for gentle +and simple? If I strip by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather +pot-housey I own; but if we stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis +the native manners of the country, which no man can gainsay? Hey-- +what did you say, my sonnies?" + +"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the +dance; and their coats were accordingly taken off and hung in the +passage, whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, +marching in close column, with flapping shirt-sleeves, and having, +as common to them all, a general glance of being now a match for any +man or dancer in England or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground +in Fancy's good opinion, retained his coat like the rest of the +thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the same from superior knowledge. + +And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the +time of night when a guest may write his name in the dust upon the +tables and chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, +becoming a distinct halo round the candles; when people's nostrils, +wrinkles, and crevices in general, seem to be getting gradually +plastered up; when the very fiddlers as well as the dancers get red +in the face, the dancers having advanced further still towards +incandescence, and entered the cadaverous phase; the fiddlers no +longer sit down, but kick back their chairs and saw madly at the +strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes closed, regardless of the +visible world. Again and again did Dick share his Love's hand with +another man, and wheel round; then, more delightfully, promenade in +a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waist more +firmly each time, and his elbow getting further and further behind +her back, till the distance reached was rather noticeable; and, most +blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath +curling round his neck like a summer zephyr that had strayed from +its proper date. Threading the couples one by one they reached the +bottom, when there arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune +should end before they could work their way to the top again, and +have anew the same exciting run down through. Dick's feelings on +actually reaching the top in spite of his doubts were supplemented +by a mortal fear that the fiddling might even stop at this supreme +moment; which prompted him to convey a stealthy whisper to the far- +gone musicians, to the effect that they were not to leave off till +he and his partner had reached the bottom of the dance once more, +which remark was replied to by the nearest of those convulsed and +quivering men by a private nod to the anxious young man between two +semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous "All right, ay, ay," +without opening the eyes. Fancy was now held so closely that Dick +and she were practically one person. The room became to Dick like a +picture in a dream; all that he could remember of it afterwards +being the look of the fiddlers going to sleep, as humming-tops +sleep, by increasing their motion and hum, together with the figures +of grandfather James and old Simon Crumpler sitting by the chimney- +corner, talking and nodding in dumb-show, and beating the air to +their emphatic sentences like people near a threshing machine. + +The dance ended. "Piph-h-h-h!" said tranter Dewy, blowing out his +breath in the very finest stream of vapour that a man's lips could +form. "A regular tightener, that one, sonnies!" He wiped his +forehead, and went to the cider and ale mugs on the table. + +"Well!" said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't +been in such a thumping state of uproar since I used to sit up on +old Midsummer-eves to see who my husband was going to be." + +"And that's getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I've +heard you tell," said the tranter, without lifting his eyes from the +cup he was filling. Being now engaged in the business of handing +round refreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, +though the other heavy men had resumed theirs. + +"And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you'll believe +me, came to pass then," continued Mrs. Penny. "Ah, the first spirit +ever I see on a Midsummer-eve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a +hard puzzle, so say I!" + +"So I should have fancied," said Elias Spinks. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and +talking on in a running tone of complacent abstraction, as if a +listener were not a necessity. "Yes; never was I in such a taking +as on that Midsummer-eve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John +Wildway was going to marry me or no. I put the bread-and-cheese and +beer quite ready, as the witch's book ordered, and I opened the +door, and I waited till the clock struck twelve, my nerves all alive +and so strained that I could feel every one of 'em twitching like +bell-wires. Yes, sure! and when the clock had struck, ho and +behold, I could see through the door a LITTLE SMALL man in the lane +wi' a shoemaker's apron on." + +Here Mr. Penny stealthily enlarged himself half an inch. + +"Now, John Wildway," Mrs. Penny continued, "who courted me at that +time, was a shoemaker, you see, but he was a very fair-sized man, +and I couldn't believe that any such a little small man had anything +to do wi' me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the +threshold--not John, but actually the same little small man in the +shoemaker's apron--" + +"You needn't be so mighty particular about little and small!" said +her husband. + +"In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn't I flee +upstairs, body and soul hardly hanging together! Well, to cut a +long story short, by-long and by-late. John Wildway and I had a +miff and parted; and lo and behold, the coming man came! Penny +asked me if I'd go snacks with him, and afore I knew what I was +about a'most, the thing was done." + +"I've fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be +mistaken," said Mr. Penny in a murmur. + +After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her +eyes, she still let them stay idling on the past scenes just +related, which were apparently visible to her in the centre of the +room Mr. Penny's remark received no reply. + +During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been +observed standing in an unobtrusive corner, in mysterious closeness +to each other, a just perceptible current of intelligence passing +from each to each, which had apparently no relation whatever to the +conversation of their guests, but much to their sustenance. A +conclusion of some kind having at length been drawn, the palpable +confederacy of man and wife was once more obliterated, the tranter +marching off into the pantry, humming a tune that he couldn't quite +recollect, and then breaking into the words of a song of which he +could remember about one line and a quarter. Mrs. Dewy spoke a few +words about preparations for a bit of supper. + +That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking +put on a look to signify that till this moment they had quite +forgotten that it was customary to expect suppers on these +occasions; going even further than this politeness of feature, and +starting irrelevant subjects, the exceeding flatness and forced tone +of which rather betrayed their object. The younger members said +they were quite hungry, and that supper would be delightful though +it was so late. + +Good luck attended Dick's love-passes during the meal. He sat next +Fancy, and had the thrilling pleasure of using permanently a glass +which had been taken by Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge +of the sole of his boot touch the lower verge of her skirt; and to +add to these delights the cat, which had lain unobserved in her lap +for several minutes, crept across into his own, touching him with +fur that had touched her hand a moment before. There were, besides, +some little pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she +didn't want, and when it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it +across for his own use, on the plea of waste not, want not. He +also, from time to time, sipped sweet sly glances at her profile; +noticing the set of her head, the curve of her throat, and other +artistic properties of the lively goddess, who the while kept up a +rather free, not to say too free, conversation with Mr. Shiner +sitting opposite; which, after some uneasy criticism, and much +shifting of argument backwards and forwards in Dick's mind, he +decided not to consider of alarming significance. + +"A new music greets our ears now," said Miss Fancy, alluding, with +the sharpness that her position as village sharpener demanded, to +the contrast between the rattle of knives and forks and the late +notes of the fiddlers. + +"Ay; and I don't know but what 'tis sweeter in tone when you get +above forty," said the tranter; "except, in faith, as regards father +there. Never such a mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his +soul; don't 'em, father?" + +The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent to +Reuben's remark. + +"Spaking of being moved in soul," said Mr. Penny, "I shall never +forget the first time I heard the "Dead March." 'Twas at poor +Corp'l Nineman's funeral at Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair +creep and fidget about like a vlock of sheep--ah, it did, souls! +And when they had done, and the last trump had sounded, and the guns +was fired over the dead hero's grave, a' icy-cold drop o' moist +sweat hung upon my forehead, and another upon my jawbone. Ah, 'tis +a very solemn thing!" + +"Well, as to father in the corner there," the tranter said, pointing +to old William, who was in the act of filling his mouth; "he'd +starve to death for music's sake now, as much as when he was a boy- +chap of fifteen." + +"Truly, now," said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat +in the manner of a man who meant to be convincing; 'there's a +friendly tie of some sort between music and eating." He lifted the +cup to his mouth, and drank himself gradually backwards from a +perpendicular position to a slanting one, during which time his +looks performed a circuit from the wall opposite him to the ceiling +overhead. Then clearing the other corner of his throat: 'Once I +was a-setting in the little kitchen of the Dree Mariners at +Casterbridge, having a bit of dinner, and a brass band struck up in +the street. Such a beautiful band as that were! I was setting +eating fried liver and lights, I well can mind--ah, I was! and to +save my life, I couldn't help chawing to the tune. Band played six- +eight time; six-eight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common; +common time went my teeth among the liver and lights as true as a +hair. Beautiful 'twere! Ah, I shall never forget that there band!" + +"That's as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of," said grandfather +James, with the absent gaze which accompanies profound criticism. + +"I don't like Michael's tuneful stories then," said Mrs. Dewy. +"They are quite coarse to a person o' decent taste." + +Old Michael's mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to +smile but didn't know where to begin, which gradually settled to an +expression that it was not displeasing for a nice woman like the +tranter's wife to correct him. + +"Well, now," said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, "that sort o' +coarse touch that's so upsetting to Ann's feelings is to my mind a +recommendation; for it do always prove a story to be true. And for +the same reason, I like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all +true stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon't. If +the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true +stories, who'd ha' troubled to invent parables?" Saying this the +tranter arose to fetch a new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home- +made wines. + +Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her +husband's back, though that the words should reach his ears +distinctly was understood by both): "Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody +do know the trouble I have to keep that man barely respectable. And +did you ever hear too--just now at supper-time--talking about +"taties" with Michael in such a work-folk way. Well, 'tis what I +was never brought up to! With our family 'twas never less than +"taters," and very often "pertatoes" outright; mother was so +particular and nice with us girls there was no family in the parish +that kept them selves up more than we." + +The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, +because she had engaged a woman to wait up for her. She disappeared +temporarily from the flagging party of dancers, and then came +downstairs wrapped up and looking altogether a different person from +whom she had been hitherto, in fact (to Dick's sadness and +disappointment), a woman somewhat reserved and of a phlegmatic +temperament--nothing left in her of the romping girl that she had +seemed but a short quarter-hour before, who had not minded the +weight of Dick's hand upon her waist, nor shirked the purlieus of +the mistletoe. + +"What a difference!" thought the young man--hoary cynic pro tem. +"What a miserable deceiving difference between the manners of a +maid's life at dancing times and at others! Look at this lovely +Fancy! Through the whole past evening touchable, squeezeable--even +kissable! For whole half-hours I held her so chose to me that not a +sheet of paper could have been shipped between us; and I could feel +her heart only just outside my own, her life beating on so close to +mine, that I was aware of every breath in it. A flit is made +upstairs--a hat and a cloak put on--and I no more dare to touch her +than--" Thought failed him, and he returned to realities. + +But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. +Mr. Shiner and his watch-chain, taking the intrusive advantage that +ardent bachelors who are going homeward along the same road as a +pretty young woman always do take of that circumstance, came forward +to assure Fancy--with a total disregard of Dick's emotions, and in +tones which were certainly not frigid--that he (Shiner) was not the +man to go to bed before seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own +door--not he, nobody should say he was that;--and that he would not +leave her side an inch till the thing was done--drown him if he +would. The proposal was assented to by Miss Day, in Dick's +foreboding judgment, with one degree--or at any rate, an appreciable +fraction of a degree--of warmth beyond that required by a +disinterested desire for protection from the dangers of the night. + +All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, +looking now like a setting from which the gem has been torn. There +stood her glass, and the romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the +bottom that she couldn't drink by trying ever so hard, in obedience +to the mighty arguments of the tranter (his hand coming down upon +her shoulder the while, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the drinker was +there no longer. There were the nine or ten pretty little crumbs +she had left on her plate; but the eater was no more seen. + +There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between +himself and the members of his family, now that they were left alone +again face to face. His father seemed quite offensive for appearing +to be in just as high spirits as when the guests were there; and as +for grandfather James (who had not yet left), he was quite fiendish +in being rather glad they were gone. + +"Really," said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, "I've +had so little time to attend to myself all the evenen, that I mean +to enjoy a quiet meal now! A slice of this here ham--neither too +fat nor too lean--so; and then a drop of this vinegar and pickles-- +there, that's it--and I shall be as fresh as a lark again! And to +tell the truth, my sonny, my inside has been as dry as a lime-basket +all night." + +"I like a party very well once in a while," said Mrs. Dewy, leaving +off the adorned tones she had been bound to use throughout the +evening, and returning to the natural marriage voice; "but, Lord, +'tis such a sight of heavy work next day! What with the dirty +plates, and knives and forks, and dust and smother, and bits kicked +off your furniture, and I don't know what all, why a body could +a'most wish there were no such things as Christmases . . . Ah-h +dear!" she yawned, till the clock in the corner had ticked several +beats. She cast her eyes round upon the displaced, dust-laden +furniture, and sank down overpowered at the sight. + +"Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for't!" +said the tranter cheerfully through a mangled mass of ham and bread, +without lifting his eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his +knife and fork as if he were felling trees. "Ann, you may as well +go on to bed at once, and not bide there making such sleepy faces; +you look as long-favoured as a fiddle, upon my life, Ann. There, +you must be wearied out, 'tis true. I'll do the doors and draw up +the clock; and you go on, or you'll be as white as a sheet to- +morrow." + +"Ay; I don't know whether I shan't or no." The matron passed her +hand across her eyes to brush away the film of sleep till she got +upstairs. + +Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be +so blind to romance; and was quite certain that if he ever took to +wife that dear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so +dreadfully practical and undemonstrative of the Passion as his +father and mother were. The most extraordinary thing was, that all +the fathers and mothers he knew were just as undemonstrative as his +own. + + + +CHAPTER IX: DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL + + + +The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the +holiday weeks at home, returned again to Mellstock. + +Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick +in accidentally passing the schoolhouse in his journeys about the +neighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A +handkerchief belonging to her had been providentially found by his +mother in clearing the rooms the day after that of the dance; and by +much contrivance Dick got it handed over to him, to leave with her +at any time he should be near the school after her return. But he +delayed taking the extreme measure of calling with it lest, had she +really no sentiment of interest in him, it might be regarded as a +slightly absurd errand, the reason guessed; and the sense of the +ludicrous, which was rather keen in her, do his dignity considerable +injury in her eyes; and what she thought of him, even apart from the +question of her loving, was all the world to him now. + +But the hour came when the patience of love at twenty-one could +endure no longer. One Saturday he approached the school with a mild +air of indifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object +of his quest at the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of +a spade and gloves, to root a bramble that had intruded itself +there. + +He disguised his feelings from some suspicious-looking cottage- +windows opposite by endeavouring to appear like a man in a great +hurry of business, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have +done with such trifling errands. + +This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found +it locked to keep the children, who were playing 'cross-dadder' in +the front, from running into her private grounds. + +She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be +done, which was to shout her name. + +"Miss Day!" + +The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the +cottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a +pleasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons +in gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day +continued digging and pulling as before. + +He screwed himself up to enduring the cottage-windows yet more +stoically, and shouted again. Fancy took no notice whatever. + +He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning +suddenly about and retiring a little distance, as if it were by no +means for his own pleasure that he had come. + +This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the +school at the back. Footsteps echoed across the interior, the door +opened, and three-quarters of the blooming young schoolmistress's +face and figure stood revealed before him; a slice on her left-hand +side being cut off by the edge of the door. Having surveyed and +recognized him, she came to the gate. + +At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or +did it continue to cover its normal area of ground? It was a +question meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in +after-hours--the meditation, after wearying involutions, always +ending in one way, that it was impossible to say. + +"Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with." He held it out +spasmodically and awkwardly. "Mother found it: under a chair." + +"O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't think +where I had dropped it." + +Now Dick, not being an experienced lover--indeed, never before +having been engaged in the practice of love-making at all, except in +a small schoolboy way--could not take advantage of the situation; +and out came the blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter +moments and a sleepless night:- + +"Good morning, Miss Day." + +"Good morning, Mr. Dewy." + +The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside, +unchanged in his condition from what he had been before he called. +Of course the Angel was not to blame--a young woman living alone in +a house could not ask him indoors unless she had known him better-- +he should have kept her outside before floundering into that fatal +farewell. He wished that before he called he had realized more +fully than he did the pleasure of being about to call; and turned +away. + + + + +PART THE SECOND--SPRING + + + + +CHAPTER I: PASSING BY THE SCHOOL + + + +It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much +more frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was +continually finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the +road which skirted the garden of the school. The first-fruits of +his perseverance were that, on turning the angle on the nineteenth +journey by that track, he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in a +dark-gray dress, looking from a high open window upon the crown of +his hat. The friendly greeting resulting from this rencounter was +considered so valuable an elixir that Dick passed still oftener; and +by the time he had almost trodden a little path under the fence +where never a path was before, he was rewarded with an actual +meeting face to face on the open road before her gate. This brought +another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her bearing +that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there but the +sort of pleasure she derived, whether exultation at the hope her +exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone +Dick's concern, he could not anyhow decide, although he meditated on +her every little movement for hours after it was made. + + + +CHAPTER II: A MEETING OF THE QUIRE + + + +It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun +appeared as a nebulous blaze of amber light, its outline being lost +in cloudy masses hanging round it, like wild locks of hair. + +The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group +in front of Mr. Penny's workshop in the lower village. They were +all brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long +as a steeple the lowness of the source of light rendering the brims +of their hats of no use at all as a protection to the eyes. + +Mr. Penny's was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood +in a hollow by the roadside so that cart-wheels and horses' legs +were about level with the sill of his shop-window. This was low and +wide, and was open from morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself +being invariably seen working inside, like a framed portrait of a +shoemaker by some modern Moroni. He sat facing the road, with a +boot on his knees and the awl in his hand, only looking up for a +moment as he stretched out his arms and bent forward at the pull, +when his spectacles flashed in the passer's face with a shine of +flat whiteness, and then returned again to the boot as usual. Rows +of lasts, small and large, stout and slender, covered the wall which +formed the background, in the extreme shadow of which a kind of +dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an apprentice with a string +tied round his hair (probably to keep it out of his eyes). He +smiled at remarks that floated in from without, but was never known +to answer them in Mr. Penny's presence. Outside the window the +upper-leather of a Wellington-boot was usually hung, pegged to a +board as if to dry. No sign was over his door; in fact--as with old +banks and mercantile houses--advertising in any shape was scorned, +and it would have been felt as beneath his dignity to paint up, for +the benefit of strangers, the name of an establishment whose trade +came solely by connection based on personal respect. + +His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, +sometimes leaning against the sill, sometimes moving a pace or two +backwards and forwards in front of it. They talked with deliberate +gesticulations to Mr. Penny, enthroned in the shadow of the +interior. + +"I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o' life--o' +Sundays, anyway--that I do so." + +"'Tis like all the doings of folk who don't know what a day's work +is, that's what I say." + +"My belief is the man's not to blame; 'tis SHE--she's the bitter +weed!" + +"No, not altogether. He's a poor gawk-hammer. Look at his sermon +yesterday." + +"His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he +couldn't put it into words and speak it. That's all was the matter +wi' the sermon. He hadn't been able to get it past his pen." + +"Well--ay, the sermon might have been good; for, 'tis true, the +sermon of Old Eccl'iastes himself lay in Eccl'iastes's ink-bottle +afore he got it out." + +Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could +afford time to look up and throw in a word at this point. + +"He's no spouter--that must be said, 'a b'lieve." + +"'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do +go," said Spinks. + +"Well, we'll say nothing about that," the tranter answered; "for I +don't believe 'twill make a penneth o' difference to we poor martels +here or hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies." + +Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and +looked up and spoke again at the extension of arms. + +"'Tis his goings-on, souls, that's what it is." He clenched his +features for an Herculean addition to the ordinary pull, and +continued, "The first thing he done when he came here was to be hot +and strong about church business." + +"True," said Spinks; "that was the very first thing he done." + +Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted +it, ceased stitching, swallowed an unimportant quantity of air as if +it were a pill, and continued: + +"The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, +until he found 'twould be a matter o' cost and what not, and then +not to think no more about it." + +"True: that was the next thing he done." + +"And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not +on no account to put their hats in the christening font during +service." + +"True." + +"And then 'twas this, and then 'twas that, and now 'tis--" + +Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. +Penny gave a huge pull to signify the concluding word. + +"Now 'tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop," said the +tranter after an interval of half a minute, not by way of explaining +the pause and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means +of keeping the subject well before the meeting. + +Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like +all good wives, however much she was inclined to play the Tory to +her husband's Whiggism, and vice versa, in times of peace, she +coalesced with him heartily enough in time of war. + +"It must be owned he's not all there," she replied in a general way +to the fragments of talk she had heard from indoors. "Far below +poor Mr. Grinham" (the late vicar). + +"Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he'd +never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just as you were in the middle of +your work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye." + +"Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very +well-intending party in that respect, he's unbearable; for as to +sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, +why, you can't do it. I assure you I've not been able to empt them +for several days, unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of +winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming to +ask how you are, and 'tis such a confusing thing to meet a gentleman +at the door when ye are in the mess o' washing." + +"'Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman," said the +tranter. "His meaning's good enough. Ay, your pa'son comes by +fate: 'tis heads or tails, like pitch-halfpenny, and no choosing; +so we must take en as he is, my sonnies, and thank God he's no +worse, I suppose." + +"I fancy I've seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than +Christianity asked for," said Mrs. Penny musingly; "but I don't +quite like to say it." + +"O no; there's nothing in that," said grandfather William. + +"If there's nothing, we shall see nothing," Mrs. Penny replied, in +the tone of a woman who might possibly have private opinions still. + +"Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!" said Bowman. "Why, he never troubled +us wi' a visit from year's end to year's end. You might go +anywhere, do anything: you'd be sure never to see him." + +"Yes, he was a right sensible pa'son," said Michael. "He never +entered our door but once in his life, and that was to tell my poor +wife--ay, poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall I--that as +she was such a' old aged person, and lived so far from the church, +he didn't at all expect her to come any more to the service." + +"And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and +hymns o' Sundays. 'Confound ye,' says he, 'blare and scrape what ye +will, but don't bother me!'" + +"And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come +and hear him if we were all on-end for a jaunt or spree, or to bring +the babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. +There's good in a man's not putting a parish to unnecessary +trouble." + +"And there's this here man never letting us have a bit o' peace; but +keeping on about being good and upright till 'tis carried to such a +pitch as I never see the like afore nor since!" + +"No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn't hold +water, as it hadn't for years off and on; and when I told him that +Mr. Grinham never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and +christen 'em just as well, 'a said, 'Good Heavens! Send for a +workman immediate. What place have I come to!' Which was no +compliment to us, come to that." + +"Still, for my part," said old William, "though he's arrayed against +us, I like the hearty borussnorus ways of the new pa'son." + +"You, ready to die for the quire," said Bowman reproachfully, "to +stick up for the quire's enemy, William!" + +"Nobody will feel the loss of our church-work so much as I," said +the old man firmly; "that you d'all know. I've a-been in the quire +man and boy ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that +'tisn't in me to call the man a bad man, because I truly and +sincerely believe en to be a good young feller." + +Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated +William's eye as he uttered the words, and a certain nobility of +aspect was also imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a +Titanic shadow at least thirty feet in length, stretching away to +the east in outlines of imposing magnitude, his head finally +terminating upon the trunk of a grand old oak-tree. + +"Mayble's a hearty feller enough," the tranter replied, "and will +spak to you be you dirty or be you clane. The first time I met en +was in a drong, and though 'a didn't know me no more than the dead, +'a passed the time of day. 'D'ye do?' he said, says he, nodding his +head. 'A fine day.' Then the second time I met en was full-buff in +town street, when my breeches were tore into a long strent by +getting through a copse of thorns and brimbles for a short cut home- +along; and not wanting to disgrace the man by spaking in that state, +I fixed my eye on the weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. +But no: 'How d'ye do, Reuben?' says he, right hearty, and shook my +hand. If I'd been dressed in silver spangles from top to toe, the +man couldn't have been civiller." + +At this moment Dick was seen coming up the village-street, and they +turned and watched him. + + + +CHAPTER III: A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION + + + +"I'm afraid Dick's a lost man," said the tranter. + +"What?--no!" said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far +commoner thing for his ears to report what was not said than that +his judgment should be at fault. + +"Ay," said the tranter, still gazing at Dick's unconscious advance. +"I don't at all like what I see! There's too many o' them looks out +of the winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; +too much peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; +telling about clever things SHE did till you be sick of it; and then +upon a hint to that effect a horrible silence about her. I've +walked the path once in my life and know the country, neighbours; +and Dick's a lost man!" The tranter turned a quarter round and +smiled a smile of miserable satire at the setting new moon, which +happened to catch his eye. + +The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them +to speak; and they still regarded Dick in the distance. + +"'Twas his mother's fault," the tranter continued, "in asking the +young woman to our party last Christmas. When I eyed the blue frock +and light heels o' the maid, I had my thoughts directly. 'God bless +thee, Dicky my sonny,' I said to myself; 'there's a delusion for +thee!'" + +"They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?" +Mail tentatively observed, as became one who was not a member of the +family. + +"Ay, that's a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness +belongs to it, queerest things on earth belongs to it! There, 'tmay +as well come early as late s'far as I know. The sooner begun, the +sooner over; for come it will." + +"The question I ask is," said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread +the two subjects of discourse, as became a man learned in rhetoric, +and beating with his hand in a way which signified that the manner +rather than the matter of his speech was to be observed, "how did +Mr. Maybold know she could play the organ? You know we had it from +her own lips, as far as lips go, that she has never, first or last, +breathed such a thing to him; much less that she ever would play." + +In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news +which had caused such a convulsion among the ancient musicians was +unfolded to him. "Well," he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss +Day, "I know by some words of hers that she has a particular wish +not to play, because she is a friend of ours; and how the alteration +comes, I don't know." + +"Now, this is my plan," said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the +discussion by the infusion of new ideas, as was his custom--"this is +my plan; if you don't like it, no harm's done. We all know one +another very well, don't we, neighbours?" + +That they knew one another very well was received as a statement +which, though familiar, should not be omitted in introductory +speeches. + +"Then I say this"--and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his +hand on Mr. Spinks's shoulder with a momentum of several pounds, +upon which Mr. Spinks tried to look not in the least startled--"I +say that we all move down-along straight as a line to Pa'son +Mayble's when the clock has gone six to-morrow night. There we one +and all stand in the passage, then one or two of us go in and spak +to en, man and man; and say, 'Pa'son Mayble, every tradesman d'like +to have his own way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours. +Instead of turning us out neck and crop, let us stay on till +Christmas, and we'll gie way to the young woman, Mr. Mayble, and +make no more ado about it. And we shall always be quite willing to +touch our hats when we meet ye, Mr. Mayble, just as before.' That +sounds very well? Hey?" + +"Proper well, in faith, Reuben Dewy." + +"And we won't sit down in his house; 'twould be looking too familiar +when only just reconciled?" + +"No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn +round, and march out--he'll think all the more of us for it." + +"I hardly think Leaf had better go wi' us?" said Michael, turning to +Leaf and taking his measure from top to bottom by the eye. "He's so +terrible silly that he might ruin the concern." + +"He don't want to go much; do ye, Thomas Leaf?" said William. + +"Hee-hee! no; I don't want to. Only a teeny bit!" + +"I be mortal afeard, Leaf; that you'll never be able to tell how +many cuts d'take to sharpen a spar," said Mail. + +"I never had no head, never! that's how it happened to happen, hee- +hee!" + +They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by +disparaging him after an open confession, but because it was an +accepted thing that Leaf didn't in the least mind having no head, +that deficiency of his being an unimpassioned matter of parish +history. + +"But I can sing my treble!" continued Thomas Leaf; quite delighted +at being called a fool in such a friendly way; "I can sing my treble +as well as any maid, or married woman either, and better! And if +Jim had lived, I should have had a clever brother! To-morrow is +poor Jim's birthday. He'd ha' been twenty-six if he'd lived till +to-morrow." + +"You always seem very sorry for Jim," said old William musingly. + +"Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he'd always ha' been! She'd +never have had to work in her old age if he had continued strong, +poor Jim!" + +"What was his age when 'a died?" + +"Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. 'A was born as might be +at night; and 'a didn't last as might be till the morning. No, 'a +didn't last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha' been +his christening day if he had lived; and she's always thinking about +en. You see he died so very young." + +"Well, 'twas rather youthful," said Michael. + +"Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o' +children?" said the tranter, his eye sweeping his audience. + +"Ah, well she mid be," said Leaf. "She had twelve regular one after +another, and they all, except myself; died very young; either before +they was born or just afterwards." + +"Pore feller, too. I suppose th'st want to come wi' us?" the +tranter murmured. + +"Well, Leaf; you shall come wi' us as yours is such a melancholy +family," said old William rather sadly. + +"I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life," +said Reuben. "There's Leaf's mother, poor woman! Every morning I +see her eyes mooning out through the panes of glass like a pot-sick +winder-flower; and as Leaf sings a very high treble, and we don't +know what we should do without en for upper G, we'll let en come as +a trate, poor feller." + +"Ay, we'll let en come, 'a b'lieve," said Mr. Penny, looking up, as +the pull happened to be at that moment. + +"Now," continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice +these digressions about Leaf; "as to going to see the pa'son, one of +us might call and ask en his meaning, and 'twould be just as well +done; but it will add a bit of flourish to the cause if the quire +waits on him as a body. Then the great thing to mind is, not for +any of our fellers to be nervous; so before starting we'll one and +all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon; then every man-jack +het a pint of cider into his inside; then we'll warm up an extra +drop wi' some mead and a bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful- +-just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner +man--and march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man's not +himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a drop? We shall be able +to look any gentleman in the face then without shrink or shame." + +Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the +earth in time to give a cordial approval to this line of action, and +the meeting adjourned. + + + +CHAPTER IV: INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR + + + +At six o'clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir +emerged from the tranter's door, and advanced with a firm step down +the lane. This dignity of march gradually became obliterated as +they went on, and by the time they reached the hill behind the +vicarage a faint resemblance to a flock of sheep might have been +discerned in the venerable party. A word from the tranter, however, +set them right again; and as they descended the hill, the regular +tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet was clearly audible from the +vicarage garden. At the opening of the gate there was another short +interval of irregular shuffling, caused by a rather peculiar habit +the gate had, when swung open quickly, of striking against the bank +and slamming back into the opener's face. + +"Now keep step again, will ye?" said the tranter. "It looks better, +and more becomes the high class of arrant which has brought us +here." Thus they advanced to the door. + +At Reuben's ring the more modest of the group turned aside, adjusted +their hats, and looked critically at any shrub that happened to lie +in the line of vision; endeavouring thus to give a person who +chanced to look out of the windows the impression that their +request, whatever it was going to be, was rather a casual thought +occurring whilst they were inspecting the vicar's shrubbery and +grass-plot than a predetermined thing. The tranter, who, coming +frequently to the vicarage with luggage, coals, firewood, etc., had +none of the awe for its precincts that filled the breasts of most of +the others, fixed his eyes firmly on the knocker during this +interval of waiting. The knocker having no characteristic worthy of +notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one of the door-panels, and +studied the winding lines of the grain. + +"O, sir, please, here's Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and +young Richard Dewy, O, and all the quire too, sir, except the boys, +a-come to see you!" said Mr. Maybold's maid-servant to Mr. Maybold, +the pupils of her eyes dilating like circles in a pond. + +"All the choir?" said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly +described as a good-looking young man with courageous eyes, timid +mouth, and neutral nose), abandoning his writing and looking at his +parlour-maid after speaking, like a man who fancied he had seen her +face before but couldn't recollect where. + +"And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the +right hand nor to the left, but stares quite straight and solemn +with his mind made up!" + +"O, all the choir," repeated the vicar to himself; trying by that +simple device to trot out his thoughts on what the choir could come +for. + +"Yes; every man-jack of 'em, as I be alive!" (The parlour-maid was +rather local in manner, having in fact been raised in the same +village.) "Really, sir, 'tis thoughted by many in town and country +that--" + +"Town and country!--Heavens, I had no idea that I was public +property in this way!" said the vicar, his face acquiring a hue +somewhere between that of the rose and the peony. "Well, 'It is +thought in town and country that--'" + +"It is thought that you be going to get it hot and strong--excusen +my incivility, sir." + +The vicar suddenly recalled to his recollection that he had long ago +settled it to be decidedly a mistake to encourage his servant Jane +in giving personal opinions. The servant Jane saw by the vicar's +face that he recalled this fact to his mind; and removing her +forehead from the edge of the door, and rubbing away the indent that +edge had made, vanished into the passage as Mr. Maybold remarked, +"Show them in, Jane." + +A few minutes later a shuffling and jostling (reduced to as refined +a form as was compatible with the nature of shuffles and jostles) +was heard in the passage; then an earnest and prolonged wiping of +shoes, conveying the notion that volumes of mud had to be removed; +but the roads being so clean that not a particle of dirt appeared on +the choir's boots (those of all the elder members being newly oiled, +and Dick's brightly polished), this wiping might have been set down +simply as a desire to show that respectable men had no wish to take +a mean advantage of clean roads for curtailing proper ceremonies. +Next there came a powerful whisper from the same quarter:- + +"Now stand stock-still there, my sonnies, one and all! And don't +make no noise; and keep your backs close to the wall, that company +may pass in and out easy if they want to without squeezing through +ye: and we two are enough to go in." . . . The voice was the +tranter's. + +"I wish I could go in too and see the sight!" said a reedy voice-- +that of Leaf. + +"'Tis a pity Leaf is so terrible silly, or else he might," said +another. + +"I never in my life seed a quire go into a study to have it out +about the playing and singing," pleaded Leaf; "and I should like to +see it just once!" + +"Very well; we'll let en come in," said the tranter. "You'll be +like chips in porridge, {1} Leaf--neither good nor hurt. All right, +my sonny, come along;" and immediately himself, old William, and +Leaf appeared in the room. + +"We took the liberty to come and see 'ee, sir," said Reuben, letting +his hat hang in his left hand, and touching with his right the brim +of an imaginary one on his head. "We've come to see 'ee, sir, man +and man, and no offence, I hope?" + +"None at all," said Mr. Maybold. + +"This old aged man standing by my side is father; William Dewy by +name, sir." + +"Yes; I see it is," said the vicar, nodding aside to old William, +who smiled. + +"I thought you mightn't know en without his bass-viol," the tranter +apologized. "You see, he always wears his best clothes and his +bass-viol a-Sundays, and it do make such a difference in a' old +man's look." + +"And who's that young man?" the vicar said. + +"Tell the pa'son yer name," said the tranter, turning to Leaf; who +stood with his elbows nailed back to a bookcase. + +"Please, Thomas Leaf, your holiness!" said Leaf; trembling. + +"I hope you'll excuse his looks being so very thin," continued the +tranter deprecatingly, turning to the vicar again. "But 'tisn't his +fault, poor feller. He's rather silly by nature, and could never +get fat; though he's a' excellent treble, and so we keep him on." + +"I never had no head, sir," said Leaf; eagerly grasping at this +opportunity for being forgiven his existence. + +"Ah, poor young man!" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Bless you, he don't mind it a bit, if you don't, sir," said the +tranter assuringly. "Do ye, Leaf?" + +"Not I--not a morsel--hee, hee! I was afeard it mightn't please +your holiness, sir, that's all." + +The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very well through his negative +qualities, was tempted in a fit of generosity to advance him still +higher, by giving him credit for positive ones. "He's very clever +for a silly chap, good-now, sir. You never knowed a young feller +keep his smock-frocks so clane; very honest too. His ghastly looks +is all there is against en, poor feller; but we can't help our +looks, you know, sir." + +"True: we cannot. You live with your mother, I think, Leaf?" + +The tranter looked at Leaf to express that the most friendly +assistant to his tongue could do no more for him now, and that he +must be left to his own resources. + +"Yes, sir: a widder, sir. Ah, if brother Jim had lived she'd have +had a clever son to keep her without work!" + +"Indeed! poor woman. Give her this half-crown. I'll call and see +your mother." + +"Say, 'Thank you, sir,'" the tranter whispered imperatively towards +Leaf. + +"Thank you, sir!" said Leaf. + +"That's it, then; sit down, Leaf;" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Y-yes, sir!" + +The tranter cleared his throat after this accidental parenthesis +about Leaf; rectified his bodily position, and began his speech. + +"Mr. Mayble," he said, "I hope you'll excuse my common way, but I +always like to look things in the face." + +Reuben made a point of fixing this sentence in the vicar's mind by +gazing hard at him at the conclusion of it, and then out of the +window. + +Mr. Maybold and old William looked in the same direction, apparently +under the impression that the things' faces alluded to were there +visible. + +"What I have been thinking"--the tranter implied by this use of the +past tense that he was hardly so discourteous as to be positively +thinking it then--"is that the quire ought to be gie'd a little +time, and not done away wi' till Christmas, as a fair thing between +man and man. And, Mr. Mayble, I hope you'll excuse my common way?" + +"I will, I will. Till Christmas," the vicar murmured, stretching +the two words to a great length, as if the distance to Christmas +might be measured in that way. "Well, I want you all to understand +that I have no personal fault to find, and that I don't wish to +change the church music by forcible means, or in a way which should +hurt the feelings of any parishioners. Why I have at last spoken +definitely on the subject is that a player has been brought under--I +may say pressed upon--my notice several times by one of the +churchwardens. And as the organ I brought with me is here waiting" +(pointing to a cabinet-organ standing in the study), "there is no +reason for longer delay." + +"We made a mistake I suppose then, sir? But we understood the young +woman didn't want to play particularly?" The tranter arranged his +countenance to signify that he did not want to be inquisitive in the +least. + +"No, nor did she. Nor did I definitely wish her to just yet; for +your playing is very good. But, as I said, one of the churchwardens +has been so anxious for a change, that, as matters stand, I couldn't +consistently refuse my consent." + +Now for some reason or other, the vicar at this point seemed to have +an idea that he had prevaricated; and as an honest vicar, it was a +thing he determined not to do. He corrected himself; blushing as he +did so, though why he should blush was not known to Reuben. + +"Understand me rightly," he said: "the church-warden proposed it to +me, but I had thought myself of getting--Miss Day to play." + +"Which churchwarden might that be who proposed her, sir?--excusing +my common way." The tranter intimated by his tone that, so far from +being inquisitive, he did not even wish to ask a single question. + +"Mr. Shiner, I believe." + +"Clk, my sonny!--beg your pardon, sir, that's only a form of words +of mine, and slipped out accidental--he nourishes enmity against us +for some reason or another; perhaps because we played rather hard +upon en Christmas night. Anyhow 'tis certain sure that Mr. Shiner's +real love for music of a particular kind isn't his reason. He've no +more ear than that chair. But let that be." + +"I don't think you should conclude that, because Mr. Shiner wants a +different music, he has any ill-feeling for you. I myself; I must +own, prefer organ-music to any other. I consider it most proper, +and feel justified in endeavouring to introduce it; but then, +although other music is better, I don't say yours is not good." + +"Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death's to be, we'll die like men any +day you name (excusing my common way)." + +Mr. Maybold bowed his head. + +"All we thought was, that for us old ancient singers to be choked +off quiet at no time in particular, as now, in the Sundays after +Easter, would seem rather mean in the eyes of other parishes, sir. +But if we fell glorious with a bit of a flourish at Christmas, we +should have a respectable end, and not dwindle away at some nameless +paltry second-Sunday-after or Sunday-next-before something, that's +got no name of his own." + +"Yes, yes, that's reasonable; I own it's reasonable." + +"You see, Mr. Mayble, we've got--do I keep you inconvenient long, +sir?" + +"No, no." + +"We've got our feelings--father there especially." + +The tranter, in his earnestness, had advanced his person to within +six inches of the vicar's. + +"Certainly, certainly!" said Mr. Maybold, retreating a little for +convenience of seeing. "You are all enthusiastic on the subject, +and I am all the more gratified to find you so. A Laodicean +lukewarmness is worse than wrongheadedness itself." + +"Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble," Reuben continued, more +impressively, and advancing a little closer still to the vicar, +"father there is a perfect figure o' wonder, in the way of being +fond of music!" + +The vicar drew back a little further, the tranter suddenly also +standing back a foot or two, to throw open the view of his father, +and pointing to him at the same time. + +Old William moved uneasily in the large chair, and with a minute +smile on the mere edge of his lips, for good-manners, said he was +indeed very fond of tunes. + +"Now, you see exactly how it is," Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. +Maybold's sense of justice by looking sideways into his eyes. The +vicar seemed to see how it was so well that the gratified tranter +walked up to him again with even vehement eagerness, so that his +waistcoat-buttons almost rubbed against the vicar's as he continued: +"As to father, if you or I, or any man or woman of the present +generation, at the time music is a-playing, was to shake your fist +in father's face, as may be this way, and say, "Don't you be +delighted with that music!--the tranter went back to where Leaf was +sitting, and held his fist so close to Leaf's face that the latter +pressed his head back against the wall: "All right, Leaf; my sonny, +I won't hurt you; 'tis just to show my meaning to Mr. Mayble.--As I +was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to shake your fist in +father's face this way, and say, "William, your life or your music!" +he'd say, "My life!" Now that's father's nature all over; and you +see, sir, it must hurt the feelings of a man of that kind for him +and his bass-viol to be done away wi' neck and crop." + +The tranter went back to the vicar's front and again looked +earnestly at his face. + +"True, true, Dewy," Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his +head and shoulders without moving his feet; but finding this +impracticable, edging back another inch. These frequent retreats +had at last jammed Mr. Maybold between his easy-chair and the edge +of the table. + +And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had +just re-dipped the pen he was using; at their entry, instead of +wiping it, he had laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At +the last retreat his coat-tails came in contact with the pen, and +down it rolled, first against the back of the chair, thence turning +a summersault into the seat, thence falling to the floor with a +rattle. + +The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show +that, however great their ecclesiastical differences, his mind was +not so small as to let this affect his social feelings, stooped +also. + +"And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?" said +Mr. Maybold from under the table. + +"Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you +see our desire is reason?" said the tranter from under the chair. + +"Quite, quite; and I shouldn't think of refusing to listen to such a +reasonable request," the vicar replied. Seeing that Reuben had +secured the pen, he resumed his vertical position, and added, "You +know, Dewy, it is often said how difficult a matter it is to act up +to our convictions and please all parties. It may be said with +equal truth, that it is difficult for a man of any appreciativeness +to have convictions at all. Now in my case, I see right in you, and +right in Shiner. I see that violins are good, and that an organ is +good; and when we introduce the organ, it will not be that fiddles +were bad, but that an organ was better. That you'll clearly +understand, Dewy?" + +"I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piph-h-h- +h! How the blood do get into my head, to be sure, whenever I quat +down like that!" said Reuben, who having also risen to his feet +stuck the pen vertically in the inkstand and almost through the +bottom, that it might not roll down again under any circumstances +whatever. + +Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their +curiosity surging higher and higher as the minutes passed. Dick, +not having much affection for this errand, soon grew tired, and went +away in the direction of the school. Yet their sense of propriety +would probably have restrained them from any attempt to discover +what was going on in the study had not the vicar's pen fallen to the +floor. The conviction that the movement of chairs, etc., +necessitated by the search, could only have been caused by the +catastrophe of a bloody fight beginning, overpowered all other +considerations; and they advanced to the door, which had only just +fallen to. Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes after the +stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in full-length +portraiture, Mail's face and shoulders above Mr. Penny's head, +Spinks's forehead and eyes over Mail's crown, and a fractional part +of Bowman's countenance under Spinks's arm--crescent shaped portions +of other heads and faces being visible behind these--the whole dozen +and odd eyes bristling with eager inquiry. + +Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable boot-makers and men, seeing +the vicar look at him and hearing no word spoken, thought it +incumbent upon himself to say something of any kind. Nothing +suggested itself till he had looked for about half a minute at the +vicar. + +"You'll excuse my naming of it, sir," he said, regarding with much +commiseration the mere surface of the vicar's face; "but perhaps you +don't know that your chin have bust out a-bleeding where you cut +yourself a-shaving this morning, sir." + +"Now, that was the stooping, depend upon't," the tranter suggested, +also looking with much interest at the vicar's chin. "Blood always +will bust out again if you hang down the member that's been +bleeding." + +Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar's bleeding chin +likewise; and Leaf advanced two or three paces from the bookcase, +absorbed in the contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted +lips and delighted eyes. + +"Dear me, dear me!" said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and +brushing his chin with his hand, then taking out his handkerchief +and wiping the place. + +"That's it, sir; all right again now, 'a b'lieve--a mere nothing," +said Mr. Penny. "A little bit of fur off your hat will stop it in a +minute if it should bust out again." + +"I'll let 'ee have a bit off mine," said Reuben, to show his good +feeling; "my hat isn't so new as yours, sir, and 'twon't hurt mine a +bit." + +"No, no; thank you, thank you," Mr. Maybold again nervously replied. + +"'Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?" said Reuben, feeling these to +be the kindest and best remarks he could make. + +"O, no; not particularly." + +"Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes a-shaving, and just when +it comes into your head that you may cut yourself; there's the +blood." + +"I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which +we make the change," said Mr. Maybold, "and I know you'll meet me +half-way. I think Christmas-day as much too late for me as the +present time is too early for you. I suggest Michaelmas or +thereabout as a convenient time for both parties; for I think your +objection to a Sunday which has no name is not one of any real +weight." + +"Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn't expect their own way +entirely; and I express in all our names that we'll make shift and +be satisfied with what you say." The tranter touched the brim of +his imaginary hat again, and all the choir did the same. "About +Michaelmas, then, as far as you are concerned, sir, and then we make +room for the next generation." + +"About Michaelmas," said the vicar. + + + +CHAPTER V: RETURNING HOME WARD + + + +"'A took it very well, then?" said Mail, as they all walked up the +hill. + +"He behaved like a man, 'a did so," said the tranter. "And I'm glad +we've let en know our minds. And though, beyond that, we ha'n't got +much by going, 'twas worth while. He won't forget it. Yes, he took +it very well. Supposing this tree here was Pa'son Mayble, and I +standing here, and thik gr't stone is father sitting in the easy- +chair. 'Dewy,' says he, 'I don't wish to change the church music in +a forcible way.'" + +"That was very nice o' the man, even though words be wind." + +"Proper nice--out and out nice. The fact is," said Reuben +confidentially, "'tis how you take a man. Everybody must be +managed. Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men +want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good +deal." + +"'Tis truly!" murmured the husbands. + +"Pa'son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we'd +been sworn brothers. Ay, the man's well enough; 'tis what's put in +his head that spoils him, and that's why we've got to go." + +"There's really no believing half you hear about people nowadays." + +"Bless ye, my sonnies! 'tisn't the pa'son's move at all. That +gentleman over there" (the tranter nodded in the direction of +Shiner's farm) "is at the root of the mischty." + +"What! Shiner?" + +"Ay; and I see what the pa'son don't see. Why, Shiner is for +putting forward that young woman that only last night I was saying +was our Dick's sweet-heart, but I suppose can't be, and making much +of her in the sight of the congregation, and thinking he'll win her +by showing her off. Well, perhaps 'a woll." + +"Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is +second to Shiner, the pa'son is second to the churchwardens, and God +A'mighty is nowhere at all." + +"That's true; and you see," continued Reuben, "at the very beginning +it put me in a stud as to how to quarrel wi' en. In short, to save +my soul, I couldn't quarrel wi' such a civil man without belying my +conscience. Says he to father there, in a voice as quiet as a +lamb's, "William, you are a' old aged man, as all shall be, so sit +down in my easy-chair, and rest yourself." And down father zot. I +could fain ha' laughed at thee, father; for thou'st take it so +unconcerned at first, and then looked so frightened when the chair- +bottom sunk in." + +"You see," said old William, hastening to explain, "I was scared to +find the bottom gie way--what should I know o' spring bottoms?--and +thought I had broke it down: and of course as to breaking down a +man's chair, I didn't wish any such thing." + +"And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d'see +his own father sitting in his enemy's easy-chair, and a poor chap +like Leaf made the best of; as if he almost had brains--why, it +knocks all the wind out of his sail at once: it did out of mine." + +"If that young figure of fun--Fance Day, I mean," said Bowman, +"hadn't been so mighty forward wi' showing herself off to Shiner and +Dick and the rest, 'tis my belief we should never ha' left the +gallery." + +"'Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson +made 'em," said Mr. Penny. "My wife sticks to it that he's in love +wi' her." + +"That's a thing we shall never know. I can't onriddle her, nohow." + +"Thou'st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she," +the tranter observed. + +"The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And +coming of such a stock, too, she may well be a twister." + +"Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never +says anything: not he." + +"Never." + +"You might live wi' that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never +know there was anything in him." + +"Ay; one o' these up-country London ink-bottle chaps would call +Geoffrey a fool." + +"Ye never find out what's in that man: never," said Spinks. +"Close? ah, he is close! He can hold his tongue well. That man's +dumbness is wonderful to listen to." + +"There's so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over +wi' sound understanding." + +"'A can hold his tongue very clever--very clever truly," echoed +Leaf. "A do look at me as if 'a could see my thoughts running round +like the works of a clock." + +"Well, all will agree that the man can halt well in his talk, be it +a long time or be it a short time. And though we can't expect his +daughter to inherit his closeness, she may have a few dribblets from +his sense." + +"And his pocket, perhaps." + +"Yes; the nine hundred pound that everybody says he's worth; but I +call it four hundred and fifty; for I never believe more than half I +hear." + +"Well, he've made a pound or two, and I suppose the maid will have +it, since there's nobody else. But 'tis rather sharp upon her, if +she's been born to fortune, to bring her up as if not born for it, +and letting her work so hard." + +"'Tis all upon his principle. A long--headed feller!" + +"Ah," murmured Spinks, "'twould be sharper upon her if she were born +for fortune, and not to it! I suffer from that affliction." + + + +CHAPTER VI: YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER'S HOUSE + + + +A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick's +on the following Monday morning. It was the week after the Easter +holidays, and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the +light spring-cart, watching the damp slopes of the hill-sides as +they streamed in the warmth of the sun, which at this unsettled +season shone on the grass with the freshness of an occasional +inspector rather than as an accustomed proprietor. His errand was +to fetch Fancy, and some additional household goods, from her +father's house in the neighbouring parish to her dwelling at +Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shaded with clouds; but the +nearer parts of the landscape were whitely illumined by the visible +rays of the sun streaming down across the heavy gray shade behind. + +The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner's heart +that had been suggested to him by Shiner's movements. He preferred +to let such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having +taught him that the uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in +other people, was not a groundwork upon which a single action of his +own life could be founded. + +Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed +portion of one of the outlying estates of the Earl of Wessex, to +whom Day was head game-keeper, timber-steward, and general +overlooker for this district. The wood was intersected by the +highway from Casterbridge to London at a place not far from the +house, and some trees had of late years been felled between its +windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to give the solitary +cottager a glimpse of the passers-by. + +It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper's house, even as a +stranger, on a fine spring morning like the present. A curl of +wood-smoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a +blue feather in a lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the +patch of grass in front, which reflected its brightness through the +open doorway and up the staircase opposite, lighting up each riser +with a shiny green radiance, and leaving the top of each step in +shade. + +The window-sill of the front room was between four and five feet +from the floor, dropping inwardly to a broad low bench, over which, +as well as over the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always +hung a deep shade, which was considered objectionable on every +ground save one, namely, that the perpetual sprinkling of seeds and +water by the caged canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by +visitors. The window was set with thickly-leaded diamond glazing, +formed, especially in the lower panes, of knotty glass of various +shades of green. Nothing was better known to Fancy than the +extravagant manner in which these circular knots or eyes distorted +everything seen through them from the outside--lifting hats from +heads, shoulders from bodies; scattering the spokes of cart-wheels, +and bending the straight fir-trunks into semicircles. The ceiling +was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side of which +projected a large nail, used solely and constantly as a peg for +Geoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a rainbow--shaped stain, +imprinted by the brim of the said hat when it was hung there +dripping wet. + +The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was +a repetition upon inanimate objects of the old principle introduced +by Noah, consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort. +The duplicate system of furnishing owed its existence to the +forethought of Fancy's mother, exercised from the date of Fancy's +birthday onwards. The arrangement spoke for itself: nobody who +knew the tone of the household could look at the goods without being +aware that the second set was a provision for Fancy, when she should +marry and have a house of her own. The most noticeable instance was +a pair of green-faced eight-day clocks, ticking alternately, which +were severally two and half minutes and three minutes striking the +hour of twelve, one proclaiming, in Italian flourishes, Thomas Wood +as the name of its maker, and the other--arched at the top, and +altogether of more cynical appearance--that of Ezekiel Saunders. +They were two departed clockmakers of Casterbridge, whose desperate +rivalry throughout their lives was nowhere more emphatically +perpetuated than here at Geoffrey's. These chief specimens of the +marriage provision were supported on the right by a couple of +kitchen dressers, each fitted complete with their cups, dishes, and +plates, in their turn followed by two dumb-waiters, two family +Bibles, two warming-pans, and two intermixed sets of chairs. + +But the position last reached--the chimney-corner--was, after all, +the most attractive side of the parallelogram. It was large enough +to admit, in addition to Geoffrey himself; Geoffrey's wife, her +chair, and her work-table, entirely within the line of the mantel, +without danger or even inconvenience from the heat of the fire; and +was spacious enough overhead to allow of the insertion of wood poles +for the hanging of bacon, which were cloaked with long shreds of +soot, floating on the draught like the tattered banners on the walls +of ancient aisles. + +These points were common to most chimney corners of the +neighbourhood; but one feature there was which made Geoffrey's +fireside not only an object of interest to casual aristocratic +visitors--to whom every cottage fireside was more or less a +curiosity--but the admiration of friends who were accustomed to +fireplaces of the ordinary hamlet model. This peculiarity was a +little window in the chimney-back, almost over the fire, around +which the smoke crept caressingly when it left the perpendicular +course. The window-board was curiously stamped with black circles, +burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinking-cups, which had +rested there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the +hearth for the purpose of warming their contents, the result giving +to the ledge the look of an envelope which has passed through +innumerable post-offices. + +Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head +inclining now to the right, now to the left, and singing the tips +and ends of tunes that sprang up in her mind like mushrooms. The +footsteps of Mrs. Day could be heard in the room overhead. Fancy +went finally to the door. + +"Father! Dinner." + +A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodical +steps, and the keeper entered from the garden. He appeared to be a +man who was always looking down, as if trying to recollect something +he said yesterday. The surface of his face was fissured rather than +wrinkled, and over and under his eyes were folds which seemed as a +kind of exterior eyelids. His nose had been thrown backwards by a +blow in a poaching fray, so that when the sun was low and shining in +his face, people could see far into his head. There was in him a +quiet grimness, which would in his moments of displeasure have +become surliness, had it not been tempered by honesty of soul, and +which was often wrongheadedness because not allied with subtlety. + +Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly +richer than himself, he never wasted words upon outsiders, and to +his trapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means +than nods and shakes of the head. Their long acquaintance with each +other's ways, and the nature of their labours, rendered words +between them almost superfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the +coincidence of their horizons, and the astonishing equality of their +social views, by startling the keeper from time to time as very +damaging to the theory of master and man, strictly forbade any +indulgence in words as courtesies. + +Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) +at the well-considered chronological distance of three minutes--an +interval of non-appearance on the trapper's part not arrived at +without some reflection. Four minutes had been found to express +indifference to indoor arrangements, and simultaneousness had +implied too great an anxiety about meals. + +"A little earlier than usual, Fancy," the keeper said, as he sat +down and looked at the clocks. "That Ezekiel Saunders o' thine is +tearing on afore Thomas Wood again." + +"I kept in the middle between them," said Fancy, also looking at the +two clocks. + +"Better stick to Thomas," said her father. "There's a healthy beat +in Thomas that would lead a man to swear by en offhand. He is as +true as the town time. How is it your stap-mother isn't here?" + +As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and +"Weh-hey, Smart!" in Mr. Richard Dewy's voice rolled into the +cottage from round the corner of the house. + +"Hullo! there's Dewy's cart come for thee, Fancy--Dick driving-- +afore time, too. Well, ask the lad to have pot-luck with us." + +Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing +that he took an interest in Fancy simply as in one of the same race +and country as himself; and they all sat down. Dick could have +wished her manner had not been so entirely free from all apparent +consciousness of those accidental meetings of theirs: but he let +the thought pass. Enoch sat diagonally at a table afar off; under +the corner cupboard, and drank his cider from a long perpendicular +pint cup, having tall fir-trees done in brown on its sides, He threw +occasional remarks into the general tide of conversation, and with +this advantage to himself; that he participated in the pleasures of +a talk (slight as it was) at meal-times, without saddling himself +with the responsibility of sustaining it. + +"Why don't your stap-mother come down, Fancy?" said Geoffrey. +"You'll excuse her, Mister Dick, she's a little queer sometimes." + +"O yes,--quite," said Richard, as if he were in the habit of +excusing people every day. + +"She d'belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: +a rum class rather." + +"Indeed," said Dick, with sympathy for an indefinite something. + +"Yes; and 'tis trying to a female, especially if you've been a first +wife, as she hey." + +"Very trying it must be." + +"Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too +far; in fact, she used to kick up Bob's-a-dying at the least thing +in the world. And when I'd married her and found it out, I thought, +thinks I, "'Tis too late now to begin to cure 'e;" and so I let her +bide. But she's queer,--very queer, at times!" + +"I'm sorry to hear that." + +"Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o' society, because +though they be never right, they be never more than half wrong." + +Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household +moralizing, which might tend to damage the airy-fairy nature that +Dick, as maiden shrewdness told her, had accredited her with. Her +dead silence impressed Geoffrey with the notion that something in +his words did not agree with her educated ideas, and he changed the +conversation. + +"Did Fred Shiner send the cask o' drink, Fancy?" + +"I think he did: O yes, he did." + +"Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!" said Geoffrey to Dick as he helped +himself to gravy, bringing the spoon round to his plate by way of +the potato-dish, to obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a +spill. + +Now Geoffrey's eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous +four or five minutes, and in removing them he had only carried them +to the spoon, which, from its fulness and the distance of its +transit, necessitated a steady watching through the whole of the +route. Just as intently as the keeper's eyes had been fixed on the +spoon, Fancy's had been fixed on her father's, without premeditation +or the slightest phase of furtiveness; but there they were fastened. +This was the reason why: + +Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of +the table opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand +lightly down upon the table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm +Dick, after dropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, +flung down his own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with +it, and keeping it there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling +her hand from the trap, settled her eyes on her father's, to guard +against his discovery of this perilous game of Dick's. Dick +finished his mouthful; Fancy finished, her crumb, and nothing was +done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then the hands slid apart; +Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's over one. Geoffrey's +eye had risen. + +"I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller," he repeated, more +emphatically. + +"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more +than a stranger." + +"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you +know en very well too, don't ye, Fancy?" + +Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at +present about one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed +literally. + +Dick looked anxious. + +"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of +her face becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as +a human being could look about a piece of bread. + +"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he +continued, returning to the displaced idea, "we are likely to remain +friendly wi' Mr. Shiner if the wheels d'run smooth." + +"An excellent thing--a very capital thing, as I should say," the +youth answered with exceeding relevance, considering that his +thoughts, instead of following Geoffrey's remark, were nestling at a +distance of about two feet on his left the whole time. + +"A young woman's face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my +heart if 'twon't." Dick looked more anxious and was attentive in +earnest at these words. "Yes; turn the north wind," added Geoffrey +after an impressive pause. "And though she's one of my own flesh +and blood . . . " + +"Will you fetch down a bit of raw-mil' cheese from pantry-shelf?" +Fancy interrupted, as if she were famishing. + +"Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking +last Saturday night . . . cheese you said, Fancy?" + +Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr. +Shiner,--the better enabled to do so by perceiving that Fancy's +heart went not with her father's--and spoke like a stranger to the +affairs of the neighbourhood. "Yes, there's a great deal to be said +upon the power of maiden faces in settling your courses," he +ventured, as the keeper retreated for the cheese. + +"The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that _I_ +have ever done warrants such things being said!" murmured Fancy with +emphasis, just loud enough to reach Dick's ears. + +"You think to yourself; 'twas to be," cried Enoch from his distant +corner, by way of filling up the vacancy caused by Geoffrey's +momentary absence. "And so you marry her, Master Dewy, and there's +an end o't." + +"Pray don't say such things, Enoch," came from Fancy severely, upon +which Enoch relapsed into servitude. + +"If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain +single, we do," replied Dick. + +Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips +thin by severely straining them across his gums, and looked out of +the window along the vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. +"That's not the case with some folk," he said at length, as if he +read the words on a board at the further end of the vista. + +Fancy looked interested, and Dick said, "No?" + +"There's that wife o' mine. It was her doom to be nobody's wife at +all in the wide universe. But she made up her mind that she would, +and did it twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly +woman--quite a chiel in her hands!" + +A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps +descending. The door at the foot of the stairs opened, and the +second Mrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as +she advanced towards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence +of any other human being than herself. In short, if the table had +been the personages, and the persons the table, her glance would +have been the most natural imaginable. + +She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman's face, iron-grey +hair, hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad +white apron-string, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff +dress. + +"People will run away with a story now, I suppose," she began +saying, "that Jane Day's tablecloths are as poor and ragged as any +union beggar's!" + +Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for +wear, and reflecting for a moment, concluded that 'people' in step- +mother language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he +found that Mrs. Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently +returned with an armful of new damask-linen tablecloths, folded +square and hard as boards by long compression. These she flounced +down into a chair; then took one, shook it out from its folds, and +spread it on the table by instalments, transferring the plates and +dishes one by one from the old to the new cloth. + +"And I suppose they'll say, too, that she ha'n't a decent knife and +fork in her house!" + +"I shouldn't say any such ill-natured thing, I am sure--" began +Dick. But Mrs. Day had vanished into the next room. Fancy appeared +distressed. + +"Very strange woman, isn't she?" said Geoffrey, quietly going on +with his dinner. "But 'tis too late to attempt curing. My heart! +'tis so growed into her that 'twould kill her to take it out. Ay, +she's very queer: you'd be amazed to see what valuable goods we've +got stowed away upstairs." + +Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel horn-handled +knives, silver-plated forks, carver, and all complete. These were +wiped of the preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife +and fork were laid down to each individual with a bang, the carving +knife and fork thrust into the meat dish, and the old ones they had +hitherto used tossed away. + +Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked +Dick if he wanted any more. + +The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and +tea, which was common among frugal countryfolk. "The parishioners +about here," continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, +but snatching up the brown delf tea-things, "are the laziest, +gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I came among. And +they'll talk about my teapot and tea-things next, I suppose!" She +vanished with the teapot, cups, and saucers, and reappeared with a +tea-service in white china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. +This was removed, together with folds of tissue-paper underneath; +and a brilliant silver teapot appeared. + +"I'll help to put the things right," said Fancy soothingly, and +rising from her seat. "I ought to have laid out better things, I +suppose. But" (here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) +"I have been away from home a good deal, and I make shocking +blunders in my housekeeping." Smiles and suavity were then +dispensed all around by this bright little bird. + +After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her +seat at the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division +of the meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some +surprise to learn that, now her vagary was over, she showed herself +to be an excellent person with much common sense, and even a +religious seriousness of tone on matters pertaining to her +afflictions. + + + +CHAPTER VII: DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL + + + +The effect of Geoffrey's incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to +restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous chat that would +otherwise have burst from young Dewy along the drive homeward. And +a certain remark he had hazarded to her, in rather too blunt and +eager a manner, kept the young lady herself even more silent than +Dick. On both sides there was an unwillingness to talk on any but +the most trivial subjects, and their sentences rarely took a larger +form than could be expressed in two or three words. + +Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the +charwoman had given up expecting her; whereupon Dick could do no +less than stay and see her comfortably tided over the disagreeable +time of entering and establishing herself in an empty house after an +absence of a week. The additional furniture and utensils that had +been brought (a canary and cage among the rest) were taken out of +the vehicle, and the horse was unharnessed and put in the plot +opposite, where there was some tender grass. Dick lighted the fire +already laid; and activity began to loosen their tongues a little. + +"There!" said Fancy, "we forgot to bring the fire-irons!" + +She had originally found in her sitting-room, to bear out the +expression 'nearly furnished' which the school-manager had used in +his letter to her, a table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of +carpet. This 'nearly' had been supplemented hitherto by a kind +friend, who had lent her fire-irons and crockery until she should +fetch some from home. + +Dick attended to the young lady's fire, using his whip-handle for a +poker till it was spoilt, and then flourishing a hurdle stick for +the remainder of the time. + +"The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea," said Fancy, +diving into the hamper she had brought. + +"Thank you," said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, +especially in her company. + +"Well, here's only one cup-and-saucer, as I breathe! Whatever could +mother be thinking about? Do you mind making shift, Mr. Dewy?" + +"Not at all, Miss Day," said that civil person. + +"--And only having a cup by itself? or a saucer by itself?" + +"Don't mind in the least." + +"Which do you mean by that?" + +"I mean the cup, if you like the saucer." + +"And the saucer, if I like the cup?" + +"Exactly, Miss Day." + +"Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; +there are no spoons now!" She dived into the hamper again, and at +the end of two or three minutes looked up and said, "I suppose you +don't mind if I can't find a spoon?" + +"Not at all," said the agreeable Richard. + +"The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under +the other things. O yes, here's one, and only one. You would +rather have one than not, I suppose, Mr. Dewy?" + +"Rather not. I never did care much about spoons." + +"Then I'll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your +tea with a knife. Would you mind lifting the kettle off, that it +may not boil dry?" + +Dick leapt to the fireplace, and earnestly removed the kettle. + +"There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We +always use kettle-holders; didn't you learn housewifery as far as +that, Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. +I am going to rinse mine, too." + +They went' to a basin she had placed in the back room. "This is the +only basin I have," she said. "Turn up your sleeves, and by that +time my hands will be washed, and you can come." + +Her hands were in the water now. "O, how vexing!" she exclaimed. +"There's not a drop of water left for you, unless you draw it, and +the well is I don't know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the +pitcher I used for the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping +the tips of your fingers in the same?" + +"Not at all. And to save time I won't wait till you have done, if +you have no objection?" + +Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It +being the first time in his life that he had touched female fingers +under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice +one. + +"Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, +they have got so mixed up together," she said, withdrawing her own +very suddenly. + +"It doesn't matter at all," said Dick, "at least as far as I am +concerned." + +"There! no towel! Whoever thinks of a towel till the hands are +wet?" + +"Nobody." + +"'Nobody.' How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come +here, Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you could lift the lid of that box +with your elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel +you will find under the clean clothes? Be SURE don't touch any of +them with your wet hands, for the things at the top are all Starched +and Ironed." + +Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel +from under a muslin dress without wetting the latter; and for a +moment he ventured to assume a tone of criticism. + +"I fear for that dress," he said, as they wiped their hands +together. + +"What?" said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. +"O, I know what you mean--that the vicar will never let me wear +muslin?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as +flaunting, and unfit for common wear for girls who've their living +to get; but we'll see." + +"In the interest of the church, I hope you don't speak seriously." + +"Yes, I do; but we'll see." There was a comely determination on her +lip, very pleasant to a beholder who was neither bishop, priest, nor +deacon. "I think I can manage any vicar's views about me if he's +under forty." + +Dick rather wished she had never thought of managing vicars. + +"I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea," he +said in rather a free way, yet modestly, as became one in a position +between that of visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his +lonely saucer. + +"So shall I. Now is there anything else we want, Mr Dewy?" + +"I really think there's nothing else, Miss Day." + +She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at +Smart's enjoyment of the rich grass. "Nobody seems to care about +me," she murmured, with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond +Smart. + +"Perhaps Mr. Shiner does," said Dick, in the tone of a slightly +injured man. + +"Yes, I forgot--he does, I know." Dick precipitately regretted that +he had suggested Shiner, since it had produced such a miserable +result as this. + +"I'll warrant you'll care for somebody very much indeed another day, +won't you, Mr. Dewy?" she continued, looking very feelingly into the +mathematical centre of his eyes. + +"Ah, I'll warrant I shall," said Dick, feelingly too, and looking +back into her dark pupils, whereupon they were turned aside. + +"I meant," she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was +going to narrate a forcible story about his feelings; "I meant that +nobody comes to see if I have returned--not even the vicar." + +"If you want to see him, I'll call at the vicarage directly we have +had some tea." + +"No, no! Don't let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am +in such a state of disarrangement. Parsons look so miserable and +awkward when one's house is in a muddle; walking about, and making +impossible suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh +creeps and you wish them dead. Do you take sugar?" + +Mr. Maybold was at this instant seen coming up the path. + +"There! That's he coming! How I wish you were not here I--that is, +how awkward--dear, dear!" she exclaimed, with a quick ascent of +blood to her face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as +it seemed. + +"Pray don't be alarmed on my account, Miss Day--good-afternoon!" +said Dick in a huff, putting on his hat, and leaving the room +hastily by the back-door. + +The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start +he saw through the window the vicar, standing upon some books piled +in a chair, and driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure +glance, holding the canary-cage up to him, as if she had never in +her life thought of anything but vicars and canaries. + + + +CHAPTER VIII: DICK MEETS HIS FATHER + + + +For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of +reflection so anxiously set on his passages at arms with Fancy, that +the road and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of +his mind. Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence +that she did love him and that she did not was so nicely struck, +that his opinion had no stability. She had let him put his hand +upon hers; she had allowed her gaze to drop plumb into the depths of +his--his into hers--three or four times; her manner had been very +free with regard to the basin and towel; she had appeared vexed at +the mention of Shiner. On the other hand, she had driven him about +the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner cared for her, and +seemed anxious that Mr. Maybold should do the same. + +Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting +on the front board of the spring cart--his legs on the outside, and +his whole frame jigging up and down like a candle-flame to the time +of Smart's trotting--who should he see coming down the hill but his +father in the light wagon, quivering up and down on a smaller scale +of shakes, those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were +soon crossing each other's front. + +"Weh-hey!" said the tranter to Smiler. + +"Weh-hey!" said Dick to Smart, in an echo of the same voice. + +"Th'st hauled her back, I suppose?" Reuben inquired peaceably. + +"Yes," said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it +seemed he was never going to add another word. Smiler, thinking +this the close of the conversation, prepared to move on. + +"Weh-hey!" said the tranter. "I tell thee what it is, Dick. That +there maid is taking up thy thoughts more than's good for thee, my +sonny. Thou'rt never happy now unless th'rt making thyself +miserable about her in one way or another." + +"I don't know about that, father," said Dick rather stupidly. + +"But I do--Wey, Smiler!--'Od rot the women, 'tis nothing else wi' +'em nowadays but getting young men and leading 'em astray." + +"Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; +that's all you do." + +"The world's a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very +sensible indeed." + +Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. +"I wish I was as rich as a squire when he's as poor as a crow," he +murmured; "I'd soon ask Fancy something." + +"I wish so too, wi' all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what +beest about, that's all." + +Smart moved on a step or two. "Supposing now, father,--We-hey, +Smart!--I did think a little about her, and I had a chance, which I +ha'n't; don't you think she's a very good sort of--of--one?" + +"Ay, good; she's good enough. When you've made up your mind to +marry, take the first respectable body that comes to hand--she's as +good as any other; they be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in +the flourishes there's a difference. She's good enough; but I can't +see what the nation a young feller like you--wi a comfortable house +and home, and father and mother to take care o' thee, and who sent +'ee to a school so good that 'twas hardly fair to the other +children--should want to go hollering after a young woman for, when +she's quietly making a husband in her pocket, and not troubled by +chick nor chiel, to make a poverty-stric' wife and family of her, +and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set 'em up with: be +drowned if I can see it, and that's the long and the short o't, my +sonny." + +Dick looked at Smart's ears, then up the hill; but no reason was +suggested by any object that met his gaze. + +"For about the same reason that you did, father, I suppose." + +"Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave +vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too +magnanimous not to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the +knuckles, even if they were his own. + +"Whether or no," said Dick, "I asked her a thing going along the +road." + +"Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well, +she's ready, I don't doubt?" + +"I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me +speak, I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just said, Did she care +about me?" + +"Piph-ph-ph!" + +"And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she +said she didn't know. Now, what I want to know is, what was the +meaning of that speech?" The latter words were spoken resolutely, +as if he didn't care for the ridicule of all the fathers in +creation. + +"The meaning of that speech is," the tranter replied deliberately, +"that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at present. Well, Dick, +as an honest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know +well enough; that is, that her father being rather better in the +pocket than we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be +somebody." + +"But what d'ye think she really did mean?" said the unsatisfied +Dick. + +"I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I +was not there when she said it, and seeing that your mother was the +only 'ooman I ever cam' into such close quarters as that with." + +"And what did mother say to you when you asked her?" said Dick +musingly. + +"I don't see that that will help 'ee." + +"The principle is the same." + +"Well--ay: what did she say? Let's see. I was oiling my working- +day boots without taking 'em off, and wi' my head hanging down, when +she just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. +"Ann," I said, says I, and then,--but, Dick I'm afeard 'twill be no +help to thee; for we were such a rum couple, your mother and I, +leastways one half was, that is myself--and your mother's charms was +more in the manner than the material." + +"Never mind! 'Ann,' said you." + +"'Ann,' said I, as I was saying . . . 'Ann,' I said to her when I +was oiling my working-day boots wi' my head hanging down, 'Woot hae +me?' . . . What came next I can't quite call up at this distance o' +time. Perhaps your mother would know,--she's got a better memory +for her little triumphs than I. However, the long and the short o' +the story is that we were married somehow, as I found afterwards. +'Twas on White Tuesday,--Mellstock Club walked the same day, every +man two and two, and a fine day 'twas,--hot as fire,--how the sun +did strike down upon my back going to church! I well can mind what +a bath o' sweating I was in, body and soul! But Fance will ha' +thee, Dick--she won't walk with another chap--no such good luck." + +"I don't know about that," said Dick, whipping at Smart's flank in a +fanciful way, which, as Smart knew, meant nothing in connection with +going on. "There's Pa'son Maybold, too--that's all against me." + +"What about he? She's never been stuffing into thy innocent heart +that he's in hove with her? Lord, the vanity o' maidens!" + +"No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at +me in such a way--quite different the ways were,--and as I was +coming off, there was he hanging up her birdcage." + +"Well, why shouldn't the man hang up her bird-cage? Turk seize it +all, what's that got to do wi' it? Dick, that thou beest a white- +lyvered chap I don't say, but if thou beestn't as mad as a cappel- +faced bull, let me smile no more." + +"O, ay." + +"And what's think now, Dick?" + +"I don't know." + +"Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's +the bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our party tell 'ee?" + +"No. Why, Pa'son Maybold, I suppose." + +"Shiner,--because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to +see her young figure sitting up at that queer instrument, and her +young fingers rum-strumming upon the keys." + +A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this +communication from his father. "Shiner's a fool!--no, that's not +it; I don't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never +take a bold step like that, unless she'd been a little made up to, +and had taken it kindly. Pooh!" + +"Who's to say she didn't?" + +"I do." + +"The more fool you." + +"Why, father of me?" + +"Has she ever done more to thee?" + +"No." + +"Then she has done as much to he--rot 'em! Now, Dick, this is how a +maid is. She'll swear she's dying for thee, and she is dying for +thee, and she will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over +t'other shoulder at another young feller, though never leaving off +dying for thee just the same." + +"She's not dying for me, and so she didn't fling a look at him." + +"But she may be dying for him, for she looked at thee." + +"I don't know what to make of it at all," said Dick gloomily. + +"All I can make of it is," the tranter said, raising his whip, +arranging his different joints and muscles, and motioning to the +horse to move on, "that if you can't read a maid's mind by her +motions, nature d'seem to say thou'st ought to be a bachelor. Clk, +clk! Smiler!" And the tranter moved on. + +Dick held Smart's rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, +and man remained rooted in the lane. Hew long this condition would +have lasted is unknown, had not Dick's thoughts, after adding up +numerous items of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that +as something must be done, it could not be done by staying there all +night. + +Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were +going to be seen no more in this life, and taking a sheet of paper +and uncorking the ink-bottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the +writer's mind was so powerfully apparent in every line of this +effusion that it obscured the logical sequence of facts and +intentions to an appreciable degree; and it was not at all clear to +a reader whether he there and then left off loving Miss Fancy Day; +whether he had never loved her seriously, and never meant to; +whether he had been dying up to the present moment, and now intended +to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been in good health, +and intended to die for her forthwith. + +He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a +stern handwriting of straight dashes--easy flourishes being +rigorously excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane +in strides not an inch less than three feet long. Reaching her gate +he put on a resolute expression--then put it off again, turned back +homeward, tore up his letter, and sat down. + +That letter was altogether in a wrong tone--that he must own. A +heartless man-of-the-world tone was what the juncture required. +That he rather wanted her, and rather did not want her--the latter +for choice; but that as a member of society he didn't mind making a +query in jaunty terms, which could only be answered in the same way: +did she mean anything by her bearing towards him, or did she not? + +This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being +put into the hands of a little boy, and the order given that he was +to run with it to the school, he was told in addition not to look +behind him if Dick called after him to bring it hack, but to run +along with it just the same. Having taken this precaution against +vacillation, Dick watched his messenger down the road, and turned +into the house whistling an air in such ghastly jerks and starts, +that whistling seemed to be the act the very furthest removed from +that which was instinctive in such a youth. + +The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed-- +and no answer. The next. The next. Friday night came. Dick +resolved that if no answer or sign were given by her the next day, +on Sunday he would meet her face to face, and have it all out by +word of mouth. + +"Dick," said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment-- +in each hand a hive of bees tied in a cloth to prevent their egress- +-"I think you'd better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. +Maybold's to-morrow, instead o' me, and I'll go wi' Smiler and the +wagon." + +It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar's mother, who had just +taken into her head a fancy for keeping bees (pleasantly disguised +under the pretence of its being an economical wish to produce her +own honey), lived near the watering-place of Budmouth-Regis, ten +miles off, and the business of transporting the hives thither would +occupy the whole day, and to some extent annihilate the vacant time +between this evening and the coming Sunday. The best spring-cart +was washed throughout, the axles oiled, and the bees placed therein +for the journey. + + + + +PART THE THIRD--SUMMER + + + + +CHAPTER I: DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH + + + +An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles +of dark-brown hair; light fall of little feet; pretty devices on the +skirt of the dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: +it was Fancy! Dick's heart went round to her with a rush. + +The scene was the corner of Mary Street in Budmouth-Regis, near the +King's statue, at which point the white angle of the last house in +the row cut perpendicularly an embayed and nearly motionless expanse +of salt water projected from the outer ocean--to-day lit in bright +tones of green and opal. Dick and Smart had just emerged from the +street, and there on the right, against the brilliant sheet of +liquid colour, stood Fancy Day; and she turned and recognized him. + +Dick suspended his thoughts of the letter and wonder at how she came +there by driving close to the chains of the Esplanade--incontinently +displacing two chairmen, who had just come to life for the summer in +new clean shirts and revivified clothes, and being almost displaced +in turn by a rigid boy rattling along with a baker's cart, and +looking neither to the right nor the left. He asked if she were +going to Mellstock that night. + +"Yes, I'm waiting for the carrier," she replied, seeming, too, to +suspend thoughts of the letter. + +"Now I can drive you home nicely, and you save half an hour. Will +ye come with me?" + +As Fancy's power to will anything seemed to have departed in some +mysterious manner at that moment, Dick settled the matter by getting +out and assisting her into the vehicle without another word. + +The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which +was permanent, and at length their eyes met; there was present +between them a certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at +such moments when all the instinctive acts dictated by the position +have been performed. Dick, being engaged with the reins, thought +less of this awkwardness than did Fancy, who had nothing to do but +to feel his presence, and to be more and more conscious of the fact, +that by accepting a seat beside him in this way she succumbed to the +tone of his note. Smart jogged along, and Dick jogged, and the +helpless Fancy necessarily jogged, too; and she felt that she was in +a measure capture I and made a prisoner. + +"I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day," he +observed, as they drove past the two semicircular bays of the Old +Royal Hotel, where His Majesty King George the Third had many a time +attended the balls of the burgesses. + +To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of mastery--a +consciousness of which he was perfectly innocent--this remark +sounded like a magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive. + +"I didn't come for the pleasure of obliging you with my company," +she said. + +The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must +have been rather surprising to young Dewy. At the same time it may +be observed, that when a young woman returns a rude answer to a +young man's civil remark, her heart is in a state which argues +rather hopefully for his case than otherwise. + +There was silence between them till they had left the sea-front and +passed about twenty of the trees that ornamented the road leading up +out of the town towards Casterbridge and Mellstock. + +"Though I didn't come for that purpose either, I would have done +it," said Dick at the twenty-first tree. + +"Now, Mr. Dewy, no flirtation, because it's wrong, and I don't wish +it." + +Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, +arranged his looks very emphatically, and cleared his throat. + +"Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were +just going to commence," said the lady intractably. + +"Yes, they would." + +"Why, you never have, to be sure!" + +This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as +a man who had resolved never to spoil his jollity by loving one of +womankind--"Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present +time? Gaily, I don't doubt for a moment." + +"I am not gay, Dick; you know that." + +"Gaily doesn't mean decked in gay dresses." + +"I didn't suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a +scholar you've grown!" + +"Lots of things have happened to you this spring, I see." + +"What have you seen?" + +"O, nothing; I've heard, I mean!" + +"What have you heard?" + +"The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a +tin watch-chain, a little mixed up with your own. That's all." + +"That's a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that's who you +mean! The studs are gold, as you know, and it's a real silver +chain; the ring I can't conscientiously defend, and he only wore it +once." + +"He might have worn it a hundred times without showing it half so +much." + +"Well, he's nothing to me," she serenely observed. + +"Not any more than I am?" + +"Now, Mr. Dewy," said Fancy severely, "certainly he isn't any more +to me than you are!" + +"Not so much?" + +She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. +"That I can't exactly answer," she replied with soft archness. + +As they were going rather slowly, another spring-cart, containing a +farmer, farmer's wife, and farmer's man, jogged past them; and the +farmer's wife and farmer's man eyed the couple very curiously. The +farmer never looked up from the horse's tail. + +"Why can't you exactly answer?" said Dick, quickening Smart a +little, and jogging on just behind the farmer and farmer's wife and +man. + +As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they +both contemplated the picture presented in front, and noticed how +the farmer's wife sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over +each end of the seat to give her room, till they almost sat upon +their respective wheels; and they looked too at the farmer's wife's +silk mantle, inflating itself between her shoulders like a balloon +and sinking flat again, at each jog of the horse. The farmer's +wife, feeling their eyes sticking into her back, looked over her +shoulder. Dick dropped ten yards further behind. + +"Fancy, why can't you answer?" he repeated. + +"Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you," +said she in low tones. + +"Everything," said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting +emphatic eyes upon the upper curve of her cheek. + +"Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn't say in what way your +thinking of me affected the question--perhaps inversely, don't you +see? No touching, sir! Look; goodness me, don't, Dick!" + +The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over +Dick's right shoulder of an empty timber-wagon and four journeymen- +carpenters reclining in lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed +upwards at various oblique angles into the surrounding world, the +chief object of their existence being apparently to criticize to the +very backbone and marrow every animate object that came within the +compass of their vision. This difficulty of Dick's was overcome by +trotting on till the wagon and carpenters were beginning to look +rather misty by reason of a film of dust that accompanied their +wagon-wheels, and rose around their heads like a fog. + +"Say you love me, Fancy." + +"No, Dick, certainly not; 'tisn't time to do that yet." + +"Why, Fancy?" + +"'Miss Day' is better at present--don't mind my saying so; and I +ought not to have called you Dick." + +"Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your +love. Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can +be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim." + +"No, no, I don't," she said gently; "but there are things which tell +me I ought not to give way to much thinking about you, even if--" + +"But you want to, don't you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be +truthful. Whatever they may say about a woman's right to conceal +where her love lies, and pretend it doesn't exist, and things like +that, it is not best; I do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in +that, as well as in all her daily concerns, shines most brightly, +and is thought most of in the long-run." + +"Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little," she whispered +tenderly; "but I wish you wouldn't say any more now." + +"I won't say any more now, then, if you don't like it, dear. But +you do love me a little, don't you?" + +"Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can't +say any more now, and you must be content with what you have." + +"I may at any rate call you Fancy? There's no harm in that." + +"Yes, you may." + +"And you'll not call me Mr. Dewy any more?" + +"Very well." + + + +CHAPTER II: FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD + + + +Dick's spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his +sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the whip; and on Smart's neck, +not far behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for +some time, never dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip +which, on this particular journey, had never been extended further +than his flank, tossed his head, and scampered along with exceeding +briskness, which was very pleasant to the young couple behind him +till, turning a bend in the road, they came instantly upon the +farmer, farmer's man, and farmer's wife with the flapping mantle, +all jogging on just the same as ever. + +"Bother those people! Here we are upon them again." + +"Well, of course. They have as much right to the road as we." + +"Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to +myself. Look what a lumbering affair theirs is!" The wheels of the +farmer's cart, just at that moment, jogged into a depression running +across the road, giving the cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded +to the left, and on coming out of it all three nodded to the right, +and went on jerking their backs in and out as usual. "We'll pass +them when the road gets wider." + +When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this +intention into effect, they heard light flying wheels behind, and on +their quartering there whizzed along past them a brand-new gig, so +brightly polished that the spokes of the wheels sent forth a +continual quivering light at one point in their circle, and all the +panels glared like mirrors in Dick and Fancy's eyes. The driver, +and owner as it appeared, was really a handsome man; his companion +was Shiner. Both turned round as they passed Dick and Fancy, and +stared with bold admiration in her face till they were obliged to +attend to the operation of passing the farmer. Dick glanced for an +instant at Fancy while she was undergoing their scrutiny; then +returned to his driving with rather a sad countenance. + +"Why are you so silent?" she said, after a while, with real concern. + +"Nothing." + +"Yes, it is, Dick. I couldn't help those people passing." + +"I know that." + +"You look offended with me. What have I done?" + +"I can't tell without offending you." + +"Better out." + +"Well," said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of +offending her, "I was thinking how different you in love are from me +in love. Whilst those men were staring, you dismissed me from your +thoughts altogether, and--" + +"You can't offend me further now; tell all!" + +"And showed upon your face a pleased sense of being attractive to +'em." + +"Don't be silly, Dick! You know very well I didn't." + +Dick shook his head sceptically, and smiled. + +"Dick, I always believe flattery IF POSSIBLE--and it was possible +then. Now there's an open confession of weakness. But I showed no +consciousness of it." + +Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, +charitably forbore saying anything that could make her prevaricate. +The sight of Shiner, too, had recalled another branch of the subject +to his mind; that which had been his greatest trouble till her +company and words had obscured its probability. + +"By the way, Fancy, do you know why our quire is to be dismissed?" + +"No: except that it is Mr. Maybold's wish for me to play the +organ." + +"Do you know how it came to be his wish?" + +"That I don't." + +"Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, +however, was willing enough before. Shiner, I know, is crazy to see +you playing every Sunday; I suppose he'll turn over your music, for +the organ will be close to his pew. But--I know you have never +encouraged him?" + +"Never once!" said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest +truth. "I don't like him indeed, and I never heard of his doing +this before! I have always felt that I should like to play in a +church, but I never wished to turn you and your choir out; and I +never even said that I could play till I was asked. You don't think +for a moment that I did, surely, do you?" + +"I know you didn't, dear." + +"Or that I care the least morsel of a bit for him?" + +"I know you don't." + +The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, +and there being a good inn, "The Ship," four miles out of Budmouth, +with a mast and cross-trees in front, Dick's custom in driving +thither was to divide the journey into three stages by resting at +this inn going and coming, and not troubling the Budmouth stables at +all, whenever his visit to the town was a mere call and deposit, as +to-day. + +Fancy was ushered into a little tea-room, and Dick went to the +stables to see to the feeding of Smart. In face of the significant +twitches of feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring +men idling around, Dick endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact +that there was any sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a +tranter's desire to carry a passenger home. He presently entered +the inn and opened the door of Fancy's room. + +"Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my +being here alone with you like this. I don't think you had better +come in with me." + +"That's rather unpleasant, dear." + +"Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself +too, because you must be tired." + +"Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, +if you recollect, Fancy." + +"Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I +don't know what to do." + +"It shall be as you say, then." Dick began to retreat with a +dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance at the cosy +tea-tray. + +"But you don't see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that," she +said, with more earnestness than she had ever shown before. "You do +know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I +have a difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, +as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a tete-a-tete anywhere with +anybody." + +"But I am not ANY body!" exclaimed Dick. + +"No, no, I mean with a young man;" and she added softly, "unless I +were really engaged to be married to him." + +"Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we'll be engaged at once, +to be sure we will, and down I sit! There it is, as easy as a +glove!" + +"Ah! but suppose I won't! And, goodness me, what have I done!" she +faltered, getting very red. "Positively, it seems as if I meant you +to say that!" + +"Let's do it! I mean get engaged," said Dick. "Now, Fancy, will +you be my wife?" + +"Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did +coming along the road," she remarked, as if she had not heard the +latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have +noticed about her breast, as the word 'wife' fell from Dick's lips, +a soft silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between each. + +"What did I say?" + +"About my trying to look attractive to those men in the gig." + +"You couldn't help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, +you do care for me?" + +"Yes." + +"Very much?" + +"Yes." + +"And you'll be my own wife?" + +Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek +varying tones of red to match each varying thought. Dick looked +expectantly at the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what +was coming forth. + +"Yes--if father will let me." + +Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting +them out, as if he were about to whistle the softest melody known. + +"O no!" said Fancy solemnly. + +The modest Dick drew back a little. + +"Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!--here's somebody +coming!" she whisperingly exclaimed. + +* * * + +Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's +lips had been real cherries probably Dick's would have appeared +deeply stained. The landlord was standing in the yard. + +"Heu-heu! hay-hay, Master Dewy! Ho-ho!" he laughed, letting the +laugh slip out gently and by degrees that it might make little noise +in its exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. +"This will never do, upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for +a feymel passenger, and then going in and sitting down and having +some too, and biding such a fine long time!" + +"But surely you know?" said Dick, with great apparent surprise. +"Yes, yes! Ha-ha!" smiting the landlord under the ribs in return. + +"Why, what? Yes, yes; ha-ha!" + +"You know, of course!" + +"Yes, of course! But--that is--I don't." + +"Why about--between that young lady and me?" nodding to the window +of the room that Fancy occupied. + +"No; not I!" said the innkeeper, bringing his eyes into circles. + +"And you don't!" + +"Not a word, I'll take my oath!" + +"But you laughed when I laughed." + +"Ay, that was me sympathy; so did you when I laughed!" + +"Really, you don't know? Goodness--not knowing that!" + +"I'll take my oath I don't!" + +"O yes," said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, +"we're engaged to be married, you see, and I naturally look after +her." + +"Of course, of course! I didn't know that, and I hope ye'll excuse +any little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it is a very odd thing; I +was talking to your father very intimate about family matters only +last Friday in the world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and +we all then fell a-talking o' family matters; but neither one o' +them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I +at your father's own wedding. 'Tisn't what I should have expected +from an old neighbour!" + +"Well, to say the truth, we hadn't told father of the engagement at +that time; in fact, 'twasn't settled." + +"Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday's the courting +day. Heu-heu!" + +"No, 'twasn't done Sunday in particular." + +"After school-hours this week? Well, a very good time, a very +proper good time." + +"O no, 'twasn't done then." + +"Coming along the road to-day then, I suppose?" + +"Not at all; I wouldn't think of getting engaged in a dog-cart." + +"Dammy--might as well have said at once, the WHEN be blowed! +Anyhow, 'tis a fine day, and I hope next time you'll come as one." + +Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the +newly affianced youth and maiden passed up the steep hill to the +Ridgeway, and vanished in the direction of Mellstock. + + + +CHAPTER III: A CONFESSION + + + +It was a morning of the latter summer-time; a morning of lingering +dews, when the grass is never dry in the shade. Fuchsias and +dahlias were laden till eleven o'clock with small drops and dashes +of water, changing the colour of their sparkle at every movement of +the air; and elsewhere hanging on twigs like small silver fruit. +The threads of garden spiders appeared thick and polished. In the +dry and sunny places, dozens of long-legged crane-flies whizzed off +the grass at every step the passer took. + +Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter's daughter, were in +such a spot as this, pulling down a bough laden with early apples. +Three months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together +from Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously +during the whole time. There had been just enough difficulty +attending its development, and just enough finesse required in +keeping it private, to lend the passion an ever-increasing freshness +on Fancy's part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, +Dick's heart had been at all times as fond as could be desired. But +there was a cloud on Fancy's horizon now. + +"She is so well off--better than any of us," Susan Dewy was saying. +"Her father farms five hundred acres, and she might marry a doctor +or curate or anything of that kind if she contrived a little." + +"I don't think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsy-party at all +when he knew I couldn't go," replied Fancy uneasily. + +"He didn't know that you would not be there till it was too late to +refuse the invitation," said Susan. + +"And what was she like? Tell me." + +"Well, she was rather pretty, I must own." + +"Tell straight on about her, can't you! Come, do, Susan. How many +times did you say he danced with her?" + +"Once." + +"Twice, I think you said?" + +"Indeed I'm sure I didn't." + +"Well, and he wanted to again, I expect." + +"No; I don't think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad +enough, I know. Everybody does with Dick, because he's so handsome +and such a clever courter." + +"O, I wish!--How did you say she wore her hair?" + +"In long curls,--and her hair is light, and it curls without being +put in paper: that's how it is she's so attractive." + +"She's trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through +keeping this miserable school I mustn't wear my hair in curls! But +I will; I don't care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear +my curls! Look, Susan, do! is her hair as soft and long as this?" +Fancy pulled from its coil under her hat a twine of her own hair, +and stretched it down her shoulder to show its length, looking at +Susan to catch her opinion from her eyes. + +"It is about the same length as that, I think," said Miss Dewy. + +Fancy paused hopelessly. "I wish mine was lighter, like hers!" she +continued mournfully. "But hers isn't so soft, is it? Tell me, +now." + +"I don't know." + +Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly +and a red-and-black butterfly that were flitting along in company, +and then became aware that Dick was advancing up the garden. + +"Susan, here's Dick coming; I suppose that's because we've been +talking about him." + +"Well, then, I shall go indoors now--you won't want me;" and Susan +turned practically and walked off. + +Enter the single-minded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or +picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too exclusively, and depriving +himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded +him, by sighing regretfully at her absence,--who had danced with the +rival in sheer despair of ever being able to get through that stale, +flat, and unprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she +would not believe. + +Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. +"I am in great trouble," said she, taking what was intended to be a +hopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the +tree; yet a critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative +tone as to the effect of the words upon Dick when she uttered them. + +"What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it," said Dick +earnestly. "Darling, I will share it with 'ee and help 'ee." + +"No, no: you can't! Nobody can!" + +"Why not? You don't deserve it, whatever it is. Tell me, dear." + +"O, it isn't what you think! It is dreadful: my own sin!" + +"Sin, Fancy! as if you could sin! I know it can't be." + +"'Tis, 'tis!" said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of +sorrow. "I have done wrong, and I don't like to tell it! Nobody +will forgive me, nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have +allowed myself to--to--fl--" + +"What,--not flirt!" he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a +sudden pressure inward from his surface. "And you said only the day +before yesterday that you hadn't flirted in your life!" + +"Yes, I did; and that was a wicked story! I have let another love +me, and--" + +"Good G--! Well, I'll forgive you,--yes, if you couldn't help it,-- +yes, I will!" said the now dismal Dick. "Did you encourage him?" + +"O,--I don't know,--yes--no. O, I think so!" + +"Who was it?" A pause. "Tell me!" + +"Mr. Shiner." + +After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a +long-checked sigh from Dick, and a sob from Fancy, he said with real +austerity - + +"Tell it all;--every word!" + +"He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, "Will you let me +show you how to catch bullfinches down here by the stream?" And I-- +wanted to know very much--I did so long to have a bullfinch! I +couldn't help that and I said, "Yes!" and then he said, "Come here." +And I went with him down to the lovely river, and then he said to +me, "Look and see how I do it, and then you'll know: I put this +birdlime round this twig, and then I go here," he said, "and hide +away under a hush; and presently clever Mister Bird comes and +perches upon the twig, and flaps his wings, and you've got him +before you can say Jack"--something; O, O, O, I forget what!" + +"Jack Sprat," mournfully suggested Dick through the cloud of his +misery. + +"No, not Jack Sprat," she sobbed. + +"Then 'twas Jack Robinson!" he said, with the emphasis of a man who +had resolved to discover every iota of the truth, or die. + +"Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the +bridge to get across, and--That's all." + +"Well, that isn't much, either," said Dick critically, and more +cheerfully. "Not that I see what business Shiner has to take upon +himself to teach you anything. But it seems--it do seem there must +have been more than that to set you up in such a dreadful taking?" + +He looked into Fancy's eyes. Misery of miseries!--guilt was written +there still. + +"Now, Fancy, you've not told me all!" said Dick, rather sternly for +a quiet young man. + +"O, don't speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn't +been harsh, I was going on to tell all; now I can't!" + +"Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I'll forgive; I must,--by heaven +and earth, I must, whether I will or no; I love you so!" + +"Well, when I put my hand on the bridge, he touched it--" + +"A scamp!" said Dick, grinding an imaginary human frame to powder. + +"And then he looked at me, and at last he said, 'Are you in love +with Dick Dewy?' And I said, 'Perhaps I am!' and then he said, 'I +wish you weren't then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.'" + +"There's a villain now! Want to marry you!" And Dick quivered with +the bitterness of satirical laughter. Then suddenly remembering +that he might be reckoning without his host: "Unless, to he sure, +you are willing to have him,--perhaps you are," he said, with the +wretched indifference of a castaway. + +"No, indeed I am not!" she said, her sobs just beginning to take a +favourable turn towards cure. + +"Well, then," said Dick, coming a little to his senses, "you've been +stretching it very much in giving such a dreadful beginning to such +a mere nothing. And I know what you've done it for,--just because +of that gipsy-party!" He turned away from her and took five paces +decisively, as if he were tired of an ungrateful country, including +herself "You did it to make me jealous, and I won't stand it!" He +flung the words to her over his shoulder and then stalked on, +apparently very anxious to walk to the remotest of the Colonies that +very minute. + +"O, O, O, Dick--Dick!" she cried, trotting after him like a pet +lamb, and really seriously alarmed at last, "you'll kill me! My +impulses are bad--miserably wicked,--and I can't help it; forgive +me, Dick! And I love you always; and those times when you look +silly and don't seem quite good enough for me,--just the same, I do, +Dick! And there is something more serious, though not concerning +that walk with him." + +"Well, what is it?" said Dick, altering his mind about walking to +the Colonies in fact, passing to the other extreme, and standing so +rooted to the road that he was apparently not even going home. + +"Why this," she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears +she had been going to shed, "this is the serious part. Father has +told Mr. Shiner that he would like him for a son-in-law, if he could +get me;--that he has his right hearty consent to come courting me!" + + + +CHAPTER IV: AN ARRANGEMENT + + + +"That IS serious," said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken +for a long time. + +The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter's +continued walks and meetings with Dick. When a hint that there were +symptoms of an attachment between them had first reached Geoffrey's +ears, he stated so emphatically that he must think the matter over +before any such thing could be allowed that, rather unwisely on +Dick's part, whatever it might have been on the lady's, the lovers +were careful to be seen together no more in public; and Geoffrey, +forgetting the report, did not think over the matter at all. So Mr. +Shiner resumed his old position in Geoffrey's brain by mere flux of +time. Even Shiner began to believe that Dick existed for Fancy no +more,--though that remarkably easy-going man had taken no active +steps on his own account as yet. + +"And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that," continued Fancy, +"but he has written me a letter, to say he should wish me to +encourage Mr. Shiner, if 'twas convenient!" + +"I must start off and see your father at once!" said Dick, taking +two or three vehement steps to the south, recollecting that Mr. Day +lived to the north, and coming back again. + +"I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come +for, or anything of the kind, until he likes you, and so win his +brain through his heart, which is always the way to manage people. +I mean in this way: I am going home on Saturday week to help them +in the honey-taking. You might come there to me, have something to +eat and drink, and let him guess what your coming signifies, without +saying it in so many words." + +"We'll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; +not wait for his guessing." And the lover then stepped close to +her, and attempted to give her one little kiss on the cheek, his +lips alighting however, on an outlying tract of her back hair by +reason of an impulse that had caused her to turn her head with a +jerk. "Yes, and I'll put on my second-best suit and a clean shirt +and collar, and black my boots as if 'twas a Sunday. 'Twill have a +good appearance, you see, and that's a great deal to start with." + +"You won't wear that old waistcoat, will you, Dick?" + +"Bless you, no! Why I--" + +"I didn't mean to be personal, dear Dick," she said, fearing she had +hurt his feelings. "'Tis a very nice waistcoat, but what I meant +was, that though it is an excellent waistcoat for a settled-down +man, it is not quite one for" (she waited, and a blush expanded over +her face, and then she went on again)--"for going courting in." + +"No, I'll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that +mother made. It is a beautiful, handsome waistcoat inside, yes, as +ever anybody saw. In fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to +show a chap that very lining, and he said it was the strongest, +handsomest lining you could wish to see on the king's waistcoat +himself." + +"_I_ don't quite know what to wear," she said, as if her habitual +indifference alone to dress had kept back so important a subject +till now. + +"Why, that blue frock you wore last week." + +"Doesn't set well round the neck. I couldn't wear that." + +"But I shan't care." + +"No, you won't mind." + +"Well, then it's all right. Because you only care how you look to +me, do you, dear? I only dress for you, that's certain." + +"Yes, but you see I couldn't appear in it again very well." + +"Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the +set of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in love don't think so much about +how they look to other women." It is difficult to say whether a +tone of playful banter or of gentle reproach prevailed in the +speech. + +"Well then, Dick," she said, with good-humoured frankness, "I'll own +it. I shouldn't like a stranger to see me dressed badly, even +though I am in love. 'Tis our nature, I suppose." + +"You perfect woman!" + +"Yes; if you lay the stress on 'woman,'" she murmured, looking at a +group of hollyhocks in flower, round which a crowd of butterflies +had gathered like female idlers round a bonnet-shop. + +"But about the dress. Why not wear the one you wore at our party?" + +"That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives +near our house, has had one made almost like it (only in pattern, +though of miserably cheap stuff), and I couldn't wear it on that +account. Dear me, I am afraid I can't go now." + +"O yes, you must; I know you will!" said Dick, with dismay. "Why +not wear what you've got on?" + +"What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one +Saturday, I can make the blue one do for Sunday. Yes, I will. A +hat or a bonnet, which shall it be? Which do I look best in?" + +"Well, I think the bonnet is nicest, more quiet and matronly." + +"What's the objection to the hat? Does it make me look old?" + +"O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather too--you +won't mind me saying it, dear?" + +"Not at all, for I shall wear the bonnet." + +"--Rather too coquettish and flirty for an engaged young woman." + +She reflected a minute. "Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would +do best; hats ARE best, you see. Yes, I must wear the hat, dear +Dicky, because I ought to wear a hat, you know." + + + + +PART THE FOURTH--AUTUMN + + + + +CHAPTER I: GOING NUTTING + + +Dick, dressed in his 'second-best' suit, burst into Fancy's sitting- +room with a glow of pleasure on his face. + +It was two o'clock on Friday, the day before her contemplated visit +to her father, and for some reason connected with cleaning the +school the children had been given this Friday afternoon for +pastime, in addition to the usual Saturday. + +"Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with +you. Smart is lame in his near-foot-afore, and so, as I can't do +anything, I've made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you +to go nutting with me!" + +She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying +across her lap and scissors in her hand. + +"Go nutting! Yes. But I'm afraid I can't go for an hour or so." + +"Why not? 'Tis the only spare afternoon we may both have together +for weeks." + +"This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury;-- +I find it fits so badly that I must alter it a little, after all. I +told the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; +instead of that, she did it her own way, and made me look a perfect +fright." + +"How long will you be?" he inquired, looking rather disappointed. + +"Not long. Do wait and talk to me; come, do, dear." + +Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the +snipping and sewing, till about half-past two, at which time his +conversation began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe +with a walking-stick he had cut from the hedge as he came along. +Fancy talked and answered him, but sometimes the answers were so +negligently given, that it was evident her thoughts lay for the +greater part in her lap with the blue dress. + +The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the +room with his hands behind him, examined all the furniture, then +sounded a few notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the +books he could find, then smoothed Fancy's head with his hand. +Still the snipping and sewing went on. + +The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; +counted the knots in the table, yawned publicly; counted the flies +on the ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, +and so thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was +constructed that he could have delivered a lecture on the subject. +Stepping back to Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he +went into her garden and looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and +reminded himself that they seemed to him to wear a decidedly +feminine aspect; then pulled up several weeds, and came in again. +The clock struck five, and still the snipping and sewing went on. + +Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking- +stick, then threw the stick into the scullery because it was spoilt, +produced hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally +overturned a vase of flowers, the water from which ran in a rill +across the table and dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake, +the shape of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, he began to +modify considerably with his foot, till it was like a map of England +and Wales. + +"Well, Dick, you needn't have made quite such a mess." + +"Well, I needn't, I suppose." He walked up to the blue dress, and +looked at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea seemed to cross his +brain. + +"Fancy." + +"Yes." + +"I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day +to-morrow on your trip to Yalbury, and in the evening too, when I +shall be with you, and ask your father for you?" + +"So I am." + +"And the blue one only on Sunday?" + +"And the blue one Sunday." + +"Well, dear, I sha'n't be at Yalbury Sunday to see it." + +"No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with +father, and such lots of people will be looking at me there, you +know; and it did set so badly round the neck." + +"I never noticed it, and 'tis like nobody else would." + +"They might." + +"Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? 'Tis as pretty +as the blue one." + +"I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn't so good; it +didn't cost half so much as this one, and besides, it would be the +same I wore Saturday." + +"Then wear the striped one, dear." + +"I might." + +"Or the dark one." + +"Yes, I might; but I want to wear a fresh one they haven't seen." + +"I see, I see," said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love +were decidedly inconvenienced by a considerable emphasis, his +thoughts meanwhile running as follows: "I, the man she loves best +in the world, as she says, am to understand that my poor half- +holiday is to be lost, because she wants to wear on Sunday a gown +there is not the slightest necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, +to appear more striking than usual in the eyes of Longpuddle young +men; and I not there, either." + +"Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither +is good enough for the youths of Longpuddle," he said. + +"No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do want--to look +pretty to them--there, that's honest! But I sha'n't be much +longer." + +"How much?" + +"A quarter of an hour." + +"Very well; I'll come in in a quarter of an hour." + +"Why go away?" + +"I mid as well." + +He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he +meditated and meditated, and the more he meditated the more +decidedly did he begin to fume, and the more positive was he that +his time had been scandalously trifled with by Miss Fancy Day--that, +so far from being the simple girl who had never had a sweetheart +before, as she had solemnly assured him time after time, she was, if +not a flirt, a woman who had had no end of admirers; a girl most +certainly too anxious about her frocks; a girl, whose feelings, +though warm, were not deep; a girl who cared a great deal too much +how she appeared in the eyes of other men. "What she loves best in +the world," he thought, with an incipient spice of his father's +grimness, "is her hair and complexion. What she loves next best, +her gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, perhaps!" + +Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness +to his darling, yet disposed to persevere in it, a horribly cruel +thought crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had +promised, at the end of a quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a +punishment she well deserved. Although the best part of the +afternoon had been wasted he would go nutting as he had intended, +and go by himself. + +He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two +miles, till a winding path called Snail-Creep sloped up a hill and +entered a hazel copse by a hole hike a rabbit's burrow. In he +plunged, vanished among the bushes, and in a short time there was no +sign of his existence upon earth, save an occasional rustling of +boughs and snapping of twigs in divers points of Grey's Wood. + +Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a +galley slave. Half-hour after half-hour passed away, and still he +gathered without ceasing. At last, when the sun had set, and +bunches of nuts could not be distinguished from the leaves which +nourished them, he shouldered his bag, containing quite two pecks of +the finest produce of the wood, about as much use to him as two +pecks of stones from the road, strolled down the woodland track, +crossed the highway and entered the homeward lane, whistling as be +went. + +Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. +Dewy's opinion as on that afternoon. In fact, it is just possible +that a few more blue dresses on the Longpuddle young men's account +would have clarified Dick's brain entirely, and made him once more a +free man. + +But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the +present. Cuckoo-Lane, the way he pursued, passed over a ridge which +rose keenly against the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, +upon the bright after-glow about the horizon, was now visible an +irregular shape, which at first he conceived to be a bough standing +a little beyond the line of its neighbours. Then it seemed to move, +and, as he advanced still further, there was no doubt that it was a +living being sitting in the bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy +margin entirely prevented his footsteps from being heard, and it was +not till he was close that the figure recognized him. Up it sprang, +and he was face to face with Fancy. + +"Dick, Dick! O, is it you, Dick!" + +"Yes, Fancy," said Dick, in a rather repentant tone, and lowering +his nuts. + +She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little +head against his breast, and then there began a narrative, +disjointed by such a hysterical weeping as was never surpassed for +intensity in the whole history of love. + +"O Dick," she sobbed out, "where have you been away from me? O, I +have suffered agony, and thought you would never come any more! +'Tis cruel, Dick; no 'tisn't, it is justice! I've been walking +miles and miles up and down Grey's Wood, trying to find you, till I +was wearied and worn out, and I could walk no further, and had come +back this far! O Dick, directly you were gone, I thought I had +offended you and I put down the dress; 'tisn't finished now, and I +never will finish, it, and I'll wear an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, +I will, because I don't care what I wear when you are not by my +side--ha, you think I do, but I don't!--and I ran after you, and I +saw you go up Snail-Creep and not look back once, and then you +plunged in, and I after you; but I was too far behind. O, I did +wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your +dear shape again! And then I called out to you, and nobody +answered, and I was afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else +should hear me. Then I kept wandering and wandering about, and it +was dreadful misery, Dick. And then I shut my eyes and fell to +picturing you looking at some other woman, very pretty and nice, but +with no affection or truth in her at all, and then imagined you +saying to yourself, "Ah, she's as good as Fancy, for Fancy told me a +story, and was a flirt, and cared for herself more than me, so now +I'll have this one for my sweetheart." O, you won't, will you, +Dick, for I do love you so!" + +It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom +there and then, and kissed her ten times over, and promised that no +pretty woman of the kind alluded to should ever engross his +thoughts; in short, that though he had been vexed with her, all such +vexation was past, and that henceforth and for ever it was simply +Fancy or death for him. And then they set about proceeding +homewards, very slowly on account of Fancy's weariness, she leaning +upon his shoulder, and in addition receiving support from his arm +round her waist; though she had sufficiently recovered from her +desperate condition to sing to him, "Why are you wandering here, I +pray?" during the latter part of their walk. Nor is it necessary to +describe in detail how the bag of nuts was quite forgotten until +three days later, when it was found among the brambles and restored +empty to Mrs. Dewy, her initials being marked thereon in red cotton; +and how she puzzled herself till her head ached upon the question of +how on earth her meal-bag could have got into Cuckoo-Lane. + + + +CHAPTER II: HONEY-TAKING, AND AFTERWARDS + + + +Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, +according to the arrangement with Fancy. + +The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything +suddenly assumed a uniform robe of shade. The evening advanced from +sunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during +the latter portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by +the flutter of terrified birds that had been roosting over the path. +And in crossing the glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been +formed on the hills during the day, greeted his cheeks alternately +with clouds of damp night air from the valleys. He reached the +keeper-steward's house, where the grass-plot and the garden in front +appeared light and pale against the unbroken darkness of the grove +from which he had emerged, and paused at the garden gate. + +He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of +procession advancing from the door in his front. It consisted first +of Enoch the trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern +dangling in his hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern +revealing that she bore in her arms curious objects about a foot +long, in the form of Latin crosses (made of lath and brown paper +dipped in brimstone--called matches by bee-masters); next came Miss +Day, with a shawl thrown over her head; and behind all, in the +gloom, Mr. Frederic Shiner. + +Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss +how to proceed, and retired under a tree to collect his thoughts. + +"Here I be, Enoch," said a voice; and the procession advancing +farther, the lantern's rays illuminated the figure of Geoffrey, +awaiting their arrival beside a row of bee-hives, in front of the +path. Taking the spade from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in +the earth beside the hives, the others standing round in a circle, +except Mrs. Day, who deposited her matches in the fork of an apple- +tree and returned to the house. The party remaining were now lit up +in front by the lantern in their midst, their shadows radiating each +way upon the garden-plot like the spokes of a wheel. An apparent +embarrassment of Fancy at the presence of Shiner caused a silence in +the assembly, during which the preliminaries of execution were +arranged, the matches fixed, the stake kindled, the two hives placed +over the two holes, and the earth stopped round the edges. Geoffrey +then stood erect, and rather more, to straighten his backbone after +the digging. + +"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives +reflectively. + +Geoffrey nodded. + +"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think +'tis rather a cruel thing to do." + +Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to +shake the dead bees from their cells, "if you suffocate 'em this +way, they only die once: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they +come to life again, and die o' starvation; so the pangs o' death be +twice upon 'em." + +"I incline to Fancy's notion," said Mr. Shiner, laughing lightly. + +"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved +nor murdered, is a puzzling matter," said the keeper steadily. + +"I should like never to take it from them," said Fancy. + +"But 'tis the money," said Enoch musingly. "For without money man +is a shadder!" + +The lantern-light had disturbed many bees that had escaped from +hives destroyed some days earlier, and, demoralized by affliction, +were now getting a living as marauders about the doors of other +hives. Several flew round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then +darted upon him with an irritated bizz. + +Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a +currant bush; Fancy scudded up the path; and Mr. Shiner floundered +away helter-skelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground, +unmoved and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed +by Enoch picking up the lantern. Mr. Shiner still remained +invisible. + +"Have the craters stung ye?" said Enoch to Geoffrey. + +"No, not much--on'y a little here and there," he said with leisurely +solemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt sleeve, pulling another +from among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest +looked on during this proceeding with a complacent sense of being +out of it,--much as a European nation in a state of internal +commotion is watched by its neighbours. + +"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had +pulled away five. + +"Almost all,--though I feel one or two more sticking into my +shoulder and side. Ah! there's another just begun again upon my +backbone. You lively young mortals, how did you get inside there? +However, they can't sting me many times more, poor things, for they +must be getting weak. They mid as well stay in me till bedtime now, +I suppose." + +As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it +seemed satisfactory enough; and after a noise of feet kicking +against cabbages in a blundering progress among them, the voice of +Mr. Shiner was heard from the darkness in that direction. + +"Is all quite safe again?" + +No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that +he might venture forth, and gradually drew near the lantern again. +The hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one +being handed to Enoch to carry indoors, and one being taken by +Geoffrey himself. + +"Bring hither the lantern, Fancy: the spade can bide." + +Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and +Fancy standing side by side on the garden-plot. + +"Allow me," said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at +the same time with Fancy. + +"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination +to trifle. She had thoroughly considered that subject after the +tearful explanation of the bird-catching adventure to Dick, and had +decided that it would be dishonest in her, as an engaged young +woman, to trifle with men's eyes and hands any more. Finding that +Shiner still retained his hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, +and he, having found her retaining it, also let go. The lantern +fell, and was extinguished. Fancy moved on. + +"Where is the path?" said Mr. Shiner. + +"Here," said Fancy. "Your eyes will get used to the dark in a +minute or two." + +"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the +extreme tips of her fingers, and they stepped from the plot into the +path. + +"You don't accept attentions very freely." + +"It depends upon who offers them." + +"A fellow like me, for instance." A dead silence. + +"Well, what do you say, Missie?" + +"It then depends upon how they are offered." + +"Not wildly, and yet not careless-like; not purposely, and yet not +by chance; not too quick nor yet too slow." + +"How then?" said Fancy. + +"Coolly and practically," he said. "How would that kind of love be +taken?" + +"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor +pale; nor religiously nor yet quite wickedly." + +"Not at all." + +Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with +bunches of dried horehound, mint, and sage; brown-paper bags of +thyme and lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were +spread large red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early +potatoes for seed next year;--vulgar crowds of commoner kind lying +beneath in heaps. A few empty beehives were clustered around a nail +in one corner, under which stood two or three barrels of new cider +of the first crop, each bubbling and squirting forth from the yet +open bunghole. + +Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which +rested against her lap, for convenience in operating upon the +contents. She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her +small pink hand edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, +performing the act so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a single +cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive by a +slight backward and forward movement, she lifted each portion as it +was loosened into a large blue platter, placed on a bench at her +side. + +"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the +light to her, and giving his back an uneasy twist. "I really think +I may as well go indoors and take 'em out, poor things! for they +won't let me alone. There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. +I'm sure I wonder their strength can last so long." + +"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said +Mr. Shiner, leisurely taking the light, and allowing Geoffrey to +depart, which he did with his usual long paces. + +He could hardly have gone round to the house-door when other +footsteps were heard approaching the outbuilding; the tip of a +finger appeared in the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, +and Dick Dewy came in, having been all this time walking up and down +the wood, vainly waiting for Shiner's departure. + +Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped +the candlestick more firmly, and, lest doing this in silence should +not imply to Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home +and cool, he sang invincibly - + + +"'King Arthur he had three sons.'" + + +"Father here?" said Dick. + +"Indoors, I think," said Fancy, looking pleasantly at him. + +Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just +at that moment. Shiner went on singing + + +"'The miller was drown'd in his pond, +The weaver was hung in his yarn, +And the d- ran away with the little tail-or, +With the broadcloth under his arm.'" + + +"That's a terrible crippled rhyme, if that's your rhyme!" said Dick, +with a grain of superciliousness in his tone. + +"It's no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!" said Mr. +Shiner. "You must go to the man that made it." + +Fancy by this time had acquired confidence. + +"Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy," she said, holding up to him a small +circular piece of honeycomb that had been the last in the row of +layers, remaining still on her knees and flinging back her head to +look in his face; "and then I'll taste a bit too." + +"And I, if you please," said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer +looked superior, as if he could even now hardly join the trifling +from very importance of station; and after receiving the honeycomb +from Fancy, he turned it over in his hand till the cells began to be +crushed, and the liquid honey ran down from his fingers in a thin +string. + +Suddenly a faint cry from Fancy caused them to gaze at her. + +"What's the matter, dear?" said Dick. + +"It is nothing, but O-o! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He +was in one of the cells I was eating!" + +"We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!" said Shiner, +stepping up and kneeling beside her. "Let me see it." + +"No, no!" + +"Just let ME see it," said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and +after some hesitation she pressed down her lip with one finger to +show the place. "O, I hope 'twill soon be better! I don't mind a +sting in ordinary places, but it is so bad upon your lip," she added +with tears in her eyes, and writhing a little from the pain. + +Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to +Fancy's, as if the lip had been shown exclusively to himself, upon +which Dick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all. + +"It is swelling," said Dick to her right aspect. + +"It isn't swelling," said Shiner to her left aspect. + +"Is it dangerous on the lip?" cried Fancy. "I know it is dangerous +on the tongue." + +"O no, not dangerous!" answered Dick. + +"Rather dangerous," had answered Shiner simultaneously. + +"I must try to bear it!" said Fancy, turning again to the hives. + +"Hartshorn-and-oil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day," said +Shiner with great concern. + +"Sweet-oil-and-hartshorn I've found to be a good thing to cure +stings, Miss Day," said Dick with greater concern. + +"We have some mixed indoors; would you kindly run and get it for +me?" she said. + +Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, +the individuality of the YOU was so carelessly denoted that both +Dick and Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched +abreast to the door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and +continued marching on, shoulder to shoulder, in the same manner to +the dwelling-house. Not only so, but entering the room, they +marched as before straight up to Mrs. Day's chair, letting the door +in the oak partition slam so forcibly, that the rows of pewter on +the dresser rang like a bell. + +"Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the +hartshorn, please," said Mr. Shiner, very close to Mrs. Day's face. + +"O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, +because she has stung her lip!" said Dick, a little closer to Mrs. +Day's face. + +"Well, men alive! that's no reason why you should eat me, I +suppose!" said Mrs. Day, drawing back. + +She searched in the corner-cupboard, produced the bottle, and began +to dust the cork, the rim, and every other part very carefully, +Dick's hand and Shiner's hand waiting side by side. + +"Which is head man?" said Mrs. Day. "Now, don't come mumbudgeting +so close again. Which is head man?" + +Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, +as a high-class man, would not look in the least triumphant, and +turned to go off with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the +search in his linen for concealed bees. + +"O--that you, Master Dewy?" + +Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then +determined upon a bold stroke for the attainment of his end, +forgetting that the worst of bold strokes is the disastrous +consequences they involve if they fail. + +"I've come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day," he +said, with a crushing emphasis intended for the ears of Mr. Shiner, +who was vanishing round the door-post at that moment. + +"Well, I've been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake +some bees out o' me" said Geoffrey, walking slowly towards the open +door, and standing on the threshold. "The young rascals got into my +shirt and wouldn't be quiet nohow." + +Dick followed him to the door. + +"I've come to speak a word to you," he repeated, looking out at the +pale mist creeping up from the gloom of the valley. "You may +perhaps guess what it is about." + +The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled +his eyes, balanced himself on his toes, looked as perpendicularly +downward as if his glance were a plumb-line, then horizontally, +collecting together the cracks that lay about his face till they +were all in the neighbourhood of his eyes. + +"Maybe I don't know," he replied. + +Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some +small bird that was being killed by an owl in the adjoining wood, +whose cry passed into the silence without mingling with it. + +"I've left my hat up in chammer," said Geoffrey; "wait while I step +up and get en." + +"I'll be in the garden," said Dick. + +He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went +upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to +discuss matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, +and to reserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom +which, as is supposed, originated in the desirability of getting +away at such times from the other members of the family when there +was only one room for living in, though it was now quite as +frequently practised by those who suffered from no such limitation +to the size of their domiciles. + +The head-keeper's form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked +towards him. The elder paused and leant over the rail of a piggery +that stood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; +and they both contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving +about and grunting among the straw of the interior. + +"I've come to ask for Fancy," said Dick. + +"I'd as lief you hadn't." + +"Why should that be, Mr. Day?" + +"Because it makes me say that you've come to ask what ye be'n't +likely to have. Have ye come for anything else?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then I'll just tell 'ee you've come on a very foolish errand. D'ye +know what her mother was?" + +"No." + +"A teacher in a landed family's nursery, who was foolish enough to +marry the keeper of the same establishment; for I was only a keeper +then, though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire as steward +here for my lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly +fellings, and the gravel and sand sales and one thing and 'tother. +However, d'ye think Fancy picked up her good manners, the smooth +turn of her tongue, her musical notes, and her knowledge of books, +in a homely hole like this?" + +"No." + +"D'ye know where?" + +"No." + +"Well, when I went a-wandering after her mother's death, she lived +with her aunt, who kept a boarding-school, till her aunt married +Lawyer Green--a man as sharp as a needle--and the school was broke +up. Did ye know that then she went to the training-school, and that +her name stood first among the Queen's scholars of her year?" + +"I've heard so." + +"And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, +she had the highest of the first class?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when +I've got enough to do without it, and why I make her work as a +schoolmistress instead of living here?" + +"No." + +"That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, +should want to marry her, and she want to marry him, he sha'n't be +superior to her in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be +good enough for her?" + +"No." + +"Then good-night t'ee, Master Dewy." + +"Good-night, Mr. Day." + +Modest Dick's reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away +wondering at his presumption in asking for a woman whom he had seen +from the beginning to be so superior to him. + + + +CHAPTER III: FANCY IN THE RAIN + + + +The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, +and Fancy Day is discovered walking from her father's home towards +Mellstock. + +A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small +rain and mist had just begun to blow down in wavy sheets, +alternately thick and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations +writhed like miserable men as the air wound its way swiftly among +them: the lowest portions of their trunks, that had hardly ever +been known to move, were visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, +distressing the mind by its painful unwontedness, as when a strong +man is seen to shed tears. Low-hanging boughs went up and down; +high and erect boughs went to and fro; the blasts being so +irregular, and divided into so many cross--currents, that +neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in +independent motions, crossed each other, or became entangled. +Across the open spaces flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, +which, after travelling a long distance from their parent trees, +reached the ground, and lay there with their under-sides upward. + +As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy's bonnet-ribbons leapt +more and more snappishly against her chin, she paused on entering +Mellstock Lane to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place +of shelter. The nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield's, in Higher +Mellstock, whose cottage and garden stood not far from the junction +of that hamlet with the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, +and in five minutes entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood +of water-drops as she opened it. + +"Come in, chiel!" a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a +promptness that would have surprised her had she not known that Mrs. +Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the +use of her eyes and ears. + +Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her +husband's supper. + +Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a +bucket of water. + +Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she +began to reconsider an old subject that lay uppermost in her heart. +Since the interview between her father and Dick, the days had been +melancholy days for her. Geoffrey's firm opposition to the notion +of Dick as a son-in-law was more than she had expected. She had +frequently seen her lover since that time, it is true, and had loved +him more for the opposition than she would have otherwise dreamt of +doing--which was a happiness of a certain kind. Yet, though love is +thus an end in itself, it must be believed to be the means to +another end if it is to assume the rosy hues of an unalloyed +pleasure. And such a belief Fancy and Dick were emphatically denied +just now. + +Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its +nature something between distinction and notoriety. It was founded +on the following items of character. She was shrewd and +penetrating; her house stood in a lonely place; she never went to +church; she wore a red cloak; she always retained her bonnet indoors +and she had a pointed chin. Thus far her attributes were distinctly +Satanic; and those who looked no further called her, in plain terms +a witch. But she was not gaunt, nor ugly in the upper part of her +face, nor particularly strange in manner; so that, when her more +intimate acquaintances spoke of her the term was softened, and she +became simply a Deep Body, who was as long-headed as she was high. +It may be stated that Elizabeth, belonged to a class of suspects who +were gradually losing their mysterious characteristics under the +administration of the young vicar; though, during the long reign of +Mr. Grinham, the parish of Mellstock had proved extremely favourable +to the growth of witches. + +While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to +herself whether it was worth while to tell her troubles to +Elizabeth, and ask her advice in getting out of them, the witch +spoke. + +"You be down--proper down," she said suddenly, dropping another +potato into the bucket. + +Fancy took no notice. + +"About your young man." + +Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. +Really, one would almost think she must have the powers people +ascribed to her. + +"Father not in the humour for't, hey?" Another potato was finished +and flung in. "Ah, I know about it. Little birds tell me things +that people don't dream of my knowing." + +Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chance--O, such a +wicked chance--of getting help; and what was goodness beside love! + +"I wish you'd tell me how to put him in the humour for it?" she +said. + +"That I could soon do," said the witch quietly. + +"Really? O, do; anyhow--I don't care--so that it is done! How +could I do it, Mrs. Endorfield?" + +"Nothing so mighty wonderful in it." + +"Well, but how?" + +"By witchery, of course!" said Elizabeth. + +"No!" said Fancy. + +"'Tis, I assure ye. Didn't you ever hear I was a witch?" + +"Well," hesitated Fancy, "I have heard you called so." + +"And you believed it?" + +"I can't say that I did exactly believe it, for 'tis very horrible +and wicked; but, O, how I do wish it was possible for you to be +one!" + +"So I am. And I'll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you +marry Dick Dewy." + +"Will it hurt him, poor thing?" + +"Hurt who?" + +"Father." + +"No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be +broke by your acting stupidly." + +Fancy looked rather perplexed, and Elizabeth went on: + + +"This fear of Lizz--whatever 'tis - +By great and small; +She makes pretence to common sense, +And that's all. + + +"You must do it like this." The witch laid down her knife and +potato, and then poured into Fancy's ear a long and detailed list of +directions, glancing up from the corner of her eye into Fancy's face +with an expression of sinister humour. Fancy's face brightened, +clouded, rose and sank, as the narrative proceeded. "There," said +Elizabeth at length, stooping for the knife and another potato, "do +that, and you'll have him by-long and by-late, my dear." + +"And do it I will!" said Fancy. + +She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The +rain continued as usual, but the wind had abated considerably during +the discourse. Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella +erect, she pulled her hood again over her bonnet, bade the witch +good-bye, and went her way. + + + +CHAPTER IV: THE SPELL + + + +Mrs. Endorfield's advice was duly followed. + +"I be proper sorry that your daughter isn't so well as she might +be," said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one morning. + +"But is there anything in it?" said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted +his hat to the right. "I can't understand the report. She didn't +complain to me a bit when I saw her." + +"No appetite at all, they say." + +Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that +afternoon. Fancy welcomed him as usual, and asked him to stay and +take tea with her. + +"I be'n't much for tea, this time o' day," he said, but stayed. + +During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great +consternation discovered the following unprecedented change in the +healthy girl--that she cut herself only a diaphanous slice of bread- +and-butter, and, laying it on her plate, passed the meal-time in +breaking it into pieces, but eating no more than about one-tenth of +the slice. Geoffrey hoped she would say something about Dick, and +finish up by weeping, as she had done after the decision against him +a few days subsequent to the interview in the garden. But nothing +was said, and in due time Geoffrey departed again for Yalbury Wood. + +"'Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her +school," said Geoffrey's man Enoch to Geoffrey the following week, +as they were shovelling up ant-hills in the wood. + +Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his +sleeve, and killed another that was prowling round his ear, then +looked perpendicularly into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to +say more. "Well, why shouldn't she?" said the keeper at last. + +"The baker told me yesterday," continued Enoch, shaking out another +emmet that had run merrily up his thigh, "that the bread he've left +at that there school-house this last month would starve any mouse in +the three creations; that 'twould so! And afterwards I had a pint +o' small down at Morrs's, and there I heard more." + +"What might that ha' been?" + +"That she used to have a pound o' the best rolled butter a week, +regular as clockwork, from Dairyman Viney's for herself, as well as +just so much salted for the helping girl, and the 'ooman she calls +in; but now the same quantity d'last her three weeks, and then 'tis +thoughted she throws it away sour." + +"Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag home-along." The keeper +resumed his gun, tucked it under his arm, and went on without +whistling to the dogs, who however followed, with a bearing meant to +imply that they did not expect any such attentions when their master +was reflecting. + +On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble +about sending her the couple of rabbits, as was intended, because +she feared she should not want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went +to Casterbridge and called upon the butcher who served Fancy with +fresh meat, which was put down to her father's account. + +"I've called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you +can gie me the chiel's account at the same time." + +Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of +a heap of joints, altered the expression of his face from meat to +money, went into a little office consisting only of a door and a +window, looked very vigorously into a book which possessed length +but no breadth; and then, seizing a piece of paper and scribbling +thereupon, handed the bill. + +Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial +transactions that the quality of shortness in a butcher's bill was a +cause of tribulation to the debtor. "Why, this isn't all she've had +in a whole month!" said Geoffrey. + +"Every mossel," said the butcher--"(now, Dan, take that leg and +shoulder to Mrs. White's, and this eleven pound here to Mr. +Martin's)--you've been treating her to smaller joints lately, to my +thinking, Mr. Day?" + +"Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am +alive--I wish I had!" + +"Well, my wife said to me--(Dan! not too much, not too much on that +tray at a time; better go twice)--my wife said to me as she posted +up the books: she says, "Miss Day must have been summer during that +hot muggy weather much for us; for depend upon't," she says, "she've +been trying John Grimmett unknown to us: see her account else." +'Tis little, of course, at the best of times, being only for one, +but now 'tis next kin to nothing." + +"I'll inquire," said Geoffrey despondingly. + +He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in +fulfilment of a promise. It being Saturday, the children were +enjoying a holiday, and on entering the residence Fancy was nowhere +to be seen. Nan, the charwoman, was sweeping the kitchen. + +"Where's my da'ter?" said the keeper. + +"Well, you see she was tired with the week's teaching, and this +morning she said, "Nan, I sha'n't get up till the evening." You +see, Mr. Day, if people don't eat, they can't work; and as she've +gie'd up eating, she must gie up working." + +"Have ye carried up any dinner to her?" + +"No; she don't want any. There, we all know that such things don't +come without good reason--not that I wish to say anything about a +broken heart, or anything of the kind." + +Geoffrey's own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went +to the staircase and ascended to his daughter's door. + +"Fancy!" + +"Come in, father." + +To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, +is depressing enough; and here was his only child Fancy, not only in +bed, but looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed. + +"Fancy, I didn't expect to see thee here, chiel," he said. "What's +the matter?" + +"I'm not well, father." + +"How's that?" + +"Because I think of things." + +"What things can you have to think o' so mortal much?" + +"You know, father." + +"You think I've been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless +Dick o' thine sha'n't marry thee, I suppose?" + +No answer. + +"Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn't good +enough for thee. You know that well enough." Here he again looked +at her as she lay. "Well, Fancy, I can't let my only chiel die; and +if you can't live without en, you must ha' en, I suppose." + +"O, I don't want him like that; all against your will, and +everything so disobedient!" sighed the invalid. + +"No, no, 'tisn't against my will. My wish is, now I d'see how 'tis +hurten thee to live without en, that he shall marry thee as soon as +we've considered a little. That's my wish flat and plain, Fancy. +There, never cry, my little maid! You ought to ha' cried afore; no +need o' crying now 'tis all over. Well, howsoever, try to step over +and see me and mother-law to-morrow, and ha' a bit of dinner wi' +us." + +"And--Dick too?" + +"Ay, Dick too, 'far's I know." + +"And WHEN do you think you'll have considered, father, and he may +marry me?" she coaxed. + +"Well, there, say next Midsummer; that's not a day too long to +wait." + +On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter's. Old William +opened the door. + +"Is your grandson Dick in 'ithin, William?" + +"No, not just now, Mr. Day. Though he've been at home a good deal +lately." + +"O, how's that?" + +"What wi' one thing, and what wi' t'other, he's all in a mope, as +might be said. Don't seem the feller he used to. Ay, 'a will sit +studding and thinking as if 'a were going to turn chapel-member, and +then do nothing but traypse and wamble about. Used to be such a +chatty boy, too, Dick did; and now 'a don't speak at all. But won't +ye step inside? Reuben will be home soon, 'a b'lieve." + +"No, thank you, I can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do +me the kindness to step over to Yalbury to-morrow with my da'ter +Fancy, if she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, +now she's not so terrible topping in health." + +"So I've heard. Ay, sure, I'll tell him without fail." + + + +CHAPTER V: AFTER GAINING HER POINT + + + +The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might +have been expected to pass off when it was the first day of smooth +experience in a hitherto obstructed love-course. And then came a +series of several happy days, of the same undisturbed serenity. +Dick could court her when he chose; stay away when he chose,--which +was never; walk with her by winding streams and waterfalls and +autumn scenery till dews arid twilight sent them home. And thus +they drew near the day of the Harvest Thanksgiving, which was also +the time chosen for opening the organ in Mellstock Church. + +It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from +Mellstock. A young acquaintance had died of consumption at +Charmley, a neighbouring village, on the previous Monday, and Dick, +in fulfilment of a long-standing promise, was to assist in carrying +him to the grave. When on Tuesday, Dick went towards the school to +acquaint Fancy with the fact, it is difficult to say whether his own +disappointment at being denied the sight of her triumphant debut as +organist, was greater than his vexation that his pet should on this +great occasion be deprived of the pleasure of his presence. +However, the intelligence was communicated. She bore it as she best +could, not without many expressions of regret, and convictions that +her performance would be nothing to her now. + +Just before eleven o'clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. +The funeral was to be immediately after the morning service, and as +there were four good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it +became necessary to start comparatively early. Half an hour later +would certainly have answered his purpose quite as well, yet at the +last moment nothing would content his ardent mind but that he must +go a mile out of his way in the direction of the school, in the hope +of getting a glimpse of his Love as she started for church. + +Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of +across the ewelease direct to Charmley, he arrived opposite her door +as his goddess emerged. + +If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that +morning as she floated down those school steps, in the form of a +nebulous collection of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity +unparalleled in the whole history of village-school-mistresses at +this date--partly owing, no doubt, to papa's respectable +accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether +one of necessity--she had actually donned a hat and feather, and +lowered her hitherto plainly looped-up hair, which now fell about +her shoulders in a profusion of curls. Poor Dick was astonished: +he had never seen her look so distractingly beautiful before, save +on Christmas-eve, when her hair was in the same luxuriant condition +of freedom. But his first burst of delighted surprise was followed +by less comfortable feelings, as soon as his brain recovered its +power to think. + +Fancy had blushed;--was it with confusion? She had also +involuntarily pressed back her curls. She had not expected him. + +"Fancy, you didn't know me for a moment in my funeral clothes, did +you?" + +"Good-morning, Dick--no, really, I didn't know you for an instant in +such a sad suit." + +He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. "You've never dressed +so charming before, dearest." + +"I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick," she said, smiling +archly. "It is meat and drink to a woman. Do I look nice really?" + +"Fie! you know it. Did you remember,--I mean didn't you remember +about my going away to-day?" + +"Well, yes, I did, Dick; but, you know, I wanted to look well;-- +forgive me." + +"Yes, darling; yes, of course,--there's nothing to forgive. No, I +was only thinking that when we talked on Tuesday and Wednesday and +Thursday and Friday about my absence to-day, and I was so sorry for +it, you said, Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said +it would be no pleasure to you to be the attraction of the church +to-day, since I could not be there." + +"My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I +do take a little delight in my life, I suppose," she pouted. + +"Apart from mine?" + +She looked at him with perplexed eyes. "I know you are vexed with +me, Dick, and it is because the first Sunday I have curls and a hat +and feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you +are away and won't be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And +you think that all this week I ought to have remembered you wouldn't +be here to-day, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. +Yes, you do, Dick, and it is rather unkind!" + +"No, no," said Dick earnestly and simply, "I didn't think so badly +of you as that. I only thought that--if YOU had been going away, I +shouldn't have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. +But then of course you and I are different, naturally." + +"Well, perhaps we are." + +"Whatever will the vicar say, Fancy?" + +"I don't fear what he says in the least!" she answered proudly. +"But he won't say anything of the sort you think. No, no." + +"He can hardly have conscience to, indeed." + +"Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go," +she said with sudden gaiety, and skipped backwards into the porch. +"Come here, sir;--say you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me;-- +you never have yet when I have worn curls, you know. Yes, just +where you want to so much,--yes, you may!" + +Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not +slow in availing himself of the privilege offered. + +"Now that's a treat for you, isn't it?" she continued. "Good-bye, +or I shall be late. Come and see me to-morrow: you'll be tired to- +night." + +Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ +stood on one side of the chancel, close to and under the immediate +eye of the vicar when he was in the pulpit, and also in full view of +the congregation. Here she sat down, for the first time in such a +conspicuous position, her seat having previously been in a remote +spot in the aisle. + +"Good heavens--disgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!" said the +daughters of the small gentry, who had either only curly hair +without a hat and feather, or a hat and feather without curly hair. +"A bonnet for church always," said sober matrons. + +That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him +during the sermon; that he was not at all angry at her development +of costume; that he admired her, she perceived. But she did not see +that he loved her during that sermon-time as he had never loved a +woman before; that her proximity was a strange delight to him; and +that he gloried in her musical success that morning in a spirit +quite beyond a mere cleric's glory at the inauguration of a new +order of things. + +The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in +the gallery as heretofore (which was now given up to the school- +children who were not singers, and a pupil-teacher), but were +scattered about with their wives in different parts of the church. +Having nothing to do with conducting the service for almost the +first time in their lives, they all felt awkward, out of place, +abashed, and inconvenienced by their hands. The tranter had +proposed that they should stay away to-day and go nutting, but +grandfather William would not hear of such a thing for a moment. +"No," he replied reproachfully, and quoted a verse "Though this has +come upon us, let not our hearts be turned back, or our steps go out +of the way." + +So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back +of the successful rival, and the waving of her feather, as she +swayed her head. After a few timid notes and uncertain touches her +playing became markedly correct, and towards the end full and free. +But, whether from prejudice or unbiassed judgment, the venerable +body of musicians could not help thinking that the simpler notes +they had been wont to bring forth were more in keeping with the +simplicity of their old church than the crowded chords and +interludes it was her pleasure to produce. + + + +CHAPTER VI: INTO TEMPTATION + + + +The day was done, and Fancy was again in the school-house. About +five o'clock it began to rain, and in rather a dull frame of mind +she wandered into the schoolroom, for want of something better to +do. She was thinking--of her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of +how weary she was of living alone: how unbearable it would be to +return to Yalbury under the rule of her strange-tempered step- +mother; that it was far better to be married to anybody than do +that; that eight or nine long months had yet to be lived through ere +the wedding could take place. + +At the side of the room were high windows of Ham-hill stone, upon +either sill of which she could sit by first mounting a desk and +using it as a footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched +herself, as was her custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on +a light shawl and bonnet, opened the window, and looked out at the +rain. + +The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the +position from which she used to survey the crown of Dick's passing +hat in the early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a +living soul was now visible anywhere; the rain kept all people +indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and necessity was +less importunate on Sundays than during the week. + +Sitting here and thinking again--of her lover, or of the sensation +she had created at church that day?--well, it is unknown--thinking +and thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into +distinctness at the further end of the Grove--a man without an +umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived that he was +in deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness +and foolishness of his young heart, after walking four miles, in a +drizzling rain without overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark +from his love that he was not to come because he would be tired, he +had made it his business to wander this mile out of his way again, +from sheer wish of spending ten minutes in her presence. + +"O Dick, how wet you are!" she said, as he drew up under the window. +"Why, your coat shines as if it had been varnished, and your hat--my +goodness, there's a streaming hat!" + +"O, I don't mind, darling!" said Dick cheerfully. "Wet never hurts +me, though I am rather sorry for my best clothes. However, it +couldn't be helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don't +know when I shall get mine back!" + +"And look, there's a nasty patch of something just on your +shoulder." + +"Ah, that's japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack's +coffin when we lowered him from our shoulders upon the bier! I +don't care about that, for 'twas the last deed I could do for him; +and 'tis hard if you can't afford a coat for an old friend." + +Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the +palm of that little hand there existed for that half-minute a little +yawn. + +"Dick, I don't like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn't +sit down. Go home and change your things. Don't stay another +minute." + +"One kiss after coming so far," he pleaded. + +"If I can reach, then." + +He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the +door. She twisted from her seated position and bent herself +downwards, but not even by standing on the plinth was it possible +for Dick to get his lips into contact with hers as she held them. +By great exertion she might have reached a little lower; but then +she would have exposed her head to the rain. + +"Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand," she said, flinging it down to him. +"Now, good-bye." + +"Good-bye." + +He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till +he was out of sight. During the retreat she said to herself, almost +involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning's triumph--"I +like Dick, and I love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in +the rain, with no umbrella, and wet through!" + +As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but +glancing in the other direction she saw another form coming along +the same track. It was also that of a man. He, too, was in black +from top to toe; but he carried an umbrella. + +He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant +his umbrella that from her height above the ground his head was +invisible, as she was also to him. He passed in due time directly +beneath her, and in looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella +her feminine eyes perceived it to be of superior silk--less common +at that date than since--and of elegant make. He reached the +entrance to the building, and Fancy suddenly lost sight of him. +Instead of pursuing the roadway as Dick had done he had turned +sharply round into her own porch. + +She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, +smoothed and patted her hair till the curls hung in passable +condition, and listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and +still there was no knock. Then there arose a soft series of raps, +no louder than the tapping of a distant woodpecker, and barely +distinct enough to reach her ears. She composed herself and flung +open the door. + +In the porch stood Mr. Maybold. + +There was a warm flush upon his face, and a bright flash in his +eyes, which made him look handsomer than she had ever seen him +before. + +"Good-evening, Miss Day." + +"Good-evening, Mr. Maybold," she said, in a strange state of mind. +She had noticed, beyond the ardent hue of his face, that his voice +had a singular tremor in it, and that his hand shook like an aspen +leaf when he laid his umbrella in the corner of the porch. Without +another word being spoken by either, he came into the schoolroom, +shut the door, and moved close to her. Once inside, the expression +of his face was no more discernible, by reason of the increasing +dusk of evening. + +"I want to speak to you," he then said; "seriously--on a perhaps +unexpected subject, but one which is all the world to me--I don't +know what it may be to you, Miss Day." + +No reply. + +"Fancy, I have come to ask you if you will be my wife?" + +As a person who has been idly amusing himself with rolling a +snowball might start at finding he had set in motion an avalanche, +so did Fancy start at these words from the vicar. And in the dead +silence which followed them, the breathings of the man and of the +woman could be distinctly and separately heard; and there was this +difference between them--his respirations gradually grew quieter and +less rapid after the enunciation hers, from having been low and +regular, increased in quickness and force, till she almost panted. + +"I cannot, I cannot, Mr. Maybold--I cannot! Don't ask me!" she +said. + +"Don't answer in a hurry!" he entreated. "And do listen to me. +This is no sudden feeling on my part. I have loved you for more +than six months! Perhaps my late interest in teaching the children +here has not been so single-minded as it seemed. You will +understand my motive--like me better, perhaps, for honestly telling +you that I have struggled against my emotion continually, because I +have thought that it was not well for me to love you! But I +resolved to struggle no longer; I have examined the feeling; and the +love I bear you is as genuine as that I could bear any woman! I see +your great charm; I respect your natural talents, and the refinement +they have brought into your nature--they are quite enough, and more +than enough for me! They are equal to anything ever required of the +mistress of a quiet parsonage-house--the place in which I shall pass +my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I have watched you, +criticized you even severely, brought my feelings to the light of +judgment, and still have found them rational, and such as any man +might have expected to be inspired with by a woman like you! So +there is nothing hurried, secret, or untoward in my desire to do +this. Fancy, will you marry me?" + +No answer was returned. + +"Don't refuse; don't," he implored. "It would be foolish of you--I +mean cruel! Of course we would not live here, Fancy. I have had +for a long time the offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in +Yorkshire, but I have hitherto refused on account of my mother. +There we would go. Your musical powers shall be still further +developed; you shall have whatever pianoforte you like; you shall +have anything, Fancy, anything to make you happy--pony-carriage, +flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, you have enough in you for +any society, after a few months of travel with me! Will you, Fancy, +marry me?" + +Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against +the window-panes, and then Fancy spoke, in a faint and broken voice. + +"Yes, I will," she said. + +"God bless you, my own!" He advanced quickly, and put his arm out +to embrace her. She drew back hastily. "No no, not now!" she said +in an agitated whisper. "There are things;--but the temptation is, +O, too strong, and I can't resist it I can't tell you now, but I +must tell you! Don't, please, don't come near me now! I want to +think, I can scarcely get myself used to the idea of what I have +promised yet." The next minute she turned to a desk, buried her +face in her hands, and burst into a hysterical fit of weeping. "O, +leave me to myself!" she sobbed; "leave me! O, leave me!" + +"Don't be distressed; don't, dearest!" It was with visible +difficulty that he restrained himself from approaching her. "You +shall tell me at your leisure what it is that grieves you so; I am +happy--beyond all measure happy!--at having your simple promise." + +"And do go and leave me now!" + +"But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you +are yourself again." + +"There then," she said, controlling her emotion, and standing up; "I +am not disturbed now." + +He reluctantly moved towards the door. "Good-bye!" he murmured +tenderly. "I'll come to-morrow about this time." + + + +CHAPTER VII: SECOND THOUGHTS + + + +The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was +to write a long and careful letter to his friend in Yorkshire. +Then, eating a little breakfast, he crossed the meadows in the +direction of Casterbridge, bearing his letter in his pocket, that he +might post it at the town office, and obviate the loss of one day in +its transmission that would have resulted had he left it for the +foot-post through the village. + +It was a foggy morning, and the trees shed in noisy water-drops the +moisture they had collected from the thick air, an acorn +occasionally falling from its cup to the ground, in company with the +drippings. In the meads, sheets of spiders'-web, almost opaque with +wet, hung in folds over the fences, and the falling leaves appeared +in every variety of brown, green, and yellow hue. + +A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was +approaching, then the light footsteps of a man going in the same +direction as himself. On reaching the junction of his path with the +road, the vicar beheld Dick Dewy's open and cheerful face. Dick +lifted his hat, and the vicar came out into the highway that Dick +was pursuing. + +"Good-morning, Dewy. How well you are looking!" said Mr. Maybold. + +"Yes, sir, I am well--quite well! I am going to Casterbridge now, +to get Smart's collar; we left it there Saturday to be repaired." + +"I am going to Casterbridge, so we'll walk together," the vicar +said. Dick gave a hop with one foot to put himself in step with Mr. +Maybold, who proceeded: "I fancy I didn't see you at church +yesterday, Dewy. Or were you behind the pier?" + +"No; I went to Charmley. Poor John Dunford chose me to be one of +his bearers a long time before he died, and yesterday was the +funeral. Of course I couldn't refuse, though I should have liked +particularly to have been at home as 'twas the day of the new +music." + +"Yes, you should have been. The musical portion of the service was +successful--very successful indeed; and what is more to the purpose, +no ill-feeling whatever was evinced by any of the members of the old +choir. They joined in the singing with the greatest good-will." + +"'Twas natural enough that I should want to be there, I suppose," +said Dick, smiling a private smile; "considering who the organ- +player was." + +At this the vicar reddened a little, and said, "Yes, yes," though +not at all comprehending Dick's true meaning, who, as he received no +further reply, continued hesitatingly, and with another smile +denoting his pride as a lover - + + "I suppose you know what I mean, sir? You've heard about me and-- +Miss Day?" + +The red in Maybold's countenance went away: he turned and looked +Dick in the face. + +"No," he said constrainedly, "I've heard nothing whatever about you +and Miss Day." + +"Why, she's my sweetheart, and we are going to be married next +Midsummer. We are keeping it rather close just at present, because +'tis a good many months to wait; but it is her father's wish that we +don't marry before, and of course we must submit. But the time 'ill +soon slip along." + +"Yes, the time will soon slip along--Time glides away every day-- +yes." + +Maybold said these words, but he had no idea of what they were. He +was conscious of a cold and sickly thrill throughout him; and all he +reasoned was this that the young creature whose graces had +intoxicated him into making the most imprudent resolution of his +life, was less an angel than a woman. + +"You see, sir," continued the ingenuous Dick, "'twill be better in +one sense. I shall by that time be the regular manager of a branch +o' father's business, which has very much increased lately, and +business, which we think of starting elsewhere. It has very much +increased lately, and we expect next year to keep a' extra couple of +horses. We've already our eye on one--brown as a berry, neck like a +rainbow, fifteen hands, and not a gray hair in her--offered us at +twenty-five want a crown. And to kip pace with the times I have had +some cards prented and I beg leave to hand you one, sir." + +"Certainly," said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick +offered him. + +"I turn in here by Grey's Bridge," said Dick. "I suppose you go +straight on and up town?" + +"Yes." + +"Good-morning, sir." + +"Good-morning, Dewy." + +Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been +put into his hand, and Dick's footsteps died away towards Durnover +Mill. The vicar's first voluntary action was to read the card + + +DEWY AND SON, +TRANTERS AND HAULIERS, +MELLSTOCK. + +NB.--Furniture, Coals, Potatoes, Live and Dead Stock, removed to any +distance on the shortest notice. + + +Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the +river. He saw--without heeding--how the water came rapidly from +beneath the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself +over a pool in which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among +the long green locks of weed that lay heaving and sinking with their +roots towards the current. At the end of ten minutes spent leaning +thus, he drew from his pocket the letter to his friend, tore it +deliberately into such minute fragments that scarcely two syllables +remained in juxtaposition, and sent the whole handful of shreds +fluttering into the water. Here he watched them eddy, dart, and +turn, as they were carried downwards towards the ocean and gradually +disappeared from his view. Finally he moved off, and pursued his +way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock Vicarage. + +Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his +study and wrote as follows: + + +"DEAR MISS DAY,--The meaning of your words, 'the temptation is too +strong,' of your sadness and your tears, has been brought home to me +by an accident. I know to-day what I did not know yesterday--that +you are not a free woman. + +"Why did you not tell me--why didn't you? Did you suppose I knew? +No. Had I known, my conduct in coming to you as I did would have +been reprehensible. + +"But I don't chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to you--I can't +tell. Fancy, though my opinion of you is assailed and disturbed in +a way which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to +you holds good yet. But will you, in justice to an honest man who +relies upon your word to him, consider whether, under the +circumstances, you can honourably forsake him?--Yours ever +sincerely, + +"ARTHUR MAYBOLD." + + +He rang the bell. "Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this +note to the school at once." + +The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy +was seen to leave the vicarage gate, with the one under his arm, and +the other in his hand. The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, +watching the lad as he descended Church Lane and entered the +waterside path which intervened between that spot and the school. + +Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and +pugilistic frisk had passed between the two, the second boy came on +his way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight. + +The boy came to the door, and a note for Mr. Maybold was brought in. + +He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he +read the subjoined words: + + +"DEAR MR. MAYBOLD,--I have been thinking seriously and sadly through +the whole of the night of the question you put to me last evening +and of my answer. That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right +to give. + +"It is my nature--perhaps all women's--to love refinement of mind +and manners; but even more than this, to be ever fascinated with the +idea of surroundings more elegant and pleasing than those which have +been customary. And you praised me, and praise is life to me. It +was alone my sensations at these things which prompted my reply. +Ambition and vanity they would be called; perhaps they are so. + +"After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to +withdraw the answer I too hastily gave. + +"And one more request. To keep the meeting of last night, and all +that passed between us there, for ever a secret. Were it to become +known, it would utterly blight the happiness of a trusting and +generous man, whom I love still, and shall love always.--Yours +sincerely, + +"FANCY DAY. + + +The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to +Fancy, was a note containing these words only: + +"Tell him everything; it is best. He will forgive you." + + + + +PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION + + + + +CHAPTER I: 'THE KNOT THERE'S NO UNTYING' + + + +The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in +the development of the seasons when country people go to bed among +nearly naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake +next morning among green ones; when the landscape appears +embarrassed with the sudden weight and brilliancy of its leaves; +when the night-jar comes and strikes up for the summer his tune of +one note; when the apple-trees have bloomed, and the roads and +orchard-grass become spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of +the delicate flowers are darkened, and their heads weighed down, by +the throng of honey-bees, which increase their humming till humming +is too mild a term for the all-pervading sound; and when cuckoos, +blackbirds, and sparrows, that have hitherto been merry and +respectful neighbours, become noisy and persistent intimates. + +The exterior of Geoffrey Day's house in Yalbury Wood appeared +exactly as was usual at that season, but a frantic barking of the +dogs at the back told of unwonted movements somewhere within. +Inside the door the eyes beheld a gathering, which was a rarity +indeed for the dwelling of the solitary wood-steward and keeper. + +About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled +attitudes, our old acquaintance, grandfathers James and William, the +tranter, Mr. Penny, two or three children, including Jimmy and +Charley, besides three or four country ladies and gentlemen from a +greater distance who do not require any distinction by name. +Geoffrey was seen and heard stamping about the outhouse and among +the bushes of the garden, attending to details of daily routine +before the proper time arrived for their performance, in order that +they might be off his hands for the day. He appeared with his +shirt-sleeves rolled up; his best new nether garments, in which he +had arrayed himself that morning, being temporarily disguised under +a weekday apron whilst these proceedings were in operation. He +occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to see if his wife's +bees were swarming, ultimately rolling down his shirt-sleeves and +going indoors, talking to tranter Dewy whilst buttoning the +wristbands, to save time; next going upstairs for his best +waistcoat, and coming down again to make another remark whilst +buttoning that, during the time looking fixedly in the tranter's +face as if he were a looking-glass. + +The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every +duplicate piece having been removed, including the clock by Thomas +Wood; Ezekiel Saunders being at last left sole referee in matters of +time. + +Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and +adornments, and answering by short fragments of laughter which had +more fidgetiness than mirth in them, remarks that were made from +time to time by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. Penny, who were assisting her at +the toilet, Mrs. Day having pleaded a queerness in her head as a +reason for shutting herself up in an inner bedroom for the whole +morning. Mrs. Penny appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each side +of her temples, and a back comb stuck upon her crown like a castle +on a steep. + +The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the +last publication of which had been on the Sunday previous. + +"And how did they sound?" Fancy subtly inquired. + +"Very beautiful indeed," said Mrs. Penny. "I never heard any sound +better." + +"But HOW?" + +"O, SO natural and elegant, didn't they, Reuben!" she cried, through +the chinks of the unceiled floor, to the tranter downstairs. + +"What's that?" said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor +above him for an answer. + +"Didn't Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in +church last Sunday?" came downwards again in Mrs. Penny's voice. + +"Ay, that they did, my sonnies!--especially the first time. There +was a terrible whispering piece of work in the congregation, wasn't +there, neighbour Penny?" said the tranter, taking up the thread of +conversation on his own account and, in order to be heard in the +room above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the distance +of three feet from him, or rather less. + +"I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was," said Mr. +Penny, also loudly, to the room above. "And such sorrowful envy on +the maidens' faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!" + +Fancy's lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her +heart palpitated innumerable little tremors of pleasure. "But +perhaps," she said, with assumed indifference, "it was only because +no religion was going on just then?" + +"O, no; nothing to do with that. 'Twas because of your high +standing in the parish. It was just as if they had one and all +caught Dick kissing and coling ye to death, wasn't it, Mrs. Dewy?" + +"Ay; that 'twas." + +"How people will talk about one's doings!" Fancy exclaimed. + +"Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can't blame +other people for singing 'em." + +"Mercy me! how shall I go through it?" said the young lady again, +but merely to those in the bedroom, with a breathing of a kind +between a sigh and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face. + +"O, you'll get through it well enough, child," said Mrs. Dewy +placidly. "The edge of the performance is took off at the calling +home; and when once you get up to the chancel end o' the church, you +feel as saucy as you please. I'm sure I felt as brave as a sodger +all through the deed--though of course I dropped my face and looked +modest, as was becoming to a maid. Mind you do that, Fancy." + +"And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I'm sure," +subjoined Mrs. Penny. "There, you see Penny is such a little small +man, But certainly, I was flurried in the inside o' me. Well, +thinks I, 'tis to be, and here goes! And do you do the same: say, +''Tis to be, and here goes!'" + +"Is there such wonderful virtue in ''Tis to be, and here goes!'" +inquired Fancy. + +"Wonderful! 'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to +churching, if you only let it out with spirit enough." + +"Very well, then," said Fancy, blushing. "'Tis to be, and here +goes!" + +"That's a girl for a husband!" said Mrs. Dewy. + +"I do hope he'll come in time!" continued the bride-elect, inventing +a new cause of affright, now that the other was demolished. + +"'Twould be a thousand pities if he didn't come, now you be so +brave," said Mrs. Penny. + +Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said +downstairs with mischievous loudness--"I've known some would-be +weddings when the men didn't come." + +"They've happened not to come, before now, certainly," said Mr. +Penny, cleaning one of the glasses of his spectacles. + +"O, do hear what they are saying downstairs," whispered Fancy. +"Hush, hush!" + +She listened. + +"They have, haven't they, Geoffrey?" continued grandfather James, as +Geoffrey entered. + +"Have what?" said Geoffrey. + +"The men have been known not to come." + +"That they have," said the keeper. + +"Ay; I've knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through +his not appearing, being tired of the woman. And another case I +knowed was when the man was catched in a man-trap crossing Oaker's +Wood, and the three months had run out before he got well, and the +banns had to be published over again." + +"How horrible!" said Fancy. + +"They only say it on purpose to tease 'ee, my dear," said Mrs. Dewy. + +"'Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been +put to," came again from downstairs. "Ye should hear Clerk Wilkins, +my brother-law, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last +thirty year: sometimes one thing, sometimes another--'tis quite +heart-rending--enough to make your hair stand on end." + +"Those things don't happen very often, I know," said Fancy, with +smouldering uneasiness. + +"Well, really 'tis time Dick was here," said the tranter. + +"Don't keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you +down there!" Fancy broke out, unable to endure any longer. "I am +sure I shall die, or do something, if you do!" + +"Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!" cried Nat +Callcome, the best man, who had just entered, and threw his voice +upward through the chinks of the floor as the others had done. +"'Tis all right; Dick's coming on like a wild feller; he'll be here +in a minute. The hive o' bees his mother gie'd en for his new +garden swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, "I can't afford +to lose a stock o' bees; no, that I can't, though I fain would; and +Fancy wouldn't wish it on any account." So he jist stopped to ting +to 'em and shake 'em." + +"A genuine wise man," said Geoffrey. + +"To be sure, what a day's work we had yesterday!" Mr. Callcome +continued, lowering his voice as if it were not necessary any longer +to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting +a remote corner of his best clean handkerchief for wiping his face. +"To be sure!" + +"Things so heavy, I suppose," said Geoffrey, as if reading through +the chimney-window from the far end of the vista. + +"Ay," said Nat, looking round the room at points from which +furniture had been removed. "And so awkward to carry, too. 'Twas +ath'art and across Dick's garden; in and out Dick's door; up and +down Dick's stairs; round and round Dick's chammers till legs were +worn to stumps: and Dick is so particular, too. And the stores of +victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, 'tis enough for +Noah's ark! I'm sure I never wish to see a choicer half-dozen of +hams than he's got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was +a very pretty drop, indeed;--none could desire a prettier cider." + +"They be for the love and the stalled ox both, Ah, the greedy +martels!" said grandfather James. + +"Well, may-be they be. Surely," says I, "that couple between 'em +have heaped up so much furniture and victuals, that anybody would +think they were going to take hold the big end of married life +first, and begin wi' a grown-up family. Ah, what a bath of heat we +two chaps were in, to be sure, a-getting that furniture in order!" + +"I do so wish the room below was ceiled," said Fancy, as the +dressing went on; "we can hear all they say and do down there." + +"Hark! Who's that?" exclaimed a small pupil-teacher, who also +assisted this morning, to her great delight. She ran half-way down +the stairs, and peeped round the banister. "O, you should, you +should, you should!" she exclaimed, scrambling up to the room again. + +"What?" said Fancy. + +"See the bridesmaids! They've just a come! 'Tis wonderful, really! +'tis wonderful how muslin can be brought to it. There, they don't +look a bit like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o' +theirs that nobody knew they had!" + +"Make 'em come up to me, make 'em come up!" cried Fancy +ecstatically; and the four damsels appointed, namely, Miss Susan +Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy, Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, +surged upstairs, and floated along the passage. + +"I wish Dick would come!" was again the burden of Fancy. + +The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside +the door flew in at the open window, and a masculine voice said, +"Ready, Fancy dearest?" + +"There he is, he is!" cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and +breathing as it were for the first time that morning. + +The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the +direction pointed out, at which motion eight earrings all swung as +one: --not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see +him, but with an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers +of the will of that apotheosised being--the Bride. + +"He looks very taking!" said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who +blushed cream-colour and wore yellow bonnet ribbons. + +Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining +cloth, primrose-coloured waistcoat, hat of the same painful style of +newness, and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, +and hair cut to an unwonted shortness in honour of the occasion. + +"Now, I'll run down," said Fancy, looking at herself over her +shoulder in the glass, and flitting off. + +"O Dick!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you are come! I knew you +would, of course, but I thought, Oh if you shouldn't!" + +"Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I to-day! +Why, what's possessing your little soul? You never used to mind +such things a bit." + +"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself +then!" said Fancy. + +"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, +surveying them all round. + +"Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately +touched Dick and smoothed him down behind his shoulder, as if to +assure herself that he was there in flesh and blood as her own +property. + +"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking +off his hat, sinking into a chair, and turning to the elder members +of the company. + +The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their +opinion nobody could have thought such a thing, whatever it was. + +"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and +seasons!" continued Dick, throwing a comprehensive glance like a net +over the whole auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't +seen such a fine swarm for these ten years." + +"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. +"A' excellent sign." + +"I am glad everything seems so right," said Fancy with a breath of +relief. + +"And so am I," said the four bridesmaids with much sympathy. + +"Well, bees can't be put off," observed the inharmonious grandfather +James. "Marrying a woman is a thing you can do at any moment; but a +swarm o' bees won't come for the asking." + +Dick fanned himself with his hat. "I can't think," he said +thoughtfully, "whatever 'twas I did to offend Mr. Maybold, a man I +like so much too. He rather took to me when he came first, and used +to say he should like to see me married, and that he'd marry me, +whether the young woman I chose lived in his parish or no. I just +hinted to him of it when I put in the banns, but he didn't seem to +take kindly to the notion now, and so I said no more. I wonder how +it was." + +"I wonder!" said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful +eyes of hers--too refined and beautiful for a tranter's wife; but, +perhaps, not too good. + +"Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose," said the tranter. +"Well, my sonnies, there'll he a good strong party looking at us to- +day as we go along." + +"And the body of the church," said Geoffrey, "will be lined with +females, and a row of young fellers' heads, as far down as the eyes, +will be noticed just above the sills of the chancel-winders." + +"Ay, you've been through it twice," said Reuben, "and well mid +know." + +"I can put up with it for once," said Dick, "or twice either, or a +dozen times." + +"O Dick!" said Fancy reproachfully. + +"Why, dear, that's nothing,--only just a bit of a flourish. You be +as nervous as a cat to-day." + +"And then, of course, when 'tis all over," continued the tranter, +"we shall march two and two round the parish." + +"Yes, sure," said Mr. Penny: "two and two: every man hitched up to +his woman, 'a b'lieve." + +"I never can make a show of myself in that way!" said Fancy, looking +at Dick to ascertain if he could. + +"I'm agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!" said Mr. +Richard Dewy heartily. + +"Why, we did when we were married, didn't we, Ann?" said the +tranter; "and so do everybody, my sonnies." + +"And so did we," said Fancy's father. + +"And so did Penny and I," said Mrs. Penny: "I wore my best Bath +clogs, I remember, and Penny was cross because it made me look so +tall." + +"And so did father and mother," said Miss Mercy Onmey. + +"And I mean to, come next Christmas!" said Nat the groomsman +vigorously, and looking towards the person of Miss Vashti Sniff. + +"Respectable people don't nowadays," said Fancy. "Still, since poor +mother did, I will." + +"Ay," resumed the tranter, "'twas on a White Tuesday when I +committed it. Mellstock Club walked the same day, and we new- +married folk went a-gaying round the parish behind 'em. Everybody +used to wear something white at Whitsuntide in them days. My +sonnies, I've got the very white trousers that I wore, at home in +box now, Ha'n't I, Ann?" + +"You had till I cut 'em up for Jimmy," said Mrs. Dewy. + +"And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round +Higher and Lower Mellstock, and call at Viney's, and so work our way +hither again across He'th," said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the +matter in hand. "Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so +is Farmer Kex, and we ought to show ourselves to them." + +"True," said the tranter, "we ought to go round Mellstock to do the +thing well. We shall form a very striking object walking along in +rotation, good-now, neighbours?" + +"That we shall: a proper pretty sight for the nation," said Mrs. +Penny. + +"Hullo!" said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular +human figure standing in the doorway, and wearing a long smock-frock +of pillow-case cut and of snowy whiteness. "Why, Leaf! whatever +dost thou do here?" + +"I've come to know if so be I can come to the wedding--hee-hee!" +said Leaf in a voice of timidity. + +"Now, Leaf," said the tranter reproachfully, "you know we don't want +'ee here to-day: we've got no room for ye, Leaf." + +"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf, fie upon ye for prying!" said old +William. + +"I know I've got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a +clane shirt and smock-frock, I might just call," said Leaf; turning +away disappointed and trembling. + +"Poor feller!" said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. "Suppose we +must let en come? His looks are rather against en, and he is +terrible silly; but 'a have never been in jail, and 'a won't do no +harm." + +Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and +then anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect they would have in +helping his cause. + +"Ay, let en come," said Geoffrey decisively. "Leaf, th'rt welcome, +'st know;" and Leaf accordingly remained. + +They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a +procession in the following order: Fancy and her father, Dick and +Susan Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy +Onmey, and Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and +all appeared in strict wedding attire. Then came the tranter and +Mrs. Dewy, and last of all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;--the tranter +conspicuous by his enormous gloves, size eleven and three-quarters, +which appeared at a distance like boxing gloves bleached, and sat +rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; this hall-mark of +respectability having been set upon himself to-day (by Fancy's +special request) for the first time in his life. + +"The proper way is for the bridesmaids to walk together," suggested +Fancy. + +"What? 'Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my +time!" said Geoffrey, astounded. + +"And in mine!" said the tranter. + +"And in ours!" said Mr. and Mrs. Penny. + +"Never heard o' such a thing as woman and woman!" said old William; +who, with grandfather James and Mrs. Day, was to stay at home. + +"Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!" said Dick, who, +being on the point of securing his right to Fancy, seemed willing to +renounce all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure +The decision was left to Fancy. + +"Well, I think I'd rather have it the way mother had it," she said, +and the couples moved along under the trees, every man to his maid. + +"Ah!" said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, +"I wonder which she thinks most about, Dick or her wedding raiment!" + +"Well, 'tis their nature," said grandfather William. "Remember the +words of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Can a maid forget her ornaments, or +a bride her attire?'" + +Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a +cathedral; now through a hazel copse, matted with primroses and wild +hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they +threaded their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which +dipped at that point directly into the village of Geoffrey Day's +parish; and in the space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself +to be Mrs. Richard Dewy, though, much to her surprise, feeling no +other than Fancy Day still. + +On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid +much chattering and laughter, especially when they came to stiles, +Dick discerned a brown spot far up a turnip field. + +"Why, 'tis Enoch!" he said to Fancy. "I thought I missed him at the +house this morning. How is it he's left you?" + +"He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him +in Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was obliged to get somebody +else for a day or two, and Enoch hasn't had anything to do with the +woods since." + +"We might ask him to call down to-night. Stocks are nothing for +once, considering 'tis our wedding day." The bridal party was +ordered to halt. + +"Eno-o-o-o-ch!" cried Dick at the top of his voice. + +"Y-a-a-a-a-a-as!" said Enoch from the distance. + +"D'ye know who I be-e-e-e-e-e?" + +"No-o-o-o-o-o-o!" + +"Dick Dew-w-w-w-wy!" + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Just a-ma-a-a-a-a-arried!" + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"This is my wife, Fa-a-a-a-a-ancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view +as if she had been a nosegay.) + +"O-h-h-h-h-h!" + +"Will ye come across to the party to-ni-i-i-i-i-i-ight!" + +"Ca-a-a-a-a-an't!" + +"Why n-o-o-o-o-ot?" + +"Don't work for the family no-o-o-o-ow!" + +"Not nice of Master Enoch," said Dick, as they resumed their walk. + +"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; +he's in his morning frame of mind. When he's had a gallon o' cider +or ale, or a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his +manners be as good as anybody's in the kingdom." + + + +CHAPTER II: UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + + +The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's +premises was closed with an ancient tree, horizontally of enormous +extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds +of birds had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes +of rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from year to year; +quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and +countless families of moles and earthworms had crept about its +roots. Beneath and beyond its shade spread a carefully-tended +grass-plot, its purpose being to supply a healthy exercise-ground +for young chickens and pheasants; the hens, their mothers, being +enclosed in coops placed upon the same green flooring. + +All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon +advanced, the guests gathered on the spot, where music, dancing, and +the singing of songs went forward with great spirit throughout the +evening. The propriety of every one was intense by reason of the +influence of Fancy, who, as an additional precaution in this +direction, had strictly charged her father and the tranter to +carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in their conversation, on +the plea that those ancient words sounded so very humiliating to +persons of newer taste; also that they were never to be seen drawing +the back of the hand across the mouth after drinking--a local +English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to be +decidedly dying out among the better classes of society. + +In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough +knowledge of the tambourine was invited from the village of Tantrum +Clangley,--a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants +as performers on instruments of percussion. These important members +of the assembly were relegated to a height of two or three feet from +the ground, upon a temporary erection of planks supported by +barrels. Whilst the dancing progressed the older persons sat in a +group under the trunk of the tree,--the space being allotted to them +somewhat grudgingly by the young ones, who were greedy of +pirouetting room,--and fortified by a table against the heels of the +dancers. Here the gaffers and gammers, whose dancing days were +over, told stories of great impressiveness, and at intervals +surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same retreat, +as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval engagement in +the bay beyond; returning again to their tales when the pause was +over. Those of the whirling throng, who, during the rests between +each figure, turned their eyes in the direction of these seated +ones, were only able to discover, on account of the music and +bustle, that a very striking circumstance was in course of +narration--denoted by an emphatic sweep of the hand, snapping of the +fingers, close of the lips, and fixed look into the centre of the +listener's eye for the space of a quarter of a minute, which raised +in that listener such a reciprocating working of face as to +sometimes make the distant dancers half wish to know what such an +interesting tale could refer to. + +Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was +obtainable out of six hours' experience as a wife, in order that the +contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried +young women present might be duly impressed upon the company: +occasionally stealing glances of admiration at her left hand, but +this quite privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the +matter was intended to show that, though she undoubtedly occupied +the most wondrous position in the eyes of the world that had ever +been attained, she was almost unconscious of the circumstance, and +that the somewhat prominent position in which that wonderfully- +emblazoned left hand was continually found to be placed, when +handing cups and saucers, knives, forks, and glasses, was quite the +result of accident. As to wishing to excite envy in the bosoms of +her maiden companions, by the exhibition of the shining ring, every +one was to know it was quite foreign to the dignity of such an +experienced married woman. Dick's imagination in the meantime was +far less capable of drawing so much wontedness from his new +condition. He had been for two or three hours trying to feel +himself merely a newly-married man, but had been able to get no +further in the attempt than to realize that he was Dick Dewy, the +tranter's son, at a party given by Lord Wessex's head man-in-charge, +on the outlying Yalbury estate, dancing and chatting with Fancy Day. + +Five country dances, including 'Haste to the Wedding,' two reels, +and three fragments of horn-pipes, brought them to the time for +supper, which, on account of the dampness of the grass from the +immaturity of the summer season, was spread indoors. At the +conclusion of the meal Dick went out to put the horse in; and Fancy, +with the elder half of the four bridesmaids, retired upstairs to +dress for the journey to Dick's new cottage near Mellstock. + +"How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?" Dick inquired +at the foot of the staircase. Being now a man of business and +married, he was strong on the importance of time, and doubled the +emphasis of his words in conversing, and added vigour to his nods. + +"Only a minute." + +"How long is that?" + +"Well, dear, five." + +"Ah, sonnies!" said the tranter, as Dick retired, "'tis a talent of +the female race that low numbers should stand for high, more +especially in matters of waiting, matters of age, and matters of +money." + +"True, true, upon my body," said Geoffrey. + +"Ye spak with feeling, Geoffrey, seemingly." + +"Anybody that d'know my experience might guess that." + +"What's she doing now, Geoffrey?" + +"Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the +second-best chainey--a thing that's only done once a year. 'If +there's work to be done I must do it,' says she, 'wedding or no.'" + +"'Tis my belief she's a very good woman at bottom." + +"She's terrible deep, then." + +Mrs. Penny turned round. "Well, 'tis humps and hollers with the +best of us; but still and for all that, Dick and Fancy stand as fair +a chance of having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the +land." + +"Ay, there's no gainsaying it." + +Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. +"Happy, yes," she said. "'Tis always so when a couple is so exactly +in tune with one another as Dick and she." + +"When they be'n't too poor to have time to sing," said grandfather +James. + +"I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes," said the tranter: +"when the oldest daughter's boots be only a size less than her +mother's, and the rest o' the flock close behind her. A sharp time +for a man that, my sonnies; a very sharp time! Chanticleer's comb +is a-cut then, 'a believe." + +"That's about the form o't," said Mr. Penny. "That'll put the stuns +upon a man, when you must measure mother and daughter's lasts to +tell 'em apart." + +"You've no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a close-coming flock," +said Mrs. Dewy; "for ours was a straggling lot enough, God knows!" + +"I d'know it, I d'know it," said the tranter. "You be a well-enough +woman, Ann." + +Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back +again without smiling. + +"And if they come together, they go together," said Mrs. Penny, +whose family had been the reverse of the tranter's; "and a little +money will make either fate tolerable. And money can be made by our +young couple, I know." + +"Yes, that it can!" said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had +hitherto humbly admired the proceedings from a corner. "It can be +done--all that's wanted is a few pounds to begin with. That's all! +I know a story about it!" + +"Let's hear thy story, Leaf;" said the tranter. "I never knew you +were clever enough to tell a story. Silence, all of ye! Mr. Leaf +will tell a story." + +"Tell your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William in the tone +of a schoolmaster. + +"Once," said the delighted Leaf; in an uncertain voice, "there was a +man who lived in a house! Well, this man went thinking and thinking +night and day. At last, he said to himself; as I might, 'If I had +only ten pound, I'd make a fortune.' At last by hook or by crook, +behold he got the ten pounds!" + +"Only think of that!" said Nat Callcome satirically. + +"Silence!" said the tranter. + +"Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little +time he made that ten pounds twenty. Then a little time after that +he doubled it, and made it forty. Well, he went on, and a good +while after that he made it eighty, and on to a hundred. Well, by- +and-by he made it two hundred! Well, you'd never believe it, but-- +he went on and made it four hundred! He went on, and what did he +do? Why, he made it eight hundred! Yes, he did," continued Leaf; +in the highest pitch of excitement, bringing down his fist upon his +knee with such force that he quivered with the pain; "yes, and he +went on and made it A THOUSAND!" + +"Hear, hear!" said the tranter. "Better than the history of +England, my sonnies!" + +"Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William; +and then Leaf gradually sank into nothingness again. + +Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elder-wine, Dick and his +bride took their departure, side by side in the excellent new +spring-cart which the young tranter now possessed. The moon was +just over the full, rendering any light from lamps or their own +beauties quite unnecessary to the pair. They drove slowly along +Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed between two copses. Dick was +talking to his companion. + +"Fancy," he said, "why we are so happy is because there is such full +confidence between us. Ever since that time you confessed to that +little flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no +flirtation at all), I have thought how artless and good you must be +to tell me o' such a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about +it as you were. It has won me to tell you my every deed and word +since then. We'll have no secrets from each other, darling, will we +ever?--no secret at all." + +"None from to-day," said Fancy. "Hark! what's that?" + +From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, +musical, and liquid voice - + +"Tippiwit! swe-e-et! ki-ki-ki! Come hither, come hither, come +hither!" + +"O, 'tis the nightingale," murmured she, and thought of a secret she +would never tell. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less +questionable. + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Under the Greenwood Tree diff --git a/old/ungwt11.zip b/old/ungwt11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d874a9d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ungwt11.zip |