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diff --git a/3047-0.txt b/3047-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edf848f --- /dev/null +++ b/3047-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8862 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life’s Little Ironies, 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: Life’s Little Ironies +A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters + +Author: Thomas Hardy + +Release Date: January, 2002 [eBook #3047] +[Most recently updated: October 3, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES *** + + + + +Life’s Little Ironies + +a set of tales +with some colloquial sketches +entitled +A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS + +by Thomas Hardy + +with a map of wessex + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED +ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON +1920 + +COPYRIGHT + +_First Collected Edition_ 1894. _New Edition and reprints_ 1896-1900 +_First published by Macmillan & Co._, _Crown_ 8_ov_, 1903. _Reprinted_ +1910, 1915 +_Pockets Edition_ 1907, 1910, 1913, 1916, 1919 (_twice_), 1920 +_Wessex Edition_ 1912 + + + + +Contents + + The Son’s Veto + For Conscience’ Sake + A Tragedy of Two Ambitions + On the Western Circuit + To Please his Wife + The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion + The Fidler of the Reels + A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four + A Few Crusted Characters + + + + +THE SON’S VETO + + +CHAPTER I + +To the eyes of a man viewing it from behind, the nut-brown hair was a +wonder and a mystery. Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its +tuft of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled +like the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, +example of ingenious art. One could understand such weavings and +coilings being wrought to last intact for a year, or even a calendar +month; but that they should be all demolished regularly at bedtime, +after a single day of permanence, seemed a reckless waste of successful +fabrication. + +And she had done it all herself, poor thing. She had no maid, and it +was almost the only accomplishment she could boast of. Hence the +unstinted pains. + +She was a young invalid lady—not so very much of an invalid—sitting in +a wheeled chair, which had been pulled up in the front part of a green +enclosure, close to a bandstand, where a concert was going on, during a +warm June afternoon. It had place in one of the minor parks or private +gardens that are to be found in the suburbs of London, and was the +effort of a local association to raise money for some charity. There +are worlds within worlds in the great city, and though nobody outside +the immediate district had ever heard of the charity, or the band, or +the garden, the enclosure was filled with an interested audience +sufficiently informed on all these. + +As the strains proceeded many of the listeners observed the chaired +lady, whose back hair, by reason of her prominent position, so +challenged inspection. Her face was not easily discernible, but the +aforesaid cunning tress-weavings, the white ear and poll, and the curve +of a cheek which was neither flaccid nor sallow, were signals that led +to the expectation of good beauty in front. Such expectations are not +infrequently disappointed as soon as the disclosure comes; and in the +present case, when the lady, by a turn of the head, at length revealed +herself, she was not so handsome as the people behind her had supposed, +and even hoped—they did not know why. + +For one thing (alas! the commonness of this complaint), she was less +young than they had fancied her to be. Yet attractive her face +unquestionably was, and not at all sickly. The revelation of its +details came each time she turned to talk to a boy of twelve or +thirteen who stood beside her, and the shape of whose hat and jacket +implied that he belonged to a well-known public school. The immediate +bystanders could hear that he called her ‘Mother.’ + +When the end of the recital was reached, and the audience withdrew, +many chose to find their way out by passing at her elbow. Almost all +turned their heads to take a full and near look at the interesting +woman, who remained stationary in the chair till the way should be +clear enough for her to be wheeled out without obstruction. As if she +expected their glances, and did not mind gratifying their curiosity, +she met the eyes of several of her observers by lifting her own, +showing these to be soft, brown, and affectionate orbs, a little +plaintive in their regard. + +She was conducted out of the gardens, and passed along the pavement +till she disappeared from view, the schoolboy walking beside her. To +inquiries made by some persons who watched her away, the answer came +that she was the second wife of the incumbent of a neighbouring parish, +and that she was lame. She was generally believed to be a woman with a +story—an innocent one, but a story of some sort or other. + +In conversing with her on their way home the boy who walked at her +elbow said that he hoped his father had not missed them. + +‘He have been so comfortable these last few hours that I am sure he +cannot have missed us,’ she replied. + +‘_Has_, dear mother—not _have_!’ exclaimed the public-school boy, with +an impatient fastidiousness that was almost harsh. ‘Surely you know +that by this time!’ + +His mother hastily adopted the correction, and did not resent his +making it, or retaliate, as she might well have done, by bidding him to +wipe that crumby mouth of his, whose condition had been caused by +surreptitious attempts to eat a piece of cake without taking it out of +the pocket wherein it lay concealed. After this the pretty woman and +the boy went onward in silence. + +That question of grammar bore upon her history, and she fell into +reverie, of a somewhat sad kind to all appearance. It might have been +assumed that she was wondering if she had done wisely in shaping her +life as she had shaped it, to bring out such a result as this. + +In a remote nook in North Wessex, forty miles from London, near the +thriving county-town of Aldbrickham, there stood a pretty village with +its church and parsonage, which she knew well enough, but her son had +never seen. It was her native village, Gaymead, and the first event +bearing upon her present situation had occurred at that place when she +was only a girl of nineteen. + +How well she remembered it, that first act in her little tragi-comedy, +the death of her reverend husband’s first wife. It happened on a spring +evening, and she who now and for many years had filled that first +wife’s place was then parlour-maid in the parson’s house. + +When everything had been done that could be done, and the death was +announced, she had gone out in the dusk to visit her parents, who were +living in the same village, to tell them the sad news. As she opened +the white swing-gate and looked towards the trees which rose westward, +shutting out the pale light of the evening sky, she discerned, without +much surprise, the figure of a man standing in the hedge, though she +roguishly exclaimed as a matter of form, ‘Oh, Sam, how you frightened +me!’ + +He was a young gardener of her acquaintance. She told him the +particulars of the late event, and they stood silent, these two young +people, in that elevated, calmly philosophic mind which is engendered +when a tragedy has happened close at hand, and has not happened to the +philosophers themselves. But it had its bearing upon their relations. + +‘And will you stay on now at the Vicarage, just the same?’ asked he. + +She had hardly thought of that. ‘Oh, yes—I suppose!’ she said. +‘Everything will be just as usual, I imagine?’ + +He walked beside her towards her mother’s. Presently his arm stole +round her waist. She gently removed it; but he placed it there again, +and she yielded the point. ‘You see, dear Sophy, you don’t know that +you’ll stay on; you may want a home; and I shall be ready to offer one +some day, though I may not be ready just yet. + +‘Why, Sam, how can you be so fast! I’ve never even said I liked ’ee; +and it is all your own doing, coming after me!’ + +‘Still, it is nonsense to say I am not to have a try at you like the +rest.’ He stooped to kiss her a farewell, for they had reached her +mother’s door. + +‘No, Sam; you sha’n’t!’ she cried, putting her hand over his mouth. +‘You ought to be more serious on such a night as this.’ And she bade +him adieu without allowing him to kiss her or to come indoors. + +The vicar just left a widower was at this time a man about forty years +of age, of good family, and childless. He had led a secluded existence +in this college living, partly because there were no resident +landowners; and his loss now intensified his habit of withdrawal from +outward observation. He was still less seen than heretofore, kept +himself still less in time with the rhythm and racket of the movements +called progress in the world without. For many months after his wife’s +decease the economy of his household remained as before; the cook, the +housemaid, the parlour-maid, and the man out-of-doors performed their +duties or left them undone, just as Nature prompted them—the vicar knew +not which. It was then represented to him that his servants seemed to +have nothing to do in his small family of one. He was struck with the +truth of this representation, and decided to cut down his +establishment. But he was forestalled by Sophy, the parlour-maid, who +said one evening that she wished to leave him. + +‘And why?’ said the parson. + +‘Sam Hobson has asked me to marry him, sir.’ + +‘Well—do you want to marry?’ + +‘Not much. But it would be a home for me. And we have heard that one of +us will have to leave.’ + +A day or two after she said: ‘I don’t want to leave just yet, sir, if +you don’t wish it. Sam and I have quarrelled.’ + +He looked up at her. He had hardly ever observed her before, though he +had been frequently conscious of her soft presence in the room. What a +kitten-like, flexuous, tender creature she was! She was the only one of +the servants with whom he came into immediate and continuous relation. +What should he do if Sophy were gone? + +Sophy did not go, but one of the others did, and things went on quietly +again. + +When Mr. Twycott, the vicar, was ill, Sophy brought up his meals to +him, and she had no sooner left the room one day than he heard a noise +on the stairs. She had slipped down with the tray, and so twisted her +foot that she could not stand. The village surgeon was called in; the +vicar got better, but Sophy was incapacitated for a long time; and she +was informed that she must never again walk much or engage in any +occupation which required her to stand long on her feet. As soon as she +was comparatively well she spoke to him alone. Since she was forbidden +to walk and bustle about, and, indeed, could not do so, it became her +duty to leave. She could very well work at something sitting down, and +she had an aunt a seamstress. + +The parson had been very greatly moved by what she had suffered on his +account, and he exclaimed, ‘No, Sophy; lame or not lame, I cannot let +you go. You must never leave me again!’ + +He came close to her, and, though she could never exactly tell how it +happened, she became conscious of his lips upon her cheek. He then +asked her to marry him. Sophy did not exactly love him, but she had a +respect for him which almost amounted to veneration. Even if she had +wished to get away from him she hardly dared refuse a personage so +reverend and august in her eyes, and she assented forthwith to be his +wife. + +Thus it happened that one fine morning, when the doors of the church +were naturally open for ventilation, and the singing birds fluttered in +and alighted on the tie-beams of the roof, there was a marriage-service +at the communion-rails, which hardly a soul knew of. The parson and a +neighbouring curate had entered at one door, and Sophy at another, +followed by two necessary persons, whereupon in a short time there +emerged a newly-made husband and wife. + +Mr. Twycott knew perfectly well that he had committed social suicide by +this step, despite Sophy’s spotless character, and he had taken his +measures accordingly. An exchange of livings had been arranged with an +acquaintance who was incumbent of a church in the south of London, and +as soon as possible the couple removed thither, abandoning their pretty +country home, with trees and shrubs and glebe, for a narrow, dusty +house in a long, straight street, and their fine peal of bells for the +wretchedest one-tongued clangour that ever tortured mortal ears. It was +all on her account. They were, however, away from every one who had +known her former position; and also under less observation from without +than they would have had to put up with in any country parish. + +Sophy the woman was as charming a partner as a man could possess, +though Sophy the lady had her deficiencies. She showed a natural +aptitude for little domestic refinements, so far as related to things +and manners; but in what is called culture she was less intuitive. She +had now been married more than fourteen years, and her husband had +taken much trouble with her education; but she still held confused +ideas on the use of ‘was’ and ‘were,’ which did not beget a respect for +her among the few acquaintances she made. Her great grief in this +relation was that her only child, on whose education no expense had +been and would be spared, was now old enough to perceive these +deficiencies in his mother, and not only to see them but to feel +irritated at their existence. + +Thus she lived on in the city, and wasted hours in braiding her +beautiful hair, till her once apple cheeks waned to pink of the very +faintest. Her foot had never regained its natural strength after the +accident, and she was mostly obliged to avoid walking altogether. Her +husband had grown to like London for its freedom and its domestic +privacy; but he was twenty years his Sophy’s senior, and had latterly +been seized with a serious illness. On this day, however, he had seemed +to be well enough to justify her accompanying her son Randolph to the +concert. + +CHAPTER II + +The next time we get a glimpse of her is when she appears in the +mournful attire of a widow. + +Mr. Twycott had never rallied, and now lay in a well-packed cemetery to +the south of the great city, where, if all the dead it contained had +stood erect and alive, not one would have known him or recognized his +name. The boy had dutifully followed him to the grave, and was now +again at school. + +Throughout these changes Sophy had been treated like the child she was +in nature though not in years. She was left with no control over +anything that had been her husband’s beyond her modest personal income. +In his anxiety lest her inexperience should be overreached he had +safeguarded with trustees all he possibly could. The completion of the +boy’s course at the public school, to be followed in due time by Oxford +and ordination, had been all previsioned and arranged, and she really +had nothing to occupy her in the world but to eat and drink, and make a +business of indolence, and go on weaving and coiling the nut-brown +hair, merely keeping a home open for the son whenever he came to her +during vacations. + +Foreseeing his probable decease long years before her, her husband in +his lifetime had purchased for her use a semi-detached villa in the +same long, straight road whereon the church and parsonage faced, which +was to be hers as long as she chose to live in it. Here she now +resided, looking out upon the fragment of lawn in front, and through +the railings at the ever-flowing traffic; or, bending forward over the +window-sill on the first floor, stretching her eyes far up and down the +vista of sooty trees, hazy air, and drab house-façades, along which +echoed the noises common to a suburban main thoroughfare. + +Somehow, her boy, with his aristocratic school-knowledge, his grammars, +and his aversions, was losing those wide infantine sympathies, +extending as far as to the sun and moon themselves, with which he, like +other children, had been born, and which his mother, a child of nature +herself, had loved in him; he was reducing their compass to a +population of a few thousand wealthy and titled people, the mere veneer +of a thousand million or so of others who did not interest him at all. +He drifted further and further away from her. Sophy’s _milieu_ being a +suburb of minor tradesmen and under-clerks, and her almost only +companions the two servants of her own house, it was not surprising +that after her husband’s death she soon lost the little artificial +tastes she had acquired from him, and became—in her son’s eyes—a mother +whose mistakes and origin it was his painful lot as a gentleman to +blush for. As yet he was far from being man enough—if he ever would +be—to rate these sins of hers at their true infinitesimal value beside +the yearning fondness that welled up and remained penned in her heart +till it should be more fully accepted by him, or by some other person +or thing. If he had lived at home with her he would have had all of it; +but he seemed to require so very little in present circumstances, and +it remained stored. + +Her life became insupportably dreary; she could not take walks, and had +no interest in going for drives, or, indeed, in travelling anywhere. +Nearly two years passed without an event, and still she looked on that +suburban road, thinking of the village in which she had been born, and +whither she would have gone back—O how gladly!—even to work in the +fields. + +Taking no exercise, she often could not sleep, and would rise in the +night or early morning and look out upon the then vacant thoroughfare, +where the lamps stood like sentinels waiting for some procession to go +by. An approximation to such a procession was indeed made early every +morning about one o’clock, when the country vehicles passed up with +loads of vegetables for Covent Garden market. She often saw them +creeping along at this silent and dusky hour—waggon after waggon, +bearing green bastions of cabbages nodding to their fall, yet never +falling, walls of baskets enclosing masses of beans and peas, pyramids +of snow-white turnips, swaying howdahs of mixed produce—creeping along +behind aged night-horses, who seemed ever patiently wondering between +their hollow coughs why they had always to work at that still hour when +all other sentient creatures were privileged to rest. Wrapped in a +cloak, it was soothing to watch and sympathize with them when +depression and nervousness hindered sleep, and to see how the fresh +green-stuff brightened to life as it came opposite the lamp, and how +the sweating animals steamed and shone with their miles of travel. + +They had an interest, almost a charm, for Sophy, these semirural people +and vehicles moving in an urban atmosphere, leading a life quite +distinct from that of the daytime toilers on the same road. One morning +a man who accompanied a waggon-load of potatoes gazed rather hard at +the house-fronts as he passed, and with a curious emotion she thought +his form was familiar to her. She looked out for him again. His being +an old-fashioned conveyance, with a yellow front, it was easily +recognizable, and on the third night after she saw it a second time. +The man alongside was, as she had fancied, Sam Hobson, formerly +gardener at Gaymead, who would at one time have married her. + +She had occasionally thought of him, and wondered if life in a cottage +with him would not have been a happier lot than the life she had +accepted. She had not thought of him passionately, but her now dismal +situation lent an interest to his resurrection—a tender interest which +it is impossible to exaggerate. She went back to bed, and began +thinking. When did these market-gardeners, who travelled up to town so +regularly at one or two in the morning, come back? She dimly +recollected seeing their empty waggons, hardly noticeable amid the +ordinary day-traffic, passing down at some hour before noon. + +It was only April, but that morning, after breakfast, she had the +window opened, and sat looking out, the feeble sun shining full upon +her. She affected to sew, but her eyes never left the street. Between +ten and eleven the desired waggon, now unladen, reappeared on its +return journey. But Sam was not looking round him then, and drove on in +a reverie. + +‘Sam!’ cried she. + +Turning with a start, his face lighted up. He called to him a little +boy to hold the horse, alighted, and came and stood under her window. + +‘I can’t come down easily, Sam, or I would!’ she said. ‘Did you know I +lived here?’ + +‘Well, Mrs. Twycott, I knew you lived along here somewhere. I have +often looked out for ’ee.’ + +He briefly explained his own presence on the scene. He had long since +given up his gardening in the village near Aldbrickham, and was now +manager at a market-gardener’s on the south side of London, it being +part of his duty to go up to Covent Garden with waggon-loads of produce +two or three times a week. In answer to her curious inquiry, he +admitted that he had come to this particular district because he had +seen in the Aldbrickham paper, a year or two before, the announcement +of the death in South London of the aforetime vicar of Gaymead, which +had revived an interest in her dwelling-place that he could not +extinguish, leading him to hover about the locality till his present +post had been secured. + +They spoke of their native village in dear old North Wessex, the spots +in which they had played together as children. She tried to feel that +she was a dignified personage now, that she must not be too +confidential with Sam. But she could not keep it up, and the tears +hanging in her eyes were indicated in her voice. + +‘You are not happy, Mrs. Twycott, I’m afraid?’ he said. + +‘O, of course not! I lost my husband only the year before last.’ + +‘Ah! I meant in another way. You’d like to be home again?’ + +‘This is my home—for life. The house belongs to me. But I +understand’—She let it out then. ‘Yes, Sam. I long for home—_our_ home! +I _should_ like to be there, and never leave it, and die there.’ But +she remembered herself. ‘That’s only a momentary feeling. I have a son, +you know, a dear boy. He’s at school now.’ + +‘Somewhere handy, I suppose? I see there’s lots on ’em along this +road.’ + +‘O no! Not in one of these wretched holes! At a public school—one of +the most distinguished in England.’ + +‘Chok’ it all! of course! I forget, ma’am, that you’ve been a lady for +so many years.’ + +‘No, I am not a lady,’ she said sadly. ‘I never shall be. But he’s a +gentleman, and that—makes it—O how difficult for me!’ + +CHAPTER III + +The acquaintance thus oddly reopened proceeded apace. She often looked +out to get a few words with him, by night or by day. Her sorrow was +that she could not accompany her one old friend on foot a little way, +and talk more freely than she could do while he paused before the +house. One night, at the beginning of June, when she was again on the +watch after an absence of some days from the window, he entered the +gate and said softly, ‘Now, wouldn’t some air do you good? I’ve only +half a load this morning. Why not ride up to Covent Garden with me? +There’s a nice seat on the cabbages, where I’ve spread a sack. You can +be home again in a cab before anybody is up.’ + +She refused at first, and then, trembling with excitement, hastily +finished her dressing, and wrapped herself up in cloak and veil, +afterwards sidling downstairs by the aid of the handrail, in a way she +could adopt on an emergency. When she had opened the door she found Sam +on the step, and he lifted her bodily on his strong arm across the +little forecourt into his vehicle. Not a soul was visible or audible in +the infinite length of the straight, flat highway, with its +ever-waiting lamps converging to points in each direction. The air was +fresh as country air at this hour, and the stars shone, except to the +north-eastward, where there was a whitish light—the dawn. Sam carefully +placed her in the seat, and drove on. + +They talked as they had talked in old days, Sam pulling himself up now +and then, when he thought himself too familiar. More than once she said +with misgiving that she wondered if she ought to have indulged in the +freak. ‘But I am so lonely in my house,’ she added, ‘and this makes me +so happy!’ + +‘You must come again, dear Mrs. Twycott. There is no time o’ day for +taking the air like this.’ + +It grew lighter and lighter. The sparrows became busy in the streets, +and the city waxed denser around them. When they approached the river +it was day, and on the bridge they beheld the full blaze of morning +sunlight in the direction of St. Paul’s, the river glistening towards +it, and not a craft stirring. + +Near Covent Garden he put her into a cab, and they parted, looking into +each other’s faces like the very old friends they were. She reached +home without adventure, limped to the door, and let herself in with her +latch-key unseen. + +The air and Sam’s presence had revived her: her cheeks were quite +pink—almost beautiful. She had something to live for in addition to her +son. A woman of pure instincts, she knew there had been nothing really +wrong in the journey, but supposed it conventionally to be very wrong +indeed. + +Soon, however, she gave way to the temptation of going with him again, +and on this occasion their conversation was distinctly tender, and Sam +said he never should forget her, notwithstanding that she had served +him rather badly at one time. After much hesitation he told her of a +plan it was in his power to carry out, and one he should like to take +in hand, since he did not care for London work: it was to set up as a +master greengrocer down at Aldbrickham, the county-town of their native +place. He knew of an opening—a shop kept by aged people who wished to +retire. + +‘And why don’t you do it, then, Sam?’ she asked with a slight +heartsinking. + +‘Because I’m not sure if—you’d join me. I know you wouldn’t—couldn’t! +Such a lady as ye’ve been so long, you couldn’t be a wife to a man like +me.’ + +‘I hardly suppose I could!’ she assented, also frightened at the idea. + +‘If you could,’ he said eagerly, ‘you’d on’y have to sit in the back +parlour and look through the glass partition when I was away +sometimes—just to keep an eye on things. The lameness wouldn’t hinder +that . . . I’d keep you as genteel as ever I could, dear Sophy—if I +might think of it!’ he pleaded. + +‘Sam, I’ll be frank,’ she said, putting her hand on his. ‘If it were +only myself I would do it, and gladly, though everything I possess +would be lost to me by marrying again.’ + +‘I don’t mind that! It’s more independent.’ + +‘That’s good of you, dear, dear Sam. But there’s something else. I have +a son . . . I almost fancy when I am miserable sometimes that he is not +really mine, but one I hold in trust for my late husband. He seems to +belong so little to me personally, so entirely to his dead father. He +is so much educated and I so little that I do not feel dignified enough +to be his mother . . . Well, he would have to be told.’ + +‘Yes. Unquestionably.’ Sam saw her thought and her fear. ‘Still, you +can do as you like, Sophy—Mrs. Twycott,’ he added. ‘It is not you who +are the child, but he.’ + +‘Ah, you don’t know! Sam, if I could, I would marry you, some day. But +you must wait a while, and let me think.’ + +It was enough for him, and he was blithe at their parting. Not so she. +To tell Randolph seemed impossible. She could wait till he had gone up +to Oxford, when what she did would affect his life but little. But +would he ever tolerate the idea? And if not, could she defy him? + +She had not told him a word when the yearly cricket-match came on at +Lord’s between the public schools, though Sam had already gone back to +Aldbrickham. Mrs. Twycott felt stronger than usual: she went to the +match with Randolph, and was able to leave her chair and walk about +occasionally. The bright idea occurred to her that she could casually +broach the subject while moving round among the spectators, when the +boy’s spirits were high with interest in the game, and he would weigh +domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the day’s victory. +They promenaded under the lurid July sun, this pair, so wide apart, yet +so near, and Sophy saw the large proportion of boys like her own, in +their broad white collars and dwarf hats, and all around the rows of +great coaches under which was jumbled the _débris_ of luxurious +luncheons; bones, pie-crusts, champagne-bottles, glasses, plates, +napkins, and the family silver; while on the coaches sat the proud +fathers and mothers; but never a poor mother like her. If Randolph had +not appertained to these, had not centred all his interests in them, +had not cared exclusively for the class they belonged to, how happy +would things have been! A great huzza at some small performance with +the bat burst from the multitude of relatives, and Randolph jumped +wildly into the air to see what had happened. Sophy fetched up the +sentence that had been already shaped; but she could not get it out. +The occasion was, perhaps, an inopportune one. The contrast between her +story and the display of fashion to which Randolph had grown to regard +himself as akin would be fatal. She awaited a better time. + +It was on an evening when they were alone in their plain suburban +residence, where life was not blue but brown, that she ultimately broke +silence, qualifying her announcement of a probable second marriage by +assuring him that it would not take place for a long time to come, when +he would be living quite independently of her. + +The boy thought the idea a very reasonable one, and asked if she had +chosen anybody? She hesitated; and he seemed to have a misgiving. He +hoped his stepfather would be a gentleman? he said. + +‘Not what you call a gentleman,’ she answered timidly. ‘He’ll be much +as I was before I knew your father;’ and by degrees she acquainted him +with the whole. The youth’s face remained fixed for a moment; then he +flushed, leant on the table, and burst into passionate tears. + +His mother went up to him, kissed all of his face that she could get +at, and patted his back as if he were still the baby he once had been, +crying herself the while. When he had somewhat recovered from his +paroxysm he went hastily to his own room and fastened the door. + +Parleyings were attempted through the keyhole, outside which she waited +and listened. It was long before he would reply, and when he did it was +to say sternly at her from within: ‘I am ashamed of you! It will ruin +me! A miserable boor! a churl! a clown! It will degrade me in the eyes +of all the gentlemen of England!’ + +‘Say no more—perhaps I am wrong! I will struggle against it!’ she cried +miserably. + +Before Randolph left her that summer a letter arrived from Sam to +inform her that he had been unexpectedly fortunate in obtaining the +shop. He was in possession; it was the largest in the town, combining +fruit with vegetables, and he thought it would form a home worthy even +of her some day. Might he not run up to town to see her? + +She met him by stealth, and said he must still wait for her final +answer. The autumn dragged on, and when Randolph was home at Christmas +for the holidays she broached the matter again. But the young gentleman +was inexorable. + +It was dropped for months; renewed again; abandoned under his +repugnance; again attempted; and thus the gentle creature reasoned and +pleaded till four or five long years had passed. Then the faithful Sam +revived his suit with some peremptoriness. Sophy’s son, now an +undergraduate, was down from Oxford one Easter, when she again opened +the subject. As soon as he was ordained, she argued, he would have a +home of his own, wherein she, with her bad grammar and her ignorance, +would be an encumbrance to him. Better obliterate her as much as +possible. + +He showed a more manly anger now, but would not agree. She on her side +was more persistent, and he had doubts whether she could be trusted in +his absence. But by indignation and contempt for her taste he +completely maintained his ascendency; and finally taking her before a +little cross and altar that he had erected in his bedroom for his +private devotions, there bade her kneel, and swear that she would not +wed Samuel Hobson without his consent. ‘I owe this to my father!’ he +said. + +The poor woman swore, thinking he would soften as soon as he was +ordained and in full swing of clerical work. But he did not. His +education had by this time sufficiently ousted his humanity to keep him +quite firm; though his mother might have led an idyllic life with her +faithful fruiterer and greengrocer, and nobody have been anything the +worse in the world. + +Her lameness became more confirmed as time went on, and she seldom or +never left the house in the long southern thoroughfare, where she +seemed to be pining her heart away. ‘Why mayn’t I say to Sam that I’ll +marry him? Why mayn’t I?’ she would murmur plaintively to herself when +nobody was near. + +Some four years after this date a middle-aged man was standing at the +door of the largest fruiterer’s shop in Aldbrickham. He was the +proprietor, but to-day, instead of his usual business attire, he wore a +neat suit of black; and his window was partly shuttered. From the +railway-station a funeral procession was seen approaching: it passed +his door and went out of the town towards the village of Gaymead. The +man, whose eyes were wet, held his hat in his hand as the vehicles +moved by; while from the mourning coach a young smooth-shaven priest in +a high waistcoat looked black as a cloud at the shop keeper standing +there. + +_December_ 1891. + + + + +FOR CONSCIENCE’ SAKE + + +CHAPTER I + +Whether the utilitarian or the intuitive theory of the moral sense be +upheld, it is beyond question that there are a few subtle-souled +persons with whom the absolute gratuitousness of an act of reparation +is an inducement to perform it; while exhortation as to its necessity +would breed excuses for leaving it undone. The case of Mr. Millborne +and Mrs. Frankland particularly illustrated this, and perhaps something +more. + +There were few figures better known to the local crossing-sweeper than +Mr. Millborne’s, in his daily comings and goings along a familiar and +quiet London street, where he lived inside the door marked eleven, +though not as householder. In age he was fifty at least, and his habits +were as regular as those of a person can be who has no occupation but +the study of how to keep himself employed. He turned almost always to +the right on getting to the end of his street, then he went onward down +Bond Street to his club, whence he returned by precisely the same +course about six o’clock, on foot; or, if he went to dine, later on in +a cab. He was known to be a man of some means, though apparently not +wealthy. Being a bachelor he seemed to prefer his present mode of +living as a lodger in Mrs. Towney’s best rooms, with the use of +furniture which he had bought ten times over in rent during his +tenancy, to having a house of his own. + +None among his acquaintance tried to know him well, for his manner and +moods did not excite curiosity or deep friendship. He was not a man who +seemed to have anything on his mind, anything to conceal, anything to +impart. From his casual remarks it was generally understood that he was +country-born, a native of some place in Wessex; that he had come to +London as a young man in a banking-house, and had risen to a post of +responsibility; when, by the death of his father, who had been +fortunate in his investments, the son succeeded to an income which led +him to retire from a business life somewhat early. + +One evening, when he had been unwell for several days, Doctor Bindon +came in, after dinner, from the adjoining medical quarter, and smoked +with him over the fire. The patient’s ailment was not such as to +require much thought, and they talked together on indifferent subjects. + +‘I am a lonely man, Bindon—a lonely man,’ Millborne took occasion to +say, shaking his head gloomily. ‘You don’t know such loneliness as mine +. . . And the older I get the more I am dissatisfied with myself. And +to-day I have been, through an accident, more than usually haunted by +what, above all other events of my life, causes that +dissatisfaction—the recollection of an unfulfilled promise made twenty +years ago. In ordinary affairs I have always been considered a man of +my word and perhaps it is on that account that a particular vow I once +made, and did not keep, comes back to me with a magnitude out of all +proportion (I daresay) to its real gravity, especially at this time of +day. You know the discomfort caused at night by the half-sleeping sense +that a door or window has been left unfastened, or in the day by the +remembrance of unanswered letters. So does that promise haunt me from +time to time, and has done to-day particularly.’ + +There was a pause, and they smoked on. Millborne’s eyes, though fixed +on the fire, were really regarding attentively a town in the West of +England. + +‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I have never quite forgotten it, though during +the busy years of my life it was shelved and buried under the pressure +of my pursuits. And, as I say, to-day in particular, an incident in the +law-report of a somewhat similar kind has brought it back again +vividly. However, what it was I can tell you in a few words, though no +doubt you, as a man of the world, will smile at the thinness of my skin +when you hear it . . . I came up to town at one-and-twenty, from +Toneborough, in Outer Wessex, where I was born, and where, before I +left, I had won the heart of a young woman of my own age. I promised +her marriage, took advantage of my promise, and—am a bachelor.’ + +‘The old story.’ + +The other nodded. + +‘I left the place, and thought at the time I had done a very clever +thing in getting so easily out of an entanglement. But I have lived +long enough for that promise to return to bother me—to be honest, not +altogether as a pricking of the conscience, but as a dissatisfaction +with myself as a specimen of the heap of flesh called humanity. If I +were to ask you to lend me fifty pounds, which I would repay you next +midsummer, and I did not repay you, I should consider myself a shabby +sort of fellow, especially if you wanted the money badly. Yet I +promised that girl just as distinctly; and then coolly broke my word, +as if doing so were rather smart conduct than a mean action, for which +the poor victim herself, encumbered with a child, and not I, had really +to pay the penalty, in spite of certain pecuniary aid that was given. +There, that’s the retrospective trouble that I am always unearthing; +and you may hardly believe that though so many years have elapsed, and +it is all gone by and done with, and she must be getting on for an old +woman now, as I am for an old man, it really often destroys my sense of +self-respect still.’ + +‘O, I can understand it. All depends upon the temperament. Thousands of +men would have forgotten all about it; so would you, perhaps, if you +had married and had a family. Did she ever marry?’ + +‘I don’t think so. O no—she never did. She left Toneborough, and later +on appeared under another name at Exonbury, in the next county, where +she was not known. It is very seldom that I go down into that part of +the country, but in passing through Exonbury, on one occasion, I learnt +that she was quite a settled resident there, as a teacher of music, or +something of the kind. That much I casually heard when I was there two +or three years ago. But I have never set eyes on her since our original +acquaintance, and should not know her if I met her.’ + +‘Did the child live?’ asked the doctor. + +‘For several years, certainly,’ replied his friend. ‘I cannot say if +she is living now. It was a little girl. She might be married by this +time as far as years go.’ + +‘And the mother—was she a decent, worthy young woman?’ + +‘O yes; a sensible, quiet girl, neither attractive nor unattractive to +the ordinary observer; simply commonplace. Her position at the time of +our acquaintance was not so good as mine. My father was a solicitor, as +I think I have told you. She was a young girl in a music-shop; and it +was represented to me that it would be beneath my position to marry +her. Hence the result.’ + +‘Well, all I can say is that after twenty years it is probably too late +to think of mending such a matter. It has doubtless by this time mended +itself. You had better dismiss it from your mind as an evil past your +control. Of course, if mother and daughter are alive, or either, you +might settle something upon them, if you were inclined, and had it to +spare.’ + +‘Well, I haven’t much to spare; and I have relations in narrow +circumstances—perhaps narrower than theirs. But that is not the point. +Were I ever so rich I feel I could not rectify the past by money. I did +not promise to enrich her. On the contrary, I told her it would +probably be dire poverty for both of us. But I did promise to make her +my wife.’ + +‘Then find her and do it,’ said the doctor jocularly as he rose to +leave. + +‘Ah, Bindon. That, of course, is the obvious jest. But I haven’t the +slightest desire for marriage; I am quite content to live as I have +lived. I am a bachelor by nature, and instinct, and habit, and +everything. Besides, though I respect her still (for she was not an +atom to blame), I haven’t any shadow of love for her. In my mind she +exists as one of those women you think well of, but find uninteresting. +It would be purely with the idea of putting wrong right that I should +hunt her up, and propose to do it off-hand.’ + +‘You don’t think of it seriously?’ said his surprised friend. + +‘I sometimes think that I would, if it were practicable; simply, as I +say, to recover my sense of being a man of honour.’ + +‘I wish you luck in the enterprise,’ said Doctor Bindon. ‘You’ll soon +be out of that chair, and then you can put your impulse to the test. +But—after twenty years of silence—I should say, don’t!’ + +CHAPTER II + +The doctor’s advice remained counterpoised, in Millborne’s mind, by the +aforesaid mood of seriousness and sense of principle, approximating +often to religious sentiment, which had been evolving itself in his +breast for months, and even years. + +The feeling, however, had no immediate effect upon Mr. Millborne’s +actions. He soon got over his trifling illness, and was vexed with +himself for having, in a moment of impulse, confided such a case of +conscience to anybody. + +But the force which had prompted it, though latent, remained with him +and ultimately grew stronger. The upshot was that about four months +after the date of his illness and disclosure, Millborne found himself +on a mild spring morning at Paddington Station, in a train that was +starting for the west. His many intermittent thoughts on his broken +promise from time to time, in those hours when loneliness brought him +face to face with his own personality, had at last resulted in this +course. + +The decisive stimulus had been given when, a day or two earlier, on +looking into a Post-Office Directory, he learnt that the woman he had +not met for twenty years was still living on at Exonbury under the name +she had assumed when, a year or two after her disappearance from her +native town and his, she had returned from abroad as a young widow with +a child, and taken up her residence at the former city. Her condition +was apparently but little changed, and her daughter seemed to be with +her, their names standing in the Directory as ‘Mrs. Leonora Frankland +and Miss Frankland, Teachers of Music and Dancing.’ + +Mr. Millborne reached Exonbury in the afternoon, and his first +business, before even taking his luggage into the town, was to find the +house occupied by the teachers. Standing in a central and open place it +was not difficult to discover, a well-burnished brass doorplate bearing +their names prominently. He hesitated to enter without further +knowledge, and ultimately took lodgings over a toyshop opposite, +securing a sitting-room which faced a similar drawing or sitting-room +at the Franklands’, where the dancing lessons were given. Installed +here he was enabled to make indirectly, and without suspicion, +inquiries and observations on the character of the ladies over the way, +which he did with much deliberateness. + +He learnt that the widow, Mrs. Frankland, with her one daughter, +Frances, was of cheerful and excellent repute, energetic and +painstaking with her pupils, of whom she had a good many, and in whose +tuition her daughter assisted her. She was quite a recognized +townswoman, and though the dancing branch of her profession was perhaps +a trifle worldly, she was really a serious-minded lady who, being +obliged to live by what she knew how to teach, balanced matters by +lending a hand at charitable bazaars, assisting at sacred concerts, and +giving musical recitations in aid of funds for bewildering happy +savages, and other such enthusiasms of this enlightened country. Her +daughter was one of the foremost of the bevy of young women who +decorated the churches at Easter and Christmas, was organist in one of +those edifices, and had subscribed to the testimonial of a silver +broth-basin that was presented to the Reverend Mr. Walker as a token of +gratitude for his faithful and arduous intonations of six months as +sub-precentor in the Cathedral. Altogether mother and daughter appeared +to be a typical and innocent pair among the genteel citizens of +Exonbury. + +As a natural and simple way of advertising their profession they +allowed the windows of the music-room to be a little open, so that you +had the pleasure of hearing all along the street at any hour between +sunrise and sunset fragmentary gems of classical music as interpreted +by the young people of twelve or fourteen who took lessons there. But +it was said that Mrs. Frankland made most of her income by letting out +pianos on hire, and by selling them as agent for the makers. + +The report pleased Millborne; it was highly creditable, and far better +than he had hoped. He was curious to get a view of the two women who +led such blameless lives. + +He had not long to wait to gain a glimpse of Leonora. It was when she +was standing on her own doorstep, opening her parasol, on the morning +after his arrival. She was thin, though not gaunt; and a good, +well-wearing, thoughtful face had taken the place of the one which had +temporarily attracted him in the days of his nonage. She wore black, +and it became her in her character of widow. The daughter next +appeared; she was a smoothed and rounded copy of her mother, with the +same decision in her mien that Leonora had, and a bounding gait in +which he traced a faint resemblance to his own at her age. + +For the first time he absolutely made up his mind to call on them. But +his antecedent step was to send Leonora a note the next morning, +stating his proposal to visit her, and suggesting the evening as the +time, because she seemed to be so greatly occupied in her professional +capacity during the day. He purposely worded his note in such a form as +not to require an answer from her which would be possibly awkward to +write. + +No answer came. Naturally he should not have been surprised at this; +and yet he felt a little checked, even though she had only refrained +from volunteering a reply that was not demanded. + +At eight, the hour fixed by himself, he crossed over and was passively +admitted by the servant. Mrs. Frankland, as she called herself, +received him in the large music-and-dancing room on the first-floor +front, and not in any private little parlour as he had expected. This +cast a distressingly business-like colour over their first meeting +after so many years of severance. The woman he had wronged stood before +him, well-dressed, even to his metropolitan eyes, and her manner as she +came up to him was dignified even to hardness. She certainly was not +glad to see him. But what could he expect after a neglect of twenty +years! + +‘How do you do, Mr. Millborne?’ she said cheerfully, as to any chance +caller. ‘I am obliged to receive you here because my daughter has a +friend downstairs.’ + +‘Your daughter—and mine.’ + +‘Ah—yes, yes,’ she replied hastily, as if the addition had escaped her +memory. ‘But perhaps the less said about that the better, in fairness +to me. You will consider me a widow, please.’ + +‘Certainly, Leonora . . . ’ He could not get on, her manner was so cold +and indifferent. The expected scene of sad reproach, subdued to +delicacy by the run of years, was absent altogether. He was obliged to +come to the point without preamble. + +‘You are quite free, Leonora—I mean as to marriage? There is nobody who +has your promise, or—’ + +‘O yes; quite free, Mr. Millborne,’ she said, somewhat surprised. + +‘Then I will tell you why I have come. Twenty years ago I promised to +make you my wife; and I am here to fulfil that promise. Heaven forgive +my tardiness!’ + +Her surprise was increased, but she was not agitated. She seemed to +become gloomy, disapproving. ‘I could not entertain such an idea at +this time of life,’ she said after a moment or two. ‘It would +complicate matters too greatly. I have a very fair income, and require +no help of any sort. I have no wish to marry . . . What could have +induced you to come on such an errand now? It seems quite +extraordinary, if I may say so!’ + +‘It must—I daresay it does,’ Millborne replied vaguely; ‘and I must +tell you that impulse—I mean in the sense of passion—has little to do +with it. I wish to marry you, Leonora; I much desire to marry you. But +it is an affair of conscience, a case of fulfilment. I promised you, +and it was dishonourable of me to go away. I want to remove that sense +of dishonour before I die. No doubt we might get to love each other as +warmly as we did in old times?’ + +She dubiously shook her head. ‘I appreciate your motives, Mr. +Millborne; but you must consider my position; and you will see that, +short of the personal wish to marry, which I don’t feel, there is no +reason why I should change my state, even though by so doing I should +ease your conscience. My position in this town is a respected one; I +have built it up by my own hard labours, and, in short, I don’t wish to +alter it. My daughter, too, is just on the verge of an engagement to be +married, to a young man who will make her an excellent husband. It will +be in every way a desirable match for her. He is downstairs now.’ + +‘Does she know—anything about me?’ + +‘O no, no; God forbid! Her father is dead and buried to her. So that, +you see, things are going on smoothly, and I don’t want to disturb +their progress.’ + +He nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said, and rose to go. At the door, however, +he came back again. + +‘Still, Leonora,’ he urged, ‘I have come on purpose; and I don’t see +what disturbance would be caused. You would simply marry an old friend. +Won’t you reconsider? It is no more than right that we should be +united, remembering the girl.’ + +She shook her head, and patted with her foot nervously. + +‘Well, I won’t detain you,’ he added. ‘I shall not be leaving Exonbury +yet. You will allow me to see you again?’ + +‘Yes; I don’t mind,’ she said reluctantly. + +The obstacles he had encountered, though they did not reanimate his +dead passion for Leonora, did certainly make it appear indispensable to +his peace of mind to overcome her coldness. He called frequently. The +first meeting with the daughter was a trying ordeal, though he did not +feel drawn towards her as he had expected to be; she did not excite his +sympathies. Her mother confided to Frances the errand of ‘her old +friend,’ which was viewed by the daughter with strong disfavour. His +desire being thus uncongenial to both, for a long time Millborne made +not the least impression upon Mrs. Frankland. His attentions pestered +her rather than pleased her. He was surprised at her firmness, and it +was only when he hinted at moral reasons for their union that she was +ever shaken. ‘Strictly speaking,’ he would say, ‘we ought, as honest +persons, to marry; and that’s the truth of it, Leonora.’ + +‘I have looked at it in that light,’ she said quickly. ‘It struck me at +the very first. But I don’t see the force of the argument. I totally +deny that after this interval of time I am bound to marry you for +honour’s sake. I would have married you, as you know well enough, at +the proper time. But what is the use of remedies now?’ + +They were standing at the window. A scantly-whiskered young man, in +clerical attire, called at the door below. Leonora flushed with +interest. + +‘Who is he?’ said Mr. Millborne. + +‘My Frances’s lover. I am so sorry—she is not at home! Ah! they have +told him where she is, and he has gone to find her . . . I hope that +suit will prosper, at any rate!’ + +‘Why shouldn’t it?’ + +‘Well, he cannot marry yet; and Frances sees but little of him now he +has left Exonbury. He was formerly doing duty here, but now he is +curate of St. John’s, Ivell, fifty miles up the line. There is a tacit +agreement between them, but—there have been friends of his who object, +because of our vocation. However, he sees the absurdity of such an +objection as that, and is not influenced by it.’ + +‘Your marriage with me would help the match, instead of hindering it, +as you have said.’ + +‘Do you think it would?’ + +‘It certainly would, by taking you out of this business altogether.’ + +By chance he had found the way to move her somewhat, and he followed it +up. This view was imparted to Mrs. Frankland’s daughter, and it led her +to soften her opposition. Millborne, who had given up his lodging in +Exonbury, journeyed to and fro regularly, till at last he overcame her +negations, and she expressed a reluctant assent. + +They were married at the nearest church; and the goodwill—whatever that +was—of the music-and-dancing connection was sold to a successor only +too ready to jump into the place, the Millbornes having decided to live +in London. + +CHAPTER III + +Millborne was a householder in his old district, though not in his old +street, and Mrs. Millborne and their daughter had turned themselves +into Londoners. Frances was well reconciled to the removal by her +lover’s satisfaction at the change. It suited him better to travel from +Ivell a hundred miles to see her in London, where he frequently had +other engagements, than fifty in the opposite direction where nothing +but herself required his presence. So here they were, furnished up to +the attics, in one of the small but popular streets of the West +district, in a house whose front, till lately of the complexion of a +chimney-sweep, had been scraped to show to the surprised wayfarer the +bright yellow and red brick that had lain lurking beneath the soot of +fifty years. + +The social lift that the two women had derived from the alliance was +considerable; but when the exhilaration which accompanies a first +residence in London, the sensation of standing on a pivot of the world, +had passed, their lives promised to be somewhat duller than when, at +despised Exonbury, they had enjoyed a nodding acquaintance with +three-fourths of the town. Mr. Millborne did not criticise his wife; he +could not. Whatever defects of hardness and acidity his original +treatment and the lapse of years might have developed in her, his sense +of a realized idea, of a re-established self-satisfaction, was always +thrown into the scale on her side, and out-weighed all objections. + +It was about a month after their settlement in town that the household +decided to spend a week at a watering-place in the Isle of Wight, and +while there the Reverend Percival Cope (the young curate aforesaid) +came to see them, Frances in particular. No formal engagement of the +young pair had been announced as yet, but it was clear that their +mutual understanding could not end in anything but marriage without +grievous disappointment to one of the parties at least. Not that +Frances was sentimental. She was rather of the imperious sort, indeed; +and, to say all, the young girl had not fulfilled her father’s +expectations of her. But he hoped and worked for her welfare as +sincerely as any father could do. + +Mr. Cope was introduced to the new head of the family, and stayed with +them in the Island two or three days. On the last day of his visit they +decided to venture on a two hours’ sail in one of the small yachts +which lay there for hire. The trip had not progressed far before all, +except the curate, found that sailing in a breeze did not quite agree +with them; but as he seemed to enjoy the experience, the other three +bore their condition as well as they could without grimace or +complaint, till the young man, observing their discomfort, gave +immediate directions to tack about. On the way back to port they sat +silent, facing each other. + +Nausea in such circumstances, like midnight watching, fatigue, trouble, +fright, has this marked effect upon the countenance, that it often +brings out strongly the divergences of the individual from the norm of +his race, accentuating superficial peculiarities to radical +distinctions. Unexpected physiognomies will uncover themselves at these +times in well-known faces; the aspect becomes invested with the +spectral presence of entombed and forgotten ancestors; and family +lineaments of special or exclusive cast, which in ordinary moments are +masked by a stereotyped expression and mien, start up with crude +insistence to the view. + +Frances, sitting beside her mother’s husband, with Mr. Cope opposite, +was naturally enough much regarded by the curate during the tedious +sail home; at first with sympathetic smiles. Then, as the middle-aged +father and his child grew each gray-faced, as the pretty blush of +Frances disintegrated into spotty stains, and the soft rotundities of +her features diverged from their familiar and reposeful beauty into +elemental lines, Cope was gradually struck with the resemblance between +a pair in their discomfort who in their ease presented nothing to the +eye in common. Mr. Millborne and Frances in their indisposition were +strangely, startlingly alike. + +The inexplicable fact absorbed Cope’s attention quite. He forgot to +smile at Frances, to hold her hand; and when they touched the shore he +remained sitting for some moments like a man in a trance. + +As they went homeward, and recovered their complexions and contours, +the similarities one by one disappeared, and Frances and Mr. Millborne +were again masked by the commonplace differences of sex and age. It was +as if, during the voyage, a mysterious veil had been lifted, +temporarily revealing a strange pantomime of the past. + +During the evening he said to her casually: ‘Is your step-father a +cousin of your mother, dear Frances?’ + +‘Oh, no,’ said she. ‘There is no relationship. He was only an old +friend of hers. Why did you suppose such a thing?’ + +He did not explain, and the next morning started to resume his duties +at Ivell. + +Cope was an honest young fellow, and shrewd withal. At home in his +quiet rooms in St. Peter’s Street, Ivell, he pondered long and +unpleasantly on the revelations of the cruise. The tale it told was +distinct enough, and for the first time his position was an +uncomfortable one. He had met the Franklands at Exonbury as +parishioners, had been attracted by Frances, and had floated thus far +into an engagement which was indefinite only because of his inability +to marry just yet. The Franklands’ past had apparently contained +mysteries, and it did not coincide with his judgment to marry into a +family whose mystery was of the sort suggested. So he sat and sighed, +between his reluctance to lose Frances and his natural dislike of +forming a connection with people whose antecedents would not bear the +strictest investigation. + +A passionate lover of the old-fashioned sort might possibly never have +halted to weigh these doubts; but though he was in the church Cope’s +affections were fastidious—distinctly tempered with the alloys of the +century’s decadence. He delayed writing to Frances for some while, +simply because he could not tune himself up to enthusiasm when worried +by suspicions of such a kind. + +Meanwhile the Millbornes had returned to London, and Frances was +growing anxious. In talking to her mother of Cope she had innocently +alluded to his curious inquiry if her mother and her step-father were +connected by any tie of cousinship. Mrs. Millborne made her repeat the +words. Frances did so, and watched with inquisitive eyes their effect +upon her elder. + +‘What is there so startling in his inquiry then?’ she asked. ‘Can it +have anything to do with his not writing to me?’ + +Her mother flinched, but did not inform her, and Frances also was now +drawn within the atmosphere of suspicion. That night when standing by +chance outside the chamber of her parents she heard for the first time +their voices engaged in a sharp altercation. + +The apple of discord had, indeed, been dropped into the house of the +Millbornes. The scene within the chamber-door was Mrs. Millborne +standing before her dressing-table, looking across to her husband in +the dressing-room adjoining, where he was sitting down, his eyes fixed +on the floor. + +‘Why did you come and disturb my life a second time?’ she harshly +asked. ‘Why did you pester me with your conscience, till I was driven +to accept you to get rid of your importunity? Frances and I were doing +well: the one desire of my life was that she should marry that good +young man. And now the match is broken off by your cruel interference! +Why did you show yourself in my world again, and raise this scandal +upon my hard-won respectability—won by such weary years of labour as +none will ever know!’ She bent her face upon the table and wept +passionately. + +There was no reply from Mr. Millborne. Frances lay awake nearly all +that night, and when at breakfast-time the next morning still no letter +appeared from Mr. Cope, she entreated her mother to go to Ivell and see +if the young man were ill. + +Mrs. Millborne went, returning the same day. Frances, anxious and +haggard, met her at the station. + +Was all well? Her mother could not say it was; though he was not ill. + +One thing she had found out, that it was a mistake to hunt up a man +when his inclinations were to hold aloof. Returning with her mother in +the cab Frances insisted upon knowing what the mystery was which +plainly had alienated her lover. The precise words which had been +spoken at the interview with him that day at Ivell Mrs. Millborne could +not be induced to repeat; but thus far she admitted, that the +estrangement was fundamentally owing to Mr. Millborne having sought her +out and married her. + +‘And why did he seek you out—and why were you obliged to marry him?’ +asked the distressed girl. Then the evidences pieced themselves +together in her acute mind, and, her colour gradually rising, she asked +her mother if what they pointed to was indeed the fact. Her mother +admitted that it was. + +A flush of mortification succeeded to the flush of shame upon the young +woman’s face. How could a scrupulously correct clergyman and lover like +Mr. Cope ask her to be his wife after this discovery of her irregular +birth? She covered her eyes with her hands in a silent despair. + +In the presence of Mr. Millborne they at first suppressed their +anguish. But by and by their feelings got the better of them, and when +he was asleep in his chair after dinner Mrs. Millborne’s irritation +broke out. The embittered Frances joined her in reproaching the man who +had come as the spectre to their intended feast of Hymen, and turned +its promise to ghastly failure. + +‘Why were you so weak, mother, as to admit such an enemy to your +house—one so obviously your evil genius—much less accept him as a +husband, after so long? If you had only told me all, I could have +advised you better! But I suppose I have no right to reproach him, +bitter as I feel, and even though he has blighted my life for ever!’ + +‘Frances, I did hold out; I saw it was a mistake to have any more to +say to a man who had been such an unmitigated curse to me! But he would +not listen; he kept on about his conscience and mine, till I was +bewildered, and said Yes! . . . Bringing us away from a quiet town +where we were known and respected—what an ill-considered thing it was! +O the content of those days! We had society there, people in our own +position, who did not expect more of us than we expected of them. Here, +where there is so much, there is nothing! He said London society was so +bright and brilliant that it would be like a new world. It may be to +those who are in it; but what is that to us two lonely women; we only +see it flashing past! . . . O the fool, the fool that I was!’ + +Now Millborne was not so soundly asleep as to prevent his hearing these +animadversions that were almost execrations, and many more of the same +sort. As there was no peace for him at home, he went again to his club, +where, since his reunion with Leonora, he had seldom if ever been seen. +But the shadow of the troubles in his household interfered with his +comfort here also; he could not, as formerly, settle down into his +favourite chair with the evening paper, reposeful in the celibate’s +sense that where he was his world’s centre had its fixture. His world +was now an ellipse, with a dual centrality, of which his own was not +the major. + +The young curate of Ivell still held aloof, tantalizing Frances by his +elusiveness. Plainly he was waiting upon events. Millborne bore the +reproaches of his wife and daughter almost in silence; but by degrees +he grew meditative, as if revolving a new idea. The bitter cry about +blighting their existence at length became so impassioned that one day +Millborne calmly proposed to return again to the country; not +necessarily to Exonbury, but, if they were willing, to a little old +manor-house which he had found was to be let, standing a mile from Mr. +Cope’s town of Ivell. + +They were surprised, and, despite their view of him as the bringer of +ill, were disposed to accede. ‘Though I suppose,’ said Mrs. Millborne +to him, ‘it will end in Mr. Cope’s asking you flatly about the past, +and your being compelled to tell him; which may dash all my hopes for +Frances. She gets more and more like you every day, particularly when +she is in a bad temper. People will see you together, and notice it; +and I don’t know what may come of it!’ + +‘I don’t think they will see us together,’ he said; but he entered into +no argument when she insisted otherwise. The removal was eventually +resolved on; the town-house was disposed of; and again came the +invasion by furniture-men and vans, till all the movables and servants +were whisked away. He sent his wife and daughter to an hotel while this +was going on, taking two or three journeys himself to Ivell to +superintend the refixing, and the improvement of the grounds. When all +was done he returned to them in town. + +The house was ready for their reception, he told them, and there only +remained the journey. He accompanied them and their personal luggage to +the station only, having, he said, to remain in town a short time on +business with his lawyer. They went, dubious and discontented—for the +much-loved Cope had made no sign. + +‘If we were going down to live here alone,’ said Mrs Millborne to her +daughter in the train; ‘and there was no intrusive tell-tale presence! +. . . But let it be!’ + +The house was a lovely little place in a grove of elms, and they liked +it much. The first person to call upon them as new residents was Mr. +Cope. He was delighted to find that they had come so near, and (though +he did not say this) meant to live in such excellent style. He had not, +however, resumed the manner of a lover. + +‘Your father spoils all!’ murmured Mrs. Millborne. + +But three days later she received a letter from her husband, which +caused her no small degree of astonishment. It was written from +Boulogne. + +It began with a long explanation of settlements of his property, in +which he had been engaged since their departure. The chief feature in +the business was that Mrs. Millborne found herself the absolute owner +of a comfortable sum in personal estate, and Frances of a life-interest +in a larger sum, the principal to be afterwards divided amongst her +children if she had any. The remainder of his letter ran as hereunder:— + +‘I have learnt that there are some derelictions of duty which cannot be +blotted out by tardy accomplishment. Our evil actions do not remain +isolated in the past, waiting only to be reversed: like locomotive +plants they spread and re-root, till to destroy the original stem has +no material effect in killing them. I made a mistake in searching you +out; I admit it; whatever the remedy may be in such cases it is not +marriage, and the best thing for you and me is that you do not see me +more. You had better not seek me, for you will not be likely to find +me: you are well provided for, and we may do ourselves more harm than +good by meeting again. + + +‘F. M.’ + + +Millborne, in short, disappeared from that day forward. But a searching +inquiry would have revealed that, soon after the Millbornes went to +Ivell, an Englishman, who did not give the name of Millborne, took up +his residence in Brussels; a man who might have been recognized by Mrs. +Millborne if she had met him. One afternoon in the ensuing summer, when +this gentleman was looking over the English papers, he saw the +announcement of Miss Frances Frankland’s marriage. She had become the +Reverend Mrs. Cope. + +‘Thank God!’ said the gentleman. + +But his momentary satisfaction was far from being happiness. As he +formerly had been weighted with a bad conscience, so now was he +burdened with the heavy thought which oppressed Antigone, that by +honourable observance of a rite he had obtained for himself the reward +of dishonourable laxity. Occasionally he had to be helped to his +lodgings by his servant from the _Cercle_ he frequented, through having +imbibed a little too much liquor to be able to take care of himself. +But he was harmless, and even when he had been drinking said little. + +_March_ 1891. + + + + +A TRAGEDY OF TWO AMBITIONS + + +CHAPTER I + +The shouts of the village-boys came in at the window, accompanied by +broken laughter from loungers at the inn-door; but the brothers +Halborough worked on. + +They were sitting in a bedroom of the master-millwright’s house, +engaged in the untutored reading of Greek and Latin. It was no tale of +Homeric blows and knocks, Argonautic voyaging, or Theban family woe +that inflamed their imaginations and spurred them onward. They were +plodding away at the Greek Testament, immersed in a chapter of the +idiomatic and difficult Epistle to the Hebrews. + +The Dog-day sun in its decline reached the low ceiling with slanting +sides, and the shadows of the great goat’s-willow swayed and +interchanged upon the walls like a spectral army manoeuvring. The open +casement which admitted the remoter sounds now brought the voice of +some one close at hand. It was their sister, a pretty girl of fourteen, +who stood in the court below. + +‘I can see the tops of your heads! What’s the use of staying up there? +I like you not to go out with the street-boys; but do come and play +with me!’ + +They treated her as an inadequate interlocutor, and put her off with +some slight word. She went away disappointed. Presently there was a +dull noise of heavy footsteps at the side of the house, and one of the +brothers sat up. ‘I fancy I hear him coming,’ he murmured, his eyes on +the window. + +A man in the light drab clothes of an old-fashioned country tradesman +approached from round the corner, reeling as he came. The elder son +flushed with anger, rose from his books, and descended the stairs. The +younger sat on, till, after the lapse of a few minutes, his brother +re-entered the room. + +‘Did Rosa see him?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Nor anybody?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘What have you done with him?’ + +‘He’s in the straw-shed. I got him in with some trouble, and he has +fallen asleep. I thought this would be the explanation of his absence! +No stones dressed for Miller Kench, the great wheel of the saw-mills +waiting for new float-boards, even the poor folk not able to get their +waggons wheeled.’ + +‘What _is_ the use of poring over this!’ said the younger, shutting up +Donnegan’s _Lexicon_ with a slap. ‘O if we had only been able to keep +mother’s nine hundred pounds, what we could have done!’ + +‘How well she had estimated the sum necessary! Four hundred and fifty +each, she thought. And I have no doubt that we could have done it on +that, with care.’ + +This loss of the nine hundred pounds was the sharp thorn of their +crown. It was a sum which their mother had amassed with great exertion +and self-denial, by adding to a chance legacy such other small amounts +as she could lay hands on from time to time; and she had intended with +the hoard to indulge the dear wish of her heart—that of sending her +sons, Joshua and Cornelius, to one of the Universities, having been +informed that from four hundred to four hundred and fifty each might +carry them through their terms with such great economy as she knew she +could trust them to practise. But she had died a year or two before +this time, worn out by too keen a strain towards these ends; and the +money, coming unreservedly into the hands of their father, had been +nearly dissipated. With its exhaustion went all opportunity and hope of +a university degree for the sons. + +‘It drives me mad when I think of it,’ said Joshua, the elder. ‘And +here we work and work in our own bungling way, and the utmost we can +hope for is a term of years as national schoolmasters, and possible +admission to a Theological college, and ordination as despised +licentiates.’ + +The anger of the elder was reflected as simple sadness in the face of +the other. ‘We can preach the Gospel as well without a hood on our +surplices as with one,’ he said with feeble consolation. + +‘Preach the Gospel—true,’ said Joshua with a slight pursing of mouth. +‘But we can’t rise!’ + +‘Let us make the best of it, and grind on.’ + +The other was silent, and they drearily bent over their books again. + +The cause of all this gloom, the millwright Halborough, now snoring in +the shed, had been a thriving master-machinist, notwithstanding his +free and careless disposition, till a taste for a more than adequate +quantity of strong liquor took hold of him; since when his habits had +interfered with his business sadly. Already millers went elsewhere for +their gear, and only one set of hands was now kept going, though there +were formerly two. Already he found a difficulty in meeting his men at +the week’s end, and though they had been reduced in number there was +barely enough work to do for those who remained. + +The sun dropped lower and vanished, the shouts of the village children +ceased to resound, darkness cloaked the students’ bedroom, and all the +scene outwardly breathed peace. None knew of the fevered youthful +ambitions that throbbed in two breasts within the quiet creeper-covered +walls of the millwright’s house. + +In a few months the brothers left the village of their birth to enter +themselves as students in a training college for schoolmasters; first +having placed their young sister Rosa under as efficient a tuition at a +fashionable watering-place as the means at their disposal could +command. + +CHAPTER II + +A man in semi-clerical dress was walking along the road which led from +the railway-station into a provincial town. As he walked he read +persistently, only looking up once now and then to see that he was +keeping on the foot track and to avoid other passengers. At those +moments, whoever had known the former students at the millwright’s +would have perceived that one of them, Joshua Halborough, was the +peripatetic reader here. + +What had been simple force in the youth’s face was energized judgment +in the man’s. His character was gradually writing itself out in his +countenance. That he was watching his own career with deeper and deeper +interest, that he continually ‘heard his days before him,’ and cared to +hear little else, might have been hazarded from what was seen there. +His ambitions were, in truth, passionate, yet controlled; so that the +germs of many more plans than ever blossomed to maturity had place in +him; and forward visions were kept purposely in twilight, to avoid +distraction. + +Events so far had been encouraging. Shortly after assuming the +mastership of his first school he had obtained an introduction to the +Bishop of a diocese far from his native county, who had looked upon him +as a promising young man and taken him in hand. He was now in the +second year of his residence at the theological college of the +cathedral-town, and would soon be presented for ordination. + +He entered the town, turned into a back street, and then into a yard, +keeping his book before him till he set foot under the arch of the +latter place. Round the arch was written ‘National School,’ and the +stonework of the jambs was worn away as nothing but boys and the waves +of ocean will wear it. He was soon amid the sing-song accents of the +scholars. + +His brother Cornelius, who was the schoolmaster here, laid down the +pointer with which he was directing attention to the Capes of Europe, +and came forward. + +‘That’s his brother Jos!’ whispered one of the sixth standard boys. +‘He’s going to be a pa’son, he’s now at college.’ + +‘Corney is going to be one too, when he’s saved enough money,’ said +another. + +After greeting his brother, whom he had not seen for several months, +the junior began to explain his system of teaching geography. + +But Halborough the elder took no interest in the subject. ‘How about +your own studies?’ he asked. ‘Did you get the books I sent?’ + +Cornelius had received them, and he related what he was doing. + +‘Mind you work in the morning. What time do you get up?’ + +The younger replied: ‘Half-past five.’ + +‘Half-past four is not a minute too soon this time of the year. There +is no time like the morning for construing. I don’t know why, but when +I feel even too dreary to read a novel I can translate—there is +something mechanical about it I suppose. Now, Cornelius, you are rather +behindhand, and have some heavy reading before you if you mean to get +out of this next Christmas.’ + +‘I am afraid I have.’ + +‘We must soon sound the Bishop. I am sure you will get a title without +difficulty when he has heard all. The sub-dean, the principal of my +college, says that the best plan will be for you to come there when his +lordship is present at an examination, and he’ll get you a personal +interview with him. Mind you make a good impression upon him. I found +in my case that that was everything and doctrine almost nothing. You’ll +do for a deacon, Corney, if not for a priest.’ + +The younger remained thoughtful. ‘Have you heard from Rosa lately?’ he +asked; ‘I had a letter this morning.’ + +‘Yes. The little minx writes rather too often. She is homesick—though +Brussels must be an attractive place enough. But she must make the most +of her time over there. I thought a year would be enough for her, after +that high-class school at Sandbourne, but I have decided to give her +two, and make a good job of it, expensive as the establishment is.’ + +Their two rather harsh faces had softened directly they began to speak +of their sister, whom they loved more ambitiously than they loved +themselves. + +‘But where is the money to come from, Joshua?’ + +‘I have already got it.’ He looked round, and finding that some boys +were near withdrew a few steps. ‘I have borrowed it at five per cent. +from the farmer who used to occupy the farm next our field. You +remember him.’ + +‘But about paying him?’ + +‘I shall pay him by degrees out of my stipend. No, Cornelius, it was no +use to do the thing by halves. She promises to be a most attractive, +not to say beautiful, girl. I have seen that for years; and if her face +is not her fortune, her face and her brains together will be, if I +observe and contrive aright. That she should be, every inch of her, an +accomplished and refined woman, was indispensable for the fulfilment of +her destiny, and for moving onwards and upwards with us; and she’ll do +it, you will see. I’d half starve myself rather than take her away from +that school now.’ + +They looked round the school they were in. To Cornelius it was natural +and familiar enough, but to Joshua, with his limited human sympathies, +who had just dropped in from a superior sort of place, the sight jarred +unpleasantly, as being that of something he had left behind. ‘I shall +be glad when you are out of this,’ he said, ‘and in your pulpit, and +well through your first sermon.’ + +‘You may as well say inducted into my fat living, while you are about +it.’ + +‘Ah, well—don’t think lightly of the Church. There’s a fine work for +any man of energy in the Church, as you’ll find,’ he said fervidly. +‘Torrents of infidelity to be stemmed, new views of old subjects to be +expounded, truths in spirit to be substituted for truths in the letter +. . . ’ He lapsed into reverie with the vision of his career, +persuading himself that it was ardour for Christianity which spurred +him on, and not pride of place. He had shouldered a body of doctrine, +and was prepared to defend it tooth and nail, solely for the honour and +glory that warriors win. + +‘If the Church is elastic, and stretches to the shape of the time, +she’ll last, I suppose,’ said Cornelius. ‘If not—. Only think, I bought +a copy of Paley’s _Evidences_, best edition, broad margins, excellent +preservation, at a bookstall the other day for—ninepence; and I thought +that at this rate Christianity must be in rather a bad way.’ + +‘No, no!’ said the other almost, angrily. ‘It only shows that such +defences are no longer necessary. Men’s eyes can see the truth without +extraneous assistance. Besides, we are in for Christianity, and must +stick to her whether or no. I am just now going right through Pusey’s +_Library of the Fathers_.’ + +‘You’ll be a bishop, Joshua, before you have done!’ + +‘Ah!’ said the other bitterly, shaking his head. ‘Perhaps I might have +been—I might have been! But where is my D.D. or LL.D.; and how be a +bishop without that kind of appendage? Archbishop Tillotson was the son +of a Sowerby clothier, but he was sent to Clare College. To hail Oxford +or Cambridge as _alma mater_ is not for me—for us! My God! when I think +of what we should have been—what fair promise has been blighted by that +cursed, worthless—’ + +‘Hush, hush! . . . But I feel it, too, as much as you. I have seen it +more forcibly lately. You would have obtained your degree long before +this time—possibly fellowship—and I should have been on my way to +mine.’ + +‘Don’t talk of it,’ said the other. ‘We must do the best we can.’ + +They looked out of the window sadly, through the dusty panes, so high +up that only the sky was visible. By degrees the haunting trouble +loomed again, and Cornelius broke the silence with a whisper: ‘He has +called on me!’ + +The living pulses died on Joshua’s face, which grew arid as a clinker. +‘When was that?’ he asked quickly. + +‘Last week.’ + +‘How did he get here—so many miles?’ + +‘Came by railway. He came to ask for money.’ + +‘Ah!’ + +‘He says he will call on you.’ + +Joshua replied resignedly. The theme of their conversation spoilt his +buoyancy for that afternoon. He returned in the evening, Cornelius +accompanying him to the station; but he did not read in the train which +took him back to the Fountall Theological College, as he had done on +the way out. That ineradicable trouble still remained as a squalid spot +in the expanse of his life. He sat with the other students in the +cathedral choir next day; and the recollection of the trouble obscured +the purple splendour thrown by the panes upon the floor. + +It was afternoon. All was as still in the Close as a cathedral-green +can be between the Sunday services, and the incessant cawing of the +rooks was the only sound. Joshua Halborough had finished his ascetic +lunch, and had gone into the library, where he stood for a few moments +looking out of the large window facing the green. He saw walking slowly +across it a man in a fustian coat and a battered white hat with a +much-ruffled nap, having upon his arm a tall gipsy-woman wearing long +brass earrings. The man was staring quizzically at the west front of +the cathedral, and Halborough recognized in him the form and features +of his father. Who the woman was he knew not. Almost as soon as Joshua +became conscious of these things, the sub-dean, who was also the +principal of the college, and of whom the young man stood in more awe +than of the Bishop himself, emerged from the gate and entered a path +across the Close. The pair met the dignitary, and to Joshua’s horror +his father turned and addressed the sub-dean. + +What passed between them he could not tell. But as he stood in a cold +sweat he saw his father place his hand familiarly on the sub-dean’s +shoulder; the shrinking response of the latter, and his quick +withdrawal, told his feeling. The woman seemed to say nothing, but when +the sub-dean had passed by they came on towards the college gate. + +Halborough flew along the corridor and out at a side door, so as to +intercept them before they could reach the front entrance, for which +they were making. He caught them behind a clump of laurel. + +‘By Jerry, here’s the very chap! Well, you’re a fine fellow, Jos, never +to send your father as much as a twist o’ baccy on such an occasion, +and to leave him to travel all these miles to find ye out!’ + +‘First, who is this?’ said Joshua Halborough with pale dignity, waving +his hand towards the buxom woman with the great earrings. + +‘Dammy, the mis’ess! Your step-mother! Didn’t you know I’d married? She +helped me home from market one night, and we came to terms, and struck +the bargain. Didn’t we, Selinar?’ + +‘Oi, by the great Lord an’ we did!’ simpered the lady. + +‘Well, what sort of a place is this you are living in?’ asked the +millwright. ‘A kind of house-of-correction, apparently?’ + +Joshua listened abstractedly, his features set to resignation. Sick at +heart he was going to ask them if they were in want of any necessary, +any meal, when his father cut him short by saying, ‘Why, we’ve called +to ask ye to come round and take pot-luck with us at the +Cock-and-Bottle, where we’ve put up for the day, on our way to see +mis’ess’s friends at Binegar Fair, where they’ll be lying under canvas +for a night or two. As for the victuals at the Cock I can’t testify to +’em at all; but for the drink, they’ve the rarest drop of Old Tom that +I’ve tasted for many a year.’ + +‘Thanks; but I am a teetotaller; and I have lunched,’ said Joshua, who +could fully believe his father’s testimony to the gin, from the odour +of his breath. ‘You see we have to observe regular habits here; and I +couldn’t be seen at the Cock-and-Bottle just now.’ + +‘O dammy, then don’t come, your reverence. Perhaps you won’t mind +standing treat for those who can be seen there?’ + +‘Not a penny,’ said the younger firmly. ‘You’ve had enough already.’ + +‘Thank you for nothing. By the bye, who was that spindle-legged, +shoe-buckled parson feller we met by now? He seemed to think we should +poison him!’ + +Joshua remarked coldly that it was the principal of his college, +guardedly inquiring, ‘Did you tell him whom you were come to see?’ + +His father did not reply. He and his strapping gipsy wife—if she were +his wife—stayed no longer, and disappeared in the direction of the High +Street. Joshua Halborough went back to the library. Determined as was +his nature, he wept hot tears upon the books, and was immeasurably more +wretched that afternoon than the unwelcome millwright. In the evening +he sat down and wrote a letter to his brother, in which, after stating +what had happened, and expatiating upon this new disgrace in the gipsy +wife, he propounded a plan for raising money sufficient to induce the +couple to emigrate to Canada. ‘It is our only chance,’ he said. ‘The +case as it stands is maddening. For a successful painter, sculptor, +musician, author, who takes society by storm, it is no drawback, it is +sometimes even a romantic recommendation, to hail from outcasts and +profligates. But for a clergyman of the Church of England! Cornelius, +it is fatal! To succeed in the Church, people must believe in you, +first of all, as a gentleman, secondly as a man of means, thirdly as a +scholar, fourthly as a preacher, fifthly, perhaps, as a Christian,—but +always first as a gentleman, with all their heart and soul and +strength. I would have faced the fact of being a small machinist’s son, +and have taken my chance, if he’d been in any sense respectable and +decent. The essence of Christianity is humility, and by the help of God +I would have brazened it out. But this terrible vagabondage and +disreputable connection! If he does not accept my terms and leave the +country, it will extinguish us and kill me. For how can we live, and +relinquish our high aim, and bring down our dear sister Rosa to the +level of a gipsy’s step-daughter?’ + +CHAPTER III + +There was excitement in the parish of Narrobourne one day. The +congregation had just come out from morning service, and the whole +conversation was of the new curate, Mr. Halborough, who had officiated +for the first time, in the absence of the rector. + +Never before had the feeling of the villagers approached a level which +could be called excitement on such a matter as this. The droning which +had been the rule in that quiet old place for a century seemed ended at +last. They repeated the text to each other as a refrain: ‘O Lord, be +thou my helper!’ Not within living memory till to-day had the subject +of the sermon formed the topic of conversation from the church door to +church-yard gate, to the exclusion of personal remarks on those who had +been present, and on the week’s news in general. + +The thrilling periods of the preacher hung about their minds all that +day. The parish being steeped in indifferentism, it happened that when +the youths and maidens, middle-aged and old people, who had attended +church that morning, recurred as by a fascination to what Halborough +had said, they did so more or less indirectly, and even with the +subterfuge of a light laugh that was not real, so great was their +shyness under the novelty of their sensations. + +What was more curious than that these unconventional villagers should +have been excited by a preacher of a new school after forty years of +familiarity with the old hand who had had charge of their souls, was +the effect of Halborough’s address upon the occupants of the +manor-house pew, including the owner of the estate. These thought they +knew how to discount the mere sensational sermon, how to minimize flash +oratory to its bare proportions; but they had yielded like the rest of +the assembly to the charm of the newcomer. + +Mr. Fellmer, the landowner, was a young widower, whose mother, still in +the prime of life, had returned to her old position in the family +mansion since the death of her son’s wife in the year after her +marriage, at the birth of a fragile little girl. From the date of his +loss to the present time, Fellmer had led an inactive existence in the +seclusion of the parish; a lack of motive seemed to leave him listless. +He had gladly reinstated his mother in the gloomy house, and his main +occupation now lay in stewarding his estate, which was not large. Mrs. +Fellmer, who had sat beside him under Halborough this morning, was a +cheerful, straightforward woman, who did her marketing and her +alms-giving in person, was fond of old-fashioned flowers, and walked +about the village on very wet days visiting the parishioners. These, +the only two great ones of Narrobourne, were impressed by Joshua’s +eloquence as much as the cottagers. + +Halborough had been briefly introduced to them on his arrival some days +before, and, their interest being kindled, they waited a few moments +till he came out of the vestry, to walk down the churchyard-path with +him. Mrs. Fellmer spoke warmly of the sermon, of the good fortune of +the parish in his advent, and hoped he had found comfortable quarters. + +Halborough, faintly flushing, said that he had obtained very fair +lodgings in the roomy house of a farmer, whom he named. + +She feared he would find it very lonely, especially in the evenings, +and hoped they would see a good deal of him. When would he dine with +them? Could he not come that day—it must be so dull for him the first +Sunday evening in country lodgings? + +Halborough replied that it would give him much pleasure, but that he +feared he must decline. ‘I am not altogether alone,’ he said. ‘My +sister, who has just returned from Brussels, and who felt, as you do, +that I should be rather dismal by myself, has accompanied me hither to +stay a few days till she has put my rooms in order and set me going. +She was too fatigued to come to church, and is waiting for me now at +the farm.’ + +‘Oh, but bring your sister—that will be still better! I shall be +delighted to know her. How I wish I had been aware! Do tell her, +please, that we had no idea of her presence.’ + +Halborough assured Mrs. Fellmer that he would certainly bear the +message; but as to her coming he was not so sure. The real truth was, +however, that the matter would be decided by him, Rosa having an almost +filial respect for his wishes. But he was uncertain as to the state of +her wardrobe, and had determined that she should not enter the +manor-house at a disadvantage that evening, when there would probably +be plenty of opportunities in the future of her doing so becomingly. + +He walked to the farm in long strides. This, then, was the outcome of +his first morning’s work as curate here. Things had gone fairly well +with him. He had been ordained; he was in a comfortable parish, where +he would exercise almost sole supervision, the rector being infirm. He +had made a deep impression at starting, and the absence of a hood +seemed to have done him no harm. Moreover, by considerable persuasion +and payment, his father and the dark woman had been shipped off to +Canada, where they were not likely to interfere greatly with his +interests. + +Rosa came out to meet him. ‘Ah! you should have gone to church like a +good girl,’ he said. + +‘Yes—I wished I had afterwards. But I do so hate church as a rule that +even your preaching was underestimated in my mind. It was too bad of +me!’ + +The girl who spoke thus playfully was fair, tall, and sylph-like, in a +muslin dress, and with just the coquettish _désinvolture_ which an +English girl brings home from abroad, and loses again after a few +months of native life. Joshua was the reverse of playful; the world was +too important a concern for him to indulge in light moods. He told her +in decided, practical phraseology of the invitation. + +‘Now, Rosa, we must go—that’s settled—if you’ve a dress that can be +made fit to wear all on the hop like this. You didn’t, of course, think +of bringing an evening dress to such an out-of-the-way place?’ + +But Rosa had come from the wrong city to be caught napping in those +matters. ‘Yes, I did,’ said she. ‘One never knows what may turn up.’ + +‘Well done! Then off we go at seven.’ + +The evening drew on, and at dusk they started on foot, Rosa pulling up +the edge of her skirt under her cloak out of the way of the dews, so +that it formed a great wind-bag all round her, and carrying her satin +shoes under her arm. Joshua would not let her wait till she got indoors +before changing them, as she proposed, but insisted on her performing +that operation under a tree, so that they might enter as if they had +not walked. He was nervously formal about such trifles, while Rosa took +the whole proceeding—walk, dressing, dinner, and all—as a pastime. To +Joshua it was a serious step in life. + +A more unexpected kind of person for a curate’s sister was never +presented at a dinner. The surprise of Mrs. Fellmer was unconcealed. +She had looked forward to a Dorcas, or Martha, or Rhoda at the outside, +and a shade of misgiving crossed her face. It was possible that, had +the young lady accompanied her brother to church, there would have been +no dining at Narrobourne House that day. + +Not so with the young widower, her son. He resembled a sleeper who had +awaked in a summer noon expecting to find it only dawn. He could +scarcely help stretching his arms and yawning in their faces, so strong +was his sense of being suddenly aroused to an unforeseen thing. When +they had sat down to table he at first talked to Rosa somewhat with the +air of a ruler in the land; but the woman lurking in the acquaintance +soon brought him to his level, and the girl from Brussels saw him +looking at her mouth, her hands, her contour, as if he could not quite +comprehend how they got created: then he dropped into the more +satisfactory stage which discerns no particulars. + +He talked but little; she said much. The homeliness of the Fellmers, to +her view, though they were regarded with such awe down here, quite +disembarrassed her. The squire had become so unpractised, had dropped +so far into the shade during the last year or so of his life, that he +had almost forgotten what the world contained till this evening +reminded him. His mother, after her first moments of doubt, appeared to +think that he must be left to his own guidance, and gave her attention +to Joshua. + +With all his foresight and doggedness of aim, the result of that dinner +exceeded Halborough’s expectations. In weaving his ambitions he had +viewed his sister Rosa as a slight, bright thing to be helped into +notice by his abilities; but it now began to dawn upon him that the +physical gifts of nature to her might do more for them both than +nature’s intellectual gifts to himself. While he was patiently boring +the tunnel Rosa seemed about to fly over the mountain. + +He wrote the next day to his brother, now occupying his own old rooms +in the theological college, telling him exultingly of the unanticipated +_début_ of Rosa at the manor-house. The next post brought him a reply +of congratulation, dashed with the counteracting intelligence that his +father did not like Canada—that his wife had deserted him, which made +him feel so dreary that he thought of returning home. + +In his recent satisfaction at his own successes Joshua Halborough had +well-nigh forgotten his chronic trouble—latterly screened by distance. +But it now returned upon him; he saw more in this brief announcement +than his brother seemed to see. It was the cloud no bigger than a man’s +hand. + +CHAPTER IV + +The following December, a day or two before Christmas, Mrs. Fellmer and +her son were walking up and down the broad gravel path which bordered +the east front of the house. Till within the last half-hour the morning +had been a drizzling one, and they had just emerged for a short turn +before luncheon. + +‘You see, dear mother,’ the son was saying, ‘it is the peculiarity of +my position which makes her appear to me in such a desirable light. +When you consider how I have been crippled at starting, how my life has +been maimed; that I feel anything like publicity distasteful, that I +have no political ambition, and that my chief aim and hope lie in the +education of the little thing Annie has left me, you must see how +desirable a wife like Miss Halborough would be, to prevent my becoming +a mere vegetable.’ + +‘If you adore her, I suppose you must have her!’ replied his mother +with dry indirectness. ‘But you’ll find that she will not be content to +live on here as you do, giving her whole mind to a young child.’ + +‘That’s just where we differ. Her very disqualification, that of being +a nobody, as you call it, is her recommendation in my eyes. Her lack of +influential connections limits her ambition. From what I know of her, a +life in this place is all that she would wish for. She would never care +to go outside the park-gates if it were necessary to stay within.’ + +‘Being in love with her, Albert, and meaning to marry her, you invent +your practical reasons to make the case respectable. Well, do as you +will; I have no authority over you, so why should you consult me? You +mean to propose on this very occasion, no doubt. Don’t you, now?’ + +‘By no means. I am merely revolving the idea in my mind. If on further +acquaintance she turns out to be as good as she has hitherto +seemed—well, I shall see. Admit, now, that you like her.’ + +‘I readily admit it. She is very captivating at first sight. But as a +stepmother to your child! You seem mighty anxious, Albert, to get rid +of me!’ + +‘Not at all. And I am not so reckless as you think. I don’t make up my +mind in a hurry. But the thought having occurred to me, I mention it to +you at once, mother. If you dislike it, say so.’ + +‘I don’t say anything. I will try to make the best of it if you are +determined. When does she come?’ + +‘To-morrow.’ + +All this time there were great preparations in train at the curate’s, +who was now a householder. Rosa, whose two or three weeks’ stay on two +occasions earlier in the year had so affected the squire, was coming +again, and at the same time her younger brother Cornelius, to make up a +family party. Rosa, who journeyed from the Midlands, could not arrive +till late in the evening, but Cornelius was to get there in the +afternoon, Joshua going out to meet him in his walk across the fields +from the railway. + +Everything being ready in Joshua’s modest abode he started on his way, +his heart buoyant and thankful, if ever it was in his life. He was of +such good report himself that his brother’s path into holy orders +promised to be unexpectedly easy; and he longed to compare experiences +with him, even though there was on hand a more exciting matter still. +From his youth he had held that, in old-fashioned country places, the +Church conferred social prestige up to a certain point at a cheaper +price than any other profession or pursuit; and events seemed to be +proving him right. + +He had walked about half an hour when he saw Cornelius coming along the +path; and in a few minutes the two brothers met. The experiences of +Cornelius had been less immediately interesting than those of Joshua, +but his personal position was satisfactory, and there was nothing to +account for the singularly subdued manner that he exhibited, which at +first Joshua set down to the fatigue of over-study; and he proceeded to +the subject of Rosa’s arrival in the evening, and the probable +consequences of this her third visit. ‘Before next Easter she’ll be his +wife, my boy,’ said Joshua with grave exultation. + +Cornelius shook his head. ‘She comes too late!’ he returned. + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘Look here.’ He produced the Fountall paper, and placed his finger on a +paragraph, which Joshua read. It appeared under the report of Petty +Sessions, and was a commonplace case of disorderly conduct, in which a +man was sent to prison for seven days for breaking windows in that +town. + +‘Well?’ said Joshua. + +‘It happened during an evening that I was in the street; and the +offender is our father.’ + +‘Not—how—I sent him more money on his promising to stay in Canada?’ + +‘He is home, safe enough.’ Cornelius in the same gloomy tone gave the +remainder of his information. He had witnessed the scene, unobserved of +his father, and had heard him say that he was on his way to see his +daughter, who was going to marry a rich gentleman. The only good +fortune attending the untoward incident was that the millwright’s name +had been printed as Joshua Alborough. + +‘Beaten! We are to be beaten on the eve of our expected victory!’ said +the elder brother. ‘How did he guess that Rosa was likely to marry? +Good Heaven Cornelius, you seem doomed to bring bad news always, do you +not!’ + +‘I do,’ said Cornelius. ‘Poor Rosa!’ + +It was almost in tears, so great was their heart-sickness and shame, +that the brothers walked the remainder of the way to Joshua’s dwelling. +In the evening they set out to meet Rosa, bringing her to the village +in a fly; and when she had come into the house, and was sitting down +with them, they almost forgot their secret anxiety in contemplating +her, who knew nothing about it. + +Next day the Fellmers came, and the two or three days after that were a +lively time. That the squire was yielding to his impulses—making up his +mind—there could be no doubt. On Sunday Cornelius read the lessons, and +Joshua preached. Mrs. Fellmer was quite maternal towards Rosa, and it +appeared that she had decided to welcome the inevitable with a good +grace. The pretty girl was to spend yet another afternoon with the +elder lady, superintending some parish treat at the house in observance +of Christmas, and afterwards to stay on to dinner, her brothers to +fetch her in the evening. They were also invited to dine, but they +could not accept owing to an engagement. + +The engagement was of a sombre sort. They were going to meet their +father, who would that day be released from Fountall Gaol, and try to +persuade him to keep away from Narrobourne. Every exertion was to be +made to get him back to Canada, to his old home in the +Midlands—anywhere, so that he would not impinge disastrously upon their +courses, and blast their sister’s prospects of the auspicious marriage +which was just then hanging in the balance. + +As soon as Rosa had been fetched away by her friends at the manor-house +her brothers started on their expedition, without waiting for dinner or +tea. Cornelius, to whom the millwright always addressed his letters +when he wrote any, drew from his pocket and re-read as he walked the +curt note which had led to this journey being undertaken; it was +despatched by their father the night before, immediately upon his +liberation, and stated that he was setting out for Narrobourne at the +moment of writing; that having no money he would be obliged to walk all +the way; that he calculated on passing through the intervening town of +Ivell about six on the following day, where he should sup at the Castle +Inn, and where he hoped they would meet him with a carriage-and-pair, +or some other such conveyance, that he might not disgrace them by +arriving like a tramp. + +‘That sounds as if he gave a thought to our position,’ said Cornelius. + +Joshua knew the satire that lurked in the paternal words, and said +nothing. Silence prevailed during the greater part of their journey. +The lamps were lighted in Ivell when they entered the streets, and +Cornelius, who was quite unknown in this neighbourhood, and who, +moreover, was not in clerical attire, decided that he should be the one +to call at the Castle Inn. Here, in answer to his inquiry under the +darkness of the archway, they told him that such a man as he had +described left the house about a quarter of an hour earlier, after +making a meal in the kitchen-settle. He was rather the worse for +liquor. + +‘Then,’ said Joshua, when Cornelius joined him outside with this +intelligence, ‘we must have met and passed him! And now that I think of +it, we did meet some one who was unsteady in his gait, under the trees +on the other side of Hendford Hill, where it was too dark to see him.’ + +They rapidly retraced their steps; but for a long stretch of the way +home could discern nobody. When, however, they had gone about +three-quarters of the distance, they became conscious of an irregular +footfall in front of them, and could see a whitish figure in the gloom. +They followed dubiously. The figure met another wayfarer—the single one +that had been encountered upon this lonely road—and they distinctly +heard him ask the way to Narrobourne. The stranger replied—what was +quite true—that the nearest way was by turning in at the stile by the +next bridge, and following the footpath which branched thence across +the meadows. + +When the brothers reached the stile they also entered the path, but did +not overtake the subject of their worry till they had crossed two or +three meads, and the lights from Narrobourne manor-house were visible +before them through the trees. Their father was no longer walking; he +was seated against the wet bank of an adjoining hedge. Observing their +forms he shouted, ‘I’m going to Narrobourne; who may you be?’ + +They went up to him, and revealed themselves, reminding him of the plan +which he had himself proposed in his note, that they should meet him at +Ivell. + +‘By Jerry, I’d forgot it!’ he said. ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ +His tone was distinctly quarrelsome. + +A long conversation followed, which became embittered at the first hint +from them that he should not come to the village. The millwright drew a +quart bottle from his pocket, and challenged them to drink if they +meant friendly and called themselves men. Neither of the two had +touched alcohol for years, but for once they thought it best to accept, +so as not to needlessly provoke him. + +‘What’s in it?’ said Joshua. + +‘A drop of weak gin-and-water. It won’t hurt ye. Drin’ from the +bottle.’ Joshua did so, and his father pushed up the bottom of the +vessel so as to make him swallow a good deal in spite of himself. It +went down into his stomach like molten lead. + +‘Ha, ha, that’s right!’ said old Halborough. ‘But ’twas raw spirit—ha, +ha!’ + +‘Why should you take me in so!’ said Joshua, losing his self-command, +try as he would to keep calm. + +‘Because you took me in, my lad, in banishing me to that cursed country +under pretence that it was for my good. You were a pair of hypocrites +to say so. It was done to get rid of me—no more nor less. But, by +Jerry, I’m a match for ye now! I’ll spoil your souls for preaching. My +daughter is going to be married to the squire here. I’ve heard the +news—I saw it in a paper!’ + +‘It is premature—’ + +‘I know it is true; and I’m her father, and I shall give her away, or +there’ll be a hell of a row, I can assure ye! Is that where the +gennleman lives?’ + +Joshua Halborough writhed in impotent despair. Fellmer had not yet +positively declared himself, his mother was hardly won round; a scene +with their father in the parish would demolish as fair a palace of +hopes as was ever builded. The millwright rose. ‘If that’s where the +squire lives I’m going to call. Just arrived from Canady with her +fortune—ha, ha! I wish no harm to the gennleman, and the gennleman will +wish no harm to me. But I like to take my place in the family, and +stand upon my rights, and lower people’s pride!’ + +‘You’ve succeeded already! Where’s that woman you took with you—’ + +‘Woman! She was my wife as lawful as the Constitution—a sight more +lawful than your mother was till some time after you were born!’ + +Joshua had for many years before heard whispers that his father had +cajoled his mother in their early acquaintance, and had made somewhat +tardy amends; but never from his father’s lips till now. It was the +last stroke, and he could not bear it. He sank back against the hedge. +‘It is over!’ he said. ‘He ruins us all!’ + +The millwright moved on, waving his stick triumphantly, and the two +brothers stood still. They could see his drab figure stalking along the +path, and over his head the lights from the conservatory of Narrobourne +House, inside which Albert Fellmer might possibly be sitting with Rosa +at that moment, holding her hand, and asking her to share his home with +him. + +The staggering whitey-brown form, advancing to put a blot on all this, +had been diminishing in the shade; and now suddenly disappeared beside +a weir. There was the noise of a flounce in the water. + +‘He has fallen in!’ said Cornelius, starting forward to run for the +place at which his father had vanished. + +Joshua, awaking from the stupefied reverie into which he had sunk, +rushed to the other’s side before he had taken ten steps. ‘Stop, stop, +what are you thinking of?’ he whispered hoarsely, grasping Cornelius’s +arm. + +‘Pulling him out!’ + +‘Yes, yes—so am I. But—wait a moment—’ + +‘But, Joshua!’ + +‘Her life and happiness, you know—Cornelius—and your reputation and +mine—and our chance of rising together, all three—’ + +He clutched his brother’s arm to the bone; and as they stood breathless +the splashing and floundering in the weir continued; over it they saw +the hopeful lights from the manor-house conservatory winking through +the trees as their bare branches waved to and fro. + +The floundering and splashing grew weaker, and they could hear gurgling +words: ‘Help—I’m drownded! Rosie—Rosie!’ + +‘We’ll go—we must save him. O Joshua!’ + +‘Yes, yes! we must!’ + +Still they did not move, but waited, holding each other, each thinking +the same thought. Weights of lead seemed to be affixed to their feet, +which would no longer obey their wills. The mead became silent. Over it +they fancied they could see figures moving in the conservatory. The air +up there seemed to emit gentle kisses. + +Cornelius started forward at last, and Joshua almost simultaneously. +Two or three minutes brought them to the brink of the stream. At first +they could see nothing in the water, though it was not so deep nor the +night so dark but that their father’s light kerseymere coat would have +been visible if he had lain at the bottom. Joshua looked this way and +that. + +‘He has drifted into the culvert,’ he said. + +Below the foot-bridge of the weir the stream suddenly narrowed to half +its width, to pass under a barrel arch or culvert constructed for +waggons to cross into the middle of the mead in haymaking time. It +being at present the season of high water the arch was full to the +crown, against which the ripples clucked every now and then. At this +point he had just caught sight of a pale object slipping under. In a +moment it was gone. + +They went to the lower end, but nothing emerged. For a long time they +tried at both ends to effect some communication with the interior, but +to no purpose. + +‘We ought to have come sooner!’ said the conscience-stricken Cornelius, +when they were quite exhausted, and dripping wet. + +‘I suppose we ought,’ replied Joshua heavily. He perceived his father’s +walking-stick on the bank; hastily picking it up he stuck it into the +mud among the sedge. Then they went on. + +‘Shall we—say anything about this accident?’ whispered Cornelius as +they approached the door of Joshua’s house. + +‘What’s the use? It can do no good. We must wait until he is found.’ + +They went indoors and changed their clothes; after which they started +for the manor-house, reaching it about ten o’clock. Besides their +sister there were only three guests; an adjoining landowner and his +wife, and the infirm old rector. + +Rosa, although she had parted from them so recently, grasped their +hands in an ecstatic, brimming, joyful manner, as if she had not seen +them for years. ‘You look pale,’ she said. + +The brothers answered that they had had a long walk, and were somewhat +tired. Everybody in the room seemed charged full with some sort of +interesting knowledge: the squire’s neighbour and his wife looked +wisely around; and Fellmer himself played the part of host with a +preoccupied bearing which approached fervour. They left at eleven, not +accepting the carriage offered, the distance being so short and the +roads dry. The squire came rather farther into the dark with them than +he need have done, and wished Rosa good-night in a mysterious manner, +slightly apart from the rest. + +When they were walking along Joshua said, with desperate attempt at +joviality, ‘Rosa, what’s going on?’ + +‘O, I—’ she began between a gasp and a bound. ‘He—’ + +‘Never mind—if it disturbs you.’ + +She was so excited that she could not speak connectedly at first, the +practised air which she had brought home with her having disappeared. +Calming herself she added, ‘I am not disturbed, and nothing has +happened. Only he said he wanted to ask me _something_, some day; and I +said never mind that now. He hasn’t asked yet, and is coming to speak +to you about it. He would have done so to-night, only I asked him not +to be in a hurry. But he will come to-morrow, I am sure!’ + +CHAPTER V + +It was summer-time, six months later, and mowers and haymakers were at +work in the meads. The manor-house, being opposite them, frequently +formed a peg for conversation during these operations; and the doings +of the squire, and the squire’s young wife, the curate’s sister—who was +at present the admired of most of them, and the interest of all—met +with their due amount of criticism. + +Rosa was happy, if ever woman could be said to be so. She had not +learnt the fate of her father, and sometimes wondered—perhaps with a +sense of relief—why he did not write to her from his supposed home in +Canada. Her brother Joshua had been presented to a living in a small +town, shortly after her marriage, and Cornelius had thereupon succeeded +to the vacant curacy of Narrobourne. + +These two had awaited in deep suspense the discovery of their father’s +body; and yet the discovery had not been made. Every day they expected +a man or a boy to run up from the meads with the intelligence; but he +had never come. Days had accumulated to weeks and months; the wedding +had come and gone: Joshua had tolled and read himself in at his new +parish; and never a shout of amazement over the millwright’s remains. + +But now, in June, when they were mowing the meads, the hatches had to +be drawn and the water let out of its channels for the convenience of +the mowers. It was thus that the discovery was made. A man, stooping +low with his scythe, caught a view of the culvert lengthwise, and saw +something entangled in the recently bared weeds of its bed. A day or +two after there was an inquest; but the body was unrecognizable. Fish +and flood had been busy with the millwright; he had no watch or marked +article which could be identified; and a verdict of the accidental +drowning of a person unknown settled the matter. + +As the body was found in Narrobourne parish, there it had to be buried. +Cornelius wrote to Joshua, begging him to come and read the service, or +to send some one; he himself could not do it. Rather than let in a +stranger Joshua came, and silently scanned the coroner’s order handed +him by the undertaker:— + +‘I, Henry Giles, Coroner for the Mid-Division of Outer Wessex, do +hereby order the Burial of the Body now shown to the Inquest Jury as +the Body of an Adult Male Person Unknown . . . ,’ etc. + +Joshua Halborough got through the service in some way, and rejoined his +brother Cornelius at his house. Neither accepted an invitation to lunch +at their sister’s; they wished to discuss parish matters together. In +the afternoon she came down, though they had already called on her, and +had not expected to see her again. Her bright eyes, brown hair, flowery +bonnet, lemon-coloured gloves, and flush beauty, were like an +irradiation into the apartment, which they in their gloom could hardly +bear. + +‘I forgot to tell you,’ she said, ‘of a curious thing which happened to +me a month or two before my marriage—something which I have thought may +have had a connection with the accident to the poor man you have buried +to-day. It was on that evening I was at the manor-house waiting for you +to fetch me; I was in the winter-garden with Albert, and we were +sitting silent together, when we fancied we heard a cry. We opened the +door, and while Albert ran to fetch his hat, leaving me standing there, +the cry was repeated, and my excited senses made me think I heard my +own name. When Albert came back all was silent, and we decided that it +was only a drunken shout, and not a cry for help. We both forgot the +incident, and it never has occurred to me till since the funeral to-day +that it might have been this stranger’s cry. The name of course was +only fancy, or he might have had a wife or child with a name something +like mine, poor man!’ + +When she was gone the brothers were silent till Cornelius said, ‘Now +mark this, Joshua. Sooner or later she’ll know.’ + +‘How?’ + +‘From one of us. Do you think human hearts are iron-cased safes, that +you suppose we can keep this secret for ever?’ + +‘Yes, I think they are, sometimes,’ said Joshua. + +‘No. It will out. We shall tell.’ + +‘What, and ruin her—kill her? Disgrace her children, and pull down the +whole auspicious house of Fellmer about our ears? No! May I—drown where +he was drowned before I do it! Never, never. Surely you can say the +same, Cornelius!’ + +Cornelius seemed fortified, and no more was said. For a long time after +that day he did not see Joshua, and before the next year was out a son +and heir was born to the Fellmers. The villagers rang the three bells +every evening for a week and more, and were made merry by Mr. Fellmer’s +ale; and when the christening came on Joshua paid Narrobourne another +visit. + +Among all the people who assembled on that day the brother clergymen +were the least interested. Their minds were haunted by a spirit in +kerseymere in the evening they walked together in the fields. + +‘She’s all right,’ said Joshua. ‘But here are you doing journey-work, +Cornelius, and likely to continue at it till the end of the day, as far +as I can see. I, too, with my petty living—what am I after all? . . . +To tell the truth, the Church is a poor forlorn hope for people without +influence, particularly when their enthusiasm begins to flag. A social +regenerator has a better chance outside, where he is unhampered by +dogma and tradition. As for me, I would rather have gone on mending +mills, with my crust of bread and liberty.’ + +Almost automatically they had bent their steps along the margin of the +river; they now paused. They were standing on the brink of the +well-known weir. There were the hatches, there was the culvert; they +could see the pebbly bed of the stream through the pellucid water. The +notes of the church-bells were audible, still jangled by the +enthusiastic villagers. + +‘Why see—it was there I hid his walking-stick!’ said Joshua, looking +towards the sedge. The next moment, during a passing breeze, something +flashed white on the spot to which the attention of Cornelius was +drawn. + +From the sedge rose a straight little silver-poplar, and it was the +leaves of this sapling which caused the flicker of whiteness. + +‘His walking-stick has grown!’ Joshua added. ‘It was a rough one—cut +from the hedge, I remember.’ + +At every puff of wind the tree turned white, till they could not bear +to look at it; and they walked away. + +‘I see him every night,’ Cornelius murmured . . . ‘Ah, we read our +_Hebrews_ to little account, Jos! Υπέμεινε σταυρον, αισχυνης +καταφρονησας. To have endured the cross, despising the shame—there lay +greatness! But now I often feel that I should like to put an end to +trouble here in this self-same spot.’ + +‘I have thought of it myself,’ said Joshua. + +‘Perhaps we shall, some day,’ murmured his brother. ‘Perhaps,’ said +Joshua moodily. + +With that contingency to consider in the silence of their nights and +days they bent their steps homewards. + +_December_ 1888. + + + + +ON THE WESTERN CIRCUIT + + +CHAPTER I + +The man who played the disturbing part in the two quiet lives hereafter +depicted—no great man, in any sense, by the way—first had knowledge of +them on an October evening, in the city of Melchester. He had been +standing in the Close, vainly endeavouring to gain amid the darkness a +glimpse of the most homogeneous pile of mediæval architecture in +England, which towered and tapered from the damp and level sward in +front of him. While he stood the presence of the Cathedral walls was +revealed rather by the ear than by the eyes; he could not see them, but +they reflected sharply a roar of sound which entered the Close by a +street leading from the city square, and, falling upon the building, +was flung back upon him. + +He postponed till the morrow his attempt to examine the deserted +edifice, and turned his attention to the noise. It was compounded of +steam barrel-organs, the clanging of gongs, the ringing of hand-bells, +the clack of rattles, and the undistinguishable shouts of men. A lurid +light hung in the air in the direction of the tumult. Thitherward he +went, passing under the arched gateway, along a straight street, and +into the square. + +He might have searched Europe over for a greater contrast between +juxtaposed scenes. The spectacle was that of the eighth chasm of the +Inferno as to colour and flame, and, as to mirth, a development of the +Homeric heaven. A smoky glare, of the complexion of brass-filings, +ascended from the fiery tongues of innumerable naphtha lamps affixed to +booths, stalls, and other temporary erections which crowded the +spacious market-square. In front of this irradiation scores of human +figures, more or less in profile, were darting athwart and across, up, +down, and around, like gnats against a sunset. + +Their motions were so rhythmical that they seemed to be moved by +machinery. And it presently appeared that they were moved by machinery +indeed; the figures being those of the patrons of swings, see-saws, +flying-leaps, above all of the three steam roundabouts which occupied +the centre of the position. It was from the latter that the din of +steam-organs came. + +Throbbing humanity in full light was, on second thoughts, better than +architecture in the dark. The young man, lighting a short pipe, and +putting his hat on one side and one hand in his pocket, to throw +himself into harmony with his new environment, drew near to the largest +and most patronized of the steam circuses, as the roundabouts were +called by their owners. This was one of brilliant finish, and it was +now in full revolution. The musical instrument around which and to +whose tones the riders revolved, directed its trumpet-mouths of brass +upon the young man, and the long plate-glass mirrors set at angles, +which revolved with the machine, flashed the gyrating personages and +hobby horses kaleidoscopically into his eyes. + +It could now be seen that he was unlike the majority of the crowd. A +gentlemanly young fellow, one of the species found in large towns only, +and London particularly, built on delicate lines, well, though not +fashionably dressed, he appeared to belong to the professional class; +he had nothing square or practical about his look, much that was +curvilinear and sensuous. Indeed, some would have called him a man not +altogether typical of the middle-class male of a century wherein sordid +ambition is the master-passion that seems to be taking the +time-honoured place of love. + +The revolving figures passed before his eyes with an unexpected and +quiet grace in a throng whose natural movements did not suggest +gracefulness or quietude as a rule. By some contrivance there was +imparted to each of the hobby-horses a motion which was really the +triumph and perfection of roundabout inventiveness—a galloping rise and +fall, so timed that, of each pair of steeds, one was on the spring +while the other was on the pitch. The riders were quite fascinated by +these equine undulations in this most delightful holiday-game of our +times. There were riders as young as six, and as old as sixty years, +with every age between. At first it was difficult to catch a +personality, but by and by the observer’s eyes centred on the prettiest +girl out of the several pretty ones revolving. + +It was not that one with the light frock and light hat whom he had been +at first attracted by; no, it was the one with the black cape, grey +skirt, light gloves and—no, not even she, but the one behind her; she +with the crimson skirt, dark jacket, brown hat and brown gloves. +Unmistakably that was the prettiest girl. + +Having finally selected her, this idle spectator studied her as well as +he was able during each of her brief transits across his visual field. +She was absolutely unconscious of everything save the act of riding: +her features were rapt in an ecstatic dreaminess; for the moment she +did not know her age or her history or her lineaments, much less her +troubles. He himself was full of vague latter-day glooms and popular +melancholies, and it was a refreshing sensation to behold this young +thing then and there, absolutely as happy as if she were in a Paradise. + +Dreading the moment when the inexorable stoker, grimily lurking behind +the glittering rococo-work, should decide that this set of riders had +had their pennyworth, and bring the whole concern of steam-engine, +horses, mirrors, trumpets, drums, cymbals, and such-like to pause and +silence, he waited for her every reappearance, glancing indifferently +over the intervening forms, including the two plainer girls, the old +woman and child, the two youngsters, the newly-married couple, the old +man with a clay pipe, the sparkish youth with a ring, the young ladies +in the chariot, the pair of journeyman-carpenters, and others, till his +select country beauty followed on again in her place. He had never seen +a fairer product of nature, and at each round she made a deeper mark in +his sentiments. The stoppage then came, and the sighs of the riders +were audible. + +He moved round to the place at which he reckoned she would alight; but +she retained her seat. The empty saddles began to refill, and she +plainly was deciding to have another turn. The young man drew up to the +side of her steed, and pleasantly asked her if she had enjoyed her +ride. + +‘O yes!’ she said, with dancing eyes. ‘It has been quite unlike +anything I have ever felt in my life before!’ + +It was not difficult to fall into conversation with her. Unreserved—too +unreserved—by nature, she was not experienced enough to be reserved by +art, and after a little coaxing she answered his remarks readily. She +had come to live in Melchester from a village on the Great Plain, and +this was the first time that she had ever seen a steam-circus; she +could not understand how such wonderful machines were made. She had +come to the city on the invitation of Mrs. Harnham, who had taken her +into her household to train her as a servant, if she showed any +aptitude. Mrs. Harnham was a young lady who before she married had been +Miss Edith White, living in the country near the speaker’s cottage; she +was now very kind to her through knowing her in childhood so well. She +was even taking the trouble to educate her. Mrs. Harnham was the only +friend she had in the world, and being without children had wished to +have her near her in preference to anybody else, though she had only +lately come; allowed her to do almost as she liked, and to have a +holiday whenever she asked for it. The husband of this kind young lady +was a rich wine-merchant of the town, but Mrs. Harnham did not care +much about him. In the daytime you could see the house from where they +were talking. She, the speaker, liked Melchester better than the lonely +country, and she was going to have a new hat for next Sunday that was +to cost fifteen and ninepence. + +Then she inquired of her acquaintance where he lived, and he told her +in London, that ancient and smoky city, where everybody lived who lived +at all, and died because they could not live there. He came into Wessex +two or three times a year for professional reasons; he had arrived from +Wintoncester yesterday, and was going on into the next county in a day +or two. For one thing he did like the country better than the town, and +it was because it contained such girls as herself. + +Then the pleasure-machine started again, and, to the light-hearted +girl, the figure of the handsome young man, the market-square with its +lights and crowd, the houses beyond, and the world at large, began +moving round as before, countermoving in the revolving mirrors on her +right hand, she being as it were the fixed point in an undulating, +dazzling, lurid universe, in which loomed forward most prominently of +all the form of her late interlocutor. Each time that she approached +the half of her orbit that lay nearest him they gazed at each other +with smiles, and with that unmistakable expression which means so +little at the moment, yet so often leads up to passion, heart-ache, +union, disunion, devotion, overpopulation, drudgery, content, +resignation, despair. + +When the horses slowed anew he stepped to her side and proposed another +heat. ‘Hang the expense for once,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay!’ + +She laughed till the tears came. + +‘Why do you laugh, dear?’ said he. + +‘Because—you are so genteel that you must have plenty of money, and +only say that for fun!’ she returned. + +‘Ha-ha!’ laughed the young man in unison, and gallantly producing his +money she was enabled to whirl on again. + +As he stood smiling there in the motley crowd, with his pipe in his +hand, and clad in the rough pea-jacket and wideawake that he had put on +for his stroll, who would have supposed him to be Charles Bradford +Raye, Esquire, stuff-gownsman, educated at Wintoncester, called to the +Bar at Lincoln’s-Inn, now going the Western Circuit, merely detained in +Melchester by a small arbitration after his brethren had moved on to +the next county-town? + +CHAPTER II + +The square was overlooked from its remoter corner by the house of which +the young girl had spoken, a dignified residence of considerable size, +having several windows on each floor. Inside one of these, on the first +floor, the apartment being a large drawing-room, sat a lady, in +appearance from twenty-eight to thirty years of age. The blinds were +still undrawn, and the lady was absently surveying the weird scene +without, her cheek resting on her hand. The room was unlit from within, +but enough of the glare from the market-place entered it to reveal the +lady’s face. She was what is called an interesting creature rather than +a handsome woman; dark-eyed, thoughtful, and with sensitive lips. + +A man sauntered into the room from behind and came forward. + +‘O, Edith, I didn’t see you,’ he said. ‘Why are you sitting here in the +dark?’ + +‘I am looking at the fair,’ replied the lady in a languid voice. + +‘Oh? Horrid nuisance every year! I wish it could be put a stop to’ + +‘I like it.’ + +‘H’m. There’s no accounting for taste.’ + +For a moment he gazed from the window with her, for politeness sake, +and then went out again. + +In a few minutes she rang. + +‘Hasn’t Anna come in?’ asked Mrs. Harnham. + +‘No m’m.’ + +‘She ought to be in by this time. I meant her to go for ten minutes +only.’ + +‘Shall I go and look for her, m’m?’ said the house-maid alertly. + +‘No. It is not necessary: she is a good girl and will come soon.’ + +However, when the servant had gone Mrs. Harnham arose, went up to her +room, cloaked and bonneted herself, and proceeded downstairs, where she +found her husband. + +‘I want to see the fair,’ she said; ‘and I am going to look for Anna. I +have made myself responsible for her, and must see she comes to no +harm. She ought to be indoors. Will you come with me?’ + +‘Oh, she’s all right. I saw her on one of those whirligig things, +talking to her young man as I came in. But I’ll go if you wish, though +I’d rather go a hundred miles the other way.’ + +‘Then please do so. I shall come to no harm alone.’ + +She left the house and entered the crowd which thronged the +market-place, where she soon discovered Anna, seated on the revolving +horse. As soon as it stopped Mrs. Harnham advanced and said severely, +‘Anna, how can you be such a wild girl? You were only to be out for ten +minutes.’ + +Anna looked blank, and the young man, who had dropped into the +background, came to her assistance. + +‘Please don’t blame her,’ he said politely. ‘It is my fault that she +has stayed. She looked so graceful on the horse that I induced her to +go round again. I assure you that she has been quite safe.’ + +‘In that case I’ll leave her in your hands,’ said Mrs. Harnham, turning +to retrace her steps. + +But this for the moment it was not so easy to do. Something had +attracted the crowd to a spot in their rear, and the wine-merchant’s +wife, caught by its sway, found herself pressed against Anna’s +acquaintance without power to move away. Their faces were within a few +inches of each other, his breath fanned her cheek as well as Anna’s. +They could do no other than smile at the accident; but neither spoke, +and each waited passively. Mrs. Harnham then felt a man’s hand clasping +her fingers, and from the look of consciousness on the young fellow’s +face she knew the hand to be his: she also knew that from the position +of the girl he had no other thought than that the imprisoned hand was +Anna’s. What prompted her to refrain from undeceiving him she could +hardly tell. Not content with holding the hand, he playfully slipped +two of his fingers inside her glove, against her palm. Thus matters +continued till the pressure lessened; but several minutes passed before +the crowd thinned sufficiently to allow Mrs. Harnham to withdraw. + +‘How did they get to know each other, I wonder?’ she mused as she +retreated. ‘Anna is really very forward—and he very wicked and nice.’ + +She was so gently stirred with the stranger’s manner and voice, with +the tenderness of his idle touch, that instead of re-entering the house +she turned back again and observed the pair from a screened nook. +Really she argued (being little less impulsive than Anna herself) it +was very excusable in Anna to encourage him, however she might have +contrived to make his acquaintance; he was so gentlemanly, so +fascinating, had such beautiful eyes. The thought that he was several +years her junior produced a reasonless sigh. + +At length the couple turned from the roundabout towards the door of +Mrs. Harnham’s house, and the young man could be heard saying that he +would accompany her home. Anna, then, had found a lover, apparently a +very devoted one. Mrs. Harnham was quite interested in him. When they +drew near the door of the wine-merchant’s house, a comparatively +deserted spot by this time, they stood invisible for a little while in +the shadow of a wall, where they separated, Anna going on to the +entrance, and her acquaintance returning across the square. + +‘Anna,’ said Mrs. Harnham, coming up. ‘I’ve been looking at you! That +young man kissed you at parting I am almost sure.’ + +‘Well,’ stammered Anna; ‘he said, if I didn’t mind—it would do me no +harm, and, and, him a great deal of good!’ + +‘Ah, I thought so! And he was a stranger till to-night?’ + +‘Yes ma’am.’ + +‘Yet I warrant you told him your name and every thing about yourself?’ + +‘He asked me.’ + +‘But he didn’t tell you his?’ + +‘Yes ma’am, he did!’ cried Anna victoriously. ‘It is Charles Bradford, +of London.’ + +‘Well, if he’s respectable, of course I’ve nothing to say against your +knowing him,’ remarked her mistress, prepossessed, in spite of general +principles, in the young man’s favour. ‘But I must reconsider all that, +if he attempts to renew your acquaintance. A country-bred girl like +you, who has never lived in Melchester till this month, who had hardly +ever seen a black-coated man till you came here, to be so sharp as to +capture a young Londoner like him!’ + +‘I didn’t capture him. I didn’t do anything,’ said Anna, in confusion. + +When she was indoors and alone Mrs. Harnham thought what a well-bred +and chivalrous young man Anna’s companion had seemed. There had been a +magic in his wooing touch of her hand; and she wondered how he had come +to be attracted by the girl. + +The next morning the emotional Edith Harnham went to the usual week-day +service in Melchester cathedral. In crossing the Close through the fog +she again perceived him who had interested her the previous evening, +gazing up thoughtfully at the high-piled architecture of the nave: and +as soon as she had taken her seat he entered and sat down in a stall +opposite hers. + +He did not particularly heed her; but Mrs. Harnham was continually +occupying her eyes with him, and wondered more than ever what had +attracted him in her unfledged maid-servant. The mistress was almost as +unaccustomed as the maiden herself to the end-of-the-age young man, or +she might have wondered less. Raye, having looked about him awhile, +left abruptly, without regard to the service that was proceeding; and +Mrs. Harnham—lonely, impressionable creature that she was—took no +further interest in praising the Lord. She wished she had married a +London man who knew the subtleties of love-making as they were +evidently known to him who had mistakenly caressed her hand. + +CHAPTER III + +The calendar at Melchester had been light, occupying the court only a +few hours; and the assizes at Casterbridge, the next county-town on the +Western Circuit, having no business for Raye, he had not gone thither. +At the next town after that they did not open till the following +Monday, trials to begin on Tuesday morning. In the natural order of +things Raye would have arrived at the latter place on Monday afternoon; +but it was not till the middle of Wednesday that his gown and grey wig, +curled in tiers, in the best fashion of Assyrian bas-reliefs, were seen +blowing and bobbing behind him as he hastily walked up the High Street +from his lodgings. But though he entered the assize building there was +nothing for him to do, and sitting at the blue baize table in the well +of the court, he mended pens with a mind far away from the case in +progress. Thoughts of unpremeditated conduct, of which a week earlier +he would not have believed himself capable, threw him into a mood of +dissatisfied depression. + +He had contrived to see again the pretty rural maiden Anna, the day +after the fair, had walked out of the city with her to the earthworks +of Old Melchester, and feeling a violent fancy for her, had remained in +Melchester all Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; by persuasion obtaining +walks and meetings with the girl six or seven times during the +interval; had in brief won her, body and soul. + +He supposed it must have been owing to the seclusion in which he had +lived of late in town that he had given way so unrestrainedly to a +passion for an artless creature whose inexperience had, from the first, +led her to place herself unreservedly in his hands. Much he deplored +trifling with her feelings for the sake of a passing desire; and he +could only hope that she might not live to suffer on his account. + +She had begged him to come to her again; entreated him; wept. He had +promised that he would do so, and he meant to carry out that promise. +He could not desert her now. Awkward as such unintentional connections +were, the interspace of a hundred miles—which to a girl of her limited +capabilities was like a thousand—would effectually hinder this summer +fancy from greatly encumbering his life; while thought of her simple +love might do him the negative good of keeping him from idle pleasures +in town when he wished to work hard. His circuit journeys would take +him to Melchester three or four times a year; and then he could always +see her. + +The pseudonym, or rather partial name, that he had given her as his +before knowing how far the acquaintance was going to carry him, had +been spoken on the spur of the moment, without any ulterior intention +whatever. He had not afterwards disturbed Anna’s error, but on leaving +her he had felt bound to give her an address at a stationer’s not far +from his chambers, at which she might write to him under the initials +‘C. B.’ + +In due time Raye returned to his London abode, having called at +Melchester on his way and spent a few additional hours with his +fascinating child of nature. In town he lived monotonously every day. +Often he and his rooms were enclosed by a tawny fog from all the world +besides, and when he lighted the gas to read or write by, his situation +seemed so unnatural that he would look into the fire and think of that +trusting girl at Melchester again and again. Often, oppressed by absurd +fondness for her, he would enter the dim religious nave of the Law +Courts by the north door, elbow other juniors habited like himself, and +like him unretained; edge himself into this or that crowded court where +a sensational case was going on, just as if he were in it, though the +police officers at the door knew as well as he knew himself that he had +no more concern with the business in hand than the patient idlers at +the gallery-door outside, who had waited to enter since eight in the +morning because, like him, they belonged to the classes that live on +expectation. But he would do these things to no purpose, and think how +greatly the characters in such scenes contrasted with the pink and +breezy Anna. + +An unexpected feature in that peasant maiden’s conduct was that she had +not as yet written to him, though he had told her she might do so if +she wished. Surely a young creature had never before been so reticent +in such circumstances. At length he sent her a brief line, positively +requesting her to write. There was no answer by the return post, but +the day after a letter in a neat feminine hand, and bearing the +Melchester post-mark, was handed to him by the stationer. + +The fact alone of its arrival was sufficient to satisfy his imaginative +sentiment. He was not anxious to open the epistle, and in truth did not +begin to read it for nearly half-an-hour, anticipating readily its +terms of passionate retrospect and tender adjuration. When at last he +turned his feet to the fireplace and unfolded the sheet, he was +surprised and pleased to find that neither extravagance nor vulgarity +was there. It was the most charming little missive he had ever received +from woman. To be sure the language was simple and the ideas were +slight; but it was so self-possessed; so purely that of a young girl +who felt her womanhood to be enough for her dignity that he read it +through twice. Four sides were filled, and a few lines written across, +after the fashion of former days; the paper, too, was common, and not +of the latest shade and surface. But what of those things? He had +received letters from women who were fairly called ladies, but never so +sensible, so human a letter as this. He could not single out any one +sentence and say it was at all remarkable or clever; the _ensemble_ of +the letter it was which won him; and beyond the one request that he +would write or come to her again soon there was nothing to show her +sense of a claim upon him. + +To write again and develop a correspondence was the last thing Raye +would have preconceived as his conduct in such a situation; yet he did +send a short, encouraging line or two, signed with his pseudonym, in +which he asked for another letter, and cheeringly promised that he +would try to see her again on some near day, and would never forget how +much they had been to each other during their short acquaintance. + +CHAPTER IV + +To return now to the moment at which Anna, at Melchester, had received +Raye’s letter. + +It had been put into her own hand by the postman on his morning rounds. +She flushed down to her neck on receipt of it, and turned it over and +over. ‘It is mine?’ she said. + +‘Why, yes, can’t you see it is?’ said the postman, smiling as he +guessed the nature of the document and the cause of the confusion. + +‘O yes, of course!’ replied Anna, looking at the letter, forcedly +tittering, and blushing still more. + +Her look of embarrassment did not leave her with the postman’s +departure. She opened the envelope, kissed its contents, put away the +letter in her pocket, and remained musing till her eyes filled with +tears. + +A few minutes later she carried up a cup of tea to Mrs. Harnham in her +bed-chamber. Anna’s mistress looked at her, and said: ‘How dismal you +seem this morning, Anna. What’s the matter?’ + +‘I’m not dismal, I’m glad; only I—’ She stopped to stifle a sob. + +‘Well?’ + +‘I’ve got a letter—and what good is it to me, if I can’t read a word in +it!’ + +‘Why, I’ll read it, child, if necessary.’ + +‘But this is from somebody—I don’t want anybody to read it but myself!’ +Anna murmured. + +‘I shall not tell anybody. Is it from that young man?’ + +‘I think so.’ Anna slowly produced the letter, saying: ‘Then will you +read it to me, ma’am?’ + +This was the secret of Anna’s embarrassment and flutterings. She could +neither read nor write. She had grown up under the care of an aunt by +marriage, at one of the lonely hamlets on the Great Mid-Wessex Plain +where, even in days of national education, there had been no school +within a distance of two miles. Her aunt was an ignorant woman; there +had been nobody to investigate Anna’s circumstances, nobody to care +about her learning the rudiments; though, as often in such cases, she +had been well fed and clothed and not unkindly treated. Since she had +come to live at Melchester with Mrs. Harnham, the latter, who took a +kindly interest in the girl, had taught her to speak correctly, in +which accomplishment Anna showed considerable readiness, as is not +unusual with the illiterate; and soon became quite fluent in the use of +her mistress’s phraseology. Mrs. Harnham also insisted upon her getting +a spelling and copy book, and beginning to practise in these. Anna was +slower in this branch of her education, and meanwhile here was the +letter. + +Edith Harnham’s large dark eyes expressed some interest in the +contents, though, in her character of mere interpreter, she threw into +her tone as much as she could of mechanical passiveness. She read the +short epistle on to its concluding sentence, which idly requested Anna +to send him a tender answer. + +‘Now—you’ll do it for me, won’t you, dear mistress?’ said Anna eagerly. +‘And you’ll do it as well as ever you can, please? Because I couldn’t +bear him to think I am not able to do it myself. I should sink into the +earth with shame if he knew that!’ + +From some words in the letter Mrs. Harnham was led to ask questions, +and the answers she received confirmed her suspicions. Deep concern +filled Edith’s heart at perceiving how the girl had committed her +happiness to the issue of this new-sprung attachment. She blamed +herself for not interfering in a flirtation which had resulted so +seriously for the poor little creature in her charge; though at the +time of seeing the pair together she had a feeling that it was hardly +within her province to nip young affection in the bud. However, what +was done could not be undone, and it behoved her now, as Anna’s only +protector, to help her as much as she could. To Anna’s eager request +that she, Mrs. Harnham, should compose and write the answer to this +young London man’s letter, she felt bound to accede, to keep alive his +attachment to the girl if possible; though in other circumstances she +might have suggested the cook as an amanuensis. + +A tender reply was thereupon concocted, and set down in Edith Harnham’s +hand. This letter it had been which Raye had received and delighted in. +Written in the presence of Anna it certainly was, and on Anna’s humble +note-paper, and in a measure indited by the young girl; but the life, +the spirit, the individuality, were Edith Harnham’s. + +‘Won’t you at least put your name yourself?’ she said. ‘You can manage +to write that by this time?’ + +‘No, no,’ said Anna, shrinking back. ‘I should do it so bad. He’d be +ashamed of me, and never see me again!’ + +The note, so prettily requesting another from him, had, as we have +seen, power enough in its pages to bring one. He declared it to be such +a pleasure to hear from her that she must write every week. The same +process of manufacture was accordingly repeated by Anna and her +mistress, and continued for several weeks in succession; each letter +being penned and suggested by Edith, the girl standing by; the answer +read and commented on by Edith, Anna standing by and listening again. + +Late on a winter evening, after the dispatch of the sixth letter, Mrs. +Harnham was sitting alone by the remains of her fire. Her husband had +retired to bed, and she had fallen into that fixity of musing which +takes no count of hour or temperature. The state of mind had been +brought about in Edith by a strange thing which she had done that day. +For the first time since Raye’s visit Anna had gone to stay over a +night or two with her cottage friends on the Plain, and in her absence +had arrived, out of its time, a letter from Raye. To this Edith had +replied on her own responsibility, from the depths of her own heart, +without waiting for her maid’s collaboration. The luxury of writing to +him what would be known to no consciousness but his was great, and she +had indulged herself therein. + +Why was it a luxury? + +Edith Harnham led a lonely life. Influenced by the belief of the +British parent that a bad marriage with its aversions is better than +free womanhood with its interests, dignity, and leisure, she had +consented to marry the elderly wine-merchant as a _pis aller_, at the +age of seven-and-twenty—some three years before this date—to find +afterwards that she had made a mistake. That contract had left her +still a woman whose deeper nature had never been stirred. + +She was now clearly realizing that she had become possessed to the +bottom of her soul with the image of a man to whom she was hardly so +much as a name. From the first he had attracted her by his looks and +voice; by his tender touch; and, with these as generators, the writing +of letter after letter and the reading of their soft answers had +insensibly developed on her side an emotion which fanned his; till +there had resulted a magnetic reciprocity between the correspondents, +notwithstanding that one of them wrote in a character not her own. That +he had been able to seduce another woman in two days was his crowning +though unrecognized fascination for her as the she-animal. + +They were her own impassioned and pent-up ideas—lowered to monosyllabic +phraseology in order to keep up the disguise—that Edith put into +letters signed with another name, much to the shallow Anna’s delight, +who, unassisted, could not for the world have conceived such pretty +fancies for winning him, even had she been able to write them. Edith +found that it was these, her own foisted-in sentiments, to which the +young barrister mainly responded. The few sentences occasionally added +from Anna’s own lips made apparently no impression upon him. + +The letter-writing in her absence Anna never discovered; but on her +return the next morning she declared she wished to see her lover about +something at once, and begged Mrs. Harnham to ask him to come. + +There was a strange anxiety in her manner which did not escape Mrs. +Harnham, and ultimately resolved itself into a flood of tears. Sinking +down at Edith’s knees, she made confession that the result of her +relations with her lover it would soon become necessary to disclose. + +Edith Harnham was generous enough to be very far from inclined to cast +Anna adrift at this conjuncture. No true woman ever is so inclined from +her own personal point of view, however prompt she may be in taking +such steps to safeguard those dear to her. Although she had written to +Raye so short a time previously, she instantly penned another Anna-note +hinting clearly though delicately the state of affairs. + +Raye replied by a hasty line to say how much he was affected by her +news: he felt that he must run down to see her almost immediately. + +But a week later the girl came to her mistress’s room with another +note, which on being read informed her that after all he could not find +time for the journey. Anna was broken with grief; but by Mrs. Harnham’s +counsel strictly refrained from hurling at him the reproaches and +bitterness customary from young women so situated. One thing was +imperative: to keep the young man’s romantic interest in her alive. +Rather therefore did Edith, in the name of her _protégée_, request him +on no account to be distressed about the looming event, and not to +inconvenience himself to hasten down. She desired above everything to +be no weight upon him in his career, no clog upon his high activities. +She had wished him to know what had befallen: he was to dismiss it +again from his mind. Only he must write tenderly as ever, and when he +should come again on the spring circuit it would be soon enough to +discuss what had better be done. + +It may well be supposed that Anna’s own feelings had not been quite in +accord with these generous expressions; but the mistress’s judgment had +ruled, and Anna had acquiesced. ‘All I want is that _niceness_ you can +so well put into your letters, my dear, dear mistress, and that I can’t +for the life o’ me make up out of my own head; though I mean the same +thing and feel it exactly when you’ve written it down!’ + +When the letter had been sent off, and Edith Harnham was left alone, +she bowed herself on the back of her chair and wept. + +‘I wish it was mine—I wish it was!’ she murmured. ‘Yet how can I say +such a wicked thing!’ + +CHAPTER V + +The letter moved Raye considerably when it reached him. The +intelligence itself had affected him less than her unexpected manner of +treating him in relation to it. The absence of any word of reproach, +the devotion to his interests, the self-sacrifice apparent in every +line, all made up a nobility of character that he had never dreamt of +finding in womankind. + +‘God forgive me!’ he said tremulously. ‘I have been a wicked wretch. I +did not know she was such a treasure as this!’ + +He reassured her instantly; declaring that he would not of course +desert her, that he would provide a home for her somewhere. Meanwhile +she was to stay where she was as long as her mistress would allow her. + +But a misfortune supervened in this direction. Whether an inkling of +Anna’s circumstances reached the knowledge of Mrs. Harnham’s husband or +not cannot be said, but the girl was compelled, in spite of Edith’s +entreaties, to leave the house. By her own choice she decided to go +back for a while to the cottage on the Plain. This arrangement led to a +consultation as to how the correspondence should be carried on; and in +the girl’s inability to continue personally what had been begun in her +name, and in the difficulty of their acting in concert as heretofore, +she requested Mrs. Harnham—the only well-to-do friend she had in the +world—to receive the letters and reply to them off-hand, sending them +on afterwards to herself on the Plain, where she might at least get +some neighbour to read them to her, if a trustworthy one could be met +with. Anna and her box then departed for the Plain. + +Thus it befel that Edith Harnham found herself in the strange position +of having to correspond, under no supervision by the real woman, with a +man not her husband, in terms which were virtually those of a wife, +concerning a condition that was not Edith’s at all; the man being one +for whom, mainly through the sympathies involved in playing this part, +she secretly cherished a predilection, subtle and imaginative truly, +but strong and absorbing. She opened each letter, read it as if +intended for herself, and replied from the promptings of her own heart +and no other. + +Throughout this correspondence, carried on in the girl’s absence, the +high-strung Edith Harnham lived in the ecstasy of fancy; the vicarious +intimacy engendered such a flow of passionateness as was never +exceeded. For conscience’ sake Edith at first sent on each of his +letters to Anna, and even rough copies of her replies; but later on +these so-called copies were much abridged, and many letters on both +sides were not sent on at all. + +Though selfish, and, superficially at least, infested with the +self-indulgent vices of artificial society, there was a substratum of +honesty and fairness in Raye’s character. He had really a tender regard +for the country girl, and it grew more tender than ever when he found +her apparently capable of expressing the deepest sensibilities in the +simplest words. He meditated, he wavered; and finally resolved to +consult his sister, a maiden lady much older than himself, of lively +sympathies and good intent. In making this confidence he showed her +some of the letters. + +‘She seems fairly educated,’ Miss Raye observed. ‘And bright in ideas. +She expresses herself with a taste that must be innate.’ + +‘Yes. She writes very prettily, doesn’t she, thanks to these elementary +schools?’ + +‘One is drawn out towards her, in spite of one’s self, poor thing.’ + +The upshot of the discussion was that though he had not been directly +advised to do it, Raye wrote, in his real name, what he would never +have decided to write on his own responsibility; namely that he could +not live without her, and would come down in the spring and shelve her +looming difficulty by marrying her. + +This bold acceptance of the situation was made known to Anna by Mrs. +Harnham driving out immediately to the cottage on the Plain. Anna +jumped for joy like a little child. And poor, crude directions for +answering appropriately were given to Edith Harnham, who on her return +to the city carried them out with warm intensification. + +‘O!’ she groaned, as she threw down the pen. ‘Anna—poor good little +fool—hasn’t intelligence enough to appreciate him! How should she? +While I—don’t bear his child!’ + +It was now February. The correspondence had continued altogether for +four months; and the next letter from Raye contained incidentally a +statement of his position and prospects. He said that in offering to +wed her he had, at first, contemplated the step of retiring from a +profession which hitherto had brought him very slight emolument, and +which, to speak plainly, he had thought might be difficult of practice +after his union with her. But the unexpected mines of brightness and +warmth that her letters had disclosed to be lurking in her sweet nature +had led him to abandon that somewhat sad prospect. He felt sure that, +with her powers of development, after a little private training in the +social forms of London under his supervision, and a little help from a +governess if necessary, she would make as good a professional man’s +wife as could be desired, even if he should rise to the woolsack. Many +a Lord Chancellor’s wife had been less intuitively a lady than she had +shown herself to be in her lines to him. + +‘O—poor fellow, poor fellow!’ mourned Edith Harnham. + +Her distress now raged as high as her infatuation. It was she who had +wrought him to this pitch—to a marriage which meant his ruin; yet she +could not, in mercy to her maid, do anything to hinder his plan. Anna +was coming to Melchester that week, but she could hardly show the girl +this last reply from the young man; it told too much of the second +individuality that had usurped the place of the first. + +Anna came, and her mistress took her into her own room for privacy. +Anna began by saying with some anxiety that she was glad the wedding +was so near. + +‘O Anna!’ replied Mrs. Harnham. ‘I think we must tell him all—that I +have been doing your writing for you?—lest he should not know it till +after you become his wife, and it might lead to dissension and +recriminations—’ + +‘O mis’ess, dear mis’ess—please don’t tell him now!’ cried Anna in +distress. ‘If you were to do it, perhaps he would not marry me; and +what should I do then? It would be terrible what would come to me! And +I am getting on with my writing, too. I have brought with me the +copybook you were so good as to give me, and I practise every day, and +though it is so, so hard, I shall do it well at last, I believe, if I +keep on trying.’ + +Edith looked at the copybook. The copies had been set by herself, and +such progress as the girl had made was in the way of grotesque +facsimile of her mistress’s hand. But even if Edith’s flowing +caligraphy were reproduced the inspiration would be another thing. + +‘You do it so beautifully,’ continued Anna, ‘and say all that I want to +say so much better than I could say it, that I do hope you won’t leave +me in the lurch just now!’ + +‘Very well,’ replied the other. ‘But I—but I thought I ought not to go +on!’ + +‘Why?’ + +Her strong desire to confide her sentiments led Edith to answer truly: + +‘Because of its effect upon me.’ + +‘But it _can’t_ have any!’ + +‘Why, child?’ + +‘Because you are married already!’ said Anna with lucid simplicity. + +‘Of course it can’t,’ said her mistress hastily; yet glad, despite her +conscience, that two or three outpourings still remained to her. ‘But +you must concentrate your attention on writing your name as I write it +here.’ + +CHAPTER VI + +Soon Raye wrote about the wedding. Having decided to make the best of +what he feared was a piece of romantic folly, he had acquired more zest +for the grand experiment. He wished the ceremony to be in London, for +greater privacy. Edith Harnham would have preferred it at Melchester; +Anna was passive. His reasoning prevailed, and Mrs. Harnham threw +herself with mournful zeal into the preparations for Anna’s departure. +In a last desperate feeling that she must at every hazard be in at the +death of her dream, and see once again the man who by a species of +telepathy had exercised such an influence on her, she offered to go up +with Anna and be with her through the ceremony—‘to see the end of her,’ +as her mistress put it with forced gaiety; an offer which the girl +gratefully accepted; for she had no other friend capable of playing the +part of companion and witness, in the presence of a gentlemanly +bridegroom, in such a way as not to hasten an opinion that he had made +an irremediable social blunder. + +It was a muddy morning in March when Raye alighted from a four-wheel +cab at the door of a registry-office in the S.W. district of London, +and carefully handed down Anna and her companion Mrs. Harnham. Anna +looked attractive in the somewhat fashionable clothes which Mrs. +Harnham had helped her to buy, though not quite so attractive as, an +innocent child, she had appeared in her country gown on the back of the +wooden horse at Melchester Fair. + +Mrs. Harnham had come up this morning by an early train, and a young +man—a friend of Raye’s—having met them at the door, all four entered +the registry-office together. Till an hour before this time Raye had +never known the wine-merchant’s wife, except at that first casual +encounter, and in the flutter of the performance before them he had +little opportunity for more than a brief acquaintance. The contract of +marriage at a registry is soon got through; but somehow, during its +progress, Raye discovered a strange and secret gravitation between +himself and Anna’s friend. + +The formalities of the wedding—or rather ratification of a previous +union—being concluded, the four went in one cab to Raye’s lodgings, +newly taken in a new suburb in preference to a house, the rent of which +he could ill afford just then. Here Anna cut the little cake which Raye +had bought at a pastrycook’s on his way home from Lincoln’s Inn the +night before. But she did not do much besides. Raye’s friend was +obliged to depart almost immediately, and when he had left the only +ones virtually present were Edith and Raye who exchanged ideas with +much animation. The conversation was indeed theirs only, Anna being as +a domestic animal who humbly heard but understood not. Raye seemed +startled in awakening to this fact, and began to feel dissatisfied with +her inadequacy. + +At last, more disappointed than he cared to own, he said, ‘Mrs. +Harnham, my darling is so flurried that she doesn’t know what she is +doing or saying. I see that after this event a little quietude will be +necessary before she gives tongue to that tender philosophy which she +used to treat me to in her letters.’ + +They had planned to start early that afternoon for Knollsea, to spend +the few opening days of their married life there, and as the hour for +departure was drawing near Raye asked his wife if she would go to the +writing-desk in the next room and scribble a little note to his sister, +who had been unable to attend through indisposition, informing her that +the ceremony was over, thanking her for her little present, and hoping +to know her well now that she was the writer’s sister as well as +Charles’s. + +‘Say it in the pretty poetical way you know so well how to adopt,’ he +added, ‘for I want you particularly to win her, and both of you to be +dear friends.’ + +Anna looked uneasy, but departed to her task, Raye remaining to talk to +their guest. Anna was a long while absent, and her husband suddenly +rose and went to her. + +He found her still bending over the writing-table, with tears brimming +up in her eyes; and he looked down upon the sheet of note-paper with +some interest, to discover with what tact she had expressed her +good-will in the delicate circumstances. To his surprise she had +progressed but a few lines, in the characters and spelling of a child +of eight, and with the ideas of a goose. + +‘Anna,’ he said, staring; ‘what’s this?’ + +‘It only means—that I can’t do it any better!’ she answered, through +her tears. + +‘Eh? Nonsense!’ + +‘I can’t!’ she insisted, with miserable, sobbing hardihood. ‘I—I—didn’t +write those letters, Charles! I only told _her_ what to write! And not +always that! But I am learning, O so fast, my dear, dear husband! And +you’ll forgive me, won’t you, for not telling you before?’ She slid to +her knees, abjectly clasped his waist and laid her face against him. + +He stood a few moments, raised her, abruptly turned, and shut the door +upon her, rejoining Edith in the drawing-room. She saw that something +untoward had been discovered, and their eyes remained fixed on each +other. + +‘Do I guess rightly?’ he asked, with wan quietude. ‘_You_ were her +scribe through all this?’ + +‘It was necessary,’ said Edith. + +‘Did she dictate every word you ever wrote to me?’ + +‘Not every word.’ + +‘In fact, very little?’ + +‘Very little.’ + +‘You wrote a great part of those pages every week from your own +conceptions, though in her name!’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Perhaps you wrote many of the letters when you were alone, without +communication with her?’ + +‘I did.’ + +He turned to the bookcase, and leant with his hand over his face; and +Edith, seeing his distress, became white as a sheet. + +‘You have deceived me—ruined me!’ he murmured. + +‘O, don’t say it!’ she cried in her anguish, jumping up and putting her +hand on his shoulder. ‘I can’t bear that!’ + +‘Delighting me deceptively! Why did you do it—_why_ did you!’ + +‘I began doing it in kindness to her! How could I do otherwise than try +to save such a simple girl from misery? But I admit that I continued it +for pleasure to myself.’ + +Raye looked up. ‘Why did it give you pleasure?’ he asked. + +‘I must not tell,’ said she. + +He continued to regard her, and saw that her lips suddenly began to +quiver under his scrutiny, and her eyes to fill and droop. She started +aside, and said that she must go to the station to catch the return +train: could a cab be called immediately? + +But Raye went up to her, and took her unresisting hand. ‘Well, to think +of such a thing as this!’ he said. ‘Why, you and I are +friends—lovers—devoted lovers—by correspondence!’ + +‘Yes; I suppose.’ + +‘More.’ + +‘More?’ + +‘Plainly more. It is no use blinking that. Legally I have married +her—God help us both!—in soul and spirit I have married you, and no +other woman in the world!’ + +‘Hush!’ + +‘But I will not hush! Why should you try to disguise the full truth, +when you have already owned half of it? Yes, it is between you and me +that the bond is—not between me and her! Now I’ll say no more. But, O +my cruel one, I think I have one claim upon you!’ + +She did not say what, and he drew her towards him, and bent over her. +‘If it was all pure invention in those letters,’ he said emphatically, +‘give me your cheek only. If you meant what you said, let it be lips. +It is for the first and last time, remember!’ + +She put up her mouth, and he kissed her long. ‘You forgive me?’ she +said crying. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘But you are ruined!’ + +‘What matter!’ he said shrugging his shoulders. ‘It serves me right!’ + +She withdrew, wiped her eyes, entered and bade good-bye to Anna, who +had not expected her to go so soon, and was still wrestling with the +letter. Raye followed Edith downstairs, and in three minutes she was in +a hansom driving to the Waterloo station. + +He went back to his wife. ‘Never mind the letter, Anna, to-day,’ he +said gently. ‘Put on your things. We, too, must be off shortly.’ + +The simple girl, upheld by the sense that she was indeed married, +showed her delight at finding that he was as kind as ever after the +disclosure. She did not know that before his eyes he beheld as it were +a galley, in which he, the fastidious urban, was chained to work for +the remainder of his life, with her, the unlettered peasant, chained to +his side. + +Edith travelled back to Melchester that day with a face that showed the +very stupor of grief; her lips still tingling from the desperate +pressure of his kiss. The end of her impassioned dream had come. When +at dusk she reached the Melchester station her husband was there to +meet her, but in his perfunctoriness and her preoccupation they did not +see each other, and she went out of the station alone. + +She walked mechanically homewards without calling a fly. Entering, she +could not bear the silence of the house, and went up in the dark to +where Anna had slept, where she remained thinking awhile. She then +returned to the drawing-room, and not knowing what she did, crouched +down upon the floor. + +‘I have ruined him!’ she kept repeating. ‘I have ruined him; because I +would not deal treacherously towards her!’ + +In the course of half an hour a figure opened the door of the +apartment. + +‘Ah—who’s that?’ she said, starting up, for it was dark. + +‘Your husband—who should it be?’ said the worthy merchant. + +‘Ah—my husband!—I forgot I had a husband!’ she whispered to herself. + +‘I missed you at the station,’ he continued. ‘Did you see Anna safely +tied up? I hope so, for ’twas time.’ + +‘Yes—Anna is married.’ + +Simultaneously with Edith’s journey home Anna and her husband were +sitting at the opposite windows of a second-class carriage which sped +along to Knollsea. In his hand was a pocket-book full of creased sheets +closely written over. Unfolding them one after another he read them in +silence, and sighed. + +‘What are you doing, dear Charles?’ she said timidly from the other +window, and drew nearer to him as if he were a god. + +‘Reading over all those sweet letters to me signed “Anna,”’ he replied +with dreary resignation. + +_Autumn_ 1891. + + + + +TO PLEASE HIS WIFE + + +CHAPTER I + +The interior of St. James’s Church, in Havenpool Town, was slowly +darkening under the close clouds of a winter afternoon. It was Sunday: +service had just ended, the face of the parson in the pulpit was buried +in his hands, and the congregation, with a cheerful sigh of release, +were rising from their knees to depart. + +For the moment the stillness was so complete that the surging of the +sea could be heard outside the harbour-bar. Then it was broken by the +footsteps of the clerk going towards the west door to open it in the +usual manner for the exit of the assembly. Before, however, he had +reached the doorway, the latch was lifted from without, and the dark +figure of a man in a sailor’s garb appeared against the light. + +The clerk stepped aside, the sailor closed the door gently behind him, +and advanced up the nave till he stood at the chancel-step. The parson +looked up from the private little prayer which, after so many for the +parish, he quite fairly took for himself; rose to his feet, and stared +at the intruder. + +‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said the sailor, addressing the minister in a +voice distinctly audible to all the congregation. ‘I have come here to +offer thanks for my narrow escape from shipwreck. I am given to +understand that it is a proper thing to do, if you have no objection?’ + +The parson, after a moment’s pause, said hesitatingly, ‘I have no +objection; certainly. It is usual to mention any such wish before +service, so that the proper words may be used in the General +Thanksgiving. But, if you wish, we can read from the form for use after +a storm at sea.’ + +‘Ay, sure; I ain’t particular,’ said the sailor. + +The clerk thereupon directed the sailor to the page in the prayer-book +where the collect of thanksgiving would be found, and the rector began +reading it, the sailor kneeling where he stood, and repeating it after +him word by word in a distinct voice. The people, who had remained +agape and motionless at the proceeding, mechanically knelt down +likewise; but they continued to regard the isolated form of the sailor +who, in the precise middle of the chancel-step, remained fixed on his +knees, facing the east, his hat beside him, his hands joined, and he +quite unconscious of his appearance in their regard. + +When his thanksgiving had come to an end he rose; the people rose also, +and all went out of church together. As soon as the sailor emerged, so +that the remaining daylight fell upon his face, old inhabitants began +to recognize him as no other than Shadrach Jolliffe, a young man who +had not been seen at Havenpool for several years. A son of the town, +his parents had died when he was quite young, on which account he had +early gone to sea, in the Newfoundland trade. + +He talked with this and that townsman as he walked, informing them +that, since leaving his native place years before, he had become +captain and owner of a small coasting-ketch, which had providentially +been saved from the gale as well as himself. Presently he drew near to +two girls who were going out of the churchyard in front of him; they +had been sitting in the nave at his entry, and had watched his doings +with deep interest, afterwards discussing him as they moved out of +church together. One was a slight and gentle creature, the other a +tall, large-framed, deliberative girl. Captain Jolliffe regarded the +loose curls of their hair, their backs and shoulders, down to their +heels, for some time. + +‘Who may them two maids be?’ he whispered to his neighbour. + +‘The little one is Emily Hanning; the tall one Joanna Phippard.’ + +‘Ah! I recollect ’em now, to be sure.’ + +He advanced to their elbow, and genially stole a gaze at them. + +‘Emily, you don’t know me?’ said the sailor, turning his beaming brown +eyes on her. + +‘I think I do, Mr. Jolliffe,’ said Emily shyly. + +The other girl looked straight at him with her dark eyes. + +‘The face of Miss Joanna I don’t call to mind so well,’ he continued. +‘But I know her beginnings and kindred.’ + +They walked and talked together, Jolliffe narrating particulars of his +late narrow escape, till they reached the corner of Sloop Lane, in +which Emily Hanning dwelt, when, with a nod and smile, she left them. +Soon the sailor parted also from Joanna, and, having no especial errand +or appointment, turned back towards Emily’s house. She lived with her +father, who called himself an accountant, the daughter, however, +keeping a little stationery-shop as a supplemental provision for the +gaps of his somewhat uncertain business. On entering Jolliffe found +father and daughter about to begin tea. + +‘O, I didn’t know it was tea-time,’ he said. ‘Ay, I’ll have a cup with +much pleasure.’ + +He remained to tea and long afterwards, telling more tales of his +seafaring life. Several neighbours called to listen, and were asked to +come in. Somehow Emily Hanning lost her heart to the sailor that Sunday +night, and in the course of a week or two there was a tender +understanding between them. + +One moonlight evening in the next month Shadrach was ascending out of +the town by the long straight road eastward, to an elevated suburb +where the more fashionable houses stood—if anything near this ancient +port could be called fashionable—when he saw a figure before him whom, +from her manner of glancing back, he took to be Emily. But, on coming +up, he found she was Joanna Phippard. He gave a gallant greeting, and +walked beside her. + +‘Go along,’ she said, ‘or Emily will be jealous!’ + +He seemed not to like the suggestion, and remained. What was said and +what was done on that walk never could be clearly recollected by +Shadrach; but in some way or other Joanna contrived to wean him away +from her gentler and younger rival. From that week onwards, Jolliffe +was seen more and more in the wake of Joanna Phippard and less in the +company of Emily; and it was soon rumoured about the quay that old +Jolliffe’s son, who had come home from sea, was going to be married to +the former young woman, to the great disappointment of the latter. + +Just after this report had gone about, Joanna dressed herself for a +walk one morning, and started for Emily’s house in the little +cross-street. Intelligence of the deep sorrow of her friend on account +of the loss of Shadrach had reached her ears also, and her conscience +reproached her for winning him away. + +Joanna was not altogether satisfied with the sailor. She liked his +attentions, and she coveted the dignity of matrimony; but she had never +been deeply in love with Jolliffe. For one thing, she was ambitious, +and socially his position was hardly so good as her own, and there was +always the chance of an attractive woman mating considerably above her. +It had long been in her mind that she would not strongly object to give +him back again to Emily if her friend felt so very badly about him. To +this end she had written a letter of renunciation to Shadrach, which +letter she carried in her hand, intending to send it if personal +observation of Emily convinced her that her friend was suffering. + +Joanna entered Sloop Lane and stepped down into the stationery-shop, +which was below the pavement level. Emily’s father was never at home at +this hour of the day, and it seemed as though Emily were not at home +either, for the visitor could make nobody hear. Customers came so +seldom hither that a five minutes’ absence of the proprietor counted +for little. Joanna waited in the little shop, where Emily had +tastefully set out—as women can—articles in themselves of slight value, +so as to obscure the meagreness of the stock-in-trade; till she saw a +figure pausing without the window apparently absorbed in the +contemplation of the sixpenny books, packets of paper, and prints hung +on a string. It was Captain Shadrach Jolliffe, peering in to ascertain +if Emily were there alone. Moved by an impulse of reluctance to meet +him in a spot which breathed of Emily, Joanna slipped through the door +that communicated with the parlour at the back. She had frequently done +so before, for in her friendship with Emily she had the freedom of the +house without ceremony. + +Jolliffe entered the shop. Through the thin blind which screened the +glass partition she could see that he was disappointed at not finding +Emily there. He was about to go out again, when Emily’s form darkened +the doorway, hastening home from some errand. At sight of Jolliffe she +started back as if she would have gone out again. + +‘Don’t run away, Emily; don’t!’ said he. ‘What can make ye afraid?’ + +‘I’m not afraid, Captain Jolliffe. Only—only I saw you all of a sudden, +and—it made me jump!’ Her voice showed that her heart had jumped even +more than the rest of her. + +‘I just called as I was passing,’ he said. + +‘For some paper?’ She hastened behind the counter. + +‘No, no, Emily; why do ye get behind there? Why not stay by me? You +seem to hate me.’ + +‘I don’t hate you. How can I?’ + +‘Then come out, so that we can talk like Christians.’ + +Emily obeyed with a fitful laugh, till she stood again beside him in +the open part of the shop. + +‘There’s a dear,’ he said. + +‘You mustn’t say that, Captain Jolliffe; because the words belong to +somebody else.’ + +‘Ah! I know what you mean. But, Emily, upon my life I didn’t know till +this morning that you cared one bit about me, or I should not have done +as I have done. I have the best of feelings for Joanna, but I know that +from the beginning she hasn’t cared for me more than in a friendly way; +and I see now the one I ought to have asked to be my wife. You know, +Emily, when a man comes home from sea after a long voyage he’s as blind +as a bat—he can’t see who’s who in women. They are all alike to him, +beautiful creatures, and he takes the first that comes easy, without +thinking if she loves him, or if he might not soon love another better +than her. From the first I inclined to you most, but you were so +backward and shy that I thought you didn’t want me to bother ’ee, and +so I went to Joanna.’ + +‘Don’t say any more, Mr. Jolliffe, don’t!’ said she, choking. ‘You are +going to marry Joanna next month, and it is wrong to—to—’ + +‘O, Emily, my darling!’ he cried, and clasped her little figure in his +arms before she was aware. + +Joanna, behind the curtain, turned pale, tried to withdraw her eyes, +but could not. + +‘It is only you I love as a man ought to love the woman he is going to +marry; and I know this from what Joanna has said, that she will +willingly let me off! She wants to marry higher I know, and only said +“Yes” to me out of kindness. A fine, tall girl like her isn’t the sort +for a plain sailor’s wife: you be the best suited for that.’ + +He kissed her and kissed her again, her flexible form quivering in the +agitation of his embrace. + +‘I wonder—are you sure—Joanna is going to break off with you? O, are +you sure? Because—’ + +‘I know she would not wish to make us miserable. She will release me.’ + +‘O, I hope—I hope she will! Don’t stay any longer, Captain Jolliffe!’ + +He lingered, however, till a customer came for a penny stick of +sealing-wax, and then he withdrew. + +Green envy had overspread Joanna at the scene. She looked about for a +way of escape. To get out without Emily’s knowledge of her visit was +indispensable. She crept from the parlour into the passage, and thence +to the front door of the house, where she let herself noiselessly into +the street. + +The sight of that caress had reversed all her resolutions. She could +not let Shadrach go. Reaching home she burnt the letter, and told her +mother that if Captain Jolliffe called she was too unwell to see him. + +Shadrach, however, did not call. He sent her a note expressing in +simple language the state of his feelings; and asked to be allowed to +take advantage of the hints she had given him that her affection, too, +was little more than friendly, by cancelling the engagement. + +Looking out upon the harbour and the island beyond he waited and waited +in his lodgings for an answer that did not come. The suspense grew to +be so intolerable that after dark he went up the High Street. He could +not resist calling at Joanna’s to learn his fate. + +Her mother said her daughter was too unwell to see him, and to his +questioning admitted that it was in consequence of a letter received +from himself; which had distressed her deeply. + +‘You know what it was about, perhaps, Mrs. Phippard?’ he said. + +Mrs. Phippard owned that she did, adding that it put them in a very +painful position. Thereupon Shadrach, fearing that he had been guilty +of an enormity, explained that if his letter had pained Joanna it must +be owing to a misunderstanding, since he had thought it would be a +relief to her. If otherwise, he would hold himself bound by his word, +and she was to think of the letter as never having been written. + +Next morning he received an oral message from the young woman, asking +him to fetch her home from a meeting that evening. This he did, and +while walking from the Town Hall to her door, with her hand in his arm, +she said: + +‘It is all the same as before between us, isn’t it, Shadrach? Your +letter was sent in mistake?’ + +‘It is all the same as before,’ he answered, ‘if you say it must be.’ + +‘I wish it to be,’ she murmured, with hard lineaments, as she thought +of Emily. + +Shadrach was a religious and scrupulous man, who respected his word as +his life. Shortly afterwards the wedding took place, Jolliffe having +conveyed to Emily as gently as possible the error he had fallen into +when estimating Joanna’s mood as one of indifference. + +CHAPTER II + +A month after the marriage Joanna’s mother died, and the couple were +obliged to turn their attention to very practical matters. Now that she +was left without a parent, Joanna could not bear the notion of her +husband going to sea again, but the question was, What could he do at +home? They finally decided to take on a grocer’s shop in High Street, +the goodwill and stock of which were waiting to be disposed of at that +time. Shadrach knew nothing of shopkeeping, and Joanna very little, but +they hoped to learn. + +To the management of this grocery business they now devoted all their +energies, and continued to conduct it for many succeeding years, +without great success. Two sons were born to them, whom their mother +loved to idolatry, although she had never passionately loved her +husband; and she lavished upon them all her forethought and care. But +the shop did not thrive, and the large dreams she had entertained of +her sons’ education and career became attenuated in the face of +realities. Their schooling was of the plainest, but, being by the sea, +they grew alert in all such nautical arts and enterprises as were +attractive to their age. + +The great interest of the Jolliffes’ married life, outside their own +immediate household, had lain in the marriage of Emily. By one of those +odd chances which lead those that lurk in unexpected corners to be +discovered, while the obvious are passed by, the gentle girl had been +seen and loved by a thriving merchant of the town, a widower, some +years older than herself, though still in the prime of life. At first +Emily had declared that she never, never could marry any one; but Mr. +Lester had quietly persevered, and had at last won her reluctant +assent. Two children also were the fruits of this union, and, as they +grew and prospered, Emily declared that she had never supposed that she +could live to be so happy. + +The worthy merchant’s home, one of those large, substantial brick +mansions frequently jammed up in old-fashioned towns, faced directly on +the High Street, nearly opposite to the grocery shop of the Jolliffes, +and it now became the pain of Joanna to behold the woman whose place +she had usurped out of pure covetousness, looking down from her +position of comparative wealth upon the humble shop-window with its +dusty sugar-loaves, heaps of raisins, and canisters of tea, over which +it was her own lot to preside. The business having so dwindled, Joanna +was obliged to serve in the shop herself; and it galled and mortified +her that Emily Lester, sitting in her large drawing-room over the way, +could witness her own dancings up and down behind the counter at the +beck and call of wretched twopenny customers, whose patronage she was +driven to welcome gladly: persons to whom she was compelled to be civil +in the street, while Emily was bounding along with her children and her +governess, and conversing with the genteelest people of the town and +neighbourhood. This was what she had gained by not letting Shadrach +Jolliffe, whom she had so faintly loved, carry his affection elsewhere. + +Shadrach was a good and honest man, and he had been faithful to her in +heart and in deed. Time had clipped the wings of his love for Emily in +his devotion to the mother of his boys: he had quite lived down that +impulsive earlier fancy, and Emily had become in his regard nothing +more than a friend. It was the same with Emily’s feelings for him. +Possibly, had she found the least cause for jealousy, Joanna would +almost have been better satisfied. It was in the absolute acquiescence +of Emily and Shadrach in the results she herself had contrived that her +discontent found nourishment. + +Shadrach was not endowed with the narrow shrewdness necessary for +developing a retail business in the face of many competitors. Did a +customer inquire if the grocer could really recommend the wondrous +substitute for eggs which a persevering bagman had forced into his +stock, he would answer that ‘when you did not put eggs into a pudding +it was difficult to taste them there’; and when he was asked if his +‘real Mocha coffee’ was real Mocha, he would say grimly, ‘as understood +in small shops.’ + +One summer day, when the big brick house opposite was reflecting the +oppressive sun’s heat into the shop, and nobody was present but husband +and wife, Joanna looked across at Emily’s door, where a wealthy +visitor’s carriage had drawn up. Traces of patronage had been visible +in Emily’s manner of late. + +‘Shadrach, the truth is, you are not a business-man,’ his wife sadly +murmured. ‘You were not brought up to shopkeeping, and it is impossible +for a man to make a fortune at an occupation he has jumped into, as you +did into this.’ + +Jolliffe agreed with her, in this as in everything else. + +‘Not that I care a rope’s end about making a fortune,’ he said +cheerfully. ‘I am happy enough, and we can rub on somehow.’ + +She looked again at the great house through the screen of bottled +pickles. + +‘Rub on—yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘But see how well off Emmy Lester is, +who used to be so poor! Her boys will go to College, no doubt; and +think of yours—obliged to go to the Parish School!’ + +Shadrach’s thoughts had flown to Emily. + +‘Nobody,’ he said good-humouredly, ‘ever did Emily a better turn than +you did, Joanna, when you warned her off me and put an end to that +little simpering nonsense between us, so as to leave it in her power to +say “Aye” to Lester when he came along.’ This almost maddened her. + +‘Don’t speak of bygones!’ she implored, in stern sadness. ‘But think, +for the boys’ and my sake, if not for your own, what are we to do to +get richer?’ + +‘Well,’ he said, becoming serious, ‘to tell the truth, I have always +felt myself unfit for this business, though I’ve never liked to say so. +I seem to want more room for sprawling; a more open space to strike out +in than here among friends and neighbours. I could get rich as well as +any man, if I tried my own way.’ + +‘I wish you would! What is your way?’ + +‘To go to sea again.’ + +She had been the very one to keep him at home, hating the semi-widowed +existence of sailors’ wives. But her ambition checked her instincts +now, and she said: ‘Do you think success really lies that way?’ + +‘I am sure it lies in no other.’ + +‘Do you want to go, Shadrach?’ + +‘Not for the pleasure of it, I can tell ’ee. There’s no such pleasure +at sea, Joanna, as I can find in my back parlour here. To speak honest, +I have no love for the brine. I never had much. But if it comes to a +question of a fortune for you and the lads, it is another thing. That’s +the only way to it for one born and bred a seafarer as I.’ + +‘Would it take long to earn?’ + +‘Well, that depends; perhaps not.’ + +The next morning Shadrach pulled from a chest of drawers the nautical +jacket he had worn during the first months of his return, brushed out +the moths, donned it, and walked down to the quay. The port still did a +fair business in the Newfoundland trade, though not so much as +formerly. + +It was not long after this that he invested all he possessed in +purchasing a part-ownership in a brig, of which he was appointed +captain. A few months were passed in coast-trading, during which +interval Shadrach wore off the land-rust that had accumulated upon him +in his grocery phase; and in the spring the brig sailed for +Newfoundland. + +Joanna lived on at home with her sons, who were now growing up into +strong lads, and occupying themselves in various ways about the harbour +and quay. + +‘Never mind, let them work a little,’ their fond mother said to +herself. ‘Our necessities compel it now, but when Shadrach comes home +they will be only seventeen and eighteen, and they shall be removed +from the port, and their education thoroughly taken in hand by a tutor; +and with the money they’ll have they will perhaps be as near to +gentlemen as Emmy Lester’s precious two, with their algebra and their +Latin!’ + +The date for Shadrach’s return drew near and arrived, and he did not +appear. Joanna was assured that there was no cause for anxiety, +sailing-ships being so uncertain in their coming; which assurance +proved to be well grounded, for late one wet evening, about a month +after the calculated time, the ship was announced as at hand, and +presently the slip-slop step of Shadrach as the sailor sounded in the +passage, and he entered. The boys had gone out and had missed him, and +Joanna was sitting alone. + +As soon as the first emotion of reunion between the couple had passed, +Jolliffe explained the delay as owing to a small speculative contract, +which had produced good results. + +‘I was determined not to disappoint ’ee,’ he said; ‘and I think you’ll +own that I haven’t!’ + +With this he pulled out an enormous canvas bag, full and rotund as the +money-bag of the giant whom Jack slew, untied it, and shook the +contents out into her lap as she sat in her low chair by the fire. A +mass of sovereigns and guineas (there were guineas on the earth in +those days) fell into her lap with a sudden thud, weighing down her +gown to the floor. + +‘There!’ said Shadrach complacently. ‘I told ’ee, dear, I’d do it; and +have I done it or no?’ + +Somehow her face, after the first excitement of possession, did not +retain its glory. + +‘It is a lot of gold, indeed,’ she said. ‘And—is this _all_?’ + +‘All? Why, dear Joanna, do you know you can count to three hundred in +that heap? It is a fortune!’ + +‘Yes—yes. A fortune—judged by sea; but judged by land—’ + +However, she banished considerations of the money for the nonce. Soon +the boys came in, and next Sunday Shadrach returned thanks to God—this +time by the more ordinary channel of the italics in the General +Thanksgiving. But a few days after, when the question of investing the +money arose, he remarked that she did not seem so satisfied as he had +hoped. + +‘Well you see, Shadrach,’ she answered, ‘_we_ count by hundreds; _they_ +count by thousands’ (nodding towards the other side of the Street). +‘They have set up a carriage and pair since you left.’ + +‘O, have they?’ + +‘My dear Shadrach, you don’t know how the world moves. However, we’ll +do the best we can with it. But they are rich, and we are poor still!’ + +The greater part of a year was desultorily spent. She moved sadly about +the house and shop, and the boys were still occupying themselves in and +around the harbour. + +‘Joanna,’ he said, one day, ‘I see by your movements that it is not +enough.’ + +‘It is not enough,’ said she. ‘My boys will have to live by steering +the ships that the Lesters own; and I was once above her!’ + +Jolliffe was not an argumentative man, and he only murmured that he +thought he would make another voyage. + +He meditated for several days, and coming home from the quay one +afternoon said suddenly: + +‘I could do it for ’ee, dear, in one more trip, for certain, if—if—’ + +‘Do what, Shadrach?’ + +‘Enable ’ee to count by thousands instead of hundreds.’ + +‘If what?’ + +‘If I might take the boys.’ + +She turned pale. + +‘Don’t say that, Shadrach,’ she answered hastily. + +‘Why?’ + +‘I don’t like to hear it! There’s danger at sea. I want them to be +something genteel, and no danger to them. I couldn’t let them risk +their lives at sea. O, I couldn’t ever, ever!’ + +‘Very well, dear, it shan’t be done.’ + +Next day, after a silence, she asked a question: + +‘If they were to go with you it would make a great deal of difference, +I suppose, to the profit?’ + +‘’Twould treble what I should get from the venture single-handed. Under +my eye they would be as good as two more of myself.’ + +Later on she said: ‘Tell me more about this.’ + +‘Well, the boys are almost as clever as master-mariners in handling a +craft, upon my life! There isn’t a more cranky place in the Northern +Seas than about the sandbanks of this harbour, and they’ve practised +here from their infancy. And they are so steady. I couldn’t get their +steadiness and their trustworthiness in half a dozen men twice their +age.’ + +‘And is it _very_ dangerous at sea; now, too, there are rumours of +war?’ she asked uneasily. + +‘O, well, there be risks. Still . . . ’ + +The idea grew and magnified, and the mother’s heart was crushed and +stifled by it. Emmy was growing _too_ patronizing; it could not be +borne. Shadrach’s wife could not help nagging him about their +comparative poverty. The young men, amiable as their father, when +spoken to on the subject of a voyage of enterprise, were quite willing +to embark; and though they, like their father, had no great love for +the sea, they became quite enthusiastic when the proposal was detailed. + +Everything now hung upon their mother’s assent. She withheld it long, +but at last gave the word: the young men might accompany their father. +Shadrach was unusually cheerful about it: Heaven had preserved him +hitherto, and he had uttered his thanks. God would not forsake those +who were faithful to him. + +All that the Jolliffes possessed in the world was put into the +enterprise. The grocery stock was pared down to the least that possibly +could afford a bare sustenance to Joanna during the absence, which was +to last through the usual ‘New-f’nland spell.’ How she would endure the +weary time she hardly knew, for the boys had been with her formerly; +but she nerved herself for the trial. + +The ship was laden with boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, +fishing-tackle, butter, cheese, cordage, sailcloth, and many other +commodities; and was to bring back oil, furs, skins, fish, cranberries, +and what else came to hand. But much trading to other ports was to be +undertaken between the voyages out and homeward, and thereby much money +made. + +CHAPTER III + +The brig sailed on a Monday morning in spring; but Joanna did not +witness its departure. She could not bear the sight that she had been +the means of bringing about. Knowing this, her husband told her +overnight that they were to sail some time before noon next day hence +when, awakening at five the next morning, she heard them bustling about +downstairs, she did not hasten to descend, but lay trying to nerve +herself for the parting, imagining they would leave about nine, as her +husband had done on his previous voyage. When she did descend she +beheld words chalked upon the sloping face of the bureau; but no +husband or sons. In the hastily-scrawled lines Shadrach said they had +gone off thus not to pain her by a leave-taking; and the sons had +chalked under his words: ‘Good-bye, mother!’ + +She rushed to the quay, and looked down the harbour towards the blue +rim of the sea, but she could only see the masts and bulging sails of +the _Joanna_; no human figures. ‘’Tis I have sent them!’ she said +wildly, and burst into tears. In the house the chalked ‘Good-bye’ +nearly broke her heart. But when she had re-entered the front room, and +looked across at Emily’s, a gleam of triumph lit her thin face at her +anticipated release from the thraldom of subservience. + +To do Emily Lester justice, her assumption of superiority was mainly a +figment of Joanna’s brain. That the circumstances of the merchant’s +wife were more luxurious than Joanna’s, the former could not conceal; +though whenever the two met, which was not very often now, Emily +endeavoured to subdue the difference by every means in her power. + +The first summer lapsed away; and Joanna meagrely maintained herself by +the shop, which now consisted of little more than a window and a +counter. Emily was, in truth, her only large customer; and Mrs. +Lester’s kindly readiness to buy anything and everything without +questioning the quality had a sting of bitterness in it, for it was the +uncritical attitude of a patron, and almost of a donor. The long dreary +winter moved on; the face of the bureau had been turned to the wall to +protect the chalked words of farewell, for Joanna could never bring +herself to rub them out; and she often glanced at them with wet eyes. +Emily’s handsome boys came home for the Christmas holidays; the +University was talked of for them; and still Joanna subsisted as it +were with held breath, like a person submerged. Only one summer more, +and the ‘spell’ would end. Towards the close of the time Emily called +on her quondam friend. She had heard that Joanna began to feel anxious; +she had received no letter from husband or sons for some months. +Emily’s silks rustled arrogantly when, in response to Joanna’s almost +dumb invitation, she squeezed through the opening of the counter and +into the parlour behind the shop. + +‘_You_ are all success, and _I_ am all the other way!’ said Joanna. + +‘But why do you think so?’ said Emily. ‘They are to bring back a +fortune, I hear.’ + +‘Ah! will they come? The doubt is more than a woman can bear. All three +in one ship—think of that! And I have not heard of them for months!’ + +‘But the time is not up. You should not meet misfortune half-way.’ + +‘Nothing will repay me for the grief of their absence!’ + +‘Then why did you let them go? You were doing fairly well.’ + +‘I made them go!’ she said, turning vehemently upon Emily. ‘And I’ll +tell you why! I could not bear that we should be only muddling on, and +you so rich and thriving! Now I have told you, and you may hate me if +you will!’ + +‘I shall never hate you, Joanna.’ + +And she proved the truth of her words afterwards. The end of autumn +came, and the brig should have been in port; but nothing like the +_Joanna_ appeared in the channel between the sands. It was now really +time to be uneasy. Joanna Jolliffe sat by the fire, and every gust of +wind caused her a cold thrill. She had always feared and detested the +sea; to her it was a treacherous, restless, slimy creature, glorying in +the griefs of women. ‘Still,’ she said, ‘they _must_ come!’ + +She recalled to her mind that Shadrach had said before starting that if +they returned safe and sound, with success crowning their enterprise, +he would go as he had gone after his shipwreck, and kneel with his sons +in the church, and offer sincere thanks for their deliverance. She went +to church regularly morning and afternoon, and sat in the most forward +pew, nearest the chancel-step. Her eyes were mostly fixed on that step, +where Shadrach had knelt in the bloom of his young manhood: she knew to +an inch the spot which his knees had pressed twenty winters before; his +outline as he had knelt, his hat on the step beside him. God was good. +Surely her husband must kneel there again: a son on each side as he had +said; George just here, Jim just there. By long watching the spot as +she worshipped it became as if she saw the three returned ones there +kneeling; the two slim outlines of her boys, the more bulky form +between them; their hands clasped, their heads shaped against the +eastern wall. The fancy grew almost to an hallucination: she could +never turn her worn eyes to the step without seeing them there. + +Nevertheless they did not come. Heaven was merciful, but it was not yet +pleased to relieve her soul. This was her purgation for the sin of +making them the slaves of her ambition. But it became more than +purgation soon, and her mood approached despair. Months had passed +since the brig had been due, but it had not returned. + +Joanna was always hearing or seeing evidences of their arrival. When on +the hill behind the port, whence a view of the open Channel could be +obtained, she felt sure that a little speck on the horizon, breaking +the eternally level waste of waters southward, was the truck of the +_Joana’s_ mainmast. Or when indoors, a shout or excitement of any kind +at the corner of the Town Cellar, where the High Street joined the +Quay, caused her to spring to her feet and cry: ‘’Tis they!’ + +But it was not. The visionary forms knelt every Sunday afternoon on the +chancel-step, but not the real. Her shop had, as it were, eaten itself +hollow. In the apathy which had resulted from her loneliness and grief +she had ceased to take in the smallest supplies, and thus had sent away +her last customer. + +In this strait Emily Lester tried by every means in her power to aid +the afflicted woman; but she met with constant repulses. + +‘I don’t like you! I can’t bear to see you!’ Joanna would whisper +hoarsely when Emily came to her and made advances. + +‘But I want to help and soothe you, Joanna,’ Emily would say. + +‘You are a lady, with a rich husband and fine sons! What can you want +with a bereaved crone like me!’ + +‘Joanna, I want this: I want you to come and live in my house, and not +stay alone in this dismal place any longer.’ + +‘And suppose they come and don’t find me at home? You wish to separate +me and mine! No, I’ll stay here. I don’t like you, and I can’t thank +you, whatever kindness you do me!’ + +However, as time went on Joanna could not afford to pay the rent of the +shop and house without an income. She was assured that all hope of the +return of Shadrach and his sons was vain, and she reluctantly consented +to accept the asylum of the Lesters’ house. Here she was allotted a +room of her own on the second floor, and went and came as she chose, +without contact with the family. Her hair greyed and whitened, deep +lines channeled her forehead, and her form grew gaunt and stooping. But +she still expected the lost ones, and when she met Emily on the +staircase she would say morosely: ‘I know why you’ve got me here! +They’ll come, and be disappointed at not finding me at home, and +perhaps go away again; and then you’ll be revenged for my taking +Shadrach away from ’ee!’ + +Emily Lester bore these reproaches from the grief-stricken soul. She +was sure—all the people of Havenpool were sure—that Shadrach and his +sons could not return. For years the vessel had been given up as lost. + +Nevertheless, when awakened at night by any noise, Joanna would rise +from bed and glance at the shop opposite by the light from the +flickering lamp, to make sure it was not they. + +It was a damp and dark December night, six years after the departure of +the brig _Joanna_. The wind was from the sea, and brought up a fishy +mist which mopped the face like moist flannel. Joanna had prayed her +usual prayer for the absent ones with more fervour and confidence than +she had felt for months, and had fallen asleep about eleven. It must +have been between one and two when she suddenly started up. She had +certainly heard steps in the street, and the voices of Shadrach and her +sons calling at the door of the grocery shop. She sprang out of bed, +and, hardly knowing what clothing she dragged on herself; hastened down +Emily’s large and carpeted staircase, put the candle on the hall-table, +unfastened the bolts and chain, and stepped into the street. The mist, +blowing up the street from the Quay, hindered her seeing the shop, +although it was so near; but she had crossed to it in a moment. How was +it? Nobody stood there. The wretched woman walked wildly up and down +with her bare feet—there was not a soul. She returned and knocked with +all her might at the door which had once been her own—they might have +been admitted for the night, unwilling to disturb her till the morning. + +It was not till several minutes had elapsed that the young man who now +kept the shop looked out of an upper window, and saw the skeleton of +something human standing below half-dressed. + +‘Has anybody come?’ asked the form. + +‘O, Mrs. Jolliffe, I didn’t know it was you,’ said the young man +kindly, for he was aware how her baseless expectations moved her. ‘No; +nobody has come.’ + +_June_ 1891. + + + + +THE MELANCHOLY HUSSAR OF THE GERMAN LEGION + + +CHAPTER I + +Here stretch the downs, high and breezy and green, absolutely unchanged +since those eventful days. A plough has never disturbed the turf, and +the sod that was uppermost then is uppermost now. Here stood the camp; +here are distinct traces of the banks thrown up for the horses of the +cavalry, and spots where the midden-heaps lay are still to be observed. +At night, when I walk across the lonely place, it is impossible to +avoid hearing, amid the scourings of the wind over the grass-bents and +thistles, the old trumpet and bugle calls, the rattle of the halters; +to help seeing rows of spectral tents and the _impedimenta_ of the +soldiery. From within the canvases come guttural syllables of foreign +tongues, and broken songs of the fatherland; for they were mainly +regiments of the King’s German Legion that slept round the tent-poles +hereabout at that time. + +It was nearly ninety years ago. The British uniform of the period, with +its immense epaulettes, queer cocked-hat, breeches, gaiters, ponderous +cartridge-box, buckled shoes, and what not, would look strange and +barbarous now. Ideas have changed; invention has followed invention. +Soldiers were monumental objects then. A divinity still hedged kings +here and there; and war was considered a glorious thing. + +Secluded old manor-houses and hamlets lie in the ravines and hollows +among these hills, where a stranger had hardly ever been seen till the +King chose to take the baths yearly at the sea-side watering-place a +few miles to the south; as a consequence of which battalions descended +in a cloud upon the open country around. Is it necessary to add that +the echoes of many characteristic tales, dating from that picturesque +time, still linger about here in more or less fragmentary form, to be +caught by the attentive ear? Some of them I have repeated; most of them +I have forgotten; one I have never repeated, and assuredly can never +forget. + +Phyllis told me the story with her own lips. She was then an old lady +of seventy-five, and her auditor a lad of fifteen. She enjoined silence +as to her share in the incident, till she should be ‘dead, buried, and +forgotten.’ Her life was prolonged twelve years after the day of her +narration, and she has now been dead nearly twenty. The oblivion which +in her modesty and humility she courted for herself has only partially +fallen on her, with the unfortunate result of inflicting an injustice +upon her memory; since such fragments of her story as got abroad at the +time, and have been kept alive ever since, are precisely those which +are most unfavourable to her character. + +It all began with the arrival of the York Hussars, one of the foreign +regiments above alluded to. Before that day scarcely a soul had been +seen near her father’s house for weeks. When a noise like the brushing +skirt of a visitor was heard on the doorstep, it proved to be a +scudding leaf; when a carriage seemed to be nearing the door, it was +her father grinding his sickle on the stone in the garden for his +favourite relaxation of trimming the box-tree borders to the plots. A +sound like luggage thrown down from the coach was a gun far away at +sea; and what looked like a tall man by the gate at dusk was a yew bush +cut into a quaint and attenuated shape. There is no such solitude in +country places now as there was in those old days. + +Yet all the while King George and his court were at his favourite +sea-side resort, not more than five miles off. + +The daughter’s seclusion was great, but beyond the seclusion of the +girl lay the seclusion of the father. If her social condition was +twilight, his was darkness. Yet he enjoyed his darkness, while her +twilight oppressed her. Dr. Grove had been a professional man whose +taste for lonely meditation over metaphysical questions had diminished +his practice till it no longer paid him to keep it going; after which +he had relinquished it and hired at a nominal rent the small, +dilapidated, half farm half manor-house of this obscure inland nook, to +make a sufficiency of an income which in a town would have been +inadequate for their maintenance. He stayed in his garden the greater +part of the day, growing more and more irritable with the lapse of +time, and the increasing perception that he had wasted his life in the +pursuit of illusions. He saw his friends less and less frequently. +Phyllis became so shy that if she met a stranger anywhere in her short +rambles she felt ashamed at his gaze, walked awkwardly, and blushed to +her shoulders. + +Yet Phyllis was discovered even here by an admirer, and her hand most +unexpectedly asked in marriage. + +The King, as aforesaid, was at the neighbouring town, where he had +taken up his abode at Gloucester Lodge and his presence in the town +naturally brought many county people thither. Among these idlers—many +of whom professed to have connections and interests with the Court—was +one Humphrey Gould, a bachelor; a personage neither young nor old; +neither good-looking nor positively plain. Too steady-going to be ‘a +buck’ (as fast and unmarried men were then called), he was an +approximately fashionable man of a mild type. This bachelor of thirty +found his way to the village on the down: beheld Phyllis; made her +father’s acquaintance in order to make hers; and by some means or other +she sufficiently inflamed his heart to lead him in that direction +almost daily; till he became engaged to marry her. + +As he was of an old local family, some of whose members were held in +respect in the county, Phyllis, in bringing him to her feet, had +accomplished what was considered a brilliant move for one in her +constrained position. How she had done it was not quite known to +Phyllis herself. In those days unequal marriages were regarded rather +as a violation of the laws of nature than as a mere infringement of +convention, the more modern view, and hence when Phyllis, of the +watering-place bourgeoisie, was chosen by such a gentlemanly fellow, it +was as if she were going to be taken to heaven, though perhaps the +uninformed would have seen no great difference in the respective +positions of the pair, the said Gould being as poor as a crow. + +This pecuniary condition was his excuse—probably a true one—for +postponing their union, and as the winter drew nearer, and the King +departed for the season, Mr. Humphrey Gould set out for Bath, promising +to return to Phyllis in a few weeks. The winter arrived, the date of +his promise passed, yet Gould postponed his coming, on the ground that +he could not very easily leave his father in the city of their sojourn, +the elder having no other relative near him. Phyllis, though lonely in +the extreme, was content. The man who had asked her in marriage was a +desirable husband for her in many ways; her father highly approved of +his suit; but this neglect of her was awkward, if not painful, for +Phyllis. Love him in the true sense of the word she assured me she +never did, but she had a genuine regard for him; admired a certain +methodical and dogged way in which he sometimes took his pleasure; +valued his knowledge of what the Court was doing, had done, or was +about to do; and she was not without a feeling of pride that he had +chosen her when he might have exercised a more ambitious choice. + +But he did not come; and the spring developed. His letters were regular +though formal; and it is not to be wondered that the uncertainty of her +position, linked with the fact that there was not much passion in her +thoughts of Humphrey, bred an indescribable dreariness in the heart of +Phyllis Grove. The spring was soon summer, and the summer brought the +King; but still no Humphrey Gould. All this while the engagement by +letter was maintained intact. + +At this point of time a golden radiance flashed in upon the lives of +people here, and charged all youthful thought with emotional interest. +This radiance was the aforesaid York Hussars. + +CHAPTER II + +The present generation has probably but a very dim notion of the +celebrated York Hussars of ninety years ago. They were one of the +regiments of the King’s German Legion, and (though they somewhat +degenerated later on) their brilliant uniform, their splendid horses, +and above all, their foreign air and mustachios (rare appendages then), +drew crowds of admirers of both sexes wherever they went. These with +other regiments had come to encamp on the downs and pastures, because +of the presence of the King in the neighbouring town. + +The spot was high and airy, and the view extensive, commanding the Isle +of Portland in front, and reaching to St. Aldhelm’s Head eastward, and +almost to the Start on the west. + +Phyllis, though not precisely a girl of the village, was as interested +as any of them in this military investment. Her father’s home stood +somewhat apart, and on the highest point of ground to which the lane +ascended, so that it was almost level with the top of the church tower +in the lower part of the parish. Immediately from the outside of the +garden-wall the grass spread away to a great distance, and it was +crossed by a path which came close to the wall. Ever since her +childhood it had been Phyllis’s pleasure to clamber up this fence and +sit on the top—a feat not so difficult as it may seem, the walls in +this district being built of rubble, without mortar, so that there were +plenty of crevices for small toes. + +She was sitting up here one day, listlessly surveying the pasture +without, when her attention was arrested by a solitary figure walking +along the path. It was one of the renowned German Hussars, and he moved +onward with his eyes on the ground, and with the manner of one who +wished to escape company. His head would probably have been bent like +his eyes but for his stiff neck-gear. On nearer view she perceived that +his face was marked with deep sadness. Without observing her, he +advanced by the footpath till it brought him almost immediately under +the wall. + +Phyllis was much surprised to see a fine, tall soldier in such a mood +as this. Her theory of the military, and of the York Hussars in +particular (derived entirely from hearsay, for she had never talked to +a soldier in her life), was that their hearts were as gay as their +accoutrements. + +At this moment the Hussar lifted his eyes and noticed her on her perch, +the white muslin neckerchief which covered her shoulders and neck where +left bare by her low gown, and her white raiment in general, showing +conspicuously in the bright sunlight of this summer day. He blushed a +little at the suddenness of the encounter, and without halting a moment +from his pace passed on. + +All that day the foreigner’s face haunted Phyllis; its aspect was so +striking, so handsome, and his eyes were so blue, and sad, and +abstracted. It was perhaps only natural that on some following day at +the same hour she should look over that wall again, and wait till he +had passed a second time. On this occasion he was reading a letter, and +at the sight of her his manner was that of one who had half expected or +hoped to discover her. He almost stopped, smiled, and made a courteous +salute. The end of the meeting was that they exchanged a few words. She +asked him what he was reading, and he readily informed her that he was +re-perusing letters from his mother in Germany; he did not get them +often, he said, and was forced to read the old ones a great many times. +This was all that passed at the present interview, but others of the +same kind followed. + +Phyllis used to say that his English, though not good, was quite +intelligible to her, so that their acquaintance was never hindered by +difficulties of speech. Whenever the subject became too delicate, +subtle, or tender, for such words of English as were at his command, +the eyes no doubt helped out the tongue, and—though this was later +on—the lips helped out the eyes. In short this acquaintance, +unguardedly made, and rash enough on her part, developed and ripened. +Like Desdemona, she pitied him, and learnt his history. + +His name was Matthäus Tina, and Saarbrück his native town, where his +mother was still living. His age was twenty-two, and he had already +risen to the grade of corporal, though he had not long been in the +army. Phyllis used to assert that no such refined or well-educated +young man could have been found in the ranks of the purely English +regiments, some of these foreign soldiers having rather the graceful +manner and presence of our native officers than of our rank and file. + +She by degrees learnt from her foreign friend a circumstance about +himself and his comrades which Phyllis would least have expected of the +York Hussars. So far from being as gay as its uniform, the regiment was +pervaded by a dreadful melancholy, a chronic home-sickness, which +depressed many of the men to such an extent that they could hardly +attend to their drill. The worst sufferers were the younger soldiers +who had not been over here long. They hated England and English life; +they took no interest whatever in King George and his island kingdom, +and they only wished to be out of it and never to see it any more. +Their bodies were here, but their hearts and minds were always far away +in their dear fatherland, of which—brave men and stoical as they were +in many ways—they would speak with tears in their eyes. One of the +worst of the sufferers from this home-woe, as he called it in his own +tongue, was Matthäus Tina, whose dreamy musing nature felt the gloom of +exile still more intensely from the fact that he had left a lonely +mother at home with nobody to cheer her. + +Though Phyllis, touched by all this, and interested in his history, did +not disdain her soldier’s acquaintance, she declined (according to her +own account, at least) to permit the young man to overstep the line of +mere friendship for a long while—as long, indeed, as she considered +herself likely to become the possession of another; though it is +probable that she had lost her heart to Matthäus before she was herself +aware. The stone wall of necessity made anything like intimacy +difficult; and he had never ventured to come, or to ask to come, inside +the garden, so that all their conversation had been overtly conducted +across this boundary. + +CHAPTER III + +But news reached the village from a friend of Phyllis’s father +concerning Mr. Humphrey Gould, her remarkably cool and patient +betrothed. This gentleman had been heard to say in Bath that he +considered his overtures to Miss Phyllis Grove to have reached only the +stage of a half-understanding; and in view of his enforced absence on +his father’s account, who was too great an invalid now to attend to his +affairs, he thought it best that there should be no definite promise as +yet on either side. He was not sure, indeed, that he might not cast his +eyes elsewhere. + +This account—though only a piece of hearsay, and as such entitled to no +absolute credit—tallied so well with the infrequency of his letters and +their lack of warmth, that Phyllis did not doubt its truth for one +moment; and from that hour she felt herself free to bestow her heart as +she should choose. Not so her father; he declared the whole story to be +a fabrication. He had known Mr. Gould’s family from his boyhood; and if +there was one proverb which expressed the matrimonial aspect of that +family well, it was ‘Love me little, love me long.’ Humphrey was an +honourable man, who would not think of treating his engagement so +lightly. ‘Do you wait in patience,’ he said; ‘all will be right enough +in time.’ + +From these words Phyllis at first imagined that her father was in +correspondence with Mr. Gould; and her heart sank within her; for in +spite of her original intentions she had been relieved to hear that her +engagement had come to nothing. But she presently learnt that her +father had heard no more of Humphrey Gould than she herself had done; +while he would not write and address her affianced directly on the +subject, lest it should be deemed an imputation on that bachelor’s +honour. + +‘You want an excuse for encouraging one or other of those foreign +fellows to flatter you with his unmeaning attentions,’ her father +exclaimed, his mood having of late been a very unkind one towards her. +‘I see more than I say. Don’t you ever set foot outside that +garden-fence without my permission. If you want to see the camp I’ll +take you myself some Sunday afternoon.’ + +Phyllis had not the smallest intention of disobeying him in her +actions, but she assumed herself to be independent with respect to her +feelings. She no longer checked her fancy for the Hussar, though she +was far from regarding him as her lover in the serious sense in which +an Englishman might have been regarded as such. The young foreign +soldier was almost an ideal being to her, with none of the +appurtenances of an ordinary house-dweller; one who had descended she +knew not whence, and would disappear she knew not whither; the subject +of a fascinating dream—no more. + +They met continually now—mostly at dusk—during the brief interval +between the going down of the sun and the minute at which the last +trumpet-call summoned him to his tent. Perhaps her manner had become +less restrained latterly; at any rate that of the Hussar was so; he had +grown more tender every day, and at parting after these hurried +interviews she reached down her hand from the top of the wall that he +might press it. One evening he held it so long that she exclaimed, ‘The +wall is white, and somebody in the field may see your shape against +it!’ + +He lingered so long that night that it was with the greatest difficulty +that he could run across the intervening stretch of ground and enter +the camp in time. On the next occasion of his awaiting her she did not +appear in her usual place at the usual hour. His disappointment was +unspeakably keen; he remained staring blankly at the spot, like a man +in a trance. The trumpets and tattoo sounded, and still he did not go. + +She had been delayed purely by an accident. When she arrived she was +anxious because of the lateness of the hour, having heard as well as he +the sounds denoting the closing of the camp. She implored him to leave +immediately. + +‘No,’ he said gloomily. ‘I shall not go in yet—the moment you come—I +have thought of your coming all day.’ + +‘But you may be disgraced at being after time?’ + +‘I don’t mind that. I should have disappeared from the world some time +ago if it had not been for two persons—my beloved, here, and my mother +in Saarbrück. I hate the army. I care more for a minute of your company +than for all the promotion in the world.’ + +Thus he stayed and talked to her, and told her interesting details of +his native place, and incidents of his childhood, till she was in a +simmer of distress at his recklessness in remaining. It was only +because she insisted on bidding him good-night and leaving the wall +that he returned to his quarters. + +The next time that she saw him he was without the stripes that had +adorned his sleeve. He had been broken to the level of private for his +lateness that night; and as Phyllis considered herself to be the cause +of his disgrace her sorrow was great. But the position was now +reversed; it was his turn to cheer her. + +‘Don’t grieve, meine Liebliche!’ he said. ‘I have got a remedy for +whatever comes. First, even supposing I regain my stripes, would your +father allow you to marry a non-commissioned officer in the York +Hussars?’ + +She flushed. This practical step had not been in her mind in relation +to such an unrealistic person as he was; and a moment’s reflection was +enough for it. ‘My father would not—certainly would not,’ she answered +unflinchingly. ‘It cannot be thought of! My dear friend, please do +forget me: I fear I am ruining you and your prospects!’ + +‘Not at all!’ said he. ‘You are giving this country of yours just +sufficient interest to me to make me care to keep alive in it. If my +dear land were here also, and my old parent, with you, I could be happy +as I am, and would do my best as a soldier. But it is not so. And now +listen. This is my plan. That you go with me to my own country, and be +my wife there, and live there with my mother and me. I am not a +Hanoverian, as you know, though I entered the army as such; my country +is by the Saar, and is at peace with France, and if I were once in it I +should be free.’ + +‘But how get there?’ she asked. Phyllis had been rather amazed than +shocked at his proposition. Her position in her father’s house was +growing irksome and painful in the extreme; his parental affection +seemed to be quite dried up. She was not a native of the village, like +all the joyous girls around her; and in some way Matthäus Tina had +infected her with his own passionate longing for his country, and +mother, and home. + +‘But how?’ she repeated, finding that he did not answer. ‘Will you buy +your discharge?’ + +‘Ah, no,’ he said. ‘That’s impossible in these times. No; I came here +against my will; why should I not escape? Now is the time, as we shall +soon be striking camp, and I might see you no more. This is my scheme. +I will ask you to meet me on the highway two miles off; on some calm +night next week that may be appointed. There will be nothing unbecoming +in it, or to cause you shame; you will not fly alone with me, for I +will bring with me my devoted young friend Christoph, an Alsatian, who +has lately joined the regiment, and who has agreed to assist in this +enterprise. We shall have come from yonder harbour, where we shall have +examined the boats, and found one suited to our purpose. Christoph has +already a chart of the Channel, and we will then go to the harbour, and +at midnight cut the boat from her moorings, and row away round the +point out of sight; and by the next morning we are on the coast of +France, near Cherbourg. The rest is easy, for I have saved money for +the land journey, and can get a change of clothes. I will write to my +mother, who will meet us on the way.’ + +He added details in reply to her inquiries, which left no doubt in +Phyllis’s mind of the feasibility of the undertaking. But its magnitude +almost appalled her; and it is questionable if she would ever have gone +further in the wild adventure if, on entering the house that night, her +father had not accosted her in the most significant terms. + +‘How about the York Hussars?’ he said. + +‘They are still at the camp; but they are soon going away, I believe.’ + +‘It is useless for you to attempt to cloak your actions in that way. +You have been meeting one of those fellows; you have been seen walking +with him—foreign barbarians, not much better than the French +themselves! I have made up my mind—don’t speak a word till I have done, +please!—I have made up my mind that you shall stay here no longer while +they are on the spot. You shall go to your aunt’s.’ + +It was useless for her to protest that she had never taken a walk with +any soldier or man under the sun except himself. Her protestations were +feeble, too, for though he was not literally correct in his assertion, +he was virtually only half in error. + +The house of her father’s sister was a prison to Phyllis. She had quite +recently undergone experience of its gloom; and when her father went on +to direct her to pack what would be necessary for her to take, her +heart died within her. In after years she never attempted to excuse her +conduct during this week of agitation; but the result of her +self-communing was that she decided to join in the scheme of her lover +and his friend, and fly to the country which he had coloured with such +lovely hues in her imagination. She always said that the one feature in +his proposal which overcame her hesitation was the obvious purity and +straightforwardness of his intentions. He showed himself to be so +virtuous and kind; he treated her with a respect to which she had never +before been accustomed; and she was braced to the obvious risks of the +voyage by her confidence in him. + +CHAPTER IV + +It was on a soft, dark evening of the following week that they engaged +in the adventure. Tina was to meet her at a point in the highway at +which the lane to the village branched off. Christoph was to go ahead +of them to the harbour where the boat lay, row it round the Nothe—or +Look-out as it was called in those days—and pick them up on the other +side of the promontory, which they were to reach by crossing the +harbour-bridge on foot, and climbing over the Look-out hill. + +As soon as her father had ascended to his room she left the house, and, +bundle in hand, proceeded at a trot along the lane. At such an hour not +a soul was afoot anywhere in the village, and she reached the junction +of the lane with the highway unobserved. Here she took up her position +in the obscurity formed by the angle of a fence, whence she could +discern every one who approached along the turnpike-road, without being +herself seen. + +She had not remained thus waiting for her lover longer than a +minute—though from the tension of her nerves the lapse of even that +short time was trying—when, instead of the expected footsteps, the +stage-coach could be heard descending the hill. She knew that Tina +would not show himself till the road was clear, and waited impatiently +for the coach to pass. Nearing the corner where she was it slackened +speed, and, instead of going by as usual, drew up within a few yards of +her. A passenger alighted, and she heard his voice. It was Humphrey +Gould’s. + +He had brought a friend with him, and luggage. The luggage was +deposited on the grass, and the coach went on its route to the royal +watering-place. + +‘I wonder where that young man is with the horse and trap?’ said her +former admirer to his companion. ‘I hope we shan’t have to wait here +long. I told him half-past nine o’clock precisely.’ + +‘Have you got her present safe?’ + +‘Phyllis’s? O, yes. It is in this trunk. I hope it will please her.’ + +‘Of course it will. What woman would not be pleased with such a +handsome peace-offering?’ + +‘Well—she deserves it. I’ve treated her rather badly. But she has been +in my mind these last two days much more than I should care to confess +to everybody. Ah, well; I’ll say no more about that. It cannot be that +she is so bad as they make out. I am quite sure that a girl of her good +wit would know better than to get entangled with any of those +Hanoverian soldiers. I won’t believe it of her, and there’s an end +on’t.’ + +More words in the same strain were casually dropped as the two men +waited; words which revealed to her, as by a sudden illumination, the +enormity of her conduct. The conversation was at length cut off by the +arrival of the man with the vehicle. The luggage was placed in it, and +they mounted, and were driven on in the direction from which she had +just come. + +Phyllis was so conscience-stricken that she was at first inclined to +follow them; but a moment’s reflection led her to feel that it would +only be bare justice to Matthäus to wait till he arrived, and explain +candidly that she had changed her mind—difficult as the struggle would +be when she stood face to face with him. She bitterly reproached +herself for having believed reports which represented Humphrey Gould as +false to his engagement, when, from what she now heard from his own +lips, she gathered that he had been living full of trust in her. But +she knew well enough who had won her love. Without him her life seemed +a dreary prospect, yet the more she looked at his proposal the more she +feared to accept it—so wild as it was, so vague, so venturesome. She +had promised Humphrey Gould, and it was only his assumed faithlessness +which had led her to treat that promise as nought. His solicitude in +bringing her these gifts touched her; her promise must be kept, and +esteem must take the place of love. She would preserve her +self-respect. She would stay at home, and marry him, and suffer. + +Phyllis had thus braced herself to an exceptional fortitude when, a few +minutes later, the outline of Matthäus Tina appeared behind a +field-gate, over which he lightly leapt as she stepped forward. There +was no evading it, he pressed her to his breast. + +‘It is the first and last time!’ she wildly thought as she stood +encircled by his arms. + +How Phyllis got through the terrible ordeal of that night she could +never clearly recollect. She always attributed her success in carrying +out her resolve to her lover’s honour, for as soon as she declared to +him in feeble words that she had changed her mind, and felt that she +could not, dared not, fly with him, he forbore to urge her, grieved as +he was at her decision. Unscrupulous pressure on his part, seeing how +romantically she had become attached to him, would no doubt have turned +the balance in his favour. But he did nothing to tempt her unduly or +unfairly. + +On her side, fearing for his safety, she begged him to remain. This, he +declared, could not be. ‘I cannot break faith with my friend,’ said he. +Had he stood alone he would have abandoned his plan. But Christoph, +with the boat and compass and chart, was waiting on the shore; the tide +would soon turn; his mother had been warned of his coming; go he must. + +Many precious minutes were lost while he tarried, unable to tear +himself away. Phyllis held to her resolve, though it cost her many a +bitter pang. At last they parted, and he went down the hill. Before his +footsteps had quite died away she felt a desire to behold at least his +outline once more, and running noiselessly after him regained view of +his diminishing figure. For one moment she was sufficiently excited to +be on the point of rushing forward and linking her fate with his. But +she could not. The courage which at the critical instant failed +Cleopatra of Egypt could scarcely be expected of Phyllis Grove. + +A dark shape, similar to his own, joined him in the highway. It was +Christoph, his friend. She could see no more; they had hastened on in +the direction of the town and harbour, four miles ahead. With a feeling +akin to despair she turned and slowly pursued her way homeward. + +Tattoo sounded in the camp; but there was no camp for her now. It was +as dead as the camp of the Assyrians after the passage of the +Destroying Angel. + +She noiselessly entered the house, seeing nobody, and went to bed. +Grief, which kept her awake at first, ultimately wrapped her in a heavy +sleep. The next morning her father met her at the foot of the stairs. + +‘Mr. Gould is come!’ he said triumphantly. + +Humphrey was staying at the inn, and had already called to inquire for +her. He had brought her a present of a very handsome looking-glass in a +frame of _repoussé_ silverwork, which her father held in his hand. He +had promised to call again in the course of an hour, to ask Phyllis to +walk with him. + +Pretty mirrors were rarer in country-houses at that day than they are +now, and the one before her won Phyllis’s admiration. She looked into +it, saw how heavy her eyes were, and endeavoured to brighten them. She +was in that wretched state of mind which leads a woman to move +mechanically onward in what she conceives to be her allotted path. Mr. +Humphrey had, in his undemonstrative way, been adhering all along to +the old understanding; it was for her to do the same, and to say not a +word of her own lapse. She put on her bonnet and tippet, and when he +arrived at the hour named she was at the door awaiting him. + +CHAPTER V + +Phyllis thanked him for his beautiful gift; but the talking was soon +entirely on Humphrey’s side as they walked along. He told her of the +latest movements of the world of fashion—a subject which she willingly +discussed to the exclusion of anything more personal—and his measured +language helped to still her disquieted heart and brain. Had not her +own sadness been what it was she must have observed his embarrassment. +At last he abruptly changed the subject. + +‘I am glad you are pleased with my little present,’ he said. ‘The truth +is that I brought it to propitiate ’ee, and to get you to help me out +of a mighty difficulty.’ + +It was inconceivable to Phyllis that this independent bachelor—whom she +admired in some respects—could have a difficulty. + +‘Phyllis—I’ll tell you my secret at once; for I have a monstrous secret +to confide before I can ask your counsel. The case is, then, that I am +married: yes, I have privately married a dear young belle; and if you +knew her, and I hope you will, you would say everything in her praise. +But she is not quite the one that my father would have chose for me—you +know the paternal idea as well as I—and I have kept it secret. There +will be a terrible noise, no doubt; but I think that with your help I +may get over it. If you would only do me this good turn—when I have +told my father, I mean—say that you never could have married me, you +know, or something of that sort—’pon my life it will help to smooth the +way vastly. I am so anxious to win him round to my point of view, and +not to cause any estrangement.’ + +What Phyllis replied she scarcely knew, or how she counselled him as to +his unexpected situation. Yet the relief that his announcement brought +her was perceptible. To have confided her trouble in return was what +her aching heart longed to do; and had Humphrey been a woman she would +instantly have poured out her tale. But to him she feared to confess; +and there was a real reason for silence, till a sufficient time had +elapsed to allow her lover and his comrade to get out of harm’s way. + +As soon as she reached home again she sought a solitary place, and +spent the time in half regretting that she had not gone away, and in +dreaming over the meetings with Matthäus Tina from their beginning to +their end. In his own country, amongst his own countrywomen, he would +possibly soon forget her, even to her very name. + +Her listlessness was such that she did not go out of the house for +several days. There came a morning which broke in fog and mist, behind +which the dawn could be discerned in greenish grey; and the outlines of +the tents, and the rows of horses at the ropes. The smoke from the +canteen fires drooped heavily. + +The spot at the bottom of the garden where she had been accustomed to +climb the wall to meet Matthäus, was the only inch of English ground in +which she took any interest; and in spite of the disagreeable haze +prevailing she walked out there till she reached the well-known corner. +Every blade of grass was weighted with little liquid globes, and slugs +and snails had crept out upon the plots. She could hear the usual faint +noises from the camp, and in the other direction the trot of farmers on +the road to the town, for it was market-day. She observed that her +frequent visits to this corner had quite trodden down the grass in the +angle of the wall, and left marks of garden soil on the stepping-stones +by which she had mounted to look over the top. Seldom having gone there +till dusk, she had not considered that her traces might be visible by +day. Perhaps it was these which had revealed her trysts to her father. + +While she paused in melancholy regard, she fancied that the customary +sounds from the tents were changing their character. Indifferent as +Phyllis was to camp doings now, she mounted by the steps to the old +place. What she beheld at first awed and perplexed her; then she stood +rigid, her fingers hooked to the wall, her eyes staring out of her +head, and her face as if hardened to stone. + +On the open green stretching before her all the regiments in the camp +were drawn up in line, in the mid-front of which two empty coffins lay +on the ground. The unwonted sounds which she had noticed came from an +advancing procession. It consisted of the band of the York Hussars +playing a dead march; next two soldiers of that regiment in a mourning +coach, guarded on each side, and accompanied by two priests. Behind +came a crowd of rustics who had been attracted by the event. The +melancholy procession marched along the front of the line, returned to +the centre, and halted beside the coffins, where the two condemned men +were blindfolded, and each placed kneeling on his coffin; a few minutes +pause was now given, while they prayed. + +A firing-party of twenty-four men stood ready with levelled carbines. +The commanding officer, who had his sword drawn, waved it through some +cuts of the sword-exercise till he reached the downward stroke, whereat +the firing-party discharged their volley. The two victims fell, one +upon his face across his coffin, the other backwards. + +As the volley resounded there arose a shriek from the wall of Dr. +Grove’s garden, and some one fell down inside; but nobody among the +spectators without noticed it at the time. The two executed Hussars +were Matthäus Tina and his friend Christoph. The soldiers on guard +placed the bodies in the coffins almost instantly; but the colonel of +the regiment, an Englishman, rode up and exclaimed in a stern voice: +‘Turn them out—as an example to the men!’ + +The coffins were lifted endwise, and the dead Germans flung out upon +their faces on the grass. Then all the regiments wheeled in sections, +and marched past the spot in slow time. When the survey was over the +corpses were again coffined, and borne away. + +Meanwhile Dr. Grove, attracted by the noise of the volley, had rushed +out into his garden, where he saw his wretched daughter lying +motionless against the wall. She was taken indoors, but it was long +before she recovered consciousness; and for weeks they despaired of her +reason. + +It transpired that the luckless deserters from the York Hussars had cut +the boat from her moorings in the adjacent harbour, according to their +plan, and, with two other comrades who were smarting under +ill-treatment from their colonel, had sailed in safety across the +Channel. But mistaking their bearings they steered into Jersey, +thinking that island the French coast. Here they were perceived to be +deserters, and delivered up to the authorities. Matthäus and Christoph +interceded for the other two at the court-martial, saying that it was +entirely by the former’s representations that these were induced to go. +Their sentence was accordingly commuted to flogging, the death +punishment being reserved for their leaders. + +The visitor to the well-known old Georgian watering-place, who may care +to ramble to the neighbouring village under the hills, and examine the +register of burials, will there find two entries in these words:— + +‘Matth:—Tina (Corpl.) in His Majesty’s Regmt. of York Hussars, and Shot +for Desertion, was Buried June 30th, 1801, aged 22 years. Born in the +town of Sarrbruk, Germany. + + +‘Christoph Bless, belonging to His Majesty’s Regmt. of York Hussars, +who was Shot for Desertion, was Buried June 30th, 1801, aged 22 years. +Born at Lothaargen, Alsatia.’ + + +Their graves were dug at the back of the little church, near the wall. +There is no memorial to mark the spot, but Phyllis pointed it out to +me. While she lived she used to keep their mounds neat; but now they +are overgrown with nettles, and sunk nearly flat. The older villagers, +however, who know of the episode from their parents, still recollect +the place where the soldiers lie. Phyllis lies near. + +_October_ 1889. + + + + +THE FIDDLER OF THE REELS + + +‘Talking of Exhibitions, World’s Fairs, and what not,’ said the old +gentleman, ‘I would not go round the corner to see a dozen of them +nowadays. The only exhibition that ever made, or ever will make, any +impression upon my imagination was the first of the series, the parent +of them all, and now a thing of old times—the Great Exhibition of 1851, +in Hyde Park, London. None of the younger generation can realize the +sense of novelty it produced in us who were then in our prime. A noun +substantive went so far as to become an adjective in honour of the +occasion. It was “exhibition” hat, “exhibition” razor-strop, +“exhibition” watch; nay, even “exhibition” weather, “exhibition” +spirits, sweethearts, babies, wives—for the time. + +‘For South Wessex, the year formed in many ways an extraordinary +chronological frontier or transit-line, at which there occurred what +one might call a precipice in Time. As in a geological “fault,” we had +presented to us a sudden bringing of ancient and modern into absolute +contact, such as probably in no other single year since the Conquest +was ever witnessed in this part of the country.’ + +These observations led us onward to talk of the different personages, +gentle and simple, who lived and moved within our narrow and peaceful +horizon at that time; and of three people in particular, whose queer +little history was oddly touched at points by the Exhibition, more +concerned with it than that of anybody else who dwelt in those outlying +shades of the world, Stickleford, Mellstock, and Egdon. First in +prominence among these three came Wat Ollamoor—if that were his real +name—whom the seniors in our party had known well. + +He was a woman’s man, they said,—supremely so—externally little else. +To men he was not attractive; perhaps a little repulsive at times. +Musician, dandy, and company-man in practice; veterinary surgeon in +theory, he lodged awhile in Mellstock village, coming from nobody knew +where; though some said his first appearance in this neighbourhood had +been as fiddle-player in a show at Greenhill Fair. + +Many a worthy villager envied him his power over unsophisticated +maidenhood—a power which seemed sometimes to have a touch of the weird +and wizardly in it. Personally he was not ill-favoured, though rather +un-English, his complexion being a rich olive, his rank hair dark and +rather clammy—made still clammier by secret ointments, which, when he +came fresh to a party, caused him to smell like ‘boys’-love’ +(southernwood) steeped in lamp-oil. On occasion he wore curls—a double +row—running almost horizontally around his head. But as these were +sometimes noticeably absent, it was concluded that they were not +altogether of Nature’s making. By girls whose love for him had turned +to hatred he had been nicknamed ‘Mop,’ from this abundance of hair, +which was long enough to rest upon his shoulders; as time passed the +name more and more prevailed. + +His fiddling possibly had the most to do with the fascination he +exercised, for, to speak fairly, it could claim for itself a most +peculiar and personal quality, like that in a moving preacher. There +were tones in it which bred the immediate conviction that indolence and +averseness to systematic application were all that lay between ‘Mop’ +and the career of a second Paganini. + +While playing he invariably closed his eyes; using no notes, and, as it +were, allowing the violin to wander on at will into the most plaintive +passages ever heard by rustic man. There was a certain lingual +character in the supplicatory expressions he produced, which would well +nigh have drawn an ache from the heart of a gate-post. He could make +any child in the parish, who was at all sensitive to music, burst into +tears in a few minutes by simply fiddling one of the old dance-tunes he +almost entirely affected—country jigs, reels, and ‘Favourite Quick +Steps’ of the last century—some mutilated remains of which even now +reappear as nameless phantoms in new quadrilles and gallops, where they +are recognized only by the curious, or by such old-fashioned and +far-between people as have been thrown with men like Wat Ollamoor in +their early life. + +His date was a little later than that of the old Mellstock quire-band +which comprised the Dewys, Mail, and the rest—in fact, he did not rise +above the horizon thereabout till those well-known musicians were +disbanded as ecclesiastical functionaries. In their honest love of +thoroughness they despised the new man’s style. Theophilus Dewy (Reuben +the tranter’s younger brother) used to say there was no ‘plumness’ in +it—no bowing, no solidity—it was all fantastical. And probably this was +true. Anyhow, Mop had, very obviously, never bowed a note of +church-music from his birth; he never once sat in the gallery of +Mellstock church where the others had tuned their venerable psalmody so +many hundreds of times; had never, in all likelihood, entered a church +at all. All were devil’s tunes in his repertory. ‘He could no more play +the Wold Hundredth to his true time than he could play the brazen +serpent,’ the tranter would say. (The brazen serpent was supposed in +Mellstock to be a musical instrument particularly hard to blow.) + +Occasionally Mop could produce the aforesaid moving effect upon the +souls of grown-up persons, especially young women of fragile and +responsive organization. Such an one was Car’line Aspent. Though she +was already engaged to be married before she met him, Car’line, of them +all, was the most influenced by Mop Ollamoor’s heart-stealing melodies, +to her discomfort, nay, positive pain and ultimate injury. She was a +pretty, invocating, weak-mouthed girl, whose chief defect as a +companion with her sex was a tendency to peevishness now and then. At +this time she was not a resident in Mellstock parish where Mop lodged, +but lived some miles off at Stickleford, farther down the river. + +How and where she first made acquaintance with him and his fiddling is +not truly known, but the story was that it either began or was +developed on one spring evening, when, in passing through Lower +Mellstock, she chanced to pause on the bridge near his house to rest +herself, and languidly leaned over the parapet. Mop was standing on his +door-step, as was his custom, spinning the insidious thread of semi- +and demi-semi-quavers from the E string of his fiddle for the benefit +of passers-by, and laughing as the tears rolled down the cheeks of the +little children hanging around him. Car’line pretended to be engrossed +with the rippling of the stream under the arches, but in reality she +was listening, as he knew. Presently the aching of the heart seized her +simultaneously with a wild desire to glide airily in the mazes of an +infinite dance. To shake off the fascination she resolved to go on, +although it would be necessary to pass him as he played. On stealthily +glancing ahead at the performer, she found to her relief that his eyes +were closed in abandonment to instrumentation, and she strode on +boldly. But when closer her step grew timid, her tread convulsed itself +more and more accordantly with the time of the melody, till she very +nearly danced along. Gaining another glance at him when immediately +opposite, she saw that _one_ of his eyes was open, quizzing her as he +smiled at her emotional state. Her gait could not divest itself of its +compelled capers till she had gone a long way past the house; and +Car’line was unable to shake off the strange infatuation for hours. + +After that day, whenever there was to be in the neighbourhood a dance +to which she could get an invitation, and where Mop Ollamoor was to be +the musician, Car’line contrived to be present, though it sometimes +involved a walk of several miles; for he did not play so often in +Stickleford as elsewhere. + +The next evidences of his influence over her were singular enough, and +it would require a neurologist to fully explain them. She would be +sitting quietly, any evening after dark, in the house of her father, +the parish clerk, which stood in the middle of Stickleford village +street, this being the highroad between Lower Mellstock and Moreford, +five miles eastward. Here, without a moment’s warning, and in the midst +of a general conversation between her father, sister, and the young man +before alluded to, who devotedly wooed her in ignorance of her +infatuation, she would start from her seat in the chimney-corner as if +she had received a galvanic shock, and spring convulsively towards the +ceiling; then she would burst into tears, and it was not till some +half-hour had passed that she grew calm as usual. Her father, knowing +her hysterical tendencies, was always excessively anxious about this +trait in his youngest girl, and feared the attack to be a species of +epileptic fit. Not so her sister Julia. Julia had found out what was +the cause. At the moment before the jumping, only an exceptionally +sensitive ear situated in the chimney-nook could have caught from down +the flue the beat of a man’s footstep along the highway without. But it +was in that footfall, for which she had been waiting, that the origin +of Car’line’s involuntary springing lay. The pedestrian was Mop +Ollamoor, as the girl well knew; but his business that way was not to +visit her; he sought another woman whom he spoke of as his Intended, +and who lived at Moreford, two miles farther on. On one, and only one, +occasion did it happen that Car’line could not control her utterance; +it was when her sister alone chanced to be present. ‘Oh—oh—oh—!’ she +cried. ‘He’s going to _her_, and not coming to _me_!’ + +To do the fiddler justice he had not at first thought greatly of, or +spoken much to, this girl of impressionable mould. But he had soon +found out her secret, and could not resist a little by-play with her +too easily hurt heart, as an interlude between his more serious +performances at Moreford. The two became well acquainted, though only +by stealth, hardly a soul in Stickleford except her sister, and her +lover Ned Hipcroft, being aware of the attachment. Her father +disapproved of her coldness to Ned; her sister, too, hoped she might +get over this nervous passion for a man of whom so little was known. +The ultimate result was that Car’line’s manly and simple wooer Edward +found his suit becoming practically hopeless. He was a respectable +mechanic, in a far sounder position than Mop the nominal horse-doctor; +but when, before leaving her, Ned put his flat and final question, +would she marry him, then and there, now or never, it was with little +expectation of obtaining more than the negative she gave him. Though +her father supported him and her sister supported him, he could not +play the fiddle so as to draw your soul out of your body like a +spider’s thread, as Mop did, till you felt as limp as withy-wind and +yearned for something to cling to. Indeed, Hipcroft had not the +slightest ear for music; could not sing two notes in tune, much less +play them. + +The No he had expected and got from her, in spite of a preliminary +encouragement, gave Ned a new start in life. It had been uttered in +such a tone of sad entreaty that he resolved to persecute her no more; +she should not even be distressed by a sight of his form in the distant +perspective of the street and lane. He left the place, and his natural +course was to London. + +The railway to South Wessex was in process of construction, but it was +not as yet opened for traffic; and Hipcroft reached the capital by a +six days’ trudge on foot, as many a better man had done before him. He +was one of the last of the artisan class who used that now extinct +method of travel to the great centres of labour, so customary then from +time immemorial. + +In London he lived and worked regularly at his trade. More fortunate +than many, his disinterested willingness recommended him from the +first. During the ensuing four years he was never out of employment. He +neither advanced nor receded in the modern sense; he improved as a +workman, but he did not shift one jot in social position. About his +love for Car’line he maintained a rigid silence. No doubt he often +thought of her; but being always occupied, and having no relations at +Stickleford, he held no communication with that part of the country, +and showed no desire to return. In his quiet lodging in Lambeth he +moved about after working-hours with the facility of a woman, doing his +own cooking, attending to his stocking-heels, and shaping himself by +degrees to a life-long bachelorhood. For this conduct one is bound to +advance the canonical reason that time could not efface from his heart +the image of little Car’line Aspent—and it may be in part true; but +there was also the inference that his was a nature not greatly +dependent upon the ministrations of the other sex for its comforts. + +The fourth year of his residence as a mechanic in London was the year +of the Hyde-Park Exhibition already mentioned, and at the construction +of this huge glass-house, then unexampled in the world’s history, he +worked daily. It was an era of great hope and activity among the +nations and industries. Though Hipcroft was, in his small way, a +central man in the movement, he plodded on with his usual outward +placidity. Yet for him, too, the year was destined to have its +surprises, for when the bustle of getting the building ready for the +opening day was past, the ceremonies had been witnessed, and people +were flocking thither from all parts of the globe, he received a letter +from Car’line. Till that day the silence of four years between himself +and Stickleford had never been broken. + +She informed her old lover, in an uncertain penmanship which suggested +a trembling hand, of the trouble she had been put to in ascertaining +his address, and then broached the subject which had prompted her to +write. Four years ago, she said with the greatest delicacy of which she +was capable, she had been so foolish as to refuse him. Her wilful +wrong-headedness had since been a grief to her many times, and of late +particularly. As for Mr. Ollamoor, he had been absent almost as long as +Ned—she did not know where. She would gladly marry Ned now if he were +to ask her again, and be a tender little wife to him till her life’s +end. + +A tide of warm feeling must have surged through Ned Hipcroft’s frame on +receipt of this news, if we may judge by the issue. Unquestionably he +loved her still, even if not to the exclusion of every other happiness. +This from his Car’line, she who had been dead to him these many years, +alive to him again as of old, was in itself a pleasant, gratifying +thing. Ned had grown so resigned to, or satisfied with, his lonely lot, +that he probably would not have shown much jubilation at anything. +Still, a certain ardour of preoccupation, after his first surprise, +revealed how deeply her confession of faith in him had stirred him. +Measured and methodical in his ways, he did not answer the letter that +day, nor the next, nor the next. He was having ‘a good think.’ When he +did answer it, there was a great deal of sound reasoning mixed in with +the unmistakable tenderness of his reply; but the tenderness itself was +sufficient to reveal that he was pleased with her straightforward +frankness; that the anchorage she had once obtained in his heart was +renewable, if it had not been continuously firm. + +He told her—and as he wrote his lips twitched humorously over the few +gentle words of raillery he indited among the rest of his +sentences—that it was all very well for her to come round at this time +of day. Why wouldn’t she have him when he wanted her? She had no doubt +learned that he was not married, but suppose his affections had since +been fixed on another? She ought to beg his pardon. Still, he was not +the man to forget her. But considering how he had been used, and what +he had suffered, she could not quite expect him to go down to +Stickleford and fetch her. But if she would come to him, and say she +was sorry, as was only fair; why, yes, he would marry her, knowing what +a good little woman she was at the core. He added that the request for +her to come to him was a less one to make than it would have been when +he first left Stickleford, or even a few months ago; for the new +railway into South Wessex was now open, and there had just begun to be +run wonderfully contrived special trains, called excursion-trains, on +account of the Great Exhibition; so that she could come up easily +alone. + +She said in her reply how good it was of him to treat her so +generously, after her hot and cold treatment of him; that though she +felt frightened at the magnitude of the journey, and was never as yet +in a railway-train, having only seen one pass at a distance, she +embraced his offer with all her heart; and would, indeed, own to him +how sorry she was, and beg his pardon, and try to be a good wife +always, and make up for lost time. + +The remaining details of when and where were soon settled, Car’line +informing him, for her ready identification in the crowd, that she +would be wearing ‘my new sprigged-laylock cotton gown,’ and Ned gaily +responding that, having married her the morning after her arrival, he +would make a day of it by taking her to the Exhibition. One early +summer afternoon, accordingly, he came from his place of work, and +hastened towards Waterloo Station to meet her. It was as wet and chilly +as an English June day can occasionally be, but as he waited on the +platform in the drizzle he glowed inwardly, and seemed to have +something to live for again. + +The ‘excursion-train’—an absolutely new departure in the history of +travel—was still a novelty on the Wessex line, and probably everywhere. +Crowds of people had flocked to all the stations on the way up to +witness the unwonted sight of so long a train’s passage, even where +they did not take advantage of the opportunity it offered. The seats +for the humbler class of travellers in these early experiments in +steam-locomotion, were open trucks, without any protection whatever +from the wind and rain; and damp weather having set in with the +afternoon, the unfortunate occupants of these vehicles were, on the +train drawing up at the London terminus, found to be in a pitiable +condition from their long journey; blue-faced, stiff-necked, sneezing, +rain-beaten, chilled to the marrow, many of the men being hatless; in +fact, they resembled people who had been out all night in an open boat +on a rough sea, rather than inland excursionists for pleasure. The +women had in some degree protected themselves by turning up the skirts +of their gowns over their heads, but as by this arrangement they were +additionally exposed about the hips, they were all more or less in a +sorry plight. + +In the bustle and crush of alighting forms of both sexes which followed +the entry of the huge concatenation into the station, Ned Hipcroft soon +discerned the slim little figure his eye was in search of, in the +sprigged lilac, as described. She came up to him with a frightened +smile—still pretty, though so damp, weather-beaten, and shivering from +long exposure to the wind. + +‘O Ned!’ she sputtered, ‘I—I—’ He clasped her in his arms and kissed +her, whereupon she burst into a flood of tears. + +‘You are wet, my poor dear! I hope you’ll not get cold,’ he said. And +surveying her and her multifarious surrounding packages, he noticed +that by the hand she led a toddling child—a little girl of three or +so—whose hood was as clammy and tender face as blue as those of the +other travellers. + +‘Who is this—somebody you know?’ asked Ned curiously. + +‘Yes, Ned. She’s mine.’ + +‘Yours?’ + +‘Yes—my own!’ + +‘Your own child?’ + +‘Yes!’ + +‘Well—as God’s in—’ + +‘Ned, I didn’t name it in my letter, because, you see, it would have +been so hard to explain! I thought that when we met I could tell you +how she happened to be born, so much better than in writing! I hope +you’ll excuse it this once, dear Ned, and not scold me, now I’ve come +so many, many miles!’ + +‘This means Mr. Mop Ollamoor, I reckon!’ said Hipcroft, gazing palely +at them from the distance of the yard or two to which he had withdrawn +with a start. + +Car’line gasped. ‘But he’s been gone away for years!’ she supplicated. +‘And I never had a young man before! And I was so onlucky to be catched +the first time, though some of the girls down there go on like +anything!’ + +Ned remained in silence, pondering. + +‘You’ll forgive me, dear Ned?’ she added, beginning to sob outright. ‘I +haven’t taken ’ee in after all, because—because you can pack us back +again, if you want to; though ’tis hundreds o’ miles, and so wet, and +night a-coming on, and I with no money!’ + +‘What the devil can I do!’ Hipcroft groaned. + +A more pitiable picture than the pair of helpless creatures presented +was never seen on a rainy day, as they stood on the great, gaunt, +puddled platform, a whiff of drizzle blowing under the roof upon them +now and then; the pretty attire in which they had started from +Stickleford in the early morning bemuddled and sodden, weariness on +their faces, and fear of him in their eyes; for the child began to look +as if she thought she too had done some wrong, remaining in an appalled +silence till the tears rolled down her chubby cheeks. + +‘What’s the matter, my little maid?’ said Ned mechanically. + +‘I do want to go home!’ she let out, in tones that told of a bursting +heart. ‘And my totties be cold, an’ I shan’t have no bread an’ butter +no more!’ + +‘I don’t know what to say to it all!’ declared Ned, his own eye moist +as he turned and walked a few steps with his head down; then regarded +them again point blank. From the child escaped troubled breaths and +silently welling tears. + +‘Want some bread and butter, do ’ee?’ he said, with factitious +hardness. + +‘Ye-e-s!’ + +‘Well, I daresay I can get ’ee a bit! Naturally, you must want some. +And you, too, for that matter, Car’line.’ + +‘I do feel a little hungered. But I can keep it off,’ she murmured. + +‘Folk shouldn’t do that,’ he said gruffly. . . . ‘There come along!’ he +caught up the child, as he added, ‘You must bide here to-night, anyhow, +I s’pose! What can you do otherwise? I’ll get ’ee some tea and +victuals; and as for this job, I’m sure I don’t know what to say! This +is the way out.’ + +They pursued their way, without speaking, to Ned’s lodgings, which were +not far off. There he dried them and made them comfortable, and +prepared tea; they thankfully sat down. The ready-made household of +which he suddenly found himself the head imparted a cosy aspect to his +room, and a paternal one to himself. Presently he turned to the child +and kissed her now blooming cheeks; and, looking wistfully at Car’line, +kissed her also. + +‘I don’t see how I can send ’ee back all them miles,’ he growled, ‘now +you’ve come all the way o’ purpose to join me. But you must trust me, +Car’line, and show you’ve real faith in me. Well, do you feel better +now, my little woman?’ + +The child nodded, her mouth being otherwise occupied. + +‘I did trust you, Ned, in coming; and I shall always!’ + +Thus, without any definite agreement to forgive her, he tacitly +acquiesced in the fate that Heaven had sent him; and on the day of +their marriage (which was not quite so soon as he had expected it could +be, on account of the time necessary for banns) he took her to the +Exhibition when they came back from church, as he had promised. While +standing near a large mirror in one of the courts devoted to furniture, +Car’line started, for in the glass appeared the reflection of a form +exactly resembling Mop Ollamoor’s—so exactly, that it seemed impossible +to believe anybody but that artist in person to be the original. On +passing round the objects which hemmed in Ned, her, and the child from +a direct view, no Mop was to be seen. Whether he were really in London +or not at that time was never known; and Car’line always stoutly denied +that her readiness to go and meet Ned in town arose from any rumour +that Mop had also gone thither; which denial there was no reasonable +ground for doubting. + +And then the year glided away, and the Exhibition folded itself up and +became a thing of the past. The park trees that had been enclosed for +six months were again exposed to the winds and storms, and the sod grew +green anew. Ned found that Car’line resolved herself into a very good +wife and companion, though she had made herself what is called cheap to +him; but in that she was like another domestic article, a cheap +tea-pot, which often brews better tea than a dear one. One autumn +Hipcroft found himself with but little work to do, and a prospect of +less for the winter. Both being country born and bred, they fancied +they would like to live again in their natural atmosphere. It was +accordingly decided between them that they should leave the pent-up +London lodging, and that Ned should seek out employment near his native +place, his wife and her daughter staying with Car’line’s father during +the search for occupation and an abode of their own. + +Tinglings of pleasure pervaded Car’line’s spasmodic little frame as she +journeyed down with Ned to the place she had left two or three years +before, in silence and under a cloud. To return to where she had once +been despised, a smiling London wife with a distinct London accent, was +a triumph which the world did not witness every day. + +The train did not stop at the petty roadside station that lay nearest +to Stickleford, and the trio went on to Casterbridge. Ned thought it a +good opportunity to make a few preliminary inquiries for employment at +workshops in the borough where he had been known; and feeling cold from +her journey, and it being dry underfoot and only dusk as yet, with a +moon on the point of rising, Car’line and her little girl walked on +toward Stickleford, leaving Ned to follow at a quicker pace, and pick +her up at a certain half-way house, widely known as an inn. + +The woman and child pursued the well-remembered way comfortably enough, +though they were both becoming wearied. In the course of three miles +they had passed Heedless-William’s Pond, the familiar landmark by +Bloom’s End, and were drawing near the Quiet Woman Inn, a lone roadside +hostel on the lower verge of the Egdon Heath, since and for many years +abolished. In stepping up towards it Car’line heard more voices within +than had formerly been customary at such an hour, and she learned that +an auction of fat stock had been held near the spot that afternoon. The +child would be the better for a rest as well as herself, she thought, +and she entered. + +The guests and customers overflowed into the passage, and Car’line had +no sooner crossed the threshold than a man whom she remembered by sight +came forward with glass and mug in his hands towards a friend leaning +against the wall; but, seeing her, very gallantly offered her a drink +of the liquor, which was gin-and-beer hot, pouring her out a tumblerful +and saying, in a moment or two: ‘Surely, ’tis little Car’line Aspent +that was—down at Stickleford?’ + +She assented, and, though she did not exactly want this beverage, she +drank it since it was offered, and her entertainer begged her to come +in farther and sit down. Once within the room she found that all the +persons present were seated close against the walls, and there being a +chair vacant she did the same. An explanation of their position +occurred the next moment. In the opposite corner stood Mop, rosining +his bow and looking just the same as ever. The company had cleared the +middle of the room for dancing, and they were about to dance again. As +she wore a veil to keep off the wind she did not think he had +recognized her, or could possibly guess the identity of the child; and +to her satisfied surprise she found that she could confront him quite +calmly—mistress of herself in the dignity her London life had given +her. Before she had quite emptied her glass the dance was called, the +dancers formed in two lines, the music sounded, and the figure began. + +Then matters changed for Car’line. A tremor quickened itself to life in +her, and her hand so shook that she could hardly set down her glass. It +was not the dance nor the dancers, but the notes of that old violin +which thrilled the London wife, these having still all the witchery +that she had so well known of yore, and under which she had used to +lose her power of independent will. How it all came back! There was the +fiddling figure against the wall; the large, oily, mop-like head of +him, and beneath the mop the face with closed eyes. + +After the first moments of paralyzed reverie the familiar tune in the +familiar rendering made her laugh and shed tears simultaneously. Then a +man at the bottom of the dance, whose partner had dropped away, +stretched out his hand and beckoned to her to take the place. She did +not want to dance; she entreated by signs to be left where she was, but +she was entreating of the tune and its player rather than of the +dancing man. The saltatory tendency which the fiddler and his cunning +instrument had ever been able to start in her was seizing Car’line just +as it had done in earlier years, possibly assisted by the gin-and-beer +hot. Tired as she was she grasped her little girl by the hand, and +plunging in at the bottom of the figure, whirled about with the rest. +She found that her companions were mostly people of the neighbouring +hamlets and farms—Bloom’s End, Mellstock, Lewgate, and elsewhere; and +by degrees she was recognized as she convulsively danced on, wishing +that Mop would cease and let her heart rest from the aching he caused, +and her feet also. + +After long and many minutes the dance ended, when she was urged to +fortify herself with more gin-and-beer; which she did, feeling very +weak and overpowered with hysteric emotion. She refrained from +unveiling, to keep Mop in ignorance of her presence, if possible. +Several of the guests having left, Car’line hastily wiped her lips and +also turned to go; but, according to the account of some who remained, +at that very moment a five-handed reel was proposed, in which two or +three begged her to join. + +She declined on the plea of being tired and having to walk to +Stickleford, when Mop began aggressively tweedling ‘My Fancy-Lad,’ in D +major, as the air to which the reel was to be footed. He must have +recognized her, though she did not know it, for it was the strain of +all seductive strains which she was least able to resist—the one he had +played when she was leaning over the bridge at the date of their first +acquaintance. Car’line stepped despairingly into the middle of the room +with the other four. + +Reels were resorted to hereabouts at this time by the more robust +spirits, for the reduction of superfluous energy which the ordinary +figure-dances were not powerful enough to exhaust. As everybody knows, +or does not know, the five reelers stood in the form of a cross, the +reel being performed by each line of three alternately, the persons who +successively came to the middle place dancing in both directions. +Car’line soon found herself in this place, the axis of the whole +performance, and could not get out of it, the tune turning into the +first part without giving her opportunity. And now she began to suspect +that Mop did know her, and was doing this on purpose, though whenever +she stole a glance at him his closed eyes betokened obliviousness to +everything outside his own brain. She continued to wend her way through +the figure of 8 that was formed by her course, the fiddler introducing +into his notes the wild and agonizing sweetness of a living voice in +one too highly wrought; its pathos running high and running low in +endless variation, projecting through her nerves excruciating spasms, a +sort of blissful torture. The room swam, the tune was endless; and in +about a quarter of an hour the only other woman in the figure dropped +out exhausted, and sank panting on a bench. + +The reel instantly resolved itself into a four-handed one. Car’line +would have given anything to leave off; but she had, or fancied she +had, no power, while Mop played such tunes; and thus another ten +minutes slipped by, a haze of dust now clouding the candles, the floor +being of stone, sanded. Then another dancer fell out—one of the men—and +went into the passage, in a frantic search for liquor. To turn the +figure into a three-handed reel was the work of a second, Mop +modulating at the same time into ‘The Fairy Dance,’ as better suited to +the contracted movement, and no less one of those foods of love which, +as manufactured by his bow, had always intoxicated her. + +In a reel for three there was no rest whatever, and four or five +minutes were enough to make her remaining two partners, now thoroughly +blown, stamp their last bar and, like their predecessors, limp off into +the next room to get something to drink. Car’line, half-stifled inside +her veil, was left dancing alone, the apartment now being empty of +everybody save herself, Mop, and their little girl. + +She flung up the veil, and cast her eyes upon him, as if imploring him +to withdraw himself and his acoustic magnetism from the atmosphere. Mop +opened one of his own orbs, as though for the first time, fixed it +peeringly upon her, and smiling dreamily, threw into his strains the +reserve of expression which he could not afford to waste on a big and +noisy dance. Crowds of little chromatic subtleties, capable of drawing +tears from a statue, proceeded straightway from the ancient fiddle, as +if it were dying of the emotion which had been pent up within it ever +since its banishment from some Italian city where it first took shape +and sound. There was that in the look of Mop’s one dark eye which said: +‘You cannot leave off, dear, whether you would or no!’ and it bred in +her a paroxysm of desperation that defied him to tire her down. + +She thus continued to dance alone, defiantly as she thought, but in +truth slavishly and abjectly, subject to every wave of the melody, and +probed by the gimlet-like gaze of her fascinator’s open eye; keeping up +at the same time a feeble smile in his face, as a feint to signify it +was still her own pleasure which led her on. A terrified embarrassment +as to what she could say to him if she were to leave off, had its +unrecognized share in keeping her going. The child, who was beginning +to be distressed by the strange situation, came up and said: ‘Stop, +mother, stop, and let’s go home!’ as she seized Car’line’s hand. + +Suddenly Car’line sank staggering to the floor; and rolling over on her +face, prone she remained. Mop’s fiddle thereupon emitted an elfin +shriek of finality; stepping quickly down from the nine-gallon +beer-cask which had formed his rostrum, he went to the little girl, who +disconsolately bent over her mother. + +The guests who had gone into the back-room for liquor and change of +air, hearing something unusual, trooped back hitherward, where they +endeavoured to revive poor, weak Car’line by blowing her with the +bellows and opening the window. Ned, her husband, who had been detained +in Casterbridge, as aforesaid, came along the road at this juncture, +and hearing excited voices through the open casement, and to his great +surprise, the mention of his wife’s name, he entered amid the rest upon +the scene. Car’line was now in convulsions, weeping violently, and for +a long time nothing could be done with her. While he was sending for a +cart to take her onward to Stickleford Hipcroft anxiously inquired how +it had all happened; and then the assembly explained that a fiddler +formerly known in the locality had lately revisited his old haunts, and +had taken upon himself without invitation to play that evening at the +inn. + +Ned demanded the fiddler’s name, and they said Ollamoor. + +‘Ah!’ exclaimed Ned, looking round him. ‘Where is he, and where—where’s +my little girl?’ + +Ollamoor had disappeared, and so had the child. Hipcroft was in +ordinary a quiet and tractable fellow, but a determination which was to +be feared settled in his face now. ‘Blast him!’ he cried. ‘I’ll beat +his skull in for’n, if I swing for it to-morrow!’ + +He had rushed to the poker which lay on the hearth, and hastened down +the passage, the people following. Outside the house, on the other side +of the highway, a mass of dark heath-land rose sullenly upward to its +not easily accessible interior, a ravined plateau, whereon jutted into +the sky, at the distance of a couple of miles, the fir-woods of +Mistover backed by the Yalbury coppices—a place of Dantesque gloom at +this hour, which would have afforded secure hiding for a battery of +artillery, much less a man and a child. + +Some other men plunged thitherward with him, and more went along the +road. They were gone about twenty minutes altogether, returning without +result to the inn. Ned sat down in the settle, and clasped his forehead +with his hands. + +‘Well—what a fool the man is, and hev been all these years, if he +thinks the child his, as a’ do seem to!’ they whispered. ‘And everybody +else knowing otherwise!’ + +‘No, I don’t think ’tis mine!’ cried Ned hoarsely, as he looked up from +his hands. ‘But she is mine, all the same! Ha’n’t I nussed her? Ha’n’t +I fed her and teached her? Ha’n’t I played wi’ her? O, little +Carry—gone with that rogue—gone!’ + +‘You ha’n’t lost your mis’ess, anyhow,’ they said to console him. +‘She’s throwed up the sperrits, and she is feeling better, and she’s +more to ’ee than a child that isn’t yours.’ + +‘She isn’t! She’s not so particular much to me, especially now she’s +lost the little maid! But Carry’s everything!’ + +‘Well, ver’ like you’ll find her to-morrow.’ + +‘Ah—but shall I? Yet he _can’t_ hurt her—surely he can’t! Well—how’s +Car’line now? I am ready. Is the cart here?’ + +She was lifted into the vehicle, and they sadly lumbered on toward +Stickleford. Next day she was calmer; but the fits were still upon her; +and her will seemed shattered. For the child she appeared to show +singularly little anxiety, though Ned was nearly distracted. It was +nevertheless quite expected that the impish Mop would restore the lost +one after a freak of a day or two; but time went on, and neither he nor +she could be heard of, and Hipcroft murmured that perhaps he was +exercising upon her some unholy musical charm, as he had done upon +Car’line herself. Weeks passed, and still they could obtain no clue +either to the fiddler’s whereabouts or the girl’s; and how he could +have induced her to go with him remained a mystery. + +Then Ned, who had obtained only temporary employment in the +neighbourhood, took a sudden hatred toward his native district, and a +rumour reaching his ears through the police that a somewhat similar man +and child had been seen at a fair near London, he playing a violin, she +dancing on stilts, a new interest in the capital took possession of +Hipcroft with an intensity which would scarcely allow him time to pack +before returning thither. + +He did not, however, find the lost one, though he made it the entire +business of his over-hours to stand about in by-streets in the hope of +discovering her, and would start up in the night, saying, ‘That +rascal’s torturing her to maintain him!’ To which his wife would answer +peevishly, ‘Don’t ’ee raft yourself so, Ned! You prevent my getting a +bit o’ rest! He won’t hurt her!’ and fall asleep again. + +That Carry and her father had emigrated to America was the general +opinion; Mop, no doubt, finding the girl a highly desirable companion +when he had trained her to keep him by her earnings as a dancer. There, +for that matter, they may be performing in some capacity now, though he +must be an old scamp verging on threescore-and-ten, and she a woman of +four-and-forty. + +May 1893, + + + + +A TRADITION OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR + + +The widely discussed possibility of an invasion of England through a +Channel tunnel has more than once recalled old Solomon Selby’s story to +my mind. + +The occasion on which I numbered myself among his audience was one +evening when he was sitting in the yawning chimney-corner of the +inn-kitchen, with some others who had gathered there, and I entered for +shelter from the rain. Withdrawing the stem of his pipe from the dental +notch in which it habitually rested, he leaned back in the recess +behind him and smiled into the fire. The smile was neither mirthful nor +sad, not precisely humorous nor altogether thoughtful. We who knew him +recognized it in a moment: it was his narrative smile. Breaking off our +few desultory remarks we drew up closer, and he thus began:— + +‘My father, as you mid know, was a shepherd all his life, and lived out +by the Cove four miles yonder, where I was born and lived likewise, +till I moved here shortly afore I was married. The cottage that first +knew me stood on the top of the down, near the sea; there was no house +within a mile and a half of it; it was built o’ purpose for the +farm-shepherd, and had no other use. They tell me that it is now pulled +down, but that you can see where it stood by the mounds of earth and a +few broken bricks that are still lying about. It was a bleak and dreary +place in winter-time, but in summer it was well enough, though the +garden never came to much, because we could not get up a good shelter +for the vegetables and currant bushes; and where there is much wind +they don’t thrive. + +‘Of all the years of my growing up the ones that bide clearest in my +mind were eighteen hundred and three, four, and five. This was for two +reasons: I had just then grown to an age when a child’s eyes and ears +take in and note down everything about him, and there was more at that +date to bear in mind than there ever has been since with me. It was, as +I need hardly tell ye, the time after the first peace, when Bonaparte +was scheming his descent upon England. He had crossed the great Alp +mountains, fought in Egypt, drubbed the Turks, the Austrians, and the +Proossians, and now thought he’d have a slap at us. On the other side +of the Channel, scarce out of sight and hail of a man standing on our +English shore, the French army of a hundred and sixty thousand men and +fifteen thousand horses had been brought together from all parts, and +were drilling every day. Bonaparte had been three years a-making his +preparations; and to ferry these soldiers and cannon and horses across +he had contrived a couple of thousand flat-bottomed boats. These boats +were small things, but wonderfully built. A good few of ’em were so +made as to have a little stable on board each for the two horses that +were to haul the cannon carried at the stern. To get in order all +these, and other things required, he had assembled there five or six +thousand fellows that worked at trades—carpenters, blacksmiths, +wheelwrights, saddlers, and what not. O ’twas a curious time! + +‘Every morning Neighbour Boney would muster his multitude of soldiers +on the beach, draw ’em up in line, practise ’em in the manoeuvre of +embarking, horses and all, till they could do it without a single +hitch. My father drove a flock of ewes up into Sussex that year, and as +he went along the drover’s track over the high downs thereabout he +could see this drilling actually going on—the accoutrements of the rank +and file glittering in the sun like silver. It was thought and always +said by my uncle Job, sergeant of foot (who used to know all about +these matters), that Bonaparte meant to cross with oars on a calm +night. The grand query with us was, Where would my gentleman land? Many +of the common people thought it would be at Dover; others, who knew how +unlikely it was that any skilful general would make a business of +landing just where he was expected, said he’d go either east into the +River Thames, or west’ard to some convenient place, most likely one of +the little bays inside the Isle of Portland, between the Beal and St. +Alban’s Head—and for choice the three-quarter-round Cove, screened from +every mortal eye, that seemed made o’ purpose, out by where we lived, +and which I’ve climmed up with two tubs of brandy across my shoulders +on scores o’ dark nights in my younger days. Some had heard that a part +o’ the French fleet would sail right round Scotland, and come up the +Channel to a suitable haven. However, there was much doubt upon the +matter; and no wonder, for after-years proved that Bonaparte himself +could hardly make up his mind upon that great and very particular +point, where to land. His uncertainty came about in this wise, that he +could get no news as to where and how our troops lay in waiting, and +that his knowledge of possible places where flat-bottomed boats might +be quietly run ashore, and the men they brought marshalled in order, +was dim to the last degree. Being flat-bottomed, they didn’t require a +harbour for unshipping their cargo of men, but a good shelving beach +away from sight, and with a fair open road toward London. How the +question posed that great Corsican tyrant (as we used to call him), +what pains he took to settle it, and, above all, what a risk he ran on +one particular night in trying to do so, were known only to one man +here and there; and certainly to no maker of newspapers or printer of +books, or my account o’t would not have had so many heads shaken over +it as it has by gentry who only believe what they see in printed lines. + +‘The flocks my father had charge of fed all about the downs near our +house, overlooking the sea and shore each way for miles. In winter and +early spring father was up a deal at nights, watching and tending the +lambing. Often he’d go to bed early, and turn out at twelve or one; and +on the other hand, he’d sometimes stay up till twelve or one, and then +turn in to bed. As soon as I was old enough I used to help him, mostly +in the way of keeping an eye upon the ewes while he was gone home to +rest. This is what I was doing in a particular month in either the year +four or five—I can’t certainly fix which, but it was long before I was +took away from the sheepkeeping to be bound prentice to a trade. Every +night at that time I was at the fold, about half a mile, or it may be a +little more, from our cottage, and no living thing at all with me but +the ewes and young lambs. Afeard? No; I was never afeard of being alone +at these times; for I had been reared in such an out-step place that +the lack o’ human beings at night made me less fearful than the sight +of ’em. Directly I saw a man’s shape after dark in a lonely place I was +frightened out of my senses. + +‘One day in that month we were surprised by a visit from my uncle Job, +the sergeant in the Sixty-first foot, then in camp on the downs above +King George’s watering-place, several miles to the west yonder. Uncle +Job dropped in about dusk, and went up with my father to the fold for +an hour or two. Then he came home, had a drop to drink from the tub of +sperrits that the smugglers kept us in for housing their liquor when +they’d made a run, and for burning ’em off when there was danger. After +that he stretched himself out on the settle to sleep. I went to bed: at +one o’clock father came home, and waking me to go and take his place, +according to custom, went to bed himself. On my way out of the house I +passed Uncle Job on the settle. He opened his eyes, and upon my telling +him where I was going he said it was a shame that such a youngster as I +should go up there all alone; and when he had fastened up his stock and +waist-belt he set off along with me, taking a drop from the sperrit-tub +in a little flat bottle that stood in the corner-cupboard. + +‘By and by we drew up to the fold, saw that all was right, and then, to +keep ourselves warm, curled up in a heap of straw that lay inside the +thatched hurdles we had set up to break the stroke of the wind when +there was any. To-night, however, there was none. It was one of those +very still nights when, if you stand on the high hills anywhere within +two or three miles of the sea, you can hear the rise and fall of the +tide along the shore, coming and going every few moments like a sort of +great snore of the sleeping world. Over the lower ground there was a +bit of a mist, but on the hill where we lay the air was clear, and the +moon, then in her last quarter, flung a fairly good light on the grass +and scattered straw. + +‘While we lay there Uncle Job amused me by telling me strange stories +of the wars he had served in and the wounds he had got. He had already +fought the French in the Low Countries, and hoped to fight ’em again. +His stories lasted so long that at last I was hardly sure that I was +not a soldier myself, and had seen such service as he told of. The +wonders of his tales quite bewildered my mind, till I fell asleep and +dreamed of battle, smoke, and flying soldiers, all of a kind with the +doings he had been bringing up to me. + +‘How long my nap lasted I am not prepared to say. But some faint sounds +over and above the rustle of the ewes in the straw, the bleat of the +lambs, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell brought me to my waking senses. +Uncle Job was still beside me; but he too had fallen asleep. I looked +out from the straw, and saw what it was that had aroused me. Two men, +in boat-cloaks, cocked hats, and swords, stood by the hurdles about +twenty yards off. + +‘I turned my ear thitherward to catch what they were saying, but though +I heard every word o’t, not one did I understand. They spoke in a +tongue that was not ours—in French, as I afterward found. But if I +could not gain the meaning of a word, I was shrewd boy enough to find +out a deal of the talkers’ business. By the light o’ the moon I could +see that one of ’em carried a roll of paper in his hand, while every +moment he spoke quick to his comrade, and pointed right and left with +the other hand to spots along the shore. There was no doubt that he was +explaining to the second gentleman the shapes and features of the +coast. What happened soon after made this still clearer to me. + +‘All this time I had not waked Uncle Job, but now I began to be afeared +that they might light upon us, because uncle breathed so heavily +through’s nose. I put my mouth to his ear and whispered, “Uncle Job.” + +‘“What is it, my boy?” he said, just as if he hadn’t been asleep at +all. + +‘“Hush!” says I. “Two French generals—” + +‘“French?” says he. + +‘“Yes,” says I. “Come to see where to land their army!” + +‘I pointed ’em out; but I could say no more, for the pair were coming +at that moment much nearer to where we lay. As soon as they got as near +as eight or ten yards, the officer with a roll in his hand stooped down +to a slanting hurdle, unfastened his roll upon it, and spread it out. +Then suddenly he sprung a dark lantern open on the paper, and showed it +to be a map. + +‘“What be they looking at?” I whispered to Uncle Job. + +‘“A chart of the Channel,” says the sergeant (knowing about such +things). + +‘The other French officer now stooped likewise, and over the map they +had a long consultation, as they pointed here and there on the paper, +and then hither and thither at places along the shore beneath us. I +noticed that the manner of one officer was very respectful toward the +other, who seemed much his superior, the second in rank calling him by +a sort of title that I did not know the sense of. The head one, on the +other hand, was quite familiar with his friend, and more than once +clapped him on the shoulder. + +‘Uncle Job had watched as well as I, but though the map had been in the +lantern-light, their faces had always been in shade. But when they rose +from stooping over the chart the light flashed upward, and fell smart +upon one of ’em’s features. No sooner had this happened than Uncle Job +gasped, and sank down as if he’d been in a fit. + +‘“What is it—what is it, Uncle Job?” said I. + +‘“O good God!” says he, under the straw. + +‘“What?” says I. + +‘“Boney!” he groaned out. + +‘“Who?” says I. + +‘“Bonaparty,” he said. “The Corsican ogre. O that I had got but my +new-flinted firelock, that there man should die! But I haven’t got my +new-flinted firelock, and that there man must live. So lie low, as you +value your life!” + +‘I did lie low, as you mid suppose. But I couldn’t help peeping. And +then I too, lad as I was, knew that it was the face of Bonaparte. Not +know Boney? I should think I did know Boney. I should have known him by +half the light o’ that lantern. If I had seen a picture of his features +once, I had seen it a hundred times. There was his bullet head, his +short neck, his round yaller cheeks and chin, his gloomy face, and his +great glowing eyes. He took off his hat to blow himself a bit, and +there was the forelock in the middle of his forehead, as in all the +draughts of him. In moving, his cloak fell a little open, and I could +see for a moment his white-fronted jacket and one of his epaulets. + +‘But none of this lasted long. In a minute he and his general had +rolled up the map, shut the lantern, and turned to go down toward the +shore. + +‘Then Uncle Job came to himself a bit. “Slipped across in the +night-time to see how to put his men ashore,” he said. “The like o’ +that man’s coolness eyes will never again see! Nephew, I must act in +this, and immediate, or England’s lost!” + +‘When they were over the brow, we crope out, and went some little way +to look after them. Half-way down they were joined by two others, and +six or seven minutes brought them to the shore. Then, from behind a +rock, a boat came out into the weak moonlight of the Cove, and they +jumped in; it put off instantly, and vanished in a few minutes between +the two rocks that stand at the mouth of the Cove as we all know. We +climmed back to where we had been before, and I could see, a little way +out, a larger vessel, though still not very large. The little boat drew +up alongside, was made fast at the stern as I suppose, for the largest +sailed away, and we saw no more. + +‘My uncle Job told his officers as soon as he got back to camp; but +what they thought of it I never heard—neither did he. Boney’s army +never came, and a good job for me; for the Cove below my father’s house +was where he meant to land, as this secret visit showed. We coast-folk +should have been cut down one and all, and I should not have sat here +to tell this tale.’ + +We who listened to old Selby that night have been familiar with his +simple grave-stone for these ten years past. Thanks to the incredulity +of the age his tale has been seldom repeated. But if anything short of +the direct testimony of his own eyes could persuade an auditor that +Bonaparte had examined these shores for himself with a view to a +practicable landing-place, it would have been Solomon Selby’s manner of +narrating the adventure which befell him on the down. + +_Christmas_ 1882. + + + + +A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS + + +It is a Saturday afternoon of blue and yellow autumn time, and the +scene is the High Street of a well-known market-town. A large carrier’s +van stands in the quadrangular fore-court of the White Hart Inn, upon +the sides of its spacious tilt being painted, in weather-beaten +letters: ‘Burthen, Carrier to Longpuddle.’ These vans, so numerous +hereabout, are a respectable, if somewhat lumbering, class of +conveyance, much resorted to by decent travellers not overstocked with +money, the better among them roughly corresponding to the old French +_diligences_. + +The present one is timed to leave the town at four in the afternoon +precisely, and it is now half-past three by the clock in the turret at +the top of the street. In a few seconds errand-boys from the shops +begin to arrive with packages, which they fling into the vehicle, and +turn away whistling, and care for the packages no more. At twenty +minutes to four an elderly woman places her basket upon the shafts, +slowly mounts, takes up a seat inside, and folds her hands and her +lips. She has secured her corner for the journey, though there is as +yet no sign of a horse being put in, nor of a carrier. At the +three-quarters, two other women arrive, in whom the first recognizes +the postmistress of Upper Longpuddle and the registrar’s wife, they +recognizing her as the aged groceress of the same village. At five +minutes to the hour there approach Mr. Profitt, the schoolmaster, in a +soft felt hat, and Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher; and as the +hour strikes there rapidly drop in the parish clerk and his wife, the +seedsman and his aged father, the registrar; also Mr. Day, the +world-ignored local landscape-painter, an elderly man who resides in +his native place, and has never sold a picture outside it, though his +pretensions to art have been nobly supported by his fellow-villagers, +whose confidence in his genius has been as remarkable as the outer +neglect of it, leading them to buy his paintings so extensively (at the +price of a few shillings each, it is true) that every dwelling in the +parish exhibits three or four of those admired productions on its +walls. + +Burthen, the carrier, is by this time seen bustling round the vehicle; +the horses are put in, the proprietor arranges the reins and springs up +into his seat as if he were used to it—which he is. + +‘Is everybody here?’ he asks preparatorily over his shoulder to the +passengers within. + +As those who were not there did not reply in the negative the muster +was assumed to be complete, and after a few hitches and hindrances the +van with its human freight was got under way. It jogged on at an easy +pace till it reached the bridge which formed the last outpost of the +town. The carrier pulled up suddenly. + +‘Bless my soul!’ he said, ‘I’ve forgot the curate!’ + +All who could do so gazed from the little back window of the van, but +the curate was not in sight. + +‘Now I wonder where that there man is?’ continued the carrier. + +‘Poor man, he ought to have a living at his time of life.’ + +‘And he ought to be punctual,’ said the carrier. ‘“Four o’clock sharp +is my time for starting,” I said to ’en. And he said, “I’ll be there.” +Now he’s not here, and as a serious old church-minister he ought to be +as good as his word. Perhaps Mr. Flaxton knows, being in the same line +of life?’ He turned to the parish clerk. + +‘I was talking an immense deal with him, that’s true, half an hour +ago,’ replied that ecclesiastic, as one of whom it was no erroneous +supposition that he should be on intimate terms with another of the +cloth. ‘But he didn’t say he would be late.’ + +The discussion was cut off by the appearance round the corner of the +van of rays from the curate’s spectacles, followed hastily by his face +and a few white whiskers, and the swinging tails of his long gaunt +coat. Nobody reproached him, seeing how he was reproaching himself; and +he entered breathlessly and took his seat. + +‘Now be we all here?’ said the carrier again. They started a second +time, and moved on till they were about three hundred yards out of the +town, and had nearly reached the second bridge, behind which, as every +native remembers, the road takes a turn and travellers by this highway +disappear finally from the view of gazing burghers. + +‘Well, as I’m alive!’ cried the postmistress from the interior of the +conveyance, peering through the little square back-window along the +road townward. + +‘What?’ said the carrier. + +‘A man hailing us!’ + +Another sudden stoppage. ‘Somebody else?’ the carrier asked. + +‘Ay, sure!’ All waited silently, while those who could gaze out did so. + +‘Now, who can that be?’ Burthen continued. ‘I just put it to ye, +neighbours, can any man keep time with such hindrances? Bain’t we full +a’ready? Who in the world can the man be?’ + +‘He’s a sort of gentleman,’ said the schoolmaster, his position +commanding the road more comfortably than that of his comrades. + +The stranger, who had been holding up his umbrella to attract their +notice, was walking forward leisurely enough, now that he found, by +their stopping, that it had been secured. His clothes were decidedly +not of a local cut, though it was difficult to point out any particular +mark of difference. In his left hand he carried a small leather +travelling bag. As soon as he had overtaken the van he glanced at the +inscription on its side, as if to assure himself that he had hailed the +right conveyance, and asked if they had room. + +The carrier replied that though they were pretty well laden he supposed +they could carry one more, whereupon the stranger mounted, and took the +seat cleared for him within. And then the horses made another move, +this time for good, and swung along with their burden of fourteen souls +all told. + +‘You bain’t one of these parts, sir?’ said the carrier. ‘I could tell +that as far as I could see ’ee.’ + +‘Yes, I am one of these parts,’ said the stranger. + +‘Oh? H’m.’ + +The silence which followed seemed to imply a doubt of the truth of the +new-comer’s assertion. ‘I was speaking of Upper Longpuddle more +particular,’ continued the carrier hardily, ‘and I think I know most +faces of that valley.’ + +‘I was born at Longpuddle, and nursed at Longpuddle, and my father and +grandfather before me,’ said the passenger quietly. + +‘Why, to be sure,’ said the aged groceress in the background, ‘it isn’t +John Lackland’s son—never—it can’t be—he who went to foreign parts +five-and-thirty years ago with his wife and family? Yet—what do I +hear?—that’s his father’s voice!’ + +‘That’s the man,’ replied the stranger. ‘John Lackland was my father, +and I am John Lackland’s son. Five-and-thirty years ago, when I was a +boy of eleven, my parents emigrated across the seas, taking me and my +sister with them. Kytes’s boy Tony was the one who drove us and our +belongings to Casterbridge on the morning we left; and his was the last +Longpuddle face I saw. We sailed the same week across the ocean, and +there we’ve been ever since, and there I’ve left those I went with—all +three.’ + +‘Alive or dead?’ + +‘Dead,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘And I have come back to the old +place, having nourished a thought—not a definite intention, but just a +thought—that I should like to return here in a year or two, to spend +the remainder of my days.’ + +‘Married man, Mr. Lackland?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘And have the world used ’ee well, sir—or rather John, knowing ’ee as a +child? In these rich new countries that we hear of so much, you’ve got +rich with the rest?’ + +‘I am not very rich,’ Mr. Lackland said. ‘Even in new countries, you +know, there are failures. The race is not always to the swift, nor the +battle to the strong; and even if it sometimes is, you may be neither +swift nor strong. However, that’s enough about me. Now, having answered +your inquiries, you must answer mine; for being in London, I have come +down here entirely to discover what Longpuddle is looking like, and who +are living there. That was why I preferred a seat in your van to hiring +a carriage for driving across.’ + +‘Well, as for Longpuddle, we rub on there much as usual. Old figures +have dropped out o’ their frames, so to speak it, and new ones have +been put in their places. You mentioned Tony Kytes as having been the +one to drive your family and your goods to Casterbridge in his father’s +waggon when you left. Tony is, I believe, living still, but not at +Longpuddle. He went away and settled at Lewgate, near Mellstock, after +his marriage. Ah, Tony was a sort o’ man!’ + +‘His character had hardly come out when I knew him.’ + +‘No. But ’twas well enough, as far as that goes—except as to women. I +shall never forget his courting—never!’ + +The returned villager waited silently, and the carrier went on:— + + + + +TONY KYTES, THE ARCH-DECEIVER + + +‘I shall never forget Tony’s face. ’Twas a little, round, firm, tight +face, with a seam here and there left by the smallpox, but not enough +to hurt his looks in a woman’s eye, though he’d had it badish when he +was a boy. So very serious looking and unsmiling ’a was, that young +man, that it really seemed as if he couldn’t laugh at all without great +pain to his conscience. He looked very hard at a small speck in your +eye when talking to ’ee. And there was no more sign of a whisker or +beard on Tony Kytes’s face than on the palm of my hand. He used to sing +“The Tailor’s Breeches” with a religious manner, as if it were a hymn:— + +‘“O the petticoats went off, and the breeches they went on!” + + +and all the rest of the scandalous stuff. He was quite the women’s +favourite, and in return for their likings he loved ’em in shoals. + +‘But in course of time Tony got fixed down to one in particular, Milly +Richards, a nice, light, small, tender little thing; and it was soon +said that they were engaged to be married. One Saturday he had been to +market to do business for his father, and was driving home the waggon +in the afternoon. When he reached the foot of the very hill we shall be +going over in ten minutes who should he see waiting for him at the top +but Unity Sallet, a handsome girl, one of the young women he’d been +very tender toward before he’d got engaged to Milly. + +‘As soon as Tony came up to her she said, “My dear Tony, will you give +me a lift home?” + +‘“That I will, darling,” said Tony. “You don’t suppose I could refuse +’ee?” + +‘She smiled a smile, and up she hopped, and on drove Tony. + +‘“Tony,” she says, in a sort of tender chide, “why did ye desert me for +that other one? In what is she better than I? I should have made ’ee a +finer wife, and a more loving one too. ’Tisn’t girls that are so easily +won at first that are the best. Think how long we’ve known each +other—ever since we were children almost—now haven’t we, Tony?” + +‘“Yes, that we have,” says Tony, a-struck with the truth o’t. + +‘“And you’ve never seen anything in me to complain of, have ye, Tony? +Now tell the truth to me?” + +‘“I never have, upon my life,” says Tony. + +‘“And—can you say I’m not pretty, Tony? Now look at me!” + +‘He let his eyes light upon her for a long while. “I really can’t,” +says he. “In fact, I never knowed you was so pretty before!” + +‘“Prettier than she?” + +‘What Tony would have said to that nobody knows, for before he could +speak, what should he see ahead, over the hedge past the turning, but a +feather he knew well—the feather in Milly’s hat—she to whom he had been +thinking of putting the question as to giving out the banns that very +week. + +‘“Unity,” says he, as mild as he could, “here’s Milly coming. Now I +shall catch it mightily if she sees ’ee riding here with me; and if you +get down she’ll be turning the corner in a moment, and, seeing ’ee in +the road, she’ll know we’ve been coming on together. Now, dearest +Unity, will ye, to avoid all unpleasantness, which I know ye can’t bear +any more than I, will ye lie down in the back part of the waggon, and +let me cover you over with the tarpaulin till Milly has passed? It will +all be done in a minute. Do!—and I’ll think over what we’ve said; and +perhaps I shall put a loving question to you after all, instead of to +Milly. ’Tisn’t true that it is all settled between her and me.” + +‘Well, Unity Sallet agreed, and lay down at the back end of the waggon, +and Tony covered her over, so that the waggon seemed to be empty but +for the loose tarpaulin; and then he drove on to meet Milly. + +‘“My dear Tony!” cries Milly, looking up with a little pout at him as +he came near. “How long you’ve been coming home! Just as if I didn’t +live at Upper Longpuddle at all! And I’ve come to meet you as you asked +me to do, and to ride back with you, and talk over our future +home—since you asked me, and I promised. But I shouldn’t have come +else, Mr. Tony!” + +‘“Ay, my dear, I did ask ye—to be sure I did, now I think of it—but I +had quite forgot it. To ride back with me, did you say, dear Milly?” + +‘“Well, of course! What can I do else? Surely you don’t want me to +walk, now I’ve come all this way?” + +‘“O no, no! I was thinking you might be going on to town to meet your +mother. I saw her there—and she looked as if she might be expecting +’ee.” + +‘“O no; she’s just home. She came across the fields, and so got back +before you.” + +‘“Ah! I didn’t know that,” says Tony. And there was no help for it but +to take her up beside him. + +‘They talked on very pleasantly, and looked at the trees, and beasts, +and birds, and insects, and at the ploughmen at work in the fields, +till presently who should they see looking out of the upper window of a +house that stood beside the road they were following, but Hannah +Jolliver, another young beauty of the place at that time, and the very +first woman that Tony had fallen in love with—before Milly and before +Unity, in fact—the one that he had almost arranged to marry instead of +Milly. She was a much more dashing girl than Milly Richards, though +he’d not thought much of her of late. The house Hannah was looking from +was her aunt’s. + +‘“My dear Milly—my coming wife, as I may call ’ee,” says Tony in his +modest way, and not so loud that Unity could overhear, “I see a young +woman alooking out of window, who I think may accost me. The fact is, +Milly, she had a notion that I was wishing to marry her, and since +she’s discovered I’ve promised another, and a prettier than she, I’m +rather afeard of her temper if she sees us together. Now, Milly, would +you do me a favour—my coming wife, as I may say?” + +‘“Certainly, dearest Tony,” says she. + +‘“Then would ye creep under the empty sacks just here in the front of +the waggon, and hide there out of sight till we’ve passed the house? +She hasn’t seen us yet. You see, we ought to live in peace and +good-will since ’tis almost Christmas, and ’twill prevent angry +passions rising, which we always should do.” + +‘“I don’t mind, to oblige you, Tony,” Milly said; and though she didn’t +care much about doing it, she crept under, and crouched down just +behind the seat, Unity being snug at the other end. So they drove on +till they got near the road-side cottage. Hannah had soon seen him +coming, and waited at the window, looking down upon him. She tossed her +head a little disdainful and smiled off-hand. + +‘“Well, aren’t you going to be civil enough to ask me to ride home with +you!” she says, seeing that he was for driving past with a nod and a +smile. + +‘“Ah, to be sure! What was I thinking of?” said Tony, in a flutter. +“But you seem as if you was staying at your aunt’s?” + +‘“No, I am not,” she said. “Don’t you see I have my bonnet and jacket +on? I have only called to see her on my way home. How can you be so +stupid, Tony?” + +‘“In that case—ah—of course you must come along wi’ me,” says Tony, +feeling a dim sort of sweat rising up inside his clothes. And he reined +in the horse, and waited till she’d come downstairs, and then helped +her up beside him. He drove on again, his face as long as a face that +was a round one by nature well could be. + +‘Hannah looked round sideways into his eyes. “This is nice, isn’t it, +Tony?” she says. “I like riding with you.” + +‘Tony looked back into her eyes. “And I with you,” he said after a +while. In short, having considered her, he warmed up, and the more he +looked at her the more he liked her, till he couldn’t for the life of +him think why he had ever said a word about marriage to Milly or Unity +while Hannah Jolliver was in question. So they sat a little closer and +closer, their feet upon the foot-board and their shoulders touching, +and Tony thought over and over again how handsome Hannah was. He spoke +tenderer and tenderer, and called her “dear Hannah” in a whisper at +last. + +‘“You’ve settled it with Milly by this time, I suppose,” said she. + +‘“N-no, not exactly.” + +‘“What? How low you talk, Tony.” + +‘“Yes—I’ve a kind of hoarseness. I said, not exactly.” + +‘“I suppose you mean to?” + +‘“Well, as to that—” His eyes rested on her face, and hers on his. He +wondered how he could have been such a fool as not to follow up Hannah. +“My sweet Hannah!” he bursts out, taking her hand, not being really +able to help it, and forgetting Milly and Unity, and all the world +besides. “Settled it? I don’t think I have!” + +‘“Hark!” says Hannah. + +‘“What?” says Tony, letting go her hand. + +‘“Surely I heard a sort of little screaming squeak under those sacks? +Why, you’ve been carrying corn, and there’s mice in this waggon, I +declare!” She began to haul up the tails of her gown. + +‘“Oh no; ’tis the axle,” said Tony in an assuring way. “It do go like +that sometimes in dry weather.” + +‘“Perhaps it was . . . Well, now, to be quite honest, dear Tony, do you +like her better than me? Because—because, although I’ve held off so +independent, I’ll own at last that I do like ’ee, Tony, to tell the +truth; and I wouldn’t say no if you asked me—you know what.” + +‘Tony was so won over by this pretty offering mood of a girl who had +been quite the reverse (Hannah had a backward way with her at times, if +you can mind) that he just glanced behind, and then whispered very +soft, “I haven’t quite promised her, and I think I can get out of it, +and ask you that question you speak of.” + +‘“Throw over Milly?—all to marry me! How delightful!” broke out Hannah, +quite loud, clapping her hands. + +‘At this there was a real squeak—an angry, spiteful squeak, and +afterward a long moan, as if something had broke its heart, and a +movement of the empty sacks. + +‘“Something’s there!” said Hannah, starting up. + +‘“It’s nothing, really,” says Tony in a soothing voice, and praying +inwardly for a way out of this. “I wouldn’t tell ’ee at first, because +I wouldn’t frighten ’ee. But, Hannah, I’ve really a couple of ferrets +in a bag under there, for rabbiting, and they quarrel sometimes. I +don’t wish it knowed, as ’twould be called poaching. Oh, they can’t get +out, bless ye—you are quite safe! And—and—what a fine day it is, isn’t +it, Hannah, for this time of year? Be you going to market next +Saturday? How is your aunt now?” And so on, says Tony, to keep her from +talking any more about love in Milly’s hearing. + +‘But he found his work cut out for him, and wondering again how he +should get out of this ticklish business, he looked about for a chance. +Nearing home he saw his father in a field not far off, holding up his +hand as if he wished to speak to Tony. + +‘“Would you mind taking the reins a moment, Hannah,” he said, much +relieved, “while I go and find out what father wants?” + +‘She consented, and away he hastened into the field, only too glad to +get breathing time. He found that his father was looking at him with +rather a stern eye. + +‘“Come, come, Tony,” says old Mr. Kytes, as soon as his son was +alongside him, “this won’t do, you know.” + +‘“What?” says Tony. + +‘“Why, if you mean to marry Milly Richards, do it, and there’s an end +o’t. But don’t go driving about the country with Jolliver’s daughter +and making a scandal. I won’t have such things done.” + +‘“I only asked her—that is, she asked me, to ride home.” + +‘“She? Why, now, if it had been Milly, ’twould have been quite proper; +but you and Hannah Jolliver going about by yourselves—” + +‘“Milly’s there too, father.” + +‘“Milly? Where?” + +‘“Under the corn-sacks! Yes, the truth is, father, I’ve got rather into +a nunny-watch, I’m afeard! Unity Sallet is there too—yes, at the other +end, under the tarpaulin. All three are in that waggon, and what to do +with ’em I know no more than the dead! The best plan is, as I’m +thinking, to speak out loud and plain to one of ’em before the rest, +and that will settle it; not but what ’twill cause ’em to kick up a bit +of a miff, for certain. Now which would you marry, father, if you was +in my place?” + +‘“Whichever of ’em did _not_ ask to ride with thee.” + +‘“That was Milly, I’m bound to say, as she only mounted by my +invitation. But Milly—” + +“Then stick to Milly, she’s the best . . . But look at that!” + +‘His father pointed toward the waggon. “She can’t hold that horse in. +You shouldn’t have left the reins in her hands. Run on and take the +horse’s head, or there’ll be some accident to them maids!” + +‘Tony’s horse, in fact, in spite of Hannah’s tugging at the reins, had +started on his way at a brisk walking pace, being very anxious to get +back to the stable, for he had had a long day out. Without another word +Tony rushed away from his father to overtake the horse. + +‘Now of all things that could have happened to wean him from Milly +there was nothing so powerful as his father’s recommending her. No; it +could not be Milly, after all. Hannah must be the one, since he could +not marry all three. This he thought while running after the waggon. +But queer things were happening inside it. + +‘It was, of course, Milly who had screamed under the sack-bags, being +obliged to let off her bitter rage and shame in that way at what Tony +was saying, and never daring to show, for very pride and dread o’ being +laughed at, that she was in hiding. She became more and more restless, +and in twisting herself about, what did she see but another woman’s +foot and white stocking close to her head. It quite frightened her, not +knowing that Unity Sallet was in the waggon likewise. But after the +fright was over she determined to get to the bottom of all this, and +she crept and crept along the bed of the waggon, under the tarpaulin, +like a snake, when lo and behold she came face to face with Unity. + +‘“Well, if this isn’t disgraceful!” says Milly in a raging whisper to +Unity. + +‘“’Tis,” says Unity, “to see you hiding in a young man’s waggon like +this, and no great character belonging to either of ye!” + +‘“Mind what you are saying!” replied Milly, getting louder. “I am +engaged to be married to him, and haven’t I a right to be here? What +right have you, I should like to know? What has he been promising you? +A pretty lot of nonsense, I expect! But what Tony says to other women +is all mere wind, and no concern to me!” + +‘“Don’t you be too sure!” says Unity. “He’s going to have Hannah, and +not you, nor me either; I could hear that.” + +‘Now at these strange voices sounding from under the cloth Hannah was +thunderstruck a’most into a swound; and it was just at this time that +the horse moved on. Hannah tugged away wildly, not knowing what she was +doing; and as the quarrel rose louder and louder Hannah got so +horrified that she let go the reins altogether. The horse went on at +his own pace, and coming to the corner where we turn round to drop down +the hill to Lower Longpuddle he turned too quick, the off wheels went +up the bank, the waggon rose sideways till it was quite on edge upon +the near axles, and out rolled the three maidens into the road in a +heap. + +‘When Tony came up, frightened and breathless, he was relieved enough +to see that neither of his darlings was hurt, beyond a few scratches +from the brambles of the hedge. But he was rather alarmed when he heard +how they were going on at one another. + +‘“Don’t ye quarrel, my dears—don’t ye!” says he, taking off his hat out +of respect to ’em. And then he would have kissed them all round, as +fair and square as a man could, but they were in too much of a taking +to let him, and screeched and sobbed till they was quite spent. + +‘“Now I’ll speak out honest, because I ought to,” says Tony, as soon as +he could get heard. “And this is the truth,” says he. “I’ve asked +Hannah to be mine, and she is willing, and we are going to put up the +banns next—” + +‘Tony had not noticed that Hannah’s father was coming up behind, nor +had he noticed that Hannah’s face was beginning to bleed from the +scratch of a bramble. Hannah had seen her father, and had run to him, +crying worse than ever. + +‘“My daughter is _not_ willing, sir!” says Mr. Jolliver hot and strong. +“Be you willing, Hannah? I ask ye to have spirit enough to refuse him, +if yer virtue is left to ’ee and you run no risk?” + +‘“She’s as sound as a bell for me, that I’ll swear!” says Tony, flaring +up. “And so’s the others, come to that, though you may think it an +onusual thing in me!” + +‘“I have spirit, and I do refuse him!” says Hannah, partly because her +father was there, and partly, too, in a tantrum because of the +discovery, and the scratch on her face. “Little did I think when I was +so soft with him just now that I was talking to such a false deceiver!” + +‘“What, you won’t have me, Hannah?” says Tony, his jaw hanging down +like a dead man’s. + +‘“Never—I would sooner marry no—nobody at all!” she gasped out, though +with her heart in her throat, for she would not have refused Tony if he +had asked her quietly, and her father had not been there, and her face +had not been scratched by the bramble. And having said that, away she +walked upon her father’s arm, thinking and hoping he would ask her +again. + +‘Tony didn’t know what to say next. Milly was sobbing her heart out; +but as his father had strongly recommended her he couldn’t feel +inclined that way. So he turned to Unity. + +‘“Well, will you, Unity dear, be mine?” he says. + +‘“Take her leavings? Not I!” says Unity. “I’d scorn it!” And away walks +Unity Sallet likewise, though she looked back when she’d gone some way, +to see if he was following her. + +‘So there at last were left Milly and Tony by themselves, she crying in +watery streams, and Tony looking like a tree struck by lightning. + +‘“Well, Milly,” he says at last, going up to her, “it do seem as if +fate had ordained that it should be you and I, or nobody. And what must +be must be, I suppose. Hey, Milly?” + +‘“If you like, Tony. You didn’t really mean what you said to them?” + +‘“Not a word of it!” declares Tony, bringing down his fist upon his +palm. + +‘And then he kissed her, and put the waggon to rights, and they mounted +together; and their banns were put up the very next Sunday. I was not +able to go to their wedding, but it was a rare party they had, by all +account. Everybody in Longpuddle was there almost; you among the rest, +I think, Mr. Flaxton?’ The speaker turned to the parish clerk. + +‘I was,’ said Mr. Flaxton. ‘And that party was the cause of a very +curious change in some other people’s affairs; I mean in Steve +Hardcome’s and his cousin James’s.’ + +‘Ah! the Hardcomes,’ said the stranger. ‘How familiar that name is to +me! What of them?’ + +The clerk cleared his throat and began:— + + + + +THE HISTORY OF THE HARDCOMES + + +‘Yes, Tony’s was the very best wedding-randy that ever I was at; and +I’ve been at a good many, as you may suppose’—turning to the +newly-arrived one—‘having as a church-officer, the privilege to attend +all christening, wedding, and funeral parties—such being our Wessex +custom. + +‘’Twas on a frosty night in Christmas week, and among the folk invited +were the said Hardcomes o’ Climmerston—Steve and James—first cousins, +both of them small farmers, just entering into business on their own +account. With them came, as a matter of course, their intended wives, +two young women of the neighbourhood, both very pretty and sprightly +maidens, and numbers of friends from Abbot’s-Cernel, and Weatherbury, +and Mellstock, and I don’t know where—a regular houseful. + +‘The kitchen was cleared of furniture for dancing, and the old folk +played at “Put” and “All-fours” in the parlour, though at last they +gave that up to join in the dance. The top of the figure was by the +large front window of the room, and there were so many couples that the +lower part of the figure reached through the door at the back, and into +the darkness of the out-house; in fact, you couldn’t see the end of the +row at all, and ’twas never known exactly how long that dance was, the +lowest couples being lost among the faggots and brushwood in the +out-house. + +‘When we had danced a few hours, and the crowns of we taller men were +swelling into lumps with bumping the beams of the ceiling, the first +fiddler laid down his fiddle-bow, and said he should play no more, for +he wished to dance. And in another hour the second fiddler laid down +his, and said he wanted to dance too; so there was only the third +fiddler left, and he was a’ old, veteran man, very weak in the wrist. +However, he managed to keep up a faltering tweedle-dee; but there being +no chair in the room, and his knees being as weak as his wrists, he was +obliged to sit upon as much of the little corner-table as projected +beyond the corner-cupboard fixed over it, which was not a very wide +seat for a man advanced in years. + +‘Among those who danced most continually were the two engaged couples, +as was natural to their situation. Each pair was very well matched, and +very unlike the other. James Hardcome’s intended was called Emily +Darth, and both she and James were gentle, nice-minded, in-door people, +fond of a quiet life. Steve and his chosen, named Olive Pawle, were +different; they were of a more bustling nature, fond of racketing about +and seeing what was going on in the world. The two couples had arranged +to get married on the same day, and that not long thence; Tony’s +wedding being a sort of stimulant, as is often the case; I’ve noticed +it professionally many times. + +‘They danced with such a will as only young people in that stage of +courtship can dance; and it happened that as the evening wore on James +had for his partner Stephen’s plighted one, Olive, at the same time +that Stephen was dancing with James’s Emily. It was noticed that in +spite o’ the exchange the young men seemed to enjoy the dance no less +than before. By and by they were treading another tune in the same +changed order as we had noticed earlier, and though at first each one +had held the other’s mistress strictly at half-arm’s length, lest there +should be shown any objection to too close quarters by the lady’s +proper man, as time passed there was a little more closeness between +’em; and presently a little more closeness still. + +‘The later it got the more did each of the two cousins dance with the +wrong young girl, and the tighter did he hold her to his side as he +whirled her round; and, what was very remarkable, neither seemed to +mind what the other was doing. The party began to draw towards its end, +and I saw no more that night, being one of the first to leave, on +account of my morning’s business. But I learnt the rest of it from +those that knew. + +‘After finishing a particularly warming dance with the changed +partners, as I’ve mentioned, the two young men looked at one another, +and in a moment or two went out into the porch together. + +‘“James,” says Steve, “what were you thinking of when you were dancing +with my Olive?” + +‘“Well,” said James, “perhaps what you were thinking of when you were +dancing with my Emily.” + +‘“I was thinking,” said Steve, with some hesitation, “that I wouldn’t +mind changing for good and all!” + +‘“It was what I was feeling likewise,” said James. + +‘“I willingly agree to it, if you think we could manage it.” + +‘“So do I. But what would the girls say?” + +‘“’Tis my belief,” said Steve, “that they wouldn’t particularly object. +Your Emily clung as close to me as if she already belonged to me, dear +girl.” + +‘“And your Olive to me,” says James. “I could feel her heart beating +like a clock.” + +‘Well, they agreed to put it to the girls when they were all four +walking home together. And they did so. When they parted that night the +exchange was decided on—all having been done under the hot excitement +of that evening’s dancing. Thus it happened that on the following +Sunday morning, when the people were sitting in church with mouths wide +open to hear the names published as they had expected, there was no +small amazement to hear them coupled the wrong way, as it seemed. The +congregation whispered, and thought the parson had made a mistake; till +they discovered that his reading of the names was verily the true way. +As they had decided, so they were married, each one to the other’s +original property. + +‘Well, the two couples lived on for a year or two ordinarily enough, +till the time came when these young people began to grow a little less +warm to their respective spouses, as is the rule of married life; and +the two cousins wondered more and more in their hearts what had made +’em so mad at the last moment to marry crosswise as they did, when they +might have married straight, as was planned by nature, and as they had +fallen in love. ’Twas Tony’s party that had done _it_, plain enough, +and they half wished they had never gone there. James, being a quiet, +fireside, perusing man, felt at times a wide gap between himself and +Olive, his wife, who loved riding and driving and out-door jaunts to a +degree; while Steve, who was always knocking about hither and thither, +had a very domestic wife, who worked samplers, and made hearthrugs, +scarcely ever wished to cross the threshold, and only drove out with +him to please him. + +‘However, they said very little about this mismating to any of their +acquaintances, though sometimes Steve would look at James’s wife and +sigh, and James would look at Steve’s wife and do the same. Indeed, at +last the two men were frank enough towards each other not to mind +mentioning it quietly to themselves, in a long-faced, sorry-smiling, +whimsical sort of way, and would shake their heads together over their +foolishness in upsetting a well-considered choice on the strength of an +hour’s fancy in the whirl and wildness of a dance. Still, they were +sensible and honest young fellows enough, and did their best to make +shift with their lot as they had arranged it, and not to repine at what +could not now be altered or mended. + +‘So things remained till one fine summer day they went for their yearly +little outing together, as they had made it their custom to do for a +long while past. This year they chose Budmouth-Regis as the place to +spend their holiday in; and off they went in their best clothes at nine +o’clock in the morning. + +‘When they had reached Budmouth-Regis they walked two and two along the +shore—their new boots going squeakity-squash upon the clammy velvet +sands. I can seem to see ’em now! Then they looked at the ships in the +harbour; and then went up to the Look-out; and then had dinner at an +inn; and then again walked two and two, squeakity-squash, upon the +velvet sands. As evening drew on they sat on one of the public seats +upon the Esplanade, and listened to the band; and then they said “What +shall we do next?” + +‘“Of all things,” said Olive (Mrs. James Hardcome, that is), “I should +like to row in the bay! We could listen to the music from the water as +well as from here, and have the fun of rowing besides.” + +‘“The very thing; so should I,” says Stephen, his tastes being always +like hers. + +Here the clerk turned to the curate. + +‘But you, sir, know the rest of the strange particulars of that strange +evening of their lives better than anybody else, having had much of it +from their own lips, which I had not; and perhaps you’ll oblige the +gentleman?’ + +‘Certainly, if it is wished,’ said the curate. And he took up the +clerk’s tale:— + + +‘Stephen’s wife hated the sea, except from land, and couldn’t bear the +thought of going into a boat. James, too, disliked the water, and said +that for his part he would much sooner stay on and listen to the band +in the seat they occupied, though he did not wish to stand in his +wife’s way if she desired a row. The end of the discussion was that +James and his cousin’s wife Emily agreed to remain where they were +sitting and enjoy the music, while they watched the other two hire a +boat just beneath, and take their water-excursion of half an hour or +so, till they should choose to come back and join the sitters on the +Esplanade; when they would all start homeward together. + +‘Nothing could have pleased the other two restless ones better than +this arrangement; and Emily and James watched them go down to the +boatman below and choose one of the little yellow skiffs, and walk +carefully out upon the little plank that was laid on trestles to enable +them to get alongside the craft. They saw Stephen hand Olive in, and +take his seat facing her; when they were settled they waved their hands +to the couple watching them, and then Stephen took the pair of sculls +and pulled off to the tune beat by the band, she steering through the +other boats skimming about, for the sea was as smooth as glass that +evening, and pleasure-seekers were rowing everywhere. + +‘“How pretty they look moving on, don’t they?” said Emily to James (as +I’ve been assured). “They both enjoy it equally. In everything their +likings are the same.” + +‘“That’s true,” said James. + +‘“They would have made a handsome pair if they had married,” said she. + +‘“Yes,” said he. “’Tis a pity we should have parted ’em” + +‘“Don’t talk of that, James,” said she. “For better or for worse we +decided to do as we did, and there’s an end of it.” + +‘They sat on after that without speaking, side by side, and the band +played as before; the people strolled up and down; and Stephen and +Olive shrank smaller and smaller as they shot straight out to sea. The +two on shore used to relate how they saw Stephen stop rowing a moment, +and take off his coat to get at his work better; but James’s wife sat +quite still in the stern, holding the tiller-ropes by which she steered +the boat. When they had got very small indeed she turned her head to +shore. + +‘“She is waving her handkerchief to us,” said Stephen’s wife, who +thereupon pulled out her own, and waved it as a return signal. + +‘The boat’s course had been a little awry while Mrs. James neglected +her steering to wave her handkerchief to her husband and Mrs. Stephen; +but now the light skiff went straight onward again, and they could soon +see nothing more of the two figures it contained than Olive’s light +mantle and Stephen’s white shirt sleeves behind. + +‘The two on the shore talked on. “’Twas very curious—our changing +partners at Tony Kytes’s wedding,” Emily declared. “Tony was of a +fickle nature by all account, and it really seemed as if his character +had infected us that night. Which of you two was it that first proposed +not to marry as we were engaged?” + +‘“H’m—I can’t remember at this moment,” says James. “We talked it over, +you know; and no sooner said than done.” + +‘“’Twas the dancing,” said she. “People get quite crazy sometimes in a +dance.” + +‘“They do,” he owned. + +‘“James—do you think they care for one another still?” asks Mrs. +Stephen. + +‘James Hardcome mused and admitted that perhaps a little tender feeling +might flicker up in their hearts for a moment now and then. “Still, +nothing of any account,” he said. + +‘“I sometimes think that Olive is in Steve’s mind a good deal,” murmurs +Mrs. Stephen; “particularly when she pleases his fancy by riding past +our window at a gallop on one of the draught-horses . . . I never could +do anything of that sort; I could never get over my fear of a horse.” + +‘“And I am no horseman, though I pretend to be on her account,” +murmured James Hardcome. “But isn’t it almost time for them to turn and +sweep round to the shore, as the other boating folk have done? I wonder +what Olive means by steering away straight to the horizon like that? +She has hardly swerved from a direct line seaward since they started.” + +‘“No doubt they are talking, and don’t think of where they are going,” +suggests Stephen’s wife. + +‘“Perhaps so,” said James. “I didn’t know Steve could row like that.” + +‘“O yes,” says she. “He often comes here on business, and generally has +a pull round the bay.” + +‘“I can hardly see the boat or them,” says James again; “and it is +getting dark.” + +‘The heedless pair afloat now formed a mere speck in the films of the +coming night, which thickened apace, till it completely swallowed up +their distant shapes. They had disappeared while still following the +same straight course away from the world of land-livers, as if they +were intending to drop over the sea-edge into space, and never return +to earth again. + +‘The two on the shore continued to sit on, punctually abiding by their +agreement to remain on the same spot till the others returned. The +Esplanade lamps were lit one by one, the bandsmen folded up their +stands and departed, the yachts in the bay hung out their riding +lights, and the little boats came back to shore one after another, +their hirers walking on to the sands by the plank they had climbed to +go afloat; but among these Stephen and Olive did not appear. + +‘“What a time they are!” said Emily. “I am getting quite chilly. I did +not expect to have to sit so long in the evening air.” + +‘Thereupon James Hardcome said that he did not require his overcoat, +and insisted on lending it to her. + +‘He wrapped it round Emily’s shoulders. + +‘“Thank you, James,” she said. “How cold Olive must be in that thin +jacket!” + +‘He said he was thinking so too. “Well, they are sure to be quite close +at hand by this time, though we can’t see ’em. The boats are not all in +yet. Some of the rowers are fond of paddling along the shore to finish +out their hour of hiring.” + +‘“Shall we walk by the edge of the water,” said she, “to see if we can +discover them?” + +‘He assented, reminding her that they must not lose sight of the seat, +lest the belated pair should return and miss them, and be vexed that +they had not kept the appointment. + +‘They walked a sentry beat up and down the sands immediately opposite +the seat; and still the others did not come. James Hardcome at last +went to the boatman, thinking that after all his wife and cousin might +have come in under shadow of the dusk without being perceived, and +might have forgotten the appointment at the bench. + +‘“All in?” asked James. + +‘“All but one boat,” said the lessor. “I can’t think where that couple +is keeping to. They might run foul of something or other in the dark.” + +‘Again Stephen’s wife and Olive’s husband waited, with more and more +anxiety. But no little yellow boat returned. Was it possible they could +have landed further down the Esplanade? + +‘“It may have been done to escape paying,” said the boat-owner. “But +they didn’t look like people who would do that.” + +‘James Hardcome knew that he could found no hope on such a reason as +that. But now, remembering what had been casually discussed between +Steve and himself about their wives from time to time, he admitted for +the first time the possibility that their old tenderness had been +revived by their face-to-face position more strongly than either had +anticipated at starting—the excursion having been so obviously +undertaken for the pleasure of the performance only,—and that they had +landed at some steps he knew of further down toward the pier, to be +longer alone together. + +‘Still he disliked to harbour the thought, and would not mention its +existence to his companion. He merely said to her, “Let us walk further +on.” + +‘They did so, and lingered between the boat-stage and the pier till +Stephen Hardcome’s wife was uneasy, and was obliged to accept James’s +offered arm. Thus the night advanced. Emily was presently so worn out +by fatigue that James felt it necessary to conduct her home; there was, +too, a remote chance that the truants had landed in the harbour on the +other side of the town, or elsewhere, and hastened home in some +unexpected way, in the belief that their consorts would not have waited +so long. + +‘However, he left a direction in the town that a lookout should be +kept, though this was arranged privately, the bare possibility of an +elopement being enough to make him reticent; and, full of misgivings, +the two remaining ones hastened to catch the last train out of +Budmouth-Regis; and when they got to Casterbridge drove back to Upper +Longpuddle.’ + +‘Along this very road as we do now,’ remarked the parish clerk. + +‘To be sure—along this very road,’ said the curate. ‘However, Stephen +and Olive were not at their homes; neither had entered the village +since leaving it in the morning. Emily and James Hardcome went to their +respective dwellings to snatch a hasty night’s rest, and at daylight +the next morning they drove again to Casterbridge and entered the +Budmouth train, the line being just opened. + +‘Nothing had been heard of the couple there during this brief absence. +In the course of a few hours some young men testified to having seen +such a man and woman rowing in a frail hired craft, the head of the +boat kept straight to sea; they had sat looking in each other’s faces +as if they were in a dream, with no consciousness of what they were +doing, or whither they were steering. It was not till late that day +that more tidings reached James’s ears. The boat had been found +drifting bottom upward a long way from land. In the evening the sea +rose somewhat, and a cry spread through the town that two bodies were +cast ashore in Lullstead Bay, several miles to the eastward. They were +brought to Budmouth, and inspection revealed them to be the missing +pair. It was said that they had been found tightly locked in each +other’s arms, his lips upon hers, their features still wrapt in the +same calm and dream-like repose which had been observed in their +demeanour as they had glided along. + +‘Neither James nor Emily questioned the original motives of the +unfortunate man and woman in putting to sea. They were both above +suspicion as to intention. Whatever their mutual feelings might have +led them on to, underhand behaviour was foreign to the nature of +either. Conjecture pictured that they might have fallen into tender +reverie while gazing each into a pair of eyes that had formerly flashed +for him and her alone, and, unwilling to avow what their mutual +sentiments were, they had continued thus, oblivious of time and space, +till darkness suddenly overtook them far from land. But nothing was +truly known. It had been their destiny to die thus. The two halves, +intended by Nature to make the perfect whole, had failed in that result +during their lives, though “in their death they were not divided.” +Their bodies were brought home, and buried on one day. I remember that, +on looking round the churchyard while reading the service, I observed +nearly all the parish at their funeral.’ + +‘It was so, sir,’ said the clerk. + +‘The remaining two,’ continued the curate (whose voice had grown husky +while relating the lovers’ sad fate), ‘were a more thoughtful and +far-seeing, though less romantic, couple than the first. They were now +mutually bereft of a companion, and found themselves by this accident +in a position to fulfil their destiny according to Nature’s plan and +their own original and calmly-formed intention. James Hardcome took +Emily to wife in the course of a year and a half; and the marriage +proved in every respect a happy one. I solemnized the service, Hardcome +having told me, when he came to give notice of the proposed wedding, +the story of his first wife’s loss almost word for word as I have told +it to you.’ + +‘And are they living in Longpuddle still?’ asked the new-comer. + +‘O no, sir,’ interposed the clerk. ‘James has been dead these dozen +years, and his mis’ess about six or seven. They had no children. +William Privett used to be their odd man till he died.’ + +‘Ah—William Privett! He dead too?—dear me!’ said the other. ‘All passed +away!’ + +‘Yes, sir. William was much older than I. He’d ha’ been over eighty if +he had lived till now.’ + +‘There was something very strange about William’s death—very strange +indeed!’ sighed a melancholy man in the back of the van. It was the +seedsman’s father, who had hitherto kept silence. + +‘And what might that have been?’ asked Mr. Lackland. + + + + +THE SUPERSTITIOUS MAN’S STORY + + +‘William, as you may know, was a curious, silent man; you could feel +when he came near ’ee; and if he was in the house or anywhere behind +your back without your seeing him, there seemed to be something clammy +in the air, as if a cellar door was opened close by your elbow. Well, +one Sunday, at a time that William was in very good health to all +appearance, the bell that was ringing for church went very heavy all of +a sudden; the sexton, who told me o’t, said he’d not known the bell go +so heavy in his hand for years—it was just as if the gudgeons wanted +oiling. That was on the Sunday, as I say. During the week after, it +chanced that William’s wife was staying up late one night to finish her +ironing, she doing the washing for Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome. Her husband +had finished his supper and gone to bed as usual some hour or two +before. While she ironed she heard him coming down stairs; he stopped +to put on his boots at the stair-foot, where he always left them, and +then came on into the living-room where she was ironing, passing +through it towards the door, this being the only way from the staircase +to the outside of the house. No word was said on either side, William +not being a man given to much speaking, and his wife being occupied +with her work. He went out and closed the door behind him. As her +husband had now and then gone out in this way at night before when +unwell, or unable to sleep for want of a pipe, she took no particular +notice, and continued at her ironing. This she finished shortly after, +and as he had not come in she waited awhile for him, putting away the +irons and things, and preparing the table for his breakfast in the +morning. Still he did not return, but supposing him not far off, and +wanting to get to bed herself, tired as she was, she left the door +unbarred and went to the stairs, after writing on the back of the door +with chalk: _Mind and do the door_ (because he was a forgetful man). + +‘To her great surprise, and I might say alarm, on reaching the foot of +the stairs his boots were standing there as they always stood when he +had gone to rest; going up to their chamber she found him in bed +sleeping as sound as a rock. How he could have got back again without +her seeing or hearing him was beyond her comprehension. It could only +have been by passing behind her very quietly while she was bumping with +the iron. But this notion did not satisfy her: it was surely impossible +that she should not have seen him come in through a room so small. She +could not unravel the mystery, and felt very queer and uncomfortable +about it. However, she would not disturb him to question him then, and +went to bed herself. + +‘He rose and left for his work very early the next morning, before she +was awake, and she waited his return to breakfast with much anxiety for +an explanation, for thinking over the matter by daylight made it seem +only the more startling. When he came in to the meal he said, before +she could put her question, “What’s the meaning of them words chalked +on the door?” + +‘She told him, and asked him about his going out the night before. +William declared that he had never left the bedroom after entering it, +having in fact undressed, lain down, and fallen asleep directly, never +once waking till the clock struck five, and he rose up to go to his +labour. + +‘Betty Privett was as certain in her own mind that he did go out as she +was of her own existence, and was little less certain that he did not +return. She felt too disturbed to argue with him, and let the subject +drop as though she must have been mistaken. When she was walking down +Longpuddle street later in the day she met Jim Weedle’s daughter Nancy, +and said, “Well, Nancy, you do look sleepy to-day!” + +‘“Yes, Mrs. Privett,” says Nancy. “Now don’t tell anybody, but I don’t +mind letting you know what the reason o’t is. Last night, being Old +Midsummer Eve, some of us went to church porch, and didn’t get home +till near one.” + +‘“Did ye?” says Mrs. Privett. “Old Midsummer yesterday was it? Faith I +didn’t think whe’r ’twas Midsummer or Michaelmas; I’d too much work to +do.” + +‘“Yes. And we were frightened enough, I can tell ’ee, by what we saw.” + +‘“What did ye see?” + +‘(You may not remember, sir, having gone off to foreign parts so young, +that on Midsummer Night it is believed hereabout that the faint shapes +of all the folk in the parish who are going to be at death’s door +within the year can be seen entering the church. Those who get over +their illness come out again after a while; those that are doomed to +die do not return.) + +‘“What did you see?” asked William’s wife. + +‘“Well,” says Nancy, backwardly—“we needn’t tell what we saw, or who we +saw.” + +‘“You saw my husband,” says Betty Privett, in a quiet way. + +‘“Well, since you put it so,” says Nancy, hanging fire, “we—thought we +did see him; but it was darkish, and we was frightened, and of course +it might not have been he.” + +‘“Nancy, you needn’t mind letting it out, though ’tis kept back in +kindness. And he didn’t come out of church again: I know it as well as +you.” + +‘Nancy did not answer yes or no to that, and no more was said. But +three days after, William Privett was mowing with John Chiles in Mr. +Hardcome’s meadow, and in the heat of the day they sat down to eat +their bit o’ nunch under a tree, and empty their flagon. Afterwards +both of ’em fell asleep as they sat. John Chiles was the first to wake, +and as he looked towards his fellow-mower he saw one of those great +white miller’s-souls as we call ’em—that is to say, a miller-moth—come +from William’s open mouth while he slept, and fly straight away. John +thought it odd enough, as William had worked in a mill for several +years when he was a boy. He then looked at the sun, and found by the +place o’t that they had slept a long while, and as William did not +wake, John called to him and said it was high time to begin work again. +He took no notice, and then John went up and shook him, and found he +was dead. + +‘Now on that very day old Philip Hookhorn was down at Longpuddle Spring +dipping up a pitcher of water; and as he turned away, who should he see +coming down to the spring on the other side but William, looking very +pale and odd. This surprised Philip Hookhorn very much, for years +before that time William’s little son—his only child—had been drowned +in that spring while at play there, and this had so preyed upon +William’s mind that he’d never been seen near the spring afterwards, +and had been known to go half a mile out of his way to avoid the place. +On inquiry, it was found that William in body could not have stood by +the spring, being in the mead two miles off; and it also came out that +the time at which he was seen at the spring was the very time when he +died.’ + + +‘A rather melancholy story,’ observed the emigrant, after a minute’s +silence. + +‘Yes, yes. Well, we must take ups and downs together,’ said the +seedsman’s father. + +‘You don’t know, Mr. Lackland, I suppose, what a rum start that was +between Andrey Satchel and Jane Vallens and the pa’son and clerk o’ +Scrimpton?’ said the master-thatcher, a man with a spark of subdued +liveliness in his eye, who had hitherto kept his attention mainly upon +small objects a long way ahead, as he sat in front of the van with his +feet outside. ‘Theirs was a queerer experience of a pa’son and clerk +than some folks get, and may cheer ’ee up a little after this dampness +that’s been flung over yer soul.’ + +The returned one replied that he knew nothing of the history, and +should be happy to hear it, quite recollecting the personality of the +man Satchel. + +‘Ah no; this Andrey Satchel is the son of the Satchel that you knew; +this one has not been married more than two or three years, and ’twas +at the time o’ the wedding that the accident happened that I could tell +’ee of, or anybody else here, for that matter.’ + +‘No, no; you must tell it, neighbour, if anybody,’ said several; a +request in which Mr. Lackland joined, adding that the Satchel family +was one he had known well before leaving home. + +‘I’ll just mention, as you be a stranger,’ whispered the carrier to +Lackland, ‘that Christopher’s stories will bear pruning.’ + +The emigrant nodded. + +‘Well, I can soon tell it,’ said the master-thatcher, schooling himself +to a tone of actuality. ‘Though as it has more to do with the pa’son +and clerk than with Andrey himself, it ought to be told by a better +churchman than I.’ + + + + +ANDREY SATCHEL AND THE PARSON AND CLERK + + +‘It all arose, you must know, from Andrey being fond of a drop of drink +at that time—though he’s a sober enough man now by all account, so much +the better for him. Jane, his bride, you see, was somewhat older than +Andrey; how much older I don’t pretend to say; she was not one of our +parish, and the register alone may be able to tell that. But, at any +rate, her being a little ahead of her young man in mortal years, +coupled with other bodily circumstances—’ + +(‘Ah, poor thing!’ sighed the women.) + +‘—made her very anxious to get the thing done before he changed his +mind; and ’twas with a joyful countenance (they say) that she, with +Andrey and his brother and sister-in-law, marched off to church one +November morning as soon as ’twas day a’most, to be made one with +Andrey for the rest of her life. He had left our place long before it +was light, and the folks that were up all waved their lanterns at him, +and flung up their hats as he went. + +‘The church of her parish was a mile and more from the houses, and, as +it was a wonderful fine day for the time of year, the plan was that as +soon as they were married they would make out a holiday by driving +straight off to Port Bredy, to see the ships and the sea and the +sojers, instead of coming back to a meal at the house of the distant +relation she lived wi’, and moping about there all the afternoon. + +‘Well, some folks noticed that Andrey walked with rather wambling steps +to church that morning; the truth o’t was that his nearest neighbour’s +child had been christened the day before, and Andrey, having stood +godfather, had stayed all night keeping up the christening, for he had +said to himself, “Not if I live to be thousand shall I again be made a +godfather one day, and a husband the next, and perhaps a father the +next, and therefore I’ll make the most of the blessing.” So that when +he started from home in the morning he had not been in bed at all. The +result was, as I say, that when he and his bride-to-be walked up the +church to get married, the pa’son (who was a very strict man inside the +church, whatever he was outside) looked hard at Andrey, and said, very +sharp: + +‘“How’s this, my man? You are in liquor. And so early, too. I’m ashamed +of you!” + +‘“Well, that’s true, sir,” says Andrey. “But I can walk straight enough +for practical purposes. I can walk a chalk line,” he says (meaning no +offence), “as well as some other folk: and—” (getting hotter)—“I reckon +that if you, Pa’son Billy Toogood, had kept up a christening all night +so thoroughly as I have done, you wouldn’t be able to stand at all; +d--- me if you would!” + +‘This answer made Pa’son Billy—as they used to call him—rather spitish, +not to say hot, for he was a warm-tempered man if provoked, and he +said, very decidedly: “Well, I cannot marry you in this state; and I +will not! Go home and get sober!” And he slapped the book together like +a rat-trap. + +‘Then the bride burst out crying as if her heart would break, for very +fear that she would lose Andrey after all her hard work to get him, and +begged and implored the pa’son to go on with the ceremony. But no. + +‘“I won’t be a party to your solemnizing matrimony with a tipsy man,” +says Mr. Toogood. “It is not right and decent. I am sorry for you, my +young woman, but you’d better go home again. I wonder how you could +think of bringing him here drunk like this!” + +‘“But if—if he don’t come drunk he won’t come at all, sir!” she says, +through her sobs. + +‘“I can’t help that,” says the pa’son; and plead as she might, it did +not move him. Then she tried him another way. + +‘“Well, then, if you’ll go home, sir, and leave us here, and come back +to the church in an hour or two, I’ll undertake to say that he shall be +as sober as a judge,” she cries. “We’ll bide here, with your +permission; for if he once goes out of this here church unmarried, all +Van Amburgh’s horses won’t drag him back again!” + +‘“Very well,” says the parson. “I’ll give you two hours, and then I’ll +return.” + +‘“And please, sir, lock the door, so that we can’t escape!” says she. + +‘“Yes,” says the parson. + +‘“And let nobody know that we are here.” + +‘The pa’son then took off his clane white surplice, and went away; and +the others consulted upon the best means for keeping the matter a +secret, which it was not a very hard thing to do, the place being so +lonely, and the hour so early. The witnesses, Andrey’s brother and +brother’s wife, neither one o’ which cared about Andrey’s marrying +Jane, and had come rather against their will, said they couldn’t wait +two hours in that hole of a place, wishing to get home to Longpuddle +before dinner-time. They were altogether so crusty that the clerk said +there was no difficulty in their doing as they wished. They could go +home as if their brother’s wedding had actually taken place and the +married couple had gone onward for their day’s pleasure jaunt to Port +Bredy as intended, he, the clerk, and any casual passer-by would act as +witnesses when the pa’son came back. + +‘This was agreed to, and away Andrey’s relations went, nothing loath, +and the clerk shut the church door and prepared to lock in the couple. +The bride went up and whispered to him, with her eyes a-streaming +still. + +‘“My dear good clerk,” she says, “if we bide here in the church, folk +may see us through the winders, and find out what has happened; and +’twould cause such a talk and scandal that I never should get over it: +and perhaps, too, dear Andrey might try to get out and leave me! Will +ye lock us up in the tower, my dear good clerk?” she says. “I’ll tole +him in there if you will.” + +‘The clerk had no objection to do this to oblige the poor young woman, +and they toled Andrey into the tower, and the clerk locked ’em both up +straightway, and then went home, to return at the end of the two hours. + +‘Pa’son Toogood had not been long in his house after leaving the church +when he saw a gentleman in pink and top-boots ride past his windows, +and with a sudden flash of heat he called to mind that the hounds met +that day just on the edge of his parish. The pa’son was one who dearly +loved sport, and much he longed to be there. + +‘In short, except o’ Sundays and at tide-times in the week, Pa’son +Billy was the life o’ the Hunt. ’Tis true that he was poor, and that he +rode all of a heap, and that his black mare was rat-tailed and old, and +his tops older, and all over of one colour, whitey-brown, and full o’ +cracks. But he’d been in at the death of three thousand foxes. +And—being a bachelor man—every time he went to bed in summer he used to +open the bed at bottom and crawl up head foremost, to mind 'em of the +coming winter and the good sport he’d have, and the foxes going to +earth. And whenever there was a christening at the Squire’s, and he had +dinner there afterwards, as he always did, he never failed to christen +the chiel over again in a bottle of port wine. + +‘Now the clerk was the parson’s groom and gardener and jineral manager, +and had just got back to his work in the garden when he, too, saw the +hunting man pass, and presently saw lots more of ’em, noblemen and +gentry, and then he saw the hounds, the huntsman, Jim Treadhedge, the +whipper-in, and I don’t know who besides. The clerk loved going to +cover as frantical as the pa’son, so much so that whenever he saw or +heard the pack he could no more rule his feelings than if they were the +winds of heaven. He might be bedding, or he might be sowing—all was +forgot. So he throws down his spade and rushes in to the pa’son, who +was by this time as frantical to go as he. + +‘“That there mare of yours, sir, do want exercise bad, very bad, this +morning!” the clerk says, all of a tremble. “Don’t ye think I’d better +trot her round the downs for an hour, sir?” + +‘“To be sure, she does want exercise badly. I’ll trot her round +myself,” says the parson. + +‘“Oh—you’ll trot her yerself? Well, there’s the cob, sir. Really that +cob is getting oncontrollable through biding in a stable so long! If +you wouldn’t mind my putting on the saddle—” + +‘“Very well. Take him out, certainly,” says the pa’son, never caring +what the clerk did so long as he himself could get off immediately. So, +scrambling into his riding-boots and breeches as quick as he could, he +rode off towards the meet, intending to be back in an hour. No sooner +was he gone than the clerk mounted the cob, and was off after him. When +the pa’son got to the meet, he found a lot of friends, and was as jolly +as he could be: the hounds found a’most as soon as they threw off, and +there was great excitement. So, forgetting that he had meant to go back +at once, away rides the pa’son with the rest o’ the hunt, all across +the fallow ground that lies between Lippet Wood and Green’s Copse; and +as he galloped he looked behind for a moment, and there was the clerk +close to his heels. + +‘“Ha, ha, clerk—you here?” he says. + +‘“Yes, sir, here be I,” says t’other. + +‘“Fine exercise for the horses!” + +‘“Ay, sir—hee, hee!” says the clerk. + +‘So they went on and on, into Green’s Copse, then across to Higher +Jirton; then on across this very turnpike-road to Climmerston Ridge, +then away towards Yalbury Wood: up hill and down dale, like the very +wind, the clerk close to the pa’son, and the pa’son not far from the +hounds. Never was there a finer run knowed with that pack than they had +that day; and neither pa’son nor clerk thought one word about the +unmarried couple locked up in the church tower waiting to get j’ined. + +‘“These hosses of yours, sir, will be much improved by this!” says the +clerk as he rode along, just a neck behind the pa’son. “’Twas a happy +thought of your reverent mind to bring ’em out to-day. Why, it may be +frosty in a day or two, and then the poor things mid not be able to +leave the stable for weeks.” + +‘“They may not, they may not, it is true. A merciful man is merciful to +his beast,” says the pa’son. + +‘“Hee, hee!” says the clerk, glancing sly into the pa’son’s eye. + +‘“Ha, ha!” says the pa’son, a-glancing back into the clerk’s. “Halloo!” +he shouts, as he sees the fox break cover at that moment. + +‘“Halloo!” cries the clerk. “There he goes! Why, dammy, there’s two +foxes—” + +‘“Hush, clerk, hush! Don’t let me hear that word again! Remember our +calling.” + +‘“True, sir, true. But really, good sport do carry away a man so, that +he’s apt to forget his high persuasion!” And the next minute the corner +of the clerk’s eye shot again into the corner of the pa’son’s, and the +pa’son’s back again to the clerk’s. “Hee, hee!” said the clerk. + +‘“Ha, ha!” said Pa’son Toogood. + +‘“Ah, sir,” says the clerk again, “this is better than crying Amen to +your Ever-and-ever on a winter’s morning!” + +‘“Yes, indeed, clerk! To everything there’s a season,” says Pa’son +Toogood, quite pat, for he was a learned Christian man when he liked, +and had chapter and ve’se at his tongue’s end, as a pa’son should. + +‘At last, late in the day, the hunting came to an end by the fox +running into a’ old woman’s cottage, under her table, and up the +clock-case. The pa’son and clerk were among the first in at the death, +their faces a-staring in at the old woman’s winder, and the clock +striking as he’d never been heard to strik’ before. Then came the +question of finding their way home. + +‘Neither the pa’son nor the clerk knowed how they were going to do +this, for their beasts were wellnigh tired down to the ground. But they +started back-along as well as they could, though they were so done up +that they could only drag along at a’ amble, and not much of that at a +time. + +‘“We shall never, never get there!” groaned Mr. Toogood, quite bowed +down. + +‘“Never!” groans the clerk. “’Tis a judgment upon us for our +iniquities!” + +‘“I fear it is,” murmurs the pa’son. + +‘Well, ’twas quite dark afore they entered the pa’sonage gate, having +crept into the parish as quiet as if they’d stole a hammer, little +wishing their congregation to know what they’d been up to all day long. +And as they were so dog-tired, and so anxious about the horses, never +once did they think of the unmarried couple. As soon as ever the horses +had been stabled and fed, and the pa’son and clerk had had a bit and a +sup theirselves, they went to bed. + +‘Next morning when Pa’son Toogood was at breakfast, thinking of the +glorious sport he’d had the day before, the clerk came in a hurry to +the door and asked to see him. + +‘“It has just come into my mind, sir, that we’ve forgot all about the +couple that we was to have married yesterday!” + +‘The half-chawed victuals dropped from the pa’son’s mouth as if he’d +been shot. “Bless my soul,” says he, “so we have! How very awkward!” + +‘“It is, sir; very. Perhaps we’ve ruined the ’ooman!” + +‘“Ah—to be sure—I remember! She ought to have been married before.” + +‘“If anything has happened to her up in that there tower, and no doctor +or nuss—” + +(‘Ah—poor thing!’ sighed the women.) + +‘“—’twill be a quarter-sessions matter for us, not to speak of the +disgrace to the Church!” + +‘“Good God, clerk, don’t drive me wild!” says the pa’son. “Why the hell +didn’t I marry ’em, drunk or sober!” (Pa’sons used to cuss in them days +like plain honest men.) “Have you been to the church to see what +happened to them, or inquired in the village?” + +‘“Not I, sir! It only came into my head a moment ago, and I always like +to be second to you in church matters. You could have knocked me down +with a sparrer’s feather when I thought o’t, sir; I assure ’ee you +could!” + +‘Well, the parson jumped up from his breakfast, and together they went +off to the church. + +‘“It is not at all likely that they are there now,” says Mr. Toogood, +as they went; “and indeed I hope they are not. They be pretty sure to +have ’scaped and gone home.” + +‘However, they opened the church-hatch, entered the churchyard, and +looking up at the tower, there they seed a little small white face at +the belfry-winder, and a little small hand waving. ’Twas the bride. + +‘“God my life, clerk,” says Mr. Toogood, “I don’t know how to face +’em!” And he sank down upon a tombstone. “How I wish I hadn’t been so +cussed particular!” + +‘“Yes—’twas a pity we didn’t finish it when we’d begun,” the clerk +said. “Still, since the feelings of your holy priestcraft wouldn’t let +ye, the couple must put up with it.” + +‘“True, clerk, true! Does she look as if anything premature had took +place?” + +‘“I can’t see her no lower down than her arm-pits, sir.” + +‘“Well—how do her face look?” + +‘“It do look mighty white!” + +‘“Well, we must know the worst! Dear me, how the small of my back do +ache from that ride yesterday! . . . But to more godly business!” + +‘They went on into the church, and unlocked the tower stairs, and +immediately poor Jane and Andrey busted out like starved mice from a +cupboard, Andrey limp and sober enough now, and his bride pale and +cold, but otherwise as usual. + +‘“What,” says the pa’son, with a great breath of relief, “you haven’t +been here ever since?” + +‘“Yes, we have, sir!” says the bride, sinking down upon a seat in her +weakness. “Not a morsel, wet or dry, have we had since! It was +impossible to get out without help, and here we’ve stayed!” + +‘“But why didn’t you shout, good souls?” said the pa’son. + +‘“She wouldn’t let me,” says Andrey. + +‘“Because we were so ashamed at what had led to it,” sobs Jane. “We +felt that if it were noised abroad it would cling to us all our lives! +Once or twice Andrey had a good mind to toll the bell, but then he +said: “No; I’ll starve first. I won’t bring disgrace on my name and +yours, my dear.” And so we waited and waited, and walked round and +round; but never did you come till now!” + +‘“To my regret!” says the parson. “Now, then, we will soon get it +over.” + +‘“I—I should like some victuals,” said Andrey, “’twould gie me courage +if it is only a crust o’ bread and a’ onion; for I am that leery that I +can feel my stomach rubbing against my backbone.” + +‘“I think we had better get it done,” said the bride, a bit anxious in +manner; “since we are all here convenient, too!” + +‘Andrey gave way about the victuals, and the clerk called in a second +witness who wouldn’t be likely to gossip about it, and soon the knot +was tied, and the bride looked smiling and calm forthwith, and Andrey +limper than ever. + +‘“Now,” said Pa’son Toogood, “you two must come to my house, and have a +good lining put to your insides before you go a step further.” + +‘They were very glad of the offer, and went out of the churchyard by +one path while the pa’son and clerk went out by the other, and so did +not attract notice, it being still early. They entered the rectory as +if they’d just come back from their trip to Port Bredy; and then they +knocked in the victuals and drink till they could hold no more. + +‘It was a long while before the story of what they had gone through was +known, but it was talked of in time, and they themselves laugh over it +now; though what Jane got for her pains was no great bargain after all. +’Tis true she saved her name.’ + + +‘Was that the same Andrey who went to the squire’s house as one of the +Christmas fiddlers?’ asked the seedsman. + +‘No, no,’ replied Mr. Profitt, the schoolmaster. ‘It was his father did +that. Ay, it was all owing to his being such a man for eating and +drinking.’ Finding that he had the ear of the audience, the +schoolmaster continued without delay:— + + + + +OLD ANDREY’S EXPERIENCE AS A MUSICIAN + + +‘I was one of the choir-boys at that time, and we and the players were +to appear at the manor-house as usual that Christmas week, to play and +sing in the hall to the squire’s people and visitors (among ’em being +the archdeacon, Lord and Lady Baxby, and I don’t know who); afterwards +going, as we always did, to have a good supper in the servants’ hall. +Andrew knew this was the custom, and meeting us when we were starting +to go, he said to us: “Lord, how I should like to join in that meal of +beef, and turkey, and plum-pudding, and ale, that you happy ones be +going to just now! One more or less will make no difference to the +squire. I am too old to pass as a singing boy, and too bearded to pass +as a singing girl; can ye lend me a fiddle, neighbours, that I may come +with ye as a bandsman?” + +‘Well, we didn’t like to be hard upon him, and lent him an old one, +though Andrew knew no more of music than the Cerne Giant; and armed +with the instrument he walked up to the squire’s house with the others +of us at the time appointed, and went in boldly, his fiddle under his +arm. He made himself as natural as he could in opening the music-books +and moving the candles to the best points for throwing light upon the +notes; and all went well till we had played and sung “While shepherds +watch,” and “Star, arise,” and “Hark the glad sound.” Then the squire’s +mother, a tall gruff old lady, who was much interested in church-music, +said quite unexpectedly to Andrew: “My man, I see you don’t play your +instrument with the rest. How is that?” + +‘Every one of the choir was ready to sink into the earth with concern +at the fix Andrew was in. We could see that he had fallen into a cold +sweat, and how he would get out of it we did not know. + +‘“I’ve had a misfortune, mem,” he says, bowing as meek as a child. +“Coming along the road I fell down and broke my bow.” + +‘“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” says she. “Can’t it be mended?” + +‘“Oh no, mem,” says Andrew. “’Twas broke all to splinters.” + +‘“I’ll see what I can do for you,” says she. + +‘And then it seemed all over, and we played “Rejoice, ye drowsy mortals +all,” in D and two sharps. But no sooner had we got through it than she +says to Andrew, + +‘“I’ve sent up into the attic, where we have some old musical +instruments, and found a bow for you.” And she hands the bow to poor +wretched Andrew, who didn’t even know which end to take hold of. “Now +we shall have the full accompaniment,” says she. + +‘Andrew’s face looked as if it were made of rotten apple as he stood in +the circle of players in front of his book; for if there was one person +in the parish that everybody was afraid of, ’twas this hook-nosed old +lady. However, by keeping a little behind the next man he managed to +make pretence of beginning, sawing away with his bow without letting it +touch the strings, so that it looked as if he were driving into the +tune with heart and soul. ’Tis a question if he wouldn’t have got +through all right if one of the squire’s visitors (no other than the +archdeacon) hadn’t noticed that he held the fiddle upside down, the nut +under his chin, and the tail-piece in his hand; and they began to crowd +round him, thinking ’twas some new way of performing. + +‘This revealed everything; the squire’s mother had Andrew turned out of +the house as a vile impostor, and there was great interruption to the +harmony of the proceedings, the squire declaring he should have notice +to leave his cottage that day fortnight. However, when we got to the +servants’ hall there sat Andrew, who had been let in at the back door +by the orders of the squire’s wife, after being turned out at the front +by the orders of the squire, and nothing more was heard about his +leaving his cottage. But Andrew never performed in public as a musician +after that night; and now he’s dead and gone, poor man, as we all shall +be!’ + + +‘I had quite forgotten the old choir, with their fiddles and +bass-viols,’ said the home-comer, musingly. ‘Are they still going on +the same as of old?’ + +‘Bless the man!’ said Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher; ‘why, +they’ve been done away with these twenty year. A young teetotaler plays +the organ in church now, and plays it very well; though ’tis not quite +such good music as in old times, because the organ is one of them that +go with a winch, and the young teetotaler says he can’t always throw +the proper feeling into the tune without wellnigh working his arms +off.’ + +‘Why did they make the change, then?’ + +‘Well, partly because of fashion, partly because the old musicians got +into a sort of scrape. A terrible scrape ’twas too—wasn’t it, John? I +shall never forget it—never! They lost their character as officers of +the church as complete as if they’d never had any character at all.’ + +‘That was very bad for them.’ + +‘Yes.’ The master-thatcher attentively regarded past times as if they +lay about a mile off, and went on:— + + + + +ABSENT-MINDEDNESS IN A PARISH CHOIR + + +‘It happened on Sunday after Christmas—the last Sunday ever they played +in Longpuddle church gallery, as it turned out, though they didn’t know +it then. As you may know, sir, the players formed a very good +band—almost as good as the Mellstock parish players that were led by +the Dewys; and that’s saying a great deal. There was Nicholas +Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy +Thomas, the bass-viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan’l +Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr. +Nicks, with the oboe—all sound and powerful musicians, and +strong-winded men—they that blowed. For that reason they were very much +in demand Christmas week for little reels and dancing parties; for they +could turn a jig or a hornpipe out of hand as well as ever they could +turn out a psalm, and perhaps better, not to speak irreverent. In +short, one half-hour they could be playing a Christmas carol in the +squire’s hall to the ladies and gentlemen, and drinking tea and coffee +with ’em as modest as saints; and the next, at The Tinker’s Arms, +blazing away like wild horses with the “Dashing White Sergeant” to nine +couple of dancers and more, and swallowing rum-and-cider hot as flame. + +‘Well, this Christmas they’d been out to one rattling randy after +another every night, and had got next to no sleep at all. Then came the +Sunday after Christmas, their fatal day. ’Twas so mortal cold that year +that they could hardly sit in the gallery; for though the congregation +down in the body of the church had a stove to keep off the frost, the +players in the gallery had nothing at all. So Nicholas said at morning +service, when ’twas freezing an inch an hour, “Please the Lord I won’t +stand this numbing weather no longer: this afternoon we’ll have +something in our insides to make us warm, if it cost a king’s ransom.” + +‘So he brought a gallon of hot brandy and beer, ready mixed, to church +with him in the afternoon, and by keeping the jar well wrapped up in +Timothy Thomas’s bass-viol bag it kept drinkably warm till they wanted +it, which was just a thimbleful in the Absolution, and another after +the Creed, and the remainder at the beginning o’ the sermon. When +they’d had the last pull they felt quite comfortable and warm, and as +the sermon went on—most unfortunately for ’em it was a long one that +afternoon—they fell asleep, every man jack of ’em; and there they slept +on as sound as rocks. + +‘’Twas a very dark afternoon, and by the end of the sermon all you +could see of the inside of the church were the pa’son’s two candles +alongside of him in the pulpit, and his spaking face behind ’em. The +sermon being ended at last, the pa’son gie’d out the Evening Hymn. But +no choir set about sounding up the tune, and the people began to turn +their heads to learn the reason why, and then Levi Limpet, a boy who +sat in the gallery, nudged Timothy and Nicholas, and said, “Begin! +begin!” + +‘“Hey? what?” says Nicholas, starting up; and the church being so dark +and his head so muddled he thought he was at the party they had played +at all the night before, and away he went, bow and fiddle, at “The +Devil among the Tailors,” the favourite jig of our neighbourhood at +that time. The rest of the band, being in the same state of mind and +nothing doubting, followed their leader with all their strength, +according to custom. They poured out that there tune till the lower +bass notes of “The Devil among the Tailors” made the cobwebs in the +roof shiver like ghosts; then Nicholas, seeing nobody moved, shouted +out as he scraped (in his usual commanding way at dances when the folk +didn’t know the figures), “Top couples cross hands! And when I make the +fiddle squeak at the end, every man kiss his pardner under the +mistletoe!” + +‘The boy Levi was so frightened that he bolted down the gallery stairs +and out homeward like lightning. The pa’son’s hair fairly stood on end +when he heard the evil tune raging through the church, and thinking the +choir had gone crazy he held up his hand and said: “Stop, stop, stop! +Stop, stop! What’s this?” But they didn’t hear’n for the noise of their +own playing, and the more he called the louder they played. + +‘Then the folks came out of their pews, wondering down to the ground, +and saying: “What do they mean by such wickedness! We shall be consumed +like Sodom and Gomorrah!” + +‘Then the squire came out of his pew lined wi’ green baize, where lots +of lords and ladies visiting at the house were worshipping along with +him, and went and stood in front of the gallery, and shook his fist in +the musicians’ faces, saying, “What! In this reverent edifice! What!” + +‘And at last they heard’n through their playing, and stopped. + +‘“Never such an insulting, disgraceful thing—never!” says the squire, +who couldn’t rule his passion. + +‘“Never!” says the pa’son, who had come down and stood beside him. + +‘“Not if the Angels of Heaven,” says the squire (he was a wickedish +man, the squire was, though now for once he happened to be on the +Lord’s side)—“not if the Angels of Heaven come down,” he says, “shall +one of you villanous players ever sound a note in this church again; +for the insult to me, and my family, and my visitors, and God Almighty, +that you’ve a-perpetrated this afternoon!” + +‘Then the unfortunate church band came to their senses, and remembered +where they were; and ’twas a sight to see Nicholas Pudding come and +Timothy Thomas and John Biles creep down the gallery stairs with their +fiddles under their arms, and poor Dan’l Hornhead with his serpent, and +Robert Dowdle with his clarionet, all looking as little as ninepins; +and out they went. The pa’son might have forgi’ed ’em when he learned +the truth o’t, but the squire would not. That very week he sent for a +barrel-organ that would play two-and-twenty new psalm-tunes, so exact +and particular that, however sinful inclined you was, you could play +nothing but psalm-tunes whatsomever. He had a really respectable man to +turn the winch, as I said, and the old players played no more.’ + + +‘And, of course, my old acquaintance, the annuitant, Mrs. Winter, who +always seemed to have something on her mind, is dead and gone?’ said +the home-comer, after a long silence. + +Nobody in the van seemed to recollect the name. + +‘O yes, she must be dead long since: she was seventy when I as a child +knew her,’ he added. + +‘I can recollect Mrs. Winter very well, if nobody else can,’ said the +aged groceress. ‘Yes, she’s been dead these five-and-twenty year at +least. You knew what it was upon her mind, sir, that gave her that +hollow-eyed look, I suppose?’ + +‘It had something to do with a son of hers, I think I once was told. +But I was too young to know particulars.’ + +The groceress sighed as she conjured up a vision of days long past. +‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘it had all to do with a son.’ Finding that the +van was still in a listening mood, she spoke on:— + + + + +THE WINTERS AND THE PALMLEYS + + +‘To go back to the beginning—if one must—there were two women in the +parish when I was a child, who were to a certain extent rivals in good +looks. Never mind particulars, but in consequence of this they were at +daggers-drawn, and they did not love each other any better when one of +them tempted the other’s lover away from her and married him. He was a +young man of the name of Winter, and in due time they had a son. + +‘The other woman did not marry for many years: but when she was about +thirty a quiet man named Palmley asked her to be his wife, and she +accepted him. You don’t mind when the Palmleys were Longpuddle folk, +but I do well. She had a son also, who was, of course, nine or ten +years younger than the son of the first. The child proved to be of +rather weak intellect, though his mother loved him as the apple of her +eye. + +‘This woman’s husband died when the child was eight years old, and left +his widow and boy in poverty. Her former rival, also a widow now, but +fairly well provided for, offered for pity’s sake to take the child as +errand-boy, small as he was, her own son, Jack, being hard upon +seventeen. Her poor neighbour could do no better than let the child go +there. And to the richer woman’s house little Palmley straightway went. + +‘Well, in some way or other—how, it was never exactly known—the +thriving woman, Mrs. Winter, sent the little boy with a message to the +next village one December day, much against his will. It was getting +dark, and the child prayed to be allowed not to go, because he would be +afraid coming home. But the mistress insisted, more out of +thoughtlessness than cruelty, and the child went. On his way back he +had to pass through Yalbury Wood, and something came out from behind a +tree and frightened him into fits. The child was quite ruined by it; he +became quite a drivelling idiot, and soon afterward died. + +‘Then the other woman had nothing left to live for, and vowed vengeance +against that rival who had first won away her lover, and now had been +the cause of her bereavement. This last affliction was certainly not +intended by her thriving acquaintance, though it must be owned that +when it was done she seemed but little concerned. Whatever vengeance +poor Mrs. Palmley felt, she had no opportunity of carrying it out, and +time might have softened her feelings into forgetfulness of her +supposed wrongs as she dragged on her lonely life. So matters stood +when, a year after the death of the child, Mrs. Palmley’s niece, who +had been born and bred in the city of Exonbury, came to live with her. + +‘This young woman—Miss Harriet Palmley—was a proud and handsome girl, +very well brought up, and more stylish and genteel than the people of +our village, as was natural, considering where she came from. She +regarded herself as much above Mrs. Winter and her son in position as +Mrs. Winter and her son considered themselves above poor Mrs. Palmley. +But love is an unceremonious thing, and what in the world should happen +but that young Jack Winter must fall wofully and wildly in love with +Harriet Palmley almost as soon as he saw her. + +‘She, being better educated than he, and caring nothing for the village +notion of his mother’s superiority to her aunt, did not give him much +encouragement. But Longpuddle being no very large world, the two could +not help seeing a good deal of each other while she was staying there, +and, disdainful young woman as she was, she did seem to take a little +pleasure in his attentions and advances. + +‘One day when they were picking apples together, he asked her to marry +him. She had not expected anything so practical as that at so early a +time, and was led by her surprise into a half-promise; at any rate she +did not absolutely refuse him, and accepted some little presents that +he made her. + +‘But he saw that her view of him was rather as a simple village lad +than as a young man to look up to, and he felt that he must do +something bold to secure her. So he said one day, “I am going away, to +try to get into a better position than I can get here.” In two or three +weeks he wished her good-bye, and went away to Monksbury, to +superintend a farm, with a view to start as a farmer himself; and from +there he wrote regularly to her, as if their marriage were an +understood thing. + +‘Now Harriet liked the young man’s presents and the admiration of his +eyes; but on paper he was less attractive to her. Her mother had been a +school-mistress, and Harriet had besides a natural aptitude for +pen-and-ink work, in days when to be a ready writer was not such a +common thing as it is now, and when actual handwriting was valued as an +accomplishment in itself. Jack Winter’s performances in the shape of +love-letters quite jarred her city nerves and her finer taste, and when +she answered one of them, in the lovely running hand that she took such +pride in, she very strictly and loftily bade him to practise with a pen +and spelling-book if he wished to please her. Whether he listened to +her request or not nobody knows, but his letters did not improve. He +ventured to tell her in his clumsy way that if her heart were more warm +towards him she would not be so nice about his handwriting and +spelling; which indeed was true enough. + +‘Well, in Jack’s absence the weak flame that had been set alight in +Harriet’s heart soon sank low, and at last went out altogether. He +wrote and wrote, and begged and prayed her to give a reason for her +coldness; and then she told him plainly that she was town born, and he +was not sufficiently well educated to please her. + +‘Jack Winter’s want of pen-and-ink training did not make him less +thin-skinned than others; in fact, he was terribly tender and touchy +about anything. This reason that she gave for finally throwing him over +grieved him, shamed him, and mortified him more than can be told in +these times, the pride of that day in being able to write with +beautiful flourishes, and the sorrow at not being able to do so, raging +so high. Jack replied to her with an angry note, and then she hit back +with smart little stings, telling him how many words he had misspelt in +his last letter, and declaring again that this alone was sufficient +justification for any woman to put an end to an understanding with him. +Her husband must be a better scholar. + +‘He bore her rejection of him in silence, but his suffering was +sharp—all the sharper in being untold. She communicated with Jack no +more; and as his reason for going out into the world had been only to +provide a home worthy of her, he had no further object in planning such +a home now that she was lost to him. He therefore gave up the farming +occupation by which he had hoped to make himself a master-farmer, and +left the spot to return to his mother. + +‘As soon as he got back to Longpuddle he found that Harriet had already +looked wi’ favour upon another lover. He was a young road-contractor, +and Jack could not but admit that his rival was both in manners and +scholarship much ahead of him. Indeed, a more sensible match for the +beauty who had been dropped into the village by fate could hardly have +been found than this man, who could offer her so much better a chance +than Jack could have done, with his uncertain future and narrow +abilities for grappling with the world. The fact was so clear to him +that he could hardly blame her. + +‘One day by accident Jack saw on a scrap of paper the handwriting of +Harriet’s new beloved. It was flowing like a stream, well spelt, the +work of a man accustomed to the ink-bottle and the dictionary, of a man +already called in the parish a good scholar. And then it struck all of +a sudden into Jack’s mind what a contrast the letters of this young man +must make to his own miserable old letters, and how ridiculous they +must make his lines appear. He groaned and wished he had never written +to her, and wondered if she had ever kept his poor performances. +Possibly she had kept them, for women are in the habit of doing that, +he thought, and whilst they were in her hands there was always a chance +of his honest, stupid love-assurances to her being joked over by +Harriet with her present lover, or by anybody who should accidentally +uncover them. + +‘The nervous, moody young man could not bear the thought of it, and at +length decided to ask her to return them, as was proper when +engagements were broken off. He was some hours in framing, copying, and +recopying the short note in which he made his request, and having +finished it he sent it to her house. His messenger came back with the +answer, by word of mouth, that Miss Palmley bade him say she should not +part with what was hers, and wondered at his boldness in troubling her. + +‘Jack was much affronted at this, and determined to go for his letters +himself. He chose a time when he knew she was at home, and knocked and +went in without much ceremony; for though Harriet was so high and +mighty, Jack had small respect for her aunt, Mrs. Palmley, whose little +child had been his boot-cleaner in earlier days. Harriet was in the +room, this being the first time they had met since she had jilted him. +He asked for his letters with a stern and bitter look at her. + +‘At first she said he might have them for all that she cared, and took +them out of the bureau where she kept them. Then she glanced over the +outside one of the packet, and suddenly altering her mind, she told him +shortly that his request was a silly one, and slipped the letters into +her aunt’s work-box, which stood open on the table, locking it, and +saying with a bantering laugh that of course she thought it best to +keep ’em, since they might be useful to produce as evidence that she +had good cause for declining to marry him. + +‘He blazed up hot. “Give me those letters!” he said. “They are mine!” + +‘“No, they are not,” she replied; “they are mine.” + +‘“Whos’ever they are I want them back,” says he. “I don’t want to be +made sport of for my penmanship: you’ve another young man now! he has +your confidence, and you pour all your tales into his ear. You’ll be +showing them to him!” + +‘“Perhaps,” said my lady Harriet, with calm coolness, like the +heartless woman that she was. + +‘Her manner so maddened him that he made a step towards the work-box, +but she snatched it up, locked it in the bureau, and turned upon him +triumphant. For a moment he seemed to be going to wrench the key of the +bureau out of her hand; but he stopped himself, and swung round upon +his heel and went away. + +‘When he was out-of-doors alone, and it got night, he walked about +restless, and stinging with the sense of being beaten at all points by +her. He could not help fancying her telling her new lover or her +acquaintances of this scene with himself, and laughing with them over +those poor blotted, crooked lines of his that he had been so anxious to +obtain. As the evening passed on he worked himself into a dogged +resolution to have them back at any price, come what might. + +‘At the dead of night he came out of his mother’s house by the back +door, and creeping through the garden hedge went along the field +adjoining till he reached the back of her aunt’s dwelling. The moon +struck bright and flat upon the walls, ’twas said, and every shiny leaf +of the creepers was like a little looking-glass in the rays. From long +acquaintance Jack knew the arrangement and position of everything in +Mrs. Palmley’s house as well as in his own mother’s. The back window +close to him was a casement with little leaded squares, as it is to +this day, and was, as now, one of two lighting the sitting-room. The +other, being in front, was closed up with shutters, but this back one +had not even a blind, and the moonlight as it streamed in showed every +article of the furniture to him outside. To the right of the room is +the fireplace, as you may remember; to the left was the bureau at that +time; inside the bureau was Harriet’s work-box, as he supposed (though +it was really her aunt’s), and inside the work-box were his letters. +Well, he took out his pocket-knife, and without noise lifted the +leading of one of the panes, so that he could take out the glass, and +putting his hand through the hole he unfastened the casement, and +climbed in through the opening. All the household—that is to say, Mrs. +Palmley, Harriet, and the little maid-servant—were asleep. Jack went +straight to the bureau, so he said, hoping it might have been +unfastened again—it not being kept locked in ordinary—but Harriet had +never unfastened it since she secured her letters there the day before. +Jack told afterward how he thought of her asleep upstairs, caring +nothing for him, and of the way she had made sport of him and of his +letters; and having advanced so far, he was not to be hindered now. By +forcing the large blade of his knife under the flap of the bureau, he +burst the weak lock; within was the rosewood work-box just as she had +placed it in her hurry to keep it from him. There being no time to +spare for getting the letters out of it then, he took it under his arm, +shut the bureau, and made the best of his way out of the house, +latching the casement behind him, and refixing the pane of glass in its +place. + +‘Winter found his way back to his mother’s as he had come, and being +dog-tired, crept upstairs to bed, hiding the box till he could destroy +its contents. The next morning early he set about doing this, and +carried it to the linhay at the back of his mother’s dwelling. Here by +the hearth he opened the box, and began burning one by one the letters +that had cost him so much labour to write and shame to think of, +meaning to return the box to Harriet, after repairing the slight damage +he had caused it by opening it without a key, with a note—the last she +would ever receive from him—telling her triumphantly that in refusing +to return what he had asked for she had calculated too surely upon his +submission to her whims. + +‘But on removing the last letter from the box he received a shock; for +underneath it, at the very bottom, lay money—several golden +guineas—“Doubtless Harriet’s pocket-money,” he said to himself; though +it was not, but Mrs. Palmley’s. Before he had got over his qualms at +this discovery he heard footsteps coming through the house-passage to +where he was. In haste he pushed the box and what was in it under some +brushwood which lay in the linhay; but Jack had been already seen. Two +constables entered the out-house, and seized him as he knelt before the +fireplace, securing the work-box and all it contained at the same +moment. They had come to apprehend him on a charge of breaking into the +dwelling-house of Mrs. Palmley on the night preceding; and almost +before the lad knew what had happened to him they were leading him +along the lane that connects that end of the village with this +turnpike-road, and along they marched him between ’em all the way to +Casterbridge jail. + +‘Jack’s act amounted to night burglary—though he had never thought of +it—and burglary was felony, and a capital offence in those days. His +figure had been seen by some one against the bright wall as he came +away from Mrs. Palmley’s back window, and the box and money were found +in his possession, while the evidence of the broken bureau-lock and +tinkered window-pane was more than enough for circumstantial detail. +Whether his protestation that he went only for his letters, which he +believed to be wrongfully kept from him, would have availed him +anything if supported by other evidence I do not know; but the one +person who could have borne it out was Harriet, and she acted entirely +under the sway of her aunt. That aunt was deadly towards Jack Winter. +Mrs. Palmley’s time had come. Here was her revenge upon the woman who +had first won away her lover, and next ruined and deprived her of her +heart’s treasure—her little son. When the assize week drew on, and Jack +had to stand his trial, Harriet did not appear in the case at all, +which was allowed to take its course, Mrs. Palmley testifying to the +general facts of the burglary. Whether Harriet would have come forward +if Jack had appealed to her is not known; possibly she would have done +it for pity’s sake; but Jack was too proud to ask a single favour of a +girl who had jilted him; and he let her alone. The trial was a short +one, and the death sentence was passed. + +‘The day o’ young Jack’s execution was a cold dusty Saturday in March. +He was so boyish and slim that they were obliged in mercy to hang him +in the heaviest fetters kept in the jail, lest his heft should not +break his neck, and they weighed so upon him that he could hardly drag +himself up to the drop. At that time the gover’ment was not strict +about burying the body of an executed person within the precincts of +the prison, and at the earnest prayer of his poor mother his body was +allowed to be brought home. All the parish waited at their cottage +doors in the evening for its arrival: I remember how, as a very little +girl, I stood by my mother’s side. About eight o’clock, as we hearkened +on our door-stones in the cold bright starlight, we could hear the +faint crackle of a waggon from the direction of the turnpike-road. The +noise was lost as the waggon dropped into a hollow, then it was plain +again as it lumbered down the next long incline, and presently it +entered Longpuddle. The coffin was laid in the belfry for the night, +and the next day, Sunday, between the services, we buried him. A +funeral sermon was preached the same afternoon, the text chosen being, +“He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” . . . Yes, +they were cruel times! + +‘As for Harriet, she and her lover were married in due time; but by all +account her life was no jocund one. She and her good-man found that +they could not live comfortably at Longpuddle, by reason of her +connection with Jack’s misfortunes, and they settled in a distant town, +and were no more heard of by us; Mrs. Palmley, too, found it advisable +to join ’em shortly after. The dark-eyed, gaunt old Mrs. Winter, +remembered by the emigrant gentleman here, was, as you will have +foreseen, the Mrs. Winter of this story; and I can well call to mind +how lonely she was, how afraid the children were of her, and how she +kept herself as a stranger among us, though she lived so long.’ + + +‘Longpuddle has had her sad experiences as well as her sunny ones,’ +said Mr. Lackland. + +‘Yes, yes. But I am thankful to say not many like that, though good and +bad have lived among us.’ + +‘There was Georgy Crookhill—he was one of the shady sort, as I have +reason to know,’ observed the registrar, with the manner of a man who +would like to have his say also. + +‘I used to hear what he was as a boy at school.’ + +‘Well, as he began so he went on. It never got so far as a hanging +matter with him, to be sure; but he had some narrow escapes of penal +servitude; and once it was a case of the biter bit.’ + + + + +INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MR. GEORGE CROOKHILL + + +‘One day,’ the registrar continued, ‘Georgy was ambling out of +Melchester on a miserable screw, the fair being just over, when he saw +in front of him a fine-looking young farmer riding out of the town in +the same direction. He was mounted on a good strong handsome animal, +worth fifty guineas if worth a crown. When they were going up Bissett +Hill, Georgy made it his business to overtake the young farmer. They +passed the time o’ day to one another; Georgy spoke of the state of the +roads, and jogged alongside the well-mounted stranger in very friendly +conversation. The farmer had not been inclined to say much to Georgy at +first, but by degrees he grew quite affable too—as friendly as Georgy +was toward him. He told Crookhill that he had been doing business at +Melchester fair, and was going on as far as Shottsford-Forum that +night, so as to reach Casterbridge market the next day. When they came +to Woodyates Inn they stopped to bait their horses, and agreed to drink +together; with this they got more friendly than ever, and on they went +again. Before they had nearly reached Shottsford it came on to rain, +and as they were now passing through the village of Trantridge, and it +was quite dark, Georgy persuaded the young farmer to go no further that +night; the rain would most likely give them a chill. For his part he +had heard that the little inn here was comfortable, and he meant to +stay. At last the young farmer agreed to put up there also; and they +dismounted, and entered, and had a good supper together, and talked +over their affairs like men who had known and proved each other a long +time. When it was the hour for retiring they went upstairs to a +double-bedded room which Georgy Crookhill had asked the landlord to let +them share, so sociable were they. + +‘Before they fell asleep they talked across the room about one thing +and another, running from this to that till the conversation turned +upon disguises, and changing clothes for particular ends. The farmer +told Georgy that he had often heard tales of people doing it; but +Crookhill professed to be very ignorant of all such tricks; and soon +the young farmer sank into slumber. + +‘Early in the morning, while the tall young farmer was still asleep (I +tell the story as ’twas told me), honest Georgy crept out of his bed by +stealth, and dressed himself in the farmer’s clothes, in the pockets of +the said clothes being the farmer’s money. Now though Georgy +particularly wanted the farmer’s nice clothes and nice horse, owing to +a little transaction at the fair which made it desirable that he should +not be too easily recognized, his desires had their bounds: he did not +wish to take his young friend’s money, at any rate more of it than was +necessary for paying his bill. This he abstracted, and leaving the +farmer’s purse containing the rest on the bedroom table, went +downstairs. The inn folks had not particularly noticed the faces of +their customers, and the one or two who were up at this hour had no +thought but that Georgy was the farmer; so when he had paid the bill +very liberally, and said he must be off, no objection was made to his +getting the farmer’s horse saddled for himself; and he rode away upon +it as if it were his own. + +‘About half an hour after the young farmer awoke, and looking across +the room saw that his friend Georgy had gone away in clothes which +didn’t belong to him, and had kindly left for himself the seedy ones +worn by Georgy. At this he sat up in a deep thought for some time, +instead of hastening to give an alarm. “The money, the money is gone,” +he said to himself, “and that’s bad. But so are the clothes.” + +‘He then looked upon the table and saw that the money, or most of it, +had been left behind. + +‘“Ha, ha, ha!” he cried, and began to dance about the room. “Ha, ha, +ha!” he said again, and made beautiful smiles to himself in the shaving +glass and in the brass candlestick; and then swung about his arms for +all the world as if he were going through the sword exercise. + +‘When he had dressed himself in Georgy’s clothes and gone downstairs, +he did not seem to mind at all that they took him for the other; and +even when he saw that he had been left a bad horse for a good one, he +was not inclined to cry out. They told him his friend had paid the +bill, at which he seemed much pleased, and without waiting for +breakfast he mounted Georgy’s horse and rode away likewise, choosing +the nearest by-lane in preference to the high-road, without knowing +that Georgy had chosen that by-lane also. + +‘He had not trotted more than two miles in the personal character of +Georgy Crookhill when, suddenly rounding a bend that the lane made +thereabout, he came upon a man struggling in the hands of two village +constables. It was his friend Georgy, the borrower of his clothes and +horse. But so far was the young farmer from showing any alacrity in +rushing forward to claim his property that he would have turned the +poor beast he rode into the wood adjoining, if he had not been already +perceived. + +‘“Help, help, help!” cried the constables. “Assistance in the name of +the Crown!” + +‘The young farmer could do nothing but ride forward. “What’s the +matter?” he inquired, as coolly as he could. + +‘“A deserter—a deserter!” said they. “One who’s to be tried by +court-martial and shot without parley. He deserted from the Dragoons at +Cheltenham some days ago, and was tracked; but the search-party can’t +find him anywhere, and we told ’em if we met him we’d hand him on to +’em forthwith. The day after he left the barracks the rascal met a +respectable farmer and made him drunk at an inn, and told him what a +fine soldier he would make, and coaxed him to change clothes, to see +how well a military uniform would become him. This the simple farmer +did; when our deserter said that for a joke he would leave the room and +go to the landlady, to see if she would know him in that dress. He +never came back, and Farmer Jollice found himself in soldier’s clothes, +the money in his pockets gone, and, when he got to the stable, his +horse gone too.” + +‘“A scoundrel!” says the young man in Georgy’s clothes. “And is this +the wretched caitiff?” (pointing to Georgy). + +‘“No, no!” cries Georgy, as innocent as a babe of this matter of the +soldier’s desertion. “He’s the man! He was wearing Farmer Jollice’s +suit o’ clothes, and he slept in the same room wi’ me, and brought up +the subject of changing clothes, which put it into my head to dress +myself in his suit before he was awake. He’s got on mine!” + +‘“D’ye hear the villain?” groans the tall young man to the constables. +“Trying to get out of his crime by charging the first innocent man with +it that he sees! No, master soldier—that won’t do!” + +‘“No, no! That won’t do!” the constables chimed in. “To have the +impudence to say such as that, when we caught him in the act almost! +But, thank God, we’ve got the handcuffs on him at last.” + +‘“We have, thank God,” said the tall young man. “Well, I must move on. +Good luck to ye with your prisoner!” And off he went, as fast as his +poor jade would carry him. + +‘The constables then, with Georgy handcuffed between ’em, and leading +the horse, marched off in the other direction, toward the village where +they had been accosted by the escort of soldiers sent to bring the +deserter back, Georgy groaning: “I shall be shot, I shall be shot!” +They had not gone more than a mile before they met them. + +‘“Hoi, there!” says the head constable. + +‘“Hoi, yerself!” says the corporal in charge. + +‘“We’ve got your man,” says the constable. + +‘“Where?” says the corporal. + +‘“Here, between us,” said the constable. “Only you don’t recognize him +out o’ uniform.” + +‘The corporal looked at Georgy hard enough; then shook his head and +said he was not the absconder. + +‘“But the absconder changed clothes with Farmer Jollice, and took his +horse; and this man has ’em, d’ye see!” + +‘“’Tis not our man,” said the soldiers. “He’s a tall young fellow with +a mole on his right cheek, and a military bearing, which this man +decidedly has not.” + +‘“I told the two officers of justice that ’twas the other!” pleaded +Georgy. “But they wouldn’t believe me.” + +‘And so it became clear that the missing dragoon was the tall young +farmer, and not Georgy Crookhill—a fact which Farmer Jollice himself +corroborated when he arrived on the scene. As Georgy had only robbed +the robber, his sentence was comparatively light. The deserter from the +Dragoons was never traced: his double shift of clothing having been of +the greatest advantage to him in getting off; though he left Georgy’s +horse behind him a few miles ahead, having found the poor creature more +hindrance than aid.’ + + +The man from abroad seemed to be less interested in the questionable +characters of Longpuddle and their strange adventures than in the +ordinary inhabitants and the ordinary events, though his local +fellow-travellers preferred the former as subjects of discussion. He +now for the first time asked concerning young persons of the opposite +sex—or rather those who had been young when he left his native land. +His informants, adhering to their own opinion that the remarkable was +better worth telling than the ordinary, would not allow him to dwell +upon the simple chronicles of those who had merely come and gone. They +asked him if he remembered Netty Sargent. + +‘Netty Sargent—I do, just remember her. She was a young woman living +with her uncle when I left, if my childish recollection may be +trusted.’ + +‘That was the maid. She was a oneyer, if you like, sir. Not any harm in +her, you know, but up to everything. You ought to hear how she got the +copyhold of her house extended. Oughtn’t he, Mr. Day?’ + +‘He ought,’ replied the world-ignored old painter. + +‘Tell him, Mr. Day. Nobody can do it better than you, and you know the +legal part better than some of us.’ + +Day apologized, and began:— + + + + +NETTY SARGENT’S COPYHOLD + + +‘She continued to live with her uncle, in the lonely house by the +copse, just as at the time you knew her; a tall spry young woman. Ah, +how well one can remember her black hair and dancing eyes at that time, +and her sly way of screwing up her mouth when she meant to tease ye! +Well, she was hardly out of short frocks before the chaps were after +her, and by long and by late she was courted by a young man whom +perhaps you did not know—Jasper Cliff was his name—and, though she +might have had many a better fellow, he so greatly took her fancy that +’twas Jasper or nobody for her. He was a selfish customer, always +thinking less of what he was going to do than of what he was going to +gain by his doings. Jasper’s eyes might have been fixed upon Netty, but +his mind was upon her uncle’s house; though he was fond of her in his +way—I admit that. + +‘This house, built by her great-great-grandfather, with its garden and +little field, was copyhold—granted upon lives in the old way, and had +been so granted for generations. Her uncle’s was the last life upon the +property; so that at his death, if there was no admittance of new +lives, it would all fall into the hands of the lord of the manor. But +’twas easy to admit—a slight “fine,” as ’twas called, of a few pounds, +was enough to entitle him to a new deed o’ grant by the custom of the +manor; and the lord could not hinder it. + +‘Now there could be no better provision for his niece and only relative +than a sure house over her head, and Netty’s uncle should have seen to +the renewal in time, owing to the peculiar custom of forfeiture by the +dropping of the last life before the new fine was paid; for the Squire +was very anxious to get hold of the house and land; and every Sunday +when the old man came into the church and passed the Squire’s pew, the +Squire would say, “A little weaker in his knees, a little crookeder in +his back—and the readmittance not applied for: ha! ha! I shall be able +to make a complete clearing of that corner of the manor some day!” + +‘’Twas extraordinary, now we look back upon it, that old Sargent should +have been so dilatory; yet some people are like it; and he put off +calling at the Squire’s agent’s office with the fine week after week, +saying to himself, “I shall have more time next market-day than I have +now.” One unfortunate hindrance was that he didn’t very well like +Jasper Cliff; and as Jasper kept urging Netty, and Netty on that +account kept urging her uncle, the old man was inclined to postpone the +re-liveing as long as he could, to spite the selfish young lover. At +last old Mr. Sargent fell ill, and then Jasper could bear it no longer: +he produced the fine-money himself, and handed it to Netty, and spoke +to her plainly. + +‘“You and your uncle ought to know better. You should press him more. +There’s the money. If you let the house and ground slip between ye, I +won’t marry; hang me if I will! For folks won’t deserve a husband that +can do such things.” + +‘The worried girl took the money and went home, and told her uncle that +it was no house no husband for her. Old Mr. Sargent pooh-poohed the +money, for the amount was not worth consideration, but he did now +bestir himself; for he saw she was bent upon marrying Jasper, and he +did not wish to make her unhappy, since she was so determined. It was +much to the Squire’s annoyance that he found Sargent had moved in the +matter at last; but he could not gainsay it, and the documents were +prepared (for on this manor the copy-holders had writings with their +holdings, though on some manors they had none). Old Sargent being now +too feeble to go to the agent’s house, the deed was to be brought to +his house signed, and handed over as a receipt for the money; the +counterpart to be signed by Sargent, and sent back to the Squire. + +‘The agent had promised to call on old Sargent for this purpose at five +o’clock, and Netty put the money into her desk to have it close at +hand. While doing this she heard a slight cry from her uncle, and +turning round, saw that he had fallen forward in his chair. She went +and lifted him, but he was unconscious; and unconscious he remained. +Neither medicine nor stimulants would bring him to himself. She had +been told that he might possibly go off in that way, and it seemed as +if the end had come. Before she had started for a doctor his face and +extremities grew quite cold and white, and she saw that help would be +useless. He was stone-dead. + +‘Netty’s situation rose upon her distracted mind in all its +seriousness. The house, garden, and field were lost—by a few hours—and +with them a home for herself and her lover. She would not think so +meanly of Jasper as to suppose that he would adhere to the resolution +declared in a moment of impatience; but she trembled, nevertheless. Why +could not her uncle have lived a couple of hours longer, since he had +lived so long? It was now past three o’clock; at five the agent was to +call, and, if all had gone well, by ten minutes past five the house and +holding would have been securely hers for her own and Jasper’s lives, +these being two of the three proposed to be added by paying the fine. +How that wretched old Squire would rejoice at getting the little +tenancy into his hands! He did not really require it, but +constitutionally hated these tiny copyholds and leaseholds and +freeholds, which made islands of independence in the fair, smooth ocean +of his estates. + +‘Then an idea struck into the head of Netty how to accomplish her +object in spite of her uncle’s negligence. It was a dull December +afternoon: and the first step in her scheme—so the story goes, and I +see no reason to doubt it—’ + +‘’Tis true as the light,’ affirmed Christopher Twink. ‘I was just +passing by.’ + +‘The first step in her scheme was to fasten the outer door, to make +sure of not being interrupted. Then she set to work by placing her +uncle’s small, heavy oak table before the fire; then she went to her +uncle’s corpse, sitting in the chair as he had died—a stuffed +arm-chair, on casters, and rather high in the seat, so it was told +me—and wheeled the chair, uncle and all, to the table, placing him with +his back toward the window, in the attitude of bending over the said +oak table, which I knew as a boy as well as I know any piece of +furniture in my own house. On the table she laid the large family Bible +open before him, and placed his forefinger on the page; and then she +opened his eyelids a bit, and put on him his spectacles, so that from +behind he appeared for all the world as if he were reading the +Scriptures. Then she unfastened the door and sat down, and when it grew +dark she lit a candle, and put it on the table beside her uncle’s book. + +‘Folk may well guess how the time passed with her till the agent came, +and how, when his knock sounded upon the door, she nearly started out +of her skin—at least that’s as it was told me. Netty promptly went to +the door. + +‘“I am sorry, sir,” she says, under her breath; “my uncle is not so +well to-night, and I’m afraid he can’t see you.” + +‘“H’m!—that’s a pretty tale,” says the steward. “So I’ve come all this +way about this trumpery little job for nothing!” + +‘“O no, sir—I hope not,” says Netty. “I suppose the business of +granting the new deed can be done just the same?” + +‘“Done? Certainly not. He must pay the renewal money, and sign the +parchment in my presence.” + +‘She looked dubious. “Uncle is so dreadful nervous about law business,” +says she, “that, as you know, he’s put it off and put it off for years; +and now to-day really I’ve feared it would verily drive him out of his +mind. His poor three teeth quite chattered when I said to him that you +would be here soon with the parchment writing. He always was afraid of +agents, and folks that come for rent, and such-like.” + +‘“Poor old fellow—I’m sorry for him. Well, the thing can’t be done +unless I see him and witness his signature.” + +‘“Suppose, sir, that you see him sign, and he don’t see you looking at +him? I’d soothe his nerves by saying you weren’t strict about the form +of witnessing, and didn’t wish to come in. So that it was done in your +bare presence it would be sufficient, would it not? As he’s such an +old, shrinking, shivering man, it would be a great considerateness on +your part if that would do?” + +‘“In my bare presence would do, of course—that’s all I come for. But +how can I be a witness without his seeing me?” + +‘“Why, in this way, sir; if you’ll oblige me by just stepping here.” +She conducted him a few yards to the left, till they were opposite the +parlour window. The blind had been left up purposely, and the +candle-light shone out upon the garden bushes. Within the agent could +see, at the other end of the room, the back and side of the old man’s +head, and his shoulders and arm, sitting with the book and candle +before him, and his spectacles on his nose, as she had placed him. + +‘“He’s reading his Bible, as you see, sir,” she says, quite in her +meekest way. + +‘“Yes. I thought he was a careless sort of man in matters of religion?” + +‘“He always was fond of his Bible,” Netty assured him. “Though I think +he’s nodding over it just at this moment However, that’s natural in an +old man, and unwell. Now you could stand here and see him sign, +couldn’t you, sir, as he’s such an invalid?” + +‘“Very well,” said the agent, lighting a cigar. “You have ready by you +the merely nominal sum you’ll have to pay for the admittance, of +course?” + +‘“Yes,” said Netty. “I’ll bring it out.” She fetched the cash, wrapped +in paper, and handed it to him, and when he had counted it the steward +took from his breast pocket the precious parchments and gave one to her +to be signed. + +‘“Uncle’s hand is a little paralyzed,” she said. “And what with his +being half asleep, too, really I don’t know what sort of a signature +he’ll be able to make.” + +‘“Doesn’t matter, so that he signs.” + +‘“Might I hold his hand?” + +‘“Ay, hold his hand, my young woman—that will be near enough.” + +‘Netty re-entered the house, and the agent continued smoking outside +the window. Now came the ticklish part of Netty’s performance. The +steward saw her put the inkhorn—“horn,” says I in my old-fashioned +way—the inkstand, before her uncle, and touch his elbow as to arouse +him, and speak to him, and spread out the deed; when she had pointed to +show him where to sign she dipped the pen and put it into his hand. To +hold his hand she artfully stepped behind him, so that the agent could +only see a little bit of his head, and the hand she held; but he saw +the old man’s hand trace his name on the document. As soon as ’twas +done she came out to the steward with the parchment in her hand, and +the steward signed as witness by the light from the parlour window. +Then he gave her the deed signed by the Squire, and left; and next +morning Netty told the neighbours that her uncle was dead in his bed.’ + +‘She must have undressed him and put him there.’ + +‘She must. Oh, that girl had a nerve, I can tell ye! Well, to cut a +long story short, that’s how she got back the house and field that +were, strictly speaking, gone from her; and by getting them, got her a +husband. + +‘Every virtue has its reward, they say. Netty had hers for her +ingenious contrivance to gain Jasper. Two years after they were married +he took to beating her—not hard, you know; just a smack or two, enough +to set her in a temper, and let out to the neighbours what she had done +to win him, and how she repented of her pains. When the old Squire was +dead, and his son came into the property, this confession of hers began +to be whispered about. But Netty was a pretty young woman, and the +Squire’s son was a pretty young man at that time, and wider-minded than +his father, having no objection to little holdings; and he never took +any proceedings against her.’ + +There was now a lull in the discourse, and soon the van descended the +hill leading into the long straggling village. When the houses were +reached the passengers dropped off one by one, each at his or her own +door. Arrived at the inn, the returned emigrant secured a bed, and +having eaten a light meal, sallied forth upon the scene he had known so +well in his early days. Though flooded with the light of the rising +moon, none of the objects wore the attractiveness in this their real +presentation that had ever accompanied their images in the field of his +imagination when he was more than two thousand miles removed from them. +The peculiar charm attaching to an old village in an old country, as +seen by the eyes of an absolute foreigner, was lowered in his case by +magnified expectations from infantine memories. He walked on, looking +at this chimney and that old wall, till he came to the churchyard, +which he entered. + +The head-stones, whitened by the moon, were easily decipherable; and +now for the first time Lackland began to feel himself amid the village +community that he had left behind him five-and-thirty years before. +Here, besides the Sallets, the Darths, the Pawles, the Privetts, the +Sargents, and others of whom he had just heard, were names he +remembered even better than those: the Jickses, and the Crosses, and +the Knights, and the Olds. Doubtless representatives of these families, +or some of them, were yet among the living; but to him they would all +be as strangers. Far from finding his heart ready-supplied with roots +and tendrils here, he perceived that in returning to this spot it would +be incumbent upon him to re-establish himself from the beginning, +precisely as though he had never known the place, nor it him. Time had +not condescended to wait his pleasure, nor local life his greeting. + +The figure of Mr. Lackland was seen at the inn, and in the village +street, and in the fields and lanes about Upper Longpuddle, for a few +days after his arrival, and then, ghost-like, it silently disappeared. +He had told some of the villagers that his immediate purpose in coming +had been fulfilled by a sight of the place, and by conversation with +its inhabitants: but that his ulterior purpose—of coming to spend his +latter days among them—would probably never be carried out. It is now a +dozen or fifteen years since his visit was paid, and his face has not +again been seen. + +_March_ 1891. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE’S LITTLE IRONIES *** + +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-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 an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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