The Return of the Native
The Return of the NativePREFACEBOOK ONE — THE THREE WOMENBOOK TWO — THE ARRIVALBOOK THREE — THE FASCINATIONBOOK FOUR — THE CLOSED DOORBOOK FIVE — THE DISCOVERYBOOK SIX — AFTERCOURSESCopyright
The Return of the Native
Thomas Hardy
PREFACE
The date at which the following events are assumed to have
occurred may be set down as between 1840 and 1850, when the old
watering place herein called "Budmouth" still retained sufficient
afterglow from its Georgian gaiety and prestige to lend it an
absorbing attractiveness to the romantic and imaginative soul of a
lonely dweller inland.Under the general name of "Egdon Heath," which has been given
to the sombre scene of the story, are united or typified heaths of
various real names, to the number of at least a dozen; these being
virtually one in character and aspect, though their original unity,
or partial unity, is now somewhat disguised by intrusive strips and
slices brought under the plough with varying degrees of success, or
planted to woodland.It is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract
whose southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of
that traditionary King of Wessex—Lear."To sorrow
I bade good morrow, And thought to leave her far away
behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly; She is so constant to me, and so
kind.
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
BOOK ONE — THE THREE WOMEN
1—A Face on Which Time Makes but Little
ImpressionA Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of
twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon
Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow
stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which
had the whole heath for its floor.The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth
with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was
clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of
an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its
astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived
hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a
furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking
down, he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The
distant rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a
division in time no less than a division in matter. The face of the
heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it
could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the
frowning of storms scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of
a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly
roll into darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon
waste began, and nobody could be said to understand the heath who
had not been there at such a time. It could best be felt when it
could not clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation
lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next dawn; then,
and only then, did it tell its true tale. The spot was, indeed, a
near relation of night, and when night showed itself an apparent
tendency to gravitate together could be perceived in its shades and
the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise
and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling
darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And so the
obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together
in a black fraternization towards which each advanced
halfway.The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when
other things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to
awake and listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await
something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many
centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could only
be imagined to await one last crisis—the final
overthrow.It was a spot which returned upon the memory of those who
loved it with an aspect of peculiar and kindly congruity. Smiling
champaigns of flowers and fruit hardly do this, for they are
permanently harmonious only with an existence of better reputation
as to its issues than the present. Twilight combined with the
scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic without severity,
impressive without showiness, emphatic in its admonitions, grand in
its simplicity. The qualifications which frequently invest the
facade of a prison with far more dignity than is found in the
facade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a sublimity
in which spots renowned for beauty of the accepted kind are utterly
wanting. Fair prospects wed happily with fair times; but alas, if
times be not fair! Men have oftener suffered from, the mockery of a
place too smiling for their reason than from the oppression of
surroundings oversadly tinged. Haggard Egdon appealed to a subtler
and scarcer instinct, to a more recently learnt emotion, than that
which responds to the sort of beauty called charming and
fair.Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this
orthodox beauty is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale
of Tempe may be a gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find
themselves in closer and closer harmony with external things
wearing a sombreness distasteful to our race when it was young. The
time seems near, if it has not actually arrived, when the chastened
sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain will be all of nature
that is absolutely in keeping with the moods of the more thinking
among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest tourist, spots like
Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle gardens of South
Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden be passed unheeded
as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of
Scheveningen.The most thoroughgoing ascetic could feel that he had a
natural right to wander on Egdon—he was keeping within the line of
legitimate indulgence when he laid himself open to influences such
as these. Colours and beauties so far subdued were, at least, the
birthright of all. Only in summer days of highest feather did its
mood touch the level of gaiety. Intensity was more usually reached
by way of the solemn than by way of the brilliant, and such a sort
of intensity was often arrived at during winter darkness, tempests,
and mists. Then Egdon was aroused to reciprocity; for the storm was
its lover, and the wind its friend. Then it became the home of
strange phantoms; and it was found to be the hitherto unrecognized
original of those wild regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt
to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight and
disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by
scenes like this.It was at present a place perfectly accordant with man's
nature—neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither commonplace,
unmeaning, nor tame; but, like man, slighted and enduring; and
withal singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony.
As with some persons who have long lived apart, solitude seemed to
look out of its countenance. It had a lonely face, suggesting
tragical possibilities.This obscure, obsolete, superseded country figures in
Domesday. Its condition is recorded therein as that of heathy,
furzy, briary wilderness—"Bruaria." Then follows the length and
breadth in leagues; and, though some uncertainty exists as to the
exact extent of this ancient lineal measure, it appears from the
figures that the area of Egdon down to the present day has but
little diminished. "Turbaria Bruaria"—the right of cutting
heath-turf—occurs in charters relating to the district. "Overgrown
with heth and mosse," says Leland of the same dark sweep of
country.Here at least were intelligible facts regarding
landscape—far-reaching proofs productive of genuine satisfaction.
The untameable, Ishmaelitish thing that Egdon now was it always had
been. Civilization was its enemy; and ever since the beginning of
vegetation its soil had worn the same antique brown dress, the
natural and invariable garment of the particular formation. In its
venerable one coat lay a certain vein of satire on human vanity in
clothes. A person on a heath in raiment of modern cut and colours
has more or less an anomalous look. We seem to want the oldest and
simplest human clothing where the clothing of the earth is so
primitive.To recline on a stump of thorn in the central valley of
Egdon, between afternoon and night, as now, where the eye could
reach nothing of the world outside the summits and shoulders of
heathland which filled the whole circumference of its glance, and
to know that everything around and underneath had been from
prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars overhead, gave ballast
to the mind adrift on change, and harassed by the irrepressible
New. The great inviolate place had an ancient permanence which the
sea cannot claim. Who can say of a particular sea that it is old?
Distilled by the sun, kneaded by the moon, it is renewed in a year,
in a day, or in an hour. The sea changed, the fields changed, the
rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained.
Those surfaces were neither so steep as to be destructible by
weather, nor so flat as to be the victims of floods and deposits.
With the exception of an aged highway, and a still more aged barrow
presently to be referred to—themselves almost crystallized to
natural products by long continuance—even the trifling
irregularities were not caused by pickaxe, plough, or spade, but
remained as the very finger-touches of the last geological
change.The above-mentioned highway traversed the lower levels of the
heath, from one horizon to another. In many portions of its course
it overlaid an old vicinal way, which branched from the great
Western road of the Romans, the Via Iceniana, or Ikenild Street,
hard by. On the evening under consideration it would have been
noticed that, though the gloom had increased sufficiently to
confuse the minor features of the heath, the white surface of the
road remained almost as clear as ever.2—Humanity Appears upon the Scene, Hand in Hand with
TroubleAlong the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a
mountain, bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He
wore a glazed hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass
buttons bearing an anchor upon their face. In his hand was a
silver-headed walking stick, which he used as a veritable third
leg, perseveringly dotting the ground with its point at every few
inches' interval. One would have said that he had been, in his day,
a naval officer of some sort or other.Before him stretched the long, laborious road, dry, empty,
and white. It was quite open to the heath on each side, and
bisected that vast dark surface like the parting-line on a head of
black hair, diminishing and bending away on the furthest
horizon.The old man frequently stretched his eyes ahead to gaze over
the tract that he had yet to traverse. At length he discerned, a
long distance in front of him, a moving spot, which appeared to be
a vehicle, and it proved to be going the same way as that in which
he himself was journeying. It was the single atom of life that the
scene contained, and it only served to render the general
loneliness more evident. Its rate of advance was slow, and the old
man gained upon it sensibly.When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van,
ordinary in shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red.
The driver walked beside it; and, like his van, he was completely
red. One dye of that tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his
head, his boots, his face, and his hands. He was not temporarily
overlaid with the colour; it permeated him.The old man knew the meaning of this. The traveller with the
cart was a reddleman—a person whose vocation it was to supply
farmers with redding for their sheep. He was one of a class rapidly
becoming extinct in Wessex, filling at present in the rural world
the place which, during the last century, the dodo occupied in the
world of animals. He is a curious, interesting, and nearly perished
link between obsolete forms of life and those which generally
prevail.The decayed officer, by degrees, came up alongside his
fellow-wayfarer, and wished him good evening. The reddleman turned
his head, and replied in sad and occupied tones. He was young, and
his face, if not exactly handsome, approached so near to handsome
that nobody would have contradicted an assertion that it really was
so in its natural colour. His eye, which glared so strangely
through his stain, was in itself attractive—keen as that of a bird
of prey, and blue as autumn mist. He had neither whisker nor
moustache, which allowed the soft curves of the lower part of his
face to be apparent. His lips were thin, and though, as it seemed,
compressed by thought, there was a pleasant twitch at their corners
now and then. He was clothed throughout in a tight-fitting suit of
corduroy, excellent in quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for
its purpose, but deprived of its original colour by his trade. It
showed to advantage the good shape of his figure. A certain
well-to-do air about the man suggested that he was not poor for his
degree. The natural query of an observer would have been, Why
should such a promising being as this have hidden his prepossessing
exterior by adopting that singular occupation?After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no
inclination to continue in talk, although they still walked side by
side, for the elder traveller seemed to desire company. There were
no sounds but that of the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny
herbage around them, the crackling wheels, the tread of the men,
and the footsteps of the two shaggy ponies which drew the van. They
were small, hardy animals, of a breed between Galloway and Exmoor,
and were known as "heath-croppers" here.Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman
occasionally left his companion's side, and, stepping behind the
van, looked into its interior through a small window. The look was
always anxious. He would then return to the old man, who made
another remark about the state of the country and so on, to which
the reddleman again abstractedly replied, and then again they would
lapse into silence. The silence conveyed to neither any sense of
awkwardness; in these lonely places wayfarers, after a first
greeting, frequently plod on for miles without speech; contiguity
amounts to a tacit conversation where, otherwise than in cities,
such contiguity can be put an end to on the merest inclination, and
where not to put an end to it is intercourse in
itself.Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their
parting, had it not been for the reddleman's visits to his van.
When he returned from his fifth time of looking in the old man
said, "You have something inside there besides your
load?""Yes.""Somebody who wants looking after?""Yes."Not long after this a faint cry sounded from the interior.
The reddleman hastened to the back, looked in, and came away
again."You have a child there, my man?""No, sir, I have a woman.""The deuce you have! Why did she cry out?""Oh, she has fallen asleep, and not being used to traveling,
she's uneasy, and keeps dreaming.""A young woman?""Yes, a young woman.""That would have interested me forty years ago. Perhaps she's
your wife?""My wife!" said the other bitterly. "She's above mating with
such as I. But there's no reason why I should tell you about
that.""That's true. And there's no reason why you should not. What
harm can I do to you or to her?"The reddleman looked in the old man's face. "Well, sir," he
said at last, "I knew her before today, though perhaps it would
have been better if I had not. But she's nothing to me, and I am
nothing to her; and she wouldn't have been in my van if any better
carriage had been there to take her.""Where, may I ask?""At Anglebury.""I know the town well. What was she doing
there?""Oh, not much—to gossip about. However, she's tired to death
now, and not at all well, and that's what makes her so restless.
She dropped off into a nap about an hour ago, and 'twill do her
good.""A nice-looking girl, no doubt?""You would say so."The other traveller turned his eyes with interest towards the
van window, and, without withdrawing them, said, "I presume I might
look in upon her?""No," said the reddleman abruptly. "It is getting too dark
for you to see much of her; and, more than that, I have no right to
allow you. Thank God she sleeps so well, I hope she won't wake till
she's home.""Who is she? One of the neighbourhood?""'Tis no matter who, excuse me.""It is not that girl of Blooms-End, who has been talked about
more or less lately? If so, I know her; and I can guess what has
happened.""'Tis no matter.... Now, sir, I am sorry to say that we shall
soon have to part company. My ponies are tired, and I have further
to go, and I am going to rest them under this bank for an
hour."The elder traveller nodded his head indifferently, and the
reddleman turned his horses and van in upon the turf, saying, "Good
night." The old man replied, and proceeded on his way as
before.The reddleman watched his form as it diminished to a speck on
the road and became absorbed in the thickening films of night. He
then took some hay from a truss which was slung up under the van,
and, throwing a portion of it in front of the horses, made a pad of
the rest, which he laid on the ground beside his vehicle. Upon this
he sat down, leaning his back against the wheel. From the interior
a low soft breathing came to his ear. It appeared to satisfy him,
and he musingly surveyed the scene, as if considering the next step
that he should take.To do things musingly, and by small degrees, seemed, indeed,
to be a duty in the Egdon valleys at this transitional hour, for
there was that in the condition of the heath itself which resembled
protracted and halting dubiousness. It was the quality of the
repose appertaining to the scene. This was not the repose of actual
stagnation, but the apparent repose of incredible slowness. A
condition of healthy life so nearly resembling the torpor of death
is a noticeable thing of its sort; to exhibit the inertness of the
desert, and at the same time to be exercising powers akin to those
of the meadow, and even of the forest, awakened in those who
thought of it the attentiveness usually engendered by
understatement and reserve.The scene before the reddleman's eyes was a gradual series of
ascents from the level of the road backward into the heart of the
heath. It embraced hillocks, pits, ridges, acclivities, one behind
the other, till all was finished by a high hill cutting against the
still light sky. The traveller's eye hovered about these things for
a time, and finally settled upon one noteworthy object up there. It
was a barrow. This bossy projection of earth above its natural
level occupied the loftiest ground of the loneliest height that the
heath contained. Although from the vale it appeared but as a wart
on an Atlantean brow, its actual bulk was great. It formed the pole
and axis of this heathery world.As the resting man looked at the barrow he became aware that
its summit, hitherto the highest object in the whole prospect
round, was surmounted by something higher. It rose from the
semiglobular mound like a spike from a helmet. The first instinct
of an imaginative stranger might have been to suppose it the person
of one of the Celts who built the barrow, so far had all of modern
date withdrawn from the scene. It seemed a sort of last man among
them, musing for a moment before dropping into eternal night with
the rest of his race.There the form stood, motionless as the hill beneath. Above
the plain rose the hill, above the hill rose the barrow, and above
the barrow rose the figure. Above the figure was nothing that could
be mapped elsewhere than on a celestial globe.Such a perfect, delicate, and necessary finish did the figure
give to the dark pile of hills that it seemed to be the only
obvious justification of their outline. Without it, there was the
dome without the lantern; with it the architectural demands of the
mass were satisfied. The scene was strangely homogeneous, in that
the vale, the upland, the barrow, and the figure above it amounted
only to unity. Looking at this or that member of the group was not
observing a complete thing, but a fraction of a thing.The form was so much like an organic part of the entire
motionless structure that to see it move would have impressed the
mind as a strange phenomenon. Immobility being the chief
characteristic of that whole which the person formed portion of,
the discontinuance of immobility in any quarter suggested
confusion.Yet that is what happened. The figure perceptibly gave up its
fixity, shifted a step or two, and turned round. As if alarmed, it
descended on the right side of the barrow, with the glide of a
water-drop down a bud, and then vanished. The movement had been
sufficient to show more clearly the characteristics of the figure,
and that it was a woman's.The reason of her sudden displacement now appeared. With her
dropping out of sight on the right side, a newcomer, bearing a
burden, protruded into the sky on the left side, ascended the
tumulus, and deposited the burden on the top. A second followed,
then a third, a fourth, a fifth, and ultimately the whole barrow
was peopled with burdened figures.The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of
silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had
taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come
thither for another object than theirs. The imagination of the
observer clung by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as
to something more interesting, more important, more likely to have
a history worth knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously
regarded them as intruders. But they remained, and established
themselves; and the lonely person who hitherto had been queen of
the solitude did not at present seem likely to return.3—The Custom of the CountryHad a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the
barrow, he would have learned that these persons were boys and men
of the neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had
been heavily laden with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by
means of a long stake sharpened at each end for impaling them
easily—two in front and two behind. They came from a part of the
heath a quarter of a mile to the rear, where furze almost
exclusively prevailed as a product.Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of
carrying the faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he
had thrown them down. The party had marched in trail, like a
travelling flock of sheep; that is to say, the strongest first, the
weak and young behind.The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze
thirty feet in circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus,
which was known as Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made
themselves busy with matches, and in selecting the driest tufts of
furze, others in loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots
together. Others, again, while this was in progress, lifted their
eyes and swept the vast expanse of country commanded by their
position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade. In the valleys of
the heath nothing save its own wild face was visible at any time of
day; but this spot commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of far
extent, and in many cases lying beyond the heath country. None of
its features could be seen now, but the whole made itself felt as a
vague stretch of remoteness.While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took
place in the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red
suns and tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the
whole country round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and
hamlets that were engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some
were distant, and stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of
pale straw-like beams radiated around them in the shape of a fan.
Some were large and near, glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like
wounds in a black hide. Some were Maenades, with winy faces and
blown hair. These tinctured the silent bosom of the clouds above
them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed thenceforth to
become scalding caldrons. Perhaps as many as thirty bonfires could
be counted within the whole bounds of the district; and as the hour
may be told on a clock-face when the figures themselves are
invisible, so did the men recognize the locality of each fire by
its angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could be
viewed.The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky,
attracting all eyes that had been fixed on the distant
conflagrations back to their own attempt in the same kind. The
cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface of the human circle—now
increased by other stragglers, male and female—with its own gold
livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around with a lively
luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the barrow
rounded downwards out of sight. It showed the barrow to be the
segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up,
even the little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug. Not a
plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil. In the
heath's barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to the
historian. There had been no obliteration, because there had been
no tending.It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some
radiant upper story of the world, detached from and independent of
the dark stretches below. The heath down there was now a vast
abyss, and no longer a continuation of what they stood on; for
their eyes, adapted to the blaze, could see nothing of the deeps
beyond its influence. Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous
flare than usual from their faggots sent darting lights like
aides-de-camp down the inclines to some distant bush, pool, or
patch of white sand, kindling these to replies of the same colour,
till all was lost in darkness again. Then the whole black
phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink by
the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered
articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints and
petitions from the "souls of mighty worth" suspended
therein.It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past
ages, and fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been
familiar with this spot. The ashes of the original British pyre
which blazed from that summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the
barrow beneath their tread. The flames from funeral piles long ago
kindled there had shone down upon the lowlands as these were
shining now. Festival fires to Thor and Woden had followed on the
same ground and duly had their day. Indeed, it is pretty well known
that such blazes as this the heathmen were now enjoying are rather
the lineal descendants from jumbled Druidical rites and Saxon
ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling about Gunpowder
Plot.Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act
of man when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded
throughout Nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean
rebelliousness against that fiat that this recurrent season shall
bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos
comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be
light.The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon
the skin and clothes of the persons standing round caused their
lineaments and general contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour
and dash. Yet the permanent moral expression of each face it was
impossible to discover, for as the nimble flames towered, nodded,
and swooped through the surrounding air, the blots of shade and
flakes of light upon the countenances of the group changed shape
and position endlessly. All was unstable; quivering as leaves,
evanescent as lightning. Shadowy eye-sockets, deep as those of a
death's head, suddenly turned into pits of lustre: a lantern-jaw
was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles were emphasized to
ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray. Nostrils were
dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings; things with no
particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects, such as the
tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried, were as glass; eyeballs
glowed like little lanterns. Those whom Nature had depicted as
merely quaint became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural;
for all was in extremity.Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like
others been called to the heights by the rising flames, was not
really the mere nose and chin that it appeared to be, but an
appreciable quantity of human countenance. He stood complacently
sunning himself in the heat. With a speaker, or stake, he tossed
the outlying scraps of fuel into the conflagration, looking at the
midst of the pile, occasionally lifting his eyes to measure the
height of the flame, or to follow the great sparks which rose with
it and sailed away into darkness. The beaming sight, and the
penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a cumulative
cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his stick in his
hand he began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper seals
shining and swinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat: he
also began to sing, in the voice of a bee up a flue—"The king' call'd down'
his no-bles all', By
one', by two', by three'; Earl Mar'-shal, I'll' go
shrive'-the queen', And
thou' shalt wend' with me'. "A boon', a boon', quoth
Earl' Mar-shal', And
fell' on his bend'-ded knee', That what'-so-e'er' the
queen' shall say', No
harm' there-of' may be'."Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the
breakdown attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle
age, who kept each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously
drawn back into his cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of
mirthfulness which might erroneously have attached to
him."A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too much
for the mouldy weasand of such a old man as you," he said to the
wrinkled reveller. "Dostn't wish th' wast three sixes again,
Grandfer, as you was when you first learnt to sing
it?""Hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his
dance."Dostn't wish wast young again, I say? There's a hole in thy
poor bellows nowadays seemingly.""But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind
go a long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man,
should I, Timothy?""And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet
Woman Inn?" the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the
direction of the distant highway, but considerably apart from where
the reddleman was at that moment resting. "What's the rights of the
matter about 'em? You ought to know, being an understanding
man.""But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is
that, or he's nothing. Yet 'tis a gay fault, neigbbour Fairway,
that age will cure.""I heard that they were coming home tonight. By this time
they must have come. What besides?""The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I
suppose?""Well, no.""No? Now, I thought we must. I must, or 'twould be very
unlike me—the first in every spree that's going!"Do thou' put on' a
fri'-ar's coat', And
I'll' put on' a-no'-ther, And we' will to' Queen
Ele'anor go', Like
Fri'ar and' his bro'ther.I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt, last night,
and she told me that her son Clym was coming home a' Christmas.
Wonderful clever, 'a believe—ah, I should like to have all that's
under that young man's hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my
well-known merry way, and she said, 'O that what's shaped so
venerable should talk like a fool!'—that's what she said to me. I
don't care for her, be jowned if I do, and so I told her. 'Be
jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I had her
there—hey?""I rather think she had you," said Fairway."No," said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly
flagging. "'Tisn't so bad as that with me?""Seemingly 'tis, however, is it because of the wedding that
Clym is coming home a' Christmas—to make a new arrangement because
his mother is now left in the house alone?""Yes, yes—that's it. But, Timothy, hearken to me," said the
Grandfer earnestly. "Though known as such a joker, I be an
understanding man if you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I
can tell 'ee lots about the married couple. Yes, this morning at
six o'clock they went up the country to do the job, and neither
vell nor mark have been seen of 'em since, though I reckon that
this afternoon has brought 'em home again man and woman—wife, that
is. Isn't it spoke like a man, Timothy, and wasn't Mis'ess
Yeobright wrong about me?""Yes, it will do. I didn't know the two had walked together
since last fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this
new set-to been in mangling then? Do you know,
Humphrey?""Yes, how long?" said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise
turning to Humphrey. "I ask that question.""Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might
have the man after all," replied Humphrey, without removing his
eyes from the fire. He was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and
carried the hook and leather gloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by
reason of that occupation, being sheathed in bulging leggings as
stiff as the Philistine's greaves of brass. "That's why they went
away to be married, I count. You see, after kicking up such a
nunny-watch and forbidding the banns 'twould have made Mis'ess
Yeobright seem foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the same
parish all as if she'd never gainsaid it.""Exactly—seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor
things that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure," said
Grandfer Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing
and mien."Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway, "which
was a very curious thing to happen.""If 'twasn't my name's Simple," said the Grandfer
emphatically. "I ha'n't been there to-year; and now the winter is
a-coming on I won't say I shall.""I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey; "for I'm so
dead sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there; and
when you do get there 'tis such a mortal poor chance that you'll be
chose for up above, when so many bain't, that I bide at home and
don't go at all.""I not only happened to be there," said Fairway, with a fresh
collection of emphasis, "but I was sitting in the same pew as
Mis'ess Yeobright. And though you may not see it as such, it fairly
made my blood run cold to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but
it made my blood run cold, for I was close at her elbow." The
speaker looked round upon the bystanders, now drawing closer to
hear him, with his lips gathered tighter than ever in the
rigorousness of his descriptive moderation."'Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there," said
a woman behind."'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words," Fairway
continued. "And then up stood a woman at my side—a-touching of me.
'Well, be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I
said to myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of
prayer that's what I said. 'Tis against my conscience to curse and
swear in company, and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still
what I did say I did say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own
it.""So 'twould, neighbour Fairway.""'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,'
I said," the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the
same passionless severity of face as before, which proved how
entirely necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration. "And
the next thing I heard was, 'I forbid the banns,' from her. 'I'll
speak to you after the service,' said the parson, in quite a homely
way—yes, turning all at once into a common man no holier than you
or I. Ah, her face was pale! Maybe you can call to mind that
monument in Weatherbury church—the cross-legged soldier that have
had his arm knocked away by the schoolchildren? Well, he would
about have matched that woman's face, when she said, 'I forbid the
banns.'"The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks
into the fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give
themselves time to weigh the moral of the story."I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad as
if anybody had gied me sixpence," said an earnest voice—that of
Olly Dowden, a woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms.
Her nature was to be civil to enemies as well as to friends, and
grateful to all the world for letting her remain
alive."And now the maid have married him just the same," said
Humphrey."After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was quite
agreeable," Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that
his words were no appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of
independent reflection."Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't
have done it here-right," said a wide-spread woman whose stays
creaked like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. "'Tis well to
call the neighbours together and to hae a good racket once now and
then; and it may as well be when there's a wedding as at
tide-times. I don't care for close ways.""Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay
weddings," said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round.
"I hardly blame Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing
it quiet, if I must own it. A wedding at home means five and
six-handed reels by the hour; and they do a man's legs no good when
he's over forty.""True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to
being one in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to
make yourself worth your victuals.""You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o'
year; you must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life. At
christenings folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no
further on than the first or second chiel. And this is not naming
the songs you've got to sing.... For my part I like a good hearty
funeral as well as anything. You've as splendid victuals and drink
as at other parties, and even better. And it don't wear your legs
to stumps in talking over a poor fellow's ways as it do to stand up
in hornpipes.""Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance
then, I suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle."'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at
after the mug have been round a few times.""Well, I can't understand a quiet ladylike little body like
Tamsin Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way," said
Susan Nunsuch, the wide woman, who preferred the original subject.
"'Tis worse than the poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about
the man, though some may say he's good-looking.""To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his
way—a'most as clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought
up to better things than keeping the Quiet Woman. An
engineer—that's what the man was, as we know; but he threw away his
chance, and so 'a took a public house to live. His learning was no
use to him at all.""Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet
how people do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that
couldn't use to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can
write their names now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes
without a single blot—what do I say?—why, almost without a desk to
lean their stomachs and elbows upon.""True—'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought
to," said Humphrey."Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was
called), in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, "I
didn't know no more what the world was like than the commonest man
among ye. And now, jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for,
hey?""Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast
young enough to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and
Mis'ess Tamsin, which is more than Humph there could do, for he
follows his father in learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I
was married how I zid thy father's mark staring me in the face as I
went to put down my name. He and your mother were the couple
married just afore we were and there stood they father's cross with
arms stretched out like a great banging scarecrow. What a terrible
black cross that was—thy father's very likeness in en! To save my
soul I couldn't help laughing when I zid en, though all the time I
was as hot as dog-days, what with the marrying, and what with the
woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack Changley and a lot more
chaps grinning at me through church window. But the next moment a
strawmote would have knocked me down, for I called to mind that if
thy father and mother had had high words once, they'd been at it
twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I zid myself as
the next poor stunpoll to get into the same mess.... Ah—well, what
a day 'twas!""Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a good-few
summers. A pretty maid too she is. A young woman with a home must
be a fool to tear her smock for a man like that."The speaker, a peat- or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the
group, carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade
of large dimensions used in that species of labour, and its
well-whetted edge gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the
fire."A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em,"
said the wide woman."Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would
marry?" inquired Humphrey."I never did," said the turf-cutter."Nor I," said another."Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle."Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more
firmness to one of his legs. "I did know of such a man. But only
once, mind." He gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it
were the duty of every person not to be mistaken through thickness
of voice. "Yes, I knew of such a man," he said."And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been
like, Master Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter."Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind
man. What 'a was I don't say.""Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden."Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name.... Come, keep
the fire up there, youngsters.""Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said
a boy from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the
blaze. "Be ye a-cold, Christian?"A thin jibbering voice was heard to reply, "No, not at
all.""Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know
you were here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards
that quarter.Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no
shoulders, and a great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his
clothes, advanced a step or two by his own will, and was pushed by
the will of others half a dozen steps more. He was Grandfer
Cantle's youngest son."What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter
kindly."I'm the man.""What man?""The man no woman will marry.""The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze
to cover Christian's whole surface and a great deal more, Grandfer
Cantle meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has
hatched."Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye
think 'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to
it, though I do care all the while.""Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I
know'd," said Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's
another in the country, then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune,
Christian?""'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He
turned upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by
concentric lines like targets."No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood
ran cold when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows
where I had thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian.
How'st know the women won't hae thee?""I've asked 'em.""Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and
what did the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over,
perhaps, after all?""'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking
maphrotight fool,' was the woman's words to me.""Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my
sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather
a hard way of saying No. But even that might be overcome by time
and patience, so as to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the
hussy's head. How old be you, Christian?""Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway.""Not a boy—not a boy. Still there's hope yet.""That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the
great book of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but
Mother told me I was born some time afore I was
christened.""Ah!""But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that
there was no moon.""No moon—that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for
him!""Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his
head."Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman
that had an almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her,
because of the saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard
every man-child she had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister
Fairway, that there was no moon?""Yes. 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever
spit out. The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon.
A bad job for thee, Christian, that you should have showed your
nose then of all days in the month.""I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?"
said Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at
Fairway."Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a
disinterested gaze."I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of
no moon," continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative.
"'Tis said I be only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at
all; and I suppose that's the cause o't.""Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; "and
yet his mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for
fear he should outgrow hisself and go for a soldier.""Well, there's many just as bad as he." said
Fairway."Wethers must live their time as well as other sheep, poor
soul.""So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o' nights,
Master Fairway?""You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to
married couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself
when 'a do come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange
one.""No—don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to!
'Twill make my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you
will—ah, you will, I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night
o't! A very strange one? What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye
said, a very strange one, Timothy?—no, no—don't tell
me.""I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it
ghostly enough—what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid
it.""What was it like?—no, don't—""A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it
had been dipped in blood."Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his
body, and Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?""Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But 'tisn't a thing
to talk about. What do ye say," continued Fairway in brisker tones,
and turning upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer
Cantle's—"what do you say to giving the new man and wife a bit of a
song tonight afore we go to bed—being their wedding-day? When folks
are just married 'tis as well to look glad o't, since looking sorry
won't unjoin 'em. I am no drinker, as we know, but when the
womenfolk and youngsters have gone home we can drop down across to
the Quiet Woman, and strike up a ballet in front of the married
folks' door. 'Twill please the young wife, and that's what I should
like to do, for many's the skinful I've had at her hands when she
lived with her aunt at Blooms-End.""Hey? And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so
briskly that his copper seals swung extravagantly. "I'm as dry as a
kex with biding up here in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour
of drink since nammet-time today. 'Tis said that the last brew at
the Woman is very pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be
a little late in the finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday, and we can
sleep it off?""Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old
man," said the wide woman."I take things careless; I do—too careless to please the
women! Klk! I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song, when a
weak old man would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for
anything."The king' look'd o'-ver
his left' shoul-der', And a grim'
look look'-ed hee', Earl Mar'-shal, he
said', but for' my oath' Or hang'-ed
thou' shouldst bee'.""Well, that's what we'll do," said Fairway. "We'll give 'em a
song, an' it please the Lord. What's the good of Thomasin's cousin
Clym a-coming home after the deed's done? He should have come
afore, if so be he wanted to stop it, and marry her
himself.""Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time,
as she must feel lonely now the maid's gone.""Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely—no, not at all,"
said Grandfer Cantle. "I am as brave in the nighttime as a'
admiral!"The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the
fuel had not been of that substantial sort which can support a
blaze long. Most of the other fires within the wide horizon were
also dwindling weak. Attentive observation of their brightness,
colour, and length of existence would have revealed the quality of
the material burnt, and through that, to some extent the natural
produce of the district in which each bonfire was situate. The
clear, kingly effulgence that had characterized the majority
expressed a heath and furze country like their own, which in one
direction extended an unlimited number of miles; the rapid flares
and extinctions at other points of the compass showed the lightest
of fuel—straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from arable land.
The most enduring of all—steady unaltering eyes like
Planets—signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and
stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and
though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient
blazes, now began to get the best of them by mere long continuance.
The great ones had perished, but these remained. They occupied the
remotest visible positions—sky-backed summits rising out of rich
coppice and plantation districts to the north, where the soil was
different, and heath foreign and strange.Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the
whole shining throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to
that of the little window in the vale below. Its nearness was such
that, notwithstanding its actual smallness, its glow infinitely
transcended theirs.This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and
when their own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more;
some even of the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their
decline, but no change was perceptible here."To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway.
"Seemingly. I can see a fellow of some sort walking round it.
Little and good must be said of that fire, surely.""I can throw a stone there," said the boy."And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle."No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much less
than a mile off, for all that 'a seems so near.""'Tis in the heath, but no furze," said the
turf-cutter."'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway.
"Nothing would burn like that except clean timber. And 'tis on the
knap afore the old captain's house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal
as that man is! To have a little fire inside your own bank and
ditch, that nobody else may enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a
zany an old chap must be, to light a bonfire when there's no
youngsters to please.""Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired
out," said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be
he.""And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the
wide woman."Then it must be his granddaughter," said Fairway. "Not that
a body of her age can want a fire much.""She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself,
and such things please her," said Susan."She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the
furze-cutter, "especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns
on.""That's true," said Fairway. "Well, let her bonfire burn an't
will. Ours is well-nigh out by the look o't.""How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian
Cantle, looking behind him with his hare eyes. "Don't ye think we'd
better get home-along, neighbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know;
but we'd better get home.... Ah, what was that?""Only the wind," said the turf-cutter."I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by
night except in towns. It should be by day in outstep,
ill-accounted places like this!""Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy,
dear, you and I will have a jig—hey, my honey?—before 'tis quite
too dark to see how well-favoured you be still, though so many
summers have passed since your husband, a son of a witch, snapped
you up from me."This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next
circumstance of which the beholders were conscious was a vision of
the matron's broad form whisking off towards the space whereon the
fire had been kindled. She was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm,
which had been flung round her waist before she had become aware of
his intention. The site of the fire was now merely a circle of
ashes flecked with red embers and sparks, the furze having burnt
completely away. Once within the circle he whirled her round and
round in a dance. She was a woman noisily constructed; in addition
to her enclosing framework of whalebone and lath, she wore pattens
summer and winter, in wet weather and in dry, to preserve her boots
from wear; and when Fairway began to jump about with her, the
clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the stays, and her screams
of surprise, formed a very audible concert."I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs.
Nunsuch, as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing
like drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever
before, from walking through that prickly furze, and now you must
make 'em worse with these vlankers!"The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter
seized old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with
her likewise. The young men were not slow to imitate the example of
their elders, and seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick
jigged in the form of a three-legged object among the rest; and in
half a minute all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling
of dark shapes amid a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt
around the dancers as high as their waists. The chief noises were
women's shrill cries, men's laughter, Susan's stays and pattens,
Olly Dowden's "heu-heu-heu!" and the strumming of the wind upon the
furze-bushes, which formed a kind of tune to the demoniac measure
they trod. Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily rocking himself as
he murmured, "They ought not to do it—how the vlankers do fly! 'tis
tempting the Wicked one, 'tis.""What was that?" said one of the lads, stopping."Ah—where?" said Christian, hastily closing up to the
rest.The dancers all lessened their speed."'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it—down
here.""Yes—'tis behind me!" Christian said. "Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, bless the bed that I lie on; four angels
guard—""Hold your tongue. What is it?" said Fairway."Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness."Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway."Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess
Yeobright's, of Blooms-End?" came to them in the same voice, as a
long, slim indistinct figure approached the barrow."Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as
'tis getting late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another,
you know; run close together, I mean.""Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so
that we can see who the man is," said Fairway.When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight
raiment, and red from top to toe. "Is there a track across here to
Mis'ess Yeobright's house?" he repeated."Ay—keep along the path down there.""I mean a way two horses and a van can travel
over?""Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The
track is rough, but if you've got a light your horses may pick
along wi' care. Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour
reddleman?""I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back, I
stepped on in front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time,
and I han't been here for so long.""Oh, well you can get up," said Fairway. "What a turn it did
give me when I saw him!" he added to the whole group, the reddleman
included. "Lord's sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this
come to trouble us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye
bain't bad-looking in the groundwork, though the finish is queer.
My meaning is just to say how curious I felt. I half thought it
'twas the devil or the red ghost the boy told of.""It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I had
a dream last night of a death's head.""Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian. "If he had a
handkerchief over his head he'd look for all the world like the
Devil in the picture of the Temptation.""Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman,
smiling faintly. "And good night t'ye all."He withdrew from their sight down the barrow."I fancy I've seen that young man's face before," said
Humphrey. "But where, or how, or what his name is, I don't
know."The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when
another person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved
to be a well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a
standing which can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face,
encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely,
and with-out half-lights, like a cameo.She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of
the type usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality
enthroned within. At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from
a Nebo denied to others around. She had something of an estranged
mien; the solitude exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this
face that had risen from it. The air with which she looked at the
heathmen betokened a certain unconcern at their presence, or at
what might be their opinions of her for walking in that lonely spot
at such an hour, thus indirectly implying that in some respect or
other they were not up to her level. The explanation lay in the
fact that though her husband had been a small farmer she herself
was a curate's daughter, who had once dreamt of doing better
things.Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets,
their atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron
who entered now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her
own tone into a company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had
that reticence which results from the consciousness of superior
communicative power. But the effect of coming into society and
light after lonely wandering in darkness is a sociability in the
comer above its usual pitch, expressed in the features even more
than in words."Why, 'tis Mis'ess Yeobright," said Fairway. "Mis'ess
Yeobright, not ten minutes ago a man was here asking for you—a
reddleman.""What did he want?" said she."He didn't tell us.""Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss
to understand.""I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at
Christmas, ma'am," said Sam, the turf-cutter. "What a dog he used
to be for bonfires!""Yes. I believe he is coming," she said."He must be a fine fellow by this time," said
Fairway."He is a man now," she replied quietly."'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess,"
said Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto
maintained. "Mind you don't get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to
get lost in, and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I
heard 'em afore. Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here
at times.""Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright. "What made you
hide away from me?""'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess; and
being a man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's
all. Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my
mind, 'twould make 'ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my
hand.""You don't take after your father," said Mrs. Yeobright,
looking towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of
originality, was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others
had done before."Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed of ye.
A reverent old patriarch man as you be—seventy if a day—to go
hornpiping like that by yourself!""A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright," said Christian
despondingly. "I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he
is, if I could get away.""'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome
Mis'ess Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle,"
said the besom-woman."Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking himself
repentantly. "I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I
forget how I'm looked up to by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be
wonderful good, you'll say? But not always. 'Tis a weight upon a
man to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel
it.""I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs. Yeobright. "But I
must be leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road,
towards my niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her
husband; and seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the
rest I came up here to learn what was going on. I should like her
to walk with me, as her way is mine.""Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said
Olly."Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye
of," said Fairway. "He's only gone back to get his van. We heard
that your niece and her husband were coming straight home as soon
as they were married, and we are going down there shortly, to give
'em a song o' welcome.""Thank you indeed," said Mrs. Yeobright."But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you
can go with long clothes; so we won't trouble you to
wait.""Very well—are you ready, Olly?""Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your niece's
window, see. It will help to keep us in the path."She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley
which Fairway had pointed out; and the two women descended the
tumulus.4—The Halt on the Turnpike Road