Chapter 1: CHAPTER: 1 EP: 1 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE
ONE EVENING of late summer, before the present century had reached its thirtieth
year, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large
village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They were plainly but not ill clad,
though the thick hoar of dust which had accumulated on their shoes and garments
from an obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to their appearance
just now.
The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect; and he showed in profile a
facial angle so slightly inclined as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of
brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which was a fustian waistcoat
with white horn buttons, breeches of the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat
overlaid with black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped strap a rush
basket, from which protruded at one end the crutch of a hayknife, a wimble for hay-
bonds being also visible in the aperture. His measured, springless walk was the walk of
the skilled countryman as distinct from the desultory shamble of the general labourer;
while in the turn and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and cynical
indifference, personal to himself, showing its presence even in the regularly
interchanging fustian folds, now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.
What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's progress, and would have attracted
the attention of any casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the
perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in such a way as to suggest
afar off the low, easy, confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on closer view
it could be discerned that the man was reading, or pretending to read, a ballad sheet
which he kept before his eyes with some difficulty by the hand that was passed
through the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were the real cause, or whether
it were an assumed one to escape an intercourse that would have been irksome to him,
nobody but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity was unbroken, and
the woman enjoyed no society whatever from his presence. Virtually she walked the
highway alone, save for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow almost
touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his side as was possible without actual
contact; but she seemed to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it; and far
from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence, she appeared to receive it as a natural
thing. If any word at all were uttered by the little group, it was an occasional whisper
of the woman to the child- a tiny girl in short clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn-
and the murmured babble of the child in reply.
The chief- almost the only- attraction of the young woman's face was its mobility.
When she looked down sideways to the girl she became pretty, and even handsome,
particularly that in the action her features caught slantwise the rays of the strongly
coloured sun, which made transparencies of her eyelids and nostrils, and set fire on her
lips. When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she had the
hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance, except, perhaps, fair play. The first phase was the work of Nature,
the second probably of civilization.
That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl in arms,
there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have accounted for
the atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus
as they moved down the road.
The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with little interest- the scene for that
matter being one that might have been matched at almost any spot in any county in
England at this time of the year; a road neither straight nor crooked, neither level nor
hilly, bordered by hedges, trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the
blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass through on their way to
dingy and yellow, and red. The grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow
boughs, were powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by hasty vehicles,
the same dust as it lay on the road deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with
the aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every extraneous sound to be
heard.
For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak bird singing a trite old
evening song that might doubtless have been heard on the hill at the same hour, and
with the self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of that season for centuries
untold. But as they approached the village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached
their ears from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened from view by
foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-Priors could just be descried, the family
group was met by a turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner-bag
suspended from it. The reader promptly glanced up.
"Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating the village in his van by
a wave of the broadsheet. And thinking the labourer did not understand him, he
added, "Anything in the hay-trussing line?" The turnip-hoer had already begun
shaking his head. "Why, save the man, what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to
Weydon for a job of that sort this time o' year?" "Then is there any house to let- a little
small new cottage just a builded, or such like?" asked the other.
The pessimist still maintained a negative. "Pulling down is more the nater of Weydon.
There were five houses cleared away last year, and three this; and the volk nowhere to
go- no, not so much as a thatched hurdle; that's the way o' Weydon-Priors." The hay-
trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some superciliousness.
Looking towards the village, he continued, "There is something going on here,
however, is there not?" "Ay. 'Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little more
than the clatter and scurry of getting away the money o' children and fools, for the real
business is done earlier than this. I've been working within sound o't all day, but I
didn't go up- not I. 'Twas no business of mine." The trusser and his family proceeded
on their way, and soon entered the Fairfield, which showed standing-places and pens
where many hundreds of horses and sheep had been exhibited and sold in the
forenoon, but were now in great part taken away. At present, as their informant had
observed, but little real business remained on hand, the chief being the sale by auction
of a few inferior animals, that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had beenabsolutely refused by the better class of traders, who came and went early. Yet the
crowd was denser now than during the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of
visitors, including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or two home on
furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like, having latterly flocked in; persons whose
activities found a congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks,
inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled for the public good,
thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and readers of Fate.
Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things, and they looked around for
a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the down. Two, which stood nearest
to them in the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. One
was formed of new, milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags on its summit; it announced
"Good Home-brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." The other was less new; a little iron stove-
pipe came out of it at the back, and in front appeared the placard, "Good Furmity Sold
Hear." The man mentally weighed the two inscriptions, and inclined to the former tent.
"No- no- the other one," said the woman. "I always like furmity; and so does Elizabeth-
Jane; and so will you. It is nourishing after a long hard day." "I've never tasted it," said
the man. However, he gave way to her representations, and they entered the furmity
booth forthwith.
A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the long narrow tables that ran
down the tent on each side. At the upper end stood a stove, containing a charcoal fire,
over which hung a large three-legged crock, sufficiently polished round the rim to
show that it was made of bell-metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a
white apron, which, as it threw an air of respectability over her as far as it extended,
was made so wide as to reach nearly round her waist. She slowly stirred the contents of
the pot. The dull scrape of her large spoon was audible throughout the tent as she thus
kept from burning the mixture of corn in the grain, milk, raisins, currants, and what
not, that composed the antiquated slop in which she dealt. Vessels holding the separate
ingredients stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles close by.
The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture, steaming hot, and sat
down to consume it at leisure. This was very well so far, for furmity, as the woman had
said, was nourishing, and as proper a food as could be obtained within the four seas;
though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains of wheat, swollen as large as lemon-
pips, which floated on its surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.
But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance; and the man, with the
instinct of a perverse character, scented it quickly. After a mincing attack on his bowl,
he watched the hag's proceedings from the corner of his eye, and saw the game she
played. He winked to her, and passed up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a
bottle from under the table, slily measured out a quantity of its contents, and tipped the
same into the man's furmity. The liquor poured in was rum. The man as slily sent back
money in payment.
He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to his satisfaction than it had
been in its natural state. His wife had observed the proceeding with much uneasiness;
but he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she agreed to a milder allowance
after some misgiving.The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum being signalled for in yet
stronger proportion. The effect of it was soon apparent in his manner, and his wife but
too sadly perceived that in strenuously steering off the rocks of the licensed liquor-tent
she had only got into maelstrom depths here amongst the smugglers.
The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more than once said to her
husband, "Michael, how about our lodging? You know we may have trouble in getting
it if we don't go soon."
But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He talked loud to the company.
The child's black eyes, after slow, round, ruminating gazes at the candles when they
were lighted, fell together; then they opened, then shut again, and she slept.
At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the second he was jovial; at
the third, argumentative; at the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his face,
the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell in
his conduct; he was overbearing- even brilliantly quarrelsome.
The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such occasions. The ruin of good
men by bad wives, and, more particularly, the frustration of many a promising youths
high aims and hopes, and the extinction of his energies, by an early imprudent
marriage, was the theme.
"I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser, with a contemplative
bitterness that was well-nigh resentful. "I married at eighteen, like the fool that I was;
and this is the consequence o't." He pointed at himself and family with a wave of the
hand intended to bring out the penuriousness of the exhibition.
The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such remarks, acted as if she
did not hear them, and continued her intermittent private words on tender trifles to the
sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be placed for a moment on the
bench beside her when she wished to ease her arms. The man continued "I haven't
more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet I am a good experienced hand in my
line. I'd challenge England to beat me in the fodder business; and if I were a free man
again, I'd be worth a thousand pound before I'd done o't.
But a fellow never knows these little things till all chance of acting upon 'em is past."
The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside could be heard saying, "Now
this is the last lot- now who'll take the last lot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings? 'Tis
a very promising brood-mare, a trifle over five years old, and nothing the matter with
the hoss at all, except that she's a little holler in the back and had her left eye knocked
out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming along the road." "For my part I don't
see why men who have got wives, and don't want 'em, shouldn't get rid of 'em as these
gipsy fellows do their old horses," said the man in the tent. "Why shouldn't they put
'em up and sell 'em by auction to men who are in want of such articles? Hey? Why,
begad, I'd sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!" "There's them that would
do that," some of the guests replied, looking at the woman, who was by no means ill-
favoured.
"True," said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine polish about the collar,
elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades that long-continued friction with grimy surfaces
will produce, and which is usually more desired on furniture than on clothes. From hisappearance he had possibly been in former time groom or coachman to some
neighbouring county family. "I've had my breedings in as good circles, I may say, as
any man," he added, "and I know true cultivation, or nobody do; and I can declare
she's got it- in the bone, mind ye, I say- as much as any female in the fair- though it
may want a little bringing out." Then, crossing his legs, he resumed his pipe with a
nicely-adjusted gaze at a point in the air.
The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this unexpected praise of his
wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of his own attitude towards the possessor of such
qualities. But he speedily lapsed into his former conviction, and said harshly"Well,
then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for this gem o' creation." She turned to
her husband and murmured, "Michael, you have talked this nonsense in public places
before. A joke is a joke, but you may make it once too often, mind!" "I know I've said it
before; I meant it. All I want is a buyer." At the moment a swallow, one among the last
of the season, which had by chance found its way through an opening into the upper
part of the tent, flew to and fro in quick curves above their heads, causing all eyes to
follow it absently. In watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled company
neglected to respond to the workman's offer, and the subject dropped.
But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on lacing his furmity more and
more heavily, though he was either so strong-minded or such an intrepid toper that he
still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as in a musical fantasy the
instrument fetches up the original theme. "Here- I am waiting to know about this offer
of mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?" The company had by this
time decidedly degenerated, and the renewed inquiry was received with a laugh of
appreciation. The woman whispered, she was imploring and anxious: "Come, come, it
is getting dark, and this nonsense won't do. If you don't come along, I shall go without
you. Come!" She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes the man
broke in upon the desultory conversation of the furmity drinkers with, "I asked this
question, and nobody answered to't. Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw among ye buy
my goods?" The woman's manner changed, and her face assumed the grim shape and
colour of which mention has been made.
"Mike, Mike," said she; "this is getting serious. Oh!- too serious!" "Will anybody buy
her?" said the man.
"I wish somebody would," said she firmly. "Her present owner is not at all to her
liking!" "Nor you to mine," said he. "So we are agreed about that. Gentlemen, you
hear? It's an agreement to part. She shall take the girl if she wants to, and go her ways.
I'll take my tools, and go my ways. 'Tis simple as Scripture history. Now then, stand
up, Susan, and show yourself." "Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom staylace dealer
in voluminous petticoats, who sat near the woman; "yer good man don't know what
he's saying." The woman, however, did stand up. "Now, who's auctioneer?" cried the
haytrusser.
"I be," promptly answered a short man, with a nose resembling a copper knob, a damp
voice, and eyes like button-holes. "Who'll make an offer for this lady?" The woman
looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a supreme effort of will.
"Five shillings," said some one, at which there was a laugh."No insults," said the husband. "Who'll say a guinea?" Nobody answered; and the
female dealer in staylaces interposed.
"Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love! Ah, what a cruelty is the poor
soul married to! Bed and board is dear at some figures, 'pon my 'vation 'tis!" "Set it
higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.
"Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
"If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll have to give more," said the
husband. "Very well. Now, auctioneer, add another." "Three guineas- going for three
guineas!" said the rheumy man.
"No bid?" said the husband. "Good Lord, why she's cost me fifty times the money, if a
penny. Go on." "Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.
"I'll tell ye what- I won't sell her for less than five," said the husband, bringing down
his fist so that the basins danced. "I'll sell her for five guineas to any man that will pay
me the money, and treat her well; and he shall have her for ever, and never hear aught
o' me. But she shan't go for less. Now then- five guineasand she's yours. Susan, you
agree?" She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
"Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be withdrawn. Do anybody give it? The
last time. Yes or no?" "Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.
All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening which formed the door of the
tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within the last two or
three minutes. A dead silence followed his affirmation.
"You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.
"I say so," replied the sailor.
"Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the money?" The sailor hesitated a
moment, looked anew at the woman, came in, unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and
threw them down upon the table-cloth. They were Bank-of-England notes for five
pounds. Upon the face of this he clinked down the shillings severally- one, two, three,
four, five.
The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the same till then
deemed slightly hypothetical, had a great effect upon the spectators.
Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and then upon the notes as
they lay, weighted by the shillings, on the table.
Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the man, in spite of
his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest. The spectators had indeed taken the
proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had
assumed that, being out of work, he was, as a consequence, out of temper with the
world, and society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and response of real cash
the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and
change the aspect of all therein. The mirth-wrinkles left the listeners' faces, and they
waited with parting lips.
"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice sounded quite
loud, "before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If you touch that money, I and this
girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no longer.""A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband, his resentment rising at her
suggestion. "I take the money: the sailor takes you. That's plain enough. It has been
done elsewhere- and why not here?" "'Tis quite on the understanding that the young
woman is willing," said the sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world."
"Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing, provided she can have the child.
She said so only the other day when I talked o't!" "That you swear?" said the sailor to
her.
"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and seeing no repentance there.
"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's complete," said the trusser. He
took the sailor's notes and deliberately folded them, and put them with the shillings in
a high remote pocket, with an air of finality.
The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he said kindly.
"The little one too- the more the merrier!" She paused for an instant, with a close glance
at him. Then dropping her eyes again, and saying nothing, she took up the child and
followed him as he made towards the door. On reaching it, she turned, and pulling off
her wedding-ring, flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser's face.
"Mike," said she, "I've lived with thee a couple of years, and had nothing but temper!
Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for me and the
child, both. So good-bye!" Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting
the little girl on her left, she went out of the tent sobbing bitterly.
A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if, after all, he had not quite
anticipated this ending; and some of the guests laughed.
"Is she gone?" he said.
"Faith, ay; she gone clane enough," said some rustics near the door.
He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of one conscious of his
alcoholic load. Some others followed, and they stood looking into the twilight.
The difference between the peacefulness of inferior nature and the wilful hostilities of
mankind was very apparent at this place. In contrast with the harshness of the act just
ended within the tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks and rubbing
each other lovingly as they waited in patience to be harnessed for the homeward
journey. Outside the fair, in the valleys and woods, all was quiet. The sun had recently
set, and the west heaven was hung with rosy cloud, which seemed permanent, yet
slowly changed. To watch it was like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a
darkened auditorium. In presence of this scene, after the other, there was a natural
instinct to abjure man as the blot on an otherwise kindly universe; till it was
remembered that all terrestial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind might
some night be innocently sleeping when these quiet objects were raging loud.
"Where do the sailor live?" asked a spectator, when they had vainly gazed around.
"God knows that," replied the man who had seen high life. "He's without doubt a
stranger here." "He came in about five minutes ago," said the furmity woman, joining
the rest with her hands on her hips. "And then 'a stepped back, and then 'a looked in
again. I'm not a penny the better for him." "Serves the husband well be-right," said the
staylace vendor. "A comely respectable body like her- what can a man want more? I
glory in the woman's sperrit. I'd ha' done it myself-od send if I wouldn't, if a husband had behaved so to me! I'd go, and 'a might call, and call, till his keacorn was raw; but
I'd never come back- no, not till the great trumpet, would I!" "Well, the woman will be
better off," said another of a more deliberative turn.
"For seafaring naters be very good shelter for shorn lambs, and the man do seem to
have plenty of money, which is what she's not been used to lately, by all showings."
"Mark me- I'll not go after her!" said the trusser, returning doggedly to his seat. "Let
her go! If she's up to such vagaries she must suffer for 'em. She'd no business to take
the maid- 'tis my maid; and if it were the doing again she shouldn't have her!" Perhaps
from some little sense of having countenanced an indefensible proceeding, perhaps
because it was late, the customers thinned away from the tent shortly after this episode.
The man stretched his elbows forward on the table, leant his face upon his arms, and
soon began to snore. The furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after seeing
the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, &c., that remained on hand, loaded into the cart,
came to where the man reclined. She shook him, but could not wake him. As the tent
was not to be struck that night, the fair continuing for two or three days, she decided to
let the sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and his basket with
him. Extinguishing the last candle, and lowering the flap of the tent, she left it, and
drove away...
THE MORNING sun was streaming through the crevices of the canvas when the man
awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole atmosphere of the marquee, and a single big
blue fly buzzed musically round and round it. Besides the buzz of the fly there was not
a sound. He looked about- at the benches- at the table supported by trestles- at his
basket of tools- at the stove where the furmity had been boiled- at the empty basins- at
some shed grains of wheat- at the corks which dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds
and ends he discerned a little shining object, and picked it up. It was his wife's ring.
A confused picture of the events of the previous evening seemed to come back to him,
and he thrust his hand into his breast-pocket. A rustling revealed the sailor's banknotes
thrust carelessly in.
This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he knew now they were not
dreams. He remained seated, looking on the ground for some time. "I must get out of
this as soon as I can," he said deliberately at last, with the air of one who could not
catch his thoughts without pronouncing them. "She's gone- to be sure she is- gone with
that sailor who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here, and I had the
furmity, and rum in it- and sold her. Yes, that's what happened, and here am I. Now,
what am I to do- am I sober enough to walk, I wonder?" He stood up, found that he
was in fairly good condition for progress, unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool
basket, and found he could carry it.
Then lifting the tent door he emerged into the open air.
Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The freshness of the September
morning inspired and braced him as he stood. He and his family had been weary when
they arrived the night before, and they had observed but little of the place; so that he
now beheld it as a new thing. It exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded
on one extreme by a plantation, and approached by a winding road. At the bottom
stood the village which lent its name to the upland, and the annual fair that was held
thereon. The spot stretched downward into valleys, and onward to other uplands,
dotted with barrows, and trenched with the remains of prehistoric forts. The whole
scene lay under the rays of a newly risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade
of the heavily dewed grass, whereon the shadows of the yellow and red vans were
projected far away, those thrown by the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape
to the orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had remained on the ground
lay snug within their carts and tents, or wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were
silent and still as death, with the exception of an occasional snore that revealed their
presence. But the Seven Sleepers had a dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds that
vagrants own, that are as much like cats as dogs, and as much like foxes as cats, also lay
about here. A little one started up under one of the carts, barked as a matter of
principle, and quickly lay down again. He was the only positive spectator of the hay-
trusser's exit from the Weydon Fair-field.
This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent thought, unheeding the
yellowhammers which flitted about the hedges with straws in their bills, the crowns of
the mushrooms, and the tinkling of local sheep-bells, whose wearers had had the goodfortune not to be included in the fair. When he reached a lane, a good mile from the
scene of the previous evening, the man pitched his basket, and leant upon a gate. A
difficult problem or two occupied his mind.
"Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn't I tell my name?" he said to himself;
and at last concluded that he did not. His general demeanour was enough to show how
he was surprised and nettled that his wife had taken him so literally- as much could be
seen in his face, and in the way he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge. He
knew that she must have been somewhat excited to do this; moreover, she must have
believed that there was some sort of binding force in the transaction. On this latter
point he felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of character, and the
extreme simplicity of her intellect. There may, too, have been enough recklessness and
resentment beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentary doubts.
On a previous occasion when he had declared, during a fuddle, that he would dispose
of her as he had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say that many times
more before it happened, in the resigned tones of a fatalist.... "Yet she knows I am not
in my senses when I do that?" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about till I find her....
Seize her, why didn't she know better than bring me into this disgrace?" he roared out.
"She wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such idiotic simplicity. Meek- that
meekness has done me more harm than the bitterest temper!" When he was calmer, he
turned to his original conviction that he must somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-
Jane, and put up with the shame as best he could. It was of his own making, and he
ought to bear it. But first he resolved to register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever
sworn before: and to do it properly he required a fit place and imagery; for there was
something fetichistic in this man's beliefs.
He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes inquisitively round upon the
landscape as he walked, and at the distance of three or four miles perceived the roofs of
a village and the tower of a church. He instantly made towards the latter object. The
village was quite still, it being that motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills the
interval between the departure of the field-labourers to their work, and the rising of
their wives and daughters to prepare the breakfast for their return. Hence he reached
the church without observation, and the door being only latched, he entered. The hay-
trusser deposited his basket by the font, went up the nave till he reached the altar-rails,
and opening the gate, entered the sacrarium, where he seemed to feel a sense of the
strangeness for a moment; then he knelt upon the foot-pace. Dropping his head upon
the clamped book which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud"I, Michael
Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of September, do take an oath here in this
solemn place that I will avoid all strong liquors for the space of twenty years to come,
being a year for every year that I have lived. And this I swear upon the book before me;
and may I be struck dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this my oath!" When he had
said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser arose, and seemed relieved at having
made a start in a new direction. While standing in the porch a moment, he saw a thick
jet of wood smoke suddenly start up from the red chimney of a cottage near, and knew
that the occupant had just lit her fire. He went round to the door, and the housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast for a trifling payment, which was done. Then he
started on the search for his wife and child.
The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent soon enough.
Though he examined and inquired, and walked hither and thither day after day, no
such characters as those he described had anywhere been seen since the evening of the
fair. To add to the difficulty, he could gain no sound of the sailor's name.
As money was short with him, he decided, after some hesitation, to spend the sailor's
money in the prosecution of this search; but it was equally in vain. The truth was, that a
certain shyness of revealing his conduct prevented Michael Henchard from following
up the investigation with the loud hue-and-cry such a pursuit demanded to render it
effectual; and it was probably for this reason that he obtained no clue, though
everything was done by him that did not involve an explanation of the circumstances
under which he had lost her.
Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on, maintaining himself by small
jobs of work in the intervals. By this time he had arrived at a seaport, and there he
derived intelligence that persons answering somewhat to his description had emigrated
a little time before. Then he said he would search no longer, and that he would go and
settle in the district which he had had for some time in his mind. Next day he started,
journeying south-westward, and did not pause, except for night's lodgings, till he
reached the town of Casterbridge, in a far distant part of Wessex...
THE HIGHROAD into the village of Weydon-Priors was again carpeted with dust. The
trees had put on as of yore their aspect of dingy green, and where the Henchard family
of three had once walked along, two persons not unconnected with that family walked
now.
The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous character, even to the voices
and rattle from the neighbouring village down, that it might for that matter have been
the afternoon following the previously recorded episode.
Change was only to be observed in details; but here it was obvious that a long
procession of years had passed by. One of the two who walked the road was she who
had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous occasion; now her face had
lost much of its rotundity; her skin had undergone a textural change; and though her
hair had not lost colour, it was considerably thinner than heretofore.
She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a widow. Her companion, also in black,
appeared as a well-formed young woman of eighteen, completely possessed of that
ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself beauty, irrespective of complexion or
contour.
A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was Susan Henchard's grown-up
daughter. While life's middle summer had set its hardening mark on the mother's face,
her former spring-like specialities were transferred so dexterously by Time to the
second figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her mother's
knowledge from the girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting
on those facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature's powers of continuity.
They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived that this was the act of
simple affection. The daughter carried in her outer hand a withy basket of oldfashioned
make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with her black stuff gown.
Reaching the outskirts of the village, they pursued the game track as formerly, and
ascended to the fair. Here, too, it was evident that the years had told. Certain
mechanical improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts and highfliers,
machines for testing rustic strength and weight, and in the erections devoted to
shooting for nuts. But the real business of the fair had considerably dwindled. The new
periodical great markets of neighbouring towns were beginning to interfere seriously
with the trade carried on here for centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for horses,
were about half as long as they had been. The stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-
drapers, and other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles were far less
numerous. The mother and daughter threaded the crowd for some little distance, and
then stood still.
"Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you wished to get
onward?" said the maiden.
"Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane," explained the other. "But I had a fancy for looking up
here." "Why?" "It was here I first met with Newson- on such a day as this." "First met with
father here? Yes, you have told me so before. And now he's drowned and gone from
us!" As she spoke the girl drew a card from her pocket and looked at it with a sigh. It
was edged with black, and inscribed within a design resembling a mural tablet were
the words, "In affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was
unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of November 184_, aged forty-one years." "And
it was here," continued her mother, with more hesitation, "that I last saw the relation
we are going to look for- Mr. Michael Henchard." "What is his exact kin to us, mother?
I have never clearly had it told me." "He is, or was- for he may be dead- a connection
by marriage," said her mother deliberately.
"That's exactly what you have said a score of times before!" replied the young woman,
looking about her inattentively. "He's not a near relation, I suppose?" "Not by any
means." "He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of him?" "He was." "I
suppose he never knew me?" the girl innocently continued.
Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered uneasily, "Of course not,
Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way." She moved on to another part of the field.
"It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should think," the daughter observed,
as she gazed round about. "People at fairs change like the leaves of trees; and I daresay
you are the only one here today who was here all those years ago." "I am not so sure of
that," said Mrs. Newson, as she now called herself, keenly eyeing something under a
green bank a little way off. "See there." The daughter looked in the direction signified.
The object pointed out was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth, from which hung a
three-legged crock, kept hot by a smouldering wood fire beneath. Over the pot stooped
an old woman, haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She stirred the contents of the
pot with a large spoon, and occasionally croaked in a broken voice, "Good furmity sold
here!" It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent- once thriving, cleanly,
white-aproned, and chinking with money- now tentless, dirty, owning no tables or
benches, and having scarce any customers except two small whitey-brown boys, who
came up and asked for "A ha'p'orth, please- good measure," which she served in a
couple of chipped yellow basins of commonest clay.
"She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a step as if to draw nearer.
"Don't speak to her- it isn't respectable!" urged the other.
"I will just say a word- you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay here." The girl was not loth, and
turned to some stalls of coloured prints while her mother went forward. The old
woman begged for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and responded to Mrs.
Henchard-Newson's request for a pennyworth with more alacrity than she had shown
in selling sixpennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant widow had taken
the basin of thin poor slop that stood for the rich concoction of the former time, the hag
opened a little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily, whispered, "Just a thought
o' rum in it?- smuggled, you know- say two penn'orth- 'twill make it slip down like
cordial!" Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old trick, and shook her
head with a meaning the old woman was far from translating. She pretended to eat a
little of the furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so, said blandly to the
hag, "You've seen better days?" "Ah, ma'am- well ye may say it!" responded the old woman, opening the sluices of her heart forthwith. "I've stood in this fair-ground,
maid, wife, and widow, these nine-and-thirty year, and in that time have known what
it was to do business with the richest stomachs in the land! Ma'am, you'd hardly
believe that I was once the owner of a great pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the
fair. Nobody could come, nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs.
Goodenough's furmity. I knew the clergy's taste, the dandy gent's taste; I knew the
town's taste, the country's taste. I even knowed the taste of the coarse shameless
females. But seize my life- the world's no memory; straightforward dealings don't
bring profit'tis the sly and the underhand that get on in these times!" Mrs. Newson
glanced round- her daughter was still bending over the distant stalls. "Can you call to
mind," she said cautiously to the old woman, "the sale of a wife by her husband in
your tent eighteen years ago today?" The hag reflected, and half shook her head. "If it
had been a big thing I should have minded it in a moment," she said. "I can mind every
serious fight o'married parties, every murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-
picking- leastwise large ones- that I has been my lot to witness. But a selling? Was it
done quietlike?" "Well, yes. I think so." The furmity woman half shook her head again.
"And yet," she said, "I do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something o' the sort- a
man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools; but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e it
headroom, we don't, such as that. The only reason why I can mind the man is that he
came back here to the next year's fair, and told me quite private-like that if a woman
ever asked for him I was to say he had gone to- where?- Casterbridge- yes- to
Casterbridge, said he. But, Lord's my life, I shouldn't ha' thought of it again!" Mrs.
Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her small means afforded, had
she not discreetly borne in mind that it was by that unscrupulous person's liquor her
husband had been degraded. She briefly thanked her informant, and rejoined
Elizabeth, who greeted her with, "Mother, do let's go on- it was hardly respectable for
you to buy refreshments there. I see none but the lowest do." "I have learned what I
wanted, however," said her mother quietly. "The last time our relative visited this fair
he said he was living at Casterbridge. It is a long, long way from here, and it was many
years ago that he said it; but there I think we'll go." With this they descended out of the
fair, and went onward to the village, where they obtained a night's lodging...
HENCHARD'S WIFE acted for the best, but she had involved herself in difficulties. A
hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, the
true story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the transaction at Weydon
Fair, when she was not much older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained.
An innocent maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the relations between the
genial sailor and her mother were the ordinary ones that they had always appeared to
be. The risk of endangering a child's strong affection by disturbing ideas which had
grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had
seemed, indeed, folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved daughter's heart by a revelation
had little to do with any sense of wrong-doing on her own part. Her simplicity- the
original ground of Henchard's contempt for her- had allowed her to live on in the
conviction that Newson had acquired a morally real and justifiable right to her by his
purchase- though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right were vague. It may
seem strange to sophisticated minds that a sane young matron could believe in the
seriousness of such a transfer; and were there not numerous other instances of the same
belief the thing might scarcely be credited. But she was by no means the first or last
peasant woman who had religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural
records show.
The history of Susan Henchard's adventures in the interim can be told in two or three
sentences. Absolutely helpless, she had been taken off to Canada, where they had lived
several years without any great worldly success, though she worked as hard as any
woman could to keep their cottage cheerful and well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane
was about twelve years old the three returned to England, and settled at Falmouth,
where Newson made a living for a few years as boatman and general handy shoreman.
He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during this period that Susan
had an awakening. A friend to whom she confided her history ridiculed her grave
acceptance of her position; and all was over with her peace of mind. When Newson
came home at the end of one winter he saw that the delusion he had so carefully
sustained had vanished for ever.
There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her doubts if she could live
with him longer. Newson left home again on the Newfoundland trade when the season
came round. The news of his loss at sea a little later on solved a problem which had
become torture to her meek conscience. She saw him no more.
Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liege subjects of Labour, the England of those
days was a continent, and a mile of geographical degree.
Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness. One day, a month or so after
receiving intelligence of Newson's death off the Bank of Newfoundland, when the girl
was about eighteen, she was sitting on a willow chair in the cottage they still occupied,
working twine nets for the fishermen. Her mother was in a back corner of the same
room, engaged in the same labour; and dropping the heavy wood noodle she was filling, she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully. The sun shone in at the door upon the
young woman's head and hair, which was worn loose, so that the rays streamed into its
depths as into a hazel copse. Her face, though somewhat wan and incomplete,
possessed the raw materials of beauty in a promising degree. There was an under-
handsomeness in it, struggling to reveal itself through the provisional curves of
immaturity, and the casual disfigurements that resulted from the straitened
circumstances of their lives. She was handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in
the flesh. She possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the carking accidents of
her daily existence could be evaded before the mobile parts of her countenance had
settled to their final mould.
The sight of the girl made her mother sad- not vaguely, but by logical inference. They
both were still in that strait-waistcoat of poverty from which she had tried so many
times to be delivered for the girl's sake. The woman had long perceived how zealously
and constantly the young mind of her companion was struggling for enlargement; and
yet now, in her eighteenth year, it still remained but little unfolded. The desire- sober
and repressed- of Elizabeth-Jane's heart was indeed to see, to hear, and to understand.
How could she become a woman of wider knowledge, higher repute- "better," as she
termed it- this was her constant inquiry of her mother. She sought further into things
than other girls in her position ever did, and her mother groaned as she felt she could
not aid in the search.
The sailor was now lost to them; and Susan's staunch, religious adherence to him as her
husband in principle, till her views had been disturbed by enlightenment, was
demanded no more. She asked herself whether the present moment, now that she was a
free woman again, were not as opportune a one as she would find in a world where
everything had been so inopportune, for making a desperate effort to advance
Elizabeth. To pocket her pride and search for the first husband seemed, wisely or not,
the best initiatory step. He had possibly drunk himself into his tomb. But he might, on
the other hand, have had too much sense to do so; for in her time with him he had been
given to bouts only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived, was unquestionable.
The awkwardness of searching for him lay in enlightening Elizabeth, a proceeding
which her mother could not endure to contemplate. She finally resolved to undertake
the search without confiding to the girl her former relations with Henchard, leaving it
to him if they found him to take what steps he might choose to that end. This will
account for their conversation at the fair, and the half-informed state in which Elizabeth
was led onward.
In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting solely to the dim light
afforded of Henchard's whereabouts by the furmity woman. The strictest economy was
indispensable. Sometimes they might have been seen on foot, sometimes on farmers'
waggons, sometimes in carriers' vans; and thus they drew near to Casterbridge.
Elizabeth-Jane discovered to her alarm that her mother's health was not what it once
had been, and there was ever and anon in her talk that renunciatory tone which
showed that, but for the girl, she would not be very sorry to quit a life she was growing
thoroughly weary of. It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September, and just before dusk, that
they reached the summit of a hill within a mile of the place they sought. There were
high-banked hedges to the coach-road here, and they mounted upon the green turf
within, and sat down. The spot commanded a full view of the town and its environs.
"What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!" said Elizabeth-Jane, while her silent
mother mused on other things than topography. "It is huddled all together; and it is
shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden ground by a boxedging. Its
squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most struck the eye in this antiquated
borough, the borough of Casterbridge- at that time, recent as it was, untouched by the
faintest sprinkle of modernism. It was compact as a box of dominoes. It had no
suburbs- in the ordinary sense. Country and town met at a mathematical line.
To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have appeared on this fine
evening as a mosaic-work of subdued reds, browns, greys, and crystals, held together
by a rectangular frame of deep green. To the level eye of humanity it stood as an
indistinct mass behind a dense stockade of limes and chestnuts, set in the midst of
miles of rotund down and concave field. The mass became gradually dissected by the
vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and casements, the highest glazings shining
bleared and bloodshot with the coppery fire they caught from the belt of sunlit cloud in
the west.
From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran avenues east, west, and south
into the wide expanse of corn-land and combe to the distance of a mile or so. It was by
one of these avenues that the pedestrians were about to enter. Before they had risen to
proceed, two men passed outside the hedge, engaged in argumentative conversation.
"Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they receded, "those men mentioned the name of
Henchard in their talk- the name of our relative?" "I thought so too," said Mrs.
Newson.
"That seems a hint to us that he is still here." "Yes." "Shall I run after them, and ask
them about him-" "No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the workhouse,
or in the stocks, for all we know." "Dear me- why should you think that, mother?"
"'Twas just something to say- that's all! But we must make private inquiries." Having
sufficiently rested, they proceeded on their way at evenfall. The dense trees of the
avenue rendered the road dark as a tunnel, though the open land on each side was still
under a faint daylight; in other words, they passed down a midnight between two
gloamings. The features of the town had a keen interest for Elizabeth's mother, now
that the human side came to the fore. As soon as they had wandered about they could
see that the stockade of gnarled trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself an
avenue, standing on a low green bank or escarpment, with a ditch yet visible without.
Within the avenue and bank was a wall more or less discontinuous, and within the wall
were packed the abodes of the burghers.
Though the two women did not know it, these external features were but the ancient
defences of the town, planted as a promenade.
The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a sense of
great snugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same time the unlighted
country without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its nearness to life. The difference between burgh and champaign was increased, too, by sounds which
now reached them above others- the notes of a brass band. The travellers returned into
the High Street, where there were timber houses with overhanging stories, whose
small-paned lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a drawing-string, and under
whose barge-boards old cobwebs waved in the breeze.
There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived their chief support from those
adjoining. There were slate roofs patched with tiles, and tile roofs patched with slate,
with occasionally a roof of thatch.
The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon whom the town depended
for its existence was shown by the class of objects displayed in the shop windows.
Scythes, reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks, spades, mattocks, and hoes at the
ironmonger's; beehives, butter-firkins, churns, milking stools and pails, hay-rakes,
field-flagons, and seed-lips at the cooper's; cart-ropes and plough-harness at the
saddler's; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at the wheelwright's and machinist's;
horse-embrocations at the chemist's; at the glover's and leather-cutter's, hedging-
gloves, thatcher's knee-caps, ploughman's leggings, villager's pattens and clogs.
They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower rose unbroken into the
darkening sky, the lower parts being illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to
show how completely the mortar from the joints of the stone-work had been nibbled
out by time and weather, which had planted in the crevices thus made little tufts of
stone-crop and grass almost as far up as the very battlements.
From this tower the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll with a
peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the
inhabitants as a signal for shutting their shops. No sooner did the deep notes of the bell
throb between the house-fronts than a clatter of shutters arose through the whole length
of the High Street. In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was ended for the day.
Other clocks struck eight from time to time- one gloomily from the gaol, another from
the gable of an almshouse, with a preparative creak of machinery, more audible than
the note of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case-clocks from the interior of a
clockmaker's shop joined in one after another just as the shutters were enclosing them,
like a row of actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of the curtain; then
chimes were heard stammering out the Sicilian Mariners' Hymn; so that chronologists
of the advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next hour before the whole
business of the old one was satisfactorily wound up.
In an open space before the church walked a woman with her gown-sleeves rolled up
so high that the edge of her under-linen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through
her pocket hole. She carried a loaf under her arm from which she was pulling pieces of
bread, and handing them to some other women who walked with her; which pieces
they nibbled critically. The sight reminded Mrs. HenchardNewson and her daughter
that they had an appetite; and they inquired of the woman for the nearest baker's.
"Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in Casterbridge just now," she
said, after directing them. "They can blare their trumpets and thump their drums, and
have their roaring dinners"- waving her hand towards a point further along the street, where the brass band could be seen standing in front of an illuminated building- "but
we must needs be put-to for want of a wholesome crust.
There's less good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now." "And less good beer
than swipes," said a man with his hands in his pockets.
"How does it happen there's no good bread?" asked Mrs. Henchard.
"Oh, 'tis the corn-factor- he's the man that our millers and bakers all deal wi', and he
has sold 'em growed wheat, which they didn't know was growed, so they say, till the
dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and
like suet pudden inside. I've been a wife, and I've been a mother, and I never see such
unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this beforebut you must be a real stranger here
not to know what's made all the poor volks plim like blowed blathers this week?" "I
am," said Elizabeth's mother shyly.
Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her future in this place, she
withdrew with her daughter from the speaker's side. Getting a couple of biscuits at the
shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal, they next bent their steps
instinctively to where the music was playing...
A FEW SCORE yards brought them to the spot where the town band was now shaking
the window-panes with the strains of "The Roast Beef of Old England." The building
before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was the chief hotel in
Casterbridge- namely, the King's Arms. A spacious bow-window projected into the
street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came the babble of voices, the
jingle of glasses, and the drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed,
the whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of some steps opposite,
for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there.
"We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about- our relation, Mr. Henchard,"
whispered Mrs. Newson, who, since her entry into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely
weak and agitated. "And this, I think, would be a good place for trying it- just to ask,
you know, how he stands in the town- if he is here, as I think he must be. You,
Elizabeth-Jane, had better be the one to do it. I'm too worn out to do anything- pull
down your fall first." She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed
her directions and stood among the idlers.
"What's going on tonight?" asked the girl, after singling out an old man, and standing
by him long enough to acquire a neighbourly right of converse.
"Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said the old man, without taking his eyes from the
window. "Why, 'tis a great public dinner of the gentle-people and such like leading
volk- wi' the Mayor in the chair. As we plainer fellows baint invited, they leave the
window-shutters open that we may get jist a sense o't out here. If you mount the steps
you can see 'em. That's Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end of the table, facing ye; and
that's the Council men right and left.... Ah, lots of them when they begun life were no
more than I be now!" "Henchard!" said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means
suspecting the whole force of the revelation. She ascended to the top of the door-steps.
Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught from the innwindow
tones that strangely riveted her attention, before the old man's words: "Mr. Henchard,
the Mayor," reached her ears. She arose, and stepped up to her daughter's side as soon
as she could do so without showing exceptional eagerness.
The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before her, with its tables, and
glass, and plate, and inmates. Facing the window, in the chair of dignity, sat a man
about forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features, and commanding voice; his
general build being rather coarse than compact. He had a rich complexion, which
verged on swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark, bushy brows and hair. When he
indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some remark among the guests, his large
mouth parted so far back as to show to the rays of the chandelier a full score or more of
the two-and-thirty sound white teeth that he obviously still could boast of.
That laugh was not encouraging to strangers; and hence it may have been well that it
was rarely heard. Many theories might have been built upon it. It fell in well with
conjectures of a temperament which would have no pity for weakness, but would be
ready to yield ungrudging admiration to greatness and strength. Its producer's personal goodness, if he had any, would be of a very fitful cast- an occasional almost
oppressive generosity rather than a mild and constant kindness.
Susan Henchard's husband- in law, at least- sat before them, matured in shape,
stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits; disciplined, thought-marked- in a word, older.
Elizabeth, encumbered with no recollections as her mother was, regarded him with
nothing more than the keen curiosity and interest which the discovery of such
unexpected social standing in the long-sought relative naturally begot. He was dressed
in an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt showing on his broad
breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy gold chain. Three glasses stood at his right hand;
but, to his wife's surprise, the two for wine were empty, while the third, a tumbler, was
half full of water.
When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy jacket, fustian waistcoat and
breeches, and tanned leather leggings, with a basin of hot furmity before him. Time, the
magician, had wrought much here. Watching him, and thus thinking of past days, she
became so moved that she shrank back against the jamb of the deep doorway to which
the steps gave access, the shadow from it conveniently hiding her features. She forgot
her daughter, till a touch from ElizabethJane aroused her. "Have you seen him,
mother?" whispered the girl.
"Yes, yes," answered her companion hastily. "I have seen him, and it is enough for me!
Now I only want to go- pass away- die." "Why- oh why?" She drew closer, and
whispered in her mother's ear, "Does he seem to you not likely to befriend us? I
thought he looked a generous man.
What a gentleman he is, isn't he? and how his diamond studs shine! How strange that
you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in the workhouse, or dead! Did ever
anything go more by contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at all; I'll
call upon him- he can but say he don't own such remote kin." "I don't know at all- I
can't tell what to set about. I feel so down." "Don't be that, mother, now we have got
here and all! Rest there where you be a little while- I will look on and find out more
about him." "I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how I thought he
would be- he overpowers me! I don't wish to see him any more." "But wait a little time
and consider." Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything in her life
as in their present position, partly from the natural elation she felt at discovering
herself akin to a coach; and she gazed again at the scene. The younger guests were
talking and eating with animation; their elders were searching for tit-bits, and sniffing
and grunting over their plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed to be
sacred to the company- port, sherry, and rum; outside which old-established trinity few
or no plates ranged.
A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides, and each primed with a
spoon, was now placed down the table, and these were promptly filled with grog at
such high temperatures as to raise serious considerations for the articles exposed to its
vapours. But Elizabeth-Jane noticed that, though this filling went on with great
promptness up and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor's glass, who still drank
large quantities of water from the tumbler behind the clump of crystal vessels intended
for wine and spirits. "They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine-glasses," she ventured to say to her elbow
acquaintance, the old man.
"Oh no; don't ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining worthy of that name? He
scorns all tempting liquors; never touches nothing. Oh yes, he've strong qualities that
way. I have heard tell that he sware a gospel oath in by-gone times, and has bode by it
ever since. So they don't press him, knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of
that; for yer gospel oath is a serious thing." Another elderly man, hearing this
discourse, now joined in by inquiring, "How much longer have he got to suffer from it,
Solomon Longways?" "Another two year, they say. I don't know the why and the
wherefore of his fixing such a time, for 'a never has told anybody. But 'tis exactly two
calendar years longer, they say. A powerful mind to hold out so long!"
"True.... But there's great strength in hope. Knowing that in four-and-twenty months'
time ye'll be out of your bondage, and able to make up for all you've suffered, by
partaking without stint- why, it keeps a man up, no doubt." "No doubt, Christopher
Coney, no doubt. And 'a must need such reflectionsa lonely widow man," said
Longways.
"When did he lose his wife?" asked Elizabeth.
"I never knowed her. 'Twas afore he came to Casterbridge," Solomon Longways
replied, with terminative emphasis, as if the fact of his ignorance of Mrs. Henchard
were sufficient to deprive her history of all interest. "But I know that 'a's a banded
teetotaller, and that if any of his men be ever so little overtook by a drop, he's down
upon 'em as stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews." "Has he many men, then?" said
Elizabeth-Jane.
"Many! Why, my good maid, he's the powerfullest member of the Town Council, and
quite a principal man in the country round besides. Never a big dealing in wheat,
barley, oats, hay, roots, and such-like but Henchard's got a hand in it. Ay, and he'll go
into other things too; and that's where he makes his mistake.
He worked his way up from nothing when 'a came here; and now he's a pillar of the
town. Not but what he's been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn he has
supplied in his contracts. I've seen the sun rise over Durnover Moor these nineand-
sixty year, and though Mr. Henchard has never cussed me unfairly ever since I've
worked for'n, seeing I be but a little small man, I must say that I have never before
tasted such rough bread as has been made from Henchard's wheat lately.
'Tis that growed out that ye could a'most call it malt, and there's a list at bottom o' the
loaf as thick as the sole of one's shoe." The band now struck up another melody, and by
the time it was ended the dinner was over, and speeches began to be made. The
evening being calm, and the windows still open, these orations could be distinctly
heard. Henchard's voice arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his hay-dealing
experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had been bent upon outwitting
him.
"Ha-ha-ha!" responded his audience at the upshot of the story; and hilarity was general
till a new voice arose with, "This is all very well; but how about the bad bread?" It
came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a group of minor tradesmen who,
although part of the company, appeared to be a little below the social level of the others; and who seemed to nourish a certain independence of opinion, and carry on
discussions not quite in harmony with those at the head; just as the west end of a
church is sometimes persistently found to sing out of time and tune with the leading
spirits in the chancel.
This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite satisfaction to the loungers
outside, several of whom were in the mood which finds its pleasure in others'
discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely, "Hey! How about the bad bread, Mr.
Mayor?" Moreover, feeling none of the restraints of those who shared the feast, they
could afford to add, "You rather ought to tell the story o' that, sir." The interruption
was sufficient to compel the Mayor to notice it.
"Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly," he said. "But I was taken in in buying
it as much as the bakers who bought it o' me." "And the poor folk who had to eat it
whether or no," said the inharmonious man outside the window.
Henchard's face darkened. There was temper under the thin bland surface- the temper
which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife nearly a score of years before.
"You must make allowances for the accidents of a large business," he said.
"You must bear in mind that the weather just at the harvest of that corn was worse than
we have known it for years. However, I have mended my arrangements on account o't.
Since I have found my business too large to be well looked after by myself alone, I have
advertised for a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When I've got
him you will find these mistakes will no longer occurmatters will be better looked
into." "But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?" inquired the man who
had before spoken, and who seemed to be a baker or miller. "Will you replace the
grown flour we've still got by sound grain?" Henchard's face had become still more
stern at these interruptions, and he drank from his tumbler of water as if to calm
himself or gain time. Instead of vouchsafing a direct reply, he stiffly observed"If
anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into wholesome wheat, I'll take it back
with pleasure. But it can't be done." Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said
this, he sat down...
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