Many a worthy villager envied him his power over unsophisticated

maidenhood—a power which seemed sometimes to have a touch of the weird

and wizardly in it. Personally he was not ill-favoured, though rather

un-English, his complexion being a rich olive, his rank hair dark and

rather clammy—made still clammier by secret ointments, which, when he

came fresh to a party, caused him to smell like ‘boys’-love’

(southernwood) steeped in lamp-oil. On occasion he wore curls—a double

row—running almost horizontally around his head. But as these were

sometimes noticeably absent, it was concluded that they were not

altogether of Nature’s making. By girls whose love for him had turned

to hatred he had been nicknamed ‘Mop,’ from this abundance of hair,

which was long enough to rest upon his shoulders; as time passed the

name more and more prevailed.

His fiddling possibly had the most to do with the fascination he

exercised, for, to speak fairly, it could claim for itself a most

peculiar and personal quality, like that in a moving preacher. There

were tones in it which bred the immediate conviction that indolence and

averseness to systematic application were all that lay between ‘Mop’

and the career of a second Paganini.

While playing he invariably closed his eyes; using no notes, and, as it

were, allowing the violin to wander on at will into the most plaintive

passages ever heard by rustic man. There was a certain lingual

character in the supplicatory expressions he produced, which would well

nigh have drawn an ache from the heart of a gate-post. He could make

any child in the parish, who was at all sensitive to music, burst into

tears in a few minutes by simply fiddling one of the old dance-tunes he

almost entirely affected—country jigs, reels, and ‘Favourite Quick

Steps’ of the last century—some mutilated remains of which even now

reappear as nameless phantoms in new quadrilles and gallops, where they

are recognized only by the curious, or by such old-fashioned and

far-between people as have been thrown with men like Wat Ollamoor in

their early life.

His date was a little later than that of the old Mellstock quire-band

which comprised the Dewys, Mail, and the rest—in fact, he did not rise

above the horizon thereabout till those well-known musicians were

disbanded as ecclesiastical functionaries. In their honest love of

thoroughness they despised the new man’s style. Theophilus Dewy (Reuben

the tranter’s younger brother) used to say there was no ‘plumness’ in

it—no bowing, no solidity—it was all fantastical. And probably this was

true. Anyhow, Mop had, very obviously, never bowed a note of

church-music from his birth; he never once sat in the gallery of

Mellstock church where the others had tuned their venerable psalmody so

many hundreds of times; had never, in all likelihood, entered a church

at all. All were devil’s tunes in his repertory. ‘He could no more play

the Wold Hundredth to his true time than he could play the brazen

serpent,’ the tranter would say. (The brazen serpent was supposed in

Mellstock to be a musical instrument particularly hard to blow.)

Occasionally Mop could produce the aforesaid moving effect upon the

souls of grown-up persons, especially young women of fragile and

responsive organization. Such an one was Car’line Aspent. Though she

was already engaged to be married before she met him, Car’line, of them

all, was the most influenced by Mop Ollamoor’s heart-stealing melodies,

to her discomfort, nay, positive pain and ultimate injury. She was a

pretty, invocating, weak-mouthed girl, whose chief defect as a

companion with her sex was a tendency to peevishness now and then. At

this time she was not a resident in Mellstock parish where Mop lodged,

but lived some miles off at Stickleford, farther down the river.

How and where she first made acquaintance with him and his fiddling is

not truly known, but the story was that it either began or was

developed on one spring evening, when, in passing through Lower

Mellstock, she chanced to pause on the bridge near his house to rest

herself, and languidly leaned over the parapet. Mop was standing on his

door-step, as was his custom, spinning the insidious thread of semi-

and demi-semi-quavers from the E string of his fiddle for the benefit

of passers-by, and laughing as the tears rolled down the cheeks of the

little children hanging around him. Car’line pretended to be engrossed

with the rippling of the stream under the arches, but in reality she

was listening, as he knew. Presently the aching of the heart seized her

simultaneously with a wild desire to glide airily in the mazes of an

infinite dance. To shake off the fascination she resolved to go on,

although it would be necessary to pass him as he played. On stealthily

glancing ahead at the performer, she found to her relief that his eyes

were closed in abandonment to instrumentation, and she strode on

boldly. But when closer her step grew timid, her tread convulsed itself

more and more accordantly with the time of the melody, till she very

nearly danced along. Gaining another glance at him when immediately

opposite, she saw that _one_ of his eyes was open, quizzing her as he

smiled at her emotional state. Her gait could not divest itself of its

compelled capers till she had gone a long way past the house; and

Car’line was unable to shake off the strange infatuation for hours.

After that day, whenever there was to be in the neighbourhood a dance

to which she could get an invitation, and where Mop Ollamoor was to be

the musician, Car’line contrived to be present, though it sometimes

involved a walk of several miles; for he did not play so often in

Stickleford as elsewhere.

The next evidences of his influence over her were singular enough, and

it would require a neurologist to fully explain them. She would be

sitting quietly, any evening after dark, in the house of her father,

the parish clerk, which stood in the middle of Stickleford village

street, this being the highroad between Lower Mellstock and Moreford,

five miles eastward. Here, without a moment’s warning, and in the midst

of a general conversation between her father, sister, and the young man

before alluded to, who devotedly wooed her in ignorance of her

infatuation, she would start from her seat in the chimney-corner as if

she had received a galvanic shock, and spring convulsively towards the

ceiling; then she would burst into tears, and it was not till some

half-hour had passed that she grew calm as usual. Her father, knowing

her hysterical tendencies, was always excessively anxious about this

trait in his youngest girl, and feared the attack to be a species of

epileptic fit. Not so her sister Julia. Julia had found out what was

the cause. At the moment before the jumping, only an exceptionally

sensitive ear situated in the chimney-nook could have caught from down

the flue the beat of a man’s footstep along the highway without. But it

was in that footfall, for which she had been waiting, that the origin

of Car’line’s involuntary springing lay. The pedestrian was Mop

Ollamoor, as the girl well knew; but his business that way was not to

visit her; he sought another woman whom he spoke of as his Intended,

and who lived at Moreford, two miles farther on. On one, and only one,

occasion did it happen that Car’line could not control her utterance;

it was when her sister alone chanced to be present. ‘Oh—oh—oh—!’ she

cried. ‘He’s going to _her_, and not coming to _me_!’

To do the fiddler justice he had not at first thought greatly of, or

spoken much to, this girl of impressionable mould. But he had soon

found out her secret, and could not resist a little by-play with her

too easily hurt heart, as an interlude between his more serious

performances at Moreford. The two became well acquainted, though only

by stealth, hardly a soul in Stickleford except her sister, and her

lover Ned Hipcroft, being aware of the attachment. Her father

disapproved of her coldness to Ned; her sister, too, hoped she might

get over this nervous passion for a man of whom so little was known.

The ultimate result was that Car’line’s manly and simple wooer Edward

found his suit becoming practically hopeless. He was a respectable

mechanic, in a far sounder position than Mop the nominal horse-doctor;

but when, before leaving her, Ned put his flat and final question,

would she marry him, then and there, now or never, it was with little

expectation of obtaining more than the negative she gave him. Though

her father supported him and her sister supported him, he could not

play the fiddle so as to draw your soul out of your body like a

spider’s thread, as Mop did, till you felt as limp as withy-wind and

yearned for something to cling to. Indeed, Hipcroft had not the

slightest ear for music; could not sing two notes in tune, much less

play them.

The No he had expected and got from her, in spite of a preliminary

encouragement, gave Ned a new start in life. It had been uttered in

such a tone of sad entreaty that he resolved to persecute her no more;

she should not even be distressed by a sight of his form in the distant

perspective of the street and lane. He left the place, and his natural

course was to London.

The railway to South Wessex was in process of construction, but it was

not as yet opened for traffic; and Hipcroft reached the capital by a

six days’ trudge on foot, as many a better man had done before him. He

was one of the last of the artisan class who used that now extinct

method of travel to the great centres of labour, so customary then from

time immemorial.

In London he lived and worked regularly at his trade. More fortunate

than many, his disinterested willingness recommended him from the

first. During the ensuing four years he was never out of employment. He

neither advanced nor receded in the modern sense; he improved as a

workman, but he did not shift one jot in social position. About his

love for Car’line he maintained a rigid silence. No doubt he often

thought of her; but being always occupied, and having no relations at

Stickleford, he held no communication with that part of the country,

and showed no desire to return. In his quiet lodging in Lambeth he

moved about after working-hours with the facility of a woman, doing his

own cooking, attending to his stocking-heels, and shaping himself by

degrees to a life-long bachelorhood. For this conduct one is bound to

advance the canonical reason that time could not efface from his heart

the image of little Car’line Aspent—and it may be in part true; but

there was also the inference that his was a nature not greatly

dependent upon the ministrations of the other sex for its comforts.

The fourth year of his residence as a mechanic in London was the year

of the Hyde-Park Exhibition already mentioned, and at the construction

of this huge glass-house, then unexampled in the world’s history, he

worked daily. It was an era of great hope and activity among the

nations and industries. Though Hipcroft was, in his small way, a

central man in the movement, he plodded on with his usual outward

placidity. Yet for him, too, the year was destined to have its

surprises, for when the bustle of getting the building ready for the

opening day was past, the ceremonies had been witnessed, and people

were flocking thither from all parts of the globe, he received a letter

from Car’line. Till that day the silence of four years between himself

and Stickleford had never been broken.

She informed her old lover, in an uncertain penmanship which suggested

a trembling hand, of the trouble she had been put to in ascertaining

his address, and then broached the subject which had prompted her to

write. Four years ago, she said with the greatest delicacy of which she

was capable, she had been so foolish as to refuse him. Her wilful

wrong-headedness had since been a grief to her many times, and of late

particularly. As for Mr. Ollamoor, he had been absent almost as long as

Ned—she did not know where. She would gladly marry Ned now if he were

to ask her again, and be a tender little wife to him till her life’s

end.

A tide of warm feeling must have surged through Ned Hipcroft’s frame on

receipt of this news, if we may judge by the issue. Unquestionably he

loved her still, even if not to the exclusion of every other happiness.

This from his Car’line, she who had been dead to him these many years,

alive to him again as of old, was in itself a pleasant, gratifying

thing. Ned had grown so resigned to, or satisfied with, his lonely lot,

that he probably would not have shown much jubilation at anything.

Still, a certain ardour of preoccupation, after his first surprise,

revealed how deeply her confession of faith in him had stirred him.

Measured and methodical in his ways, he did not answer the letter that

day, nor the next, nor the next. He was having ‘a good think.’ When he

did answer it, there was a great deal of sound reasoning mixed in with

the unmistakable tenderness of his reply; but the tenderness itself was

sufficient to reveal that he was pleased with her straightforward

frankness; that the anchorage she had once obtained in his heart was

renewable, if it had not been continuously firm.

He told her—and as he wrote his lips twitched humorously over the few

gentle words of raillery he indited among the rest of his

sentences—that it was all very well for her to come round at this time

of day. Why wouldn’t she have him when he wanted her? She had no doubt

learned that he was not married, but suppose his affections had since

been fixed on another? She ought to beg his pardon. Still, he was not

the man to forget her. But considering how he had been used, and what

he had suffered, she could not quite expect him to go down to

Stickleford and fetch her. But if she would come to him, and say she

was sorry, as was only fair; why, yes, he would marry her, knowing what

a good little woman she was at the core. He added that the request for

her to come to him was a less one to make than it would have been when

he first left Stickleford, or even a few months ago; for the new

railway into South Wessex was now open, and there had just begun to be

run wonderfully contrived special trains, called excursion-trains, on

account of the Great Exhibition; so that she could come up easily

alone.

She said in her reply how good it was of him to treat her so

generously, after her hot and cold treatment of him; that though she

felt frightened at the magnitude of the journey, and was never as yet

in a railway-train, having only seen one pass at a distance, she

embraced his offer with all her heart; and would, indeed, own to him

how sorry she was, and beg his pardon, and try to be a good wife

always, and make up for lost time.

The remaining details of when and where were soon settled, Car’line

informing him, for her ready identification in the crowd, that she

would be wearing ‘my new sprigged-laylock cotton gown,’ and Ned gaily

responding that, having married her the morning after her arrival, he

would make a day of it by taking her to the Exhibition. One early

summer afternoon, accordingly, he came from his place of work, and

hastened towards Waterloo Station to meet her. It was as wet and chilly

as an English June day can occasionally be, but as he waited on the

platform in the drizzle he glowed inwardly, and seemed to have

something to live for again.

The ‘excursion-train’—an absolutely new departure in the history of

travel—was still a novelty on the Wessex line, and probably everywhere.

Crowds of people had flocked to all the stations on the way up to

witness the unwonted sight of so long a train’s passage, even where

they did not take advantage of the opportunity it offered. The seats

for the humbler class of travellers in these early experiments in

steam-locomotion, were open trucks, without any protection whatever

from the wind and rain; and damp weather having set in with the

afternoon, the unfortunate occupants of these vehicles were, on the

train drawing up at the London terminus, found to be in a pitiable

condition from their long journey; blue-faced, stiff-necked, sneezing,

rain-beaten, chilled to the marrow, many of the men being hatless; in

fact, they resembled people who had been out all night in an open boat

on a rough sea, rather than inland excursionists for pleasure. The

women had in some degree protected themselves by turning up the skirts

of their gowns over their heads, but as by this arrangement they were

additionally exposed about the hips, they were all more or less in a

sorry plight.

In the bustle and crush of alighting forms of both sexes which followed

the entry of the huge concatenation into the station, Ned Hipcroft soon

discerned the slim little figure his eye was in search of, in the

sprigged lilac, as described. She came up to him with a frightened

smile—still pretty, though so damp, weather-beaten, and shivering from

long exposure to the wind.

‘O Ned!’ she sputtered, ‘I—I—’ He clasped her in his arms and kissed

her, whereupon she burst into a flood of tears.

‘You are wet, my poor dear! I hope you’ll not get cold,’ he said. And

surveying her and her multifarious surrounding packages, he noticed

that by the hand she led a toddling child—a little girl of three or

so—whose hood was as clammy and tender face as blue as those of the

other travellers.

‘Who is this—somebody you know?’ asked Ned curiously.

‘Yes, Ned. She’s mine.’

‘Yours?’

‘Yes—my own!’

‘Your own child?’

‘Yes!’

‘Well—as God’s in—’

‘Ned, I didn’t name it in my letter, because, you see, it would have

been so hard to explain! I thought that when we met I could tell you

how she happened to be born, so much better than in writing! I hope

you’ll excuse it this once, dear Ned, and not scold me, now I’ve come

so many, many miles!’

‘This means Mr. Mop Ollamoor, I reckon!’ said Hipcroft, gazing palely

at them from the distance of the yard or two to which he had withdrawn

with a start.

Car’line gasped. ‘But he’s been gone away for years!’ she supplicated.

‘And I never had a young man before! And I was so onlucky to be catched

the first time, though some of the girls down there go on like

anything!’

Ned remained in silence, pondering.

‘You’ll forgive me, dear Ned?’ she added, beginning to sob outright. ‘I

haven’t taken ’ee in after all, because—because you can pack us back

again, if you want to; though ’tis hundreds o’ miles, and so wet, and

night a-coming on, and I with no money!’

‘What the devil can I do!’ Hipcroft groaned.

A more pitiable picture than the pair of helpless creatures presented

was never seen on a rainy day, as they stood on the great, gaunt,

puddled platform, a whiff of drizzle blowing under the roof upon them

now and then; the pretty attire in which they had started from

Stickleford in the early morning bemuddled and sodden, weariness on

their faces, and fear of him in their eyes; for the child began to look

as if she thought she too had done some wrong, remaining in an appalled

silence till the tears rolled down her chubby cheeks.

‘What’s the matter, my little maid?’ said Ned mechanically.

‘I do want to go home!’ she let out, in tones that told of a bursting

heart. ‘And my totties be cold, an’ I shan’t have no bread an’ butter

no more!’

‘I don’t know what to say to it all!’ declared Ned, his own eye moist

as he turned and walked a few steps with his head down; then regarded

them again point blank. From the child escaped troubled breaths and

silently welling tears.

‘Want some bread and butter, do ’ee?’ he said, with factitious

hardness.

‘Ye-e-s!’

‘Well, I daresay I can get ’ee a bit! Naturally, you must want some.

And you, too, for that matter, Car’line.’

‘I do feel a little hungered. But I can keep it off,’ she murmured.

‘Folk shouldn’t do that,’ he said gruffly. . . . ‘There come along!’ he

caught up the child, as he added, ‘You must bide here to-night, anyhow,

I s’pose! What can you do otherwise? I’ll get ’ee some tea and

victuals; and as for this job, I’m sure I don’t know what to say! This

is the way out.’

They pursued their way, without speaking, to Ned’s lodgings, which were

not far off. There he dried them and made them comfortable, and

prepared tea; they thankfully sat down. The ready-made household of

which he suddenly found himself the head imparted a cosy aspect to his

room, and a paternal one to himself. Presently he turned to the child

and kissed her now blooming cheeks; and, looking wistfully at Car’line,

kissed her also.

‘I don’t see how I can send ’ee back all them miles,’ he growled, ‘now

you’ve come all the way o’ purpose to join me. But you must trust me,

Car’line, and show you’ve real faith in me. Well, do you feel better

now, my little woman?’

The child nodded, her mouth being otherwise occupied.

‘I did trust you, Ned, in coming; and I shall always!’

Thus, without any definite agreement to forgive her, he tacitly

acquiesced in the fate that Heaven had sent him; and on the day of

their marriage (which was not quite so soon as he had expected it could

be, on account of the time necessary for banns) he took her to the

Exhibition when they came back from church, as he had promised. While

standing near a large mirror in one of the courts devoted to furniture,

Car’line started, for in the glass appeared the reflection of a form

exactly resembling Mop Ollamoor’s—so exactly, that it seemed impossible

to believe anybody but that artist in person to be the original. On

passing round the objects which hemmed in Ned, her, and the child from

a direct view, no Mop was to be seen. Whether he were really in London

or not at that time was never known; and Car’line always stoutly denied

that her readiness to go and meet Ned in town arose from any rumour

that Mop had also gone thither; which denial there was no reasonable

ground for doubting.

And then the year glided away, and the Exhibition folded itself up and

became a thing of the past. The park trees that had been enclosed for

six months were again exposed to the winds and storms, and the sod grew

green anew. Ned found that Car’line resolved herself into a very good

wife and companion, though she had made herself what is called cheap to

him; but in that she was like another domestic article, a cheap

tea-pot, which often brews better tea than a dear one. One autumn

Hipcroft found himself with but little work to do, and a prospect of

less for the winter. Both being country born and bred, they fancied

they would like to live again in their natural atmosphere. It was

accordingly decided between them that they should leave the pent-up

London lodging, and that Ned should seek out employment near his native

place, his wife and her daughter staying with Car’line’s father during

the search for occupation and an abode of their own.

Tinglings of pleasure pervaded Car’line’s spasmodic little frame as she

journeyed down with Ned to the place she had left two or three years

before, in silence and under a cloud. To return to where she had once

been despised, a smiling London wife with a distinct London accent, was

a triumph which the world did not witness every day.

The train did not stop at the petty roadside station that lay nearest

to Stickleford, and the trio went on to Casterbridge. Ned thought it a

good opportunity to make a few preliminary inquiries for employment at

workshops in the borough where he had been known; and feeling cold from

her journey, and it being dry underfoot and only dusk as yet, with a

moon on the point of rising, Car’line and her little girl walked on

toward Stickleford, leaving Ned to follow at a quicker pace, and pick

her up at a certain half-way house, widely known as an inn.

The woman and child pursued the well-remembered way comfortably enough,

though they were both becoming wearied. In the course of three miles

they had passed Heedless-William’s Pond, the familiar landmark by

Bloom’s End, and were drawing near the Quiet Woman Inn, a lone roadside

hostel on the lower verge of the Egdon Heath, since and for many years

abolished. In stepping up towards it Car’line heard more voices within

than had formerly been customary at such an hour, and she learned that

an auction of fat stock had been held near the spot that afternoon. The

child would be the better for a rest as well as herself, she thought,

and she entered.

The guests and customers overflowed into the passage, and Car’line had

no sooner crossed the threshold than a man whom she remembered by sight

came forward with glass and mug in his hands towards a friend leaning

against the wall; but, seeing her, very gallantly offered her a drink

of the liquor, which was gin-and-beer hot, pouring her out a tumblerful

and saying, in a moment or two: ‘Surely, ’tis little Car’line Aspent

that was—down at Stickleford?’

She assented, and, though she did not exactly want this beverage, she

drank it since it was offered, and her entertainer begged her to come

in farther and sit down. Once within the room she found that all the

persons present were seated close against the walls, and there being a

chair vacant she did the same. An explanation of their position

occurred the next moment. In the opposite corner stood Mop, rosining

his bow and looking just the same as ever. The company had cleared the

middle of the room for dancing, and they were about to dance again. As

she wore a veil to keep off the wind she did not think he had

recognized her, or could possibly guess the identity of the child; and

to her satisfied surprise she found that she could confront him quite

calmly—mistress of herself in the dignity her London life had given

her. Before she had quite emptied her glass the dance was called, the

dancers formed in two lines, the music sounded, and the figure began.

Then matters changed for Car’line. A tremor quickened itself to life in

her, and her hand so shook that she could hardly set down her glass. It

was not the dance nor the dancers, but the notes of that old violin

which thrilled the London wife, these having still all the witchery

that she had so well known of yore, and under which she had used to

lose her power of independent will. How it all came back! There was the

fiddling figure against the wall; the large, oily, mop-like head of

him, and beneath the mop the face with closed eyes.

After the first moments of paralyzed reverie the familiar tune in the

familiar rendering made her laugh and shed tears simultaneously. Then a

man at the bottom of the dance, whose partner had dropped away,

stretched out his hand and beckoned to her to take the place. She did

not want to dance; she entreated by signs to be left where she was, but

she was entreating of the tune and its player rather than of the

dancing man. The saltatory tendency which the fiddler and his cunning

instrument had ever been able to start in her was seizing Car’line just

as it had done in earlier years, possibly assisted by the gin-and-beer

hot. Tired as she was she grasped her little girl by the hand, and

plunging in at the bottom of the figure, whirled about with the rest.

She found that her companions were mostly people of the neighbouring

hamlets and farms—Bloom’s End, Mellstock, Lewgate, and elsewhere; and

by degrees she was recognized as she convulsively danced on, wishing

that Mop would cease and let her heart rest from the aching he caused,

and her feet also.

After long and many minutes the dance ended, when she was urged to

fortify herself with more gin-and-beer; which she did, feeling very

weak and overpowered with hysteric emotion. She refrained from

unveiling, to keep Mop in ignorance of her presence, if possible.

Several of the guests having left, Car’line hastily wiped her lips and

also turned to go; but, according to the account of some who remained,

at that very moment a five-handed reel was proposed, in which two or

three begged her to join.

She declined on the plea of being tired and having to walk to

Stickleford, when Mop began aggressively tweedling ‘My Fancy-Lad,’ in D

major, as the air to which the reel was to be footed. He must have

recognized her, though she did not know it, for it was the strain of

all seductive strains which she was least able to resist—the one he had

played when she was leaning over the bridge at the date of their first

acquaintance. Car’line stepped despairingly into the middle of the room

with the other four.

Reels were resorted to hereabouts at this time by the more robust

spirits, for the reduction of superfluous energy which the ordinary

figure-dances were not powerful enough to exhaust. As everybody knows,

or does not know, the five reelers stood in the form of a cross, the

reel being performed by each line of three alternately, the persons who

successively came to the middle place dancing in both directions.

Car’line soon found herself in this place, the axis of the whole

performance, and could not get out of it, the tune turning into the

first part without giving her opportunity. And now she began to suspect

that Mop did know her, and was doing this on purpose, though whenever

she stole a glance at him his closed eyes betokened obliviousness to

everything outside his own brain. She continued to wend her way through

the figure of 8 that was formed by her course, the fiddler introducing

into his notes the wild and agonizing sweetness of a living voice in

one too highly wrought; its pathos running high and running low in

endless variation, projecting through her nerves excruciating spasms, a

sort of blissful torture. The room swam, the tune was endless; and in

about a quarter of an hour the only other woman in the figure dropped

out exhausted, and sank panting on a bench.

The reel instantly resolved itself into a four-handed one. Car’line

would have given anything to leave off; but she had, or fancied she

had, no power, while Mop played such tunes; and thus another ten

minutes slipped by, a haze of dust now clouding the candles, the floor

being of stone, sanded. Then another dancer fell out—one of the men—and

went into the passage, in a frantic search for liquor. To turn the

figure into a three-handed reel was the work of a second, Mop

modulating at the same time into ‘The Fairy Dance,’ as better suited to

the contracted movement, and no less one of those foods of love which,

as manufactured by his bow, had always intoxicated her.

In a reel for three there was no rest whatever, and four or five

minutes were enough to make her remaining two partners, now thoroughly

blown, stamp their last bar and, like their predecessors, limp off into

the next room to get something to drink. Car’line, half-stifled inside

her veil, was left dancing alone, the apartment now being empty of

everybody save herself, Mop, and their little girl.

She flung up the veil, and cast her eyes upon him, as if imploring him

to withdraw himself and his acoustic magnetism from the atmosphere. Mop

opened one of his own orbs, as though for the first time, fixed it

peeringly upon her, and smiling dreamily, threw into his strains the

reserve of expression which he could not afford to waste on a big and

noisy dance. Crowds of little chromatic subtleties, capable of drawing

tears from a statue, proceeded straightway from the ancient fiddle, as

if it were dying of the emotion which had been pent up within it ever

since its banishment from some Italian city where it first took shape

and sound. There was that in the look of Mop’s one dark eye which said:

‘You cannot leave off, dear, whether you would or no!’ and it bred in

her a paroxysm of desperation that defied him to tire her down.

She thus continued to dance alone, defiantly as she thought, but in

truth slavishly and abjectly, subject to every wave of the melody, and

probed by the gimlet-like gaze of her fascinator’s open eye; keeping up

at the same time a feeble smile in his face, as a feint to signify it

was still her own pleasure which led her on. A terrified embarrassment

as to what she could say to him if she were to leave off, had its

unrecognized share in keeping her going. The child, who was beginning

to be distressed by the strange situation, came up and said: ‘Stop,

mother, stop, and let’s go home!’ as she seized Car’line’s hand.

Suddenly Car’line sank staggering to the floor; and rolling over on her

face, prone she remained. Mop’s fiddle thereupon emitted an elfin

shriek of finality; stepping quickly down from the nine-gallon

beer-cask which had formed his rostrum, he went to the little girl, who

disconsolately bent over her mother.

The guests who had gone into the back-room for liquor and change of

air, hearing something unusual, trooped back hitherward, where they

endeavoured to revive poor, weak Car’line by blowing her with the

bellows and opening the window. Ned, her husband, who had been detained

in Casterbridge, as aforesaid, came along the road at this juncture,

and hearing excited voices through the open casement, and to his great

surprise, the mention of his wife’s name, he entered amid the rest upon

the scene. Car’line was now in convulsions, weeping violently, and for

a long time nothing could be done with her. While he was sending for a

cart to take her onward to Stickleford Hipcroft anxiously inquired how

it had all happened; and then the assembly explained that a fiddler

formerly known in the locality had lately revisited his old haunts, and

had taken upon himself without invitation to play that evening at the

inn.

Ned demanded the fiddler’s name, and they said Ollamoor.

‘Ah!’ exclaimed Ned, looking round him. ‘Where is he, and where—where’s

my little girl?’

Ollamoor had disappeared, and so had the child. Hipcroft was in

ordinary a quiet and tractable fellow, but a determination which was to

be feared settled in his face now. ‘Blast him!’ he cried. ‘I’ll beat

his skull in for’n, if I swing for it to-morrow!’

He had rushed to the poker which lay on the hearth, and hastened down

the passage, the people following. Outside the house, on the other side

of the highway, a mass of dark heath-land rose sullenly upward to its

not easily accessible interior, a ravined plateau, whereon jutted into

the sky, at the distance of a couple of miles, the fir-woods of

Mistover backed by the Yalbury coppices—a place of Dantesque gloom at

this hour, which would have afforded secure hiding for a battery of

artillery, much less a man and a child.

Some other men plunged thitherward with him, and more went along the

road. They were gone about twenty minutes altogether, returning without

result to the inn. Ned sat down in the settle, and clasped his forehead

with his hands.

‘Well—what a fool the man is, and hev been all these years, if he

thinks the child his, as a’ do seem to!’ they whispered. ‘And everybody

else knowing otherwise!’

‘No, I don’t think ’tis mine!’ cried Ned hoarsely, as he looked up from

his hands. ‘But she is mine, all the same! Ha’n’t I nussed her? Ha’n’t

I fed her and teached her? Ha’n’t I played wi’ her? O, little

Carry—gone with that rogue—gone!’

‘You ha’n’t lost your mis’ess, anyhow,’ they said to console him.

‘She’s throwed up the sperrits, and she is feeling better, and she’s

more to ’ee than a child that isn’t yours.’

‘She isn’t! She’s not so particular much to me, especially now she’s

lost the little maid! But Carry’s everything!’

‘Well, ver’ like you’ll find her to-morrow.’

‘Ah—but shall I? Yet he _can’t_ hurt her—surely he can’t! Well—how’s

Car’line now? I am ready. Is the cart here?’

She was lifted into the vehicle, and they sadly lumbered on toward

Stickleford. Next day she was calmer; but the fits were still upon her;

and her will seemed shattered. For the child she appeared to show

singularly little anxiety, though Ned was nearly distracted. It was

nevertheless quite expected that the impish Mop would restore the lost

one after a freak of a day or two; but time went on, and neither he nor

she could be heard of, and Hipcroft murmured that perhaps he was

exercising upon her some unholy musical charm, as he had done upon

Car’line herself. Weeks passed, and still they could obtain no clue

either to the fiddler’s whereabouts or the girl’s; and how he could

have induced her to go with him remained a mystery.

Then Ned, who had obtained only temporary employment in the

neighbourhood, took a sudden hatred toward his native district, and a

rumour reaching his ears through the police that a somewhat similar man

and child had been seen at a fair near London, he playing a violin, she

dancing on stilts, a new interest in the capital took possession of

Hipcroft with an intensity which would scarcely allow him time to pack

before returning thither.

He did not, however, find the lost one, though he made it the entire

business of his over-hours to stand about in by-streets in the hope of

discovering her, and would start up in the night, saying, ‘That

rascal’s torturing her to maintain him!’ To which his wife would answer

peevishly, ‘Don’t ’ee raft yourself so, Ned! You prevent my getting a

bit o’ rest! He won’t hurt her!’ and fall asleep again.

That Carry and her father had emigrated to America was the general

opinion; Mop, no doubt, finding the girl a highly desirable companion

when he had trained her to keep him by her earnings as a dancer. There,

for that matter, they may be performing in some capacity now, though he

must be an old scamp verging on threescore-and-ten, and she a woman of

four-and-forty.

May 1893,

A TRADITION OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR

The widely discussed possibility of an invasion of England through a

Channel tunnel has more than once recalled old Solomon Selby’s story to

my mind.

The occasion on which I numbered myself among his audience was one

evening when he was sitting in the yawning chimney-corner of the

inn-kitchen, with some others who had gathered there, and I entered for

shelter from the rain. Withdrawing the stem of his pipe from the dental

notch in which it habitually rested, he leaned back in the recess

behind him and smiled into the fire. The smile was neither mirthful nor

sad, not precisely humorous nor altogether thoughtful. We who knew him

recognized it in a moment: it was his narrative smile. Breaking off our

few desultory remarks we drew up closer, and he thus began:—

‘My father, as you mid know, was a shepherd all his life, and lived out

by the Cove four miles yonder, where I was born and lived likewise,

till I moved here shortly afore I was married. The cottage that first

knew me stood on the top of the down, near the sea; there was no house

within a mile and a half of it; it was built o’ purpose for the

farm-shepherd, and had no other use. They tell me that it is now pulled

down, but that you can see where it stood by the mounds of earth and a

few broken bricks that are still lying about. It was a bleak and dreary

place in winter-time, but in summer it was well enough, though the

garden never came to much, because we could not get up a good shelter

for the vegetables and currant bushes; and where there is much wind

they don’t thrive.

‘Of all the years of my growing up the ones that bide clearest in my

mind were eighteen hundred and three, four, and five. This was for two

reasons: I had just then grown to an age when a child’s eyes and ears

take in and note down everything about him, and there was more at that

date to bear in mind than there ever has been since with me. It was, as

I need hardly tell ye, the time after the first peace, when Bonaparte

was scheming his descent upon England. He had crossed the great Alp

mountains, fought in Egypt, drubbed the Turks, the Austrians, and the

Proossians, and now thought he’d have a slap at us. On the other side

of the Channel, scarce out of sight and hail of a man standing on our

English shore, the French army of a hundred and sixty thousand men and

fifteen thousand horses had been brought together from all parts, and

were drilling every day. Bonaparte had been three years a-making his

preparations; and to ferry these soldiers and cannon and horses across

he had contrived a couple of thousand flat-bottomed boats. These boats

were small things, but wonderfully built. A good few of ’em were so

made as to have a little stable on board each for the two horses that

were to haul the cannon carried at the stern. To get in order all

these, and other things required, he had assembled there five or six

thousand fellows that worked at trades—carpenters, blacksmiths,

wheelwrights, saddlers, and what not. O ’twas a curious time!

‘Every morning Neighbour Boney would muster his multitude of soldiers

on the beach, draw ’em up in line, practise ’em in the manoeuvre of

embarking, horses and all, till they could do it without a single

hitch. My father drove a flock of ewes up into Sussex that year, and as

he went along the drover’s track over the high downs thereabout he

could see this drilling actually going on—the accoutrements of the rank

and file glittering in the sun like silver. It was thought and always

said by my uncle Job, sergeant of foot (who used to know all about

these matters), that Bonaparte meant to cross with oars on a calm

night. The grand query with us was, Where would my gentleman land? Many

of the common people thought it would be at Dover; others, who knew how

unlikely it was that any skilful general would make a business of

landing just where he was expected, said he’d go either east into the

River Thames, or west’ard to some convenient place, most likely one of

the little bays inside the Isle of Portland, between the Beal and St.

Alban’s Head—and for choice the three-quarter-round Cove, screened from

every mortal eye, that seemed made o’ purpose, out by where we lived,

and which I’ve climmed up with two tubs of brandy across my shoulders

on scores o’ dark nights in my younger days. Some had heard that a part

o’ the French fleet would sail right round Scotland, and come up the

Channel to a suitable haven. However, there was much doubt upon the

matter; and no wonder, for after-years proved that Bonaparte himself

could hardly make up his mind upon that great and very particular

point, where to land. His uncertainty came about in this wise, that he

could get no news as to where and how our troops lay in waiting, and

that his knowledge of possible places where flat-bottomed boats might

be quietly run ashore, and the men they brought marshalled in order,

was dim to the last degree. Being flat-bottomed, they didn’t require a

harbour for unshipping their cargo of men, but a good shelving beach

away from sight, and with a fair open road toward London. How the

question posed that great Corsican tyrant (as we used to call him),

what pains he took to settle it, and, above all, what a risk he ran on

one particular night in trying to do so, were known only to one man

here and there; and certainly to no maker of newspapers or printer of

books, or my account o’t would not have had so many heads shaken over

it as it has by gentry who only believe what they see in printed lines.

‘The flocks my father had charge of fed all about the downs near our

house, overlooking the sea and shore each way for miles. In winter and

early spring father was up a deal at nights, watching and tending the

lambing. Often he’d go to bed early, and turn out at twelve or one; and

on the other hand, he’d sometimes stay up till twelve or one, and then

turn in to bed. As soon as I was old enough I used to help him, mostly

in the way of keeping an eye upon the ewes while he was gone home to

rest. This is what I was doing in a particular month in either the year

four or five—I can’t certainly fix which, but it was long before I was

took away from the sheepkeeping to be bound prentice to a trade. Every

night at that time I was at the fold, about half a mile, or it may be a

little more, from our cottage, and no living thing at all with me but

the ewes and young lambs. Afeard? No; I was never afeard of being alone

at these times; for I had been reared in such an out-step place that

the lack o’ human beings at night made me less fearful than the sight

of ’em. Directly I saw a man’s shape after dark in a lonely place I was

frightened out of my senses.

‘One day in that month we were surprised by a visit from my uncle Job,

the sergeant in the Sixty-first foot, then in camp on the downs above

King George’s watering-place, several miles to the west yonder. Uncle

Job dropped in about dusk, and went up with my father to the fold for

an hour or two. Then he came home, had a drop to drink from the tub of

sperrits that the smugglers kept us in for housing their liquor when

they’d made a run, and for burning ’em off when there was danger. After

that he stretched himself out on the settle to sleep. I went to bed: at

one o’clock father came home, and waking me to go and take his place,

according to custom, went to bed himself. On my way out of the house I

passed Uncle Job on the settle. He opened his eyes, and upon my telling

him where I was going he said it was a shame that such a youngster as I

should go up there all alone; and when he had fastened up his stock and

waist-belt he set off along with me, taking a drop from the sperrit-tub

in a little flat bottle that stood in the corner-cupboard.

‘By and by we drew up to the fold, saw that all was right, and then, to

keep ourselves warm, curled up in a heap of straw that lay inside the

thatched hurdles we had set up to break the stroke of the wind when

there was any. To-night, however, there was none. It was one of those

very still nights when, if you stand on the high hills anywhere within

two or three miles of the sea, you can hear the rise and fall of the

tide along the shore, coming and going every few moments like a sort of

great snore of the sleeping world. Over the lower ground there was a

bit of a mist, but on the hill where we lay the air was clear, and the

moon, then in her last quarter, flung a fairly good light on the grass

and scattered straw.

‘While we lay there Uncle Job amused me by telling me strange stories

of the wars he had served in and the wounds he had got. He had already

fought the French in the Low Countries, and hoped to fight ’em again.

His stories lasted so long that at last I was hardly sure that I was

not a soldier myself, and had seen such service as he told of. The

wonders of his tales quite bewildered my mind, till I fell asleep and

dreamed of battle, smoke, and flying soldiers, all of a kind with the

doings he had been bringing up to me.

‘How long my nap lasted I am not prepared to say. But some faint sounds

over and above the rustle of the ewes in the straw, the bleat of the

lambs, and the tinkle of the sheep-bell brought me to my waking senses.

Uncle Job was still beside me; but he too had fallen asleep. I looked

out from the straw, and saw what it was that had aroused me. Two men,

in boat-cloaks, cocked hats, and swords, stood by the hurdles about

twenty yards off.

‘I turned my ear thitherward to catch what they were saying, but though

I heard every word o’t, not one did I understand. They spoke in a

tongue that was not ours—in French, as I afterward found. But if I

could not gain the meaning of a word, I was shrewd boy enough to find

out a deal of the talkers’ business. By the light o’ the moon I could

see that one of ’em carried a roll of paper in his hand, while every

moment he spoke quick to his comrade, and pointed right and left with

the other hand to spots along the shore. There was no doubt that he was

explaining to the second gentleman the shapes and features of the

coast. What happened soon after made this still clearer to me.

‘All this time I had not waked Uncle Job, but now I began to be afeared

that they might light upon us, because uncle breathed so heavily

through’s nose. I put my mouth to his ear and whispered, “Uncle Job.”

‘“What is it, my boy?” he said, just as if he hadn’t been asleep at

all.

‘“Hush!” says I. “Two French generals—”

‘“French?” says he.

‘“Yes,” says I. “Come to see where to land their army!”

‘I pointed ’em out; but I could say no more, for the pair were coming

at that moment much nearer to where we lay. As soon as they got as near

as eight or ten yards, the officer with a roll in his hand stooped down

to a slanting hurdle, unfastened his roll upon it, and spread it out.

Then suddenly he sprung a dark lantern open on the paper, and showed it

to be a map.

‘“What be they looking at?” I whispered to Uncle Job.

‘“A chart of the Channel,” says the sergeant (knowing about such

things).

‘The other French officer now stooped likewise, and over the map they

had a long consultation, as they pointed here and there on the paper,

and then hither and thither at places along the shore beneath us. I

noticed that the manner of one officer was very respectful toward the

other, who seemed much his superior, the second in rank calling him by

a sort of title that I did not know the sense of. The head one, on the

other hand, was quite familiar with his friend, and more than once

clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Uncle Job had watched as well as I, but though the map had been in the

lantern-light, their faces had always been in shade. But when they rose

from stooping over the chart the light flashed upward, and fell smart

upon one of ’em’s features. No sooner had this happened than Uncle Job

gasped, and sank down as if he’d been in a fit.

‘“What is it—what is it, Uncle Job?” said I.

‘“O good God!” says he, under the straw.

‘“What?” says I.

‘“Boney!” he groaned out.

‘“Who?” says I.

‘“Bonaparty,” he said. “The Corsican ogre. O that I had got but my

new-flinted firelock, that there man should die! But I haven’t got my

new-flinted firelock, and that there man must live. So lie low, as you

value your life!”

‘I did lie low, as you mid suppose. But I couldn’t help peeping. And

then I too, lad as I was, knew that it was the face of Bonaparte. Not

know Boney? I should think I did know Boney. I should have known him by

half the light o’ that lantern. If I had seen a picture of his features

once, I had seen it a hundred times. There was his bullet head, his

short neck, his round yaller cheeks and chin, his gloomy face, and his

great glowing eyes. He took off his hat to blow himself a bit, and

there was the forelock in the middle of his forehead, as in all the

draughts of him. In moving, his cloak fell a little open, and I could

see for a moment his white-fronted jacket and one of his epaulets.

‘But none of this lasted long. In a minute he and his general had

rolled up the map, shut the lantern, and turned to go down toward the

shore.

‘Then Uncle Job came to himself a bit. “Slipped across in the

night-time to see how to put his men ashore,” he said. “The like o’

that man’s coolness eyes will never again see! Nephew, I must act in

this, and immediate, or England’s lost!”

‘When they were over the brow, we crope out, and went some little way

to look after them. Half-way down they were joined by two others, and

six or seven minutes brought them to the shore. Then, from behind a

rock, a boat came out into the weak moonlight of the Cove, and they

jumped in; it put off instantly, and vanished in a few minutes between

the two rocks that stand at the mouth of the Cove as we all know. We

climmed back to where we had been before, and I could see, a little way

out, a larger vessel, though still not very large. The little boat drew

up alongside, was made fast at the stern as I suppose, for the largest

sailed away, and we saw no more.

‘My uncle Job told his officers as soon as he got back to camp; but

what they thought of it I never heard—neither did he. Boney’s army

never came, and a good job for me; for the Cove below my father’s house

was where he meant to land, as this secret visit showed. We coast-folk

should have been cut down one and all, and I should not have sat here

to tell this tale.’

We who listened to old Selby that night have been familiar with his

simple grave-stone for these ten years past. Thanks to the incredulity

of the age his tale has been seldom repeated. But if anything short of

the direct testimony of his own eyes could persuade an auditor that

Bonaparte had examined these shores for himself with a view to a

practicable landing-place, it would have been Solomon Selby’s manner of

narrating the adventure which befell him on the down.

_Christmas_ 1882.

A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS

It is a Saturday afternoon of blue and yellow autumn time, and the

scene is the High Street of a well-known market-town. A large carrier’s

van stands in the quadrangular fore-court of the White Hart Inn, upon

the sides of its spacious tilt being painted, in weather-beaten

letters: ‘Burthen, Carrier to Longpuddle.’ These vans, so numerous

hereabout, are a respectable, if somewhat lumbering, class of

conveyance, much resorted to by decent travellers not overstocked with

money, the better among them roughly corresponding to the old French

_diligences_.

The present one is timed to leave the town at four in the afternoon

precisely, and it is now half-past three by the clock in the turret at

the top of the street. In a few seconds errand-boys from the shops

begin to arrive with packages, which they fling into the vehicle, and

turn away whistling, and care for the packages no more. At twenty

minutes to four an elderly woman places her basket upon the shafts,

slowly mounts, takes up a seat inside, and folds her hands and her

lips. She has secured her corner for the journey, though there is as

yet no sign of a horse being put in, nor of a carrier. At the

three-quarters, two other women arrive, in whom the first recognizes

the postmistress of Upper Longpuddle and the registrar’s wife, they

recognizing her as the aged groceress of the same village. At five

minutes to the hour there approach Mr. Profitt, the schoolmaster, in a

soft felt hat, and Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher; and as the

hour strikes there rapidly drop in the parish clerk and his wife, the

seedsman and his aged father, the registrar; also Mr. Day, the

world-ignored local landscape-painter, an elderly man who resides in

his native place, and has never sold a picture outside it, though his

pretensions to art have been nobly supported by his fellow-villagers,

whose confidence in his genius has been as remarkable as the outer

neglect of it, leading them to buy his paintings so extensively (at the

price of a few shillings each, it is true) that every dwelling in the

parish exhibits three or four of those admired productions on its

walls.

Burthen, the carrier, is by this time seen bustling round the vehicle;

the horses are put in, the proprietor arranges the reins and springs up

into his seat as if he were used to it—which he is.

‘Is everybody here?’ he asks preparatorily over his shoulder to the

passengers within.

As those who were not there did not reply in the negative the muster

was assumed to be complete, and after a few hitches and hindrances the

van with its human freight was got under way. It jogged on at an easy

pace till it reached the bridge which formed the last outpost of the

town. The carrier pulled up suddenly.

‘Bless my soul!’ he said, ‘I’ve forgot the curate!’

All who could do so gazed from the little back window of the van, but

the curate was not in sight.

‘Now I wonder where that there man is?’ continued the carrier.

‘Poor man, he ought to have a living at his time of life.’

‘And he ought to be punctual,’ said the carrier. ‘“Four o’clock sharp

is my time for starting,” I said to ’en. And he said, “I’ll be there.”

Now he’s not here, and as a serious old church-minister he ought to be

as good as his word. Perhaps Mr. Flaxton knows, being in the same line

of life?’ He turned to the parish clerk.

‘I was talking an immense deal with him, that’s true, half an hour

ago,’ replied that ecclesiastic, as one of whom it was no erroneous

supposition that he should be on intimate terms with another of the

cloth. ‘But he didn’t say he would be late.’

The discussion was cut off by the appearance round the corner of the

van of rays from the curate’s spectacles, followed hastily by his face

and a few white whiskers, and the swinging tails of his long gaunt

coat. Nobody reproached him, seeing how he was reproaching himself; and

he entered breathlessly and took his seat.

‘Now be we all here?’ said the carrier again. They started a second

time, and moved on till they were about three hundred yards out of the

town, and had nearly reached the second bridge, behind which, as every

native remembers, the road takes a turn and travellers by this highway

disappear finally from the view of gazing burghers.

‘Well, as I’m alive!’ cried the postmistress from the interior of the

conveyance, peering through the little square back-window along the

road townward.

‘What?’ said the carrier.

‘A man hailing us!’

Another sudden stoppage. ‘Somebody else?’ the carrier asked.

‘Ay, sure!’ All waited silently, while those who could gaze out did so.

‘Now, who can that be?’ Burthen continued. ‘I just put it to ye,

neighbours, can any man keep time with such hindrances? Bain’t we full

a’ready? Who in the world can the man be?’

‘He’s a sort of gentleman,’ said the schoolmaster, his position

commanding the road more comfortably than that of his comrades.

The stranger, who had been holding up his umbrella to attract their

notice, was walking forward leisurely enough, now that he found, by

their stopping, that it had been secured. His clothes were decidedly

not of a local cut, though it was difficult to point out any particular

mark of difference. In his left hand he carried a small leather

travelling bag. As soon as he had overtaken the van he glanced at the

inscription on its side, as if to assure himself that he had hailed the

right conveyance, and asked if they had room.

The carrier replied that though they were pretty well laden he supposed

they could carry one more, whereupon the stranger mounted, and took the

seat cleared for him within. And then the horses made another move,

this time for good, and swung along with their burden of fourteen souls

all told.

‘You bain’t one of these parts, sir?’ said the carrier. ‘I could tell

that as far as I could see ’ee.’

‘Yes, I am one of these parts,’ said the stranger.

‘Oh? H’m.’

The silence which followed seemed to imply a doubt of the truth of the

new-comer’s assertion. ‘I was speaking of Upper Longpuddle more

particular,’ continued the carrier hardily, ‘and I think I know most

faces of that valley.’

‘I was born at Longpuddle, and nursed at Longpuddle, and my father and

grandfather before me,’ said the passenger quietly.

‘Why, to be sure,’ said the aged groceress in the background, ‘it isn’t

John Lackland’s son—never—it can’t be—he who went to foreign parts

five-and-thirty years ago with his wife and family? Yet—what do I

hear?—that’s his father’s voice!’

‘That’s the man,’ replied the stranger. ‘John Lackland was my father,

and I am John Lackland’s son. Five-and-thirty years ago, when I was a

boy of eleven, my parents emigrated across the seas, taking me and my

sister with them. Kytes’s boy Tony was the one who drove us and our

belongings to Casterbridge on the morning we left; and his was the last

Longpuddle face I saw. We sailed the same week across the ocean, and

there we’ve been ever since, and there I’ve left those I went with—all

three.’

‘Alive or dead?’

‘Dead,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘And I have come back to the old

place, having nourished a thought—not a definite intention, but just a

thought—that I should like to return here in a year or two, to spend

the remainder of my days.’

‘Married man, Mr. Lackland?’

‘No.’

‘And have the world used ’ee well, sir—or rather John, knowing ’ee as a

child? In these rich new countries that we hear of so much, you’ve got

rich with the rest?’

‘I am not very rich,’ Mr. Lackland said. ‘Even in new countries, you

know, there are failures. The race is not always to the swift, nor the

battle to the strong; and even if it sometimes is, you may be neither

swift nor strong. However, that’s enough about me. Now, having answered

your inquiries, you must answer mine; for being in London, I have come

down here entirely to discover what Longpuddle is looking like, and who

are living there. That was why I preferred a seat in your van to hiring

a carriage for driving across.’

‘Well, as for Longpuddle, we rub on there much as usual. Old figures

have dropped out o’ their frames, so to speak it, and new ones have

been put in their places. You mentioned Tony Kytes as having been the

one to drive your family and your goods to Casterbridge in his father’s

waggon when you left. Tony is, I believe, living still, but not at

Longpuddle. He went away and settled at Lewgate, near Mellstock, after

his marriage. Ah, Tony was a sort o’ man!’

‘His character had hardly come out when I knew him.’

‘No. But ’twas well enough, as far as that goes—except as to women. I

shall never forget his courting—never!’

The returned villager waited silently, and the carrier went on:—

TONY KYTES, THE ARCH-DECEIVER

‘I shall never forget Tony’s face. ’Twas a little, round, firm, tight

face, with a seam here and there left by the smallpox, but not enough

to hurt his looks in a woman’s eye, though he’d had it badish when he

was a boy. So very serious looking and unsmiling ’a was, that young

man, that it really seemed as if he couldn’t laugh at all without great

pain to his conscience. He looked very hard at a small speck in your

eye when talking to ’ee. And there was no more sign of a whisker or

beard on Tony Kytes’s face than on the palm of my hand. He used to sing

“The Tailor’s Breeches” with a religious manner, as if it were a hymn:—

‘“O the petticoats went off, and the breeches they went on!”

and all the rest of the scandalous stuff. He was quite the women’s

favourite, and in return for their likings he loved ’em in shoals.

‘But in course of time Tony got fixed down to one in particular, Milly

Richards, a nice, light, small, tender little thing; and it was soon

said that they were engaged to be married. One Saturday he had been to

market to do business for his father, and was driving home the waggon

in the afternoon. When he reached the foot of the very hill we shall be

going over in ten minutes who should he see waiting for him at the top

but Unity Sallet, a handsome girl, one of the young women he’d been

very tender toward before he’d got engaged to Milly.

‘As soon as Tony came up to her she said, “My dear Tony, will you give

me a lift home?”

‘“That I will, darling,” said Tony. “You don’t suppose I could refuse

’ee?”

‘She smiled a smile, and up she hopped, and on drove Tony.

‘“Tony,” she says, in a sort of tender chide, “why did ye desert me for

that other one? In what is she better than I? I should have made ’ee a

finer wife, and a more loving one too. ’Tisn’t girls that are so easily

won at first that are the best. Think how long we’ve known each

other—ever since we were children almost—now haven’t we, Tony?”

‘“Yes, that we have,” says Tony, a-struck with the truth o’t.

‘“And you’ve never seen anything in me to complain of, have ye, Tony?

Now tell the truth to me?”

‘“I never have, upon my life,” says Tony.

‘“And—can you say I’m not pretty, Tony? Now look at me!”

‘He let his eyes light upon her for a long while. “I really can’t,”

says he. “In fact, I never knowed you was so pretty before!”

‘“Prettier than she?”

‘What Tony would have said to that nobody knows, for before he could

speak, what should he see ahead, over the hedge past the turning, but a

feather he knew well—the feather in Milly’s hat—she to whom he had been

thinking of putting the question as to giving out the banns that very

week.

‘“Unity,” says he, as mild as he could, “here’s Milly coming. Now I

shall catch it mightily if she sees ’ee riding here with me; and if you

get down she’ll be turning the corner in a moment, and, seeing ’ee in

the road, she’ll know we’ve been coming on together. Now, dearest

Unity, will ye, to avoid all unpleasantness, which I know ye can’t bear

any more than I, will ye lie down in the back part of the waggon, and

let me cover you over with the tarpaulin till Milly has passed? It will

all be done in a minute. Do!—and I’ll think over what we’ve said; and

perhaps I shall put a loving question to you after all, instead of to

Milly. ’Tisn’t true that it is all settled between her and me.”

‘Well, Unity Sallet agreed, and lay down at the back end of the waggon,

and Tony covered her over, so that the waggon seemed to be empty but

for the loose tarpaulin; and then he drove on to meet Milly.

‘“My dear Tony!” cries Milly, looking up with a little pout at him as

he came near. “How long you’ve been coming home! Just as if I didn’t

live at Upper Longpuddle at all! And I’ve come to meet you as you asked

me to do, and to ride back with you, and talk over our future

home—since you asked me, and I promised. But I shouldn’t have come

else, Mr. Tony!”

‘“Ay, my dear, I did ask ye—to be sure I did, now I think of it—but I

had quite forgot it. To ride back with me, did you say, dear Milly?”

‘“Well, of course! What can I do else? Surely you don’t want me to

walk, now I’ve come all this way?”

‘“O no, no! I was thinking you might be going on to town to meet your

mother. I saw her there—and she looked as if she might be expecting

’ee.”

‘“O no; she’s just home. She came across the fields, and so got back

before you.”

‘“Ah! I didn’t know that,” says Tony. And there was no help for it but

to take her up beside him.

‘They talked on very pleasantly, and looked at the trees, and beasts,

and birds, and insects, and at the ploughmen at work in the fields,

till presently who should they see looking out of the upper window of a

house that stood beside the road they were following, but Hannah

Jolliver, another young beauty of the place at that time, and the very

first woman that Tony had fallen in love with—before Milly and before

Unity, in fact—the one that he had almost arranged to marry instead of

Milly. She was a much more dashing girl than Milly Richards, though

he’d not thought much of her of late. The house Hannah was looking from

was her aunt’s.

‘“My dear Milly—my coming wife, as I may call ’ee,” says Tony in his

modest way, and not so loud that Unity could overhear, “I see a young

woman alooking out of window, who I think may accost me. The fact is,

Milly, she had a notion that I was wishing to marry her, and since

she’s discovered I’ve promised another, and a prettier than she, I’m

rather afeard of her temper if she sees us together. Now, Milly, would

you do me a favour—my coming wife, as I may say?”

‘“Certainly, dearest Tony,” says she.

‘“Then would ye creep under the empty sacks just here in the front of

the waggon, and hide there out of sight till we’ve passed the house?

She hasn’t seen us yet. You see, we ought to live in peace and

good-will since ’tis almost Christmas, and ’twill prevent angry

passions rising, which we always should do.”

‘“I don’t mind, to oblige you, Tony,” Milly said; and though she didn’t

care much about doing it, she crept under, and crouched down just

behind the seat, Unity being snug at the other end. So they drove on

till they got near the road-side cottage. Hannah had soon seen him

coming, and waited at the window, looking down upon him. She tossed her

head a little disdainful and smiled off-hand.

‘“Well, aren’t you going to be civil enough to ask me to ride home with

you!” she says, seeing that he was for driving past with a nod and a

smile.

‘“Ah, to be sure! What was I thinking of?” said Tony, in a flutter.

“But you seem as if you was staying at your aunt’s?”

‘“No, I am not,” she said. “Don’t you see I have my bonnet and jacket

on? I have only called to see her on my way home. How can you be so

stupid, Tony?”

‘“In that case—ah—of course you must come along wi’ me,” says Tony,

feeling a dim sort of sweat rising up inside his clothes. And he reined

in the horse, and waited till she’d come downstairs, and then helped

her up beside him. He drove on again, his face as long as a face that

was a round one by nature well could be.

‘Hannah looked round sideways into his eyes. “This is nice, isn’t it,

Tony?” she says. “I like riding with you.”

‘Tony looked back into her eyes. “And I with you,” he said after a

while. In short, having considered her, he warmed up, and the more he

looked at her the more he liked her, till he couldn’t for the life of

him think why he had ever said a word about marriage to Milly or Unity

while Hannah Jolliver was in question. So they sat a little closer and

closer, their feet upon the foot-board and their shoulders touching,

and Tony thought over and over again how handsome Hannah was. He spoke

tenderer and tenderer, and called her “dear Hannah” in a whisper at

last.

‘“You’ve settled it with Milly by this time, I suppose,” said she.

‘“N-no, not exactly.”

‘“What? How low you talk, Tony.”

‘“Yes—I’ve a kind of hoarseness. I said, not exactly.”

‘“I suppose you mean to?”

‘“Well, as to that—” His eyes rested on her face, and hers on his. He

wondered how he could have been such a fool as not to follow up Hannah.

“My sweet Hannah!” he bursts out, taking her hand, not being really

able to help it, and forgetting Milly and Unity, and all the world

besides. “Settled it? I don’t think I have!”

‘“Hark!” says Hannah.

‘“What?” says Tony, letting go her hand.

‘“Surely I heard a sort of little screaming squeak under those sacks?

Why, you’ve been carrying corn, and there’s mice in this waggon, I

declare!” She began to haul up the tails of her gown.

‘“Oh no; ’tis the axle,” said Tony in an assuring way. “It do go like

that sometimes in dry weather.”

‘“Perhaps it was . . . Well, now, to be quite honest, dear Tony, do you

like her better than me? Because—because, although I’ve held off so

independent, I’ll own at last that I do like ’ee, Tony, to tell the

truth; and I wouldn’t say no if you asked me—you know what.”

‘Tony was so won over by this pretty offering mood of a girl who had

been quite the reverse (Hannah had a backward way with her at times, if

you can mind) that he just glanced behind, and then whispered very

soft, “I haven’t quite promised her, and I think I can get out of it,

and ask you that question you speak of.”

‘“Throw over Milly?—all to marry me! How delightful!” broke out Hannah,

quite loud, clapping her hands.

‘At this there was a real squeak—an angry, spiteful squeak, and

afterward a long moan, as if something had broke its heart, and a

movement of the empty sacks.

‘“Something’s there!” said Hannah, starting up.

‘“It’s nothing, really,” says Tony in a soothing voice, and praying

inwardly for a way out of this. “I wouldn’t tell ’ee at first, because

I wouldn’t frighten ’ee. But, Hannah, I’ve really a couple of ferrets

in a bag under there, for rabbiting, and they quarrel sometimes. I

don’t wish it knowed, as ’twould be called poaching. Oh, they can’t get

out, bless ye—you are quite safe! And—and—what a fine day it is, isn’t

it, Hannah, for this time of year? Be you going to market next

Saturday? How is your aunt now?” And so on, says Tony, to keep her from

talking any more about love in Milly’s hearing.

‘But he found his work cut out for him, and wondering again how he

should get out of this ticklish business, he looked about for a chance.

Nearing home he saw his father in a field not far off, holding up his

hand as if he wished to speak to Tony.

‘“Would you mind taking the reins a moment, Hannah,” he said, much

relieved, “while I go and find out what father wants?”

‘She consented, and away he hastened into the field, only too glad to

get breathing time. He found that his father was looking at him with

rather a stern eye.

‘“Come, come, Tony,” says old Mr. Kytes, as soon as his son was

alongside him, “this won’t do, you know.”

‘“What?” says Tony.

‘“Why, if you mean to marry Milly Richards, do it, and there’s an end

o’t. But don’t go driving about the country with Jolliver’s daughter

and making a scandal. I won’t have such things done.”

‘“I only asked her—that is, she asked me, to ride home.”

‘“She? Why, now, if it had been Milly, ’twould have been quite proper;

but you and Hannah Jolliver going about by yourselves—”

‘“Milly’s there too, father.”

‘“Milly? Where?”

‘“Under the corn-sacks! Yes, the truth is, father, I’ve got rather into

a nunny-watch, I’m afeard! Unity Sallet is there too—yes, at the other

end, under the tarpaulin. All three are in that waggon, and what to do

with ’em I know no more than the dead! The best plan is, as I’m

thinking, to speak out loud and plain to one of ’em before the rest,

and that will settle it; not but what ’twill cause ’em to kick up a bit

of a miff, for certain. Now which would you marry, father, if you was

in my place?”

‘“Whichever of ’em did _not_ ask to ride with thee.”

‘“That was Milly, I’m bound to say, as she only mounted by my

invitation. But Milly—”

“Then stick to Milly, she’s the best . . . But look at that!”

‘His father pointed toward the waggon. “She can’t hold that horse in.

You shouldn’t have left the reins in her hands. Run on and take the

horse’s head, or there’ll be some accident to them maids!”

‘Tony’s horse, in fact, in spite of Hannah’s tugging at the reins, had

started on his way at a brisk walking pace, being very anxious to get

back to the stable, for he had had a long day out. Without another word

Tony rushed away from his father to overtake the horse.

‘Now of all things that could have happened to wean him from Milly

there was nothing so powerful as his father’s recommending her. No; it

could not be Milly, after all. Hannah must be the one, since he could

not marry all three. This he thought while running after the waggon.

But queer things were happening inside it.

‘It was, of course, Milly who had screamed under the sack-bags, being

obliged to let off her bitter rage and shame in that way at what Tony

was saying, and never daring to show, for very pride and dread o’ being

laughed at, that she was in hiding. She became more and more restless,

and in twisting herself about, what did she see but another woman’s

foot and white stocking close to her head. It quite frightened her, not

knowing that Unity Sallet was in the waggon likewise. But after the

fright was over she determined to get to the bottom of all this, and

she crept and crept along the bed of the waggon, under the tarpaulin,

like a snake, when lo and behold she came face to face with Unity.

‘“Well, if this isn’t disgraceful!” says Milly in a raging whisper to

Unity.

‘“’Tis,” says Unity, “to see you hiding in a young man’s waggon like

this, and no great character belonging to either of ye!”

‘“Mind what you are saying!” replied Milly, getting louder. “I am

engaged to be married to him, and haven’t I a right to be here? What

right have you, I should like to know? What has he been promising you?

A pretty lot of nonsense, I expect! But what Tony says to other women

is all mere wind, and no concern to me!”

‘“Don’t you be too sure!” says Unity. “He’s going to have Hannah, and

not you, nor me either; I could hear that.”

‘Now at these strange voices sounding from under the cloth Hannah was

thunderstruck a’most into a swound; and it was just at this time that

the horse moved on. Hannah tugged away wildly, not knowing what she was

doing; and as the quarrel rose louder and louder Hannah got so

horrified that she let go the reins altogether. The horse went on at

his own pace, and coming to the corner where we turn round to drop down

the hill to Lower Longpuddle he turned too quick, the off wheels went

up the bank, the waggon rose sideways till it was quite on edge upon

the near axles, and out rolled the three maidens into the road in a

heap.

‘When Tony came up, frightened and breathless, he was relieved enough

to see that neither of his darlings was hurt, beyond a few scratches

from the brambles of the hedge. But he was rather alarmed when he heard

how they were going on at one another.

‘“Don’t ye quarrel, my dears—don’t ye!” says he, taking off his hat out

of respect to ’em. And then he would have kissed them all round, as

fair and square as a man could, but they were in too much of a taking

to let him, and screeched and sobbed till they was quite spent.

‘“Now I’ll speak out honest, because I ought to,” says Tony, as soon as

he could get heard. “And this is the truth,” says he. “I’ve asked

Hannah to be mine, and she is willing, and we are going to put up the

banns next—”

‘Tony had not noticed that Hannah’s father was coming up behind, nor

had he noticed that Hannah’s face was beginning to bleed from the

scratch of a bramble. Hannah had seen her father, and had run to him,

crying worse than ever.

‘“My daughter is _not_ willing, sir!” says Mr. Jolliver hot and strong.

“Be you willing, Hannah? I ask ye to have spirit enough to refuse him,

if yer virtue is left to ’ee and you run no risk?”

‘“She’s as sound as a bell for me, that I’ll swear!” says Tony, flaring

up. “And so’s the others, come to that, though you may think it an

onusual thing in me!”

‘“I have spirit, and I do refuse him!” says Hannah, partly because her

father was there, and partly, too, in a tantrum because of the

discovery, and the scratch on her face. “Little did I think when I was

so soft with him just now that I was talking to such a false deceiver!”

‘“What, you won’t have me, Hannah?” says Tony, his jaw hanging down

like a dead man’s.

‘“Never—I would sooner marry no—nobody at all!” she gasped out, though

with her heart in her throat, for she would not have refused Tony if he

had asked her quietly, and her father had not been there, and her face

had not been scratched by the bramble. And having said that, away she

walked upon her father’s arm, thinking and hoping he would ask her

again.

‘Tony didn’t know what to say next. Milly was sobbing her heart out;

but as his father had strongly recommended her he couldn’t feel

inclined that way. So he turned to Unity.

‘“Well, will you, Unity dear, be mine?” he says.

‘“Take her leavings? Not I!” says Unity. “I’d scorn it!” And away walks

Unity Sallet likewise, though she looked back when she’d gone some way,

to see if he was following her.

‘So there at last were left Milly and Tony by themselves, she crying in

watery streams, and Tony looking like a tree struck by lightning.

‘“Well, Milly,” he says at last, going up to her, “it do seem as if

fate had ordained that it should be you and I, or nobody. And what must

be must be, I suppose. Hey, Milly?”

‘“If you like, Tony. You didn’t really mean what you said to them?”

‘“Not a word of it!” declares Tony, bringing down his fist upon his

palm.

‘And then he kissed her, and put the waggon to rights, and they mounted

together; and their banns were put up the very next Sunday. I was not

able to go to their wedding, but it was a rare party they had, by all

account. Everybody in Longpuddle was there almost; you among the rest,

I think, Mr. Flaxton?’ The speaker turned to the parish clerk.

‘I was,’ said Mr. Flaxton. ‘And that party was the cause of a very

curious change in some other people’s affairs; I mean in Steve

Hardcome’s and his cousin James’s.’

‘Ah! the Hardcomes,’ said the stranger. ‘How familiar that name is to

me! What of them?’

The clerk cleared his throat and began:—

THE HISTORY OF THE HARDCOMES

‘Yes, Tony’s was the very best wedding-randy that ever I was at; and

I’ve been at a good many, as you may suppose’—turning to the

newly-arrived one—‘having as a church-officer, the privilege to attend

all christening, wedding, and funeral parties—such being our Wessex

custom.

‘’Twas on a frosty night in Christmas week, and among the folk invited

were the said Hardcomes o’ Climmerston—Steve and James—first cousins,

both of them small farmers, just entering into business on their own

account. With them came, as a matter of course, their intended wives,

two young women of the neighbourhood, both very pretty and sprightly

maidens, and numbers of friends from Abbot’s-Cernel, and Weatherbury,

and Mellstock, and I don’t know where—a regular houseful.

‘The kitchen was cleared of furniture for dancing, and the old folk

played at “Put” and “All-fours” in the parlour, though at last they

gave that up to join in the dance. The top of the figure was by the

large front window of the room, and there were so many couples that the

lower part of the figure reached through the door at the back, and into

the darkness of the out-house; in fact, you couldn’t see the end of the

row at all, and ’twas never known exactly how long that dance was, the

lowest couples being lost among the faggots and brushwood in the

out-house.

‘When we had danced a few hours, and the crowns of we taller men were

swelling into lumps with bumping the beams of the ceiling, the first

fiddler laid down his fiddle-bow, and said he should play no more, for

he wished to dance. And in another hour the second fiddler laid down

his, and said he wanted to dance too; so there was only the third

fiddler left, and he was a’ old, veteran man, very weak in the wrist.

However, he managed to keep up a faltering tweedle-dee; but there being

no chair in the room, and his knees being as weak as his wrists, he was

obliged to sit upon as much of the little corner-table as projected

beyond the corner-cupboard fixed over it, which was not a very wide

seat for a man advanced in years.

‘Among those who danced most continually were the two engaged couples,

as was natural to their situation. Each pair was very well matched, and

very unlike the other. James Hardcome’s intended was called Emily

Darth, and both she and James were gentle, nice-minded, in-door people,

fond of a quiet life. Steve and his chosen, named Olive Pawle, were

different; they were of a more bustling nature, fond of racketing about

and seeing what was going on in the world. The two couples had arranged

to get married on the same day, and that not long thence; Tony’s

wedding being a sort of stimulant, as is often the case; I’ve noticed

it professionally many times.

‘They danced with such a will as only young people in that stage of

courtship can dance; and it happened that as the evening wore on James

had for his partner Stephen’s plighted one, Olive, at the same time

that Stephen was dancing with James’s Emily. It was noticed that in

spite o’ the exchange the young men seemed to enjoy the dance no less

than before. By and by they were treading another tune in the same

changed order as we had noticed earlier, and though at first each one

had held the other’s mistress strictly at half-arm’s length, lest there

should be shown any objection to too close quarters by the lady’s

proper man, as time passed there was a little more closeness between

’em; and presently a little more closeness still.

‘The later it got the more did each of the two cousins dance with the

wrong young girl, and the tighter did he hold her to his side as he

whirled her round; and, what was very remarkable, neither seemed to

mind what the other was doing. The party began to draw towards its end,

and I saw no more that night, being one of the first to leave, on

account of my morning’s business. But I learnt the rest of it from

those that knew.

‘After finishing a particularly warming dance with the changed

partners, as I’ve mentioned, the two young men looked at one another,

and in a moment or two went out into the porch together.

‘“James,” says Steve, “what were you thinking of when you were dancing

with my Olive?”

‘“Well,” said James, “perhaps what you were thinking of when you were

dancing with my Emily.”

‘“I was thinking,” said Steve, with some hesitation, “that I wouldn’t

mind changing for good and all!”

‘“It was what I was feeling likewise,” said James.

‘“I willingly agree to it, if you think we could manage it.”

‘“So do I. But what would the girls say?”

‘“’Tis my belief,” said Steve, “that they wouldn’t particularly object.

Your Emily clung as close to me as if she already belonged to me, dear

girl.”

‘“And your Olive to me,” says James. “I could feel her heart beating

like a clock.”

‘Well, they agreed to put it to the girls when they were all four

walking home together. And they did so. When they parted that night the

exchange was decided on—all having been done under the hot excitement

of that evening’s dancing. Thus it happened that on the following

Sunday morning, when the people were sitting in church with mouths wide

open to hear the names published as they had expected, there was no

small amazement to hear them coupled the wrong way, as it seemed. The

congregation whispered, and thought the parson had made a mistake; till

they discovered that his reading of the names was verily the true way.

As they had decided, so they were married, each one to the other’s

original property.

‘Well, the two couples lived on for a year or two ordinarily enough,

till the time came when these young people began to grow a little less

warm to their respective spouses, as is the rule of married life; and

the two cousins wondered more and more in their hearts what had made

’em so mad at the last moment to marry crosswise as they did, when they

might have married straight, as was planned by nature, and as they had

fallen in love. ’Twas Tony’s party that had done _it_, plain enough,

and they half wished they had never gone there. James, being a quiet,

fireside, perusing man, felt at times a wide gap between himself and

Olive, his wife, who loved riding and driving and out-door jaunts to a

degree; while Steve, who was always knocking about hither and thither,

had a very domestic wife, who worked samplers, and made hearthrugs,

scarcely ever wished to cross the threshold, and only drove out with

him to please him.

‘However, they said very little about this mismating to any of their

acquaintances, though sometimes Steve would look at James’s wife and

sigh, and James would look at Steve’s wife and do the same. Indeed, at

last the two men were frank enough towards each other not to mind

mentioning it quietly to themselves, in a long-faced, sorry-smiling,

whimsical sort of way, and would shake their heads together over their

foolishness in upsetting a well-considered choice on the strength of an

hour’s fancy in the whirl and wildness of a dance. Still, they were

sensible and honest young fellows enough, and did their best to make

shift with their lot as they had arranged it, and not to repine at what

could not now be altered or mended.

‘So things remained till one fine summer day they went for their yearly

little outing together, as they had made it their custom to do for a

long while past. This year they chose Budmouth-Regis as the place to

spend their holiday in; and off they went in their best clothes at nine

o’clock in the morning.

‘When they had reached Budmouth-Regis they walked two and two along the

shore—their new boots going squeakity-squash upon the clammy velvet

sands. I can seem to see ’em now! Then they looked at the ships in the

harbour; and then went up to the Look-out; and then had dinner at an

inn; and then again walked two and two, squeakity-squash, upon the

velvet sands. As evening drew on they sat on one of the public seats

upon the Esplanade, and listened to the band; and then they said “What

shall we do next?”

‘“Of all things,” said Olive (Mrs. James Hardcome, that is), “I should

like to row in the bay! We could listen to the music from the water as

well as from here, and have the fun of rowing besides.”

‘“The very thing; so should I,” says Stephen, his tastes being always

like hers.

Here the clerk turned to the curate.

‘But you, sir, know the rest of the strange particulars of that strange

evening of their lives better than anybody else, having had much of it

from their own lips, which I had not; and perhaps you’ll oblige the

gentleman?’

‘Certainly, if it is wished,’ said the curate. And he took up the

clerk’s tale:—

‘Stephen’s wife hated the sea, except from land, and couldn’t bear the

thought of going into a boat. James, too, disliked the water, and said

that for his part he would much sooner stay on and listen to the band

in the seat they occupied, though he did not wish to stand in his

wife’s way if she desired a row. The end of the discussion was that

James and his cousin’s wife Emily agreed to remain where they were

sitting and enjoy the music, while they watched the other two hire a

boat just beneath, and take their water-excursion of half an hour or

so, till they should choose to come back and join the sitters on the

Esplanade; when they would all start homeward together.

‘Nothing could have pleased the other two restless ones better than

this arrangement; and Emily and James watched them go down to the

boatman below and choose one of the little yellow skiffs, and walk

carefully out upon the little plank that was laid on trestles to enable

them to get alongside the craft. They saw Stephen hand Olive in, and

take his seat facing her; when they were settled they waved their hands

to the couple watching them, and then Stephen took the pair of sculls

and pulled off to the tune beat by the band, she steering through the

other boats skimming about, for the sea was as smooth as glass that

evening, and pleasure-seekers were rowing everywhere.

‘“How pretty they look moving on, don’t they?” said Emily to James (as

I’ve been assured). “They both enjoy it equally. In everything their

likings are the same.”

‘“That’s true,” said James.

‘“They would have made a handsome pair if they had married,” said she.

‘“Yes,” said he. “’Tis a pity we should have parted ’em”

‘“Don’t talk of that, James,” said she. “For better or for worse we

decided to do as we did, and there’s an end of it.”

‘They sat on after that without speaking, side by side, and the band

played as before; the people strolled up and down; and Stephen and

Olive shrank smaller and smaller as they shot straight out to sea. The

two on shore used to relate how they saw Stephen stop rowing a moment,

and take off his coat to get at his work better; but James’s wife sat

quite still in the stern, holding the tiller-ropes by which she steered

the boat. When they had got very small indeed she turned her head to

shore.

‘“She is waving her handkerchief to us,” said Stephen’s wife, who

thereupon pulled out her own, and waved it as a return signal.

‘The boat’s course had been a little awry while Mrs. James neglected

her steering to wave her handkerchief to her husband and Mrs. Stephen;

but now the light skiff went straight onward again, and they could soon

see nothing more of the two figures it contained than Olive’s light

mantle and Stephen’s white shirt sleeves behind.

‘The two on the shore talked on. “’Twas very curious—our changing

partners at Tony Kytes’s wedding,” Emily declared. “Tony was of a

fickle nature by all account, and it really seemed as if his character

had infected us that night. Which of you two was it that first proposed

not to marry as we were engaged?”

‘“H’m—I can’t remember at this moment,” says James. “We talked it over,

you know; and no sooner said than done.”

‘“’Twas the dancing,” said she. “People get quite crazy sometimes in a

dance.”

‘“They do,” he owned.

‘“James—do you think they care for one another still?” asks Mrs.

Stephen.