‘James Hardcome mused and admitted that perhaps a little tender feeling

might flicker up in their hearts for a moment now and then. “Still,

nothing of any account,” he said.

‘“I sometimes think that Olive is in Steve’s mind a good deal,” murmurs

Mrs. Stephen; “particularly when she pleases his fancy by riding past

our window at a gallop on one of the draught-horses . . . I never could

do anything of that sort; I could never get over my fear of a horse.”

‘“And I am no horseman, though I pretend to be on her account,”

murmured James Hardcome. “But isn’t it almost time for them to turn and

sweep round to the shore, as the other boating folk have done? I wonder

what Olive means by steering away straight to the horizon like that?

She has hardly swerved from a direct line seaward since they started.”

‘“No doubt they are talking, and don’t think of where they are going,”

suggests Stephen’s wife.

‘“Perhaps so,” said James. “I didn’t know Steve could row like that.”

‘“O yes,” says she. “He often comes here on business, and generally has

a pull round the bay.”

‘“I can hardly see the boat or them,” says James again; “and it is

getting dark.”

‘The heedless pair afloat now formed a mere speck in the films of the

coming night, which thickened apace, till it completely swallowed up

their distant shapes. They had disappeared while still following the

same straight course away from the world of land-livers, as if they

were intending to drop over the sea-edge into space, and never return

to earth again.

‘The two on the shore continued to sit on, punctually abiding by their

agreement to remain on the same spot till the others returned. The

Esplanade lamps were lit one by one, the bandsmen folded up their

stands and departed, the yachts in the bay hung out their riding

lights, and the little boats came back to shore one after another,

their hirers walking on to the sands by the plank they had climbed to

go afloat; but among these Stephen and Olive did not appear.

‘“What a time they are!” said Emily. “I am getting quite chilly. I did

not expect to have to sit so long in the evening air.”

‘Thereupon James Hardcome said that he did not require his overcoat,

and insisted on lending it to her.

‘He wrapped it round Emily’s shoulders.

‘“Thank you, James,” she said. “How cold Olive must be in that thin

jacket!”

‘He said he was thinking so too. “Well, they are sure to be quite close

at hand by this time, though we can’t see ’em. The boats are not all in

yet. Some of the rowers are fond of paddling along the shore to finish

out their hour of hiring.”

‘“Shall we walk by the edge of the water,” said she, “to see if we can

discover them?”

‘He assented, reminding her that they must not lose sight of the seat,

lest the belated pair should return and miss them, and be vexed that

they had not kept the appointment.

‘They walked a sentry beat up and down the sands immediately opposite

the seat; and still the others did not come. James Hardcome at last

went to the boatman, thinking that after all his wife and cousin might

have come in under shadow of the dusk without being perceived, and

might have forgotten the appointment at the bench.

‘“All in?” asked James.

‘“All but one boat,” said the lessor. “I can’t think where that couple

is keeping to. They might run foul of something or other in the dark.”

‘Again Stephen’s wife and Olive’s husband waited, with more and more

anxiety. But no little yellow boat returned. Was it possible they could

have landed further down the Esplanade?

‘“It may have been done to escape paying,” said the boat-owner. “But

they didn’t look like people who would do that.”

‘James Hardcome knew that he could found no hope on such a reason as

that. But now, remembering what had been casually discussed between

Steve and himself about their wives from time to time, he admitted for

the first time the possibility that their old tenderness had been

revived by their face-to-face position more strongly than either had

anticipated at starting—the excursion having been so obviously

undertaken for the pleasure of the performance only,—and that they had

landed at some steps he knew of further down toward the pier, to be

longer alone together.

‘Still he disliked to harbour the thought, and would not mention its

existence to his companion. He merely said to her, “Let us walk further

on.”

‘They did so, and lingered between the boat-stage and the pier till

Stephen Hardcome’s wife was uneasy, and was obliged to accept James’s

offered arm. Thus the night advanced. Emily was presently so worn out

by fatigue that James felt it necessary to conduct her home; there was,

too, a remote chance that the truants had landed in the harbour on the

other side of the town, or elsewhere, and hastened home in some

unexpected way, in the belief that their consorts would not have waited

so long.

‘However, he left a direction in the town that a lookout should be

kept, though this was arranged privately, the bare possibility of an

elopement being enough to make him reticent; and, full of misgivings,

the two remaining ones hastened to catch the last train out of

Budmouth-Regis; and when they got to Casterbridge drove back to Upper

Longpuddle.’

‘Along this very road as we do now,’ remarked the parish clerk.

‘To be sure—along this very road,’ said the curate. ‘However, Stephen

and Olive were not at their homes; neither had entered the village

since leaving it in the morning. Emily and James Hardcome went to their

respective dwellings to snatch a hasty night’s rest, and at daylight

the next morning they drove again to Casterbridge and entered the

Budmouth train, the line being just opened.

‘Nothing had been heard of the couple there during this brief absence.

In the course of a few hours some young men testified to having seen

such a man and woman rowing in a frail hired craft, the head of the

boat kept straight to sea; they had sat looking in each other’s faces

as if they were in a dream, with no consciousness of what they were

doing, or whither they were steering. It was not till late that day

that more tidings reached James’s ears. The boat had been found

drifting bottom upward a long way from land. In the evening the sea

rose somewhat, and a cry spread through the town that two bodies were

cast ashore in Lullstead Bay, several miles to the eastward. They were

brought to Budmouth, and inspection revealed them to be the missing

pair. It was said that they had been found tightly locked in each

other’s arms, his lips upon hers, their features still wrapt in the

same calm and dream-like repose which had been observed in their

demeanour as they had glided along.

‘Neither James nor Emily questioned the original motives of the

unfortunate man and woman in putting to sea. They were both above

suspicion as to intention. Whatever their mutual feelings might have

led them on to, underhand behaviour was foreign to the nature of

either. Conjecture pictured that they might have fallen into tender

reverie while gazing each into a pair of eyes that had formerly flashed

for him and her alone, and, unwilling to avow what their mutual

sentiments were, they had continued thus, oblivious of time and space,

till darkness suddenly overtook them far from land. But nothing was

truly known. It had been their destiny to die thus. The two halves,

intended by Nature to make the perfect whole, had failed in that result

during their lives, though “in their death they were not divided.”

Their bodies were brought home, and buried on one day. I remember that,

on looking round the churchyard while reading the service, I observed

nearly all the parish at their funeral.’

‘It was so, sir,’ said the clerk.

‘The remaining two,’ continued the curate (whose voice had grown husky

while relating the lovers’ sad fate), ‘were a more thoughtful and

far-seeing, though less romantic, couple than the first. They were now

mutually bereft of a companion, and found themselves by this accident

in a position to fulfil their destiny according to Nature’s plan and

their own original and calmly-formed intention. James Hardcome took

Emily to wife in the course of a year and a half; and the marriage

proved in every respect a happy one. I solemnized the service, Hardcome

having told me, when he came to give notice of the proposed wedding,

the story of his first wife’s loss almost word for word as I have told

it to you.’

‘And are they living in Longpuddle still?’ asked the new-comer.

‘O no, sir,’ interposed the clerk. ‘James has been dead these dozen

years, and his mis’ess about six or seven. They had no children.

William Privett used to be their odd man till he died.’

‘Ah—William Privett! He dead too?—dear me!’ said the other. ‘All passed

away!’

‘Yes, sir. William was much older than I. He’d ha’ been over eighty if

he had lived till now.’

‘There was something very strange about William’s death—very strange

indeed!’ sighed a melancholy man in the back of the van. It was the

seedsman’s father, who had hitherto kept silence.

‘And what might that have been?’ asked Mr. Lackland.

THE SUPERSTITIOUS MAN’S STORY

‘William, as you may know, was a curious, silent man; you could feel

when he came near ’ee; and if he was in the house or anywhere behind

your back without your seeing him, there seemed to be something clammy

in the air, as if a cellar door was opened close by your elbow. Well,

one Sunday, at a time that William was in very good health to all

appearance, the bell that was ringing for church went very heavy all of

a sudden; the sexton, who told me o’t, said he’d not known the bell go

so heavy in his hand for years—it was just as if the gudgeons wanted

oiling. That was on the Sunday, as I say. During the week after, it

chanced that William’s wife was staying up late one night to finish her

ironing, she doing the washing for Mr. and Mrs. Hardcome. Her husband

had finished his supper and gone to bed as usual some hour or two

before. While she ironed she heard him coming down stairs; he stopped

to put on his boots at the stair-foot, where he always left them, and

then came on into the living-room where she was ironing, passing

through it towards the door, this being the only way from the staircase

to the outside of the house. No word was said on either side, William

not being a man given to much speaking, and his wife being occupied

with her work. He went out and closed the door behind him. As her

husband had now and then gone out in this way at night before when

unwell, or unable to sleep for want of a pipe, she took no particular

notice, and continued at her ironing. This she finished shortly after,

and as he had not come in she waited awhile for him, putting away the

irons and things, and preparing the table for his breakfast in the

morning. Still he did not return, but supposing him not far off, and

wanting to get to bed herself, tired as she was, she left the door

unbarred and went to the stairs, after writing on the back of the door

with chalk: _Mind and do the door_ (because he was a forgetful man).

‘To her great surprise, and I might say alarm, on reaching the foot of

the stairs his boots were standing there as they always stood when he

had gone to rest; going up to their chamber she found him in bed

sleeping as sound as a rock. How he could have got back again without

her seeing or hearing him was beyond her comprehension. It could only

have been by passing behind her very quietly while she was bumping with

the iron. But this notion did not satisfy her: it was surely impossible

that she should not have seen him come in through a room so small. She

could not unravel the mystery, and felt very queer and uncomfortable

about it. However, she would not disturb him to question him then, and

went to bed herself.

‘He rose and left for his work very early the next morning, before she

was awake, and she waited his return to breakfast with much anxiety for

an explanation, for thinking over the matter by daylight made it seem

only the more startling. When he came in to the meal he said, before

she could put her question, “What’s the meaning of them words chalked

on the door?”

‘She told him, and asked him about his going out the night before.

William declared that he had never left the bedroom after entering it,

having in fact undressed, lain down, and fallen asleep directly, never

once waking till the clock struck five, and he rose up to go to his

labour.

‘Betty Privett was as certain in her own mind that he did go out as she

was of her own existence, and was little less certain that he did not

return. She felt too disturbed to argue with him, and let the subject

drop as though she must have been mistaken. When she was walking down

Longpuddle street later in the day she met Jim Weedle’s daughter Nancy,

and said, “Well, Nancy, you do look sleepy to-day!”

‘“Yes, Mrs. Privett,” says Nancy. “Now don’t tell anybody, but I don’t

mind letting you know what the reason o’t is. Last night, being Old

Midsummer Eve, some of us went to church porch, and didn’t get home

till near one.”

‘“Did ye?” says Mrs. Privett. “Old Midsummer yesterday was it? Faith I

didn’t think whe’r ’twas Midsummer or Michaelmas; I’d too much work to

do.”

‘“Yes. And we were frightened enough, I can tell ’ee, by what we saw.”

‘“What did ye see?”

‘(You may not remember, sir, having gone off to foreign parts so young,

that on Midsummer Night it is believed hereabout that the faint shapes

of all the folk in the parish who are going to be at death’s door

within the year can be seen entering the church. Those who get over

their illness come out again after a while; those that are doomed to

die do not return.)

‘“What did you see?” asked William’s wife.

‘“Well,” says Nancy, backwardly—“we needn’t tell what we saw, or who we

saw.”

‘“You saw my husband,” says Betty Privett, in a quiet way.

‘“Well, since you put it so,” says Nancy, hanging fire, “we—thought we

did see him; but it was darkish, and we was frightened, and of course

it might not have been he.”

‘“Nancy, you needn’t mind letting it out, though ’tis kept back in

kindness. And he didn’t come out of church again: I know it as well as

you.”

‘Nancy did not answer yes or no to that, and no more was said. But

three days after, William Privett was mowing with John Chiles in Mr.

Hardcome’s meadow, and in the heat of the day they sat down to eat

their bit o’ nunch under a tree, and empty their flagon. Afterwards

both of ’em fell asleep as they sat. John Chiles was the first to wake,

and as he looked towards his fellow-mower he saw one of those great

white miller’s-souls as we call ’em—that is to say, a miller-moth—come

from William’s open mouth while he slept, and fly straight away. John

thought it odd enough, as William had worked in a mill for several

years when he was a boy. He then looked at the sun, and found by the

place o’t that they had slept a long while, and as William did not

wake, John called to him and said it was high time to begin work again.

He took no notice, and then John went up and shook him, and found he

was dead.

‘Now on that very day old Philip Hookhorn was down at Longpuddle Spring

dipping up a pitcher of water; and as he turned away, who should he see

coming down to the spring on the other side but William, looking very

pale and odd. This surprised Philip Hookhorn very much, for years

before that time William’s little son—his only child—had been drowned

in that spring while at play there, and this had so preyed upon

William’s mind that he’d never been seen near the spring afterwards,

and had been known to go half a mile out of his way to avoid the place.

On inquiry, it was found that William in body could not have stood by

the spring, being in the mead two miles off; and it also came out that

the time at which he was seen at the spring was the very time when he

died.’

‘A rather melancholy story,’ observed the emigrant, after a minute’s

silence.

‘Yes, yes. Well, we must take ups and downs together,’ said the

seedsman’s father.

‘You don’t know, Mr. Lackland, I suppose, what a rum start that was

between Andrey Satchel and Jane Vallens and the pa’son and clerk o’

Scrimpton?’ said the master-thatcher, a man with a spark of subdued

liveliness in his eye, who had hitherto kept his attention mainly upon

small objects a long way ahead, as he sat in front of the van with his

feet outside. ‘Theirs was a queerer experience of a pa’son and clerk

than some folks get, and may cheer ’ee up a little after this dampness

that’s been flung over yer soul.’

The returned one replied that he knew nothing of the history, and

should be happy to hear it, quite recollecting the personality of the

man Satchel.

‘Ah no; this Andrey Satchel is the son of the Satchel that you knew;

this one has not been married more than two or three years, and ’twas

at the time o’ the wedding that the accident happened that I could tell

’ee of, or anybody else here, for that matter.’

‘No, no; you must tell it, neighbour, if anybody,’ said several; a

request in which Mr. Lackland joined, adding that the Satchel family

was one he had known well before leaving home.

‘I’ll just mention, as you be a stranger,’ whispered the carrier to

Lackland, ‘that Christopher’s stories will bear pruning.’

The emigrant nodded.

‘Well, I can soon tell it,’ said the master-thatcher, schooling himself

to a tone of actuality. ‘Though as it has more to do with the pa’son

and clerk than with Andrey himself, it ought to be told by a better

churchman than I.’

ANDREY SATCHEL AND THE PARSON AND CLERK

‘It all arose, you must know, from Andrey being fond of a drop of drink

at that time—though he’s a sober enough man now by all account, so much

the better for him. Jane, his bride, you see, was somewhat older than

Andrey; how much older I don’t pretend to say; she was not one of our

parish, and the register alone may be able to tell that. But, at any

rate, her being a little ahead of her young man in mortal years,

coupled with other bodily circumstances—’

(‘Ah, poor thing!’ sighed the women.)

‘—made her very anxious to get the thing done before he changed his

mind; and ’twas with a joyful countenance (they say) that she, with

Andrey and his brother and sister-in-law, marched off to church one

November morning as soon as ’twas day a’most, to be made one with

Andrey for the rest of her life. He had left our place long before it

was light, and the folks that were up all waved their lanterns at him,

and flung up their hats as he went.

‘The church of her parish was a mile and more from the houses, and, as

it was a wonderful fine day for the time of year, the plan was that as

soon as they were married they would make out a holiday by driving

straight off to Port Bredy, to see the ships and the sea and the

sojers, instead of coming back to a meal at the house of the distant

relation she lived wi’, and moping about there all the afternoon.

‘Well, some folks noticed that Andrey walked with rather wambling steps

to church that morning; the truth o’t was that his nearest neighbour’s

child had been christened the day before, and Andrey, having stood

godfather, had stayed all night keeping up the christening, for he had

said to himself, “Not if I live to be thousand shall I again be made a

godfather one day, and a husband the next, and perhaps a father the

next, and therefore I’ll make the most of the blessing.” So that when

he started from home in the morning he had not been in bed at all. The

result was, as I say, that when he and his bride-to-be walked up the

church to get married, the pa’son (who was a very strict man inside the

church, whatever he was outside) looked hard at Andrey, and said, very

sharp:

‘“How’s this, my man? You are in liquor. And so early, too. I’m ashamed

of you!”

‘“Well, that’s true, sir,” says Andrey. “But I can walk straight enough

for practical purposes. I can walk a chalk line,” he says (meaning no

offence), “as well as some other folk: and—” (getting hotter)—“I reckon

that if you, Pa’son Billy Toogood, had kept up a christening all night

so thoroughly as I have done, you wouldn’t be able to stand at all;

d--- me if you would!”

‘This answer made Pa’son Billy—as they used to call him—rather spitish,

not to say hot, for he was a warm-tempered man if provoked, and he

said, very decidedly: “Well, I cannot marry you in this state; and I

will not! Go home and get sober!” And he slapped the book together like

a rat-trap.

‘Then the bride burst out crying as if her heart would break, for very

fear that she would lose Andrey after all her hard work to get him, and

begged and implored the pa’son to go on with the ceremony. But no.

‘“I won’t be a party to your solemnizing matrimony with a tipsy man,”

says Mr. Toogood. “It is not right and decent. I am sorry for you, my

young woman, but you’d better go home again. I wonder how you could

think of bringing him here drunk like this!”

‘“But if—if he don’t come drunk he won’t come at all, sir!” she says,

through her sobs.

‘“I can’t help that,” says the pa’son; and plead as she might, it did

not move him. Then she tried him another way.

‘“Well, then, if you’ll go home, sir, and leave us here, and come back

to the church in an hour or two, I’ll undertake to say that he shall be

as sober as a judge,” she cries. “We’ll bide here, with your

permission; for if he once goes out of this here church unmarried, all

Van Amburgh’s horses won’t drag him back again!”

‘“Very well,” says the parson. “I’ll give you two hours, and then I’ll

return.”

‘“And please, sir, lock the door, so that we can’t escape!” says she.

‘“Yes,” says the parson.

‘“And let nobody know that we are here.”

‘The pa’son then took off his clane white surplice, and went away; and

the others consulted upon the best means for keeping the matter a

secret, which it was not a very hard thing to do, the place being so

lonely, and the hour so early. The witnesses, Andrey’s brother and

brother’s wife, neither one o’ which cared about Andrey’s marrying

Jane, and had come rather against their will, said they couldn’t wait

two hours in that hole of a place, wishing to get home to Longpuddle

before dinner-time. They were altogether so crusty that the clerk said

there was no difficulty in their doing as they wished. They could go

home as if their brother’s wedding had actually taken place and the

married couple had gone onward for their day’s pleasure jaunt to Port

Bredy as intended, he, the clerk, and any casual passer-by would act as

witnesses when the pa’son came back.

‘This was agreed to, and away Andrey’s relations went, nothing loath,

and the clerk shut the church door and prepared to lock in the couple.

The bride went up and whispered to him, with her eyes a-streaming

still.

‘“My dear good clerk,” she says, “if we bide here in the church, folk

may see us through the winders, and find out what has happened; and

’twould cause such a talk and scandal that I never should get over it:

and perhaps, too, dear Andrey might try to get out and leave me! Will

ye lock us up in the tower, my dear good clerk?” she says. “I’ll tole

him in there if you will.”

‘The clerk had no objection to do this to oblige the poor young woman,

and they toled Andrey into the tower, and the clerk locked ’em both up

straightway, and then went home, to return at the end of the two hours.

‘Pa’son Toogood had not been long in his house after leaving the church

when he saw a gentleman in pink and top-boots ride past his windows,

and with a sudden flash of heat he called to mind that the hounds met

that day just on the edge of his parish. The pa’son was one who dearly

loved sport, and much he longed to be there.

‘In short, except o’ Sundays and at tide-times in the week, Pa’son

Billy was the life o’ the Hunt. ’Tis true that he was poor, and that he

rode all of a heap, and that his black mare was rat-tailed and old, and

his tops older, and all over of one colour, whitey-brown, and full o’

cracks. But he’d been in at the death of three thousand foxes.

And—being a bachelor man—every time he went to bed in summer he used to

open the bed at bottom and crawl up head foremost, to mind 'em of the

coming winter and the good sport he’d have, and the foxes going to

earth. And whenever there was a christening at the Squire’s, and he had

dinner there afterwards, as he always did, he never failed to christen

the chiel over again in a bottle of port wine.

‘Now the clerk was the parson’s groom and gardener and jineral manager,

and had just got back to his work in the garden when he, too, saw the

hunting man pass, and presently saw lots more of ’em, noblemen and

gentry, and then he saw the hounds, the huntsman, Jim Treadhedge, the

whipper-in, and I don’t know who besides. The clerk loved going to

cover as frantical as the pa’son, so much so that whenever he saw or

heard the pack he could no more rule his feelings than if they were the

winds of heaven. He might be bedding, or he might be sowing—all was

forgot. So he throws down his spade and rushes in to the pa’son, who

was by this time as frantical to go as he.

‘“That there mare of yours, sir, do want exercise bad, very bad, this

morning!” the clerk says, all of a tremble. “Don’t ye think I’d better

trot her round the downs for an hour, sir?”

‘“To be sure, she does want exercise badly. I’ll trot her round

myself,” says the parson.

‘“Oh—you’ll trot her yerself? Well, there’s the cob, sir. Really that

cob is getting oncontrollable through biding in a stable so long! If

you wouldn’t mind my putting on the saddle—”

‘“Very well. Take him out, certainly,” says the pa’son, never caring

what the clerk did so long as he himself could get off immediately. So,

scrambling into his riding-boots and breeches as quick as he could, he

rode off towards the meet, intending to be back in an hour. No sooner

was he gone than the clerk mounted the cob, and was off after him. When

the pa’son got to the meet, he found a lot of friends, and was as jolly

as he could be: the hounds found a’most as soon as they threw off, and

there was great excitement. So, forgetting that he had meant to go back

at once, away rides the pa’son with the rest o’ the hunt, all across

the fallow ground that lies between Lippet Wood and Green’s Copse; and

as he galloped he looked behind for a moment, and there was the clerk

close to his heels.

‘“Ha, ha, clerk—you here?” he says.

‘“Yes, sir, here be I,” says t’other.

‘“Fine exercise for the horses!”

‘“Ay, sir—hee, hee!” says the clerk.

‘So they went on and on, into Green’s Copse, then across to Higher

Jirton; then on across this very turnpike-road to Climmerston Ridge,

then away towards Yalbury Wood: up hill and down dale, like the very

wind, the clerk close to the pa’son, and the pa’son not far from the

hounds. Never was there a finer run knowed with that pack than they had

that day; and neither pa’son nor clerk thought one word about the

unmarried couple locked up in the church tower waiting to get j’ined.

‘“These hosses of yours, sir, will be much improved by this!” says the

clerk as he rode along, just a neck behind the pa’son. “’Twas a happy

thought of your reverent mind to bring ’em out to-day. Why, it may be

frosty in a day or two, and then the poor things mid not be able to

leave the stable for weeks.”

‘“They may not, they may not, it is true. A merciful man is merciful to

his beast,” says the pa’son.

‘“Hee, hee!” says the clerk, glancing sly into the pa’son’s eye.

‘“Ha, ha!” says the pa’son, a-glancing back into the clerk’s. “Halloo!”

he shouts, as he sees the fox break cover at that moment.

‘“Halloo!” cries the clerk. “There he goes! Why, dammy, there’s two

foxes—”

‘“Hush, clerk, hush! Don’t let me hear that word again! Remember our

calling.”

‘“True, sir, true. But really, good sport do carry away a man so, that

he’s apt to forget his high persuasion!” And the next minute the corner

of the clerk’s eye shot again into the corner of the pa’son’s, and the

pa’son’s back again to the clerk’s. “Hee, hee!” said the clerk.

‘“Ha, ha!” said Pa’son Toogood.

‘“Ah, sir,” says the clerk again, “this is better than crying Amen to

your Ever-and-ever on a winter’s morning!”

‘“Yes, indeed, clerk! To everything there’s a season,” says Pa’son

Toogood, quite pat, for he was a learned Christian man when he liked,

and had chapter and ve’se at his tongue’s end, as a pa’son should.

‘At last, late in the day, the hunting came to an end by the fox

running into a’ old woman’s cottage, under her table, and up the

clock-case. The pa’son and clerk were among the first in at the death,

their faces a-staring in at the old woman’s winder, and the clock

striking as he’d never been heard to strik’ before. Then came the

question of finding their way home.

‘Neither the pa’son nor the clerk knowed how they were going to do

this, for their beasts were wellnigh tired down to the ground. But they

started back-along as well as they could, though they were so done up

that they could only drag along at a’ amble, and not much of that at a

time.

‘“We shall never, never get there!” groaned Mr. Toogood, quite bowed

down.

‘“Never!” groans the clerk. “’Tis a judgment upon us for our

iniquities!”

‘“I fear it is,” murmurs the pa’son.

‘Well, ’twas quite dark afore they entered the pa’sonage gate, having

crept into the parish as quiet as if they’d stole a hammer, little

wishing their congregation to know what they’d been up to all day long.

And as they were so dog-tired, and so anxious about the horses, never

once did they think of the unmarried couple. As soon as ever the horses

had been stabled and fed, and the pa’son and clerk had had a bit and a

sup theirselves, they went to bed.

‘Next morning when Pa’son Toogood was at breakfast, thinking of the

glorious sport he’d had the day before, the clerk came in a hurry to

the door and asked to see him.

‘“It has just come into my mind, sir, that we’ve forgot all about the

couple that we was to have married yesterday!”

‘The half-chawed victuals dropped from the pa’son’s mouth as if he’d

been shot. “Bless my soul,” says he, “so we have! How very awkward!”

‘“It is, sir; very. Perhaps we’ve ruined the ’ooman!”

‘“Ah—to be sure—I remember! She ought to have been married before.”

‘“If anything has happened to her up in that there tower, and no doctor

or nuss—”

(‘Ah—poor thing!’ sighed the women.)

‘“—’twill be a quarter-sessions matter for us, not to speak of the

disgrace to the Church!”

‘“Good God, clerk, don’t drive me wild!” says the pa’son. “Why the hell

didn’t I marry ’em, drunk or sober!” (Pa’sons used to cuss in them days

like plain honest men.) “Have you been to the church to see what

happened to them, or inquired in the village?”

‘“Not I, sir! It only came into my head a moment ago, and I always like

to be second to you in church matters. You could have knocked me down

with a sparrer’s feather when I thought o’t, sir; I assure ’ee you

could!”

‘Well, the parson jumped up from his breakfast, and together they went

off to the church.

‘“It is not at all likely that they are there now,” says Mr. Toogood,

as they went; “and indeed I hope they are not. They be pretty sure to

have ’scaped and gone home.”

‘However, they opened the church-hatch, entered the churchyard, and

looking up at the tower, there they seed a little small white face at

the belfry-winder, and a little small hand waving. ’Twas the bride.

‘“God my life, clerk,” says Mr. Toogood, “I don’t know how to face

’em!” And he sank down upon a tombstone. “How I wish I hadn’t been so

cussed particular!”

‘“Yes—’twas a pity we didn’t finish it when we’d begun,” the clerk

said. “Still, since the feelings of your holy priestcraft wouldn’t let

ye, the couple must put up with it.”

‘“True, clerk, true! Does she look as if anything premature had took

place?”

‘“I can’t see her no lower down than her arm-pits, sir.”

‘“Well—how do her face look?”

‘“It do look mighty white!”

‘“Well, we must know the worst! Dear me, how the small of my back do

ache from that ride yesterday! . . . But to more godly business!”

‘They went on into the church, and unlocked the tower stairs, and

immediately poor Jane and Andrey busted out like starved mice from a

cupboard, Andrey limp and sober enough now, and his bride pale and

cold, but otherwise as usual.

‘“What,” says the pa’son, with a great breath of relief, “you haven’t

been here ever since?”

‘“Yes, we have, sir!” says the bride, sinking down upon a seat in her

weakness. “Not a morsel, wet or dry, have we had since! It was

impossible to get out without help, and here we’ve stayed!”

‘“But why didn’t you shout, good souls?” said the pa’son.

‘“She wouldn’t let me,” says Andrey.

‘“Because we were so ashamed at what had led to it,” sobs Jane. “We

felt that if it were noised abroad it would cling to us all our lives!

Once or twice Andrey had a good mind to toll the bell, but then he

said: “No; I’ll starve first. I won’t bring disgrace on my name and

yours, my dear.” And so we waited and waited, and walked round and

round; but never did you come till now!”

‘“To my regret!” says the parson. “Now, then, we will soon get it

over.”

‘“I—I should like some victuals,” said Andrey, “’twould gie me courage

if it is only a crust o’ bread and a’ onion; for I am that leery that I

can feel my stomach rubbing against my backbone.”

‘“I think we had better get it done,” said the bride, a bit anxious in

manner; “since we are all here convenient, too!”

‘Andrey gave way about the victuals, and the clerk called in a second

witness who wouldn’t be likely to gossip about it, and soon the knot

was tied, and the bride looked smiling and calm forthwith, and Andrey

limper than ever.

‘“Now,” said Pa’son Toogood, “you two must come to my house, and have a

good lining put to your insides before you go a step further.”

‘They were very glad of the offer, and went out of the churchyard by

one path while the pa’son and clerk went out by the other, and so did

not attract notice, it being still early. They entered the rectory as

if they’d just come back from their trip to Port Bredy; and then they

knocked in the victuals and drink till they could hold no more.

‘It was a long while before the story of what they had gone through was

known, but it was talked of in time, and they themselves laugh over it

now; though what Jane got for her pains was no great bargain after all.

’Tis true she saved her name.’

‘Was that the same Andrey who went to the squire’s house as one of the

Christmas fiddlers?’ asked the seedsman.

‘No, no,’ replied Mr. Profitt, the schoolmaster. ‘It was his father did

that. Ay, it was all owing to his being such a man for eating and

drinking.’ Finding that he had the ear of the audience, the

schoolmaster continued without delay:—

OLD ANDREY’S EXPERIENCE AS A MUSICIAN

‘I was one of the choir-boys at that time, and we and the players were

to appear at the manor-house as usual that Christmas week, to play and

sing in the hall to the squire’s people and visitors (among ’em being

the archdeacon, Lord and Lady Baxby, and I don’t know who); afterwards

going, as we always did, to have a good supper in the servants’ hall.

Andrew knew this was the custom, and meeting us when we were starting

to go, he said to us: “Lord, how I should like to join in that meal of

beef, and turkey, and plum-pudding, and ale, that you happy ones be

going to just now! One more or less will make no difference to the

squire. I am too old to pass as a singing boy, and too bearded to pass

as a singing girl; can ye lend me a fiddle, neighbours, that I may come

with ye as a bandsman?”

‘Well, we didn’t like to be hard upon him, and lent him an old one,

though Andrew knew no more of music than the Cerne Giant; and armed

with the instrument he walked up to the squire’s house with the others

of us at the time appointed, and went in boldly, his fiddle under his

arm. He made himself as natural as he could in opening the music-books

and moving the candles to the best points for throwing light upon the

notes; and all went well till we had played and sung “While shepherds

watch,” and “Star, arise,” and “Hark the glad sound.” Then the squire’s

mother, a tall gruff old lady, who was much interested in church-music,

said quite unexpectedly to Andrew: “My man, I see you don’t play your

instrument with the rest. How is that?”

‘Every one of the choir was ready to sink into the earth with concern

at the fix Andrew was in. We could see that he had fallen into a cold

sweat, and how he would get out of it we did not know.

‘“I’ve had a misfortune, mem,” he says, bowing as meek as a child.

“Coming along the road I fell down and broke my bow.”

‘“Oh, I am sorry to hear that,” says she. “Can’t it be mended?”

‘“Oh no, mem,” says Andrew. “’Twas broke all to splinters.”

‘“I’ll see what I can do for you,” says she.

‘And then it seemed all over, and we played “Rejoice, ye drowsy mortals

all,” in D and two sharps. But no sooner had we got through it than she

says to Andrew,

‘“I’ve sent up into the attic, where we have some old musical

instruments, and found a bow for you.” And she hands the bow to poor

wretched Andrew, who didn’t even know which end to take hold of. “Now

we shall have the full accompaniment,” says she.

‘Andrew’s face looked as if it were made of rotten apple as he stood in

the circle of players in front of his book; for if there was one person

in the parish that everybody was afraid of, ’twas this hook-nosed old

lady. However, by keeping a little behind the next man he managed to

make pretence of beginning, sawing away with his bow without letting it

touch the strings, so that it looked as if he were driving into the

tune with heart and soul. ’Tis a question if he wouldn’t have got

through all right if one of the squire’s visitors (no other than the

archdeacon) hadn’t noticed that he held the fiddle upside down, the nut

under his chin, and the tail-piece in his hand; and they began to crowd

round him, thinking ’twas some new way of performing.

‘This revealed everything; the squire’s mother had Andrew turned out of

the house as a vile impostor, and there was great interruption to the

harmony of the proceedings, the squire declaring he should have notice

to leave his cottage that day fortnight. However, when we got to the

servants’ hall there sat Andrew, who had been let in at the back door

by the orders of the squire’s wife, after being turned out at the front

by the orders of the squire, and nothing more was heard about his

leaving his cottage. But Andrew never performed in public as a musician

after that night; and now he’s dead and gone, poor man, as we all shall

be!’

‘I had quite forgotten the old choir, with their fiddles and

bass-viols,’ said the home-comer, musingly. ‘Are they still going on

the same as of old?’

‘Bless the man!’ said Christopher Twink, the master-thatcher; ‘why,

they’ve been done away with these twenty year. A young teetotaler plays

the organ in church now, and plays it very well; though ’tis not quite

such good music as in old times, because the organ is one of them that

go with a winch, and the young teetotaler says he can’t always throw

the proper feeling into the tune without wellnigh working his arms

off.’

‘Why did they make the change, then?’

‘Well, partly because of fashion, partly because the old musicians got

into a sort of scrape. A terrible scrape ’twas too—wasn’t it, John? I

shall never forget it—never! They lost their character as officers of

the church as complete as if they’d never had any character at all.’

‘That was very bad for them.’

‘Yes.’ The master-thatcher attentively regarded past times as if they

lay about a mile off, and went on:—

ABSENT-MINDEDNESS IN A PARISH CHOIR

‘It happened on Sunday after Christmas—the last Sunday ever they played

in Longpuddle church gallery, as it turned out, though they didn’t know

it then. As you may know, sir, the players formed a very good

band—almost as good as the Mellstock parish players that were led by

the Dewys; and that’s saying a great deal. There was Nicholas

Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy

Thomas, the bass-viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan’l

Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr.

Nicks, with the oboe—all sound and powerful musicians, and

strong-winded men—they that blowed. For that reason they were very much

in demand Christmas week for little reels and dancing parties; for they

could turn a jig or a hornpipe out of hand as well as ever they could

turn out a psalm, and perhaps better, not to speak irreverent. In

short, one half-hour they could be playing a Christmas carol in the

squire’s hall to the ladies and gentlemen, and drinking tea and coffee

with ’em as modest as saints; and the next, at The Tinker’s Arms,

blazing away like wild horses with the “Dashing White Sergeant” to nine

couple of dancers and more, and swallowing rum-and-cider hot as flame.

‘Well, this Christmas they’d been out to one rattling randy after

another every night, and had got next to no sleep at all. Then came the

Sunday after Christmas, their fatal day. ’Twas so mortal cold that year

that they could hardly sit in the gallery; for though the congregation

down in the body of the church had a stove to keep off the frost, the

players in the gallery had nothing at all. So Nicholas said at morning

service, when ’twas freezing an inch an hour, “Please the Lord I won’t

stand this numbing weather no longer: this afternoon we’ll have

something in our insides to make us warm, if it cost a king’s ransom.”

‘So he brought a gallon of hot brandy and beer, ready mixed, to church

with him in the afternoon, and by keeping the jar well wrapped up in

Timothy Thomas’s bass-viol bag it kept drinkably warm till they wanted

it, which was just a thimbleful in the Absolution, and another after

the Creed, and the remainder at the beginning o’ the sermon. When

they’d had the last pull they felt quite comfortable and warm, and as

the sermon went on—most unfortunately for ’em it was a long one that

afternoon—they fell asleep, every man jack of ’em; and there they slept

on as sound as rocks.

‘’Twas a very dark afternoon, and by the end of the sermon all you

could see of the inside of the church were the pa’son’s two candles

alongside of him in the pulpit, and his spaking face behind ’em. The

sermon being ended at last, the pa’son gie’d out the Evening Hymn. But

no choir set about sounding up the tune, and the people began to turn

their heads to learn the reason why, and then Levi Limpet, a boy who

sat in the gallery, nudged Timothy and Nicholas, and said, “Begin!

begin!”

‘“Hey? what?” says Nicholas, starting up; and the church being so dark

and his head so muddled he thought he was at the party they had played

at all the night before, and away he went, bow and fiddle, at “The

Devil among the Tailors,” the favourite jig of our neighbourhood at

that time. The rest of the band, being in the same state of mind and

nothing doubting, followed their leader with all their strength,

according to custom. They poured out that there tune till the lower

bass notes of “The Devil among the Tailors” made the cobwebs in the

roof shiver like ghosts; then Nicholas, seeing nobody moved, shouted

out as he scraped (in his usual commanding way at dances when the folk

didn’t know the figures), “Top couples cross hands! And when I make the

fiddle squeak at the end, every man kiss his pardner under the

mistletoe!”

‘The boy Levi was so frightened that he bolted down the gallery stairs

and out homeward like lightning. The pa’son’s hair fairly stood on end

when he heard the evil tune raging through the church, and thinking the

choir had gone crazy he held up his hand and said: “Stop, stop, stop!

Stop, stop! What’s this?” But they didn’t hear’n for the noise of their

own playing, and the more he called the louder they played.

‘Then the folks came out of their pews, wondering down to the ground,

and saying: “What do they mean by such wickedness! We shall be consumed

like Sodom and Gomorrah!”

‘Then the squire came out of his pew lined wi’ green baize, where lots

of lords and ladies visiting at the house were worshipping along with

him, and went and stood in front of the gallery, and shook his fist in

the musicians’ faces, saying, “What! In this reverent edifice! What!”

‘And at last they heard’n through their playing, and stopped.

‘“Never such an insulting, disgraceful thing—never!” says the squire,

who couldn’t rule his passion.

‘“Never!” says the pa’son, who had come down and stood beside him.

‘“Not if the Angels of Heaven,” says the squire (he was a wickedish

man, the squire was, though now for once he happened to be on the

Lord’s side)—“not if the Angels of Heaven come down,” he says, “shall

one of you villanous players ever sound a note in this church again;

for the insult to me, and my family, and my visitors, and God Almighty,

that you’ve a-perpetrated this afternoon!”

‘Then the unfortunate church band came to their senses, and remembered

where they were; and ’twas a sight to see Nicholas Pudding come and

Timothy Thomas and John Biles creep down the gallery stairs with their

fiddles under their arms, and poor Dan’l Hornhead with his serpent, and

Robert Dowdle with his clarionet, all looking as little as ninepins;

and out they went. The pa’son might have forgi’ed ’em when he learned

the truth o’t, but the squire would not. That very week he sent for a

barrel-organ that would play two-and-twenty new psalm-tunes, so exact

and particular that, however sinful inclined you was, you could play

nothing but psalm-tunes whatsomever. He had a really respectable man to

turn the winch, as I said, and the old players played no more.’

‘And, of course, my old acquaintance, the annuitant, Mrs. Winter, who

always seemed to have something on her mind, is dead and gone?’ said

the home-comer, after a long silence.

Nobody in the van seemed to recollect the name.

‘O yes, she must be dead long since: she was seventy when I as a child

knew her,’ he added.

‘I can recollect Mrs. Winter very well, if nobody else can,’ said the

aged groceress. ‘Yes, she’s been dead these five-and-twenty year at

least. You knew what it was upon her mind, sir, that gave her that

hollow-eyed look, I suppose?’

‘It had something to do with a son of hers, I think I once was told.

But I was too young to know particulars.’

The groceress sighed as she conjured up a vision of days long past.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘it had all to do with a son.’ Finding that the

van was still in a listening mood, she spoke on:—

THE WINTERS AND THE PALMLEYS

‘To go back to the beginning—if one must—there were two women in the

parish when I was a child, who were to a certain extent rivals in good

looks. Never mind particulars, but in consequence of this they were at

daggers-drawn, and they did not love each other any better when one of

them tempted the other’s lover away from her and married him. He was a

young man of the name of Winter, and in due time they had a son.

‘The other woman did not marry for many years: but when she was about

thirty a quiet man named Palmley asked her to be his wife, and she

accepted him. You don’t mind when the Palmleys were Longpuddle folk,

but I do well. She had a son also, who was, of course, nine or ten

years younger than the son of the first. The child proved to be of

rather weak intellect, though his mother loved him as the apple of her

eye.

‘This woman’s husband died when the child was eight years old, and left

his widow and boy in poverty. Her former rival, also a widow now, but

fairly well provided for, offered for pity’s sake to take the child as

errand-boy, small as he was, her own son, Jack, being hard upon

seventeen. Her poor neighbour could do no better than let the child go

there. And to the richer woman’s house little Palmley straightway went.

‘Well, in some way or other—how, it was never exactly known—the

thriving woman, Mrs. Winter, sent the little boy with a message to the

next village one December day, much against his will. It was getting

dark, and the child prayed to be allowed not to go, because he would be

afraid coming home. But the mistress insisted, more out of

thoughtlessness than cruelty, and the child went. On his way back he

had to pass through Yalbury Wood, and something came out from behind a

tree and frightened him into fits. The child was quite ruined by it; he

became quite a drivelling idiot, and soon afterward died.

‘Then the other woman had nothing left to live for, and vowed vengeance

against that rival who had first won away her lover, and now had been

the cause of her bereavement. This last affliction was certainly not

intended by her thriving acquaintance, though it must be owned that

when it was done she seemed but little concerned. Whatever vengeance

poor Mrs. Palmley felt, she had no opportunity of carrying it out, and

time might have softened her feelings into forgetfulness of her

supposed wrongs as she dragged on her lonely life. So matters stood

when, a year after the death of the child, Mrs. Palmley’s niece, who

had been born and bred in the city of Exonbury, came to live with her.

‘This young woman—Miss Harriet Palmley—was a proud and handsome girl,

very well brought up, and more stylish and genteel than the people of

our village, as was natural, considering where she came from. She

regarded herself as much above Mrs. Winter and her son in position as

Mrs. Winter and her son considered themselves above poor Mrs. Palmley.

But love is an unceremonious thing, and what in the world should happen

but that young Jack Winter must fall wofully and wildly in love with

Harriet Palmley almost as soon as he saw her.

‘She, being better educated than he, and caring nothing for the village

notion of his mother’s superiority to her aunt, did not give him much

encouragement. But Longpuddle being no very large world, the two could

not help seeing a good deal of each other while she was staying there,

and, disdainful young woman as she was, she did seem to take a little

pleasure in his attentions and advances.

‘One day when they were picking apples together, he asked her to marry

him. She had not expected anything so practical as that at so early a

time, and was led by her surprise into a half-promise; at any rate she

did not absolutely refuse him, and accepted some little presents that

he made her.

‘But he saw that her view of him was rather as a simple village lad

than as a young man to look up to, and he felt that he must do

something bold to secure her. So he said one day, “I am going away, to

try to get into a better position than I can get here.” In two or three

weeks he wished her good-bye, and went away to Monksbury, to

superintend a farm, with a view to start as a farmer himself; and from

there he wrote regularly to her, as if their marriage were an

understood thing.

‘Now Harriet liked the young man’s presents and the admiration of his

eyes; but on paper he was less attractive to her. Her mother had been a

school-mistress, and Harriet had besides a natural aptitude for

pen-and-ink work, in days when to be a ready writer was not such a

common thing as it is now, and when actual handwriting was valued as an

accomplishment in itself. Jack Winter’s performances in the shape of

love-letters quite jarred her city nerves and her finer taste, and when

she answered one of them, in the lovely running hand that she took such

pride in, she very strictly and loftily bade him to practise with a pen

and spelling-book if he wished to please her. Whether he listened to

her request or not nobody knows, but his letters did not improve. He

ventured to tell her in his clumsy way that if her heart were more warm

towards him she would not be so nice about his handwriting and

spelling; which indeed was true enough.

‘Well, in Jack’s absence the weak flame that had been set alight in

Harriet’s heart soon sank low, and at last went out altogether. He

wrote and wrote, and begged and prayed her to give a reason for her

coldness; and then she told him plainly that she was town born, and he

was not sufficiently well educated to please her.

‘Jack Winter’s want of pen-and-ink training did not make him less

thin-skinned than others; in fact, he was terribly tender and touchy

about anything. This reason that she gave for finally throwing him over

grieved him, shamed him, and mortified him more than can be told in

these times, the pride of that day in being able to write with

beautiful flourishes, and the sorrow at not being able to do so, raging

so high. Jack replied to her with an angry note, and then she hit back

with smart little stings, telling him how many words he had misspelt in

his last letter, and declaring again that this alone was sufficient

justification for any woman to put an end to an understanding with him.

Her husband must be a better scholar.

‘He bore her rejection of him in silence, but his suffering was

sharp—all the sharper in being untold. She communicated with Jack no

more; and as his reason for going out into the world had been only to

provide a home worthy of her, he had no further object in planning such

a home now that she was lost to him. He therefore gave up the farming

occupation by which he had hoped to make himself a master-farmer, and

left the spot to return to his mother.

‘As soon as he got back to Longpuddle he found that Harriet had already

looked wi’ favour upon another lover. He was a young road-contractor,

and Jack could not but admit that his rival was both in manners and

scholarship much ahead of him. Indeed, a more sensible match for the

beauty who had been dropped into the village by fate could hardly have

been found than this man, who could offer her so much better a chance

than Jack could have done, with his uncertain future and narrow

abilities for grappling with the world. The fact was so clear to him

that he could hardly blame her.

‘One day by accident Jack saw on a scrap of paper the handwriting of

Harriet’s new beloved. It was flowing like a stream, well spelt, the

work of a man accustomed to the ink-bottle and the dictionary, of a man

already called in the parish a good scholar. And then it struck all of

a sudden into Jack’s mind what a contrast the letters of this young man

must make to his own miserable old letters, and how ridiculous they

must make his lines appear. He groaned and wished he had never written

to her, and wondered if she had ever kept his poor performances.

Possibly she had kept them, for women are in the habit of doing that,

he thought, and whilst they were in her hands there was always a chance

of his honest, stupid love-assurances to her being joked over by

Harriet with her present lover, or by anybody who should accidentally

uncover them.

‘The nervous, moody young man could not bear the thought of it, and at

length decided to ask her to return them, as was proper when

engagements were broken off. He was some hours in framing, copying, and

recopying the short note in which he made his request, and having

finished it he sent it to her house. His messenger came back with the

answer, by word of mouth, that Miss Palmley bade him say she should not

part with what was hers, and wondered at his boldness in troubling her.

‘Jack was much affronted at this, and determined to go for his letters

himself. He chose a time when he knew she was at home, and knocked and

went in without much ceremony; for though Harriet was so high and

mighty, Jack had small respect for her aunt, Mrs. Palmley, whose little

child had been his boot-cleaner in earlier days. Harriet was in the

room, this being the first time they had met since she had jilted him.

He asked for his letters with a stern and bitter look at her.

‘At first she said he might have them for all that she cared, and took

them out of the bureau where she kept them. Then she glanced over the

outside one of the packet, and suddenly altering her mind, she told him

shortly that his request was a silly one, and slipped the letters into

her aunt’s work-box, which stood open on the table, locking it, and

saying with a bantering laugh that of course she thought it best to

keep ’em, since they might be useful to produce as evidence that she

had good cause for declining to marry him.

‘He blazed up hot. “Give me those letters!” he said. “They are mine!”

‘“No, they are not,” she replied; “they are mine.”

‘“Whos’ever they are I want them back,” says he. “I don’t want to be

made sport of for my penmanship: you’ve another young man now! he has

your confidence, and you pour all your tales into his ear. You’ll be

showing them to him!”

‘“Perhaps,” said my lady Harriet, with calm coolness, like the

heartless woman that she was.

‘Her manner so maddened him that he made a step towards the work-box,

but she snatched it up, locked it in the bureau, and turned upon him

triumphant. For a moment he seemed to be going to wrench the key of the

bureau out of her hand; but he stopped himself, and swung round upon

his heel and went away.

‘When he was out-of-doors alone, and it got night, he walked about

restless, and stinging with the sense of being beaten at all points by

her. He could not help fancying her telling her new lover or her

acquaintances of this scene with himself, and laughing with them over

those poor blotted, crooked lines of his that he had been so anxious to

obtain. As the evening passed on he worked himself into a dogged

resolution to have them back at any price, come what might.

‘At the dead of night he came out of his mother’s house by the back

door, and creeping through the garden hedge went along the field

adjoining till he reached the back of her aunt’s dwelling. The moon

struck bright and flat upon the walls, ’twas said, and every shiny leaf

of the creepers was like a little looking-glass in the rays. From long

acquaintance Jack knew the arrangement and position of everything in

Mrs. Palmley’s house as well as in his own mother’s. The back window

close to him was a casement with little leaded squares, as it is to

this day, and was, as now, one of two lighting the sitting-room. The

other, being in front, was closed up with shutters, but this back one

had not even a blind, and the moonlight as it streamed in showed every

article of the furniture to him outside. To the right of the room is

the fireplace, as you may remember; to the left was the bureau at that

time; inside the bureau was Harriet’s work-box, as he supposed (though

it was really her aunt’s), and inside the work-box were his letters.

Well, he took out his pocket-knife, and without noise lifted the

leading of one of the panes, so that he could take out the glass, and

putting his hand through the hole he unfastened the casement, and

climbed in through the opening. All the household—that is to say, Mrs.

Palmley, Harriet, and the little maid-servant—were asleep. Jack went

straight to the bureau, so he said, hoping it might have been

unfastened again—it not being kept locked in ordinary—but Harriet had

never unfastened it since she secured her letters there the day before.

Jack told afterward how he thought of her asleep upstairs, caring

nothing for him, and of the way she had made sport of him and of his

letters; and having advanced so far, he was not to be hindered now. By

forcing the large blade of his knife under the flap of the bureau, he

burst the weak lock; within was the rosewood work-box just as she had

placed it in her hurry to keep it from him. There being no time to

spare for getting the letters out of it then, he took it under his arm,

shut the bureau, and made the best of his way out of the house,

latching the casement behind him, and refixing the pane of glass in its

place.

‘Winter found his way back to his mother’s as he had come, and being

dog-tired, crept upstairs to bed, hiding the box till he could destroy

its contents. The next morning early he set about doing this, and

carried it to the linhay at the back of his mother’s dwelling. Here by

the hearth he opened the box, and began burning one by one the letters

that had cost him so much labour to write and shame to think of,

meaning to return the box to Harriet, after repairing the slight damage

he had caused it by opening it without a key, with a note—the last she

would ever receive from him—telling her triumphantly that in refusing

to return what he had asked for she had calculated too surely upon his

submission to her whims.

‘But on removing the last letter from the box he received a shock; for

underneath it, at the very bottom, lay money—several golden

guineas—“Doubtless Harriet’s pocket-money,” he said to himself; though

it was not, but Mrs. Palmley’s. Before he had got over his qualms at

this discovery he heard footsteps coming through the house-passage to

where he was. In haste he pushed the box and what was in it under some

brushwood which lay in the linhay; but Jack had been already seen. Two

constables entered the out-house, and seized him as he knelt before the

fireplace, securing the work-box and all it contained at the same

moment. They had come to apprehend him on a charge of breaking into the

dwelling-house of Mrs. Palmley on the night preceding; and almost

before the lad knew what had happened to him they were leading him

along the lane that connects that end of the village with this

turnpike-road, and along they marched him between ’em all the way to

Casterbridge jail.

‘Jack’s act amounted to night burglary—though he had never thought of

it—and burglary was felony, and a capital offence in those days. His

figure had been seen by some one against the bright wall as he came

away from Mrs. Palmley’s back window, and the box and money were found

in his possession, while the evidence of the broken bureau-lock and

tinkered window-pane was more than enough for circumstantial detail.

Whether his protestation that he went only for his letters, which he

believed to be wrongfully kept from him, would have availed him

anything if supported by other evidence I do not know; but the one

person who could have borne it out was Harriet, and she acted entirely

under the sway of her aunt. That aunt was deadly towards Jack Winter.

Mrs. Palmley’s time had come. Here was her revenge upon the woman who

had first won away her lover, and next ruined and deprived her of her

heart’s treasure—her little son. When the assize week drew on, and Jack

had to stand his trial, Harriet did not appear in the case at all,

which was allowed to take its course, Mrs. Palmley testifying to the

general facts of the burglary. Whether Harriet would have come forward

if Jack had appealed to her is not known; possibly she would have done

it for pity’s sake; but Jack was too proud to ask a single favour of a

girl who had jilted him; and he let her alone. The trial was a short

one, and the death sentence was passed.

‘The day o’ young Jack’s execution was a cold dusty Saturday in March.

He was so boyish and slim that they were obliged in mercy to hang him

in the heaviest fetters kept in the jail, lest his heft should not

break his neck, and they weighed so upon him that he could hardly drag

himself up to the drop. At that time the gover’ment was not strict

about burying the body of an executed person within the precincts of

the prison, and at the earnest prayer of his poor mother his body was

allowed to be brought home. All the parish waited at their cottage

doors in the evening for its arrival: I remember how, as a very little

girl, I stood by my mother’s side. About eight o’clock, as we hearkened

on our door-stones in the cold bright starlight, we could hear the

faint crackle of a waggon from the direction of the turnpike-road. The

noise was lost as the waggon dropped into a hollow, then it was plain

again as it lumbered down the next long incline, and presently it

entered Longpuddle. The coffin was laid in the belfry for the night,

and the next day, Sunday, between the services, we buried him. A

funeral sermon was preached the same afternoon, the text chosen being,

“He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.” . . . Yes,

they were cruel times!

‘As for Harriet, she and her lover were married in due time; but by all

account her life was no jocund one. She and her good-man found that

they could not live comfortably at Longpuddle, by reason of her

connection with Jack’s misfortunes, and they settled in a distant town,

and were no more heard of by us; Mrs. Palmley, too, found it advisable

to join ’em shortly after. The dark-eyed, gaunt old Mrs. Winter,

remembered by the emigrant gentleman here, was, as you will have

foreseen, the Mrs. Winter of this story; and I can well call to mind

how lonely she was, how afraid the children were of her, and how she

kept herself as a stranger among us, though she lived so long.’

‘Longpuddle has had her sad experiences as well as her sunny ones,’

said Mr. Lackland.

‘Yes, yes. But I am thankful to say not many like that, though good and

bad have lived among us.’

‘There was Georgy Crookhill—he was one of the shady sort, as I have

reason to know,’ observed the registrar, with the manner of a man who

would like to have his say also.

‘I used to hear what he was as a boy at school.’

‘Well, as he began so he went on. It never got so far as a hanging

matter with him, to be sure; but he had some narrow escapes of penal

servitude; and once it was a case of the biter bit.’

INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF MR. GEORGE CROOKHILL

‘One day,’ the registrar continued, ‘Georgy was ambling out of

Melchester on a miserable screw, the fair being just over, when he saw

in front of him a fine-looking young farmer riding out of the town in

the same direction. He was mounted on a good strong handsome animal,

worth fifty guineas if worth a crown. When they were going up Bissett

Hill, Georgy made it his business to overtake the young farmer. They

passed the time o’ day to one another; Georgy spoke of the state of the

roads, and jogged alongside the well-mounted stranger in very friendly

conversation. The farmer had not been inclined to say much to Georgy at

first, but by degrees he grew quite affable too—as friendly as Georgy

was toward him. He told Crookhill that he had been doing business at

Melchester fair, and was going on as far as Shottsford-Forum that

night, so as to reach Casterbridge market the next day. When they came

to Woodyates Inn they stopped to bait their horses, and agreed to drink

together; with this they got more friendly than ever, and on they went

again. Before they had nearly reached Shottsford it came on to rain,

and as they were now passing through the village of Trantridge, and it

was quite dark, Georgy persuaded the young farmer to go no further that

night; the rain would most likely give them a chill. For his part he

had heard that the little inn here was comfortable, and he meant to

stay. At last the young farmer agreed to put up there also; and they

dismounted, and entered, and had a good supper together, and talked

over their affairs like men who had known and proved each other a long

time. When it was the hour for retiring they went upstairs to a

double-bedded room which Georgy Crookhill had asked the landlord to let

them share, so sociable were they.

‘Before they fell asleep they talked across the room about one thing

and another, running from this to that till the conversation turned

upon disguises, and changing clothes for particular ends. The farmer

told Georgy that he had often heard tales of people doing it; but

Crookhill professed to be very ignorant of all such tricks; and soon

the young farmer sank into slumber.

‘Early in the morning, while the tall young farmer was still asleep (I

tell the story as ’twas told me), honest Georgy crept out of his bed by

stealth, and dressed himself in the farmer’s clothes, in the pockets of

the said clothes being the farmer’s money. Now though Georgy

particularly wanted the farmer’s nice clothes and nice horse, owing to

a little transaction at the fair which made it desirable that he should

not be too easily recognized, his desires had their bounds: he did not

wish to take his young friend’s money, at any rate more of it than was

necessary for paying his bill. This he abstracted, and leaving the

farmer’s purse containing the rest on the bedroom table, went

downstairs. The inn folks had not particularly noticed the faces of

their customers, and the one or two who were up at this hour had no

thought but that Georgy was the farmer; so when he had paid the bill

very liberally, and said he must be off, no objection was made to his

getting the farmer’s horse saddled for himself; and he rode away upon

it as if it were his own.

‘About half an hour after the young farmer awoke, and looking across

the room saw that his friend Georgy had gone away in clothes which

didn’t belong to him, and had kindly left for himself the seedy ones

worn by Georgy. At this he sat up in a deep thought for some time,

instead of hastening to give an alarm. “The money, the money is gone,”

he said to himself, “and that’s bad. But so are the clothes.”

‘He then looked upon the table and saw that the money, or most of it,

had been left behind.

‘“Ha, ha, ha!” he cried, and began to dance about the room. “Ha, ha,

ha!” he said again, and made beautiful smiles to himself in the shaving

glass and in the brass candlestick; and then swung about his arms for

all the world as if he were going through the sword exercise.

‘When he had dressed himself in Georgy’s clothes and gone downstairs,

he did not seem to mind at all that they took him for the other; and

even when he saw that he had been left a bad horse for a good one, he

was not inclined to cry out. They told him his friend had paid the

bill, at which he seemed much pleased, and without waiting for

breakfast he mounted Georgy’s horse and rode away likewise, choosing

the nearest by-lane in preference to the high-road, without knowing

that Georgy had chosen that by-lane also.

‘He had not trotted more than two miles in the personal character of

Georgy Crookhill when, suddenly rounding a bend that the lane made

thereabout, he came upon a man struggling in the hands of two village

constables. It was his friend Georgy, the borrower of his clothes and

horse. But so far was the young farmer from showing any alacrity in

rushing forward to claim his property that he would have turned the

poor beast he rode into the wood adjoining, if he had not been already

perceived.

‘“Help, help, help!” cried the constables. “Assistance in the name of

the Crown!”

‘The young farmer could do nothing but ride forward. “What’s the

matter?” he inquired, as coolly as he could.

‘“A deserter—a deserter!” said they. “One who’s to be tried by

court-martial and shot without parley. He deserted from the Dragoons at

Cheltenham some days ago, and was tracked; but the search-party can’t

find him anywhere, and we told ’em if we met him we’d hand him on to

’em forthwith. The day after he left the barracks the rascal met a

respectable farmer and made him drunk at an inn, and told him what a

fine soldier he would make, and coaxed him to change clothes, to see

how well a military uniform would become him. This the simple farmer

did; when our deserter said that for a joke he would leave the room and

go to the landlady, to see if she would know him in that dress. He

never came back, and Farmer Jollice found himself in soldier’s clothes,

the money in his pockets gone, and, when he got to the stable, his

horse gone too.”

‘“A scoundrel!” says the young man in Georgy’s clothes. “And is this

the wretched caitiff?” (pointing to Georgy).

‘“No, no!” cries Georgy, as innocent as a babe of this matter of the

soldier’s desertion. “He’s the man! He was wearing Farmer Jollice’s

suit o’ clothes, and he slept in the same room wi’ me, and brought up

the subject of changing clothes, which put it into my head to dress

myself in his suit before he was awake. He’s got on mine!”

‘“D’ye hear the villain?” groans the tall young man to the constables.

“Trying to get out of his crime by charging the first innocent man with

it that he sees! No, master soldier—that won’t do!”

‘“No, no! That won’t do!” the constables chimed in. “To have the

impudence to say such as that, when we caught him in the act almost!

But, thank God, we’ve got the handcuffs on him at last.”

‘“We have, thank God,” said the tall young man. “Well, I must move on.

Good luck to ye with your prisoner!” And off he went, as fast as his

poor jade would carry him.

‘The constables then, with Georgy handcuffed between ’em, and leading

the horse, marched off in the other direction, toward the village where

they had been accosted by the escort of soldiers sent to bring the

deserter back, Georgy groaning: “I shall be shot, I shall be shot!”

They had not gone more than a mile before they met them.

‘“Hoi, there!” says the head constable.

‘“Hoi, yerself!” says the corporal in charge.

‘“We’ve got your man,” says the constable.

‘“Where?” says the corporal.

‘“Here, between us,” said the constable. “Only you don’t recognize him

out o’ uniform.”

‘The corporal looked at Georgy hard enough; then shook his head and

said he was not the absconder.

‘“But the absconder changed clothes with Farmer Jollice, and took his

horse; and this man has ’em, d’ye see!”

‘“’Tis not our man,” said the soldiers. “He’s a tall young fellow with

a mole on his right cheek, and a military bearing, which this man

decidedly has not.”

‘“I told the two officers of justice that ’twas the other!” pleaded

Georgy. “But they wouldn’t believe me.”

‘And so it became clear that the missing dragoon was the tall young

farmer, and not Georgy Crookhill—a fact which Farmer Jollice himself

corroborated when he arrived on the scene. As Georgy had only robbed

the robber, his sentence was comparatively light. The deserter from the

Dragoons was never traced: his double shift of clothing having been of

the greatest advantage to him in getting off; though he left Georgy’s

horse behind him a few miles ahead, having found the poor creature more

hindrance than aid.’

The man from abroad seemed to be less interested in the questionable

characters of Longpuddle and their strange adventures than in the

ordinary inhabitants and the ordinary events, though his local

fellow-travellers preferred the former as subjects of discussion. He

now for the first time asked concerning young persons of the opposite

sex—or rather those who had been young when he left his native land.

His informants, adhering to their own opinion that the remarkable was

better worth telling than the ordinary, would not allow him to dwell

upon the simple chronicles of those who had merely come and gone. They

asked him if he remembered Netty Sargent.

‘Netty Sargent—I do, just remember her. She was a young woman living

with her uncle when I left, if my childish recollection may be

trusted.’

‘That was the maid. She was a oneyer, if you like, sir. Not any harm in

her, you know, but up to everything. You ought to hear how she got the

copyhold of her house extended. Oughtn’t he, Mr. Day?’

‘He ought,’ replied the world-ignored old painter.

‘Tell him, Mr. Day. Nobody can do it better than you, and you know the

legal part better than some of us.’

Day apologized, and began:—

NETTY SARGENT’S COPYHOLD

‘She continued to live with her uncle, in the lonely house by the

copse, just as at the time you knew her; a tall spry young woman. Ah,

how well one can remember her black hair and dancing eyes at that time,

and her sly way of screwing up her mouth when she meant to tease ye!

Well, she was hardly out of short frocks before the chaps were after

her, and by long and by late she was courted by a young man whom

perhaps you did not know—Jasper Cliff was his name—and, though she

might have had many a better fellow, he so greatly took her fancy that

’twas Jasper or nobody for her. He was a selfish customer, always

thinking less of what he was going to do than of what he was going to

gain by his doings. Jasper’s eyes might have been fixed upon Netty, but

his mind was upon her uncle’s house; though he was fond of her in his

way—I admit that.

‘This house, built by her great-great-grandfather, with its garden and

little field, was copyhold—granted upon lives in the old way, and had

been so granted for generations. Her uncle’s was the last life upon the

property; so that at his death, if there was no admittance of new

lives, it would all fall into the hands of the lord of the manor. But

’twas easy to admit—a slight “fine,” as ’twas called, of a few pounds,

was enough to entitle him to a new deed o’ grant by the custom of the

manor; and the lord could not hinder it.

‘Now there could be no better provision for his niece and only relative

than a sure house over her head, and Netty’s uncle should have seen to

the renewal in time, owing to the peculiar custom of forfeiture by the

dropping of the last life before the new fine was paid; for the Squire

was very anxious to get hold of the house and land; and every Sunday

when the old man came into the church and passed the Squire’s pew, the

Squire would say, “A little weaker in his knees, a little crookeder in

his back—and the readmittance not applied for: ha! ha! I shall be able

to make a complete clearing of that corner of the manor some day!”

‘’Twas extraordinary, now we look back upon it, that old Sargent should

have been so dilatory; yet some people are like it; and he put off

calling at the Squire’s agent’s office with the fine week after week,

saying to himself, “I shall have more time next market-day than I have

now.” One unfortunate hindrance was that he didn’t very well like

Jasper Cliff; and as Jasper kept urging Netty, and Netty on that

account kept urging her uncle, the old man was inclined to postpone the

re-liveing as long as he could, to spite the selfish young lover. At

last old Mr. Sargent fell ill, and then Jasper could bear it no longer:

he produced the fine-money himself, and handed it to Netty, and spoke

to her plainly.

‘“You and your uncle ought to know better. You should press him more.

There’s the money. If you let the house and ground slip between ye, I

won’t marry; hang me if I will! For folks won’t deserve a husband that

can do such things.”

‘The worried girl took the money and went home, and told her uncle that

it was no house no husband for her. Old Mr. Sargent pooh-poohed the

money, for the amount was not worth consideration, but he did now

bestir himself; for he saw she was bent upon marrying Jasper, and he

did not wish to make her unhappy, since she was so determined. It was

much to the Squire’s annoyance that he found Sargent had moved in the

matter at last; but he could not gainsay it, and the documents were

prepared (for on this manor the copy-holders had writings with their

holdings, though on some manors they had none). Old Sargent being now

too feeble to go to the agent’s house, the deed was to be brought to

his house signed, and handed over as a receipt for the money; the

counterpart to be signed by Sargent, and sent back to the Squire.

‘The agent had promised to call on old Sargent for this purpose at five

o’clock, and Netty put the money into her desk to have it close at

hand. While doing this she heard a slight cry from her uncle, and

turning round, saw that he had fallen forward in his chair. She went

and lifted him, but he was unconscious; and unconscious he remained.

Neither medicine nor stimulants would bring him to himself. She had

been told that he might possibly go off in that way, and it seemed as

if the end had come. Before she had started for a doctor his face and

extremities grew quite cold and white, and she saw that help would be

useless. He was stone-dead.

‘Netty’s situation rose upon her distracted mind in all its

seriousness. The house, garden, and field were lost—by a few hours—and

with them a home for herself and her lover. She would not think so

meanly of Jasper as to suppose that he would adhere to the resolution

declared in a moment of impatience; but she trembled, nevertheless. Why

could not her uncle have lived a couple of hours longer, since he had

lived so long? It was now past three o’clock; at five the agent was to

call, and, if all had gone well, by ten minutes past five the house and

holding would have been securely hers for her own and Jasper’s lives,

these being two of the three proposed to be added by paying the fine.

How that wretched old Squire would rejoice at getting the little

tenancy into his hands! He did not really require it, but

constitutionally hated these tiny copyholds and leaseholds and

freeholds, which made islands of independence in the fair, smooth ocean

of his estates.

‘Then an idea struck into the head of Netty how to accomplish her

object in spite of her uncle’s negligence. It was a dull December

afternoon: and the first step in her scheme—so the story goes, and I

see no reason to doubt it—’

‘’Tis true as the light,’ affirmed Christopher Twink. ‘I was just

passing by.’

‘The first step in her scheme was to fasten the outer door, to make

sure of not being interrupted. Then she set to work by placing her

uncle’s small, heavy oak table before the fire; then she went to her

uncle’s corpse, sitting in the chair as he had died—a stuffed

arm-chair, on casters, and rather high in the seat, so it was told

me—and wheeled the chair, uncle and all, to the table, placing him with

his back toward the window, in the attitude of bending over the said

oak table, which I knew as a boy as well as I know any piece of

furniture in my own house. On the table she laid the large family Bible

open before him, and placed his forefinger on the page; and then she

opened his eyelids a bit, and put on him his spectacles, so that from

behind he appeared for all the world as if he were reading the

Scriptures. Then she unfastened the door and sat down, and when it grew

dark she lit a candle, and put it on the table beside her uncle’s book.

‘Folk may well guess how the time passed with her till the agent came,

and how, when his knock sounded upon the door, she nearly started out

of her skin—at least that’s as it was told me. Netty promptly went to

the door.

‘“I am sorry, sir,” she says, under her breath; “my uncle is not so

well to-night, and I’m afraid he can’t see you.”

‘“H’m!—that’s a pretty tale,” says the steward. “So I’ve come all this

way about this trumpery little job for nothing!”

‘“O no, sir—I hope not,” says Netty. “I suppose the business of

granting the new deed can be done just the same?”

‘“Done? Certainly not. He must pay the renewal money, and sign the

parchment in my presence.”

‘She looked dubious. “Uncle is so dreadful nervous about law business,”

says she, “that, as you know, he’s put it off and put it off for years;

and now to-day really I’ve feared it would verily drive him out of his

mind. His poor three teeth quite chattered when I said to him that you

would be here soon with the parchment writing. He always was afraid of

agents, and folks that come for rent, and such-like.”

‘“Poor old fellow—I’m sorry for him. Well, the thing can’t be done

unless I see him and witness his signature.”

‘“Suppose, sir, that you see him sign, and he don’t see you looking at

him? I’d soothe his nerves by saying you weren’t strict about the form

of witnessing, and didn’t wish to come in. So that it was done in your

bare presence it would be sufficient, would it not? As he’s such an

old, shrinking, shivering man, it would be a great considerateness on

your part if that would do?”

‘“In my bare presence would do, of course—that’s all I come for. But

how can I be a witness without his seeing me?”

‘“Why, in this way, sir; if you’ll oblige me by just stepping here.”

She conducted him a few yards to the left, till they were opposite the

parlour window. The blind had been left up purposely, and the

candle-light shone out upon the garden bushes. Within the agent could

see, at the other end of the room, the back and side of the old man’s

head, and his shoulders and arm, sitting with the book and candle

before him, and his spectacles on his nose, as she had placed him.

‘“He’s reading his Bible, as you see, sir,” she says, quite in her

meekest way.

‘“Yes. I thought he was a careless sort of man in matters of religion?”

‘“He always was fond of his Bible,” Netty assured him. “Though I think

he’s nodding over it just at this moment However, that’s natural in an

old man, and unwell. Now you could stand here and see him sign,

couldn’t you, sir, as he’s such an invalid?”

‘“Very well,” said the agent, lighting a cigar. “You have ready by you

the merely nominal sum you’ll have to pay for the admittance, of

course?”

‘“Yes,” said Netty. “I’ll bring it out.” She fetched the cash, wrapped

in paper, and handed it to him, and when he had counted it the steward

took from his breast pocket the precious parchments and gave one to her

to be signed.

‘“Uncle’s hand is a little paralyzed,” she said. “And what with his

being half asleep, too, really I don’t know what sort of a signature

he’ll be able to make.”

‘“Doesn’t matter, so that he signs.”

‘“Might I hold his hand?”

‘“Ay, hold his hand, my young woman—that will be near enough.”

‘Netty re-entered the house, and the agent continued smoking outside

the window. Now came the ticklish part of Netty’s performance. The

steward saw her put the inkhorn—“horn,” says I in my old-fashioned

way—the inkstand, before her uncle, and touch his elbow as to arouse

him, and speak to him, and spread out the deed; when she had pointed to

show him where to sign she dipped the pen and put it into his hand. To

hold his hand she artfully stepped behind him, so that the agent could

only see a little bit of his head, and the hand she held; but he saw

the old man’s hand trace his name on the document. As soon as ’twas

done she came out to the steward with the parchment in her hand, and

the steward signed as witness by the light from the parlour window.

Then he gave her the deed signed by the Squire, and left; and next

morning Netty told the neighbours that her uncle was dead in his bed.’

‘She must have undressed him and put him there.’

‘She must. Oh, that girl had a nerve, I can tell ye! Well, to cut a

long story short, that’s how she got back the house and field that

were, strictly speaking, gone from her; and by getting them, got her a

husband.

‘Every virtue has its reward, they say. Netty had hers for her

ingenious contrivance to gain Jasper. Two years after they were married

he took to beating her—not hard, you know; just a smack or two, enough

to set her in a temper, and let out to the neighbours what she had done

to win him, and how she repented of her pains. When the old Squire was

dead, and his son came into the property, this confession of hers began

to be whispered about. But Netty was a pretty young woman, and the

Squire’s son was a pretty young man at that time, and wider-minded than

his father, having no objection to little holdings; and he never took

any proceedings against her.’

There was now a lull in the discourse, and soon the van descended the

hill leading into the long straggling village. When the houses were

reached the passengers dropped off one by one, each at his or her own

door. Arrived at the inn, the returned emigrant secured a bed, and

having eaten a light meal, sallied forth upon the scene he had known so

well in his early days. Though flooded with the light of the rising

moon, none of the objects wore the attractiveness in this their real

presentation that had ever accompanied their images in the field of his

imagination when he was more than two thousand miles removed from them.

The peculiar charm attaching to an old village in an old country, as

seen by the eyes of an absolute foreigner, was lowered in his case by

magnified expectations from infantine memories. He walked on, looking

at this chimney and that old wall, till he came to the churchyard,

which he entered.

The head-stones, whitened by the moon, were easily decipherable; and

now for the first time Lackland began to feel himself amid the village

community that he had left behind him five-and-thirty years before.

Here, besides the Sallets, the Darths, the Pawles, the Privetts, the

Sargents, and others of whom he had just heard, were names he

remembered even better than those: the Jickses, and the Crosses, and

the Knights, and the Olds. Doubtless representatives of these families,

or some of them, were yet among the living; but to him they would all

be as strangers. Far from finding his heart ready-supplied with roots

and tendrils here, he perceived that in returning to this spot it would

be incumbent upon him to re-establish himself from the beginning,

precisely as though he had never known the place, nor it him. Time had

not condescended to wait his pleasure, nor local life his greeting.

The figure of Mr. Lackland was seen at the inn, and in the village

street, and in the fields and lanes about Upper Longpuddle, for a few

days after his arrival, and then, ghost-like, it silently disappeared.

He had told some of the villagers that his immediate purpose in coming

had been fulfilled by a sight of the place, and by conversation with

its inhabitants: but that his ulterior purpose—of coming to spend his

latter days among them—would probably never be carried out. It is now a

dozen or fifteen years since his visit was paid, and his face has not

again been seen.

_March_ 1891.