Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity of the barrow,
he would have learned that these persons were boys and men of the
neighbouring hamlets. Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been
heavily laden with furze-faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means
of a long stake sharpened at each end for impaling them easily--two
in front and two behind. They came from a part of the heath a quarter
of a mile to the rear, where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a
product.
Every individual was so involved in furze by his method of carrying
the faggots that he appeared like a bush on legs till he had thrown
them down. The party had marched in trail, like a travelling flock of
sheep; that is to say, the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze thirty feet
in circumference now occupied the crown of the tumulus, which was
known as Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy
with matches, and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in
loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others,
again, while this was in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the
vast expanse of country commanded by their position, now lying nearly
obliterated by shade. In the valleys of the heath nothing save its
own wild face was visible at any time of day; but this spot commanded
a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent, and in many cases lying
beyond the heath country. None of its features could be seen now, but
the whole made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.
While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in
the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country
round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were
engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and
stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale strawlike beams
radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near,
glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some
were Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the
silent bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral
caves, which seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps
as many as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds
of the district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when
the figures themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the
locality of each fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of
the scenery could be viewed.
The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting
all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to
their own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the
inner surface of the human circle--now increased by other stragglers,
male and female--with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the
dark turf around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into
obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed
the barrow to be the segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when
it was thrown up, even the little ditch remaining from which the earth
was dug. Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn
soil. In the heath's barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility to
the historian. There had been no obliteration, because there had been
no tending.
It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some radiant
upper story of the world, detached from and independent of the dark
stretches below. The heath down there was now a vast abyss, and no
longer a continuation of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted
to the blaze, could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual from their
faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp down the inclines to
some distant bush, pool, or patch of white sand, kindling these to
replies of the same colour, till all was lost in darkness again. Then
the whole black phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from
the brink by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered
articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints and
petitions from the "souls of mighty worth" suspended therein.
It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into past ages, and
fetched therefrom an hour and deed which had before been familiar with
this spot. The ashes of the original British pyre which blazed from
that summit lay fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their
tread. The flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had shone
down upon the lowlands as these were shining now. Festival fires to
Thor and Woden had followed on the same ground and duly had their day.
Indeed, it is pretty well known that such blazes as this the heathmen
were now enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular
feeling about Gunpowder Plot.
Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man
when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature.
It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that
fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness,
misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the
earth say, Let there be light.
The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled upon the skin
and clothes of the persons standing round caused their lineaments and
general contours to be drawn with Dureresque vigour and dash. Yet the
permanent moral expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped through the
surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes of light upon the
countenances of the group changed shape and position endlessly. All
was unstable; quivering as leaves, evanescent as lightning. Shadowy
eye-sockets, deep as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into
pits of lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining;
wrinkles were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a
changed ray. Nostrils were dark wells; sinews in old necks were gilt
mouldings; things with no particular polish on them were glazed;
bright objects, such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men
carried, were as glass; eyeballs glowed like little lanterns. Those
whom Nature had depicted as merely quaint became grotesque, the
grotesque became preternatural; for all was in extremity.
Hence it may be that the face of an old man, who had like others been
called to the heights by the rising flames, was not really the mere
nose and chin that it appeared to be, but an appreciable quantity of
human countenance. He stood complacently sunning himself in the heat.
With a speaker, or stake, he tossed the outlying scraps of fuel into
the conflagration, looking at the midst of the pile, occasionally
lifting his eyes to measure the height of the flame, or to follow the
great sparks which rose with it and sailed away into darkness. The
beaming sight, and the penetrating warmth, seemed to breed in him a
cumulative cheerfulness, which soon amounted to delight. With his
stick in his hand he began to jig a private minuet, a bunch of copper
seals shining and swinging like a pendulum from under his waistcoat:
he also began to sing, in the voice of a bee up a flue--
"The king´ call'd down´ his no-bles all´,
By one´, by two´, by three´;
Earl Mar´-shal, I'll´ go shrive´-the queen´,
And thou´ shalt wend´ with me´.
"A boon´, a boon´, quoth Earl´ Mar-shal´,
And fell´ on his bend´-ded knee´,
That what´-so-e'er´ the queen´ shall say´,
No harm´ there-of´ may be´."
Want of breath prevented a continuance of the song; and the breakdown
attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who
kept each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back
into his cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness
which might erroneously have attached to him.
"A fair stave, Grandfer Cantle; but I am afeard 'tis too much for the
mouldy weasand of such a old man as you," he said to the wrinkled
reveller. "Dostn't wish th' wast three sixes again, Grandfer, as you
was when you first learnt to sing it?"
"Hey?" said Grandfer Cantle, stopping in his dance.
"Dostn't wish wast young again, I say? There's a hole in thy poor
bellows nowadays seemingly."
"But there's good art in me? If I couldn't make a little wind go a
long ways I should seem no younger than the most aged man, should I,
Timothy?"
"And how about the new-married folks down there at the Quiet Woman
Inn?" the other inquired, pointing towards a dim light in the
direction of the distant highway, but considerably apart from where
the reddleman was at that moment resting. "What's the rights of the
matter about 'em? You ought to know, being an understanding man."
"But a little rakish, hey? I own to it. Master Cantle is that, or
he's nothing. Yet 'tis a gay fault, neighbour Fairway, that age will
cure."
"I heard that they were coming home to-night. By this time they must
have come. What besides?"
"The next thing is for us to go and wish 'em joy, I suppose?"
"Well, no."
"No? Now, I thought we must. _I_ must, or 'twould be very unlike
me--the first in every spree that's going!
"Do thou´ put on´ a fri´-ar's coat´,
And I'll´ put on´ a-no´-ther,
And we´ will to´ Queen Ele´anor go´,
Like Fri´ar and´ his bro´ther.
"I met Mis'ess Yeobright, the young bride's aunt, last night, and she
told me that her son Clym was coming home a' Christmas. Wonderful
clever, 'a believe--ah, I should like to have all that's under that
young man's hair. Well, then, I spoke to her in my well-known merry
way, and she said, 'O that what's shaped so venerable should talk like
a fool!'--that's what she said to me. I don't care for her, be jowned
if I do, and so I told her. 'Be jowned if I care for 'ee,' I said. I
had her there--hey?"
"I rather think she had you," said Fairway.
"No," said Grandfer Cantle, his countenance slightly flagging.
"'Tisn't so bad as that with me?"
"Seemingly 'tis; however, is it because of the wedding that Clym is
coming home a' Christmas--to make a new arrangement because his mother
is now left in the house alone?"
"Yes, yes--that's it. But, Timothy, hearken to me," said the Grandfer
earnestly. "Though known as such a joker, I be an understanding man
if you catch me serious, and I am serious now. I can tell 'ee lots
about the married couple. Yes, this morning at six o'clock they went
up the country to do the job, and neither vell nor mark have been seen
of 'em since, though I reckon that this afternoon has brought 'em home
again man and woman--wife, that is. Isn't it spoke like a man,
Timothy, and wasn't Mis'ess Yeobright wrong about me?"
"Yes, it will do. I didn't know the two had walked together since
last fall, when her aunt forbad the banns. How long has this new
set-to been mangling then? Do you know, Humphrey?"
"Yes, how long?" said Grandfer Cantle smartly, likewise turning to
Humphrey. "I ask that question."
"Ever since her aunt altered her mind, and said she might have the
man after all," replied Humphrey, without removing his eyes from the
fire. He was a somewhat solemn young fellow, and carried the hook
and leather gloves of a furze-cutter, his legs, by reason of that
occupation, being sheathed in bulging leggings as stiff as the
Philistine's greaves of brass. "That's why they went away to be
married, I count. You see, after kicking up such a nunny-watch
and forbidding the banns 'twould have made Mis'ess Yeobright seem
foolish-like to have a banging wedding in the same parish all as if
she'd never gainsaid it."
"Exactly--seem foolish-like; and that's very bad for the poor things
that be so, though I only guess as much, to be sure," said Grandfer
Cantle, still strenuously preserving a sensible bearing and mien.
"Ah, well, I was at church that day," said Fairway, "which was a very
curious thing to happen."
"If 'twasn't my name's Simple," said the Grandfer emphatically. "I
ha'n't been there to-year; and now the winter is a-coming on I won't
say I shall."
"I ha'n't been these three years," said Humphrey; "for I'm so dead
sleepy of a Sunday; and 'tis so terrible far to get there; and when
you do get there 'tis such a mortal poor chance that you'll be chose
for up above, when so many bain't, that I bide at home and don't go at
all."
"I not only happened to be there," said Fairway, with a fresh
collection of emphasis, "but I was sitting in the same pew as Mis'ess
Yeobright. And though you may not see it as such, it fairly made my
blood run cold to hear her. Yes, it is a curious thing; but it made
my blood run cold, for I was close at her elbow." The speaker looked
round upon the bystanders, now drawing closer to hear him, with his
lips gathered tighter than ever in the rigorousness of his descriptive
moderation.
"'Tis a serious job to have things happen to 'ee there," said a woman
behind.
"'Ye are to declare it,' was the parson's words," Fairway continued.
"And then up stood a woman at my side--a-touching of me. 'Well, be
damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I said to
myself. Yes, neighbours, though I was in the temple of prayer that's
what I said. 'Tis against my conscience to curse and swear in
company, and I hope any woman here will overlook it. Still what I did
say I did say, and 'twould be a lie if I didn't own it."
"So 'twould, neighbour Fairway."
"'Be damned if there isn't Mis'ess Yeobright a-standing up,' I
said," the narrator repeated, giving out the bad word with the same
passionless severity of face as before, which proved how entirely
necessity and not gusto had to do with the iteration. "And the next
thing I heard was, 'I forbid the banns,' from her. 'I'll speak to
you after the service,' said the parson, in quite a homely way--yes,
turning all at once into a common man no holier than you or I. Ah, her
face was pale! Maybe you can call to mind that monument in Weatherbury
church--the cross-legged soldier that have had his arm knocked away by
the school-children? Well, he would about have matched that woman's
face, when she said, 'I forbid the banns.'"
The audience cleared their throats and tossed a few stalks into the
fire, not because these deeds were urgent, but to give themselves time
to weigh the moral of the story.
"I'm sure when I heard they'd been forbid I felt as glad as if anybody
had gied me sixpence," said an earnest voice--that of Olly Dowden, a
woman who lived by making heath brooms, or besoms. Her nature was to
be civil to enemies as well as to friends, and grateful to all the
world for letting her remain alive.
"And now the maid have married him just the same," said Humphrey.
"After that Mis'ess Yeobright came round and was quite agreeable,"
Fairway resumed, with an unheeding air, to show that his words were no
appendage to Humphrey's, but the result of independent reflection.
"Supposing they were ashamed, I don't see why they shouldn't have
done it here-right," said a wide-spread woman whose stays creaked
like shoes whenever she stooped or turned. "'Tis well to call the
neighbours together and to hae a good racket once now and then; and it
may as well be when there's a wedding as at tide-times. I don't care
for close ways."
"Ah, now, you'd hardly believe it, but I don't care for gay weddings,"
said Timothy Fairway, his eyes again travelling round. "I hardly
blame Thomasin Yeobright and neighbour Wildeve for doing it quiet, if
I must own it. A wedding at home means five and six-handed reels by
the hour; and they do a man's legs no good when he's over forty."
"True. Once at the woman's house you can hardly say nay to being one
in a jig, knowing all the time that you be expected to make yourself
worth your victuals."
"You be bound to dance at Christmas because 'tis the time o' year; you
must dance at weddings because 'tis the time o' life. At christenings
folk will even smuggle in a reel or two, if 'tis no further on than
the first or second chiel. And this is not naming the songs you've
got to sing... For my part I like a good hearty funeral as well as
anything. You've as splendid victuals and drink as at other parties,
and even better. And it don't wear your legs to stumps in talking
over a poor fellow's ways as it do to stand up in hornpipes."
"Nine folks out of ten would own 'twas going too far to dance then, I
suppose?" suggested Grandfer Cantle.
"'Tis the only sort of party a staid man can feel safe at after the
mug have been round a few times."
"Well, I can't understand a quiet lady-like little body like Tamsin
Yeobright caring to be married in such a mean way," said Susan
Nunsuch, the wide woman, who preferred the original subject. "'Tis
worse than the poorest do. And I shouldn't have cared about the man,
though some may say he's good-looking."
"To give him his due he's a clever, learned fellow in his way--a'most
as clever as Clym Yeobright used to be. He was brought up to better
things than keeping the Quiet Woman. An engineer--that's what the man
was, as we know; but he threw away his chance, and so 'a took a public
house to live. His learning was no use to him at all."
"Very often the case," said Olly, the besom-maker. "And yet how people
do strive after it and get it! The class of folk that couldn't use
to make a round O to save their bones from the pit can write their
names now without a sputter of the pen, oftentimes without a single
blot: what do I say?--why, almost without a desk to lean their
stomachs and elbows upon."
"True: 'tis amazing what a polish the world have been brought to,"
said Humphrey.
"Why, afore I went a soldier in the Bang-up Locals (as we was called),
in the year four," chimed in Grandfer Cantle brightly, "I didn't know
no more what the world was like than the commonest man among ye. And
now, jown it all, I won't say what I bain't fit for, hey?"
"Couldst sign the book, no doubt," said Fairway, "if wast young enough
to join hands with a woman again, like Wildeve and Mis'ess Tamsin,
which is more than Humph there could do, for he follows his father in
learning. Ah, Humph, well I can mind when I was married how I zid thy
father's mark staring me in the face as I went to put down my name.
He and your mother were the couple married just afore we were and
there stood they father's cross with arms stretched out like a great
banging scarecrow. What a terrible black cross that was--thy father's
very likeness in en! To save my soul I couldn't help laughing when I
zid en, though all the time I was as hot as dog-days, what with the
marrying, and what with the woman a-hanging to me, and what with Jack
Changley and a lot more chaps grinning at me through church window.
But the next moment a strawmote would have knocked me down, for I
called to mind that if thy father and mother had had high words once,
they'd been at it twenty times since they'd been man and wife, and I
zid myself as the next poor stunpoll to get into the same
mess... Ah--well, what a day 'twas!"
"Wildeve is older than Tamsin Yeobright by a goodfew summers. A
pretty maid too she is. A young woman with a home must be a fool to
tear her smock for a man like that."
The speaker, a peat or turf-cutter, who had newly joined the group,
carried across his shoulder the singular heart-shaped spade of large
dimensions used in that species of labour; and its well-whetted edge
gleamed like a silver bow in the beams of the fire.
"A hundred maidens would have had him if he'd asked 'em," said the
wide woman.
"Didst ever know a man, neighbour, that no woman at all would marry?"
inquired Humphrey.
"I never did," said the turf-cutter.
"Nor I," said another.
"Nor I," said Grandfer Cantle.
"Well, now, I did once," said Timothy Fairway, adding more firmness
to one of his legs. "I did know of such a man. But only once, mind."
He gave his throat a thorough rake round, as if it were the duty of
every person not to be mistaken through thickness of voice. "Yes, I
knew of such a man," he said.
"And what ghastly gallicrow might the poor fellow have been like,
Master Fairway?" asked the turf-cutter.
"Well, 'a was neither a deaf man, nor a dumb man, nor a blind man.
What 'a was I don't say."
"Is he known in these parts?" said Olly Dowden.
"Hardly," said Timothy; "but I name no name... Come, keep the fire up
there, youngsters."
"Whatever is Christian Cantle's teeth a-chattering for?" said a boy
from amid the smoke and shades on the other side of the blaze. "Be ye
a-cold, Christian?"