"Come forward, Christian, and show yourself. I didn't know you were
here," said Fairway, with a humane look across towards that quarter.
Thus requested, a faltering man, with reedy hair, no shoulders, and a
great quantity of wrist and ankle beyond his clothes, advanced a step
or two by his own will, and was pushed by the will of others half a
dozen steps more. He was Grandfer Cantle's youngest son.
"What be ye quaking for, Christian?" said the turf-cutter kindly.
"I'm the man."
"What man?"
"The man no woman will marry."
"The deuce you be!" said Timothy Fairway, enlarging his gaze to cover
Christian's whole surface and a great deal more; Grandfer Cantle
meanwhile staring as a hen stares at the duck she has hatched.
"Yes, I be he; and it makes me afeard," said Christian. "D'ye think
'twill hurt me? I shall always say I don't care, and swear to it,
though I do care all the while."
"Well, be damned if this isn't the queerest start ever I know'd,"
said Mr. Fairway. "I didn't mean you at all. There's another in the
country, then! Why did ye reveal yer misfortune, Christian?"
"'Twas to be if 'twas, I suppose. I can't help it, can I?" He turned
upon them his painfully circular eyes, surrounded by concentric lines
like targets.
"No, that's true. But 'tis a melancholy thing, and my blood ran cold
when you spoke, for I felt there were two poor fellows where I had
thought only one. 'Tis a sad thing for ye, Christian. How'st know
the women won't hae thee?"
"I've asked 'em."
"Sure I should never have thought you had the face. Well, and what
did the last one say to ye? Nothing that can't be got over, perhaps,
after all?"
"'Get out of my sight, you slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight
fool,' was the woman's words to me."
"Not encouraging, I own," said Fairway. "'Get out of my sight, you
slack-twisted, slim-looking maphrotight fool,' is rather a hard way of
saying No. But even that might be overcome by time and patience, so as
to let a few grey hairs show themselves in the hussy's head. How old
be you, Christian?"
"Thirty-one last tatie-digging, Mister Fairway."
"Not a boy--not a boy. Still there's hope yet."
"That's my age by baptism, because that's put down in the great book
of the Judgment that they keep in church vestry; but mother told me I
was born some time afore I was christened."
"Ah!"
"But she couldn't tell when, to save her life, except that there was
no moon."
"No moon: that's bad. Hey, neighbours, that's bad for him!"
"Yes, 'tis bad," said Grandfer Cantle, shaking his head.
"Mother know'd 'twas no moon, for she asked another woman that had an
almanac, as she did whenever a boy was born to her, because of the
saying, 'No moon, no man,' which made her afeard every man-child she
had. Do ye really think it serious, Mister Fairway, that there was no
moon?"
"Yes; 'No moon, no man.' 'Tis one of the truest sayings ever spit out.
The boy never comes to anything that's born at new moon. A bad job
for thee, Christian, that you should have showed your nose then of all
days in the month."
"I suppose the moon was terrible full when you were born?" said
Christian, with a look of hopeless admiration at Fairway.
"Well, 'a was not new," Mr. Fairway replied, with a disinterested
gaze.
"I'd sooner go without drink at Lammas-tide than be a man of no moon,"
continued Christian, in the same shattered recitative. "'Tis said I
be only the rames of a man, and no good for my race at all; and I
suppose that's the cause o't."
"Ay," said Grandfer Cantle, somewhat subdued in spirit; "and yet his
mother cried for scores of hours when 'a was a boy, for fear he should
outgrow hisself and go for a soldier."
"Well, there's many just as bad as he." said Fairway. "Wethers must
live their time as well as other sheep, poor soul."
"So perhaps I shall rub on? Ought I to be afeared o' nights, Master
Fairway?"
"You'll have to lie alone all your life; and 'tis not to married
couples but to single sleepers that a ghost shows himself when 'a do
come. One has been seen lately, too. A very strange one."
"No--don't talk about it if 'tis agreeable of ye not to! 'Twill make
my skin crawl when I think of it in bed alone. But you will--ah, you
will, I know, Timothy; and I shall dream all night o't! A very strange
one? What sort of a spirit did ye mean when ye said, a very strange
one, Timothy?--no, no--don't tell me."
"I don't half believe in spirits myself. But I think it ghostly
enough--what I was told. 'Twas a little boy that zid it."
"What was it like?--no, don't--"
"A red one. Yes, most ghosts be white; but this is as if it had been
dipped in blood."
Christian drew a deep breath without letting it expand his body, and
Humphrey said, "Where has it been seen?"
"Not exactly here; but in this same heth. But 'tisn't a thing to
talk about. What do ye say," continued Fairway in brisker tones, and
turning upon them as if the idea had not been Grandfer Cantle's--"what
do you say to giving the new man and wife a bit of a song to-night
afore we go to bed--being their wedding-day? When folks are just
married 'tis as well to look glad o't, since looking sorry won't
unjoin 'em. I am no drinker, as we know, but when the womenfolk and
youngsters have gone home we can drop down across to the Quiet Woman,
and strike up a ballet in front of the married folks' door. 'Twill
please the young wife, and that's what I should like to do, for many's
the skinful I've had at her hands when she lived with her aunt at
Blooms-End."
"Hey? And so we will!" said Grandfer Cantle, turning so briskly that
his copper seals swung extravagantly. "I'm as dry as a kex with biding
up here in the wind, and I haven't seen the colour of drink since
nammet-time today. 'Tis said that the last brew at the Woman is very
pretty drinking. And, neighbours, if we should be a little late in
the finishing, why, tomorrow's Sunday, and we can sleep it off?"
"Grandfer Cantle! you take things very careless for an old man," said
the wide woman.
"I take things careless; I do--too careless to please the women! Klk!
I'll sing the 'Jovial Crew,' or any other song, when a weak old man
would cry his eyes out. Jown it; I am up for anything.
"The king´ look'd o´ver his left´ shoul-der´,
And a grim´ look look´-ed hee´,
Earl Mar´-shal, he said´, but for´ my oath´
Or hang´-ed thou´ shouldst bee´."
"Well, that's what we'll do," said Fairway. "We'll give 'em a song,
an' it please the Lord. What's the good of Thomasin's cousin Clym
a-coming home after the deed's done? He should have come afore, if so
be he wanted to stop it, and marry her himself."
"Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she
must feel lonely now the maid's gone."
"Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all," said
Grandfer Cantle. "I am as brave in the night-time as a' admiral!"
The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for the fuel had
not been of that substantial sort which can support a blaze long.
Most of the other fires within the wide horizon were also dwindling
weak. Attentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length
of existence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt,
and through that, to some extent the natural produce of the district
in which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that
had characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country
like their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of
miles; the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass
showed the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste
from arable land. The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes
like Planets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots,
and stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare,
and though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient
blazes, now began to get the best of them by mere long continuance.
The great ones had perished, but these remained. They occupied the
remotest visible positions--sky-backed summits rising out of rich
coppice and plantation districts to the north, where the soil was
different, and heath foreign and strange.
Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole
shining throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of
the little window in the vale below. Its nearness was such that,
notwithstanding its actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended
theirs.
This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when
their own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even
of the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but
no change was perceptible here.
"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway. "Seemingly. I can
see a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be
said of that fire, surely."
"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.
"And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle.
"No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much less than a
mile off, for all that 'a seems so near."
"'Tis in the heath, but not furze," said the turf-cutter.
"'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway. "Nothing
would burn like that except clean timber. And 'tis on the knap afore
the old captain's house at Mistover. Such a queer mortal as that man
is! To have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody
else may enjoy it or come anigh it! And what a zany an old chap must
be, to light a bonfire when there's no youngsters to please."
"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk to-day, and is quite tired out,"
said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be he."
"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the wide woman.
"Then it must be his grand-daughter," said Fairway. "Not that a body
of her age can want a fire much."
"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
things please her," said Susan.
"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the furze-cutter;
"especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."
"That's true," said Fairway. "Well, let her bonfire burn an't will.
Ours is well-nigh out by the look o't."
"How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian Cantle,
looking behind him with his hare eyes. "Don't ye think we'd better
get home-along, neighbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know; but we'd
better get home... Ah, what was that?"
"Only the wind," said the turf-cutter.
"I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except
in towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like
this!"
"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man! Susy, dear,
you and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before 'tis quite too dark
to see how well-favoured you be still, though so many summers have
passed since your husband, a son of a witch, snapped you up from me."
This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of
which the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's broad
form whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled.
She was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been flung round
her waist before she had become aware of his intention. The site of
the fire was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red embers
and sparks, the furze having burnt completely away. Once within the
circle he whirled her round and round in a dance. She was a woman
noisily constructed; in addition to her enclosing framework of
whalebone and lath, she wore pattens summer and winter, in wet weather
and in dry, to preserve her boots from wear; and when Fairway began to
jump about with her, the clicking of the pattens, the creaking of the
stays, and her screams of surprise, formed a very audible concert.
"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch,
as she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like
drumsticks among the sparks. "My ankles were all in a fever before,
from walking through that prickly furze, and now you must make 'em
worse with these vlankers!"
The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious. The turf-cutter seized
old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently, poussetted with her
likewise. The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their
elders, and seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in
the form of a three-legged object among the rest; and in half a minute
all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling of dark shapes
amid a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt around the dancers
as high as their waists. The chief noises were women's shrill
cries, men's laughter, Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's
"heu-heu-heu!" and the strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes,
which formed a kind of tune to the demoniac measure they trod.
Christian alone stood aloof, uneasily rocking himself as he murmured,
"They ought not to do it--how the vlankers do fly! 'tis tempting the
Wicked one, 'tis."
"What was that?" said one of the lads, stopping.
"Ah--where?" said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.
The dancers all lessened their speed.
"'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down there."
"Yes--'tis behind me!" Christian said. "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--"
"Hold your tongue. What is it?" said Fairway.
"Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness.
"Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway.
"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's,
of Blooms-End?" came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim
indistinct figure approached the barrow.
"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours, as 'tis
getting late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another, you
know; run close together, I mean."
"Scrape up a few stray locks of furze, and make a blaze, so that we
can see who the man is," said Fairway.
When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red
from top to toe. "Is there a track across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's
house?" he repeated.
"Ay--keep along the path down there."
"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?"
"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track
is rough, but if you've got a light your horses may pick along wi'
care. Have ye brought your cart far up, neighbour reddleman?"
"I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back. I stepped on in
front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time, and I han't been
here for so long."
"Oh, well, you can get up," said Fairway. "What a turn it did give me
when I saw him!" he added to the whole group, the reddleman included.
"Lord's sake, I thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble
us? No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't bad-looking in
the groundwork, though the finish is queer. My meaning is just to
say how curious I felt. I half thought it 'twas the devil or the red
ghost the boy told of."
"It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I had a dream
last night of a death's head."
"Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian. "If he had handkerchief
over his head he'd look for all the world like the Devil in the
picture of the Temptation."
"Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman, smiling
faintly. "And good night t'ye all."
He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.
"I fancy I've seen that young man's face before," said Humphrey. "But
where, or how, or what his name is, I don't know."
The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when another
person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to be a
well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing
which can only be expressed by the word genteel. Her face,
encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath, showed whitely,
and without half-lights, like a cameo.
She was a woman of middle-age, with well-formed features of the type
usually found where perspicacity is the chief quality enthroned
within. At moments she seemed to be regarding issues from a Nebo
denied to others around. She had something of an estranged mien; the
solitude exhaled from the heath was concentrated in this face that
had risen from it. The air with which she looked at the heathmen
betokened a certain unconcern at their presence, or at what might be
their opinions of her for walking in that lonely spot at such an hour,
this indirectly implying that in some respect or other they were not
up to her level. The explanation lay in the fact that though her
husband had been a small farmer she herself was a curate's daughter,
who had once dreamt of doing better things.
Persons with any weight of character carry, like planets, their
atmospheres along with them in their orbits; and the matron who
entered now upon the scene could, and usually did, bring her own
tone into a company. Her normal manner among the heathfolk had
that reticence which results from the consciousness of superior
communicative power. But the effect of coming into society and light
after lonely wandering in darkness is a sociability in the comer above
its usual pitch, expressed in the features even more than in words.
"Why, 'tis Mis'ess Yeobright," said Fairway. "Mis'ess Yeobright, not
ten minutes ago a man was here asking for you--a reddleman."
"What did he want?" said she.
"He didn't tell us."
"Something to sell, I suppose; what it can be I am at a loss to
understand."
"I am glad to hear that your son Mr. Clym is coming home at Christmas,
ma'am," said Sam, the turf-cutter. "What a dog he used to be for
bonfires!"
"Yes. I believe he is coming," she said.
"He must be a fine fellow by this time," said Fairway.
"He is a man now," she replied quietly.
"'Tis very lonesome for 'ee in the heth tonight, mis'ess," said
Christian, coming from the seclusion he had hitherto maintained.
"Mind you don't get lost. Egdon Heth is a bad place to get lost in,
and the winds do huffle queerer tonight than ever I heard 'em afore.
Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times."
"Is that you, Christian?" said Mrs. Yeobright. "What made you hide
away from me?"
"'Twas that I didn't know you in this light, mis'ess; and being a
man of the mournfullest make, I was scared a little, that's all.
Oftentimes if you could see how terrible down I get in my mind,
'twould make 'ee quite nervous for fear I should die by my hand."
"You don't take after your father," said Mrs. Yeobright, looking
towards the fire, where Grandfer Cantle, with some want of
originality, was dancing by himself among the sparks, as the others
had done before.
"Now, Grandfer," said Timothy Fairway, "we are ashamed of ye. A
reverent old patriarch man as you be--seventy if a day--to go
hornpiping like that by yourself!"
"A harrowing old man, Mis'ess Yeobright," said Christian despondingly.
"I wouldn't live with him a week, so playward as he is, if I could get
away."
"'Twould be more seemly in ye to stand still and welcome Mis'ess
Yeobright, and you the venerablest here, Grandfer Cantle," said the
besom-woman.
"Faith, and so it would," said the reveller checking himself
repentantly. "I've such a bad memory, Mis'ess Yeobright, that I
forget how I'm looked up to by the rest of 'em. My spirits must be
wonderful good, you'll say? But not always. 'Tis a weight upon a man
to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel it."
"I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs. Yeobright. "But I must be
leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and
seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the rest I came up
here to learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as
her way is mine."
"Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly.
"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of," said
Fairway. "He's only gone back to get his van. We heard that your
niece and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were
married, and we are going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o'
welcome."
"Thank you indeed," said Mrs. Yeobright.
"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go
with long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait."
"Very well--are you ready, Olly?"
"Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your niece's window,
see. It will help to keep us in the path."
She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which
Fairway had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.