Reddlemen of the old school are now but seldom seen. Since the
introduction of railways Wessex farmers have managed to do without
these Mephistophelian visitants, and the bright pigment so largely
used by shepherds in preparing sheep for the fair is obtained by other
routes. Even those who yet survive are losing the poetry of existence
which characterized them when the pursuit of the trade meant
periodical journeys to the pit whence the material was dug, a regular
camping out from month to month, except in the depth of winter, a
peregrination among farms which could be counted by the hundred,
and in spite of this Arab existence the preservation of that
respectability which is insured by the never-failing production of a
well-lined purse.
Reddle spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on, and
stamps unmistakably, as with the mark of Cain, any person who has
handled it half an hour.
A child's first sight of a reddleman was an epoch in his life. That
blood-coloured figure was a sublimation of all the horrid dreams
which had afflicted the juvenile spirit since imagination began. "The
reddleman is coming for you!" had been the formulated threat of Wessex
mothers for many generations. He was successfully supplanted for a
while, at the beginning of the present century, by Buonaparte; but as
process of time rendered the latter personage stale and ineffective
the older phrase resumed its early prominence. And now the reddleman
has in his turn followed Buonaparte to the land of worn-out bogeys,
and his place is filled by modern inventions.
The reddleman lived like a gipsy; but gipsies he scorned. He was
about as thriving as travelling basket and mat makers; but he had
nothing to do with them. He was more decently born and brought up
than the cattle-drovers who passed and repassed him in his wanderings;
but they merely nodded to him. His stock was more valuable than that
of pedlars; but they did not think so, and passed his cart with eyes
straight ahead. He was such an unnatural colour to look at that the
men of round-abouts and wax-work shows seemed gentlemen beside him;
but he considered them low company, and remained aloof. Among all
these squatters and folks of the road the reddleman continually found
himself; yet he was not of them. His occupation tended to isolate
him, and isolated he was mostly seen to be.
It was sometimes suggested that reddlemen were criminals for whose
misdeeds other men had wrongfully suffered: that in escaping the law
they had not escaped their own consciences, and had taken to the trade
as a lifelong penance. Else why should they have chosen it? In the
present case such a question would have been particularly apposite.
The reddleman who had entered Egdon that afternoon was an instance of
the pleasing being wasted to form the ground-work of the singular,
when an ugly foundation would have done just as well for that purpose.
The one point that was forbidding about this reddleman was his colour.
Freed from that he would have been as agreeable a specimen of rustic
manhood as one would often see. A keen observer might have been
inclined to think--which was, indeed, partly the truth--that he had
relinquished his proper station in life for want of interest in it.
Moreover, after looking at him one would have hazarded the guess
that good-nature, and an acuteness as extreme as it could be without
verging on craft, formed the frame-work of his character.
While he darned the stocking his face became rigid with thought.
Softer expressions followed this, and then again recurred the tender
sadness which had sat upon him during his drive along the highway that
afternoon. Presently his needle stopped. He laid down the stocking,
arose from his seat, and took a leather pouch from a hook in the
corner of the van. This contained among other articles a brown-paper
packet, which, to judge from the hinge-like character of its worn
folds, seemed to have been carefully opened and closed a good many
times. He sat down on a three-legged milking stool that formed the
only seat in the van, and, examining his packet by the light of a
candle, took thence an old letter and spread it open. The writing had
originally been traced on white paper, but the letter had now assumed
a pale red tinge from the accident of its situation; and the black
strokes of writing thereon looked like the twigs of a winter hedge
against a vermilion sunset. The letter bore a date some two years
previous to that time, and was signed "Thomasin Yeobright." It ran as
follows:--
DEAR DIGGORY VENN,--The question you put when you overtook
me coming home from Pond-close gave me such a surprise that
I am afraid I did not make you exactly understand what I
meant. Of course, if my aunt had not met me I could have
explained all then at once, but as it was there was no
chance. I have been quite uneasy since, as you know I do
not wish to pain you, yet I fear I shall be doing so now in
contradicting what I seemed to say then. I cannot, Diggory,
marry you, or think of letting you call me your sweetheart.
I could not, indeed, Diggory. I hope you will not much mind
my saying this, and feel in a great pain. It makes me very
sad when I think it may, for I like you very much, and I
always put you next to my cousin Clym in my mind. There are
so many reasons why we cannot be married that I can hardly
name them all in a letter. I did not in the least expect
that you were going to speak on such a thing when you
followed me, because I had never thought of you in the
sense of a lover at all. You must not becall me for laughing
when you spoke; you mistook when you thought I laughed at
you as a foolish man. I laughed because the idea was so odd,
and not at you at all. The great reason with my own personal
self for not letting you court me is, that I do not feel the
things a woman ought to feel who consents to walk with you
with the meaning of being your wife. It is not as you think,
that I have another in my mind, for I do not encourage
anybody, and never have in my life. Another reason is my
aunt. She would not, I know, agree to it, even if I wished
to have you. She likes you very well, but she will want me
to look a little higher than a small dairy-farmer, and marry
a professional man. I hope you will not set your heart
against me for writing plainly, but I felt you might try to
see me again, and it is better that we should not meet. I
shall always think of you as a good man, and be anxious for
your well-doing. I send this by Jane Orchard's little maid,
--And remain Diggory, your faithful friend,