'His father pointed toward the waggon. "She can't hold that horse in.

You shouldn't have left the reins in her hands. Run on and take the

horse's head, or there'll be some accident to them maids!"

'Tony's horse, in fact, in spite of Hannah's tugging at the reins, had

started on his way at a brisk walking pace, being very anxious to get

back to the stable, for he had had a long day out. Without another word

Tony rushed away from his father to overtake the horse.

'Now of all things that could have happened to wean him from Milly there

was nothing so powerful as his father's recommending her. No; it could

not be Milly, after all. Hannah must be the one, since he could not

marry all three. This he thought while running after the waggon. But

queer things were happening inside it.

'It was, of course, Milly who had screamed under the sack-bags, being

obliged to let off her bitter rage and shame in that way at what Tony

was saying, and never daring to show, for very pride and dread o' being

laughed at, that she was in hiding. She became more and more restless,

and in twisting herself about, what did she see but another woman's foot

and white stocking close to her head. It quite frightened her, not

knowing that Unity Sallet was in the waggon likewise. But after the

fright was over she determined to get to the bottom of all this, and she

crept and crept along the bed of the waggon, under the tarpaulin, like a

snake, when lo and behold she came face to face with Unity.

'"Well, if this isn't disgraceful!" says Milly in a raging whisper to

Unity.

'"'Tis," says Unity, "to see you hiding in a young man's waggon like

this, and no great character belonging to either of ye!"

'"Mind what you are saying!" replied Milly, getting louder. "I am

engaged to be married to him, and haven't I a right to be here? What

right have you, I should like to know? What has he been promising you? A

pretty lot of nonsense, I expect! But what Tony says to other women is

all mere wind, and no concern to me!"

'"Don't you be too sure!" says Unity. "He's going to have Hannah, and

not you, nor me either; I could hear that."

'Now at these strange voices sounding from under the cloth Hannah was

thunderstruck a'most into a swound; and it was just at this time that

the horse moved on. Hannah tugged away wildly, not knowing what she was

doing; and as the quarrel rose louder and louder Hannah got so horrified

that she let go the reins altogether. The horse went on at his own pace,

and coming to the corner where we turn round to drop down the hill to

Lower Longpuddle he turned too quick, the off wheels went up the bank,

the waggon rose sideways till it was quite on edge upon the near axles,

and out rolled the three maidens into the road in a heap.

'When Tony came up, frightened and breathless, he was relieved enough to

see that neither of his darlings was hurt, beyond a few scratches from

the brambles of the hedge. But he was rather alarmed when he heard how

they were going on at one another.

'"Don't ye quarrel, my dears-don't ye!" says he, taking off his hat out

of respect to 'em. And then he would have kissed them all round, as fair

and square as a man could, but they were in too much of a taking to let

him, and screeched and sobbed till they was quite spent.

'"Now I'll speak out honest, because I ought to," says Tony, as soon as

he could get heard. "And this is the truth," says he. "I've asked Hannah

to be mine, and she is willing, and we are going to put up the banns

next-"

'Tony had not noticed that Hannah's father was coming up behind, nor had

he noticed that Hannah's face was beginning to bleed from the scratch of

a bramble. Hannah had seen her father, and had run to him, crying worse

than ever.

'"My daughter is not willing, sir!" says Mr. Jolliver hot and strong.

"Be you willing, Hannah? I ask ye to have spirit enough to refuse him,

if yer virtue is left to 'ee and you run no risk?"

'"She's as sound as a bell for me, that I'll swear!" says Tony, flaring

up. "And so's the others, come to that, though you may think it an

onusual thing in me!"

'"I have spirit, and I do refuse him!" says Hannah, partly because her

father was there, and partly, too, in a tantrum because of the

discovery, and the scratch on her face. "Little did I think when I was

so soft with him just now that I was talking to such a false deceiver!"

'"What, you won't have me, Hannah?" says Tony, his jaw hanging down like

a dead man's.

'"Never-I would sooner marry no-nobody at all!" she gasped out, though

with her heart in her throat, for she would not have refused Tony if he

had asked her quietly, and her father had not been there, and her face

had not been scratched by the bramble. And having said that, away she

walked upon her father's arm, thinking and hoping he would ask her

again.

'Tony didn't know what to say next. Milly was sobbing her heart out; but

as his father had strongly recommended her he couldn't feel inclined

that way. So he turned to Unity.

'"Well, will you, Unity dear, be mine?" he says.

'"Take her leavings? Not I!" says Unity. "I'd scorn it!" And away walks

Unity Sallet likewise, though she looked back when she'd gone some way,

to see if he was following her.

'So there at last were left Milly and Tony by themselves, she crying in

watery streams, and Tony looking like a tree struck by lightning.

'"Well, Milly," he says at last, going up to her, "it do seem as if fate

had ordained that it should be you and I, or nobody. And what must be

must be, I suppose. Hey, Milly?"

'"If you like, Tony. You didn't really mean what you said to them?"

'"Not a word of it!" declares Tony, bringing down his fist upon his

palm.

'And then he kissed her, and put the waggon to rights, and they mounted

together; and their banns were put up the very next Sunday. I was not

able to go to their wedding, but it was a rare party they had, by all

account. Everybody in Longpuddle was there almost; you among the rest, I

think, Mr. Flaxton?' The speaker turned to the parish clerk.

'I was,' said Mr. Flaxton. 'And that party was the cause of a very

curious change in some other people's affairs; I mean in Steve

Hardcome's and his cousin James's.'

'Ah! the Hardcomes,' said the stranger. 'How familiar that name is to

me! What of them?'

The clerk cleared his throat and began:-

THE HISTORY OF THE HARDCOMES

'Yes, Tony's was the very best wedding-randy that ever I was at; and

I've been at a good many, as you may suppose'-turning to the newly-

arrived one-'having as a church-officer, the privilege to attend all

christening, wedding, and funeral parties-such being our Wessex custom.

''Twas on a frosty night in Christmas week, and among the folk invited

were the said Hardcomes o' Climmerston-Steve and James-first cousins,

both of them small farmers, just entering into business on their own

account. With them came, as a matter of course, their intended wives,

two young women of the neighbourhood, both very pretty and sprightly

maidens, and numbers of friends from Abbot's-Cernel, and Weatherbury,

and Mellstock, and I don't know where-a regular houseful.

'The kitchen was cleared of furniture for dancing, and the old folk

played at "Put" and "All-fours" in the parlour, though at last they gave

that up to join in the dance. The top of the figure was by the large

front window of the room, and there were so many couples that the lower

part of the figure reached through the door at the back, and into the

darkness of the out-house; in fact, you couldn't see the end of the row

at all, and 'twas never known exactly how long that dance was, the

lowest couples being lost among the faggots and brushwood in the out-

house.

'When we had danced a few hours, and the crowns of we taller men were

swelling into lumps with bumping the beams of the ceiling, the first

fiddler laid down his fiddle-bow, and said he should play no more, for

he wished to dance. And in another hour the second fiddler laid down

his, and said he wanted to dance too; so there was only the third

fiddler left, and he was a' old, veteran man, very weak in the wrist.

However, he managed to keep up a faltering tweedle-dee; but there being

no chair in the room, and his knees being as weak as his wrists, he was

obliged to sit upon as much of the little corner-table as projected

beyond the corner-cupboard fixed over it, which was not a very wide seat

for a man advanced in years.

'Among those who danced most continually were the two engaged couples,

as was natural to their situation. Each pair was very well matched, and

very unlike the other. James Hardcome's intended was called Emily Darth,

and both she and James were gentle, nice-minded, in-door people, fond of

a quiet life. Steve and his chosen, named Olive Pawle, were different;

they were of a more bustling nature, fond of racketing about and seeing

what was going on in the world. The two couples had arranged to get

married on the same day, and that not long thence; Tony's wedding being

a sort of stimulant, as is often the case; I've noticed it

professionally many times.

'They danced with such a will as only young people in that stage of

courtship can dance; and it happened that as the evening wore on James

had for his partner Stephen's plighted one, Olive, at the same time that

Stephen was dancing with James's Emily. It was noticed that in spite o'

the exchange the young men seemed to enjoy the dance no less than

before. By and by they were treading another tune in the same changed

order as we had noticed earlier, and though at first each one had held

the other's mistress strictly at half-arm's length, lest there should be

shown any objection to too close quarters by the lady's proper man, as

time passed there was a little more closeness between 'em; and presently

a little more closeness still.

'The later it got the more did each of the two cousins dance with the

wrong young girl, and the tighter did he hold her to his side as he

whirled her round; and, what was very remarkable, neither seemed to mind

what the other was doing. The party began to draw towards its end, and I

saw no more that night, being one of the first to leave, on account of

my morning's business. But I learnt the rest of it from those that knew.

'After finishing a particularly warming dance with the changed partners,

as I've mentioned, the two young men looked at one another, and in a

moment or two went out into the porch together.

'"James," says Steve, "what were you thinking of when you were dancing

with my Olive?"

'"Well," said James, "perhaps what you were thinking of when you were

dancing with my Emily."

'"I was thinking," said Steve, with some hesitation, "that I wouldn't

mind changing for good and all!"

'"It was what I was feeling likewise," said James.

'"I willingly agree to it, if you think we could manage it."

'"So do I. But what would the girls say?"

'"'Tis my belief," said Steve, "that they wouldn't particularly object.

Your Emily clung as close to me as if she already belonged to me, dear

girl."

'"And your Olive to me," says James. "I could feel her heart beating

like a clock."

'Well, they agreed to put it to the girls when they were all four

walking home together. And they did so. When they parted that night the

exchange was decided on-all having been done under the hot excitement of

that evening's dancing. Thus it happened that on the following Sunday

morning, when the people were sitting in church with mouths wide open to

hear the names published as they had expected, there was no small

amazement to hear them coupled the wrong way, as it seemed. The

congregation whispered, and thought the parson had made a mistake; till

they discovered that his reading of the names was verily the true way.

As they had decided, so they were married, each one to the other's

original property.

'Well, the two couples lived on for a year or two ordinarily enough,

till the time came when these young people began to grow a little less

warm to their respective spouses, as is the rule of married life; and

the two cousins wondered more and more in their hearts what had made 'em

so mad at the last moment to marry crosswise as they did, when they

might have married straight, as was planned by nature, and as they had

fallen in love. 'Twas Tony's party that had done it, plain enough, and

they half wished they had never gone there. James, being a quiet,

fireside, perusing man, felt at times a wide gap between himself and

Olive, his wife, who loved riding and driving and out-door jaunts to a

degree; while Steve, who was always knocking about hither and thither,

had a very domestic wife, who worked samplers, and made hearthrugs,

scarcely ever wished to cross the threshold, and only drove out with him

to please him.

'However, they said very little about this mismating to any of their

acquaintances, though sometimes Steve would look at James's wife and

sigh, and James would look at Steve's wife and do the same. Indeed, at

last the two men were frank enough towards each other not to mind

mentioning it quietly to themselves, in a long-faced, sorry-smiling,

whimsical sort of way, and would shake their heads together over their

foolishness in upsetting a well-considered choice on the strength of an

hour's fancy in the whirl and wildness of a dance. Still, they were

sensible and honest young fellows enough, and did their best to make

shift with their lot as they had arranged it, and not to repine at what

could not now be altered or mended.

'So things remained till one fine summer day they went for their yearly

little outing together, as they had made it their custom to do for a

long while past. This year they chose Budmouth-Regis as the place to

spend their holiday in; and off they went in their best clothes at nine

o'clock in the morning.

'When they had reached Budmouth-Regis they walked two and two along the

shore-their new boots going squeakity-squash upon the clammy velvet

sands. I can seem to see 'em now! Then they looked at the ships in the

harbour; and then went up to the Look-out; and then had dinner at an

inn; and then again walked two and two, squeakity-squash, upon the

velvet sands. As evening drew on they sat on one of the public seats

upon the Esplanade, and listened to the band; and then they said "What

shall we do next?"

'"Of all things," said Olive (Mrs. James Hardcome, that is), "I should

like to row in the bay! We could listen to the music from the water as

well as from here, and have the fun of rowing besides."

'"The very thing; so should I," says Stephen, his tastes being always

like hers.

Here the clerk turned to the curate.

'But you, sir, know the rest of the strange particulars of that strange

evening of their lives better than anybody else, having had much of it

from their own lips, which I had not; and perhaps you'll oblige the

gentleman?'

'Certainly, if it is wished,' said the curate. And he took up the

clerk's tale:-

'Stephen's wife hated the sea, except from land, and couldn't bear the

thought of going into a boat. James, too, disliked the water, and said

that for his part he would much sooner stay on and listen to the band in

the seat they occupied, though he did not wish to stand in his wife's

way if she desired a row. The end of the discussion was that James and

his cousin's wife Emily agreed to remain where they were sitting and

enjoy the music, while they watched the other two hire a boat just

beneath, and take their water-excursion of half an hour or so, till they

should choose to come back and join the sitters on the Esplanade; when

they would all start homeward together.

'Nothing could have pleased the other two restless ones better than this

arrangement; and Emily and James watched them go down to the boatman

below and choose one of the little yellow skiffs, and walk carefully out

upon the little plank that was laid on trestles to enable them to get

alongside the craft. They saw Stephen hand Olive in, and take his seat

facing her; when they were settled they waved their hands to the couple

watching them, and then Stephen took the pair of sculls and pulled off

to the tune beat by the band, she steering through the other boats

skimming about, for the sea was as smooth as glass that evening, and

pleasure-seekers were rowing everywhere.

'"How pretty they look moving on, don't they?" said Emily to James (as

I've been assured). "They both enjoy it equally. In everything their

likings are the same."

'"That's true," said James.

'"They would have made a handsome pair if they had married," said she.

'"Yes," said he. "'Tis a pity we should have parted 'em"

'"Don't talk of that, James," said she. "For better or for worse we

decided to do as we did, and there's an end of it."

'They sat on after that without speaking, side by side, and the band

played as before; the people strolled up and down; and Stephen and Olive

shrank smaller and smaller as they shot straight out to sea. The two on

shore used to relate how they saw Stephen stop rowing a moment, and take

off his coat to get at his work better; but James's wife sat quite still

in the stern, holding the tiller-ropes by which she steered the boat.

When they had got very small indeed she turned her head to shore.

'"She is waving her handkerchief to us," said Stephen's wife, who

thereupon pulled out her own, and waved it as a return signal.

'The boat's course had been a little awry while Mrs. James neglected her

steering to wave her handkerchief to her husband and Mrs. Stephen; but

now the light skiff went straight onward again, and they could soon see

nothing more of the two figures it contained than Olive's light mantle

and Stephen's white shirt sleeves behind.

'The two on the shore talked on. "'Twas very curious-our changing

partners at Tony Kytes's wedding," Emily declared. "Tony was of a fickle

nature by all account, and it really seemed as if his character had

infected us that night. Which of you two was it that first proposed not

to marry as we were engaged?"

'"H'm-I can't remember at this moment," says James. "We talked it over,

you know; and no sooner said than done."

'"'Twas the dancing," said she. "People get quite crazy sometimes in a

dance."

'"They do," he owned.

'"James-do you think they care for one another still?" asks Mrs.

Stephen.

'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-he 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.

A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES

That is to say: The First Countess Of Wessex; Barbara Of The Hose Of

Grebe; The Marchioness Of Stonehenge; Lady Mottifont Squire Petrick's

Lady; The Lady Icenway Anna, Lady Baxby; The Lady Penelope; The Duchess

Of Hamptonshire; And The Honourable Laura

'. . . Store of Ladies, whose bright eyes Rain influence.'-L'Allegro.

With a map of wessex By Thomas Hardy

CONTENTS

PREFACE

DAME THE FIRST-THE FIRST COUNTESS OF WESSEX

DAME THE SECOND-BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE

DAME THE THIRD-THE MARCHIONESS OF STONEHENGE

DAME THE FOURTH-LADY MOTTISFONT

DAME THE FIFTH-THE LADY ICENWAY

DAME THE SIXTH-SQUIRE PETRICK'S LADY

DAME THE SEVENTH-ANNA, LADY BAXBY

DAME THE EIGHTH-THE LADY PENELOPE

DAME THE NINTH-THE DUCHESS OF HAMPTONSHIRE

DAME THE TENTH-THE HONOURABLE LAURA

PREFACE

The pedigrees of our county families, arranged in diagrams on the pages

of county histories, mostly appear at first sight to be as barren of any

touch of nature as a table of logarithms. But given a clue-the faintest

tradition of what went on behind the scenes, and this dryness as of dust

may be transformed into a palpitating drama. More, the careful

comparison of dates alone-that of birth with marriage, of marriage with

death, of one marriage, birth, or death with a kindred marriage, birth,

or death-will often effect the same transformation, and anybody

practised in raising images from such genealogies finds himself

unconsciously filling into the framework the motives, passions, and

personal qualities which would appear to be the single explanation

possible of some extraordinary conjunction in times, events, and

personages that occasionally marks these reticent family records.

Out of such pedigrees and supplementary material most of the following

stories have arisen and taken shape.

I would make this preface an opportunity of expressing my sense of the

courtesy and kindness of several bright-eyed Noble Dames yet in the

flesh, who, since the first publication of these tales in periodicals,

six or seven years ago, have given me interesting comments and

conjectures on such of the narratives as they have recognized to be

connected with their own families, residences, or traditions; in which

they have shown a truly philosophic absence of prejudice in their regard

of those incidents whose relation has tended more distinctly to

dramatize than to eulogize their ancestors. The outlines they have also

given of other singular events in their family histories for use in a

second "Group of Noble Dames," will, I fear, never reach the printing-

press through me; but I shall store them up in memory of my informants'

good nature. T. H.

June 1896.

DAME THE FIRST-THE FIRST COUNTESS OF WESSEX By the Local Historian

King's-Hintock Court (said the narrator, turning over his memoranda for

reference)-King's-Hintock Court is, as we know, one of the most imposing

of the mansions that overlook our beautiful Blackmoor or Blakemore Vale.

On the particular occasion of which I have to speak this building stood,

as it had often stood before, in the perfect silence of a calm clear

night, lighted only by the cold shine of the stars. The season was

winter, in days long ago, the last century having run but little more

than a third of its length. North, south, and west, not a casement was

unfastened, not a curtain undrawn; eastward, one window on the upper

floor was open, and a girl of twelve or thirteen was leaning over the

sill. That she had not taken up the position for purposes of observation

was apparent at a glance, for she kept her eyes covered with her hands.

The room occupied by the girl was an inner one of a suite, to be reached

only by passing through a large bedchamber adjoining. From this

apartment voices in altercation were audible, everything else in the

building being so still. It was to avoid listening to these voices that

the girl had left her little cot, thrown a cloak round her head and

shoulders, and stretched into the night air.

But she could not escape the conversation, try as she would. The words

reached her in all their painfulness, one sentence in masculine tones,

those of her father, being repeated many times.

'I tell 'ee there shall be no such betrothal! I tell 'ee there sha'n't!

A child like her!'

She knew the subject of dispute to be herself. A cool feminine voice,

her mother's, replied:

'Have done with you, and be wise. He is willing to wait a good five or

six years before the marriage takes place, and there's not a man in the

county to compare with him.'

'It shall not be! He is over thirty. It is wickedness.'

'He is just thirty, and the best and finest man alive-a perfect match

for her.'

'He is poor!'

'But his father and elder brothers are made much of at Court-none so

constantly at the palace as they; and with her fortune, who knows? He

may be able to get a barony.'

'I believe you are in love with en yourself!'

'How can you insult me so, Thomas! And is it not monstrous for you to

talk of my wickedness when you have a like scheme in your own head? You

know you have. Some bumpkin of your own choosing-some petty gentleman

who lives down at that outlandish place of yours, Falls-Park-one of your

pot-companions' sons-'

There was an outburst of imprecation on the part of her husband in lieu

of further argument. As soon as he could utter a connected sentence he

said: 'You crow and you domineer, mistress, because you are heiress-

general here. You are in your own house; you are on your own land. But

let me tell 'ee that if I did come here to you instead of taking you to

me, it was done at the dictates of convenience merely. H�-! I'm no

beggar! Ha'n't I a place of my own? Ha'n't I an avenue as long as thine?

Ha'n't I beeches that will more than match thy oaks? I should have lived

in my own quiet house and land, contented, if you had not called me off

with your airs and graces. Faith, I'll go back there; I'll not stay with

thee longer! If it had not been for our Betty I should have gone long

ago!'

After this there were no more words; but presently, hearing the sound of

a door opening and shutting below, the girl again looked from the

window. Footsteps crunched on the gravel-walk, and a shape in a drab

greatcoat, easily distinguishable as her father, withdrew from the

house. He moved to the left, and she watched him diminish down the long

east front till he had turned the corner and vanished. He must have gone

round to the stables.

She closed the window and shrank into bed, where she cried herself to

sleep. This child, their only one, Betty, beloved ambitiously by her

mother, and with uncalculating passionateness by her father, was

frequently made wretched by such episodes as this; though she was too

young to care very deeply, for her own sake, whether her mother

betrothed her to the gentleman discussed or not.

The Squire had often gone out of the house in this manner, declaring

that he would never return, but he had always reappeared in the morning.

The present occasion, however, was different in the issue: next day she

was told that her father had ridden to his estate at Falls-Park early in

the morning on business with his agent, and might not come back for some

days.

Falls-Park was over twenty miles from King's-Hintock Court, and was

altogether a more modest centre-piece to a more modest possession than

the latter. But as Squire Dornell came in view of it that February

morning, he thought that he had been a fool ever to leave it, though it

was for the sake of the greatest heiress in Wessex. Its classic front,

of the period of the second Charles, derived from its regular features a

dignity which the great, battlemented, heterogeneous mansion of his wife

could not eclipse. Altogether he was sick at heart, and the gloom which

the densely-timbered park threw over the scene did not tend to remove

the depression of this rubicund man of eight-and-forty, who sat so

heavily upon his gelding. The child, his darling Betty: there lay the

root of his trouble. He was unhappy when near his wife, he was unhappy

when away from his little girl; and from this dilemma there was no

practicable escape. As a consequence he indulged rather freely in the

pleasures of the table, became what was called a three bottle man, and,

in his wife's estimation, less and less presentable to her polite

friends from town.

He was received by the two or three old servants who were in charge of

the lonely place, where a few rooms only were kept habitable for his use

or that of his friends when hunting; and during the morning he was made

more comfortable by the arrival of his faithful servant Tupcombe from

King's-Hintock. But after a day or two spent here in solitude he began

to feel that he had made a mistake in coming. By leaving King's-Hintock

in his anger he had thrown away his best opportunity of counteracting

his wife's preposterous notion of promising his poor little Betty's hand

to a man she had hardly seen. To protect her from such a repugnant

bargain he should have remained on the spot. He felt it almost as a

misfortune that the child would inherit so much wealth. She would be a

mark for all the adventurers in the kingdom. Had she been only the

heiress to his own unassuming little place at Falls, how much better

would have been her chances of happiness!

His wife had divined truly when she insinuated that he himself had a

lover in view for this pet child. The son of a dear deceased friend of

his, who lived not two miles from where the Squire now was, a lad a

couple of years his daughter's senior, seemed in her father's opinion

the one person in the world likely to make her happy. But as to

breathing such a scheme to either of the young people with the indecent

haste that his wife had shown, he would not dream of it; years hence

would be soon enough for that. They had already seen each other, and the

Squire fancied that he noticed a tenderness on the youth's part which

promised well. He was strongly tempted to profit by his wife's example,

and forestall her match-making by throwing the two young people together

there at Falls. The girl, though marriageable in the views of those

days, was too young to be in love, but the lad was fifteen, and already

felt an interest in her.

Still better than keeping watch over her at King's Hintock, where she

was necessarily much under her mother's influence, would it be to get

the child to stay with him at Falls for a time, under his exclusive

control. But how accomplish this without using main force? The only

possible chance was that his wife might, for appearance' sake, as she

had done before, consent to Betty paying him a day's visit, when he

might find means of detaining her till Reynard, the suitor whom his wife

favoured, had gone abroad, which he was expected to do the following

week. Squire Dornell determined to return to King's-Hintock and attempt

the enterprise. If he were refused, it was almost in him to pick up

Betty bodily and carry her off.

The journey back, vague and Quixotic as were his intentions, was

performed with a far lighter heart than his setting forth. He would see

Betty, and talk to her, come what might of his plan.

So he rode along the dead level which stretches between the hills

skirting Falls-Park and those bounding the town of Ivell, trotted

through that borough, and out by the King's-Hintock highway, till,

passing the villages he entered the mile-long drive through the park to

the Court. The drive being open, without an avenue, the Squire could

discern the north front and door of the Court a long way off, and was

himself visible from the windows on that side; for which reason he hoped

that Betty might perceive him coming, as she sometimes did on his return

from an outing, and run to the door or wave her handkerchief.

But there was no sign. He inquired for his wife as soon as he set foot

to earth.

'Mistress is away. She was called to London, sir.'

'And Mistress Betty?' said the Squire blankly.

'Gone likewise, sir, for a little change. Mistress has left a letter for

you.'

The note explained nothing, merely stating that she had posted to London

on her own affairs, and had taken the child to give her a holiday. On

the fly-leaf were some words from Betty herself to the same effect,

evidently written in a state of high jubilation at the idea of her

jaunt. Squire Dornell murmured a few expletives, and submitted to his

disappointment. How long his wife meant to stay in town she did not say;

but on investigation he found that the carriage had been packed with

sufficient luggage for a sojourn of two or three weeks.

King's-Hintock Court was in consequence as gloomy as Falls-Park had

been. He had lost all zest for hunting of late, and had hardly attended

a meet that season. Dornell read and re-read Betty's scrawl, and hunted

up some other such notes of hers to look over, this seeming to be the

only pleasure there was left for him. That they were really in London he

learnt in a few days by another letter from Mrs. Dornell, in which she

explained that they hoped to be home in about a week, and that she had

had no idea he was coming back to King's-Hintock so soon, or she would

not have gone away without telling him.

Squire Dornell wondered if, in going or returning, it had been her plan

to call at the Reynards' place near Melchester, through which city their

journey lay. It was possible that she might do this in furtherance of

her project, and the sense that his own might become the losing game was

harassing.

He did not know how to dispose of himself, till it occurred to him that,

to get rid of his intolerable heaviness, he would invite some friends to

dinner and drown his cares in grog and wine. No sooner was the carouse

decided upon than he put it in hand; those invited being mostly

neighbouring landholders, all smaller men than himself, members of the

hunt; also the doctor from Evershead, and the like-some of them

rollicking blades whose presence his wife would not have countenanced

had she been at home. 'When the cat's away-!' said the Squire.

They arrived, and there were indications in their manner that they meant

to make a night of it. Baxby of Sherton Castle was late, and they waited

a quarter of an hour for him, he being one of the liveliest of Dornell's

friends; without whose presence no such dinner as this would be

considered complete, and, it may be added, with whose presence no dinner

which included both sexes could be conducted with strict propriety. He

had just returned from London, and the Squire was anxious to talk to

him-for no definite reason; but he had lately breathed the atmosphere in

which Betty was.

At length they heard Baxby driving up to the door, whereupon the host

and the rest of his guests crossed over to the dining-room. In a moment

Baxby came hastily in at their heels, apologizing for his lateness.

'I only came back last night, you know,' he said; 'and the truth o't is,

I had as much as I could carry.' He turned to the Squire. 'Well,

Dornell-so cunning Reynard has stolen your little ewe lamb? Ha, ha!'

'What?' said Squire Dornell vacantly, across the dining-table, round

which they were all standing, the cold March sunlight streaming in upon

his full-clean shaven face.

'Surely th'st know what all the town knows?-you've had a letter by this

time?-that Stephen Reynard has married your Betty? Yes, as I'm a living

man. It was a carefully-arranged thing: they parted at once, and are not

to meet for five or six years. But, Lord, you must know!'

A thud on the floor was the only reply of the Squire. They quickly

turned. He had fallen down like a log behind the table, and lay

motionless on the oak boards.

Those at hand hastily bent over him, and the whole group were in

confusion. They found him to be quite unconscious, though puffing and

panting like a blacksmith's bellows. His face was livid, his veins

swollen, and beads of perspiration stood upon his brow.

'What's happened to him?' said several.

'An apoplectic fit,' said the doctor from Evershead, gravely.

He was only called in at the Court for small ailments, as a rule, and

felt the importance of the situation. He lifted the Squire's head,

loosened his cravat and clothing, and rang for the servants, who took

the Squire upstairs.

There he lay as if in a drugged sleep. The surgeon drew a basin-full of

blood from him, but it was nearly six o'clock before he came to himself.

The dinner was completely disorganized, and some had gone home long ago;

but two or three remained.

'Bless my soul,' Baxby kept repeating, 'I didn't know things had come to

this pass between Dornell and his lady! I thought the feast he was

spreading to-day was in honour of the event, though privately kept for

the present! His little maid married without his knowledge!'

As soon as the Squire recovered consciousness he gasped: ''Tis

abduction! 'Tis a capital felony! He can be hung! Where is Baxby? I am

very well now. What items have ye heard, Baxby?'

The bearer of the untoward news was extremely unwilling to agitate

Dornell further, and would say little more at first. But an hour after,

when the Squire had partially recovered and was sitting up, Baxby told

as much as he knew, the most important particular being that Betty's

mother was present at the marriage, and showed every mark of approval.

'Everything appeared to have been done so regularly that I, of course,

thought you knew all about it,' he said.

'I knew no more than the underground dead that such a step was in the

wind! A child not yet thirteen! How Sue hath outwitted me! Did Reynard

go up to Lon'on with 'em, d'ye know?'

'I can't say. All I know is that your lady and daughter were walking

along the street, with the footman behind 'em; that they entered a

jeweller's shop, where Reynard was standing; and that there, in the

presence o' the shopkeeper and your man, who was called in on purpose,

your Betty said to Reynard-so the story goes: 'pon my soul I don't vouch

for the truth of it-she said, "Will you marry me?" or, "I want to marry

you: will you have me-now or never?" she said.'

'What she said means nothing,' murmured the Squire, with wet eyes. 'Her

mother put the words into her mouth to avoid the serious consequences

that would attach to any suspicion of force. The words be not the

child's: she didn't dream of marriage-how should she, poor little maid!

Go on.'

'Well, be that as it will, they were all agreed apparently. They bought

the ring on the spot, and the marriage took place at the nearest church

within half-an-hour.'

A day or two later there came a letter from Mrs. Dornell to her husband,

written before she knew of his stroke. She related the circumstances of

the marriage in the gentlest manner, and gave cogent reasons and excuses

for consenting to the premature union, which was now an accomplished

fact indeed. She had no idea, till sudden pressure was put upon her,

that the contract was expected to be carried out so soon, but being

taken half unawares, she had consented, having learned that Stephen

Reynard, now their son-in-law, was becoming a great favourite at Court,

and that he would in all likelihood have a title granted him before

long. No harm could come to their dear daughter by this early marriage-

contract, seeing that her life would be continued under their own eyes,

exactly as before, for some years. In fine, she had felt that no other

such fair opportunity for a good marriage with a shrewd courtier and

wise man of the world, who was at the same time noted for his excellent

personal qualities, was within the range of probability, owing to the

rusticated lives they led at King's-Hintock. Hence she had yielded to

Stephen's solicitation, and hoped her husband would forgive her. She

wrote, in short, like a woman who, having had her way as to the deed, is

prepared to make any concession as to words and subsequent behaviour.

All this Dornell took at its true value, or rather, perhaps, at less

than its true value. As his life depended upon his not getting into a

passion, he controlled his perturbed emotions as well as he was able,

going about the house sadly and utterly unlike his former self. He took

every precaution to prevent his wife knowing of the incidents of his

sudden illness, from a sense of shame at having a heart so tender; a

ridiculous quality, no doubt, in her eyes, now that she had become so

imbued with town ideas. But rumours of his seizure somehow reached her,

and she let him know that she was about to return to nurse him. He

thereupon packed up and went off to his own place at Falls-Park.

Here he lived the life of a recluse for some time. He was still too

unwell to entertain company, or to ride to hounds or elsewhither; but

more than this, his aversion to the faces of strangers and

acquaintances, who knew by that time of the trick his wife had played

him, operated to hold him aloof.

Nothing could influence him to censure Betty for her share in the

exploit. He never once believed that she had acted voluntarily. Anxious

to know how she was getting on, he despatched the trusty servant

Tupcombe to Evershead village, close to King's-Hintock, timing his

journey so that he should reach the place under cover of dark. The

emissary arrived without notice, being out of livery, and took a seat in

the chimney-corner of the Sow-and-Acorn.

The conversation of the droppers-in was always of the nine days' wonder-

the recent marriage. The smoking listener learnt that Mrs. Dornell and

the girl had returned to King's-Hintock for a day or two, that Reynard

had set out for the Continent, and that Betty had since been packed off

to school. She did not realize her position as Reynard's child-wife-so

the story went-and though somewhat awe-stricken at first by the

ceremony, she had soon recovered her spirits on finding that her freedom

was in no way to be interfered with.

After that, formal messages began to pass between Dornell and his wife,

the latter being now as persistently conciliating as she was formerly

masterful. But her rustic, simple, blustering husband still held

personally aloof. Her wish to be reconciled-to win his forgiveness for

her stratagem-moreover, a genuine tenderness and desire to soothe his

sorrow, which welled up in her at times, brought her at last to his door

at Falls-Park one day.

They had not met since that night of altercation, before her departure

for London and his subsequent illness. She was shocked at the change in

him. His face had become expressionless, as blank as that of a puppet,

and what troubled her still more was that she found him living in one

room, and indulging freely in stimulants, in absolute disobedience to

the physician's order. The fact was obvious that he could no longer be

allowed to live thus uncouthly.

So she sympathized, and begged his pardon, and coaxed. But though after

this date there was no longer such a complete estrangement as before,

they only occasionally saw each other, Dornell for the most part making

Falls his headquarters still.

Three or four years passed thus. Then she came one day, with more

animation in her manner, and at once moved him by the simple statement

that Betty's schooling had ended; she had returned, and was grieved

because he was away. She had sent a message to him in these words: 'Ask

father to come home to his dear Betty.'

'Ah! Then she is very unhappy!' said Squire Dornell.

His wife was silent.

''Tis that accursed marriage!' continued the Squire.

Still his wife would not dispute with him. 'She is outside in the

carriage,' said Mrs. Dornell gently.

'What-Betty?'

'Yes.'

'Why didn't you tell me?' Dornell rushed out, and there was the girl

awaiting his forgiveness, for she supposed herself, no less than her

mother, to be under his displeasure.

Yes, Betty had left school, and had returned to King's-Hintock. She was

nearly seventeen, and had developed to quite a young woman. She looked

not less a member of the household for her early marriage-contract,

which she seemed, indeed, to have almost forgotten. It was like a dream

to her; that clear cold March day, the London church, with its gorgeous

pews, and green-baize linings, and the great organ in the west gallery-

so different from their own little church in the shrubbery of King's-

Hintock Court-the man of thirty, to whose face she had looked up with so

much awe, and with a sense that he was rather ugly and formidable; the

man whom, though they corresponded politely, she had never seen since;

one to whose existence she was now so indifferent that if informed of

his death, and that she would never see him more, she would merely have

replied, 'Indeed!' Betty's passions as yet still slept.

'Hast heard from thy husband lately?' said Squire Dornell, when they

were indoors, with an ironical laugh of fondness which demanded no

answer.

The girl winced, and he noticed that his wife looked appealingly at him.

As the conversation went on, and there were signs that Dornell would

express sentiments that might do harm to a position which they could not

alter, Mrs. Dornell suggested that Betty should leave the room till her

father and herself had finished their private conversation; and this

Betty obediently did.

Dornell renewed his animadversions freely. 'Did you see how the sound of

his name frightened her?' he presently added. 'If you didn't, I did.

Zounds! what a future is in store for that poor little unfortunate wench

o' mine! I tell 'ee, Sue, 'twas not a marriage at all, in morality, and

if I were a woman in such a position, I shouldn't feel it as one. She

might, without a sign of sin, love a man of her choice as well now as if

she were chained up to no other at all. There, that's my mind, and I

can't help it. Ah, Sue, my man was best! He'd ha' suited her.'

'I don't believe it,' she replied incredulously.

'You should see him; then you would. He's growing up a fine fellow, I

can tell 'ee.'