'Very well,' she said.

He drew her arm within his own, and conducted her out of the Cemetery.

It was impossible to get back that night; and not wishing to be

recognized in their present sorry condition, he took her to a miserable

little coffee-house close to the station, whence they departed early in

the morning, travelling almost without speaking, under the sense that it

was one of those dreary situations occurring in married life which words

could not mend, and reaching their own door at noon.

The months passed, and neither of the twain ever ventured to start a

conversation upon this episode. Ella seemed to be only too frequently in

a sad and listless mood, which might almost have been called pining. The

time was approaching when she would have to undergo the stress of

childbirth for a fourth time, and that apparently did not tend to raise

her spirits.

'I don't think I shall get over it this time!' she said one day.

'Pooh! what childish foreboding! Why shouldn't it be as well now as

ever?'

She shook her head. 'I feel almost sure I am going to die; and I should

be glad, if it were not for Nelly, and Frank, and Tiny.'

'And me!'

'You'll soon find somebody to fill my place,' she murmured, with a sad

smile. 'And you'll have a perfect right to; I assure you of that.'

'Ell, you are not thinking still about that-poetical friend of yours?'

She neither admitted nor denied the charge. 'I am not going to get over

my illness this time,' she reiterated. 'Something tells me I shan't.'

This view of things was rather a bad beginning, as it usually is; and,

in fact, six weeks later, in the month of May, she was lying in her

room, pulseless and bloodless, with hardly strength enough left to

follow up one feeble breath with another, the infant for whose

unnecessary life she was slowly parting with her own being fat and well.

Just before her death she spoke to Marchmill softly:-

'Will, I want to confess to you the entire circumstances of that-about

you know what-that time we visited Solentsea. I can't tell what

possessed me-how I could forget you so, my husband! But I had got into a

morbid state: I thought you had been unkind; that you had neglected me;

that you weren't up to my intellectual level, while he was, and far

above it. I wanted a fuller appreciator, perhaps, rather than another

lover-'

She could get no further then for very exhaustion; and she went off in

sudden collapse a few hours later, without having said anything more to

her husband on the subject of her love for the poet. William Marchmill,

in truth, like most husbands of several years' standing, was little

disturbed by retrospective jealousies, and had not shown the least

anxiety to press her for confessions concerning a man dead and gone

beyond any power of inconveniencing him more.

But when she had been buried a couple of years it chanced one day that,

in turning over some forgotten papers that he wished to destroy before

his second wife entered the house, he lighted on a lock of hair in an

envelope, with the photograph of the deceased poet, a date being written

on the back in his late wife's hand. It was that of the time they spent

at Solentsea.

Marchmill looked long and musingly at the hair and portrait, for

something struck him. Fetching the little boy who had been the death of

his mother, now a noisy toddler, he took him on his knee, held the lock

of hair against the child's head, and set up the photograph on the table

behind, so that he could closely compare the features each countenance

presented. There were undoubtedly strong traces of resemblance; the

dreamy and peculiar expression of the poet's face sat, as the

transmitted idea, upon the child's, and the hair was of the same hue.

'I'm damned if I didn't think so!' murmured Marchmill. 'Then she did

play me false with that fellow at the lodgings! Let me see: the dates-

the second week in August . . . the third week in May . . . Yes . . .

yes . . . Get away, you poor little brat! You are nothing to me!' 1893.

THE THREE STRANGERS

Among the few features of agricultural England which retain an

appearance but little modified by the lapse of centuries, may be

reckoned the high, grassy and furzy downs, coombs, or ewe-leases, as

they are indifferently called, that fill a large area of certain

counties in the south and south-west. If any mark of human occupation is

met with hereon, it usually takes the form of the solitary cottage of

some shepherd.

Fifty years ago such a lonely cottage stood on such a down, and may

possibly be standing there now. In spite of its loneliness, however, the

spot, by actual measurement, was not more than five miles from a county-

town. Yet that affected it little. Five miles of irregular upland,

during the long inimical seasons, with their sleets, snows, rains, and

mists, afford withdrawing space enough to isolate a Timon or a

Nebuchadnezzar; much less, in fair weather, to please that less

repellent tribe, the poets, philosophers, artists, and others who

'conceive and meditate of pleasant things.'

Some old earthen camp or barrow, some clump of trees, at least some

starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the

erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a

kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house

was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only reason for its

precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two footpaths at right

angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good five

hundred years. Hence the house was exposed to the elements on all sides.

But, though the wind up here blew unmistakably when it did blow, and the

rain hit hard whenever it fell, the various weathers of the winter

season were not quite so formidable on the coomb as they were imagined

to be by dwellers on low ground. The raw rimes were not so pernicious as

in the hollows, and the frosts were scarcely so severe. When the

shepherd and his family who tenanted the house were pitied for their

sufferings from the exposure, they said that upon the whole they were

less inconvenienced by 'wuzzes and flames' (hoarses and phlegms) than

when they had lived by the stream of a snug neighbouring valley.

The night of March 28, 182-, was precisely one of the nights that were

wont to call forth these expressions of commiseration. The level

rainstorm smote walls, slopes, and hedges like the clothyard shafts of

Senlac and Crecy. Such sheep and outdoor animals as had no shelter stood

with their buttocks to the winds; while the tails of little birds trying

to roost on some scraggy thorn were blown inside-out like umbrellas. The

gable-end of the cottage was stained with wet, and the eavesdroppings

flapped against the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the shepherd

more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party

in glorification of the christening of his second girl.

The guests had arrived before the rain began to fall, and they were all

now assembled in the chief or living room of the dwelling. A glance into

the apartment at eight o'clock on this eventful evening would have

resulted in the opinion that it was as cosy and comfortable a nook as

could be wished for in boisterous weather. The calling of its inhabitant

was proclaimed by a number of highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems

that were hung ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining

crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal

pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last

local sheep-fair. The room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles, having

wicks only a trifle smaller than the grease which enveloped them, in

candlesticks that were never used but at high-days, holy-days, and

family feasts. The lights were scattered about the room, two of them

standing on the chimney-piece. This position of candles was in itself

significant. Candles on the chimney-piece always meant a party.

On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire

of thorns, that crackled 'like the laughter of the fool.'

Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns

of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not

shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-

carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighbouring

dairyman, the shepherd's father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young

man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life-

companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged

man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his

betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty

general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by

conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good

opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner,

amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the

absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on

in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever-

which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except

the two extremes of the social scale.

Shepherd Fennel had married well, his wife being a dairyman's daughter

from a vale at a distance, who brought fifty guineas in her pocket-and

kept them there, till they should be required for ministering to the

needs of a coming family. This frugal woman had been somewhat exercised

as to the character that should be given to the gathering. A sit-still

party had its advantages; but an undisturbed position of ease in chairs

and settles was apt to lead on the men to such an unconscionable deal of

toping that they would sometimes fairly drink the house dry. A dancing-

party was the alternative; but this, while avoiding the foregoing

objection on the score of good drink, had a counterbalancing

disadvantage in the matter of good victuals, the ravenous appetites

engendered by the exercise causing immense havoc in the buttery.

Shepherdess Fennel fell back upon the intermediate plan of mingling

short dances with short periods of talk and singing, so as to hinder any

ungovernable rage in either. But this scheme was entirely confined to

her own gentle mind: the shepherd himself was in the mood to exhibit the

most reckless phases of hospitality.

The fiddler was a boy of those parts, about twelve years of age, who had

a wonderful dexterity in jigs and reels, though his fingers were so

small and short as to necessitate a constant shifting for the high

notes, from which he scrambled back to the first position with sounds

not of unmixed purity of tone. At seven the shrill tweedle-dee of this

youngster had begun, accompanied by a booming ground-bass from Elijah

New, the parish-clerk, who had thoughtfully brought with him his

favourite musical instrument, the serpent. Dancing was instantaneous,

Mrs. Fennel privately enjoining the players on no account to let the

dance exceed the length of a quarter of an hour.

But Elijah and the boy, in the excitement of their position, quite

forgot the injunction. Moreover, Oliver Giles, a man of seventeen, one

of the dancers, who was enamoured of his partner, a fair girl of thirty-

three rolling years, had recklessly handed a new crown-piece to the

musicians, as a bribe to keep going as long as they had muscle and wind.

Mrs. Fennel, seeing the steam begin to generate on the countenances of

her guests, crossed over and touched the fiddler's elbow and put her

hand on the serpent's mouth. But they took no notice, and fearing she

might lose her character of genial hostess if she were to interfere too

markedly, she retired and sat down helpless. And so the dance whizzed on

with cumulative fury, the performers moving in their planet-like

courses, direct and retrograde, from apogee to perigee, till the hand of

the well-kicked clock at the bottom of the room had travelled over the

circumference of an hour.

While these cheerful events were in course of enactment within Fennel's

pastoral dwelling, an incident having considerable bearing on the party

had occurred in the gloomy night without. Mrs. Fennel's concern about

the growing fierceness of the dance corresponded in point of time with

the ascent of a human figure to the solitary hill of Higher Crowstairs

from the direction of the distant town. This personage strode on through

the rain without a pause, following the little-worn path which, further

on in its course, skirted the shepherd's cottage.

It was nearly the time of full moon, and on this account, though the sky

was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out

of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely

pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had

somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though

not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion

required. At a rough guess, he might have been about forty years of age.

He appeared tall, but a recruiting sergeant, or other person accustomed

to the judging of men's heights by the eye, would have discerned that

this was chiefly owing to his gauntness, and that he was not more than

five-feet-eight or nine.

Notwithstanding the regularity of his tread, there was caution in it, as

in that of one who mentally feels his way; and despite the fact that it

was not a black coat nor a dark garment of any sort that he wore, there

was something about him which suggested that he naturally belonged to

the black-coated tribes of men. His clothes were of fustian, and his

boots hobnailed, yet in his progress he showed not the mud-accustomed

bearing of hobnailed and fustianed peasantry.

By the time that he had arrived abreast of the shepherd's premises the

rain came down, or rather came along, with yet more determined violence.

The outskirts of the little settlement partially broke the force of wind

and rain, and this induced him to stand still. The most salient of the

shepherd's domestic erections was an empty sty at the forward corner of

his hedgeless garden, for in these latitudes the principle of masking

the homelier features of your establishment by a conventional frontage

was unknown. The traveller's eye was attracted to this small building by

the pallid shine of the wet slates that covered it. He turned aside,

and, finding it empty, stood under the pent-roof for shelter.

While he stood, the boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and

the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment

to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on

the cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just

discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of

buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage.

For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand

difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water; and a casual

rainfall was utilized by turning out, as catchers, every utensil that

the house contained. Some queer stories might be told of the

contrivances for economy in suds and dish-waters that are absolutely

necessitated in upland habitations during the droughts of summer. But at

this season there were no such exigencies; a mere acceptance of what the

skies bestowed was sufficient for an abundant store.

At last the notes of the serpent ceased and the house was silent. This

cessation of activity aroused the solitary pedestrian from the reverie

into which he had lapsed, and, emerging from the shed, with an

apparently new intention, he walked up the path to the house-door.

Arrived here, his first act was to kneel down on a large stone beside

the row of vessels, and to drink a copious draught from one of them.

Having quenched his thirst he rose and lifted his hand to knock, but

paused with his eye upon the panel. Since the dark surface of the wood

revealed absolutely nothing, it was evident that he must be mentally

looking through the door, as if he wished to measure thereby all the

possibilities that a house of this sort might include, and how they

might bear upon the question of his entry.

In his indecision he turned and surveyed the scene around. Not a soul

was anywhere visible. The garden-path stretched downward from his feet,

gleaming like the track of a snail; the roof of the little well (mostly

dry), the well-cover, the top rail of the garden-gate, were varnished

with the same dull liquid glaze; while, far away in the vale, a faint

whiteness of more than usual extent showed that the rivers were high in

the meads. Beyond all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the

beating drops-lights that denoted the situation of the county-town from

which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that

direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at the door.

Within, a desultory chat had taken the place of movement and musical

sound. The hedge-carpenter was suggesting a song to the company, which

nobody just then was inclined to undertake, so that the knock afforded a

not unwelcome diversion.

'Walk in!' said the shepherd promptly.

The latch clicked upward, and out of the night our pedestrian appeared

upon the door-mat. The shepherd arose, snuffed two of the nearest

candles, and turned to look at him.

Their light disclosed that the stranger was dark in complexion and not

unprepossessing as to feature. His hat, which for a moment he did not

remove, hung low over his eyes, without concealing that they were large,

open, and determined, moving with a flash rather than a glance round the

room. He seemed pleased with his survey, and, baring his shaggy head,

said, in a rich deep voice, 'The rain is so heavy, friends, that I ask

leave to come in and rest awhile.'

'To be sure, stranger,' said the shepherd. 'And faith, you've been lucky

in choosing your time, for we are having a bit of a fling for a glad

cause-though, to be sure, a man could hardly wish that glad cause to

happen more than once a year.'

'Nor less,' spoke up a woman. 'For 'tis best to get your family over and

done with, as soon as you can, so as to be all the earlier out of the

fag o't.'

'And what may be this glad cause?' asked the stranger.

'A birth and christening,' said the shepherd.

The stranger hoped his host might not be made unhappy either by too many

or too few of such episodes, and being invited by a gesture to a pull at

the mug, he readily acquiesced. His manner, which, before entering, had

been so dubious, was now altogether that of a careless and candid man.

'Late to be traipsing athwart this coomb-hey?' said the engaged man of

fifty.

'Late it is, master, as you say.-I'll take a seat in the chimney-corner,

if you have nothing to urge against it, ma'am; for I am a little moist

on the side that was next the rain.'

Mrs. Shepherd Fennel assented, and made room for the self-invited comer,

who, having got completely inside the chimney-corner, stretched out his

legs and his arms with the expansiveness of a person quite at home.

'Yes, I am rather cracked in the vamp,' he said freely, seeing that the

eyes of the shepherd's wife fell upon his boots, 'and I am not well

fitted either. I have had some rough times lately, and have been forced

to pick up what I can get in the way of wearing, but I must find a suit

better fit for working-days when I reach home.'

'One of hereabouts?' she inquired.

'Not quite that-further up the country.'

'I thought so. And so be I; and by your tongue you come from my

neighbourhood.'

'But you would hardly have heard of me,' he said quickly. 'My time would

be long before yours, ma'am, you see.'

This testimony to the youthfulness of his hostess had the effect of

stopping her cross-examination.

'There is only one thing more wanted to make me happy,' continued the

new-comer. 'And that is a little baccy, which I am sorry to say I am out

of.'

'I'll fill your pipe,' said the shepherd.

'I must ask you to lend me a pipe likewise.'

'A smoker, and no pipe about 'ee?'

'I have dropped it somewhere on the road.'

The shepherd filled and handed him a new clay pipe, saying, as he did

so, 'Hand me your baccy-box-I'll fill that too, now I am about it.'

The man went through the movement of searching his pockets.

'Lost that too?' said his entertainer, with some surprise.

'I am afraid so,' said the man with some confusion. 'Give it to me in a

screw of paper.' Lighting his pipe at the candle with a suction that

drew the whole flame into the bowl, he resettled himself in the corner

and bent his looks upon the faint steam from his damp legs, as if he

wished to say no more.

Meanwhile the general body of guests had been taking little notice of

this visitor by reason of an absorbing discussion in which they were

engaged with the band about a tune for the next dance. The matter being

settled, they were about to stand up when an interruption came in the

shape of another knock at the door.

At sound of the same the man in the chimney-corner took up the poker and

began stirring the brands as if doing it thoroughly were the one aim of

his existence; and a second time the shepherd said, 'Walk in!' In a

moment another man stood upon the straw-woven door-mat. He too was a

stranger.

This individual was one of a type radically different from the first.

There was more of the commonplace in his manner, and a certain jovial

cosmopolitanism sat upon his features. He was several years older than

the first arrival, his hair being slightly frosted, his eyebrows

bristly, and his whiskers cut back from his cheeks. His face was rather

full and flabby, and yet it was not altogether a face without power. A

few grog-blossoms marked the neighbourhood of his nose. He flung back

his long drab greatcoat, revealing that beneath it he wore a suit of

cinder-gray shade throughout, large heavy seals, of some metal or other

that would take a polish, dangling from his fob as his only personal

ornament. Shaking the water-drops from his low-crowned glazed hat, he

said, 'I must ask for a few minutes' shelter, comrades, or I shall be

wetted to my skin before I get to Casterbridge.'

'Make yourself at home, master,' said the shepherd, perhaps a trifle

less heartily than on the first occasion. Not that Fennel had the least

tinge of niggardliness in his composition; but the room was far from

large, spare chairs were not numerous, and damp companions were not

altogether desirable at close quarters for the women and girls in their

bright-coloured gowns.

However, the second comer, after taking off his greatcoat, and hanging

his hat on a nail in one of the ceiling-beams as if he had been

specially invited to put it there, advanced and sat down at the table.

This had been pushed so closely into the chimney-corner, to give all

available room to the dancers, that its inner edge grazed the elbow of

the man who had ensconced himself by the fire; and thus the two

strangers were brought into close companionship. They nodded to each

other by way of breaking the ice of unacquaintance, and the first

stranger handed his neighbour the family mug-a huge vessel of brown

ware, having its upper edge worn away like a threshold by the rub of

whole generations of thirsty lips that had gone the way of all flesh,

and bearing the following inscription burnt upon its rotund side in

yellow letters

THERE IS NO FUN UNTiLL i CUM.

The other man, nothing loth, raised the mug to his lips, and drank on,

and on, and on-till a curious blueness overspread the countenance of the

shepherd's wife, who had regarded with no little surprise the first

stranger's free offer to the second of what did not belong to him to

dispense.

'I knew it!' said the toper to the shepherd with much satisfaction.

'When I walked up your garden before coming in, and saw the hives all of

a row, I said to myself; "Where there's bees there's honey, and where

there's honey there's mead." But mead of such a truly comfortable sort

as this I really didn't expect to meet in my older days.' He took yet

another pull at the mug, till it assumed an ominous elevation.

'Glad you enjoy it!' said the shepherd warmly.

'It is goodish mead,' assented Mrs. Fennel, with an absence of

enthusiasm which seemed to say that it was possible to buy praise for

one's cellar at too heavy a price. 'It is trouble enough to make-and

really I hardly think we shall make any more. For honey sells well, and

we ourselves can make shift with a drop o' small mead and metheglin for

common use from the comb-washings.'

'O, but you'll never have the heart!' reproachfully cried the stranger

in cinder-gray, after taking up the mug a third time and setting it down

empty. 'I love mead, when 'tis old like this, as I love to go to church

o' Sundays, or to relieve the needy any day of the week.'

'Ha, ha, ha!' said the man in the chimney-corner, who, in spite of the

taciturnity induced by the pipe of tobacco, could not or would not

refrain from this slight testimony to his comrade's humour.

Now the old mead of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or

maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon-with its due complement of white

of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes

of working, bottling, and cellaring-tasted remarkably strong; but it did

not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently, the stranger

in cinder-gray at the table, moved by its creeping influence, unbuttoned

his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair, spread his legs, and

made his presence felt in various ways.

'Well, well, as I say,' he resumed, 'I am going to Casterbridge, and to

Casterbridge I must go. I should have been almost there by this time;

but the rain drove me into your dwelling, and I'm not sorry for it.'

'You don't live in Casterbridge?' said the shepherd.

'Not as yet; though I shortly mean to move there.'

'Going to set up in trade, perhaps?'

'No, no,' said the shepherd's wife. 'It is easy to see that the

gentleman is rich, and don't want to work at anything.'

The cinder-gray stranger paused, as if to consider whether he would

accept that definition of himself. He presently rejected it by

answering, 'Rich is not quite the word for me, dame. I do work, and I

must work. And even if I only get to Casterbridge by midnight I must

begin work there at eight to-morrow morning. Yes, het or wet, blow or

snow, famine or sword, my day's work to-morrow must be done.'

'Poor man! Then, in spite o' seeming, you be worse off than we?' replied

the shepherd's wife.

''Tis the nature of my trade, men and maidens. 'Tis the nature of my

trade more than my poverty . . . But really and truly I must up and off,

or I shan't get a lodging in the town.' However, the speaker did not

move, and directly added, 'There's time for one more draught of

friendship before I go; and I'd perform it at once if the mug were not

dry.'

'Here's a mug o' small,' said Mrs. Fennel. 'Small, we call it, though to

be sure 'tis only the first wash o' the combs.'

'No,' said the stranger disdainfully. 'I won't spoil your first kindness

by partaking o' your second.'

'Certainly not,' broke in Fennel. 'We don't increase and multiply every

day, and I'll fill the mug again.' He went away to the dark place under

the stairs where the barrel stood. The shepherdess followed him.

'Why should you do this?' she said reproachfully, as soon as they were

alone. 'He's emptied it once, though it held enough for ten people; and

now he's not contented wi' the small, but must needs call for more o'

the strong! And a stranger unbeknown to any of us. For my part, I don't

like the look o' the man at all.'

'But he's in the house, my honey; and 'tis a wet night, and a

christening. Daze it, what's a cup of mead more or less? There'll be

plenty more next bee-burning.'

'Very well-this time, then,' she answered, looking wistfully at the

barrel. 'But what is the man's calling, and where is he one of; that he

should come in and join us like this?'

'I don't know. I'll ask him again.'

The catastrophe of having the mug drained dry at one pull by the

stranger in cinder-gray was effectually guarded against this time by

Mrs. Fennel. She poured out his allowance in a small cup, keeping the

large one at a discreet distance from him. When he had tossed off his

portion the shepherd renewed his inquiry about the stranger's

occupation.

The latter did not immediately reply, and the man in the chimney-corner,

with sudden demonstrativeness, said, 'Anybody may know my trade-I'm a

wheelwright.'

'A very good trade for these parts,' said the shepherd.

'And anybody may know mine-if they've the sense to find it out,' said

the stranger in cinder-gray.

'You may generally tell what a man is by his claws,' observed the hedge-

carpenter, looking at his own hands. 'My fingers be as full of thorns as

an old pin-cushion is of pins.'

The hands of the man in the chimney-corner instinctively sought the

shade, and he gazed into the fire as he resumed his pipe. The man at the

table took up the hedge-carpenter's remark, and added smartly, 'True;

but the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me,

it sets a mark upon my customers.'

No observation being offered by anybody in elucidation of this enigma,

the shepherd's wife once more called for a song. The same obstacles

presented themselves as at the former time-one had no voice, another had

forgotten the first verse. The stranger at the table, whose soul had now

risen to a good working temperature, relieved the difficulty by

exclaiming that, to start the company, he would sing himself. Thrusting

one thumb into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, he waved the other hand in

the air, and, with an extemporizing gaze at the shining sheep-crooks

above the mantelpiece, began:-

'O my trade it is the rarest one, Simple shepherds all -My trade is a

sight to see; For my customers I tie, and take them up on high, And waft

'em to a far countree!'

The room was silent when he had finished the verse-with one exception,

that of the man in the chimney-corner, who, at the singer's word,

'Chorus! 'joined him in a deep bass voice of musical relish -

'And waft 'em to a far countree!'

Oliver Giles, John Pitcher the dairyman, the parish-clerk, the engaged

man of fifty, the row of young women against the wall, seemed lost in

thought not of the gayest kind. The shepherd looked meditatively on the

ground, the shepherdess gazed keenly at the singer, and with some

suspicion; she was doubting whether this stranger were merely singing an

old song from recollection, or was composing one there and then for the

occasion. All were as perplexed at the obscure revelation as the guests

at Belshazzar's Feast, except the man in the chimney-corner, who quietly

said, 'Second verse, stranger,' and smoked on.

The singer thoroughly moistened himself from his lips inwards, and went

on with the next stanza as requested:-

'My tools are but common ones, Simple shepherds all -My tools are no

sight to see: A little hempen string, and a post whereon to swing, Are

implements enough for me!'

Shepherd Fennel glanced round. There was no longer any doubt that the

stranger was answering his question rhythmically. The guests one and all

started back with suppressed exclamations. The young woman engaged to

the man of fifty fainted half-way, and would have proceeded, but finding

him wanting in alacrity for catching her she sat down trembling.

'O, he's the-!' whispered the people in the background, mentioning the

name of an ominous public officer. 'He's come to do it! 'Tis to be at

Casterbridge jail to-morrow-the man for sheep-stealing-the poor clock-

maker we heard of; who used to live away at Shottsford and had no work

to do-Timothy Summers, whose family were a-starving, and so he went out

of Shottsford by the high-road, and took a sheep in open daylight,

defying the farmer and the farmer's wife and the farmer's lad, and every

man jack among 'em. He' (and they nodded towards the stranger of the

deadly trade) 'is come from up the country to do it because there's not

enough to do in his own county-town, and he's got the place here now our

own county man's dead; he's going to live in the same cottage under the

prison wall.'

The stranger in cinder-gray took no notice of this whispered string of

observations, but again wetted his lips. Seeing that his friend in the

chimney-corner was the only one who reciprocated his joviality in any

way, he held out his cup towards that appreciative comrade, who also

held out his own. They cWESSEXlinked together, the eyes of the rest of

the room hanging upon the singer's actions. He parted his lips for the

third verse; but at that moment another knock was audible upon the door.

This time the knock was faint and hesitating.

The company seemed scared; the shepherd looked with consternation

towards the entrance, and it was with some effort that he resisted his

alarmed wife's deprecatory glance, and uttered for the third time the

welcoming words, 'Walk in!'

The door was gently opened, and another man stood upon the mat. He, like

those who had preceded him, was a stranger. This time it was a short,

small personage, of fair complexion, and dressed in a decent suit of

dark clothes.

'Can you tell me the way to-?' he began: when, gazing round the room to

observe the nature of the company amongst whom he had fallen, his eyes

lighted on the stranger in cinder-gray. It was just at the instant when

the latter, who had thrown his mind into his song with such a will that

he scarcely heeded the interruption, silenced all whispers and inquiries

by bursting into his third verse:-

'To-morrow is my working day, Simple shepherds all -To-morrow is a

working day for me: For the farmer's sheep is slain, and the lad who did

it ta'en, And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'

The stranger in the chimney-corner, waving cups with the singer so

heartily that his mead splashed over on the hearth, repeated in his bass

voice as before:-

'And on his soul may God ha' merc-y!'

All this time the third stranger had been standing in the doorway.

Finding now that he did not come forward or go on speaking, the guests

particularly regarded him. They noticed to their surprise that he stood

before them the picture of abject terror-his knees trembling, his hand

shaking so violently that the door-latch by which he supported himself

rattled audibly: his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the

merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more and he

had turned, closed the door, and fled.

'What a man can it be?' said the shepherd.

The rest, between the awfulness of their late discovery and the odd

conduct of this third visitor, looked as if they knew not what to think,

and said nothing. Instinctively they withdrew further and further from

the grim gentleman in their midst, whom some of them seemed to take for

the Prince of Darkness himself; till they formed a remote circle, an

empty space of floor being left between them and him -

' . . . circulus, cujus centrum diabolus.'

The room was so silent-though there were more than twenty people in it-

that nothing could be heard but the patter of the rain against the

window-shutters, accompanied by the occasional hiss of a stray drop that

fell down the chimney into the fire, and the steady puffing of the man

in the corner, who had now resumed his pipe of long clay.

The stillness was unexpectedly broken. The distant sound of a gun

reverberated through the air-apparently from the direction of the

county-town.

'Be jiggered!' cried the stranger who had sung the song, jumping up.

'What does that mean?' asked several.

'A prisoner escaped from the jail-that's what it means.'

All listened. The sound was repeated, and none of them spoke but the man

in the chimney-corner, who said quietly, 'I've often been told that in

this county they fire a gun at such times; but I never heard it till

now.'

'I wonder if it is my man?' murmured the personage in cinder-gray.

'Surely it is!' said the shepherd involuntarily. 'And surely we've zeed

him! That little man who looked in at the door by now, and quivered like

a leaf when he zeed ye and heard your song!'

'His teeth chattered, and the breath went out of his body,' said the

dairyman.

'And his heart seemed to sink within him like a stone,' said Oliver

Giles.

'And he bolted as if he'd been shot at,' said the hedge-carpenter.

'True-his teeth chattered, and his heart seemed to sink; and he bolted

as if he'd been shot at,' slowly summed up the man in the chimney-

corner.

'I didn't notice it,' remarked the hangman.

'We were all a-wondering what made him run off in such a fright,'

faltered one of the women against the wall, 'and now 'tis explained!'

The firing of the alarm-gun went on at intervals, low and sullenly, and

their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in cinder-

gray roused himself. 'Is there a constable here?' he asked, in thick

tones. 'If so, let him step forward.'

The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out from the wall, his

betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair.

'You are a sworn constable?'

'I be, sir.'

'Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him back

here. He can't have gone far.'

'I will, sir, I will-when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get it,

and come sharp here, and start in a body.'

'Staff!-never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!'

'But I can't do nothing without my staff-can I, William, and John, and

Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted on en in

yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I raise en up

and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I wouldn't 'tempt

to take up a man without my staff-no, not I. If I hadn't the law to gie

me courage, why, instead o' my taking up him he might take up me!'

'Now, I'm a king's man myself; and can give you authority enough for

this,' said the formidable officer in gray. 'Now then, all of ye, be

ready. Have ye any lanterns?'

'Yes-have ye any lanterns?-I demand it!' said the constable.

'And the rest of you able-bodied-'

'Able-bodied men-yes-the rest of ye!' said the constable.

'Have you some good stout staves and pitch-forks-'

'Staves and pitchforks-in the name o' the law! And take 'em in yer hands

and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye!'

Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was, indeed,

though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little argument was

needed to show the shepherd's guests that after what they had seen it

would look very much like connivance if they did not instantly pursue

the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet have gone more than a

few hundred yards over such uneven country.

A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these

hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of the

door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill, away from the

town, the rain having fortunately a little abated.

Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her baptism,

the child who had been christened began to cry heart-brokenly in the

room overhead. These notes of grief came down through the chinks of the

floor to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one by one, and

seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby, for the

incidents of the last half-hour greatly oppressed them. Thus in the

space of two or three minutes the room on the ground-floor was deserted

quite.

But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away

when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction the

pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody there, he

entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the chimney-corner, who had

gone out with the rest. The motive of his return was shown by his

helping himself to a cut piece of skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge

beside where he had sat, and which he had apparently forgotten to take

with him. He also poured out half a cup more mead from the quantity that

remained, ravenously eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not

finished when another figure came in just as quietly-his friend in

cinder-gray.

'O-you here?' said the latter, smiling. 'I thought you had gone to help

in the capture.' And this speaker also revealed the object of his return

by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of old mead.

'And I thought you had gone,' said the other, continuing his skimmer-

cake with some effort.

'Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me,' said

the first confidentially, 'and such a night as it is, too. Besides, 'tis

the business o' the Government to take care of its criminals-not mine.'

'True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough without

me.'

'I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of

this wild country.'

'Nor I neither, between you and me.'

'These shepherd-people are used to it-simple-minded souls, you know,

stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me before

the morning, and no trouble to me at all.'

'They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in the

matter.'

'True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as my

legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?'

'No, I am sorry to say! I have to get home over there' (he nodded

indefinitely to the right), 'and I feel as you do, that it is quite

enough for my legs to do before bedtime.'

The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which,

shaking hands heartily at the door, and wishing each other well, they

went their several ways.

In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the

hog's-back elevation which dominated this part of the down. They had

decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the man of

the baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed quite

unable to form any such plan now. They descended in all directions down

the hill, and straightway several of the party fell into the snare set

by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over this part of the

cretaceous formation. The 'lanchets,' or flint slopes, which belted the

escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards, took the less cautious ones

unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly steep they slid sharply

downwards, the lanterns rolling from their hands to the bottom, and

there lying on their sides till the horn was scorched through.

When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as the

man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them round

these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather to dazzle

their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the exploration,

were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this more rational

order they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy, briery, moist defile,

affording some shelter to any person who had sought it; but the party

perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the other side. Here they

wandered apart, and after an interval closed together again to report

progress.

At the second time of closing in they found themselves near a lonely

ash, the single tree on this part of the coomb, probably sown there by a

passing bird some fifty years before. And here, standing a little to one

side of the trunk, as motionless as the trunk itself; appeared the man

they were in quest of; his outline being well defined against the sky

beyond. The band noiselessly drew up and faced him.

'Your money or your life!' said the constable sternly to the still

figure.

'No, no,' whispered John Pitcher. ''Tisn't our side ought to say that.

That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the side of the

law.'

'Well, well,' replied the constable impatiently; 'I must say something,

mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this undertaking upon your

mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing too!-Prisoner at the bar,

surrender, in the name of the Father-the Crown, I mane!'

The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time,

and, giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their courage,

he strolled slowly towards them. He was, indeed, the little man, the

third stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure gone.

'Well, travellers,' he said, 'did I hear ye speak to me?'

'You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once!' said the

constable. 'We arrest 'ee on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge

jail in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning. Neighbours,

do your duty, and seize the culpet!'

On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not

another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the

search-party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him on

all sides, and marched him back towards the shepherd's cottage.

It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining from

the open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to them as

they approached the house that some new events had arisen in their

absence. On entering they discovered the shepherd's living room to be

invaded by two officers from Casterbridge jail, and a well-known

magistrate who lived at the nearest country-seat, intelligence of the

escape having become generally circulated.

'Gentlemen,' said the constable, 'I have brought back your man-not

without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty! He is inside

this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful aid,

considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward your

prisoner!' And the third stranger was led to the light.

'Who is this?' said one of the officials.

'The man,' said the constable.

'Certainly not,' said the turnkey; and the first corroborated his

statement.

'But how can it be otherwise?' asked the constable. 'Or why was he so

terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law who sat there?'

Here he related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering

the house during the hangman's song.

'Can't understand it,' said the officer coolly. 'All I know is that it

is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from this

one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather good-looking,

and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once you'd never

mistake as long as you lived.'

'Why, souls-'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'

'Hey-what?' said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring

particulars from the shepherd in the background. 'Haven't you got the

man after all?'

'Well, sir,' said the constable, 'he's the man we were in search of,

that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the man

we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you understand

my everyday way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner!'

'A pretty kettle of fish altogether!' said the magistrate. 'You had

better start for the other man at once.'

The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in the

chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do. 'Sir,'

he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, 'take no more trouble about

me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have done nothing; my

crime is that the condemned man is my brother. Early this afternoon I

left home at Shottsford to tramp it all the way to Casterbridge jail to

bid him farewell. I was benighted, and called here to rest and ask the

way. When I opened the door I saw before me the very man, my brother,

that I thought to see in the condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in

this chimney-corner; and jammed close to him, so that he could not have

got out if he had tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his

life, singing a song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who

was close by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance

of agony at me, and I knew he meant, "Don't reveal what you see; my life

depends on it." I was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand, and,

not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried away.'

The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story

made a great impression on all around. 'And do you know where your

brother is at the present time?' asked the magistrate.

'I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door.'

'I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since,' said the

constable.

'Where does he think to fly to?-what is his occupation?'

'He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir.'

''A said 'a was a wheelwright-a wicked rogue,' said the constable.

'The wheels of clocks and watches he meant, no doubt,' said Shepherd

Fennel. 'I thought his hands were palish for's trade.'

'Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this

poor man in custody,' said the magistrate; 'your business lies with the

other, unquestionably.'

And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing the

less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate or

constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they

concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself.

When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found to

be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search before

the next morning.

Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became

general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended

punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the

sympathy of a great many country-folk in that district was strongly on

the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and daring

in hob-and-nobbing with the hangman, under the unprecedented

circumstances of the shepherd's party, won their admiration. So that it

may be questioned if all those who ostensibly made themselves so busy in

exploring woods and fields and lanes were quite so thorough when it came

to the private examination of their own lofts and outhouses. Stories

were afloat of a mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old

overgrown trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a

search was instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was

found. Thus the days and weeks passed without tidings.

In brief; the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never

recaptured. Some said that he went across the sea, others that he did

not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city. At any rate,

the gentleman in cinder-gray never did his morning's work at

Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the genial

comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely

house on the coomb.

The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and his

frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have mainly

followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose honour they

all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But the arrival of

the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and the details

connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in the country

about Higher Crowstairs.

March 1883.

THE WITHERED ARM

CHAPTER I-A LORN MILKMAID

It was an eighty-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and

supernumerary, were all at work; for, though the time of year was as yet

but early April, the feed lay entirely in water-meadows, and the cows

were 'in full pail.' The hour was about six in the evening, and three-

fourths of the large, red, rectangular animals having been finished off,

there was opportunity for a little conversation.

'He do bring home his bride to-morrow, I hear. They've come as far as

Anglebury to-day.'

The voice seemed to proceed from the belly of the cow called Cherry, but

the speaker was a milking-woman, whose face was buried in the flank of

that motionless beast.

'Hav' anybody seen her?' said another.

There was a negative response from the first. 'Though they say she's a

rosy-cheeked, tisty-tosty little body enough,' she added; and as the

milkmaid spoke she turned her face so that she could glance past her

cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman

of thirty milked somewhat apart from the rest.

'Years younger than he, they say,' continued the second, with also a

glance of reflectiveness in the same direction.

'How old do you call him, then?'

'Thirty or so.'

'More like forty,' broke in an old milkman near, in a long white

pinafore or 'wropper,' and with the brim of his hat tied down, so that

he looked like a woman. ''A was born before our Great Weir was builded,

and I hadn't man's wages when I laved water there.'

The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk-streams became

jerky, till a voice from another cow's belly cried with authority, 'Now

then, what the Turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge's age, or

Farmer Lodge's new mis'ess? I shall have to pay him nine pound a year

for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers.

Get on with your work, or 'twill be dark afore we have done. The evening

is pinking in a'ready.' This speaker was the dairyman himself; by whom

the milkmaids and men were employed.

Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the

first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbour, ''Tis hard for

she,' signifying the thin worn milkmaid aforesaid.

'O no,' said the second. 'He ha'n't spoke to Rhoda Brook for years.'

When the milking was done they washed their pails and hung them on a

many-forked stand made of the peeled limb of an oak-tree, set upright in

the earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then

dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman who had not

spoken was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went

away up the field also.

Their course lay apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high

above the water-meads, and not far from the border of Egdon Heath, whose

dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew nigh to their

home.

'They've just been saying down in barton that your father brings his

young wife home from Anglebury to-morrow,' the woman observed. 'I shall

want to send you for a few things to market, and you'll be pretty sure

to meet 'em.'

'Yes, mother,' said the boy. 'Is father married then?'

'Yes . . . You can give her a look, and tell me what's she's like, if

you do see her.'

'Yes, mother.'

'If she's dark or fair, and if she's tall-as tall as I. And if she seems

like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has been

always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the

lady on her, as I expect she do.'

'Yes.'

They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was

built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains

into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face

visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a

bone protruding through the skin.

She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf

laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes

with her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek,

and made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew.

'Yes,' she resumed, 'see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice

if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever

done housework, or are milker's hands like mine.'

The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not

observing that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the

beech-backed chair.

CHAPTER II-THE YOUNG WIFE

The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is

one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers homeward-

bound from the former market-town, who trot all the rest of the way,

walk their horses up this short incline.

The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig, with

a lemon-coloured body and red wheels, was spinning westward along the

level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman

in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned

to that bluish-vermilion hue which so often graces a thriving farmer's

features when returning home after successful dealings in the town.

Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior-almost, indeed, a girl.

Her face too was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different

quality-soft and evanescent, like the light under a heap of rose-petals.

Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road; and the long

white riband of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one

small scarce-moving speck, which presently resolved itself into the

figure of boy, who was creeping on at a snail's pace, and continually

looking behind him-the heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if

not the reason of, his dilatoriness. When the bouncing gig-party slowed

at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a

few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on

his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though he

would read her through and through, pacing along abreast of the horse.

The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade, and

contour distinct, from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of

her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy's persistent

presence, did not order him to get out of the way; and thus the lad

preceded them, his hard gaze never leaving her, till they reached the

top of the ascent, when the farmer trotted on with relief in his

lineaments-having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever.

'How that poor lad stared at me!' said the young wife.

'Yes, dear; I saw that he did.'

'He is one of the village, I suppose?'

'One of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or

two off.'

'He knows who we are, no doubt?'

'O yes. You must expect to be stared at just at first, my pretty

Gertrude.'

'I do,-though I think the poor boy may have looked at us in the hope we

might relieve him of his heavy load, rather than from curiosity.'

'O no,' said her husband off-handedly. 'These country lads will carry a

hundredweight once they get it on their backs; besides his pack had more

size than weight in it. Now, then, another mile and I shall be able to

show you our house in the distance-if it is not too dark before we get

there.' The wheels spun round, and particles flew from their periphery

as before, till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself, with

farm-buildings and ricks at the back.

Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace, and turning up a by-lane some

mile and half short of the white farmstead, ascended towards the leaner

pastures, and so on to the cottage of his mother.

She had reached home after her day's milking at the outlying dairy, and

was washing cabbage at the doorway in the declining light. 'Hold up the

net a moment,' she said, without preface, as the boy came up.

He flung down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage-net, and as she

filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on, 'Well, did you

see her?'

'Yes; quite plain.'

'Is she ladylike?'

'Yes; and more. A lady complete.'

'Is she young?'

'Well, she's growed up, and her ways be quite a woman's.'

'Of course. What colour is her hair and face?'

'Her hair is lightish, and her face as comely as a live doll's.'

'Her eyes, then, are not dark like mine?'

'No-of a bluish turn, and her mouth is very nice and red; and when she

smiles, her teeth show white.'

'Is she tall?' said the woman sharply.

'I couldn't see. She was sitting down.'

'Then do you go to Holmstoke church to-morrow morning: she's sure to be

there. Go early and notice her walking in, and come home and tell me if

she's taller than I.'

'Very well, mother. But why don't you go and see for yourself?'

'I go to see her! I wouldn't look up at her if she were to pass my

window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say

or do?'

'Just the same as usual.'

'Took no notice of you?'

'None.'

Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy, and started him off

for Holmstoke church. He reached the ancient little pile when the door

was just being opened, and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat by

the font, he watched all the parishioners file in. The well-to-do Farmer

Lodge came nearly last; and his young wife, who accompanied him, walked

up the aisle with the shyness natural to a modest woman who had appeared

thus for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon her, the

youth's stare was not noticed now.

When he reached home his mother said, 'Well?' before he had entered the

room.

'She is not tall. She is rather short,' he replied.

'Ah!' said his mother, with satisfaction.

'But she's very pretty-very. In fact, she's lovely.'

The youthful freshness of the yeoman's wife had evidently made an

impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy.

'That's all I want to hear,' said his mother quickly. 'Now, spread the

table-cloth. The hare you caught is very tender; but mind that nobody

catches you.-You've never told me what sort of hands she had.'

'I have never seen 'em. She never took off her gloves.'

'What did she wear this morning?'

'A white bonnet and a silver-coloured gownd. It whewed and whistled so

loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up more than

ever for very shame at the noise, and pulled it in to keep it from

touching; but when she pushed into her seat, it whewed more than ever.

Mr. Lodge, he seemed pleased, and his waistcoat stuck out, and his great

golden seals hung like a lord's; but she seemed to wish her noisy gownd

anywhere but on her.'

'Not she! However, that will do now.'

These descriptions of the newly-married couple were continued from time

to time by the boy at his mother's request, after any chance encounter

he had had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen

young Mrs. Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles, would never

attempt an excursion towards the quarter where the farmhouse lay.

Neither did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman's yard on Lodge's

outlying second farm, ever speak on the subject of the recent marriage.

The dairyman, who rented the cows of Lodge, and knew perfectly the tall

milkmaid's history, with manly kindliness always kept the gossip in the

cow-barton from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full

of the subject during the first days of Mrs. Lodge's arrival; and from

her boy's description and the casual words of the other milkers, Rhoda

Brook could raise a mental image of the unconscious Mrs Lodge that was

realistic as a photograph.

CHAPTER III-A VISION

One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return, when the boy was

gone to bed, Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had

raked out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so

intently the new wife, as presented to her in her mind's eye over the

embers, that she forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her

day's work, she too retired.

But the figure which had occupied her so much during this and the

previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time

Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook

dreamed-since her assertion that she really saw, before falling asleep,

was not to be believed-that the young wife, in the pale silk dress and

white bonnet, but with features shockingly distorted, and wrinkled as by

age, was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge's

person grew heavier; the blue eyes peered cruelly into her face; and

then the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly, so as to make

the wedding-ring it wore glitter in Rhoda's eyes. Maddened mentally, and

nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleeper struggled; the incubus, still

regarding her, withdrew to the foot of the bed, only, however, to come

forward by degrees, resume her seat, and flash her left hand as before.

Gasping for breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her

right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm,

and whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so

with a low cry.

'O, merciful heaven!' she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a

cold sweat; 'that was not a dream-she was here!'

She could feel her antagonist's arm within her grasp even now-the very

flesh and bone of it, as it seemed. She looked on the floor whither she

had whirled the spectre, but there was nothing to be seen.

Rhoda Brook slept no more that night, and when she went milking at the

next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that

she drew quivered into the pail; her hand had not calmed even yet, and

still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as

wearily as if it had been suppertime.

'What was that noise in your chimmer, mother, last night?' said her son.

'You fell off the bed, surely?'

'Did you hear anything fall? At what time?'

'Just when the clock struck two.'

She could not explain, and when the meal was done went silently about

her household work, the boy assisting her, for he hated going afield on

the farms, and she indulged his reluctance. Between eleven and twelve

the garden-gate clicked, and she lifted her eyes to the window. At the

bottom of the garden, within the gate, stood the woman of her vision.

Rhoda seemed transfixed.

'Ah, she said she would come!' exclaimed the boy, also observing her.

'Said so-when? How does she know us?'

'I have seen and spoken to her. I talked to her yesterday.'

'I told you,' said the mother, flushing indignantly, 'never to speak to

anybody in that house, or go near the place.'

'I did not speak to her till she spoke to me. And I did not go near the

place. I met her in the road.'

'What did you tell her?'

'Nothing. She said, "Are you the poor boy who had to bring the heavy

load from market?" And she looked at my boots, and said they would not

keep my feet dry if it came on wet, because they were so cracked. I told

her I lived with my mother, and we had enough to do to keep ourselves,

and that's how it was; and she said then, "I'll come and bring you some

better boots, and see your mother." She gives away things to other folks

in the meads besides us.'

Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door-not in her silk, as Rhoda

had seen her in the bed-chamber, but in a morning hat, and gown of

common light material, which became her better than silk. On her arm she

carried a basket.

The impression remaining from the night's experience was still strong.

Brook had almost expected to see the wrinkles, the scorn, and the

cruelty on her visitor's face.

She would have escaped an interview, had escape been possible. There

was, however, no backdoor to the cottage, and in an instant the boy had

lifted the latch to Mrs. Lodge's gentle knock.

'I see I have come to the right house,' said she, glancing at the lad,

and smiling. 'But I was not sure till you opened the door.'

The figure and action were those of the phantom; but her voice was so

indescribably sweet, her glance so winning, her smile so tender, so

unlike that of Rhoda's midnight visitant, that the latter could hardly

believe the evidence of her senses. She was truly glad that she had not

hidden away in sheer aversion, as she had been inclined to do. In her

basket Mrs. Lodge brought the pair of boots that she had promised to the

boy, and other useful articles.

At these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda's heart

reproached her bitterly. This innocent young thing should have her

blessing and not her curse. When she left them a light seemed gone from

the dwelling. Two days later she came again to know if the boots fitted;

and less than a fortnight after that paid Rhoda another call. On this

occasion the boy was absent.

'I walk a good deal,' said Mrs. Lodge, 'and your house is the nearest

outside our own parish. I hope you are well. You don't look quite well.'

Rhoda said she was well enough; and, indeed, though the paler of the

two, there was more of the strength that endures in her well-defined

features and large frame, than in the soft-cheeked young woman before

her. The conversation became quite confidential as regarded their powers

and weaknesses; and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving, Rhoda said, 'I hope you

will find this air agree with you, ma'am, and not suffer from the damp

of the water-meads.'

The younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it, her general

health being usually good. 'Though, now you remind me,' she added, 'I

have one little ailment which puzzles me. It is nothing serious, but I

cannot make it out.'

She uncovered her left hand and arm; and their outline confronted

Rhoda's gaze as the exact original of the limb she had beheld and seized

in her dream. Upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint marks of

an unhealthy colour, as if produced by a rough grasp. Rhoda's eyes

became riveted on the discolorations; she fancied that she discerned in

them the shape of her own four fingers.

'How did it happen?' she said mechanically.

'I cannot tell,' replied Mrs. Lodge, shaking her head. 'One night when I

was sound asleep, dreaming I was away in some strange place, a pain

suddenly shot into my arm there, and was so keen as to awaken me. I must

have struck it in the daytime, I suppose, though I don't remember doing

so.' She added, laughing, 'I tell my dear husband that it looks just as

if he had flown into a rage and struck me there. O, I daresay it will

soon disappear.'

'Ha, ha! Yes . . . On what night did it come?'

Mrs. Lodge considered, and said it would be a fortnight ago on the

morrow. 'When I awoke I could not remember where I was,' she added,

'till the clock striking two reminded me.'

She had named the night and the hour of Rhoda's spectral encounter, and

Brook felt like a guilty thing. The artless disclosure startled her; she

did not reason on the freaks of coincidence; and all the scenery of that

ghastly night returned with double vividness to her mind.

'O, can it be,' she said to herself, when her visitor had departed,

'that I exercise a malignant power over people against my own will?' She

knew that she had been slily called a witch since her fall; but never

having understood why that particular stigma had been attached to her,

it had passed disregarded. Could this be the explanation, and had such

things as this ever happened before?

CHAPTER IV-A SUGGESTION

The summer drew on, and Rhoda Brook almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge

again, notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted

well-nigh to affection. Something in her own individuality seemed to

convict Rhoda of crime. Yet a fatality sometimes would direct the steps

of the latter to the outskirts of Holmstoke whenever she left her house

for any other purpose than her daily work; and hence it happened that

their next encounter was out of doors. Rhoda could not avoid the subject

which had so mystified her, and after the first few words she stammered,

'I hope your-arm is well again, ma'am?' She had perceived with

consternation that Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly.

'No; it is not quite well. Indeed it is no better at all; it is rather

worse. It pains me dreadfully sometimes.'

'Perhaps you had better go to a doctor, ma'am.'

She replied that she had already seen a doctor. Her husband had insisted

upon her going to one. But the surgeon had not seemed to understand the

afflicted limb at all; he had told her to bathe it in hot water, and she

had bathed it, but the treatment had done no good.

'Will you let me see it?' said the milkwoman.

Mrs. Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place, which was a few

inches above the wrist. As soon as Rhoda Brook saw it, she could hardly

preserve her composure. There was nothing of the nature of a wound, but

the arm at that point had a shrivelled look, and the outline of the four

fingers appeared more distinct than at the former time. Moreover, she

fancied that they were imprinted in precisely the relative position of

her clutch upon the arm in the trance; the first finger towards

Gertrude's wrist, and the fourth towards her elbow.

What the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertrude herself since

their last meeting. 'It looks almost like finger-marks,' she said;

adding with a faint laugh, 'my husband says it is as if some witch, or

the devil himself, had taken hold of me there, and blasted the flesh.'

Rhoda shivered. 'That's fancy,' she said hurriedly. 'I wouldn't mind it,

if I were you.'

'I shouldn't so much mind it,' said the younger, with hesitation, 'if-if

I hadn't a notion that it makes my husband-dislike me-no, love me less.

Men think so much of personal appearance.'

'Some do-he for one.'

'Yes; and he was very proud of mine, at first.'

'Keep your arm covered from his sight.'

'Ah-he knows the disfigurement is there!' She tried to hide the tears

that filled her eyes.

'Well, ma'am, I earnestly hope it will go away soon.'

And so the milkwoman's mind was chained anew to the subject by a horrid

sort of spell as she returned home. The sense of having been guilty of

an act of malignity increased, affect as she might to ridicule her

superstition. In her secret heart Rhoda did not altogether object to a

slight diminution of her successor's beauty, by whatever means it had

come about; but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain. For

though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation

which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct, everything like

resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away from the

elder's mind.

If the sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene in the

bed-chamber, what would she think? Not to inform her of it seemed

treachery in the presence of her friendliness; but tell she could not of

her own accord-neither could she devise a remedy.

She mused upon the matter the greater part of the night; and the next

day, after the morning milking, set out to obtain another glimpse of

Gertrude Lodge if she could, being held to her by a gruesome

fascination. By watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was

presently able to discern the farmer's wife in a ride she was taking

alone-probably to join her husband in some distant field. Mrs. Lodge

perceived her, and cantered in her direction.

'Good morning, Rhoda!' Gertrude said, when she had come up. 'I was going

to call.'

Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty.

'I hope-the bad arm,' said Rhoda.

'They tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find

out the cause, and so perhaps the cure, of it,' replied the other

anxiously. 'It is by going to some clever man over in Egdon Heath. They

did not know if he was still alive-and I cannot remember his name at

this moment; but they said that you knew more of his movements than

anybody else hereabout, and could tell me if he were still to be

consulted. Dear me-what was his name? But you know.'

'Not Conjuror Trendle?' said her thin companion, turning pale.

'Trendle-yes. Is he alive?'

'I believe so,' said Rhoda, with reluctance.

'Why do you call him conjuror?'

'Well-they say-they used to say he was a-he had powers other folks have

not.'

'O, how could my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of

that sort! I thought they meant some medical man. I shall think no more

of him.'

Rhoda looked relieved, and Mrs. Lodge rode on. The milkwoman had

inwardly seen, from the moment she heard of her having been mentioned as

a reference for this man, that there must exist a sarcastic feeling

among the work-folk that a sorceress would know the whereabouts of the

exorcist. They suspected her, then. A short time ago this would have

given no concern to a woman of her common-sense. But she had a haunting

reason to be superstitious now; and she had been seized with sudden

dread that this Conjuror Trendle might name her as the malignant

influence which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude, and so lead

her friend to hate her for ever, and to treat her as some fiend in human

shape.

But all was not over. Two days after, a shadow intruded into the window-

pattern thrown on Rhoda Brook's floor by the afternoon sun. The woman

opened the door at once, almost breathlessly.

'Are you alone?' said Gertrude. She seemed to be no less harassed and

anxious than Brook herself.

'Yes,' said Rhoda.

'The place on my arm seems worse, and troubles me!' the young farmer's

wife went on. 'It is so mysterious! I do hope it will not be an

incurable wound. I have again been thinking of what they said about

Conjuror Trendle. I don't really believe in such men, but I should not

mind just visiting him, from curiosity-though on no account must my

husband know. Is it far to where he lives?'

'Yes-five miles,' said Rhoda backwardly. 'In the heart of Egdon.'

'Well, I should have to walk. Could not you go with me to show me the

way-say to-morrow afternoon?'

'O, not I-that is,' the milkwoman murmured, with a start of dismay.

Again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act in

the dream might be revealed, and her character in the eyes of the most

useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably.

Mrs. Lodge urged, and Rhoda finally assented, though with much

misgiving. Sad as the journey would be to her, she could not

conscientiously stand in the way of a possible remedy for her patron's

strange affliction. It was agreed that, to escape suspicion of their

mystic intent, they should meet at the edge of the heath at the corner

of a plantation which was visible from the spot where they now stood.

CHAPTER V-CONJUROR TRENDLE

By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this

inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid

fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible

light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater

in the occult world than she had ever herself suspected.

She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and

half-an-hour's brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension

of the Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight

figure, cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost

with a shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling.

They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb

into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the

rich alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long

walk; thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only

early afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the

heath-not improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the

Wessex King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked

most, Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a strange

dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the afflicted

arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. Much heather

had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a cart-track,

beside which stood the house of the man they sought.

He did not profess his remedial practices openly, or care anything about

their continuance, his direct interests being those of a dealer in

furze, turf, 'sharp sand,' and other local products. Indeed, he affected

not to believe largely in his own powers, and when warts that had been

shown him for cure miraculously disappeared-which it must be owned they

infallibly did-he would say lightly, 'O, I only drink a glass of grog

upon 'em-perhaps it's all chance,' and immediately turn the subject.

He was at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them descending

into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a reddish face, and he

looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge

told him her errand; and then with words of self-disparagement he

examined her arm.

'Medicine can't cure it,' he said promptly. ''Tis the work of an enemy.'

Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back.

'An enemy? What enemy?' asked Mrs. Lodge.

He shook his head. 'That's best known to yourself,' he said. 'If you

like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself know who

it is. I can do no more; and don't wish to do that.'

She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she stood,

and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately from the door;

and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could see the proceedings

without taking part in them. He brought a tumbler from the dresser,

nearly filled it with water, and fetching an egg, prepared it in some

private way; after which he broke it on the edge of the glass, so that

the white went in and the yolk remained. As it was getting gloomy, he

took the glass and its contents to the window, and told Gertrude to

watch them closely. They leant over the table together, and the

milkwoman could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it

sank in the water, but she was not near enough to define the shape that

it assumed.

'Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?' demanded

the conjuror of the young woman.

She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, and

continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and walked a

few steps away.

When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it appeared

exceedingly pale-as pale as Rhoda's-against the sad dun shades of the

upland's garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, and they at once

started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived that her companion had

quite changed.

'Did he charge much?' she asked tentatively.

'O no-nothing. He would not take a farthing,' said Gertrude.

'And what did you see?' inquired Rhoda.

'Nothing I-care to speak of.' The constraint in her manner was

remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly

suggestive of the face in Rhoda's bed-chamber.

'Was it you who first proposed coming here?' Mrs. Lodge suddenly

inquired, after a long pause. 'How very odd, if you did!'

'No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered,' she

replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and she

did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side should learn

that their lives had been antagonized by other influences than their

own.

The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk home.

But in some way or other a story was whispered about the many-dairied

lowland that winter that Mrs. Lodge's gradual loss of the use of her

left arm was owing to her being 'overlooked' by Rhoda Brook. The latter

kept her own counsel about the incubus, but her face grew sadder and

thinner; and in the spring she and her boy disappeared from the

neighbourhood of Holmstoke.

CHAPTER VI-A SECOND ATTEMPT

Half-a-dozen years passed away, and Mr. and Mrs. Lodge's married

experience sank into prosiness, and worse. The farmer was usually gloomy

and silent: the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty was

contorted and disfigured in the left limb; moreover, she had brought him

no child, which rendered it likely that he would be the last of a family

who had occupied that valley for some two hundred years. He thought of

Rhoda Brook and her son; and feared this might be a judgment from heaven

upon him.

The once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gertrude was changing into an

irritable, superstitious woman, whose whole time was given to

experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across.

She was honestly attached to her husband, and was ever secretly hoping

against hope to win back his heart again by regaining some at least of

her personal beauty. Hence it arose that her closet was lined with

bottles, packets, and ointment-pots of every description-nay, bunches of

mystic herbs, charms, and books of necromancy, which in her schoolgirl

time she would have ridiculed as folly.

'Damned if you won't poison yourself with these apothecary messes and

witch mixtures some time or other,' said her husband, when his eye

chanced to fall upon the multitudinous array.

She did not reply, but turned her sad, soft glance upon him in such

heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words, and added, 'I

only meant it for your good, you know, Gertrude.'

'I'll clear out the whole lot, and destroy them,' said she huskily, 'and

try such remedies no more!'

'You want somebody to cheer you,' he observed. 'I once thought of

adopting a boy; but he is too old now. And he is gone away I don't know

where.'

She guessed to whom he alluded; for Rhoda Brook's story had in the

course of years become known to her; though not a word had ever passed

between her husband and herself on the subject. Neither had she ever

spoken to him of her visit to Conjuror Trendle, and of what was revealed

to her, or she thought was revealed to her, by that solitary heath-man.

She was now five-and-twenty; but she seemed older.

'Six years of marriage, and only a few months of love,' she sometimes

whispered to herself. And then she thought of the apparent cause, and

said, with a tragic glance at her withering limb, 'If I could only again

be as I was when he first saw me!'

She obediently destroyed her nostrums and charms; but there remained a

hankering wish to try something else-some other sort of cure altogether.

She had never revisited Trendle since she had been conducted to the

house of the solitary by Rhoda against her will; but it now suddenly

occurred to Gertrude that she would, in a last desperate effort at

deliverance from this seeming curse, again seek out the man, if he yet

lived. He was entitled to a certain credence, for the indistinct form he

had raised in the glass had undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the

world who-as she now knew, though not then-could have a reason for

bearing her ill-will. The visit should be paid.

This time she went alone, though she nearly got lost on the heath, and

roamed a considerable distance out of her way. Trendle's house was

reached at last, however: he was not indoors, and instead of waiting at

the cottage, she went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her at

work a long way off. Trendle remembered her, and laying down the handful

of furze-roots which he was gathering and throwing into a heap, he

offered to accompany her in her homeward direction, as the distance was

considerable and the days were short. So they walked together, his head

bowed nearly to the earth, and his form of a colour with it.

'You can send away warts and other excrescences I know,' she said; 'why

can't you send away this?' And the arm was uncovered.

'You think too much of my powers!' said Trendle; 'and I am old and weak

now, too. No, no; it is too much for me to attempt in my own person.

What have ye tried?'

She named to him some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells which

she had adopted from time to time. He shook his head.

'Some were good enough,' he said approvingly; 'but not many of them for

such as this. This is of the nature of a blight, not of the nature of a

wound; and if you ever do throw it off; it will be all at once.'

'If I only could!'

'There is only one chance of doing it known to me. It has never failed

in kindred afflictions,-that I can declare. But it is hard to carry out,

and especially for a woman.'

'Tell me!' said she.

'You must touch with the limb the neck of a man who's been hanged.'

She started a little at the image he had raised.

'Before he's cold-just after he's cut down,' continued the conjuror

impassively.

'How can that do good?'

'It will turn the blood and change the constitution. But, as I say, to

do it is hard. You must get into jail, and wait for him when he's

brought off the gallows. Lots have done it, though perhaps not such

pretty women as you. I used to send dozens for skin complaints. But that

was in former times. The last I sent was in '13-near twenty years ago.'

He had no more to tell her; and, when he had put her into a straight

track homeward, turned and left her, refusing all money as at first.

CHAPTER VII-A RIDE

The communication sank deep into Gertrude's mind. Her nature was rather

a timid one; and probably of all remedies that the white wizard could

have suggested there was not one which would have filled her with so

much aversion as this, not to speak of the immense obstacles in the way

of its adoption.

Casterbridge, the county-town, was a dozen or fifteen miles off; and

though in those days, when men were executed for horse-stealing, arson,

and burglary, an assize seldom passed without a hanging, it was not

likely that she could get access to the body of the criminal unaided.

And the fear of her husband's anger made her reluctant to breathe a word

of Trendle's suggestion to him or to anybody about him.

She did nothing for months, and patiently bore her disfigurement as

before. But her woman's nature, craving for renewed love, through the

medium of renewed beauty (she was but twenty-five), was ever stimulating

her to try what, at any rate, could hardly do her any harm. 'What came

by a spell will go by a spell surely,' she would say. Whenever her

imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror from the possibility

of it: then the words of the conjuror, 'It will turn your blood,' were

seen to be capable of a scientific no less than a ghastly

interpretation; the mastering desire returned, and urged her on again.

There was at this time but one county paper, and that her husband only

occasionally borrowed. But old-fashioned days had old-fashioned means,

and news was extensively conveyed by word of mouth from market to

market, or from fair to fair, so that, whenever such an event as an

execution was about to take place, few within a radius of twenty miles

were ignorant of the coming sight; and, so far as Holmstoke was

concerned, some enthusiasts had been known to walk all the way to

Casterbridge and back in one day, solely to witness the spectacle. The

next assizes were in March; and when Gertrude Lodge heard that they had

been held, she inquired stealthily at the inn as to the result, as soon

as she could find opportunity.

She was, however, too late. The time at which the sentences were to be

carried out had arrived, and to make the journey and obtain admission at

such short notice required at least her husband's assistance. She dared

not tell him, for she had found by delicate experiment that these

smouldering village beliefs made him furious if mentioned, partly

because he half entertained them himself. It was therefore necessary to

wait for another opportunity.

Her determination received a fillip from learning that two epileptic

children had attended from this very village of Holmstoke many years

before with beneficial results, though the experiment had been strongly

condemned by the neighbouring clergy. April, May, June, passed; and it

is no overstatement to say that by the end of the last-named month

Gertrude well-nigh longed for the death of a fellow-creature. Instead of

her formal prayers each night, her unconscious prayer was, 'O Lord, hang

some guilty or innocent person soon!'

This time she made earlier inquiries, and was altogether more systematic

in her proceedings. Moreover, the season was summer, between the

haymaking and the harvest, and in the leisure thus afforded him her

husband had been holiday-taking away from home.

The assizes were in July, and she went to the inn as before. There was

to be one execution-only one-for arson.

Her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge, but what means

she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail. Though access for

such purposes had formerly never been denied, the custom had fallen into

desuetude; and in contemplating her possible difficulties, she was again

almost driven to fall back upon her husband. But, on sounding him about

the assizes, he was so uncommunicative, so more than usually cold, that

she did not proceed, and decided that whatever she did she would do

alone.

Fortune, obdurate hitherto, showed her unexpected favour. On the

Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution, Lodge remarked to

her that he was going away from home for another day or two on business

at a fair, and that he was sorry he could not take her with him.

She exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home that he

looked at her in surprise. Time had been when she would have shown deep

disappointment at the loss of such a jaunt. However, he lapsed into his

usual taciturnity, and on the day named left Holmstoke.

It was now her turn. She at first had thought of driving, but on

reflection held that driving would not do, since it would necessitate

her keeping to the turnpike-road, and so increase by tenfold the risk of

her ghastly errand being found out. She decided to ride, and avoid the

beaten track, notwithstanding that in her husband's stables there was no

animal just at present which by any stretch of imagination could be

considered a lady's mount, in spite of his promise before marriage to

always keep a mare for her. He had, however, many cart-horses, fine ones

of their kind; and among the rest was a serviceable creature, an equine

Amazon, with a back as broad as a sofa, on which Gertrude had

occasionally taken an airing when unwell. This horse she chose.

On Friday afternoon one of the men brought it round. She was dressed,

and before going down looked at her shrivelled arm. 'Ah!' she said to

it, 'if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been

saved me!'

When strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of

clothing, she took occasion to say to the servant, 'I take these in case

I should not get back to-night from the person I am going to visit.

Don't be alarmed if I am not in by ten, and close up the house as usual.

I shall be at home to-morrow for certain.' She meant then to privately

tell her husband: the deed accomplished was not like the deed projected.

He would almost certainly forgive her.

And then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband's

homestead; but though her goal was Casterbridge she did not take the

direct route thither through Stickleford. Her cunning course at first

was in precisely the opposite direction. As soon as she was out of

sight, however, she turned to the left, by a road which led into Egdon,

and on entering the heath wheeled round, and set out in the true course,

due westerly. A more private way down the county could not be imagined;

and as to direction, she had merely to keep her horse's head to a point

a little to the right of the sun. She knew that she would light upon a

furze-cutter or cottager of some sort from time to time, from whom she

might correct her bearing.

Though the date was comparatively recent, Egdon was much less

fragmentary in character than now. The attempts-successful and

otherwise-at cultivation on the lower slopes, which intrude and break up

the original heath into small detached heaths, had not been carried far;

Enclosure Acts had not taken effect, and the banks and fences which now

exclude the cattle of those villagers who formerly enjoyed rights of

commonage thereon, and the carts of those who had turbary privileges

which kept them in firing all the year round, were not erected.

Gertrude, therefore, rode along with no other obstacles than the prickly

furze bushes, the mats of heather, the white water-courses, and the

natural steeps and declivities of the ground.

Her horse was sure, if heavy-footed and slow, and though a draught

animal, was easy-paced; had it been otherwise, she was not a woman who

could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with a half-dead

arm. It was therefore nearly eight o'clock when she drew rein to breathe

the mare on the last outlying high point of heath-land towards

Casterbridge, previous to leaving Egdon for the cultivated valleys.

She halted before a pool called Rushy-pond, flanked by the ends of two

hedges; a railing ran through the centre of the pond, dividing it in

half. Over the railing she saw the low green country; over the green

trees the roofs of the town; over the roofs a white flat fa�ade,

denoting the entrance to the county jail. On the roof of this front

specks were moving about; they seemed to be workmen erecting something.

Her flesh crept. She descended slowly, and was soon amid corn-fields and

pastures. In another half-hour, when it was almost dusk, Gertrude

reached the White Hart, the first inn of the town on that side.

Little surprise was excited by her arrival; farmers' wives rode on

horseback then more than they do now; though, for that matter, Mrs.

Lodge was not imagined to be a wife at all; the innkeeper supposed her

some harum-skarum young woman who had come to attend 'hang-fair' next

day. Neither her husband nor herself ever dealt in Casterbridge market,

so that she was unknown. While dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys

standing at the door of a harness-maker's shop just above the inn,

looking inside it with deep interest.

'What is going on there?' she asked of the ostler.

'Making the rope for to-morrow.'

She throbbed responsively, and contracted her arm.

''Tis sold by the inch afterwards,' the man continued. 'I could get you

a bit, miss, for nothing, if you'd like?'

She hastily repudiated any such wish, all the more from a curious

creeping feeling that the condemned wretch's destiny was becoming

interwoven with her own; and having engaged a room for the night, sat

down to think.

Up to this time she had formed but the vaguest notions about her means

of obtaining access to the prison. The words of the cunning-man returned

to her mind. He had implied that she should use her beauty, impaired

though it was, as a pass-key. In her inexperience she knew little about

jail functionaries; she had heard of a high-sheriff and an under-

sheriff; but dimly only. She knew, however, that there must be a

hangman, and to the hangman she determined to apply.

VIII-A WATER-SIDE HERMIT

At this date, and for several years after, there was a hangman to almost

every jail. Gertrude found, on inquiry, that the Casterbridge official

dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep slow river flowing under the cliff

on which the prison buildings were situate-the stream being the self-

same one, though she did not know it, which watered the Stickleford and

Holmstoke meads lower down in its course.

Having changed her dress, and before she had eaten or drunk-for she

could not take her ease till she had ascertained some particulars-

Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the water-side to the cottage

indicated. Passing thus the outskirts of the jail, she discerned on the

level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines against the sky,

where the specks had been moving in her distant view; she recognized

what the erection was, and passed quickly on. Another hundred yards

brought her to the executioner's house, which a boy pointed out It stood

close to the same stream, and was hard by a weir, the waters of which

emitted a steady roar.

While she stood hesitating the door opened, and an old man came forth

shading a candle with one hand. Locking the door on the outside, he

turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage,

and began to ascend them, this being evidently the staircase to his

bedroom. Gertrude hastened forward, but by the time she reached the foot

of the ladder he was at the top. She called to him loudly enough to be

heard above the roar of the weir; he looked down and said, 'What d'ye

want here?'

'To speak to you a minute.'

The candle-light, such as it was, fell upon her imploring, pale,

upturned face, and Davies (as the hangman was called) backed down the

ladder. 'I was just going to bed,' he said; '"Early to bed and early to

rise," but I don't mind stopping a minute for such a one as you. Come

into house.' He reopened the door, and preceded her to the room within.

The implements of his daily work, which was that of a jobbing gardener,

stood in a corner, and seeing probably that she looked rural, he said,

'If you want me to undertake country work I can't come, for I never

leave Casterbridge for gentle nor simple-not I. My real calling is

officer of justice,' he added formally.

'Yes, yes! That's it. To-morrow!'

'Ah! I thought so. Well, what's the matter about that? 'Tis no use to

come here about the knot-folks do come continually, but I tell 'em one

knot is as merciful as another if ye keep it under the ear. Is the

unfortunate man a relation; or, I should say, perhaps' (looking at her

dress) 'a person who's been in your employ?'

'No. What time is the execution?'

'The same as usual-twelve o'clock, or as soon after as the London mail-

coach gets in. We always wait for that, in case of a reprieve.'

'O-a reprieve-I hope not!' she said involuntarily,

'Well,-hee, hee!-as a matter of business, so do I! But still, if ever a

young fellow deserved to be let off, this one does; only just turned

eighteen, and only present by chance when the rick was fired.

Howsomever, there's not much risk of it, as they are obliged to make an

example of him, there having been so much destruction of property that

way lately.'

'I mean,' she explained, 'that I want to touch him for a charm, a cure

of an affliction, by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of

the remedy.'

'O yes, miss! Now I understand. I've had such people come in past years.

But it didn't strike me that you looked of a sort to require blood-

turning. What's the complaint? The wrong kind for this, I'll be bound.'

'My arm.' She reluctantly showed the withered skin.

'Ah-'tis all a-scram!' said the hangman, examining it.

'Yes,' said she.

'Well,' he continued, with interest, 'that is the class o' subject, I'm

bound to admit! I like the look of the place; it is truly as suitable

for the cure as any I ever saw. 'Twas a knowing-man that sent 'ee,

whoever he was.'

'You can contrive for me all that's necessary?' she said breathlessly.

'You should really have gone to the governor of the jail, and your

doctor with 'ee, and given your name and address-that's how it used to

be done, if I recollect. Still, perhaps, I can manage it for a trifling

fee.'

'O, thank you! I would rather do it this way, as I should like it kept

private.'

'Lover not to know, eh?'

'No-husband.'

'Aha! Very well. I'll get ee' a touch of the corpse.'

'Where is it now?' she said, shuddering.

'It?-he, you mean; he's living yet. Just inside that little small winder

up there in the glum.' He signified the jail on the cliff above.

She thought of her husband and her friends. 'Yes, of course,' she said;

'and how am I to proceed?'

He took her to the door. 'Now, do you be waiting at the little wicket in

the wall, that you'll find up there in the lane, not later than one

o'clock. I will open it from the inside, as I shan't come home to dinner

till he's cut down. Good-night. Be punctual; and if you don't want

anybody to know 'ee, wear a veil. Ah-once I had such a daughter as you!'

She went away, and climbed the path above, to assure herself that she

would be able to find the wicket next day. Its outline was soon visible

to her-a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts. The

steep was so great that, having reached the wicket, she stopped a moment

to breathe; and, looking back upon the water-side cot, saw the hangman

again ascending his outdoor staircase. He entered the loft or chamber to

which it led, and in a few minutes extinguished his light.

The town clock struck ten, and she returned to the White Hart as she had

come.

IX-A RENCOUNTER

It was one o'clock on Saturday. Gertrude Lodge, having been admitted to

the jail as above described, was sitting in a waiting-room within the

second gate, which stood under a classic archway of ashlar, then

comparatively modern, and bearing the inscription, 'COVNTY JAIL: 1793.'

This had been the fa�ade she saw from the heath the day before. Near at

hand was a passage to the roof on which the gallows stood.

The town was thronged, and the market suspended; but Gertrude had seen

scarcely a soul. Having kept her room till the hour of the appointment,

she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space

below the cliff where the spectators had gathered; but she could, even

now, hear the multitudinous babble of their voices, out of which rose at

intervals the hoarse croak of a single voice uttering the words, 'Last

dying speech and confession!' There had been no reprieve, and the

execution was over; but the crowd still waited to see the body taken

down.

Soon the persistent girl heard a trampling overhead, then a hand

beckoned to her, and, following directions, she went out and crossed the

inner paved court beyond the gatehouse, her knees trembling so that she

could scarcely walk. One of her arms was out of its sleeve, and only

covered by her shawl.

On the spot at which she had now arrived were two trestles, and before

she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs

somewhere at her back. Turn her head she would not, or could not, and,

rigid in this position, she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her

shoulder, borne by four men. It was open, and in it lay the body of a

young man, wearing the smockfrock of a rustic, and fustian breeches. The

corpse had been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the

smockfrock was hanging over. The burden was temporarily deposited on the

trestles.

By this time the young woman's state was such that a gray mist seemed to

float before her eyes, on account of which, and the veil she wore, she

could scarcely discern anything: it was as though she had nearly died,

but was held up by a sort of galvanism.

'Now!' said a voice close at hand, and she was just conscious that the

word had been addressed to her.

By a last strenuous effort she advanced, at the same time hearing

persons approaching behind her. She bared her poor curst arm; and

Davies, uncovering the face of the corpse, took Gertrude's hand, and

held it so that her arm lay across the dead man's neck, upon a line the

colour of an unripe blackberry, which surrounded it.

Gertrude shrieked: 'the turn o' the blood,' predicted by the conjuror,

had taken place. But at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the

enclosure: it was not Gertrude's, and its effect upon her was to make

her start round.

Immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brook, her face drawn, and her eyes

red with weeping. Behind Rhoda stood Gertrude's own husband; his

countenance lined, his eyes dim, but without a tear.

'D-n you! what are you doing here?' he said hoarsely.

'Hussy-to come between us and our child now!' cried Rhoda. 'This is the

meaning of what Satan showed me in the vision! You are like her at

last!' And clutching the bare arm of the younger woman, she pulled her

unresistingly back against the wall. Immediately Brook had loosened her

hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her

husband. When he lifted her up she was unconscious.

The mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that the

dead young man was Rhoda's son. At that time the relatives of an

executed convict had the privilege of claiming the body for burial, if

they chose to do so; and it was for this purpose that Lodge was awaiting

the inquest with Rhoda. He had been summoned by her as soon as the young

man was taken in the crime, and at different times since; and he had

attended in court during the trial. This was the 'holiday' he had been

indulging in of late. The two wretched parents had wished to avoid

exposure; and hence had come themselves for the body, a waggon and sheet

for its conveyance and covering being in waiting outside.

Gertrude's case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to

her the surgeon who was at hand. She was taken out of the jail into the

town; but she never reached home alive. Her delicate vitality, sapped

perhaps by the paralyzed arm, collapsed under the double shock that

followed the severe strain, physical and mental, to which she had

subjected herself during the previous twenty-four hours. Her blood had

been 'turned' indeed-too far. Her death took place in the town three

days after.

Her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again; once only in the old

market-place at Anglebury, which he had so much frequented, and very

seldom in public anywhere. Burdened at first with moodiness and remorse,

he eventually changed for the better, and appeared as a chastened and

thoughtful man. Soon after attending the funeral of his poor young wife

he took steps towards giving up the farms in Holmstoke and the adjoining

parish, and, having sold every head of his stock, he went away to Port-

Bredy, at the other end of the county, living there in solitary lodgings

till his death two years later of a painless decline. It was then found

that he had bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a

reformatory for boys, subject to the payment of a small annuity to Rhoda

Brook, if she could be found to claim it.

For some time she could not be found; but eventually she reappeared in

her old parish,-absolutely refusing, however, to have anything to do

with the provision made for her. Her monotonous milking at the dairy was

resumed, and followed for many long years, till her form became bent,

and her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the forehead-

perhaps by long pressure against the cows. Here, sometimes, those who

knew her experiences would stand and observe her, and wonder what sombre

thoughts were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow, to the

rhythm of the alternating milk-streams.

('Blackwood's Magazine,' January 1888.)

FELLOW-TOWNSMEN

I

The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to

the shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys,

without great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep

pastures encroach upon the burghers' backyards. And at night it was

possible to stand in the very midst of the town and hear from their

native paddocks on the lower levels of greensward the mild lowing of the

farmer's heifers, and the profound, warm blowings of breath in which

those creatures indulge. But the community which had jammed itself in

the valley thus flanked formed a veritable town, with a real mayor and

corporation, and a staple manufacture.

During a certain damp evening five-and-thirty years ago, before the

twilight was far advanced, a pedestrian of professional appearance,

carrying a small bag in his hand and an elevated umbrella, was

descending one of these hills by the turnpike road when he was overtaken

by a phaeton.

'Hullo, Downe-is that you?' said the driver of the vehicle, a young man

of pale and refined appearance. 'Jump up here with me, and ride down to

your door.'

The other turned a plump, cheery, rather self-indulgent face over his

shoulder towards the hailer.

'O, good evening, Mr. Barnet-thanks,' he said, and mounted beside his

acquaintance.

They were fellow-burgesses of the town which lay beneath them, but

though old and very good friends, they were differently circumstanced.

Barnet was a richer man than the struggling young lawyer Downe, a fact

which was to some extent perceptible in Downe's manner towards his

companion, though nothing of it ever showed in Barnet's manner towards

the solicitor. Barnet's position in the town was none of his own making;

his father had been a very successful flax-merchant in the same place,

where the trade was still carried on as briskly as the small capacities

of its quarters would allow. Having acquired a fair fortune, old Mr.

Barnet had retired from business, bringing up his son as a gentleman-

burgher, and, it must be added, as a well-educated, liberal- minded

young man.

'How is Mrs. Barnet?' asked Downe.

'Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,' the other answered

constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one of

self-consciousness.

Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up another

thread of conversation. He congratulated his friend on his election as a

council-man; he thought he had not seen him since that event took place;

Mrs. Downe had meant to call and congratulate Mrs. Barnet, but he feared

that she had failed to do so as yet.

Barnet seemed hampered in his replies. 'We should have been glad to see

you. I-my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you know . . .

Yes, I am a member of the corporation-rather an inexperienced member,

some of them say. It is quite true; and I should have declined the

honour as premature-having other things on my hands just now, too-if it

had not been pressed upon me so very heartily.'

'There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite see

the necessity for,' said Downe, with good-humoured freedom. 'What the

deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you have already

got such an excellent house as the one you live in?'

Barnet's face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question had

been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding flocks

and fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent embarrassment -

'Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know: the house I am living

in is rather old and inconvenient.' Mr. Downe declared that he had

chosen a pretty site for the new building. They would be able to see for

miles and miles from the windows. Was he going to give it a name? He

supposed so.

Barnet thought not. There was no other house near that was likely to be

mistaken for it. And he did not care for a name.

'But I think it has a name!' Downe observed: 'I went past-when was it?-

this morning; and I saw something,-"Ch�teau Ringdale," I think it was,

stuck up on a board!'

'It was an idea she-we had for a short time,' said Barnet hastily. 'But

we have decided finally to do without a name-at any rate such a name as

that. It must have been a week ago that you saw it. It was taken down

last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!' he added grimly.

Downe murmured in an unconvinced tone that he thought he had seen it

yesterday.

Talking thus they drove into the town. The street was unusually still

for the hour of seven in the evening; an increasing drizzle had

prevailed since the afternoon, and now formed a gauze across the yellow

lamps, and trickled with a gentle rattle down the heavy roofs of stone

tile, that bent the house-ridges hollow-backed with its weight, and in

some instances caused the walls to bulge outwards in the upper story.

Their route took them past the little town-hall, the Black-Bull Hotel,

and onward to the junction of a small street on the right, consisting of

a row of those two-and-two windowed brick residences of no particular

age, which are exactly alike wherever found, except in the people they

contain.

'Wait-I'll drive you up to your door,' said Barnet, when Downe prepared

to alight at the corner. He thereupon turned into the narrow street,

when the faces of three little girls could be discerned close to the

panes of a lighted window a few yards ahead, surmounted by that of a

young matron, the gaze of all four being directed eagerly up the empty

street. 'You are a fortunate fellow, Downe,' Barnet continued, as mother

and children disappeared from the window to run to the door. 'You must

be happy if any man is. I would give a hundred such houses as my new one

to have a home like yours.'

'Well-yes, we get along pretty comfortably,' replied Downe complacently.

'That house, Downe, is none of my ordering,' Barnet broke out, revealing

a bitterness hitherto suppressed, and checking the horse a moment to

finish his speech before delivering up his passenger. 'The house I have

already is good enough for me, as you supposed. It is my own freehold;

it was built by my grandfather, and is stout enough for a castle. My

father was born there, lived there, and died there. I was born there,

and have always lived there; yet I must needs build a new one.'

'Why do you?' said Downe.

'Why do I? To preserve peace in the household. I do anything for that;

but I don't succeed. I was firm in resisting "Ch�teau Ringdale,"

however; not that I would not have put up with the absurdity of the

name, but it was too much to have your house christened after Lord

Ringdale, because your wife once had a fancy for him. If you only knew

everything, you would think all attempt at reconciliation hopeless. In

your happy home you have had no such experiences; and God forbid that

you ever should. See, here they are all ready to receive you!'

'Of course! And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,' said

Downe. 'Take my word for it she will! And with a dinner prepared for you

far better than mine.'

'I hope so,' Barnet replied dubiously.

He moved on to Downe's door, which the solicitor's family had already

opened. Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag and umbrella,

his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the gutter.

'O, my dear Charles!' said his wife, running down the steps; and, quite

ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her husband, pulled

him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, 'I hope you are not hurt,

darling!' The children crowded round, chiming in piteously, 'Poor papa!'

'He's all right,' said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only a little

muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband. Almost at any

other time-certainly during his fastidious bachelor years-he would have

thought her a too demonstrative woman; but those recent circumstances of

his own life to which he had just alluded made Mrs. Downe's solicitude

so affecting that his eye grew damp as he witnessed it. Bidding the

lawyer and his family good-night he left them, and drove slowly into the

main street towards his own house.

The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced by

Downe's parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home as he

imagined: the dreary night might, at least on this one occasion, make

Downe's forecast true. Hence it was in a suspense that he could hardly

have believed possible that he halted at his door. On entering his wife

was nowhere to be seen, and he inquired for her. The servant informed

him that her mistress had the dressmaker with her, and would be engaged

for some time.

'Dressmaker at this time of day!'

'She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you this

evening.'

'But she knew I was coming to-night?'

'O yes, sir.'

'Go up and tell her I am come.'

The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted her

former words.

Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal,

which was eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately witnessed

still impressing him by its contrast with the situation here. His mind

fell back into past years upon a certain pleasing and gentle being whose

face would loom out of their shades at such times as these. Barnet

turned in his chair, and looked with unfocused eyes in a direction

southward from where he sat, as if he saw not the room but a long way

beyond. 'I wonder if she lives there still!' he said.

II

He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and went

out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening pavement while

eight o'clock was striking from St. Mary's tower, and the apprentices

and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end to end of the town.

In two minutes only those shops which could boast of no attendant save

the master or the mistress remained with open eyes. These were ever

somewhat less prompt to exclude customers than the others: for their

owners' ears the closing hour had scarcely the cheerfulness that it

possessed for the hired servants of the rest. Yet the night being dreary

the delay was not for long, and their windows, too, bWESSEXlinked

together one by one.

During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a direction

at right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the town, by a long

street leading due southward. Here, though his family had no more to do

with the flax manufacture, his own name occasionally greeted him on

gates and warehouses, being used allusively by small rising tradesmen as

a recommendation, in such words as 'Smith, from Barnet & Co.'-'Robinson,

late manager at Barnet's.' The sight led him to reflect upon his

father's busy life, and he questioned if it had not been far happier

than his own.

The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground

appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand rising

to a higher level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a row of

builders' scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like spears, and at

their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a building lately

begun. Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a few moments without

leaving the centre of the road, apparently not much interested in the

sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a post in the fore part of

the ground bearing a white board at the top. He went to the rails,

vaulted over, and walked in far enough to discern painted upon the board

'Ch�teau Ringdale.'

A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to

irritate him. Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella into

the sod, and seized the post with both hands, as if intending to loosen

and throw it down. Then, like one bewildered by an opposition which

would exist none the less though its manifestations were removed, he

allowed his arms to sink to his side.

'Let it be,' he said to himself. 'I have declared there shall be peace-

if possible.'

Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on his

way, still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with more

decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse murmur rose

upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea. The road led to the

harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from which the trade of

the district was fed. After seeing the obnoxious name-board Barnet had

forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain tapped smartly on his hat,

and occasionally stroked his face as he went on.

Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at

wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to common

road. Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made itself

visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened with wet.

The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still some distance

off when he paused before one of the smallest of the detached houses by

the wayside, standing in its own garden, the latter being divided from

the road by a row of wooden palings. Scrutinizing the spot to ensure

that he was not mistaken, he opened the gate and gently knocked at the

cottage door.

When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in ordinary

cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it was

impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the passage.

Barnet said at random, 'Does Miss Savile live here?'

A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a sudden

afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a light, it said:

but the night being wet, mother had not thought it worth while to trim

the passage lamp.

'Don't trouble yourself to get a light for me,' said Barnet hastily; 'it

is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile's sitting-room?'

The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned,

signified a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward at

the same moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On entering

the room he closed the door behind him, pausing till he heard the

retreating footsteps of the child.

He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though not

poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to the

shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament of the

mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was enclosed by a

frame of embroidered card-board-evidently the work of feminine hands-and

it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly lieutenant in the navy.

From behind the lamp on the table a female form now rose into view, that

of a young girl, and a resemblance between her and the portrait was

early discoverable. She had been so absorbed in some occupation on the

other side of the lamp as to have barely found time to realize her

visitor's presence.

They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The face

that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the Raffaelesque oval of

its contour was remarkable for an English countenance, and that

countenance housed in a remote country-road to an unheard-of harbour.

But her features did not do justice to this splendid beginning: Nature

had recollected that she was not in Italy; and the young lady's

lineaments, though not so inconsistent as to make her plain, would have

been accepted rather as pleasing than as correct. The preoccupied

expression which, like images on the retina, remained with her for a

moment after the state that caused it had ceased, now changed into a

reserved, half-proud, and slightly indignant look, in which the blood

diffused itself quickly across her cheek, and additional brightness

broke the shade of her rather heavy eyes.

'I know I have no business here,' he said, answering the look. 'But I

had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can give your

hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?'

'I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,' she

answered, as she coldly complied with the request. 'When I think of the

circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind of you

to allude to such a thing as our past-or, indeed, to come here at all.'

'There was no harm in it surely? I don't trouble you often, Lucy.'

'I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time,

certainly, and I did not expect it now,' she said, with the same

stiffness in her air. 'I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?'

'Yes, yes!' he impatiently returned. 'At least I suppose so-though I

only speak from inference!'

'But she is your wife, sir,' said the young girl tremulously.

The unwonted tones of a man's voice in that feminine chamber had

startled a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the bird

awoke hastily, and fluttered against the bars. She went and stilled it

by laying her face against the cage and murmuring a coaxing sound. It

might partly have been done to still herself.

'I didn't come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,' he pursued; 'I came to talk of

you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since your

great loss.' And he turned towards the portrait of her father.