!!!THE GREAT GATSBY!!! Chapter 3 EP: 3 THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE

The crumbling wall that surrounded the sunken garden alongside the house was

a rich hunting ground for me. It was an ancient brick wall that had been plastered

over, but now this outer skin was green with moss, bulging and sagging with the

damp of many winters. The whole surface was an intricate map of cracks, some

several inches wide, others as fine as hairs. Here and there large pieces had

dropped off and revealed the rows of rose-pink bricks lying beneath like ribs.

There was a whole landscape on this wall if you peered closely enough to see it; the

roofs of a hundred tiny toadstools, red, yellow, and brown, showed in patches like

villages on the damper portions; mountains of bottle-green moss grew in tuffets so

symmetrical that they might have been planted and trimmed; forests of small ferns

sprouted from cracks in the shady places, drooping languidly like little green

fountains. The top of the wall was a desert land, too dry for anything except a few

rust-red mosses to live in it, too hot for anything except sun-bathing by the dragon-

flies. At the base of the wall grew a mass of plants—cyclamen, crocus, asphodel—

thrusting their leaves among the piles of broken and chipped roof-tiles that lay

there. This whole strip was guarded by a labyrinth of blackberry hung, in season,

with fruit that was plump and juicy and black as ebony.

The inhabitants of the wall were a mixed lot, and they were divided into day

and night workers, the hunters and the hunted. At night the hunters were the toads

that lived among the brambles, and the geckos, pale, translucent, with bulging

eyes, that lived in the cracks higher up the wall. Their prey was the population of

stupid, absent-minded crane-flies that zoomed and barged their way among the

leaves; moths of all sizes and shapes, moths striped, tessellated, checked, spotted,

and blotched, that fluttered in soft clouds along the withered plaster; the beetles,

rotund and neatly clad as business men, hurrying with portly efficiency about their

night's work. When the last glow-worm had dragged his frosty emerald lantern to

bed over the hills of moss, and the sun rose, the wall was taken over by the next set

of inhabitants. Here it was more difficult to differentiate between the prey and the

predators, for everything seemed to feed indiscriminately off everything else. Thus

the hunting wasps searched out caterpillars and spiders; the spiders hunted for

flies; the dragon-flies, big, brittle and hunting-pink, fed off the spiders and the flies;

and the swift, lithe, and multicolored wall lizards fed off everything.

But the shyest and most self-effacing of the wall community were the most

dangerous; you hardly ever saw one unless you looked for it, and yet there must

have been several hundred living in the cracks of the wall. Slide a knife-blade

carefully under a piece of the loose plaster and lever it gently away from the brick,and there, crouching beneath it, would be a little black scorpion an inch long,

looking as though he were made out of polished chocolate. They were weird-

looking little things, with their flattened, oval bodies, their neat, crooked legs, the

enormous crablike claws, bulbous and neatly jointed as armor, and the tail like a

string of brown beads ending in a sting like a rose-thorn. The scorpion would lie

there quite quietly as you examined him, only raising his tail in an almost

apologetic gesture of warning if you breathed too hard on him. If you kept him in

the sun too long he would simply turn his back on you and walk away, and then

slide slowly but firmly under another section of plaster.

I grew very fond of these scorpions. I found them to be pleasant, unassuming

creatures with, on the whole, the most charming habits. Provided you did nothing

silly or clumsy (like putting your hand on one) the scorpions treated you with

respect, their one desire being to get away and hide as quickly as possible. They

must have found me rather a trial, for I was always ripping sections of the plaster

away so that I could watch them, or capturing them and making them walk about

in jam jars so that I could see the way their feet moved. By means of my sudden

and unexpected assaults on the wall I discovered quite a bit about the scorpions. I

found that they would eat bluebottles (though how they caught them was a

mystery I never solved), grasshoppers, moths, and lacewing flies. Several times I

found one of them eating another, a habit I found most distressing in a creature

otherwise so impeccable.

By crouching under the wall at night with a torch, I managed to catch some brief

glimpses of the scorpions' wonderful courtship dances. I saw them standing, claws

clasped, their bodies raised to the skies, their tails lovingly entwined; I saw them

waltzing slowly in circles among the moss cushions, claw in claw. But my view of

these performances was all too short, for almost as soon as I switched on the torch

the partners would stop, pause for a moment, and then, seeing that I was not going

to extinguish the light, would turn round and walk firmly away, claw in claw, side

by side. They were definitely beasts that believed in keeping themselves to

themselves. If I could have kept a colony in captivity I would probably have been

able to see the whole of the courtship, but the family had forbidden scorpions in

the house, despite my arguments in favor of them.

Then one day I found a fat female scorpion in the wall, wearing what at first

glance appeared to be a pale fawn fur coat. Closer inspection proved that this

strange garment was made up of a mass of tiny babies clinging to the mother's

back. I was enraptured by this family, and I made up my mind to smuggle them

into the house and up to my bedroom so that I might keep them and watch them

grow up. With infinite care I manoeuvred the mother and family into a matchbox,

and then hurried to the villa. It was rather unfortunate that just as I entered the

door lunch should be served; however, I placed the matchbox carefully on the

mantelpiece in the drawing room, so that the scorpions should get plenty of air,

and made my way to the dining room and joined the family for the meal. Dawdling

over my food, feeding Roger surreptitiously under the table, and listening to thefamily arguing, I completely forgot about my exciting new captures. At last Larry,

having finished, fetched the cigarettes from the drawing room, and lying back in

his chair he put one in his mouth and picked up the matchbox he had brought.

Oblivious of my impending doom I watched him interestedly as, still talking glibly,

he opened the matchbox.

Now I maintain to this day that the female scorpion meant no harm. She was

agitated and a trifle annoyed at being shut up in a matchbox for so long, and so

she seized the first opportunity to escape. She hoisted herself out of the box with

great rapidity, her babies clinging on desperately, and scuttled onto the back of

Larry's hand. There, not quite certain what to do next, she paused, her sting

curved up at the ready. Larry, feeling the movement of her claws, glanced down to

see what it was, and from that moment things got increasingly confused.

He uttered a roar of fright that made Lugaretzia drop a plate and brought Roger

out from beneath the table, barking wildly. With a flick of his hand he sent the

unfortunate scorpion flying down the table, and she landed midway between

Margo and Leslie, scattering babies like confetti as she thumped onto the cloth.

Thoroughly enraged at this treatment, the creature sped towards Leslie, her sting

quivering with emotion. Leslie leaped to his feet, overturning his chair, and flicked

out desperately with his napkin, sending the scorpion rolling across the cloth

towards Margo, who promptly let out a scream that any railway engine would

have been proud to produce. Mother, completely bewildered by this sudden and

rapid change from peace to chaos, put on her glasses and peered down the table to

see what was causing the pandemonium, and at that moment Margo, in a vain

attempt to stop the scorpion's advance, hurled a glass of water at it. The shower

missed the animal completely, but successfully drenched Mother, who, not being

able to stand cold water, promptly lost her breath and sat gasping at the end of the

table, unable even to protest. The scorpion had now gone to ground under Leslie's

plate, while her babies swarmed wildly all over the table. Roger, mystified by the

panic, but determined to do his share, ran round and round the room, barking

hysterically.

"It's that bloody boy again . . ." bellowed Larry.

"Look out! Look out! They're coming!" screamed Margo.

"All we need is a book," roared Leslie; "don't panic, hit 'em with a book."

"What on earth's the matter with you all?" Mother kept imploring, mopping

her glasses.

"It's that bloody boy . . . he'll kill the lot of us. . . . Look at the table . . . knee-

deep in scorpions. . . ."

"Quick . . . quick . . . do something. . . . Look out, look out!"

"Stop screeching and get a book, for God's sake. . . . You're worse than the

dog. . . . Shut up, Roger. . . ."

"By the grace of God I wasn't bitten. . . ."

"Look out . . . there's another one. . . . Quick . . . quick . . .""Oh, shut up and get me a book or something. . . ."

"But how did the scorpions get on the table, dear?"

"That bloody boy. . . . Every matchbox in the house is a death-trap. . . ."

"Look out, it's coming towards me. . . . Quick, quick, do something. . . ."

"Hit it with your knife . . . your knife. . . . Go on, hit it. . . ."

Since no one had bothered to explain things to him, Roger was under the

mistaken impression that the family were being attacked, and that it was his duty

to defend them. As Lugaretzia was the only stranger in the room, he came to the

logical conclusion that she must be the responsible party, so he bit her in the ankle.

This did not help matters very much.

By the time a certain amount of order had been restored, all the baby scorpions

had hidden themselves under various plates and bits of cutlery. Eventually, after

impassioned pleas on my part, backed up by Mother, Leslie's suggestion that the

whole lot be slaughtered was quashed. While the family, still simmering with rage

and fright, retired to the drawing room, I spent half an hour rounding up the

babies, picking them up in a teaspoon, and returning them to their mother's back.

Then I carried them outside on a saucer and, with the utmost reluctance, released

them on the garden wall. Roger and I went and spent the afternoon on the hillside,

for I felt it would be prudent to allow the family to have a siesta before seeing them

again.

The results of this incident were numerous. Larry developed a phobia about

matchboxes and opened them with the utmost caution, a handkerchief wrapped

round his hand. Lugaretzia limped round the house, her ankle enveloped in yards

of bandage, for weeks after the bite had healed, and came round every morning,

with the tea, to show us how the scabs were getting on. But, from my point of

view, the worst repercussion of the whole affair was that Mother decided I was

running wild again, and that it was high time I received a little more education.

While the problem of finding a full-time tutor was being solved, she was

determined that my French, at least, should be kept in trim. So arrangements were

made, and every morning Spiro would drive me into the town for my French lesson

with the Belgian consul.

The consul's house was situated in the maze of narrow, smelly alleyways that

made up the Jewish quarter of the town. It was a fascinating area, the cobbled

streets crammed with stalls that were piled high with gaily colored bales of cloth,

mountains of shining sweetmeats, ornaments of beaten silver, fruit, and vegetables.

The streets were so narrow that you had to stand back against the wall to allow

the donkeys to stagger past with their loads of merchandise. It was a rich and

colorful part of the town, full of noise and bustle, the screech of bargaining

women, the cluck of hens, the barking of dogs, and the wailing cry of the men

carrying great trays of fresh hot loaves on their heads. Right in the very center, in

the top flat of a tall, rickety building that leaned tiredly over a tiny square, lived

the Belgian consul.He was a sweet little man, whose most striking attribute was a magnificent

three-pointed beard and carefully waxed mustache. He took his job rather

seriously, and was always dressed as though he were on the verge of rushing off to

some important official function, in a black cut-away coat, striped trousers, fawn

spats over brightly polished shoes, an immense cravat like a silk waterfall, held in

place by a plain gold pin, and a tall and gleaming top hat that completed the

ensemble. One could see him at any hour of the day, clad like this, picking his way

down the dirty, narrow alleys, stepping daintily among the puddles, drawing

himself back against the wall with a magnificently courteous gesture to allow a

donkey to pass, and tapping it coyly on the rump with his malacca cane. The

people of the town did not find his garb at all unusual. They thought that he was

an Englishman, and as all Englishmen were lords it was not only right but

necessary that they should wear the correct uniform.

The first morning I arrived, he welcomed me into a living room whose walls

were decorated with a mass of heavily framed photographs of himself in various

Napoleonic attitudes. The Victorian chairs, covered with red brocade, were

patched with antimacassars by the score; the table on which we worked was

draped in a wine-red cloth of velvet, with a fringe of bright green tassels round the

edge. It was an intriguingly ugly room. In order to test the extent of my knowledge

of French, the consul sat me down at the table, produced a fat and battered edition

of Le Petit Larousse, and placed it in front of me, open at page one.

"You will please to read zis," he said, his gold teeth glittering amicably in his

beard.

He twisted the points of his mustache, pursed his lips, clasped his hands behind

his back, and paced slowly across to the window, while I started down the list of

words beginning with A. I had hardly stumbled through the first three when the

consul stiffened and uttered a suppressed exclamation. I thought at first he was

shocked by my accent, but it apparently had nothing to do with me. He rushed

across the room, muttering to himself, tore open a cupboard, and pulled out a

powerful-looking air rifle, while I watched him with increasing mystification and

interest, not unmixed with a certain alarm for my own safety. He loaded the

weapon, dropping pellets all over the carpet in his frantic haste. Then he crouched

and crept back to the window, where, half concealed by the curtain, he peered out

eagerly. Then he raised the gun, took careful aim at something, and fired. When he

turned round, slowly and sadly shaking his head, and laid the gun aside, I was

surprised to see tears in his eyes. He drew a yard or so of silk handkerchief out of

his breast pocket and blew his nose violently.

"Ah, ah, ah," he intoned, shaking his head dolefully, "ze poor lizzle fellow. Buz

we musz work . . . please to continuez wiz your reading, mon ami."

For the rest of the morning I toyed with the exciting idea that the consul had

committed a murder before my very eyes, or, at least, that he was carrying out a

blood feud with some neighboring householder. But when, after the fourth

morning, the consul was still firing periodically out of his window, I decided thatmy explanation could not be the right one, unless it was an exceptionally large

family he was feuding with, and a family, moreover, who were apparently

incapable of firing back. It was a week before I found out the reason for the

consul's incessant fusillade, and the reason was cats. In the Jewish quarter, as in

other parts of the town, the cats were allowed to breed unchecked. There were

literally hundreds of them. They belonged to no one and were uncared for, so that

most of them were in a frightful state, covered with sores, their fur coming out in

great bald patches, their legs bent with rickets, and all of them so thin that it was a

wonder they were alive at all. The consul was a great cat-lover, and he possessed

three large and well-fed Persians to prove it. But the sight of all these starving,

sore-ridden felines stalking about on the rooftops opposite his window was too

much for his sensitive nature.

"I cannot feed zem all," he explained to me, "so I like to make zem happiness by

zooting zem. Zey are bezzer so, buz iz makes me feel so zad."

He was, in fact, performing a very necessary and humane service, as anyone who

had seen the cats would agree. So my lessons in French were being continuously

interrupted while the consul leaped to the window to send yet another cat to a

happier hunting ground. After the report of the gun there would be a moment's

silence, in respect for the dead; then the consul would blow his nose violently and

sigh tragically, and we would plunge once more into the tangled labyrinth of

French verbs.

For some inexplicable reason the consul was under the impression that Mother

could speak French, and he would never lose an opportunity of engaging her in

conversation. If she had the good fortune, while shopping in the town, to notice his

top hat bobbing through the crowd toward her, she would hastily retreat into the

nearest shop and buy a number of things she had no use for, until the danger was

past. Occasionally, however, the consul would appear suddenly out of an alleyway

and take her by surprise. He would advance, smiling broadly and twirling his cane,

sweep off his top hat, and bow almost double before her, while clasping her

reluctantly offered hand and pressing it passionately into his beard. Then they

would stand in the middle of the street, occasionally being forced apart by a

passing donkey, while the consul swamped Mother under a flood of French,

gesturing elegantly with his hat and stick, apparently unaware of the blank

expression on Mother's face. Now and then he would punctuate his speech with a

questioning "N'est-ce pas, madame?" and this was Mother's cue. Summoning up

all her courage, she would display her complete mastery over the French tongue.

"Oui, oui!" she would exclaim, smiling nervously, and then add, in case it had

sounded rather unenthusiastic, "OUI, OUI."

This procedure satisfied the consul, and I'm sure he never realized that this was

the only French word that Mother knew. But these conversations were a nerve-

racking ordeal for her, and we had only to hiss "Look out, Mother, the consul's

coming," to set her tearing off down the street at a ladylike walk that was

dangerously near to a gallop.

In some ways these French lessons were good for me; I did not learn any French,

it's true, but by the end of the morning I was so bored that my afternoon sorties

into the surrounding country were made with double the normal enthusiasm. And

then, of course, there was always Thursday to look forward to. Theodore would

come out to the villa as soon after lunch as was decent, and stay until the moon

was high over the Albanian mountains. Thursday was happily chosen, from his

point of view, because it was on this day that the seaplane from Athens arrived and

landed in the bay not far from the house. Theodore had a passion for watching

seaplanes land. Unfortunately the only part of the house from which you could get

a good view of the bay was the attic, and then it meant leaning perilously out of

the window and craning your neck. The plane would invariably arrive in the

middle of tea; a dim, drowsy hum could be heard, so faint one could not be sure it

was not a bee. Theodore, in the middle of an anecdote or an explanation, would

suddenly stop talking, his eyes would take on a fanatical gleam, his beard would

bristle, and he would cock his head on one side.

"Is that . . . er . . . you know . . . is that the sound of a plane?" he would inquire.

Everyone would stop talking and listen; slowly the sound would grow louder

and louder. Theodore would carefully place his half-eaten scone on his plate.

"Ah-ha!" he would say, wiping his fingers carefully. "Yes, that certainly sounds

like a plane . . . er . . . um . . . yes."

The sound would grow louder and louder, while Theodore shifted uneasily in

his seat. At length Mother would put him out of his misery.

"Would you like to go up and watch it land?" she would ask.

"Well . . . er . . . if you're sure . . ." Theodore would mumble, vacating his seat

with alacrity. "I . . . er . . . find the sight very attractive . . . if you're sure you don't

mind."

The sound of the plane's engines would now be directly overhead; there was not

a moment to lose.

"I have always been . . . er . . . you know . . . attracted . . ."

"Hurry up, Theo, or you'll miss it," we would chorus.

The entire family then vacated the table, and, gathering Theodore en route, we

sped up the four flights of stairs, Roger racing ahead, barking joyfully. We burst

into the attic, out of breath, laughing, our feet thumping like gunfire on the

uncarpeted floor, threw open the windows, and leaned out, peering over the olive

tops to where the bay lay like a round blue eye among the trees, its surface as

smooth as honey. The plane, like a cumbersome overweight goose, flew over the

olive groves, sinking lower and lower. Suddenly it would be over the water, racing

its reflection over the blue surface. Slowly the plane dropped lower and lower.

Theodore, eyes narrowed, beard bristling, watched it with bated breath. Lower and

lower, and then suddenly it touched the surface briefly, left a widening petal of

foam, flew on, and then settled on the surface and surged across the bay, leaving a

spreading fan of white foam behind it. As it came slowly to rest, Theodore would

rasp the side of his beard with his thumb, and ease himself back into the attic."Um . . . yes," he would say, dusting his hands, "it is certainly a . . . very . . .

er . . . enjoyable sight."

The show was over. He would have to wait another week for the next plane. We

would shut the attic windows and troop noisily downstairs to resume our

interrupted tea. The next week exactly the same thing would happen all over again.

It was on Thursdays that Theodore and I went out together, sometimes

confining ourselves to the garden, sometimes venturing further afield. Loaded

down with collecting boxes and nets, we wended our way through the olives,

Roger galloping ahead of us, nose to the ground. Everything that we came across

was grist to our mill: flowers, insects, rocks, or birds. Theodore had an apparently

inexhaustible fund of knowledge about everything, but he imparted this knowledge

with a sort of meticulous diffidence that made you feel he was not so much

teaching you something new as reminding you of something which you were

already aware of, but which had, for some reason or other, slipped your mind. His

conversation was sprinkled with hilarious anecdotes, incredibly bad puns, and even

worse jokes, which he would tell with great relish, his eyes twinkling, his nose

wrinkled as he laughed silently in his beard, as much at himself as at his own

humor.

Every water-filled ditch or pool was, to us, a teeming and unexplored jungle,

with the minute cyclops and water-fleas, green and coral pink, suspended like birds

among the underwater branches, while on the muddy bottom the tigers of the pool

would prowl: the leeches and the dragon-fly larvae. Every hollow tree had to be

closely scrutinized in case it should contain a tiny pool of water in which

mosquito-larvae were living, every mossy-wigged rock had to be overturned to find

out what lay beneath it, and every rotten log had to be dissected. Standing straight

and immaculate at the edge of a pool, Theodore would carefully sweep his little net

through the water, lift it out, and peer keenly into the tiny glass bottle that dangled

at the end, into which all the minute water life had been sifted.

"Ah-ha!" he might say, his voice ringing with excitement, his beard bristling, "I

believe it's ceriodaphnia laticaudata."

He would whip a magnifying glass from his waistcoat pocket and peer more

closely.

"Ah, um . . . yes . . . very curious . . . it is laticaudata. Could you just . . . er . . .

hand me a clean test tube . . . um . . . thank you. . . ."

He would suck the minute creature out of the bottle with a fountain-pen filler,

enshrine it carefully in the tube, and then examine the rest of the catch.

"There doesn't seem to be anything else that's particularly exciting. . . . Ah, yes,

I didn't notice . . . there is rather a curious caddis larva . . . there, d'you see it? . . .

um . . . it appears to have made its case of the shells of certain molluscs. . . . It's

certainly very pretty."

At the bottom of the little bottle was an elongated case, half an inch long,

constructed out of what appeared to be silk, and thick with tiny flat snail-shells

like buttons. From one end of this delightful home the owner peered, an unattractive maggot-like beast with a head like an ant's. Slowly it crawled across

the glass, dragging its beautiful house with it.

"I tried an interesting experiment once," Theodore said. "I caught a number of

these . . . er . . . larvae, and removed their shells. Naturally it doesn't hurt them.

Then I put them in some jars which contained perfectly clear water and nothing in

the way of . . . er . . . materials with which to build new cases. Then I gave each set

of larvae different-colored materials to build with: some I gave very tiny blue and

green beads, and some I gave chips of brick, white sand, even some . . . er . . .

fragments of colored glass. They all built new cases out of these different things,

and I must say the result was very curious and . . . er . . . colorful. They are

certainly very clever architects."

He emptied the contents of the bottle back into the pool, put his net over his

shoulder, and we walked on our way.

"Talking of building," Theodore continued, his eyes sparkling, "did I tell you

what happened to . . . a . . . er . . . a friend of mine? Um, yes. Well, he had a small

house in the country, and, as his family . . . um . . . increased, he decided that it

was not big enough. He decided to add another floor to the house. He was, I think,

a little over-confident of his own architectural . . . um . . . prowess, and he insisted

on designing the new floor himself. Um, ha, yes. Well, everything went well and in

next to no time the new floor was ready, complete with bedrooms, bathrooms, and

so forth. My friend had a party to celebrate the completion of the work, we all

drank toasts to the . . . um . . . new piece of building, and with great ceremony the

scaffolding was taken down . . . um . . . removed. No one noticed anything . . . um

. . . anything amiss, until a late arrival at the celebration wanted to look round the

new rooms. It was then discovered that there was no staircase. It appears that my

friend had forgotten to put a staircase in his plans, you know, and during the

actual . . . er . . . the actual building operations he and the workmen had got so

used to climbing to the top floor by means of the scaffolding that no one

apparently noticed the . . . er . . . the defect."

So we would walk on through the hot afternoon, pausing by the pools and

ditches and stream, wading through the heavily scented myrtle bushes, over the

hillsides crisp with heather, along white, dusty roads where we were occasionally

passed by a drooping, plodding donkey carrying a sleepy peasant on its back.

Towards evening, our jars, bottles, and tubes full of strange and exciting forms

of life, we would turn for home. The sky would be fading to a pale gold as we

marched through the olive groves, already dim with shadow, and the air would be

cooler and more richly scented. Roger would trot ahead of us, his tongue flapping

out, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure we were following him.

Theodore and I, hot and dusty and tired, our bulging collecting bags making our

shoulders ache pleasantly, would stride along singing a song that Theodore had

taught me. It had a rousing tune that gave a new life to tired feet, and Theodore's

baritone voice and my shrill treble would ring out gaily through the gloomy trees: "There was an old man who lived in Jerusalem,

Glory Halleluiah, Hi-ero-jerum.

He wore a top hat and he looked very sprucelum,

Glory Halleluiah, Hi-ero-jerum.

Skinermer rinki doodle dum, skinermer rinki doodle dum,

Glory Halleluiah, Hi-ero-jerum .ON ENTERING his own door, after watching his wife out of sight, the Mayor walked

on through the tunnel-shaped passage into the garden, and thence by the back door

towards the stores and granaries. A light shone from the office-window, and there

being no blind to screen the interior, Henchard could see Donald Farfrae still seated

where he had left him, initiating himself into the managerial work of the house by

overhauling the books. Henchard entered, merely observing, "Don't let me interrupt

you, if ye will stay so late." He stood behind Farfrae's chair, watching his dexterity in

clearing up the numerical fogs which had been allowed to grow so thick in Henchard's

books as almost to baffle even the Scotchman's perspicacity. The corn-factor's mien was

half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who

could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally

and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern

sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a tantalizing art.

"You shall do no more tonight," he said at length, spreading his great hand over the

paper. "There's time enough tomorrow. Come indoors with me and have some supper.

Now you shall! I am determined on't." He shut the account-books with friendly force.

Donald had wished to get to his lodgings; but he already saw that his friend and

employer was a man who knew no moderation in his requests and impulses, and he

yielded gracefully. He liked Henchard's warmth, even if it inconvenienced him; the

great difference in their characters adding to the liking.

They locked up the office, and the young man followed his companion through the

private little door which, admitting directly into Henchard's garden, permitted a

passage from the utilitarian to the beautiful at one step. The garden was silent, dewy,

and full of perfume. It extended a long way back from the house, first as lawn and

flower-beds, then as fruit-garden, where the long-tied espaliers, as old as the old house

itself, had grown so stout, and cramped, and gnarled that they had pulled their stakes

out of the ground and stood distorted and writhing in vegetable agony, like leafy

Laocoons. The flowers which smelt so sweetly were not discernible; and they passed

through them into the house.

The hospitalities of the morning were repeated; and when they were over Henchard

said, "Pull your chair round to the fireplace, my dear fellow, and let's make a blaze-

there's nothing I hate like a black grate, even in September." He applied a light to the

laid-in-fuel, and a cheerful radiance spread around.

"It is odd," said Henchard, "that two men should meet as we have done on a purely

business ground, and that at the end of the first day I should wish to speak to 'ee on a

family matter. But, damn it all, I am a lonely man, Farfrae: I have nobody else to speak

to; and why shouldn't I tell it to 'ee?"

"I'll be glad to hear it, if I can be of any service," said Donald, allowing his eyes to

travel over the intricate wood-carvings of the chimney-piece, representing garlanded

lyres, shields, and quivers, on either side of a draped ox-skull, and flanked by heads of

Apollo and Diana in low relief."I've not been always what I am now," continued Henchard, his firm deep voice being

ever so little shaken. He was plainly under that strange influence which sometimes

prompts men to confide to the new-found friend what they will not tell to the old. "I

began life as a working hay-trusser, and when I was eighteen I married on the strength

o' my calling. Would you think me a married man?" "I heard in the town that you were

a widower." "Ah, yes- you would naturally have heard that. Well, I lost my wife

eighteen years ago- by my own fault.... This is how it came about. One summer evening

I was travelling for employment, and she was walking at my side, carrying the baby,

our only child. We came to a booth in a country fair. I was a drinking man at that time."

Henchard paused a moment, threw himself back so that his elbow rested on the table,

his forehead being shaded by his hand, which, however, did not hide the marks of

introspective inflexibility on his features as he narrated in fullest detail the incidents of

the transaction with the sailor. The tinge of indifference which had at first been visible

in the Scotchman now disappeared.

Henchard went on to describe his attempts to find his wife; the oath he swore; the

solitary life he led during the years which followed. "I have kept my oath for eighteen

years," he went on; "I have risen to what you see me now." "Ay!" "Well- no wife could

I hear of in all that time; and being by nature something of a woman-hater, I have

found it no hardship to keep at a distance from the sex.

No wife could I hear of, I say, till this very day. And now- she has come back." "Come

back, has she!" "This morning- this very morning. And what's to be done?" "Can ye no'

take her and live with her, and make some amends?" "That's what I've planned and

proposed. But, Farfrae," said Henchard gloomingly, "by doing right with Susan I

wrong another innocent woman." "Ye don't say that?" "In the nature of things, Farfrae,

it is almost impossible that a man of my sort should have the good fortune to tide

through twenty years o' life without making more blunders than one. It has been my

custom for many years to run across to Jersey in the way of business, particularly in the

potato and root season. I do a large trade wi' them in that line. Well, one autumn when

stopping there I fell quite ill, and in my illness I sank into one of those gloomy fits I

sometimes suffer from, on account o' the loneliness of my domestic life, when the

world seems to have the blackness of hell, and, like Job, I could curse the day that gave

me birth." coulter of destiny despite fair promise, which is common among the thoughtful who

have suffered early from poverty and oppression.

"I won't be too gay on any account," she would say to herself. "It would be tempting

Providence to hurl mother and me down, and afflict us again as He used to do." We

now see her in a black silk bonnet, velvet mantle or silk spencer, dark dress, and

carrying a sunshade. In this latter article she drew the line at fringe, and had it plain

edged, with a little ivory ring for keeping it closed. It was odd about the necessity for

that sunshade. She discovered that with the clarification of her complexion and the

birth of pink cheeks her skin had grown more sensitive to the sun's rays. She protected

those cheeks forthwith, deeming spotlessness part of womanliness.

Henchard had become very fond of her, and she went out with him more frequently

than with her mother now. Her appearance one day was so attractive that he looked at

her critically.

"I happened to have the ribbon by me, so I made it up," she faltered, thinking him

perhaps dissatisfied with some rather bright trimming she had donned for the first

time.

"Ay- of course- to be sure," he replied in his leonine way. "Do as you like- or rather as

your mother advises ye. 'Od send- I've nothing to say to't!"

Indoors she appeared with her hair divided by a parting that arched like a white

rainbow from ear to ear. All in front of this line was covered with a thick encampment

of curls; all behind was dressed smoothly, and drawn to a knob.

The three members of the family were sitting at breakfast one day, and Henchard was

looking silently, as he often did, at this head of hair, which in colour was brown- rather

light than dark. "I thought Elizabeth-Jane's hair- didn't you tell me that Elizabeth-

Jane's hair promised to be black when she was a baby?" he said, to his wife.

She looked startled, jerked his foot warningly, and murmured, "Did I?" As soon as

Elizabeth was gone to her own room Henchard resumed. "Begad, I nearly forgot

myself just now! What I meant was that the girl's hair certainly looked as if it would be

darker, when she was a baby." "It did; but they alter so," replied Susan.

"Their hair gets darker, I know- but I wasn't aware it lightened ever?" "Oh, yes." And

the same uneasy. expression came out on her face, to which the future held the key. It

passed as Henchard went on: "Well, so much the better. Now, Susan, I want to have

her called Miss Henchard- not Miss Newson. Lot's o' people do it already in

carelessness- it is her legal name- so it, may as well be made her usual name- I don't

like t'other name at all for my own flesh and blood. I'll advertise it in the Casterbridge

paper- that's the way they do it. She won't object."

"No. Oh no. But-" "Well, then, I shall do it," said he, peremptorily. "Surely, if she's

willing, you must wish it as much as I?" "Oh, yes- if she agrees let us do it by all

means," she replied.

Then Mrs. Henchard acted somewhat inconsistently; it might have been called falsely,

but that her manner was emotional and full of the earnestness of one who wishes to do

right at great hazard. She went to Elizabeth-Jane, whom she found sewing in her own

sitting-room upstairs, and told her what had been proposed about her surname. "Canyou agree- is it not a slight upon Newson- now he's dead and gone?" Elizabeth

reflected. "I'll think of it, mother," she answered.

When, later in the day, she saw Henchard, she adverted to the matter at once, in a way

which showed that the line of feeling started by her mother had been persevered in

"Do you wish this change so very much, sir?" she asked.

"Wish it? Why, my blessed fathers, what an ado you women make about a trifle! I

proposed it- that's all. Now, 'Lizabeth-Jane, just please yourself. Curse me if I care what

you do. Now, understand, don't 'ee go agreeing to it to please me." Here the subject

dropped, and nothing more was said, and nothing was done, and Elizabeth still passed

as Miss Newson, and not by her legal name.

Meanwhile the great corn and hay traffic conducted by Henchard throve under the

management of Donald Farfrae as it had never thriven before. It had formely moved in

jolts; now it went on oiled castors. The old crude viva voce system of Henchard, in

which everything depended upon his memory, and bargains were made by the tongue

alone, was swept away. Letters and ledgers took the place of "I'll do it," and "you shall

hae't;" and, as in all such cases of advance, the rugged picturesqueness of the old

method disappeared with its inconveniences.

The position of Elizabeth-Jane's room- rather high in the house, so that it commanded a

view of the hay-stores and granaries across the garden- afforded her opportunity for

accurate observation of what went on there. She saw that Donald and Mr. Henchard

were inseparables. When walking together Henchard would lay his arm familiarly on

his manager's shoulder, as if Farfrae were a younger brother, bearing so heavily that

his slight figure bent under the weight. Occasionally she would hear a perfect

cannonade of laughter from Henchard, arising from something Donald had said, the

latter looking quite innocent and not laughing at all. In Henchard's somewhat lonely

life he evidently found the young man as desirable for comradeship as he was useful

for consultations. Donald's brightness of intellect maintained in the corn-factor the

admiration it had won at the first hour of their meeting. The poor opinion, and but ill-

concealed, that he entertained of the slim Farfrae's physical girth, strength, and dash,

was more than counterbalanced by the immense respect he had for his brains.

Her quiet eye discerned that Henchard's tigerish affection for the younger man, his

constant liking to have Farfrae near him, now and then resulted in a tendency to

domineer, which, however, was checked in a moment when Donald exhibited marks of

real offence. One day, looking down on their figures from on high, she heard the latter

remark, as they stood in the doorway between garden and yard, that their habit of

walking and driving about together rather neutralized Farfrae's value as a second pair

of eyes, which should be used in places where the principal was not. "'Od damn it,"

cried Henchard, "what's all the world! I like a fellow to talk to. Now come along and

hae some supper, and don't take too much thought about things, or ye'll drive me

crazy." When she walked with her mother, on the other hand, she often beheld the

Scotchman looking at them with a curious interest. The fact that he had met her at the

Three Mariners was insufficient to account for it, since on the occasions on which she

had entered his room he had never raised his eyes. Besides, it was at her mother more

particularly than at herself that he looked, to Elizabeth-Jane's half-unconscious, simpleminded, perhaps pardonable, disappointment. Thus she could not account for this

interest by her own attractiveness, and she decided that it might be apparent only- a

way of turning his eyes that Mr. Farfrae had.

She did not divine the ample explanation of his manner, without personal vanity, that

was afforded by the fact of Donald being the depositary of Henchard's confidence in

respect of his past treatment of the pale, chastened mother who walked by her side. Her

conjectures on that past never went further than faint ones based on things casually

heard and seen- mere guesses that Henchard and her mother might have, been lovers

in their younger days, who had quarrelled and parted.

Casterbridge, as has been hinted, was a place deposited in the block upon a corn-field.

There was no suburb in the modern sense, or transitional intermixture of town and

down. It stood, with regard to the wide fertile land adjoining, cleancut and distinct, like

a chess-board on a green tablecloth. The farmer's boy could sit under his barley-mow

and pitch a stone into the office-window of the townclerk; reapers at work among the

sheaves nodded to acquaintances standing on the pavement-corner; the red-robed

judge, when he condemned a sheep-stealer, pronounced sentence to the tune of Baa,

that floated in at the window from the remainder of the flock browsing hard by; and at

executions the waiting crowd stood in a meadow immediately before the drop, out of

which the cows had been temporarily driven to give the spectators room.

The corn grown on the upland side of the borough was garnered by farmers who lived

in an eastern purlieu called Durnover. Here wheat-ricks overhung the old Roman

street, and thrust their eaves against the church tower; green-thatched barns, with

doorways as high as the gates of Solomon's temple, opened directly upon the main

thoroughfare. Barns indeed were so numerous as to alternate with every half-dozen

houses along the way. Here lived burgesses who daily walked the fallow; shepherds in

an intramural squeeze. A street of farmers' homesteadsa street ruled by a mayor and

corporation, yet echoing with the thump of the flail, the flutter of the winnowing-fan,

and the purr of the milk into the pails- a street which had nothing urban in it whatever-

this was the Durnover end of Casterbridge.

Henchard, as was natural, dealt largely with this nursery or bed of small farmers close

at hand- and his waggons were often down that way. One day, when arrangements

were in progress for getting home corn from one of the aforesaid farms, Elizabeth-Jane

received a note by hand, asking her to oblige the writer by coming at once to a granary

on Durnover Hill. As this was the granary whose contents Henchard was removing,

she thought the request had something to do with his business, and proceeded thither

as soon as she had put on her bonnet. The granary was just within the farmyard, and

stood on stone staddles, high enough for persons to walk under. The gates were open,

but nobody was within. However, she entered and waited. Presently she saw a figure

approaching the gatethat of Donald Farfrae. He looked up at the church clock, and

came in. By some unaccountable shyness, some wish not to meet him there alone, she

quickly ascended the step-ladder leading to the granary door, and entered it before he

had seen her. Farfrae advanced, imagining himself in solitude; and a few drops of rain

beginning to fall, he moved and stood under the shelter where she had just been

standing. Here he leant against one of the staddles, and gave himself up to patience.He, too, was plainly expecting some one; could it be herself? if so, why? In a few

minutes he looked at his watch, and then pulled out a note, a duplicate of the one she

had herself received.

The situation began to be very awkward, and the longer she waited the more awkward

it became. To emerge from a door just above his head and descend the ladder, and

show she had been in hiding there, would look so very foolish, that she still waited on.

A winnowing machine stood close beside her, and to relieve her suspense she gently

moved the handle; whereupon a cloud of wheat husks flew out into her face, and

covered her clothes and bonnet, and stuck into the fur of her victorine. He must have

heard the slight movement, for he looked up, and then ascended the steps.

"Ah- it's Miss Newson," he said as soon as he could see into the granary. "I didn't

know you were there. I have kept the appointment, and am at your service." "O Mr.

Farfrae," she faltered; "so have I. But I didn't know it was you who wished to see me,

otherwise I-" "I wished to see you? Oh no- at least, that is, I am afraid there may be a

mistake." "Didn't you ask me to come here? Didn't you write this?" Elizabeth held out

her note.

"No. Indeed, at no hand would I have thought of it! And for you- didn't you ask me?

This is not your writing?" And held up his.

"By no means." "And is that really so! Then it's somebody wanting to see us both.

Perhaps we would do well to wait a little longer." Acting on this consideration they

lingered, Elizabeth-Jane's face being arranged to an expression of preternatural

composure, and the young Scot, at every footstep in the street without, looking from

under the granary to see if the passer were about to enter and declare himself their

summoner. They watched individual drops of rain creeping down the thatch of the

opposite rick- straw after straw- till they reached the bottom; but nobody came, and the

granary roof began to drip.

"The person is not likely to be coming," said Farfrae. "It's a trick perhaps, and if so, it's

a great pity to waste our time like this, and so much to be done." "'Tis a great liberty,"

said Elizabeth.

"It's true, Miss Newson. We'll hear news of this some day, depend on't, and who it was

that did it. I wouldn't stand for it hindering myself; but you, Miss Newson-" "I don't

mind- much," she replied.

"Neither do I." They lapsed again into silence. "You are anxious to get back to

Scotland, I suppose, Mr. Farfrae?" she inquired.

"Oh no, Miss Newson. Why would I be?" "I only supposed you might be from the song

you sang at the Three Marinersabout Scotland and home, I mean- which you seemed to

feel so deep down in your heart; so that we all felt for you." "Ay- and I did sing there- I

did- But, Miss Newson"- and Donald's voice musically undulated between two

semitones, as it always did when he became earnest"it's well you feel a song, for a few

minutes, and your eyes they get quite tearful; but you finish it, and for all you felt you

don't mind it or think of it again for a long while. Oh no, I don't want to go back! Yet

I'll sing the song to you wi' pleasure whenever you like. I could sing it now, and not

mind at all!" "Thank you, indeed. But I fear I must go- rain or no." "Ay! Then, Miss

Newson, ye had better say nothing about this hoax, and take no heed of it. And if theperson should say anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it- so

you'll take the clever person's laugh away." In speaking his eyes became fixed upon

her dress, still sown with wheat husks. "There's husks and dust on you. Perhaps you

don't know it?" he said, in tones of extreme delicacy. "And it's very bad to let rain

come upon clothes when there's chaff on them. It washes in and spoils them. Let me

help you- blowing is the best." As Elizabeth neither assented nor dissented, Donald

Farfrae began blowing her back hair, and her side hair, and her neck, and the crown of

her bonnet, and the fur of her victorine, Elizabeth saying, "Oh, thank you," at every

puff. At last she was fairly clean, though Farfrae, having got over his first concern at the

situation, seemed in no manner of hurry to be gone.

"Ah- now I'll go and get ye an umbrella," he said.

She declined the offer, stepped out and was gone. Farfrae walked slowly after, looking

thoughtfully at her diminishing figure, and whistling in undertones, "As I came down

through Cannobie."Ah, now, I never feel like it," said Farfrae.

"Then pray to God that you never may, young man. While in this state I was taken pity

on by a woman- a young lady I should call her, for she was of good family, well bred,

and well educated- the daughter of some harum-scarum military officer who had got

into difficulties, and had his pay sequestrated. He was dead now, and her mother too,

and she was as lonely as I. This young creature was staying at the boarding-house

where I happened to have my lodging; and when I was pulled down she took upon

herself to nurse me. From that she got to have a foolish liking for me. Heavens knows

why, for I wasn't worth it. But being together in the same house, and her feelings

warm, we got naturally intimate. I won't go into particulars of what our relations were.

It is enough to say that we honestly meant to marry. There arose a scandal, which did

me no harm, but was of course ruin to her. Though, Farfrae, between you and me, asman and man, I solemnly declare that philandering with womankind has neither been

my vice nor my virtue. She was terribly careless of appearances, and I was perhaps

more, because o' my dreary state; and it was through this that the scandal arose. At last

I was well, and came away. When I was gone she suffered much on my account, and

didn't forget to tell me so in letters one after another; till, latterly, I felt I owed her

something, and thought that, as I had not heard of Susan for so long, I would make this

other one the only return I could make, and ask her if she would run the risk of Susan

being alive (very slight as I believed) and marry me, such as I was. She jumped for joy,

and we should no doubt soon have been married- but, behold, Susan appears!" Donald

showed his deep concern at a complication so far beyond the degree of his simple

experiences.

"Now see what injury a man may cause around him! Even after that wrongdoing at the

fair when I was young, if I had never been so selfish as to let this giddy girl devote

herself to me over at Jersey, to the injury of her name, all might be well. Yet, as it

stands, I must bitterly disappoint one of these women; and it is the second. My first

duty is to Susan- there's no doubt about that." "They are both in a very melancholy

position, and that's true!" murmured Donald.

"They are! For myself I don't care- 'twill all end one way. But these two." Henchard

paused in reverie. "I feel I should like to treat the second, no less than the first, as

kindly as a man can in such a case." Ah, well, it cannet be helped!" said the other, with

philosophic woefulness.

"You mun write to the young lady, and in your letter you must put it plain and honest

that it turns out she cannet be your wife, the first having come back; that you cannet see

her more; and that- ye wish her weel." "That won't do. 'Od seize it, I must do a little

more than that! I must- though she did always brag about her rich uncle or rich aunt,

and her expectations from 'em- I must send a useful sum of money to her, I suppose-

just as a little recompense, poor girl.... Now, will you help me in this, and draw up an

explanation to her of all I've told ye, breaking it as gently as you can? I'm so bad at

letters." "And I will." "Now, I haven't told you quite all yet. My wife Susan has my

daughter with her- the baby that was in her arms at the fair; and this girl knows

nothing of me beyond that I am some sort of relation by marriage. She has grown up in

the belief that the sailor to whom I made over her mother, and who is now dead, was

her father, and her mother's husband. What her mother has always felt, she and I

together feel now- that we can't proclaim our disgrace to the girl by letting her know

the truth. Now what would you do?- I want your advice." "I think I'd run the risk, and

tell her the truth. She'll forgive ye both." "Never!" said Henchard. "I am not going to

let her know the truth. Her mother and I be going to marry again; and it will not only

help us to keep our child's respect, but it will be more proper. Susan looks upon herself

as the sailor's widow, and won't think o' living with me as formerly without another

religious ceremony- and she's right." Farfrae thereupon said no more. The letter to the

young Jersey woman was carefully framed by him, and the interview ended, Henchard

saying, as the Scotchman left, "I feel it a great relief, Farfrae, to tell some friend o' this!

You see now that the Mayor of Casterbridge is not so thriving in his mind as it seems

he might be from the state of his pocket.""I do. And I am sorry for ye!" said Farfrae.

When he was gone, Henchard copied the letter, and, enclosing a cheque, took it to the

post-office, from which he walked back thoughtfully.

"Can it be that it will go off so easily!" he said. "Poor thing- God knows! Now then, to

make amends to Susan!" THE COTTAGE which Michael Henchard hired for his wife Susan, under the name of

Newson- in pursuance of their plan- was in the upper or western part of the town, near

the wall, and the avenue which overshadowed it. The evening sun seemed to shine

more yellowly there than anywhere else this autumn- stretching its rays, as the hours

grew later, under the lowest sycamore boughs, and steeping the ground-floor of the

dwelling, with its green shutters, in a substratum of radiance which the foliage

screened from the upper parts. Beneath these sycamores on the town walls could be

seen from the sitting-room the tumuli and earth forts of the distant uplands; making it

altogether a pleasant spot, with the usual touch of melancholy that a past-marked

prospect lends.

As soon as the mother and daughter were comfortably installed, with a whiteaproned

servant and all complete, Henchard paid them a visit, and remained to tea. During the

entertainment Elizabeth was carefully hoodwinked by the very general tone of the

conversation that prevailed- a proceeding which seemed to afford some humour to

Henchard, though his wife was not particularly happy in it.

The visit was repeated again and again with business-like determination by the Mayor,

who seemed to have schooled himself into a course of strict mechanical rightness

towards this woman of prior claim, at any expense to the later one and to his own

sentiments.

One afternoon the daughter was not indoors when Henchard came, and he said drily,

"This is a very good opportunity for me to ask you to name the happy day, Susan." The

poor woman smiled faintly; she did not enjoy pleasantries on a situation into which she

had entered solely for the sake of her girl's reputation. She liked them so little, indeed,

that there was room for wonder why she had countenanced deception at all, and had

not bravely let the girl know her history. But the flesh is weak; and the true explanation

came in due course.

"O Michael!" she said, "I am afraid all this is taking up your time and giving trouble-

when I did not expect any such thing!" And she looked at him and at his dress as a man

of affluence, and at the furniture he had provided for the room- ornate and lavish to

her eyes.

"Not at all," said Henchard, in rough benignity. "This is only a cottage- it costs me next

to nothing. And as to taking up my time"- here his red and black visage kindled with

satisfaction- "I've a splendid fellow to superintend my business now- a man whose like

I've never been able to lay hands on before. I shall soon be able to leave everything to

him, and have more time to call my own than I've had for these last twenty years."

Henchard's visits here grew so frequent and so regular that it soon became whispered,

and then openly discussed, in Casterbridge, that the masterful, coercive Mayor of the

town was captured and enervated by the genteel widow, Mrs. Newson. His well-

known haughty indifference to the society of womankind, his silent avoidance of

converse with the sex, contributed a piquancy to what would otherwise have been an

unromantic matter enough. That such a poor fragile woman should be his choice wasinexplicable, except on the ground that the engagement was a family affair in which

sentimental passion had no place; for it was known that they were related in some way.

Mrs. Henchard was so pale that the boys called her "The Ghost." Sometimes Henchard

overheard this epithet when they passed together along the Walks- as the avenues on

the walls were named- at which his face would darken with an expression of

destructiveness towards the speakers ominous to see; but he said nothing.

He pressed on the preparations for his union, or rather reunion, with this pale creature

in a dogged, unflinching spirit which did credit to his conscientiousness.

Nobody would have conceived from his outward demeanour that there was no

amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as stimulant to the bustle going on in his gaunt,

great house; nothing but three large resolves- one, to make amends to his neglected

Susan; another, to provide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under his paternal

eye; and a third, to castigate himself with the thorns which these restitutory acts

brought in their train; among them the lowering of his dignity in public opinion by

marrying so comparatively humble a woman.

Susan Henchard entered a carriage for the first time in her life when she stepped into

the plain brougham which drew up at the door on the wedding-day to take her and

Elizabeth-Jane to church. It was a windless morning of warm November rain, which

floated down like meal, and lay in a powdery form on the nap of hats and coats. Few

people had gathered round the church door, though they were well packed within. The

Scotchman, who assisted as groomsman, was of course the only one present, beyond

the chief actors, who knew the true situation of the contracting parties. He, however,

was too inexperienced, too thoughtful, too judicial, too strongly conscious of the serious

side of the business, to enter into the scene in its dramatic aspect. That required the

special genius of Christopher Coney, Solomon Longways, Buzzford, and their fellows.

But they knew nothing of the secret; though, as the time for coming out of church drew

on, they gathered on the pavement adjoining, and expounded the subject according to

their lights.

"'Tis five-and-forty years since I had my settlement in this here town," said Coney;

"but daze me if ever I see a man wait so long before to take so little! There's a chance

even for thee after this, Nance Mockridge." The remark was addressed to a woman

who stood behind his shoulder the same who had exhibited Henchard's bad bread in

public when Elizabeth and her mother entered Casterbridge.

"Be cust if I'd marry any such as he, or thee either," replied that lady. "As for thee,

Christopher, we know what ye be, and the less said the better. And as for hewell, there-

(lowering her voice) 'tis said 'a was a poor parish 'prentice- I wouldn't say it for all the

world- but 'a was a poor parish 'prentice, that began life wi' no more belonging to 'en

than a carrion crow."

"And now he's worth ever so much a minute," murmured Longways. "When a man is

said to be worth so and so a minute, he's a man to be considered!" Turning, he saw a

circular disc reticulated with creases, and recognized the smiling countenance of the fat

woman who had asked for another song at the Three Mariners. "Well, Mother

Cuxsom," he said, "how's this? Here's Mrs. Newson, a mere skellinton, has got another

husband to keep her, while a woman of your tonnage have not." "I have not. Noranother to beat me.... Ah, yes, Cuxsom's gone, and so shall leather breeches!" "Yes;

with the blessing of God leather breeches shall go." "'Tisn't worth my old while to

think of another husband," continued Mrs. Cuxsom. "And yet I'll lay my life I'm as

respectable born as she." "True; your mother was a very good woman- I can mind her.

She were rewarded by the Agricultural Society for having begot the greatest number of

healthy children without parish assistance, and other virtuous marvels." "'Twas that

that kept us so low upon ground- that great family." "Ay. Where the pigs be many the

wash runs thin." "And dostn't mind how mother would sing, Christopher?" continued

Mrs. Cuxsom, kindling at the retrospection; "and how we went with her to the party at

Mellstock, do ye mind?- at old Dame Ledlow's, farmer Shinar's sister, do ye mind ?-

she we used to call Toadskin, because her face were so yaller and freckled, do ye

mind?" "I do, hee-hee, I do!" said Christopher Coney.

"And well do I- for I was getting up husband-high at that time- one-half girl, and

t'other half woman, as one may say. And canst mind"- she prodded Solomon's

shoulder with her finger-tip, while her eyes twinkled between the crevices of their lids-

"canst mind the sherry-wine, and the zilver-snuffers, and how Joan Dummett was took

bad when we were coming home, and Jack Griggs was forced to carry her through the

mud; and how 'a let her fall in Dairyman Sweetapple's cow-barton, and we had to

clane her gown wi' grass- never such a mess as 'a were in?" "Ay- that I do- hee-hee,

such doggery as there was in them ancient days, to be sure! Ah, the miles I used to

walk then! and, now I can hardly step over a furrow!" Their reminiscences were cut

short by the appearance of the reunited pairHenchard looking round upon the idlers

with that ambiguous gaze of his, which at one moment seemed to mean satisfaction,

and at another fiery disdain.

"Well- there's a difference between 'em, though he do call himself a teetotaller," said

Nance Mockridge. "She'll wish her cake dough afore she's done of him.

There's a bluebeardy look about 'en; and 'twill out in time." "Stuff- he's well enough!

Some folk want their luck buttered. If I had a choice as wide as the ocean sea I wouldn't

wish for a better man. A poor twanking woman like her- 'tis a godsend for her, and

hardly a pair of jumps or night-rail to her name." The plain little brougham drove off in

the mist, and the idlers dispersed.

"Well, we hardly know how to look at things in these times!" said Solomon.

"There was a man dropped down dead yesterday, not so very many miles from here;

and what wi' that, and this moist weather, 'tis scarce worth one's while to begin any

work o' consequence today. I'm in such a low key with drinking nothing but small

table ninepenny this last week or two that I shall call and warm up at the Mar'ners as I

pass along." "I don't know but that I may as well go with 'ee, Solomon," said

Christopher; "I'm as clammy as a cockle-snail." person should say anything to you, be civil to him or her, as if you did not mind it- so