 32 Two bridges stood near the lower part of Caster Bridge Town. The first, a weather-stained brick, was immediately at the end of High Street, where a diverging branch from that thoroughfare ran round to the low-lying Dernever lanes, so that the precincts of the bridge formed the merging point of respectability and indigence. The second bridge, of stone, was further out on the highway, in fact fairly in the meadows, though still within the town boundary. These bridges had speaking countenances. Every projection in each was worn down to obtuseness, partly by weather, more by friction from generations of loungers whose toes and heels had, from year to year, made restless movements against these parapets, as they had stood there meditating on the aspect of affairs. In the case of the more friable bricks and stones, even the flat faces were worn into hollows by the same mixed mechanism. The masonry of the top was clamped with iron at each joint, since it had been no uncommon thing for desperate men to wrench the coping off and throw it down the river in reckless defiance of the magistrates. For to this pair of bridges gravitated all the failures of the town. Those who had failed in business, in love, in sobriety, in crime—why the unhappy hereabouts usually chose the bridges for their meditations in preference to a railing, a gate, or a style—was not so clear. There was a marked difference of quality between the personages who haunted the near-bridge of brick and the personages who haunted the far one of stone. Those of lowest character preferred the former, adjoining the town. They did not mind the glare of the public eye. They had been of comparatively no account during their successes, and though they might feel dispirited, they had no particular sense of shame in their ruin. Their hands were mostly kept in their pockets. They wore a leather strap round their hips or knees and boots that required a great deal of lacing, but seemed never to get any. Instead of sighing at their adversities they spat, and instead of saying the iron had entered into their souls, they said they were down on their luck. Job, in his time of distress, had often stood here. So had Mother Cuxham, Christopher Coney, and poor Abel Whittle. The miserables who would pause on the remote bridge were of a politer stamp. They included bankrupts, hypochondriacs, persons who were what is called out of a situation, from fault or lucklessness. The inefficient of the professional class, shabby gentile men, who did not know how to get rid of the weary time between breakfast and dinner, and the yet more weary time between dinner and dark. The eye of this species were mostly directed over the parapet upon the running water below. A man seen there, looking thus fixedly into the river, was pretty sure to be one whom the world did not treat kindly for some reason or other. While one in straights on the townward bridge did not mind who saw him so, and kept his back to the parapet to survey the passengers by, one in straights on this never faced the road, never turned his head at coming footsteps, but sensitive to his own condition watched the current whenever a stranger approached, as if some strange fish interested him, though every fin the thing had been poached out of the river years before. There and thus they would muse, if their grief was a grief of oppression, they would wish themselves kings, if their grief were poverty, wish themselves millionaires, if sin they would wish they were saints or angels, if despised love that they were some much courted adonis of county fame. Some had been known to stand and think so long with this fixed gaze downward that eventually they had allowed their poor carcasses to follow that gaze, and they were discovered the next morning out of reach of their troubles, either here or in the deep pool called Blackwater, a little higher up the river. To this bridge came Henschard, as other unfortunates had come before him, his way fissure being by the riverside path on the chilly edge of the town. Here he was standing one windy afternoon when Dernover Church clocks struck five. While the gusts were bringing the notes to his ears across the damp intervening flat, a man passed behind him and greeted Henschard by name. Henschard turned slightly and saw that the comer was Job, his old foreman, now employed elsewhere, to whom, though he hated him, he had gone for lodgings because Job was the one man in Casterbridge whose observation and opinion the fallen corn merchant despised to the point of indifference. Henschard returned him a scarcely perceptible nod, and Job stopped. He and she are gone into their new house today, said Job. Oh, said Henschard absently, which house is that? Your old one? Gone into my house? And starting up, Henschard added, my house of all others in the town? Well, if somebody was sure to live there and you couldn't, it can do he no harm that he's the man? It was quite true. He felt that it was doing him no harm. Farfray, who had already taken the yards and stores, had acquired possession of the house for the obvious convenience of its contiguity, and yet this act was taking up residence within those roomy chambers while he, their former tenant, lived in a cottage, galled Henschard indescribably. Job continued, and you heard of that fellow who bought all the best furniture at your sale? He was bidding for no other than Farfray all the while. It has never been moved out of the house as he'd already got the lease. My furniture, too? Surely he'll buy my body and soul likewise. There's no saying he won't if you'd be willing to sell. And having planted these wounds in the heart of his once imperious master, Job went on his way, while Henschard stared and stared into the racing river till the bridge seemed moving backward with him. The low land grew blacker and the sky a deeper gray. When the landscape looked like a picture blotted in with ink, another traveler approached the great stone bridge. He was driving a gig, his direction being also townwards. On the round of the middle of the arts the gig stopped. Mr. Henschard came from it in the voice of Farfray. Henschard turned his face. Finding that he had guessed rightly, Farfray told a man who accompanied him to drive home while he alighted and went up to his former friend. I have heard that you think of emigrating, Mr. Henschard, he said. Is it true? I have a real reason for asking. Henschard withheld his answer for several instants and then said, Yes, it is true. I am going where you were going to a few years ago when I prevented you and got you to buy it here. To turn and turn about, isn't it? Do you mind how we stood like this in the chalk walk when I persuaded you to stay? You then stood without a chattel to your name, and I was the master of the house in Corn Street. But now I stand without a stick or a rag and the master of that house is you. Yes, yes, that's so. It's the way of the world, said Farfray. Ha, ha, true! cried Henschard, throwing himself into a mood of jocularity. Up and down. I'm used to it. What's the odds, after all? Now listen to me. There's no taking up your time, said Farfray, just as I listen to you. Don't go. Stay at home. But I can do nothing else, man, said Henschard scornfully. The little money I have will just keep body and soul together for a few weeks and no more. I have not felt inclined to go back to journey work yet, but I can't stay doing nothing in my best chances elsewhere. No, but what I propose is this, if you will listen. Come and live in your old house. We can spare some rooms very well. I am sure my wife would not mind it at all, until there's an opening for you. Henschard started. Probably the picture drawn by the unsuspecting Donald of himself under the same roof with Lucetta was too striking to be received with equanimity. No, no, he said, gruffly we should quarrel. You should hay apart to yourself, said Farfray, and nobody to interfere with you. It will be a deal healthier than down there by the river where you live now. Still Henschard refused. You don't know what you ask, he said. However, I can do no less than thank you. They walked into the town together side by side as they had done when Henschard persuaded the young Scotchman to remain. Well, you come in and have some supper, said Farfray, when they reached the middle of the town where their paths diverged right and left. No, no. By the by I had nearly forgot I bought a good deal of your furniture, so I have heard. Well, it was no that I wanted it so very much for myself, but I wish you to pick out all that you care to have such things as may be endeared to you by associations, or particularly suited to your use, and take them to your own house. It will not be depriving me. We can do with less very well, and I will have plenty of opportunities of getting more. What? Give it to me for nothing, said Henschard, but you paid the creditors for it. Ah, yes. But maybe it's worth more to you than it is to me. Henschard was a little moved. I sometimes think I've wronged thee, he said, in tones which showed the disquietude that the night shades hid in his face. He shook Farfay abruptly by the hand and hastened away as if unwilling to betray himself further. Farfay saw him turn through the thoroughfare into bullsteak and vanished down towards the priory mill. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Jane in an upper room no larger than the prophet's chamber, and with a silk attire of her palmy days packed away in a box, was netting with great industry between the hours which she devoted to studying such books as she could get hold of. Her lodgings being nearly opposite her stepfather's former residence, now Farfay's, she could see Donald and Lucetta speeding in and out of their door with all the bounding enthusiasm of their situation. She avoided looking that way as much as possible, but it was hardly in human nature to keep the eyes averted when the door slammed. While living on thus quietly, she heard the news that Henschard had caught cold and was confined to his room, possibly a result of standing about the meads in damp weather. She went off to his house at once. This time she was determined not to be denied of the mittens, and made her way upstairs. He was sitting up in the bed with a great coat round him, and at first resented her intrusion. Go away, go away, he said. I don't like to see you. But father, I don't like to see you, he repeated. However, the ice was broken and she remained. She made the room more comfortable, gave directions to the people below, and by the time she went away had reconciled her stepfather to her visiting him. The effect, either of her ministrations or of her mere presence, was a rapid recovery. He soon was well enough to go out, and now things seem to wear a new color in his eyes. He no longer thought of emigration and thought more of Elizabeth. But having nothing to do made him more dreary than any other circumstance, and one day with better views of Farfray than he had held for some time, and a sense that honest work was not a thing to be ashamed of, he stoically went down to Farfray's yard and asked to be taken on as a journeyman hay trusser. He was engaged at once. This hiring of henchard was done through a foreman, Farfray feeling that it was undesirable to come personally in contact with the ex-corn factor more than was absolutely necessary. While anxious to help him, he was well aware by this time of his uncertain temper, and thought reserved relations best. For the same reason his orders to henchard to proceed to this and that country farm, trusting in the usual way, were always given through a third person. For a time these arrangements worked well, it being the custom to truss in the respective stackyards before bringing it away, the hay bought at the different farms about the neighborhood, so that henchard was often absent at such places the whole week long. When this was all done and henchard had become in a measure broken in, he came to work daily on the home premises like the rest, and thus the once flourishing merchant and mayor, and what not, stood as a day laborer in the barns and granaries he formerly had owned. I have worked as a journeyman before now, hadn't I? He would say in his defiant way, and why shouldn't I do it again? But he looked a far different journeyman from the one he had been in his earlier days. Then he had worn clean, suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue, leggings yellow as marigolds, corduroy's immaculate as new flax, and a neckerchief like a flower garden. Now he wore the remains of an old blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once black satin stock, soiled and shabby. Glad thus he went to and fro, still comparatively an active man, for he was not much over forty, and saw, with the other men in the yard, Don Farfray going in and out of the green door that led to the garden and the big house and Lucetta. At the beginning of the winter it was rumored about Casterbridge that Mr. Farfray, already in the town council, was to be proposed for mayor in a year or two. Yes, she was wise. She was wise in her generation, said Henchard to himself when he heard of this one day and his way to Farfray's hay barn. He thought it over as he wimbled his bonds, and the piece of news acted as a revivicent breath to that old view of his, of Don Farfray as his triumphant rival who rode roughshod over him. A fellow of his age going to be mayor indeed, he murmured with a corner-drawn smile on his mouth, but to his her money that floats an upward, ha-ha, how cussed odd it is, here be I his former master working for him as man, and he the man standing as master, with my house and my furniture, and my, what you may call, wife, all his own. He repeated these things a hundred times a day. During the whole period of his acquaintance with Lucetta he had never wished to claim her as his own so desperately as he now regretted her loss. It was no mercenary hankering after her fortune that moved him, though that fortune had been the means of making her so much to more desired by giving her the air of independence and sauciness which attracts men of his composition, and had given her servants house and fine clothing, a setting that invested Lucetta with a startling novelty in the eyes of him who had known her in her narrow days. He accordingly lapsed into moodiness, and at every allusion to the possibility of Farfray's near election to the municipal chair, his former hatred of the Scotchman returned. Concurrently with this he underwent a moral change. It resulted in his significantly saying every now and then, in tones of recklessness, only a fortnight more, only a dozen days, and so forth, lessening his figures day by day. Why do you say only a dozen days? asked Solomon long ways as he worked beside Henschard in the granary waiting oats. Because in twelve days I shall be released from my oath. What oath? The oath to drink no spirit as liquid. In twelve days it will be twenty-one years since I swore it, and then I mean to enjoy myself, please God. Elizabeth Jane sat at her window one Sunday, and while there she heard in the street below a conversation which introduced Henschard's name. She was wondering what was the matter when a third person who was passing by asked a question in her mind. Michael Henschard had busted out drinking after taking nothing for twenty-one years. Elizabeth Jane jumped up, put on her things, and went out. At this date there prevailed in Casterbridge a convivial custom scarcely recognized as such, yet nonetheless established. On the afternoon of every Sunday a large contingent of the Casterbridge journeyman, steady churchgoers and sedate characters, having attended service, filed from the church doors across the way to the three mariners in. The rear was usually brought up by the choir with their base vials fiddles and flutes under their arms. The great point, the point of honor on these sacred occasions, was for each man to strictly limit himself to half a pint of liquor. This scrupulosity was so well understood by the landlord that the whole company was served in cups of that measure. They were all exactly alike, straight sided with two leafless lime trees, done in eel-brown on the sides, one towards the drinker's lips, the other confronting his comrade. To wonder how many of these cups the landlord possessed altogether was a favorite exercise of children in the marvelous. Forty at least might have been seen at these times in the large room, forming a ring round the margin of the great sixteen-legged oak table, like the monolithic circle of Stonehenge in its pristine days. Outside and above the forty cups came a circle of forty smoke jets from forty clay pipes. Outside the pipes the countenances of the forty churchgoers supported at the back by a circle of forty chairs. The conversation was not the conversation of weak days, but a thing altogether finer in point and higher in tone. They invariably discussed the sermon, dissecting it, weighing it, as above or below the average, the general tendency being to regard it as a scientific feat or performance which had no relation to their own lives, except as between critics and the thing criticized. The base vile player and the clerk usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account of their official connection with the preacher. Now the three mariners was the inn chosen by Henschard as the place for closing his long term of grandless years. He had so timed his entry as to be well established in the large room by the time the forty churchgoers entered to their customary cups. The flush upon his face proclaimed at once that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed and the era of recklessness begun anew. He was seated on a small table drawn up to the side of the massive oak board reserved for the churchmen, a few of whom nodded to him as they took their places, and said, How be ye, Mr. Henschard, quite a stranger here? Henschard did not take the trouble to reply for a few moments, and his eyes rested on his stretched out legs and boots. Yes, he said at length that's true. I've been down in spirit for weeks. Some of you know the cause. I am better now but not quite serene. I want you fellows of the choir to strike up a tune, and what was that in this brew of standages I am in hopes of getting altogether out of my minor key. With all my heart, said the first fiddle, we've let back our strings. That's true, but we can soon pull them up again. Sound a, neighbors, and give the man a stave. I don't care a curse what the words be, said Henschard. Hems, bellets, or rant-a-pull rubbish. The rogue's march or the cherubim's warble tis all the same to me if tis good harmony and well put out. Well, it may be we can do that, and not a man among us that have sat in the gallery less than twenty year, said the leader of the band. As to Sunday, neighbors, suppose we raise the fourth psalm to Samuel Wakeley's tune as improved by me? Hang, Samuel Wakeley's tune as improved by thee, said Henschard. Chuck across one of your solters. Old Wulcher is the only tune worth singing, the psalm tune that would make my blood ebb and flow like the sea when I was a steady chap. I'll find some words to fit in. He took one of the solters and began turning over the leaves. Chancing to look out of the window at that moment, he saw a flock of people passing by and perceived them to be the congregation of the upper church now just dismissed. Their sermon having been a longer one than that the lower parish was favored with. Among the rest of the leading inhabitants walked Mr. Counselor Farfray with Lucetta upon his arm, the observed and imitated of all the smaller tradesmen's womankind. Henschard's mouth changed a little, and he continued to turn over the leaves. Now, then, he said, psalm the hundred and nights to the tune of Wulcher, verses ten to fifteen, I give you the words. His seed shall orphans be, his wife a widow plunged in grief, his vagrant children beg their bread, where none can give relief. His ill-got riches shall be made to users of prey. The fruit of all his toil shall be by strangers born away. None shall be found that to his wants their mercy will extend, or to his helpless orphaned seed the least assistants lend. A swift destruction soon shall seize on his unhappy race, and the next age his hated name shall utterly deface. I know the psalm, I know the psalm, said the leader hastily, but would his leaf not sing it? It wasn't made for singing. We chose it once when the Gypsy stole the psalm's mare, thinking to please him, but psalm were quite upset. Whatever servant David were thinking about when he made a psalm that nobody can sing without disgracing himself, I can't fathom. Now, then, the fourth psalm to Samuel Wakeley's tune is improved by me. I'd seize your psalm. I tell you to sing the hundred and ninth to Wulcher, and sing it you shall, word henchard. Not a single one of all the droning crew of you goes out of this room till that psalm is sung. He slipped off the table, seized the poker, and going to the door placed his back against it. Now, then, go ahead if you don't wish to have your cussed fate broke. Don't he, don't he take on so as to the Sabbath day, and to servant David's words and nine hours perhaps we don't mind for once, hey? said one of the terrified choir, looking round upon the rest. So the instruments were tuned in the communitory versus sung. Thank ye, thank ye, said henchard, in a softened voice, his eyes growing downcast in his manner, that of a man much moved by the strains. Don't you blame David, he went on in low tones, shaking his head without raising his eyes. He knew what he was about when he wrote that. If I could afford it, be hanged if I wouldn't keep a church choir at my own expense to play and sing to me at these low dark times of my life. But the bitter thing is that when I was rich I didn't need what I could have, and now I'd be poor I can't have what I need. While they paused, Lucetta and Farfrey passed again, this time homeward, it being their custom to take, like others, a short walk out on the highway and back between church and tea time. There is the man we've been singing about, said henchard. The players and singers turned their heads and saw his meaning. Heaven forbid, said the bass player. Tissed the man, repeated henchard doggedly. Then if I'd known, said the performer on the clarionette solemnly, that was meant for a living man, nothing should have drawn out of my wind-piped breath for that psalm, so help me. Nor from mine, said the first singer, but thought I, as it was made so long ago, perhaps there isn't much in it. So I'll oblige a neighbor, for there's nothing to be said against the tune. Ah, my boys, you sung it, said henchard triumphantly, as for him, it was partly by his songs that he got over me and heaved me out. I could double him up like that, and yet I don't. He laid the poker across his knee, bent it as if it were a twig, flung it down, and came away from the door. It was at this time that Elizabeth Jane, having heard where her stepfather was, entered the room with a pale and agonized countenance. The choir and the rest of the company moved off in accordance with their half-point regulation. Elizabeth Jane went up to henchard and then treated him to accompany her home. By this hour the volcanic fires of his nature had burnt down, and having drunk no great quantity as yet he was inclined to acquiesce. She took his arm and together they went on. Henchard walked blankly like a blind man, repeating to himself the last words of the singers. On the next age his hated name shall utterly deface. At length he said to her, I am a man to my word. I have kept my oath for twenty-one years, and now I can drink with a good conscience. If I don't do for him, well, I am a fearful practical joker when I choose. He has taken away everything from me, and by heavens if I meet him I won't answer for my deeds. These half-uttered words alarmed Elizabeth, all the more by reason of the still determination of Henchard's men. What will you do? she asked cautiously, while trembling with disquietude and guessing Henchard's allusion only too well. Henchard did not answer, and they went on till they had reached his cottage. May I come in? she said. No, no, not today, said Henchard, and she went away feeling that the caution Farfrey was almost her duty as it was certainly her strong desire. As on the Sunday so on the weekdays Farfrey and Lucetta might have been seen flitting about the town like two butterflies, or rather like a bee and a butterfly in league for life. She seemed to take no pleasure in going anywhere except in her husband's company, and hence when business would not permit him to waste an afternoon she remained indoors waiting for the time to pass till his return, her face being visible to Elizabeth Jane from her window aloft. The latter, however, did not say to herself that Farfrey should be thankful for such devotion, but full of her reading she cited Rosalind's exclamation, Mistress, know yourself, down on your knees and thank heaven-fasting for a good man's love. She kept her eye upon Henchard also. One day he answered her inquiry for his health by saying that he could not endure Abel Whittle's pitying eyes upon him while they worked together in the yard. He is such a fool, said Henchard, that he could never get out of his mind the time when I was master there. I'll come and whimble for you instead of him if you will allow me, said she. Her motive on going to the yard was to get an opportunity of observing the general position of affairs on Farfrey's premises now that her stepfather was a workman there. Henchard's threats had alarmed her so much that she wished to see his behavior when the two were face to face. For two or three days after her arrival Donald did not make any appearance. Then one afternoon the green door opened and through came first Farfrey and at his heels Lucetta. Donald brought his wife forward without hesitation, it being obvious that he had no suspicion whatever of any antecedents in common between her and the now journeyman Haytrusser. Henchard did not turn his eyes toward either of the pair, keeping them fixed on the bond he twisted as if that alone absorbed him. A feeling of delicacy which ever prompted Farfrey to avoid anything that might seem like triumphing over a fallen rival led him to keep away from the hay barn where Henchard and his daughter were working and to go on to the corn department. Meanwhile Lucetta, never having been informed that Henchard had entered her husband's service, rambled straight on to the barn where she came suddenly upon Henchard and gave vent to a little oh which the happy and busy Donald was too far off to hear. Henchard with withering humility of demeanor touched the brim of his hat to her as Whittle and the rest had done to which she breathed the dead alive good afternoon. I beg your pardon ma'am, said Henchard as if he had not heard. I said good afternoon, she faltered. Oh yes, good afternoon ma'am he replied touching his hat again. I am glad to see you ma'am. Lucetta looked embarrassed and Henchard continued, for we humble workmen here feel it is a great honor that a lady should look in and take an interest in us. She glanced at him untreatingly. The sarcasm was too bitter, too unendurable. Can you tell me the time ma'am he asked? Yes, she said hastily, half past four. Thank ye, an hour and a half longer before we are relieved from work. Ah ma'am, we of the lower classes know nothing of the gay leisure that such as you enjoy. As soon as she could do so Lucetta left him nodded and smiled to Elizabeth Jane and joined her husband at the other end of the enclosure where she could be seen leading him away by the outer gates so as to avoid passing Henchard again. That she had been taken by surprise was obvious. The results of this casual encounter was that the next morning a note was put into Henchard's hand by the postman. Will you, said Lucetta, with as much bitterness as she could put into a small communication, will you kindly undertake not to speak to me in the biting undertones you use today if I walk through the yard at any time? I bear you no ill will, and I am only too glad that you should have employment of my dear husband, but in common fairness treat me as his wife and do not try to make me wretched by covert sneers. I have committed no crime and done you no injury. Poor fool, said Henchard with fawn savagery holding up the note, to know no better than commit herself in writing like this. Why, if I were to show that to her dear husband, phew, he threw the letter into the fire. Lucetta took care not to come again among the hay and corn. She would rather have died than run the risk of encountering Henchard at such close quarters a second time. The gulf between them was growing wider every day. Farfray was always considerate to his fallen acquaintance, but it was impossible that he should not, by degrees, cease to regard the ex-corn merchant as more than one of his other workmen. Henchard saw this and concealed his feelings under a cover of stolidity, fortifying his heart by drinking more freely at the three mariners every evening. Often did Elizabeth Jane in her endeavors to prevent his taking other liquor, carry tea to him in a little basket at five o'clock. Arriving one day on this errand, she found her stepfather was measuring up clover seed and rape seed in the corn stores on the top floor, and she ascended to him. Each floor had a door opening into the air under a cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks. When Elizabeth's head rose through the trap, she perceived that the upper door was open and that her stepfather and Farfray stood just within it in conversation, Farfray being nearest the dizzy edge and Henchard a little way behind. Not to interrupt them, she remained on the steps without raising her head any higher. While waiting thus, she saw, or fancied she saw, for she had a terror of feeling certain. Her stepfather slowly raised his hand to a level behind Farfray's shoulders, a curious expression taking possession of his face. The young man was quite unconscious of the action, which was so indirect that if Farfray had observed it, he might almost have regarded it as an idle outstretching of the arm, but it would have been possible by a comparatively light touch to push Farfray off his balance and send him head over heels into the air. Elizabeth felt quite sick at heart on thinking of what this might have meant. As soon as they turned, she mechanically took the tea to Henchard, left it and went away. Reflecting, she endeavored to assure herself that the movement was an idle eccentricity and no more. Yet, on the other hand, his subordinate position, in an establishment where he once had been the master, might be acting on him like an irritant poison, and she finally resolved to caution Donald. End of Chapter 33 Chapter 34 of The Mayor of Casterbridge. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy Chapter 34 Next morning, accordingly, she rose at five o'clock and went into the street. It was not yet light, a dense fog prevailed, and the town was as silent as it was dark, except that from the rectangular avenues which framed in the burrow there came a chorus of tiny wrappings caused by the fall of water drops condensed on the boughs. Now it was wafted from the west walk, now from the south walk, and then from both quarters simultaneously. She moved on to the bottom of Corn Street, and knowing his time well waited only a few minutes before she heard the familiar bang of his door, and then his quick walk towards her. She met him at the point where the last tree of the ingerting avenue flanked the last house in the street. He could hardly discern her till, glancing inquiringly, he said, What, Ms. Henshard? And are ye up so early? She asked him to pardon her for waylaying him at such an unseemly time. But I am anxious to mention something, she said, and I wish not to alarm Mrs. Farfrey by calling. Yes, said he with the cheeriness of a superior, and what may it be? It's very kind of you, I'm sure. She now felt the difficulty of conveying to his mind the exact aspect of possibilities in her own, but she somehow began and introduced Henshard's name. I sometimes fear, she said with an effort, that he may be betrayed into some attempt to insult you, sir, but we are the best of friends. Or to play some practical joke upon you, sir, remember that he has been hardly used. But we are quite friendly. Or to do something that would injure you, hurt you, wound you. Every word cost her twice its length of pain, and she could see that Farfrey was still incredulous. Henshard, a poor man in his employ, was not, to Farfrey's view, the Henshard who had ruled him. Yet he was not only the same man, but that man with his sinister qualities, formerly latent, quickened into life by his buffettings. Farfrey, happy and thinking no evil, persisted in making light of her fears. Thus they parted, and she went homeward. Journeymen, now being in the street, wagoners going to the harness makers for articles left to be repaired, farm horses going to the shoeing smiths, and the sons of labor showing themselves generally on the move. Elizabeth entered her lodging unhappily, thinking she had done no good, and only made herself appear foolish by her weak note of warning. But Donald Farfrey was one of those men upon whom an incident is never absolutely lost. He revised impressions from a subsequent point of view, and the impulsive judgment of the moment was not always his permanent one. The vision of Elizabeth's earnest face in the rhymy dawn came back to him several times during the day. Knowing the solidity of her character, he did not treat her hints all together as idle sounds. But he did not desist from a kindly scheme on Henshard's account that engaged him just then, and when he met lawyer Joyce, the town clerk later in the day, he spoke of it as if nothing had occurred to damp it. About that little seedsman's shop, he said, the shop overlooking the churchyard, which is to let. It is not for myself I want it, but for our unlucky fellow townsman Henshard. It would be a new beginning for him, if a small one, and I have told the council that I would head a private subscription among them to set him up in it, that I would be fifty pounds if they would make up the other fifty among them. Yes, yes, so I've heard, and there's nothing to say against it, for that matter, the town clerk replied, in his plain frank way. But Farfrey, others see what you don't. Henshard hates he, and hates he, and is right that you should know it. To my knowledge, he was at the three mariners last night, saying in public that about you which a man ought not to say about another. Is that so? Ah, is that so? Said Farfrey, looking down, why should he do it? Added the young man bitterly, what harm have I done him that he should try to wrong me? God only knows, said Joyce, lifting his eyebrows. It shows much long suffering in you to put up with him, and keep him in your employ. But I cannot discharge a man who was once a good friend to me. How can I forget that when I came here, it was he enabled me to make a footing for myself. No, no, as long as I have a day's work to offer, he shall do it if he chooses. Just not I who will deny him such a little as that. But I'll drop the idea of establishing him in a shop till I can think more about it. It grieves Farfrey much to give up this scheme, but a damp having been thrown over it by these and other voices in the air, he went and countermanded his orders. The then occupier of the shop was in it when Farfrey spoke to him, and feeling it necessary to give some explanation of his withdrawal from the negotiation, Donald mentioned Henshard's name, and stated that the intentions of the council had been changed. The occupier was much disappointed, and straightway informed Henshard as soon as he saw him that a scheme of the council for setting him up in a shop had been knocked on the head by Farfrey, and thus out of error enmity grew. When Farfrey got indoors that evening, the tea kettle was singing on the high hob of the semi-egg-shaped grate. Lucetta, light as a self, ran forward and seized his hands, whereupon Farfrey duly kissed her. Oh, she cried playfully, turning to the window. See, the blinds are not drawn down, and the people can look in. What a scandal! When the candles were lighted, the curtains drawn, and the twain sat at tea, she noticed that he looked serious. Without directly inquiring why, she let her eyes linger solicitously on his face. Who has called? He absolutely asked. Any fault for me? No, said Lucetta. What's the matter, Donald? Well, nothing worth talking of, he responded sadly. Then never mind it. You will get through it. Scotchmen are always lucky. No, not always, he said, shaking his head gloomily as he contemplated a crumb on the table. I know many who have not been so. There was Sandy McFarland who started to America to try his fortune, and he was drowned. And Archibald Leith, he was murdered, and poor Willie Dunbleys and Maitland McFrees, they fell into bad courses and went the way of all such. Why, you old goosey, I was only speaking in a general sense, of course. You are always so literal. Now, when we have finished tea, sing me that funny song about high heeled shun and the silver tags and the one in 40 wars. Oh no, I couldn't have singed tonight. It's henchard. He hates me, so that I may not be his friend if I would. I would understand why there should be a wee bit of envy, but I cannot see a reason for the whole intensity of what he feels. Now, can you, Lucetta? It is more like old fashioned rivalry and love than just a bit of rivalry and trade. Lucetta had grown somewhat wan. No, she replied. I give him employment, I cannot refuse it, but neither can I blind myself to the fact that with a man of passion, such as his, there is no safeguard for conduct. What have you heard, oh Donald dearest, said Lucetta in alarm? The words on her lips were anything about me, but she did not utter them. She could not, however, suppress her agitation and her eyes filled with tears. No, no, it is not so serious as you fancy, declared Farfay soothingly, though he did not know its seriousness so well as she. I wish you would do what we have talked of, mournfully remarked, Lucetta, give up business and go away from here. We have plenty of money and why should we stay? Farfay seemed seriously disposed to discuss this move, and they talked there on till a visitor was announced. Their neighbor, Alderman Vatt, came in. You have heard, I suppose, of poor Dr. Chalkfield's death? Yes, died this afternoon at five, said Mr. Vatt. Chalkfield was the councilman who had succeeded to the mayoral seat in the preceding November. Farfay was sorry at the intelligence, and Mr. Vatt continued. Well, we know he has been going some days, and as his family is well provided for, we must take it all as it is. Now, I have called to ask you this, quite privately. If I should nominate you to succeed him, and there should be no particular opposition, will he accept the care? But there are folk whose turn is before mine, and I'm over-young and maybe thought pushing, said Farfay after a pause. Not at all. I don't speak for myself only. Several have named it. You won't refuse. We thought of going away and to post Lucetta, looking at Farfay anxiously. It was only a fancy, Farfay murmured. I wouldn't have refused if it is the wish of a respectable majority in the council. Very well, then. Look upon yourself as elected. We have had older men long enough. When he was gone, Farfay said musingly, See now how it's ourselves that are ruled by the powers above us. We plan this, but we do that. If they want to make me mayor, I will stay, and Henschard must rave as he will. From this evening onward, Lucetta was very uneasy. If she had not been imprudence incarnate, she would not have acted as she did when she met Henschard by accident a day or two later. It was in the bustle of the market when no one could readily notice their discourse. Michael, said she, I must again ask you what I asked you months ago to return me any letters or papers of mine that you may have, unless you have destroyed them. You must see how desirable it is at the time at Jersey should be blotted out for the good of all parties. Well, I bless the woman. I packed up every scrap of your handwriting to give you and the coach, but you never appeared. She explained how the death of her aunt had prevented her taking the journey on that day. And what became of the parcel then, she asked. He could not say. He would consider. When she was gone, he recollected that he had left a heap of useless papers in his former dining room safe, built up in the wall of his old house, now occupied by Farfray. The letters might have been amongst them. A grotesque grin shaped itself on Henshard's face. Had that safe been opened? On the very evening which followed this, there was a great ringing of bells in Casterbridge and the combined brass, wood, cat, gut and leather bands played round the town with more prodigality of percussion notes than ever. Farfray was mayor, the two hundredth odd of Asturias forming an elective dynasty dating back to the days of Charles I, and the fair Lucetta was the courted of the town. But ah, the worm of the bud, Henshard, what he could tell. He, in the meantime, festering with indignation at some erroneous intelligence of Farfray's opposition to the scheme for installing him in the little seed shop was greeted with the news of the municipal election, which, by reason of Farfray's comparative views and his Scottish nativity, a thing unprecedented in the case, had an interest far beyond the ordinary. The bell ringing and the band playing loud as Tamerlane's trumpet groated the downfallen Henshard indescribably, the ousting now seemed to him to be complete. The next morning he went to the corn yard as usual and about eleven o'clock Donald entered through the green door with no trace of the worshipful about him. The yet more emphatic change of places between him and Henshard, which this election had established, renewed a slight embarrassment in the manner of the modest young man. But Henshard showed the front of one who had overlooked all this, and Farfray met his amenities halfway at once. I was going to ask you, said Henshard, about a packet that I may possibly have left in my old safe in the dining room. He added particulars. If so, it is there now, said Farfray. I have never opened the safe at all as yet, for I keep my papers at the bank to sleep easier nights. It was not of much consequence, to me, said Henshard. But I'll call for it this evening, if you don't mind. It was quite late when he fulfilled his promise. He had primed himself with grog as he did very frequently now, and a curl of sardonic humor hung on his lip as he approached the house, as though he were contemplating some terrible form of amusement. Whatever it was, the incident of his entry did not diminish its force, this being his first visit to the house since he had lived there as owner. The ring of the bell spoke to him like the voice of a familiar drudge who had been bribed to forsake him. The movements of the doors were revivals of dead days. Farfray invited him into the dining room, where he at once unlocked the iron safe built into the wall. His, Henshard's safe, made by an ingenious locksmith under his direction. Farfray drew thanks to parcel and other papers with apologies for not having returned them. Never mind, said Henshard dryly. The fact is, they are letters mostly. Yes, he went on, sitting down and unfolding Lucetta's passionate bundle. Here they be, that ever I should see him again. I hope Mrs. Farfray as well after her exertions of yesterday. She has felt a bit weary and has gone to bed early on that account. Henshard returned to the letters, sorting them over with interest, Farfray being seated at the other end of the dining table. You don't forget, of course, he resumed, that curious chapter in the history of my past which I told you of, and that you gave me some assistance in. These letters are, in fact, related to that unhappy business, though, thank God, it is all over now. What became of the poor woman, asked Farfray. Luckily she married and married well. Said Henshard. So that these reproaches she poured out on me do not now cause me any twinges, as they might otherwise have done. Just listen to what an angry woman will say. Farfray, willing to humor Henshard, though quite uninterested and bursting with yawns, gave well-mannered attention. For me, Henshard read, there is practically no future, a creature too unconventionally devoted to you who feels it impossible that she can be the wife of any other man and who is yet no more to you than the first woman you meet in the street, such am I. I quite acquit you of any intention to wrong me, yet you are the door through which wrong has come to me, that in the event of your present wife's death you will place me in her position as a consolation so far as it goes, but how far does it go? Thus I sit here, forsaken by my few acquaintance and forsaken by you. That's how she went on to me, said Henshard, acres of words like that, when what had happened was what I could not cure. Yes, said Farfray absently, it is the way of women. But the fact was that he knew very little of the sex, yet detecting a sort of resemblance in style between the effusions of the woman he worshipped and those of this supposed stranger, he concluded that Aphrodite ever spoke thus, whose soever the personality she assumed. Henshard unfolded another letter and read it through likewise, stopping at the subscription as before. Her name I don't give, he said blandly. As I didn't marry her and another man did, I can scarcely do that in fairness to her. True, true, said Farfray, but why didn't you marry her when your wife Susan died? Farfray asked this and the other questions in the comfortably indifferent tone of one whom the matter very remotely concerned. Ah, well you may ask that, said Henshard. The new moon-shaped grin, Adam braiding itself again upon his mouth. In spite of all her protestations, when I came forward to do so as in generosity bound, she was not the woman for me. She had already married another, maybe? Henshard seemed to think it would be sailing too near the wind to descend further into particulars, and he answered yes. The young lady must have had a heart that bore transplanting very readily. She had, she had, said Henshard emphatically. He opened the third and fourth letter and read. This time he approached the conclusion as if the signature were indeed coming with the rest, but again he stopped short. The truth was that, as may be divine, he had quite intended to effect a grand catastrophe at the end of this drama by reading out the name. He had come to the house with no other thought, but sitting here in cold blood he could not do it. Such a wrecking of hearts appalled even him. His quality was such that he could have annihilated them both in the heat of action, but to accomplish the deed by oral poison was beyond the nerve of his enmity. End of Chapter 34 Chapter 35 of The Mayor of Casterbridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy Chapter 35 As Donald stated, Lucetta had retired early to her room because of fatigue. She had, however, not gone to rest, but sat in the bedside chair reading and thinking over the events of the day. At the ringing of the doorbell by handshard, she wondered who it should be that would call us at comparatively late hour. The dining room was almost under her bedroom. She could hear that somebody was admitted there, and presently the indistinct murmur of a person reading became audible. The usual time for Donald's arrival upstairs came and passed, yet still the reading and conversation went on. This was very singular. She could think of nothing but that some extraordinary crime had been committed and that the visitor, whoever he might be, was reading an account of it from a special edition of the Casterbridge Chronicle. At last, she left the room and descended the stairs. The dining room door was ajar, and in the silence of the resting household, the voice and the words were recognizable before she reached the lower flight. She stood transfixed. Her own words greeted her in handshard's voice, like spirits from the grave. Lucetta leaned upon the banister with a cheek against the smooth handrail, as if she would make a friend of it in her misery. Rigid in this position, more and more words fell successively upon her ear. But what amazed her most was the tone of her husband. He spoke merely in the accents of a man who made a present of his time. One word, he was saying, as the crackling of paper denoted that Henshawd was unfolding yet another sheet. Is it quite fair to this young woman's memory to read at such lengths to a stranger what was intended for your eye alone? Well, yes, said Henshawd, by not giving her name I make it an example of all womankind and not a scandal to one. If I were you, I would destroy them, said Farfrey, giving more thought to the letters than he had hitherto done. As another man's wife, it would injure the woman if it were known. No, I shall not destroy them, murmured Henshawd, putting the letters away. Then he arose, and Lucetta heard no more. She went back to her bedroom in a semi-paralyzed state. For very fear she could not undress, but sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Would Henshawd let out the secret in his parting words? Her suspense was terrible. Had she confessed all to Donald in their early acquaintance he might possibly have got over it and married her just the same, unlikely as it had once seemed. But for her or anyone else to tell him now would be fatal. The door slammed. She could hear her husband bolting it. After looking round in his customary way he came leisurely up the stairs. The spark in her eyes well nigh went out when he appeared round the bedroom door. Her gaze hung doubtful for a moment. Then, to her joyous amazement, she saw that he looked at her with a rallying smile of one who had just been relieved of a scene that was irksome. She could hold out no longer and sobbed hysterically. When he had restored her, Farfrey naturally enough spoke of Henshawd. The bold man he was the least desirable as a visitor, he said. But it is my belief that he's just a bit crazed. He has been reading to me a long lot of letters relating to his past life and I could do no less than indulge him by listening. This was sufficient. Henshawd then had not told. Henshawd's last words to Farfrey in short, as he stood on the doorstep, had been these. Well, I'm obliged to be for listening. I may tell more about her someday. Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henshawd's motives in opening the matter at all. For in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power of consistent action which we never find in ourselves or in our friends, and forget that abortive efforts from want of heart were as possible to revenge as to generosity. Next morning, Lucetta remained in bed, meditating how to parry this incipient attack. The bold stroke of telling Donald the truth dimly conceived was yet too bold, for she dreaded, lest in doing so, he, like the rest of the world, should believe that the episode was rather her fault than her misfortune. She decided to employ persuasion, not with Donald, but with the enemy himself. It seemed the only practicable weapon left her as a woman. Having laid her plans, she rose and wrote to him who kept her on these tenter hooks. I overheard your interview with my husband last night and saw the drift of your revenge. The very thought of it crushes me. Have pity on a distressed woman. If you could see me, you would relent. You do not know how anxiety is told upon me lately. I will be at the ring at the time you leave work, just before the sun goes down. Please come that way. I cannot rest till I have seen you face to face and heard from your mouth that you will carry this horse-plane no further. To herself, she said, unclosing up her appeal. If ever tears and pleadings have served the weak to fight the strong, let them do so now. With this view she made a toilette which differed from all she had ever attempted before. To heighten her natural attraction had hitherto been the unvarying endeavor of her adult life and one in which she was no novice. But now she neglected this and even proceeded to impair the natural presentation. Beyond the natural reason for her slightly drawn look she had not slept all the previous night and this had produced upon her pretty those slightly worn features the aspect of a countenance aging prematurely from extreme sorrow. She selected, as much from want of spirit as design, her porous, plainest and longest discarded attire. To avoid the contingency of being recognized she veiled herself and slipped out of the house quickly. The sun was resting on the hill like a drop of blood on an eyelid by the time she had got up the road opposite the amphitheater which she speedily entered. The interior was shadowy and emphatic of the absence of every living thing. She was not disappointed in the fearful hope with which she awaited him. Henschard came over the top, descended and Lucette awaited breathlessly. But having reached the arena she saw a change in his bearing. He stood still at a little distance from her. She could not think why. Nor could anyone else have known. The truth was that in appointing this spot and this hour for the rendezvous Lucette had unwittingly backed up her entreaty by the strongest argument she could have used outside words with this man of moods, glooms and superstitions. Her figure in the midst of the huge enclosure the unusual plainness of her dress, her attitude of hope and appeal so strongly revived in his soul the memory of another ill-used woman who had stood there and thus in bygone days and had now passed away into her rest that he was unmanned and his heart smote him for having attempted reprisals on one of his sexes a week. When he approached her and before she had spoken a word her point was half gained. His manner as he had come down had been one of cynical carelessness but he now put away his grim half smile and said in a kindly subdued tone, Good night, Chee. Of course I am glad to come if you want me. Oh, thank you, she said apprehensively. I am sorry to see you looking so ill, he stammered with unconcealed compunction. She shook her head. How can you be sorry, she asked, when you deliberately cause it. What? said him, shout uneasily. Is it anything I have done that has pulled you down like that? It is all your doing, she said. I have no other grief. My happiness would be secure enough but for your threats. Oh, Michael, don't wreck me like this. You might think that you have done enough. When I came here I was a young woman. Now I am rapidly becoming an old one. Neither my husband nor any other man will regard me with interest long. Himchard was disarmed. His old feeling of supercellious pity for womankind in general was intensified by this suppli and appearing here as the double of the first. Moreover, that thoughtless want of foresight which had led to all her trouble remained with poor Lucetta still. She had come to meet him here in this compromising way without perceiving the risk. Such a woman was very small here to hunt. He felt ashamed, lost all zest and desired a humiliate Lucetta there and then, and no longer envied far for his bargain. He had married money but nothing more. Himchard was anxious to wash his hands of the game. Well, what do you want me to do? He said gently. I am sure I shall be very willing. My reading of those letters was only a sort of practical joke and I revealed nothing. To give me back the letters and any papers you may have that breathe of matrimony are worth, so be it. Every scrap shall be yours. But between you and me, Lucetta, he is sure to find out something of the matter sooner or later. Ah, she said with eager tremulousness, but not till I have proved myself a faithful and deserving wife to him, and then he may forgive me everything. Henschard silently looked at her. He almost envied Farfay such love as that, even now. Hmm, I hope so, he said. But you shall have the letters without fail and your secret shall be kept, I swear it. How good you are! How shall I get them? He reflected and said he would send them the next morning. Now don't doubt me, he added. I can keep my word. End of Chapter 35 Chapter 36 of the Mayor of Castor Bridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mayor of Castor Bridge by Thomas Hardy Chapter 36 Returning from her appointment, Lucetta saw a man waiting by the lamp nearest to her own door. When she stopped to go in, he came and spoke to her. It was job. He begged her pardon for addressing her, but he had heard that Mr. Farfay had been applied to by a neighboring corn merchant to recommend a working partner. If so, he wished to offer himself. He could give good security and had stated as much to Mr. Farfay in a letter, but he would feel much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his favor to her husband. It is a thing I know nothing about, said Lucetta coldly. That you can testify to my trustworthiness better than anybody, ma'am, said job. I was in Jersey several years and knew you thereby sight. Indeed, she replied, but I knew nothing of you. I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure for me what I covet very much, he persisted. She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair, and cutting him short because of her anxiety to get indoors before her husband should miss her, left him on the pavement. He watched her till she had vanished and then went home. When he got there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner, looking at the iron dogs and the wood laid across them for heating the morning kettle. A movement upstairs disturbed him, and Henschard came down from his bedroom where he seemed to have been rummaging boxes. I wish, said Henschard, you would do me a service job. Now, to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs. Farfray's for her. I should take it myself, of course, but I don't wish to be seen there. He handed a package and brown paper, sealed. Henschard had been as good as his word. Immediately on coming indoors he had searched over his few belongings and every scrap of Lucetta's writing that he possessed was here. Job indifferently expressed his willingness. Well, how have you got on today, his lodger asked, any prospect of an opening? I am afraid not, said Job, who had not told the other of his application to Farfray. There never will be in Casterbridge, declared Henschard decisively. You must roam further afield. He said good night to Job and returned to his own part of the house. Job sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of the candle snuff on the wall, and, looking at the original, he found that it had formed itself into a head like a red-hot cauliflower. Henschard's packet next met his gaze. He knew there had been something of the nature of wooing between Henschard and the now Mrs. Farfray, and his vague ideas on the subject narrowed themselves down to these. Henschard had a parcel belonging to Mrs. Farfray, and he had reasons for not returning that parcel to her in person. What could be inside it? So he went on and on till, animated by resentment at Lucetta's haughtiness, as he thought it, and curiosity to learn if there were any weak sides to this transaction with Henschard, he examined the package. The pen, in all its relations being awkward tools in Henschard's hands, he had affixed the seals without an impression. It never occurring to him that the efficacy of such a fastening depended on this. Job was far less of a Tyro. He lifted one of the seals with his pen-knife, peeped in at the end thus opened, saw that the bundle consisted of letters, and having satisfied himself thus far, sealed up the end again by simply softening the wax with the candle, and went off with the parcel as requested. His path was by the riverside of the foot of the town. Coming into the light of the bridge which stood at the end of High Street, he beheld lounging thereon Mother Cuxham and Nance Mockridge. We be just going down Mixon Laneway to look into Peter's finger a forecreeping to bed, said Mrs. Cuxham. There's a fiddle and tambourine going on there. Lord, what's all the world? Do you come along to Job? Don't hinder you five minutes. Job had mostly kept himself out of this company, but present circumstances made him somewhat more reckless than usual, and without many words he decided to go to his destination that way. Though the upper part of Derniver was mainly composed of a curious congeries of barns and farmsteads, there was a less picturesque side to the parish. This was Mixon Lane, now in great part pulled down. Mixon Lane was the addulum of all the surrounding villages. It was the hiding place of those who were in distress and in debt and trouble of every kind. Farm laborers and other peasants who combined a little poaching with their farming and a little brawling and bibbing with their poaching found themselves sooner or later in Mixon Lane. Rural mechanics too idle to mechanize, rural servants too rebellious to serve, drifted or were forced into Mixon Lane. The lane and its surrounding thicket of thatched cottages stretched out like a spit into the moist and misty lowland. Much that was sad, much that was low, some things that were baneful could be seen in Mixon Lane. Vice ran freely in and out certain of the doors in the neighborhood. Wrecklessness dwelt under the roof of the crooked chimney, shame in some bow-windows, theft in times of privation, in the thatched and mud-walled houses by the sallows. Even slaughter had not been altogether unknown here. In a block of cottages, up an alley, there might have been erected an altar to disease in years gone by. Such was Mixon Lane in the times when Henschart and Farfray were mayors. Yet this mildewed leaf in the sturdy and flourishing castor-bridge plant lay close to the open country, not a hundred yards from a row of noble elms and commanding a view across the moor of airy uplands and cornfields and mansions of the great. A brook divided the moor from the tenements, and to outward view there was no way across it, no way to the houses but round about by the road. But under every householder's stairs there was kept a mysterious plank nine inches wide, which plank was a secret bridge. If you, as one of those refugee householders, came in from business after dark—and this was the business time here—you stealthily crossed the moor, approached the border of the aforesaid brook, and whistled opposite the house to which you belonged. A shape thereupon made its appearance on the other side, bearing the bridge on and against the sky. It was lowered. You crossed, and a hand helped you to land yourself together with the pheasants and hares gathered from neighboring manners. You sold them slightly the next morning, and the day after you stood before the magistrates with the eyes of all your sympathizing neighbors concentrated on your back. You disappeared for a time. Then you were again found quietly living in mix and lane. Walking along the lane at dusk, the stranger was struck by two or three peculiar features therein. One was an intermittent rumbling from the back premises of the inn halfway up. This meant a skittle alley. Another was the extensive prevalence of whistling in the various domiciles. A piped note of some kind coming from nearly every open door. Another was the frequency of white aprons over dingy gowns among the women around the doorways. A white apron is a suspicious vesture in situations where spotlessness is difficult. Moreover, the industry and cleanliness which the white apron expressed were belied by the postures and gates of the women who wore it. Their knuckles being mostly on their hips, an attitude which lent them the aspect of two handled mugs and their shoulders against door posts. While there was a curious alacrity in the turn of each honest woman's head upon her neck and in the twirl of her honest eyes at any noise resembling a masculine footfall along the lane. Yet amid so much that was bad, needy respectability also found a home. Under some of the roofs, a bold pure and virtuous soul whose presence there was due to the iron hand of necessity and to that alone. Families from decayed villages, families of that once bulky but now nearly extinct section of village society called liveliers or lifeholders, copyholders and others whose roof trees had fallen for some reason or other, compelling them to quit the rural spot that had been their home for generations, came here unless they chose to lie under a hedge by the wayside. The inn, called Peter's Finger, was the Church of Mixon Lane. It was centrally situate, as such places should be, and bore about the same social relation to the three mariners as the latter bore to the king's arms. At first sight the inn was so respectable as to be puzzling. The front door was kept shut, and the step was so clean that evidently but few persons entered over its sanded surface. But at the corner of the public house was an alley, a mere slit dividing it from the next building. Halfway up the alley was a narrow door, shiny and paintless from the rub of infinite hands and shoulders. This was the actual entrance to the inn. A pedestrian would be seen abstractly passing along Mixon Lane, and then in a moment he would vanish, causing the gazer to blink like Ashton at the disappearance of Ravenswood. That abstracted pedestrian had edged into the slit by the adroit fill-up of his person's sideways, from the slit he edged into the tavern by a similar exercise of skill. The company at the three mariners were persons of quality in comparison with the company which gathered here, though it must be admitted that the lowest fringe of the mariners' party touched the crest of Peters at points. Waves and strays of all sorts loitered about here. The landlady was a virtuous woman who years ago had been unjustly sent to jail as an accessory to something or other after the fact. She underwent her twelve-month and had worn a martyr's countenance ever since, except at times of meeting the constable who apprehended her when she winked her eye. To this house, Job and his acquaintances had arrived. The settles on which they sat down were thin and tall, their tops being guide by pieces of twine to hooks in the ceiling. For when the guests grew boisterous, the settles would rock and overturn without some such security. The thunder of bulls echoed from the backyard, swingles hung behind the blower of the chimney, and ex-poachers and ex-gamekeepers, whom squares had persecuted without a cause, sat elbowing each other. Men who in past times had met in fights under the moon, till laps of sentences on the one part, and loss of favor and expulsion from service on the other, brought them here together to a common level, where they sat calmly discussing old times. Dust-mind how you could jerk a trout ashore with a bramble and not ruffle the stream, Charles? A deposed keeper was saying. To set that I caught he once, if you can mind. That I can, but the worst blary for me was that pheasant business at Yalbury Wood. Your wife swore false that time, Joe. Oh, by gage she did. There's no denying it. How was that? asked Job. Why, Joe closed for me, and we rolled down together close to his garden hedge. Hearing the noise, out ran his wife with the oven pile, into being dark under the trees she couldn't see which was uppermost. Where beast did, Joe? Under or top, she screeched. Oh, under by Gad, says he. She then began to wrap down upon my skull, back in ribs with the pile, till we'd rolled over again. Where beast now, dear Joe? Under or top, she'd scream again. By George just through her I was took, and then, when we got up in hall, she swore that the cock pheasant was one of her rearing, one's was not your bird at all, Joe. It was Squire Brown's bird, that's whose twas, one that we'd picked off as we passed his wood an hour or four. It did hurt my feelings to be so wronged. Ah, well, just over now. I might have had he days before that, said the keeper. I was within a few yards, if he dozens of times, with a sight more of birds than that poor one. Yes, it's not our greatest doings that the world gets wind of, said the Firmity Woman. Who, lately, settled in this pearly you, sat among the rest? Having traveled a great deal in her time, she spoke with cosmopolitan largeness of idea. It was she who presently asked Job what was the parcel he kept so snugly under his arm. Ah, therein lies a grand secret, said Job. It is the passion of love, to think that a woman should love one man so well, and hate another so unmercifully. Who's the object of your meditation, sir? The one that stands high in this town. I'd like to shame her. Upon my life it would be as good as a play to read her love letters, the proud piece of silk and wax work, for it is her love letters that I've got here. Love letters? Then let's hear on good soul, said Mother Cuxham. Lord, do you mind, Richard, what fools we used to be when we were younger? Getting a schoolboy to write ours for us, and giving him a penny, do you mind? Not to tell other folks what he'd put inside, do you mind? By this time Job had pushed his finger under the seals and unfastened the letters, tumbling them over and picking up one here and there at random, which he read aloud. These passages soon began to uncover the secret which Lucetta had so earnestly hoped to keep buried, though the epistles, being elusive only, did not make it altogether plain. Mrs. Farfray wrote that, said Nance Mockridge. Does a humbling thing for us as respectable women that one of the same sex could do it, and now she's avowed herself to another man? So much the better for her, said the aged infirmity woman. I saved her from a real bad marriage, and she's never been the one to thank me. I say, what a good foundation for a skimmy ride, said Nance. True, said Mrs. Cuxham, reflecting, this is good a ground for a skimmy ride as ever I know, and it ought not to be wasted. The last one seen in Casterbridge must have been ten years ago of a day. At this moment there was a shrill whistle, and the landlady said to the man who had been called Charles, to stem coming in, would you go and let down the bridge for me? Without replying, Charles and his comrade Joe rose, and receiving a lantern from her went out of the back door and down the garden path, which ended abruptly at the edge of the stream already mentioned. Beyond the stream was the open moor, from which a clammy breeze smote upon their faces as they advanced. Taking up the board that had lain in readiness, one of them lowered it across the water, and the instant its further end touched the ground footsteps entered upon it, and there appeared from the shade a stalwart man with straps round his knees, a double-barreled gun under his arm, and some birds slung up behind him. They asked him if he had had much luck. Not much, he said indifferently, all safe inside? Receiving a reply in the affirmative, he went on inwards, the others withdrawing the bridge and beginning to retreat in his rear. Before, however, they had entered the house, a cry of ahoy from the moor led them to pause. The cry was repeated. They pushed the lantern into an outhouse, and went back to the brink of the stream. Ahoy! Is this the way to cast a bridge? said someone from the other side. Not in particular, said Charles. There's a river aforey. I don't care. Here's for through it, said the man in the moor. I've had traveling enough for today. Stop a minute then, said Charles, finding that the man was no enemy. So bring the plank and the lantern. Here's somebody that's lost his way. You should have kept along the turnpike road, friend, and not have struck across here. I should, as I see now, but I saw a light here, and says I to myself. That's an outlying house, dependant. The plank was now lowered, and the stranger's form shaped itself from the darkness. He was a middle-aged man, with hair and whiskers prematurely gray, and a broad and genial face. He had crossed on the plank without hesitation, and seemed to see nothing odd in the transit. He thanked them and walked between them up the garden. What place is this, he asked, when they reached the door? A public house. Ah, perhaps it will suit me to put up that. Now then, come in and wet your whistle at my expense for the lift over you have given me. They followed him into the inn, where the increased light exhibited him as one who would stand higher in an estimate by the eye than in one by the ear. He was dressed with a certain clumsy richness, his coat being furred and his head covered by a cap of seal skin, which, though the nights were chilly, must have been warm for the daytime, spring being somewhat advanced. In his hand he carried a small mahogany case strapped and clamped with brass. Apparently surprised at the kind of company which confronted him through the kitchen door, he at once abandoned his idea of putting up at the house. But taking the situation lightly, he called for glasses of the best, paid for them as he stood in the passage, and turned to proceed on his way by the front door. This was barred, and while the landlady was unfastening at the conversation about the skimming-ton was continued in the sitting-room and reached his ears. What do they mean by a skimmity ride, he asked? Oh, sir, said the landlady, swinging her long earrings with deprecating modesty. Tis the oldest foolish thing they do in these parts when a man's wife is, well, not too particularly his own, but as a respectable householder I don't encourage it. Still, are they going to do it shortly? It is a good sight to see, I suppose. Well, sir, she simpered, and then bursting into naturalness and glancing from the corner of her eye. Tis the funniest thing under the sun, and it costs money. Ah, I remember hearing of some such thing. Now I shall be in Casterbridge for two or three weeks to come, and should not mind seeing the performance. Wait a moment. He turned back, entered the sitting-room, and said, Here, good folks, I should like to see the old custom you are talking of, and I don't mind being something towards it. Take that. He threw a sovereign on the table and returned to the landlady at the door, of whom, having inquired the way into the town, he took his leave. There were more where that one came from, said Charles, when the sovereign had been taken up and handed to the landlady for safekeeping. By George, we ought to have got a few more while we had him here. No, no, I answered the landlady. This is a respectable house, thank God, and I'll have nothing done but what's honorable. Well, said Job, now we'll consider the business begun, and we'll soon get it in train. We will, said Nance. A good laugh warms my heart more than a cordial, and that's the truth, Aunt. Job gathered up the letters, and at being now somewhat late, he did not attempt to call it farfares with them that night. He reached home, sealed them up as before, and delivered the parcel at its address next morning. Within an hour its contents were reduced to ashes by Lucetta, who, poor soul, was inclined to fall down on her knees in thankfulness, that at last no evidence remained of the unlucky episode with Henschard in her past. For though hers had been rather the laxity of inadvertence than of intention, that episode, if known, was not the less likely to operate fatally between herself and her husband. End of Chapter 36 Chapter 37 of The Mayor of Casterbridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy Chapter 37 Such was the state of things when the current affairs of Casterbridge were interrupted by an event of such magnitude that its influence reached to the lowest social stratum there, stirring the depths of its society simultaneously with the preparations for the Skimmington. It was one of those excitements which, when they move a country town, leave permanent mark upon its chronicles, as a warm summer permanently marks the ring in the tree trunk corresponding to its date. A royal personage was about to pass through the borough on his course further west to inaugurate an immense engineering work out that way. He had consented to halt half an hour or so in the town and to receive an address from the Corporation of Casterbridge, which, as a representative center of husbandry, wished thus to express its sense of the great services he had rendered to agricultural science and economics by his zealous promotion of designs for placing the art of farming on a more scientific footing. Royalty had not been seen in Casterbridge since the days of the Third King George, and then only by candlelight for a few minutes, when that monarch on a night journey had stopped to change horses at the king's arms. The inhabitants therefore decided to make a thorough fate carry on a of the unwanted occasion. Half an hour's pause was not long, it is true, but much might be done in it by a judicious grouping of incidents, above all if the weather were fine. The address was prepared on parchment by an artist who was handy at ornamental lettering, and was laid on with the best gold leaf and colors that the sign-painter had in his shop. The council had met on the Tuesday before the appointed day to arrange the details of the procedure. While they were sitting, the door of the council chamber standing open, they heard a heavy footstep coming up the stairs. It advanced along the passage and henchard entered the room, in clothes of frayed and threadbare shabbiness, the very clothes which he had used to wear in the primal days when he had sat among them. I have a feeling, he said, advancing to the table and laying his hand upon the green cloth, that I should like to join you in this reception of our illustrious visitor. I suppose I could walk with the rest. Embarrassed glances were exchanged by the council, and Grower nearly ate the end of his quill pen off, so gnawed he it during the silence. Farfray, the young mayor, who by virtue of his office sat in the large chair, intuitively caught the sense of the meeting, and as spokesman was obliged to utter it, glad as he would have been that the duty should have fallen to another tongue. I hardly see that it would be proper, Mr. Henchard, said he. The council are the council, and as ye are no longer one of the body, there would be an irregularity in the proceeding. If he were included, why not others? I have a particular reason for wishing to assist at the ceremony. Farfray looked round. I think I have expressed the feeling of the council, he said. Yes, yes, from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and several more. Did I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it officially? I am afraid so. It is out of the question indeed. But of course you can see the doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of the spectators. Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and turning on his heel went away. It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition crystallized it into a determination. I'll welcome his royal highness, or nobody shall, he went about saying. I am not going to be sad upon by Farfray, or any of the rest of the paltry crew, you shall see. The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun confronting early window-gazers eastward, and all perceived, for they were practiced in weather-lore, that there was permanence in the glow. Visitors soon began to flock in from county houses, villages, remote copses, and lonely uplands. The latter in oiled boots and tilt bonnets, to see the reception, or if not to see it, at any rate to be near it. There was hardly a workman in the town who did not put a clean shirt on. Solomon Longways, Christopher Coney, Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity showed their sense of the occasion by advancing their customary eleven o'clock pint to half past ten, from which they found a difficulty in getting back to the proper hour for several days. Hemchard had determined to do no work that day. He primed himself in the morning with a glass of rum, and walking down the street met Elizabeth Jane, whom he had not seen for a week. It was a lucky, he said to her, my twenty-one years had expired before this came on, for I should never have had the nerve to carry it out. Carry out what? said she, alarmed. This welcome I am going to give our royal visitor. She was perplexed. Shall we go and see it together? she said. See it? I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth seeing. She could do nothing to elucidate this, and docked herself out with a heavy heart. As the appointed time drew near, she got sight again of her stepfather. She thought he was going to the Three Mariners, but no, he elbowed his way through the gay throne to the shop of Wolfry, the draper. She waited in the crowd without. In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant rosette. While more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of somewhat homely construction formed by tacking one of the small Union Jacks, which abounded in the town today, to the end of a deal wand, probably the roller from a piece of calico. Henschard rolled up his flag on the doorstep, put it under his arm, and went down the street. Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads, and the shorter stood on tiptoe. It was said that the royal cortege approached. The railway had stretched out an arm towards Caster Bridge at this time, but had not reached it by several miles as yet, so that the intervening distance, as well as the remainder of the journey, was to be traversed by road in the old fashion. People thus waited, the county families and their carriages, the masses on foot, and watched the far-stretching London Highway to the ringing of bells and chatter of tongues. From the background Elizabeth Jane watched the scene. Some seats had been arranged, from which ladies could witness the spectacle, and the front seat was occupied by Lucetta, the mayor's wife, just at present. In the road under her eyes stood Henschard. She appeared so bright and pretty that, as it seemed, he was experiencing the momentary weakness of wishing for her notice. But he was far from attractive to a woman's eye, ruled as that is so largely by the superfaces of things. He was not only a journeyman, unable to appear as he formerly had appeared, but he disdained to appear as well as he might. Everybody else, from the mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture according to means, but Henschard had doggedly retained the fretted and weather-beaten garments of bygone years. Hence alas! this occurred. Lucetta's eyes slid over him, to this side and to that, without anchoring on his features, as gaily dressed women's eyes will too often do on such occasions. Her manners signified quite plainly that she meant to know him in public no more. But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in animated converse for his friends a few yards off, wearing round his young neck the official gold chain with great square links, like that round the royal unicorn. Every trifling emotion that her husband showed, as he talked, had its reflex on her face and lips, which moved in little duplicates to his. She was living his part rather than her own, and cared for no one's situation but far phrase that day. At length, a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high road, namely on the second bridge of which mention has been made, gave a signal, and the corporation in their robes proceeded from the front of the town hall to the archway erected at the entrance to the town. The carriages containing the royal visitor and his suite arrived at the spot in a cloud of dust. A procession was formed, and the whole came on to the town hall at a walking pace. This spot was the center of interest. There were a few clear yards in front of the royal carriage, sanded, and into this space a man's depth before anyone could prevent him. It was henchard. He had unrolled his private flag, and, removing his hat, he staggered to the side of the slowing vehicle, waving the Union Jack to and fro with his left hand, while he blandly held out his right to the illustrious personage. All the ladies said, with bated breath, Oh, look there! And Lucetta was ready to faint. Elizabeth Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in front, saw what it was, and was terrified. And then her interest in the spectacle as a strange phenomenon got the better of her fear. Farfrey, with the mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He seized henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly to be off. Henchard's eyes met his, and Farfrey observed the fierce light in them, despite his excitement and irritation. For a moment henchard stood his ground rigidly, then by an unaccountable impulse gave way and retired. Farfrey glanced to the ladies' gallery, and saw that his calphernia's cheek was pale. Why, it is your husband's old patron, said Mrs. Blowbody, a lady of the neighborhood who sat beside Lucetta. Patron, said Donald's wife, with quick indignation. Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrey's? Observed Mrs. Bath, the physician's wife, a newcomer to the town, through her recent marriage with the doctor. He works for my husband, said Lucetta. Oh, is that all? They have been saying to me that it was through him your husband first got a footing in Casterbridge. What stories people will tell? They will indeed. It was not so at all. Donald's genius would have enabled him to get a footing anywhere without anybody's help. He would have been just the same if there had been no henchard in the world. It was partly Lucetta's ignorance of the circumstances of Donald's arrival which led her to speak thus. Partly the sensation that everybody seemed bent on snubbing her at this triumphant time. The incident had occupied but a few moments, but it was necessarily witnessed by the royal personage. Who, however, with practice tacked, affected not to have noticed anything unusual. He alighted. The mayor advanced. The address was read. The illustrious personage replied, then said a few words to Farfrey and shook hands with Lucetta as the mayor's wife. The ceremony occupied but a few minutes, and the carriages rattled heavily as Pharaoh's chariots down Corn Street and out upon the Budmouth Road in continuation of the journey coastward. In the crowd stood Coney Buzzford in long ways. Some difference between him now and when he is long at the three mariners, said the first, it was wonderful how he could get a lady of her quality to go snacks win in such quick time. True, yet how folk do worship fine clothes. Now there's a better-looking woman than she that nobody notices at all because she's akin to that hauntish fellow henchard. I could worship ye buzz for saying that, remarked Nance Mockridge. I do like to see the trimming pull off such Christmas candles. I am quite unequal to the part of villain myself, or I'd get all my small silver to see that lady toppered, and perhaps I shall soon, she added significantly. That's not a noble passion for our omen to keep up, said long ways. Nance did not reply, but everyone knew what she meant. The idea is diffused by the reading of Lucetta's letters that Peter's finger had condensed into a scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fog through Mix and Lane and thence up the back streets of Casterbridge. The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently fell apart into two bands by a process of natural selection. The frequenters of Peter's finger going off Mix and Lane words, where most of them lived, while Coney buzzed for long ways and that connection remained in the street. You know what's brewing down there, I suppose, said Buzzford mysteriously to the others. Coney looked at him, not the skimpy ride. Buzzford nodded. I have my doubts if it will be carried out, said long ways, if they are getting it up, they are keeping it mighty close. I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago at all events. If I were sure out, I'd lay information, said long ways emphatically, tis too rough a joke and apt to wake riots in towns. We know that the Scotchman is a right enough man and that his lady has been a right enough woman since she came here. And if there was anything wrong about her afore, that's their business, not ours. Coney reflected. Farfay was still liked in the community, but it must be owns that as the mayor and man of money engrossed with affairs and ambitions, he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants something of that wondrous charm which he had had for them as a light-hearted, penniless, young man who sang ditties as readily as the birds in the trees. Hence the anxiety to keep him from annoyance showed not quite the ardor that would have animated it in former days. Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher, continued long ways. And if we find there's really anything in it, drop a letter to them most concerned and advise them to keep out of the way. This course was decided on and the group separated. Buzzford sang to Coney, Come, my ancient friend, let's move on. There's nothing more to see here. These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known how ripe the great jocular plot really was. Yes, to-night, Jop had said to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixon Lane, as a wind-up to the royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great elevation today. To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation. End of Chapter thirty-seven Chapter thirty-eight of The Mayor of Castor Bridge This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Mayor of Castor Bridge by Thomas Hardy Chapter thirty-eight The proceedings have been brief. Too brief. To Lucetta, whom an intoxicating weltlust had fairly mastered, but they had brought her a great triumph, nevertheless. The shake of the royal hand still lingered in her fingers, and the chitchat she had overheard that her husband might possibly receive the honor of knighthood, though idle to a degree, seemed not the wildest vision. Stranger things had occurred to men so good in captivating as her scotchman was. After the collision with the Mayor, henchard had withdrawn behind the lady's stand, and there he stood regarding with a stare of abstraction the spot on the lapel of his coat where Farfrey's hand had seized it. He put his own hand there, as if he could hardly realize such an outrage from one whom it had once been his want to treat with ardent generosity. While pausing in this half-stupified state, the conversation of Lucetta with the other ladies reached his ears, and he distinctly heard her deny him, deny that he had assisted Donald, that he was anything more than a common journeyman. He moved on homeward and met Job in the archway to the bullsteak. So you've had a snub, said Job. What if I have? answered henchard sternly. Why, I've had one too, so we are both under the same cold shade. He briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta's intercession. Henchard merely heard his story without taking it deeply in. His own relation to Farfrey and Lucetta overshadowed all kindred ones. He went on saying brokenly to himself, she has supplicated to me in her time, and now her tongue won't own me nor her eyes see me. And he, how angry he looked, he drove me back as if I were a bull-breaking fence. I took it like a lamb, for I thought could not be settled there. He can rub brine on a green wound, but he shall pay for it, and she shall be sorry. It must come to a tussle, face to face, and then we'll see how a cockscomb can front a man. Without further reflection the fallen merchant bent on some wild purpose, ate a hasty dinner, and went forth to find Farfrey. After being injured by him as a rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman, the crowning degradation had been reserved for this day that he should be shaken as a collar by him as a vagabond in the face of the whole town. Crowds had dispersed, but for the green arches which still stood as they were erected, Casterbridge life had resumed its ordinary shape. Henschard went down Corn Street till he came to Farfrey's house, where he knocked and left a message that he would be glad to see his employer at the greeneries as soon as he conveniently could come there. Having done this he proceeded round to the back and entered the yard. Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the laborers and carters were enjoying a half holiday on account of the events of the morning, though the carters would have to return for a short time later on to feed and litter down the horses. He had reached the granary steps and was about to ascend when he said to himself aloud, I'm stronger than he. Henschard returned to his shed, where he selected a short piece of rope from several pieces that were lying about. Hitching one end of this to a nail, he took the other in his right hand and turned himself bodily round while keeping his arm against his side. By this contrivance he pinioned the arm effectively. He now went up the ladders to the top floor of the cornstores. It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door often mentioned, opening under the cat-head and chain that hoisted the sacks. He fixed the door open and looked over the sill. There was a depth of thirty or forty feet to the ground. Here was the spot on which he had been standing with Farfray when Elizabeth Jane had seen him lift his arm with many misgivings as to what the movement portended. He retired a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated perch his eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of the luxurious chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a weak age, and the drooping vows of the lines, Farfray's garden and the green door leading therefrom. In course of time, he could not say how long, that green door opened and Farfray came through. He was dressed as if for a journey. The low light of the nearing evening caught his head and face when he emerged from the shadow of the wall, warming them to a complexion of flame color. Henschard watched him with his mouth firmly set, the squareness of his jaw and the verticality of his profile being unduly marked. Farfray came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a tune in a way which told that the words were most in his mind. There were those of the song he had sung when he arrived years before at the three mariners, a poor young man adventuring for life and fortune in scarcely knowing witherward. And here's a hand, my trusty fear, and guess a hand of thine. Nothing moved Henschard like an old melody. He sank back. No, I can't do it, he gasped. Why does the infernal fool begin that now? At length Farfray was silent, and Henschard looked out of the loft door. Will ye come up here, he said? Hey, man, said Farfray, I couldn't see. What's wrong? A minute later Henschard heard his feet on the lowest ladder. He heard him land on the first floor, ascend and land on the second, begin the ascent to the third, and then his head rose through the trap behind. What are you doing up here at this time, he asked, coming forward? Why didn't ye take your holiday like the rest of the men? He spoke in a tone which had just severity enough in it to show that he remembered the untoward event of the forenoon and his conviction that Henschard had been drinking. Henschard said nothing, but going back he closed the stair hatchway and stamped upon it so that it went tight into its frame. He next turned to the wondering young man who by this time observed that one of Henschard's arms was bound to his side. Now, said Henschard quietly, we stand face to face, man and man, your money and your fine wife no longer lifty above me as they did but now, and my poverty does not press me down. What does it all mean? asked Farfray simply. Wait a bit, my lad, you should have thought twice before you affronted to extremes a man who had nothing to lose. I've stood your rivalry which ruined me and your snubbing which humbled me, but your hustling that disgraced me I won't stand. Farfray warmed a little at this. You'd no business there, he said. As much as any one among ye, what, you forward-stripling, tell a man of my age he'd no business there? The anger vane swelled in his forehead as he spoke. You insulted royalty, Henschard, and twist my duty as the chief magistrate to stop you. Royalty be damned, said Henschard. I am as loyal as you come to that. I am not here to argue. Wait till you cool dune, wait till you cool, and you will see things the same way as I do. You may be the one to cool first, said Henschard grimly. Now this is the case. Here be we in this four-square loft to finish out that little wrestle you began this morning. There is the door, forty foot above ground. One of us, too, puts the other out by that door. The master stays inside. If he likes, he may go down afterwards and give the alarm that the other is fallen out by accident, or he may tell the truth. That's his business. As the strongest man, I've tied one arm to take no advantage of him. Do you understand? Then here's Addy. There was no time for Farfray to do ought but one thing, to close with Henschard, for the latter had come on at once. It was a wrestling match, the object of each being to give his antagonist a backfall, and on Henschard's part unquestionably, that it should be through the door. At the outset, Henschard's hold by his only free hand, the right, was on the left side of Farfray's collar, which he firmly grappled, the latter holding Henschard by his collar with the contrary hand. With his right, he endeavored to get hold of his antagonist's left arm, which, however, he could not do, so adroitly did Henschard keep it in the rear as he gazed upon the lowered eyes of his fair and slim antagonist. Henschard planted the first toe forward, Farfray crossing him with his, and thus far the struggle had very much the appearance of the ordinary wrestling of those parts. Several minutes were passed by them in this attitude, the pair rocking and driving like trees in a gale, both preserving an absolute silence. By this time their breathing could be heard. Then Farfray tried to get hold of the other side of Henschard's collar, which was resisted by the larger man exerting all his force in a wrenching movement, and this part of the struggle ended by his forcing Farfray down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his muscular arms. Hampered as he was, however, he could not keep him there, and Farfray, finding his feet again, the struggle proceeded as before. By a whirl, Henschard brought Donald dangerously near the precipice. Seeing his position, the Scotchman, for the first time, locked himself to his adversary, and all the efforts of that infuriated Prince of Darkness, as he might have been called from his appearance just now, were inadequate to lift or loosen Farfray for a time. By an extraordinary effort he succeeded at last, though not until they had got far back again from the fatal door. In doing so, Henschard contrived to turn Farfray a complete somersault. Had Henschard's other arm been free, it would have been all over with Farfray then. But again he regained his feet, wrenching Henschard's arm considerably, and causing him sharp pain as could be seen from the twitching of his face. He instantly delivered the younger man an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as it used to be expressed, and following up his advantage thrust him towards the door, never loosening his hold till Farfray's fair head was hanging over the windowsill and his arm dangling down outside the wall. Now, said Henschard, between his gasps, this is the end of what you began this morning. Your life is in my hands. Then take it, take it, said Farfray, you wished too long enough. Henschard looked down upon him in silence and their eyes met. Oh, Farfray, that's not true, he said bitterly. God is my witness, the new man ever loved another as I did thee at one time. And now, though I came here to kill thee, I cannot hurt thee. Go and give me Henschard, do what you will. I care nothing for what comes of me. He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm, and flung himself in a corner upon some sacks in the abandonment of remorse. Farfray regarded him in silence, then went to the hatch and descended through it. Henschard would faint have recalled him, but his tongue failed in its task, and the young man's steps died on his ear. Henschard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach. The scenes of his first acquaintance with Farfray rushed back upon him. That time when the curious mixture of romance and thrift in the young man's composition so commanded his heart that Farfray could play upon him as on an instrument, so thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the sacks in a crouching attitude, unusual for a man and for such a man, its womanliness sat tragically on the figure of so stern a piece of virility. He heard a conversation below, the opening of the coach-house door, and the putting in of a horse, but took no notice. Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque obscurity, and the loft door became an oblong of gray light, the only visible shape around. At length he arose, shook the dust from his clothes, weirdly, felt his weight of the hatch and gropingly descended the steps till he stood in the yard. He thought highly of me once, he murmured. Now he'll hate me and despise me forever. He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfray again that night, and by some desperate pleading to attempt the well-nigh impossible task of winning pardon for his late mad attack. But as he walked towards Farfray's door, he recalled the unheeded doings in the yard while he had lain above in a sort of stupor. Farfray, he remembered, had gone to the stable and put the horse into the gig. While doing so, Whittle had brought him a letter. Farfray had then said that he would not go towards Budmouth, as he had intended, that he was unexpectedly summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to call it Melstock on his way fither, that place lying but one or two miles out of his course. He must have come prepared for a journey when he first arrived in the yard, unsuspecting enmity, and he must have driven off, though in a changed direction, without saying a word to anyone on what had occurred between themselves. It would therefore be useless to call it Farfray's house till very late. There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though waiting was almost tortured to his restless and self-accusing soul. He walked about the streets and outskirts of the town, lingering here and there till he reached the stone bridge of which mention has been made, an accustomed halting-place with him now. Here he spent a long time, the pearl of waters through the weirs meeting his ear, and the castor-bridge lights glimmering at no great distance off. While leaning thus upon the parapet, his listless attention was awakened by sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a confusion of rhythmical noises to which the streets added yet more confusion by encumbering them with echoes. His first incurious thought that the clanger arose from the town band, engaged in an attempt to round off a memorable day in a burst of evening harmony, was contradicted by certain peculiarities of reverberation. But inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory heed. His sense of degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas, and he lent against the parapet as before.