Thomas Hardy ..........................................................................................................................................1

PREFATORY NOTE..............................................................................................................................1

A CHANGED MAN ................................................................................................................................1

THE WAITING SUPPER ......................................................................................................................13

ALICIA'S DIARY.................................................................................................................................45

THE GRAVE BY THE HANDPOST...................................................................................................63

ENTER A DRAGOON ..........................................................................................................................70

A TRYST AT AN ANCIENT EARTH WORK ....................................................................................82

WHAT THE SHEPHERD SAW: A TALE OF FOUR MOONLIGHT NIGHTS...............................88

A COMMITTEEMAN OF 'THE TERROR'.....................................................................................102

MASTER JOHN HORSELEIGH, KNIGHT .......................................................................................111

THE DUKE'S REAPPEARANCEA FAMILY TRADITION ........................................................118

A MERE INTERLUDE.......................................................................................................................123

I reprint in this volume, for what they may be worth, a dozen minor novels that have been published in the

periodical press at various dates in the past, in order to render them accessible to readers who desire to have

them in the complete series issued by my publishers. For aid in reclaiming some of the narratives I express

my thanks to the proprietors and editors of the newspapers and magazines in whose pages they first appeared.

The person who, next to the actors themselves, chanced to know most of their story, lived just below 'Top o'

Town' (as the spot was called) in an old substantiallybuilt house, distinguished among its neighbours by

having an oriel window on the first floor, whence could be obtained a raking view of the High Street, west

and east, the former including Laura's dwelling, the end of the Town Avenue hard by (in which were played

the odd pranks hereafter to be mentioned), the PortBredy road rising westwards, and the turning that led to

the cavalry barracks where the Captain was quartered. Looking eastward down the town from the same

favoured gazebo, the long perspective of houses declined and dwindled till they merged in the highway

across the moor. The white riband of road disappeared over Grey's Bridge a quarter of a mile off, to plunge

into innumerable rustic windings, shy shades, and solitary undulations up hill and down dale for one hundred

and twenty miles till it exhibited itself at Hyde Park Corner as a smooth bland surface in touch with a busy

To the barracks aforesaid had recently arrived the th Hussars, a regiment new to the locality. Almost

before any acquaintance with its members had been made by the townspeople, a report spread that they were

a 'crack' body of men, and had brought a splendid band. For some reason or other the town had not been used

as the headquarters of cavalry for many years, the various troops stationed there having consisted of casual

detachments only; so that it was with a sense of honour that everybodyeven the small furniture broker

from whom the married troopers hired tables and chairs received the news of their crack quality.

In those days the Hussar regiments still wore over the left shoulder that attractive attachment, or frilled

halfcoat, hanging loosely behind like the wounded wing of a bird, which was called the pelisse, though it

was known among the troopers themselves as a 'sling jacket.' It added amazingly to their picturesqueness in

The burgher who lived in the house with the oriel window sat during a great many hours of the day in that

projection, for he was an invalid, and time hung heavily on his hands unless he maintained a constant interest

in proceedings without. Not more than a week after the arrival of the Hussars his ears were assailed by the

'Have 'ee heard this about the Hussars? They are haunted! Yesa ghost troubles 'em; he has followed 'em

A haunted regiment: that was a new idea for either invalid or stalwart. The listener in the oriel came to the

He made Captain Maumbry's acquaintance in an informal manner at an afternoon tea to which he went in a

wheeled chairone of the very rare outings that the state of his health permitted. Maumbry showed himself

to be a handsome man of twentyeight or thirty, with an attractive hint of wickedness in his manner that was

sure to make him adorable with good young women. The large dark eyes that lit his pale face expressed this

wickedness strongly, though such was the adaptability of their rays that one could think they might have

expressed sadness or seriousness just as readily, if he had had a mind for such.

An old and deaf lady who was present asked Captain Maumbry bluntly: 'What's this we hear about you? They

The Captain's face assumed an aspect of grave, even sad, concern. 'Yes,' he replied, 'it is too true.'

Some younger ladies smiled till they saw how serious he looked, when they looked serious likewise.

'Well; theTHING, as I'll call it, follows us. In country quarters or town, abroad or at home, it's just the

'H'm.' Maumbry lowered his voice. 'Some crime committed by certain of our regiment in past years, we

When the Hussar was gone, a young lady, disclosing a longsuppressed interest, asked if the ghost had been

The lawyer's son, who always had the latest borough news, said that, though it was seldom seen by any one

but the Hussars themselves, more than one townsman and woman had already set eyes on it, to his or her

terror. The phantom mostly appeared very late at night, under the dense trees of the townavenue nearest the

barracks. It was about ten feet high; its teeth chattered with a dry naked sound, as if they were those of a

During the darkest weeks of winter several timid persons were seriously frightened by the object answering

to this cheerful description, and the police began to look into the matter. Whereupon the appearances grew

less frequent, and some of the Boys of the regiment thankfully stated that they had not been so free from

ghostly visitation for years as they had become since their arrival in Casterbridge.

This playing at ghosts was the most innocent of the amusements indulged in by the choice young spirits who

inhabited the lichened, redbrick building at the top of the town bearing 'W.D.' and a broad arrow on its

quoins. Far more serious escapadeslevities relating to love, wine, cards, bettingwere talked of, with no

doubt more or less of exaggeration. That the Hussars, Captain Maumbry included, were the cause of bitter

tears to several young women of the town and country is unquestionably true, despite the fact that the gaieties

of the young men wore a more staring colour in this oldfashioned place than they would have done in a

Returning up the town on one of these occasions, the romantic pelisse flapping behind each horseman's

shoulder in the soft southwest wind, Captain Maumbry glanced up at the oriel. A mutual nod was

exchanged between him and the person who sat there reading. The reader and a friend in the room with him

followed the troop with their eyes all the way up the street, till, when the soldiers were opposite the house in

'He'll never marry. Several girls have been mentioned in connection with his name. I am sorry for Laura.'

'She's one more, and more still. She has regularly caught him. She is a born player of the game of hearts, and

she knew how to beat him in his own practices. If there is one woman in the town who has any chance of

This was true, as it turned out. By natural proclivity Laura had from the first entered heart and soul into

military romance as exhibited in the plots and characters of those living exponents of it who came under her

notice. From her earliest young womanhood civilians, however promising, had no chance of winning her

interest if the meanest warrior were within the horizon. It may be that the position of her uncle's house (which

was her home) at the corner of West Street nearest the barracks, the daily passing of the troops, the constant

blowing of trumpetcalls a furlong from her windows, coupled with the fact that she knew nothing of the

inner realities of military life, and hence idealized it, had also helped her mind's original bias for thinking

Captain Maumbry was a typical prize; one whom all surrounding maidens had coveted, ached for, angled for,

wept for, had by her judicious management become subdued to her purpose; and in addition to the pleasure of

marrying the man she loved, Laura had the joy of feeling herself hated by the mothers of all the marriageable

The man in the oriel went to the wedding; not as a guest, for at this time he was but slightly acquainted with

the parties; but mainly because the church was close to his house; partly, too, for a reason which moved many

others to be spectators of the ceremony; a subconsciousness that, though the couple might be happy in their

experiences, there was sufficient possibility of their being otherwise to colour the musings of an onlooker

with a pleasing pathos of conjecture. He could on occasion do a pretty stroke of rhyming in those days, and

he beguiled the time of waiting by pencilling on a blank page of his prayerbook a few lines which, though

If hours be years the twain are blest, For now they solace swift desire By lifelong ties that tether zest If hours

be years. The twain are blest Do eastern suns slope never west, Nor pallid ashes follow fire. If hours be years

As if, however, to falsify all prophecies, the couple seemed to find in marriage the secret of perpetuating the

intoxication of a courtship which, on Maumbry's side at least, had opened without serious intent. During the

winter following they were the most popular pair in and about Casterbridgenay in South Wessex itself. No

smart dinner in the country houses of the younger and gayer families within driving distance of the borough

was complete without their lively presence; Mrs. Maumbry was the blithest of the whirling figures at the

county ball; and when followed that inevitable incident of garrisontown life, an amateur dramatic

entertainment, it was just the same. The acting was for the benefit of such and such an excellent

charitynobody cared what, provided the play were playedand both Captain Maumbry and his wife were

in the piece, having been in fact, by mutual consent, the originators of the performance. And so with laughter,

and thoughtlessness, and movement, all went merrily. There was a little backwardness in the billpaying of

the couple; but in justice to them it must be added that sooner or later all owings were paid.

At the chapelofease attended by the troops there arose above the edge of the pulpit one Sunday an

unknown face. This was the face of a new curate. He placed upon the desk, not the familiar sermon book, but

merely a Bible. The person who tells these things was not present at that service, but he soon learnt that the

young curate was nothing less than a great surprise to his congregation; a mixed one always, for though the

Hussars occupied the body of the building, its nooks and corners were crammed with civilians, whom, up to

the present, even the least uncharitable would have described as being attracted thither less by the services

Now there arose a second reason for squeezing into an already overcrowded church. The persuasive and

gentle eloquence of Mr. Sainway operated like a charm upon those accustomed only to the higher and dryer

styles of preaching, and for a time the other churches of the town were thinned of their sitters.

At this point in the nineteenth century the sermon was the sole reason for churchgoing amongst a vast body of

religious people. The liturgy was a formal preliminary, which, like the Royal proclamation in a court of

assize, had to be got through before the real interest began; and on reaching home the question was simply:

Who preached, and how did he handle his subject? Even had an archbishop officiated in the service proper

nobody would have cared much about what was said or sung. People who had formerly attended in the

morning only began to go in the evening, and even to the special addresses in the afternoon.

One day when Captain Maumbry entered his wife's drawingroom, filled with hired furniture, she thought he

was somebody else, for he had not come upstairs humming the most catching air afloat in musical circles or

'What's the matter, Jack?' she said without looking up from a note she was writing.

'Whythis cursed new lath in a sheetI mean the new parson! He wants us to stop the bandplaying on

'Why, it is the one thing that enables the few rational beings hereabouts to keep alive from Saturday to

'He says all the town flock to the music and don't come to the service, and that the pieces played are profane,

or mundane, or inane, or somethingnot what ought to be played on Sunday. Of course 'tis Lautmann who

The barrackgreen on Sunday afternoons had, indeed, become the promenade of a great many townspeople

cheerfully inclined, many even of those who attended in the morning at Mr. Sainway's service; and little boys

who ought to have been listening to the curate's afternoon lecture were too often seen rolling upon the grass

Laura heard no more about the matter, however, for two or three weeks, when suddenly remembering it she

'OMr. Sainway. I forgot to tell you. I've made his acquaintance. He is not a bad sort of man.'

Laura asked if either Maumbry or some others of the officers did not give the presumptuous curate a good

The acquaintance developed apparently, for the Captain said to her a little later on, 'There's a good deal in

Sainway's argument about having no band on Sunday afternoons. After all, it is close to his church. But he

'It was only a passing thought of mine. We naturally don't wish to offend the inhabitants of the town if they

The invalid in the oriel never clearly gathered the details of progress in this conflict of lay and clerical

opinion; but so it was that, to the disappointment of musicians, the grief of outwalking lovers, and the regret

of the junior population of the town and country round, the bandplaying on Sunday afternoons ceased in

By this time the Maumbrys had frequently listened to the preaching of the gentle if narrowminded curate;

for these lightnatured, hitor miss, rackety people went to church like others for respectability's sake.

None so orthodox as your unmitigated worldling. A more remarkable event was the sight to the man in the

window of Captain Maumbry and Mr. Sainway walking down the High Street in earnest conversation. On his

mentioning this fact to a caller he was assured that it was a matter of common talk that they were always

The observer would soon have learnt this with his own eyes if he had not been told. They began to pass

together nearly every day. Hitherto Mrs. Maumbry, in fashionable walking clothes, had usually been her

husband's companion; but this was less frequent now. The close and singular friendship between the two men

went on for nearly a year, when Mr. Sainway was presented to a living in a densely populated town in the

midland counties. He bade the parishioners of his old place a reluctant farewell and departed, the touching

sermon he preached on the occasion being published by the local printer. Everybody was sorry to lose him;

and it was with genuine grief that his Casterbridge congregation learnt later on that soon after his induction to

his benefice, during some bitter weather, he had fallen seriously ill of inflammation of the lungs, of which he

We now get below the surface of things. Of all who had known the dead curate, none grieved for him like the

man who on his first arrival had called him a 'lath in a sheet.' Mrs. Maumbry had never greatly sympathized

with the impressive parson; indeed, she had been secretly glad that he had gone away to better himself. He

had considerably diminished the pleasures of a woman by whom the joys of earth and good company had

been appreciated to the full. Sorry for her husband in his loss of a friend who had been none of hers, she was

'There is something that I have wanted to tell you lately, dear,' he said one morning at breakfast with

'I have thought more and more of Sainway since his death, and of what he used to say to me so earnestly. And

I feel certain I shall be right in obeying a call within me to give up this fighting trade and enter the Church.'

'No, you mustn't,' Maumbry replied, in the tone he used when his mind was made up. 'You'll get accustomed

to the idea, for I am constrained to carry it out, though it is against my worldly interests. I am forced on by a

'Jack,' she asked, with calm pallor and round eyes; 'do you mean to say seriously that you are arranging to be

'I might say a curate IS a soldierof the church militant; but I don't want to offend you with doctrine. I

Late one evening, a little time onward, he caught her sitting by the dim firelight in her room. She did not

know he had entered; and he found her weeping. 'What are you crying about, poor dearest?' he said.

She started. 'Because of what you have told me!' The Captain grew very unhappy; but he was undeterred.

In due time the town learnt, to its intense surprise, that Captain Maumbry had retired from the th Hussars

'O, the pity of it! Such a dashing soldierso popularsuch an acquisition to the townthe soul of social

life here! And now! . . . One should not speak ill of the dead, but that dreadful Mr. Sainwayit was too cruel

This is a summary of what was said when Captain, now the Reverend, John Maumbry was enabled by

circumstances to indulge his heart's desire of returning to the scene of his former exploits in the capacity of a

minister of the Gospel. A lowlying district of the town, which at that date was crowded with impoverished

cottagers, was crying for a curate, and Mr. Maumbry generously offered himself as one willing to undertake

labours that were certain to produce little result, and no thanks, credit, or emolument.

Let the truth be told about him as a clergyman; he proved to be anything but a brilliant success. Painstaking,

singleminded, deeply in earnest as all could see, his delivery was laboured, his sermons were dull to listen

to, and alas, too, too long. Even the dispassionate judges who sat by the hour in the barparlour of the White

Hartan inn standing at the dividing line between the poor quarter aforesaid and the fashionable quarter of

Maumbry's former triumphs, and hence affording a position of strict impartiality agreed in substance with

the young ladies to the westward, though their views were somewhat more tersely expressed: 'Surely, God

A'mighty spwiled a good sojer to make a bad pa'son when He shifted Cap'n Ma'mbry into a sarpless!'

The latter knew that such things were said, but he pursued his daily' labours in and out of the hovels with

It was about this time that the invalid in the oriel became more than a mere bowing acquaintance of Mrs.

Maumbry's. She had returned to the town with her husband, and was living with him in a little house in the

centre of his circle of ministration, when by some means she became one of the invalid's visitors. After a

general conversation while sitting in his room with a friend of both, an incident led up to the matter that still

rankled deeply in her soul. Her face was now paler and thinner than it had been; even more attractive, her

disappointments having inscribed themselves as meek thoughtfulness on a look that was once a little

frivolous. The two ladies had called to be allowed to use the window for observing the departure of the

The troopers turned the corner of Barrack Road into the top of High Street, headed by their band playing 'The

girl I left behind me' (which was formerly always the tune for such times, though it is now nearly disused).

They came and passed the oriel, where an officer or two, looking up and discovering Mrs. Maumbry, saluted

her, whose eyes filled with tears as the notes of the band waned away. Before the little group had recovered

from that sense of the romantic which such spectacles impart, Mr. Maumbry came along the pavement. He

probably had bidden his former brethreninarms a farewell at the top of the street, for he walked from that

direction in his rather shabby clerical clothes, and with a basket on his arm which seemed to hold some

purchases he had been making for his poorer parishioners. Unlike the soldiers he went along quite

The contrast was too much for Laura. With lips that now quivered, she asked the invalid what he thought of

It was difficult to answer, and with a wilfulness that was too strong in her she repeated the question.

'Do you think,' she added, 'that a woman's husband has a right to do such a thing, even if he does feel a

Her listener sympathized too largely with both of them to be anything but unsatisfactory in his reply. Laura

gazed longingly out of the window towards the thin dusty line of Hussars, now smalling towards the

Mellstock Ridge. 'I,' she said, 'who should have been in their van on the way to London, am doomed to fester

Many events had passed and many rumours had been current concerning her before the invalid saw her again

Casterbridge had known many military and civil episodes; many happy times, and times less happy; and now

came the time of her visitation. The scourge of cholera had been laid on the suffering country, and the

lowlying purlieus of this ancient borough had more than their share of the infliction. Mixen Lane, in the

Durnover quarter, and in Maumbry's parish, was where the blow fell most heavily. Yet there was a certain

The spread of the epidemic was so rapid that many left the town and took lodgings in the villages and farms.

Mr. Maumbry's house was close to the most infected street, and he himself was occupied morn, noon, and

night in endeavours to stamp out the plague and in alleviating the sufferings of the victims. So, as a matter of

ordinary precaution, he decided to isolate his wife somewhere away from him for a while.

She suggested a village by the sea, near Budmouth Regis, and lodgings were obtained for her at Creston, a

spot divided from the Casterbridge valley by a high ridge that gave it quite another atmosphere, though it lay

Thither she went. While she was rusticating in this place of safety, and her husband was slaving in the slums,

she struck up an acquaintance with a lieutenant in the st Foot, a Mr. Vannicock, who was stationed with his

regiment at the Budmouth infantry barracks. As Laura frequently sat on the shelving beach, watching each

thin wave slide up to her, and hearing, without heeding, its gnaw at the pebbles in its retreat, he often took a

The acquaintance grew and ripened. Her situation, her history, her beauty, her agea year or two above his

ownall tended to make an impression on the young man's heart, and a reckless flirtation was soon in blithe

It was said by her detractors afterwards that she had chosen her lodging to be near this gentleman, but there is

reason to believe that she had never seen him till her arrival there. Just now Casterbridge was so deeply

occupied with its own sad affairsa daily burying of the dead and destruction of contaminated clothes and

beddingthat it had little inclination to promulgate such gossip as may have reached its ears on the pair.

Meanwhile, on the Budmouth side of the hill the very mood of men was in contrast. The visitation there had

been slight and much earlier, and normal occupations and pastimes had been resumed. Mr. Maumbry had

arranged to see Laura twice a week in the open air, that she might run no risk from him; and, having heard

nothing of the faint rumour, he met her as usual one dry and windy afternoon on the summit of the dividing

hill, near where the high road from town to town crosses the old Ridgeway at right angles.

He waved his hand, and smiled as she approached, shouting to her: 'We will keep this wall between us, dear.'

(Walls formed the field fences here.) 'You mustn't be endangered. It won't be for long, with God's help!'

'I will do as you tell me, Jack. But you are running too much risk yourself, aren't you? I get little news of you;

Thus somewhat formally they talked, an insulating wind beating the wall between them like a millweir.

'Yes. You know we are trying in Budmouth to raise some money for your sufferers; and the way we have

His face saddened. 'I have known so much of that sort of thing, and all that accompanies it! I wish you had

She said lightly that she was afraid it was all settled. 'You object to my taking a part, then? Of course'

He told her that he did not like to say he positively objected. He wished they had chosen an oratorio, or

'But,' said she impatiently, 'people won't come to oratorios or lectures! They will crowd to comedies and

'Well, I cannot dictate to Budmouth how it shall earn the money it is going to give us. Who is getting up this

'Ah, yes; our old game!' replied Mr. Maumbry. 'The grief of Casterbridge is the excuse for their frivolity.

Candidly, dear Laura, I wish you wouldn't play in it. But I don't forbid you to. I leave the whole to your

The interview ended, and they went their ways northward and southward. Time disclosed to all concerned

that Mrs. Maumbry played in the comedy as the heroine, the lover's part being taken by Mr. Vannicock.

Thus was helped on an event which the conduct of the mutually attracted ones had been generating for some

It is unnecessary to give details. The st Foot left for Bristol, and this precipitated their action. After a week

of hesitation she agreed to leave her home at Creston and meet Vannicock on the ridge hard by, and to

accompany him to Bath, where he had secured lodgings for her, so that she would be only about a dozen

Accordingly, on the evening chosen, she laid on her dressingtable a note for her husband, running thus:

DEAR JACKI am unable to endure this life any longer, and I have resolved to put an end to it. I told you I

should run away if you persisted in being a clergyman, and now I am doing it. One cannot help one's nature. I

have resolved to throw in my lot with Mr. Vannicock, and I hope rather than expect you will forgive me.L.

Then, with hardly a scrap of luggage, she went, ascending to the ridge in the dusk of early evening. Almost

on the very spot where her husband had stood at their last tryst she beheld the outline of Vannicock, who had

'I don't like meeting hereit is so unlucky!' she cried to him. 'For God's sake let us have a place of our own.

He went back to the milestone that stands on the north slope of the ridge, where the old and new roads

She was taciturn and sorrowful when he asked her why she would not meet him on the top. At last she

He explained that he proposed to walk to Mellstock Hill, on the other side of Casterbridge, where a fly was

waiting to take them by a crosscut into the Ivell Road, and onward to that town. The Bristol railway was

This plan they followed, and walked briskly through the dull gloom till they neared Casterbridge, which place

they avoided by turning to the right at the Roman Amphitheatre and bearing round to Durnover Cross.

Thence the way was solitary and open across the moor to the hill whereon the Ivell fly awaited them.

'I have noticed for some time,' she said, 'a lurid glare over the Durnover end of the town. It seems to come

'There's not a lamp as big as a rushlight in the whole lane. It is where the cholera is worst.'

By Standfast Corner, a little beyond the Cross, they suddenly obtained an end view of the lane. Large

bonfires were burning in the middle of the way, with a view to purifying the air; and from the wretched

tenements with which the lane was lined in those days persons were bringing out bedding and clothing. Some

was thrown into the fires, the rest placed in wheelbarrows and wheeled into the moor directly in the track of

They followed on, and came up to where a vast copper was set in the open air. Here the linen was boiled and

disinfected. By the light of the lanterns Laura discovered that her husband was standing by the copper, and

that it was he who unloaded the barrow and immersed its contents. The night was so calm and muggy that the

'There's the clothes o' they that died this afternoon, sir. But that might bide till tomorrow, for you must be

'We'll do it at once, for I can't ask anybody else to undertake it. Overturn that load on the grass and fetch the

The man did so and went off with the barrow. Maumbry paused for a moment to wipe his face, and resumed

his homely drudgery amid this squalid and reeking scene, pressing down and stirring the contents of the

copper with what looked like an old rollingpin. The steam therefrom, laden with death, travelled in a low

Laura spoke suddenly: 'I won't go tonight after all. He is so tired, and I must help him. I didn't know things

Vannicock's arm dropped from her waist, where it had been resting as they walked. 'Will you leave?' she

'I will if you say I must. But I'd rather help too.' There was no expostulation in his tone.

The weary curate turned and held up the lantern. 'Owhat, is it you, Laura?' he asked in surprise. 'Why did

'But I want to help you, Jack. Please let me help! I didn't come by myselfMr. Vannicock kept me company.

The young lieutenant came forward reluctantly. Mr. Maumbry spoke formally to him, adding as he resumed

The two newcomers began to assist, Vannicock placing on the ground the small bag containing Laura's toilet

articles that he had been carrying. The barrowman soon returned with another load, and all continued work

'Beg pardon, sir,' he whispered to Vannicock, 'but I've waited so long on Mellstock hill that at last I drove

down to the turnpike; and seeing the light here, I ran on to find out what had happened.'

Lieutenant Vannicock told him to wait a few minutes, and the last barrowload was got through. Mr.

Maumbry stretched himself and breathed heavily, saying, 'There; we can do no more.'

As if from the relaxation of effort he seemed to be seized with violent pain. He pressed his hands to his sides

'Ah! I think it has got hold of me at last,' he said with difficulty. 'I must try to get home. Let Mr. Vannicock

He walked a few steps, they helping him, but was obliged to sink down on the grass.

'I amafraidyou'll have to send for a hurdle, or shutter, or something,' he went on feebly, 'or try to get me

But Vannicock had called to the driver of the fly, and they waited until it was brought on from the turnpike

hard by. Mr. Maumbry was placed therein. Laura entered with him, and they drove to his humble residence

Vannicock stood outside by the empty fly awhile, but Laura did not reappear. He thereupon entered the fly

Mr. Maumbry had overexerted himself in the relief of the suffering poor, and fell a victimone of the

lastto the pestilence which had carried off so many. Two days later he lay in his coffin.

Laura was in the room below. A servant brought in some letters, and she glanced them over. One was the

note from herself to Maumbry, informing him that she was unable to endure life with him any longer and was

about to elope with Vannicock. Having read the letter she took it upstairs to where the dead man was, and

She shut up his house at Durnover Cross and returned to her lodgings at Creston. Soon she had a letter from

'I forgot to give you back thisthat night,' he said presently, handing her the little bag she had taken as her

Laura received it and absently shook it out. There fell upon the carpet her brush, comb, slippers, nightdress,

and other simple necessaries for a journey. They had an intolerably ghastly look now, and she tried to cover

'I can now,' he said, 'ask you to belong to me legallywhen a proper interval has goneinstead of as we

There was languor in his utterance, hinting at a possibility that it was perfunctorily made. Laura picked up her

articles, answering that he certainly could so ask hershe was free. Yet not her expression either could be

called an ardent response. Then she blinked more and more quickly and put her handkerchief to her face. She

He did not move or try to comfort her in any way. What had come between them? No living person. They had

been lovers. There was now no material obstacle whatever to their union. But there was the insistent shadow

of that unconscious one; the thin figure of him, moving to and fro in front of the ghastly furnace in the gloom

Yet Vannicock called upon Laura when he was in the neighbourhood, which was not often; but in two years,

as if on purpose to further the marriage which everybody was expecting, the st Foot returned to Budmouth

Thereupon the two could not help encountering each other at times. But whether because the obstacle had

been the source of the love, or from a sense of error, and because Mrs. Maumbry bore a less attractive look as

a widow than before, their feelings seemed to decline from their former incandescence to a mere tepid

civility. What domestic issues supervened in Vannicock's further story the man in the oriel never knew; but

Whoever had perceived the yeoman standing on Squire Everard's lawn in the dusk of that October evening

fifty years ago, might have said at first sight that he was loitering there from idle curiosity. For a large

fivelight window of the manorhouse in front of him was unshuttered and uncurtained, so that the

illuminated room within could be scanned almost to its four corners. Obviously nobody was ever expected to

The apartment thus swept by an eye from without was occupied by two persons; they were sitting over

dessert, the tablecloth having been removed in the oldfashioned way. The fruits were local, consisting of

apples, pears, nuts, and such other products of the summer as might be presumed to grow on the estate. There

was strong ale and rum on the table, and but little wine. Moreover, the appointments of the diningroom were

simple and homely even for the date, betokening a countrified household of the smaller gentry, without much

wealth or ambitionformerly a numerous class, but now in great part ousted by the territorial landlords.

One of the two sitters was a young lady in white muslin, who listened somewhat impatiently to the remarks

of her companion, an elderly, rubicund personage, whom the merest stranger could have pronounced to be

her father. The watcher evinced no signs of moving, and it became evident that affairs were not so simple as

they first had seemed. The tall farmer was in fact no accidental spectator, and he stood by premeditation close

to the trunk of a tree, so that had any traveller passed along the road without the park gate, or even round the

lawn to the door, that person would scarce have noticed the other, notwithstanding that the gate was quite

near at hand, and the park little larger than a paddock. There was still light enough in the western heaven to

brighten faintly one side of the man's face, and to show against the trunk of the tree behind the admirable cut

of his profile; also to reveal that the front of the manorhouse, small though it seemed, was solidly built of

stone in that nevertobe surpassed style for the English country residencethe mullioned and transomed

The lawn, although neglected, was still as level as a bowlinggreen which indeed it might once have

served for; and the blades of grass before the window were raked by the candleshine, which stretched over

Within the diningroom there were also, with one of the twain, the same signs of a hidden purpose that

marked the farmer. The young lady's mind was straying as clearly into the shadows as that of the loiterer was

fixed upon the roomnay, it could be said that she was quite conscious of his presence outside. Impatience

caused her foot to beat silently on the carpet, and she more than once rose to leave the table. This proceeding

was checked by her father, who would put his hand upon her shoulder and unceremoniously press her down

into her chair, till he should have concluded his observations. Her replies were brief enough, and there was

factitiousness in her smiles of assent to his views. A small iron casement between two of the mullions was

'As for drainshow can I put in drains? The pipes don't cost much, that's true; but the labour in sinking the

trenches is ruination. And then the gatesthey should be hung to stone posts, otherwise there's no keeping

them up through harvest.' The Squire's voice was strongly toned with the local accent, so that he said 'drains'

The landscape without grew darker, and the young man's figure seemed to be absorbed into the trunk of the

tree. The small stars filled in between the larger, the nebulae between the small stars, the trees quite lost their

voice; and if there was still a sound, it was from the cascade of a stream which stretched along under the trees

At last the young girl did get to her feet and secure her retreat. 'I have something to do, papa,' she said. 'I shall

'Very well,' replied he. 'Then I won't hurry.' And closing the door behind her, he drew his decanters together

Three minutes after that a woman's shape emerged from the drawing room window, and passing through a

walldoor to the entrance front, came across the grass. She kept well clear of the diningroom window, but

enough of its light fell on her to show, escaping from the darkhooded cloak that she wore, stray verges of

the same light dress which had figured but recently at the dinnertable. The hood was contracted tight about

her face with a drawingstring, making her countenance small and babylike, and lovelier even than before.

Without hesitation she brushed across the grass to the tree under which the young man stood concealed. The

moment she had reached him he enclosed her form with his arm. The meeting and embrace, though by no

means formal, were yet not passionate; the whole proceeding was that of persons who had repeated the act so

often as to be unconscious of its performance. She turned within his arm, and faced in the same direction with

himself, which was towards the window; and thus they stood without speaking, the back of her head leaning

against his shoulder. For a while each seemed to be thinking his and her diverse thoughts.

'You have kept me waiting a long time, dear Christine,' he said at last. 'I wanted to speak to you particularly,

'Father has been out all day, and dinner was put back till six. I know I have kept you; but Nicholas, how can I

help it sometimes, if I am not to run any risk? My poor father insists upon my listening to all he has to say;

since my brother left he has had nobody else to listen to him; and tonight he was particularly tedious on his

usual topicsdraining, and tenantfarmers, and the village people. I must take daddy to London; he gets so

'Well, I took the part of the tenantfarmers, of course, as the beloved of one should in duty do.' There

'I know you are sorry, as time goes on, and everything is at a dead lock, with no prospect of change, and

your rural swain loses his freshness! Only think, this secret understanding between us has lasted near three

'And I an untamed, uncultivated man, who has never seen London, and knows nothing about society at all.'

'Not uncultivated, dear Nicholas. Untravelled, socially unpractised, if you will,' she said, smiling. 'Well, I did

sigh; but not because I regret being your promised one. What I do sometimes regret is that the scheme, which

my meetings with you are but a part of, has not been carried out completely. You said, Nicholas, that if I

consented to swear to keep faith with you, you would go away and travel, and see nations, and peoples, and

cities, and take a professor with you, and study books and art, simultaneously with your study of men and

manners; and then come back at the end of two years, when I should find that my father would by no means

be indisposed to accept you as a soninlaw. You said your reason for wishing to get my promise before

starting was that your mind would then be more at rest when you were far away, and so could give itself more

completely to knowledge than if you went as my unaccepted lover only, fuming with anxiety as to how I

should be when you came back. I saw how reasonable that was; and solemnly swore myself to you in

consequence. But instead of going to see the world you stay on and on here to see me.'

'Yesnoit is not that. It is that I have latterly felt frightened at what I am doing when not in your actual

presence. It seems so wicked not to tell my father that I have a lover close at hand, within touch and view of

both of us; whereas if you were absent my conduct would not seem quite so treacherous. The realities would

not stare at one so. You would be a pleasant dream to me, which I should be free to indulge in without

reproach of my conscience; I should live in hopeful expectation of your returning fully qualified to boldly

He in his turn had lapsed into gloomy breathings now. 'I did plan it as you state,' he answered. 'I did mean to

go away the moment I had your promise. But, dear Christine, I did not foresee two or three things. I did not

know what a lot of pain it would cost to tear myself from you. And I did not know that my stingy

uncleheaven forgive me calling him so!would so flatly refuse to advance me money for my

purposethe scheme of travelling with a firstrate tutor costing a formidable sum o' money. You have no

'Ah, there,' he returned, 'you have hit a sore place. To speak truly, dear, I would rather stay unpolished a

'Yes; but not till afterwards. No man would like to touch your money at present, and I should feel very mean

if I were to do so in present circumstances. That brings me to what I was going to propose. But noupon the

'Ah! I would guarantee expenses, and you won't let me! The money is my personal possession: it comes to me

He laughed forcedly and pressed her hand. 'There are more reasons why I cannot tear myself away,' he added.

'What would become of my uncle's farming? Six hundred acres in this parish, and five hundred in the

nexta constant traipsing from one farm to the other; he can't be in two places at once. Still, that might be

got over if it were not for the other matters. Besides, dear, I still should be a little uneasy, even though I have

'Ah, you should have thought of that before. Otherwise I have committed myself for nothing.'

'I should have thought of it,' he answered gravely. 'But I did not. There lies my fault, I admit it freely. Ah, if

you would only commit yourself a little more, I might at least get over that difficulty! But I won't ask you.

You have no idea how much you are to me still; you could not argue so coolly if you had. What property

belongs to you I hate the very sound of; it is you I care for. I wish you hadn't a farthing in the world but what

'I wish it, because it would have made what I was going to propose much easier to do than it is now. Indeed I

will not propose it, although I came on purpose, after what you have said in your frankness.'

'Look at this then, Christine dear.' He drew from his breastpocket a sheet of paper and unfolded it, when it

'What is it?' She held the paper sideways, so that what there was of windowlight fell on its surface. 'I can

only read the Old English letterswhyour names! Surely it is not a marriagelicence?'

'Why should I have thought I must tell you? You had not spoken "frankly" then as you have now. We have

been all to each other more than these two years, and I thought I would propose that we marry privately, and

that I then leave you on the instant. I would have taken my travellingbag to church, and you would have

gone home alone. I should not have started on my adventures in the brilliant manner of our original plan, but

should have roughed it a little at first; my great gain would have been that the absolute possession of you

would have enabled me to work with spirit and purpose, such as nothing else could do. But I dare not ask you

She did not answer. The document he had produced gave such unexpected substantiality to the venture with

which she had so long toyed as a vague dream merely, that she was, in truth, frightened a little. 'Idon't

'No, Nic,' responded she, creeping closer. 'I am not. Upon my word, and truth, and honour, I am not, Nic.'

'A mere tiller of the soil, as I should be called,' he continued, without heeding her. 'And youwell, a

daughter of one of theI won't say oldest families, because that's absurd, all families are the same ageone

of the longest chronicled families about here, whose name is actually the name of the place.'

'That's not much, I am sorry to say! My poor brotherbut I won't speak of that . . . Well,' she murmured

mischievously, after a pause, 'you certainly would not need to be uneasy if I were to do this that you want me

'That's just it!' he said vehemently. 'It IS a trapyou feel it so, and that though you wouldn't be able to get

away from me you might particularly wish to! Ah, if I had asked you two years ago you would have agreed

instantly. But I thought I was bound to wait for the proposal to come from you as the superior!'

'Now you are angry, and take seriously what I meant purely in fun. You don't know me even yet! To show

you that you have not been mistaken in me, I do propose to carry out this licence. I'll marry you, dear

'No, no, no!' she hastily rejoined; and there was something in her tone which suggested that she had been put

upon her mettle and would not flinch. 'Take me whilst I am in the humour. What church is the licence for?'

'That I've not looked to seewhy our parish church here, of course. Ah, then we cannot use it! We dare not

They speedily came to an agreement that he should be in the church porch at ten minutes to eight on the

following morning, awaiting her; and that, immediately after the conclusion of the service which would make

them one, Nicholas should set out on his longdeferred educational tour, towards the cost of which she was

resolving to bring a substantial subscription with her to church. Then, slipping from him, she went indoors by

Instead of leaving the spot by the gate, he flung himself over the fence, and pursued a direction towards the

river under the trees. And it was now, in his lonely progress, that he showed for the first time outwardly that

he was not altogether unworthy of her. He wore long waterboots reaching above his knees, and, instead of

making a circuit to find a bridge by which he might cross the Froomthe river aforesaidhe made straight

for the point whence proceeded the low roar that was at this hour the only evidence of the stream's existence.

He speedily stood on the verge of the waterfall which caused the noise, and stepping into the water at the top

of the fall, waded through with the sure tread of one who knew every inch of his footing, even though the

canopy of trees rendered the darkness almost absolute, and a false step would have precipitated him into the

pool beneath. Soon reaching the boundary of the grounds, he continued in the same direct line to traverse the

alluvial valley, full of brooks and tributaries to the main streamin former times quite impassable, and

impassable in winter now. Sometimes he would cross a deep gully on a plank not wider than the hand; at

another time he ploughed his way through beds of speargrass, where at a few feet to the right or left he

might have been sucked down into a morass. At last he reached firm land on the other side of this watery

tract, and came to his house on the rise behindElsenfordan ordinary farmstead, from the back of which

rose indistinct breathings, belchings, and snortings, the rattle of halters, and other familiar features of an

While Nicholas Long was packing his bag in an upper room of this dwelling, Miss Christine Everard sat at a

desk in her own chamber at FroomEverard manorhouse, looking with pale fixed countenance at the

'I oughtI must now!' she whispered to herself. 'I should not have begun it if I had not meant to carry it

through! It runs in the blood of us, I suppose.' She alluded to a fact unknown to her lover, the clandestine

marriage of an aunt under circumstances somewhat similar to the present. In a few minutes she had penned

DEAR MR. BEALANDCan you make it convenient to yourself to meet me at the Church tomorrow

morning at eight? I name the early hour because it would suit me better than later on in the day. You will find

me in the chancel, if you can come. An answer yes or no by the bearer of this will be sufficient.

She sent the note to the rector immediately, waiting at a small side door of the house till she heard the

servant's footsteps returning along the lane, when she went round and met him in the passage. The rector had

taken the trouble to write a line, and answered that he would meet her with pleasure.

A dripping fog which ushered in the next morning was highly favourable to the scheme of the pair. At that

time of the century FroomEverard House had not been altered and enlarged; the public lane passed close

under its walls; and there was a door opening directly from one of the old parloursthe south parlour, as it

was calledinto the lane which led to the village. Christine came out this way, and after following the lane

for a short distance entered upon a path within a belt of plantation, by which the church could be reached

privately. She even avoided the churchyard gate, walking along to a place where the turf without the low wall

rose into a mound, enabling her to mount upon the coping and spring down inside. She crossed the wet

graves, and so glided round to the door. He was there, with his bag in his hand. He kissed her with a sort of

surprise, as if he had expected that at the last moment her heart would fail her.

Though it had not failed her, there was, nevertheless, no great ardour in Christine's bearingmerely the

momentum of an antecedent impulse. They went up the aisle together, the bottlegreen glass of the old lead

quarries admitting but little light at that hour, and under such an atmosphere. They stood by the altarrail in

Presently a quick step ground upon the gravel, and Mr. Bealand came round by the front. He was a quiet

bachelor, courteous towards Christine, and not at first recognizing in Nicholas a neighbouring yeoman (for he

lived aloofly in the next parish), advanced to her without revealing any surprise at her unusual request. But in

truth he was surprised, the keen interest taken by many country young women at the present day in church

'Good morning,' he said; and repeated the same words to Nicholas more mechanically.

'Good morning,' she replied gravely. 'Mr. Bealand, I have a serious reason for asking you to meet meus, I

The rector's gaze hardened to fixity, rather between than upon either of them, and he neither moved nor

'They are outside in the meadow, sir. I can call them in a moment,' said Nicholas.

'OhI see it isMr. Nicholas Long,' said Mr. Bealand, and turning again to Christine, 'Does your father

Nicholas produced it, Mr. Bealand read it, an operation which occupied him several minutesor at least he

made it appear so; till Christine said impatiently, 'We are quite ready, Mr. Bealand. Will you proceed? Mr.

Mr. Bealand assumed firmness. 'There is something wrong in this,' he said. 'I cannot marry you without your

'But have you a right to refuse us?' interposed Nicholas. 'I believe we are in a position to demand your

'No, you are not! Is Miss Everard of age? I think not. I think she is months from being so. Eh, Miss Everard?'

'Certainly. At any rate you are bound to write it. Meanwhile I refuse to solemnize the service. And let me

entreat you two young people to do nothing so rash as this, even if by going to some strange church, you may

'Certainly. It is full of crises and catastrophes, and ends with the death of one of the actors. The tragedy of

marriage, as I was saying, is one I shall not be a party to your beginning with such light hearts, and I shall

feel bound to put your father on his guard, Miss Everard. Think better of it, I entreat you! Remember the

Christine, spurred by opposition, almost stormed at him. Nicholas implored; but nothing would turn that

obstinate rector. She sat down and reflected. Byandby she confronted Mr. Bealand.

'Our marriage is not to be this morning, I see,' she said. 'Now grant me one favour, and in return I'll promise

you to do nothing rashly. Do not tell my father a word of what has happened here.'

She looked at Nicholas, and he looked at her. 'Do you wish me to elope, Nic?' she asked.

So the compact was made, and they left the church singly, Nicholas remaining till the last, and closing the

door. On his way home, carrying the wellpacked bag which was just now to go no further, the two men who

were mending watercarriers in the meadows approached the hedge, as if they had been on the alert all the

'All rightnever mind,' he answered through the hedge. 'I did not require you after all.'

At a manor not far away there lived a queer and primitive couple who had lately been blessed with a son and

heir. The christening took place during the week under notice, and this had been followed by a feast to the

parishioners. Christine's father, one of the same generation and kind, had been asked to drive over and assist

When they reached Athelhall, as the house was called, they found the usually quiet nook a lively spectacle.

Tables had been spread in the apartment which lent its name to the whole buildingthe hall proper

covered with a fine opentimbered roof, whose braces, purlins, and rafters made a brown thicket of oak

overhead. Here tenantry of all ages sat with their wives and families, and the servants were assisted in their

ministrations by the sons and daughters of the owner's friends and neighbours. Christine lent a hand among

She was holding a plate in each hand towards a huge brown platter of baked ricepudding, from which a

footman was scooping a large spoonful, when a voice reached her ear over her shoulder: 'Allow me to hold

Christine turned, and recognized in the speaker the nephew of the entertainer, a young man from London,

She accepted the proffered help, and from that moment, whenever he passed her in their marchings to and fro

during the remainder of the serving, he smiled acquaintance. When their work was done, he improved the few

Bellston was a selfassured young man, not particularly goodlooking, with more colour in his skin than

even Nicholas had. He had flushed a little in attracting her notice, though the flush had nothing of

nervousness in itthe air with which it was accompanied making it curiously suggestive of a flush of anger;

The late autumn sunlight streamed in through the window panes upon the heads and shoulders of the

venerable patriarchs of the hamlet, and upon the middleaged, and upon the young; upon men and women

who had played out, or were to play, tragedies or tragicomedies in that nook of civilization not less great,

essentially, than those which, enacted on more central arenas, fix the attention of the world. One of the party

To make himself as locally harmonious as possible, Mr. Bellston remarked to his companion on the

scene'It does one's heart good,' he said, 'to see these simple peasants enjoying themselves.'

'O Mr. Bellston!' exclaimed Christine; 'don't be too sure about that word "simple"! You little think what they

She spoke with a vehemence which would have been hardly present in her words but for her own relation to

Nicholas. The sense of that produced in her a nameless depression thenceforward. The young man, however,

'I am glad to hear you say it,' he returned warmly. 'I was merely attuning myself to your mood, as I thought.

The real truth is that I know more of the Parthians, and Medes, and dwellers in Mesopotamia almost of any

people, indeedthan of the English rustics. Travel and exploration are my profession, not the study of the

Travel. There was sufficient coincidence between his declaration and the course she had urged upon her

lover, to lend Bellston's account of himself a certain interest in Christine's ears. He might perhaps be able to

tell her something that would be useful to Nicholas, if their dream were carried out. A door opened from the

hall into the garden, and she somehow found herself outside, chatting with Mr. Bellston on this topic, till she

thought that upon the whole she liked the young man. The garden being his uncle's, he took her round it with

an air of proprietorship; and they went on amongst the Michaelmas daisies and chrysanthemums, and through

a door to the fruitgarden. A greenhouse was open, and he went in and cut her a bunch of grapes.

She was thinking of her Nic, and felt that, by comparison with her present acquaintance, the farmer more than

held his own as a fine and intelligent fellow; but the harmony with her own existence in little things, which

she found here, imparted an alien tinge to Nicholas just now. The latter, idealized by moonlight, or a

thousand miles of distance, was altogether a more romantic object for a woman's dream than this smart

newlacquered man; but in the sun of afternoon, and amid a surrounding company, Mr. Bellston was a very

When they reentered the hall, Bellston entreated her to come with him up a spiral stair in the thickness of

the wall, leading to a passage and gallery whence they could look down upon the scene below. The people

had finished their feast, the newlychristened baby had been exhibited, and a few words having been spoken

to them they began, amid a racketing of forms, to make for the greensward without, Nicholas's cousin and

cousin's wife and cousin's children among the rest. While they were filing out, a voice was heard calling

'Hullo!here, Jim; where are you?' said Bellston's uncle. The young man descended, Christine following at

'Now will ye be a good fellow,' the Squire continued, 'and set them going outside in some dance or other that

they know? I'm dogtired, and I want to have a yew words with Mr. Everard before we join 'em hey,

Everard? They are shy till somebody starts 'em; afterwards they'll keep gwine brisk enough.'

They followed to the lawn; and here it proved that James Bellston was as shy, or rather as averse, as any of

the tenantry themselves, to acting the part of fugleman. Only the parish people had been at the feast, but

'They want "Speed the Plough,"' said Bellston, coming up breathless. 'It must be a country dance, I suppose?

Now, Miss Everard, do have pity upon me. I am supposed to lead off; but really I know no more about

speeding the plough than a child just born! Would you take one of the villagers?just to start them, my

uncle says. Suppose you take that handsome young farmer over thereI don't know his name, but I dare say

you doand I'll come on with one of the dairyman's daughters as a second couple.'

Christine turned in the direction signified, and changed colour though in the shade nobody noticed it, 'Oh,

yesI know him,' she said coolly. 'He is from near our own placeMr. Nicholas Long.'

'That's capitalthen you can easily make him stand as first couple with you. Now I must pick up mine.'

'II think I'll dance with you, Mr. Bellston,' she said with some trepidation. 'Because, you see,' she

explained eagerly, 'I know the figure and you don'tso that I can help you; while Nicholas Long, I know, is

familiar with the figure, and that will make two couples who know itwhich is necessary, at least.'

Bellston showed his gratification by one of his angrypleasant flusheshe had hardly dared to ask for what

she proffered freely; and having requested Nicholas to take the dairyman's daughter, led Christine to her

place, Long promptly stepping up second with his charge. There were grim silent depths in Nic's character; a

small deedy spark in his eye, as it caught Christine's, was all that showed his consciousness of her. Then the

fiddlers beganthe celebrated Mellstock fiddlers who, given free stripping, could play from sunset to dawn

without turning a hair. The couples wheeled and swung, Nicholas taking Christine's hand in the course of

business with the figure, when she waited for him to give it a little squeeze; but he did not.

Christine had the greatest difficulty in steering her partner through the maze, on account of his selfwill, and

when at last they reached the bottom of the long line, she was breathless with her hard labour.. Resting here,

she watched Nic and his lady; and, though she had decidedly cooled off in these later months, began to

admire him anew. Nobody knew these dances like him, after all, or could do anything of this sort so well. His

performance with the dairyman's daughter so won upon her, that when 'Speed the Plough' was over she

He said he would, and presently asked her in a formal public manner, lifting his hat gallantly. She showed a

little backwardness, which he quite understood, and allowed him to lead her to the top, a row of enormous

length appearing below them as if by magic as soon as they had taken their places. Truly the Squire was right

And then they trod the delightful lastcentury measure of that name, which if it had been ever danced better,

was never danced with more zest. The perfect responsiveness which their tender acquaintance threw into the

motions of Nicholas and his partner lent to their gyrations the fine adjustment of two interacting parts of a

single machine. The excitement of the movement carried Christine back to the timethe unreflecting

passionate time, about two years before when she and Nic had been incipient lovers only; and it made her

forget the carking anxieties, the vision of social breakers ahead, that had begun to take the gilding off her

position now. Nicholas, on his part, had never ceased to be a lover; no personal worries had as yet made him

conscious of any staleness, flatness, or unprofitableness in his admiration of Christine.

'Not quite so wildly, Nic,' she whispered. 'I don't object personally; but they'll notice us. How came you here?'

'O! it came into my head when I saw you, as what would have been a reality with us if you had not been

The villagers admired their grace and skill, as the dancers themselves perceived; but they did not know what

'People who wonder they can foot it so featly together should know what some others think,' a waterman was

'Wellreally I hardly believe itbut 'tis said they be man and wife. Yes, surewent to church and did the

job a'most afore 'twas light one morning. But mind, not a word of this; for 'twould be the loss of a winter's

When the dance had ended she rejoined her own section of the company. Her father and Mr. Bellston the

elder had now come out from the house, and were smoking in the background. Presently she found that her

'Christine, don't dance too often with young Longas a mere matter of prudence, I mean, as volk might

think it odd, he being one of our own neighbouring farmers. I should not mention this to 'ee if he were an

ordinary young fellow; but being superior to the rest it behoves you to be careful.'

But the revived sense that she was deceiving him threw a damp over her spirits. 'But, after all,' she said to

herself, 'he is a young man of Elsenford, handsome, able, and the soul of honour; and I am a young woman of

the adjoining parish, who have been constantly thrown into communication with him. Is it not, by nature's

rule, the most proper thing in the world that I should marry him, and is it not an absurd conventional

It may be concluded that the strength of Christine's largeminded argument was rather an evidence of

weakness than of strength in the passion it concerned, which had required neither argument nor reasoning of

When driving home in the dark with her father she sank into pensive silence. She was thinking of Nicholas

having to trudge on foot all those miles back after his exertions on the sward. Mr. Everard, arousing himself

from a nap, said suddenly, 'I have something to mention to 'ee, by Georgeso I have, Chris! You probably

She expressed ignorance, wondering if her father had discovered anything of her secret.

'Well, according to HIM you know it. But I will tell 'ee. Perhaps you noticed young Jim Bellston walking me

off down the lawn with him?whether or no, we walked together a good while; and he informed me that he

wanted to pay his addresses to 'ee. I naturally said that it depended upon yourself; and he replied that you

were willing enough; you had given him particular encouragementshowing your preference for him by

specially choosing him for your partnerhey? "In that case," says I, "go on and conquersettle it with

herI have no objection." The poor fellow was very grateful, and in short, there we left the matter. He'll

She saw now to her dismay what James Bellston had read as encouragement. 'He has mistaken me altogether,'

'Chrissy,' said Mr. Everard with emphasis, 'there's NOObody whom I should so like you to marry as that

young man. He's a thoroughly clever fellow, and fairly well provided for. He's travelled all over the temperate

zone; but he says that directly he marries he's going to give up all that, and be a regular stayathome. You

'It is true,' she answered. 'He IS a highly desirable match, and I SHOULD be well provided for, and probably

She had spoken from her conscience and understanding, and not to please her father. As a reflecting woman

she believed that such a marriage would be a wise one. In great things Nicholas was closest to her nature; in

little things Bellston seemed immeasurably nearer than Nic; and life was made up of little things.

Altogether the firmament looked black for Nicholas Long, notwithstanding her halfhour's ardour for him

when she saw him dancing with the dairyman's daughter. Most great passions, movements, and

beliefsindividual and nationalburst during their decline into a temporary irradiation, which rivals their

original splendour; and then they speedily become extinct. Perhaps the dance had given the last flareup to

Christine's love. It seemed to have improvidently consumed for its immediate purpose all her ardour

This laxity of emotional tone was further increased by an incident, when, two days later, she kept an

appointment with Nicholas in the Sallows. The Sallows was an extension of shrubberies and plantations

along the banks of the Froom, accessible from the lawn of Froom Everard House only, except by wading

through the river at the waterfall or elsewhere. Near the brink was a thicket of box in which a trunk lay

prostrate; this had been once or twice their trysting place, though it was by no means a safe one; and it was

The noise of the stream muffled any sound of footsteps, and it was before she was aware of his approach that

Noontide lights and dwarfed shadows always banished the romantic aspect of her love for Nicholas.

Moreover, something new had occurred to disturb her; and if ever she had regretted giving way to a

tenderness for himwhich perhaps she had not done with any distinctnessshe regretted it now. Yet in the

bottom of their hearts those two were excellently paired, the very twin halves of a perfect whole; and their

love was pure. But at this hour surfaces showed garishly, and obscured the depths. Probably her regret

He walked up to her without speaking, the water running from his boots; and, taking one of her hands in each

'I cannot tell exactly. I heard some whispering to that effect. Somebody in the village told one of the servants,

I believe. This man said that he was crossing the churchyard early on that unfortunate foggy morning, and

heard voices in the chancel, and peeped through the window as well as the dim panes would let him; and

there he saw you and me and Mr. Bealand, and so on; but thinking his surmises would be dangerous

The story was, told her, and she said proudly, "O yes, it is true enough. I have seen the licence. But it is not to

The information, coupled with the infelicitous word 'proudly,' caused Nicholas to flush with mortification. He

knew that it was in his aunt's nature to make a brag of that sort; but worse than the brag was the fact that this

was the first occasion on which Christine had deigned to show her consciousness that such a marriage would

'You are sorry, then, even to be thought my wife, much less to be it.' He dropped her hand, which fell

'It is not sorry exactly, dear Nic. But I feel uncomfortable and vexed, that after screwing up my courage, my

fidelity, to the point of going to church, you should have so muddledmanaged the matter that it has ended

in neither one thing nor the other. How can I meet acquaintances, when I don't know what they are thinking

'Then, dear Christine, let us mend the muddle. I'll go away for a few days and get another licence, and you

She shrank from this perceptibly. 'I cannot screw myself up to it a second time,' she said. 'I am sure I cannot!

Besides, I promised Mr. Bealand. And yet how can I continue to see you after such a rumour? We shall be

These views were not very inspiriting to Nicholas, as he construed them. It may indeed have been possible

that he construed them wrongly, and should have insisted upon her making the rumour true. Unfortunately,

too, he had come to her in a hurry through brambles and briars, water and weed, and the shaggy wildness

which hung about his appearance at this fine and correct time of day lent an impracticability to the look of

'You blame meyou repent your coursesyou repent that you ever, ever owned anything to me!'

'No, Nicholas, I do not repent that,' she returned gently, though with firmness. 'But I think that you ought not

to have got that licence without asking me first; and I also think that you ought to have known how it would

be if you lived on here in your present position, and made no effort to better it. I can bear whatever comes, for

social ruin is not personal ruin or even personal disgrace. But as a sensible, newrisen poet says, whom I

The world and its ways have a certain worth: And to press a point while these oppose Were simple policy.

As soon as you had got my promise, Nic, you should have gone away yesand made a name, and come

'Perhaps I can do as much yet! And would you have indeed liked better to live away from me for family

reasons, than to run a risk in seeing me for affection's sake? O what a cold heart it has grown! If I had been a

'Perhaps not. Who was that strange gentleman of about sevenand twenty I saw at Mr. Bellston's christening

'Ohthat was his nephew James. Now he is a man who has seen an unusual extent of the world for his age.

Nicholas received no shock of jealousy from her announcement. He knew her so well that he could see she

was not in the least in love with Bellston. But he asked if Bellston were going to continue his explorations.

They sat apart, and not together; each looking afar off at vague objects, and not in each other's eyes. Thus the

sad autumn afternoon waned, while the waterfall hissed sarcastically of the inevitableness of the unpleasant.

The nook was most picturesque; but it looked horridly common and stupid now. Their sentiment had set a

colour hardly less visible than a material one on surrounding objects, as sentiment must where life is but

thought. Nicholas was as devoted as ever to the fair Christine; but unhappily he too had moods and humours,

She had no sooner got indoors and sat down to her worktable than her father entered the drawingroom.

She handed him his newspaper; he took it without a word, went and stood on the hearthrug, and flung the

'Christine, what's the meaning of this terrible story? I was just on my way to look at the register.'

'No? Can you say no in the face of such facts as I have been put in possession of?'

'Ah! Then this is what that dancing meant, was it? By , it makes me . How long has this been going on,

'What, indeed! Why, making him your beau. Now listen to me. All's well that ends well; from this day,

madam, this moment, he is to be nothing more to you. You are not to see him. Cut him adrift instantly! I only

wish his volk were on my farmout they should go, or I would know the reason why. However, you are to

'Well, though I have not actually married him, I have solemnly sworn to be his wife when he comes home

from abroad to claim me. It would be gross perjury not to fulfil my promise. Besides, no woman can go to

church with a man to deliberately solemnize matrimony, and refuse him afterwards, if he does nothing wrong

The uttered sound of her strong conviction seemed to kindle in Christine a livelier perception of all its

bearings than she had known while it had lain unformulated in her mind. For when she had done speaking she

fell down on her knees before her father, covered her face, and said, 'Please, please forgive me, papa! How

When she looked up she found that, in the turmoil of his mind, her father was moving about the room. 'You

are within an ace of ruining yourself, ruining me, ruining us all!' he said. 'You are nearly as bad as your

'He is NOT a scoundrel!' cried she, turning quickly. 'He's as good and worthy as you or I, or anybody bearing

our name, or any nobleman in the kingdom, if you come to that! Onlyonly'she could not continue the

argument on those lines. 'Now, father, listen!' she sobbed; 'if you taunt me I'll go off and join him at his farm

She went away. When she came back a quarter of an hour later, thinking to find the room empty, he was

standing there as before, never having apparently moved. His manner had quite changed. He seemed to take a

'Christine, here's a paragraph in the paper hinting at a secret wedding, and I'm blazed if it don't point to you.

Well, since this was to happen, I'll bear it, and not complain. All volk have crosses, and this is one of mine.

Now, this is what I've got to say I feel that you must carry out this attempt at marrying Nicholas Long.

Faith, you must! The rumour will become a scandal if you don'tthat's my view. I have tried to look at the

brightest side of the case. Nicholas Long is a young man superior to most of his class, and fairly presentable.

And he's not poorat least his uncle is not. I believe the old muddler could buy me up any day. However, a

farmer's wife you must be, as far as I can see. As you've made your bed, so ye must lie. Parents propose, and

Christine hardly knew what to make of this. 'He is quite willing to wait, and so am I. We can wait for two or

'You must marry him. And the sooner the better, if 'tis to be done at all . . . And yet I did wish you could have

'I, too, wished it and do still, in one sense,' she returned gently. His moderation had won her out of her defiant

'I see that in a worldly sense my conduct with Mr. Long may be considered a mistake.'

'H'mI am glad to hear thatafter my death you may see it more clearly still; and you won't have long to

She fell into bitter repentance, and kissed him in her anguish. 'Don't say that!' she cried. 'Tell me what to do?'

'If you'll leave me for an hour or two I'll think. Drive to the market and backthe carriage is at the

In a few minutes she was dressed, and the carriage bore her up the hill which divided the village and manor

A quarter of an hour brought her into the High Street, and for want of a more important errand she called at

It happened to be marketday, and Nicholas, having postponed the engagements which called him thither to

keep the appointment with her in the Sallows, rushed off at the end of the afternoon to attend to them as well

as he could. Arriving thus in a great hurry on account of the lateness of the hour, he still retained the wild,

amphibious appearance which had marked him when he came up from the meadows to her sidean

exceptional condition of things which had scarcely ever before occurred. When she crossed the pavement

from the shop door, the shopman bowing and escorting her to the carriage, Nicholas chanced to be standing at

the roadwaggon office, talking to the master of the waggons. There were a good many people about, and

those near paused and looked at her transit, in the full stroke of the level October sun, which went under the

brims of their hats, and pierced through their buttonholes. From the group she heard murmured the words:

The unexpected remark, not without distinct satire in its tone, took her so greatly by surprise that she was

confounded. Nicholas was by this time nearer, though coming against the sun he had not yet perceived her.

Influenced by her father's lecture, she felt angry with him for being there and causing this awkwardness. Her

notice of him was therefore slight, supercilious perhaps, slurred over; and her vexation at his presence

showed distinctly in her face as she sat down in her seat. Instead of catching his waiting eye, she positively

Reaching home she found on her dressingtable a note from her father. The statement was brief:

I have considered and am of the same opinion. You must marry him. He can leave home at once and travel as

proposed. I have written to him to this effect. I don't want any victuals, so don't wait dinner for me.

Nicholas was the wrong kind of man to be blind to his Christine's mortification, though he did not know its

'It serves me right,' he thought, as he trotted homeward. 'It was absurdwicked of me to lead her on so. The

sacrifice would have been too greattoo cruel!' And yet, though he thus took her part, he flushed with

On the ridge which overlooked FroomEverard he met a neighbour of hisa stockdealerin his gig, and

they drew rein and exchanged a few words. A part of the dealer's conversation had much meaning for

'I've had occasion to call on Squire Everard,' the former said; 'but he couldn't see me on account of being

Nicholas rode on past FroomEverard to Elsenford Farm, pondering. He had new and startling matter for

thought as soon as he got there. The Squire's note had arrived. At first he could not credit its import; then he

saw further, took in the tone of the letter, saw the writer's contempt behind the words, and understood that the

letter was written as by a man hemmed into a corner. Christine was defiantlyinsultinglyhurled at his

And yet with what respect he had treated her and hers! Now he was reminded of what an agricultural friend

had said years ago, seeing the eyes of Nicholas fixed on Christine as on an angel when she passed: 'Better a

little fire to warm 'ee than a great one to burn 'ee. No good can come of throwing your heart there.' He went

1. How could she live near her acquaintance as his wife, even in his absence, without suffering martyrdom

2. Would not this entail total estrangement between Christine and her family also, and her own consequent

4. Supposing that her father rigged them out as colonists and sent them off to America, was not the effect of

In short, whatever they should embark in together would be cruelty to her, and his death would be a relief. It

would, indeed, in one aspect be a relief to her now, if she were so ashamed of him as she had appeared to be

that day. Were he dead, this little episode with him would fade away like a dream.

Mr. Everard was a goodhearted man at bottom, but to take his enraged offer seriously was impossible.

Obviously it was hotly made in his first bitterness at what he had heard. The least thing that he could do

would be to go away and never trouble her more. To travel and learn and come back in two years, as mapped

out in their first sanguine scheme, required a staunch heart on her side, if the necessary expenditure of time

and money were to be afterwards justified; and it were folly to calculate on that when he had seen today that

her heart was failing her already. To travel and disappear and not be heard of for many years would be a far

more independent stroke, and it would leave her entirely unfettered. Perhaps he might rival in this kind the

He sat and sat, and the fog rose out of the river, enveloping him like a fleece; first his feet and knees, then his

arms and body, and finally submerging his head. When he had come to a decision he went up again into the

homestead. He would be independent, if he died for it, and he would free Christine. Exile was the only

Two days later Nicholas was on the same spot in the mead, at almost the same hour of eve. But there was no

fog now; a blusterous autumn wind had ousted the still, golden days and misty nights; and he was going, full

of purpose, in the opposite direction. When he had last entered the mead he was an inhabitant of the Froom

valley; in forty eight hours he had severed himself from that spot as completely as if he had never belonged

to it. All that appertained to him in the Froom valley now was circumscribed by the portmanteau in his hand.

In making his preparations for departure he had unconsciously held a faint, foolish hope that she would

communicate with him and make up their estrangement in some soft womanly way. But she had given no

signal, and it was too evident to him that her latest mood had grown to be her fixed one, proving how well

He entered the Sallows, found his way in the dark to the gardendoor of the house, slipped under it a note to

tell her of his departure, and explaining its true reason to be a consciousness of her growing feeling that he

was an encumbrance and a humiliation. Of the direction of his journey and of the date of his return he said

His course now took him into the high road, which he pursued for some miles in a northeasterly direction,

still spinning the thread of sad inferences, and asking himself why he should ever return. At daybreak he

stood on the hill above ShottsfordForum, and awaited a coach which passed about this time along that

Some fifteen years after the date of the foregoing incidents, a man who had dwelt in far countries, and viewed

many cities, arrived at RoyTown, a roadside hamlet on the old western turnpike road, not five miles from

FroomEverard, and put up at the Buck's Head, an isolated inn at that spot. He was still barely of middle age,

but it could be seen that a haze of grey was settling upon the locks of his hair, and that his face had lost colour

and curve, as if by exposure to bleaching climates and strange atmospheres, or from ailments incidental

thereto. He seemed to observe little around him, by reason of the intrusion of his musings upon the scene. In

truth Nicholas Long was just now the creature of old hopes and fears consequent upon his arrivalthis man

who once had not cared if his name were blotted out from that district. The evening light showed wistful lines

which he could not smooth away by the worldling's gloss of nonchalance that he had learnt to fling over his

The Buck's Head was a somewhat unusual place for a man of this sort to choose as a house of sojourn in

preference to some Casterbridge inn four miles further on. Before he left home it had been a lively old tavern

at which Highflyers, and Heralds, and Tallyhoes had changed horses on their stages up and down the

country; but now the house was rather cavernous and chilly, the stableroofs were hollow backed, the

He arrived in the afternoon, and when he had sent back the fly and was having a nondescript meal, he put a

'O no, bless you, sir! They sold the place years agoSquire Everard's son didand went away. I've never

When the waitress left the room, Nicholas pushed aside his plate and gazed out of the window. He was not

going over into the Froom Valley altogether on Christine's account, but she had greatly animated his motive

in coming that way. Anyhow he would push on there now that he was so near, and not ask questions here

where he was liable to be wrongly informed. The fundamental inquiry he had not ventured to

makewhether Christine had married before the family went away. He had abstained because of an absurd

dread of extinguishing hopeful surmise. That the Everards had left their old home was bad enough

Rising from the table he put on his hat and went out, ascending towards the upland which divided this district

from his native vale. The first familiar feature that met his eye was a little spot on the distant skya clump

of trees standing on a barrow which surmounted a yet more remote uplanda point where, in his childhood,

he had believed people could stand and see America. He reached the further verge of the plateau on which he

had entered. Ah, there was the valleya greenishgrey stretch of colourstill looking placid and serene, as

though it had not much missed him. If Christine was no longer there, why should he pause over it this

evening? His uncle and aunt were dead, and tomorrow would be soon enough to inquire for remoter

relatives. Thus, disinclined to go further, he turned to retrace his way to the inn.

In the backward path he now perceived the figure of a woman, who had been walking at a distance behind

him; and as she drew nearer he began to be startled. Surely, despite the variations introduced into that figure

Nicholas had been sentimental enough to write to Christine immediately on landing at Southampton a day or

two before this, addressing his letter at a venture to the old house, and merely telling her that he planned to

reach the RoyTown inn on the present afternoon. The news of the scattering of the Everards had dissipated

So they metthere, alone, on the open down by a pond, just as if the meeting had been carefully arranged.

She threw up her veil. She was still beautiful, though the years had touched her; a little more

matronlymuch more homely. Or was it only that he was much less homely nowa man of the worldthe

sense of homeliness being relative? Her face had grown to be preeminently of the sort that would be called

interesting. Her habiliments were of a demure and sober cast, though she was one who had used to dress so

'I received your letter,' she said, when the momentary embarrassment of their first approach had passed. 'And

I thought I would walk across the hills today, as it was fine. I have just called at the inn, and they told me

He hardly listened to this, though he intently gazed at her. 'Christine,' he said, 'one word. Are you free?'

The announcement had a magical effect. The intervening time between past and present closed up for him,

and moved by an impulse which he had combated for fifteen years, he seized her two hands and drew her

She started back, and became almost a mere acquaintance. 'I have to tell you,' she gasped, 'that I havebeen

'I did not marry till many years after you had left,' she continued in the humble tones of one confessing to a

'Iought to have expected it.' He was going to add, 'And is he dead?' but he checked himself. Her dress

'I must now hasten home,' said she. 'I felt that, considering my shortcomings at our parting so many years

'There is some of your old generosity in that. I'll walk with you, if I may. Where are you living, Christine?'

'In the same house, but not on the old conditions. I have part of it on lease; the farmer now tenanting the

premises found the whole more than he wanted, and the owner allowed me to keep what rooms I chose. I am

poor now, you know, Nicholas, and almost friendless. My brother sold the FroomEverard estate when it

came to him, and the person who bought it turned our home into a farmhouse. Till my father's death my

husband and I lived in the manorhouse with him, so that I have never lived away from the spot.'

She was poor. That, and the change of name, sufficiently accounted for the innservant's ignorance of her

It was growing dusk, and he still walked with her. A woman's head arose from the declivity before them, and

'This is the wife of the farmer who shares the house,' she said. 'She is accustomed to come out and meet me

The farmer's wife, seeing that Christine was not alone, paused in her advance, and Nicholas said, 'Dear

Christine, if you are obliged to do these things, I am not, and what wealth I can command you may command

likewise. They say rolling stones gather no moss; but they gather dross sometimes. I was one of the pioneers

to the goldfields, you know, and made a sufficient fortune there for my wants. What is more, I kept it. When

I had done this I was coming home, but hearing of my uncle's death I changed my plan, travelled, speculated,

and increased my fortune. Now, before we part: you remember you stood with me at the altar once, and

therefore I speak with less preparation than I should otherwise use. Before we part then I ask, shall another

She trembledjust as she had done at that very minute of standing with him in the church, to which he had

recalled her mind. 'I will not enter into that now, dear Nicholas,' she replied. 'There will be more to talk of

and consider firstmore to explain, which it would have spoiled this meeting to have entered into now.'

'Further than the brief answer I first gave, Nic, don't press me to night. I still have the old affection for you,

And thus they parted, Nicholas feeling that he had not come here fruitlessly. When she and her companion

were out of sight he retraced his steps to RoyTown, where he made himself as comfortable as he could in

the deserted old inn of his boyhood's days. He missed her companionship this evening more than he had done

at any time during the whole fifteen years; and it was as though instead of separation there had been constant

communion with her throughout that period. The tones of her voice had stirred his heart in a nook which had

lain stagnant ever since he last heard them. They recalled the woman to whom he had once lifted his eyes as

to a goddess. Her announcement that she had been another's came as a little shock to him, and he did not now

lift his eyes to her in precisely the same way as he had lifted them at first. But he forgave her for marrying

He slept at RoyTown that night, and in the morning there was a short note from her, repeating more

emphatically her statement of the previous eveningthat she wished to inform him clearly of her

circumstances, and to calmly consider with him the position in which she was placed. Would he call upon her

'Nic,' she wrote on, 'what a cosmopolite you are! I expected to find my old yeoman still; but I was quite awed

in the presence of such a citizen of the world. Did I seem rusty and unpractised? Ahyou seemed so once to

Tender playful words; the old Christine was in them. She said Sunday afternoon, and it was now only

Saturday morning. He wished she had said today; that short revival of her image had vitalized to sudden

heat feelings that had almost been stilled. Whatever she might have to explain as to her positionand it was

awkwardly narrowed, no doubthe could not give her up. Miss Everard or Mrs. Bellston, what mattered

He did not go outside the inn all Saturday. He had no wish to see or do anything but to await the coming

interview. So he smoked, and read the local newspaper of the previous week, and stowed himself in the

chimneycorner. In the evening he felt that he could remain indoors no longer, and the moon being near the

full, he started from the inn on foot in the same direction as that of yesterday, with the view of contemplating

the old village and its precincts, and hovering round her house under the cloak of night.

With a stout stick in his hand he climbed over the five miles of upland in a comparatively short space of time.

Nicholas had seen many strange lands and trodden many strange ways since he last walked that path, but as

he trudged he seemed wonderfully like his old self, and had not the slightest difficulty in finding the way. In

descending to the meads the streams perplexed him a little, some of the old footbridges having been

removed; but he ultimately got across the larger watercourses, and pushed on to the village, avoiding her

residence for the moment, lest she should encounter him, and think he had not respected the time of her

He found his way to the churchyard, and first ascertained where lay the two relations he had left alive at his

departure; then he observed the gravestones of other inhabitants with whom he had been well acquainted, till

by degrees he seemed to be in the society of all the elder FroomEverard population, as he had known the

place. Side by side as they had lived in his day here were they now. They had moved house in mass.

But no tomb of Mr. Bellston was visible, though, as he had lived at the manorhouse, it would have been

natural to find it here. In truth Nicholas was more anxious to discover that than anything, being curious to

know how long he had been dead. Seeing from the glimmer of a light in the church that somebody was there

cleaning for Sunday he entered, and looked round upon the walls as well as he could. But there was no

Nicholas addressed the young man who was sweeping. 'I don't see any monument or tomb to the late Mr.

'Because he's not buried here. He's not Christianburied anywhere, as far as we know. In short, perhaps he's

'Mr. Bellston was a travelleran explorerit was his calling; you may have heard his name as such?'

'I remember.' Nicholas recalled the fact that this very bent of Mr. Bellston's was the incentive to his own

'Well, when he married he came and lived here with his wife and his wife's father, and said he would travel

no more. But after a time he got weary of biding quiet here, and weary of herhe was not a good husband to

the young lady by any meansand he betook himself again to his old trick of rovingwith her money.

Away he went, quite out of the realm of human foot, into the bowels of Asia, and never was heard of more.

He was murdered, it is said, but nobody knows; though as that was nine years ago he's dead enough in

principle, if not in corporation. His widow lives quite humble, for between her husband and her brother she's

Nicholas went back to the Buck's Head without hovering round her dwelling. This then was the explanation

which she had wanted to make. Not dead, but missing. How could he have expected that the first fair promise

of happiness held out to him would remain untarnished? She had said that she was free; and legally she was

free, no doubt. Moreover, from her tone and manner he felt himself justified in concluding that she would be

willing to run the risk of a union with him, in the improbability of her husband's existence. Even if that

husband lived, his return was not a likely event, to judge from his character. A man who could spend her

money on his own personal adventures would not be anxious to disturb her poverty after such a lapse of time.

Well, the prospect was not so unclouded as it had seemed. But could he, even now, give up Christine?

Two months more brought the year nearly to a close, and found Nicholas Long tenant of a spacious house in

the markettown nearest to FroomEverard. A man of means, genial character, and a bachelor, he was an

object of great interest to his neighbours, and to his neighbours' wives and daughters. But he took little note

of this, and had made it his business to go twice a week, no matter what the weather, to the now farmhouse at

FroomEverard, a wing of which had been retained as the refuge of Christine. He always walked, to give no

The two had put their heads together on the situation, had gone to a solicitor, had balanced possibilities, and

had resolved to make the plunge of matrimony. 'Nothing venture, nothing have,' Christine had said, with

With almost gratuitous honesty they had let their intentions be widely known. Christine, it is true, had rather

shrunk from publicity at first; but Nicholas argued that their boldness in this respect would have good results.

With his friends he held that there was not the slightest probability of her being other than a widow, and a

challenge to the missing man now, followed by no response, would stultify any unpleasant remarks which

might be thrown at her after their union. To this end a paragraph was inserted in the Wessex papers,

announcing that their marriage was proposed to be celebrated on such and such a day in December.

His periodic walks along the south side of the valley to visit her were among the happiest experiences of his

life. The yellow leaves falling around him in the foreground, the wellwatered meads on the left hand, and

the woman he loved awaiting him at the back of the scene, promised a future of much serenity, as far as

human judgment could foresee. On arriving, he would sit with her in the 'parlour' of the wing she retained,

her general sittingroom, where the only relics of her early surroundings were an old clock from the other

end of the house, and her own piano. Before it was quite dark they would stand, hand in hand, looking out of

the window across the flat turf to the dark clump of trees which hid further view from their eyes.

'Not at all,' said she cheerfully. 'I have a good enough room, and a good enough fire, and a good enough

friend. Besides, my latter days as mistress of the house were not happy ones, and they spoilt the place for me.

It was a punishment for my faithlessness. Nic, you do forgive me? Really you do?'

The twentythird of December, the eve of the weddingday, had arrived at last in the train of such uneventful

ones as these. Nicholas had arranged to visit her that day a little later than usual, and see that everything was

ready with her for the morrow's event and her removal to his house; for he had begun to look after her

domestic affairs, and to lighten as much as possible the duties of her housekeeping.

He was to come to an early supper, which she had arranged to take the place of a weddingbreakfast next

daythe latter not being feasible in her present situation. An hour or so after dark the wife of the farmer who

lived in the other part of the house entered Christine's parlour to lay the cloth.

'What with getting the ham skinned, and the blackpuddings hotted up,' she said, 'it will take me all my time

'I'll lay the table myself,' said Christine, jumping up. 'Do you attend to the cooking.'

'Thank you, ma'am. And perhaps 'tis no matter, seeing that it is the last night you'll have to do such work. I

knew this sort of life wouldn't last long for 'ee, being born to better things.'

'It has lasted rather long, Mrs. Wake. And if he had not found me out it would have lasted all my days.'

Mrs. Wake went back to the kitchen, and Christine began to bustle about. She greatly enjoyed preparing this

table for Nicholas and herself with her own hands. She took artistic pleasure in adjusting each article to its

position, as if half an inch error were a point of high importance. Finally she placed the two candles where

Mrs. Wake reentered and regarded the effect. 'Why not have another candle or two, ma'am?' she said.

'Very well,' said Christine, and four candles were lighted. 'Really,' she added, surveying them, 'I have been

'Ah, you'll soon think nothing of forty in his grand new house! Shall I bring in supper directly he comes,

'No, not for half an hour; and, Mrs. Wake, you and Betsy are busy in the kitchen, I know; so when he knocks

She was again left alone, and, as it still wanted some time to Nicholas's appointment, she stood by the fire,

looking at herself in the glass over the mantel. Reflectively raising a lock of her hair just above her temple

she uncovered a small scar. That scar had a history. The terrible temper of her late husbandthose sudden

moods of irascibility which had made even his friendly excitements look like angerhad once caused him to

set that mark upon her with the bezel of a ring he wore. He declared that the whole thing was an accident. She

Christine then turned her back to the glass and scanned the table and the candles, shining one at each corner

like types of the four Evangelists, and thought they looked too assumingtoo confident. She glanced up at

the clock, which stood also in this room, there not being space enough for it in the passage. It was nearly

seven, and she expected Nicholas at halfpast. She liked the company of this venerable article in her lonely

life: its tickings and whizzings were a sort of conversation. It now began to strike the hour. At the end

something grated slightly. Then, without any warning, the clock slowly inclined forward and fell at full

The crash brought the farmer's wife rushing into the room. Christine had wellnigh sprung out of her shoes.

Mrs. Wake's enquiry what had happened was answered by the evidence of her own eyes.

'I cannot say; it was not firmly fixed, I suppose. Dear me, how sorry I am! My dear father's hallclock! And

Assisted by Mrs. Wake, she lifted the clock. Every inch of glass was, of course, shattered, but very little harm

besides appeared to be done. They propped it up temporarily, though it would not go again.

Christine had soon recovered her composure, but she saw that Mrs. Wake was gloomy. 'What does it mean,

'Don't talk of it. I don't believe such things; and don't mention it to Mr. Long when he comes. HE'S not in the

'Some remote cousin, perhaps,' observed Christine, no less willing to humour her than to get rid of a

shapeless dread which the incident had caused in her own mind. 'Andsupper is almost ready, Mrs. Wake?'

Mrs. Wake left the room, and Christine sat on. Though it still wanted fifteen minutes to the hour at which

Nicholas had promised to be there, she began to grow impatient. After the accustomed ticking the dead

silence was oppressive. But she had not to wait so long as she had expected; steps were heard approaching

Christine was already there to open it. The entrance had no lamp, but it was not particularly dark out of doors.

She could see the outline of a man, and cried cheerfully, 'You are early; it is very good of you.'

'I beg pardon. It is not Mr. Bellston himselfonly a messenger with his bag and greatcoat. But he will be

The voice was not the voice of Nicholas, and the intelligence was strange. 'II don't understand. Mr.

'Yes, ma'am. A gentlemana stranger to megave me these things at Casterbridge station to bring on here,

and told me to say that Mr. Bellston had arrived there, and is detained for halfanhour, but will be here in

She sank into a chair. The porter put a small battered portmanteau on the floor, the coat on a chair, and

looking into the room at the spread table said, 'If you are disappointed, ma'am, that your husband (as I s'pose

he is) is not come, I can assure you he'll soon be here. He's stopped to get a shave, to my thinking, seeing he

wanted it. What he said was that I could tell you he had heard the news in Ireland, and would have come

sooner, his hand being forced; but was hindered crossing by the weather, having took passage in a sailing

'Ah, yes,' she faltered. It was plain that the man knew nothing of her intended remarriage.

Mechanically rising and giving him a shilling, she answered to his 'goodnight,' and he withdrew, the beat of

Christine stood in the middle of the hall, just as the man had left her, in the gloomy silence of the stopped

clock within the adjoining room, till she aroused herself, and turning to the portmanteau and greatcoat

brought them to the light of the candles, and examined them. The portmanteau bore painted upon it the

She examined the greatcoat. In the breastpocket was an empty spirit flask, which she firmly fancied she

recognized as the one she had filled many times for him when he was living at home with her.

She turned desultorily hither and thither, until she heard another tread without, and there came a second

knocking at the door. She did not respond to it; and Nicholasfor it was hethinking that he was not heard

by reason of a concentration on tomorrow's proceedings, opened the door softly, and came on to the door of

her room, which stood unclosed, just as it had been left by the Casterbridge porter.

Nicholas uttered a blithe greeting, cast his eye round the parlour, which with its tall candles, blazing fire,

snowwhite cloth, and prettilyspread table, formed a cheerful spectacle enough for a man who had been

Instead of responding, her figure became limp, frigid, heavy; her head fell back, and he found that she had

It was natural, he thought. She had had many little worrying matters to attend to, and but slight assistance. He

ought to have seen more effectually to her affairs; the closeness of the event had over excited her. Nicholas

kissed her unconscious facemore than once, little thinking what news it was that had changed its aspect.

Loth to call Mrs. Wake, he carried Christine to a couch and laid her down. This had the effect of reviving her.

Nicholas bent and whispered in her ear, 'Lie quiet, dearest, no hurry; and dream, dream, dream of happy days.

Nicholas was alarmed and perplexed, but the disclosure was not long delayed. When she had sat up, and by

'Ahis it so?' said he. Then, becoming quite meek, 'And why was he so cruel as todelay his return till

She dutifully recited the explanation her husband had given her through the messenger; but her mechanical

manner of telling it showed how much she doubted its truth. It was too unlikely that his arrival at such a

dramatic moment should not be a contrived surprise, quite of a piece with his previous dealings towards her.

'But perhaps it may be trueand he may have become kind nownot as he used to be,' she faltered. 'Yes,

perhaps, Nicholas, he is an altered manwe'll hope he is. I suppose I ought not to have listened to my legal

advisers, and assumed his death so surely! Anyhow, I am roughly received back intothe right way!'

Nicholas burst out bitterly: 'O what too, too honest fools we were! to so court daylight upon our intention

by putting that announcement in the papers! Why could we not have married privately, and gone away, so

that he would never have known what had become of you, even if he had returned? Christine, he has done it

'Very well. But this is hard to bear! "When I looked for good then evil came unto me, and when I waited for

light there came darkness." So once said a sorely tried man in the land of Uz, and so say I now! . . . I wonder

She told him she supposed Bellston was approaching by the path across the fields, having sent on his

'Christine, are you SURE that he is come, or have you been sleeping over the fire and dreaming it?'

She pointed anew to the portmanteau with the initials 'J. B.,' and to the coat beside it.

'Well, goodbyegoodbye! Curse that parson for not marrying us fifteen years ago!'

It is unnecessary to dwell further upon that parting. There are scenes wherein the words spoken do not even

approximate to the level of the mental communion between the actors. Suffice it to say that part they did, and

Why had he ever come back? During his absence he had not cared for Christine as he cared now. If he had

been younger he might have felt tempted to descend into the meads instead of keeping along their edge. The

Froom was down there, and he knew of quiet pools in that stream to which death would come easily. But he

was too old to put an end to himself for such a reason as love; and another thought, too, kept him from

seriously contemplating any desperate act. His affection for her was strongly protective, and in the event of

her requiring a friend's support in future troubles there was none but himself left in the world to afford it. So

Meanwhile Christine had resigned herself to circumstances. A resolve to continue worthy of her history and

of her family lent her heroism and dignity. She called Mrs. Wake, and explained to that worthy woman as

much of what had occurred as she deemed necessary. Mrs. Wake was too amazed to reply; she retreated

slowly, her lips parted; till at the door she said with a dry mouth, 'And the beautiful supper, ma'am?'

'When Mr. Bellstonyes, ma'am, I will.' She still stood gazing, as if she could hardly take in the order.

'That will do, Mrs. Wake. I am much obliged to you for all your kindness.' And Christine was left alone

She sat down and waited. That awful silence of the stopped clock began anew, but she did not mind it now.

She was listening for a footfall in a state of mental tensity which almost took away from her the power of

motion. It seemed to her that the natural interval for her husband's journey thither must have expired; but she

'He is not yet come, Mrs. Wake. If you want to go to bed, bring in the supper and set it on the table. It will be

Mrs. Wake did as was suggested, made up the fire, and went away. Shortly afterwards Christine heard her

retire to her chamber. But Christine still sat on, and still her husband postponed his entry.

She aroused herself once or twice to freshen the fire, but was ignorant how the night was going. Her watch

was upstairs and she did not make the effort to go up to consult it. In her seat she continued; and still the

At length she was so nearly persuaded that the arrival of his things must have been a dream after all, that she

again went over to them, felt them, and examined them. His they unquestionably were; and their forwarding

Presently she fell into a doze, and when she again became conscious she found that the four candles had burnt

into their sockets and gone out. The fire still emitted a feeble shine. Christine did not take the trouble to get

After a long period she heard a creaking of the chamber floor and stairs at the other end of the house, and

knew that the farmer's family were getting up. Byandby Mrs. Wake entered the room, candle in hand,

bouncing open the door in her morning manner, obviously without any expectation of finding a person there.

'Well, he won't come at this time o' morning,' said the farmer's wife. 'Do 'ee get on to bed, ma'am. You must

It occurred to Christine now that possibly her husband had thought better of obtruding himself upon her

company within an hour of revealing his existence to her, and had decided to pay a more formal visit next

Nicholas had gone straight home, neither speaking to nor seeing a soul. From that hour a change seemed to

come over him. He had ever possessed a full share of selfconsciousness; he had been readily piqued, had

shown an unusual dread of being personally obtrusive. But now his sense of self, as an individual provoking

opinion, appeared to leave him. When, therefore, after a day or two of seclusion, he came forth again, and the

few acquaintances he had formed in the town condoled with him on what had happened, and pitied his

haggard looks, he did not shrink from their regard as he would have done formerly, but took their sympathy

It reached his ears that Bellston had not appeared on the evening of his arrival at any hotel in the town or

neighbourhood, or entered his wife's house at all. 'That's a part of his cruelty,' thought Nicholas. And when

two or three days had passed, and still no account came to him of Bellston having joined her, he ventured to

Christine was so shaken that she was obliged to receive him as she lay on a sofa, beside the square table

which was to have borne their evening feast. She fixed her eyes wistfully upon him, and smiled a sad smile.

Then Nicholas sat beside her, and they talked on general topics merely like saddened old friends. But they

could not keep away the subject of Bellston, their voices dropping as it forced its way in. Christine, no less

than Nicholas, knowing her husband's character, inferred that, having stopped her game, as he would have

phrased it, he was taking things leisurely, and, finding nothing very attractive in her limited mode of living,

The bolt which laid low their hopes had struck so recently that they could hardly look each other in the face

when speaking that day. But when a week or two had passed, and all the horizon still remained as vacant of

Bellston as before, Nicholas and she could talk of the event with calm wonderment. Why had he come, to go

that to tell of one of them is to tell of all. Nicholas would arrive between three and four in the afternoon, a

faint trepidation influencing his walk as he neared her door. He would knock; she would always reply in

person, having watched for him from the window. Then he would whisper'He has not come?'

Nicholas would enter then, and she being ready bonneted, they would walk into the Sallows together as far as

to the spot which they had frequently made their place of appointment in their youthful days. A plank bridge,

which Bellston had caused to be thrown over the stream during his residence with her in the manorhouse,

was now again removed, and all was just the same as in Nicholas's time, when he had been accustomed to

wade across on the edge of the cascade and come up to her like a merman from the deep. Here on the felled

trunk, which still lay rotting in its old place, they would now sit, gazing at the descending sheet of water, with

its neverending sarcastic hiss at their baffled attempts to make themselves one flesh. Returning to the house

they would sit down together to tea, after which, and the confidential chat that accompanied it, he walked

home by the declining light. This proceeding became as periodic as an astronomical recurrence. Twice a

week he cameall through that winter, all through the spring following, through the summer, through the

autumn, the next winter, the next year, and the next, till an appreciable span of human life had passed by.

Years and years Nic walked that way, at this interval of three days, from his house in the neighbouring town;

and in every instance the aforesaid order of things was customary; and still on his arrival the form of words

So they grew older. The dim shape of that third one stood continually between them; they could not displace

it; neither, on the other hand, could it effectually part them. They were in close communion, yet not

indissolubly united; lovers, yet never growing cured of love. By the time that the fifth year of Nic's visiting

had arrived, on about the fivehundredth occasion of his presence at her teatable, he noticed that the

bleaching process which had begun upon his own locks was also spreading to hers. He told her so, and they

laughed. Yet she was in good health: a condition of suspense, which would have halfkilled a man, had been

One day, when these years of abeyance had numbered seven, they had strolled as usual as far as the waterfall,

whose faint roar formed a sort of calling voice sufficient in the circumstances to direct their listlessness.

Pausing there, he looked up at her face and said, 'Why should we not try again, Christine? We are legally at

But she would not. Perhaps a little primness of idea was by this time ousting the native daring of Christine.

'What he has done once he can do twice,' she said. 'He is not dead, and if we were to marry he would say we

Some years after, when Christine was about fifty, and Nicholas fifty three, a new trouble of a minor kind

arrived. He found an inconvenience in traversing the distance between their two houses, particularly in damp

weather, the years he had spent in trying climates abroad having sown the seeds of rheumatism, which made

a journey undesirable on inclement days, even in a carriage. He told her of this new difficulty, as he did of

Unluckily there was no house near. But Nicholas, though not a millionaire, was a man of means; he obtained

a small piece of ground on lease at the nearest spot to her home that it could be so obtained, which was on the

opposite brink of the Froom, this river forming the boundary of the FroomEverard manor; and here he built

a cottage large enough for his wants. This took time, and when he got into it he found its situation a great

comfort to him. He was not more than five hundred yards from her now, and gained a new pleasure in feeling

that all sounds which greeted his ears, in the day or in the night, also fell upon hersthe caw of a particular

rook, the voice of a neighbouring nightingale, the whistle of a local breeze, or the purl of the fall in the

meadows, whose rush was a material rendering of Time's ceaseless scour over themselves, wearing them

Christine's missing husband was taking shape as a myth among the surrounding residents; but he was still

believed in as corporeally imminent by Christine herself, and also, in a milder degree, by Nicholas. For a

curious unconsciousness of the long lapse of time since his revelation of himself seemed to affect the pair.

There had been no passing events to serve as chronological milestones, and the evening on which she had

kept supper waiting for him still loomed out with startling nearness in their retrospects.

In the seventeenth pensive year of this their parallel march towards the common bourne, a labourer came in a

hurry one day to Nicholas's house and brought strange tidings. The present owner of Froom Everarda

nonresidenthad been improving his property in sundry ways, and one of these was by dredging the stream

which, in the course of years, had become choked with mud and weeds in its passage through the Sallows.

The process necessitated a reconstruction of the waterfall. When the river had been pumped dry for this

purpose, the skeleton of a man had been found jammed among the piles supporting the edge of the fall. Every

particle of his flesh and clothing had been eaten by fishes or abraded to nothing by the water, but the relics of

a gold watch remained, and on the inside of the case was engraved the name of the maker of her husband's

Nicholas, deeply agitated, hastened down to the place and examined the remains attentively, afterwards going

across to Christine, and breaking the discovery to her. She would not come to view the skeleton, which lay

extended on the grass, not a finger or toebone missing, so neatly had the aquatic operators done their work.

Conjecture was directed to the question how Bellston had got there; and conjecture alone could give an

It was supposed that, on his way to call upon her, he had taken a short cut through the grounds, with which he

was naturally very familiar, and coming to the fall under the trees had expected to find there the plank which,

during his occupancy of the premises with Christine and her father, he had placed there for crossing into the

meads on the other side instead of wading across as Nicholas had done. Before discovering its removal he

had probably overbalanced himself, and was thus precipitated into the cascade, the piles beneath the

descending current wedging him between them like the prongs of a pitchfork, and effectually preventing the

rising of his body, over which the weeds grew. Such was the reasonable supposition concerning the

'To think,' said Nicholas, when the remains had been decently interred, and he was again sitting with

Christinethough not beside the waterfall'to think how we visited him! How we sat over him, hours and

hours, gazing at him, bewailing our fate, when all the time he was ironically hissing at us from the spot, in an

'I have strange fancies,' she said. 'I suppose it MUST have been my husband who came back, and not some

'Yes . . . If it could not have been another person'sbut no, of course it was he.'

'You might have married me on the day we had fixed, and there would have been no impediment. You would

now have been seventeen years my wife, and we might have had tall sons and daughters.'

The question was one which had become complicated by the increasing years of each. Their wills were

somewhat enfeebled now, their hearts sickened of tender enterprise by hope too long deferred. Having

postponed the consideration of their course till a year after the interment of Bellston, each seemed less

'Is it worth while, after so many years?' she said to him. 'We are fairly happy as we areperhaps happier

than we should be in any other relation, seeing what old people we have grown. The weight is gone from our

lives; the shadow no longer divides us: then let us be joyful together as we are, dearest Nic, in the days of our

He fell in with these views of hers to some extent. But occasionally he ventured to urge her to reconsider the

July 7.I wander about the house in a mood of unutterable sadness, for my dear sister Caroline has left

home today with my mother, and I shall not see them again for several weeks. They have accepted a

longstanding invitation to visit some old friends of ours, the Marlets, who live at Versailles for

cheapnessmy mother thinking that it will be for the good of Caroline to see a little of France and Paris. But

I don't quite like her going. I fear she may lose some of that childlike simplicity and gentleness which so

characterize her, and have been nourished by the seclusion of our life here. Her solicitude about her pony

before starting was quite touching, and she made me promise to visit it daily, and see that it came to no harm.

Caroline gone abroad, and I left here! It is the reverse of an ordinary situation, for good or illluck has mostly

ordained that I should be the absent one. Mother will be quite tired out by the young enthusiasm of Caroline.

She will demand to be taken everywhereto Paris continually, of course; to all the stock shrines of history's

devotees; to palaces and prisons; to kings' tombs and queens' tombs; to cemeteries and picturegalleries, and

royal hunting forests. My poor mother, having gone over most of this ground many times before, will perhaps

not find the perambulation so exhilarating as will Caroline herself. I wish I could have gone with them. I

would not have minded having my legs walked off to please Caroline. But this regret is absurd: I could not,

of course, leave my father with not a soul in the house to attend to the calls of the parishioners or to pour out

July 15.A letter from Caroline today. It is very strange that she tells me nothing which I expected her to

tellonly trivial details. She seems dazzled by the brilliancy of Pariswhich no doubt appears still more

brilliant to her from the fact of her only being able to obtain occasional glimpses of it. She would see that

Paris, too, has a seamy side if you live there. I was not aware that the Marlets knew so many people. If, as

mother has said, they went to reside at Versailles for reasons of economy, they will not effect much in that

direction while they make a practice of entertaining all the acquaintances who happen to be in their

neighbourhood. They do not confine their hospitalities to English people, either. I wonder who this M. de la

July 18.Another letter from Caroline. I have learnt from this epistle, that M. Charles de la Feste is 'only

one of the many friends of the Marlets'; that though a Frenchman by birth, and now again temporarily at

Versailles, he has lived in England many many years; that he is a talented landscape and marine painter, and

has exhibited at the Salon, and I think in London. His style and subjects are considered somewhat peculiar in

Parisrather English than Continental. I have not as yet learnt his age, or his condition, married or single.

From the tone and nature of her remarks about him he sometimes seems to be a middleaged family man,

sometimes quite the reverse. From his nomadic habits I should say the latter is the most likely. He has

travelled and seen a great deal, she tells me, and knows more about English literature than she knows herself.

July 21.Letter from Caroline. Query: Is 'a friend of ours and the Marlets,' of whom she now anonymously

and mysteriously speaks, the same personage as the 'M. de la Feste' of her former letters? He must be the

same, I think, from his pursuits. If so, whence this sudden change of tone? . . . I have been lost in thought for

at least a quarter of an hour since writing the preceding sentence. Suppose my dear sister is falling in love

with this young manthere is no longer any doubt about his age; what a very awkward, risky thing for her! I

do hope that my mother has an eye on these proceedings. But, then, poor mother never sees the drift of

anything: she is in truth less of a mother to Caroline than I am. If I were there, how jealously I would watch

I am of a stronger nature than Caroline. How I have supported her in the past through her little troubles and

great griefs! Is she agitated at the presence of this, to her, new and strange feeling? But I am assuming her to

be desperately in love, when I have no proof of anything of the kind. He may be merely a casual friend, of

July 24.Then he IS a bachelor, as I suspected. 'If M. de la Feste ever marries he will,' etc. So she writes.

They are getting into close quarters, obviously. Also, 'Something to keep my hair smooth, which M. de la

Feste told me he had found useful for the tips of his moustache.' Very naively related this; and with how

much unconsciousness of the intimacy between them that the remark reveals! But my motherwhat can she

be doing? Does she know of this? And if so, why does she not allude to it in her letters to my father? . . . I

have been to look at Caroline's pony, in obedience to her reiterated request that I would not miss a day in

seeing that she was well cared for. Anxious as Caroline was about this pony of hers before starting, she now

never mentioned the poor animal once in her letters. The image of her pet suffers from displacement.

August 3.Caroline's forgetfulness of her pony has naturally enough extended to me, her sister. It is ten

days since she last wrote, and but for a note from my mother I should not know if she were dead or alive.

August 5.A cloud of letters. A letter from Caroline, another from mother; also one from each to my father.

The probability to which all the intelligence from my sister has pointed of late turns out to be a fact. There is

an engagement, or almost an engagement, announced between my dear Caroline and M. de la Festeto

Caroline's sublime happiness, and my mother's entire satisfaction; as well as to that of the Marlets. They and

my mother seem to know all about the young manwhich is more than I do, though a little extended

information about him, considering that I am Caroline's elder sister, would not have been amiss. I half feel

with my father, who is much surprised, and, I am sure, not altogether satisfied, that he should not have been

consulted at all before matters reached such a definite stage, though he is too amiable to say so openly. I don't

quite say that a good thing should have been hindered for the sake of our opinion, if it is a good thing; but the

announcement comes very suddenly. It must have been foreseen by my mother for some time that this upshot

was probable, and Caroline might have told me more distinctly that M. de la Feste was her lover, instead of

alluding so mysteriously to him as only a friend of the Marlets, and lately dropping his name altogether. My

father, without exactly objecting to him as a Frenchman, 'wishes he were of English or some other reasonable

nationality for one's soninlaw,' but I tell him that the demarcations of races, kingdoms, and creeds, are

wearing down every day, that patriotism is a sort of vice, and that the character of the individual is all we

need think about in this case. I wonder if, in the event of their marriage, he will continue to live at Versailles,

August 7.A supplemental letter from Caroline, answering, by anticipation, some of the aforesaid queries.

She tells me that 'Charles,' though he makes Versailles his present home, is by no means bound by his

profession to continue there; that he will live just where she wishes, provided it be not too far from some

centre of thought, art, and civilization. My mother and herself both think that the marriage should not take

place till next year. He exhibits landscapes and canal scenery every year, she says; so I suppose he is popular,

and that his income is sufficient to keep them in comfort. If not, I do not see why my father could not settle

something more on them than he had intended, and diminish by a little what he had proposed for me, whilst it

'Of engaging manner, attractive appearance, and virtuous character,' is the reply I receive from her in answer

to my request for a personal description. That is vague enough, and I would rather have had one definite fact

of complexion, voice, deed, or opinion. But of course she has no eye now for material qualities; she cannot

see him as he is. She sees him irradiated with glories such as never appertained and never will appertain to

any man, foreign, English, or Colonial. To think that Caroline, two years my junior, and so childlike as to be

five years my junior in nature, should be engaged to be married before me. But that is what happens in

August 16.Interesting news today. Charles, she says, has pleaded that their marriage may just as well be

this year as next; and he seems to have nearly converted my mother to the same way of thinking. I do not

myself see any reason for delay, beyond the standing one of my father having as yet had no opportunity of

forming an opinion upon the man, the time, or anything. However, he takes his lot very quietly, and they are

coming home to talk the question over with us; Caroline having decided not to make any positive

arrangements for this change of state till she has seen me. Subject to my own and my father's approval, she

says, they are inclined to settle the date of the wedding for November, three months from the present time,

that it shall take place here in the village, that I, of course, shall be bridesmaid, and many other particulars.

She draws an artless picture of the probable effect upon the minds of the villagers of this romantic

performance in the chancel of our old church, in which she is to be chief actorthe foreign gentleman

dropping down like a god from the skies, picking her up, and triumphantly carrying her off. Her only grief

will be separation from me, but this is to be assuaged by my going and staying with her for long months at a

time. This simple prattle is very sweet to me, my dear sister, but I cannot help feeling sad at the occasion of

it. In the nature of things it is obvious that I shall never be to you again what I hitherto have been: your guide,

M. de la Feste does certainly seem to be all that one could desire as protector to a sensitive fragile child like

Caroline, and for that I am thankful. Still, I must remember that I see him as yet only through her eyes. For

her sake I am intensely anxious to meet him, and scrutinise him through and through, and learn what the man

is really made of who is to have such a treasure in his keeping. The engagement has certainly been formed a

little precipitately; I quite agree with my father in that: still, good and happy marriages have been made in a

August 20.A terrible announcement came this morning; and we are in deep trouble. I have been quite

unable to steady my thoughts on anything today till nowhalfpast eleven at nightand I only attempt

writing these notes because I am too restless to remain idle, and there is nothing but waiting and waiting left

for me to do. Mother has been taken dangerously ill at Versailles: they were within a day or two of starting;

but all thought of leaving must now be postponed, for she cannot possibly be moved in her present state. I

don't like the sound of haemorrhage at all in a woman of her full habit, and Caroline and the Marlets have not

exaggerated their accounts I am certain. On the receipt of the letter my father instantly decided to go to her,

and I have been occupied all day in getting him off, for as he calculates on being absent several days, there

have been many matters for him to arrange before setting out the chief being to find some one who will do

duty for him next Sundaya quest of no small difficulty at such short notice; but at last poor old feeble Mr.

Dugdale has agreed to attempt it, with Mr. Highman, the Scripture reader, to assist him in the lessons.

I fain would have gone with my father to escape the irksome anxiety of awaiting her; but somebody had to

stay, and I could best be spared. George has driven him to the station to meet the last train by which he will

catch the midnight boat, and reach Havre some time in the morning. He hates the sea, and a night passage in

particular. I hope he will get there without mishap of any kind; but I feel anxious for him, stayathome as he

is, and unable to cope with any difficulty. Such an errand, too; the journey will be sad enough at best. I

August 21.I nearly fell asleep of heaviness of spirit last night over my writing. My father must have

Later.The letter was to express an earnest hope that my father had set out. My poor mother is sinking, they

fear. What will become of Caroline? O, how I wish I could see mother; why could not both have gone?

Later.I get up from my chair, and walk from window to window, and then come and write a line. I cannot

even divine how poor Caroline's marriage is to be carried out if mother dies. I pray that father may have got

there in time to talk to her and receive some directions from her about Caroline and M. de la Festea man

whom neither my father nor I have seen. I, who might be useful in this emergency, am doomed to stay here,

August 23.A letter from my father containing the sad news that my mother's spirit has flown. Poor little

Caroline is heartbrokenshe was always more my mother's pet than I was. It is some comfort to know that

my father arrived in time to hear from her own lips her strongly expressed wish that Caroline's marriage

should be solemnized as soon as possible. M. de la Feste seems to have been a great favourite of my dear

mother's; and I suppose it now becomes almost a sacred duty of my father to accept him as a soninlaw

September 10.I have inserted nothing in my diary for more than a fortnight. Events have been altogether

too sad for me to have the spirit to put them on paper. And yet there comes a time when the act of recording

My dear mother has been brought home and buried here in the parish. It was not so much her own wish that

this should be done as my father's, who particularly desired that she should lie in the family vault beside his

first wife. I saw them side by side before the vault was closedtwo women beloved by one man. As I stood,

and Caroline by my side, I fell into a sort of dream, and had an odd fancy that Caroline and I might be also

beloved of one, and lie like these togetheran impossibility, of course, being sisters. When I awoke from my

September 14.The wedding is indefinitely postponed. Caroline is like a girl awakening in the middle of a

somnambulistic experience, and does not realize where she is, or how she stands. She walks about silently,

and I cannot tell her thoughts, as I used to do. It was her own doing to write to M. de la Feste and tell him that

the wedding could not possibly take place this autumn as originally planned. There is something depressing

in this long postponement if she is to marry him at all; and yet I do not see how it could be avoided.

October 20.I have had so much to occupy me in consoling Caroline that I have been continually

overlooking my diary. Her life was much nearer to my mother's than mine was. She has never, as I, lived

away from home long enough to become selfdependent, and hence in her first loss, and all that it involved,

she drooped like a rainbeaten lily. But she is of a nature whose wounds soon heal, even though they may be

My father is of opinion that the wedding should not be delayed too long. While at Versailles he made the

acquaintance of M. de la Feste, and though they had but a short and hurried communion with each other, he

was much impressed by M. de la Feste's disposition and conduct, and is strongly in favour of his suit. It is

odd that Caroline's betrothed should influence in his favour all who come near him. His portrait, which dear

Caroline has shown me, exhibits him to be of a physique that partly accounts for this: but there must be

something more than mere appearance, and it is probably some sort of glamour or fascinating powerthe

quality which prevented Caroline from describing him to me with any accuracy of detail. At the same time, I

see from the photograph that his face and head are remarkably well formed; and though the contours of his

mouth are hidden by his moustache, his arched brows show well the romantic disposition of a true lover and

painter of Nature. I think that the owner of such a face as this must be tender and sympathetic and true.

October 30.As my sister's grief for her mother becomes more and more calmed, her love for M. de la Feste

begins to reassume its former absorbing command of her. She thinks of him incessantly, and writes whole

treatises to him by way of letters. Her blank disappointment at his announcement of his inability to pay us a

visit quite so soon as he had promised, was quite tragic. I, too, am disappointed, for I wanted to see and

estimate him. But having arranged to go to Holland to seize some aerial effects for his pictures, which are

only to be obtained at this time of the autumn, he is obliged to postpone his journey this way, which is now to

be made early in the new year. I think myself that he ought to have come at all sacrifices, considering

Caroline's recent loss, the sad postponement of what she was looking forward to, and her single minded

affection for him. Still, who knows; his professional success is important. Moreover, she is cheerful, and

February 16.We have had such a dull life here all the winter that I have found nothing important enough to

set down, and broke off my journal accordingly. I resume it now to make an entry on the subject of dear

Caroline's future. It seems that she was too grieved, immediately after the loss of our mother, to answer

definitely the question of M. de la Feste how long the postponement was to be; then, afterwards, it was

agreed that the matter should be discussed on his autumn visit; but as he did not come, it has remained in

abeyance till this week, when Caroline, with the greatest simplicity and confidence, has written to him

without any further pressure on his part, and told him that she is quite ready to fix the time, and will do so as

soon as he arrives to see her. She is a little frightened now, lest it should seem forward in her to have revived

the subject of her own accord; but she may assume that his question has been waiting on for an answer ever

since, and that she has, therefore, acted only within her promise. In truth, the secret at the bottom of it all is

that she is somewhat saddened because he has not latterly reminded her of the pause in their affairsthat, in

short, his original impatience to possess her is not now found to animate him so obviously. I suppose that he

loves her as much as ever; indeed, I am sure he must do so, seeing how lovable she is. It is mostly thus with

all men when women are out of their sight; they grow negligent. Caroline must have patience, and remember

that a man of his genius has many and important calls upon his time. In justice to her I must add that she does

remember it fairly well, and has as much patience as any girl ever had in the circumstances. He hopes to

April 5.I think that what M. de la Feste writes is reasonable enough, though Caroline looks heartsick

about it. It is hardly worth while for him to cross all the way to England and back just now, while the sea is so

turbulent, seeing that he will be obliged, in any event, to come in May, when he has to be in London for

professional purposes, at which time he can take us easily on his way both coming and going. When Caroline

becomes his wife she will be more practical, no doubt; but she is such a child as yet that there is no

contenting her with reasons. However, the time will pass quickly, there being so much to do in preparing a

trousseau for her, which must now be put in hand in order that we may have plenty of leisure to get it ready.

On no account must Caroline be married in halfmourning; I am sure that mother, could she know, would not

wish it, and it is odd that Caroline should be so intractably persistent on this point, when she is usually so

April 30.This month has flown on swallow's wings. We are in a great state of excitementI as much as

May 9. Four p.m.I am so agitated I can scarcely write, and yet am particularly impelled to do so before

leaving my room. It is the unexpected shape of an expected event which has caused my absurd excitement,

M. de la Feste was not, as we understood, to have come till to morrow; but he is herejust arrived. All

household directions have devolved upon me, for my father, not thinking M. de la Feste would appear before

us for another fourandtwenty hours, left home before post time to attend a distant consecration; and hence

Caroline and I were in no small excitement when Charles's letter was opened, and we read that he had been

unexpectedly favoured in the dispatch of his studio work, and would follow his letter in a few hours. We sent

the covered carriage to meet the train indicated, and waited like two newly strung harps for the first sound of

the returning wheels. At last we heard them on the gravel; and the question arose who was to receive him. It

was, strictly speaking, my duty; but I felt timid; I could not help shirking it, and insisted that Caroline should

go down. She did not, however, go near the door as she usually does when anybody is expected, but waited

palpitating in the drawingroom. He little thought when he saw the silent hall, and the apparently deserted

house, how that house was at the very same moment alive and throbbing with interest under the surface. I

stood at the back of the upper landing, where nobody could see me from downstairs, and heard him walk

across the halla lighter step than my father'sand heard him then go into the drawingroom, and the

What a pretty lover's meeting they must have had in there all to themselves! Caroline's sweet face looking up

from her black gown how it must have touched him. I know she wept very much, for I heard her; and her

eyes will be red afterwards, and no wonder, poor dear, though she is no doubt happy. I can imagine what she

is telling him while I write thisher fears lest anything should have happened to prevent his coming after

allgentle, smiling reproaches for his long delay; and things of that sort. His two portmanteaus are at this

moment crossing the landing on the way to his room. I wonder if I ought to go down.

A little later.I have seen him! It was not at all in the way that I intended to encounter him, and I am vexed.

Just after his portmanteaus were brought up I went out from my room to descend, when, at the moment of

stepping towards the first stair, my eyes were caught by an object in the hall below, and I paused for an

instant, till I saw that it was a bundle of canvas and sticks, composing a sketching tent and easel. At the same

nick of time the drawingroom door opened and the affianced pair came out. They were saying they would

go into the garden; and he waited a moment while she put on her hat. My idea was to let them pass on

without seeing me, since they seemed not to want my company, but I had got too far on the landing to retreat;

he looked up, and stood staring at meengrossed to a dreamlike fixity. Thereupon I, too, instead of

advancing as I ought to have done, stood moonstruck and awkward, and before I could gather my weak

senses sufficiently to descend, she had called him, and they went out by the garden door together. I then

thought of following them, but have changed my mind, and come here to jot down these few lines. It is all I

He is even more handsome than I expected. I was right in feeling he must have an attraction beyond that of

form: it appeared even in that momentary glance. How happy Caroline ought to be. But I must, of course, go

11 p.m.I have made the acquaintance of M. de la Feste; and I seem to be another woman from the effect of

it. I cannot describe why this should be so, but conversation with him seems to expand the view, and open the

heart, and raise one as upon stilts to wider prospects. He has a good intellectual forehead, perfect eyebrows,

dark hair and eyes, an animated manner, and a persuasive voice. His voice is soft in qualitytoo soft for a

man, perhaps; and yet on second thoughts I would not have it less so. We have been talking of his art: I had

no notion that art demanded such sacrifices or such tender devotion; or that there were two roads for choice

within its precincts, the road of vulgar moneymaking, and the road of high aims and consequent

inappreciation for many long years by the public. That he has adopted the latter need not be said to those who

understand him. It is a blessing for Caroline that she has been chosen by such a man, and she ought not to

lament at postponements and delays, since they have arisen unavoidably. Whether he finds hers a sufficiently

rich nature, intellectually and emotionally, for his own, I know not, but he seems occasionally to be

disappointed at her simple views of things. Does he really feel such love for her at this moment as he no

doubt believes himself to be feeling, and as he no doubt hopes to feel for the remainder of his life towards

It was a curious thing he told me when we were left for a few minutes alone; that Caroline had alluded so

slightly to me in her conversation and letters that he had not realized my presence in the house here at all.

But, of course, it was only natural that she should write and talk most about herself. I suppose it was on

account of the fact of his being taken in some measure unawares, that I caught him on two or three occasions

regarding me fixedly in a way that disquieted me somewhat, having been lately in so little society; till my

glance aroused him from his reverie, and he looked elsewhere in some confusion. It was fortunate that he did

so, and thus failed to notice my own. It shows that he, too, is not particularly a society person.

May 10.Have had another interesting conversation with M. de la Feste on schools of landscape painting in

the drawingroom after dinner this eveningmy father having fallen asleep, and left nobody but Caroline

and myself for Charles to talk to. I did not mean to say so much to him, and had taken a volume of Modern

Painters from the bookcase to occupy myself with, while leaving the two lovers to themselves; but he would

include me in his audience, and I was obliged to lay the book aside. However, I insisted on keeping Caroline

in the conversation, though her views on pictorial art were only too charmingly crude and primitive.

Tomorrow, if fine, we are all three going to Wherryborne Wood, where Charles will give us practical

illustrations of the principles of coloring that he has enumerated tonight. I am determined not to occupy his

attention to the exclusion of Caroline, and my plan is that when we are in the dense part of the wood I will lag

behind, and slip away, and leave them to return by themselves. I suppose the reason of his attentiveness to me

lies in his simply wishing to win the good opinion of one who is so closely united to Caroline, and so likely

May 11. Late.I cannot sleep, and in desperation have lit my candle and taken up my pen. My restlessness

is occasioned by what has occurred today, which at first I did not mean to write down, or trust to any heart

but my own. We went to Wherryborne Wood Caroline, Charles and I, as we had intendedand walked all

three along the green track through the midst, Charles in the middle between Caroline and myself. Presently I

found that, as usual, he and I were the only talkers, Caroline amusing herself by observing birds and squirrels

as she walked docilely alongside her betrothed. Having noticed this I dropped behind at the first opportunity

and slipped among the trees, in a direction in which I knew I should find another path that would take me

home. Upon this track I by and by emerged, and walked along it in silent thought till, at a bend, I suddenly

'Only a little way off,' says he. 'When we missed you from behind us we thought you might have mistaken the

direction we had followed, so she has gone one way to find you and I have come this way.'

We then went back to find Caroline, but could not discover her anywhere, and the upshot was that he and I

were wandering about the woods alone for more than an hour. On reaching home we found she had given us

up after searching a little while, and arrived there some time before. I should not be so disturbed by the

incident if I had not perceived that, during her absence from us, he did not make any earnest effort to

rediscover her; and in answer to my repeated expressions of wonder as to whither she could have wandered

he only said, 'Oh, she's quite safe; she told me she knew the way home from any part of this wood. Let us go

on with our talk. I assure you I value this privilege of being with one I so much admire more than you

imagine;' and other things of that kind. I was so foolish as to show a little perturbationI cannot tell why I

did not control myself; and I think he noticed that I was not cool. Caroline has, with her simple good faith,

May 15.The more I think of it day after day, the more convinced I am that my suspicions are true. He is

too interested in mewell, in plain words, loves me; or, not to degrade that phrase, has a wild passion for

me; and his affection for Caroline is that towards a sister only. That is the distressing truth; how it has come

A hundred little circumstances have revealed this to me, and the longer I dwell upon it the more agitating

does the consideration become. Heaven only can help me out of the terrible difficulty in which this places

me. I have done nothing to encourage him to be faithless to her. I have studiously kept out of his way; have

persistently refused to be a third in their interviews. Yet all to no purpose. Some fatality has seemed to rule,

ever since he came to the house, that this disastrous inversion of things should arise. If I had only foreseen the

possibility of it before he arrived, how gladly would I have departed on some visit or other to the meanest

friend to hinder such an apparent treachery. But I blindly welcomed himindeed, made myself particularly

There is no possibility of my suspicions being wrong; not until they have reached absolute certainty have I

dared even to admit the truth to myself. His conduct today would have proved them true had I entertained

no previous apprehensions. Some photographs of myself came for me by post, and they were handed round at

the breakfast table and criticised. I put them temporarily on a side table, and did not remember them until an

hour afterwards when I was in my own room. On going to fetch them I discovered him standing at the table

with his back towards the door bending over the photographs, one of which he raised to his lips.

The witnessing this act so frightened me that I crept away to escape observation. It was the climax to a series

of slight and significant actions all tending to the same conclusion. The question for me now is, what am I to

do? To go away is what first occurs to me, but what reason can I give Caroline and my father for such a step;

besides, it might precipitate some sort of catastrophe by driving Charles to desperation. For the present,

therefore, I have decided that I can only wait, though his contiguity is strangely disturbing to me now, and I

hardly retain strength of mind to encounter him. How will the distressing complication end?

May 19.And so it has come! My mere avoidance of him has precipitated the worst issuea declaration. I

had occasion to go into the kitchen garden to gather some of the double raggedrobins which grew in a

corner there. Almost as soon as I had entered I heard footsteps without. The door opened and shut, and I

turned to behold him just inside it. As the garden is closed by four walls and the gardener was absent, the spot

ensured absolute privacy. He came along the path by the asparagusbed, and overtook me.

'Yes,' he went on, 'it is you I love; my sentiment towards your sister is one of affection too, but protective,

tutelary affection no more. Say what you will I cannot help it. I mistook my feeling for her, and I know

how much I am to blame for my want of self knowledge. I have fought against this discovery night and day;

but it cannot be concealed. Why did I ever see you, since I could not see you till I had committed myself? At

the moment my eyes beheld you on that day of my arrival, I said, "This is the woman for whom my manhood

has waited." Ever since an unaccountable fascination has riveted my heart to you. Answer one word!'

'O, M. de la Feste!' I burst out. What I said more I cannot remember, but I suppose that the misery I was in

showed pretty plainly, for he said, 'Something must be done to let her know; perhaps I have mistaken her

'I cannot tell what I feel,' said I, 'except that this seems terrible treachery; and every moment that I stay with

you here makes it worse! . . . Try to keep faith with herher young heart is tender; believe me there is no

mistake in the quality of her love for you. Would there were! This would kill her if she knew it!'

He sighed heavily. 'She ought never to be my wife,' he said. 'Leaving my own happiness out of the question,

I said I could not hear such words from him, and begged him in tears to go away; he obeyed, and I heard the

garden door shut behind him. What is to be the end of the announcement, and the fate of Caroline?

May 20.I put a good deal on paper yesterday, and yet not all. I was, in truth, hoping against hope, against

conviction, against too conscious selfjudgment. I scarcely dare own the truth now, yet it relieves my aching

heart to set it down. Yes, I love himthat is the dreadful fact, and I can no longer parry, evade, or deny it to

myself though to the rest of the world it can never be owned. I love Caroline's betrothed, and he loves me. It

is no yesterday's passion, cultivated by our converse; it came at first sight, independently of my will; and my

talk with him yesterday made rather against it than for it, but, alas, did not quench it. God forgive us both for

May 25.All is vague; our courses shapeless. He comes and goes, being occupied, ostensibly at least, with

sketching in his tent in the wood. Whether he and she see each other privately I cannot tell, but I rather think

they do not; that she sadly awaits him, and he does not appear. Not a sign from him that my repulse has done

him any good, or that he will endeavour to keep faith with her. O, if I only had the compulsion of a god, and

May 31.It has all endedor rather this act of the sad drama has endedin nothing. He has left us. No day

for the fulfilment of the engagement with Caroline is named, my father not being the man to press any one on

such a matter, or, indeed, to interfere in any way. We two girls are, in fact, quite defenceless in a case of this

kind; lovers may come when they choose, and desert when they choose; poor father is too urbane to utter a

word of remonstrance or inquiry. Moreover, as the approved of my dead mother, M. de la Feste has a sort of

autocratic power with my father, who holds it unkind to her memory to have an opinion about him. I, feeling

it my duty, asked M. de la Feste at the last moment about the engagement, in a voice I could not keep firm.

'Since the death of your mother all has been indefiniteall!' he said gloomily. That was the whole. Possibly,

June 7 .M. de la Feste has writtenone letter to her, one to me. Hers could not have been very warm, for

she did not brighten on reading it. Mine was an ordinary note of friendship, filling an ordinary sheet of paper,

which I handed over to Caroline when I had finished looking it through. But there was a scrap of paper in the

bottom of the envelope, which I dared not show any one. This scrap is his real letter: I scanned it alone in my

room, trembling, hot and cold by turns. He tells me he is very wretched; that he deplores what has happened,

but was helpless. Why did I let him see me, if only to make him faithless. Alas, alas!

June 21 .My dear Caroline has lost appetite, spirits, health. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. His letters

to her grow colderif indeed he has written more than one. He has refrained from writing again to mehe

knows it is no use. Altogether the situation that he and she and I are in is melancholy in the extreme. Why are

September 19.Three months of anxious caretill at length I have taken the extreme step of writing to him.

Our chief distress has been caused by the state of poor Caroline, who, after sinking by degrees into such

extreme weakness as to make it doubtful if she can ever recover full vigour, has today been taken much

worse. Her position is very critical. The doctor says plainly that she is dying of a broken heartand that even

the removal of the cause may not now restore her. Ought I to have written to Charles sooner? But how could I

when she forbade me? It was her pride only which instigated her, and I should not have obeyed.

Sept. 26.Charles has arrived and has seen her. He is shocked, consciencestricken, remorseful. I have told

him that he can do no good beyond cheering her by his presence. I do not know what he thinks of proposing

to her if she gets better, but he says little to her at present: indeed he dares not: his words agitate her

Sept. 28.After a struggle between duty and selfishness, such as I pray to Heaven I may never have to

undergo again, I have asked him for pity's sake to make her his wife, here and now, as she lies. I said to him

that the poor child would not trouble him long; and such a solemnization would soothe her last hours as

nothing else could do. He said that he would willingly do so, and had thought of it himself; but for one

forbidding reason: in the event of her death as his wife he can never marry me, her sister, according to our

laws. I started at his words. He went on: 'On the other hand, if I were sure that immediate marriage with me

would save her life, I would not refuse, for possibly I might after a while, and out of sight of you, make

myself fairly content with one of so sweet a disposition as hers; but if, as is probable, neither my marrying

her nor any other act can avail to save her life, by so doing I lose both her and you.' I could not answer him.

Sept. 29.He continued firm in his reasons for refusal till this morning, and then I became possessed with an

idea, which I at once propounded to him. It was that he should at least consent to a FORM of marriage with

Caroline, in consideration of her love; a form which need not be a legal union, but one which would satisfy

her sick and enfeebled soul. Such things have been done, and the sentiment of feeling herself his would

inexpressibly comfort her mind, I am sure. Then, if she is taken from us, I should not have lost the power of

becoming his lawful wife at some future day, if it indeed should be deemed expedient; if, on the other hand,

she lives, he can on her recovery inform her of the incompleteness of their marriage contract, the ceremony

can be repeated, and I can, and I am sure willingly would, avoid troubling them with my presence till grey

hairs and wrinkles make his unfortunate passion for me a thing of the past. I put all this before him; but he

Sept. 30.I have urged him again. He says he will consider. It is no time to mince matters, and as a further

inducement I have offered to enter into a solemn engagement to marry him myself a year after her death.

Sept. 30. Later.An agitating interview. He says he will agree to whatever I propose, the three possibilities

and our contingent acts being recorded as follows: First, in the event of dear Caroline being taken from us, I

marry him on the expiration of a year: Second, in the forlorn chance of her recovery I take upon myself the

responsibility of explaining to Caroline the true nature of the ceremony he has gone through with her, that it

was done at my suggestion to make her happy at once, before a special licence could be obtained, and that a

public ceremony at church is awaiting her: Third, in the unlikely event of her cooling, and refusing to repeat

the ceremony with him, I leave England, join him abroad, and there wed him, agreeing not to live in England

again till Caroline has either married another or regards her attachment to Charles as a bygone matter. I have

11 p.m.I do not much like this scheme, after all. For one thing, I have just sounded my father on it before

parting with him for the night, my impression having been that he would see no objection. But he says he

could on no account countenance any such unreal proceeding; however good our intentions, and even though

October 1.I am sure my father is wrong in his view. Why is it not right, if it would be balm to Caroline's

wounded soul, and if a real ceremony is absolutely refused by Charlesmoreover is hardly practicable in the

difficulty of getting a special licence, if he were agreed? My father does not know, or will not believe, that

Caroline's attachment has been the cause of her hopeless condition. But that it is so, and that the form of

words would give her inexpressible happiness, I know well; for I whispered tentatively in her ear on such

marriages, and the effect was great. Henceforth my father cannot be taken into confidence on the subject of

12 o'clock noon.I have taken advantage of my father's absence to day to confide my secret notion to a

thoughtful young man, who called here this morning to speak to my father. He is the Mr. Theophilus Higham,

of whom I have already had occasion to speaka Scripture reader in the next town, and is soon going to be

ordained. I told him the pitiable case, and my remedy. He says ardently that he will assist mewould do

anything for me (he is, in truth, an admirer of mine); he sees no wrong in such an act of charity. He is coming

again to the house this afternoon before my father returns, to carry out the idea. I have spoken to Charles,

11 o'clock p.m.I have been in too much excitement till now to set down the result. We have accomplished

our plan; and though I feel like a guilty sinner, I am glad. My father, of course, is not to be informed as yet.

Caroline has had a seraphic expression upon her wasted, transparent face ever since. I should hardly be

surprised if it really saved her life even now, and rendered a legitimate union necessary between them. In that

case my father can be informed of the whole proceeding, and in the face of such wonderful success cannot

disapprove. Meanwhile poor Charles has not lost the possibility of taking unworthy me to fill her place

should she. But I cannot contemplate that alternative unmoved, and will not write it. Charles left for the

South of Europe immediately after the ceremony. He was in a highstrung, throbbing, almost wild state of

mind at first, but grew calmer under my exhortations. I had to pay the penalty of receiving a farewell kiss

from him, which I much regret, considering its meaning; but he took me so unexpectedly, and in a moment

Oct. 6.She certainly is better, and even when she found that Charles had been suddenly obliged to leave,

she received the news quite cheerfully. The doctor says that her apparent improvement may be delusive; but I

think our impressing upon her the necessity of keeping what has occurred a secret from papa, and everybody,

Oct. 8.She is still mending. I am glad to have saved hermy only sisterif I have done so; though I shall

Feb. 5.Writing has been absolutely impossible for a long while; but I now reach a stage at which it seems

possible to jot down a line. Caroline's recovery, extending over four months, has been very engrossing; at

Charles has written reproachfully to me from Venice, where he is. He says how can he fulfil in the real what

he has enacted in the counterfeit, while he still loves me? Yet how, on the other hand, can he leave it

unfulfilled? All this time I have not told her, and up to this minute she believes that he has indeed taken her

for better, for worse, till death them do part. It is a harassing position for me, and all three. In the awful

approach of death, one's judgment loses its balance, and we do anything to meet the exigencies of the

moment, with a single eye to the one who excites our sympathy, and from whom we seem on the brink of

Had he really married her at that time all would be settled now. But he took too much thought; she might

have died, and then he had his reason. If indeed it had turned out so, I should now be perhaps a sad woman;

but not a tempesttossed one . . . The possibility of his claiming me after all is what lies at the root of my

agitation. Everything hangs by a thread. Suppose I tell her the marriage was a mockery; suppose she is

indignant with me and with him for the deceptionand then? Otherwise, suppose she is not indignant but

forgives all; he is bound to marry her; and honour constrains me to urge him thereto, in spite of what he

protests, and to smooth the way to this issue by my method of informing her. I have meant to tell her the last

monthever since she has been strong enough to bear such tidings; but I have been without the powerthe

March 14.She continually wonders why he does not come, the five months of his enforced absence having

expired; and still more she wonders why he does not write oftener. His last letter was cold, she says, and she

fears he regrets his marriage, which he may only have celebrated with her for pity's sake, thinking she was

sure to die. It makes one's heart bleed to hear her hovering thus so near the truth, and yet never discerning its

A minor trouble besets me, too, in the person of the young Scripture reader, whose conscience pricks him for

the part he played. Surely I am punished, if ever woman were, for a too ingenious perversion of her better

April 2.She is practically well. The faint pink revives in her cheek, though it is not quite so full as

heretofore. But she still wonders what she can have done to offend 'her dear husband,' and I have been

obliged to tell the smallest part of the truthan unimportant fragment of the whole, in fact, I said that I

feared for the moment he might regret the precipitancy of the act, which her illness caused, his affairs not

having been quite sufficiently advanced for marriage just then, though he will doubtless come to her as soon

as he has a home ready. Meanwhile I have written to him, peremptorily, to come and relieve me in this awful

April 10.To my alarm the letter I lately addressed to him at Venice, where he is staying, as well as the last

one she sent him, have received no reply. She thinks he is ill. I do not quite think that, but I wish we could

hear from him. Perhaps the peremptoriness of my words had offended him; it grieves me to think it possible.

_I_ offend him! But too much of this. I MUST tell her the truth, or she may in her ignorance commit herself

to some course or other that may be ruinously compromising. She said plaintively just now that if he could

see her, and know how occupied with him and him alone is her every waking hour, she is sure he would

forgive her the wicked presumption of becoming his wife. Very sweet all that, and touching. I could not

April 15.The house is in confusion; my father is angry and distressed, and I am distracted. Caroline has

disappearedgone away secretly. I cannot help thinking that I know where she is gone to. How guilty I

1 o'clock.No trace of her as yet. We find also that the little waitingmaid we have here in training has

disappeared with Caroline, and there is not much doubt that Caroline, fearing to travel alone, has induced this

girl to go with her as companion. I am almost sure she has started in desperation to find him, and that Venice

is her goal. Why should she run away, if not to join her husband, as she thinks him? Now that I consider,

there have been indications of this wish in her for days, as in birds of passage there lurk signs of their

incipient intention; and yet I did not think she would have taken such an extreme step, unaided, and without

consulting me. I can only jot down the bare factsI have no time for reflections. But fancy Caroline

travelling across the continent of Europe with a chit of a girl, who will be more of a charge than an

Evening: 8 o'clock.Yes, it is as I surmised. She has gone to join him. A note posted by her in Budmouth

Regis at daybreak has reached me this afternoonthanks to the fortunate chance of one of the servants

calling for letters in town today, or I should not have got it until tomorrow. She merely asserts her

determination of going to him, and has started privately, that nothing may hinder her; stating nothing about

her route. That such a gentle thing should suddenly become so calmly resolute quite surprises me. Alas, he

My father, on learning the facts, bade me at once have everything ready by nine this evening, in time to drive

to the train that meets the night steamboat. This I have done, and there being an hour to spare before we

start, I relieve the suspense of waiting by taking up my pen. He says overtake her we must, and calls Charles

the hardest of names. He believes, of course, that she is merely an infatuated girl rushing off to meet her

lover; and how can the wretched I tell him that she is more, and in a sense better than thatyet not

sufficiently more and better to make this flight to Charles anything but a still greater danger to her than a

mere lover's impulse. We shall go by way of Paris, and we think we may overtake her there. I hear my father

April 16. Evening, Paris, Hotel .There is no overtaking her at this place; but she has been here, as I

April 18. Venice.A morning of adventures and emotions which leave me sick and weary, and yet unable to

sleep, though I have lain down on the sofa of my room for more than an hour in the attempt. I therefore make

up my diary to date in a hurried fashion, for the sake of the riddance it affords to ideas which otherwise

We arrived here this morning in broad sunlight, which lit up the sea girt buildings as we approached so that

they seemed like a city of cork floating raftlike on the smooth, blue deep. But I only glanced from the

carriage window at the lovely scene, and we were soon across the intervening water and inside the railway

station. When we got to the front steps the row of black gondolas and the shouts of the gondoliers so

bewildered my father that he was understood to require two gondolas instead of one with two oars, and so I

found him in one and myself in another. We got this righted after a while, and were rowed at once to the hotel

on the Riva degli Schiavoni where M. de la Feste had been staying when we last heard from him, the way

being down the Grand Canal for some distance, under the Rialto, and then by narrow canals which eventually

brought us under the Bridge of Sighs harmonious to our moods!and out again into open water. The

scene was purity itself as to colour, but it was cruel that I should behold it for the first time under such

As soon as I entered the hotel, which is an oldfashioned place, like most places here, where people are taken

en pension as well as the ordinary way, I rushed to the framed list of visitors hanging in the hall, and in a

moment I saw Charles's name upon it among the rest. But she was our chief thought. I turned to the hall

porter, and knowing that she would have travelled as 'Madame de la Feste'I asked for her under that

name, without my father hearing. (He, poor soul, was making confused inquiries outside the door about 'an

'She has just come,' said the porter. 'Madame came by the very early train this morning, when Monsieur was

Whether Caroline had seen us from the window, or overheard me, I do not know, but at that moment I heard

She did not answer; but looked down to hide her emotion, which she conquered after the lapse of a few

'I am just going to my husband,' she said. 'I have not yet seen him. I have not been here long.' She

condescended to give no further reason for her movements, and made as if to move on. I implored her to

come into a private room where I could speak to her in confidence, but she objected. However, the

diningroom, close at hand, was quite empty at this hour, and I got her inside and closed the door. I do not

know how I began my explanation, or how I ended it, but I told her briefly and brokenly enough that the

She could not believe my meaning even then. 'Not his wife?' she cried. 'It is impossible. What am I, then?'

I added more details, and reiterated the reason for my conduct as well as I could; but Heaven knows how very

difficult I found it to feel a jot more justification for it in my own mind than she did in hers.

The revulsion of feeling, as soon as she really comprehended all, was most distressing. After her grief had in

'Why should have I been deceived like this?' she demanded, with a bitter haughtiness of which I had not

deemed such a tractable creature capable. 'Do you suppose that ANYTHING could justify such an

I murmured, 'Your life seemed to require it,' but she did not hear me. She sank down in a chair, covered her

face, and then my father came in. 'O, here you are!' he said. 'I could not find you. And Caroline!'

Then out it all came, and for the first time he was made acquainted with the fact that the scheme for soothing

her illness, which I had sounded him upon, had been really carried out. In a moment he sided with Caroline.

My repeated assurance that my motive was good availed less than nothing. In a minute or two Caroline arose

and went abruptly out of the room, and my father followed her, leaving me alone to my reflections.

I was so bent upon finding Charles immediately that I did not notice whither they went. The servants told me

that M. de la Feste was just outside smoking, and one of them went to look for him, I following; but before

we had gone many steps he came out of the hotel behind me. I expected him to be amazed; but he showed no

surprise at seeing me, though he showed another kind of feeling to an extent which dismayed me. I may have

revealed something similar; but I struggled hard against all emotion, and as soon as I could I told him she had

'O, Charles,' I went on, 'having delayed completing your marriage with her till now, I fearit has become a

'I was purposing to reply in person: I did not know how to address her on the pointhow to address you. But

'She has gone off with my father,' said I; 'indignant with you, and scorning me.'

He was silent: and I suggested that we should follow them, pointing out the direction which I fancied their

gondola had taken. As the one we got into was doubly manned we soon came in view of their two figures

ahead of us, while they were not likely to observe us, our boat having the 'felze' on, while theirs was

uncovered. They shot into a narrow canal just beyond the Giardino Reale, and by the time we were floating

up between its slimy walls we saw them getting out of their gondola at the steps which lead up near the end

of the Via 22 Marzo. When we reached the same spot they were walking up and down the Via in

consultation. Getting out he stood on the lower steps watching them. I watched him. He seemed to fall into a

He assented, and went forward. Still he did not hasten to join them, but, screened by a projecting window,

observed their musing converse. At last he looked back at me; whereupon I pointed forward, and he in

obedience stepped out, and met them face to face. Caroline flushed hot, bowed haughtily to him, turned

away, and taking my father's arm violently, led him off before he had had time to use his own judgment.

They disappeared into a narrow calle, or alley, leading to the back of the buildings on the Grand Canal.

M. de la Feste came slowly back; as he stepped in beside me I realized my position so vividly that my heart

might almost have been heard to beat. The third condition had arisenthe least expected by either of us. She

We returned in the boat together. He seemed quite absorbed till we had turned the angle into the Grand Canal,

when he broke the silence. 'She spoke very bitterly to you in the salleamanger,' he said. 'I do not think she

'O, but I think she was,' I answered. 'It was there I told her what had been done; she did not know till then.'

'But how do you know what passed between us,' said I. He then told me that he had seen and heard all. The

diningroom was divided by foldingdoors from an inner portion, and he had been sitting in the latter part

'But, dear Alicia,' he went on, 'I was more impressed by the affection of your apology to her than by anything

else. And do you know that now the conditions have arisen which give me liberty to consider you my

affianced?' I had been expecting this, but yet was not prepared. I stammered out that we would not discuss it

'Why not?' said he. 'Do you know that we may marry here and now? She has cast off both you and me.'

'It cannot be,' said I, firmly. 'She has not been fairly asked to be your wife in factto repeat the service

lawfully; and until that has been done it would be grievous sin in me to accept you.'

I had not noticed where the gondoliers were rowing us. I suppose he had given them some direction unheard

by me, for as I resigned myself in despairing indolence to the motion of the gondola, I perceived that it was

taking us up the Canal, and, turning into a side opening near the Palazzo Grimani, drew up at some steps near

'It is the Church of the Frari,' he replied. 'We might be married there. At any rate, let us go inside, and grow

When we had entered I found that whether a place to marry in or not, it was one to depress. The word which

Venice speaks most constantly decaywas in a sense accentuated here. The whole large fabric itself

seemed sinking into an earth which was not solid enough to bear it. Cobwebbed cracks zigzagged the walls,

and similar webs clouded the windowpanes. A sicklysweet smell pervaded the aisles. After walking about

with him a little while in embarrassing silences, divided only by his cursory explanations of the monuments

and other objects, and almost fearing he might produce a marriage licence, I went to a door in the south

I glanced through it, towards the small altar at the upper end. The place was empty save of one figure; and

she was kneeling here in front of the beautiful altarpiece by Bellini. Beautiful though it was she seemed not to

see it. She was weeping and praying as though her heart was broken. She was my sister Caroline. I beckoned

I gently pushed him through the doorway, and went back into the transept, down the nave, and onward to the

west door. There I saw my father, to whom I spoke. He answered severely that, having first obtained

comfortable quarters in a pension on the Grand Canal, he had gone back to the hotel on the Riva degli

Schiavoni to find me; but that I was not there. He was now waiting for Caroline, to accompany her back to

the pension, at which she had requested to be left to herself as much as possible till she could regain some

I told him that it was useless to dwell on what was past, that I no doubt had erred, that the remedy lay in the

future and their marriage. In this he quite agreed with me, and on my informing him that M. de la Feste was

at that moment with Caroline in the sacristy, he assented to my proposal that we should leave them to

themselves, and return together to await them at the pension, where he had also engaged a room for me. This

we did, and going up to the chamber he had chosen for me, which overlooked the Canal, I leant from the

They were not long in coming. I recognized them by the colour of her sunshade as soon as they turned the

bend on my right hand. They were side by side of necessity, but there was no conversation between them, and

I thought that she looked flushed and he pale. When they were rowed in to the steps of our house he handed

her up. I fancied she might have refused his assistance, but she did not. Soon I heard her pass my door, and

wishing to know the result of their interview I went downstairs, seeing that the gondola had not put off with

him. He was turning from the door, but not towards the water, intending apparently to walk home by way of

He paused, and then said, 'Alicia, let us understand each other. Do you mean to tell me, once for all, that if

your sister is willing to become my wife you absolutely make way for her, and will not entertain any thought

'I do tell you so,' said I with dry lips. 'You belong to herhow can I do otherwise?'

'Yes; it is so; it is purely a question of honour,' he returned. 'Very well then, honour shall be my word, and not

my love. I will put the question to her frankly; if she says yes, the marriage shall be. But not here. It shall be

'I will accompany her there,' he replied, 'and it shall be within a week of her return. I have nothing to gain by

'What do you mean?' said I. He made no reply, went away, and I came back to my room.

April 20. Milan, 10.30 p.m.We are thus far on our way homeward. I, being decidedly de trop, travel apart

from the rest as much as I can. Having dined at the hotel here, I went out by myself; regardless of the

proprieties, for I could not stay in. I walked at a leisurely pace along the Via Allesandro Manzoni till my eye

was caught by the grand Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, and I entered under the high glass arcades till I reached

the central octagon, where I sat down on one of a group of chairs placed there. Becoming accustomed to the

stream of promenaders, I soon observed, seated on the chairs opposite, Caroline and Charles. This was the

first occasion on which I had seen them en teteatete since my conversation with him. She soon caught

sight of me; averted her eyes; then, apparently abandoning herself to an impulse, she jumped up from her seat

and came across to me. We had not spoken to each other since the meeting in Venice.

'Alicia,' she said, sitting down by my side, 'Charles asks me to forgive you, and I do forgive you.'

This was almost the whole of our conversation; she walked home with me, Charles following a little way

behind, though she kept turning her head, as if anxious that he should overtake us. 'Honour and not love'

April 25.We have reached home, Charles with us. Events are now moving in silent speed, almost with

velocity, indeed; and I sometimes feel oppressed by the strange and preternatural ease which seems to

accompany their flow. Charles is staying at the neighbouring town; he is only waiting for the marriage

licence; when obtained he is to come here, be quietly married to her, and carry her off. It is rather resignation

than content which sits on his face; but he has not spoken a word more to me on the burning subject, or

deviated one hair's breadth from the course he laid down. They may be happy in time to come: I hope so. But

May 6.Eve of the wedding. Caroline is serenely happy, though not blithe. But there is nothing to excite

anxiety about her. I wish I could say the same of him. He comes and goes like a ghost, and yet nobody seems

I could not help being here for the ceremony; but my absence would have resulted in less disquiet on his part,

I believe. However, I may be wrong in attributing causes: my father simply says that Charles and Caroline

have as good a chance of being happy as other people. Well, tomorrow settles all.

May 7.They are married: we have just returned from church. Charles looked so pale this morning that my

father asked him if he was ill. He said, 'No: only a slight headache;' and we started for the church.

4 p.m.They ought to have set out on their journey by this time; but there is an unaccountable delay.

Charles went out halfanhour ago, and has not yet returned. Caroline is waiting in the hall; but I am

dreadfully afraid they will miss the train. I suppose the trifling hindrance is of no account; and yet I am full of

Sept. 14.Four months have passed; ONLY four months! It seems like years. Can it be that only seventeen

weeks ago I set on this paper the fact of their marriage? I am now an aged woman by comparison!

On that never to be forgotten day we waited and waited, and Charles did not return. At six o'clock, when poor

little Caroline had gone back to her room in a state of suspense impossible to describe, a man who worked in

the watermeadows came to the house and asked for my father. He had an interview with him in the study.

My father then rang his bell, and sent for me. I went down; and I then learnt the fatal news. Charles was no

more. The waterman had been going to shut down the hatches of a weir in the meads when he saw a hat on

the edge of the pool below, floating round and round in the eddy, and looking into the pool saw something

strange at the bottom. He knew what it meant, and lowering the hatches so that the water was still, could

distinctly see the body. It is needless to write particulars that were in the newspapers at the time. Charles was

We all feared for Caroline; and she suffered much; but strange to say, her suffering was purely of the nature

of deep grief which found relief in sobbing and tears. It came out at the inquest that Charles had been

accustomed to cross the meads to give an occasional half crown to an old man who lived on the opposite

hill, who had once been a landscape painter in an humble way till he lost his eyesight; and it was assumed

that he had gone thither for the same purpose today, and to bid him farewell. On this information the

coroner's jury found that his death had been caused by misadventure; and everybody believes to this hour that

he was drowned while crossing the weir to relieve the old man. Except one: she believes in no accident. After

the stunning effect of the first news, I thought it strange that he should have chosen to go on such an errand at

the last moment, and to go personally, when there was so little time to spare, since any gift could have been

so easily sent by another hand. Further reflection has convinced me that this step out of life was as much a

part of the day's plan as was the wedding in the church hard by. They were the two halves of his complete

intention when he gave me on the Grand Canal that assurance which I shall never forget: 'Very well, then;

I do not know why I should have made this entry at this particular time; but it has occurred to me to do itto

complete, in a measure, that part of my desultory chronicle which relates to the lovestory of my sister and

Charles. She lives on meekly in her grief; and will probably outlive it; while Ibut never mind me.

Fiveyears later.I have lighted upon this old diary, which it has interested me to look over, containing, as it

does, records of the time when life shone more warmly in my eye than it does now. I am impelled to add one

sentence to round off its record of the past. About a year ago my sister Caroline, after a persistent wooing,

accepted the hand and heart of Theophilus Higham, once the blushing young Scripture reader who assisted at

the substitute for a marriage I planned, and now the fullyordained curate of the next parish. His penitence

for the part he played ended in love. We have all now made atonement for our sins against her: may she be

I never pass through ChalkNewton without turning to regard the neighbouring upland, at a point where a

lane crosses the lone straight highway dividing this from the next parish; a sight which does not fail to recall

the event that once happened there; and, though it may seem superfluous, at this date, to disinter more

memories of village history, the whispers of that spot may claim to be preserved.

It was on a dark, yet mild and exceptionally dry evening at Christmastime (according to the testimony of

William Dewy of Mellstock, Michael Mail, and others), that the choir of ChalkNewton a large parish

situate about halfway between the towns of Ivel and Casterbridge, and now a railway stationleft their

homes just before midnight to repeat their annual harmonies under the windows of the local population. The

band of instrumentalists and singers was one of the largest in the county; and, unlike the smaller and finer

Mellstock stringband, which eschewed all but the catgut, it included brass and reed performers at full

On this night there were two or three violins, two 'cellos, a tenor viol, double bass, hautboy, clarionets,

serpent, and seven singers. It was, however, not the choir's labours, but what its members chanced to witness,

They had pursued their rounds for many years without meeting with any incident of an unusual kind, but

tonight, according to the assertions of several, there prevailed, to begin with, an exceptionally solemn and

thoughtful mood among two or three of the oldest in the band, as if they were thinking they might be joined

by the phantoms of dead friends who had been of their number in earlier years, and now were mute in the

churchyard under flattening mounds friends who had shown greater zest for melody in their time than was

shown in this; or that some past voice of a semitransparent figure might quaver from some

bedroomwindow its acknowledgment of their nocturnal greeting, instead of a familiar living neighbour.

Whether this were fact or fancy, the younger members of the choir met together with their customary

thoughtlessness and buoyancy. When they had gathered by the stone stump of the cross in the middle of the

village, near the White Horse Inn, which they made their starting point, some one observed that they were full

early, that it was not yet twelve o'clock. The local waits of those days mostly refrained from sounding a note

before Christmas morning had astronomically arrived, and not caring to return to their beer, they decided to

begin with some outlying cottages in Sidlinch Lane, where the people had no clocks, and would not know

whether it were night or morning. In that direction they accordingly went; and as they ascended to higher

ground their attention was attracted by a light beyond the houses, quite at the top of the lane.

The road from ChalkNewton to Broad Sidlinch is about two miles long and in the middle of its course,

where it passes over the ridge dividing the two villages, it crosses at right angles, as has been stated, the

lonely monotonous old highway known as Long Ash Lane, which runs, straight as a surveyor's line, many

miles north and south of this spot, on the foundation of a Roman road, and has often been mentioned in these

narratives. Though now quite deserted and grass grown, at the beginning of the century it was well kept and

frequented by traffic. The glimmering light appeared to come from the precise point where the roads

They stood a few moments, discussing the probability of the light having origin in an event of which rumours

Approaching the high land their conjectures were strengthened. Long Ash Lane cut athwart them, right and

left; and they saw that at the junction of the four ways, under the handpost, a grave was dug, into which, as

the choir drew nigh, a corpse had just been thrown by the four Sidlinch men employed for the purpose. The

The singers and musicians from ChalkNewton halted, and looked on while the gravediggers shovelled in

and trod down the earth, till, the hole being filled, the latter threw their spades into the cart, and prepared to

'Who mid ye be aburying there?' asked Lot Swanhills in a raised voice. 'Not the sergeant?'

The Sidlinch men had been so deeply engrossed in their task that they had not noticed the lanterns of the

The choir knew no particularsonly that he had shot himself in his applecloset on the previous Sunday.

'Nobody seem'th to know what 'a did it for, 'a b'lieve? Leastwise, we don't know at ChalkNewton,' continued

The singers drew close, and the Sidlinch men, pausing to rest after their labours, told the story. 'It was all

'Ay. And it have been rough with the army over there lately. 'Twas a pity his father persuaded him to go. But

The circumstances, in brief, were these: The sergeant who had come to this lamentable end, father of the

young soldier who had gone with his regiment to the East, had been singularly comfortable in his military

experiences, these having ended long before the outbreak of the great war with France. On his discharge,

after duly serving his time, he had returned to his native village, and married, and taken kindly to domestic

life. But the war in which England next involved herself had cost him many frettings that age and infirmity

prevented him from being ever again an active unit of the army. When his only son grew to young manhood,

and the question arose of his going out in life, the lad expressed his wish to be a mechanic. But his father

'Trade is coming to nothing in these days,' he said. 'And if the war with the French lasts, as it will, trade will

be still worse. The army, Lukethat's the thing for 'ee. 'Twas the making of me, and 'twill be the making of

you. I hadn't half such a chance as you'll have in these splendid hotter times.'

Luke demurred, for he was a homekeeping, peaceloving youth. But, putting respectful trust in his father's

judgment, he at length gave way, and enlisted in the d Foot. In the course of a few weeks he was sent out

to India to his regiment, which had distinguished itself in the East under General Wellesley.

But Luke was unlucky. News came home indirectly that he lay sick out there; and then on one recent day

when his father was out walking, the old man had received tidings that a letter awaited him at Casterbridge.

The sergeant sent a special messenger the whole nine miles, and the letter was paid for and brought home; but

though, as he had guessed, it came from Luke, its contents were of an unexpected tenor.

The letter had been written during a time of deep depression. Luke said that his life was a burden and a

slavery, and bitterly reproached his father for advising him to embark on a career for which he felt unsuited.

He found himself suffering fatigues and illnesses without gaining glory, and engaged in a cause which he did

not understand or appreciate. If it had not been for his father's bad advice he, Luke, would now have been

working comfortably at a trade in the village that he had never wished to leave.

After reading the letter the sergeant advanced a few steps till he was quite out of sight of everybody, and then

When he arose halfanhour later he looked withered and broken, and from that day his natural spirits left

him. Wounded to the quick by his son's sarcastic stings, he indulged in liquor more and more frequently. His

wife had died some years before this date, and the sergeant lived alone in the house which had been hers. One

morning in the December under notice the report of a gun had been heard on his premises, and on entering

the neighbours found him in a dying state. He had shot himself with an old firelock that he used for scaring

birds; and from what he had said the day before, and the arrangements he had made for his decease, there was

no doubt that his end had been deliberately planned, as a consequence of the despondency into which he had

been thrown by his son's letter. The coroner's jury returned a verdict of felo de se.

'Here's his son's letter,' said one of the Sidlinch men. ''Twas found in his father's pocket. You can see by the

state o't how many times he read it over. Howsomever, the Lord's will be done, since it must, whether or no.'

The grave was filled up and levelled, no mound being shaped over it. The Sidlinch men then bade the

ChalkNewton choir goodnight, and departed with the cart in which they had brought the sergeant's body to

the hill. When their tread had died away from the ear, and the wind swept over the isolated grave with its

customary siffle of indifference, Lot Swanhills turned and spoke to old Richard Toller, the hautboy player.

''Tis hard upon a man, and he a wold sojer, to serve en so, Richard. Not that the sergeant was ever in a battle

bigger than would go into a halfacre paddock, that's true. Still, his soul ought to hae as good a chance as

Richard replied that he was quite of the same opinion. 'What d'ye say to lifting up a carrel over his grave, as

'tis Christmas, and no hurry to begin down in parish, and 'twouldn't take up ten minutes, and not a soul up

'Ye may as well spet upon his grave, for all the good we shall do en by what we lift up, now he's got so far,'

said Notton, the clarionet man and professed sceptic of the choir. 'But I'm agreed if the rest be.'

They thereupon placed themselves in a semicircle by the newly stirred earth, and roused the dull air with the

wellknown Number Sixteen of their collection, which Lot gave out as being the one he thought best suited

'Jown itwe've never played to a dead man afore,' said Ezra Cattstock, when, having concluded the last

verse, they stood reflecting for a breath or two. 'But it do seem more merciful than to go away and leave en,

'Now backalong to Newton, and by the time we get overright the pa'son's 'twill be half after twelve,' said the

They had not, however, done more than gather up their instruments when the wind brought to their notice the

noise of a vehicle rapidly driven up the same lane from Sidlinch which the gravediggers had lately retraced.

To avoid being run over when moving on, they waited till the benighted traveller, whoever he might be,

In half a minute the light of the lanterns fell upon a hired fly, drawn by a steaming and jaded horse. It reached

the handpost, when a voice from the inside cried, 'Stop here!' The driver pulled rein. The carriage door was

opened from within, and there leapt out a private soldier in the uniform of some line regiment. He looked

'No. We bain't Sidlinch folk, thank God; we be Newton choir. Though a man is just buried here, that's true;

and we've raised a carrel over the poor mortal's natomy. Whatdo my eyes see before me young Luke

Holway, that went wi' his regiment to the East Indies, or do I see his spirit straight from the battlefield? Be

'There wer no funeral, in a Christen manner of speaking. But's buried, sure enough. You must have met the

He remained silent, looking at the grave, and they could not help pitying him. 'My friends,' he said, 'I

understand better now. You have, I suppose, in neighbourly charity, sung peace to his soul? I thank you, from

my heart, for your kind pity. Yes; I am Sergeant Holway's miserable sonI'm the son who has brought about

'No, no. Don't ye take on so, young man. He'd been naturally low for a good while, off and on, so we hear.'

'We were out in the East when I wrote to him. Everything had seemed to go wrong with me. Just after my

letter had gone we were ordered home. That's how it is you see me here. As soon as we got into barracks at

Casterbridge I heard o' this . . . Damn me! I'll dare to follow my father, and make away with myself, too. It is

'Don't ye be rash, Luke Holway, I say again; but try to make amends by your future life. And maybe your

'D'ye think not? I fancy it is! . . . Well, I'll turn it over. Thank you for your good counsel. I'll live for one

thing, at any rate. I'll move father's body to a decent Christian churchyard, if I do it with my own hands. I

can't save his life, but I can give him an honourable grave. He shan't lie in this accursed place!'

'Ay, as our pa'son says, 'tis a barbarous custom they keep up at Sidlinch, and ought to be done away wi'. The

'He says it is barbarous, does he? So it is!' cried the soldier. 'Now hearken, my friends.' Then he proceeded to

inquire if they would increase his indebtedness to them by undertaking the removal, privately, of the body of

the suicide to the churchyard, not of Sidlinch, a parish he now hated, but of ChalkNewton. He would give

Cattstock, the 'cello player, who was also the sexton, demurred, and advised the young soldier to sound the

rector about it first. 'Mid be he would object, and yet 'a mid'nt. The pa'son o' Sidlinch is a hard man, I own ye,

and 'a said if folk will kill theirselves in hot blood they must take the consequences. But ours don't think like

'The honourable and reverent Mr. Oldham, brother to Lord Wessex. But you needn't be afeard o' en on that

account. He'll talk to 'ee like a common man, if so be you haven't had enough drink to gie 'ee bad breath.'

'There's war in Spain. I hear our next move is there. I'll try to show myself to be what my father wished me. I

don't suppose I shall but I'll try in my feeble way. That much I swearhere over his body. So help me

Luke smacked his palm against the white handpost with such force that it shook. 'Yes, there's war in Spain;

So the matter ended that night. That the private acted in one thing as he had vowed to do soon became

apparent, for during the Christmas week the rector came into the churchyard when Cattstock was there, and

asked him to find a spot that would be suitable for the purpose of such an interment, adding that he had

slightly known the late sergeant, and was not aware of any law which forbade him to assent to the removal,

the letter of the rule having been observed. But as he did not wish to seem moved by opposition to his

neighbour at Sidlinch, he had stipulated that the act of charity should be carried out at night, and as privately

as possible, and that the grave should be in an obscure part of the enclosure. 'You had better see the young

But before Ezra had done anything Luke came down to his house. His furlough had been cut short, owing to

new developments of the war in the Peninsula, and being obliged to go back to his regiment immediately, he

was compelled to leave the exhumation and reinterment to his friends. Everything was paid for, and he

With this the soldier left. The next day Ezra, on thinking the matter over, again went across to the rectory,

struck with sudden misgiving. He had remembered that the sergeant had been buried without a coffin, and he

was not sure that a stake had not been driven through him. The business would be more troublesome than

The next event was the arrival of a headstone by carrier from the nearest town; to be left at Mr. Ezra

Cattstock's; all expenses paid. The sexton and the carrier deposited the stone in the former's outhouse; and

Ezra, left alone, put on his spectacles and read the brief and simple inscription:

Ezra again called at the riverside rectory. 'The stone is come, sir. But I'm afeard we can't do it nohow.'

'I should like to oblige him,' said the gentlemanly old incumbent. 'And I would forego all fees willingly. Still,

if you and the others don't think you can carry it out, I am in doubt what to say.'

Well, sir; I've made inquiry of a Sidlinch woman as to his burial, and what I thought seems true. They buried

en wi' a new sixfoot hurdlesaul drough's body, from the sheeppen up in North Ewelease though they

won't own to it now. And the question is, Is the moving worth while, considering the awkwardness?'

Ezra had only heard that he had embarked that week for Spain with the rest of the regiment. 'And if he's as

Ezra talked it over with the choir; one of whom suggested that the stone might be erected at the crossroads.

This was regarded as impracticable. Another said that it might be set up in the churchyard without removing

The headstone remained in Ezra's outhouse till, growing tired of seeing it there, he put it away among the

bushes at the bottom of his garden. The subject was sometimes revived among them, but it always ended

There was always the consciousness that Luke would never come back, an impression strengthened by the

disasters which were rumoured to have befallen the army in Spain. This tended to make their inertness

permanent. The headstone grew green as it lay on its back under Ezra's bushes; then a tree by the river was

blown down, and, falling across the stone, cracked it in three pieces. Ultimately the pieces became buried in

Luke had not been born a ChalkNewton man, and he had no relations left in Sidlinch, so that no tidings of

him reached either village throughout the war. But after Waterloo and the fall of Napoleon there arrived at

Sidlinch one day an English sergeantmajor covered with stripes and, as it turned out, rich in glory. Foreign

service had so totally changed Luke Holway that it was not until he told his name that the inhabitants

He had served with unswerving effectiveness through the Peninsular campaigns under Wellington; had

fought at Busaco, Fuentes d'Onore, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria, Quatre Bras, and

Waterloo; and had now returned to enjoy a more than earned pension and repose in his native district.

He hardly stayed in Sidlinch longer than to take a meal on his arrival. The same evening he started on foot

over the hill to Chalk Newton, passing the handpost, and saying as he glanced at the spot, 'Thank God: he's

not there!' Nightfall was approaching when he reached the latter village; but he made straight for the

churchyard. On his entering it there remained light enough to discern the headstones by, and these he

narrowly scanned. But though he searched the front part by the road, and the back part by the river, what he

sought he could not findthe grave of Sergeant Holway, and a memorial bearing the inscription: 'I AM NOT

He left the churchyard and made inquiries. The honourable and reverend old rector was dead, and so were

many of the choir; but by degrees the sergeantmajor learnt that his father still lay at the crossroads in Long

Luke pursued his way moodily homewards, to do which, in the natural course, he would be compelled to

repass the spot, there being no other road between the two villages. But he could not now go by that place,

vociferous with reproaches in his father's tones; and he got over the hedge and wandered deviously through

the ploughed fields to avoid the scene. Through many a fight and fatigue Luke had been sustained by the

thought that he was restoring the family honour and making noble amends. Yet his father lay still in

degradation. It was rather a sentiment than a fact that his father's body had been made to suffer for his own

misdeeds; but to his supersensitiveness it seemed that his efforts to retrieve his character and to propitiate

He endeavoured, however, to shake off his lethargy, and, not liking the associations of Sidlinch, hired a small

cottage at ChalkNewton which had long been empty. Here he lived alone, becoming quite a hermit, and

The Christmas after taking up his abode herein he was sitting in the chimney corner by himself, when he

heard faint notes in the distance, and soon a melody burst forth immediately outside his own window, it came

from the carolsingers, as usual; and though many of the old hands, Ezra and Lot included, had gone to their

rest, the same old carols were still played out of the same old books. There resounded through the

sergeantmajor's windowshutters the familiar lines that the deceased choir had rendered over his father's

When they had finished they went on to another house, leaving him to silence and loneliness as before.

The candle wanted snuffing, but he did not snuff it, and he sat on till it had burnt down into the socket and

The Christmas cheerfulness of next morning was broken at breakfast time by tragic intelligence which went

down the village like wind. SergeantMajor Holway had been found shot through the head by his own hand

On the table in the cottage he had left a piece of paper, on which he had written his wish that he might be

buried at the Cross beside his father. But the paper was accidentally swept to the floor, and overlooked till

I lately had a melancholy experience (said the gentleman who is answerable for the truth of this story). It was

that of going over a doomed house with whose outside aspect I had long been familiara house, that is,

which by reason of age and dilapidation was to be pulled down during the following week. Some of the

thatch, brown and rotten as the gills of old mushrooms, had, indeed, been removed before I walked over the

building. Seeing that it was only a very small housewhich is usually called a 'cottageresidence'situated

in a remote hamlet, and that it was not more than a hundred years old, if so much, I was led to think in my

progress through the hollow rooms, with their cracked walls and sloping floors, what an exceptional number

of abrupt family incidents had taken place thereinto reckon only those which had come to my own

It stood at the top of a garden stretching down to the lane or street that ran through a hermitgroup of

dwellings in Mellstock parish. From a green gate at the lower entrance, over which the thorn hedge had been

shaped to an arch by constant clippings, a gravel path ascended between the box edges of once trim

raspberry, strawberry, and vegetable plots, towards the front door. This was in colour an ancient and bleached

green that could be rubbed off with the finger, and it bore a small longfeatured brass knocker covered with

verdigris in its crevices. For some years before this eve of demolition the homestead had degenerated, and

been divided into two tenements to serve as cottages for farm labourers; but in its prime it had indisputable

The variety of incidents above alluded to was mainly owing to the nature of the tenure, whereby the place had

been occupied by families not quite of the kind customary in such spotspeople whose circumstances,

position, or antecedents were more or less of a critical happygolucky cast. And of these residents the

family whose term comprised the story I wish to relate was that of Mr. Jacob Paddock the marketgardener,

An evident commotion was agitating the premises, which jerked busy sounds across the front plot,

resembling those of a disturbed hive. If a member of the household appeared at the door it was with a

Evening began to bend over the scene; and the other inhabitants of the hamlet came out to draw water, their

common well being in the public road opposite the garden and house of the Paddocks. Having wound up their

bucketsfull respectively they lingered, and spoke significantly together. From their words any casual listener

The woodman who lived nearest the site of the story told most of the tale. Selina, the daughter of the

Paddocks opposite, had been surprised that afternoon by receiving a letter from her once intended husband,

then a corporal, but now a sergeantmajor of dragoons, whom she had hitherto supposed to be one of the

'She picked up wi'en against her father's wish, as we know, and before he got his stripes,' their informant

continued. 'Not but that the man was as hearty a feller as you'd meet this side o' London. But Jacob, you see,

wished her to do better, and one can understand it. However, she was determined to stick to him at that time;

and for what happened she was not much to blame, so near as they were to matrimony when the war broke

'Even the very pig had been killed for the wedding,' said a woman, 'and the barrel o' beer ordered in. O, the

man meant honourable enough. But to be off in two days to fight in a foreign country 'twas natural of her

'The war ended but her man never turned up again. She was not sure he was killed, but was too proud, or too

'One reason why her father forgave her when he found out how matters stood was, as he said plain at the

time, that he liked the man, and could see that he meant to act straight. So the old folks made the best of what

they couldn't mend, and kept her there with 'em, when some wouldn't. Time has proved seemingly that he did

mean to act straight, now that he has writ to her that he's coming. She'd have stuck to him all through the

'At the time of the courtship,' resumed the woodman, 'the regiment was quartered in Casterbridge Barracks,

and he and she got acquainted by his calling to buy a penn'orth of ratheripes off that tree yonder in her

father's orchardthough 'twas said he seed HER over hedge as well as the apples. He declared 'twas a kind

of apple he much fancied; and he called for a penn'orth every day till the tree was cleared. It ended in his

'Well; better late than never, if so be he'll have her now. But, Lord, she'd that faith in 'en that she'd no more

belief that he was alive, when a' didn't come, than that the undermost man in our churchyard was alive. She'd

'Still she hadn't married wi' the new man. Though to be sure she would have committed it next week, even the

licence being got, they say, for she'd have no banns this time, the first being so unfortunate.'

'O, not as I reckon. Soldiers bain't particular, and she's a tidy piece o' furniture still. What will happen is that

she'll have her soldier, and break off with the masterwheelwright, licence or no daze me if she won't.'

In the progress of these desultory conjectures the form of another neighbour arose in the gloom. She nodded

to the people at the well, who replied 'G'd night, Mrs. Stone,' as she passed through Mr. Paddock's gate

towards his door. She was an intimate friend of the latter's household, and the group followed her with their

eyes up the path and past the windows, which were now lighted up by candles inside.

Mrs. Stone paused at the door, knocked, and was admitted by Selina's mother, who took her visitor at once

into the parlour on the left hand, where a table was partly spread for supper. On the 'beaufet' against the wall

stood probably the only object which would have attracted the eye of a local stranger in an otherwise

ordinarily furnished room, a great plumcake guarded as if it were a curiosity by a glass shade of the kind

seen in museumssquare, with a wooden back like those enclosing stuffed specimens of rare feather or fur.

This was the mummy of the cake intended in earlier days for the weddingfeast of Selina and the soldier,

which had been religiously and lovingly preserved by the former as a testimony to her intentional

respectability in spite of an untoward subsequent circumstance, which will be mentioned. This relic was now

as dry as a brick, and seemed to belong to a preexistent civilization. Till quite recently, Selina had been in

the habit of pausing before it daily, and recalling the accident whose consequences had thrown a shadow over

her life ever sincethat of which the waterdrawers had spokenthe sudden news one morning that the

Route had come for the th Dragoons, two days only being the interval before departure; the hurried

consultation as to what should be done, the second time of asking being past but not the third; and the

decision that it would be unwise to solemnize matrimony in such haphazard circumstances, even if it were

Before the fire the young woman in question was now seated on a low stool, in the stillness of reverie, and a

'Ah, Mrs. Stone!' said Selina, rising slowly. 'How kind of you to come in. You'll bide to supper? Mother has

'No. But I heard it outside, that is, that you'd had a letter from Mr. ClarkSergeantMajor Clark, as they say

'Yes; coming tonightall the way from the north of England where he's quartered. I don't know whether

I'm happy orfrightened at it. Of course I always believed that if he was alive he'd come and keep his

solemn vow to me. But when it is printed that a man is killed what can you think?'

'Why, yes. After the Battle of the Alma the book of the names of the killed and wounded was nailed up

against Casterbridge Town Hall door. 'Twas on a Saturday, and I walked there o' purpose to read and see for

myself; for I'd heard that his name was down. There was a crowd of people round the book, looking for the

names of relations; and I can mind that when they saw me they made way for meknowing that we'd been

just going to be marriedand that, as you may say, I belonged to him. Well, I reached up my arm, and

turned over the farrels of the book, and under the "killed" I read his surname, but instead of "John" they'd

printed "James," and I thought 'twas a mistake, and that it must be he. Who could have guessed there were

'Wellhe's coming to finish the wedding of 'ee as may be said; so never mind, my dear. All's well that ends

'That's what he seems to say. But then he has not heard yet about Mr. Miller; and that's what rather terrifies

me. Luckily my marriage with him next week was to have been by licence, and not banns, as in John's case;

and it was not so well known on that account. Still, I don't know what to think.'

'Everything seems to come just 'twixt cup and lip with 'ee, don't it now, Miss Paddock. Two weddings broke

'He's been so good and faithful! Not minding about the child at all; for he knew the rights of the story. He's

dearly fond o' Johnny, you knowjust as if 'twere his ownisn't he, my duck? Do Mr. Miller love you or

'Well, you see, Mrs. Stone, he said he'd make me a comfortable home; and thinking 'twould be a good thing

for Johnny, Mr. Miller being so much better off than me, I agreed at last, just as a widow might which is

what I have always felt myself; ever since I saw what I thought was John's name printed there. I hope John

'So he will forgive 'ee, since 'twas no manner of wrong to him. He ought to have sent 'ee a line, saying 'twas

Selina's mother entered. 'We've not known of this an hour, Mrs. Stone,' she said. 'The letter was brought up

from Lower Mellstock Postoffice by one of the school children, only this afternoon. Mr. Miller was coming

here this very night to settle about the wedding doings. Hark! Is that your father? Or is it Mr. Miller already

The footsteps entered the porch; there was a brushing on the mat, and the door of the room sprung back to

disclose a rubicund man about thirty years of age, of thriving mastermechanic appearance and obviously

comfortable temper. On seeing the child, and before taking any notice whatever of the elders, the comer made

a noise like the crowing of a cock and flapped his arms as if they were wings, a method of entry which had

'Whatwere you all talking about me, my dear?' said the genial young man when he had finished his

crowing and resumed human manners. 'Why what's the matter,' he went on. 'You look struck all of a heap.'

Mr. Miller spread an aspect of concern over his own face, and drew a chair up to the fire.

'WellJohn Clarknow SergeantMajor Clarkwasn't shot at Alma after all. 'Twas another of almost the

'Whatever shall I say, that he may not be offended with what I've done?' interposed Selina.

'O no! How can I without being wicked? You were very very kind, Mr. Miller, to ask me to have you; no

other man would have done it after what had happened; and I agreed, even though I did not feel half so warm

as I ought. Yet it was entirely owing to my believing him in the grave, as I knew that if he were not he would

'Yes . . . He must be a goodish sort of fellow,' said Mr. Miller, for a moment so impressed with the excellently

faithful conduct of the sergeantmajor of dragoons that he disregarded its effect upon his own position. He

sighed slowly and added, 'Well, Selina, 'tis for you to say. I love you, and I love the boy; and there's my

'Yes, I know! But I mustn't hear it any more now,' murmured Selina quickly. 'John will be here soon. I hope

he'll see how it all was when I tell him. If so be I could have written it to him it would have been better.'

'You think he doesn't know a single word about our having been on the brink o't. But perhaps it's the other

'If not, speak out straight and fair, and tell him exactly how it fell out. If he's a man he'll see it.'

'O he's a man true enough. But I really do think I shan't have to tell him at all, since you've put it to me that

As it was now Johnny's bedtime he was carried upstairs, and when Selina came down again her mother

observed with some anxiety, 'I fancy Mr. Clark must be here soon if he's coming; and that being so, perhaps

Mr. Miller wouldn't mindwishing us goodnight! since you are so determined to stick to your

sergeantmajor.' A little bitterness bubbled amid the closing words. 'It would be less awkward, Mr. Miller not

'To be sure; to be sure,' the masterwheelwright exclaimed with instant conviction, rising alertly from his

chair. 'Lord bless my soul,' he said, taking up his hat and stick, 'and we to have been married in six days! But

Selinayou're right. You do belong to the child's father since he's alive. I'll try to make the best of it.'

Before the generous Miller had got further there came a knock to the door accompanied by the noise of

They heard Mr. Paddock, who had been smoking in the room opposite, rise and go to the door, and in a

moment a voice familiar enough to Selina was audibly saying, 'At last I am here againnot without many

interruptions! How is it with 'ee, Mr. Paddock? And how is she? Thought never to see me again, I suppose?'

'Danged if I bain't catched!' murmured Mr. Miller, forgetting companyspeech. 'Never mindI may as well

meet him here as elsewhere; and I should like to see the chap, and make friends with en, as he seems one o'

the right sort.' He returned to the fireplace just as the sergeantmajor was ushered in.

He was a good specimen of the longservice soldier of those days; a not unhandsome man, with a certain

undemonstrative dignity, which some might have said to be partly owing to the stiffness of his uniform about

his neck, the high stock being still worn. He was much stouter than when Selina had parted from him.

Although she had not meant to be demonstrative she ran across to him directly she saw him, and he held her

Then in much agitation she whispered something to him, at which he seemed to be much surprised.

'He's just put to bed,' she continued. 'You can go up and see him. I knew you'd come if you were alive! But I

had quite gi'd you up for dead. You've been home in England ever since the war ended?'

'That's just what I ask myself! Why was I such a sappy as not to hurry here the first day I set foot on shore!

He relinquished her to peep upstairs a little way, where, by looking through the ballusters, he could see

Johnny's cot just within an open door. On his stepping down again Mr. Miller was preparing to depart.

'Now, what's this? I am sorry to see anybody going the moment I've come,' expostulated the sergeantmajor.

'I thought we might make an evening of it. There's a nine gallon cask o' "Phoenix" beer outside in the trap,

and a ham, and half a rawmil' cheese; for I thought you might be short o' forage in a lonely place like this;

and it struck me we might like to ask in a neighbour or two. But perhaps it would be taking a liberty?'

'O no, not at all,' said Mr. Paddock, who was now in the room, in a judicial measured manner. 'Very

thoughtful of 'ee, only 'twas not necessary, for we had just laid in an extry stock of eatables and drinkables in

''Twas very kind, upon my heart,' said the soldier, 'to think me worth such a jocund preparation, since you

Selina gazed at her father to stop him, and exchanged embarrassed glances with Miller. Contrary to her hopes

SergeantMajor Clark plainly did not know that the preparations referred to were for something quite other

The movement of the horse outside, and the impatient tapping of a whiphandle upon the vehicle reminded

them that Clark's driver was still in waiting. The provisions were brought into the house, and the cart

dismissed. Miller, with very little pressure indeed, accepted an invitation to supper, and a few neighbours

During the laying of the meal, and throughout its continuance, Selina, who sat beside her first intended

husband, tried frequently to break the news to him of her engagement to the othernow terminated so

suddenly, and so happily for her heart, and her sense of womanly virtue. But the talk ran entirely upon the

late war; and though fortified by half a horn of the strong ale brought by the sergeantmajor she decided that

she might have a better opportunity when supper was over of revealing the situation to him in private.

Having supped, Clark leaned back at ease in his chair and looked around. 'We used sometimes to have a

dance in that other room after supper, Selina dear, I recollect. We used to clear out all the furniture into this

'We were not unlikely to revive it in a few days,' said Mr. Paddock. 'But, howsomever, there's seemingly

'Yes, I'll tell John all about that by and by!' interposed Selina; at which, perceiving that the secret which he

did not like keeping was to be kept even yet, her father held his tongue with some show of testiness.

The subject of a dance having been broached, to put the thought in practice was the feeling of all. Soon after

the tables and chairs were borne from the opposite room to this by zealous hands, and two of the villagers

sent home for a fiddle and tambourine, when the majority began to tread a measure well known in that

secluded vale. Selina naturally danced with the sergeantmajor, not altogether to her father's satisfaction, and

to the real uneasiness of her mother, both of whom would have preferred a postponement of festivities till the

rashly anticipated relationship between their daughter and Clark in the past had been made fact by the

church's ordinances. They did not, however, express a positive objection, Mr. Paddock remembering, with

selfreproach, that it was owing to his original strongly expressed disapproval of Selina's being a soldier's

wife that the wedding had been delayed, and finally hinderedwith worse consequences than were expected;

and ever since the misadventure brought about by his government he had allowed events to steer their own

'My tails will surely catch in your spurs, John!' murmured the daughter of the house, as she whirled around

upon his arm with the rapt soul and look of a somnambulist. 'I didn't know we should dance, or I would have

'I'll take care, my love. We've danced here before. Do you think your father objects to me now? I've risen in

'And so have I! If I had married you then 'twould have saved many a misfortune. I have sometimes thought it

might have been possible to rush the ceremony through somehow before I left; though we were only in the

second asking, were we? And even if I had come back straight here when we returned from the Crimea, and

'Odilatoriness and want of thought, and a fear of facing your father after so long. I was in hospital a great

while, you know. But how familiar the place seems again! What's that I saw on the beaufet in the other room?

It never used to be there. A sort of withered corpse of a cakenot an old bridecake surely?'

'Yes, John, ours. 'Tis the very one that was made for our wedding three years ago.'

'Sakes alive! Why, time shuts up together, and all between then and now seems not to have been! What

became of that weddinggown that they were making in this room, I remembera bluish, whitish, frothy

'Wouldn't it seem. And yet, O how I should like to! It would remind them all, if we told them what it was,

how we really meant to be married on that bygone day!' Her eyes were again laden with wet.

'Yes . . . The pity that we didn'tthe pity!' Moody mournfulness seemed to hold silent awhile one not

Accordingly, just before the next figure was formed, Selina disappeared, and speedily came downstairs in a

creased and boxworn, but still airy and pretty, muslin gown, which was indeed the very one that had been

She explained to some of them, as he led her to the second dance, what the frock had been meant for, and that

she had put it on at his request. And again athwart and around the room they went.

'But I couldn't wear this gown to be married in now!' she replied, ecstatically, 'or I shouldn't have put it on

and made it dusty. It is really too oldfashioned, and so folded and fretted out, you can't think. That was with

my taking it out so many times to look at. I have never put it onnevertill now!'

'Selina, I am thinking of giving up the army. Will you emigrate with me to New Zealand? I've an uncle out

there doing well, and he'd soon help me to making a larger income. The English army is glorious, but it ain't

'A lovely climate. And I shall never be happy in England . . . Aha!' he concluded again, with a bitterness of

As the dance brought round one neighbour after another the reunited pair were thrown into juxtaposition

with Bob Heartall among the rest who had been called in; one whose chronic expression was that he carried

inside him a joke on the point of bursting with its own vastness. He took occasion now to let out a little of its

'This is a bit of a topper to the bridegroom, ho ho! 'Twill teach en the liberty you'll expect when you've

'What does he mean by a "topper,"' the sergeantmajor asked, who, not being of local extraction, despised the

venerable local language, and also seemed to suppose 'bridegroom' to be an anticipatory name for himself. 'I

Selina looked frightened. 'He didn't mean you, dear,' she said as they moved on. 'We thought perhaps you

knew what had happened, owing to your coming just at this time. Had youheard anything about what I

'Not a breathhow should Iaway up in Yorkshire? It was by the merest accident that I came just at this

'I was engaged to be married to Mr. Bartholomew Miller. That's what it is! I would have let 'ee know by

letter, but there was no time, only hearing from 'ee this afternoon . . . You won't desert me for it, will you,

John? Because, as you know, I quite supposed you dead, andand' Her eyes were full of tears of

The soldier was silent during two or three double bars of the tune. 'When were you to have been married to

'Next weekO yesjust the same as it was with you and me. There's a strange fate of interruption hanging

over me, I sometimes think! He had bought the licence, which I preferred so that it mightn't be likeours.

'Yes . . . I see, of course, how natural your action wasnever thinking of seeing me any more! Is it the Mr.

Clark glanced round upon Bartholomew and was silent again, for some little while, and she stole a look at

him, to find that he seemed changed. 'John, you look ill!' she almost sobbed. ''Tisn't me, is it?'

'O dear, no. Though I hadn't, somehow, expected it. I can't find fault with you for a momentand I don't . . .

This is a deuce of a long dance, don't you think? We've been at it twenty minutes if a second, and the figure

'They like them so dreadfully long here. Shall we drop out? Or I'll stop the fiddler.'

'O no, no, I think I can finish. But although I look healthy enough I have never been so strong as I formerly

'You couldn't, dear, as I didn't write. What a fool I have been altogether!' He gave a twitch, as of one in pain.

'I won't dance again when this one is over. The fact is I have travelled a long way today, and it seems to

There could be no doubt that the sergeantmajor was unwell, and Selina made herself miserable by still

believing that her story was the cause of his ailment. Suddenly he said in a changed voice, and she perceived

Letting go her waist he went quickly to the other room. She followed, and found him in the nearest chair, his

'John isn't well . . . We are going to New Zealand when we are married, father. A lovely country! John, would

'A drop o' that Schiedam of old Owlett's, that's under stairs, perhaps,' suggested her father. 'Not that nowadays

'John,' she said, putting her face close to his and pressing his arm. 'Will you have a drop of spirits or

He did not reply, and Selina observed that his ear and the side of his face were quite white. Convinced that

his illness was serious, a growing dismay seized hold of her. The dance ended; her mother came in, and

'We must not let him lie like that, lift him up,' she said. 'Let him rest in the windowbench on some cushions.'

They unfolded his arms and hands as they lay clasped upon the table, and on lifting his head found his

features to bear the very impress of death itself. Bartholomew Miller, who had now come in, assisted Mr.

Paddock to make a comfortable couch in the windowseat, where they stretched out Clark upon his back.

Still he seemed unconscious. 'We must get a doctor,' said Selina. 'O, my dear John, how is it you be taken like

'My impression is that he's dead!' murmured Mr. Paddock. 'He don't breathe enough to move a tomtit's

There were plenty to volunteer to go for a doctor, but as it would be at least an hour before he could get there

the case seemed somewhat hopeless. The dancingparty ended as unceremoniously as it had begun; but the

guests lingered round the premises till the doctor should arrive. When he did come the sergeantmajor's

extremities were already cold, and there was no doubt that death had overtaken him almost at the moment

The medical practitioner quite refused to accept the unhappy Selina's theory that her revelation had in any

way induced Clark's sudden collapse. Both he and the coroner afterwards, who found the immediate cause to

be heartfailure, held that such a supposition was unwarranted by facts. They asserted that a long day's

journey, a hurried drive, and then an exhausting dance, were sufficient for such a result upon a heart

enfeebled by fatty degeneration after the privations of a Crimean winter and other trying experiences, the

This conclusion, however, did not dislodge Selina's opinion that the shock of her statement had been the

At this date the Casterbridge Barracks were cavalry quarters, their adaptation to artillery having been effected

some years later. It had been owing to the fact that the th Dragoons, in which John Clark had served,

happened to be lying there that Selina made his acquaintance. At the time of his death the barracks were

occupied by the Scots Greys, but when the pathetic circumstances of the sergeant major's end became

known in the town the officers of the Greys offered the services of their fine reed and brass band, that he

might have a funeral marked by due military honours. His body was accordingly removed to the barracks,

and carried thence to the churchyard in the Durnover quarter on the following afternoon, one of the Greys'

most ancient and docile chargers being blacked up to represent Clark's horse on the occasion.

Everybody pitied Selina, whose story was well known. She followed the corpse as the only mourner, Clark

having been without relations in this part of the country, and a communication with his regiment having

brought none from a distance. She sat in a little shabby brownblack mourning carriage, squeezing herself up

in a corner to be as much as possible out of sight during the slow and dramatic march through the town to the

tune from Saul. When the interment had taken place, the volleys been fired, and the return journey begun, it

was with something like a shock that she found the military escort to be moving at a quick march to the lively

strains of 'Off she goes!' as if all care for the sergeantmajor was expected to be ended with the late discharge

of the carbines. It was, by chance, the very tune to which they had been footing when he died, and unable to

bear its notes, she hastily told her driver to drop behind. The band and military party diminished up the High

Then recommenced for her a life whose incidents were precisely of a suit with those which had preceded the

soldier's return; but how different in her appreciation of them! Her narrow miss of the recovered

respectability they had hoped for from that tardy event worked upon her parents as an irritant, and after the

first week or two of her mourning her life with them grew almost insupportable. She had impulsively taken to

herself the weeds of a widow, for such she seemed to herself to be, and clothed little Johnny in sables

likewise. This assumption of a moral relationship to the deceased, which she asserted to be only not a legal

one by two most unexpected accidents, led the old people to indulge in sarcasm at her expense whenever they

beheld her attire, though all the while it cost them more pain to utter than it gave her to hear it. Having

become accustomed by her residence at home to the business carried on by her father, she surprised them one

day by going off with the child to ChalkNewton, in the direction of the town of Ivell, and opening a

miniature fruit and vegetable shop, attending Ivell market with her produce. Her business grew somewhat

larger, and it was soon sufficient to enable her to support herself and the boy in comfort. She called herself

'Mrs. John Clark' from the day of leaving home, and painted the name on her signboardno man forbidding

By degrees the pain of her state was forgotten in her new circumstances, and getting to be generally accepted

as the widow of a sergeantmajor of dragoonsan assumption which her modest and mournful demeanour

seemed to substantiateher life became a placid one, her mind being nourished by the melancholy luxury of

dreaming what might have been her future in New Zealand with John, if he had only lived to take her there.

Her only travels now were a journey to Ivell on marketdays, and once a fortnight to the churchyard in which

Clark lay, there to tend, with Johnny's assistance, as widows are wont to do, the flowers she had planted upon

On a day about eighteen months after his unexpected decease, Selina was surprised in her lodging over her

little shop by a visit from Bartholomew Miller. He had called on her once or twice before, on which

occasions he had used without a word of comment the name by which she was known.

'I've come this time,' he said, 'less because I was in this direction than to ask you, Mrs. Clark, what you mid

'Yes, of course. You see, his coming back for 'ee proved what I always believed of 'ee, though others didn't.

There's nobody but would be glad to welcome you to our parish again, now you've showed your

independence and acted up to your trust in his promise. Well, my dear, will you come?'

'I'd rather bide as Mrs. Clark, I think,' she answered. 'I am not ashamed of my position at all; for I am John's

'I quite agreethat's why I've come. Still, you won't like to be always straining at this shopkeeping and

marketstanding; and 'twould be better for Johnny if you had nothing to do but tend him.'

He here touched the only weak spot in Selina's resistance to his proposalthe good of the boy. To promote

that there were other men she might have married offhand without loving them if they had asked her to; but

though she had known the worthy speaker from her youth, she could not for the moment fancy herself happy

He paused awhile. 'I ought to tell 'ee, Mrs. Clark,' he said by and by, 'that marrying is getting to be a pressing

question with me. Not on my own account at all. The truth is, that mother is growing old, and I am away from

home a good deal, so that it is almost necessary there should be another person in the house with her besides

me. That's the practical consideration which forces me to think of taking a wife, apart from my wish to take

She said something about there being far better women than she, and other natural commonplaces; but

assured him she was most grateful to him for feeling what he felt, as indeed she sincerely was. However,

Selina would not consent to be the useful third person in his comfortable homeat any rate just then. He

went away, after taking tea with her, without discerning much hope for him in her goodbye.

After that evening she saw and heard nothing of him for a great while. Her fortnightly journeys to the

sergeantmajor's grave were continued, whenever weather did not hinder them; and Mr. Miller must have

known, she thought, of this custom of hers. But though the churchyard was not nearly so far from his

homestead as was her shop at ChalkNewton, he never appeared in the accidental way that lovers use.

An explanation was forthcoming in the shape of a letter from her mother, who casually mentioned that Mr.

Bartholomew Miller had gone away to the other side of ShottsfordForum to be married to a thriving

dairyman's daughter that he knew there. His chief motive, it was reported, had been less one of love than a

Selina was practical enough to know that she had lost a good and possibly the only opportunity of settling in

life after what had happened, and for a moment she regretted her independence. But she became calm on

reflection, and to fortify herself in her course started that afternoon to tend the sergeantmajor's grave, in

On reaching the churchyard and turning the corner towards the spot as usual, she was surprised to perceive

another woman, also apparently a respectable widow, and with a tiny boy by her side, bending over Clark's

turf, and spudding up with the point of her umbrella some ivyroots that Selina had reverently planted there

'What are you digging up my ivy for!' cried Selina, rushing forward so excitedly that Johnny tumbled over a

'Yes. The late SergeantMajor Clark. Anyhow, as good as my husband, for he was just going to be.'

'Indeed. But who may be my husband, if not he? I am the only Mrs. John Clark, widow of the late

'How can that be?' faltered Selina, her throat seeming to stick together as she just began to perceive its

possibility. 'He had beengoing to marry me twiceand we were going to New Zealand.'

'Ah!I remember about you,' returned the legitimate widow calmly and not unkindly. 'You must be Selina;

he spoke of you now and then, and said that his relations with you would always be a weight on his

conscience. Well; the history of my life with him is soon told. When he came back from the Crimea he

became acquainted with me at my home in the north, and we were married within a month of first knowing

each other. Unfortunately, after living together a few months, we could not agree; and after a particularly

sharp quarrel, in which, perhaps, I was most in the wrongas I don't mind owning here by his

gravesidehe went away from me, declaring he would buy his discharge and emigrate to New Zealand, and

never come back to me any more. The next thing I heard was that he had died suddenly at Mellstock at some

low carouse; and as he had left me in such anger to live no more with me, I wouldn't come down to his

funeral, or do anything in relation to him. 'Twas temper, I know, but that was the fact. Even if we had parted

friends it would have been a serious expense to travel three hundred miles to get there, for one who wasn't

left so very well off . . . I am sorry I pulled up your ivy roots; but that common sort of ivy is considered a

At one's every step forward it rises higher against the south sky, with an obtrusive personality that compels

the senses to regard it and consider. The eyes may bend in another direction, but never without the

consciousness of its heavy, highshouldered presence at its point of vantage. Across the intervening levels

the gale races in a straight line from the fort, as if breathed out of it hitherward. With the shifting of the

clouds the faces of the steeps vary in colour and in shade, broad lights appearing where mist and vagueness

had prevailed, dissolving in their turn into melancholy gray, which spreads over and eclipses the luminous

Out of the invisible marine region on the other side birds soar suddenly into the air, and hang over the

summits of the heights with the indifference of long familiarity. Their forms are white against the tawny

concave of cloud, and the curves they exhibit in their floating signify that they are seagulls which have

journeyed inland from expected stress of weather. As the birds rise behind the fort, so do the clouds rise

behind the birds, almost as it seems, stroking with their bagging bosoms the uppermost flyers.

The profile of the whole stupendous ruin, as seen at a distance of a mile eastward, is cleanly cut as that of a

marble inlay. It is varied with protuberances, which from hereabouts have the animal aspect of warts, wens,

knuckles, and hips. It may indeed be likened to an enormous manylimbed organism of an antediluvian

time partaking of the cephalopod in shapelying lifeless, and covered with a thin green cloth, which

hides its substance, while revealing its contour. This dull green mantle of herbage stretches down towards the

levels, where the ploughs have essayed for centuries to creep up near and yet nearer to the base of the castle,

but have always stopped short before reaching it. The furrows of these environing attempts show themselves

distinctly, bending to the incline as they trench upon it; mounting in steeper curves, till the steepness baffles

them, and their parallel threads show like the striae of waves pausing on the curl. The peculiar place of which

these are some of the features is 'MaiDun,' 'The Castle of the Great Hill,' said to be the Dunium of Ptolemy,

the capital of the Durotriges, which eventually came into Roman occupation, and was finally deserted on

The evening is followed by a night on which an invisible moon bestows a subdued, yet pervasive

lightwithout radiance, as without blackness. From the spot whereon I am ensconced in a cottage, a mile

away, the fort has now ceased to be visible; yet, as by day, to anybody whose thoughts have been engaged

with it and its barbarous grandeurs of past time the form asserts its existence behind the night gauzes as

persistently as if it had a voice. Moreover, the southwest wind continues to feed the intervening arable flats

The midnight hour for which there has been occasion to wait at length arrives, and I journey towards the

stronghold in obedience to a request urged earlier in the day. It concerns an appointment, which I rather

regret my decision to keep now that night is come. The route thither is hedgeless and treelessI need not add

deserted. The moonlight is sufficient to disclose the pale ribandlike surface of the way as it trails along

between the expanses of darker fallow. Though the road passes near the fortress it does not conduct directly

to its fronts. As the place is without an inhabitant, so it is without a trackway. So presently leaving the

macadamized road to pursue its course elsewhither, I step off upon the fallow, and plod stumblingly across it.

The castle looms out off the shade by degrees, like a thing waking up and asking what I want there. It is now

so enlarged by nearness that its whole shape cannot be taken in at one view. The ploughed ground ends as the

rise sharpens, the sloping basement of grass begins, and I climb upward to invade Mai Dun.

Impressive by day as this largest AncientBritish work in the kingdom undoubtedly is, its impressiveness is

increased now. After standing still and spending a few minutes in adding its age to its size, and its size to its

solitude, it becomes appallingly mournful in its growing closeness. A squally wind blows in the face with an

impact which proclaims that the vapours of the air sail low tonight. The slope that I so laboriously clamber

up the wind skips sportively down. Its track can be discerned even in this light by the undulations of the

withered grassbentsthe only produce of this upland summit except moss. Four minutes of ascent, and a

vantage ground of some sort is gained. It is only the crest of the outer rampart. Immediately within this a

chasm gapes; its bottom is imperceptible, but the counterscarp slopes not too steeply to admit of a sliding

descent if cautiously performed. The shady bottom, dank and chilly, is thus gained, and reveals itself as a

kind of winding lane, wide enough for a waggon to pass along, floored with rank herbage, and trending away,

right and left, into obscurity, between the concentric walls of earth. The towering closeness of these on each

hand, their impenetrability, and their ponderousness, are felt as a physical pressure. The way is now up the

second of them, which stands steeper and higher than the first. To turn aside, as did Christian's companion,

from such a Hill Difficulty, is the more natural tendency; but the way to the interior is upward. There is, of

course, an entrance to the fortress; but that lies far off on the other side. It might possibly have been the wiser

However, being here, I ascend the second acclivity. The grass stems the grey beard of the hillsway in a

mass close to my stooping face. The dead heads of these various grassesfescues, foxtails, and ryesbob

and twitch as if pulled by a string underground. From a few thistles a whistling proceeds; and even the moss

That the summit of the second line of defence has been gained is suddenly made known by a contrasting wind

from a new quarter, coming over with the curve of a cascade. These novel gusts raise a sound from the whole

camp or castle, playing upon it bodily as upon a harp. It is with some difficulty that a foothold can be

preserved under their sweep. Looking aloft for a moment I perceive that the sky is much more overcast than it

has been hitherto, and in a few instants a dead lull in what is now a gale ensues with almost preternatural

abruptness. I take advantage of this to sidle down the second counterscarp, but by the time the ditch is

reached the lull reveals itself to be but the precursor of a storm. It begins with a heave of the whole

atmosphere, like the sigh of a weary strong man on turning to recommence unusual exertion, just as I stand

here in the second fosse. That which now radiates from the sky upon the scene is not so much light as

The wind, quickening, abandons the natural direction it has pursued on the open upland, and takes the course

of the gorge's length, rushing along therein helterskelter, and carrying thick rain upon its back. The rain is

followed by hailstones which fly through the defile in battalionsrolling, hopping, ricochetting, snapping,

clattering down the shelving banks in an undefinable haze of confusion. The earthen sides of the fosse seem

to quiver under the drenching onset, though it is practically no more to them than the blows of Thor upon the

giant of Jotunland. It is impossible to proceed further till the storm somewhat abates, and I draw up behind a

spur of the inner scarp, where possibly a barricade stood two thousand years ago; and thus await events.

The roar of the storm can be heard travelling the complete circuit of the castlea measured milecoming

round at intervals like a circumambulating column of infantry. Doubtless such a column has passed this way

in its time, but the only columns which enter in these latter days are the columns of sheep and oxen that are

sometimes seen here now; while the only semblance of heroic voices heard are the utterances of such, and of

The expected lightning radiates round, and a rumbling as from its subterranean vaultsif there are

anyfills the castle. The lightning repeats itself, and, coming after the aforesaid thoughts of martial men, it

bears a fanciful resemblance to swords moving in combat. It has the very brassy hue of the ancient weapons

that here were used. The so sudden entry upon the scene of this metallic flame is as the entry of a presiding

exhibitor who unrolls the maps, uncurtains the pictures, unlocks the cabinets, and effects a transformation by

merely exposing the materials of his science, unintelligibly cloaked till then. The abrupt configuration of the

bluffs and mounds is now for the first time clearly revealedmounds whereon, doubtless, spears and shields

have frequently lain while their owners loosened their sandals and yawned and stretched their arms in the

sun. For the first time, too, a glimpse is obtainable of the true entrance used by its occupants of old, some

There, where all passage has seemed to be inviolably barred by an almost vertical facade, the ramparts are

found to overlap each other like loosely clasped fingers, between which a zigzag path may be followeda

cunning construction that puzzles the uninformed eye. But its cunning, even where not obscured by

dilapidation, is now wasted on the solitary forms of a few wild badgers, rabbits, and hares. Men must have

often gone out by those gates in the morning to battle with the Roman legions under Vespasian; some to

return no more, others to come back at evening, bringing with them the noise of their heroic deeds. But not a

Acoustic perceptions multiply tonight. We can almost hear the stream of years that have borne those deeds

away from us. Strange articulations seem to float on the air from that point, the gateway, where the animation

in past times must frequently have concentrated itself at hours of coming and going, and general excitement.

There arises an ineradicable fancy that they are human voices; if so, they must be the lingering airborne

vibrations of conversations uttered at least fifteen hundred years ago. The attention is attracted from mere

nebulous imaginings about yonder spot by a real moving of something close at hand.

I recognize by the now moderate flashes of lightning, which are sheetlike and nearly continuous, that it is

the gradual elevation of a small mound of earth. At first no larger than a man's fist it reaches the dimensions

of a hat, then sinks a little and is still. It is but the heaving of a mole who chooses such weather as this to

work in from some instinct that there will be nobody abroad to molest him. As the fine earth lifts and lifts and

falls loosely aside fragments of burnt clay roll out of itclay that once formed part of cups or other vessels

The violence of the storm has been counterbalanced by its transitoriness. From being immersed in wellnigh

solid media of cloud and hail shot with lightning, I find myself uncovered of the humid investiture and left

bare to the mild gaze of the moon, which sparkles now on every wet grassblade and frond of moss.

But I am not yet inside the fort, and the delayed ascent of the third and last escarpment is now made. It is

steeper than either. The first was a surface to walk up, the second to stagger up, the third can only be

ascended on the hands and toes. On the summit obtrudes the first evidence which has been met with in these

precincts that the time is really the nineteenth century; it is in the form of a white noticeboard on a post, and

CAUTION.Any Person found removing Relics, Skeletons, Stones, Pottery, Tiles, or other Material from

this Earthwork, or cutting up the Ground, will be Prosecuted as the Law directs.

Here one observes a difference underfoot from what has gone before: scraps of Roman tile and stone

chippings protrude through the grass in meagre quantity, but sufficient to suggest that masonry stood on the

spot. Before the eye stretches under the moonlight the interior of the fort. So open and so large is it as to be

practically an upland plateau, and yet its area lies wholly within the walls of what may be designated as one

building. It is a longviolated retreat; all its cornerstones, plinths, and architraves were carried away to build

neighbouring villages even before mediaeval or modern history began. Many a block which once may have

helped to form a bastion here rests now in broken and diminished shape as part of the chimney corner of

some shepherd's cottage within the distant horizon, and the cornerstones of this heathen altar may form the

Yet the very bareness of these inner courts and wards, their condition of mere pasturage, protects what

remains of them as no defences could do. Nothing is left visible that the hands can seize on or the weather

overturn, and a permanence of general outline at least results, which no other condition could ensure.

The position of the castle on this isolated hill bespeaks deliberate and strategic choice exercised by some

remote mind capable of prospective reasoning to a far extent. The natural configuration of the surrounding

country and its bearing upon such a stronghold were obviously long considered and viewed mentally before

its extensive design was carried into execution. Who was the man that said, 'Let it be built here!'not on that

hill yonder, or on that ridge behind, but on this best spot of all? Whether he were some great one of the

Belgae, or of the Durotriges, or the travelling engineer of Britain's united tribes, must for ever remain time's

secret; his form cannot be realized, nor his countenance, nor the tongue that he spoke, when he set down his

Within the innermost enclosure, though it is so wide that at a superficial glance the beholder has only a sense

of standing on a breezy down, the solitude is rendered yet more solitary by the knowledge that between the

benighted sojourner herein and all kindred humanity are those three concentric walls of earth which no being

would think of scaling on such a night as this, even were he to hear the most pathetic cries issuing hence that

could be uttered by a spectrechased soul. I reach a central mound or platformthe crown and axis of the

whole structure. The view from here by day must be of almost limitless extent. On this raised floor, dais, or

rostrum, harps have probably twanged more or less tuneful notes in celebration of daring, strength, or cruelty;

of worship, superstition, love, birth, and death; of simple lovingkindness perhaps never. Many a time must

the king or leader have directed his keen eyes hence across the open lands towards the ancient road, the

Icening Way, still visible in the distance, on the watch for armed companies approaching either to succour or

I am startled by a voice pronouncing my name. Past and present have become so confusedly mingled under

the associations of the spot that for a time it has escaped my memory that this mound was the place agreed on

for the aforesaid appointment. I turn and behold my friend. He stands with a dark lantern in his hand and a

spade and light pickaxe over his shoulder. He expresses both delight and surprise that I have come. I tell him

He, to whom neither weather, darkness, nor difficulty seems to have any relation or significance, so entirely

is his soul wrapped up in his own deep intentions, asks me to take the lantern and accompany him. I take it

and walk by his side. He is a man about sixty, small in figure, with grey oldfashioned whiskers cut to the

shape of a pair of crumbbrushes. He is entirely in black broadclothor rather, at present, black and brown,

for he is bespattered with mud from his heels to the crown of his low hat. He has no consciousness of

thisno sense of anything but his purpose, his ardour for which causes his eyes to shine like those of a lynx,

'Nobody to interrupt us at this time of night!' he chuckles with fierce enjoyment.

We retreat a little way and find a sort of angle, an elevation in the sod, a suggested squareness amid the mass

of irregularities around. Here, he tells me, if anywhere, the king's house stood. Three months of measurement

He requests me now to open the lantern, which I do, and the light streams out upon the wet sod. At last

divining his proceedings I say that I had no idea, in keeping the tryst, that he was going to do more at such an

unusual time than meet me for a meditative ramble through the stronghold. I ask him why, having a

practicable object, he should have minded interruptions and not have chosen the day? He informs me, quietly

pointing to his spade, that it was because his purpose is to dig, then signifying with a grim nod the gaunt

notice post against the sky beyond. I inquire why, as a professed and well known antiquary with capital

letters at the tail of his name, he did not obtain the necessary authority, considering the stringent penalties for

this sort of thing; and he chuckles fiercely again with suppressed delight, and says, 'Because they wouldn't

He at once begins cutting up the sod, and, as he takes the pickaxe to follow on with, assures me that, penalty

or no penalty, honest men or marauders, he is sure of one thing, that we shall not be disturbed at our work till

I remember to have heard of men who, in their enthusiasm for some special science, art, or hobby, have quite

lost the moral sense which would restrain them from indulging it illegitimately; and I conjecture that here, at

last, is an instance of such an one. He probably guesses the way my thoughts travel, for he stands up and

solemnly asserts that he has a distinctly justifiable intention in this matter; namely, to uncover, to search, to

verify a theory or displace it, and to cover up again. He means to take away nothing not a grain of sand. In

this he says he sees no such monstrous sin. I inquire if this is really a promise to me? He repeats that it is a

promise, and resumes digging. My contribution to the labour is that of directing the light constantly upon the

hole. When he has reached something more than a foot deep he digs more cautiously, saying that, be it much

or little there, it will not lie far below the surface; such things never are deep. A few minutes later the point of

the pickaxe clicks upon a stony substance. He draws the implement out as feelingly as if it had entered a

man's body. Taking up the spade he shovels with care, and a surface, level as an altar, is presently disclosed.

His eyes flash anew; he pulls handfuls of grass and mops the surface clean, finally rubbing it with his

handkerchief. Grasping the lantern from my hand he holds it close to the ground, when the rays reveal a

complete mosaica pavement of minute tesserae of many colours, of intricate pattern, a work of much art,

of much time, and of much industry. He exclaims in a shout that he knew it alwaysthat it is not a Celtic

stronghold exclusively, but also a Roman; the former people having probably contributed little more than the

original framework which the latter took and adapted till it became the present imposing structure.

A great deal, according to him. That it proves all the world to be wrong in this great argument, and himself

I agreereluctantly; but he does not notice my reluctance. At an adjoining spot he begins flourishing the

tools anew with the skill of a navvy, this venerable scholar with letters after his name. Sometimes he falls on

his knees, burrowing with his hands in the manner of a hare, and where his oldfashioned broadcloth touches

the sides of the hole it gets plastered with the damp earth. He continually murmurs to himself how important,

how very important, this discovery is! He draws out an object; we wash it in the same primitive way by

rubbing it with the wet grass, and it proves to be a semitransparent bottle of iridescent beauty, the sight of

which draws groans of luxurious sensibility from the digger. Further and further search brings out a piece of a

weapon. It is strange indeed that by merely peeling off a wrapper of modern accumulations we have lowered

ourselves into an ancient world. Finally a skeleton is uncovered, fairly perfect. He lays it out on the grass,

My friend says the man must have fallen fighting here, as this is no place of burial. He turns again to the

trench, scrapes, feels, till from a corner he draws out a heavy lumpa small image four or five inches high.

We clean it as before. It is a statuette, apparently of gold, or, more probably, of bronzegilta figure of

Mercury, obviously, its head being surmounted with the petasus or winged hat, the usual accessory of that

deity. Further inspection reveals the workmanship to be of good finish and detail, and, preserved by the limy

earth, to be as fresh in every line as on the day it left the hands of its artificer.

We seem to be standing in the Roman Forum and not on a hill in Wessex. Intent upon this truly valuable relic

of the old empire of which even this remote spot was a component part, we do not notice what is going on in

the present world till reminded of it by the sudden renewal of the storm. Looking up I perceive that the wide

extinguisher of cloud has again settled down upon the fortresstown, as if resting upon the edge of the inner

rampart, and shutting out the moon. I turn my back to the tempest, still directing the light across the hole. My

companion digs on unconcernedly; he is living two thousand years ago, and despises things of the moment as

dreams. But at last he is fairly beaten, and standing up beside me looks round on what he has done. The rays

of the lantern pass over the trench to the tall skeleton stretched upon the grass on the other side. The beating

rain has washed the bones clean and smooth, and the forehead, cheekbones, and twoandthirty teeth of the

This storm, like the first, is of the nature of a squall, and it ends as abruptly as the other. We dig no further.

My friend says that it is enoughhe has proved his point. He turns to replace the bones in the trench and

covers them. But they fall to pieces under his touch: the air has disintegrated them, and he can only sweep in

the fragments. The next act of his plan is more than difficult, but is carried out. The treasures are inhumed

again in their respective holes: they are not ours. Each deposition seems to cost him a twinge; and at one

The beauties of the tesselated floor of the governor's house are once again consigned to darkness; the trench

is filled up; the sod laid smoothly down; he wipes the perspiration from his forehead with the same

handkerchief he had used to mop the skeleton and tesserae clean; and we make for the eastern gate of the

Dawn bursts upon us suddenly as we reach the opening. It comes by the lifting and thinning of the clouds that

way till we are bathed in a pink light. The direction of his homeward journey is not the same as mine, and we

Walking along quickly to restore warmth I muse upon my eccentric friend, and cannot help asking myself

this question: Did he really replace the gilded image of the god Mercurius with the rest of the treasures? He

seemed to do so; and yet I could not testify to the fact. Probably, however, he was as good as his word.

It was thus I spoke to myself, and so the adventure ended. But one thing remains to be told, and that is

concerned with seven years after. Among the effects of my friend, at that time just deceased, was found,

carefully preserved, a gilt statuette representing Mercury, labelled 'Debased Roman.' No record was attached

to explain how it came into his possession. The figure was bequeathed to the Casterbridge Museum.

The genial Justice of the Peacenow, alas, no morewho made himself responsible for the facts of this

story, used to begin in the good oldfashioned way with a bright moonlight night and a mysterious figure, an

The Christmas moon (he would say) was showing her cold face to the upland, the upland reflecting the

radiance in frostsparkles so minute as only to be discernible by an eye near at hand. This eye, he said, was

the eye of a shepherd lad, young for his occupation, who stood within a wheeled hut of the kind commonly in

use among sheep keepers during the early lambing season, and was abstractedly looking through the

The spot was called Lambing Corner, and it was a sheltered portion of that wide expanse of rough

pastureland known as the Marlbury Downs, which you directly traverse when following the turnpikeroad

across MidWessex from London, through Aldbrickham, in the direction of Bath and Bristol. Here, where

the hut stood, the land was high and dry, open, except to the north, and commanding an undulating view for

miles. On the north side grew a tall belt of coarse furze, with enormous stalks, a clump of the same standing

detached in front of the general mass. The clump was hollow, and the interior had been ingeniously taken

advantage of as a position for the beforementioned hut, which was thus completely screened from winds,

and almost invisible, except through the narrow approach. But the furze twigs had been cut away from the

two little windows of the hut, that the occupier might keep his eye on his sheep.

In the rear, the shelter afforded by the belt of furze bushes was artificially improved by an inclosure of

upright stakes, interwoven with boughs of the same prickly vegetation, and within the inclosure lay a

To the south, in the direction of the young shepherd's idle gaze, there rose one conspicuous object above the

uniform moonlit plateau, and only one. It was a Druidical trilithon, consisting of three oblong stones in the

form of a doorway, two on end, and one across as a lintel. Each stone had been worn, scratched, washed,

nibbled, split, and otherwise attacked by ten thousand different weathers; but now the blocks looked shapely

and little the worse for wear, so beautifully were they silvered over by the light of the moon. The ruin was

An old shepherd presently entered the hut from the direction of the ewes, and looked around in the gloom.

'Then,' said the shepherd, 'I'll get me homealong, and rest for a few hours. There's nothing to be done here

now as I can see. The ewes can want no more tending till daybreak'tis beyond the bounds of reason that

they can. But as the order is that one of us must bide, I'll leave 'ee, d'ye hear. You can sleep by day, and I

can't. And you can be down to my house in ten minutes if anything should happen. I can't afford 'ee candle;

but, as 'tis Christmas week, and the time that folks have hollerdays, you can enjoy yerself by falling asleep a

bit in the chair instead of biding awake all the time. But mind, not longer at once than while the shade of the

The boy made no definite reply, and the old man, stirring the fire in the stove with his crookstem, closed the

As this had been more or less the course of events every night since the season's lambing had set in, the boy

was not at all surprised at the charge, and amused himself for some time by lighting straws at the stove. He

then went out to the ewes and newborn lambs, re entered, sat down, and finally fell asleep. This was his

customary manner of performing his watch, for though special permission for naps had this week been

accorded, he had, as a matter of fact, done the same thing on every preceding night, sleeping often till

awakened by a smack on the shoulder at three or four in the morning from the crookstem of the old man.

It might have been about eleven o'clock when he awoke. He was so surprised at awaking without, apparently,

being called or struck, that on second thoughts he assumed that somebody must have called him in spite of

appearances, and looked out of the hut window towards the sheep. They all lay as quiet as when he had

visited them, very little bleating being audible, and no human soul disturbing the scene. He next looked from

the opposite window, and here the case was different. The frostfacets glistened under the moon as before; an

occasional furze bush showed as a dark spot on the same; and in the foreground stood the ghostly form of the

That he was not the shepherd or any one of the farm labourers was apparent in a moment's observation,his

dress being a dark suit, and his figure of slender build and graceful carriage. He walked backwards and

The shepherd lad had hardly done speculating on the strangeness of the unknown's presence here at such an

hour, when he saw a second figure crossing the open sward towards the locality of the trilithon and

furzeclump that screened the hut. This second personage was a woman; and immediately on sight of her the

male stranger hastened forward, meeting her just in front of the hut window. Before she seemed to be aware

'But not for this,' she answered, in offended accents. And then, more goodnaturedly, 'I have come, Fred,

because you entreated me so! What can have been the object of your writing such a letter? I feared I might be

'But roughly; you might have known that without asking. I have seen many lands and many faces since I last

A passing breeze blew away the murmur of the reply and several succeeding sentences, till the man's voice

again became audible in the words, 'Harriettruth between us two! I have heard that the Duke does not treat

'He speaks roughly to you, and sometimes even threatens to lock you out of doors.'

'Only once, Fred! On my honour, only once. The Duke is a fairly good husband, I repeat. But you deserve

'Harriet, dearest, is this fair or honest? Is it not notorious that your life with him is a sad onethat, in spite of

the sweetness of your temper, the sourness of his embitters your days. I have come to know if I can help you.

You are a Duchess, and I am Fred Ogbourne; but it is not impossible that I may be able to help you . . . By

God! the sweetness of that tongue ought to keep him civil, especially when there is added to it the sweetness

'Captain Ogbourne!' she exclaimed, with an emphasis of playful fear. 'How can such a comrade of my youth

behave to me as you do? Don't speak so, and stare at me so! Is this really all you have to say? I see I ought

'Very well. I perceive you are dead and lost to me,' he could next be heard to say, '"Captain Ogbourne" proves

that. As I once loved you I love you now, Harriet, without one jot of abatement; but you are not the woman

you wereyou once were honest towards me; and now you conceal your heart in madeup speeches. Let it

'You need not say that in such a tragedy tone, you silly. You may see me in an ordinary waywhy should

you not? But, of course, not in such a way as this. I should not have come now, if it had not happened that the

'If you cannot tomorrow night, you can the night after; one of the two before he comes please bestow on me.

Now, your hand upon it! Tomorrow or next night you will see me to bid me farewell!' He seized the

'No, but Fredlet go my hand! What do you mean by holding me so? If it be love to forget all respect to a

woman's present position in thinking of her past, then yours may be so, Frederick. It is not kind and gentle of

you to induce me to come to this place for pity of you, and then to hold me tight here.'

'O, I must not! There will be slandersHeaven knows what! I cannot meet you. For the sake of old times

'Then own two things to me; that you did love me once, and that your husband is unkind to you often enough

'YesI own them both,' she answered faintly. 'But owning such as that tells against me; and I swear the

'Don't say that; for you have comelet me think the reason of your coming what I like to think it. It can do

He still held her hand and waist. 'Very well, then,' she said. 'Thus far you shall persuade me. I will meet you

He released her, and they parted. The Duchess ran rapidly down the hill towards the outlying mansion of

Shakeforest Towers, and when he had watched her out of sight, he turned and strode off in the opposite

Yet it was only for a moment. When they had quite departed, another shape appeared upon the scene. He

came from behind the trilithon. He was a man of stouter build than the first, and wore the boots and spurs of a

horseman. Two things were at once obvious from this phenomenon: that he had watched the interview

between the Captain and the Duchess; and that, though he probably had seen every movement of the couple,

including the embrace, he had been too remote to hear the reluctant words of the lady's conversationor,

indeed, any words at allso that the meeting must have exhibited itself to his eye as the assignation of a pair

of wellagreed lovers. But it was necessary that several years should elapse before the shepherdboy was old

The third individual stood still for a moment, as if deep in meditation. He crossed over to where the lady and

gentleman had stood, and looked at the ground; then he too turned and went away in a third direction, as

widely divergent as possible from those taken by the two interlocutors. His course was towards the highway;

and a few minutes afterwards the trot of a horse might have been heard upon its frosty surface, lessening till it

The boy remained in the hut, confronting the trilithon as if he expected yet more actors on the scene, but

nobody else appeared. How long he stood with his little face against the loophole he hardly knew; but he was

rudely awakened from his reverie by a punch in his back, and in the feel of it he familiarly recognized the

'Blame thy young eyes and limbs, Bill Millsnow you have let the fire out, and you know I want it kept in! I

thought something would go wrong with 'ee up here, and I couldn't bide in bed no more than thistledown on

The shepherd relit the fire, and went out among the sheep with a lantern, for the moon was getting low. Soon

'Blame it allthou'st say that nothing have happened; when one ewe have twinned and is like to go off, and

another is dying for want of half an eye of looking to! I told 'ee, Bill Mills, if anything went wrong to come

'Don't you speak to your betters like that, young man, or you'll come to the gallowstree! You didn't sleep all

the time, or you wouldn't have been peeping out of that there hole! Now you can go home, and be up here

again by breakfasttime. I be an old man, and there's old men that deserve well of the world; but no Imust

The elder shepherd then lay down inside the hut, and the boy went down the hill to the hamlet where he

When the next night drew on the actions of the boy were almost enough to show that he was thinking of the

meeting he had witnessed, and of the promise wrung from the lady that she would come there again. As far as

the sheeptending arrangements were concerned, tonight was but a repetition of the foregoing one. Between

ten and eleven o'clock the old shepherd withdrew as usual for what sleep at home he might chance to get

without interruption, making up the other necessary hours of rest at some time during the day; the boy was

The frost was the same as on the night before, except perhaps that it was a little more severe. The moon shone

as usual, except that it was threequarters of an hour later in its course; and the boy's condition was much the

same, except that he felt no sleepiness whatever. He felt, too, rather afraid; but upon the whole he preferred

witnessing an assignation of strangers to running the risk of being discovered absent by the old shepherd.

It was before the distant clock of Shakeforest Towers had struck eleven that he observed the opening of the

second act of this midnight drama. It consisted in the appearance of neither lover nor Duchess, but of the third

figurethe stout man, booted and spurred who came up from the easterly direction in which he had

retreated the night before. He walked once round the trilithon, and next advanced towards the clump

concealing the hut, the moonlight shining full upon his face and revealing him to be the Duke. Fear seized

upon the shepherdboy: the Duke was Jove himself to the rural population, whom to offend was starvation,

homelessness, and death, and whom to look at was to be mentally scathed and dumbfoundered. He closed the

stove, so that not a spark of light appeared, and hastily buried himself in the straw that lay in a corner.

The Duke came close to the clump of furze and stood by the spot where his wife and the Captain had held

their dialogue; he examined the furze as if searching for a hidingplace, and in doing so discovered the hut.

The latter he walked round and then looked inside; finding it to all seeming empty, he entered, closing the

door behind him and taking his place at the little circular window against which the boy's face had been

The Duke had not adopted his measures too rapidly, if his object were concealment. Almost as soon as he had

stationed himself there eleven o'clock struck, and the slender young man who had previously graced the

scene promptly reappeared from the north quarter of the down. The spot of assignation having, by the

accident of his running forward on the foregoing night, removed itself from the Devil's Door to the clump of

furze, he instinctively came thither, and waited for the Duchess where he had met her before.

But a fearful surprise was in store for him tonight, as well as for the trembling juvenile. At his appearance

the Duke breathed more and more quickly, his breathings being distinctly audible to the crouching boy. The

young man had hardly paused when the alert nobleman softly opened the door of the hut, and, stepping round

'You have dishonoured her, and you shall die the death you deserve!' came to the shepherd's ears, in a harsh,

The apathetic and taciturn boy was excited enough to run the risk of rising and looking from the window, but

he could see nothing for the intervening furze boughs, both the men having gone round to the side. What took

place in the few following moments he never exactly knew. He discerned portion of a shadow in quick

muscular movement; then there was the fall of something on the grass; then there was stillness.

Two or three minutes later the Duke became visible round the corner of the hut, dragging by the collar the

now inert body of the second man. The Duke dragged him across the open space towards the trilithon. Behind

this ruin was a hollow, irregular spot, overgrown with furze and stunted thorns, and riddled by the old holes

of badgers, its former inhabitants, who had now died out or departed. The Duke vanished into this depression

with his burden, reappearing after the lapse of a few seconds. When he came forth he dragged nothing behind

He returned to the side of the hut, cleansed something on the grass, and again put himself on the watch,

though not as before, inside the hut, but without, on the shady side. 'Now for the second!' he said.

It was plain, even to the unsophisticated boy, that he now awaited the other person of the appointmenthis

wife, the Duchessfor what purpose it was terrible to think. He seemed to be a man of such determined

temper that he would scarcely hesitate in carrying out a course of revenge to the bitter end.

Moreoverthough it was what the shepherd did not perceivethis was all the more probable, in that the

moody Duke was labouring under the exaggerated impression which the sight of the meeting in dumb show

The jealous watcher waited long, but he waited in vain. From within the hut the boy could hear his occasional

exclamations of surprise, as if he were almost disappointed at the failure of his assumption that his guilty

Duchess would surely keep the tryst. Sometimes he stepped from the shade of the furze into the moonlight,

About halfpast eleven he seemed to give up expecting her. He then went a second time to the hollow behind

the trilithon, remaining there nearly a quarter of an hour. From this place he proceeded quickly over a

shoulder of the declivity, a little to the left, presently returning on horseback, which proved that his horse had

been tethered in some secret place down there. Crossing anew the down between the hut and the trilithon, and

scanning the precincts as if finally to assure himself that she had not come, he rode slowly downwards in the

The juvenile shepherd thought of what lay in the hollow yonder; and no fear of the crookstem of his

superior officer was potent enough to detain him longer on that hill alone. Any live company, even the most

terrible, was better than the company of the dead; so, running with the speed of a hare in the direction

pursued by the horseman, he overtook the revengeful Duke at the second descent (where the great western

road crossed before you came to the old park entrance on that sidenow closed up and the lodge cleared

away, though at the time it was wondered why, being considered the most convenient gate of all).

Once within the sound of the horse's footsteps, Bill Mills felt comparatively comfortable; for, though in awe

of the Duke because of his position, he had no moral repugnance to his companionship on account of the

grisly deed he had committed, considering that powerful nobleman to have a right to do what he chose on his

own lands. The Duke rode steadily on beneath his ancestral trees, the hoofs of his horse sending up a smart

sound now that he had reached the hard road of the drive, and soon drew near the front door of his house,

surmounted by parapets with squarecut battlements that cast a notched shade upon the gravelled terrace.

These outlines were quite familiar to little Bill Mills, though nothing within their boundary had ever been

When the rider approached the mansion a small turret door was quickly opened and a woman came out. As

soon as she saw the horseman's outlines she ran forward into the moonlight to meet him.

'Ah dearand are you come?' she said. 'I heard Hero's tread just when you rode over the hill, and I knew it in

The Duke dismounted and stood by her side. 'Why should you have been listening at this time of night, and

'Why, indeed! There is a strange story attached to that, which I must tell you at once. But why did you come a

night sooner than you said you would come? I am rather sorryI really am!' (shaking her head playfully) 'for

as a surprise to you I had ordered a bonfire to be built, which was to be lighted on your arrival tomorrow;

The Duke looked across to a spot of rising glade, and saw the faggots in a heap. He then bent his eyes with a

bland and puzzled air on the ground, 'What is this strange story you have to tell me that kept you awake?' he

'It is thisand it is really rather serious. My cousin Fred OgbourneCaptain Ogbourne as he is nowwas

in his boyhood a great admirer of mine, as I think I have told you, though I was six years his senior. In strict

'Then it was your sister I toldyes, it was. Well, you know I have not seen him for many years, and naturally

I had quite forgotten his admiration of me in old times. But guess my surprise when the day before yesterday,

I received a mysterious note bearing no address, and found on opening it that it came from him. The contents

frightened me out of my wits. He had returned from Canada to his father's house, and conjured me by all he

could think of to meet him at once. But I think I can repeat the exact words, though I will show it to you

"MY DEAR COUSIN HARRIET," the note said, "After this long absence you will be surprised at my sudden

reappearance, and more by what I am going to ask. But if my life and future are of any concern to you at all, I

beg that you will grant my request. What I require of you, is, dear Harriet, that you meet me about eleven

tonight by the Druid stones on Marlbury Downs, about a mile or more from your house. I cannot say more,

except to entreat you to come. I will explain all when you are there. The one thing is, I want to see you. Come

alone. Believe me, I would not ask this if my happiness did not hang upon itGod knows how entirely! I am

'That was all of it. Now, of course I ought have gone, as it turned out, but that I did not think of then. I

remembered his impetuous temper, and feared that something grievous was impending over his head, while

he had not a friend in the world to help him, or any one except myself to whom he would care to make his

trouble known. So I wrapped myself up and went to Marlbury Downs at the time he had named. Don't you

'When I got therebut shall we not walk on; it is getting cold?' The Duke, however, did not move. 'When I

got there he came, of course, as a full grown man and officer, and not as the lad that I had known him. When

I saw him I was sorry I had come. I can hardly tell you how he behaved. What he wanted I don't know even

now; it seemed to be no more than the mere meeting with me. He held me by the hand and waistO so

tightand would not let me go till I had promised to meet him again. His manner was so strange and

passionate that I was afraid of him in such a lonely place, and I promised to come. Then I escapedthen I

ran homeand that's all. When the time drew on this evening for the appointmentwhich, of course, I

never intended to keep, I felt uneasy, lest when he found I meant to disappoint him he would come on to the

'Then let us get into the house. Why did you come alone and unattended like this?'

After a moment's silence, during which they moved on, she said, 'I have thought of something which I hardly

like to suggest to you. He said that if I failed to come tonight he would wait again tomorrow night. Now,

shall we tomorrow night go to the hill togetherjust to see if he is there; and if he is, read him a lesson on

his foolishness in nourishing this old passion, and sending for me so oddly, instead of coming to the house?'

'Because I think we ought to do something in it. Poor Fred! He would listen to you if you reasoned with him,

and set our positions in their true light before him. It would be no more than Christian kindness to a man who

unquestionably is very miserable from some cause or other. His head seems quite turned.'

By this time they had reached the door, rung the bell, and waited. All the house seemed to be asleep; but soon

There was no help for it. Bill Mills was obliged to stay on duty, in the old shepherd's absence, this evening as

before, or give up his post and living. He thought as bravely as he could of what lay behind the Devil's Door,

but with no great success, and was therefore in a measure relieved, even if awestricken, when he saw the

forms of the Duke and Duchess strolling across the frosted greensward. The Duchess was a few yards in front

'I tell you he has not thought it worth while to come again!' the Duke insisted, as he stood still, reluctant to

'He is more likely to come and wait all night; and it would be harsh treatment to let him do it a second time.'

'He seems not to be here, certainly; I wonder if anything has happened to him. If it has, I shall never forgive

'Yes, he may have thought better of it; if, indeed, he is not here all the timesomewhere in the hollow

behind the Devil's Door. Let us go and see; it will serve him right to surprise him.'

'Come, then. I declare, dearest, you lag like an unwilling schoolboy tonight, and there's no responsiveness in

Wondering what they would do, the young shepherd left the hut, and doubled behind the belt of furze,

intending to stand near the trilithon unperceived. But, in crossing the few yards of open ground he was for a

'By the Devil's Door; don't you notice a figure there? Ah, my poor lovercousin, won't you catch it now?'

And she laughed half pityingly. 'But what's the matter?' she asked, turning to her husband.

'And what have you seen here tonight or last night?' inquired the Duchess. 'Any person waiting or walking

'He has seen nothing,' interrupted her husband, his eyes so forbiddingly fixed on the boy that they seemed to

shine like points of fire. 'Come, let us go. The air is too keen to stand in long.'

When they were gone the boy retreated to the hut and sheep, less fearful now than at firstfamiliarity with

the situation having gradually overpowered his thoughts of the buried man. But he was not to be left alone

long. When an interval had elapsed of about sufficient length for walking to and from Shakeforest Towers,

there appeared from that direction the heavy form of the Duke. He now came alone.

The nobleman, on his part, seemed to have eyes no less sharp than the boy's, for he instantly recognized the

'Now listen to me. Her Grace asked you what you had seen this last night or two up here, and you made no

reply. I now ask the same thing, and you need not be afraid to answer. Have you seen anything strange these

'I ask you again,' said the Duke, coming nearer, 'have you seen anything strange these nights you have been

'O, my Lord Duke! I be but the undershepherd boy, and my father he was but your humble Grace's hedger,

and my mother only the cinder woman in the backyard! I fall asleep when left alone, and I see nothing at

The Duke grasped the boy by the shoulder, and, directly impending over him, stared down into his face, 'Did

'O, my Lord Duke, have mercy, and don't stab me!' cried the shepherd, falling on his knees. 'I have never seen

you walking here, or riding here, or lyinginwait for a man, or dragging a heavy load!'

'H'm!' said his interrogator, grimly, relaxing his hold. 'It is well to know that you have never seen those

things. Now, which would you ratherSEE ME DO THOSE THINGS NOW, or keep a secret all your life?'

'Not at all. 'Tis lonely work for them that think of spirits, and I'm badly used.'

'I believe you. You are too young for it. I must do something to make you more comfortable. You shall

change this smockfrock for a real cloth jacket, and your thick boots for polished shoes. And you shall be

taught what you have never yet heard of; and be put to school, and have bats and balls for the holidays, and

be made a man of. But you must never say you have been a shepherd boy, and watched on the hills at night,

'The very moment you forget yourself, and speak of your shepherd daysthis year, next year, in school, out

of school, or riding in your carriage twenty years henceat that moment my help will be withdrawn, and

smash down you come to shepherding forthwith. You have parents, I think you say?'

'I'll provide for her, and make a comfortable woman of her, until you speak ofwhat?'

'That's wellvery well. But it's not enough. Come here.' He took the boy across to the trilithon, and made

'Now, this was once a holy place,' resumed the Duke. 'An altar stood here, erected to a venerable family of

gods, who were known and talked of long before the God we know now. So that an oath sworn here is doubly

an oath. Say this after me: "May all the host above angels and archangels, and principalities and

powerspunish me; may I be tormented wherever I amin the house or in the garden, in the fields or in the

roads, in church or in chapel, at home or abroad, on land or at sea; may I be afflicted in eating and in

drinking, in growing up and in growing old, in living and dying, inwardly and outwardly, and for always, if I

ever speak of my life as a shepherd boy, or of what I have seen done on this Marlbury Down. So be it, and so

The Duke led him off by the hand. That night the junior shepherd slept in Shakeforest Towers, and the next

day he was sent away for tuition to a remote village. Thence he went to a preparatory establishment, and in

On a winter evening many years subsequent to the abovementioned occurrences, the cidevant shepherd sat

in a wellfurnished office in the north wing of Shakeforest Towers in the guise of an ordinary educated man

of business. He appeared at this time as a person of thirtyeight or forty, though actually he was several years

younger. A worn and restless glance of the eye now and then, when he lifted his head to search for some

letter or paper which had been mislaid, seemed to denote that his was not a mind so thoroughly at ease as his

His pallor, too, was remarkable for a countryman. He was professedly engaged in writing, but he shaped not

word. He had sat there only a few minutes, when, laying down his pen and pushing back his chair, he rested a

Soon he arose and left the room. His course was along a passage which ended in a central octagonal hall;

crossing this he knocked at a door. A faint, though deep, voice told him to come in. The room he entered was

During this long interval of years the Duke had lost all his heaviness of build. He was, indeed, almost a

skeleton; his white hair was thin, and his hands were nearly transparent. 'OhMills?' he murmured. 'Sit

'Nothing new, your Grace. Nobody to speak of has written, and nobody has called.'

'That Christmas week twentytwo years ago, when the late Duchess's cousin Frederick implored her to meet

him on Marlbury Downs. I saw the meetingit was just such a night as thisand I, as you know, saw more.

'Mills, shall I recall some words to youthe words of an oath taken on that hill by a shepherdboy?'

'It is unnecessary. He has strenuously kept that oath and promise. Since that night no sound of his shepherd

life has crossed his lips even to yourself. But do you wish to hear more, or do you not, your Grace?'

'Very well; let it be so. But a time seems comingmay be quite near at handwhen, in spite of my lips, that

'You need be under no fear of treachery from me,' said the steward, somewhat bitterly. 'I am a man to whom

you have been kindno patron could have been kinder. You have clothed and educated me; have installed

me here; and I am not unmindful. But what of ithas your Grace gained much by my stanchness? I think

not. There was great excitement about Captain Ogbourne's disappearance, but I spoke not a word. And his

body has never been found. For twentytwo years I have wondered what you did with him. Now I know. A

circumstance that occurred this afternoon recalled the time to me most forcibly. To make it certain to myself

that all was not a dream, I went up there with a spade; I searched, and saw enough to know that something

The Duke was silent; and the stillness of the evening was so marked that there reached their ears from the

'You torment me it is your way!' said the Duke querulously. 'Who's dead in the village?'

'I served under that old man when I kept sheep on Marlbury Downs. And he was on the hill that second night,

when I first exchanged words with your Grace. He was on the hill all the time; but I did not know he was

'I heard this afternoon that he was at the point of death. It was that which set me thinking of that past

timeand induced me to search on the hill for what I have told you. Coming back I heard that he wished to

see the Vicar to confess to him a secret he had kept for more than twenty years"out of respect to my Lord

the Duke"something that he had seen committed on Marlbury Downs when returning to the flock on a

December night twentytwo years ago. I have thought it over. He had left me in charge that evening; but he

was in the habit of coming back suddenly, lest I should have fallen asleep. That night I saw nothing of him,

though he had promised to return. He must have returned, andfound reason to keep in hiding. It is all plain.

The next thing is that the Vicar went to him two hours ago. Further than that I have not heard.'

'Stop his tongue for fourandtwenty yearstill I am dead at ninety four, like the shepherd.'

'Your Gracewhile you impose silence on me, I will not speak, even though nay neck should pay the

penalty. I promised to be yours, and I am yours. But is this persistence of any avail?'

'I'll stop his tongue, I say!' cried the Duke with some of his old rugged force. 'Now, you go home to bed,

The interview ended, and the steward withdrew. The night, as he had said, was just such an one as the night

of twentytwo years before, and the events of the evening destroyed in him all regard for the season as one of

cheerfulness and goodwill. He went off to his own house on the further verge of the park, where he led a

lonely life, scarcely calling any man friend. At eleven he prepared to retire to bedbut did not retire. He sat

down and reflected. Twelve o'clock struck; he looked out at the colourless moon, and, prompted by he knew

not what, put on his hat and emerged into the air. Here William Mills strolled on and on, till he reached the

top of Marlbury Downs, a spot he had not visited at this hour of the night during the whole scoreandodd

He placed himself, as nearly as he could guess, on the spot where the shepherd's hut had stood. No lambing

was in progress there now, and the old shepherd who had used him so roughly had ceased from his labours

that very day. But the trilithon stood up white as ever; and, crossing the intervening sward, the steward

fancifully placed his mouth against the stone. Restless and selfreproachful as he was, he could not resist a

smile as he thought of the terrifying oath of compact, sealed by a kiss upon the stones of a Pagan temple. But

he had kept his word, rather as a promise than as a formal vow, with much worldly advantage to himself,

though not much happiness; till increase of years had bred reactionary feelings which led him to receive the

While leaning against the Devil's Door and thinking on these things, he became conscious that he was not the

only inhabitant of the down. A figure in white was moving across his front with long, noiseless strides. Mills

stood motionless, and when the form drew quite near he perceived it to be that of the Duke himself in his

nightshirt apparently walking in his sleep. Not to alarm the old man, Mills clung close to the shadow of the

stone. The Duke went straight on into the hollow. There he knelt down, and began scratching the earth with

his hands like a badger. After a few minutes he arose, sighed heavily, and retraced his steps as he had come.

Fearing that he might harm himself, yet unwilling to arouse him, the steward followed noiselessly. The Duke

kept on his path unerringly, entered the park, and made for the house, where he let himself in by a window

that stood openthe one probably by which he had come out. Mills softly closed the window behind his

patron, and then retired homeward to await the revelations of the morning, deeming it unnecessary to alarm

However, he felt uneasy during the remainder of the night, no less on account of the Duke's personal

condition than because of that which was imminent next day. Early in the morning he called at Shakeforest

Towers. The blinds were down, and there was something singular upon the porter's face when he opened the

The man's voice was subdued as he replied: 'Sir, I am sorry to say that his Grace is dead! He left his room

some time in the night, and wandered about nobody knows where. On returning to the upper floor he lost his

The steward told the tale of the Down before the Vicar had spoken. Mills had always intended to do so after

the death of the Duke. The consequences to himself he underwent cheerfully; but his life was not prolonged.

He died, a farmer at the Cape, when still somewhat under fortynine years of age.

The splendid Marlbury breeding flock is as renowned as ever, and, to the eye, seems the same in every

particular that it was in earlier times; but the animals which composed it on the occasion of the events

gathered from the Justice are divided by many ovine generations from its members now. Lambing Corner has

long since ceased to be used for lambing purposes, though the name still lingers on as the appellation of the

spot. This abandonment of site may be partly owing to the removal of the high furze bushes which lent such

convenient shelter at that date. Partly, too, it may be due to another circumstance. For it is said by present

shepherds in that district that during the nights of Christmas week flitting shapes are seen in the open space

around the trilithon, together with the gleam of a weapon, and the shadow of a man dragging a burden into

We had been talking of the Georgian glories of our oldfashioned wateringplace, which now, with its

substantial russetred and dun brick buildings in the style of the year eighteen hundred, looks like one side of

a Soho or Bloomsbury Street transported to the shore, and draws a smile from the modern tourist who has no

eye for solidity of build. The writer, quite a youth, was present merely as a listener. The conversation

proceeded from general subjects to particular, until old Mrs. H, whose memory was as perfect at eighty as

it had ever been in her life, interested us all by the obvious fidelity with which she repeated a story many

times related to her by her mother when our aged friend was a girla domestic drama much affecting the life

of an acquaintance of her said parent, one Mademoiselle V, a teacher of French. The incidents occurred in

the town during the heyday of its fortunes, at the time of our brief peace with France in 18023.

'I wrote it down in the shape of a story some years ago, just after my mother's death,' said Mrs. H. 'It is

'No,' said she; 'the light is bad, and I can remember it well enough, word for word, flourishes and all.' We

'There are two in it, of course, the man and the woman, and it was on an evening in September that she first

got to know him. There had not been such a grand gathering on the Esplanade all the season. His Majesty

King George the Third was present, with all the princesses and royal dukes, while upwards of three hundred

of the general nobility and other persons of distinction were also in the town at the time. Carriages and other

conveyances were arriving every minute from London and elsewhere; and when among the rest a shabby

stage coach came in by a byroute along the coast from Havenpool, and drew up at a secondrate tavern, it

'From this dusty vehicle a man alighted, left his small quantity of luggage temporarily at the office, and

'He was about fortyfivepossibly fiftyand wore a long coat of faded superfine cloth, with a heavy collar,

'But the display appeared presently to strike him, and he asked of a rustic he met in the street what was going

'The countryman looked at him with a slight surprise, and said, "King Jarge is here and his royal Cwort."

'The stranger moved onward down St. Thomas Street, and approached the bridge over the harbour backwater,

that then, as now, connected the old town with the more modern portion. The spot was swept with the rays of

a low sun, which lit up the harbour lengthwise, and shone under the brim of the man's hat and into his eyes as

he looked westward. Against the radiance figures were crossing in the opposite direction to his own; among

them this lady of my mother's later acquaintance, Mademoiselle V. She was the daughter of a good old

French family, and at that date a pale woman, twentyeight or thirty years of age, tall and elegant in figure,

but plainly dressed and wearing that evening (she said) a small muslin shawl crossed over the bosom in the

'At sight of his face, which, as she used to tell us, was unusually distinct in the peering sunlight, she could not

help giving a little shriek of horror, for a terrible reason connected with her history, and after walking a few

steps further, she sank down against the parapet of the bridge in a fainting fit.

'In his preoccupation the foreign gentleman had hardly noticed her, but her strange collapse immediately

attracted his attention. He quickly crossed the carriageway, picked her up, and carried her into the first shop

adjoining the bridge, explaining that she was a lady who had been taken ill outside.

'She soon revived; but, clearly much puzzled, her helper perceived that she still had a dread of him which was

sufficient to hinder her complete recovery of selfcommand. She spoke in a quick and nervous way to the

'This the shopkeeper did, Mademoiselle V and the stranger remaining in constrained silence while he was

gone. The coach came up, and giving the man the address, she entered it and drove away.

'"She's of your nation, as I should make bold to suppose," said the shopkeeper. And he told the other that she

'"Yes, though mostly Hanoverians. But since the peace they are learning French a good deal in genteel

'"Yes, I teach it," said the visitor. "I am looking for a tutorship in an academy."

'The information given by the burgess to the Frenchman seemed to explain to the latter nothing of his

countrywoman's conductwhich, indeed, was the caseand he left the shop, taking his course again over

the bridge and along the south quay to the Old Rooms Inn, where he engaged a bedchamber.

'Thoughts of the woman who had betrayed such agitation at sight of him lingered naturally enough with the

newcomer. Though, as I stated, not much less than thirty years of age, Mademoiselle V, one of his own

nation, and of highly refined and delicate appearance, had kindled a singular interest in the middleaged

gentleman's breast, and her large dark eyes, as they had opened and shrunk from him, exhibited a pathetic

'The next day, having written some letters, he went out and made known at the office of the town "Guide"

and of the newspaper, that a teacher of French and calligraphy had arrived, leaving a card at the bookseller's

to the same effect. He then walked on aimlessly, but at length inquired the way to General Newbold's. At the

door, without giving his name, he asked to see Mademoiselle V, and was shown into a little back parlour,

'"My God! Why do you intrude here, Monsieur?" she gasped in French as soon as she saw his face.

'"You were taken ill yesterday. I helped you. You might have been run over if I had not picked you up. It was

an act of simple humanity certainly; but I thought I might come to ask if you had recovered?"

'She had turned aside, and had scarcely heard a word of his speech. "I hate you, infamous man!" she said. "I

'"You have the advantage then, Mademoiselle. I am a newcomer here. I never have seen you before to my

'"I saw you in years gone by, when you did not see me. You were formerly Member of the Committee of

'"You guillotined my father, my brother, my uncleall my family, nearly, and broke my mother's heart.

They had done nothing but keep silence. Their sentiments were only guessed. Their headless corpses were

thrown indiscriminately into the ditch of the Mousseaux Cemetery, and destroyed with lime."

'"I am sorry for you," said be. "Sorry for the consequence, not for the intent. What I did was a matter of

conscience, and, from a point of view indiscernible by you, I did right. I profited not a farthing. But I shall

not argue this. You have the satisfaction of seeing me here an exile also, in poverty, betrayed by comrades, as

'"Well, things done cannot be altered. Now the question: are you quite recovered?"

'They did not meet again till one evening at the theatre (which my mother's friend was with great difficulty

induced to frequent, to perfect herself in English pronunciation, the idea she entertained at that time being to

become a teacher of English in her own country later on). She found him sitting next to her, and it made her

'He regarded her long, and she was conscious of his look; and while she kept her eyes on the stage they filled

with tears. Still she would not move, and the tears ran visibly down her cheek, though the play was a merry

one, being no other than Mr. Sheridan's comedy of "The Rivals," with Mr. S. Kemble as Captain Absolute.

He saw her distress, and that her mind was elsewhere; and abruptly rising from his seat at candlesnuffing

'Though he lived in the old town, and she in the new, they frequently saw each other at a distance. One of

these occasions was when she was on the north side of the harbour, by the ferry, waiting for the boat to take

her across. He was standing by Cove Row, on the quay opposite. Instead of entering the boat when it arrived

she stepped back from the quay; but looking to see if he remained she beheld him pointing with his finger to

'She had really been going to cross, and now approached and stepped down into the boat. Though she did not

raise her eyes she knew that he was watching her over. At the landing steps she saw from under the brim of

'"No, Monsieur," she said. "Unless, indeed, you believe in God, and repent of your evil past!"

'"I am sorry you were made to suffer. But I only believe in the god called Reason, and I do not repent. I was

the instrument of a national principle. Your friends were not sacrificed for any ends of mine."

'She thereupon withheld her hand, and clambered up unassisted. He went on, ascending the Lookout Hill,

and disappearing over the brow. Her way was in the same direction, her errand being to bring home the two

young girls under her charge, who had gone to the cliff for an airing. When she joined them at the top she

saw his solitary figure at the further edge, standing motionless against the sea. All the while that she remained

with her pupils he stood without turning, as if looking at the frigates in the roadstead, but more probably in

meditation, unconscious where he was. In leaving the spot one of the children threw away half a

spongebiscuit that she had been eating. Passing near it he stooped, picked it up carefully, and put it in his

'From that day he was invisible for so long a time that she thought he had gone away altogether. But one

'"I am here ill," it said, "and, as you know, alone. There are one or two little things I want done, in case my

death should occur,and I should prefer not to ask the people here, if it could be avoided. Have you enough

'Now so it was that, since seeing him possess himself of the broken cake, she had insensibly begun to feel

something that was more than curiosity, though perhaps less than anxiety, about this fellow countryman of

hers; and it was not in her nervous and sensitive heart to resist his appeal. She found his lodging (to which he

had removed from the Old Rooms inn for economy) to be a room over a shop, half way up the steep and

narrow street of the old town, to which the fashionable visitors seldom penetrated. With some misgiving she

'"You are too good, too good," he murmured. And presently, "You need not shut the door. You will feel safer,

'"No, no. I merely want you to do a trifling thing or two that I have not strength enough to do myself. Nobody

'"I have not told . . . I thought you MIGHT have acted from principle in those sad days, even"

'"You are kind to concede that much. However, to the present. I was able to destroy my few papers before I

became so weak . . . But in the drawer there you will find some pieces of linen clothingonly two or

threemarked with initials that may be recognized. Will you rip them out with a penknife?"

'She searched as bidden, found the garments, cut out the stitches of the lettering, and replaced the linen as

before. A promise to post, in the event of his death, a letter he put in her hand, completed all that he required

'He thanked her. "I think you seem sorry for me," he murmured. "And I am surprised. You are sorry?"

'Contrary to her expectations and his own he recovered, though very slowly; and her manner grew more

distant thenceforward, though his influence upon her was deeper than she knew. Weeks passed away, and the

month of May arrived. One day at this time she met him walking slowly along the beach to the northward.

'"Yes; and the feeling of antagonism is stronger than it was in the last war, owing to Bonaparte's highhanded

arrest of the innocent English who were travelling in our country for pleasure. I feel that the war will be long

and bitter; and that my wish to live unknown in England will be frustrated. See here."

'He took from his pocket a piece of the single newspaper which circulated in the county in those days, and

"The magistrates acting under the Alien Act have been requested to direct a very scrutinizing eye to the

Academies in our towns and other places, in which French tutors are employed, and to all of that nationality

who profess to be teachers in this country. Many of them are known to be inveterate Enemies and Traitors to

'He continued: "I have observed since the declaration of war a marked difference in the conduct of the

rougher class of people here towards me. If a great battle were to occuras it soon will, no doubtfeeling

would grow to a pitch that would make it impossible for me, a disguised man of no known occupation, to stay

here. With you, whose duties and antecedents are known, it may be less difficult, but still unpleasant. Now I

propose this. You have probably seen how my deep sympathy with you has quickened to a warm feeling; and

what I say is, will you agree to give me a title to protect you by honouring me with your hand? I am older

than you, it is true, but as husband and wife we can leave England together, and make the whole world our

country. Though I would propose Quebec, in Canada, as the place which offers the best promise of a home."

'"Much thanks . . . I am glad to see you looking better, Monsieur; I mean you are looking better."

'And almost every day she saw himsometimes nodding stiffly only, sometimes exchanging formal

'She shook her head and went on her way. Yet she was a little moved. "He did it on principle," she would

'She wondered how he lived. It was evident that he could not be so poor as she had thought; his pretended

poverty might be to escape notice. She could not tell, but she knew that she was dangerously interested in

'And he still mended, till his thin, pale face became more full and firm. As he mended she had to meet that

'The arrival of the King and Court for the season as usual brought matters to a climax for these two lonely

exiles and fellow country people. The King's awkward preference for a part of the coast in such dangerous

proximity to France made it necessary that a strict military vigilance should be exercised to guard the royal

residents. Halfadozen frigates were every night posted in a line across the bay, and two lines of sentinels,

one at the water's edge and another behind the Esplanade, occupied the whole seafront after eight every

night. The wateringplace was growing an inconvenient residence even for Mademoiselle V herself, her

friendship for this strange French tutor and writingmaster who never had any pupils having been observed

by many who slightly knew her. The General's wife, whose dependent she was, repeatedly warned her against

the acquaintance; while the Hanoverian and other soldiers of the Foreign Legion, who had discovered the

nationality of her friend, were more aggressive than the English military gallants who made it their business

'In this tense state of affairs her answers became more agitated. "O Heaven, how can I marry you!" she would

'"You will; surely you will!" he answered again. "I don't leave without you. And I shall soon be interrogated

'She felt her defences breaking down. Contrary to all reason and sense of family honour she was, by some

abnormal craving, inclining to a tenderness for him that was founded on its opposite. Sometimes her warm

sentiments burnt lower than at others, and then the enormity of her conduct showed itself in more staring

'Shortly after this he came with a resigned look on his face. "It is as I expected," he said. "I have received a

hint to go. In good sooth, I am no BonapartistI am no enemy to England; but the presence of the King

made it impossible for a foreigner with no visible occupation, and who may be a spy, to remain at large in the

town. The authorities are civil, but firm. They are no more than reasonable. Good. I must go. You must come

'On her way back to the house on the Esplanade she said to herself, "I am glad, I am glad! I could not do

otherwise. It is rendering good for evil!" But she knew how she mocked herself in this, and that the moral

principle had not operated one jot in her acceptance of him. In truth she had not realized till now the full

presence of the emotion which had unconsciously grown up in her for this lonely and severe man, who, in her

tradition, was vengeance and irreligion personified. He seemed to absorb her whole nature, and, absorbing, to

'A day or two before the one fixed for the wedding there chanced to come to her a letter from the only

acquaintance of her own sex and country she possessed in England, one to whom she had sent intelligence of

her approaching marriage, without mentioning with whom. This friend's misfortunes had been somewhat

similar to her own, which fact had been one cause of their intimacy; her friend's sister, a nun of the Abbey of

Montmartre, having perished on the scaffold at the hands of the same Comite de Salut Public which had

numbered Mademoiselle V's affianced among its members. The writer had felt her position much again of

late, since the renewal of the war, she said; and the letter wound up with a fresh denunciation of the authors

'Coming just then, its contents produced upon Mademoiselle V the effect of a pail of water upon a

somnambulist. What had she been doing in betrothing herself to this man! Was she not making herself a

parricide after the event? At this crisis in her feelings her lover called. He beheld her trembling, and, in reply

'She had not intended to do this, but his attitude of tender command coerced her into frankness. Thereupon he

exhibited an agitation never before apparent in him. He said, "But all that is past. You are the symbol of

'His words soothed her for the moment, but she was sadly silent, and he went away.

'That night she saw (as she firmly believed to the end of her life) a divinely sent vision. A procession of her

lost relativesfather, brother, uncle, cousinseemed to cross her chamber between her bed and the

window, and when she endeavoured to trace their features she perceived them to be headless, and that she

had recognized them by their familiar clothes only. In the morning she could not shake off the effects of this

appearance on her nerves. All that day she saw nothing of her wooer, he being occupied in making

arrangements for their departure. It grew towards eveningthe marriage eve; but, in spite of his reassuring

visit, her sense of family duty waxed stronger now that she was left alone. Yet, she asked herself, how could

she, alone and unprotected, go at this eleventh hour and reassert to an affianced husband that she could not

and would not marry him while admitting at the same time that she loved him? The situation dismayed her.

She had relinquished her post as governess, and was staying temporarily in a room near the coachoffice,

where she expected him to call in the morning to carry out the business of their union and departure.

'Wisely or foolishly, Mademoiselle V came to a resolution: that her only safety lay in flight. His contiguity

influenced her too sensibly; she could not reason. So packing up her few possessions and placing on the table

the small sum she owed, she went out privately, secured a last available seat in the London coach, and, almost

before she had fully weighed her action, she was rolling out of the town in the dusk of the September

'Having taken this startling step she began to reflect upon her reasons. He had been one of that tragic

Committee the sound of whose name was a horror to the civilized world; yet he had been only one of several

members, and, it seemed, not the most active. He had marked down names on principle, had felt no personal

enmity against his victims, and had enriched himself not a sou out of the office he had held. Nothing could

change the past. Meanwhile he loved her, and her heart inclined to as much of him as she could detach from

that past. Why not, as he had suggested, bury memories, and inaugurate a new era by this union? In other

words, why not indulge her tenderness, since its nullification could do no good.

'Thus she held selfcommunion in her seat in the coach, passing through Casterbridge, and Shottsford, and on

to the White Hart at Melchester, at which place the whole fabric of her recent intentions crumbled down.

Better be staunch having got so far; let things take their course, and marry boldly the man who had so

impressed her. How great he was; how small was she! And she had presumed to judge him! Abandoning her

place in the coach with the precipitancy that had characterized her taking it, she waited till the vehicle had

driven off, something in the departing shapes of the outside passengers against the starlit sky giving her a

start, as she afterwards remembered. Presently the down coach, "The Morning Herald," entered the city, and

'"I'll be firmI'll be hisif it cost me my immortal soul!" she said. And with troubled breathings she

'She reached our royal wateringplace by the time the day broke, and her first aim was to get back to the

hired room in which her last few days had been spent. When the landlady appeared at the door in response to

Mademoiselle V's nervous summons, she explained her sudden departure and return as best she could; and

no objection being offered to her reengagement of the room for one day longer she ascended to the chamber

and sat down panting. She was back once more, and her wild tergiversations were a secret from him whom

'A sealed letter was on the mantelpiece. "Yes, it is directed to you, Mademoiselle," said the woman who had

followed her. "But we were wondering what to do with it. A town messenger brought it after you had gone

"MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND.You have been throughout our acquaintance absolutely candid

concerning your misgivings. But I have been reserved concerning mine. That is the difference between us.

You probably have not guessed that every qualm you have felt on the subject of our marriage has been

paralleled in my heart to the full. Thus it happened that your involuntary outburst of remorse yesterday,

though mechanically deprecated by me in your presence, was a last item in my own doubts on the wisdom of

our union, giving them a force that I could no longer withstand. I came home; and, on reflection, much as I

"As one whose life has been devoted, and I may say sacrificed, to the cause of Liberty, I cannot allow your

judgment (probably a permanent one) to be fettered beyond release by a feeling which may be transient only.

"It would be no less than excruciating to both that I should announce this decision to you by word of mouth. I

have therefore taken the less painful course of writing. Before you receive this I shall have left the town by

the evening coach for London, on reaching which city my movements will be revealed to none.

"Regard me, Mademoiselle, as dead, and accept my renewed assurances of respect, remembrance, and

'When she had recovered from her shock of surprise and grief, she remembered that at the starting of the

coach out of Melchester before dawn, the shape of a figure among the outside passengers against the starlit

sky had caused her a momentary start, from its resemblance to that of her friend. Knowing nothing of each

other's intentions, and screened from each other by the darkness, they had left the town by the same

'Recovering from her stupor, Mademoiselle V bethought herself again of her employer, Mrs. Newbold,

whom recent events had estranged. To that lady she went with a full heart, and explained everything. Mrs.

Newbold kept to herself her opinion of the episode, and reinstalled the deserted bride in her old position as

'A governess she remained to the end of her days. After the final peace with France she became acquainted

with my mother, to whom by degrees she imparted these experiences of hers. As her hair grew white, and her

features pinched, Mademoiselle V would wonder what nook of the world contained her lover, if he lived,

and if by any chance she might see him again. But when, some time in the 'twenties, death came to her, at no

great age, that outline against the stars of the morning remained as the last glimpse she ever obtained of her

In the earliest and mustiest volume of the Havenpool marriage registers (said the thinfaced gentleman) this

entry may still be read by any one curious enough to decipher the crabbed handwriting of the date. I took a

copy of it when I was last there; and it runs thus (he had opened his pocketbook, and now read aloud the

extract; afterwards handing round the book to us, wherein we saw transcribed the following)

Mastr John Horseleigh, Knyght, of the p'ysshe of Clyffton was maryd to Edith the wyffe late off John

Stocker, m'chawnte of Havenpool the xiiij daje of December be p'vylegge gevyn by our sup'me hedd of the

Now, if you turn to the long and elaborate pedigree of the ancient family of the Horseleighs of Clyfton

Horseleigh, you will find no mention whatever of this alliance, notwithstanding the privilege given by the

Sovereign and head of the Church; the said Sir John being therein chronicled as marrying, at a date

apparently earlier than the above, the daughter and heiress of Richard Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether

Wessex, a lady who outlived him, of which marriage there were issue two daughters and a son, who

succeeded him in his estates. How are we to account for these, as it would seem, contemporaneous wives? A

One evening in the autumn of the year 1540 or 1541, a young sailor, whose Christian name was Roger, but

whose surname is not known, landed at his native place of Havenpool, on the South Wessex coast, after a

voyage in the Newfoundland trade, then newly sprung into existence. He returned in the ship Primrose with a

cargo of 'trayne oyle brought home from the New Founde Lande,' to quote from the town records of the date.

During his absence of two summers and a winter, which made up the term of a Newfoundland 'spell,' many

unlookedfor changes had occurred within the quiet little seaport, some of which closely affected Roger the

sailor. At the time of his departure his only sister Edith had become the bride of one Stocker, a respectable

townsman, and part owner of the brig in which Roger had sailed; and it was to the house of this couple, his

only relatives, that the young man directed his steps. On trying the door in Quay Street he found it locked,

and then observed that the windows were boarded up. Inquiring of a bystander, he learnt for the first time of

the death of his brotherinlaw, though that event had taken place nearly eighteen months before.

'She's married againas they do say, and hath been so these twelve months. I don't vouch for the truth o't,

Roger's face grew dark. He was a man with a considerable reserve of strong passion, and he asked his

The man explained that shortly after the young woman's bereavement a stranger had come to the port. He had

seen her moping on the quay, had been attracted by her youth and loneliness, and in an extraordinarily brief

wooing had completely fascinated herhad carried her off, and, as was reported, had married her. Though

he had come by water, he was supposed to live no very great distance off by land. They were last heard of at

Oozewood, in Upper Wessex, at the house of one Wall, a timbermerchant, where, he believed, she still had

a lodging, though her husband, if he were lawfully that much, was but an occasional visitor to the place.

'I liked him not,' said the other. 'He seemed of that kind that hath something to conceal, and as he walked with

her he ever and anon turned his head and gazed behind him, as if he much feared an unwelcome pursuer. But,

faith,' continued he, 'it may have been the man's anxiety only. Yet did I not like him.'

'Aymuch older; from a dozen to a score of years older. A man of some position, maybe, playing an

amorous game for the pleasure of the hour. Who knoweth but that he have a wife already? Many have done

Having paid a visit to the graves of his relatives, the sailor next day went along the straight road which, then a

lane, now a highway, conducted to the curious little inland town named by the Havenpool man. It is

unnecessary to describe Oozewood on the SouthAvon. It has a railway at the present day; but thirty years of

steam traffic past its precincts have hardly modified its original features. Surrounded by a sort of freshwater

lagoon, dividing it from meadows and coppice, its ancient thatch and timber houses have barely made way

even in the front street for the ubiquitous modern brick and slate. It neither increases nor diminishes in size; it

is difficult to say what the inhabitants find to do, for, though trades in woodware are still carried on, there

cannot be enough of this class of work nowadays to maintain all the householders, the forests around having

been so greatly thinned and curtailed. At the time of this tradition the forests were dense, artificers in wood

abounded, and the timber trade was brisk. Every house in the town, without exception, was of oak

framework, filled in with plaster, and covered with thatch, the chimney being the only brick portion of the

structure. Inquiry soon brought Roger the sailor to the door of Wall, the timberdealer referred to, but it was

some time before he was able to gain admission to the lodging of his sister, the people having plainly

She was sitting in an upper room on one of the lathbacked, willow bottomed 'shepherd's' chairs, made on

the spot then as to this day, and as they were probably made there in the days of the Heptarchy. In her lap was

an infant, which she had been suckling, though now it had fallen asleep; so had the young mother herself for

a few minutes, under the drowsing effects of solitude. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she awoke, started up

with a glad cry, and ran to the door, opening which she met her brother on the threshold.

'O, this is merry; I didn't expect 'ee!' she said. 'Ah, RogerI thought it was John.' Her tones fell to

The sailor kissed her, looked at her sternly for a few moments, and pointing to the infant, said, 'You mean the

'Shame upon 'ee, if true! If not true, worse. Master Stocker was an honest man, and ye should have respected

'He comes often. I thought it was he now. Our marriage has to be kept secret for a whileit was done privily

for certain reasons; but we was married at church like honest folkafore God we were, Roger, six months

'I was living in a house alone; I had nowhere to go to. You were far over sea in the New Found Land, and

'I wish th' 'dst waited till I returned, dear Edy,' he said. 'It mid be you are a wifeI hope so. But, if so, why

this mystery? Why this mean and cramped lodging in this lonely copsecircled town? Of what standing is

'He is of gentle breedinghis name is John. I am not free to tell his familyname. He is said to be of

London, for safety' sake; but he really lives in the county next adjoining this.'

'I do not know. He has preferred not to tell me, that I may not have the secret forced from me, to his and my

Her brother's face flushed. 'Our people have been honest townsmen, wellreputed for long; why should you

They remained in constrained converse till her quick ear caught a sound, for which she might have been

'Don't be frightened lest he should find me here!' said Roger. 'I am on the point of leaving. I wish not to be a

third party. Say nothing at all about my visit, if it will incommode you so to do. I will see thee before I go

Speaking thus he left the room, and descending the staircase let himself out by the front door, thinking he

might obtain a glimpse of the approaching horseman. But that traveller had in the meantime gone stealthily

round to the back of the homestead, and peering along the pinionend of the house Roger discerned him

Roger retired to the neighbouring inn called the Black Lamb, and meditated. This mysterious method of

approach determined him, after all, not to leave the place till he had ascertained more definite facts of his

sister's positionwhether she were the deluded victim of the stranger or the wife she obviously believed

herself to be. Having eaten some supper, he left the inn, it being now about eleven o'clock. He first looked

into the shed, and, finding the horse still standing there, waited irresolutely near the door of his sister's

lodging. Half an hour elapsed, and, while thinking he would climb into a loft hard by for a night's rest, there

seemed to be a movement within the shutters of the sittingroom that his sister occupied. Roger hid himself

behind a faggotstack near the back door, rightly divining that his sister's visitor would emerge by the way he

had entered. The door opened, and the candle she held in her hand lighted for a moment the stranger's form,

showing it to be that of a tall and handsome personage, about forty years of age, and apparently of a superior

position in life. Edith was assisting him to cloak himself, which being done he took leave of her with a kiss

and left the house. From the door she watched him bridle and saddle his horse, and having mounted and

waved an adieu to her as she stood candle in hand, he turned out of the yard and rode away.

The horse which bore him was, or seemed to be, a little lame, and Roger fancied from this that the rider's

journey was not likely to be a long one. Being light of foot he followed apace, having no great difficulty on

such a still night in keeping within earshot some few miles, the horseman pausing more than once. In this

pursuit Roger discovered the rider to choose bridletracks and open commons in preference to any high road.

The distance soon began to prove a more trying one than he had bargained for; and when out of breath and in

some despair of being able to ascertain the man's identity, he perceived an ass standing in the starlight under a

The story goes that Roger caught the ass, mounted, and again resumed the trail of the unconscious horseman,

which feat may have been possible to a nautical young fellow, though one can hardly understand how a sailor

would ride such an animal without bridle or saddle, and strange to his hands, unless the creature were

extraordinarily docile. This question, however, is immaterial. Suffice it to say that at dawn the following

morning Roger beheld his sister's lover or husband entering the gates of a large and welltimbered park on

the southwestern verge of the White Hart Forest (as it was then called), now known to everybody as the

Vale of Blackmoor. Thereupon the sailor discarded his steed, and finding for himself an obscurer entrance to

He presently perceived amid the trees before him a mansion which, new to himself, was one of the best

known in the county at that time. Of this fine manorial residence hardly a trace now remains; but a

manuscript dated some years later than the events we are regarding describes it in terms from which the

imagination may construct a singularly clear and vivid picture. This record presents it as consisting of 'a faire

yellow freestone building, partly two and partly three storeys; a faire halle and parlour, both waynscotted; a

faire dyning roome and withdrawing roome, and many good lodgings; a kitchen adjoyninge backwarde to one

end of the dwellinghouse, with a faire passage from it into the halle, parlour, and dyninge roome, and sellars

'In the front of the house a square greene court, and a curious gatehouse with lodgings in it, standing with the

front of the house to the south; in a large outer court three stables, a coachhouse, a large barne, and a stable

'Without the gatehouse, paled in, a large square greene, in which standeth a faire chappell; of the southeast

'Of the southwest side of the greene court is a large bowling greene, with fower mounted walks about it, all

walled about with a batteled wall, and sett with all sorts of fruit; and out of it into the feildes there are large

Then follows a description of the orchards and gardens; the servants' offices, brewhouse, bakehouse, dairy,

pigeonhouses, and cornmill; the river and its abundance of fish; the warren, the coppices, the walks;

'And all the country north of the house, open champaign, sandy feildes, very dry and pleasant for all kindes of

recreation, huntinge, and hawkinge, and profitble for tillage . . . The house hath a large prospect east, south,

and west, over a very large and pleasant vale . . . is seated from the good markett towns of Sherton Abbas

three miles, and Ivel a mile, that plentifully yield all manner of provision; and within twelve miles of the

It was on the grass before this seductive and picturesque structure that the sailor stood at gaze under the elms

in the dim dawn of Sunday morning, and saw to his surprise his sister's lover and horse vanish within the

Perplexed and weary, Roger slowly retreated, more than ever convinced that something was wrong in his

sister's position. He crossed the bowling green to the avenue of elms, and, bent on further research, was about

to climb into one of these, when, looking below, he saw a heap of hay apparently for horses or deer. Into this

he crept, and, having eaten a crust of bread which he had hastily thrust into his pocket at the inn, he curled up

and fell asleep, the hay forming a comfortable bed, and quite covering him over.

He slept soundly and long, and was awakened by the sound of a bell. On peering from the hay he found the

time had advanced to full day; the sun was shining brightly. The bell was that of the 'faire chappell' on the

green outside the gatehouse, and it was calling to matins. Presently the priest crossed the green to a little

sidedoor in the chancel, and then from the gateway of the mansion emerged the household, the tall man

whom Roger had seen with his sister on the previous night, on his arm being a portly dame, and, running

beside the pair, two little girls and a boy. These all entered the chapel, and the bell having ceased and the

He sauntered towards the chapel, the opening words of the service being audible within. While standing by

the porch he saw a belated servitor approaching from the kitchencourt to attend the service also. Roger

carelessly accosted him, and asked, as an idle wanderer, the name of the family he had just seen cross over

'Od zounds! if ye modden be a stranger here in very truth, goodman. That wer Sir John and his dame, and his

'Master John Horseleigh, Knight, who had a'most as much lond by inheritance of his mother as 'a had by his

father, and likewise some by his wife. Why, bain't his arms dree goolden horses' heads, and idden his lady the

daughter of Master Richard Phelipson, of Montislope, in Nether Wessex, known to us all?'

'It mid be so, and yet it mid not. However, th' 'lt miss thy prayers for such an honest knight's welfare, and I

He went onward, and as he walked continued saying to himself, 'Now to that poor wronged fool Edy. The

fond thing! I thought it; 'twas too quickshe was ever amorous. What's to become of her! God wot! How be

I going to face her with the news, and how be I to hold it from her? To bring this disgrace on my father's

honoured name, a double tongued knave!' He turned and shook his fist at the chapel and all in it, and

Perhaps it was owing to the perplexity of his mind that, instead of returning by the direct road towards his

sister's obscure lodging in the next county, he followed the highway to Casterbridge, some fifteen miles off,

where he remained drinking hard all that afternoon and evening, and where he lay that and two or three

succeeding nights, wandering thence along the Anglebury road to some village that way, and lying the Friday

night after at his native place of Havenpool. The sight of the familiar objects there seems to have stirred him

anew to action, and the next morning he was observed pursuing the way to Oozewood that he had followed

on the Saturday previous, reckoning, no doubt, that Saturday night would, as before, be a time for finding Sir

He delayed to reach the place till just before sunset. His sister was walking in the meadows at the foot of the

garden, with a nursemaid who carried the baby, and she looked up pensively when he approached. Anxiety as

to her position had already told upon her once rosy cheeks and lucid eyes. But concern for herself and child

'Whyyou are sick, Rogeryou are tired! Where have you been these many days? Why not keep me

company a bitmy husband is much away? And we have hardly spoke at all of dear father and of your

voyage to the New Land. Why did you go away so suddenly? There is a spare chamber at my lodging.'

'Come indoors,' he said. 'We'll talk nowtalk a good deal. As for him [nodding to the child], better heave

She forced a laugh, as if she tried to see a good joke in the remark, and they went silently indoors.

'Ede, ye fond onefor all that he's not thy husband! Th' 'rt not his wife; and the child is a bastard. He hath a

wife and children of his own rank, and bearing his name; and that's Sir John Horseleigh, of Clyfton

Horseleigh, and not plain Jack, as you think him, and your lawful husband. The sacrament of marriage is no

safeguard nowadays. The King's newmade headship of the Church hath led men to practise these tricks

She had turned white. 'That's not true, Roger!' she said. 'You are in liquor, my brother, and you know not

They were sitting in the gathered darkness, and at that moment steps were heard without. 'Go out this way,'

she said. 'It is my husband. He must not see thee in this mood. Get away till tomorrow, Roger, as you care

She pushed her brother through a door leading to the back stairs, and almost as soon as it was closed her

visitor entered. Roger, however, did not retreat down the stairs; he stood and looked through the bobbinhole.

It was the knight. She had struck a light on his entry, and he kissed the child, and took Edith tenderly by the

'O, Jack!' she cried. 'I have heard such a fearsome rumourwhat doth it mean? He who told me is my best

friend. He must be deceived! But who deceived him, and why? Jack, I was just told that you had a wife living

'By God! I have no lawful wife but you; and as for children, many or few, they are all bastards, save this one

The knight looked down. 'How did thy mind get filled with such as this?' he asked.

'A traitor! Why should he mar our life? Ah! you said you had a brother at seawhere is he now?'

'Here!' came from close behind him. And flinging open the door, Roger faced the intruder. 'Liar!' he said, 'to

Sir John fired up, and made a rush at the sailor, who seized him by the collar, and in the wrestle they both

fell, Roger under. But in a few seconds he contrived to extricate his right arm, and drawing from his belt a

knife which he wore attached to a cord round his neck he opened it with his teeth, and struck it into the breast

of Sir John stretched above him. Edith had during these moments run into the next room to place the child in

safety, and when she came back the knight was relaxing his hold on Roger's throat. He rolled over upon his

The only witness of the scene save the three concerned was the nursemaid, who had brought in the child on

its father's arrival. She stated afterwards that nobody suspected Sir John had received his death wound; yet it

was so, though he did not die for a long while, meaning thereby an hour or two; that Mistress Edith

continually endeavoured to staunch the blood, calling her brother Roger a wretch, and ordering him to get

himself gone; on which order he acted, after a gloomy pause, by opening the window, and letting himself

It was then that Sir John, in difficult accents, made his dying declaration to the nurse and Edith, and, later, the

apothecary; which was to this purport, that the Dame Horseleigh who passed as his wife at Clyfton, and who

had borne him three children, was in truth and deed, though unconsciously, the wife of another man. Sir John

had married her several years before, in the face of the whole county, as the widow of one Decimus Strong,

who had disappeared shortly after her union with him, having adventured to the North to join the revolt of the

Nobles, and on that revolt being quelled retreated across the sea. Two years ago, having discovered this man

to be still living in France, and not wishing to disturb the mind and happiness of her who believed herself his

wife, yet wishing for legitimate issue, Sir John had informed the King of the facts, who had encouraged him

to wed honestly, though secretly, the young merchant's widow at Havenpool; she being, therefore, his lawful

wife, and she only. That to avoid all scandal and hubbub he had purposed to let things remain as they were till

fair opportunity should arise of making the true case known with least pain to all parties concerned, but that,

having been thus suspected and attacked by his own brotherinlaw, his zest for such schemes and for all

That night, while the owls were hooting from the forest that encircled the sleeping townlet, and the

SouthAvon was gurgling through the wooden piles of the bridge, Sir John died there in the arms of his wife.

She concealed nothing of the cause of her husband's death save the subject of the quarrel, which she felt it

would be premature to announce just then, and until proof of her status should be forthcoming. But before a

month had passed, it happened, to her inexpressible sorrow, that the child of this clandestine union fell sick

and died. From that hour all interest in the name and fame of the Horseleighs forsook the younger of the

twain who called themselves wives of Sir John, and, being careless about her own fame, she took no steps to

assert her claims, her legal position having, indeed, grown hateful to her in her horror at the tragedy. And Sir

William Byrt, the curate who had married her to her husband, being an old man and feeble, was not

disinclined to leave the embers unstirred of such a fiery matter as this, and to assist her in letting established

things stand. Therefore, Edith retired with the nurse, her only companion and friend, to her native town,

where she lived in absolute obscurity till her death in middle age. Her brother was never seen again in

A strangely corroborative sequel to the story remains to be told. Shortly after the death of Sir John

Horseleigh, a soldier of fortune returned from the Continent, called on Dame Horseleigh the fictitious, living

in widowed state at Clyfton Horseleigh, and, after a singularly brief courtship, married her. The tradition at

Havenpool and elsewhere has ever been that this man was already her husband, Decimus Strong, who

The illegitimate son of this lady by Sir John succeeded to the estates and honours, and his son after him, there

being nobody on the alert to investigate their pretensions. Little difference would it have made to the present

generation, however, had there been such a one, for the family in all its branches, lawful and unlawful, has

been extinct these many score years, the last representative but one being killed at the siege of Sherton Castle,

while attacking in the service of the Parliament, and the other being outlawed later in the same century for a

debt of ten pounds, and dying in the county jail. The mansion house and its appurtenances were, as I have

previously stated, destroyed, excepting one small wing, which now forms part of a farmhouse, and is visible

as you pass along the railway from Casterbridge to Ivel. The outline of the old bowlinggreen is also

This, then, is the reason why the only lawful marriage of Sir John, as recorded in the obscure register at

According to the kinsman who told me the story, Christopher Swetman's house, on the outskirts of

King'sHintock village, was in those days larger and better kept than when, many years later, it was sold to

the lord of the manor adjoining; after having been in the Swetman family, as one may say, since the

Some people would have it to be that the thing happened at the house opposite, belonging to one Childs, with

whose family the Swetmans afterwards intermarried. But that it was at the original homestead of the

Swetmans can be shown in various ways; chiefly by the unbroken traditions of the family, and indirectly by

the evidence of the walls themselves, which are the only ones thereabout with windows mullioned in the

Elizabethan manner, and plainly of a date anterior to the event; while those of the other house might well

have been erected fifty or eighty years later, and probably were; since the choice of Swetman's house by the

fugitive was doubtless dictated by no other circumstance than its then suitable loneliness.

It was a cloudy July morning just before dawn, the hour of two having been struck by Swetman's onehanded

clock on the stairs, that is still preserved in the family. Christopher heard the strokes from his chamber,

immediately at the top of the staircase, and overlooking the front of the house. He did not wonder that he was

sleepless. The rumours and excitements which had latterly stirred the neighbourhood, to the effect that the

rightful King of England had landed from Holland, at a port only eighteen miles to the southwest of

Swetman's house, were enough to make wakeful and anxious even a contented yeoman like him. Some of the

villagers, intoxicated by the news, had thrown down their scythes, and rushed to the ranks of the invader.

Christopher Swetman had weighed both sides of the question, and had remained at home.

Now as he lay thinking of these and other things he fancied that he could hear the footfall of a man on the

road leading up to his house a byway, which led scarce anywhere else; and therefore a tread was at any

time more apt to startle the inmates of the homestead than if it had stood in a thoroughfare. The footfall came

opposite the gate, and stopped there. One minute, two minutes passed, and the pedestrian did not proceed.

Christopher Swetman got out of bed, and opened the casement. 'Hoi! who's there?' cries he.

'He that asks no questions will hear no lies from me. I am a stranger; and I am spent, and hungered. Can you

Swetman was generous to people in trouble, and his house was roomy. 'Wait a bit,' he said, 'and I'll come

He struck a light, put on his clothes, and descended, taking his hornlantern from a nail in the passage, and

lighting it before opening the door. The rays fell on the form of a tall, dark man in cavalry accoutrements and

wearing a sword. He was pale with fatigue and covered with mud, though the weather was dry.

That his visitor was in sore distress admitted of no doubt, and the yeoman's natural humanity assisted the

other's sad importunity and gentle voice. Swetman took him in, not without a suspicion that this man

represented in some way Monmouth's cause, to which he was not unfriendly in his secret heart. At his earnest

request the newcomer was given a suit of the yeoman's old clothes in exchange for his own, which, with his

sword, were hidden in a closet in Swetman's chamber; food was then put before him and a lodging provided

Here he slept till quite late in the morning, which was Sunday, the sixth of July, and when he came down in

the garments that he had borrowed he met the household with a melancholy smile. Besides Swetman himself,

there were only his two daughters, Grace and Leonard (the latter was, oddly enough, a woman's name here),

and both had been enjoined to secrecy. They asked no questions and received no information; though the

stranger regarded their fair countenances with an interest almost too deep. Having partaken of their usual

breakfast of ham and cider he professed weariness and retired to the chamber whence he had come.

In a couple of hours or thereabout he came down again, the two young women having now gone off to

morning service. Seeing Christopher bustling about the house without assistance, he asked if he could do

As he seemed anxious to hide all differences and appear as one of themselves, Swetman set him to get

vegetables from the garden and fetch water from Buttock's Spring in the dip near the house (though the spring

'And what can I do next?' says the stranger when these services had been performed.

His meekness and docility struck Christopher much, and won upon him. 'Since you be minded to,' says the

latter, 'you can take down the dishes and spread the table for dinner. Take a pewter plate for thyself, but the

But the other would not, and took a trencher likewise, in doing which he spoke of the two girls and remarked

This quietude was put an end to by a stir out of doors, which was sufficient to draw Swetman's attention to it,

and he went out. Farm hands who had gone off and joined the Duke on his arrival had begun to come in with

news that a midnight battle had been fought on the moors to the north, the Duke's men, who had attacked,

being entirely worsted; the Duke himself, with one or two lords and other friends, had fled, no one knew

'There has been a battle,' says Swetman, on coming indoors after these tidings, and looking earnestly at the

'May the victory be to the rightful in the end, whatever the issue now,' says the other, with a sorrowful sigh.

'Dost really know nothing about it?' said Christopher. 'I could have sworn you was one from that very battle!'

'I was here before three o' the clock this morning; and these men have only arrived now.'

'Do not press your question,' the stranger urged. 'I am in a strait, and can refuse a helper nothing; such inquiry

The daughters of the house returned from church, where the service had been hurried by reason of the

excitement. To their father's questioning if they had spoken of him who sojourned there they replied that they

He bade them serve the dinner; and, as the visitor had withdrawn since the news of the battle, prepared to

take a platter to him upstairs. But he preferred to come down and dine with the family.

During the afternoon more fugitives passed through the village, but Christopher Swetman, his visitor, and his

family kept indoors. In the evening, however, Swetman came out from his gate, and, harkening in silence to

these tidings and more, wondered what might be in store for him for his last night's work.

He returned homeward by a path across the mead that skirted his own orchard. Passing here, he heard the

voice of his daughter Leonard expostulating inside the hedge, her words being: 'Don't ye, sir; don't! I prithee

Peeping through, as he could not help doing, he saw the girl struggling in the arms of the stranger, who was

attempting to kiss her; but finding her resistance to be genuine, and her distress unfeigned, he reluctantly let

Swetman's face grew dark, for his girls were more to him than himself. He hastened on, meditating moodily

all the way. He entered the gate, and made straight for the orchard. When he reached it his daughter had

'Sir!' said the yeoman, his anger having in no wise abated, 'I've seen what has happened! I have taken 'ee into

my house, at some jeopardy to myself; and, whoever you be, the least I expected of 'ee was to treat the

maidens with a seemly respect. You have not done it, and I no longer trust you. I am the more watchful over

them in that they are motherless; and I must ask 'ee to go after dark this night!'

The stranger seemed dazed at discovering what his impulse had brought down upon his head, and his pale

face grew paler. He did not reply for a time. When he did speak his soft voice was thick with feeling.

'Sir,' says he, 'I own that I am in the wrong, if you take the matter gravely. We do not what we would but

what we must. Though I have not injured your daughter as a woman, I have been treacherous to her as a

hostess and friend in need. I'll go, as you say; I can do no less. I shall doubtless find a refuge elsewhere.'

They walked towards the house in silence, where Swetman insisted that his guest should have supper before

departing. By the time this was eaten it was dusk and the stranger announced that he was ready.

They went upstairs to where the garments and sword lay hidden, till the departing one said that on further

thought he would ask another favour: that he should be allowed to retain the clothes he wore, and that his host

would keep the others and the sword till he, the speaker, should come or send for them.

'As you will,' said Swetman. 'The gain is on my side; for those clouts were but kept to dress a scarecrow next

'They suit my case,' said the stranger sadly. 'However much they may misfit me, they do not misfit my sorry

But the other would not, saying that it was better that things should take their course. Notwithstanding that

Swetman importuned him, he only added, 'If I never come again, do with my belongings as you list. In the

'No,' says the parting guest; 'they are foreign pieces and would harm me if I were taken. Do as I bid thee. Put

away these things again and take especial charge of the sword. It belonged to my father's father and I value it

Saying which, he took, as he went downstairs, one of the ash sticks used by Swetman himself for walking

with. The yeoman lighted him out to the garden hatch, where he disappeared through Clammers Gate by the

Christopher returned to the upstairs chamber, and sat down on his bed reflecting. Then he examined the

things left behind, and surely enough in one of the pockets the gold snuffbox was revealed, containing the

fifty gold pieces as stated by the fugitive. The yeoman next looked at the sword which its owner had stated to

have belonged to his grandfather. It was twoedged, so that he almost feared to handle it. On the blade was

inscribed the words 'ANDREA FERARA,' and among the many fine chasings were a rose and crown, the

plume of the Prince of Wales, and two portraits; portraits of a man and a woman, the man's having the face of

Swetman, much awed and surprised, returned the articles to the closet, and went downstairs pondering. Of his

surmise he said nothing to his daughters, merely declaring to them that the gentleman was gone; and never

revealing that he had been an eyewitness of the unpleasant scene in the orchard that was the immediate

Nothing occurred in Hintock during the week that followed, beyond the fitful arrival of more decided tidings

concerning the utter defeat of the Duke's army and his own disappearance at an early stage of the battle. Then

it was told that Monmouth was taken, not in his own clothes but in the disguise of a countryman. He had been

The possibility that his guest had been no other than the Duke made Swetman unspeakably sorry now; his

heart smote him at the thought that, acting so harshly for such a small breach of good faith, he might have

been the means of forwarding the unhappy fugitive's capture. On the girls coming up to him he said, 'Get

On the Tuesday night following, when the yeoman was sleeping as usual in his chamber, he was, he said,

conscious of the entry of some one. Opening his eyes, he beheld by the light of the moon, which shone upon

the front of his house, the figure of a man who seemed to be the stranger moving from the door towards the

closet. He was dressed somewhat differently now, but the face was quite that of his late guest in its tragical

pensiveness, as was also the tallness of his figure. He neared the closet; and, feeling his visitor to be within

his rights, Christopher refrained from stirring. The personage turned his large haggard eyes upon the bed

where Swetman lay, and then withdrew from their hiding the articles that belonged to him, again giving a

hard gaze at Christopher as he went noiselessly out of the chamber with his properties on his arm. His retreat

down the stairs was just audible, and also his departure by the side door, through which entrance or exit was

Nothing further happened, and towards morning Swetman slept. To avoid all risk he said not a word to the

girls of the visit of the night, and certainly not to any one outside the house; for it was dangerous at that time

Among the killed in opposing the recent rising had been a younger brother of the lord of the manor, who

lived at King'sHintock Court hard by. Seeing the latter ride past in mourning clothes next day, Swetman

'He'd no business there!' answered the other. His words and manner showed the bitterness that was mingled

with his regret. 'But say no more of him. You know what has happened since, I suppose?'

'I know that they say Monmouth is taken, Sir Thomas, but I can't think it true,' answered Swetman.

'O zounds! 'tis true enough,' cried the knight, 'and that's not all. The Duke was executed on Tower Hill two

'And a very hard death he had, worse luck for 'n,' said Sir Thomas. 'Well, 'tis over for him and over for my

brother. But not for the rest. There'll be searchings and siftings down here anon; and happy is the man who

Now Swetman had hardly heard the latter words, so much was he confounded by the strangeness of the

tidings that the Duke had come to his death on the previous Tuesday. For it had been only the night before

this present day of Friday that he had seen his former guest, whom he had ceased to doubt could be other than

the Duke, come into his chamber and fetch away his accoutrements as he had promised.

'It couldn't have been a vision,' said Christopher to himself when the knight had ridden on. 'But I'll go straight

and see if the things be in the closet still; and thus I shall surely learn if 'twere a vision or no.'

To the closet he went, which he had not looked into since the stranger's departure. And searching behind the

articles placed to conceal the things hidden, he found that, as he had never doubted, they were gone.

When the rumour spread abroad in the West that the man beheaded in the Tower was not indeed the Duke,

but one of his officers taken after the battle, and that the Duke had been assisted to escape out of the country,

Swetman found in it an explanation of what so deeply mystified him. That his visitor might have been a

friend of the Duke's, whom the Duke had asked to fetch the things in a last request, Swetman would never

admit. His belief in the rumour that Monmouth lived, like that of thousands of others, continued to the end of

Such, briefly, concluded my kinsman, is the tradition which has been handed down in Christopher Swetman's

The traveller in schoolbooks, who vouched in dryest tones for the fidelity to fact of the following narrative,

used to add a ring of truth to it by opening with a nicety of criticism on the heroine's personality. People were

wrong, he declared, when they surmised that Baptista Trewthen was a young woman with scarcely emotions

or character. There was nothing in her to love, and nothing to hateso ran the general opinion. That she

showed few positive qualities was true. The colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces of

active womankind were looked for in vain upon hers. But still waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the

years of her early maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a mine.

She was the daughter of a small farmer in St. Maria's, one of the Isles of Lyonesse beyond OffWessex, who

had spent a large sum, as there understood, on her education, by sending her to the mainland for two years. At

nineteen she was entered at the Training College for Teachers, and at twentyone nominated to a school in

the country, near ToruponSea, whither she proceeded after the Christmas examination and holidays.

The months passed by from winter to spring and summer, and Baptista applied herself to her new duties as

best she could, till an uneventful year had elapsed. Then an air of abstraction pervaded her bearing as she

walked to and fro, twice a day, and she showed the traits of a person who had something on her mind. A

widow, by name Mrs. Wace, in whose house Baptista Trewthen had been provided with a sittingroom and

bedroom till the schoolhouse should be built, noticed this change in her youthful tenant's manner, and at last

Baptista was silent for a few moments. 'It is Mr. Heddegan,' she murmured. 'Him they used to call David

'An old bachelor at Giant's Town, St. Maria's, with no relations whatever, who lives about a stone's throw

from father's. When I was a child he used to take me on his knee and say he'd marry me some day. Now I am

a woman the jest has turned earnest, and he is anxious to do it. And father and mother says I can't do better

'Well, child, all I can say is that I'd resist any such engagement if it's not palatable to 'ee. You are comfortable

here, in my little house, I hope. All the parish like 'ee: and I've never been so cheerful, since my poor husband

The schoolmistress assured her landlady that she could return the sentiment. 'But here comes my perplexity,'

she said. 'I don't like keeping school. Ah, you are surprisedyou didn't suspect it. That's because I've

concealed my feeling. Well, I simply hate school. I don't care for childrenthey are unpleasant, troublesome

little things, whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you had fallen down dead. Yet I would

even put up with them if it was not for the inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't sleep soundly.

And the Committee of Council are always changing the Code, so that you don't know what to teach, and what

to leave untaught. I think father and mother are right. They say I shall never excel as a schoolmistress if I

dislike the work so, and that therefore I ought to get settled by marrying Mr. Heddegan. Between us two, I

like him better than school; but I don't like him quite so much as to wish to marry him.'

These conversations, once begun, were continued from day to day; till at length the young girl's elderly friend

and landlady threw in her opinion on the side of Miss Trewthen's parents. All things considered, she declared,

the uncertainty of the school, the labour, Baptista's natural dislike for teaching, it would be as well to take

what fate offered, and make the best of matters by wedding her father's old neighbour and prosperous friend.

The Easter holidays came round, and Baptista went to spend them as usual in her native isle, going by train

into OffWessex and crossing by packet from Penzephyr. When she returned in the middle of April her face

'I have agreed to have him as my husband,' said Baptista, in an off hand way. 'Heaven knows if it will be for

Mrs. Wace commended her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the subject; so that allusion to it was very

infrequent between them. Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time to time in

monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really impending; that it was arranged for the summer, and that

she had given notice of leaving the school at the August holidays. Later on she announced more specifically

that her marriage was to take place immediately after her return home at the beginning of the month

She now corresponded regularly with Mr. Heddegan. Her letters from him were seen, at least on the outside,

and in part within, by Mrs. Wace. Had she read more of their interiors than the occasional sentences shown

her by Baptista she would have perceived that the scratchy, rusty handwriting of Miss Trewthen's betrothed

conveyed little more matter than details of their future housekeeping, and his preparations for the same, with

innumerable 'my dears' sprinkled in disconnectedly, to show the depth of his affection without the

It was the end of Julydry, too dry, even for the season, the delicate green herbs and vegetables that grew in

this favoured end of the kingdom tasting rather of the wateringpot than of the pure fresh moisture from the

skies. Baptista's boxes were packed, and one Saturday morning she departed by a waggonette to the station,

and thence by train to Penzephyr, from which port she was, as usual, to cross the water immediately to her

She might have returned a week sooner. But though the wedding day had loomed so near, and the banns were

out, she delayed her departure till this last moment, saying it was not necessary for her to be at home long

beforehand. As Mr. Heddegan was older than herself, she said, she was to be married in her ordinary summer

bonnet and grey silk frock, and there were no preparations to make that had not been amply made by her

In due time, after a hot and tedious journey, she reached Penzephyr. She here obtained some refreshment,

and then went towards the pier, where she learnt to her surprise that the little steamboat plying between the

town and the islands had left at eleven o'clock; the usual hour of departure in the afternoon having been

forestalled in consequence of the fogs which had for a few days prevailed towards evening, making twilight

This being Saturday, there was now no other boat till Tuesday, and it became obvious that here she would

have to remain for the three days, unless her friends should think fit to rig out one of the island' sailingboats

and come to fetch hera not very likely contingency, the sea distance being nearly forty miles.

Baptista, however, had been detained in Penzephyr on more than one occasion before, either on account of

bad weather or some such reason as the present, and she was therefore not in any personal alarm. But, as she

was to be married on the following Wednesday, the delay was certainly inconvenient to a more than ordinary

degree, since it would leave less than a day's interval between her arrival and the wedding ceremony.

Apart from this awkwardness she did not much mind the accident. It was indeed curious to see how little she

minded. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that, although she was going to do the critical deed of her

life quite willingly, she experienced an indefinable relief at the postponement of her meeting with Heddegan.

But her manner after making discovery of the hindrance was quiet and subdued, even to passivity itself; as

was instanced by her having, at the moment of receiving information that the steamer had sailed, replied 'Oh,'

so coolly to the porter with her luggage, that he was almost disappointed at her lack of disappointment.

The question now was, should she return again to Mrs. Wace, in the village of Lower Wessex, or wait in the

town at which she had arrived. She would have preferred to go back, but the distance was too great;

moreover, having left the place for good, and somewhat dramatically, to become a bride, a return, even for so

Leaving, then, her boxes at the station, her next anxiety was to secure a respectable, or rather genteel, lodging

in the popular seaside resort confronting her. To this end she looked about the town, in which, though she had

Baptista found a room to suit her over a fruiterer's shop; where she made herself at home, and set herself in

order after her journey. An early cup of tea having revived her spirits she walked out to reconnoitre.

Being a schoolmistress she avoided looking at the schools, and having a sort of trade connection with books,

she avoided looking at the booksellers; but wearying of the other shops she inspected the churches; not that

for her own part she cared much about ecclesiastical edifices; but tourists looked at them, and so would

shea proceeding for which no one would have credited her with any great originality, such, for instance, as

that she subsequently showed herself to possess. The churches soon oppressed her. She tried the Museum, but

Yet the town and the walks in this land of strawberries, these headquarters of early English flowers and fruit,

were then, as always, attractive. From the more picturesque streets she went to the town gardens, and the Pier,

and the Harbour, and looked at the men at work there, loading and unloading as in the time of the

The words were uttered behind her. Turning round she gave a start, and became confused, even agitated, for a

moment. Then she said in her usual undemonstrative manner, 'Ois it really you, Charles?'

Without speaking again at once, and with a halfsmile, the newcomer glanced her over. There was much

He scarcely seemed to take in the meaning of this explanation, in the intensity of his critical survey.

'Teaching still? What a fine schoolmistress you make, Baptista, I warrant!' he said with a slight flavour of

'O no, it isn't. But I am going to enter on another life altogether. I am going to be married next week to Mr.

The young manfortified as he was by a natural cynical pride and passionatenesswinced at this

She informed him the bearer of the name was a general merchant of Giant's Town, St. Maria's islandher

'Then we shan't see anything more of you on the mainland?' inquired the schoolmaster.

'Here endeth the career of the belle of the boardingschool your father was foolish enough to send you to. A

"general merchant's" wife in the Lyonesse Isles. Will you sell pounds of soap and pennyworths of tin tacks,

'He's not in such a small way as that!' she almost pleaded. 'He owns ships, though they are rather little ones!'

'O, well, it is much the same. Come, let us walk on; it is tedious to stand still. I thought you would be a failure

in education,' he continued, when she obeyed him and strolled ahead. 'You never showed power that way.

You remind me much of some of those women who think they are sure to be great actresses if they go on the

stage, because they have a pretty face, and forget that what we require is acting. But you found your mistake,

'Don't taunt me, Charles.' It was noticeable that the young schoolmaster's tone caused her no anger or

retaliatory passion; far otherwise: there was a tear in her eye. 'How is it you are at Pen zephyr?' she inquired.

'I don't taunt you. I speak the truth, purely in a friendly way, as I should to any one I wished well. Though for

that matter I might have some excuse even for taunting you. Such a terrible hurry as you've been in. I hate a

'Whyto be somebody's wife or otheranything's wife rather than nobody's. You couldn't wait for me, O,

'How merciless you are!' she said bitterly. 'Wait for you? What does that mean, Charley? You never

'What I mean is, nothing definite,' she expostulated. 'I suppose you liked me a little; but it seemed to me to be

only a pastime on your part, and that you never meant to make an honourable engagement of it.'

'There, that's just it! You girls expect a man to mean business at the first look. No man when he first becomes

interested in a woman has any definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind, unless he is meaning

a vulgar mercenary marriage. However, I DID at last mean an honourable engagement, as you call it, come to

'But you never said so, and an indefinite courtship soon injures a woman's position and credit, sooner than

'Baptista, I solemnly declare that in six months I should have asked you to marry me.'

She walked along in silence, looking on the ground, and appearing very uncomfortable. Presently he said,

'Would you have waited for me if you had known?' To this she whispered in a sorrowful whisper, 'Yes!'

They went still farther in silencepassing along one of the beautiful walks on the outskirts of the town, yet

not observant of scene or situation. Her shoulder and his were close together, and he clasped his fingers round

the small of her armquite lightly, and without any attempt at impetus; yet the act seemed to say, 'Now I

Recurring to a previous question of hers he said, 'I have merely run down here for a day or two from school

near Trufal, before going off to the north for the rest of my holiday. I have seen my relations at Redrutin quite

lately, so I am not going there this time. How little I thought of meeting you! How very different the

circumstances would have been if, instead of parting again as we must in halfanhour or so, possibly for

ever, you had been now just going off with me, as my wife, on our honeymoon trip. Hahawellso

She stopped suddenly. 'I must go back nowthis is altogether too painful, Charley! It is not at all a kind

'I don't want to pain youyou know I do not,' he said more gently. 'Only it just exasperates methis you are

'Why?' he asked, dropping the offhand masterful tone he had hitherto spoken in, and becoming earnest; still

holding her arm, however, as if she were his chattel to be taken up or put down at will. 'It is never too late to

break off a marriage that's distasteful to you. Now I'll say one thing; and it is truth: I wish you would marry

me instead of him, even now, at the last moment, though you have served me so badly.'

'O, it is not possible to think of that!' she answered hastily, shaking her head. 'When I get home all will be

preparedit is ready even nowthe things for the party, the furniture, Mr. Heddegan's new suit, and

everything. I should require the courage of a tropical lion to go home there and say I wouldn't carry out my

'Then go, in Heaven's name! But there would be no necessity for you to go home and face them in that way.

If we were to marry, it would have to be at once, instantly; or not at all. I should think your affection not

worth the having unless you agreed to come back with me to Trufal this evening, where we could be married

by licence on Monday morning. And then no Mr. David Heddegan or anybody else could get you away from

'I must go home by the Tuesday boat,' she faltered. 'What would they think if I did not come?'

'You could go home by that boat just the same. All the difference would be that I should go with you. You

could leave me on the quay, where I'd have a smoke, while you went and saw your father and mother

privately; you could then tell them what you had done, and that I was waiting not far off; that I was a

schoolmaster in a fairly good position, and a young man you had known when you were at the Training

College. Then I would come boldly forward; and they would see that it could not be altered, and so you

wouldn't suffer a lifelong misery by being the wife of a wretched old gaffer you don't like at all. Now,

She did not pronounce a clear affirmative. But that she consented to the novel proposition at some moment or

An enterprise of such pith required, indeed, less talking than consideration. The first thing they did in

carrying it out was to return to the railway station, where Baptista took from her luggage a small trunk of

immediate necessaries which she would in any case have required after missing the boat. That same afternoon

Charles Stow (as his name was), despite his disdainful indifference to things, was very careful of

appearances, and made the journey independently of her though in the same train. He told her where she

could get board and lodgings in the city; and with merely a distant nod to her of a provisional kind, went off

On Sunday she saw him in the morning across the nave of the pro cathedral. In the afternoon they walked

together in the fields, where he told her that the licence would be ready next day, and would be available the

day after, when the ceremony could be performed as early after eight o'clock as they should choose.

His courtship, thus renewed after an interval of two years, was as impetuous, violent even, as it was short.

The next day came and passed, and the final arrangements were made. Their agreement was to get the

ceremony over as soon as they possibly could the next morning, so as to go on to Penzephyr at once, and

reach that place in time for the boat's departure the same day. It was in obedience to Baptista's earnest request

that Stow consented thus to make the whole journey to Lyonesse by land and water at one heat, and not break

it at Penzephyr; she seemed to be oppressed with a dread of lingering anywhere, this great first act of

disobedience to her parents once accomplished, with the weight on her mind that her home had to be

convulsed by the disclosure of it. To face her difficulties over the water immediately she had created them

was, however, a course more desired by Baptista than by her lover; though for once he gave way.

The next morning was bright and warm as those which had preceded it. By six o'clock it seemed nearly noon,

as is often the case in that part of England in the summer season. By nine they were husband and wife. They

packed up and departed by the earliest train after the service; and on the way discussed at length what she

should say on meeting her parents, Charley dictating the turn of each phrase. In her anxiety they had travelled

so early that when they reached Pen zephyr they found there were nearly two hours on their hands before

Baptista was extremely reluctant to be seen promenading the streets of the wateringplace with her husband

till, as above stated, the household at Giant's Town should know the unexpected course of events from her

own lips; and it was just possible, if not likely, that some Lyonessian might be prowling about there, or even

have come across the sea to look for her. To meet any one to whom she was known, and to have to reply to

awkward questions about the strange young man at her side before her wellframed announcement had been

delivered at proper time and place, was a thing she could not contemplate with equanimity. So, instead of

The heat of the morning was by this time intense. They clambered up on some cliffs, and while sitting there,

looking around at St. Michael's Mount and other objects, Charles said to her that he thought he would run

Baptista did not much like the idea of being left alone; it was gloomy, she said. But he assured her he would

not be gone more than a quarter of an hour at the outside, and she passively assented.

Down he went, disappeared, appeared again, and looked back. Then he again proceeded, and vanished, till, as

a small waxen object, she saw him emerge from the nook that had screened him, cross the white fringe of

foam, and walk into the undulating mass of blue. Once in the water he seemed less inclined to hurry than

before; he remained a long time; and, unable either to appreciate his skill or criticize his want of it at that

distance, she withdrew her eyes from the spot, and gazed at the still outline of St. Michael'snow beautifully

Her anxiety for the hour of departure, and to cope at once with the approaching incidents that she would have

to manipulate as best she could, sent her into a reverie. It was now Tuesday; she would reach home in the

eveninga very late time they would say; but, as the delay was a pure accident, they would deem her

marriage to Mr. Heddegan tomorrow still practicable. Then Charles would have to be produced from the

background. It was a terrible undertaking to think of, and she almost regretted her temerity in wedding so

hastily that morning. The rage of her father would be so crushing; the reproaches of her mother so bitter; and

perhaps Charles would answer hotly, and perhaps cause estrangement till death. There had obviously been no

alarm about her at St. Maria's, or somebody would have sailed across to inquire for her. She had, in a letter

written at the beginning of the week, spoken of the hour at which she intended to leave her country

schoolhouse; and from this her friends had probably perceived that by such timing she would run a risk of

losing the Saturday boat. She had missed it, and as a consequence sat here on the shore as Mrs. Charles Stow.

This brought her to the present, and she turned from the outline of St. Michael's Mount to look about for her

husband's form. He was, as far as she could discover, no longer in the sea. Then he was dressing. By moving

a few steps she could see where his clothes lay. But Charles was not beside them.

Baptista looked back again at the water in bewilderment, as if her senses were the victim of some sleight of

hand. Not a speck or spot resembling a man's head or face showed anywhere. By this time she was alarmed,

and her alarm intensified when she perceived a little beyond the scene of her husband's bathing a small area

of water, the quality of whose surface differed from that of the surrounding expanse as the coarse vegetation

of some foul patch in a mead differs from the fine green of the remainder. Elsewhere it looked flexuous, here

it looked vermiculated and lumpy, and her marine experiences suggested to her in a moment that two currents

She descended as hastily as her trembling limbs would allow. The way down was terribly long, and before

reaching the heap of clothes it occurred to her that, after all, it would be best to run first for help. Hastening

along in a lateral direction she proceeded inland till she met a man, and soon afterwards two others. To them

she exclaimed, 'I think a gentleman who was bathing is in some danger. I cannot see him as I could. Will you

She did not think of turning to show them the exact spot, indicating it vaguely by the direction of her hand,

and still going on her way with the idea of gaining more assistance. When she deemed, in her faintness, that

she had carried the alarm far enough, she faced about and dragged herself back again. Before reaching the

Having gained the beach, she found the tide in, and no sign of Charley's clothes. The other men whom she

had besought to come had disappeared, it must have been in some other direction, for she had not met them

going away. They, finding nothing, had probably thought her alarm a mere conjecture, and given up the

Baptista sank down upon the stones near at hand. Where Charley had undressed was now sea. There could

not be the least doubt that he was drowned, and his body sucked under by the current; while his clothes, lying

She remained in a stupor for some minutes, till a strange sensation succeeded the aforesaid perceptions,

mystifying her intelligence, and leaving her physically almost inert. With his personal disappearance, the last

three days of her life with him seemed to be swallowed up, also his image, in her mind's eye, waned

curiously, receded far away, grew stranger and stranger, less and less real. Their meeting and marriage had

been so sudden, unpremeditated, adventurous, that she could hardly believe that she had played her part in

such a reckless drama. Of all the few hours of her life with Charles, the portion that most insisted in coming

back to memory was their fortuitous encounter on the previous Saturday, and those bitter reprimands with

which he had begun the attack, as it might be called, which had piqued her to an unexpected consummation.

A sort of cruelty, an imperiousness, even in his warmth, had characterized Charles Stow. As a lover he had

ever been a bit of a tyrant; and it might pretty truly have been said that he had stung her into marriage with

him at last. Still more alien from her life did these reflections operate to make him; and then they would be

chased away by an interval of passionate weeping and mad regret. Finally, there returned upon the confused

mind of the young wife the recollection that she was on her way homeward, and that the packet would sail in

Except the parasol in her hand, all she possessed was at the station awaiting her onward journey.

She looked in that direction; and, entering one of those undemonstrative phases so common with her, walked

At first she made straight for the railway; but suddenly turning she went to a shop and wrote an anonymous

line announcing his death by drowning to the only person she had ever heard Charles mention as a relative.

Posting this stealthily, and with a fearful look around her, she seemed to acquire a terror of the late events,

When she got to the office she asked for the luggage that she had left there on the Saturday as well as the

trunk left on the morning just lapsed. All were put in the boat, and she herself followed. Quickly as these

things had been done, the whole proceeding, nevertheless, had been almost automatic on Baptista's part, ere

Just before the bell rang she heard a conversation on the pier, which removed the last shade of doubt from her

mind, if any had existed, that she was Charles Stow's widow. The sentences were but fragmentary, but she

'A man drownedswam out too farwas a stranger to the placepeople in boatsaw him go

The news was little more definite than this as yet; though it may as well be stated once for all that the

statement was true. Charley, with the overconfidence of his nature, had ventured out too far for his strength,

and succumbed in the absence of assistance, his lifeless body being at that moment suspended in the

transparent mid depths of the bay. His clothes, however, had merely been gently lifted by the rising tide, and

floated into a nook hard by, where they lay out of sight of the passersby till a day or two after.

In ten minutes they were steaming out of the harbour for their voyage of four or five hours, at whose ending

As Penzephyr and all its environing scenes disappeared behind Mousehole and St. Clement's Isle, Baptista's

ephemeral, meteorlike husband impressed her yet more as a fantasy. She was still in such a trancelike state

that she had been an hour on the little packetboat before she became aware of the agitating fact that Mr.

Heddegan was on board with her. Involuntarily she slipped from her left hand the symbol of her wifehood.

'Heehee! Well, the truth is, I wouldn't interrupt 'ee. "I reckon she don't see me, or won't see me," I said, "and

He was a hale, wellconditioned man of about five and fifty, of the complexion common to those whose lives

are passed on the bluffs and beaches of an ocean isle. He extended the four quarters of his face in a genial

smile, and his hand for a grasp of the same magnitude. She gave her own in surprised docility, and he

continued: 'I couldn't help coming across to meet 'ee. What an unfortunate thing you missing the boat and not

coming Saturday! They meant to have warned 'ee that the time was changed, but forgot it at the last moment.

The truth is that I should have informed 'ee myself; but I was that busy finishing up a job last week, so as to

have this week free, that I trusted to your father for attending to these little things. However, so plain and

quiet as it is all to be, it really do not matter so much as it might otherwise have done, and I hope ye haven't

been greatly put out. Now, if you'd sooner that I should not be seen talking to 'eeif 'ee feel shy at all before

He nodded urbane acquiescence, strolled away immediately, and minutely inspected the surface of the funnel,

till some female passengers of Giant's Town tittered at what they must have thought a rebufffor the

approaching wedding was known to many on St. Maria's Island, though to nobody elsewhere. Baptista

coloured at their satire, and called him back, and forced herself to commune with him in at least a

The opening event had been thus different from her expectation, and she had adumbrated no act to meet it.

Taken aback she passively allowed circumstances to pilot her along; and so the voyage was made.

It was near dusk when they touched the pier of Giant's Town, where several friends and neighbours stood

awaiting them. Her father had a lantern in his hand. Her mother, too, was there, reproachfully glad that the

delay had at last ended so simply. Mrs. Trewthen and her daughter went together along the Giant's Walk, or

promenade, to the house, rather in advance of her husband and Mr. Heddegan, who talked in loud tones

Some would have called Mrs. Trewthen a good mother; but though well meaning she was maladroit, and her

intentions missed their mark. This might have been partly attributable to the slight deafness from which she

'Ah, yes, I'm so glad, my child, that you've got over safe. It is all ready, and everything so well arranged, that

nothing but misfortune could hinder you settling as, with God's grace, becomes 'ee. Close to your mother's

door a'most, 'twill be a great blessing, I'm sure; and I was very glad to find from your letters that you'd held

your word sacred. That's rightmake your word your bond always. Mrs. Wace seems to be a sensible

woman. I hope the Lord will do for her as he's doing for you no long time hence. And how did 'ee get over

the terrible journey from ToruponSea to Pen zephyr? Once you'd done with the railway, of course, you

seemed quite at home. Well, Baptista, conduct yourself seemly, and all will be well.'

Thus admonished, Baptista entered the house, her father and Mr. Heddegan immediately at her back. Her

mother had been so didactic that she had felt herself absolutely unable to broach the subjects in the centre of

The familiar room, with the dark ceiling, the wellspread table, the old chairs, had never before spoken so

eloquently of the times ere she knew or had heard of Charley Stow. She went upstairs to take off her things,

her mother remaining below to complete the disposition of the supper, and attend to the preparation of

tomorrow's meal, altogether composing such an array of pies, from pies of fish to pies of turnips, as was

never heard of outside the Western Duchy. Baptista, once alone, sat down and did nothing; and was called

'I'm coming,' she cried, jumping up, and speedily disapparelling herself, brushed her hair with a few touches

Two or three of Mr. Heddegan's and her father's friends had dropped in, and expressed their sympathy for the

delay she had been subjected to. The meal was a most merry one except to Baptista. She had desired privacy,

and there was none; and to break the news was already a greater difficulty than it had been at first. Everything

around her, animate and inanimate, great and small, insisted that she had come home to be married; and she

One or two people sang songs, as overtures to the melody of the morrow, till at length bedtime came, and

they all withdrew, her mother having retired a little earlier. When Baptista found herself again alone in her

bedroom the case stood as before: she had come home with much to say, and she had said nothing.

It was now growing clear even to herself that Charles being dead, she had not determination sufficient within

her to break tidings which, had he been alive, would have imperatively announced themselves. And thus with

the stroke of midnight came the turning of the scale; her story should remain untold. It was not that upon the

whole she thought it best not to attempt to tell it; but that she could not undertake so explosive a matter. To

stop the wedding now would cause a convulsion in Giant's Town little short of volcanic. Weakened, tired,

and terrified as she had been by the day's adventures, she could not make herself the author of such a

catastrophe. But how refuse Heddegan without telling? It really seemed to her as if her marriage with Mr.

Morning came. The events of the previous days were cut off from her present existence by scene and

sentiment more completely than ever. Charles Stow had grown to be a special being of whom, owing to his

character, she entertained rather fearful than loving memory. Baptista could hear when she awoke that her

parents were already moving about downstairs. But she did not rise till her mother's rather rough voice

'Baptista! Come, time to be stirring! The man will be here, by heaven's blessing, in threequarters of an hour.

He has looked in already for a minute or twoand says he's going to the church to see if things be well

Baptista arose, looked out of the window, and took the easy course. When she emerged from the regions

above she was arrayed in her new silk frock and best stockings, wearing a linen jacket over the former for

breakfasting, and her common slippers over the latter, not to spoil the new ones on the rough precincts of the

It is unnecessary to dwell at any great length on this part of the morning's proceedings. She revealed nothing;

and married Heddegan, as she had given her word to do, on that appointed August day.

Mr. Heddegan forgave the coldness of his bride's manner during and after the wedding ceremony, full well

aware that there had been considerable reluctance on her part to acquiesce in this neighbourly arrangement,

and, as a philosopher of long standing, holding that whatever Baptista's attitude now, the conditions would

probably be much the same six months hence as those which ruled among other married couples.

An absolutely unexpected shock was given to Baptista's listless mind about an hour after the wedding service.

They had nearly finished the midday dinner when the now husband said to her father, 'We think of starting

about two. And the breeze being so fair we shall bring up inside Penzephyr new pier about six at least.'

It transpired that, owing to the delay in her arrival, this proposal too, among other things, had in the hurry not

been mentioned to her, except some time ago as a general suggestion that they would go somewhere.

Heddegan had imagined that any trip would be pleasant, and one to the mainland the pleasantest of all.

She looked so distressed at the announcement that her husband willingly offered to give it up, though he had

not had a holiday off the island for a whole year. Then she pondered on the inconvenience of staying at

Giant's Town, where all the inhabitants were bonded, by the circumstances of their situation, into a sort of

family party, which permitted and encouraged on such occasions as these oral criticism that was apt to disturb

the equanimity of newly married girls, and would especially worry Baptista in her strange situation. Hence,

unexpectedly, she agreed not to disorganize her husband's plans for the wedding jaunt, and it was settled that,

as originally intended, they should proceed in a neighbour's sailing boat to the metropolis of the district.

In this way they arrived at Penzephyr without difficulty or mishap. Bidding adieu to Jenkin and his man,

who had sailed them over, they strolled arm in arm off the pier, Baptista silent, cold, and obedient. Heddegan

had arranged to take her as far as Plymouth before their return, but to go no further than where they had

landed that day. Their first business was to find an inn; and in this they had unexpected difficulty, since for

some reason or otherpossibly the fine weathermany of the nearest at hand were full of tourists and

commercial travellers. He led her on till he reached a tavern which, though comparatively unpretending,

stood in as attractive a spot as any in the town; and this, somewhat to their surprise after their previous

experience, they found apparently empty. The considerate old man, thinking that Baptista was educated to

artistic notions, though he himself was deficient in them, had decided that it was most desirable to have, on

such an occasion as the present, an apartment with 'a good view' (the expression being one he had often heard

in use among tourists); and he therefore asked for a favourite room on the first floor, from which a

The landlady, after some hesitation, said she was sorry that particular apartment was engaged; the next one,

'The gentleman who has the best one will give it up tomorrow, and then you can change into it,' she added,

Wishing not to lose customers, the landlady earnestly continued that since he was bent on having the best

room, perhaps the other gentleman would not object to move at once into the one they despised, since, though

'Well, if he doesn't care for a view,' said Mr. Heddegan, with the air of a highly artistic man who did.

'O noI am sure he doesn't,' she said. 'I can promise that you shall have the room you want. If you would not

object to go for a walk for half an hour, I could have it ready, and your things in it, and a nice tea laid in the

This proposal was deemed satisfactory by the fussy old tradesman, and they went out. Baptista nervously

conducted him in an opposite direction to her walk of the former day in other company, showing on her wan

face, had he observed it, how much she was beginning to regret her sacrificial step for mending matters that

She took advantage of a moment when her husband's back was turned to inquire casually in a shop if

anything had been heard of the gentleman who was sucked down in the eddy while bathing.

The shopman said, 'Yes, his body has been washed ashore,' and had just handed Baptista a newspaper on

which she discerned the heading, 'A Schoolmaster drowned while bathing,' when her husband turned to join

her. She might have pursued the subject without raising suspicion; but it was more than flesh and blood could

'And we won't,' he said. 'They are suffocating this weather. Let's go back and have some tay!'

They found the much desired apartment awaiting their entry. It was a sort of combination bed and

sittingroom, and the table was prettily spread with high tea in the bowwindow, a bunch of flowers in the

midst, and a bestparlour chair on each side. Here they shared the meal by the ruddy light of the vanishing

sun. But though the view had been engaged, regardless of expense, exclusively for Baptista's pleasure, she

did not direct any keen attention out of the window. Her gaze as often fell on the floor and walls of the room

But there was a change. Opposite her seat was the door, upon which her eyes presently became riveted like

those of a little bird upon a snake. For, on a peg at the back of the door, there hung a hat; such a hatsurely,

from its peculiar make, the actual hatthat had been worn by Charles. Conviction grew to certainty when

she saw a railway ticket sticking up from the band. Charles had put the ticket there she had noticed the act.

Her teeth almost chattered; she murmured something incoherent. Her husband jumped up and said, 'You are

'Smelling salts!' she said, quickly and desperately; 'at that chemist's shop you were in just now.'

He jumped up like the anxious old man that he was, caught up his own hat from a back table, and without

Left alone she gazed and gazed at the back of the door, then spasmodically rang the bell. An honestlooking

'A hat!' murmured Baptista, pointing with her finger. 'It does not belong to us.'

'O yes, I'll take it away,' said the young woman with some hurry. 'It belongs to the other gentleman.'

She spoke with a certain awkwardness, and took the hat out of the room. Baptista had recovered her outward

'How can you say so? I should hear him if he were there,' said Baptista, sufficiently recovered to argue down

'Then it is strange that he makes no noise,' said Mrs. Heddegan, convicting the girl of falsity by a look.

All at once a dread took possession of the bride's heart, like a cold hand laid thereon; for it flashed upon her

that there was a possibility of reconciling the girl's statement with her own knowledge of facts.

The waitingmaid was silent, and looked at her questioner. 'If I tell you, ma'am, you won't tell missis?' she

'Because he's alying dead!' said the girl. 'He's the schoolmaster that was drownded yesterday.'

'O!' said the bride, covering her eyes. 'Then he was in this room till just now?'

'Yes,' said the maid, thinking the young lady's agitation natural enough. 'And I told missis that I thought she

oughtn't to have done it, because I don't hold it right to keep visitors so much in the dark where death's

concerned; but she said the gentleman didn't die of anything infectious; she was a poor, honest, innkeeper's

wife, she says, who had to get her living by making hay while the sun sheened. And owing to the drownded

gentleman being brought here, she said, it kept so many people away that we were empty, though all the other

houses were full. So when your good man set his mind upon the room, and she would have lost good paying

folk if he'd not had it, it wasn't to be supposed, she said, that she'd let anything stand in the way. Ye won't say

that I've told ye, please, m'm? All the linen has been changed, and as the inquest won't be till tomorrow,

after you are gone, she thought you wouldn't know a word of it, being strangers here.'

The returning footsteps of her husband broke off further narration. Baptista waved her hand, for she could not

speak. The waitingmaid quickly withdrew, and Mr. Heddegan entered with the smelling salts and other

'I don't like the hotel,' she exclaimed, almost simultaneously. 'I can't bear itit doesn't suit me!'

'Is that all that's the matter?' he returned pettishly (this being the first time of his showing such a mood).

'Upon my heart and life such trifling is trying to any man's temper, Baptista! Sending me about from here to

yond, and then when I come back saying 'ee don't like the place that I have sunk so much money and words

to get for 'ee. 'Od dang it all, 'tis enough toBut I won't say any more at present, mee deer, though it is just

too much to expect to turn out of the house now. We shan't get another quiet place at this time of the

eveningevery other inn in the town is bustling with rackety folk of one sort and t'other, while here 'tis as

quiet as the grave the country, I would say. So bide still, d'ye hear, and tomorrow we shall be out of the

The obstinacy of age had, in short, overmastered its complaisance, and the young woman said no more. The

simple course of telling him that in the adjoining room lay a corpse which had lately occupied their own

might, it would have seemed, have been an effectual one without further disclosure, but to allude to that

subject, however it was disguised, was more than Heddegan's young wife had strength for. Horror broke her

down. In the contingency one thing only presented itself to her paralyzed regardthat here she was doomed

to abide, in a hideous contiguity to the dead husband and the living, and her conjecture did, in fact, bear itself

out. That night she lay between the two men she had marriedHeddegan on the one hand, and on the other

Kindly time had withdrawn the foregoing event three days from the present of Baptista Heddegan. It was ten

o'clock in the morning; she had been ill, not in an ordinary or definite sense, but in a state of cold

stupefaction, from which it was difficult to arouse her so much as to say a few sentences. When questioned

Their trip, as such, had been something of a failure. They had gone on as far as Falmouth, but here he had

given way to her entreaties to return home. This they could not very well do without repassing through

In the train she had seen a weekly local paper, and read there a paragraph detailing the inquest on Charles. It

was added that the funeral was to take place at his native town of Redrutin on Friday.

After reading this she had shown no reluctance to enter the fatal neighbourhood of the tragedy, only

stipulating that they should take their rest at a different lodging from the first; and now comparatively braced

up and calmindeed a cooler creature altogether than when last in the town, she said to David that she

'Partly for shopping,' she said. 'And it will be best for you, dear, to stay in after trotting about so much, and

He assented; and Baptista sallied forth. As she had stated, her first visit was made to a shop, a draper's.

Without the exercise of much choice she purchased a black bonnet and veil, also a black stuff gown; a black

mantle she already wore. These articles were made up into a parcel which, in spite of the saleswoman's

offers, her customer said she would take with her. Bearing it on her arm she turned to the railway, and at the

Thus it appeared that, on her recovery from the paralyzed mood of the former day, while she had resolved not

to blast utterly the happiness of her present husband by revealing the history of the departed one, she had also

determined to indulge a certain odd, inconsequent, feminine sentiment of decency, to the small extent to

which it could do no harm to any person. At Redrutin she emerged from the railway carriage in the black

attire purchased at the shop, having during the transit made the change in the empty compartment she had

chosen. The other clothes were now in the bandbox and parcel. Leaving these at the cloakroom she

proceeded onward, and after a wary survey reached the side of a hill whence a view of the burial ground

It was now a little before two o'clock. While Baptista waited a funeral procession ascended the road. Baptista

hastened across, and by the time the procession entered the cemetery gates she had unobtrusively joined it.

In addition to the schoolmaster's own relatives (not a few), the paragraph in the newspapers of his death by

drowning had drawn together many neighbours, acquaintances, and onlookers. Among them she passed

unnoticed, and with a quiet step pursued the winding path to the chapel, and afterwards thence to the grave.

When all was over, and the relatives and idlers had withdrawn, she stepped to the edge of the chasm. From

beneath her mantle she drew a little bunch of forgetmenots, and dropped them in upon the coffin. In a few

minutes she also turned and went away from the cemetery. By five o'clock she was again in Penzephyr.

'You have been a mortal long time!' said her husband, crossly. 'I allowed you an hour at most, mee deer.'

'WellI reckon it is wasting words to complain. Hang it, ye look so tired and wisht that I can't find heart to

'I amweary and wisht, David; I am. We can get home tomorrow for certain, I hope?'

'We can. And please God we will!' said Mr. Heddegan heartily, as if he too were weary of his brief

They left by the next morning steamer, and in the afternoon took up their residence in their own house at

The hour that she reached the island it was as if a material weight had been removed from Baptista's

shoulders. Her husband attributed the change to the influence of the local breezes after the hothouse

atmosphere of the mainland. However that might be, settled here, a few doors from her mother's dwelling,

she recovered in no very long time much of her customary bearing, which was never very demonstrative. She

accepted her position calmly, and faintly smiled when her neighbours learned to call her Mrs. Heddegan, and

Her husband was a man who had made considerably more money by trade than her father had done: and

perhaps the greater profusion of surroundings at her command than she had heretofore been mistress of, was

not without an effect upon her. One week, two weeks, three weeks passed; and, being preeminently a young

woman who allowed things to drift, she did nothing whatever either to disclose or conceal traces of her first

marriage; or to learn if there existed possibilities which there undoubtedly didby which that hasty

While yet within the first month of her marriage, and on an evening just before sunset, Baptista was standing

within her garden adjoining the house, when she saw passing along the road a personage clad in a greasy

black coat and battered tall hat, which, common enough in the slums of a city, had an odd appearance in St.

Maria's. The tramp, as he seemed to be, marked her at oncebonnetless and unwrapped as she was her

features were plainly recognizableand with an air of friendly surprise came and leant over the wall.

She had some dim recollection of his face, but said that she was not acquainted with him.

'Why, your witness to be sure, ma'am. Don't you mind the man that was mending the churchwindow when

you and your intended husband walked up to be made one; and the clerk called me down from the ladder, and

Baptista glanced quickly around; her husband was out of earshot. That would have been of less importance

but for the fact that the wedding witnessed by this personage had not been the wedding with Mr. Heddegan,

'I've had a misfortune since then, that's pulled me under,' continued her friend. 'But don't let me damp yer

wedded joy by naming the particulars. Yes, I've seen changes since; though 'tis but a short time agolet me

see, only a month next week, I think; for 'twere the first or second day in August.'

'Yesthat's when it was,' said another man, a sailor, who had come up with a pipe in his mouth, and felt it

necessary to join in (Baptista having receded to escape further speech). 'For that was the first time I set foot in

A dialogue then proceeded between the two men outside the wall, which Baptista could not help hearing.

'Ay, I signed the book that made her one flesh,' repeated the decayed glazier. 'Where's her goodman?'

'About the premises somewhere; but you don't see 'em together much,' replied the sailor in an undertone. 'You

'Older? I should never have thought it from my own observation,' said the glazier. 'He was a remarkably

David Heddegan had, indeed, just shown himself at the upper end of the garden; and the glazier, looking in

Now that decayed glazier was a farseeing and cunning mantoo far seeing and cunning to allow himself

to thrive by simple and straightforward meansand he held his peace, till he could read more plainly the

meaning of this riddle, merely adding carelessly, 'Well marriage do alter a man, 'tis true. I should never ha'

He then stared oddly at the disconcerted Baptista, and moving on to where he could again address her, asked

her to do him a good turn, since he once had done the same for her. Understanding that he meant money, she

She had escaped exposure on this occasion; but the incident had been an awkward one, and should have

suggested to Baptista that sooner or later the secret must leak out. As it was, she suspected that at any rate she

In a day or two, when her husband had gone to the old town on the other side of the island, there came a

gentle tap at the door, and the worthy witness of her first marriage made his appearance a second time.

'It took me hours to get to the bottom of the mysteryhours!' he said with a gaze of deep confederacy which

offended her pride very deeply. 'But thanks to a good intellect I've done it. Now, ma'am, I'm not a man to tell

tales, even when a tale would be so good as this. But I'm going back to the mainland again, and a little

'Yesbut what was that, my good lady? Not enough to pay my passage to Penzephyr. I came over on your

account, for I thought there was a mystery somewhere. Now I must go back on my own. Mind this 'twould

be very awkward for you if your old man were to know. He's a queer temper, though he may be fond.'

She knew as well as her visitor how awkward it would be; and the hushmoney she paid was heavy that day.

She had, however, the satisfaction of watching the man to the steamer, and seeing him diminish out of sight.

But Baptista perceived that the system into which she had been led of purchasing silence thus was one fatal to

Hearing no more from the glazier she hoped the difficulty was past. But another week only had gone by,

when, as she was pacing the Giant's Walk (the name given to the promenade), she met the same personage in

'This is the lady, my dear,' he said to his companion. 'This, ma'am, is my wife. We've come to settle in the

Baptista went on, but in the afternoon she received a visit from the man's wife. This honest woman began to

'I will intercede with my husband, ma'am,' she said. 'He's a true man if rightly managed; and I'll beg him to

consider your position. 'Tis a very nice house you've got here,' she added, glancing round, 'and well worth a

The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as she had done on the previous two. But

she formed a resolve that, if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a revelation worse

though that must now be than before she had attempted to purchase silence by bribes. Her tormentors, never

believing her capable of acting upon such an intention, came again; but she shut the door in their faces. They

retreated, muttering something; but she went to the back of the house, where David Heddegan was.

She looked at him, unconscious of all. The case was serious; she knew that well; and all the more serious in

that she liked him better now than she had done at first. Yet, as she herself began to see, the secret was one

that was sure to disclose itself. Her name and Charles's stood indelibly written in the registers; and though a

month only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his clandestine union with her had not already been

discovered by his friends. Thus spurring herself to the inevitable, she spoke to Heddegan.

He hardly regarded her at first. She had discerned that during the last week or two he had seemed

preoccupied, as if some private business harassed him. She repeated her request. He replied with a sigh, 'Yes,

When they had reached the sittingroom and shut the door she repeated, faintly, 'David, I have something to

tell youa sort of tragedy I have concealed. You will hate me for having so far deceived you; but perhaps

my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better of me than you would do otherwise.'

'Tragedy?' he said, awakening to interest. 'Much you can know about tragedies, mee deer, that have been in

She saw that he suspected nothing, and it made her task the harder. But on she went steadily. 'It is about

'Not a very long time beforea short time. And it is about a lover,' she faltered.

'I don't much mind that,' he said mildly. 'In truth, I was in hopes 'twas more.'

This screwed her up to the necessary effort. 'I met my old sweetheart. He scorned me, chid me, dared me, and

I went and married him. We were coming straight here to tell you all what we had done; but he was drowned;

and I thought I would say nothing about him: and I married you, David, for the sake of peace and quietness.

I've tried to keep it from you, but have found I cannot. Therethat's the substance of it, and you can never,

She spoke desperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or blue, or slaying her in his indignation,

jumped up from his chair, and began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.

'O, happy thing! How well it falls out!' he exclaimed, snapping his, fingers over his head. 'Hahathe knot

is cutI see a way out of my troublehaha!' She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still

continued smiling joyfully, she said, 'Owhat do you mean! Is it done to torment me?'

'Nono! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart aching quandary a poor man ever found

himself in! You see, it is thisI'VE got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never have

'Wellit is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!' said he, looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.

'Wellthat depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the past alone; and I don't mind it. You

see, we've been married a month, and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day or two.

'Past, present, and future!' she murmured. 'It never occurred to me that YOU had a tragedy, too.'

'I willI will. But be considerate, I beg 'ee, mee deer. WellI wasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee, any

'Ah!' said she, with some surprise. 'But is that all?then we are nicely balanced,' she added, relieved.

'I am a widower with four tragediesthat is to say, four strapping girlsthe eldest taller than you. Don't 'ee

look so struckdumb like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman, their mother, in Penzephyr for

some years; andto cut a long story shortI privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept the

matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by degrees. I've long felt for the childrenthat it

is my duty to have them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break it to 'ee, but I've

'No. I am sorry to say they have been much neglected; in truth, they can hardly read. And so I thought that by

marrying a young schoolmistress I should get some one in the house who could teach 'em, and bring 'em into

genteel condition, all for nothing. You see, they are growed up too tall to be sent to school.'

'O, mercy!' she almost moaned. 'Four great girls to teach the rudiments to, and have always in the house with

me spelling over their books; and I hate teaching, it kills me. I am bitterly punishedI am, I am!'

'You'll get used to 'em, mee deer, and the balance of secretsmine against yourswill comfort your heart

with a sense of justice. I could send for 'em this week very welland I will! In faith, I could send this very

Thus the interview ended, so far as this matter was concerned. Baptista was too stupefied to say more, and

when she went away to her room she wept from very mortification at Mr. Heddegan's duplicity. Education,

The next meal came round. As they sat, Baptista would not suffer her eyes to turn towards him. He did not

attempt to intrude upon her reserve, but every now and then looked under the table and chuckled with

satisfaction at the aspect of affairs. 'How very well matched we be!' he said, comfortably.

Next day, when the steamer came in, Baptista saw her husband rush down to meet it; and soon after there

appeared at her door four tall, hipless, shoulderless girls, dwindling in height and size from the eldest to the

youngest, like a row of Pan pipes; at the head of them standing Heddegan. He smiled pleasantly through the

grey fringe of his whiskers and beard, and turning to the girls said, 'Now come forrard, and shake hands

Thus she made their acquaintance, and he went out, leaving them together. On examination the poor girls

turned out to be not only plainlooking, which she could have forgiven, but to have such a lamentably

meagre intellectual equipment as to be hopelessly inadequate as companions. Even the eldest, almost her own

age, could only read with difficulty words of two syllables; and taste in dress was beyond their

comprehension. In the long vista of future years she saw nothing but dreary drudgery at her detested old trade

She went about quite despairing during the next few daysan unpromising, unfortunate mood for a woman

who had not been married six weeks. From her parents she concealed everything. They had been amongst the

few acquaintances of Heddegan who knew nothing of his secret, and were indignant enough when they saw

such a readymade household foisted upon their only child. But she would not support them in their

Thus Baptista had sense enough to see the retributive fairness of this issue. For some time, whenever

conversation arose between her and Heddegan, which was not often, she always said, 'I am miserable, and

But one day when he asked, 'How do you like 'em now?' her answer was unexpected. 'Much better than I did,'

This was the beginning of a serener season for the chastened spirit of Baptista Heddegan. She had, in truth,

discovered, underneath the crust of uncouthness and meagre articulation which was due to their Troglodytean

existence, that her unwelcomed daughters had natures that were unselfish almost to sublimity. The harsh

discipline accorded to their young lives before their mother's wrong had been righted, had operated less to

crush them than to lift them above all personal ambition. They considered the world and its contents in a

purely objective way, and their own lot seemed only to affect them as that of certain human beings among the

This was such an entirely new way of regarding life to a woman of Baptista's nature, that her attention, from

being first arrested by it, became deeply interested. By imperceptible pulses her heart expanded in sympathy

with theirs. The sentences of her tragicomedy, her life, confused till now, became clearer daily. That in

humanity, as exemplified by these girls, there was nothing to dislike, but infinitely much to pity, she learnt

with the lapse of each week in their company. She grew to like the girls of unpromising exterior, and from

liking she got to love them; till they formed an unexpected point of junction between her own and her

husband's interests, generating a sterling friendship at least, between a pair in whose existence there had