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

PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................1

PART THE FIRSTWINTER ...............................................................................................................3

CHAPTER I: MELLSTOCKLANE .....................................................................................................3

CHAPTER II: THE TRANTER'S..........................................................................................................5

CHAPTER III: THE ASSEMBLED QUIRE.........................................................................................8

CHAPTER IV: GOING THE ROUNDS ..............................................................................................12

CHAPTER V: THE LISTENERS........................................................................................................15

CHAPTER VI: CHRISTMAS MORNING ..........................................................................................19

CHAPTER VII: THE TRANTER'S PARTY.......................................................................................22

CHAPTER VIII: THEY DANCE MORE WILDLY ............................................................................26

CHAPTER IX: DICK CALLS AT THE SCHOOL.............................................................................31

PART THE SECONDSPRING .........................................................................................................32

CHAPTER I: PASSING BY THE SCHOOL .......................................................................................32

CHAPTER II: A MEETING OF THE QUIRE .....................................................................................32

CHAPTER III: A TURN IN THE DISCUSSION ................................................................................36

CHAPTER IV: INTERVIEW WITH THE VICAR.............................................................................38

CHAPTER V: RETURNING HOME WARD.....................................................................................44

CHAPTER VI: YALBURY WOOD AND THE KEEPER'S HOUSE................................................46

CHAPTER VII: DICK MAKES HIMSELF USEFUL .........................................................................51

CHAPTER VIII: DICK MEETS HIS FATHER..................................................................................54

PART THE THIRDSUMMER.........................................................................................................59

CHAPTER I: DRIVING OUT OF BUDMOUTH ................................................................................59

CHAPTER II: FURTHER ALONG THE ROAD................................................................................62

CHAPTER III: A CONFESSION .........................................................................................................66

CHAPTER IV: AN ARRANGEMENT ................................................................................................70

PART THE FORTHAUTUMN........................................................................................................71

CHAPTER I: GOING NUTTING........................................................................................................72

CHAPTER II: HONEYTAKING, AND AFTERWARDS................................................................75

CHAPTER III: FANCY IN THE RAIN ...............................................................................................82

CHAPTER IV: THE SPELL................................................................................................................84

CHAPTER V: AFTER GAINING HER POINT ..................................................................................87

CHAPTER VI: INTO TEMPTATION .................................................................................................89

CHAPTER VII: SECOND THOUGHTS.............................................................................................92

PART THE FIFTH: CONCLUSION...................................................................................................95

CHAPTER I: 'THE KNOT THERE'S NO UNTYING' ........................................................................95

CHAPTER II: UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE........................................................................103

This story of the Mellstock Quire and its old established west gallery musicians, with some supplementary

descriptions of similar officials in Two on a Tower, A Few Crusted Characters, and other places, is intended

Under the Greenwood Tree, or The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School 1

to be a fairly true picture, at first hand, of the personages, ways, and customs which were common among

One is inclined to regret the displacement of these ecclesiastical bandsmen by an isolated organist (often at

first a barrelorganist) or harmonium player; and despite certain advantages in point of control and

accomplishment which were, no doubt, secured by installing the single artist, the change has tended to

stultify the professed aims of the clergy, its direct result being to curtail and extinguish the interest of

parishioners in church doings. Under the old plan, from half a dozen to ten fullgrown players, in addition to

the numerous more or less grownup singers, were officially occupied with the Sunday routine, and

concerned in trying their best to make it an artistic outcome of the combined musical taste of the

congregation. With a musical executive limited, as it mostly is limited now, to the parson's wife or daughter

and the school children, or to the schoolteacher and the children, an important union of interests has

The zest of these bygone instrumentalists must have been keen and staying to take them, as it did, on foot

every Sunday after a toilsome week, through all weathers, to the church, which often lay at a distance from

their homes. They usually received so little in payment for their performances that their efforts were really a

labour of love. In the parish I had in my mind when writing the present tale, the gratuities received yearly by

the musicians at Christmas were somewhat as follows: From the manorhouse ten shillings and a supper;

from the vicar ten shillings; from the farmers five shillings each; from each cottagehousehold one shilling;

amounting altogether to not more than ten shillings a head annuallyjust enough, as an old executant told

me, to pay for their fiddlestrings, repairs, rosin, and musicpaper (which they mostly ruled themselves).

Their music in those days was all in their own manuscript, copied in the evenings after work, and their

It was customary to inscribe a few jigs, reels, hornpipes, and ballads in the same book, by beginning it at the

other end, the insertions being continued from front and back till sacred and secular met together in the

middle, often with bizarre effect, the words of some of the songs exhibiting that ancient and broad humour

which our grandfathers, and possibly grandmothers, took delight in, and is in these days unquotable.

The aforesaid fiddlestrings, rosin, and musicpaper were supplied by a pedlar, who travelled exclusively in

such wares from parish to parish, coming to each village about every six months. Tales are told of the

consternation once caused among the church fiddlers when, on the occasion of their producing a new

Christmas anthem, he did not come to time, owing to being snowed up on the downs, and the straits they

were in through having to make shift with whipcord and twine for strings. He was generally a musician

himself, and sometimes a composer in a small way, bringing his own new tunes, and tempting each choir to

adopt them for a consideration. Some of these compositions which now lie before me, with their repetitions

of lines, halflines, and halfwords, their fugues and their intermediate symphonies, are good singing still,

though they would hardly be admitted into such hymnbooks as are popular in the churches of fashionable

Under the Greenwood Tree was first brought out in the summer of 1872 in two volumes. The name of the

story was originally intended to be, more appropriately, The Mellstock Quire, and this has been appended as

a subtitle since the early editions, it having been thought unadvisable to displace for it the title by which the

In rereading the narrative after a long interval there occurs the inevitable reflection that the realities out of

which it was spun were material for another kind of study of this little group of church musicians than is

found in the chapters here penned so lightly, even so farcically and flippantly at times. But circumstances

Under the Greenwood Tree, or The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School 2

would have rendered any aim at a deeper, more essential, more transcendent handling unadvisable at the date

of writing; and the exhibition of the Mellstock Quire in the following pages must remain the only extant one,

except for the few glimpses of that perished band which I have given in verse elsewhere.

To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the

breeze the firtrees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself;

the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which

modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy its individuality.

On a cold and starry Christmaseve within living memory a man was passing up a lane towards Mellstock

Cross in the darkness of a plantation that whispered thus distinctively to his intelligence. All the evidences of

his nature were those afforded by the spirit of his footsteps, which succeeded each other lightly and quickly,

"With the rose and the lily And the daffodowndilly, The lads and the lasses asheepshearing go."

The lonely lane he was following connected one of the hamlets of Mellstock parish with Upper Mellstock and

Lewgate, and to his eyes, casually glancing upward, the silver and blackstemmed birches with their

characteristic tufts, the pale grey boughs of beech, the dark creviced elm, all appeared now as black and flat

outlines upon the sky, wherein the white stars twinkled so vehemently that their flickering seemed like the

flapping of wings. Within the woody pass, at a level anything lower than the horizon, all was dark as the

grave. The copsewood forming the sides of the bower interlaced its branches so densely, even at this season

of the year, that the draught from the northeast flew along the channel with scarcely an interruption from

After passing the plantation and reaching Mellstock Cross the white surface of the lane revealed itself

between the dark hedgerows like a ribbon jagged at the edges; the irregularity being caused by temporary

The song (many times interrupted by flitting thoughts which took the place of several bars, and resumed at a

point it would have reached had its continuity been unbroken) now received a more palpable check, in the

shape of "Hoiiiii!" from the crossing lane to Lower Mellstock, on the right of the singer who had just

"Hoiiiii!" he answered, stopping and looking round, though with no idea of seeing anything more than

"Then why not stop for fellowcratersgoing to thy own father's house too, as we be, and knowen us so

Dick Dewy faced about and continued his tune in an underwhistle, implying that the business of his mouth

Having come more into the open he could now be seen rising against the sky, his profile appearing on the

light background like the portrait of a gentleman in black cardboard. It assumed the form of a lowcrowned

hat, an ordinaryshaped nose, an ordinary chin, an ordinary neck, and ordinary shoulders. What he consisted

Shuffling, halting, irregular footsteps of various kinds were now heard coming up the hill, and presently there

emerged from the shade severally five men of different ages and gaits, all of them working villagers of the

parish of Mellstock. They, too, had lost their rotundity with the daylight, and advanced against the sky in flat

outlines, which suggested some processional design on Greek or Etruscan pottery. They represented the chief

The first was a bowed and bent man, who carried a fiddle under his arm, and walked as if engaged in

studying some subject connected with the surface of the road. He was Michael Mail, the man who had

The next was Mr. Robert Penny, boot and shoemaker; a little man, who, though rather roundshouldered,

walked as if that fact had not come to his own knowledge, moving on with his back very hollow and his face

fixed on the northeast quarter of the heavens before him, so that his lower waistcoatbuttons came first,

and then the remainder of his figure. His features were invisible; yet when he occasionally looked round, two

faint moons of light gleamed for an instant from the precincts of his eyes, denoting that he wore spectacles of

The third was Elias Spinks, who walked perpendicularly and dramatically. The fourth outline was Joseph

Bowman's, who had now no distinctive appearance beyond that of a human being. Finally came a weak

lathlike form, trotting and stumbling along with one shoulder forward and his bead inclined to the left, his

arms dangling nervelessly in the wind as if they were empty sleeves. This was Thomas Leaf.

"We told them to keep back at home for a time, thinken they wouldn't be wanted yet awhile; and we could

"Father and grandfather William have expected ye a little sooner. I have just been for a run round by

"To be sure father did! To be sure 'a did expect usto taste the little barrel beyond compare that he's going

"'Od rabbit it all! Never heard a word of it!" said Mr. Penny, gleams of delight appearing upon his

spectacleglasses, Dick meanwhile singing parenthetically"The lads and the lasses asheep shearing go."

"Neighbours, there's time enough to drink a sight of drink now afore bedtime?" said Mail.

This opinion being taken as convincing they all advanced between the varying hedges and the trees dotting

them here and there, kicking their toes occasionally among the crumpled leaves. Soon appeared glimmering

indications of the few cottages forming the small hamlet of Upper Mellstock for which they were bound,

whilst the faint sound of churchbells ringing a Christmas peal could be heard floating over upon the breeze

from the direction of Longpuddle and Weatherbury parishes on the other side of the hills. A little wicket

It was a long low cottage with a hipped roof of thatch, having dormer windows breaking up into the eaves, a

chimney standing in the middle of the ridge and another at each end. The windowshutters were not yet

closed, and the fire and candlelight within radiated forth upon the thick bushes of box and laurestinus

growing in clumps outside, and upon the bare boughs of several codlintrees hanging about in various

distorted shapes, the result of early training as espaliers combined with careless climbing into their boughs in

later years. The walls of the dwelling were for the most part covered with creepers, though these were rather

beaten back from the doorwaya feature which was worn and scratched by much passing in and out, giving

it by day the appearance of an old keyhole. Light streamed through the cracks and joints of outbuildings a

little way from the cottage, a sight which nourished a fancy that the purpose of the erection must be rather to

veil bright attractions than to shelter unsightly necessaries. The noise of a beetle and wedges and the

splintering of wood was periodically heard from this direction; and at some little distance further a steady

regular munching and the occasional scurr of a rope betokened a stable, and horses feeding within it.

The choir stamped severally on the doorstone to shake from their boots any fragment of earth or leaf

adhering thereto, then entered the house and looked around to survey the condition of things. Through the

open doorway of a small inner room on the right hand, of a character between pantry and cellar, was Dick

Dewy's father Reuben, by vocation a "tranter," or irregular carrier. He was a stout florid man about forty

years of age, who surveyed people up and down when first making their acquaintance, and generally smiled

at the horizon or other distant object during conversations with friends, walking about with a steady sway,

and turning out his toes very considerably. Being now occupied in bending over a hogshead, that stood in the

pantry ready horsed for the process of broaching, he did not take the trouble to turn or raise his eyes at the

entry of his visitors, well knowing by their footsteps that they were the expected old comrades.

The main room, on the left, was decked with bunches of holly and other evergreens, and from the middle of

the beam bisecting the ceiling hung the mistletoe, of a size out of all proportion to the room, and extending so

low that it became necessary for a fullgrown person to walk round it in passing, or run the risk of entangling

his hair. This apartment contained Mrs. Dewy the tranter's wife, and the four remaining children, Susan, Jim,

Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four

yearsthe eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly equal interval.

Some circumstance had apparently caused much grief to Charley just previous to the entry of the choir, and

he had absently taken down a small lookingglass, holding it before his face to learn how the human

countenance appeared when engaged in crying, which survey led him to pause at the various points in each

wail that were more than ordinarily striking, for a thorough appreciation of the general effect. Bessy was

leaning against a chair, and glancing under the plaits about the waist of the plaid frock she wore, to notice the

original unfaded pattern of the material as there preserved, her face bearing an expression of regret that the

brightness had passed away from the visible portions. Mrs. Dewy sat in a brown settle by the side of the

glowing wood fireso glowing that with a heedful compression of the lips she would now and then rise and

put her hand upon the hams and flitches of bacon lining the chimney, to reassure herself that they were not

being broiled instead of smokeda misfortune that had been known to happen now and then at Christmas

"Hullo, my sonnies, here you be, then!" said Reuben Dewy at length, standing up and blowing forth a

vehement gust of breath. "How the blood do puff up in anybody's head, to be sure, astooping like that! I was

just going out to gate to hark for ye." He then carefully began to wind a strip of brown paper round a brass tap

he held in his hand. "This in the cask here is a drop o' the right sort" (tapping the cask); "'tis a real drop o'

cordial from the best picked applesSansoms, Stubbards, Fivecorners, and suchlikeyou d'mind the

sort, Michael?" (Michael nodded.) "And there's a sprinkling of they that grow down by the

orchardrailsstreaked onesrail apples we d'call 'em, as 'tis by the rails they grow, and not knowing the

"Ay, and of the same make too," said Bowman. "'It rained when we wrung it out, and the water got into it,'

"Yes, yes; too common it is!" said Spinks with an inward sigh, whilst his eyes seemed to be looking at the

case in an abstract form rather than at the scene before him. "Such poor liquor do make a man's throat feel

"Come in, come in, and draw up to the fire; never mind your shoes," said Mrs. Dewy, seeing that all except

Dick had paused to wipe them upon the doormat. "I am glad that you've stepped upalong at last; and,

Susan, you run down to Grammer Kaytes's and see if you can borrow some larger candles than these

This was addressed to the young man before mentioned, consisting chiefly of a human skeleton and a

smockfrock, who was very awkward in his movements, apparently on account of having grown so very fast

"Heeheeay!" replied Leaf, letting his mouth continue to smile for some time after his mind had done

smiling, so that his teeth remained in view as the most conspicuous members of his body.

"Here, Mr. Penny," resumed Mrs. Dewy, "you sit in this chair. And how's your daughter, Mrs. Brownjohn?"

"Well, I suppose I must say pretty fair." He adjusted his spectacles a quarter of an inch to the right. "But she'll

"Five; they've buried three. Yes, five; and she not much more than a maid yet. She do know the

multiplication table onmistakable well. However, 'twas to be, and none can gainsay it."

Mrs. Dewy resigned Mr. Penny. "Wonder where your grandfather James is?" she inquired of one of the

"Now let's see what we can do," was heard spoken about this time by the tranter in a private voice to the

barrel, beside which he had again established himself, and was stooping to cut away the cork.

"Reuben, don't make such a mess o' tapping that barrel as is mostly made in this house," Mrs. Dewy cried

from the fireplace. "I'd tap a hundred without wasting more than you do in one. Such a squizzling and

squirting job as 'tis in your hands! There, he always was such a clumsy man indoors."

"Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred beautiful, AnnI know you would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can't

promise. This is a' old cask, and the wood's rotted away about the taphole. The husbird of a feller Sam

Lawsonthat ever I should call'n such, now he's dead and gone, poor heart!took me in completely upon

the feat of buying this cask. 'Reub,' says he'a always used to call me plain Reub, poor old heart!'Reub,'

he said, says he, 'that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as new. 'Tis a winehogshead; the best

portwine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens,

Reub,''a said, says he'he's worth twenty, ay, fiveandtwenty, if he's worth one; and an iron hoop or two

put round en among the wood ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any man's money, if'"

"I think I should have used the eyes that Providence gave me to use afore I paid any ten shillens for a

jimcrack winebarrel; a saint is sinner enough not to be cheated. But 'tis like all your family was, so easy to

Mrs. Dewy began a smile at the answer, then altering her lips and refolding them so that it was not a smile,

commenced smoothing little Bessy's hair; the tranter having meanwhile suddenly become oblivious to

conversation, occupying himself in a deliberate cutting and arrangement of some more brown paper for the

"Ah, who can believe sellers!" said old Michael Mail in a carefully cautious voice, by way of tidingover

"No one at all," said Joseph Bowman, in the tone of a man fully agreeing with everybody.

"Ay," said Mail, in the tone of a man who did not agree with everybody as a rule, though he did now; "I

knowed a' auctioneering feller oncea very friendly feller 'a was too. And so one hot day as I was walking

down the front street o' Casterbridge, jist below the King's Arms, I passed a' open winder and see him inside,

stuck upon his perch, aselling off. I jist nodded to en in a friendly way as I passed, and went my way, and

thought no more about it. Well, next day, as I was oilen my boots by fuelhouse door, if a letter didn't come

wi' a bill charging me with a featherbed, bolster, and pillers, that I had bid for at Mr. Taylor's sale. The

shimfaced martel had knocked 'em down to me because I nodded to en in my friendly way; and I had to pay

"Too close, 'twas," said Reuben, in the rear of the rest. "And as to Sam Lawsonpoor heart! now he's dead

and gone too!I'll warrant, that if so be I've spent one hour in making hoops for that barrel, I've spent fifty,

first and last. That's one of my hoops' touching it with his elbow'that's one of mine, and that, and that,

The tranter nodded. Having at last made the tap and hole quite ready, "Now then, Suze, bring a mug," he said.

The tap went in, and the cider immediately squirted out in a horizontal shower over Reuben's hands, knees,

and leggings, and into the eyes and neck of Charley, who, having temporarily put off his grief under pressure

of more interesting proceedings, was squatting down and blinking near his father.

"Devil take the hole, the cask, and Sam Lawson too, that good cider should be wasted like this!" exclaimed

the tranter. "Your thumb! Lend me your thumb, Michael! Ram it in here, Michael! I must get a bigger tap, my

"Idd it cold inthide te hole?" inquired Charley of Michael, as he continued in a stooping posture with his

"What wonderful odds and ends that chiel has in his head to be sure!" Mrs. Dewy admiringly exclaimed from

the distance. "I lay a wager that he thinks more about how 'tis inside that barrel than in all the other parts of

All persons present put on a speaking countenance of admiration for the cleverness alluded to, in the midst of

which Reuben returned. The operation was then satisfactorily performed; when Michael arose and stretched

his head to the extremest fraction of height that his body would allow of, to restraighten his back and

shoulders thrusting out his arms and twisting his features to a mass of wrinkles to emphasize the relief

aquired. A quart or two of the beverage was then brought to table, at which all the new arrivals reseated

themselves with widespread knees, their eyes meditatively seeking out any speck or knot in the board upon

"Whatever is father abiding out in fuelhouse so long for?" said the tranter. "Never such a man as father for

two thingscleaving up old dead appletree wood and playing the bassviol. 'A'd pass his life between the

A series of dull thuds, that had been heard without for some time past, now ceased; and after the light of a

lantern had passed the window and made wheeling rays upon the ceiling inside the eldest of the Dewy family

William Dewyotherwise grandfather Williamwas now about seventy; yet an ardent vitality still

preserved a warm and roughened bloom upon his face, which reminded gardeners of the sunny side of a ripe

ribstonepippin; though a narrow strip of forehead, that was protected from the weather by lying above the

line of his hatbrim, seemed to belong to some town man, so gentlemanly was its whiteness. His was a

humorous and kindly nature, not unmixed with a frequent melancholy; and he had a firm religious faith. But

to his neighbours he had no character in particular. If they saw him pass by their windows when they had

been bottling off old mead, or when they had just been called longheaded men who might do anything in the

world if they chose, they thought concerning him, "Ah, there's that goodhearted manopen as a child!" If

they saw him just after losing a shilling or halfacrown, or accidentally letting fall a piece of crockery, they

thought, "There's that poor weakminded man Dewy again! Ah, he's never done much in the world either!" If

he passed when fortune neither smiled nor frowned on them, they merely thought him old William Dewy.

"Ah, so'shere you be!Ah, Michael and Joseph and Johnand you too, Leaf! a merry Christmas all! We

shall have a rare logwood fire directly, Reub, to reckon by the toughness of the job I had in cleaving 'em."

As he spoke he threw down an armful of logs which fell in the chimneycorner with a rumble, and looked at

them with something of the admiring enmity he would have bestowed on living people who had been very

Old James (grandfather on the maternal side) had simply called as a visitor. He lived in a cottage by himself,

and many people considered him a miser; some, rather slovenly in his habits. He now came forward from

behind grandfather William, and his stooping figure formed a wellilluminated picture as he passed towards

the fireplace. Being by trade a mason, he wore a long linen apron reaching almost to his toes, corduroy

breeches and gaiters, which, together with his boots, graduated in tints of whitishbrown by constant friction

against lime and stone. He also wore a very stiff fustian coat, having folds at the elbows and shoulders as

unvarying in their arrangement as those in a pair of bellows: the ridges and the projecting parts of the coat

collectively exhibiting a shade different from that of the hollows, which were lined with small ditchlike

accumulations of stone and mortardust. The extremely large sidepockets, sheltered beneath wide flaps,

bulged out convexly whether empty or full; and as he was often engaged to work at buildings far awayhis

breakfasts and dinners being eaten in a strange chimneycorner, by a garden wall, on a heap of stones, or

walking along the roadhe carried in these pockets a small tin canister of butter, a small canister of sugar, a

small canister of tea, a paper of salt, and a paper of pepper; the bread, cheese, and meat, forming the

substance of his meals, hanging up behind him in his basket among the hammers and chisels. If a passerby

looked hard at him when he was drawing forth any of these, "My buttery," he said, with a pinched smile.

"Better try over number seventyeight before we start, I suppose?" said William, pointing to a heap of old

"Number seventyeight was always a teaseralways. I can mind him ever since I was growing up a hard

"He is; though I've been mad enough wi' that tune at times to seize en and tear en all to linnit. Ay, he's a

"The first line is well enough," said Mr. Spinks; "but when you come to 'O, thou man,' you make a mess o't."

"We'll have another go into en, and see what we can make of the martel. Halfanhour's hammering at en

"'Od rabbit it all!" said Mr. Penny, interrupting with a flash of his spectacles, and at the same time clawing at

something in the depths of a large sidepocket. "If so be I hadn't been as scatter brained and thirtingill as a

chiel, I should have called at the schoolhouse wi' a boot as I cam up along. Whatever is coming to me I really

"The brain has its weaknesses," murmured Mr. Spinks, waving his head ominously. Mr. Spinks was

considered to be a scholar, having once kept a nightschool, and always spoke up to that level.

"Well, I must call with en the first thing tomorrow. And I'll empt my pocket o' this last too, if you don't mind,

Mrs. Dewy." He drew forth a last, and placed it on a table at his elbow. The eyes of three or four followed it.

"Well," said the shoemaker, seeming to perceive that the interest the object had excited was greater than he

had anticipated, and warranted the last's being taken up again and exhibited; "now, whose foot do ye suppose

this last was made for? It was made for Geoffrey Day's father, over at Yalbury Wood. Ah, many's the pair o'

boots he've had off the last! Well, when 'a died, I used the last for Geoffrey, and have ever since, though a

little doctoring was wanted to make it do. Yes, a very queer natured last it is now, 'a b'lieve," he continued,

turning it over caressingly. "Now, you notice that there" (pointing to a lump of leather bradded to the toe),

"that's a very bad bunion that he've had ever since 'a was a boy. Now, this remarkable large piece" (pointing

to a patch nailed to the side), "shows a' accident he received by the tread of a horse, that squashed his foot

a'most to a pomace. The horseshoe cam fullbutt on this point, you see. And so I've just been over to

Geoffrey's, to know if he wanted his bunion altered or made bigger in the new pair I'm making."

During the hatter part of this speech, Mr. Penny's left hand wandered towards the cidercup, as if the hand

had no connection with the person speaking; and bringing his sentence to an abrupt chose, all but the extreme

"However, I was going to say," continued Penny, putting down the cup, "I ought to have called at the

school'here he went groping again in the depths of his pocket'to leave this without fail, though I suppose

He now drew forth and placed upon the table a bootsmall, light, and prettily shapedupon the heel of

"Ay, no less, Miss Fancy Day; as neat a little figure of fun as ever I see, and just husbandhigh."

"Never Geoffrey's daughter Fancy?" said Bowman, as all glances present converged like wheelspokes upon

"Yes, sure," resumed Mr. Penny, regarding the boot as if that alone were his auditor; "'tis she that's come here

"Pa'son Maybold was afraid he couldn't manage us all tomorrow at the dinner, and he talked o' getting her

jist to come over and help him hand about the plates, and see we didn't make pigs of ourselves; and that's

"And that's the boot, then," continued its mender imaginatively, "that she'll walk to church in tomorrow

morning. I don't care to mend boots I don't make; but there's no knowing what it may lead to, and her father

There, between the cidermug and the candle, stood this interesting receptacle of the little unknown's foot;

and a very pretty boot it was. A character, in factthe flexible bend at the instep, the rounded localities of

the small nestling toes, scratches from careless scampers now forgottenall, as repeated in the telltale

leather, evidencing a nature and a bias. Dick surveyed it with a delicate feeling that he had no right to do so

"Now, neighbours, though no common eye can see it," the shoemaker, went on, "a man in the trade can see

the likeness between this boot and that last, although that is so deformed as hardly to recall one of God's

creatures, and this is one of as pretty a pair as you'd get for tenandsixpence in Casterbridge. To you,

"I don't doubt there's a likeness, Master Pennya mild likenessa fantastical likeness," said Spinks. "But

"Now, I'll tell ye what happened to me once on this very point. You used to know Johnson the dairyman,

"Well, 'twasn't opposite his house, but a little lower downby his paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was

abearing across towards Bloom's End,and ho and behold, there was a man just brought out o' the Pool,

dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to pitch it just there had gone in flop over his head. Men

looked at en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He was covered wi' a sheet; but

I catched sight of his voot, just showing out as they carried en along. 'I don't care what name that man went

by,' I said, in my way, 'but he's John Woodward's brother; I can swear to the family voot.' At that very

moment up comes John Woodward, weeping and teaving, 'I've lost my brother! I've lost my brother!'"

"'Tis well enough to know this foot and that foot," said Mr. Spinks. "'Tis longheaded, in fact, as far as feet

do go. I know little, 'tis trueI say no more; but show ME a man's foot, and I'll tell you that man's heart."

"You must be a cleverer feller, then, than mankind in jineral," said the tranter.

"Well, that's nothing for me to speak of," returned Mr. Spinks. "A man hives and learns. Maybe I've read a

leaf or two in my time. I don't wish to say anything large, mind you; but nevertheless, maybe I have."

"Yes, I know," said Michael soothingly, "and all the parish knows, that ye've read sommat of everything

a'most, and have been a great filler of young folks' brains. Learning's a worthy thing, and ye've got it, Master

"I make no boast, though I may have read and thought a little; and I knowit may be from much perusing,

but I make no boastthat by the time a man's head is finished, 'tis almost time for him to creep underground.

Mr. Spinks emitted a hook to signify that if his head was not finished, nobody's head ever could be.

"Talk of knowing people by their feet!" said Reuben. "Rot me, my sonnies, then, if I can tell what a man is

"But still, look is a good deal," observed grandfather William absently, moving and balancing his head till the

tip of grandfather James's nose was exactly in a right line with William's eye and the mouth of a miniature

cavern he was discerning in the fire. "By the way," he continued in a fresher voice, and looking up, "that

young crater, the schoolmis'ess, must be sung to tonight wi' the rest? If her ear is as fine as her face, we shall

"Well, as to that," Mr. Spinks replied, "'tis a face you can hardly gainsay. A very good pink face, as far as that

"Come, come, Elias Spinks, say she's a pretty maid, and have done wi' her," said the tranter, again preparing

Shortly after ten o'clock the singingboys arrived at the tranter's house, which was invariably the place of

meeting, and preparations were made for the start. The older men and musicians wore thick coats, with stiff

perpendicular collars, and coloured handkerchiefs wound round and round the neck till the end came to hand,

over all which they just showed their ears and noses, like people looking over a wall. The remainder, stalwart

ruddy men and boys, were dressed mainly in snowwhite smockfrocks, embroidered upon the shoulders and

breasts, in ornamental forms of hearts, diamonds, and zigzags. The cidermug was emptied for the ninth

time, the music books were arranged, and the pieces finally decided upon. The boys in the meantime put the

old hornlanterns in order, cut candles into short lengths to fit the lanterns; and, a thin fleece of snow having

fallen since the early part of the evening, those who had no leggings went to the stable and wound wisps of

hay round their ankles to keep the insidious flakes from the interior of their boots.

Mellstock was a parish of considerable acreage, the hamlets composing it lying at a much greater distance

from each other than is ordinarily the case. Hence several hours were consumed in playing and singing within

hearing of every family, even if but a single air were bestowed on each. There was Lower Mellstock, the

main village; half a mile from this were the church and vicarage, and a few other houses, the spot being rather

lonely now, though in past centuries it had been the most thicklypopulated quarter of the parish. A mile

northeast hay the hamlet of Upper Mellstock, where the tranter lived; and at other points knots of cottages,

Old William Dewy, with the violoncello, played the bass; his grandson Dick the treble violin; and Reuben

and Michael Mail the tenor and second violins respectively. The singers consisted of four men and seven

boys, upon whom devolved the task of carrying and attending to the lanterns, and holding the books open for

the players. Directly music was the theme, old William ever and instinctively came to the front.

"Now mind, neighbours," he said, as they all went out one by one at the door, he himself holding it ajar and

regarding them with a critical face as they passed, like a shepherd counting out his sheep. "You two

counterboys, keep your ears open to Michael's fingering, and don't ye go straying into the treble part along

o' Dick and his set, as ye did last year; and mind this especially when we be in "Arise, and hail." Billy

Chimlen, don't you sing quite so raving mad as you fain would; and, all o' ye, whatever ye do, keep from

making a great scuffle on the ground when we go in at people's gates; but go quietly, so as to strike up all of a

"And, Voss," said the tranter terminatively, "you keep house here till about halfpast two; then heat the

metheglin and cider in the warmer you'll find turned up upon the copper; and bring it wi' the victuals to

Just before the chock struck twelve they lighted the lanterns and started. The moon, in her third quarter, had

risen since the snowstorm; but the dense accumulation of snowcloud weakened her power to a faint twilight,

which was rather pervasive of the landscape than traceable to the sky. The breeze had gone down, and the

rustle of their feet and tones of their speech echoed with an alert rebound from every post, boundarystone,

and ancient wall they passed, even where the distance of the echo's origin was less than a few yards. Beyond

their own slight noises nothing was to be heard, save the occasional bark of foxes in the direction of Yalbury

Wood, or the brush of a rabbit among the grass now and then, as it scampered out of their way.

Most of the outlying homesteads and hamlets had been visited by about two o'clock; they then passed across

the outskirts of a wooded park toward the main village, nobody being at home at the Manor. Pursuing no

recognized track, great care was necessary in walking lest their faces should come in contact with the

lowhanging boughs of the old limetrees, which in many spots formed dense overgrowths of interlaced

"Times have changed from the times they used to be," said Mail, regarding nobody can tell what interesting

old panoramas with an inward eye, and letting his outward glance rest on the ground, because it was as

convenient a position as any. "People don't care much about us now! I've been thinking we must be almost

the last left in the county of the old string players? Barrelorgans, and the things next door to 'em that you

"Ay!" said Bowman, shaking his head; and old William, on seeing him, did the same thing.

"More's the pity," replied another. "Time waslong and merry ago now!when not one of the varmits was

to be heard of; but it served some of the quires right. They should have stuck to strings as we did, and kept

out clarinets, and done away with serpents. If you'd thrive in musical religion, stick to strings, says I."

"Yet there's worse things than serpents," said Mr. Penny. "Old things pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a

"Clar'nets, however, be bad at all times," said Michael Mail. "One Christmasyears agone now, yearsI

went the rounds wi' the Weatherbury quire. 'Twas a hard frosty night, and the keys of all the clar'nets

frozeah, they did freeze!so that 'twas like drawing a cork every time a key was opened; and the players

o' 'em had to go into a hedgerandditcher's chimleycorner, and thaw their clar'nets every now and then. An

icicle o' spet hung down from the end of every man's clar'net a span long; and as to fingerswell, there, if

"I can well bring back to my mind," said Mr. Penny, "what I said to poor Joseph Ryme (who took the treble

part in ChalkNewton Church for twoandforty year) when they thought of having clar'nets there. "Joseph,"

I said, says I, "depend upon't, if so be you have them tooting clar'nets you'll spoil the whole setout. Clar'nets

were not made for the service of the Lard; you can see it by looking at 'em," I said. And what came o't? Why,

souls, the parson set up a barrelorgan on his own account within two years o' the time I spoke, and the old

"As far as look is concerned," said the tranter, "I don't for my part see that a fiddle is much nearer heaven

than a clar'net. 'Tis further off. There's always a rakish, scampish twist about a fiddle's looks that seems to say

the Wicked One had a hand in making o'en; while angels be supposed to play clar'nets in heaven, or som'at

"Robert Penny, you was in the right," broke in the eldest Dewy. "They should ha' stuck to strings. Your

brassman is a rafting dog well and good; your reedman is a dab at stirring yewell and good; your

drumman is a rare bowelshakergood again. But I don't care who hears me say it, nothing will spak to

"Strings alone would have held their ground against all the new comers in creation." ("True, true!" said

Bowman.) "But clarinets was death." ("Death they was!" said Mr. Penny.) "And harmonions," William

continued in a louder voice, and getting excited by these signs of approval, "harmonions and barrelorgans"

"Sinners," suggested Jimmy, who made large strides like the men, and did not lag behind like the other little

"Right, William, and so they bemiserable dumbledores!" said the choir with unanimity.

By this time they were crossing to a gate in the direction of the school, which, standing on a slight eminence

at the junction of three ways, now rose in unvarying and dark flatness against the sky. The instruments were

retuned, and all the band entered the school enclosure, enjoined by old William to keep upon the grass.

"Number seventyeight," he softly gave out as they formed round in a semicircle, the boys opening the

Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and timeworn hymn, embodying a quaint Christianity in

words orally transmitted from father to son through several generations down to the present characters, who

"Remember Adam's fall, O thou Man: Remember Adam's fall From Heaven to Hell. Remember Adam's fall

Remember God's goodnesse, O thou Man: Remember God's goodnesse, His promise made. Remember God's

In Bethlehem He was born, O thou Man: In Bethlehem He was born, For mankind's sake.

In Bethlehem He was born, Christmasday i' the morn: Our Saviour thought no scorn Our faults to take.

Give thanks to God alway, O thou Man: Give thanks to God alway With heartmost joy. Give thanks to God

Having concluded the last note, they listened for a minute or two, but found that no sound issued from the

"Four breaths, and then, "O, what unbounded goodness!" number fifty nine," said William.

This was duly gone through, and no notice whatever seemed to be taken of the performance.

"Good guide us, surely 'tisn't a' empty house, as befell us in the year thirtynine and fortythree!" said old

"Perhaps she's jist come from some musical city, and sneers at our doings?" the tranter whispered.

"'Od rabbit her!" said Mr. Penny, with an annihilating look at a corner of the school chimney, "I don't quite

stomach her, if this is it. Your plain music well done is as worthy as your other sort done bad, a' b'lieve,

"Four breaths, and then the last," said the leader authoritatively. "'Rejoice, ye Tenants of the Earth,' number

At the close, waiting yet another minute, he said in a clear loud voice, as he had said in the village at that

When the expectant stillness consequent upon the exclamation had nearly died out of them all, an increasing

light made itself visible in one of the windows of the upper floor. It came so close to the blind that the exact

position of the flame could be perceived from the outside. Remaining steady for an instant, the blind went

upward from before it, revealing to thirty concentrated eyes a young girl, framed as a picture by the window

architrave, and unconsciously illuminating her countenance to a vivid brightness by a candle she held in her

left hand, close to her face, her right hand being extended to the side of the window. She was wrapped in a

white robe of some kind, whilst down her shoulders fell a twining profusion of marvellously rich hair, in a

wild disorder which proclaimed it to be only during the invisible hours of the night that such a condition was

discoverable. Her bright eyes were looking into the grey world outside with an uncertain expression,

oscillating between courage and shyness, which, as she recognized the semicircular group of dark forms

Together went the window quickly and quietly, and the blind started downward on its return to its place. Her

fair forehead and eyes vanished; her little mouth; her neck and shoulders; all of her. Then the spot of

"As near a thing to a spiritual vision as ever I wish to see!" said tranter Dewy.

All the rest, after clearing their threats and adjusting their hats, agreed that such a sight was worth singing for.

"Now to Farmer Shiner's, and then replenish our insides, father?" said the tranter.

Farmer Shiner's was a queer lump of a house, standing at the corner of a lane that ran into the principal

thoroughfare. The upper windows were much wider than they were high, and this feature, together with a

broad baywindow where the door might have been expected, gave it by day the aspect of a human

countenance turned askance, and wearing a sly and wicked leer. Tonight nothing was visible but the outline

The front of this building was reached, and the preliminaries arranged as usual.

"Four breaths, and number thirtytwo, 'Behold the Morning Star,'" said old William.

They had reached the end of the second verse, and the fiddlers were doing the up bowstroke previously to

pouring forth the opening chord of the third verse, when, without a light appearing or any signal being given,

"Shut up, woll 'ee! Don't make your blaring row here! A feller wi' a headache enough to split his skull likes a

"Hullo, that's a' ugly blow for we!" said the tranter, in a keenly appreciative voice, and turning to his

"Finish the carrel, all who be friends of harmony!" commanded old William; and they continued to the end.

"Four breaths, and number nineteen!" said William firmly. "Give it him well; the quire can't be insulted in

A light now flashed into existence, the window opened, and the farmer stood revealed as one in a terrific

"Drown en!drown en!" the tranter cried, fiddling frantically. "Play fortissimy, and drown his spaking!"

"Fortissimy!" said Michael Mail, and the music and singing waxed so loud that it was impossible to know

what Mr. Shiner had said, was saying, or was about to say; but wildly flinging his arms and body about in the

forms of capital Xs and Ys, he appeared to utter enough invectives to consign the whole parish to perdition.

"Very onseemlyvery!" said old William, as they retired. "Never such a dreadful scene in the whole round

"Only a drap o' drink got into his head," said the tranter. "Man's well enough when he's in his religious frame.

He's in his worldly frame now. Must ask en to our bit of a party tomorrow night, I suppose, and so put en in

They now crossed Mellstock Bridge, and went along an embowered path beside the Froom towards the

church and vicarage, meeting Voss with the hot mead and breadandcheese as they were approaching the

churchyard. This determined them to eat and drink before proceeding further, and they entered the church and

ascended to the gallery. The lanterns were opened, and the whole body sat round against the walls on benches

and whatever else was available, and made a hearty meal. In the pauses of conversation there could be heard

through the floor overhead a little world of undertones and creaks from the halting clockwork, which never

spread further than the tower they were born in, and raised in the more meditative minds a fancy that here hay

Having done eating and drinking, they again tuned the instruments, and once more the party emerged into the

Every man hooked round upon every other man, as if Dick might have been transmuted into one or the other;

"Well now, that's what I call very nasty of Master Dicky, that I do," said Michael Mail.

"He've clinked off homealong, depend upon't," another suggested, though not quite believing that he had.

"Dick!" exclaimed the tranter, and his voice rolled sonorously forth among the yews.

He suspended his muscles rigid as stone whilst listening for an answer, and finding he listened in vain, turned

"The treble man too! Now if he'd been a tenor or counter chap, we might ha' contrived the rest o't without en,

you see. But for a quire to lose the treble, why, my sonnies, you may so well lose your . . . " The tranter

The tranter moved a pace, as if it were puerile of people to complete sentences when there were more

"Was ever heard such a thing as a young man leaving his work half done and turning tail like this!"

"Never," replied Bowman, in a tone signifying that he was the last man in the world to wish to withhold the

"O no," replied tranter Dewy placidly. "Wonder where he's put that there fiddle of his. Why that fiddle cost

thirty shillings, and good words besides. Somewhere in the damp, without doubt; that instrument will be

"What in the name o' righteousness can have happened?" said old William, more uneasily. "Perhaps he's

"Leaving their lanterns and instruments in the belfry they retraced their steps along the waterside track. "A

strapping lad like Dick d'know better than let anything happen onawares," Reuben remarked. "There's sure to

be some poor little scram reason for't staring us in the face all the while." He lowered his voice to a

mysterious tone: 'Neighbours, have ye noticed any sign of a scornful woman in his head, or suchlike?"

"And Dicky said he should never marry," cried Jimmy, "but live at home always along wi' mother and we!"

They had now again reached the precincts of Mr. Shiner's, but hearing nobody in that direction, one or two

went across to the schoolhouse. A light was still burning in the bedroom, and though the blind was down, the

window had been slightly opened, as if to admit the distant notes of the carollers to the ears of the occupant

Opposite the window, leaning motionless against a beech tree, was the lost man, his arms folded, his head

Dick's body instantly flew into a more rational attitude, and his head was seen to turn east and west in the

gloom, as if endeavouring to discern some proper answer to that question; and at last he said in rather feeble

"Th'st take long enough time about it then, upon my body," said the tranter, as they all turned anew towards

"Why, we've been traypsing and rambling about, looking everywhere, and thinking you'd done fifty deathly

"The stupidness lies in that point of it being nothing at all," murmured Mr. Spinks.

The vicarage front was their next field of operation, and Mr. Maybold, the latelyarrived incumbent, duly

received his share of the night's harmonies. It was hoped that by reason of his profession he would have been

led to open the window, and an extra carol in quick time was added to draw him forth. But Mr. Maybold

However, at that same instant a musical voice was heard exclaiming from inner depths of

"What did he say?" asked Bowman, who was rather dull of hearing. Bowman's voice, being therefore loud,

"Now don't for heaven's sake spoil the young man's temper by answering like that!" said the tranter.

"Well to be sure, what ears!" said Mr. Penny in a whisper. "Beats any horse or dog in the parish, and depend

Old William, in his gratitude for such thanks from a comparatively new inhabitant, was anxious to play all

the tunes over again; but renounced his desire on being reminded by Reuben that it would be best to leave

"Now putting two and two together," the tranter continued, as they went their way over the hill, and across to

the last remaining houses; "that is, in the form of that young female vision we zeed just now, and this young

tenorvoiced parson, my belief is she'll wind en round her finger, and twist the pore young feller about like

The choir at last reached their beds, and slept like the rest of the parish. Dick's slumbers, through the three or

four hours remaining for rest, were disturbed and slight; an exhaustive variation upon the incidents that had

passed that night in connection with the schoolwindow going on in his brain every moment of the time.

In the morning, do what he wouldgo upstairs, downstairs, out of doors, speak of the wind and weather, or

what nothe could not refrain from an unceasing renewal, in imagination, of that interesting enactment.

Tilted on the edge of one foot he stood beside the fireplace, watching his mother grilling rashers; but there

was nothing in grilling, he thought, unless the Vision grilled. The limp rasher hung down between the bars of

the gridiron like a cat in a child's arms; but there was nothing in similes, unless She uttered them. He looked

at the daylight shadows of a yellow hue, dancing with the firelight shadows in blue on the whitewashed

chimney corner, but there was nothing in shadows. "Perhaps the new young womschMiss Fancy Day

The tranter looked a long time before he replied, "I fancy she will; and yet I fancy she won't."

Dick implied that such a remark was rather to be tolerated than admired; though deliberateness in speech was

known to have, as a rule, more to do with the machinery of the tranter's throat than with the matter

They made preparations for going to church as usual; Dick with extreme alacrity, though he would not

definitely consider why he was so religious. His wonderful nicety in brushing and cleaning his best light

boots had features which elevated it to the rank of an art. Every particle and speck of last week's mud was

scraped and brushed from toe and heel; new blacking from the packet was carefully mixed and made use of,

regardless of expense. A coat was laid on and polished; then another coat for increased blackness; and lastly a

third, to give the perfect and mirrorlike jet which the hopedfor rencounter demanded.

It being Christmasday, the tranter prepared himself with Sunday particularity. Loud sousing and snorting

noises were heard to proceed from a tub in the back quarters of the dwelling, proclaiming that he was there

performing his great Sunday wash, lasting halfan hour, to which his washings on workingday mornings

were mere flashes in the pan. Vanishing into the outhouse with a large brown towel, and the abovenamed

bubblings and snortings being carried on for about twenty minutes, the tranter would appear round the edge

of the door, smelling like a summer fog, and looking as if he had just narrowly escaped a watery grave with

the loss of much of his clothes, having since been weeping bitterly till his eyes were red; a crystal drop of

water hanging ornamentally at the bottom of each ear, one at the tip of his nose, and others in the form of

After a great deal of crunching upon the sanded stone floor by the feet of father, son, and grandson as they

moved to and fro in these preparations, the bassviol and fiddles were taken from their nook, and the strings

examined and screwed a little above concertpitch, that they might keep their tone when the service began, to

obviate the awkward contingency of having to retune them at the back of the gallery during a cough, sneeze,

The three left the door and paced down Mellstocklane and across the ewelease, bearing under their arms

the instruments in faded green baize bags, and old brown musicbooks in their hands; Dick continually

finding himself in advance of the other two, and the tranter moving on with toes turned outwards to an

At the foot of an incline the church became visible through the north gate, or 'church hatch,' as it was called

here. Seven agile figures in a clump were observable beyond, which proved to be the choristers waiting;

sitting on an altartomb to pass the time, and letting their heels dangle against it. The musicians being now in

sight, the youthful party scampered off and rattled up the old wooden stairs of the gallery like a regiment of

cavalry; the other boys of the parish waiting outside and observing birds, cats, and other creatures till the

vicar entered, when they suddenly subsided into sober churchgoers, and passed down the aisle with echoing

The gallery of Mellstock Church had a status and sentiment of its own. A stranger there was regarded with a

feeling altogether differing from that of the congregation below towards him. Banished from the nave as an

intruder whom no originality could make interesting, he was received above as a curiosity that no unfitness

could render dull. The gallery, too, looked down upon and knew the habits of the nave to its remotest

peculiarity, and had an extensive stock of exclusive information about it; whilst the nave knew nothing of the

gallery folk, as gallery folk, beyond their loud sounding minims and chest notes. Such topics as that the

clerk was always chewing tobacco except at the moment of crying amen; that he had a dusthole in his pew;

that during the sermon certain young daughters of the village had left off caring to read anything so mild as

the marriage service for some years, and now regularly studied the one which chronologically follows it; that

a pair of lovers touched fingers through a knothole between their pews in the manner ordained by their great

exemplars, Pyramus and Thisbe; that Mrs. Ledlow, the farmer's wife, counted her money and reckoned her

week's marketing expenses during the first lessonall news to those belowwere stale subjects here.

Old William sat in the centre of the front row, his violoncello between his knees and two singers on each

hand. Behind him, on the left, came the treble singers and Dick; and on the right the tranter and the tenors.

But before they had taken their places, and whilst they were standing in a circle at the back of the gallery

practising a psalm or two, Dick cast his eyes over his grandfather's shoulder, and saw the vision of the past

night enter the porchdoor as methodically as if she had never been a vision at all. A new atmosphere seemed

suddenly to be puffed into the ancient edifice by her movement, which made Dick's body and soul tingle with

novel sensations. Directed by Shiner, the churchwarden, she proceeded to the small aisle on the north side of

the chancel, a spot now allotted to a throng of Sundayschool girls, and distinctly visible from the

Before this moment the church had seemed comparatively emptynow it was thronged; and as Miss Fancy

rose from her knees and looked around her for a permanent place in which to deposit herself finally

choosing the remotest cornerDick began to breathe more freely the warm new air she had brought with

her; to feel rushings of blood, and to have impressions that there was a tie between her and himself visible to

Ever afterwards the young man could recollect individually each part of the service of that bright Christmas

morning, and the trifling occurrences which took place as its minutes slowly drew along; the duties of that

day dividing themselves by a complete line from the services of other times. The tunes they that morning

essayed remained with him for years, apart from all others; also the text; also the appearance of the layer of

dust upon the capitals of the piers; that the hollybough in the chancel archway was hung a little out of the

centreall the ideas, in short, that creep into the mind when reason is only exercising its lowest activity

By chance or by fate, another young man who attended Mellstock Church on that Christmas morning had

towards the end of the service the same instinctive perception of an interesting presence, in the shape of the

same bright maiden, though his emotion reached a far less developed stage. And there was this difference,

too, that the person in question was surprised at his condition, and sedulously endeavoured to reduce himself

The music on Christmas mornings was frequently below the standard of churchperformances at other times.

The boys were sleepy from the heavy exertions of the night; the men were slightly wearied; and now, in

addition to these constant reasons, there was a dampness in the atmosphere that still further aggravated the

evil. Their strings, from the recent long exposure to the night air, rose whole semitones, and snapped with a

loud twang at the most silent moment; which necessitated more retiring than ever to the back of the gallery,

and made the gallery throats quite husky with the quantity of coughing and hemming required for tuning in.

When the singing was in progress there was suddenly discovered to be a strong and shrill reinforcement from

some point, ultimately found to be the schoolgirls' aisle. At every attempt it grew bolder and more distinct.

At the third time of singing, these intrusive feminine voices were as mighty as those of the regular singers; in

fact, the flood of sound from this quarter assumed such an individuality, that it had a time, a key, almost a

tune of its own, surging upwards when the gallery plunged downwards, and the reverse.

Now this had never happened before within the memory of man. The girls, like the rest of the congregation,

had always been humble and respectful followers of the gallery; singing at sixes and sevens if without gallery

leaders; never interfering with the ordinances of these practised artistshaving no will, union, power, or

proclivity except it was given them from the established choir enthroned above them.

A good deal of desperation became noticeable in the gallery throats and strings, which continued throughout

the musical portion of the service. Directly the fiddles were laid down, Mr. Penny's spectacles put in their

"True; why, they were every note as loud as we, fiddles and all, if not louder!"

"What I want to know is," said the tranter (as if he knew already, but that civilization required the form of

words), "what business people have to tell maidens to sing like that when they don't sit in a gallery, and never

"'Tis the gallery have got to sing, all the world knows," said Mr. Penny. "Why, souls, what's the use o' the

ancients spending scores of pounds to build galleries if people down in the lowest depths of the church sing

"Really, I think we useless ones had better march out of church, fiddles and all!" said Mr. Spinks, with a

laugh which, to a stranger, would have sounded mild and real. Only the initiated body of men he addressed

could understand the horrible bitterness of irony that lurked under the quiet words 'useless ones,' and the

"Thomas Leaf, Thomas Leaf! Where have you lived all your life?" said grandfather William sternly.

"When all's said and done, my sonnies," Reuben said, "there'd have been no real harm in their singing if they

"None at all," said Mr. Penny. "But though I don't wish to accuse people wrongfully, I'd say before my lord

judge that I could hear every note o' that last psalm come from 'em as much as from us every note as if

"Know it! ah, I should think I did know it!" Mr. Spinks was heard to observe at this moment, without

reference to his fellow players shaking his head at some idea he seemed to see floating before him, and

smiling as if he were attending a funeral at the time. "Ah, do I or don't I know it!"

No one said "Know what?" because all were aware from experience that what he knew would declare itself in

"I could fancy last night that we should have some trouble wi' that young man," said the tranter, pending the

continuance of Spinks's speech, and looking towards the unconscious Mr. Maybold in the pulpit.

"_I_ fancy," said old William, rather severely, "I fancy there's too much whispering going on to be of any

spiritual use to gentle or simple." Then folding his lips and concentrating his glance on the vicar, he implied

that none but the ignorant would speak again; and accordingly there was silence in the gallery, Mr. Spinks's

Dick had said nothing, and the tranter little, on this episode of the morning; for Mrs. Dewy at breakfast

expressed it as her intention to invite the youthful leader of the culprits to the small party it was customary

with them to have on Christmas nighta piece of knowledge which had given a particular brightness to

Dick's reflections since he had received it. And in the tranter's slightlycynical nature, party feeling was

weaker than in the other members of the choir, though friendliness and faithful partnership still sustained in

During the afternoon unusual activity was seen to prevail about the precincts of tranter Dewy's house. The

flagstone floor was swept of dust, and a sprinkling of the finest yellow sand from the innermost stratum of the

adjoining sandpit lightly scattered thereupon. Then were produced large knives and forks, which had been

shrouded in darkness and grease since the last occasion of the kind, and bearing upon their sides,

"Shearsteel, warranted," in such emphatic letters of assurance, that the warranter's name was not required as

further proof, and not given. The key was left in the tap of the cider barrel, instead of being carried in a

pocket. And finally the tranter had to stand up in the room and let his wife wheel him round like a turnstile, to

The only repairs necessary were a trimming of one or two whiskers that had extended beyond the general

contour of the mass; a like trimming of a slightlyfrayed edge visible on his shirtcollar; and a final tug at a

grey hairto all of which operations he submitted in resigned silence, except the last, which produced a mild

"Really, Reuben, 'tis quite a disgrace to see such a man," said Mrs. Dewy, with the severity justifiable in a

longtried companion, giving him another turn round, and picking several of Smiler's hairs from the shoulder

of his coat. Reuben's thoughts seemed engaged elsewhere, and he yawned. "And the cellar of your coat is a

shame to beholdso plastered with dirt, or dust, or grease, or something. Why, wherever could you have got

"'Tis my warm nater in summertime, I suppose. I always did get in such a heat when I bustle about."

"Ay, the Dewys always were such a coarseskinned family. There's your brother Bob just as badas fat as a

porpoisewi' his how, mean, "How'st do, Ann?" whenever he meets me. I'd "How'st do" him indeed! If the

sun only shines out a minute, there be you all streaming in the faceI never see!"

"If any of the girls should turn after their father 'twill be a bad lookout for 'em, poor things! None of my

family were sich vulgar sweaters, not one of 'em. But, Lordamercy, the Dewys! I don't know how ever I

"Your woman's weakness when I asked ye to jine us. That's how it was I suppose." But the tranter appeared

to have heard some such words from his wife before, and hence his answer had not the energy it might have

"You never did hook so well in a pair o' trousers as in them," she continued in the same unimpassioned voice,

so that the unfriendly criticism of the Dewy family seemed to have been mere normal than spontaneous.

"Such a cheap pair as 'twas too. As big as any man could wish to have, and lined inside, and doublelined in

the lower parts, and an extra piece of stiffening at the bottom. And 'tis a nice high cut that comes up right

under your armpits, and there's enough turned down inside the seams to make half a pair more, besides a

piece of cloth heft that will make an honest waistcoat all by my contriving in buying the stuff at a bargain,

and having it made up under my eye. It only shows what may be done by taking a little trouble, and not going

The discourse was cut short by the sudden appearance of Charley on the scene, with a face and hands of

hideous blackness, and a nose like a guttering candle. Why, on that particularly cleanly afternoon, he should

have discovered that the chimneycrook and chain from which the hams were suspended should have

possessed more merits and general interest as playthings than any other articles in the house, is a question for

nursing mothers to decide. However, the humour seemed to lie in the result being, as has been seen, that any

given player with these articles was in the longrun daubed with soot. The last that was seen of Charley by

daylight after this piece of ingenuity was when in the act of vanishing from his father's presence round the

corner of the houselooking back over his shoulder with an expression of great sin on his face, like Cain as

The guests had all assembled, and the tranter's party had reached that degree of development which accords

with ten o'clock P.M. in rural assemblies. At that hour the sound of a fiddle in process of tuning was heard

"Dick! Now I cannotreally, I cannot have any dancing at all till Christmasday is out," said old William

emphatically. "When the clock ha' done striking twelve, dance as much as ye like."

"Well, I must say there's reason in that, William," said Mrs. Penny. "If you do have a party on

Christmasnight, 'tis only fair and honourable to the skyfolk to have it a sitstill party. Jigging parties be all

very well on the Devil's holidays; but a jigging party looks suspicious now. O yes; stop till the chock strikes,

It happened that some warm mead accidentally got into Mr. Spinks's head about this time.

"Dancing," he said, "is a most strengthening, livening, and courting movement, 'specially with a little

beverage added! And dancing is good. But why disturb what is ordained, Richard and Reuben, and the

Though Reuben and his wife ruled on social points, religious questions were mostly disposed of by the old

man, whose firmness on this head quite counterbalanced a certain weakness in his handling of domestic

matters. The hopes of the younger members of the household were therefore relegated to a distance of one

hour and threequartersa result that took visible shape in them by a remote and listless look about the

At five minutes to twelve the soft tuning was again heard in the back quarters; and when at length the clock

had whizzed forth the last stroke, Dick appeared ready primed, and the instruments were boldly handled; old

William very readily taking the bassviol from its accustomed nail, and touching the strings as irreligiously

The countrydance called the 'Triumph, or Follow my Lover,' was the figure with which they opened. The

tranter took for his partner Mrs. Penny, and Mrs. Dewy was chosen by Mr. Penny, who made so much of his

limited height by a judicious carriage of the head, straightening of the back, and important flashes of his

spectacle glasses, that he seemed almost as tall as the tranter. Mr. Shiner, age about thirtyfive, farmer and

churchwarden, a character principally composed of a crimson stare, vigorous breath, and a watchchain,

with a mouth hanging on a dark smile but never smiling, had come quite willingly to the party, and showed a

wondrous obliviousness of all his antics on the previous night. But the comely, slender, prettilydressed prize

Fancy Day fell to Dick's hot, in spite of some private machinations of the farmer, for the reason that Mr.

Shiner, as a richer man, had shown too much assurance in asking the favour, whilst Dick had been duly

We gain a good view of our heroine as she advances to her place in the ladies' line. She belonged to the taller

division of middle height. Flexibility was her first characteristic, by which she appeared to enjoy the most

easeful rest when she was in gliding motion. Her dark eyesarched by brows of so keen, slender, and soft a

curve, that they resembled nothing so much as two slurs in musicshowed primarily a bright sparkle each.

This was softened by a frequent thoughtfulness, yet not so frequent as to do away, for more than a few

minutes at a time, with a certain coquettishness; which in its turn was never so decided as to banish honesty.

Her lips imitated her brows in their clearlycut outline and softness of bend; and her nose was well

shapedwhich is saying a great deal, when it is remembered that there are a hundred pretty mouths and eyes

for one pretty nose. Add to this, plentiful knots of dark brown hair, a gauzy dress of white, with blue

facings; and the slightest idea may be gained of the young maiden who showed, amidst the rest of the

dancingladies, like a flower among vegetables. And so the dance proceeded. Mr. Shiner, according to the

interesting rule laid down, deserted his own partner, and made off down the middle with this fair one of

Dick'sthe pair appearing from the top of the room like two persons tripping down a lane to be married.

Dick trotted behind with what was intended to be a look of composure, but which was, in fact, a rather silly

expression of featureimplying, with too much earnestness, that such an elopement could not be tolerated.

Then they turned and came back, when Dick grew more rigid around his mouth, and blushed with ingenuous

ardour as he joined hands with the rival and formed the arch over his lady's head; which presumably gave the

figure its name; relinquishing her again at setting to partners, when Mr. Shiner's new chain quivered in every

link, and all the loose flesh upon the tranterwho here came into action againshook like jelly. Mrs.

Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal safety when she danced with the tranter, fixed her face

to a chronic smile of timidity the whole time it hasteda peculiarity which filled her features with wrinkles,

and reduced her eyes to little straight lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down opposite him; repeating

in her own person not only his proper movements, but also the minor flourishes which the richness of the

tranter's imagination led him to introduce from time to timean imitation which had about it something of

The earrings of the ladies now flung themselves wildly about, turning violent summersaults, banging this

way and that, and then swinging quietly against the ears sustaining them. Mrs. Crumplera heavy woman,

who, for some reason which nobody ever thought worth inquiry, danced in a clean apronmoved so

smoothly through the figure that her feet were never seen; conveying to imaginative minds the idea that she

Minute after minute glided by, and the party reached the period when ladies' backhair begins to look

forgotten and dissipated; when a perceptible dampness makes itself apparent upon the faces even of delicate

girlsa ghastly dew having for some time rained from the features of their masculine partners; when skirts

begin to be torn out of their gathers; when elderly people, who have stood up to please their juniors, begin to

feel sundry small tremblings in the region of the knees, and to wish the interminable dance was at Jericho;

when (at country parties of the thorough sort)waistcoats begin to be unbuttoned, and when the fiddlers' chairs

have been wriggled, by the frantic bowing of their occupiers, to a distance of about two feet from where they

Fancy was dancing with Mr. Shiner. Dick knew that Fancy, by the law of good manners, was bound to dance

as pleasantly with one partner as with another; yet he could not help suggesting to himself that she need not

have put QUITE so much spirit into her steps, nor smiled QUITE so frequently whilst in the farmer's hands.

"I'm afraid you didn't cast off," said Dick mildly to Mr. Shiner, before the latter man's watchchain had done

Fancy made a motion of accepting the correction; but her partner took no notice, and proceeded with the next

"That Shiner's too fond of her," the young man said to himself as he watched them. They came to the top

"Mr. Shiner, you didn't cast off," said Dick, for want of something else to demolish him with; casting off

Dick's partner, a young lady of the name of Lizzycalled Lizz for shorttried to mollify.

"Nor I," said Mrs. Penny, following up the argument, "especially if a friend and neighbour is set against it.

Not but that 'tis a terrible tasty thing in good hands and well done; yes, indeed, so say I."

"All I meant was," said Dick, rather sorry that he had spoken correctingly to a guest, "that 'tis in the dance;

and a man has hardly any right to hack and mangle what was ordained by the regular dancemaker, who, I

daresay, got his living by making 'em, and thought of nothing else all his life."

"I don't like casting off: then very well; I cast off for no dance maker that ever lived."

Dick now appeared to be doing mental arithmetic, the act being really an effort to present to himself, in an

abstract form, how far an argument with a formidable rival ought to be carried, when that rival was his

mother's guest. The deadlock was put an end to by the stamping arrival up the middle of the tranter, who,

"I assure you, neighbours," he said, "the heat of my frame no tongue can tell!" He looked around and

endeavoured to give, by a forcible gaze of selfsympathy, some faint idea of the truth.

Mrs. Penny implied the species of sympathy that such a class of affliction required, by trying to smile and to

"If he only walk round the garden of a Sunday morning, his shirt collar is as limp as no starch at all,"

continued Mrs. Dewy, her countenance lapsing parenthetically into a housewifely expression of concern at

"Come, come, you womenfolk; 'tis hands acrosscome, come!" said the tranter; and the conversation

Dick had at length secured Fancy for that most delightful of countrydances, opening with sixhandsround.

"Before we begin," said the tranter, "my proposal is, that 'twould be a right and proper plan for every mortal

"Such low notions as you have, Reuben! Nothing but strip will go down with you when you are adancing.

"Well, now, look here, my sonnies," he argued to his wife, whom he often addressed in the plural masculine

for economy of epithet merely; "I don't see that. You dance and get hot as fire; therefore you lighten your

clothes. Isn't that nature and reason for gentle and simple? If I strip by myself and not necessary, 'tis rather

pothousey I own; but if we stout chaps strip one and all, why, 'tis the native manners of the country, which

"Strip we will!" said the three other heavy men who were in the dance; and their coats were accordingly taken

off and hung in the passage, whence the four sufferers from heat soon reappeared, marching in close column,

with flapping shirtsleeves, and having, as common to them all, a general glance of being now a match for

any man or dancer in England or Ireland. Dick, fearing to lose ground in Fancy's good opinion, retained his

coat like the rest of the thinner men; and Mr. Shiner did the same from superior knowledge.

And now a further phase of revelry had disclosed itself. It was the time of night when a guest may write his

name in the dust upon the tables and chairs, and a bluish mist pervades the atmosphere, becoming a distinct

halo round the candles; when people's nostrils, wrinkles, and crevices in general, seem to be getting gradually

plastered up; when the very fiddlers as well as the dancers get red in the face, the dancers having advanced

further still towards incandescence, and entered the cadaverous phase; the fiddlers no longer sit down, but

kick back their chairs and saw madly at the strings, with legs firmly spread and eyes closed, regardless of the

visible world. Again and again did Dick share his Love's hand with another man, and wheel round; then,

more delightfully, promenade in a circle with her all to himself, his arm holding her waist more firmly each

time, and his elbow getting further and further behind her back, till the distance reached was rather

noticeable; and, most blissful, swinging to places shoulder to shoulder, her breath curling round his neck like

a summer zephyr that had strayed from its proper date. Threading the couples one by one they reached the

bottom, when there arose in Dick's mind a minor misery lest the tune should end before they could work their

way to the top again, and have anew the same exciting run down through. Dick's feelings on actually reaching

the top in spite of his doubts were supplemented by a mortal fear that the fiddling might even stop at this

supreme moment; which prompted him to convey a stealthy whisper to the far gone musicians, to the effect

that they were not to leave off till he and his partner had reached the bottom of the dance once more, which

remark was replied to by the nearest of those convulsed and quivering men by a private nod to the anxious

young man between two semiquavers of the tune, and a simultaneous "All right, ay, ay," without opening the

eyes. Fancy was now held so closely that Dick and she were practically one person. The room became to

Dick like a picture in a dream; all that he could remember of it afterwards being the look of the fiddlers going

to sleep, as hummingtops sleep, by increasing their motion and hum, together with the figures of

grandfather James and old Simon Crumpler sitting by the chimney corner, talking and nodding in

dumbshow, and beating the air to their emphatic sentences like people near a threshing machine.

The dance ended. "Piphhhh!" said tranter Dewy, blowing out his breath in the very finest stream of

vapour that a man's lips could form. "A regular tightener, that one, sonnies!" He wiped his forehead, and went

"Well!" said Mrs. Penny, flopping into a chair, "my heart haven't been in such a thumping state of uproar

since I used to sit up on old Midsummereves to see who my husband was going to be."

"And that's getting on for a good few years ago now, from what I've heard you tell," said the tranter, without

lifting his eyes from the cup he was filling. Being now engaged in the business of handing round

refreshments, he was warranted in keeping his coat off still, though the other heavy men had resumed theirs.

"And a thing I never expected would come to pass, if you'll believe me, came to pass then," continued Mrs.

Penny. "Ah, the first spirit ever I see on a Midsummereve was a puzzle to me when he appeared, a hard

"Yes," said Mrs. Penny, throwing her glance into past times, and talking on in a running tone of complacent

abstraction, as if a listener were not a necessity. "Yes; never was I in such a taking as on that

Midsummereve! I sat up, quite determined to see if John Wildway was going to marry me or no. I put the

breadandcheese and beer quite ready, as the witch's book ordered, and I opened the door, and I waited till

the clock struck twelve, my nerves all alive and so strained that I could feel every one of 'em twitching like

bellwires. Yes, sure! and when the clock had struck, ho and behold, I could see through the door a LITTLE

"Now, John Wildway," Mrs. Penny continued, "who courted me at that time, was a shoemaker, you see, but

he was a very fairsized man, and I couldn't believe that any such a little small man had anything to do wi'

me, as anybody might. But on he came, and crossed the thresholdnot John, but actually the same little

"In he walks, and down he sits, and O my goodness me, didn't I flee upstairs, body and soul hardly hanging

together! Well, to cut a long story short, bylong and bylate. John Wildway and I had a miff and parted; and

lo and behold, the coming man came! Penny asked me if I'd go snacks with him, and afore I knew what I was

"I've fancied you never knew better in your life; but I mid be mistaken," said Mr. Penny in a murmur.

After Mrs. Penny had spoken, there being no new occupation for her eyes, she still let them stay idling on the

past scenes just related, which were apparently visible to her in the centre of the room Mr. Penny's remark

During this discourse the tranter and his wife might have been observed standing in an unobtrusive corner, in

mysterious closeness to each other, a just perceptible current of intelligence passing from each to each, which

had apparently no relation whatever to the conversation of their guests, but much to their sustenance. A

conclusion of some kind having at length been drawn, the palpable confederacy of man and wife was once

more obliterated, the tranter marching off into the pantry, humming a tune that he couldn't quite recollect, and

then breaking into the words of a song of which he could remember about one line and a quarter. Mrs. Dewy

That elder portion of the company which loved eating and drinking put on a look to signify that till this

moment they had quite forgotten that it was customary to expect suppers on these occasions; going even

further than this politeness of feature, and starting irrelevant subjects, the exceeding flatness and forced tone

of which rather betrayed their object. The younger members said they were quite hungry, and that supper

Good luck attended Dick's lovepasses during the meal. He sat next Fancy, and had the thrilling pleasure of

using permanently a glass which had been taken by Fancy in mistake; of letting the outer edge of the sole of

his boot touch the lower verge of her skirt; and to add to these delights the cat, which had lain unobserved in

her hap for several minutes, crept across into his own, touching him with fur that had touched her hand a

moment before. There were, besides, some little pleasures in the shape of helping her to vegetable she didn't

want, and when it had nearly alighted on her plate taking it across for his own use, on the plea of waste not,

want not. He also, from time to time, sipped sweet sly glances at her profile; noticing the set of her head, the

curve of her throat, and other artistic properties of the lively goddess, who the while kept up a rather free, not

to say too free, conversation with Mr. Shiner sitting opposite; which, after some uneasy criticism, and much

shifting of argument backwards and forwards in Dick's mind, he decided not to consider of alarming

"A new music greets our ears now," said Miss Fancy, alluding, with the sharpness that her position as village

sharpener demanded, to the contrast between the rattle of knives and forks and the late notes of the fiddlers.

"Ay; and I don't know but what 'tis sweeter in tone when you get above forty," said the tranter; "except, in

faith, as regards father there. Never such a mortal man as he for tunes. They do move his soul; don't 'em,

The eldest Dewy smiled across from his distant chair an assent to Reuben's remark.

"Spaking of being moved in soul," said Mr. Penny, "I shall never forget the first time I heard the "Dead

March." 'Twas at poor Corp'l Nineman's funeral at Casterbridge. It fairly made my hair creep and fidget about

like a vlock of sheepah, it did, souls! And when they had done, and the last trump had sounded, and the

guns was fired over the dead hero's grave, a' icycold drop o' moist sweat hung upon my forehead, and

"Well, as to father in the corner there," the tranter said, pointing to old William, who was in the act of filling

his mouth; "he'd starve to death for music's sake now, as much as when he was a boy chap of fifteen."

"Truly, now," said Michael Mail, clearing the corner of his throat in the manner of a man who meant to be

convincing; 'there's a friendly tie of some sort between music and eating." He lifted the cup to his mouth, and

drank himself gradually backwards from a perpendicular position to a slanting one, during which time his

looks performed a circuit from the wall opposite him to the ceiling overhead. Then clearing the other corner

of his throat: 'Once I was asetting in the little kitchen of the Dree Mariners at Casterbridge, having a bit of

dinner, and a brass band struck up in the street. Such a beautiful band as that were! I was setting eating fried

liver and lights, I well can mindah, I was! and to save my life, I couldn't help chawing to the tune. Band

played six eight time; sixeight chaws I, willynilly. Band plays common; common time went my teeth

among the liver and lights as true as a hair. Beautiful 'twere! Ah, I shall never forget that there band!"

"That's as tuneful a thing as ever I heard of," said grandfather James, with the absent gaze which accompanies

"I don't like Michael's tuneful stories then," said Mrs. Dewy. "They are quite coarse to a person o' decent

Old Michael's mouth twitched here and there, as if he wanted to smile but didn't know where to begin, which

gradually settled to an expression that it was not displeasing for a nice woman like the tranter's wife to correct

"Well, now," said Reuben, with decisive earnestness, "that sort o' coarse touch that's so upsetting to Ann's

feelings is to my mind a recommendation; for it do always prove a story to be true. And for the same reason, I

like a story with a bad moral. My sonnies, all true stories have a coarse touch or a bad moral, depend upon't.

If the storytellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd ha' troubled to invent

parables?" Saying this the tranter arose to fetch a new stock of cider, ale, mead, and home made wines.

Mrs. Dewy sighed, and appended a remark (ostensibly behind her husband's back, though that the words

should reach his ears distinctly was understood by both): "Such a man as Dewy is! Nobody do know the

trouble I have to keep that man barely respectable. And did you ever hear toojust now at

suppertimetalking about "taties" with Michael in such a workfolk way. Well, 'tis what I was never

brought up to! With our family 'twas never less than "taters," and very often "pertatoes" outright; mother was

so particular and nice with us girls there was no family in the parish that kept them selves up more than we."

The hour of parting came. Fancy could not remain for the night, because she had engaged a woman to wait up

for her. She disappeared temporarily from the flagging party of dancers, and then came downstairs wrapped

up and looking altogether a different person from whom she had been hitherto, in fact (to Dick's sadness and

disappointment), a woman somewhat reserved and of a phlegmatic temperamentnothing left in her of the

romping girl that she had seemed but a short quarterhour before, who had not minded the weight of Dick's

"What a difference!" thought the young manhoary cynic pro tem. "What a miserable deceiving difference

between the manners of a maid's life at dancing times and at others! Look at this lovely Fancy! Through the

whole past evening touchable, squeezeableeven kissable! For whole halfhours I held her so chose to me

that not a sheet of paper could have been shipped between us; and I could feel her heart only just outside my

own, her life beating on so close to mine, that I was aware of every breath in it. A flit is made upstairsa hat

and a cloak put onand I no more dare to touch her than" Thought failed him, and he returned to realities.

But this was an endurable misery in comparison with what followed. Mr. Shiner and his watchchain, taking

the intrusive advantage that ardent bachelors who are going homeward along the same road as a pretty young

woman always do take of that circumstance, came forward to assure Fancywith a total disregard of Dick's

emotions, and in tones which were certainly not frigidthat he (Shiner) was not the man to go to bed before

seeing his Lady Fair safe within her own doornot he, nobody should say he was that;and that he would

not leave her side an inch till the thing was donedrown him if he would. The proposal was assented to by

Miss Day, in Dick's foreboding judgment, with one degreeor at any rate, an appreciable fraction of a

degreeof warmth beyond that required by a disinterested desire for protection from the dangers of the

All was over; and Dick surveyed the chair she had last occupied, looking now like a setting from which the

gem has been torn. There stood her glass, and the romantic teaspoonful of elder wine at the bottom that she

couldn't drink by trying ever so hard, in obedience to the mighty arguments of the tranter (his hand coming

down upon her shoulder the while, like a Nasmyth hammer); but the drinker was there no longer. There were

the nine or ten pretty little crumbs she had left on her plate; but the eater was no more seen.

There seemed a disagreeable closeness of relationship between himself and the members of his family, now

that they were left alone again face to face. His father seemed quite offensive for appearing to be in just as

high spirits as when the guests were there; and as for grandfather James (who had not yet left), he was quite

"Really," said the tranter, in a tone of placid satisfaction, "I've had so little time to attend to myself all the

evenen, that I mean to enjoy a quiet meal now! A slice of this here hamneither too fat nor too leanso;

and then a drop of this vinegar and pickles there, that's itand I shall be as fresh as a lark again! And to

"I like a party very well once in a while," said Mrs. Dewy, leaving off the adorned tones she had been bound

to use throughout the evening, and returning to the natural marriage voice; "but, Lord, 'tis such a sight of

heavy work next day! What with the dirty plates, and knives and forks, and dust and smother, and bits kicked

off your furniture, and I don't know what all, why a body could a'most wish there were no such things as

Christmases . . . Ahh dear!" she yawned, till the chock in the corner had ticked several beats. She cast her

eyes round upon the displaced, dustladen furniture, and sank down overpowered at the sight.

"Well, I be getting all right by degrees, thank the Lord for't!" said the tranter cheerfully through a mangled

mass of ham and bread, without lifting his eyes from his plate, and chopping away with his knife and fork as

if he were felling trees. "Ann, you may as well go on to bed at once, and not bide there making such sleepy

faces; you look as longfavoured as a fiddle, upon my life, Ann. There, you must be wearied out, 'tis true. I'll

do the doors and draw up the clock; and you go on, or you'll be as white as a sheet to morrow."

"Ay; I don't know whether I shan't or no." The matron passed her hand across her eyes to brush away the film

Dick wondered how it was that when people were married they could be so blind to romance; and was quite

certain that if he ever took to wife that dear impossible Fancy, he and she would never be so dreadfully

practical and undemonstrative of the Passion as his father and mother were. The most extraordinary thing

was, that all the fathers and mothers he knew were just as undemonstrative as his own.

The early days of the year drew on, and Fancy, having spent the holiday weeks at borne, returned again to

Every spare minute of the week following her return was used by Dick in accidentally passing the

schoolhouse in his journeys about the neighbourhood; but not once did she make herself visible. A

handkerchief belonging to her had been providentially found by his mother in clearing the rooms the day after

that of the dance; and by much contrivance Dick got it handed over to him, to leave with her at any time he

should be near the school after her return. But he delayed taking the extreme measure of calling with it lest,

had she really no sentiment of interest in him, it might be regarded as a slightly absurd errand, the reason

guessed; and the sense of the ludicrous, which was rather keen in her, do his dignity considerable injury in

her eyes; and what she thought of him, even apart from the question of her loving, was all the world to him

But the hour came when the patience of love at twentyone could endure no longer. One Saturday he

approached the school with a mild air of indifference, and had the satisfaction of seeing the object of his

quest at the further end of her garden, trying, by the aid of a spade and gloves, to root a bramble that had

He disguised his feelings from some suspiciouslooking cottage windows opposite by endeavouring to

appear like a man in a great hurry of business, who wished to leave the handkerchief and have done with such

This endeavour signally failed; for on approaching the gate he found it locked to keep the children, who were

She did not see him; and he could only think of one thing to be done, which was to shout her name.

The words were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the cottages opposite that he was now

simply one who liked shouting as a pheasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons in

gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day continued digging and pulling as before.

He screwed himself up to enduring the cottagewindows yet more stoically, and shouted again. Fancy took

He shouted the third time, with desperate vehemence, turning suddenly about and retiring a little distance, as

This time she heard him, came down the garden, and entered the school at the back. Footsteps echoed across

the interior, the door opened, and threequarters of the blooming young schoolmistress's face and figure

stood revealed before him; a slice on her lefthand side being cut off by the edge of the door. Having

At sight of him had the pink of her cheeks increased, lessened, or did it continue to cover its normal area of

ground? It was a question meditated several hundreds of times by her visitor in afterhoursthe meditation,

after wearying involutions, always ending in one way, that it was impossible to say.

"Your handkerchief: Miss Day: I called with." He held it out spasmodically and awkwardly. "Mother found

"O, thank you very much for bringing it, Mr. Dewy. I couldn't think where I had dropped it."

Now Dick, not being an experienced loverindeed, never before having been engaged in the practice of

lovemaking at all, except in a small schoolboy waycould not take advantage of the situation; and out

came the blunder, which afterwards cost him so many bitter moments and a sleepless night:

The gate was closed; she was gone; and Dick was standing outside, unchanged in his condition from what he

had been before he called. Of course the Angel was not to blamea young woman living alone in a house

could not ask him indoors unless she had known him better he should have kept her outside before

floundering into that fatal farewell. He wished that before he called he had realized more fully than he did the

It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much more frequently than had hitherto been

usual with him, and was continually finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the road which

skirted the garden of the school. The firstfruits of his perseverance were that, on turning the angle on the

nineteenth journey by that track, he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in a darkgray dress, looking from a

high open window upon the crown of his hat. The friendly greeting resulting from this rencounter was

considered so valuable an elixir that Dick passed still oftener; and by the time he had almost trodden a little

path under the fence where never a path was before, he was rewarded with an actual meeting face to face on

the open road before her gate. This brought another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her

bearing that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there but the sort of pleasure she derived,

whether exultation at the hope her exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone Dick's

concern, he could not anyhow decide, although he meditated on her every little movement for hours after it

It was the evening of a fine spring day. The descending sun appeared as a nebulous blaze of amber light, its

The chief members of Mellstock parish choir were standing in a group in front of Mr. Penny's workshop in

the lower village. They were all brightly illuminated, and each was backed up by a shadow as long as a

steeple the lowness of the source of light rendering the brims of their hats of no use at all as a protection to

Mr. Penny's was the last house in that part of the parish, and stood in a hollow by the roadside so that

cartwheels and horses' legs were about level with the sill of his shopwindow. This was low and wide, and

was open from morning till evening, Mr. Penny himself being invariably seen working inside, like a framed

portrait of a shoemaker by some modern Moroni. He sat facing the road, with a boot on his knees and the awl

in his hand, only looking up for a moment as he stretched out his arms and bent forward at the pull, when his

spectacles flashed in the passer's face with a shine of flat whiteness, and then returned again to the boot as

usual. Rows of lasts, small and large, stout and slender, covered the wall which formed the background, in the

extreme shadow of which a kind of dummy was seen sitting, in the shape of an apprentice with a string tied

round his hair (probably to keep it out of his eyes). He smiled at remarks that floated in from without, but was

never known to answer them in Mr. Penny's presence. Outside the window the upperleather of a

Wellingtonboot was usually hung, pegged to a board as if to dry. No sign was over his door; in factas

with old banks and mercantile housesadvertising in any shape was scorned, and it would have been felt as

beneath his dignity to paint up, for the benefit of strangers, the name of an establishment whose trade came

His visitors now came and stood on the outside of his window, sometimes leaning against the sill, sometimes

moving a pace or two backwards and forwards in front of it. They talked with deliberate gesticulations to Mr.

"I do like a man to stick to men who be in the same line o' lifeo' Sundays, anywaythat I do so."

"'Tis like all the doings of folk who don't know what a day's work is, that's what I say."

"His sermon was well enough, a very good guessable sermon, only he couldn't put it into words and speak it.

That's all was the matter wi' the sermon. He hadn't been able to get it past his pen."

"Wellay, the sermon might have been good; for, 'tis true, the sermon of Old Eccl'iastes himself lay in

Mr. Penny, being in the act of drawing the last stitch tight, could afford time to look up and throw in a word

"'Tis a terrible muddle sometimes with the man, as far as spout do go," said Spinks.

"Well, we'll say nothing about that," the tranter answered; "for I don't believe 'twill make a penneth o'

difference to we poor martels here or hereafter whether his sermons be good or bad, my sonnies."

Mr. Penny made another hole with his awl, pushed in the thread, and looked up and spoke again at the

"'Tis his goingson, souls, that's what it is." He clenched his features for an Herculean addition to the

ordinary pull, and continued, "The first thing he done when he came here was to be hot and strong about

Mr. Penny, having now been offered the ear of the assembly, accepted it, ceased stitching, swallowed an

"The next thing he do do is to think about altering the church, until he found 'twould be a matter o' cost and

"And the next thing was to tell the young chaps that they were not on no account to put their hats in the

Words were not forcible enough to conclude the sentence, and Mr. Penny gave a huge pull to signify the

"Now 'tis to turn us out of the quire neck and crop," said the tranter after an interval of half a minute, not by

way of explaining the pause and pull, which had been quite understood, but as a means of keeping the subject

Mrs. Penny came to the door at this point in the discussion. Like all good wives, however much she was

inclined to play the Tory to her husband's Whiggism, and vice versa, in times of peace, she coalesced with

"It must be owned he's not all there," she replied in a general way to the fragments of talk she had heard from

"Ay, there was this to be said for he, that you were quite sure he'd never come mumbudgeting to see ye, just

as you were in the middle of your work, and put you out with his fuss and trouble about ye."

"Never. But as for this new Mr. Maybold, though he mid be a very wellintending party in that respect, he's

unbearable; for as to sifting your cinders, scrubbing your floors, or emptying your slops, why, you can't do it.

I assure you I've not been able to empt them for several days, unless I throw 'em up the chimley or out of

winder; for as sure as the sun you meet him at the door, coming to ask how you are, and 'tis such a confusing

"'Tis only for want of knowing better, poor gentleman," said the tranter. "His meaning's good enough. Ay,

your pa'son comes by fate: 'tis heads or tails, like pitchhalfpenny, and no choosing; so we must take en as he

"I fancy I've seen him look across at Miss Day in a warmer way than Christianity asked for," said Mrs. Penny

"If there's nothing, we shall see nothing," Mrs. Penny replied, in the tone of a woman who might possibly

"Ah, Mr. Grinham was the man!" said Bowman. "Why, he never troubled us wi' a visit from year's end to

year's end. You might go anywhere, do anything: you'd be sure never to see him."

"Yes, he was a right sensible pa'son," said Michael. "He never entered our door but once in his life, and that

was to tell my poor wifeay, poor soul, dead and gone now, as we all shall Ithat as she was such a' old

aged person, and lived so far from the church, he didn't at all expect her to come any more to the service."

"And 'a was a very jinerous gentleman about choosing the psalms and hymns o' Sundays. 'Confound ye,' says

"And he was a very honourable man in not wanting any of us to come and hear him if we were all onend for

a jaunt or spree, or to bring the babies to be christened if they were inclined to squalling. There's good in a

"And there's this here man never letting us have a bit o' peace; but keeping on about being good and upright

"No sooner had he got here than he found the font wouldn't hold water, as it hadn't for years off and on; and

when I told him that Mr. Grinham never minded it, but used to spet upon his vinger and christen 'em just as

well, 'a said, 'Good Heavens! Send for a workman immediate. What place have I come to!' Which was no

"Still, for my part," said old William, "though he's arrayed against us, I like the hearty borussnorus ways of

"You, ready to die for the quire," said Bowman reproachfully, "to stick up for the quire's enemy, William!"

"Nobody will feel the loss of our churchwork so much as I," said the old man firmly; "that you d'all know.

I've abeen in the quire man and boy ever since I was a chiel of eleven. But for all that 'tisn't in me to call the

man a bad man, because I truly and sincerely believe en to be a good young feller."

Some of the youthful sparkle that used to reside there animated William's eye as he uttered the words, and a

certain nobility of aspect was also imparted to him by the setting sun, which gave him a Titanic shadow at

least thirty feet in length, stretching away to the east in outlines of imposing magnitude, his head finally

"Mayble's a hearty feller enough," the tranter replied, "and will spak to you be you dirty or be you clane. The

first time I met en was in a drong, and though 'a didn't know me no more than the dead, 'a passed the time of

day. 'D'ye do?' he said, says he, nodding his head. 'A fine day.' Then the second time I met en was fullbuff

in town street, when my breeches were tore into a long strent by getting through a copse of thorns and

brimbles for a short cut home along; and not wanting to disgrace the man by spaking in that state, I fixed my

eye on the weathercock to let en pass me as a stranger. But no: 'How d'ye do, Reuben?' says he, right hearty,

and shook my hand. If I'd been dressed in silver spangles from top to toe, the man couldn't have been

At this moment Dick was seen coming up the villagestreet, and they turned and watched him.

"What?no!" said Mail, implying by his manner that it was a far commoner thing for his ears to report what

"Ay," said the tranter, still gazing at Dick's unconscious advance. "I don't at all like what I see! There's too

many o' them looks out of the winder without noticing anything; too much shining of boots; too much

peeping round corners; too much looking at the clock; telling about clever things SHE did till you be sick of

it; and then upon a hint to that effect a horrible silence about her. I've walked the path once in my life and

know the country, neighbours; and Dick's a lost man!" The tranter turned a quarter round and smiled a smile

The others became far too serious at this announcement to allow them to speak; and they still regarded Dick

"'Twas his mother's fault," the tranter continued, "in asking the young woman to our party last Christmas.

When I eyed the blue frock and light heels o' the maid, I had my thoughts directly. 'God bless thee, Dicky my

"They seemed to be rather distant in manner last Sunday, I thought?" Mail tentatively observed, as became

"Ay, that's a part of the zickness. Distance belongs to it, slyness belongs to it, queerest things on earth

belongs to it! There, 'tmay as well come early as late s'far as I know. The sooner begun, the sooner over; for

"The question I ask is," said Mr. Spinks, connecting into one thread the two subjects of discourse, as became

a man learned in rhetoric, and beating with his hand in a way which signified that the manner rather than the

matter of his speech was to be observed, "how did Mr. Maybold know she could play the organ? You know

we had it from her own lips, as far as hips go, that she has never, first or last, breathed such a thing to him;

In the midst of this puzzle Dick joined the party, and the news which had caused such a convulsion among

the ancient musicians was unfolded to him. "Well," he said, blushing at the allusion to Miss Day, "I know by

some words of hers that she has a particular wish not to play, because she is a friend of ours; and how the

"Now, this is my plan," said the tranter, reviving the spirit of the discussion by the infusion of new ideas, as

was his custom"this is my plan; if you don't like it, no harm's done. We all know one another very well,

That they knew one another very well was received as a statement which, though familiar, should not be

"Then I say this"and the tranter in his emphasis slapped down his hand on Mr. Spinks's shoulder with a

momentum of several pounds, upon which Mr. Spinks tried to look not in the least startled"I say that we

all move downalong straight as a line to Pa'son Mayble's when the clock has gone six tomorrow night.

There we one and all stand in the passage, then one or two of us go in and spak to en, man and man; and say,

'Pa'son Mayble, every tradesman d'like to have his own way in his workshop, and Mellstock Church is yours.

Instead of turning us out neck and crop, let us stay on till Christmas, and we'll gie way to the young woman,

Mr. Mayble, and make no more ado about it. And we shall always be quite willing to touch our hats when we

"And we won't sit down in his house; 'twould be looking too familiar when only just reconciled?"

"No need at all to sit down. Just do our duty man and man, turn round, and march outhe'll think all the

"I hardly think Leaf had better go wi' us?" said Michael, turning to Leaf and taking his measure from top to

"I be mortal afeard, Leaf; that you'll never be able to tell how many cuts d'take to sharpen a spar," said Mail.

They all assented to this, not with any sense of humiliating Leaf by disparaging him after an open confession,

but because it was an accepted thing that Leaf didn't in the least mind having no head, that deficiency of his

"But I can sing my treble!" continued Thomas Leaf; quite delighted at being called a fool in such a friendly

way; "I can sing my treble as well as any maid, or married woman either, and better! And if Jim had lived, I

should have had a clever brother! Tomorrow is poor Jim's birthday. He'd ha' been twentysix if he'd lived

"Ah! I do. Such a stay to mother as he'd always ha' been! She'd never have had to work in her old age if he

"Four hours and twenty minutes, poor Jim. 'A was born as might be at night; and 'a didn't last as might be till

the morning. No, 'a didn't last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha' been his christening day if he

"Now to my mind that woman is very romantical on the matter o' children?" said the tranter, his eye sweeping

"Ah, well she mid be," said Leaf. "She had twelve regular one after another, and they all, except myself; died

"Well, Leaf; you shall come wi' us as yours is such a melancholy family," said old William rather sadly.

"I never see such a melancholy family as that afore in my life," said Reuben. "There's Leaf's mother, poor

woman! Every morning I see her eyes mooning out through the panes of glass like a potsick winderflower;

and as Leaf sings a very high treble, and we don't know what we should do without en for upper G, we'll let

"Ay, we'll let en come, 'a b'lieve," said Mr. Penny, looking up, as the pull happened to be at that moment.

"Now," continued the tranter, dispersing by a new tone of voice these digressions about Leaf; "as to going to

see the pa'son, one of us might call and ask en his meaning, and 'twould be just as well done; but it will add a

bit of flourish to the cause if the quire waits on him as a body. Then the great thing to mind is, not for any of

our fellers to be nervous; so before starting we'll one and all come to my house and have a rasher of bacon;

then every manjack het a pint of cider into his inside; then we'll warm up an extra drop wi' some mead and a

bit of ginger; every one take a thimbleful just a glimmer of a drop, mind ye, no more, to finish off his inner

manand march off to Pa'son Mayble. Why, sonnies, a man's not himself till he is fortified wi' a bit and a

drop? We shall be able to look any gentleman in the face then without shrink or shame."

Mail recovered from a deep meditation and downward glance into the earth in time to give a cordial approval

At six o'clock the next day, the whole body of men in the choir emerged from the tranter's door, and advanced

with a firm step down the lane. This dignity of march gradually became obliterated as they went on, and by

the time they reached the hill behind the vicarage a faint resemblance to a flock of sheep might have been

discerned in the venerable party. A word from the tranter, however, set them right again; and as they

descended the hill, the regular tramp, tramp, tramp of the united feet was clearly audible from the vicarage

garden. At the opening of the gate there was another short interval of irregular shuffling, caused by a rather

peculiar habit the gate had, when swung open quickly, of striking against the bank and slamming back into

"Now keep step again, will ye?" said the tranter. "It looks better, and more becomes the high class of arrant

At Reuben's ring the more modest of the group turned aside, adjusted their hats, and looked critically at any

shrub that happened to lie in the line of vision; endeavouring thus to give a person who chanced to look out

of the windows the impression that their request, whatever it was going to be, was rather a casual thought

occurring whilst they were inspecting the vicar's shrubbery and grassplot than a predetermined thing. The

tranter, who, coming frequently to the vicarage with luggage, coals, firewood, etc., had none of the awe for its

precincts that filled the breasts of most of the others, fixed his eyes firmly on the knocker during this interval

of waiting. The knocker having no characteristic worthy of notice, he relinquished it for a knot in one of the

"O, sir, please, here's Tranter Dewy, and old William Dewy, and young Richard Dewy, O, and all the quire

too, sir, except the boys, acome to see you!" said Mr. Maybold's maidservant to Mr. Maybold, the pupils

"All the choir?" said the astonished vicar (who may be shortly described as a goodlooking young man with

courageous eyes, timid mouth, and neutral nose), abandoning his writing and looking at his parlourmaid

after speaking, like a man who fancied he had seen her face before but couldn't recollect where.

"And they looks very firm, and Tranter Dewy do turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, but stares quite

"O, all the choir," repeated the vicar to himself; trying by that simple device to trot out his thoughts on what

"Yes; every manjack of 'em, as I be alive!" (The parlourmaid was rather local in manner, having in fact

been raised in the same village.) "Really, sir, 'tis thoughted by many in town and country that"

"Town and country!Heavens, I had no idea that I was public property in this way!" said the vicar, his face

acquiring a hue somewhere between that of the rose and the peony. "Well, 'It is thought in town and country

"It is thought that you be going to get it hot and strongexcusen my incivility, sir."

The vicar suddenly recalled to his recollection that he had long ago settled it to be decidedly a mistake to

encourage his servant Jane in giving personal opinions. The servant Jane saw by the vicar's face that he

recalled this fact to his mind; and removing her forehead from the edge of the door, and rubbing away the

indent that edge had made, vanished into the passage as Mr. Maybold remarked, "Show them in, Jane."

A few minutes later a shuffling and jostling (reduced to as refined a form as was compatible with the nature

of shuffles and jostles) was heard in the passage; then an earnest and prolonged wiping of shoes, conveying

the notion that volumes of mud had to be removed; but the roads being so clean that not a particle of dirt

appeared on the choir's boots (those of all the elder members being newly oiled, and Dick's brightly

polished), this wiping might have been set down simply as a desire to show that respectable men had no wish

to take a mean advantage of clean roads for curtailing proper ceremonies. Next there came a powerful

"Now stand stockstill there, my sonnies, one and all! And don't make no noise; and keep your backs close to

the wall, that company may pass in and out easy if they want to without squeezing through ye: and we two

"I never in my life seed a quire go into a study to have it out about the playing and singing," pleaded Leaf;

"Very well; we'll let en come in," said the tranter. "You'll be like chips in porridge, {1} Leafneither good

nor hurt. All right, my sonny, come along;" and immediately himself, old William, and Leaf appeared in the

"We took the liberty to come and see 'ee, sir," said Reuben, letting his hat hang in his left hand, and touching

with his right the brim of an imaginary one on his head. "We've come to see 'ee, sir, man and man, and no

"I thought you mightn't know en without his bassviol," the tranter apologized. "You see, he always wears

his best clothes and his bassviol aSundays, and it do make such a difference in a' old man's look."

"Tell the pa'son yer name," said the tranter, turning to Leaf; who stood with his elbows nailed back to a

"I hope you'll excuse his looks being so very thin," continued the tranter deprecatingly, turning to the vicar

again. "But 'tisn't his fault, poor feller. He's rather silly by nature, and could never get fat; though he's a'

"I never had no head, sir," said Leaf; eagerly grasping at this opportunity for being forgiven his existence.

"Bless you, he don't mind it a bit, if you don't, sir," said the tranter assuringly. "Do ye, Leaf?"

"Not Inot a morselhee, hee! I was afeard it mightn't please your holiness, sir, that's all."

The tranter, finding Leaf get on so very well through his negative qualities, was tempted in a fit of generosity

to advance him still higher, by giving him credit for positive ones. "He's very clever for a silly chap,

goodnow, sir. You never knowed a young feller keep his smockfrocks so clane; very honest too. His

ghastly looks is all there is against en, poor feller; but we can't help our looks, you know, sir."

The tranter looked at Leaf to express that the most friendly assistant to his tongue could do no more for him

"Yes, sir: a widder, sir. Ah, if brother Jim had lived she'd have had a clever son to keep her without work!"

The tranter cleared his throat after this accidental parenthesis about Leaf; rectified his bodily position, and

"Mr. Mayble," he said, "I hope you'll excuse my common way, but I always like to look things in the face."

Reuben made a point of fixing this sentence in the vicar's mind by gazing hard at him at the conclusion of it,

Mr. Maybold and old William looked in the same direction, apparently under the impression that the things'

"What I have been thinking"the tranter implied by this use of the past tense that he was hardly so

discourteous as to be positively thinking it then"is that the quire ought to be gie'd a little time, and not done

away wi' till Christmas, as a fair thing between man and man. And, Mr. Mayble, I hope you'll excuse my

"I will, I will. Till Christmas," the vicar murmured, stretching the two words to a great length, as if the

distance to Christmas might be measured in that way. "Well, I want you all to understand that I have no

personal fault to find, and that I don't wish to change the church music by forcible means, or in a way which

should hurt the feelings of any parishioners. Why I have at last spoken definitely on the subject is that a

player has been brought underI may say pressed uponmy notice several times by one of the

churchwardens. And as the organ I brought with me is here waiting" (pointing to a cabinetorgan standing in

"We made a mistake I suppose then, sir? But we understood the young woman didn't want to play

particularly?" The tranter arranged his countenance to signify that he did not want to be inquisitive in the

"No, nor did she. Nor did I definitely wish her to just yet; for your playing is very good. But, as I said, one of

the churchwardens has been so anxious for a change, that, as matters stand, I couldn't consistently refuse my

Now for some reason or other, the vicar at this point seemed to have an idea that he had prevaricated; and as

an honest vicar, it was a thing he determined not to do. He corrected himself; blushing as he did so, though

"Understand me rightly," he said: "the churchwarden proposed it to me, but I had thought myself of

"Which churchwarden might that be who proposed her, sir?excusing my common way." The tranter

intimated by his tone that, so far from being inquisitive, he did not even wish to ask a single question.

"Clk, my sonny!beg your pardon, sir, that's only a form of words of mine, and slipped out accidentalhe

nourishes enmity against us for some reason or another; perhaps because we played rather hard upon en

Christmas night. Anyhow 'tis certain sure that Mr. Shiner's real love for music of a particular kind isn't his

"I don't think you should conclude that, because Mr. Shiner wants a different music, he has any illfeeling for

you. I myself; I must own, prefer organmusic to any other. I consider it most proper, and feel justified in

endeavouring to introduce it; but then, although other music is better, I don't say yours is not good."

"Well then, Mr. Mayble, since death's to be, we'll die like men any day you name (excusing my common

"All we thought was, that for us old ancient singers to be choked off quiet at no time in particular, as now, in

the Sundays after Easter, would seem rather mean in the eyes of other parishes, sir. But if we fell glorious

with a bit of a flourish at Christmas, we should have a respectable end, and not dwindle away at some

nameless paltry secondSundayafter or Sundaynextbefore something, that's got no name of his own."

The tranter, in his earnestness, had advanced his person to within six inches of the vicar's.

"Certainly, certainly!" said Mr. Maybold, retreating a little for convenience of seeing. "You are all

enthusiastic on the subject, and I am all the more gratified to find you so. A Laodicean lukewarmness is

"Exactly, sir. In fact now, Mr. Mayble," Reuben continued, more impressively, and advancing a little closer

still to the vicar, "father there is a perfect figure o' wonder, in the way of being fond of music!"

The vicar drew back a little further, the tranter suddenly also standing back a foot or two, to throw open the

Old William moved uneasily in the large chair, and with a minute smile on the mere edge of his lips, for

"Now, you see exactly how it is," Reuben continued, appealing to Mr. Maybold's sense of justice by looking

sideways into his eyes. The vicar seemed to see how it was so well that the gratified tranter walked up to him

again with even vehement eagerness, so that his waistcoatbuttons almost rubbed against the vicar's as he

continued: "As to father, if you or I, or any man or woman of the present generation, at the time music is

aplaying, was to shake your fist in father's face, as may be this way, and say, "Don't you be delighted with

that music!the tranter went back to where Leaf was sitting, and held his fist so close to Leaf's face that the

latter pressed his head back against the wall: "All right, Leaf; my sonny, I won't hurt you; 'tis just to show my

meaning to Mr. Mayble.As I was saying, if you or I, or any man, was to shake your fist in father's face this

way, and say, "William, your life or your music!" he'd say, "My life!" Now that's father's nature all over; and

you see, sir, it must hurt the feelings of a man of that kind for him and his bassviol to be done away wi' neck

The tranter went back to the vicar's front and again looked earnestly at his face.

"True, true, Dewy," Mr. Maybold answered, trying to withdraw his head and shoulders without moving his

feet; but finding this impracticable, edging back another inch. These frequent retreats had at last jammed Mr.

And at the moment of the announcement of the choir, Mr. Maybold had just redipped the pen he was using;

at their entry, instead of wiping it, he had laid it on the table with the nib overhanging. At the last retreat his

coattails came in contact with the pen, and down it rolled, first against the back of the chair, thence turning a

The vicar stooped for his pen, and the tranter, wishing to show that, however great their ecclesiastical

differences, his mind was not so small as to let this affect his social feelings, stooped also.

"And have you anything else you want to explain to me, Dewy?" said Mr. Maybold from under the table.

"Nothing, sir. And, Mr. Mayble, you be not offended? I hope you see our desire is reason?" said the tranter

"Quite, quite; and I shouldn't think of refusing to listen to such a reasonable request," the vicar replied. Seeing

that Reuben had secured the pen, he resumed his vertical position, and added, "You know, Dewy, it is often

said how difficult a matter it is to act up to our convictions and please all parties. It may be said with equal

truth, that it is difficult for a man of any appreciativeness to have convictions at all. Now in my case, I see

right in you, and right in Shiner. I see that violins are good, and that an organ is good; and when we introduce

the organ, it will not be that fiddles were bad, but that an organ was better. That you'll clearly understand,

"I will; and thank you very much for such feelings, sir. Piphhh h! How the blood do get into my head, to

be sure, whenever I quat down like that!" said Reuben, who having also risen to his feet stuck the pen

vertically in the inkstand and almost through the bottom, that it might not roll down again under any

Now the ancient body of minstrels in the passage felt their curiosity surging higher and higher as the minutes

passed. Dick, not having much affection for this errand, soon grew tired, and went away in the direction of

the school. Yet their sense of propriety would probably have restrained them from any attempt to discover

what was going on in the study had not the vicar's pen fallen to the floor. The conviction that the movement

of chairs, etc., necessitated by the search, could only have been caused by the catastrophe of a bloody fight

beginning, overpowered all other considerations; and they advanced to the door, which had only just fallen to.

Thus, when Mr. Maybold raised his eyes after the stooping he beheld glaring through the door Mr. Penny in

fulllength portraiture, Mail's face and shoulders above Mr. Penny's head, Spinks's forehead and eyes over

Mail's crown, and a fractional part of Bowman's countenance under Spinks's armcrescent shaped portions

of other heads and faces being visible behind thesethe whole dozen and odd eyes bristling with eager

Mr. Penny, as is the case with excitable bootmakers and men, seeing the vicar look at him and hearing no

word spoken, thought it incumbent upon himself to say something of any kind. Nothing suggested itself till

"You'll excuse my naming of it, sir," he said, regarding with much commiseration the mere surface of the

vicar's face; "but perhaps you don't know that your chin have bust out ableeding where you cut yourself

"Now, that was the stooping, depend upon't," the tranter suggested, also looking with much interest at the

vicar's chin. "Blood always will bust out again if you hang down the member that's been bleeding."

Old William raised his eyes and watched the vicar's bleeding chin likewise; and Leaf advanced two or three

paces from the bookcase, absorbed in the contemplation of the same phenomenon, with parted lips and

"Dear me, dear me!" said Mr. Maybold hastily, looking very red, and brushing his chin with his hand, then

"That's it, sir; all right again now, 'a b'lievea mere nothing," said Mr. Penny. "A little bit of fur off your hat

"I'll let 'ee have a bit off mine," said Reuben, to show his good feeling; "my hat isn't so new as yours, sir, and

"'Twas rather a deep cut seemingly?" said Reuben, feeling these to be the kindest and best remarks he could

"Well, sir, your hand will shake sometimes ashaving, and just when it comes into your head that you may

"I have been revolving in my mind that question of the time at which we make the change," said Mr.

Maybold, "and I know you'll meet me halfway. I think Christmasday as much too late for me as the present

time is too early for you. I suggest Michaelmas or thereabout as a convenient time for both parties; for I think

"Very good, sir. I suppose mortal men mustn't expect their own way entirely; and I express in all our names

that we'll make shift and be satisfied with what you say." The tranter touched the brim of his imaginary hat

again, and all the choir did the same. "About Michaelmas, then, as far as you are concerned, sir, and then we

"He behaved like a man, 'a did so," said the tranter. "And I'm glad we've let en know our minds. And though,

beyond that, we ha'n't got much by going, 'twas worth while. He won't forget it. Yes, he took it very well.

Supposing this tree here was Pa'son Mayble, and I standing here, and thik gr't stone is father sitting in the

easy chair. 'Dewy,' says he, 'I don't wish to change the church music in a forcible way.'"

"Proper niceout and out nice. The fact is," said Reuben confidentially, "'tis how you take a man.

Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed: kings must be managed; for men want managing

"Pa'son Mayble and I were as good friends all through it as if we'd been sworn brothers. Ay, the man's well

enough; 'tis what's put in his head that spoils him, and that's why we've got to go."

"Bless ye, my sonnies! 'tisn't the pa'son's move at all. That gentleman over there" (the tranter nodded in the

"Ay; and I see what the pa'son don't see. Why, Shiner is for putting forward that young woman that only last

night I was saying was our Dick's sweetheart, but I suppose can't be, and making much of her in the sight of

the congregation, and thinking he'll win her by showing her off. Well, perhaps 'a woll."

"Then the music is second to the woman, the other churchwarden is second to Shiner, the pa'son is second to

"That's true; and you see," continued Reuben, "at the very beginning it put me in a stud as to how to quarrel

wi' en. In short, to save my soul, I couldn't quarrel wi' such a civil man without belying my conscience. Says

he to father there, in a voice as quiet as a lamb's, "William, you are a' old aged man, as all shall be, so sit

down in my easychair, and rest yourself." And down father zot. I could fain ha' laughed at thee, father; for

thou'st take it so unconcerned at first, and then looked so frightened when the chair bottom sunk in."

"You see," said old William, hastening to explain, "I was scared to find the bottom gie waywhat should I

know o' spring bottoms?and thought I had broke it down: and of course as to breaking down a man's chair,

"And, neighbours, when a feller, ever so much up for a miff, d'see his own father sitting in his enemy's

easychair, and a poor chap like Leaf made the best of; as if he almost had brainswhy, it knocks all the

"If that young figure of funFance Day, I mean," said Bowman, "hadn't been so mighty forward wi'

showing herself off to Shiner and Dick and the rest, 'tis my belief we should never ha' left the gallery."

"'Tis my belief that though Shiner fired the bullets, the parson made 'em," said Mr. Penny. "My wife sticks to

"Thou'st ought to be able to onriddle such a little chiel as she," the tranter observed.

"The littler the maid, the bigger the riddle, to my mind. And coming of such a stock, too, she may well be a

"Yes; Geoffrey Day is a clever man if ever there was one. Never says anything: not he."

"You might live wi' that man, my sonnies, a hundred years, and never know there was anything in him."

"Ye never find out what's in that man: never," said Spinks. "Close? ah, he is close! He can hold his tongue

"There's so much sense in it. Every moment of it is brimmen over wi' sound understanding."

"'A can hold his tongue very cleververy clever truly," echoed Leaf. "A do look at me as if 'a could see my

"Well, all will agree that the man can halt well in his talk, be it a long time or be it a short time. And though

we can't expect his daughter to inherit his closeness, she may have a few dribblets from his sense."

"Yes; the nine hundred pound that everybody says he's worth; but I call it four hundred and fifty; for I never

"Well, he've made a pound or two, and I suppose the maid will have it, since there's nobody else. But 'tis

rather sharp upon her, if she's been born to fortune, to bring her up as if not born for it, and letting her work

"Ah," murmured Spinks, "'twould be sharper upon her if she were born for fortune, and not to it! I suffer from

A mood of blitheness rarely experienced even by young men was Dick's on the following Monday morning.

It was the week after the Easter holidays, and he was journeying along with Smart the mare and the light

springcart, watching the damp slopes of the hillsides as they streamed in the warmth of the sun, which at

this unsettled season shone on the grass with the freshness of an occasional inspector rather than as an

accustomed proprietor. His errand was to fetch Fancy, and some additional household goods, from her

father's house in the neighbouring parish to her dwelling at Mellstock. The distant view was darkly shaded

with clouds; but the nearer parts of the landscape were whitely illumined by the visible rays of the sun

The tranter had not yet told his son of the state of Shiner's heart that had been suggested to him by Shiner's

movements. He preferred to let such delicate affairs right themselves; experience having taught him that the

uncertain phenomenon of love, as it existed in other people, was not a groundwork upon which a single

Geoffrey Day lived in the depths of Yalbury Wood, which formed portion of one of the outlying estates of

the Earl of Wessex, to whom Day was head gamekeeper, timbersteward, and general overlooker for this

district. The wood was intersected by the highway from Casterbridge to London at a place not far from the

house, and some trees had of late years been felled between its windows and the ascent of Yalbury Hill, to

It was a satisfaction to walk into the keeper's house, even as a stranger, on a fine spring morning like the

present. A curl of woodsmoke came from the chimney, and drooped over the roof like a blue feather in a

lady's hat; and the sun shone obliquely upon the patch of grass in front, which reflected its brightness through

the open doorway and up the staircase opposite, lighting up each riser with a shiny green radiance, and

The windowsill of the front room was between four and five feet from the floor, dropping inwardly to a

broad low bench, over which, as well as over the whole surface of the wall beneath, there always hung a deep

shade, which was considered objectionable on every ground save one, namely, that the perpetual sprinkling

of seeds and water by the caged canary above was not noticed as an eyesore by visitors. The window was set

with thicklyleaded diamond glazing, formed, especially in the lower panes, of knotty glass of various shades

of green. Nothing was better known to Fancy than the extravagant manner in which these circular knots or

eyes distorted everything seen through them from the outsidelifting hats from heads, shoulders from

bodies; scattering the spokes of cartwheels, and bending the straight firtrunks into semicircles. The ceiling

was carried by a beam traversing its midst, from the side of which projected a large nail, used solely and

constantly as a peg for Geoffrey's hat; the nail was arched by a rainbowshaped stain, imprinted by the brim

The most striking point about the room was the furniture. This was a repetition upon inanimate objects of the

old principle introduced by Noah, consisting for the most part of two articles of every sort. The duplicate

system of furnishing owed its existence to the forethought of Fancy's mother, exercised from the date of

Fancy's birthday onwards. The arrangement spoke for itself: nobody who knew the tone of the household

could look at the goods without being aware that the second set was a provision for Fancy, when she should

marry and have a house of her own. The most noticeable instance was a pair of greenfaced eightday

clocks, ticking alternately, which were severally two and half minutes and three minutes striking the hour of

twelve, one proclaiming, in Italian flourishes, Thomas Wood as the name of its maker, and the otherarched

at the top, and altogether of more cynical appearancethat of Ezekiel Saunders. They were two departed

clockmakers of Casterbridge, whose desperate rivalry throughout their lives was nowhere more emphatically

perpetuated than here at Geoffrey's. These chief specimens of the marriage provision were supported on the

right by a couple of kitchen dressers, each fitted complete with their cups, dishes, and plates, in their turn

followed by two dumbwaiters, two family Bibles, two warmingpans, and two intermixed sets of chairs.

But the position last reachedthe chimneycornerwas, after all, the most attractive side of the

parallelogram. It was large enough to admit, in addition to Geoffrey himself; Geoffrey's wife, her chair, and

her worktable, entirely within the line of the mantel, without danger or even inconvenience from the heat of

the fire; and was spacious enough overhead to allow of the insertion of wood poles for the hanging of bacon,

which were cloaked with long shreds of soot, floating on the draught like the tattered banners on the walls of

These points were common to most chimney corners of the neighbourhood; but one feature there was which

made Geoffrey's fireside not only an object of interest to casual aristocratic visitorsto whom every cottage

fireside was more or less a curiositybut the admiration of friends who were accustomed to fireplaces of the

ordinary hamlet model. This peculiarity was a little window in the chimneyback, almost over the fire,

around which the smoke crept caressingly when it left the perpendicular course. The windowboard was

curiously stamped with black circles, burnt thereon by the heated bottoms of drinkingcups, which had rested

there after previously standing on the hot ashes of the hearth for the purpose of warming their contents, the

result giving to the ledge the look of an envelope which has passed through innumerable postoffices.

Fancy was gliding about the room preparing dinner, her head inclining now to the right, now to the left, and

singing the tips and ends of tunes that sprang up in her mind like mushrooms. The footsteps of Mrs. Day

A tall spare figure was seen advancing by the window with periodical steps, and the keeper entered from the

garden. He appeared to be a man who was always looking down, as if trying to recollect something he said

yesterday. The surface of his face was fissured rather than wrinkled, and over and under his eyes were folds

which seemed as a kind of exterior eyelids. His nose had been thrown backwards by a blow in a poaching

fray, so that when the sun was low and shining in his face, people could see far into his head. There was in

him a quiet grimness, which would in his moments of displeasure have become surliness, had it not been

tempered by honesty of soul, and which was often wrongheadedness because not allied with subtlety.

Although not an extraordinarily taciturn man among friends slightly richer than himself, he never wasted

words upon outsiders, and to his trapper Enoch his ideas were seldom conveyed by any other means than

nods and shakes of the head. Their long acquaintance with each other's ways, and the nature of their labours,

rendered words between them almost superfluous as vehicles of thought, whilst the coincidence of their

horizons, and the astonishing equality of their social views, by startling the keeper from time to time as very

damaging to the theory of master and man, strictly forbade any indulgence in words as courtesies.

Behind the keeper came Enoch (who had been assisting in the garden) at the wellconsidered chronological

distance of three minutesan interval of nonappearance on the trapper's part not arrived at without some

reflection. Four minutes had been found to express indifference to indoor arrangements, and

"A little earlier than usual, Fancy," the keeper said, as he sat down and looked at the clocks. "That Ezekiel

"I kept in the middle between them," said Fancy, also looking at the two clocks.

"Better stick to Thomas," said her father. "There's a healthy beat in Thomas that would lead a man to swear

by en offhand. He is as true as the town time. How is it your stapmother isn't here?"

As Fancy was about to reply, the rattle of wheels was heard, and "Wehhey, Smart!" in Mr. Richard Dewy's

"Hullo! there's Dewy's cart come for thee, FancyDick driving afore time, too. Well, ask the lad to have

Dick on entering made a point of implying by his general bearing that he took an interest in Fancy simply as

in one of the same race and country as himself; and they all sat down. Dick could have wished her manner

had not been so entirely free from all apparent consciousness of those accidental meetings of theirs: but he let

the thought pass. Enoch sat diagonally at a table afar off; under the corner cupboard, and drank his cider from

a long perpendicular pint cup, having tall firtrees done in brown on its sides, He threw occasional remarks

into the general tide of conversation, and with this advantage to himself; that he participated in the pleasures

of a talk (slight as it was) at mealtimes, without saddling himself with the responsibility of sustaining it.

"Why don't your stapmother come down, Fancy?" said Geoffrey. "You'll excuse her, Mister Dick, she's a

"O yes,quite," said Richard, as if he were in the habit of excusing people every day.

"She d'belong to that class of womankind that become second wives: a rum class rather."

"Yes; and 'tis trying to a female, especially if you've been a first wife, as she hey."

"Yes: you see her first husband was a young man, who let her go too far; in fact, she used to kick up

Bob'sadying at the least thing in the world. And when I'd married her and found it out, I thought, thinks I,

"'Tis too late now to begin to cure 'e;" and so I let her bide. But she's queer,very queer, at times!"

"Yes: there; wives be such a provoking class o' society, because though they be never right, they be never

Fancy seemed uneasy under the infliction of this household moralizing, which might tend to damage the

airyfairy nature that Dick, as maiden shrewdness told her, had accredited her with. Her dead silence

impressed Geoffrey with the notion that something in his words did not agree with her educated ideas, and he

"Nice solid feller, Fred Shiner!" said Geoffrey to Dick as he helped himself to gravy, bringing the spoon

round to his plate by way of the potatodish, to obviate a stain on the cloth in the event of a spill.

Now Geoffrey's eyes had been fixed upon his plate for the previous four or five minutes, and in removing

them he had only carried them to the spoon, which, from its fulness and the distance of its transit,

necessitated a steady watching through the whole of the route. Just as intently as the keeper's eyes had been

fixed on the spoon, Fancy's had been fixed on her father's, without premeditation or the slightest phase of

Dick was sitting next to her on the right side, and on the side of the table opposite to her father. Fancy had

laid her right hand lightly down upon the tablecloth for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, after dropping his

fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down his own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with

it, and keeping it there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling her hand from the trap, settled her eyes on

her father's, to guard against his discovery of this perilous game of Dick's. Dick finished his mouthful; Fancy

finished, her crumb, and nothing was done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then the hands slid apart;

Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's over one. Geoffrey's eye had risen.

"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more than a stranger."

"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you know en very well too, don't ye,

Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at present about one hundred times the amount

"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of her face becoming slightly disordered, and

"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he continued, returning to the displaced idea, "we

"An excellent thinga very capital thing, as I should say," the youth answered with exceeding relevance,

considering that his thoughts, instead of following Geoffrey's remark, were nestling at a distance of about two

"A young woman's face will turn the north wind, Master Richard: my heart if 'twon't." Dick looked more

anxious and was attentive in earnest at these words. "Yes; turn the north wind," added Geoffrey after an

"Will you fetch down a bit of rawmil' cheese from pantryshelf?" Fancy interrupted, as if she were

"Ay, that I will, chiel; chiel, says I, and Mr. Shiner only asking last Saturday night . . . cheese you said,

Dick controlled his emotion at these mysterious allusions to Mr. Shiner,the better enabled to do so by

perceiving that Fancy's heart went not with her father'sand spoke like a stranger to the affairs of the

neighbourhood. "Yes, there's a great deal to be said upon the power of maiden faces in settling your courses,"

"The conversation is taking a very strange turn: nothing that _I_ have ever done warrants such things being

"You think to yourself; 'twas to be," cried Enoch from his distant corner, by way of filling up the vacancy

caused by Geoffrey's momentary absence. "And so you marry her, Master Dewy, and there's an end o't."

"Pray don't say such things, Enoch," came from Fancy severely, upon which Enoch relapsed into servitude.

"If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single, we do," replied Dick.

Geoffrey had by this time sat down again, and he now made his lips thin by severely straining them across his

gums, and looked out of the window along the vista to the distant highway up Yalbury Hill. "That's not the

case with some folk," he said at length, as if he read the words on a board at the further end of the vista.

"There's that wife o' mine. It was her doom to be nobody's wife at all in the wide universe. But she made up

her mind that she would, and did it twice over. Doom? Doom is nothing beside a elderly womanquite a

A movement was now heard along the upstairs passage, and footsteps descending. The door at the foot of the

stairs opened, and the second Mrs. Day appeared in view, looking fixedly at the table as she advanced

towards it, with apparent obliviousness of the presence of any other human being than herself. In short, if the

table had been the personages, and the persons the table, her glance would have been the most natural

She showed herself to possess an ordinary woman's face, irongrey hair, hardly any hips, and a great deal of

cleanliness in a broad white apronstring, as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff dress.

"People will run away with a story now, I suppose," she began saying, "that Jane Day's tablecloths are as poor

Dick now perceived that the tablecloth was a little the worse for wear, and reflecting for a moment,

concluded that 'people' in step mother language probably meant himself. On lifting his eyes he found that

Mrs. Day had vanished again upstairs, and presently returned with an armful of new damasklinen

tablecloths, folded square and hard as boards by long compression. These she flounced down into a chair;

then took one, shook it out from its folds, and spread it on the table by instalments, transferring the plates and

"And I suppose they'll say, too, that she ha'n't a decent knife and fork in her house!"

"I shouldn't say any such illnatured thing, I am sure" began Dick. But Mrs. Day had vanished into the

"Very strange woman, isn't she?" said Geoffrey, quietly going on with his dinner. "But 'tis too late to attempt

curing. My heart! 'tis so growed into her that 'twould kill her to take it out. Ay, she's very queer: you'd be

Back again came Mrs. Day with a box of bright steel hornhandled knives, silverplated forks, carver, and

all complete. These were wiped of the preservative oil which coated them, and then a knife and fork were laid

down to each individual with a bang, the carving knife and fork thrust into the meat dish, and the old ones

Geoffrey placidly cut a slice with the new knife and fork, and asked Dick if he wanted any more.

The table had been spread for the mixed midday meal of dinner and tea, which was common among frugal

countryfolk. "The parishioners about here," continued Mrs. Day, not looking at any living being, but

snatching up the brown delf teathings, "are the laziest, gossipest, poachest, jailest set of any ever I came

among. And they'll talk about my teapot and teathings next, I suppose!" She vanished with the teapot, cups,

and saucers, and reappeared with a teaservice in white china, and a packet wrapped in brown paper. This

was removed, together with folds of tissuepaper underneath; and a brilliant silver teapot appeared.

"I'll help to put the things right," said Fancy soothingly, and rising from her seat. "I ought to have laid out

better things, I suppose. But" (here she enlarged her looks so as to include Dick) "I have been away from

home a good deal, and I make shocking blunders in my housekeeping." Smiles and suavity were then

After a little more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her seat at the head of the table, and during

the latter or tea division of the meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some surprise to learn that,

now her vagary was over, she showed herself to be an excellent person with much common sense, and even a

The effect of Geoffrey's incidental allusions to Mr. Shiner was to restrain a considerable flow of spontaneous

chat that would otherwise have burst from young Dewy along the drive homeward. And a certain remark he

had hazarded to her, in rather too blunt and eager a manner, kept the young lady herself even more silent than

Dick. On both sides there was an unwillingness to talk on any but the most trivial subjects, and their

sentences rarely took a larger form than could be expressed in two or three words.

Owing to Fancy being later in the day than she had promised, the charwoman had given up expecting her;

whereupon Dick could do no less than stay and see her comfortably tided over the disagreeable time of

entering and establishing herself in an empty house after an absence of a week. The additional furniture and

utensils that had been brought (a canary and cage among the rest) were taken out of the vehicle, and the horse

was unharnessed and put in the plot opposite, where there was some tender grass. Dick lighted the fire

She had originally found in her sittingroom, to bear out the expression 'nearly furnished' which the

schoolmanager had used in his letter to her, a table, three chairs, a fender, and a piece of carpet. This 'nearly'

had been supplemented hitherto by a kind friend, who had lent her fireirons and crockery until she should

Dick attended to the young lady's fire, using his whiphandle for a poker till it was spoilt, and then

"The kettle boils; now you shall have a cup of tea," said Fancy, diving into the hamper she had brought.

"Thank you," said Dick, whose drive had made him ready for some, especially in her company.

"Well, here's only one cupandsaucer, as I breathe! Whatever could mother be thinking about? Do you

"Thank you, Mr. Dewy, for I like the cup decidedly. Stop a minute; there are no spoons now!" She dived into

the hamper again, and at the end of two or three minutes looked up and said, "I suppose you don't mind if I

"The fact is, the spoons have slipped down somewhere; right under the other things. O yes, here's one, and

"Then I'll have it. I do care about them. You must stir up your tea with a knife. Would you mind lifting the

"There! you did it so wildly that you have made your hand black. We always use kettleholders; didn't you

learn housewifery as far as that, Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. I am going

They went' to a basin she had placed in the back room. "This is the only basin I have," she said. "Turn up

Her hands were in the water now. "O, how vexing!" she exclaimed. "There's not a drop of water left for you,

unless you draw it, and the well is I don't know how many furlongs deep; all that was in the pitcher I used for

the kettle and this basin. Do you mind dipping the tips of your fingers in the same?"

"Not at all. And to save time I won't wait till you have done, if you have no objection?"

Thereupon he plunged in his hands, and they paddled together. It being the first time in his life that he had

touched female fingers under water, Dick duly registered the sensation as rather a nice one.

"Really, I hardly know which are my own hands and which are yours, they have got so mixed up together,"

"'Nobody.' How very dull it is when people are so friendly! Come here, Mr. Dewy. Now do you think you

could lift the lid of that box with your elbow, and then, with something or other, take out a towel you will

find under the clean clothes? Be SURE don't touch any of them with your wet hands, for the things at the top

Dick managed, by the aid of a knife and fork, to extract a towel from under a muslin dress without wetting

"What?" said Miss Day, looking into the box at the dress alluded to. "O, I know what you meanthat the

"Well, I know it is condemned by all orders in the church as flaunting, and unfit for common wear for girls

"Yes, I do; but we'll see." There was a comely determination on her lip, very pleasant to a beholder who was

neither bishop, priest, nor deacon. "I think I can manage any vicar's views about me if he's under forty."

"I certainly shall be glad to get some of your delicious tea," he said in rather a free way, yet modestly, as

became one in a position between that of visitor and inmate, and looking wistfully at his lonely saucer.

She prepared to sit down, looking musingly out of the window at Smart's enjoyment of the rich grass.

"Nobody seems to care about me," she murmured, with large lost eyes fixed upon the sky beyond Smart.

"Yes, I forgothe does, I know." Dick precipitately regretted that he had suggested Shiner, since it had

"I'll warrant you'll care for somebody very much indeed another day, won't you, Mr. Dewy?" she continued,

"Ah, I'll warrant I shall," said Dick, feelingly too, and looking back into her dark pupils, whereupon they

"I meant," she went on, preventing him from speaking just as he was going to narrate a forcible story about

his feelings; "I meant that nobody comes to see if I have returnednot even the vicar."

"If you want to see him, I'll call at the vicarage directly we have had some tea."

"No, no! Don't let him come down here, whatever you do, whilst I am in such a state of disarrangement.

Parsons look so miserable and awkward when one's house is in a muddle; walking about, and making

impossible suggestions in quaint academic phrases till your flesh creeps and you wish them dead. Do you

"There! That's he coming! How I wish you were not here Ithat is, how awkwarddear, dear!" she

exclaimed, with a quick ascent of blood to her face, and irritated with Dick rather than the vicar, as it seemed.

"Pray don't be alarmed on my account, Miss Daygoodafternoon!" said Dick in a huff, putting on his hat,

The horse was caught and put in, and on mounting the shafts to start he saw through the window the vicar,

standing upon some books piled in a chair, and driving a nail into the wall; Fancy, with a demure glance,

holding the canarycage up to him, as if she had never in her life thought of anything but vicars and canaries.

For several minutes Dick drove along homeward, with the inner eye of reflection so anxiously set on his

passages at arms with Fancy, that the road and scenery were as a thin mist over the real pictures of his mind.

Was she a coquette? The balance between the evidence that she did love him and that she did not was so

nicely struck, that his opinion had no stability. She had let him put his hand upon hers; she had allowed her

gaze to drop plumb into the depths of hishis into hersthree or four times; her manner had been very free

with regard to the basin and towel; she had appeared vexed at the mention of Shiner. On the other hand, she

had driven him about the house like a quiet dog or cat, said Shiner cared for her, and seemed anxious that Mr.

Thinking thus as he neared the handpost at Mellstock Cross, sitting on the front board of the spring carthis

legs on the outside, and his whole frame jigging up and down like a candleflame to the time of Smart's

trottingwho should he see coming down the hill but his father in the light wagon, quivering up and down

on a smaller scale of shakes, those merely caused by the stones in the road. They were soon crossing each

"Yes," said Dick, with such a clinching period at the end that it seemed he was never going to add another

"Wehhey!" said the tranter. "I tell thee what it is, Dick. That there maid is taking up thy thoughts more

than's good for thee, my sonny. Thou'rt never happy now unless th'rt making thyself miserable about her in

"But I doWey, Smiler!'Od rot the women, 'tis nothing else wi' 'em nowadays but getting young men and

"Pooh, father! you just repeat what all the common world says; that's all you do."

"The world's a very sensible feller on things in jineral, Dick; very sensible indeed."

Dick looked into the distance at a vast expanse of mortgaged estate. "I wish I was as rich as a squire when

"I wish so too, wi' all my heart, sonny; that I do. Well, mind what beest about, that's all."

Smart moved on a step or two. "Supposing now, father,Wehey, Smart!I did think a little about her, and

I had a chance, which I ha'n't; don't you think she's a very good sort ofofone?"

"Ay, good; she's good enough. When you've made up your mind to marry, take the first respectable body that

comes to handshe's as good as any other; they be all alike in the groundwork; 'tis only in the flourishes

there's a difference. She's good enough; but I can't see what the nation a young feller like youwi a

comfortable house and home, and father and mother to take care o' thee, and who sent 'ee to a school so good

that 'twas hardly fair to the other childrenshould want to go hollering after a young woman for, when she's

quietly making a husband in her pocket, and not troubled by chick nor chiel, to make a povertystric' wife

and family of her, and neither hat, cap, wig, nor waistcoat to set 'em up with: be drowned if I can see it, and

Dick looked at Smart's ears, then up the hill; but no reason was suggested by any object that met his gaze.

"Dang it, my sonny, thou'st got me there!" And the tranter gave vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a

man who was too magnanimous not to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were

"Come to that, is it? Turk! won't thy mother be in a taking! Well, she's ready, I don't doubt?"

"I didn't ask her anything about having me; and if you'll let me speak, I'll tell 'ee what I want to know. I just

"And then she said nothing for a quarter of a mile, and then she said she didn't know. Now, what I want to

know is, what was the meaning of that speech?" The latter words were spoken resolutely, as if he didn't care

"The meaning of that speech is," the tranter replied deliberately, "that the meaning is meant to be rather hid at

present. Well, Dick, as an honest father to thee, I don't pretend to deny what you d'know well enough; that is,

that her father being rather better in the pocket than we, I should welcome her ready enough if it must be

"I'm afeard I am not o' much account in guessing, especially as I was not there when she said it, and seeing

that your mother was the only 'ooman I ever cam' into such close quarters as that with."

"Wellay: what did she say? Let's see. I was oiling my working day boots without taking 'em off, and wi'

my head hanging down, when she just brushed on by the garden hatch like a flittering leaf. "Ann," I said, says

I, and then,but, Dick I'm afeard 'twill be no help to thee; for we were such a rum couple, your mother and

I, leastways one half was, that is myselfand your mother's charms was more in the manner than the

"'Ann,' said I, as I was saying . . . 'Ann,' I said to her when I was oiling my workingday boots wi' my head

hanging down, 'Woot hae me?' . . . What came next I can't quite call up at this distance o' time. Perhaps your

mother would know,she's got a better memory for her little triumphs than I. However, the long and the

short o' the story is that we were married somehow, as I found afterwards. 'Twas on White

Tuesday,Mellstock Club walked the same day, every man two and two, and a fine day 'twas,hot as

fire,how the sun did strike down upon my back going to church! I well can mind what a bath o' sweating I

was in, body and soul! But Fance will ha' thee, Dickshe won't walk with another chapno such good

"I don't know about that," said Dick, whipping at Smart's flank in a fanciful way, which, as Smart knew,

meant nothing in connection with going on. "There's Pa'son Maybold, toothat's all against me."

"What about he? She's never been stuffing into thy innocent heart that he's in hove with her? Lord, the vanity

"No, no. But he called, and she looked at him in such a way, and at me in such a wayquite different the

"Well, why shouldn't the man hang up her birdcage? Turk seize it all, what's that got to do wi' it? Dick, that

thou beest a white lyvered chap I don't say, but if thou beestn't as mad as a cappel faced bull, let me smile

"Here's another pretty kettle o' fish for thee. Who d'ye think's the bitter weed in our being turned out? Did our

"Shiner,because he's in love with thy young woman, and d'want to see her young figure sitting up at that

A sharp ado of sweet and bitter was going on in Dick during this communication from his father. "Shiner's a

fool!no, that's not it; I don't believe any such thing, father. Why, Shiner would never take a bold step like

"Then she has done as much to herot 'em! Now, Dick, this is how a maid is. She'll swear she's dying for

thee, and she is dying for thee, and she will die for thee; but she'll fling a look over t'other shoulder at another

"All I can make of it is," the tranter said, raising his whip, arranging his different joints and muscles, and

motioning to the horse to move on, "that if you can't read a maid's mind by her motions, nature d'seem to say

Dick held Smart's rein firmly, and the whole concern of horse, cart, and man remained rooted in the lane.

Hew long this condition would have lasted is unknown, had not Dick's thoughts, after adding up numerous

items of misery, gradually wandered round to the fact that as something must be done, it could not be done by

Reaching home he went up to his bedroom, shut the door as if he were going to be seen no more in this life,

and taking a sheet of paper and uncorking the inkbottle, he began a letter. The dignity of the writer's mind

was so powerfully apparent in every line of this effusion that it obscured the logical sequence of facts and

intentions to an appreciable degree; and it was not at all clear to a reader whether he there and then left off

loving Miss Fancy Day; whether he had never loved her seriously, and never meant to; whether he had been

dying up to the present moment, and now intended to get well again; or whether he had hitherto been in good

He put this letter in an envelope, sealed it up, directed it in a stern handwriting of straight dasheseasy

flourishes being rigorously excluded. He walked with it in his pocket down the lane in strides not an inch less

than three feet long. Reaching her gate he put on a resolute expressionthen put it off again, turned back

That letter was altogether in a wrong tonethat he must own. A heartless manoftheworld tone was what

the juncture required. That he rather wanted her, and rather did not want herthe latter for choice; hut that as

a member of society he didn't mind making a query in jaunty terms, which could only be answered in the

This letter was considered so satisfactory in every way that, being put into the hands of a little boy, and the

order given that he was to run with it to the school, he was told in addition not to look behind him if Dick

called after him to bring it hack, but to run along with it just the same. Having taken this precaution against

vacillation, Dick watched his messenger down the road, and turned into the house whistling an air in such

ghastly jerks and starts, that whistling seemed to be the act the very furthest removed from that which was

The letter was left as ordered: the next morning came and passed and no answer. The next. The next.

Friday night came. Dick resolved that if no answer or sign were given by her the next day, on Sunday he

"Dick," said his father, coming in from the garden at that moment in each hand a hive of bees tied in a

cloth to prevent their egress "I think you'd better take these two swarms of bees to Mrs. Maybold's

It was a relief; for Mrs. Maybold, the vicar's mother, who had just taken into her head a fancy for keeping

bees (pleasantly disguised under the pretence of its being an economical wish to produce her own honey),

lived near the wateringplace of BudmouthRegis, ten miles off, and the business of transporting the hives

thither would occupy the whole day, and to some extent annihilate the vacant time between this evening and

the coming Sunday. The best springcart was washed throughout, the axles oiled, and the bees placed therein

An easy bend of neck and graceful set of head; full and wavy bundles of darkbrown hair; light fall of little

feet; pretty devices on the skirt of the dress; clear deep eyes; in short, a bunch of sweets: it was Fancy! Dick's

The scene was the corner of Mary Street in BudmouthRegis, near the King's statue, at which point the white

angle of the last house in the row cut perpendicularly an embayed and nearly motionless expanse of salt water

projected from the outer oceantoday lit in bright tones of green and opal. Dick and Smart had just

emerged from the street, and there on the right, against the brilliant sheet of liquid colour, stood Fancy Day;

Dick suspended his thoughts of the letter and wonder at how she came there by driving close to the chains of

the Esplanadeincontinently displacing two chairmen, who had just come to life for the summer in new

clean shirts and revivified clothes, and being almost displaced in turn by a rigid boy rattling along with a

baker's cart, and looking neither to the right nor the left. He asked if she were going to Mellstock that night.

"Yes, I'm waiting for the carrier," she replied, seeming, too, to suspend thoughts of the letter.

"Now I can drive you home nicely, and you save half an hour. Will ye come with me?"

As Fancy's power to will anything seemed to have departed in some mysterious manner at that moment, Dick

settled the matter by getting out and assisting her into the vehicle without another word.

The temporary flush upon her cheek changed to a lesser hue, which was permanent, and at length their eyes

met; there was present between them a certain feeling of embarrassment, which arises at such moments when

all the instinctive acts dictated by the position have been performed. Dick, being engaged with the reins,

thought less of this awkwardness than did Fancy, who had nothing to do but to feel his presence, and to be

more and more conscious of the fact, that by accepting a seat beside him in this way she succumbed to the

tone of his note. Smart jogged along, and Dick jogged, and the helpless Fancy necessarily jogged, too; and

"I am so much obliged to you for your company, Miss Day," he observed, as they drove past the two

semicircular bays of the Old Royal Hotel, where His Majesty King George the Third had many a time

To Miss Day, crediting him with the same consciousness of masterya consciousness of which he was

perfectly innocentthis remark sounded like a magnanimous intention to soothe her, the captive.

The answer had an unexpected manner of incivility in it that must have been rather surprising to young

Dewy. At the same time it may be observed, that when a young woman returns a rude answer to a young

man's civil remark, her heart is in a state which argues rather hopefully for his case than otherwise.

There was silence between them till they had left the seafront and passed about twenty of the trees that

ornamented the road leading up out of the town towards Casterbridge and Mellstock.

"Though I didn't come for that purpose either, I would have done it," said Dick at the twentyfirst tree.

Dick seated himself afresh just as he had been sitting before, arranged his looks very emphatically, and

"Really, anybody would think you had met me on business and were just going to commence," said the lady

This was a shaky beginning. He chopped round, and said cheerily, as a man who had resolved never to spoil

his jollity by loving one of womankind"Well, how are you getting on, Miss Day, at the present time?

"I didn't suppose gaily was gaily dressed. Mighty me, what a scholar you've grown!"

"The name of a pretty man, with brass studs and a copper ring and a tin watchchain, a little mixed up with

"That's a very unkind picture of Mr. Shiner, for that's who you mean! The studs are gold, as you know, and

it's a real silver chain; the ring I can't conscientiously defend, and he only wore it once."

"Now, Mr. Dewy," said Fancy severely, "certainly he isn't any more to me than you are!"

She looked aside to consider the precise compass of that question. "That I can't exactly answer," she replied

As they were going rather slowly, another springcart, containing a farmer, farmer's wife, and farmer's man,

jogged past them; and the farmer's wife and farmer's man eyed the couple very curiously. The farmer never

"Why can't you exactly answer?" said Dick, quickening Smart a little, and jogging on just behind the farmer

As no answer came, and as their eyes had nothing else to do, they both contemplated the picture presented in

front, and noticed how the farmer's wife sat flattened between the two men, who bulged over each end of the

seat to give her room, till they almost sat upon their respective wheels; and they looked too at the farmer's

wife's silk mantle, inflating itself between her shoulders like a balloon and sinking flat again, at each jog of

the horse. The farmer's wife, feeling their eyes sticking into her back, looked over her shoulder. Dick dropped

"Because how much you are to me depends upon how much I am to you," said she in low tones.

"Everything," said Dick, putting his hand towards hers, and casting emphatic eyes upon the upper curve of

"Now, Richard Dewy, no touching me! I didn't say in what way your thinking of me affected the

questionperhaps inversely, don't you see? No touching, sir! Look; goodness me, don't, Dick!"

The cause of her sudden start was the unpleasant appearance over Dick's right shoulder of an empty

timberwagon and four journeymen carpenters reclining in lazy postures inside it, their eyes directed

upwards at various oblique angles into the surrounding world, the chief object of their existence being

apparently to criticize to the very backbone and marrow every animate object that came within the compass

of their vision. This difficulty of Dick's was overcome by trotting on till the wagon and carpenters were

beginning to look rather misty by reason of a film of dust that accompanied their wagonwheels, and rose

"'Miss Day' is better at presentdon't mind my saying so; and I ought not to have called you Dick."

"Nonsense! when you know that I would do anything on earth for your love. Why, you make any one think

that loving is a thing that can be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim."

"No, no, I don't," she said gently; "but there are things which tell me I ought not to give way to much thinking

"But you want to, don't you? Yes, say you do; it is best to be truthful. Whatever they may say about a

woman's right to conceal where her love lies, and pretend it doesn't exist, and things like that, it is not best; I

do know it, Fancy. And an honest woman in that, as well as in all her daily concerns, shines most brightly,

"Well then, perhaps, Dick, I do love you a little," she whispered tenderly; "but I wish you wouldn't say any

"I won't say any more now, then, if you don't like it, dear. But you do love me a little, don't you?"

"Now you ought not to want me to keep saying things twice; I can't say any more now, and you must be

Dick's spirits having risen in the course of these admissions of his sweetheart, he now touched Smart with the

whip; and on Smart's neck, not far behind his ears. Smart, who had been lost in thought for some time, never

dreaming that Dick could reach so far with a whip which, on this particular journey, had never been extended

further than his flank, tossed his head, and scampered along with exceeding briskness, which was very

pleasant to the young couple behind him till, turning a bend in the road, they came instantly upon the farmer,

farmer's man, and farmer's wife with the flapping mantle, all jogging on just the same as ever.

"Yes, but it is provoking to be overlooked so. I like a road all to myself. Look what a lumbering affair theirs

is!" The wheels of the farmer's cart, just at that moment, jogged into a depression running across the road,

giving the cart a twist, whereupon all three nodded to the left, and on coming out of it all three nodded to the

right, and went on jerking their backs in and out as usual. "We'll pass them when the road gets wider."

When an opportunity seemed to offer itself for carrying this intention into effect, they heard light flying

wheels behind, and on their quartering there whizzed along past them a brandnew gig, so brightly polished

that the spokes of the wheels sent forth a continual quivering light at one point in their circle, and all the

panels glared like mirrors in Dick and Fancy's eyes. The driver, and owner as it appeared, was really a

handsome man; his companion was Shiner. Both turned round as they passed Dick and Fancy, and stared

with bold admiration in her face till they were obliged to attend to the operation of passing the farmer. Dick

glanced for an instant at Fancy while she was undergoing their scrutiny; then returned to his driving with

"Well," said Dick, who seemed longing to tell, even at the risk of offending her, "I was thinking how

different you in love are from me in love. Whilst those men were staring, you dismissed me from your

"Dick, I always believe flattery IF POSSIBLEand it was possible then. Now there's an open confession of

Dick, perceiving by her look that she would adhere to her statement, charitably forbore saying anything that

could make her prevaricate. The sight of Shiner, too, had recalled another branch of the subject to his mind;

that which had been his greatest trouble till her company and words had obscured its probability.

"Mr. Shiner, being churchwarden, has persuaded the vicar; who, however, was willing enough before. Shiner,

I know, is crazy to see you playing every Sunday; I suppose he'll turn over your music, for the organ will be

"Never once!" said Fancy emphatically, and with eyes full of earnest truth. "I don't like him indeed, and I

never heard of his doing this before! I have always felt that I should like to play in a church, but I never

wished to turn you and your choir out; and I never even said that I could play till I was asked. You don't think

The distance between Budmouth and Mellstock was ten or eleven miles, and there being a good inn, "The

Ship," four miles out of Budmouth, with a mast and crosstrees in front, Dick's custom in driving thither was

to divide the journey into three stages by resting at this inn going and coming, and not troubling the

Budmouth stables at all, whenever his visit to the town was a mere call and deposit, as today.

Fancy was ushered into a little tearoom, and Dick went to the stables to see to the feeding of Smart. In face

of the significant twitches of feature that were visible in the ostler and labouring men idling around, Dick

endeavoured to look unconscious of the fact that there was any sentiment between him and Fancy beyond a

tranter's desire to carry a passenger home. He presently entered the inn and opened the door of Fancy's room.

"Dick, do you know, it has struck me that it is rather awkward, my being here alone with you like this. I don't

"Yes, it is, and I wanted you to have some tea as well as myself too, because you must be tired."

"Well, let me have some with you, then. I was denied once before, if you recollect, Fancy."

"Yes, yes, never mind! And it seems unfriendly of me now, but I don't know what to do."

"It shall be as you say, then." Dick began to retreat with a dissatisfied wrinkling of face, and a farewell glance

"But you don't see how it is, Dick, when you speak like that," she said, with more earnestness than she had

ever shown before. "You do know, that even if I care very much for you, I must remember that I have a

difficult position to maintain. The vicar would not like me, as his schoolmistress, to indulge in a teteatete

"No, no, I mean with a young man;" and she added softly, "unless I were really engaged to be married to

"Is that all? Then, dearest, dearest, why we'll be engaged at once, to be sure we will, and down I sit! There it

"Ah! but suppose I won't! And, goodness me, what have I done!" she faltered, getting very red. "Positively, it

"Let's do it! I mean get engaged," said Dick. "Now, Fancy, will you be my wife?"

"Do you know, Dick, it was rather unkind of you to say what you did coming along the road," she remarked,

as if she had not heard the latter part of his speech; though an acute observer might have noticed about her

breast, as the word 'wife' fell from Dick's lips, a soft silent escape of breaths, with very short rests between

"You couldn't help looking so, whether you tried or no. And, Fancy, you do care for me?"

Her heart quickened, adding to and withdrawing from her cheek varying tones of red to match each varying

thought. Dick looked expectantly at the ripe tint of her delicate mouth, waiting for what was coming forth.

Dick drew himself close to her, compressing his lips and pouting them out, as if he were about to whistle the

"Dick, Dick, kiss me and let me go instantly!here's somebody coming!" she whisperingly exclaimed.

Half an hour afterwards Dick emerged from the inn, and if Fancy's lips had been real cherries probably Dick's

"Heuheu! hayhay, Master Dewy! Hoho!" he laughed, letting the laugh slip out gently and by degrees that

it might make little noise in its exit, and smiting Dick under the fifth rib at the same time. "This will never do,

upon my life, Master Dewy! calling for tay for a feymel passenger, and then going in and sitting down and

"But surely you know?" said Dick, with great apparent surprise. "Yes, yes! Haha!" smiting the landlord

"Why aboutbetween that young lady and me?" nodding to the window of the room that Fancy occupied.

"O yes," said Dick, with frigid rhetoric of pitying astonishment, "we're engaged to be married, you see, and I

"Of course, of course! I didn't know that, and I hope ye'll excuse any little freedom of mine, Mr. Dewy. But it

is a very odd thing; I was talking to your father very intimate about family matters only last Friday in the

world, and who should come in but Keeper Day, and we all then fell atalking o' family matters; but neither

one o' them said a mortal word about it; knowen me too so many years, and I at your father's own wedding.

"Well, to say the truth, we hadn't told father of the engagement at that time; in fact, 'twasn't settled."

"Ah! the business was done Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday's the courting day. Heuheu!"

"Dammymight as well have said at once, the WHEN be blowed! Anyhow, 'tis a fine day, and I hope next

Fancy was duly brought out and assisted into the vehicle, and the newly affianced youth and maiden passed

It was a morning of the latter summertime; a morning of lingering dews, when the grass is never dry in the

shade. Fuchsias and dahlias were laden till eleven o'clock with small drops and dashes of water, changing the

colour of their sparkle at every movement of the air; and elsewhere hanging on twigs like small silver fruit.

The threads of garden spiders appeared thick and polished. In the dry and sunny places, dozens of

Fancy Day and her friend Susan Dewy the tranter's daughter, were in such a spot as this, pulling down a

bough laden with early apples. Three months had elapsed since Dick and Fancy had journeyed together from

Budmouth, and the course of their love had run on vigorously during the whole time. There had been just

enough difficulty attending its development, and just enough finesse required in keeping it private, to lend the

passion an everincreasing freshness on Fancy's part, whilst, whether from these accessories or not, Dick's

heart had been at all times as fond as could be desired. But there was a cloud on Fancy's horizon now.

"She is so well offbetter than any of us," Susan Dewy was saying. "Her father farms five hundred acres,

and she might marry a doctor or curate or anything of that kind if she contrived a little."

"I don't think Dick ought to have gone to that gipsyparty at all when he knew I couldn't go," replied Fancy

"He didn't know that you would not be there till it was too late to refuse the invitation," said Susan.

"Tell straight on about her, can't you! Come, do, Susan. How many times did you say he danced with her?"

"No; I don't think he did. She wanted to dance with him again bad enough, I know. Everybody does with

"In long curls,and her hair is light, and it curls without being put in paper: that's how it is she's so

"She's trying to get him away! yes, yes, she is! And through keeping this miserable school I mustn't wear my

hair in curls! But I will; I don't care if I leave the school and go home, I will wear my curls! Look, Susan, do!

is her hair as soft and long as this?" Fancy pulled from its coil under her hat a twine of her own hair, and

stretched it down her shoulder to show its length, looking at Susan to catch her opinion from her eyes.

Fancy paused hopelessly. "I wish mine was lighter, like hers!" she continued mournfully. "But hers isn't so

Fancy abstractedly extended her vision to survey a yellow butterfly and a redandblack butterfly that were

flitting along in company, and then became aware that Dick was advancing up the garden.

"Susan, here's Dick coming; I suppose that's because we've been talking about him."

"Well, then, I shall go indoors nowyou won't want me;" and Susan turned practically and walked off.

Enter the singleminded Dick, whose only fault at the gipsying, or picnic, had been that of loving Fancy too

exclusively, and depriving himself of the innocent pleasure the gathering might have afforded him, by sighing

regretfully at her absence,who had danced with the rival in sheer despair of ever being able to get through

that stale, flat, and unprofitable afternoon in any other way; but this she would not believe.

Fancy had settled her plan of emotion. To reproach Dick? O no, no. "I am in great trouble," said she, taking

what was intended to be a hopelessly melancholy survey of a few small apples lying under the tree; yet a

critical ear might have noticed in her voice a tentative tone as to the effect of the words upon Dick when she

"What are you in trouble about? Tell me of it," said Dick earnestly. "Darling, I will share it with 'ee and help

"'Tis, 'tis!" said the young lady, in a pretty little frenzy of sorrow. "I have done wrong, and I don't like to tell

it! Nobody will forgive me, nobody! and you above all will not! . . . I have allowed myself totofl"

"What,not flirt!" he said, controlling his emotion as it were by a sudden pressure inward from his surface.

"And you said only the day before yesterday that you hadn't flirted in your life!"

"Good G! Well, I'll forgive you,yes, if you couldn't help it, yes, I will!" said the now dismal Dick.

After a silence that was only disturbed by the fall of an apple, a longchecked sigh from Dick, and a sob from

"He looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, "Will you let me show you how to catch bullfinches

down here by the stream?" And I wanted to know very muchI did so long to have a bullfinch! I couldn't

help that and I said, "Yes!" and then he said, "Come here." And I went with him down to the lovely river, and

then he said to me, "Look and see how I do it, and then you'll know: I put this birdlime round this twig, and

then I go here," he said, "and hide away under a hush; and presently clever Mister Bird comes and perches

upon the twig, and flaps his wings, and you've got him before you can say Jack"something; O, O, O, I

"Then 'twas Jack Robinson!" he said, with the emphasis of a man who had resolved to discover every iota of

"Yes, that was it! And then I put my hand upon the rail of the bridge to get across, andThat's all."

"Well, that isn't much, either," said Dick critically, and more cheerfully. "Not that I see what business Shiner

has to take upon himself to teach you anything. But it seemsit do seem there must have been more than

"Now, Fancy, you've not told me all!" said Dick, rather sternly for a quiet young man.

"O, don't speak so cruelly! I am afraid to tell now! If you hadn't been harsh, I was going on to tell all; now I

"Come, dear Fancy, tell: come. I'll forgive; I must,by heaven and earth, I must, whether I will or no; I love

"And then he looked at me, and at last he said, 'Are you in love with Dick Dewy?' And I said, 'Perhaps I am!'

and then he said, 'I wish you weren't then, for I want to marry you, with all my soul.'"

"There's a villain now! Want to marry you!" And Dick quivered with the bitterness of satirical laughter. Then

suddenly remembering that he might be reckoning without his host: "Unless, to he sure, you are willing to

have him,perhaps you are," he said, with the wretched indifference of a castaway.

"No, indeed I am not!" she said, her sobs just beginning to take a favourable turn towards cure.

"Well, then," said Dick, coming a little to his senses, "you've been stretching it very much in giving such a

dreadful beginning to such a mere nothing. And I know what you've done it for,just because of that

gipsyparty!" He turned away from her and took five paces decisively, as if he were tired of an ungrateful

country, including herself "You did it to make me jealous, and I won't stand it!" He flung the words to her

over his shoulder and then stalked on, apparently very anxious to walk to the remotest of the Colonies that

"O, O, O, DickDick!" she cried, trotting after him like a pet lamb, and really seriously alarmed at last,

"you'll kill me! My impulses are badmiserably wicked,and I can't help it; forgive me, Dick! And I love

you always; and those times when you look silly and don't seem quite good enough for me,just the same, I

do, Dick! And there is something more serious, though not concerning that walk with him."

"Well, what is it?" said Dick, altering his mind about walking to the Colonies in fact, passing to the other

extreme, and standing so rooted to the road that he was apparently not even going home.

"Why this," she said, drying the beginning of a new flood of tears she had been going to shed, "this is the

serious part. Father has told Mr. Shiner that he would like him for a soninlaw, if he could get me;that he

"That IS serious," said Dick, more intellectually than he had spoken for a long time.

The truth was that Geoffrey knew nothing about his daughter's continued walks and meetings with Dick.

When a hint that there were symptoms of an attachment between them had first reached Geoffrey's ears, he

stated so emphatically that he must think the matter over before any such thing could be allowed that, rather

unwisely on Dick's part, whatever it might have been on the lady's, the lovers were careful to be seen together

no more in public; and Geoffrey, forgetting the report, did not think over the matter at all. So Mr. Shiner

resumed his old position in Geoffrey's brain by mere flux of time. Even Shiner began to believe that Dick

existed for Fancy no more,though that remarkably easygoing man had taken no active steps on his own

"And father has not only told Mr. Shiner that," continued Fancy, "but he has written me a letter, to say he

"I must start off and see your father at once!" said Dick, taking two or three vehement steps to the south,

"I think we had better see him together. Not tell him what you come for, or anything of the kind, until he likes

you, and so win his brain through his heart, which is always the way to manage people. I mean in this way: I

am going home on Saturday week to help them in the honeytaking. You might come there to me, have

something to eat and drink, and let him guess what your coming signifies, without saying it in so many

"We'll do it, dearest. But I shall ask him for you, flat and plain; not wait for his guessing." And the lover then

stepped close to her, and attempted to give her one little kiss on the cheek, his lips alighting however, on an

outlying tract of her back hair by reason of an impulse that had caused her to turn her head with a jerk. "Yes,

and I'll put on my secondbest suit and a clean shirt and collar, and black my boots as if 'twas a Sunday.

"I didn't mean to be personal, dear Dick," she said, fearing she had hurt his feelings. "'Tis a very nice

waistcoat, but what I meant was, that though it is an excellent waistcoat for a settleddown man, it is not

quite one for" (she waited, and a blush expanded over her face, and then she went on again)"for going

"No, I'll wear my best winter one, with the leather lining, that mother made. It is a beautiful, handsome

waistcoat inside, yes, as ever anybody saw. In fact, only the other day, I unbuttoned it to show a chap that

very lining, and he said it was the strongest, handsomest lining you could wish to see on the king's waistcoat

"_I_ don't quite know what to wear," she said, as if her habitual indifference alone to dress had kept back so

"Well, then it's all right. Because you only care how you look to me, do you, dear? I only dress for you, that's

"Any strange gentleman you mid meet in your journey might notice the set of it, I suppose. Fancy, men in

love don't think so much about how they look to other women." It is difficult to say whether a tone of playful

"Well then, Dick," she said, with goodhumoured frankness, "I'll own it. I shouldn't like a stranger to see me

"Yes; if you lay the stress on 'woman,'" she murmured, looking at a group of hollyhocks in flower, round

which a crowd of butterflies had gathered like female idlers round a bonnetshop.

"That sets well, but a girl of the name of Bet Tallor, who lives near our house, has had one made almost like

it (only in pattern, though of miserably cheap stuff), and I couldn't wear it on that account. Dear me, I am

"O yes, you must; I know you will!" said Dick, with dismay. "Why not wear what you've got on?"

"What! this old one! After all, I think that by wearing my gray one Saturday, I can make the blue one do for

Sunday. Yes, I will. A hat or a bonnet, which shall it be? Which do I look best in?"

"O no; the hat is well enough; but it makes you look rather tooyou won't mind me saying it, dear?"

She reflected a minute. "Yes; yes. Still, after all, the hat would do best; hats ARE best, you see. Yes, I must

Dick, dressed in his 'secondbest' suit, burst into Fancy's sitting room with a glow of pleasure on his face.

It was two o'clock on Friday, the day be fore her contemplated visit to her father, and for some reason

connected with cleaning the school the children had been given this Friday afternoon for pastime, in addition

"Fancy! it happens just right that it is a leisure half day with you. Smart is lame in his nearfootafore, and

so, as I can't do anything, I've made a holiday afternoon of it, and am come for you to go nutting with me!"

She was sitting by the parlour window, with a blue frock lying across her lap and scissors in her hand.

"This dress of mine, that I am going to wear on Sunday at Yalbury; I find it fits so badly that I must alter it

a little, after all. I told the dressmaker to make it by a pattern I gave her at the time; instead of that, she did it

Dick sat down. The talking progressed very favourably, amid the snipping and sewing, till about halfpast

two, at which time his conversation began to be varied by a slight tapping upon his toe with a walkingstick

he had cut from the hedge as he came along. Fancy talked and answered him, but sometimes the answers

were so negligently given, that it was evident her thoughts lay for the greater part in her lap with the blue

The clock struck three. Dick arose from his seat, walked round the room with his hands behind him,

examined all the furniture, then sounded a few notes on the harmonium, then looked inside all the books he

could find, then smoothed Fancy's head with his hand. Still the snipping and sewing went on.

The clock struck four. Dick fidgeted about, yawned privately; counted the knots in the table, yawned

publicly; counted the flies on the ceiling, yawned horribly; went into the kitchen and scullery, and so

thoroughly studied the principle upon which the pump was constructed that he could have delivered a lecture

on the subject. Stepping back to Fancy, and finding still that she had not done, he went into her garden and

looked at her cabbages and potatoes, and reminded himself that they seemed to him to wear a decidedly

feminine aspect; then pulled up several weeds, and came in again. The clock struck five, and still the snipping

Dick attempted to kill a fly, peeled all the rind off his walking stick, then threw the stick into the scullery

because it was spoilt, produced hideous discords from the harmonium, and accidentally overturned a vase of

flowers, the water from which ran in a rill across the table and dribbled to the floor, where it formed a lake,

the shape of which, after the lapse of a few minutes, he began to modify considerably with his foot, till it was

"Well, I needn't, I suppose." He walked up to the blue dress, and looked at it with a rigid gaze. Then an idea

"I thought you said you were going to wear your gray gown all day tomorrow on your trip to Yalbury, and

"No, but I shall walk to Longpuddle church in the afternoon with father, and such lots of people will be

"Then why not wear the gray one on Sunday as well? 'Tis as pretty as the blue one."

"I might make the gray one do, certainly. But it isn't so good; it didn't cost half so much as this one, and

"I see, I see," said Dick, in a voice in which the tones of love were decidedly inconvenienced by a

considerable emphasis, his thoughts meanwhile running as follows: "I, the man she loves best in the world, as

she says, am to understand that my poor half holiday is to be lost, because she wants to wear on Sunday a

gown there is not the slightest necessity for wearing, simply, in fact, to appear more striking than usual in the

"Then there are three dresses good enough for my eyes, but neither is good enough for the youths of

"No, not that exactly, Dick. Still, you see, I do wantto look pretty to themthere, that's honest! But I

He went out, walked down the road, and sat upon a gate. Here he meditated and meditated, and the more he

meditated the more decidedly did he begin to fume, and the more positive was he that his time had been

scandalously trifled with by Miss Fancy Daythat, so far from being the simple girl who had never had a

sweetheart before, as she had solemnly assured him time after time, she was, if not a flirt, a woman who had

had no end of admirers; a girl most certainly too anxious about her frocks; a girl, whose feelings, though

warm, were not deep; a girl who cared a great deal too much how she appeared in the eyes of other men.

"What she loves best in the world," he thought, with an incipient spice of his father's grimness, "is her hair

and complexion. What she loves next best, her gowns and hats; what she loves next best, myself, perhaps!"

Suffering great anguish at this disloyalty in himself and harshness to his darling, yet disposed to persevere in

it, a horribly cruel thought crossed his mind. He would not call for her, as he had promised, at the end of a

quarter of an hour! Yes, it would be a punishment she well deserved. Although the best part of the afternoon

He leaped over the gate, and pushed up the lane for nearly two miles, till a winding path called SnailCreep

sloped up a hill and entered a hazel copse by a hole hike a rabbit's burrow. In he plunged, vanished among the

bushes, and in a short time there was no sign of his existence upon earth, save an occasional rustling of

Never man nutted as Dick nutted that afternoon. He worked like a galley slave. Halfhour after halfhour

passed away, and still he gathered without ceasing. At last, when the sun had set, and bunches of nuts could

not be distinguished from the leaves which nourished them, he shouldered his bag, containing quite two

pecks of the finest produce of the wood, about as much use to him as two pecks of stones from the road,

strolled down the woodland track, crossed the highway and entered the homeward lane, whistling as be went.

Probably, Miss Fancy Day never before or after stood so low in Mr. Dewy's opinion as on that afternoon. In

fact, it is just possible that a few more blue dresses on the Longpuddle young men's account would have

But Venus had planned other developments, at any rate for the present. CuckooLane, the way he pursued,

passed over a ridge which rose keenly against the sky about fifty yards in his van. Here, upon the bright

afterglow about the horizon, was now visible an irregular shape, which at first he conceived to be a bough

standing a little beyond the line of its neighbours. Then it seemed to move, and, as he advanced still further,

there was no doubt that it was a living being sitting in the bank, head bowed on hand. The grassy margin

entirely prevented his footsteps from being heard, and it was not till he was close that the figure recognized

She ran up to him, flung her parasol on the grass, put her little head against his breast, and then there began a

narrative, disjointed by such a hysterical weeping as was never surpassed for intensity in the whole history of

"O Dick," she sobbed out, "where have you been away from me? O, I have suffered agony, and thought you

would never come any more! 'Tis cruel, Dick; no 'tisn't, it is justice! I've been walking miles and miles up and

down Grey's Wood, trying to find you, till I was wearied and worn out, and I could walk no further, and had

come back this far! O Dick, directly you were gone, I thought I had offended you and I put down the dress;

'tisn't finished now, and I never will finish, it, and I'll wear an old one Sunday! Yes, Dick, I will, because I

don't care what I wear when you are not by my sideha, you think I do, but I don't!and I ran after you,

and I saw you go up SnailCreep and not look back once, and then you plunged in, and I after you; but I was

too far behind. O, I did wish the horrid bushes had been cut down, so that I could see your dear shape again!

And then I called out to you, and nobody answered, and I was afraid to call very loud, lest anybody else

should hear me. Then I kept wandering and wandering about, and it was dreadful misery, Dick. And then I

shut my eyes and fell to picturing you looking at some other woman, very pretty and nice, but with no

affection or truth in her at all, and then imagined you saying to yourself, "Ah, she's as good as Fancy, for

Fancy told me a story, and was a flirt, and cared for herself more than me, so now I'll have this one for my

It is scarcely necessary to add that Dick renounced his freedom there and then, and kissed her ten times over,

and promised that no pretty woman of the kind alluded to should ever engross his thoughts; in short, that

though he had been vexed with her, all such vexation was past, and that henceforth and for ever it was simply

Fancy or death for him. And then they set about proceeding homewards, very slowly on account of Fancy's

weariness, she leaning upon his shoulder, and in addition receiving support from his arm round her waist;

though she had sufficiently recovered from her desperate condition to sing to him, "Why are you wandering

here, I pray?" during the latter part of their walk. Nor is it necessary to describe in detail how the bag of nuts

was quite forgotten until three days later, when it was found among the brambles and restored empty to Mrs.

Dewy, her initials being marked thereon in red cotton; and how she puzzled herself till her head ached upon

Saturday evening saw Dick Dewy journeying on foot to Yalbury Wood, according to the arrangement with

The landscape being concave, at the going down of the sun everything suddenly assumed a uniform robe of

shade. The evening advanced from sunset to dusk long before Dick's arrival, and his progress during the latter

portion of his walk through the trees was indicated by the flutter of terrified birds that had been roosting over

the path. And in crossing the glades, masses of hot dry air, that had been formed on the hills during the day,

greeted his cheeks alternately with clouds of damp night air from the valleys. He reached the

keepersteward's house, where the grassplot and the garden in front appeared light and pale against the

unbroken darkness of the grove from which he had emerged, and paused at the garden gate.

He had scarcely been there a minute when he beheld a sort of procession advancing from the door in his

front. It consisted first of Enoch the trapper, carrying a spade on his shoulder and a lantern dangling in his

hand; then came Mrs. Day, the light of the lantern revealing that she bore in her arms curious objects about a

foot long, in the form of Latin crosses (made of lath and brown paper dipped in brimstonecalled matches

by beemasters); next came Miss Day, with a shawl thrown over her head; and behind all, in the gloom, Mr.

Dick, in his consternation at finding Shiner present, was at a loss how to proceed, and retired under a tree to

"Here I be, Enoch," said a voice; and the procession advancing farther, the lantern's rays illuminated the

figure of Geoffrey, awaiting their arrival beside a row of beehives, in front of the path. Taking the spade

from Enoch, he proceeded to dig two holes in the earth beside the hives, the others standing round in a circle,

except Mrs. Day, who deposited her matches in the fork of an apple tree and returned to the house. The

party remaining were now lit up in front by the lantern in their midst, their shadows radiating each way upon

the gardenplot like the spokes of a wheel. An apparent embarrassment of Fancy at the presence of Shiner

caused a silence in the assembly, during which the preliminaries of execution were arranged, the matches

fixed, the stake kindled, the two hives placed over the two holes, and the earth stopped round the edges.

Geoffrey then stood erect, and rather more, to straighten his backbone after the digging.

"They were a peculiar family," said Mr. Shiner, regarding the hives reflectively.

"Those holes will be the grave of thousands!" said Fancy. "I think 'tis rather a cruel thing to do."

Her father shook his head. "No," he said, tapping the hives to shake the dead bees from their cells, "if you

suffocate 'em this way, they only die once: if you fumigate 'em in the new way, they come to life again, and

"The proper way to take honey, so that the bees be neither starved nor murdered, is a puzzling matter," said

"But 'tis the money," said Enoch musingly. "For without money man is a shadder!"

The lanternlight had disturbed many bees that had escaped from hives destroyed some days earlier, and,

demoralized by affliction, were now getting a living as marauders about the doors of other hives. Several flew

round the head and neck of Geoffrey; then darted upon him with an irritated bizz.

Enoch threw down the lantern, and ran off and pushed his head into a currant bush; Fancy scudded up the

path; and Mr. Shiner floundered away helterskelter among the cabbages. Geoffrey stood his ground,

unmoved and firm as a rock. Fancy was the first to return, followed by Enoch picking up the lantern. Mr.

"No, not muchon'y a little here and there," he said with leisurely solemnity, shaking one bee out of his shirt

sleeve, pulling another from among his hair, and two or three more from his neck. The rest looked on during

this proceeding with a complacent sense of being out of it,much as a European nation in a state of internal

"Are those all of them, father?" said Fancy, when Geoffrey had pulled away five.

"Almost all,though I feel one or two more sticking into my shoulder and side. Ah! there's another just

begun again upon my backbone. You lively young mortals, how did you get inside there? However, they can't

sting me many times more, poor things, for they must be getting weak. They mid as well stay in me till

As he himself was the only person affected by this arrangement, it seemed satisfactory enough; and after a

noise of feet kicking against cabbages in a blundering progress among them, the voice of Mr. Shiner was

No answer being returned to this query, he apparently assumed that he might venture forth, and gradually

drew near the lantern again. The hives were now removed from their position over the holes, one being

Geoffrey and Enoch then went towards the house, leaving Shiner and Fancy standing side by side on the

"Allow me," said Shiner, stooping for the lantern and seizing it at the same time with Fancy.

"I can carry it," said Fancy, religiously repressing all inclination to trifle. She had thoroughly considered that

subject after the tearful explanation of the birdcatching adventure to Dick, and had decided that it would be

dishonest in her, as an engaged young woman, to trifle with men's eyes and hands any more. Finding that

Shiner still retained his hold of the lantern, she relinquished it, and he, having found her retaining it, also let

"Till that time will ye lend me your hand?" Fancy gave him the extreme tips of her fingers, and they stepped

"Not wildly, and yet not carelesslike; not purposely, and yet not by chance; not too quick nor yet too slow."

"Not anxiously, and yet not indifferently; neither blushing nor pale; nor religiously nor yet quite wickedly."

Geoffrey Day's storehouse at the back of his dwelling was hung with bunches of dried horehound, mint, and

sage; brownpaper bags of thyme and lavender; and long ropes of clean onions. On shelves were spread large

red and yellow apples, and choice selections of early potatoes for seed next year;vulgar crowds of

commoner kind lying beneath in heaps. A few empty beehives were clustered around a nail in one corner,

under which stood two or three barrels of new cider of the first crop, each bubbling and squirting forth from

Fancy was now kneeling beside the two inverted hives, one of which rested against her lap, for convenience

in operating upon the contents. She thrust her sleeves above her elbows, and inserted her small pink hand

edgewise between each white lobe of honeycomb, performing the act so adroitly and gently as not to unseal a

single cell. Then cracking the piece off at the crown of the hive by a slight backward and forward movement,

she lifted each portion as it was loosened into a large blue platter, placed on a bench at her side.

"Bother these little mortals!" said Geoffrey, who was holding the light to her, and giving his back an uneasy

twist. "I really think I may as well go indoors and take 'em out, poor things! for they won't let me alone.

There's two a stinging wi' all their might now. I'm sure I wonder their strength can last so long."

"All right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone," said Mr. Shiner, leisurely taking the light, and

He could hardly have gone round to the housedoor when other footsteps were heard approaching the

outbuilding; the tip of a finger appeared in the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy

came in, having been all this time walking up and down the wood, vainly waiting for Shiner's departure.

Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped the candlestick more firmly, and, lest

doing this in silence should not imply to Dick with sufficient force that he was quite at home and cool, he

Dick surveyed the scene, and did not seem inclined to hurry off just at that moment. Shiner went on singing

"'The miller was drown'd in his pond, The weaver was hung in his yarn, And the d ran away with the little

"That's a terrible crippled rhyme, if that's your rhyme!" said Dick, with a grain of superciliousness in his tone.

"It's no use your complaining to me about the rhyme!" said Mr. Shiner. "You must go to the man that made

"Taste a bit, Mr. Dewy," she said, holding up to him a small circular piece of honeycomb that had been the

last in the row of layers, remaining still on her knees and flinging back her head to look in his face; "and then

"And I, if you please," said Mr. Shiner. Nevertheless the farmer looked superior, as if he could even now

hardly join the trifling from very importance of station; and after receiving the honeycomb from Fancy, he

turned it over in his hand till the cells began to be crushed, and the liquid honey ran down from his fingers in

"It is nothing, but Oo! a bee has stung the inside of my lip! He was in one of the cells I was eating!"

"We must keep down the swelling, or it may be serious!" said Shiner, stepping up and kneeling beside her.

"Just let ME see it," said Dick, kneeling on the other side: and after some hesitation she pressed down her lip

with one finger to show the place. "O, I hope 'twill soon he better! I don't mind a sting in ordinary places, hut

it is so bad upon your lip," she added with tears in her eyes, and writhing a little from the pain.

Shiner held the light above his head and pushed his face close to Fancy's, as if the lip had been shown

exclusively to himself, upon which Dick pushed closer, as if Shiner were not there at all.

"Is it dangerous on the lip?" cried Fancy. "I know it is dangerous on the tongue."

"Hartshornandoil is a good thing to put to it, Miss Day," said Shiner with great concern.

"Sweetoilandhartshorn I've found to be a good thing to cure stings, Miss Day," said Dick with greater

Now, whether by inadvertence, or whether by mischievous intention, the individuality of the YOU was so

carelessly denoted that both Dick and Shiner sprang to their feet like twin acrobats, and marched abreast to

the door; both seized the latch and lifted it, and continued marching on, shoulder to shoulder, in the same

manner to the dwellinghouse. Not only so, but entering the room, they marched as before straight up to Mrs.

Day's chair, letting the door in the oak partition slam so forcibly, that the rows of pewter on the dresser rang

"Mrs. Day, Fancy has stung her lip, and wants you to give me the hartshorn, please," said Mr. Shiner, very

"O, Mrs. Day, Fancy has asked me to bring out the hartshorn, please, because she has stung her lip!" said

"Well, men alive! that's no reason why you should eat me, I suppose!" said Mrs. Day, drawing back.

She searched in the cornercupboard, produced the bottle, and began to dust the cork, the rim, and every

"Which is head man?" said Mrs. Day. "Now, don't come mumbudgeting so close again. Which is head man?"

Neither spoke; and the bottle was inclined towards Shiner. Shiner, as a highclass man, would not look in the

least triumphant, and turned to go off with it as Geoffrey came downstairs after the search in his linen for

Dick assured the keeper that it was; and the young man then determined upon a bold stroke for the attainment

of his end, forgetting that the worst of bold strokes is the disastrous consequences they involve if they fail.

"I've come on purpose to speak to you very particular, Mr. Day," he said, with a crushing emphasis intended

for the ears of Mr. Shiner, who was vanishing round the doorpost at that moment.

"Well, I've been forced to go upstairs and unrind myself, and shake some bees out o' me" said Geoffrey,

walking slowly towards the open door, and standing on the threshold. "The young rascals got into my shirt

"I've come to speak a word to you," he repeated, looking out at the pale mist creeping up from the gloom of

The keeper lowered his hands into the depths of his pockets, twirled his eyes, balanced himself on his toes,

looked as perpendicularly downward as if his glance were a plumbline, then horizontally, collecting

together the cracks that lay about his face till they were all in the neighbourhood of his eyes.

Dick said nothing; and the stillness was disturbed only by some small bird that was being killed by an owl in

"I've left my hat up in chammer," said Geoffrey; "wait while I step up and get en."

He went round by a side wicket into the garden, and Geoffrey went upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock

and its vicinity to discuss matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, and to reserve the

garden for very important affairs: a custom which, as is supposed, originated in the desirability of getting

away at such times from the other members of the family when there was only one room for living in, though

it was now quite as frequently practised by those who suffered from no such limitation to the size of their

The headkeeper's form appeared in the dusky garden, and Dick walked towards him. The elder paused and

leant over the rail of a piggery that stood on the left of the path, upon which Dick did the same; and they both

contemplated a whitish shadowy shape that was moving about and grunting among the straw of the interior.

"Because it makes me say that you've come to ask what ye be'n't likely to have. Have ye come for anything

"Then I'll just tell 'ee you've come on a very foolish errand. D'ye know what her mother was?"

"A teacher in a landed family's nursery, who was foolish enough to marry the keeper of the same

establishment; for I was only a keeper then, though now I've a dozen other irons in the fire as steward here for

my lord, what with the timber sales and the yearly fellings, and the gravel and sand sales and one thing and

'tother. However, d'ye think Fancy picked up her good manners, the smooth turn of her tongue, her musical

"Well, when I went awandering after her mother's death, she lived with her aunt, who kept a

boardingschool, till her aunt married Lawyer Greena man as sharp as a needleand the school was

broke up. Did ye know that then she went to the trainingschool, and that her name stood first among the

"And that when she sat for her certificate as Government teacher, she had the highest of the first class?"

"Well, and do ye know what I live in such a miserly way for when I've got enough to do without it, and why I

"That if any gentleman, who sees her to be his equal in polish, should want to marry her, and she want to

marry him, he sha'n't be superior to her in pocket. Now do ye think after this that you be good enough for

Modest Dick's reply had faltered upon his tongue, and he turned away wondering at his presumption in

asking for a woman whom he had seen from the beginning to be so superior to him.

The next scene is a tempestuous afternoon in the following month, and Fancy Day is discovered walking

A single vast gray cloud covered the country, from which the small rain and mist had just begun to blow

down in wavy sheets, alternately thick and thin. The trees of the fields and plantations writhed like miserable

men as the air wound its way swiftly among them: the lowest portions of their trunks, that had hardly ever

been known to move, were visibly rocked by the fiercer gusts, distressing the mind by its painful

unwontedness, as when a strong man is seen to shed tears. Lowhanging boughs went up and down; high and

erect boughs went to and fro; the blasts being so irregular, and divided into so many crosscurrents, that

neighbouring branches of the same tree swept the skies in independent motions, crossed each other, or

became entangled. Across the open spaces flew flocks of green and yellowish leaves, which, after travelling a

long distance from their parent trees, reached the ground, and lay there with their undersides upward.

As the rain and wind increased, and Fancy's bonnetribbons leapt more and more snappishly against her

chin, she paused on entering Mellstock Lane to consider her latitude, and the distance to a place of shelter.

The nearest house was Elizabeth Endorfield's, in Higher Mellstock, whose cottage and garden stood not far

from the junction of that hamlet with the road she followed. Fancy hastened onward, and in five minutes

entered a gate, which shed upon her toes a flood of waterdrops as she opened it.

"Come in, chiel!" a voice exclaimed, before Fancy had knocked: a promptness that would have surprised her

had she not known that Mrs. Endorfield was an exceedingly and exceptionally sharp woman in the use of her

Fancy went in and sat down. Elizabeth was paring potatoes for her husband's supper.

Scrape, scrape, scrape; then a toss, and splash went a potato into a bucket of water.

Now, as Fancy listlessly noted these proceedings of the dame, she began to reconsider an old subject that hay

uppermost in her heart. Since the interview between her father and Dick, the days had been melancholy days

for her. Geoffrey's firm opposition to the notion of Dick as a soninlaw was more than she had expected.

She had frequently seen her lover since that time, it is true, and had loved him more for the opposition than

she would have otherwise dreamt of doingwhich was a happiness of a certain kind. Yet, though love is

thus an end in itself, it must be believed to be the means to another end if it is to assume the rosy hues of an

unalloyed pleasure. And such a belief Fancy and Dick were emphatically denied just now.

Elizabeth Endorfield had a repute among women which was in its nature something between distinction and

notoriety. It was founded on the following items of character. She was shrewd and penetrating; her house

stood in a lonely place; she never went to church; she wore a red cloak; she always retained her bonnet

indoors and she had a pointed chin. Thus far her attributes were distinctly Satanic; and those who looked no

further called her, in plain terms a witch. But she was not gaunt, nor ugly in the upper part of her face, nor

particularly strange in manner; so that, when her more intimate acquaintances spoke of her the term was

softened, and she became simply a Deep Body, who was as longheaded as she was high. It may be stated

that Elizabeth, belonged to a class of suspects who were gradually losing their mysterious characteristics

under the administration of the young vicar; though, during the long reign of Mr. Grinham, the parish of

While Fancy was revolving all this in her mind, and putting it to herself whether it was worth while to tell her

troubles to Elizabeth, and ask her advice in getting out of them, the witch spoke.

"You be downproper down," she said suddenly, dropping another potato into the bucket.

Fancy reddened. Elizabeth seemed to be watching her thoughts. Really, one would almost think she must

"Father not in the humour for't, hey?" Another potato was finished and flung in. "Ah, I know about it. Little

Fancy was desperate about Dick, and here was a chanceO, such a wicked chanceof getting help; and

"Really? O, do; anyhowI don't careso that it is done! How could I do it, Mrs. Endorfield?"

"I can't say that I did exactly believe it, for 'tis very horrible and wicked; but, O, how I do wish it was

"So I am. And I'll tell you how to bewitch your father to let you marry Dick Dewy."

"No; the charm is worked by common sense, and the spell can only be broke by your acting stupidly."

"This fear of Lizzwhatever 'tis By great and small; She makes pretence to common sense, And that's all.

"You must do it like this." The witch laid down her knife and potato, and then poured into Fancy's ear a long

and detailed list of directions, glancing up from the corner of her eye into Fancy's face with an expression of

sinister humour. Fancy's face brightened, clouded, rose and sank, as the narrative proceeded. "There," said

Elizabeth at length, stooping for the knife and another potato, "do that, and you'll have him bylong and

She then turned her attention to the external world once more. The rain continued as usual, but the wind had

abated considerably during the discourse. Judging that it was now possible to keep an umbrella erect, she

pulled her hood again over her bonnet, bade the witch goodbye, and went her way.

"I be proper sorry that your daughter isn't so well as she might be," said a Mellstock man to Geoffrey one

"But is there anything in it?" said Geoffrey uneasily, as he shifted his hat to the right. "I can't understand the

Geoffrey crossed to Mellstock and called at the school that afternoon. Fancy welcomed him as usual, and

During the meal he watched her narrowly. And to his great consternation discovered the following

unprecedented change in the healthy girlthat she cut herself only a diaphanous slice of bread andbutter,

and, laying it on her plate, passed the mealtime in breaking it into pieces, but eating no more than about

onetenth of the slice. Geoffrey hoped she would say something about Dick, and finish up by weeping, as she

had done after the decision against him a few days subsequent to the interview in the garden. But nothing was

"'Tis to be hoped poor Miss Fancy will be able to keep on her school," said Geoffrey's man Enoch to

Geoffrey stuck in the shovel, swept seven or eight ants from his sleeve, and killed another that was prowling

round his ear, then looked perpendicularly into the earth as usual, waiting for Enoch to say more. "Well, why

"The baker told me yesterday," continued Enoch, shaking out another emmet that had run merrily up his

thigh, "that the bread he've left at that there schoolhouse this last month would starve any mouse in the three

creations; that 'twould so! And afterwards I had a pint o' small down at Morrs's, and there I heard more."

"That she used to have a pound o' the best rolled butter a week, regular as clockwork, from Dairyman Viney's

for herself, as well as just so much salted for the helping girl, and the 'ooman she calls in; but now the same

quantity d'last her three weeks, and then 'tis thoughted she throws it away sour."

"Finish doing the emmets, and carry the bag homealong." The keeper resumed his gun, tucked it under his

arm, and went on without whistling to the dogs, who however followed, with a bearing meant to imply that

On Saturday morning a note came from Fancy. He was not to trouble about sending her the couple of rabbits,

as was intended, because she feared she should not want them. Later in the day Geoffrey went to

Casterbridge and called upon the butcher who served Fancy with fresh meat, which was put down to her

"I've called to pay up our little bill, Neighbour Haylock, and you can gie me the chiel's account at the same

Mr. Haylock turned round three quarters of a circle in the midst of a heap of joints, altered the expression of

his face from meat to money, went into a little office consisting only of a door and a window, looked very

vigorously into a book which possessed length but no breadth; and then, seizing a piece of paper and

Probably it was the first time in the history of commercial transactions that the quality of shortness in a

butcher's bill was a cause of tribulation to the debtor. "Why, this isn't all she've had in a whole month!" said

"Every mossel," said the butcher"(now, Dan, take that leg and shoulder to Mrs. White's, and this eleven

pound here to Mr. Martin's)you've been treating her to smaller joints lately, to my thinking, Mr. Day?"

"Only two or three little scram rabbits this last week, as I am aliveI wish I had!"

"Well, my wife said to me(Dan! not too much, not too much on that tray at a time; better go twice)my

wife said to me as she posted up the books: she says, "Miss Day must have been summer during that hot

muggy weather much for us; for depend upon't," she says, "she've been trying John Grimmett unknown to us:

see her account else." 'Tis little, of course, at the best of times, being only for one, but now 'tis next kin to

He returned by way of Mellstock, and called upon Fancy, in fulfilment of a promise. It being Saturday, the

children were enjoying a holiday, and on entering the residence Fancy was nowhere to be seen. Nan, the

"Well, you see she was tired with the week's teaching, and this morning she said, "Nan, I sha'n't get up till the

evening." You see, Mr. Day, if people don't eat, they can't work; and as she've gie'd up eating, she must gie

"No; she don't want any. There, we all know that such things don't come without good reasonnot that I

Geoffrey's own heart felt inconveniently large just then. He went to the staircase and ascended to his

To see a person in bed from any cause whatever, on a fine afternoon, is depressing enough; and here was his

only child Fancy, not only in bed, but looking very pale. Geoffrey was visibly disturbed.

"You think I've been cruel to thee in saying that that penniless Dick o' thine sha'n't marry thee, I suppose?"

"Well, you know, Fancy, I do it for the best, and he isn't good enough for thee. You know that well enough."

Here he again looked at her as she lay. "Well, Fancy, I can't let my only chiel die; and if you can't live

"O, I don't want him like that; all against your will, and everything so disobedient!" sighed the invalid.

"No, no, 'tisn't against my will. My wish is, now I d'see how 'tis hurten thee to live without en, that he shall

marry thee as soon as we've considered a little. That's my wish flat and plain, Fancy. There, never cry, my

little maid! You ought to ha' cried afore; no need o' crying now 'tis all over. Well, howsoever, try to step over

"And WHEN do you think you'll have considered, father, and he may marry me?" she coaxed.

On leaving the school Geoffrey went to the tranter's. Old William opened the door.

"What wi' one thing, and what wi' t'other, he's all in a mope, as might be said. Don't seem the feller he used

to. Ay, 'a will sit studding and thinking as if 'a were going to turn chapelmember, and then do nothing but

traypse and wamble about. Used to be such a chatty boy, too, Dick did; and now 'a don't speak at all. But

"No, thank you, I can't stay now. Will ye just ask Dick if he'll do me the kindness to step over to Yalbury

tomorrow with my da'ter Fancy, if she's well enough? I don't like her to come by herself, now she's not so

The visit to Geoffrey passed off as delightfully as a visit might have been expected to pass off when it was

the first day of smooth experience in a hitherto obstructed lovecourse. And then came a series of several

happy days, of the same undisturbed serenity. Dick could court her when he chose; stay away when he

chose,which was never; walk with her by winding streams and waterfalls and autumn scenery till dews

arid twilight sent them home. And thus they drew near the day of the Harvest Thanksgiving, which was also

It chanced that Dick on that very day was called away from Mellstock. A young acquaintance had died of

consumption at Charmley, a neighbouring village, on the previous Monday, and Dick, in fulfilment of a

longstanding promise, was to assist in carrying him to the grave. When on Tuesday, Dick went towards the

school to acquaint Fancy with the fact, it is difficult to say whether his own disappointment at being denied

the sight of her triumphant debut as organist, was greater than his vexation that his pet should on this great

occasion be deprived of the pleasure of his presence. However, the intelligence was communicated. She bore

it as she best could, not without many expressions of regret, and convictions that her performance would be

Just before eleven o'clock on Sunday he set out upon his sad errand. The funeral was to be immediately after

the morning service, and as there were four good miles to walk, driving being inconvenient, it became

necessary to start comparatively early. Half an hour later would certainly have answered his purpose quite as

well, yet at the last moment nothing would content his ardent mind but that he must go a mile out of his way

in the direction of the school, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his Love as she started for church.

Striking, therefore, into the lane towards the school, instead of across the ewelease direct to Charmley, he

If ever a woman looked a divinity, Fancy Day appeared one that morning as she floated down those school

steps, in the form of a nebulous collection of colours inclining to blue. With an audacity unparalleled in the

whole history of villageschoolmistresses at this datepartly owing, no doubt, to papa's respectable

accumulation of cash, which rendered her profession not altogether one of necessityshe had actually

donned a hat and feather, and lowered her hitherto plainly loopedup hair, which now fell about her

shoulders in a profusion of curls. Poor Dick was astonished: he had never seen her look so distractingly

beautiful before, save on Christmaseve, when her hair was in the same luxuriant condition of freedom. But

his first burst of delighted surprise was followed by less comfortable feelings, as soon as his brain recovered

Fancy had blushed;was it with confusion? She had also involuntarily pressed back her curls. She had not

"Goodmorning, Dickno, really, I didn't know you for an instant in such a sad suit."

He looked again at the gay tresses and hat. "You've never dressed so charming before, dearest."

"I like to hear you praise me in that way, Dick," she said, smiling archly. "It is meat and drink to a woman.

"Fie! you know it. Did you remember,I mean didn't you remember about my going away today?"

"Yes, darling; yes, of course,there's nothing to forgive. No, I was only thinking that when we talked on

Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday about my absence today, and I was so sorry for it, you

said, Fancy, so were you sorry, and almost cried, and said it would be no pleasure to you to be the attraction

"My dear one, neither will it be so much pleasure to me . . . But I do take a little delight in my life, I

She looked at him with perplexed eyes. "I know you are vexed with me, Dick, and it is because the first

Sunday I have curls and a hat and feather since I have been here happens to be the very day you are away and

won't be with me. Yes, say it is, for that is it! And you think that all this week I ought to have remembered

you wouldn't be here today, and not have cared to be better dressed than usual. Yes, you do, Dick, and it is

"No, no," said Dick earnestly and simply, "I didn't think so badly of you as that. I only thought thatif YOU

had been going away, I shouldn't have tried new attractions for the eyes of other people. But then of course

"I don't fear what he says in the least!" she answered proudly. "But he won't say anything of the sort you

"Now come, you say, Dick, that you quite forgive me, for I must go," she said with sudden gaiety, and

skipped backwards into the porch. "Come here, sir;say you forgive me, and then you shall kiss me; you

never have yet when I have worn curls, you know. Yes, just where you want to so much,yes, you may!"

Dick followed her into the inner corner, where he was probably not slow in availing himself of the privilege

"Now that's a treat for you, isn't it?" she continued. "Goodbye, or I shall be late. Come and see me

Thus they parted, and Fancy proceeded to the church. The organ stood on one side of the chancel, close to

and under the immediate eye of the vicar when he was in the pulpit, and also in full view of the congregation.

Here she sat down, for the first time in such a conspicuous position, her seat having previously been in a

"Good heavensdisgraceful! Curls and a hat and feather!" said the daughters of the small gentry, who had

either only curly hair without a hat and feather, or a hat and feather without curly hair. "A bonnet for church

That Mr. Maybold was conscious of her presence close beside him during the sermon; that he was not at all

angry at her development of costume; that he admired her, she perceived. But she did not see that he loved

her during that sermontime as he had never loved a woman before; that her proximity was a strange delight

to him; and that he gloried in her musical success that morning in a spirit quite beyond a mere cleric's glory at

The old choir, with humbled hearts, no longer took their seats in the gallery as heretofore (which was now

given up to the school children who were not singers, and a pupilteacher), but were scattered about with

their wives in different parts of the church. Having nothing to do with conducting the service for almost the

first time in their lives, they all felt awkward, out of place, abashed, and inconvenienced by their hands. The

tranter had proposed that they should stay away today and go nutting, but grandfather William would not

hear of such a thing for a moment. "No," he replied reproachfully, and quoted a verse "Though this has come

So they stood and watched the curls of hair trailing down the back of the successful rival, and the waving of

her feather, as she swayed her head. After a few timid notes and uncertain touches her playing became

markedly correct, and towards the end full and free. But, whether from prejudice or unbiassed judgment, the

venerable body of musicians could not help thinking that the simpler notes they had been wont to bring forth

were more in keeping with the simplicity of their old church than the crowded chords and interludes it was

The day was done, and Fancy was again in the schoolhouse. About five o'clock it began to rain, and in

rather a dull frame of mind she wandered into the schoolroom, for want of something better to do. She was

thinkingof her lover Dick Dewy? Not precisely. Of how weary she was of living alone: how unbearable it

would be to return to Yalbury under the rule of her strangetempered step mother; that it was far better to be

married to anybody than do that; that eight or nine long months had yet to be lived through ere the wedding

At the side of the room were high windows of Hamhill stone, upon either sill of which she could sit by first

mounting a desk and using it as a footstool. As the evening advanced here she perched herself, as was her

custom on such wet and gloomy occasions, put on a light shawl and bonnet, opened the window, and looked

The window overlooked a field called the Grove, and it was the position from which she used to survey the

crown of Dick's passing hat in the early days of their acquaintance and meetings. Not a living soul was now

visible anywhere; the rain kept all people indoors who were not forced abroad by necessity, and necessity

Sitting here and thinking againof her lover, or of the sensation she had created at church that day?well,

it is unknownthinking and thinking she saw a dark masculine figure arising into distinctness at the further

end of the Grovea man without an umbrella. Nearer and nearer he came, and she perceived that he was in

deep mourning, and then that it was Dick. Yes, in the fondness and foolishness of his young heart, after

walking four miles, in a drizzling rain without overcoat or umbrella, and in face of a remark from his love

that he was not to come because he would be tired, he had made it his business to wander this mile out of his

"O Dick, how wet you are!" she said, as he drew up under the window. "Why, your coat shines as if it had

"O, I don't mind, darling!" said Dick cheerfully. "Wet never hurts me, though I am rather sorry for my best

clothes. However, it couldn't be helped; we lent all the umbrellas to the women. I don't know when I shall get

"Ah, that's japanning; it rubbed off the clamps of poor Jack's coffin when we lowered him from our shoulders

upon the bier! I don't care about that, for 'twas the last deed I could do for him; and 'tis hard if you can't afford

Fancy put her hand to her mouth for half a minute. Underneath the palm of that little hand there existed for

"Dick, I don't like you to stand there in the wet. And you mustn't sit down. Go home and change your things.

He looked rather disappointed at not being invited round to the door. She twisted from her seated position

and bent herself downwards, but not even by standing on the plinth was it possible for Dick to get his lips

into contact with hers as she held them. By great exertion she might have reached a little lower; but then she

"Never mind, Dick; kiss my hand," she said, flinging it down to him. "Now, goodbye."

He walked slowly away, turning and turning again to look at her till he was out of sight. During the retreat

she said to herself, almost involuntarily, and still conscious of that morning's triumph"I like Dick, and I

love him; but how plain and sorry a man looks in the rain, with no umbrella, and wet through!"

As he vanished, she made as if to descend from her seat; but glancing in the other direction she saw another

form coming along the same track. It was also that of a man. He, too, was in black from top to toe; but he

He drew nearer, and the direction of the rain caused him so to slant his umbrella that from her height above

the ground his head was invisible, as she was also to him. He passed in due time directly beneath her, and in

looking down upon the exterior of his umbrella her feminine eyes perceived it to be of superior silkless

common at that date than sinceand of elegant make. He reached the entrance to the building, and Fancy

suddenly lost sight of him. Instead of pursuing the roadway as Dick had done he had turned sharply round

She jumped to the floor, hastily flung off her shawl and bonnet, smoothed and patted her hair till the curls

hung in passable condition, and listened. No knock. Nearly a minute passed, and still there was no knock.

Then there arose a soft series of raps, no louder than the tapping of a distant woodpecker, and barely distinct

There was a warm flush upon his face, and a bright flash in his eyes, which made him look handsomer than

"Goodevening, Mr. Maybold," she said, in a strange state of mind. She had noticed, beyond the ardent hue

of his face, that his voice had a singular tremor in it, and that his hand shook like an aspen leaf when he laid

his umbrella in the corner of the porch. Without another word being spoken by either, he came into the

schoolroom, shut the door, and moved close to her. Once inside, the expression of his face was no more

"I want to speak to you," he then said; "seriouslyon a perhaps unexpected subject, but one which is all the

As a person who has been idly amusing himself with rolling a snowball might start at finding he had set in

motion an avalanche, so did Fancy start at these words from the vicar. And in the dead silence which

followed them, the breathings of the man and of the woman could be distinctly and separately heard; and

there was this difference between themhis respirations gradually grew quieter and less rapid after the

enunciation hers, from having been low and regular, increased in quickness and force, till she almost panted.

"Don't answer in a hurry!" he entreated. "And do listen to me. This is no sudden feeling on my part. I have

loved you for more than six months! Perhaps my late interest in teaching the children here has not been so

singleminded as it seemed. You will understand my motivelike me better, perhaps, for honestly telling

you that I have struggled against my emotion continually, because I have thought that it was not well for me

to love you! But I resolved to struggle no longer; I have examined the feeling; and the love I bear you is as

genuine as that I could bear any woman! I see your great charm; I respect your natural talents, and the

refinement they have brought into your naturethey are quite enough, and more than enough for me! They

are equal to anything ever required of the mistress of a quiet parsonagehousethe place in which I shall

pass my days, wherever it may be situated. O Fancy, I have watched you, criticized you even severely,

brought my feelings to the light of judgment, and still have found them rational, and such as any man might

have expected to be inspired with by a woman like you! So there is nothing hurried, secret, or untoward in

"Don't refuse; don't," he implored. "It would be foolish of youI mean cruel! Of course we would not live

here, Fancy. I have had for a long time the offer of an exchange of livings with a friend in Yorkshire, but I

have hitherto refused on account of my mother. There we would go. Your musical powers shall be still

further developed; you shall have whatever pianoforte you like; you shall have anything, Fancy, anything to

make you happyponycarriage, flowers, birds, pleasant society; yes, you have enough in you for any

Another pause ensued, varied only by the surging of the rain against the windowpanes, and then Fancy

"God bless you, my own!" He advanced quickly, and put his arm out to embrace her. She drew back hastily.

"No no, not now!" she said in an agitated whisper. "There are things;but the temptation is, O, too strong,

and I can't resist it I can't tell you now, but I must tell you! Don't, please, don't come near me now! I want to

think, I can scarcely get myself used to the idea of what I have promised yet." The next minute she turned to a

desk, buried her face in her hands, and burst into a hysterical fit of weeping. "O, leave me to myself!" she

"Don't be distressed; don't, dearest!" It was with visible difficulty that he restrained himself from approaching

her. "You shall tell me at your leisure what it is that grieves you so; I am happybeyond all measure

"But I must not, in justice to you, leave for a minute, until you are yourself again."

"There then," she said, controlling her emotion, and standing up; "I am not disturbed now."

He reluctantly moved towards the door. "Goodbye!" he murmured tenderly. "I'll come tomorrow about this

The next morning the vicar rose early. The first thing he did was to write a long and careful letter to his friend

in Yorkshire. Then, eating a little breakfast, he crossed the meadows in the direction of Casterbridge, bearing

his letter in his pocket, that he might post it at the town office, and obviate the loss of one day in its

transmission that would have resulted had he left it for the footpost through the village.

It was a foggy morning, and the trees shed in noisy waterdrops the moisture they had collected from the

thick air, an acorn occasionally falling from its cup to the ground, in company with the drippings. In the

meads, sheets of spiders'web, almost opaque with wet, hung in folds over the fences, and the falling leaves

A low and merry whistling was heard on the highway he was approaching, then the light footsteps of a man

going in the same direction as himself. On reaching the junction of his path with the road, the vicar beheld

Dick Dewy's open and cheerful face. Dick lifted his hat, and the vicar came out into the highway that Dick

"Yes, sir, I am wellquite well! I am going to Casterbridge now, to get Smart's collar; we left it there

"I am going to Casterbridge, so we'll walk together," the vicar said. Dick gave a hop with one foot to put

himself in step with Mr. Maybold, who proceeded: "I fancy I didn't see you at church yesterday, Dewy. Or

"No; I went to Charmley. Poor John Dunford chose me to be one of his bearers a long time before he died,

and yesterday was the funeral. Of course I couldn't refuse, though I should have liked particularly to have

"Yes, you should have been. The musical portion of the service was successfulvery successful indeed; and

what is more to the purpose, no illfeeling whatever was evinced by any of the members of the old choir.

"'Twas natural enough that I should want to be there, I suppose," said Dick, smiling a private smile;

At this the vicar reddened a little, and said, "Yes, yes," though not at all comprehending Dick's true meaning,

who, as he received no further reply, continued hesitatingly, and with another smile denoting his pride as a

The red in Maybold's countenance went away: he turned and looked Dick in the face.

"No," he said constrainedly, "I've heard nothing whatever about you and Miss Day."

"Why, she's my sweetheart, and we are going to be married next Midsummer. We are keeping it rather close

just at present, because 'tis a good many months to wait; but it is her father's wish that we don't marry before,

Maybold said these words, but he had no idea of what they were. He was conscious of a cold and sickly thrill

throughout him; and all he reasoned was this that the young creature whose graces had intoxicated him into

making the most imprudent resolution of his life, was less an angel than a woman.

"You see, sir," continued the ingenuous Dick, "'twill be better in one sense. I shall by that time be the regular

manager of a branch o' father's business, which has very much increased lately, and business, which we think

of starting elsewhere. It has very much increased lately, and we expect next year to keep a' extra couple of

horses. We've already our eye on onebrown as a berry, neck like a rainbow, fifteen hands, and not a gray

hair in heroffered us at twentyfive want a crown. And to kip pace with the times I have had some cards

"Certainly," said the vicar, mechanically taking the card that Dick offered him.

"I turn in here by Grey's Bridge," said Dick. "I suppose you go straight on and up town?"

Maybold stood still upon the bridge, holding the card as it had been put into his hand, and Dick's footsteps

died away towards Durnover Mill. The vicar's first voluntary action was to read the card

Mr. Maybold leant over the parapet of the bridge and looked into the river. He sawwithout heedinghow

the water came rapidly from beneath the arches, glided down a little steep, then spread itself over a pool in

which dace, trout, and minnows sported at ease among the long green locks of weed that lay heaving and

sinking with their roots towards the current. At the end of ten minutes spent leaning thus, he drew from his

pocket the letter to his friend, tore it deliberately into such minute fragments that scarcely two syllables

remained in juxtaposition, and sent the whole handful of shreds fluttering into the water. Here he watched

them eddy, dart, and turn, as they were carried downwards towards the ocean and gradually disappeared from

his view. Finally he moved off, and pursued his way at a rapid pace back again to Mellstock Vicarage.

Nerving himself by a long and intense effort, he sat down in his study and wrote as follows:

"DEAR MISS DAY,The meaning of your words, 'the temptation is too strong,' of your sadness and your

tears, has been brought home to me by an accident. I know today what I did not know yesterdaythat you

"Why did you not tell mewhy didn't you? Did you suppose I knew? No. Had I known, my conduct in

"But I don't chide you! Perhaps no blame attaches to youI can't tell. Fancy, though my opinion of you is

assailed and disturbed in a way which cannot be expressed, I love you still, and my word to you holds good

yet. But will you, in justice to an honest man who relies upon your word to him, consider whether, under the

He rang the bell. "Tell Charles to take these copybooks and this note to the school at once."

The maid took the parcel and the letter, and in a few minutes a boy was seen to leave the vicarage gate, with

the one under his arm, and the other in his hand. The vicar sat with his hand to his brow, watching the lad as

he descended Church Lane and entered the waterside path which intervened between that spot and the school.

Here he was met by another boy, and after a free salutation and pugilistic frisk had passed between the two,

the second boy came on his way to the vicarage, and the other vanished out of sight.

He knew the writing. Opening the envelope with an unsteady hand, he read the subjoined words:

"DEAR MR. MAYBOLD,I have been thinking seriously and sadly through the whole of the night of the

question you put to me last evening and of my answer. That answer, as an honest woman, I had no right to

"It is my natureperhaps all women'sto love refinement of mind and manners; but even more than this, to

be ever fascinated with the idea of surroundings more elegant and pleasing than those which have been

customary. And you praised me, and praise is life to me. It was alone my sensations at these things which

prompted my reply. Ambition and vanity they would be called; perhaps they are so.

"After this explanation I hope you will generously allow me to withdraw the answer I too hastily gave.

"And one more request. To keep the meeting of last night, and all that passed between us there, for ever a

secret. Were it to become known, it would utterly blight the happiness of a trusting and generous man, whom

The last written communication that ever passed from the vicar to Fancy, was a note containing these words

The last day of the story is dated just subsequent to that point in the development of the seasons when country

people go to bed among nearly naked trees, are lulled to sleep by a fall of rain, and awake next morning

among green ones; when the landscape appears embarrassed with the sudden weight and brilliancy of its

leaves; when the nightjar comes and strikes up for the summer his tune of one note; when the appletrees

have bloomed, and the roads and orchardgrass become spotted with fallen petals; when the faces of the

delicate flowers are darkened, and their heads weighed down, by the throng of honeybees, which increase

their humming till humming is too mild a term for the allpervading sound; and when cuckoos, blackbirds,

and sparrows, that have hitherto been merry and respectful neighbours, become noisy and persistent

The exterior of Geoffrey Day's house in Yalbury Wood appeared exactly as was usual at that season, but a

frantic barking of the dogs at the back told of unwonted movements somewhere within. Inside the door the

eyes beheld a gathering, which was a rarity indeed for the dwelling of the solitary woodsteward and keeper.

About the room were sitting and standing, in various gnarled attitudes, our old acquaintance, grandfathers

James and William, the tranter, Mr. Penny, two or three children, including Jimmy and Charley, besides three

or four country ladies and gentlemen from a greater distance who do not require any distinction by name.

Geoffrey was seen and heard stamping about the outhouse and among the bushes of the garden, attending to

details of daily routine before the proper time arrived for their performance, in order that they might be off

his hands for the day. He appeared with his shirtsleeves rolled up; his best new nether garments, in which he

had arrayed himself that morning, being temporarily disguised under a weekday apron whilst these

proceedings were in operation. He occasionally glanced at the hives in passing, to see if his wife's bees were

swarming, ultimately rolling down his shirtsleeves and going indoors, talking to tranter Dewy whilst

buttoning the wristbands, to save time; next going upstairs for his best waistcoat, and coming down again to

make another remark whilst buttoning that, during the time looking fixedly in the tranter's face as if he were a

The furniture had undergone attenuation to an alarming extent, every duplicate piece having been removed,

including the clock by Thomas Wood; Ezekiel Saunders being at last left sole referee in matters of time.

Fancy was stationary upstairs, receiving her layers of clothes and adornments, and answering by short

fragments of laughter which had more fidgetiness than mirth in them, remarks that were made from time to

time by Mrs. Dewy and Mrs. Penny, who were assisting her at the toilet, Mrs. Day having pleaded a

queerness in her head as a reason for shutting herself up in an inner bedroom for the whole morning. Mrs.

Penny appeared with nine corkscrew curls on each side of her temples, and a back comb stuck upon her

The conversation just now going on was concerning the banns, the last publication of which had been on the

"O, SO natural and elegant, didn't they, Reuben!" she cried, through the chinks of the unceiled floor, to the

"What's that?" said the tranter, looking up inquiringly at the floor above him for an answer.

"Didn't Dick and Fancy sound well when they were called home in church last Sunday?" came downwards

"Ay, that they did, my sonnies!especially the first time. There was a terrible whispering piece of work in

the congregation, wasn't there, neighbour Penny?" said the tranter, taking up the thread of conversation on his

own account and, in order to be heard in the room above, speaking very loud to Mr. Penny, who sat at the

"I never can mind seeing such a whispering as there was," said Mr. Penny, also loudly, to the room above.

"And such sorrowful envy on the maidens' faces; really, I never did see such envy as there was!"

Fancy's lineaments varied in innumerable little flushes, and her heart palpitated innumerable little tremors of

pleasure. "But perhaps," she said, with assumed indifference, "it was only because no religion was going on

"O, no; nothing to do with that. 'Twas because of your high standing in the parish. It was just as if they had

"Well, if you make songs about yourself, my dear, you can't blame other people for singing 'em."

"Mercy me! how shall I go through it?" said the young lady again, but merely to those in the bedroom, with a

breathing of a kind between a sigh and a pant, round shining eyes, and warm face.

"O, you'll get through it well enough, child," said Mrs. Dewy placidly. "The edge of the performance is took

off at the calling home; and when once you get up to the chancel end o' the church, you feel as saucy as you

please. I'm sure I felt as brave as a sodger all through the deedthough of course I dropped my face and

"And I walked into the church as quiet as a lamb, I'm sure," subjoined Mrs. Penny. "There, you see Penny is

such a little small man, But certainly, I was flurried in the inside o' me. Well, thinks I, 'tis to be, and here

"Is there such wonderful virtue in ''Tis to be, and here goes!'" inquired Fancy.

"Wonderful! 'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to churching, if you only let it out with spirit

"I do hope he'll come in time!" continued the brideelect, inventing a new cause of affright, now that the

"'Twould be a thousand pities if he didn't come, now you he so brave," said Mrs. Penny.

Grandfather James, having overheard some of these remarks, said downstairs with mischievous

"They've happened not to come, before now, certainly," said Mr. Penny, cleaning one of the glasses of his

"They have, haven't they, Geoffrey?" continued grandfather James, as Geoffrey entered.

"Ay; I've knowed times when the wedding had to be put off through his not appearing, being tired of the

woman. And another case I knowed was when the man was catched in a mantrap crossing Oaker's Wood,

and the three months had run out before he got well, and the banns had to be published over again."

"'Tis quite sad to think what wretched shifts poor maids have been put to," came again from downstairs. "Ye

should hear Clerk Wilkins, my brotherlaw, tell his experiences in marrying couples these last thirty year:

sometimes one thing, sometimes another'tis quite heartrendingenough to make your hair stand on

"Those things don't happen very often, I know," said Fancy, with smouldering uneasiness.

"Don't keep on at me so, grandfather James and Mr. Dewy, and all you down there!" Fancy broke out, unable

"Never you hearken to these old chaps, Miss Day!" cried Nat Callcome, the best man, who had just entered,

and threw his voice upward through the chinks of the floor as the others had done. "'Tis all right; Dick's

coming on like a wild feller; he'll be here in a minute. The hive o' bees his mother gie'd en for his new garden

swarmed jist as he was starting, and he said, "I can't afford to lose a stock o' bees; no, that I can't, though I

fain would; and Fancy wouldn't wish it on any account." So he jist stopped to ting to 'em and shake 'em."

"To be sure, what a day's work we had yesterday!" Mr. Callcome continued, lowering his voice as if it were

not necessary any longer to include those in the room above among his audience, and selecting a remote

"Things so heavy, I suppose," said Geoffrey, as if reading through the chimneywindow from the far end of

"Ay," said Nat, looking round the room at points from which furniture had been removed. "And so awkward

to carry, too. 'Twas ath'art and across Dick's garden; in and out Dick's door; up and down Dick's stairs; round

and round Dick's chammers till legs were worn to stumps: and Dick is so particular, too. And the stores of

victuals and drink that lad has laid in: why, 'tis enough for Noah's ark! I'm sure I never wish to see a choicer

halfdozen of hams than he's got there in his chimley; and the cider I tasted was a very pretty drop,

"They be for the love and the stalled ox both, Ah, the greedy martels!" said grandfather James.

"Well, maybe they be. Surely," says I, "that couple between 'em have heaped up so much furniture and

victuals, that anybody would think they were going to take hold the big end of married life first, and begin wi'

a grownup family. Ah, what a bath of heat we two chaps were in, to be sure, agetting that furniture in

"I do so wish the room below was ceiled," said Fancy, as the dressing went on; "we can hear all they say and

"Hark! Who's that?" exclaimed a small pupilteacher, who also assisted this morning, to her great delight.

She ran halfway down the stairs, and peeped round the banister. "O, you should, you should, you should!"

"See the bridesmaids! They've just a come! 'Tis wonderful, really! 'tis wonderful how muslin can be brought

to it. There, they don't look a bit like themselves, but like some very rich sisters o' theirs that nobody knew

"Make 'em come up to me, make 'em come up!" cried Fancy ecstatically; and the four damsels appointed,

namely, Miss Susan Dewy, Miss Bessie Dewy, Miss Vashti Sniff, and Miss Mercy Onmey, surged upstairs,

The same instant a small twig and flower from the creeper outside the door flew in at the open window, and a

"There he is, he is!" cried Fancy, tittering spasmodically, and breathing as it were for the first time that

The bridesmaids crowded to the window and turned their heads in the direction pointed out, at which motion

eight earrings all swung as one: not looking at Dick because they particularly wanted to see him, but with

an important sense of their duty as obedient ministers of the will of that apotheosised beingthe Bride.

"He looks very taking!" said Miss Vashti Sniff, a young lady who blushed creamcolour and wore yellow

Dick was advancing to the door in a painfully new coat of shining cloth, primrosecoloured waistcoat, hat of

the same painful style of newness, and with an extra quantity of whiskers shaved off his face, and hair cut to

"Now, I'll run down," said Fancy, looking at herself over her shoulder in the glass, and flitting off.

"O Dick!" she exclaimed, "I am so glad you are come! I knew you would, of course, but I thought, Oh if you

"Not come, Fancy! Het or wet, blow or snow, here come I today! Why, what's possessing your little soul?

"Ah, Mr. Dick, I hadn't hoisted my colours and committed myself then!" said Fancy.

"'Tis a pity I can't marry the whole five of ye!" said Dick, surveying them all round.

"Hehhehheh!" laughed the four bridesmaids, and Fancy privately touched Dick and smoothed him down

behind his shoulder, as if to assure herself that he was there in flesh and blood as her own property.

"Well, whoever would have thought such a thing?" said Dick, taking off his hat, sinking into a chair, and

The latter arranged their eyes and lips to signify that in their opinion nobody could have thought such a thing,

"That my bees should ha' swarmed just then, of all times and seasons!" continued Dick, throwing a

comprehensive glance like a net over the whole auditory. "And 'tis a fine swarm, too: I haven't seen such a

"A' excellent sign," said Mrs. Penny, from the depths of experience. "A' excellent sign."

"Well, bees can't be put off," observed the inharmonious grandfather James. "Marrying a woman is a thing

Dick fanned himself with his hat. "I can't think," he said thoughtfully, "whatever 'twas I did to offend Mr.

Maybold, a man I like so much too. He rather took to me when he came first, and used to say he should like

to see me married, and that he'd marry me, whether the young woman I chose lived in his parish or no. I just

hinted to him of it when I put in the banns, but he didn't seem to take kindly to the notion now, and so I said

"I wonder!" said Fancy, looking into vacancy with those beautiful eyes of herstoo refined and beautiful for

"Altered his mind, as folks will, I suppose," said the tranter. "Well, my sonnies, there'll he a good strong party

"And the body of the church," said Geoffrey, "will be lined with females, and a row of young fellers' heads,

as far down as the eyes, will be noticed just above the sills of the chancelwinders."

"I can put up with it for once," said Dick, "or twice either, or a dozen times."

"Why, dear, that's nothing,only just a bit of a flourish. You be as nervous as a cat today."

"And then, of course, when 'tis all over," continued the tranter, "we shall march two and two round the

"Yes, sure," said Mr. Penny: "two and two: every man hitched up to his woman, 'a b'lieve."

"I never can make a show of myself in that way!" said Fancy, looking at Dick to ascertain if he could.

"I'm agreed to anything you and the company like, my dear!" said Mr. Richard Dewy heartily.

"Why, we did when we were married, didn't we, Ann?" said the tranter; "and so do everybody, my sonnies."

"And so did Penny and I," said Mrs. Penny: "I wore my best Bath clogs, I remember, and Penny was cross

"And I mean to, come next Christmas!" said Nat the groomsman vigorously, and looking towards the person

"Respectable people don't nowadays," said Fancy. "Still, since poor mother did, I will."

"Ay," resumed the tranter, "'twas on a White Tuesday when I committed it. Mellstock Club walked the same

day, and we new married folk went agaying round the parish behind 'em. Everybody used to wear

something white at Whitsuntide in them days. My sonnies, I've got the very white trousers that I wore, at

"And we ought, by rights, after doing this parish, to go round Higher and Lower Mellstock, and call at

Viney's, and so work our way hither again across He'th," said Mr. Penny, recovering scent of the matter in

hand. "Dairyman Viney is a very respectable man, and so is Farmer Kex, and we ought to show ourselves to

"True," said the tranter, "we ought to go round Mellstock to do the thing well. We shall form a very striking

"Hullo!" said the tranter, suddenly catching sight of a singular human figure standing in the doorway, and

wearing a long smockfrock of pillowcase cut and of snowy whiteness. "Why, Leaf! whatever dost thou do

"I've come to know if so be I can come to the weddingheehee!" said Leaf in a voice of timidity.

"Now, Leaf," said the tranter reproachfully, "you know we don't want 'ee here today: we've got no room for

"I know I've got no head, but I thought, if I washed and put on a clane shirt and smockfrock, I might just

"Poor feller!" said the tranter, turning to Geoffrey. "Suppose we must let en come? His looks are rather

against en, and he is terrible silly; but 'a have never been in jail, and 'a won't do no harm."

Leaf looked with gratitude at the tranter for these praises, and then anxiously at Geoffrey, to see what effect

"Ay, let en come," said Geoffrey decisively. "Leaf, th'rt welcome, 'st know;" and Leaf accordingly remained.

They were now all ready for leaving the house, and began to form a procession in the following order: Fancy

and her father, Dick and Susan Dewy, Nat Callcome and Vashti Sniff, Ted Waywood and Mercy Onmey, and

Jimmy and Bessie Dewy. These formed the executive, and all appeared in strict wedding attire. Then came

the tranter and Mrs. Dewy, and last of all Mr. and Mrs. Penny;the tranter conspicuous by his enormous

gloves, size eleven and threequarters, which appeared at a distance like boxing gloves bleached, and sat

rather awkwardly upon his brown hands; this hallmark of respectability having been set upon himself

"What? 'Twas always young man and young woman, arm in crook, in my time!" said Geoffrey, astounded.

"Never heard o' such a thing as woman and woman!" said old William; who, with grandfather James and

"Whichever way you and the company like, my dear!" said Dick, who, being on the point of securing his

right to Fancy, seemed willing to renounce all other rights in the world with the greatest pleasure The

"Well, I think I'd rather have it the way mother had it," she said, and the couples moved along under the trees,

"Ah!" said grandfather James to grandfather William as they retired, "I wonder which she thinks most about,

"Well, 'tis their nature," said grandfather William. "Remember the words of the prophet Jeremiah: 'Can a

Now among dark perpendicular firs, like the shafted columns of a cathedral; now through a hazel copse,

matted with primroses and wild hyacinths; now under broad beeches in bright young leaves they threaded

their way into the high road over Yalbury Hill, which dipped at that point directly into the village of Geoffrey

Day's parish; and in the space of a quarter of an hour Fancy found herself to be Mrs. Richard Dewy, though,

On the circuitous return walk through the lanes and fields, amid much chattering and laughter, especially

"Why, 'tis Enoch!" he said to Fancy. "I thought I missed him at the house this morning. How is it he's left

"He drank too much cider, and it got into his head, and they put him in Weatherbury stocks for it. Father was

obliged to get somebody else for a day or two, and Enoch hasn't had anything to do with the woods since."

"We might ask him to call down tonight. Stocks are nothing for once, considering 'tis our wedding day."

"This is my wife, Faaaaaancy!" (holding her up to Enoch's view as if she had been a nosegay.)

"You mustn't blame en," said Geoffrey; "the man's not hisself now; he's in his morning frame of mind. When

he's had a gallon o' cider or ale, or a pint or two of mead, the man's well enough, and his manners be as good

The point in Yalbury Wood which abutted on the end of Geoffrey Day's premises was closed with an ancient

tree, horizontally of enormous extent, though having no great pretensions to height. Many hundreds of birds

had been born amidst the boughs of this single tree; tribes of rabbits and hares had nibbled at its bark from

year to year; quaint tufts of fungi had sprung from the cavities of its forks; and countless families of moles

and earthworms had crept about its roots. Beneath and beyond its shade spread a carefullytended grassplot,

its purpose being to supply a healthy exerciseground for young chickens and pheasants; the hens, their

All these encumbrances were now removed, and as the afternoon advanced, the guests gathered on the spot,

where music, dancing, and the singing of songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening. The

propriety of every one was intense by reason of the influence of Fancy, who, as an additional precaution in

this direction, had strictly charged her father and the tranter to carefully avoid saying 'thee' and 'thou' in their

conversation, on the plea that those ancient words sounded so very humiliating to persons of newer taste; also

that they were never to be seen drawing the back of the hand across the mouth after drinkinga local

English custom of extraordinary antiquity, but stated by Fancy to be decidedly dying out among the better

In addition to the local musicians present, a man who had a thorough knowledge of the tambourine was

invited from the village of Tantrum Clangley,a place long celebrated for the skill of its inhabitants as

performers on instruments of percussion. These important members of the assembly were relegated to a

height of two or three feet from the ground, upon a temporary erection of planks supported by barrels. Whilst

the dancing progressed the older persons sat in a group under the trunk of the tree,the space being allotted

to them somewhat grudgingly by the young ones, who were greedy of pirouetting room,and fortified by a

table against the heels of the dancers. Here the gaffers and gammers, whose dancing days were over, told

stories of great impressiveness, and at intervals surveyed the advancing and retiring couples from the same

retreat, as people on shore might be supposed to survey a naval engagement in the bay beyond; returning

again to their tales when the pause was over. Those of the whirling throng, who, during the rests between

each figure, turned their eyes in the direction of these seated ones, were only able to discover, on account of

the music and bustle, that a very striking circumstance was in course of narrationdenoted by an emphatic

sweep of the hand, snapping of the fingers, close of the lips, and fixed look into the centre of the listener's eye

for the space of a quarter of a minute, which raised in that listener such a reciprocating working of face as to

sometimes make the distant dancers half wish to know what such an interesting tale could refer to.

Fancy caused her looks to wear as much matronly expression as was obtainable out of six hours' experience

as a wife, in order that the contrast between her own state of life and that of the unmarried young women

present might be duly impressed upon the company: occasionally stealing glances of admiration at her left

hand, but this quite privately; for her ostensible bearing concerning the matter was intended to show that,

though she undoubtedly occupied the most wondrous position in the eyes of the world that had ever been

attained, she was almost unconscious of the circumstance, and that the somewhat prominent position in

which that wonderfully emblazoned left hand was continually found to be placed, when handing cups and

saucers, knives, forks, and glasses, was quite the result of accident. As to wishing to excite envy in the

bosoms of her maiden companions, by the exhibition of the shining ring, every one was to know it was quite

foreign to the dignity of such an experienced married woman. Dick's imagination in the meantime was far

less capable of drawing so much wontedness from his new condition. He had been for two or three hours

trying to feel himself merely a newlymarried man, but had been able to get no further in the attempt than to

realize that he was Dick Dewy, the tranter's son, at a party given by Lord Wessex's head manincharge, on

Five country dances, including 'Haste to the Wedding,' two reels, and three fragments of hornpipes, brought

them to the time for supper, which, on account of the dampness of the grass from the immaturity of the

summer season, was spread indoors. At the conclusion of the meal Dick went out to put the horse in; and

Fancy, with the elder half of the four bridesmaids, retired upstairs to dress for the journey to Dick's new

"How long will you be putting on your bonnet, Fancy?" Dick inquired at the foot of the staircase. Being now

a man of business and married, he was strong on the importance of time, and doubled the emphasis of his

"Ah, sonnies!" said the tranter, as Dick retired, "'tis a talent of the female race that low numbers should stand

for high, more especially in matters of waiting, matters of age, and matters of money."

"Claning out all the upstairs drawers and cupboards, and dusting the secondbest chaineya thing that's

only done once a year. 'If there's work to be done I must do it,' says she, 'wedding or no.'"

Mrs. Penny turned round. "Well, 'tis humps and hollers with the best of us; but still and for all that, Dick and

Fancy stand as fair a chance of having a bit of sunsheen as any married pair in the land."

Mrs. Dewy came up, talking to one person and looking at another. "Happy, yes," she said. "'Tis always so

"I tell ye, neighbours, when the pinch comes," said the tranter: "when the oldest daughter's boots be only a

size less than her mother's, and the rest o' the flock close behind her. A sharp time for a man that, my sonnies;

"That's about the form o't," said Mr. Penny. "That'll put the stuns upon a man, when you must measure

"You've no cause to complain, Reuben, of such a closecoming flock," said Mrs. Dewy; "for ours was a

Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile, and put it back again without smiling.

"And if they come together, they go together," said Mrs. Penny, whose family had been the reverse of the

tranter's; "and a little money will make either fate tolerable. And money can be made by our young couple, I

"Yes, that it can!" said the impulsive voice of Leaf, who had hitherto humbly admired the proceedings from a

corner. "It can be doneall that's wanted is a few pounds to begin with. That's all! I know a story about it!"

"Let's hear thy story, Leaf;" said the tranter. "I never knew you were clever enough to tell a story. Silence, all

"Tell your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William in the tone of a schoolmaster.

"Once," said the delighted Leaf; in an uncertain voice, "there was a man who lived in a house! Well, this man

went thinking and thinking night and day. At last, he said to himself; as I might, 'If I had only ten pound, I'd

"Well, now comes the interesting part of the story! In a little time he made that ten pounds twenty. Then a

little time after that he doubled it, and made it forty. Well, he went on, and a good while after that he made it

eighty, and on to a hundred. Well, by andby he made it two hundred! Well, you'd never believe it, but

he went on and made it four hundred! He went on, and what did he do? Why, he made it eight hundred! Yes,

he did," continued Leaf; in the highest pitch of excitement, bringing down his fist upon his knee with such

force that he quivered with the pain; "yes, and he went on and made it A THOUSAND!"

"Hear, hear!" said the tranter. "Better than the history of England, my sonnies!"

"Thank you for your story, Thomas Leaf," said grandfather William; and then Leaf gradually sank into

Amid a medley of laughter, old shoes, and elderwine, Dick and his bride took their departure, side by side in

the excellent new springcart which the young tranter now possessed. The moon was just over the full,

rendering any light from lamps or their own beauties quite unnecessary to the pair. They drove slowly along

Yalbury Bottom, where the road passed between two copses. Dick was talking to his companion.

"Fancy," he said, "why we are so happy is because there is such full confidence between us. Ever since that

time you confessed to that little flirtation with Shiner by the river (which was really no flirtation at all), I have

thought how artless and good you must be to tell me o' such a trifling thing, and to be so frightened about it as

you were. It has won me to tell you my every deed and word since then. We'll have no secrets from each

From a neighbouring thicket was suddenly heard to issue in a loud, musical, and liquid voice

"O, 'tis the nightingale," murmured she, and thought of a secret she would never tell.

{1} This, a local expression, must be a corruption of something less questionable.

2. Under the Greenwood Tree, or The Mellstock Quire, A Rural Painting of the Dutch School, page = 4