anxiety for her lover she had agreed to marry him; but
the perception that had accompanied her happiest hours
on this account was rather that of self-sacrifice than of
promotion and honour. Although she scarcely knew
the divinity's name, Diana was the goddess whom
Bathsheba instinctively adored. That she had never,
by look, word, or sign, encouraged a man to approach
her - that she had felt herself sufficient to herself, and
had in the independence of her girlish heart fancied
there was a certain degradation in renouncing the
simplicity of a maiden existence to become the humbler
half of an indifferent matrimonial whole - were facts
now bitterly remembered. O, if she had never
stooped to folly of this kind, respectable as it was, and
could only stand again, as she had stood on the hill at
Norcombe, and dare Troy or any other man to pollute
a hair of her head by his interference!
The next morning she rose earlier than usual, and
had the horse saddled for her ride round the farm in
the customary way. When she came in at half-past
eight - their usual hour for breakfasting - she was in-
formed that her husband had risen, taken his breakfast,
and driven off to Casterbridge with the gig and Poppet.
After breakfast she was cool and collected - quite
herself in fact - and she rambled to the gate, intending
to walk to another quarter of the farm, which she still
personally superintended as well as her duties in the
house would permit, continually, however, finding her-
self preceded in forethought by Gabriel Oak, for whom
she began to entertain the genuine friendship of a sister.
Of course, she sometimes thought of him in the light of
an old lover, and had momentary imaginings of what
life with him as a husband would have been like; also
of life with Boldwood under the same conditions. But
Bathsheba, though she could feel, was not much given
to futile dreaming, and her musings under this head
were short and entirely confined to the times when
Troy's neglect was more than ordinarily evident.
She saw coming up the road a man like Mr. Boldwood.
It was Mr. Boldwood. Bathsheba blushed painfully,
and watched. The farmer stopped when still a long
way off, and held up his hand to Gabriel Oak, who was
in a footpath across the field. The two men then
approached each other and seemed to engage in
earnest conversation.
Thus they continued for a long time. Joseph Poor-
grass now passed near them, wheeling a barrow of apples
up the hill to Bathsheba's residence. Boldwood and
Gabriel called to him, spoke to him for a few minutes,
and then all three parted, Joseph immediately coming
up the hill with his barrow.
Bathsheba, who had seen this pantomime with some
surprise, experienced great relief when Boldwood turned
back again. "Well, what's the message, Joseph?" she
said.
He set down his barrow, and, putting upon himself
the refined aspect that a conversation with a lady re-
quired, spoke to Bathsheba over the gate.
"You'll never see Fanny Robin no more - use nor
principal - ma'am."
"Why?"
"Because she's dead in the Union."
"Fanny dead - never!"
"Yes, ma'am."
"What did she die from?"
"I don't know for certain; but I should be inclined
to think it was from general weakness of constitution.
She was such a limber maid that 'a could stand no
hardship, even when I knowed her, and 'a went like a
candle-snoff, so 'tis said. She was took bad in the
morning, and, being quite feeble and worn out, she
died in the evening. She belongs by law to our parish;
and Mr. Boldwood is going to send a waggon at three
this afternoon to fetch her home here and bury her."
"Indeed I shall not let Mr. Boldwood do any such
thing-i shall do it! Fanny was my uncle's servant,
and, although I only knew her for a couple of days,
FANNY IS SENT FOR
she belongs to me. How very, very sad this is! -
the idea of Fanny being in a workhouse." Bathsheba
had begun to know what suffering was, and she spoke
with real feeling.... "Send across to Mr. Boldwood's,
and say that Mrs. Troy will take upon herself the duty
of fetching an old servant of the family.... We
ought not to put her in a waggon; we'll get a hearse."
"There will hardly be time, ma'am, will there?"
"Perhaps not." she said, musingly. "When did you
say we must be at the door - three o'clock?"
"Three o'clock this afternoon, ma'am, so to speak it."
"Very well-you go with it. A pretty waggon is
better than an ugly hearse, after all. Joseph, have the
new spring waggon with the blue body and red wheels,
and wash it very clean. And, Joseph - - "
"Yes, ma'am."
"Carry with you some evergreens and flowers to put
upon her coffin - indeed, gather a great many, and
completely bury her in them. Get some boughs of
laurustinus, and variegated box, and yew, and boy'siove;
ay, and some hunches of chrysanthemum. And let old
Pleasant draw her, because she knew him so well."I will, ma'am. I ought
to have said that the
Union, in the form of four labouring men, will meet me
when I gets to our churchyard gate, and take her and
bury her according to the rites of the Board of Guardians,
as by law ordained."
"Dear me - Casterbridge Union - and is Fanny come
to this?" said Bathsheba, musing. "I wish I had known
of it sooner. I thought she was far away. How long
has she lived there?"
"On'y been there a day or two."
"Oh! - then she has not been staying there as a
regular inmate?"
"No. She first went to live in a garrison-town t'other
side o' Wessex, and since then she's been picking up a
living at seampstering in Melchester for several months,
at the house of a very respectable widow-woman who
takes in work of that sort. She only got handy the
Union-house on Sunday morning 'a b'lieve, and 'tis sup-
posed here and there that she had traipsed every step
of the way from Melchester. Why she left her place,
I can't say, for I don't know; and as to a lie, why, I
wouldn't tell it. That's the short of the story, ma'am."
"Ah-h!"
No gem ever flashed from a rosy ray to a white one
more rapidly than changed the young wife's counten-
ance whilst this word came from her in a long-drawn
breath. "Did she walk along our turnpike-road?" she
said, in a suddenly restless and eager voice.
"I believe she did.... Ma'am, shall I call Liddy?
You bain't well, ma'am, surely? You look like a lily -
so pale and fainty!"
"No; don't call her; it is nothing. When did she
pass Weatherbury?"
"Last Saturday night."
"That will do, Joseph; now you may go."
Certainly, ma'am."
"Joseph, come hither a moment. What was the
colour of Fanny Robin's hair?"
"Really, mistress, now that 'tis put to me so judge-
and-jury like, I can't call to mind, if ye'll believe me!"
"Never mind; go on and do what I told you. Stop
- well no, go on."
She turned herself away from him, that he might no
longer notice the mood which had set its sign so visibly
upon her, and went indoors with a distressing sense of
faintness and a beating brow. About an hour after, she
heard the noise of the waggon and went out, still with a
painful consciousness of her bewildered and troubled
look. Joseph, dressed in his best suit of clothes, was
putting in the horse to start. The shrubs and flowers
were all piled in the waggon, as she had directed
Bathsheba hardly saw them now.
"Whose sweetheart did you say, Joseph?"
"I don't know, ma'am."
"Are you quite sure?"
"Yes, ma'am, quite sure."Sure of what?"
"I'm sure that all I know is that she arrived in the
morning and died in the evening without further parley.
What Oak and Mr. Boldwood told me was only these
few words. `Little Fanny Robin is dead, Joseph,'
Gabriel said, looking in my face in his steady old way.
I was very sorry, and I said, `Ah! - and how did she
come to die?' `Well, she's dead in Casterhridge
Union,' he said, `and perhaps 'tisn't much matter
about how she came to die. She reached the Union
early Sunday morning, and died in the afternoon - that's
clear enough.' Then I asked what she'd been doing
lately, and Mr. Boldwood turned round to me then, and
left off spitting a thistle with the end of his stick. He
told me about her having lived by seampstering in
Melchester, as I mentioned to you, and that she walked
therefrom at the end of last week, passing near here
Saturday night in the dusk. They then said I had
better just name a hint of her death to you, and away
they went. Her death might have been brought on by
biding in the night wind, you know, ma'am; for people
used to say she'd go off in a decline: she used to cough
a good deal in winter time. However, 'tisn't much
odds to us about that now, for 'tis all over."
"Have you heard a different story at all?' She
looked at him so intently that Joseph's eyes quailed.
"Not a word, mistress, I assure 'ee!" he said.
"Hardly anybody in the parish knows the news yet."
"I wonder why Gabriel didn't bring the message to
me himself. He mostly makes a point of seeing me
upon the most trifling errand." These words were
merely murmured, and she was looking upon the ground.
"Perhaps he was busy, ma'am." Joseph suggested.
"And sometimes he seems to suffer from things upon
his mind, connected with the time when he was better
off than 'a is now. 'A's rather a curious item, but a
very understanding shepherd, and learned in books."
"Did anything seem upon his mind whilst he was
speaking to you about this?"
"I cannot but say that there did, ma'am. He was
terrible down, and so was Farmer Boldwood."
"Thank you, Joseph. That will do. Go on now,
or you'll be late."
Bathsheba, still unhappy, went indoors again. In
the course of the afternoon she said to Liddy, Who had
been informed of the occurrence, " What was the colour
of poor Fanny Robin's hair? Do you know? I cannot
recollect-i only saw her for a day or two."
"It was light, ma'am; but she wore it rather short,
and packed away under her cap, so that you would
hardly notice it. But I have seen her let it down when
she was going to bed, and it looked beautiful then.
Real golden hair."
"Her young man was a soldier, was he not?"
"Yes. In the same regiment as Mr. Troy. He says
he knew him very well."What, Mr. Troy says so? How came he to say
that?"
"One day I just named it to him, and asked him if
he knew Fanny's young man. He said, "O yes, he
knew the young man as well as he knew himself, and
that there wasn't a man in the regiment he liked
better."
"Ah! Said that, did he?"
"Yes; and he said there was a strong likeness be-
tween himself and the other young man, so that some-
times people mistook them - - "
"Liddy, for Heaven's sake stop your talking!" said
Bathsheba, with the nervous petulance that comes from
worrying perceptions.
CHAPTER XLII
JOSEPH AND HIS BURDEN
A WALL bounded the site of Casterbridge Union-
house, except along a portion of the end. Here a high
gable stood prominent, and it was covered like the front
with a mat of ivy. In this gable was no window,
chimney, ornament, or protuberance of any kind. The
single feature appertaining to it, beyond the expanse of
dark green leaves, was a small door.
The situation of the door was peculiar. The sill
was three or four feet above the ground, and for a
moment one was at a loss for an explanation of this
exceptional altitude, till ruts immediately beneath sug-
gested that the door was used solely for the passage of
articles and persons to and from the level of a vehicle
standing on the outside. Upon the whole, the door
seemed to advertise itself as a species of Traitor's Gate
translated to another sphere. That entry and exit
hereby was only at rare intervals became apparent on
noting that tufts of grass were allowed to flourish undis-
turbed in the chinks of the sill.
As the clock over the South-street Alms-house pointed
to five minutes to three, a blue spring waggon, picked
out with red, and containing boughs and flowers, passed
the end of the street, and up towards this side of the
building. Whilst the chimes were yet stammering out
a shattered form of "Malbrook." Joseph Poorgrass rang
the bell, and received directions to back his waggon
against the high door under the gable. The door then
opened, and a plain elm coffin was slowly thrust forth,
and laid by two men in fustian along the middle of the
vehicle.
One of the men then stepped up beside it, took from
his pocket a lump of chalk, and wrote upon the cover
the name and a few other words in a large scrawling
hand. (We believe that they do these things more
tenderly now, and provide a plate.) He covered the
whole with a black cloth, threadbare, but decent, the
tailboard of the waggon was returned to its place, one
of the men handed a certificate of registry to Poorgrass,
and both entered the door, closing it behind them.
Their connection with her, short as it had been, was
over for ever.
Joseph then placed the flowers as enjoined, and the
evergreens around the flowers, till it was difficult to
divine what the waggon contained; he smacked his
whip, and the rather pleasing funeral car crept down
the hill, and along the road to Weatherbury.
The afternoon drew on apace, and, looking to the
right towards the sea as he walked beside the horse, Poor-
grass saw strange clouds and scrolls of mist rolling over
the long ridges which girt the landscape in that quarter.
They came in yet greater volumes, and indolently crept
across the intervening valleys, and around the withered
papery flags of the moor and river brinks. Then their
dank spongy forms closed in upon the sky. It was
a sudden overgrowth of atmospheric fungi which had
their roots in the neighbouring sea, and by the time
that horse, man, and corpse entered Yalbury Great
Wood, these silent workings of an invisible hand had
reached them, and they were completely enveloped,
this being the first arrival of the autumn fogs, and the
first fog of the series.
The air was as an eye suddenly struck blind. The
waggon and its load rolled no longer on the horizontal
division between clearness and opacity, but were
imbedded in an elastic body of a monotonous pallor
throughout. There was no perceptible motion in the
air, not a visible drop of water fell upon a leaf of the
beeches, birches, and firs composing the wood on either
side. The trees stood in an attitude of intentness, as if
they waited longingly for a wind to come and rock
them. A startling quiet overhung all surrounding things
- so completely, that the crunching of the waggon-
wheels was as a great noise, and small rustles, which
had never obtained a hearing except by night, were dis-
tinctly individualized.
Joseph Poorgrass looked round upon his sad burden
as it loomed faintly through the flowering laurustinus,
then at the unfathomable gloom amid the high trees on
each hand, indistinct, shadowless, and spectrelike in
their monochrome of grey. He felt anything but cheer-
ful, and wished he had the company even of a child or
dog. Stopping the home, he listened. Not a footstep
or wheel was audible anywhere around, and the dead
silence was broken only by a heavy particle falling from
a tree through the evergreens and alighting with a smart
rap upon the coffin of poor Fanny. The fog had by
this time saturated the trees, and this was the first
dropping of water from the overbrimming leaves. The
hollow echo of its fall reminded the waggoner painfully
of the grim Leveller. Then hard by came down another
drop, then two or three. Presently there was a continual
tapping of these heavy drops upon the dead leaves, the
road, and the travellers. The nearer boughs were beaded
with the mist to the greyness of aged men, and the rusty-
red leaves of the beeches were hung with similar drops,
like diamonds on auburn hair.
At the roadside hamlet called Roy-Town, just beyond
this wood, was the old inn Buck's Head. It was about
a mile and a half from Weatherbury, and in the meridian
times of stage-coach travelling had been the place
where many coaches changed and kept their relays
of horses. All the old stabling was now pulled down,
and little remained besides the habitable inn itself,
which, standing a little way back from the road, sig-
nified its existence to people far up and down the
highway by a sign hanging from the horizontal bough
of an elm on the opposite side of the way.
Travellers - for the variety TOURIST had hardly
developed into a distinct species at this date - some-
times said in passing, when they cast their eyes up to
the sign-bearing tree, that artists were fond of repre-
senting the signboard hanging thus, but that they
themselves had never before noticed so perfect an
instance in actual working order. It was near this tree
that the waggon was standing into which Gabriel Oak
crept on his first journey to Weatherbury; but, owing
to the darkness, the sign and the inn had been un-
observed.
The manners of the inn were of the old-established
type. Indeed, in the minds of its frequenters they
existed as unalterable formulae: E.G. -
Rap with the bottom of your pint for more liquor.
For tobacco, shout.
In calling for the girl in waiting, say, "Maid!"
Ditto for the landlady, "Old Soul!" etc., etc.
It was a relief to Joseph's heart when the friendly
signboard came in view, and, stopping his horse
immediately beneath it, he proceeded to fulfil an
intention made a long time before. His spirits were
oozing out of him quite. He turned the horse's head
to the green bank, and entered the hostel for a mug
of ale.
Going down into the kitchen of the inn, the floor
of which was a step below the passage, which in its
turn was a step below the road outside, what should
Joseph see to gladden his eyes but two copper-coloured
discs, in the form of the countenances of Mr. Jan
Coggan and Mr. Mark Clark. These owners of the
two most appreciative throats in the neighbourhood,
within the pale of respectability, were now sitting face
to face over a threelegged circular table, having an
iron rim to keep cups and pots from being accidentally
elbowed off; they might have been said to resemble
the setting sun and the full moon shining VIS-A-VIS
across the globe.
"Why, 'tis neighbour Poorgrass!" said Mark Clark.
"I'm sure your face don't praise your mistress's table,
Joseph."
"I've had a very pale companion for the last four
miles." said Joseph, indulging in a shudder toned
down by resignation. "And to speak the truth, 'twas
beginning to tell upon me. I assure ye, I ha'n't seed
the colour of victuals or drink since breakfast time
this morning, and that was no more than a dew-bit
afield."
"Then drink, Joseph, and don't restrain yourself!"
said Coggan, handing him a hooped mug three-
quarters full.
Joseph drank for a moderately long time, then for
a longer time, saying, as he lowered the jug, "'Tis
pretty drinking - very pretty drinking, and is more
than cheerful on my melancholy errand, so to speak it."
"True, drink is a pleasant delight." said Jan, as one
who repeated a truism so familiar to his brain that he
hardly noticed its passage over his tongue; and,
lifting the cup, Coggan tilted his head gradually
backwards, with closed eyes, that his expectant soul
might not be diverted for one instant from its bliss
by irrelevant surroundings.
"Well, I must be on again." said Poorgrass. "Not
but that I should like another nip with ye; but the
parish might lose confidence in me if I was seed
here."
"Where be ye trading o't to to-day, then, Joseph?"
"Back to Weatherbury. I've got poor little Fanny
Robin in my waggon outside, and I must be at the
churchyard gates at a quarter to five with her."
"Ay-i've heard of it. And so she's nailed up in
parish boards after all, and nobody to pay the bell
shilling and the grave half-crown."
"The parish pays the grave half-crown, but not the
bell shilling, because the bell's a luxery: but 'a can
hardly do without the grave, poor body. However, I
expect our mistress will pay all."
"A pretty maid as ever I see! But what's yer hurry,
Joseph? The pore woman's dead, and you can't bring
her to life, and you may as well sit down comfortable,
and finish another with us."
"I don't mind taking just the least thimbleful ye
can dream of more with ye, sonnies. But only a few
minutes, because 'tis as 'tis."
"Of course, you'll have another drop. A man's
twice the man afterwards. You feel so warm and
glorious, and you whop and slap at your work without
any trouble, and everything goes on like sticks a-
breaking. Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to
that horned man in the smoky house; but after all,
many people haven't the gift of enjoying a wet, and
since we be highly favoured with a power that way,
we should make the most o't."True." said Mark Clark. "'Tis a talent the
Lord
has mercifully bestowed upon us, and we ought not
to neglect it. But, what with the parsons and clerks
and schoolpeople and serious tea-parties, the merry
old ways of good life have gone to the dogs - upon
my carcase, they have!"
"Well, really, I must be onward again now." said
Joseph.
"Now, now, Joseph; nonsense! The poor woman
is dead, isn't she, and what's your hurry?"
"Well, I hope Providence won't be in a way with
me for my doings." said Joseph, again sitting down.
"I've been troubled with weak moments lately, 'tis
true. I've been drinky once this month already, and
I did not go to church a-Sunday, and I dropped a
curse or two yesterday; so I don't want to go too far
for my safety. Your next world is your next world,
and not to be squandered offhand."
"I believe ye to be a chapelmember, Joseph. That
I do."
"Oh, no, no! I don't go so far as that."
"For my part." said Coggan, "I'm staunch Church
of England."
"Ay, and faith, so be I." said Mark Clark.
"I won't say much for myself; I don't wish to,"
Coggan continued, with that tendency to talk on
principles which is characteristic of the barley-corn.
"But I've never changed a single doctrine: I've stuck
like a plaster to the old faith I was born in. Yes;
there's this to be said for the Church, a man can
belong to the Church and bide in his cheerful old
inn, and never trouble or worry his mind about
doctrines at all. But to be a meetinger, you must
go to chapel in all winds and weathers, and make
yerself as frantic as a skit. Not but that chapel
members be clever chaps enough in their way. They
can lift up beautiful prayers out of their own heads, all
about their families and shipwrecks in the newspaper."
"They can - they can." said Mark Clark, with cor-
roborative feeling; "but we Churchmen, you see, must
have it all printed aforehand, or, dang it all, we should
no more know what to say to a great gaffer like the
Lord than babes unborn,"
"Chapelfolk be more hand-in-glove with them above
than we." said Joseph, thoughtfully.
"Yes." said Coggan. "We know very well that if
anybody do go to heaven, they will. They've worked
hard for it, and they deserve to have it, such as 'tis.
I bain't such a fool as to pretend that we who stick
to the Church have the same chance as they, because
we know we have not. But I hate a feller who'll
change his old ancient doctrines for the sake of getting
to heaven. I'd as soon turn king's-evidence for the
few pounds you get. Why, neighbours, when every
one of my taties were frosted, our Parson Thirdly
were the man who gave me a sack for seed, though
he hardly had one for his own use, and no money to
buy 'em. If it hadn't been for him, I shouldn't hae
had a tatie to put in my garden. D'ye think I'd
turn after that? No, I'll stick to my side; and if we
be in the wrong, so be it: I'll fall with the fallen!"
"Well said - very well said." observed Joseph. -
"However, folks, I must be moving now: upon my life
I must. Pa'son Thirdly will be waiting at the church
gates, and there's the woman a-biding outside in the
waggon."
"Joseph Poorgrass, don't be so miserable! Pa'son
Thirdly won't mind. He's a generous man; he's found
me in tracts for years, and I've consumed a good many
in the course of a long and shady life; but he's never
been the man to cry out at the expense. Sit down."
The longer Joseph Poorgrass remained, the less his
spirit was troubled by the duties which devolved upon
him this afternoon. The minutes glided by uncounted,
until the evening shades began perceptibly to deepen,
and the eyes of the three were but sparkling points
on the surface of darkness. Coggan's repeater struck
six from his pocket in the usual still small tones.
At that moment hasty steps were heard in the entry,
and the door opened to admit the figure of Gabriel Oak,
followed by the maid of the inn bearing a candle. He
stared sternly at the one lengthy and two round faces
of the sitters, which confronted him with the expressions