"Yes, yes," from Dr. Bath, Lawyer Long, Alderman Tubber, and several
more.
"Then I am not to be allowed to have anything to do with it officially?"
"I am afraid so; it is out of the question, indeed. But of course you
can see the doings full well, such as they are to be, like the rest of
the spectators."
Henchard did not reply to that very obvious suggestion, and, turning on
his heel, went away.
It had been only a passing fancy of his, but opposition crystallized
it into a determination. "I'll welcome his Royal Highness, or nobody
shall!" he went about saying. "I am not going to be sat upon by Farfrae,
or any of the rest of the paltry crew! You shall see."
The eventful morning was bright, a full-faced sun confronting early
window-gazers eastward, and all perceived (for they were practised in
weather-lore) that there was permanence in the glow. Visitors soon began
to flock in from county houses, villages, remote copses, and lonely
uplands, the latter in oiled boots and tilt bonnets, to see the
reception, or if not to see it, at any rate to be near it. There was
hardly a workman in the town who did not put a clean shirt on. Solomon
Longways, Christopher Coney, Buzzford, and the rest of that fraternity,
showed their sense of the occasion by advancing their customary eleven
o'clock pint to half-past ten; from which they found a difficulty in
getting back to the proper hour for several days.
Henchard had determined to do no work that day. He primed himself in
the morning with a glass of rum, and walking down the street met
Elizabeth-Jane, whom he had not seen for a week. "It was lucky," he
said to her, "my twenty-one years had expired before this came on, or I
should never have had the nerve to carry it out."
"Carry out what?" said she, alarmed.
"This welcome I am going to give our Royal visitor."
She was perplexed. "Shall we go and see it together?" she said.
"See it! I have other fish to fry. You see it. It will be worth seeing!"
She could do nothing to elucidate this, and decked herself out with a
heavy heart. As the appointed time drew near she got sight again of her
stepfather. She thought he was going to the Three Mariners; but no,
he elbowed his way through the gay throng to the shop of Woolfrey, the
draper. She waited in the crowd without.
In a few minutes he emerged, wearing, to her surprise, a brilliant
rosette, while more surprising still, in his hand he carried a flag of
somewhat homely construction, formed by tacking one of the small
Union Jacks, which abounded in the town to-day, to the end of a deal
wand - probably the roller from a piece of calico. Henchard rolled up his
flag on the doorstep, put it under his arm, and went down the street.
Suddenly the taller members of the crowd turned their heads, and the
shorter stood on tiptoe. It was said that the Royal cortege approached.
The railway had stretched out an arm towards Casterbridge at this time,
but had not reached it by several miles as yet; so that the intervening
distance, as well as the remainder of the journey, was to be traversed
by road in the old fashion. People thus waited - the county families
in their carriages, the masses on foot - and watched the far-stretching
London highway to the ringing of bells and chatter of tongues.
From the background Elizabeth-Jane watched the scene. Some seats had
been arranged from which ladies could witness the spectacle, and the
front seat was occupied by Lucetta, the Mayor's wife, just at present.
In the road under her eyes stood Henchard. She appeared so bright and
pretty that, as it seemed, he was experiencing the momentary weakness of
wishing for her notice. But he was far from attractive to a woman's eye,
ruled as that is so largely by the superficies of things. He was not
only a journeyman, unable to appear as he formerly had appeared, but he
disdained to appear as well as he might. Everybody else, from the
Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture according to means; but
Henchard had doggedly retained the fretted and weather-beaten garments
of bygone years.
Hence, alas, this occurred: Lucetta's eyes slid over him to this side
and to that without anchoring on his features - as gaily dressed women's
eyes will too often do on such occasions. Her manner signified quite
plainly that she meant to know him in public no more.
But she was never tired of watching Donald, as he stood in animated
converse with his friends a few yards off, wearing round his young neck
the official gold chain with great square links, like that round the
Royal unicorn. Every trifling emotion that her husband showed as he
talked had its reflex on her face and lips, which moved in little
duplicates to his. She was living his part rather than her own, and
cared for no one's situation but Farfrae's that day.
At length a man stationed at the furthest turn of the high road, namely,
on the second bridge of which mention has been made, gave a signal, and
the Corporation in their robes proceeded from the front of the Town
Hall to the archway erected at the entrance to the town. The carriages
containing the Royal visitor and his suite arrived at the spot in a
cloud of dust, a procession was formed, and the whole came on to the
Town Hall at a walking pace.
This spot was the centre of interest. There were a few clear yards in
front of the Royal carriage, sanded; and into this space a man stepped
before any one could prevent him. It was Henchard. He had unrolled
his private flag, and removing his hat he staggered to the side of the
slowing vehicle, waving the Union Jack to and fro with his left hand
while he blandly held out his right to the Illustrious Personage.
All the ladies said with bated breath, "O, look there!" and Lucetta was
ready to faint. Elizabeth-Jane peeped through the shoulders of those in
front, saw what it was, and was terrified; and then her interest in the
spectacle as a strange phenomenon got the better of her fear.
Farfrae, with Mayoral authority, immediately rose to the occasion. He
seized Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly
to be off. Henchard's eyes met his, and Farfrae observed the fierce
light in them despite his excitement and irritation. For a moment
Henchard stood his ground rigidly; then by an unaccountable impulse gave
way and retired. Farfrae glanced to the ladies' gallery, and saw that
his Calphurnia's cheek was pale.
"Why - it is your husband's old patron!" said Mrs. Blowbody, a lady of
the neighbourhood who sat beside Lucetta.
"Patron!" said Donald's wife with quick indignation.
"Do you say the man is an acquaintance of Mr. Farfrae's?" observed Mrs.
Bath, the physician's wife, a new-comer to the town through her recent
marriage with the doctor.
"He works for my husband," said Lucetta.
"Oh - is that all? They have been saying to me that it was through him
your husband first got a footing in Casterbridge. What stories people
will tell!"
"They will indeed. It was not so at all. Donald's genius would have
enabled him to get a footing anywhere, without anybody's help! He would
have been just the same if there had been no Henchard in the world!"
It was partly Lucetta's ignorance of the circumstances of Donald's
arrival which led her to speak thus, partly the sensation that everybody
seemed bent on snubbing her at this triumphant time. The incident had
occupied but a few moments, but it was necessarily witnessed by the
Royal Personage, who, however, with practised tact affected not to have
noticed anything unusual. He alighted, the Mayor advanced, the address
was read; the Illustrious Personage replied, then said a few words to
Farfrae, and shook hands with Lucetta as the Mayor's wife. The ceremony
occupied but a few minutes, and the carriages rattled heavily as
Pharaoh's chariots down Corn Street and out upon the Budmouth Road, in
continuation of the journey coastward.
In the crowd stood Coney, Buzzford, and Longways "Some difference
between him now and when he zung at the Dree Mariners," said the first.
"'Tis wonderful how he could get a lady of her quality to go snacks wi'
en in such quick time."
"True. Yet how folk do worship fine clothes! Now there's a
better-looking woman than she that nobody notices at all, because she's
akin to that hontish fellow Henchard."
"I could worship ye, Buzz, for saying that," remarked Nance Mockridge.
"I do like to see the trimming pulled off such Christmas candles. I am
quite unequal to the part of villain myself, or I'd gi'e all my small
silver to see that lady toppered....And perhaps I shall soon," she added
significantly.
"That's not a noble passiont for a 'oman to keep up," said Longways.
Nance did not reply, but every one knew what she meant. The ideas
diffused by the reading of Lucetta's letters at Peter's finger had
condensed into a scandal, which was spreading like a miasmatic fog
through Mixen Lane, and thence up the back streets of Casterbridge.
The mixed assemblage of idlers known to each other presently fell apart
into two bands by a process of natural selection, the frequenters of
Peter's Finger going off Mixen Lanewards, where most of them lived,
while Coney, Buzzford, Longways, and that connection remained in the
street.
"You know what's brewing down there, I suppose?" said Buzzford
mysteriously to the others.
Coney looked at him. "Not the skimmity-ride?"
Buzzford nodded.
"I have my doubts if it will be carried out," said Longways. "If they
are getting it up they are keeping it mighty close.
"I heard they were thinking of it a fortnight ago, at all events."
"If I were sure o't I'd lay information," said Longways emphatically.
"'Tis too rough a joke, and apt to wake riots in towns. We know that
the Scotchman is a right enough man, and that his lady has been a right
enough 'oman since she came here, and if there was anything wrong about
her afore, that's their business, not ours."
Coney reflected. Farfrae was still liked in the community; but it must
be owned that, as the Mayor and man of money, engrossed with affairs and
ambitions, he had lost in the eyes of the poorer inhabitants something
of that wondrous charm which he had had for them as a light-hearted
penniless young man, who sang ditties as readily as the birds in the
trees. Hence the anxiety to keep him from annoyance showed not quite the
ardour that would have animated it in former days.
"Suppose we make inquiration into it, Christopher," continued Longways;
"and if we find there's really anything in it, drop a letter to them
most concerned, and advise 'em to keep out of the way?"
This course was decided on, and the group separated, Buzzford saying to
Coney, "Come, my ancient friend; let's move on. There's nothing more to
see here."
These well-intentioned ones would have been surprised had they known how
ripe the great jocular plot really was. "Yes, to-night," Jopp had said
to the Peter's party at the corner of Mixen Lane. "As a wind-up to the
Royal visit the hit will be all the more pat by reason of their great
elevation to-day."
To him, at least, it was not a joke, but a retaliation.
38.
The proceedings had been brief - too brief - to Lucetta whom an
intoxicating Weltlust had fairly mastered; but they had brought her a
great triumph nevertheless. The shake of the Royal hand still lingered
in her fingers; and the chit-chat she had overheard, that her husband
might possibly receive the honour of knighthood, though idle to a
degree, seemed not the wildest vision; stranger things had occurred to
men so good and captivating as her Scotchman was.
After the collision with the Mayor, Henchard had withdrawn behind the
ladies' stand; and there he stood, regarding with a stare of abstraction
the spot on the lapel of his coat where Farfrae's hand had seized it.
He put his own hand there, as if he could hardly realize such an outrage
from one whom it had once been his wont to treat with ardent generosity.
While pausing in this half-stupefied state the conversation of Lucetta
with the other ladies reached his ears; and he distinctly heard her deny
him - deny that he had assisted Donald, that he was anything more than a
common journeyman.
He moved on homeward, and met Jopp in the archway to the Bull Stake. "So
you've had a snub," said Jopp.
"And what if I have?" answered Henchard sternly.
"Why, I've had one too, so we are both under the same cold shade." He
briefly related his attempt to win Lucetta's intercession.
Henchard merely heard his story, without taking it deeply in. His own
relation to Farfrae and Lucetta overshadowed all kindred ones. He went
on saying brokenly to himself, "She has supplicated to me in her time;
and now her tongue won't own me nor her eyes see me!... And he - how angry
he looked. He drove me back as if I were a bull breaking fence.... I
took it like a lamb, for I saw it could not be settled there. He can
rub brine on a green wound!... But he shall pay for it, and she shall be
sorry. It must come to a tussle - face to face; and then we'll see how a
coxcomb can front a man!"
Without further reflection the fallen merchant, bent on some wild
purpose, ate a hasty dinner and went forth to find Farfrae. After being
injured by him as a rival, and snubbed by him as a journeyman, the
crowning degradation had been reserved for this day - that he should be
shaken at the collar by him as a vagabond in the face of the whole town.
The crowds had dispersed. But for the green arches which still stood
as they were erected Casterbridge life had resumed its ordinary shape.
Henchard went down corn Street till he came to Farfrae's house, where he
knocked, and left a message that he would be glad to see his employer at
the granaries as soon as he conveniently could come there. Having done
this he proceeded round to the back and entered the yard.
Nobody was present, for, as he had been aware, the labourers and
carters were enjoying a half-holiday on account of the events of the
morning - though the carters would have to return for a short time later
on, to feed and litter down the horses. He had reached the granary steps
and was about to ascend, when he said to himself aloud, "I'm stronger
than he."
Henchard returned to a shed, where he selected a short piece of rope
from several pieces that were lying about; hitching one end of this to
a nail, he took the other in his right hand and turned himself bodily
round, while keeping his arm against his side; by this contrivance he
pinioned the arm effectively. He now went up the ladders to the top
floor of the corn-stores.
It was empty except of a few sacks, and at the further end was the door
often mentioned, opening under the cathead and chain that hoisted the
sacks. He fixed the door open and looked over the sill. There was a
depth of thirty or forty feet to the ground; here was the spot on which
he had been standing with Farfrae when Elizabeth-Jane had seen him lift
his arm, with many misgivings as to what the movement portended.
He retired a few steps into the loft and waited. From this elevated
perch his eyes could sweep the roofs round about, the upper parts of the
luxurious chestnut trees, now delicate in leaves of a week's age, and
the drooping boughs of the lines; Farfrae's garden and the green door
leading therefrom. In course of time - he could not say how long - that
green door opened and Farfrae came through. He was dressed as if for a
journey. The low light of the nearing evening caught his head and
face when he emerged from the shadow of the wall, warming them to a
complexion of flame-colour. Henchard watched him with his mouth firmly
set the squareness of his jaw and the verticality of his profile being
unduly marked.
Farfrae came on with one hand in his pocket, and humming a tune in a way
which told that the words were most in his mind. They were those of the
song he had sung when he arrived years before at the Three Mariners, a
poor young man, adventuring for life and fortune, and scarcely knowing
witherward: -
"And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine."
Nothing moved Henchard like an old melody. He sank back. "No; I can't do
it!" he gasped. "Why does the infernal fool begin that now!"
At length Farfrae was silent, and Henchard looked out of the loft door.
"Will ye come up here?" he said.
"Ay, man," said Farfrae. "I couldn't see ye. What's wrang?"
A minute later Henchard heard his feet on the lowest ladder. He heard
him land on the first floor, ascend and land on the second, begin the
ascent to the third. And then his head rose through the trap behind.
"What are you doing up here at this time?" he asked, coming forward.
"Why didn't ye take your holiday like the rest of the men?" He spoke in
a tone which had just severity enough in it to show that he remembered
the untoward event of the forenoon, and his conviction that Henchard had
been drinking.
Henchard said nothing; but going back he closed the stair hatchway, and
stamped upon it so that it went tight into its frame; he next turned
to the wondering young man, who by this time observed that one of
Henchard's arms was bound to his side.
"Now," said Henchard quietly, "we stand face to face - man and man. Your
money and your fine wife no longer lift 'ee above me as they did but
now, and my poverty does not press me down."
"What does it all mean?" asked Farfrae simply.
"Wait a bit, my lad. You should ha' thought twice before you affronted
to extremes a man who had nothing to lose. I've stood your rivalry,
which ruined me, and your snubbing, which humbled me; but your hustling,
that disgraced me, I won't stand!"
Farfrae warmed a little at this. "Ye'd no business there," he said.
"As much as any one among ye! What, you forward stripling, tell a man of
my age he'd no business there!" The anger-vein swelled in his forehead
as he spoke.
"You insulted Royalty, Henchard; and 'twas my duty, as the chief
magistrate, to stop you."
"Royalty be damned," said Henchard. "I am as loyal as you, come to
that!"
"I am not here to argue. Wait till you cool doon, wait till you cool;
and you will see things the same way as I do."
"You may be the one to cool first," said Henchard grimly. "Now this
is the case. Here be we, in this four-square loft, to finish out that
little wrestle you began this morning. There's the door, forty foot
above ground. One of us two puts the other out by that door - the master
stays inside. If he likes he may go down afterwards and give the
alarm that the other has fallen out by accident - or he may tell the
truth - that's his business. As the strongest man I've tied one arm to
take no advantage of 'ee. D'ye understand? Then here's at 'ee!"
There was no time for Farfrae to do aught but one thing, to close with
Henchard, for the latter had come on at once. It was a wrestling match,
the object of each being to give his antagonist a back fall; and on
Henchard's part, unquestionably, that it should be through the door.
At the outset Henchard's hold by his only free hand, the right, was on
the left side of Farfrae's collar, which he firmly grappled, the latter
holding Henchard by his collar with the contrary hand. With his right he
endeavoured to get hold of his antagonist's left arm, which, however, he
could not do, so adroitly did Henchard keep it in the rear as he gazed
upon the lowered eyes of his fair and slim antagonist.
Henchard planted the first toe forward, Farfrae crossing him with his;
and thus far the struggle had very much the appearance of the ordinary
wrestling of those parts. Several minutes were passed by them in this
attitude, the pair rocking and writhing like trees in a gale, both
preserving an absolute silence. By this time their breathing could be
heard. Then Farfrae tried to get hold of the other side of Henchard's
collar, which was resisted by the larger man exerting all his force in
a wrenching movement, and this part of the struggle ended by his forcing
Farfrae down on his knees by sheer pressure of one of his muscular arms.
Hampered as he was, however, he could not keep him there, and Farfrae
finding his feet again the struggle proceeded as before.
By a whirl Henchard brought Donald dangerously near the precipice;
seeing his position the Scotchman for the first time locked himself
to his adversary, and all the efforts of that infuriated Prince
of Darkness - as he might have been called from his appearance just
now - were inadequate to lift or loosen Farfrae for a time. By an
extraordinary effort he succeeded at last, though not until they had got
far back again from the fatal door. In doing so Henchard contrived to
turn Farfrae a complete somersault. Had Henchard's other arm been free
it would have been all over with Farfrae then. But again he regained his
feet, wrenching Henchard's arm considerably, and causing him sharp pain,
as could be seen from the twitching of his face. He instantly delivered
the younger man an annihilating turn by the left fore-hip, as it used
to be expressed, and following up his advantage thrust him towards the
door, never loosening his hold till Farfrae's fair head was hanging over
the window-sill, and his arm dangling down outside the wall.
"Now," said Henchard between his gasps, "this is the end of what you
began this morning. Your life is in my hands."
"Then take it, take it!" said Farfrae. "Ye've wished to long enough!"
Henchard looked down upon him in silence, and their eyes met. "O
Farfrae! - that's not true!" he said bitterly. "God is my witness that
no man ever loved another as I did thee at one time....And now - though I
came here to kill 'ee, I cannot hurt thee! Go and give me in charge - do
what you will - I care nothing for what comes of me!"
He withdrew to the back part of the loft, loosened his arm, and flung
himself in a corner upon some sacks, in the abandonment of remorse.
Farfrae regarded him in silence; then went to the hatch and descended
through it. Henchard would fain have recalled him, but his tongue failed
in its task, and the young man's steps died on his ear.
Henchard took his full measure of shame and self-reproach. The scenes of
his first acquaintance with Farfrae rushed back upon him - that time when
the curious mixture of romance and thrift in the young man's composition
so commanded his heart that Farfrae could play upon him as on an
instrument. So thoroughly subdued was he that he remained on the sacks
in a crouching attitude, unusual for a man, and for such a man.
Its womanliness sat tragically on the figure of so stern a piece of
virility. He heard a conversation below, the opening of the coach-house
door, and the putting in of a horse, but took no notice.
Here he stayed till the thin shades thickened to opaque obscurity, and
the loft-door became an oblong of gray light - the only visible shape
around. At length he arose, shook the dust from his clothes wearily,
felt his way to the hatch, and gropingly descended the steps till he
stood in the yard.
"He thought highly of me once," he murmured. "Now he'll hate me and
despise me for ever!"
He became possessed by an overpowering wish to see Farfrae again
that night, and by some desperate pleading to attempt the well-nigh
impossible task of winning pardon for his late mad attack. But as he
walked towards Farfrae's door he recalled the unheeded doings in the
yard while he had lain above in a sort of stupor. Farfrae he remembered
had gone to the stable and put the horse into the gig; while doing so
Whittle had brought him a letter; Farfrae had then said that he would
not go towards Budmouth as he had intended - that he was unexpectedly
summoned to Weatherbury, and meant to call at Mellstock on his way
thither, that place lying but one or two miles out of his course.
He must have come prepared for a journey when he first arrived in the
yard, unsuspecting enmity; and he must have driven off (though in a
changed direction) without saying a word to any one on what had occurred
between themselves.
It would therefore be useless to call at Farfrae's house till very late.
There was no help for it but to wait till his return, though waiting was
almost torture to his restless and self-accusing soul. He walked about
the streets and outskirts of the town, lingering here and there till he
reached the stone bridge of which mention has been made, an accustomed
halting-place with him now. Here he spent a long time, the purl of
waters through the weirs meeting his ear, and the Casterbridge lights
glimmering at no great distance off.
While leaning thus upon the parapet his listless attention was awakened
by sounds of an unaccustomed kind from the town quarter. They were a
confusion of rhythmical noises, to which the streets added yet more
confusion by encumbering them with echoes. His first incurious thought
that the clangour arose from the town band, engaged in an attempt
to round off a memorable day in a burst of evening harmony,
was contradicted by certain peculiarities of reverberation. But
inexplicability did not rouse him to more than a cursory heed; his sense
of degradation was too strong for the admission of foreign ideas; and he
leant against the parapet as before.
39.
When Farfrae descended out of the loft breathless from his encounter
with Henchard, he paused at the bottom to recover himself. He arrived
at the yard with the intention of putting the horse into the gig himself
(all the men having a holiday), and driving to a village on the Budmouth
Road. Despite the fearful struggle he decided still to persevere in his
journey, so as to recover himself before going indoors and meeting the
eyes of Lucetta. He wished to consider his course in a case so serious.
When he was just on the point of driving off Whittle arrived with a note
badly addressed, and bearing the word "immediate" upon the outside. On
opening it he was surprised to see that it was unsigned. It contained
a brief request that he would go to Weatherbury that evening about some
business which he was conducting there. Farfrae knew nothing that could
make it pressing; but as he was bent upon going out he yielded to the
anonymous request, particularly as he had a call to make at Mellstock
which could be included in the same tour. Thereupon he told Whittle of
his change of direction, in words which Henchard had overheard, and set
out on his way. Farfrae had not directed his man to take the message
indoors, and Whittle had not been supposed to do so on his own
responsibility.
Now the anonymous letter was a well-intentioned but clumsy contrivance
of Longways and other of Farfrae's men to get him out of the way for
the evening, in order that the satirical mummery should fall flat, if it
were attempted. By giving open information they would have brought down
upon their heads the vengeance of those among their comrades who enjoyed
these boisterous old games; and therefore the plan of sending a letter
recommended itself by its indirectness.
For poor Lucetta they took no protective measure, believing with the
majority there was some truth in the scandal, which she would have to
bear as she best might.
It was about eight o'clock, and Lucetta was sitting in the drawing-room
alone. Night had set in for more than half an hour, but she had not had
the candles lighted, for when Farfrae was away she preferred waiting for
him by the firelight, and, if it were not too cold, keeping one of the
window-sashes a little way open that the sound of his wheels might reach
her ears early. She was leaning back in the chair, in a more hopeful
mood than she had enjoyed since her marriage. The day had been such
a success, and the temporary uneasiness which Henchard's show of
effrontery had wrought in her disappeared with the quiet disappearance
of Henchard himself under her husband's reproof. The floating evidences
of her absurd passion for him, and its consequences, had been destroyed,
and she really seemed to have no cause for fear.
The reverie in which these and other subjects mingled was disturbed by
a hubbub in the distance, that increased moment by moment. It did not
greatly surprise her, the afternoon having been given up to recreation
by a majority of the populace since the passage of the Royal equipages.
But her attention was at once riveted to the matter by the voice of a
maid-servant next door, who spoke from an upper window across the street
to some other maid even more elevated than she.
"Which way be they going now?" inquired the first with interest.
"I can't be sure for a moment," said the second, "because of the
malter's chimbley. O yes - I can see 'em. Well, I declare, I declare!
"What, what?" from the first, more enthusiastically.
"They are coming up Corn Street after all! They sit back to back!"
"What - two of 'em - are there two figures?"
"Yes. Two images on a donkey, back to back, their elbows tied to one
another's! She's facing the head, and he's facing the tail."
"Is it meant for anybody in particular?"
"Well - it mid be. The man has got on a blue coat and kerseymere
leggings; he has black whiskers, and a reddish face. 'Tis a stuffed
figure, with a falseface."
The din was increasing now - then it lessened a little.
"There - I shan't see, after all!" cried the disappointed first maid.
"They have gone into a back street - that's all," said the one who
occupied the enviable position in the attic. "There - now I have got 'em
all endways nicely!"
"What's the woman like? Just say, and I can tell in a moment if 'tis
meant for one I've in mind."
"My - why - 'tis dressed just as SHE dressed when she sat in the front
seat at the time the play-actors came to the Town Hall!"
Lucetta started to her feet, and almost at the instant the door of the
room was quickly and softly opened. Elizabeth-Jane advanced into the
firelight.
"I have come to see you," she said breathlessly. "I did not stop to
knock - forgive me! I see you have not shut your shutters, and the window
is open."
Without waiting for Lucetta's reply she crossed quickly to the window
and pulled out one of the shutters. Lucetta glided to her side. "Let
it be - hush!" she said perempority, in a dry voice, while she seized
Elizabeth-Jane by the hand, and held up her finger. Their intercourse
had been so low and hurried that not a word had been lost of the
conversation without, which had thus proceeded: -
"Her neck is uncovered, and her hair in bands, and her back-comb in
place; she's got on a puce silk, and white stockings, and coloured
shoes."
Again Elizabeth-Jane attempted to close the window, but Lucetta held her
by main force.
"'Tis me!" she said, with a face pale as death. "A procession - a
scandal - an effigy of me, and him!"
The look of Elizabeth betrayed that the latter knew it already.
"Let us shut it out," coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid
wildness of Lucetta's features was growing yet more rigid and wild with
the meaning of the noise and laughter. "Let us shut it out!"
"It is of no use!" she shrieked. "He will see it, won't he? Donald will
see it! He is just coming home - and it will break his heart - he will
never love me any more - and O, it will kill me - kill me!"
Elizabeth-Jane was frantic now. "O, can't something be done to stop it?"
she cried. "Is there nobody to do it - not one?"
She relinquished Lucetta's hands, and ran to the door. Lucetta herself,
saying recklessly "I will see it!" turned to the window, threw up the
sash, and went out upon the balcony. Elizabeth immediately followed, and
put her arm round her to pull her in. Lucetta's eyes were straight upon
the spectacle of the uncanny revel, now dancing rapidly. The numerous
lights round the two effigies threw them up into lurid distinctness; it
was impossible to mistake the pair for other than the intended victims.
"Come in, come in," implored Elizabeth; "and let me shut the window!"
"She's me - she's me - even to the parasol - my green parasol!" cried
Lucetta with a wild laugh as she stepped in. She stood motionless for
one second - then fell heavily to the floor.
Almost at the instant of her fall the rude music of the skimmington
ceased. The roars of sarcastic laughter went off in ripples, and the
trampling died out like the rustle of a spent wind. Elizabeth was only
indirectly conscious of this; she had rung the bell, and was bending
over Lucetta, who remained convulsed on the carpet in the paroxysms of
an epileptic seizure. She rang again and again, in vain; the probability
being that the servants had all run out of the house to see more of the
Daemonic Sabbath than they could see within.
At last Farfrae's man, who had been agape on the doorstep, came up;
then the cook. The shutters, hastily pushed to by Elizabeth, were quite
closed, a light was obtained, Lucetta carried to her room, and the man
sent off for a doctor. While Elizabeth was undressing her she recovered
consciousness; but as soon as she remembered what had passed the fit
returned.
The doctor arrived with unhoped-for promptitude; he had been standing
at his door, like others, wondering what the uproar meant. As soon as he
saw the unhappy sufferer he said, in answer to Elizabeth's mute appeal,
"This is serious."
"It is a fit," Elizabeth said.
"Yes. But a fit in the present state of her health means mischief. You
must send at once for Mr. Farfrae. Where is he?"
"He has driven into the country, sir," said the parlour-maid; "to some
place on the Budmouth Road. He's likely to be back soon."
"Never mind, he must be sent for, in case he should not hurry." The
doctor returned to the bedside again. The man was despatched, and they
soon heard him clattering out of the yard at the back.
Meanwhile Mr. Benjamin Grower, that prominent burgess of whom mention
has been already made, hearing the din of cleavers, tongs, tambourines,
kits, crouds, humstrums, serpents, rams'-horns, and other historical
kinds of music as he sat indoors in the High Street, had put on his hat
and gone out to learn the cause. He came to the corner above Farfrae's,
and soon guessed the nature of the proceedings; for being a native of
the town he had witnessed such rough jests before. His first move was
to search hither and thither for the constables, there were two in the
town, shrivelled men whom he ultimately found in hiding up an alley yet
more shrivelled than usual, having some not ungrounded fears that they
might be roughly handled if seen.
"What can we two poor lammigers do against such a multitude!"
expostulated Stubberd, in answer to Mr. Grower's chiding. "'Tis tempting
'em to commit felo-de-se upon us, and that would be the death of the
perpetrator; and we wouldn't be the cause of a fellow-creature's death
on no account, not we!"
"Get some help, then! Here, I'll come with you. We'll see what a few
words of authority can do. Quick now; have you got your staves?"
"We didn't want the folk to notice us as law officers, being so
short-handed, sir; so we pushed our Gover'ment staves up this
water-pipe.
"Out with 'em, and come along, for Heaven's sake! Ah, here's Mr.
Blowbody; that's lucky." (Blowbody was the third of the three borough
magistrates.)
"Well, what's the row?" said Blowbody. "Got their names - hey?"
"No. Now," said Grower to one of the constables, "you go with Mr.
Blowbody round by the Old Walk and come up the street; and I'll go with
Stubberd straight forward. By this plan we shall have 'em between us.
Get their names only: no attack or interruption."
Thus they started. But as Stubberd with Mr. Grower advanced into Corn
Street, whence the sounds had proceeded, they were surprised that no
procession could be seen. They passed Farfrae's, and looked to the end
of the street. The lamp flames waved, the Walk trees soughed, a few
loungers stood about with their hands in their pockets. Everything was
as usual.
"Have you seen a motley crowd making a disturbance?" Grower said
magisterially to one of these in a fustian jacket, who smoked a short
pipe and wore straps round his knees.
"Beg yer pardon, sir?" blandly said the person addressed, who was no
other than Charl, of Peter's finger. Mr. Grower repeated the words.
Charl shook his head to the zero of childlike ignorance. "No; we haven't
seen anything; have we, Joe? And you was here afore I."
Joseph was quite as blank as the other in his reply.
"H'm - that's odd," said Mr. Grower. "Ah - here's a respectable man coming
that I know by sight. Have you," he inquired, addressing the nearing
shape of Jopp, "have you seen any gang of fellows making a devil of a
noise - skimmington riding, or something of the sort?"
"O no - nothing, sir," Jopp replied, as if receiving the most singular
news. "But I've not been far tonight, so perhaps - "
"Oh, 'twas here - just here," said the magistrate.
"Now I've noticed, come to think o't that the wind in the Walk trees
makes a peculiar poetical-like murmur to-night, sir; more than common;
so perhaps 'twas that?" Jopp suggested, as he rearranged his hand in his
greatcoat pocket (where it ingeniously supported a pair of kitchen tongs
and a cow's horn, thrust up under his waistcoat).
"No, no, no - d'ye think I'm a fool? Constable, come this way. They must
have gone into the back street."
Neither in back street nor in front street, however, could the
disturbers be perceived, and Blowbody and the second constable, who
came up at this time, brought similar intelligence. Effigies, donkey,
lanterns, band, all had disappeared like the crew of Comus.
"Now," said Mr. Grower, "there's only one thing more we can do. Get ye
half-a-dozen helpers, and go in a body to Mixen Lane, and into Peter's
finger. I'm much mistaken if you don't find a clue to the perpetrators
there."
The rusty-jointed executors of the law mustered assistance as soon as
they could, and the whole party marched off to the lane of notoriety. It
was no rapid matter to get there at night, not a lamp or glimmer of
any sort offering itself to light the way, except an occasional pale
radiance through some window-curtain, or through the chink of some door
which could not be closed because of the smoky chimney within. At last
they entered the inn boldly, by the till then bolted front-door, after a
prolonged knocking of loudness commensurate with the importance of their
standing.
In the settles of the large room, guyed to the ceiling by cords as
usual for stability, an ordinary group sat drinking and smoking with
statuesque quiet of demeanour. The landlady looked mildly at the
invaders, saying in honest accents, "Good evening, gentlemen; there's
plenty of room. I hope there's nothing amiss?"
They looked round the room. "Surely," said Stubberd to one of the men,
"I saw you by now in Corn Street - Mr. Grower spoke to 'ee?"
The man, who was Charl, shook his head absently. "I've been here this
last hour, hain't I, Nance?" he said to the woman who meditatively
sipped her ale near him.
"Faith, that you have. I came in for my quiet suppertime half-pint, and
you were here then, as well as all the rest."
The other constable was facing the clock-case, where he saw reflected in
the glass a quick motion by the landlady. Turning sharply, he caught her
closing the oven-door.
"Something curious about that oven, ma'am!" he observed advancing,
opening it, and drawing out a tambourine.