it had formerly been? To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was
a serious matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it.
Every pulse of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during
Eustacia's lifetime had gone into the grave with her. His passion for
her had occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on
hand for another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish
loves. Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be
a plant of slow and laboured growth, and in the end only small and
sickly, like an autumn-hatched bird.
He was so distressed by this new complexity that when the enthusiastic
brass band arrived and struck up, which it did about five o'clock,
with apparently wind enough among its members to blow down his house,
he withdrew from his rooms by the back door, went down the garden,
through the gate in the hedge, and away out of sight. He could not
bear to remain in the presence of enjoyment today, though he had tried
hard.
Nothing was seen of him for four hours. When he came back by the same
path it was dusk, and the dews were coating every green thing. The
boisterous music had ceased; but, entering the premises as he did from
behind, he could not see if the May party had all gone till he had
passed through Thomasin's division of the house to the front door.
Thomasin was standing within the porch alone.
She looked at him reproachfully. "You went away just when it began,
Clym," she said.
"Yes. I felt I could not join in. You went out with them, of course?"
"No, I did not."
"You appeared to be dressed on purpose."
"Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is
there now."
Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the
paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy
figure, sauntering idly up and down. "Who is it?" he said.
"Mr. Venn," said Thomasin.
"You might have asked him to come in, I think, Tamsie. He has been
very kind to you first and last."
"I will now," she said; and, acting on the impulse, went through the
wicket to where Venn stood under the Maypole.
"It is Mr. Venn, I think?" she inquired.
Venn started as if he had not seen her - artful man that he was - and
said, "Yes."
"Will you come in?"
"I am afraid that I - "
"I have seen you dancing this evening, and you had the very best of
the girls for your partners. Is it that you won't come in because you
wish to stand here, and think over the past hours of enjoyment?"
"Well, that's partly it," said Mr. Venn, with ostentatious sentiment.
"But the main reason why I am biding here like this is that I want to
wait till the moon rises."
"To see how pretty the Maypole looks in the moonlight?"
"No. To look for a glove that was dropped by one of the maidens."
Thomasin was speechless with surprise. That a man who had to walk
some four or five miles to his home should wait here for such a reason
pointed to only one conclusion: the man must be amazingly interested
in that glove's owner.
"Were you dancing with her, Diggory?" she asked, in a voice which
revealed that he had made himself considerably more interesting to her
by this disclosure.
"No," he sighed.
"And you will not come in, then?"
"Not tonight, thank you, ma'am."
"Shall I lend you a lantern to look for the young person's glove, Mr.
Venn?"
"O no; it is not necessary, Mrs. Wildeve, thank you. The moon will
rise in a few minutes."
Thomasin went back to the porch. "Is he coming in?" said Clym, who
had been waiting where she had left him.
"He would rather not tonight," she said, and then passed by him into
the house; whereupon Clym too retired to his own rooms.
When Clym was gone Thomasin crept upstairs in the dark, and, just
listening by the cot, to assure herself that the child was asleep, she
went to the window, gently lifted the corner of the white curtain,
and looked out. Venn was still there. She watched the growth of
the faint radiance appearing in the sky by the eastern hill, till
presently the edge of the moon burst upwards and flooded the valley
with light. Diggory's form was now distinct on the green; he was
moving about in a bowed attitude, evidently scanning the grass for the
precious missing article, walking in zigzags right and left till he
should have passed over every foot of the ground.
"How very ridiculous!" Thomasin murmured to herself, in a tone which
was intended to be satirical. "To think that a man should be so silly
as to go mooning about like that for a girl's glove! A respectable
dairyman, too, and a man of money as he is now. What a pity!"
At last Venn appeared to find it; whereupon he stood up and raised
it to his lips. Then placing it in his breast-pocket - the nearest
receptacle to a man's heart permitted by modern raiment - he ascended
the valley in a mathematically direct line towards his distant home in
the meadows.
II
Thomasin Walks in a Green Place by the Roman Road
Clym saw little of Thomasin for several days after this; and when they
met she was more silent than usual. At length he asked her what she
was thinking of so intently.
"I am thoroughly perplexed," she said candidly. "I cannot for my life
think who it is that Diggory Venn is so much in love with. None of
the girls at the Maypole were good enough for him, and yet she must
have been there."
Clym tried to imagine Venn's choice for a moment; but ceasing to be
interested in the question he went on again with his gardening.
No clearing up of the mystery was granted her for some time. But one
afternoon Thomasin was upstairs getting ready for a walk, when she had
occasion to come to the landing and call "Rachel." Rachel was a girl
about thirteen, who carried the baby out for airings; and she came
upstairs at the call.
"Have you seen one of my last new gloves about the house, Rachel?"
inquired Thomasin. "It is the fellow to this one."
Rachel did not reply.
"Why don't you answer?" said her mistress.
"I think it is lost, ma'am."
"Lost? Who lost it? I have never worn them but once."
Rachel appeared as one dreadfully troubled, and at last began to cry.
"Please, ma'am, on the day of the Maypole I had none to wear, and I
seed yours on the table, and I thought I would borrow 'em. I did not
mean to hurt 'em at all, but one of them got lost. Somebody gave me
some money to buy another pair for you, but I have not been able to
go anywhere to get 'em."
"Who's somebody?"
"Mr. Venn."
"Did he know it was my glove?"
"Yes. I told him."
Thomasin was so surprised by the explanation that she quite forgot
to lecture the girl, who glided silently away. Thomasin did not move
further than to turn her eyes upon the grass-plat where the Maypole
had stood. She remained thinking, then said to herself that she
would not go out that afternoon, but would work hard at the baby's
unfinished lovely plaid frock, cut on the cross in the newest fashion.
How she managed to work hard, and yet do no more than she had done at
the end of two hours, would have been a mystery to anyone not aware
that the recent incident was of a kind likely to divert her industry
from a manual to a mental channel.
Next day she went her ways as usual, and continued her custom of
walking in the heath with no other companion than little Eustacia, now
of the age when it is a matter of doubt with such characters whether
they are intended to walk through the world on their hands or on their
feet; so that they get into painful complications by trying both. It
was very pleasant to Thomasin, when she had carried the child to some
lonely place, to give her a little private practice on the green turf
and shepherd's-thyme, which formed a soft mat to fall headlong upon
when equilibrium was lost.
Once, when engaged in this system of training, and stooping to remove
bits of stick, fern-stalks, and other such fragments from the child's
path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by some
insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by
discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the
soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. The rider, who
was Venn, waved his hat in the air and bowed gallantly.
"Diggory, give me my glove," said Thomasin, whose manner it was under
any circumstances to plunge into the midst of a subject which
engrossed her.
Venn immediately dismounted, put his hand in his breastpocket, and
handed the glove.
"Thank you. It was very good of you to take care of it."
"It is very good of you to say so."
"O no. I was quite glad to find you had it. Everybody gets so
indifferent that I was surprised to know you thought of me."
"If you had remembered what I was once you wouldn't have been
surprised."
"Ah, no," she said quickly. "But men of your character are mostly so
independent."
"What is my character?" he asked.
"I don't exactly know," said Thomasin simply, "except it is to cover
up your feelings under a practical manner, and only to show them when
you are alone."
"Ah, how do you know that?" said Venn strategically.
"Because," said she, stopping to put the little girl, who had managed
to get herself upside down, right end up again, "because I do."
"You mustn't judge by folks in general," said Venn. "Still I don't
know much what feelings are now-a-days. I have got so mixed up with
business of one sort and t'other that my soft sentiments are gone off
in vapour like. Yes, I am given up body and soul to the making of
money. Money is all my dream."
"O Diggory, how wicked!" said Thomasin reproachfully, and looking at
him in exact balance between taking his words seriously and judging
them as said to tease her.
"Yes, 'tis rather a rum course," said Venn, in the bland tone of one
comfortably resigned to sins he could no longer overcome.
"You, who used to be so nice!"
"Well, that's an argument I rather like, because what a man has once
been he may be again." Thomasin blushed. "Except that it is rather
harder now," Venn continued.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you be richer than you were at that time."
"O no - not much. I have made it nearly all over to the baby, as it
was my duty to do, except just enough to live on."
"I am rather glad of that," said Venn softly, and regarding her from
the corner of his eye, "for it makes it easier for us to be friendly."
Thomasin blushed again, and, when a few more words had been said of a
not unpleasing kind, Venn mounted his horse and rode on.
This conversation had passed in a hollow of the heath near the old
Roman road, a place much frequented by Thomasin. And it might have
been observed that she did not in future walk that way less often from
having met Venn there now. Whether or not Venn abstained from riding
thither because he had met Thomasin in the same place might easily
have been guessed from her proceedings about two months later in the
same year.
III
The Serious Discourse of Clym with His Cousin
Throughout this period Yeobright had more or less pondered on his duty
to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a
pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be
doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her
winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an
economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had
been a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of
that supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not
to entertain any idea of marriage with Thomasin, even to oblige her.
But this was not all. Years ago there had been in his mother's mind
a great fancy about Thomasin and himself. It had not positively
amounted to a desire, but it had always been a favourite dream. That
they should be man and wife in good time, if the happiness of neither
were endangered thereby, was the fancy in question. So that what
course save one was there now left for any son who reverenced his
mother's memory as Yeobright did? It is an unfortunate fact that any
particular whim of parents, which might have been dispersed by half
an hour's conversation during their lives, becomes sublimated by
their deaths into a fiat the most absolute, with such results to
conscientious children as those parents, had they lived, would have
been the first to decry.
Had only Yeobright's own future been involved he would have proposed
to Thomasin with a ready heart. He had nothing to lose by carrying
out a dead mother's hope. But he dreaded to contemplate Thomasin
wedded to the mere corpse of a lover that he now felt himself to be.
He had but three activities alive in him. One was his almost daily
walk to the little graveyard wherein his mother lay; another, his
just as frequent visits by night to the more distant enclosure, which
numbered his Eustacia among its dead; the third was self-preparation
for a vocation which alone seemed likely to satisfy his cravings - that
of an itinerant preacher of the eleventh commandment. It was
difficult to believe that Thomasin would be cheered by a husband with
such tendencies as these.
Yet he resolved to ask her, and let her decide for herself. It was
even with a pleasant sense of doing his duty that he went downstairs
to her one evening for this purpose, when the sun was printing on the
valley the same long shadow of the housetop that he had seen lying
there times out of number while his mother lived.
Thomasin was not in her room, and he found her in the front garden.
"I have long been wanting, Thomasin," he began, "to say something
about a matter that concerns both our futures."
"And you are going to say it now?" she remarked quickly, colouring as
she met his gaze. "Do stop a minute, Clym, and let me speak first,
for oddly enough, I have been wanting to say something to you."
"By all means say on, Tamsie."
"I suppose nobody can overhear us?" she went on, casting her eyes
around and lowering her voice. "Well, first you will promise me
this - that you won't be angry and call me anything harsh if you
disagree with what I propose?"
Yeobright promised, and she continued: "What I want is your advice,
for you are my relation - I mean, a sort of guardian to me - aren't you,
Clym?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I am; a sort of guardian. In fact, I am, of
course," he said, altogether perplexed as to her drift.
"I am thinking of marrying," she then observed blandly. "But I shall
not marry unless you assure me that you approve of such a step. Why
don't you speak?"
"I was taken rather by surprise. But, nevertheless, I am very glad
to hear such news. I shall approve, of course, dear Tamsie. Who can
it be? I am quite at a loss to guess. No I am not - 'tis the old
doctor! - not that I mean to call him old, for he is not very old after
all. Ah - I noticed when he attended you last time!"
"No, no," she said hastily. "'Tis Mr. Venn."
Clym's face suddenly became grave.
"There, now, you don't like him, and I wish I hadn't mentioned him!"
she exclaimed almost petulantly. "And I shouldn't have done it,
either, only he keeps on bothering me so till I don't know what to
do!"
Clym looked at the heath. "I like Venn well enough," he answered at
last. "He is a very honest and at the same time astute man. He is
clever too, as is proved by his having got you to favour him. But
really, Thomasin, he is not quite - "
"Gentleman enough for me? That is just what I feel. I am sorry now
that I asked you, and I won't think any more of him. At the same time
I must marry him if I marry anybody - that I WILL say!"
"I don't see that," said Clym, carefully concealing every clue to his
own interrupted intention, which she plainly had not guessed. "You
might marry a professional man, or somebody of that sort, by going
into the town to live and forming acquaintances there."
"I am not fit for town life - so very rural and silly as I always have
been. Do not you yourself notice my countrified ways?"
"Well, when I came home from Paris I did, a little; but I don't now."
"That's because you have got countrified too. O, I couldn't live in a
street for the world! Egdon is a ridiculous old place; but I have got
used to it, and I couldn't be happy anywhere else at all."
"Neither could I," said Clym.
"Then how could you say that I should marry some town man? I am sure,
say what you will, that I must marry Diggory, if I marry at all. He
has been kinder to me than anybody else, and has helped me in many
ways that I don't know of!" Thomasin almost pouted now.
"Yes, he has," said Clym in a neutral tone. "Well, I wish with all my
heart that I could say, marry him. But I cannot forget what my mother
thought on that matter, and it goes rather against me not to respect
her opinion. There is too much reason why we should do the little we
can to respect it now."
"Very well, then," sighed Thomasin. "I will say no more."
"But you are not bound to obey my wishes. I merely say what I think."
"O no - I don't want to be rebellious in that way," she said sadly. "I
had no business to think of him - I ought to have thought of my family.
What dreadfully bad impulses there are in me!" Her lips trembled, and
she turned away to hide a tear.
Clym, though vexed at what seemed her unaccountable taste, was in a
measure relieved to find that at any rate the marriage question in
relation to himself was shelved. Through several succeeding days
he saw her at different times from the window of his room moping
disconsolately about the garden. He was half angry with her for
choosing Venn; then he was grieved at having put himself in the way
of Venn's happiness, who was, after all, as honest and persevering a
young fellow as any on Egdon, since he had turned over a new leaf.
In short, Clym did not know what to do.
When next they met she said abruptly, "He is much more respectable
now than he was then!"
"Who? O yes - Diggory Venn."
"Aunt only objected because he was a reddleman."
"Well, Thomasin, perhaps I don't know all the particulars of my
mother's wish. So you had better use your own discretion."
"You will always feel that I slighted your mother's memory."
"No, I will not. I shall think you are convinced that, had she seen
Diggory in his present position, she would have considered him a
fitting husband for you. Now, that's my real feeling. Don't consult
me any more, but do as you like, Thomasin. I shall be content."
It is to be supposed that Thomasin was convinced; for a few days after
this, when Clym strayed into a part of the heath that he had not
lately visited, Humphrey, who was at work there, said to him, "I am
glad to see that Mrs. Wildeve and Venn have made it up again,
seemingly."
"Have they?" said Clym abstractedly.
"Yes; and he do contrive to stumble upon her whenever she walks out
on fine days with the chiel. But, Mr. Yeobright, I can't help feeling
that your cousin ought to have married you. 'Tis a pity to make two
chimley-corners where there need be only one. You could get her away
from him now, 'tis my belief, if you were only to set about it."
"How can I have the conscience to marry after having driven two
women to their deaths? Don't think such a thing, Humphrey. After my
experience I should consider it too much of a burlesque to go to
church and take a wife. In the words of Job, 'I have made a covenant
with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?'"
"No, Mr. Clym, don't fancy that about driving two women to their
deaths. You shouldn't say it."
"Well, we'll leave that out," said Yeobright. "But anyhow God has
set a mark upon me which wouldn't look well in a lovemaking scene.
I have two ideas in my head, and no others. I am going to keep a
night-school; and I am going to turn preacher. What have you got to
say to that, Humphrey?"
"I'll come and hear 'ee with all my heart."
"Thanks. 'Tis all I wish."
As Clym descended into the valley Thomasin came down by the other
path, and met him at the gate. "What do you think I have to tell you,
Clym?" she said, looking archly over her shoulder at him.
"I can guess," he replied.
She scrutinized his face. "Yes, you guess right. It is going to be
after all. He thinks I may as well make up my mind, and I have got to
think so too. It is to be on the twenty-fifth of next month, if you
don't object."
"Do what you think right, dear. I am only too glad that you see your
way clear to happiness again. My sex owes you every amends for the
treatment you received in days gone by."
IV
Cheerfulness Again Asserts Itself at Blooms-End,
and Clym Finds His Vocation
Anybody who had passed through Blooms-End about eleven o'clock on the
morning fixed for the wedding would have found that, while Yeobright's
house was comparatively quiet, sounds denoting great activity came
from the dwelling of his nearest neighbour, Timothy Fairway. It was
chiefly a noise of feet, briskly crunching hither and thither over
the sanded floor within. One man only was visible outside, and he
seemed to be later at an appointment than he had intended to be, for
he hastened up to the door, lifted the latch, and walked in without
ceremony.
The scene within was not quite the customary one. Standing about the
room was the little knot of men who formed the chief part of the
Egdon coterie, there being present Fairway himself, Grandfer Cantle,
Humphrey, Christian, and one or two turf-cutters. It was a warm day,
and the men were as a matter of course in their shirtsleeves, except
Christian, who had always a nervous fear of parting with a scrap of
his clothing when in anybody's house but his own. Across the stout oak
table in the middle of the room was thrown a mass of striped linen,
which Grandfer Cantle held down on one side, and Humphrey on the
other, while Fairway rubbed its surface with a yellow lump, his face
being damp and creased with the effort of the labour.
"Waxing a bed-tick, souls?" said the newcomer.
"Yes, Sam," said Grandfer Cantle, as a man too busy to waste words.
"Shall I stretch this corner a shade tighter, Timothy?"
Fairway replied, and the waxing went on with unabated vigour. "'Tis
going to be a good bed, by the look o't," continued Sam, after an
interval of silence. "Who may it be for?"
"'Tis a present for the new folks that's going to set up
housekeeping," said Christian, who stood helpless and overcome by the
majesty of the proceedings.
"Ah, to be sure; and a valuable one, 'a b'lieve."
"Beds be dear to fokes that don't keep geese, bain't they, Mister
Fairway?" said Christian, as to an omniscient being.
"Yes," said the furze-dealer, standing up, giving his forehead a
thorough mopping, and handing the beeswax to Humphrey, who succeeded
at the rubbing forthwith. "Not that this couple be in want of one, but
'twas well to show 'em a bit of friendliness at this great racketing
vagary of their lives. I set up both my own daughters in one when
they was married, and there have been feathers enough for another in
the house the last twelve months. Now then, neighbours, I think we
have laid on enough wax. Grandfer Cantle, you turn the tick the right
way outwards, and then I'll begin to shake in the feathers."
When the bed was in proper trim Fairway and Christian brought forward
vast paper bags, stuffed to the full, but light as balloons, and began
to turn the contents of each into the receptacle just prepared. As
bag after bag was emptied, airy tufts of down and feathers floated
about the room in increasing quantity till, through a mishap of
Christian's, who shook the contents of one bag outside the tick,
the atmosphere of the room became dense with gigantic flakes, which
descended upon the workers like a windless snowstorm.
"I never saw such a clumsy chap as you, Christian," said Grandfer
Cantle severely. "You might have been the son of a man that's never
been outside Blooms-End in his life for all the wit you have. Really
all the soldiering and smartness in the world in the father seems to
count for nothing in forming the nater of the son. As far as that
chiel Christian is concerned I might as well have stayed at home and
seed nothing, like all the rest of ye here. Though, as far as myself
is concerned, a dashing spirit has counted for sommat, to be sure!"
"Don't ye let me down so, father; I feel no bigger than a ninepin
after it. I've made but a bruckle hit, I'm afeard."
"Come, come. Never pitch yerself in such a low key as that,
Christian; you should try more," said Fairway.
"Yes, you should try more," echoed the Grandfer with insistence, as if
he had been the first to make the suggestion. "In common conscience
every man ought either to marry or go for a soldier. 'Tis a scandal
to the nation to do neither one nor t'other. I did both, thank God!
Neither to raise men nor to lay 'em low - that shows a poor do-nothing
spirit indeed."
"I never had the nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to
marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit
from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a
man for a master - such as he is - that's now ruled by a woman alone.
Still it might have been awkward if I had found her; for, d'ye see,
neighbours, there'd have been nobody left at home to keep down
father's spirits to the decent pitch that becomes a old man."
"And you've your work cut out to do that, my son," said Grandfer
Cantle smartly. "I wish that the dread of infirmities was not so
strong in me! - I'd start the very first thing tomorrow to see the
world over again! But seventy-one, though nothing at home, is a high
figure for a rover... Ay, seventy-one, last Candlemasday. Gad, I'd
sooner have it in guineas than in years!" And the old man sighed.
"Don't you be mournful, Grandfer," said Fairway. "Empt some more
feathers into the bed-tick, and keep up yer heart. Though rather
lean in the stalks you be a green-leaved old man still. There's time
enough left to ye yet to fill whole chronicles."
"Begad, I'll go to 'em, Timothy - to the married pair!" said Granfer
Cantle in an encouraged voice, and starting round briskly. "I'll go
to 'em tonight and sing a wedding song, hey? 'Tis like me to do so,
you know; and they'd see it as such. My 'Down in Cupid's Gardens' was
well liked in four; still, I've got others as good, and even better.
What do you say to my
She cal´-led to´ her love´
From the lat´-tice a-bove,
'O come in´ from the fog´-gy fog´-gy dew´.'
"'Twould please 'em well at such a time! Really, now I come to think of
it, I haven't turned my tongue in my head to the shape of a real good
song since Old Midsummer night, when we had the 'Barley Mow' at the
Woman; and 'tis a pity to neglect your strong point where there's few
that have the compass for such things!"
"So 'tis, so 'tis," said Fairway. "Now gie the bed a shake down.
We've put in seventy pound of best feathers, and I think that's as
many as the tick will fairly hold. A bit and a drap wouldn't be amiss
now, I reckon. Christian, maul down the victuals from corner-cupboard
if canst reach, man, and I'll draw a drap o' sommat to wet it with."
They sat down to a lunch in the midst of their work, feathers around,
above, and below them; the original owners of which occasionally came
to the open door and cackled begrudgingly at sight of such a quantity
of their old clothes.
"Upon my soul I shall be chokt," said Fairway when, having extracted a
feather from his mouth, he found several others floating on the mug as
it was handed round.
"I've swallered several; and one had a tolerable quill," said Sam
placidly from the corner.
"Hullo - what's that - wheels I hear coming?" Grandfer Cantle exclaimed,
jumping up and hastening to the door. "Why, 'tis they back again: I
didn't expect 'em yet this half-hour. To be sure, how quick marrying
can be done when you are in the mind for't!"
"O yes, it can soon be DONE," said Fairway, as if something should be
added to make the statement complete.
He arose and followed the Grandfer, and the rest also went to the
door. In a moment an open fly was driven past, in which sat Venn and
Mrs. Venn, Yeobright, and a grand relative of Venn's who had come
from Budmouth for the occasion. The fly had been hired at the nearest
town, regardless of distance and cost, there being nothing on Egdon
Heath, in Venn's opinion, dignified enough for such an event when such
a woman as Thomasin was the bride; and the church was too remote for a
walking bridal-party.
As the fly passed the group which had run out from the homestead they
shouted "Hurrah!" and waved their hands; feathers and down floating
from their hair, their sleeves, and the folds of their garments at
every motion, and Grandfer Cantle's seals dancing merrily in the
sunlight as he twirled himself about. The driver of the fly turned
a supercilious gaze upon them; he even treated the wedded pair
themselves with something like condescension; for in what other
state than heathen could people, rich or poor, exist who were doomed
to abide in such a world's end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such
superiority to the group at the door, fluttering her hand as quickly
as a bird's wing towards them, and asking Diggory, with tears in her
eyes, if they ought not to alight and speak to these kind neighbours.
Venn, however, suggested that, as they were all coming to the house in
the evening, this was hardly necessary.
After this excitement the saluting party returned to their occupation,
and the stuffing and sewing were soon afterwards finished, when
Fairway harnessed a horse, wrapped up the cumbrous present, and drove
off with it in the cart to Venn's house at Stickleford.
Yeobright, having filled the office at the wedding service which
naturally fell to his hands, and afterwards returned to the house with
the husband and wife, was indisposed to take part in the feasting and
dancing that wound up the evening. Thomasin was disappointed.
"I wish I could be there without dashing your spirits," he said. "But
I might be too much like the skull at the banquet."
"No, no."
"Well, dear, apart from that, if you would excuse me, I should be
glad. I know it seems unkind; but, dear Thomasin, I fear I should not
be happy in the company - there, that's the truth of it. I shall
always be coming to see you at your new home, you know, so that my
absence now will not matter."
"Then I give in. Do whatever will be most comfortable to yourself."
Clym retired to his lodging at the housetop much relieved, and
occupied himself during the afternoon in noting down the heads of a
sermon, with which he intended to initiate all that really seemed
practicable of the scheme that had originally brought him hither, and
that he had so long kept in view under various modifications, and
through evil and good report. He had tested and weighed his
convictions again and again, and saw no reason to alter them, though
he had considerably lessened his plan. His eyesight, by long
humouring in his native air, had grown stronger, but not sufficiently
strong to warrant his attempting his extensive educational project.
Yet he did not repine: there was still more than enough of an
unambitious sort to tax all his energies and occupy all his hours.
Evening drew on, and sounds of life and movement in the lower part of
the domicile became more pronounced, the gate in the palings clicking
incessantly. The party was to be an early one, and all the guests
were assembled long before it was dark. Yeobright went down the back
staircase and into the heath by another path than that in front,
intending to walk in the open air till the party was over, when he
would return to wish Thomasin and her husband good-bye as they
departed. His steps were insensibly bent towards Mistover by the path
that he had followed on that terrible morning when he learnt the
strange news from Susan's boy.
He did not turn aside to the cottage, but pushed on to an eminence,
whence he could see over the whole quarter that had once been
Eustacia's home. While he stood observing the darkening scene
somebody came up. Clym, seeing him but dimly, would have let him pass
silently, had not the pedestrian, who was Charley, recognized the
young man and spoken to him.
"Charley, I have not seen you for a length of time," said Yeobright.
"Do you often walk this way?"
"No," the lad replied. "I don't often come outside the bank."
"You were not at the Maypole."
"No," said Charley, in the same listless tone. "I don't care for that
sort of thing now."
"You rather liked Miss Eustacia, didn't you?" Yeobright gently asked.
Eustacia had frequently told him of Charley's romantic attachment.
"Yes, very much. Ah, I wish - "
"Yes?"
"I wish, Mr. Yeobright, you could give me something to keep that once
belonged to her - if you don't mind."
"I shall be very happy to. It will give me very great pleasure,
Charley. Let me think what I have of hers that you would like. But
come with me to the house, and I'll see."
They walked towards Blooms-End together. When they reached the front
it was dark, and the shutters were closed, so that nothing of the
interior could be seen.
"Come round this way," said Clym. "My entrance is at the back for the
present."
The two went round and ascended the crooked stair in darkness till
Clym's sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a
candle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk,
and taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three
undulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black
streams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to
the lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put
it in his pocket, and said in a voice of emotion, "O, Mr. Clym, how
good you are to me!"
"I will go a little way with you," said Clym. And amid the noise of
merriment from below they descended. Their path to the front led them
close to a little side-window, whence the rays of candles streamed
across the shrubs. The window, being screened from general
observation by the bushes, had been left unblinded, so that a person
in this private nook could see all that was going on within the room
which contained the wedding-guests, except in so far as vision was
hindered by the green antiquity of the panes.
"Charley, what are they doing?" said Clym. "My sight is weaker again
tonight, and the glass of this window is not good."
Charley wiped his own eyes, which were rather blurred with moisture,
and stepped closer to the casement. "Mr. Venn is asking Christian
Cantle to sing," he replied, "and Christian is moving about in his
chair as if he were much frightened at the question, and his father
has struck up a stave instead of him."
"Yes, I can hear the old man's voice," said Clym. "So there's to be
no dancing, I suppose. And is Thomasin in the room? I see something
moving in front of the candles that resembles her shape, I think."
"Yes. She do seem happy. She is red in the face, and laughing at
something Fairway has said to her. O my!"
"What noise was that?" said Clym.
"Mr. Venn is so tall that he knocked his head against the beam in
gieing a skip as he passed under. Mrs. Venn has run up quite
frightened and now she's put her hand to his head to feel if there's a
lump. And now they be all laughing again as if nothing had happened."
"Do any of them seem to care about my not being there?" Clym asked.
"No, not a bit in the world. Now they are all holding up their
glasses and drinking somebody's health."
"I wonder if it is mine?"
"No, 'tis Mr. and Mrs. Venn's, because he is making a hearty sort of
speech. There - now Mrs. Venn has got up, and is going away to put on
her things, I think."
"Well, they haven't concerned themselves about me, and it is quite
right they should not. It is all as it should be, and Thomasin at
least is happy. We will not stay any longer now, as they will soon be
coming out to go home."
He accompanied the lad into the heath on his way home, and, returning
alone to the house a quarter of an hour later, found Venn and Thomasin
ready to start, all the guests having departed in his absence. The
wedded pair took their seats in the four-wheeled dogcart which Venn's
head milker and handy man had driven from Stickleford to fetch them
in; little Eustacia and the nurse were packed securely upon the open
flap behind; and the milker, on an ancient overstepping pony, whose
shoes clashed like cymbals at every tread, rode in the rear, in the
manner of a body-servant of the last century.
"Now we leave you in absolute possession of your own house again,"
said Thomasin as she bent down to wish her cousin good night. "It
will be rather lonely for you, Clym, after the hubbub we have been
making."
"O, that's no inconvenience," said Clym, smiling rather sadly. And
then the party drove off and vanished in the night shades, and
Yeobright entered the house. The ticking of the clock was the only
sound that greeted him, for not a soul remained; Christian, who acted
as cook, valet, and gardener to Clym, sleeping at his father's house.
Yeobright sat down in one of the vacant chairs, and remained in
thought a long time. His mother's old chair was opposite; it had been
sat in that evening by those who had scarcely remembered that it ever
was hers. But to Clym she was almost a presence there, now as always.
Whatever she was in other people's memories, in his she was the
sublime saint whose radiance even his tenderness for Eustacia could
not obscure. But his heart was heavy; that mother had NOT crowned him
in the day of his espousals and in the day of the gladness of his
heart. And events had borne out the accuracy of her judgment, and
proved the devotedness of her care. He should have heeded her for
Eustacia's sake even more than for his own. "It was all my fault," he
whispered. "O, my mother, my mother! would to God that I could live
my life again, and endure for you what you endured for me!"
On the Sunday after this wedding an unusual sight was to be seen on
Rainbarrow. From a distance there simply appeared to be a motionless
figure standing on the top of the tumulus, just as Eustacia had stood
on that lonely summit some two years and a half before. But now it
was fine warm weather, with only a summer breeze blowing, and early
afternoon instead of dull twilight. Those who ascended to the
immediate neighbourhood of the Barrow perceived that the erect form in
the centre, piercing the sky, was not really alone. Round him upon
the slopes of the Barrow a number of heathmen and women were reclining
or sitting at their ease. They listened to the words of the man in
their midst, who was preaching, while they abstractedly pulled
heather, stripped ferns, or tossed pebbles down the slope. This was
the first of a series of moral lectures or Sermons on the Mount, which
were to be delivered from the same place every Sunday afternoon as
long as the fine weather lasted.
The commanding elevation of Rainbarrow had been chosen for two
reasons: first, that it occupied a central position among the remote
cottages around; secondly, that the preacher thereon could be seen
from all adjacent points as soon as he arrived at his post, the view
of him being thus a convenient signal to those stragglers who wished